PELOPONE.

431 BC
HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
by Thucydides
translated by Richard Crawley
The First Book.
CHAPTER I.

The State of Greece from the earliest Times to the
Commencement of the Peloponnesian War

THUCYDIDES, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the
Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it
broke out, and believing that it would be a great war and more
worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief was
not without its grounds. The preparations of both the combatants
were in every department in the last state of perfection; and he could
see the rest of the Hellenic race taking sides in the quarrel; those
who delayed doing so at once having it in contemplation. Indeed this
was the greatest movement yet known in history, not only of the
Hellenes, but of a large part of the barbarian world- I had almost
said of mankind. For though the events of remote antiquity, and even
those that more immediately preceded the war, could not from lapse
of time be clearly ascertained, yet the evidences which an inquiry
carried as far back as was practicable leads me to trust, all point to
the conclusion that there was nothing on a great scale, either in
war or in other matters.
For instance, it is evident that the country now called Hellas had
in ancient times no settled population; on the contrary, migrations
were of frequent occurrence, the several tribes readily abandoning
their homes under the pressure of superior numbers. Without
commerce, without freedom of communication either by land or sea,
cultivating no more of their territory than the exigencies of life
required, destitute of capital, never planting their land (for they
could not tell when an invader might not come and take it all away,
and when he did come they had no walls to stop him), thinking that the
necessities of daily sustenance could be supplied at one place as well
as another, they cared little for shifting their habitation, and
consequently neither built large cities nor attained to any other form
of greatness. The richest soils were always most subject to this
change of masters; such as the district now called Thessaly,
Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted, and the most
fertile parts of the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the land favoured
the aggrandizement of particular individuals, and thus created faction
which proved a fertile source of ruin. It also invited invasion.
Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its soil enjoying from a
very remote period freedom from faction, never changed its
inhabitants. And here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my
assertion that the migrations were the cause of there being no
correspondent growth in other parts. The most powerful victims of
war or faction from the rest of Hellas took refuge with the
Athenians as a safe retreat; and at an early period, becoming
naturalized, swelled the already large population of the city to
such a height that Attica became at last too small to hold them, and
they had to send out colonies to Ionia.
There is also another circumstance that contributes not a little
to my conviction of the weakness of ancient times. Before the Trojan
war there is no indication of any common action in Hellas, nor
indeed of the universal prevalence of the name; on the contrary,
before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation
existed, but the country went by the names of the different tribes, in
particular of the Pelasgian. It was not till Hellen and his sons
grew strong in Phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other
cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection
the name of Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name
could fasten itself upon all. The best proof of this is furnished by
Homer. Born long after the Trojan War, he nowhere calls all of them by
that name, nor indeed any of them except the followers of Achilles
from Phthiotis, who were the original Hellenes: in his poems they
are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He does not even use the
term barbarian, probably because the Hellenes had not yet been
marked off from the rest of the world by one distinctive
appellation. It appears therefore that the several Hellenic
communities, comprising not only those who first acquired the name,
city by city, as they came to understand each other, but also those
who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole people, were before
the Trojan war prevented by their want of strength and the absence
of mutual intercourse from displaying any collective action.
Indeed, they could not unite for this expedition till they had
gained increased familiarity with the sea. And the first person
known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He
made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and
ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first
colonies, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons governors;
and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters, a
necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use.
For in early times the Hellenes and the barbarians of the coast
and islands, as communication by sea became more common, were
tempted to turn pirates, under the conduct of their most powerful men;
the motives being to serve their own cupidity and to support the
needy. They would fall upon a town unprotected by walls, and
consisting of a mere collection of villages, and would plunder it;
indeed, this came to be the main source of their livelihood, no
disgrace being yet attached to such an achievement, but even some
glory. An illustration of this is furnished by the honour with which
some of the inhabitants of the continent still regard a successful
marauder, and by the question we find the old poets everywhere
representing the people as asking of voyagers- "Are they pirates?"-
as if those who are asked the question would have no idea of
disclaiming the imputation, or their interrogators of reproaching them
for it. The same rapine prevailed also by land.
And even at the present day many of Hellas still follow the old
fashion, the Ozolian Locrians for instance, the Aetolians, the
Acarnanians, and that region of the continent; and the custom of
carrying arms is still kept up among these continentals, from the
old piratical habits. The whole of Hellas used once to carry arms,
their habitations being unprotected and their communication with
each other unsafe; indeed, to wear arms was as much a part of everyday
life with them as with the barbarians. And the fact that the people in
these parts of Hellas are still living in the old way points to a time
when the same mode of life was once equally common to all. The
Athenians were the first to lay aside their weapons, and to adopt an
easier and more luxurious mode of life; indeed, it is only lately that
their rich old men left off the luxury of wearing undergarments of
linen, and fastening a knot of their hair with a tie of golden
grasshoppers, a fashion which spread to their Ionian kindred and
long prevailed among the old men there. On the contrary, a modest
style of dressing, more in conformity with modern ideas, was first
adopted by the Lacedaemonians, the rich doing their best to assimilate
their way of life to that of the common people. They also set the
example of contending naked, publicly stripping and anointing
themselves with oil in their gymnastic exercises. Formerly, even in
the Olympic contests, the athletes who contended wore belts across
their middles; and it is but a few years since that the practice
ceased. To this day among some of the barbarians, especially in
Asia, when prizes for boxing and wrestling are offered, belts are worn
by the combatants. And there are many other points in which a likeness
might be shown between the life of the Hellenic world of old and the
barbarian of to-day.
With respect to their towns, later on, at an era of increased
facilities of navigation and a greater supply of capital, we find
the shores becoming the site of walled towns, and the isthmuses
being occupied for the purposes of commerce and defence against a
neighbour. But the old towns, on account of the great prevalence of
piracy, were built away from the sea, whether on the islands or the
continent, and still remain in their old sites. For the pirates used
to plunder one another, and indeed all coast populations, whether
seafaring or not.
The islanders, too, were great pirates. These islanders were Carians
and Phoenicians, by whom most of the islands were colonized, as was
proved by the following fact. During the purification of Delos by
Athens in this war all the graves in the island were taken up, and
it was found that above half their inmates were Carians: they were
identified by the fashion of the arms buried with them, and by the
method of interment, which was the same as the Carians still follow.
But as soon as Minos had formed his navy, communication by sea
became easier, as he colonized most of the islands, and thus
expelled the malefactors. The coast population now began to apply
themselves more closely to the acquisition of wealth, and their life
became more settled; some even began to build themselves walls on
the strength of their newly acquired riches. For the love of gain
would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the
possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the
smaller towns to subjection. And it was at a somewhat later stage of
this development that they went on the expedition against Troy.
What enabled Agamemnon to raise the armament was more, in my
opinion, his superiority in strength, than the oaths of Tyndareus,
which bound the suitors to follow him. Indeed, the account given by
those Peloponnesians who have been the recipients of the most credible
tradition is this. First of all Pelops, arriving among a needy
population from Asia with vast wealth, acquired such power that,
stranger though he was, the country was called after him; and this
power fortune saw fit materially to increase in the hands of his
descendants. Eurystheus had been killed in Attica by the Heraclids.
Atreus was his mother's brother; and to the hands of his relation, who
had left his father on account of the death of Chrysippus, Eurystheus,
when he set out on his expedition, had committed Mycenae and the
government. As time went on and Eurystheus did not return, Atreus
complied with the wishes of the Mycenaeans, who were influenced by
fear of the Heraclids- besides, his power seemed considerable, and he
had not neglected to court the favour of the populace- and assumed
the sceptre of Mycenae and the rest of the dominions of Eurystheus.
And so the power of the descendants of Pelops came to be greater
than that of the descendants of Perseus. To all this Agamemnon
succeeded. He had also a navy far stronger than his contemporaries, so
that, in my opinion, fear was quite as strong an element as love in
the formation of the confederate expedition. The strength of his
navy is shown by the fact that his own was the largest contingent, and
that of the Arcadians was furnished by him; this at least is what
Homer says, if his testimony is deemed sufficient. Besides, in his
account of the transmission of the sceptre, he calls him

Of many an isle, and of all Argos king.

Now Agamemnon's was a continental power; and he could not have been
master of any except the adjacent islands (and these would not be
many), but through the possession of a fleet.
And from this expedition we may infer the character of earlier
enterprises. Now Mycenae may have been a small place, and many of
the towns of that age may appear comparatively insignificant, but no
exact observer would therefore feel justified in rejecting the
estimate given by the poets and by tradition of the magnitude of the
armament. For I suppose if Lacedaemon were to become desolate, and the
temples and the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as
time went on there would be a strong disposition with posterity to
refuse to accept her fame as a true exponent of her power. And yet
they occupy two-fifths of Peloponnese and lead the whole, not to speak
of their numerous allies without. Still, as the city is neither
built in a compact form nor adorned with magnificent temples and
public edifices, but composed of villages after the old fashion of
Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy. Whereas, if Athens
were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose that any inference
from the appearance presented to the eye would make her power to
have been twice as great as it is. We have therefore no right to be
sceptical, nor to content ourselves with an inspection of a town to
the exclusion of a consideration of its power; but we may safely
conclude that the armament in question surpassed all before it, as
it fell short of modern efforts; if we can here also accept the
testimony of Homer's poems, in which, without allowing for the
exaggeration which a poet would feel himself licensed to employ, we
can see that it was far from equalling ours. He has represented it
as consisting of twelve hundred vessels; the Boeotian complement of
each ship being a hundred and twenty men, that of the ships of
Philoctetes fifty. By this, I conceive, he meant to convey the maximum
and the minimum complement: at any rate, he does not specify the
amount of any others in his catalogue of the ships. That they were all
rowers as well as warriors we see from his account of the ships of
Philoctetes, in which all the men at the oar are bowmen. Now it is
improbable that many supernumeraries sailed, if we except the kings
and high officers; especially as they had to cross the open sea with
munitions of war, in ships, moreover, that had no decks, but were
equipped in the old piratical fashion. So that if we strike the
average of the largest and smallest ships, the number of those who
sailed will appear inconsiderable, representing, as they did, the
whole force of Hellas. And this was due not so much to scarcity of men
as of money. Difficulty of subsistence made the invaders reduce the
numbers of the army to a point at which it might live on the country
during the prosecution of the war. Even after the victory they
obtained on their arrival- and a victory there must have been, or the
fortifications of the naval camp could never have been built- there
is no indication of their whole force having been employed; on the
contrary, they seem to have turned to cultivation of the Chersonese
and to piracy from want of supplies. This was what really enabled
the Trojans to keep the field for ten years against them; the
dispersion of the enemy making them always a match for the
detachment left behind. If they had brought plenty of supplies with
them, and had persevered in the war without scattering for piracy
and agriculture, they would have easily defeated the Trojans in the
field, since they could hold their own against them with the
division on service. In short, if they had stuck to the siege, the
capture of Troy would have cost them less time and less trouble. But
as want of money proved the weakness of earlier expeditions, so from
the same cause even the one in question, more famous than its
predecessors, may be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected to
have been inferior to its renown and to the current opinion about it
formed under the tuition of the poets.
Even after the Trojan War, Hellas was still engaged in removing
and settling, and thus could not attain to the quiet which must
precede growth. The late return of the Hellenes from Ilium caused many
revolutions, and factions ensued almost everywhere; and it was the
citizens thus driven into exile who founded the cities. Sixty years
after the capture of Ilium, the modern Boeotians were driven out of
Arne by the Thessalians, and settled in the present Boeotia, the
former Cadmeis; though there was a division of them there before, some
of whom joined the expedition to Ilium. Twenty years later, the
Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese; so that
much had to be done and many years had to elapse before Hellas could
attain to a durable tranquillity undisturbed by removals, and could
begin to send out colonies, as Athens did to Ionia and most of the
islands, and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and Sicily and some
places in the rest of Hellas. All these places were founded
subsequently to the war with Troy.
But as the power of Hellas grew, and the acquisition of wealth
became more an object, the revenues of the states increasing,
tyrannies were by their means established almost everywhere- the old
form of government being hereditary monarchy with definite
prerogatives- and Hellas began to fit out fleets and apply herself
more closely to the sea. It is said that the Corinthians were the
first to approach the modern style of naval architecture, and that
Corinth was the first place in Hellas where galleys were built; and
we have Ameinocles, a Corinthian shipwright, making four ships for
the Samians. Dating from the end of this war, it is nearly three
hundred years ago that Ameinocles went to Samos. Again, the earliest
sea-fight in history was between the Corinthians and Corcyraeans; this
was about two hundred and sixty years ago, dating from the same time.
Planted on an isthmus, Corinth had from time out of mind been a
commercial emporium; as formerly almost all communication between the
Hellenes within and without Peloponnese was carried on overland, and
the Corinthian territory was the highway through which it travelled.
She had consequently great money resources, as is shown by the epithet
"wealthy" bestowed by the old poets on the place, and this enabled
her, when traffic by sea became more common, to procure her navy and
put down piracy; and as she could offer a mart for both branches of
the trade, she acquired for herself all the power which a large
revenue affords. Subsequently the Ionians attained to great naval
strength in the reign of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and of
his son Cambyses, and while they were at war with the former commanded
for a while the Ionian sea. Polycrates also, the tyrant of Samos,
had a powerful navy in the reign of Cambyses, with which he reduced
many of the islands, and among them Rhenea, which he consecrated to
the Delian Apollo. About this time also the Phocaeans, while they were
founding Marseilles, defeated the Carthaginians in a sea-fight.
These were the most powerful navies. And even these, although so
many generations had elapsed since the Trojan war, seem to have been
principally composed of the old fifty-oars and long-boats, and to have
counted few galleys among their ranks. Indeed it was only shortly
the Persian war, and the death of Darius the successor of Cambyses,
that the Sicilian tyrants and the Corcyraeans acquired any large
number of galleys. For after these there were no navies of any account
in Hellas till the expedition of Xerxes; Aegina, Athens, and others
may have possessed a few vessels, but they were principally
fifty-oars. It was quite at the end of this period that the war with
Aegina and the prospect of the barbarian invasion enabled Themistocles
to persuade the Athenians to build the fleet with which they fought at
Salamis; and even these vessels had not complete decks.
The navies, then, of the Hellenes during the period we have
traversed were what I have described. All their insignificance did not
prevent their being an element of the greatest power to those who
cultivated them, alike in revenue and in dominion. They were the means
by which the islands were reached and reduced, those of the smallest
area falling the easiest prey. Wars by land there were none, none at
least by which power was acquired; we have the usual border
contests, but of distant expeditions with conquest for object we
hear nothing among the Hellenes. There was no union of subject
cities round a great state, no spontaneous combination of equals for
confederate expeditions; what fighting there was consisted merely of
local warfare between rival neighbours. The nearest approach to a
coalition took place in the old war between Chalcis and Eretria;
this was a quarrel in which the rest of the Hellenic name did to
some extent take sides.
Various, too, were the obstacles which the national growth
encountered in various localities. The power of the Ionians was
advancing with rapid strides, when it came into collision with Persia,
under King Cyrus, who, after having dethroned Croesus and overrun
everything between the Halys and the sea, stopped not till he had
reduced the cities of the coast; the islands being only left to be
subdued by Darius and the Phoenician navy.
Again, wherever there were tyrants, their habit of providing
simply for themselves, of looking solely to their personal comfort and
family aggrandizement, made safety the great aim of their policy,
and prevented anything great proceeding from them; though they would
each have their affairs with their immediate neighbours. All this is
only true of the mother country, for in Sicily they attained to very
great power. Thus for a long time everywhere in Hellas do we find
causes which make the states alike incapable of combination for
great and national ends, or of any vigorous action of their own.
But at last a time came when the tyrants of Athens and the far older
tyrannies of the rest of Hellas were, with the exception of those in
Sicily, once and for all put down by Lacedaemon; for this city, though
after the settlement of the Dorians, its present inhabitants, it
suffered from factions for an unparalleled length of time, still at
a very early period obtained good laws, and enjoyed a freedom from
tyrants which was unbroken; it has possessed the same form of
government for more than four hundred years, reckoning to the end of
the late war, and has thus been in a position to arrange the affairs
of the other states. Not many years after the deposition of the
tyrants, the battle of Marathon was fought between the Medes and the
Athenians. Ten years afterwards, the barbarian returned with the
armada for the subjugation of Hellas. In the face of this great
danger, the command of the confederate Hellenes was assumed by the
Lacedaemonians in virtue of their superior power; and the Athenians,
having made up their minds to abandon their city, broke up their
homes, threw themselves into their ships, and became a naval people.
This coalition, after repulsing the barbarian, soon afterwards split
into two sections, which included the Hellenes who had revolted from
the King, as well as those who had aided him in the war. At the end of
the one stood Athens, at the head of the other Lacedaemon, one the
first naval, the other the first military power in Hellas. For a short
time the league held together, till the Lacedaemonians and Athenians
quarrelled and made war upon each other with their allies, a duel into
which all the Hellenes sooner or later were drawn, though some might
at first remain neutral. So that the whole period from the Median
war to this, with some peaceful intervals, was spent by each power
in war, either with its rival, or with its own revolted allies, and
consequently afforded them constant practice in military matters,
and that experience which is learnt in the school of danger.
The policy of Lacedaemon was not to exact tribute from her allies,
but merely to secure their subservience to her interests by
establishing oligarchies among them; Athens, on the contrary, had by
degrees deprived hers of their ships, and imposed instead
contributions in money on all except Chios and Lesbos. Both found
their resources for this war separately to exceed the sum of their
strength when the alliance flourished intact.
Having now given the result of my inquiries into early times, I
grant that there will be a difficulty in believing every particular
detail. The way that most men deal with traditions, even traditions of
their own country, is to receive them all alike as they are delivered,
without applying any critical test whatever. The general Athenian
public fancy that Hipparchus was tyrant when he fell by the hands of
Harmodius and Aristogiton, not knowing that Hippias, the eldest of the
sons of Pisistratus, was really supreme, and that Hipparchus and
Thessalus were his brothers; and that Harmodius and Aristogiton
suspecting, on the very day, nay at the very moment fixed on for the
deed, that information had been conveyed to Hippias by their
accomplices, concluded that he had been warned, and did not attack
him, yet, not liking to be apprehended and risk their lives for
nothing, fell upon Hipparchus near the temple of the daughters of
Leos, and slew him as he was arranging the Panathenaic procession.
There are many other unfounded ideas current among the rest of the
Hellenes, even on matters of contemporary history, which have not been
obscured by time. For instance, there is the notion that the
Lacedaemonian kings have two votes each, the fact being that they have
only one; and that there is a company of Pitane, there being simply no
such thing. So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of
truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand. On the
whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted
may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be
disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration
of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are
attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of
the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of
historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend. Turning
from these, we can rest satisfied with having proceeded upon the
clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as can be
expected in matters of such antiquity. To come to this war: despite
the known disposition of the actors in a struggle to overrate its
importance, and when it is over to return to their admiration of
earlier events, yet an examination of the facts will show that it
was much greater than the wars which preceded it.
With reference to the speeches in this history, some were
delivered before the war began, others while it was going on; some I
heard myself, others I got from various quarters; it was in all
cases difficult to carry them word for word in one's memory, so my
habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion
demanded of them by the various occasions, of course adhering as
closely as possible to the general sense of what they really said. And
with reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting
myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not
even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw
myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report
being always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible.
My conclusions have cost me some labour from the want of coincidence
between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses,
arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue
partiality for one side or the other. The absence of romance in my
history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be
judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of
the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the
course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I
shall be content. In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay
which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for
all time.
The Median War, the greatest achievement of past times, yet found
a speedy decision in two actions by sea and two by land. The
Peloponnesian War was prolonged to an immense length, and, long as
it was, it was short without parallel for the misfortunes that it
brought upon Hellas. Never had so many cities been taken and laid
desolate, here by the barbarians, here by the parties contending
(the old inhabitants being sometimes removed to make room for others);
never was there so much banishing and blood-shedding, now on the field
of battle, now in the strife of faction. Old stories of occurrences
handed down by tradition, but scantily confirmed by experience,
suddenly ceased to be incredible; there were earthquakes of
unparalleled extent and violence; eclipses of the sun occurred with
a frequency unrecorded in previous history; there were great
droughts in sundry places and consequent famines, and that most
calamitous and awfully fatal visitation, the plague. All this came
upon them with the late war, which was begun by the Athenians and
Peloponnesians by the dissolution of the thirty years' truce made
after the conquest of Euboea. To the question why they broke the
treaty, I answer by placing first an account of their grounds of
complaint and points of difference, that no one may ever have to ask
the immediate cause which plunged the Hellenes into a war of such
magnitude. The real cause I consider to be the one which was
formally most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens,
and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war
inevitable. Still it is well to give the grounds alleged by either
side which led to the dissolution of the treaty and the breaking out
of the war.
CHAPTER II.

Causes of the War - The Affair of Epidamnus -
The Affair of Potidaea

THE city of Epidamnus stands on the right of the entrance of the
Ionic Gulf. Its vicinity is inhabited by the Taulantians, an
Illyrian people. The place is a colony from Corcyra, founded by
Phalius, son of Eratocleides, of the family of the Heraclids, who
had according to ancient usage been summoned for the purpose from
Corinth, the mother country. The colonists were joined by some
Corinthians, and others of the Dorian race. Now, as time went on,
the city of Epidamnus became great and populous; but falling a prey to
factions arising, it is said, from a war with her neighbours the
barbarians, she became much enfeebled, and lost a considerable
amount of her power. The last act before the war was the expulsion
of the nobles by the people. The exiled party joined the barbarians,
and proceeded to plunder those in the city by sea and land; and the
Epidamnians, finding themselves hard pressed, sent ambassadors to
Corcyra beseeching their mother country not to allow them to perish,
but to make up matters between them and the exiles, and to rid them of
the war with the barbarians. The ambassadors seated themselves in
the temple of Hera as suppliants, and made the above requests to the
Corcyraeans. But the Corcyraeans refused to accept their supplication,
and they were dismissed without having effected anything.
When the Epidamnians found that no help could be expected from
Corcyra, they were in a strait what to do next. So they sent to Delphi
and inquired of the God whether they should deliver their city to
the Corinthians and endeavour to obtain some assistance from their
founders. The answer he gave them was to deliver the city and place
themselves under Corinthian protection. So the Epidamnians went to
Corinth and delivered over the colony in obedience to the commands
of the oracle. They showed that their founder came from Corinth, and
revealed the answer of the god; and they begged them not to allow them
to perish, but to assist them. This the Corinthians consented to do.
Believing the colony to belong as much to themselves as to the
Corcyraeans, they felt it to be a kind of duty to undertake their
protection. Besides, they hated the Corcyraeans for their contempt
of the mother country. Instead of meeting with the usual honours
accorded to the parent city by every other colony at public
assemblies, such as precedence at sacrifices, Corinth found herself
treated with contempt by a power which in point of wealth could
stand comparison with any even of the richest communities in Hellas,
which possessed great military strength, and which sometimes could not
repress a pride in the high naval position of an, island whose
nautical renown dated from the days of its old inhabitants, the
Phaeacians. This was one reason of the care that they lavished on
their fleet, which became very efficient; indeed they began the war
with a force of a hundred and twenty galleys.
All these grievances made Corinth eager to send the promised aid
to Epidamnus. Advertisement was made for volunteer settlers, and a
force of Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Corinthians was dispatched.
They marched by land to Apollonia, a Corinthian colony, the route by
sea being avoided from fear of Corcyraean interruption. When the
Corcyraeans heard of the arrival of the settlers and troops in
Epidamnus, and the surrender of the colony to Corinth, they took fire.
Instantly putting to sea with five-and-twenty ships, which were
quickly followed by others, they insolently commanded the
Epidamnians to receive back the banished nobles- (it must be premised
that the Epidamnian exiles had come to Corcyra and, pointing to the
sepulchres of their ancestors, had appealed to their kindred to
restore them)- and to dismiss the Corinthian garrison and settlers.
But to all this the Epidamnians turned a deaf ear. Upon this the
Corcyraeans commenced operations against them with a fleet of forty
sail. They took with them the exiles, with a view to their
restoration, and also secured the services of the Illyrians. Sitting
down before the city, they issued a proclamation to the effect that
any of the natives that chose, and the foreigners, might depart
unharmed, with the alternative of being treated as enemies. On their
refusal the Corcyraeans proceeded to besiege the city, which stands on
an isthmus; and the Corinthians, receiving intelligence of the
investment of Epidamnus, got together an armament and proclaimed a
colony to Epidamnus, perfect political equality being guaranteed to
all who chose to go. Any who were not prepared to sail at once
might, by paying down the sum of fifty Corinthian drachmae, have a
share in the colony without leaving Corinth. Great numbers took
advantage of this proclamation, some being ready to start directly,
others paying the requisite forfeit. In case of their passage being
disputed by the Corcyraeans, several cities were asked to lend them
a convoy. Megara prepared to accompany them with eight ships, Pale
in Cephallonia with four; Epidaurus furnished five, Hermione one,
Troezen two, Leucas ten, and Ambracia eight. The Thebans and
Phliasians were asked for money, the Eleans for hulls as well; while
Corinth herself furnished thirty ships and three thousand heavy
infantry.
When the Corcyraeans heard of their preparations they came to
Corinth with envoys from Lacedaemon and Sicyon, whom they persuaded to
accompany them, and bade her recall the garrison and settlers, as
she had nothing to do with Epidamnus. If, however, she had any
claims to make, they were willing to submit the matter to the
arbitration of such of the cities in Peloponnese as should be chosen
by mutual agreement, and that the colony should remain with the city
to whom the arbitrators might assign it. They were also willing to
refer the matter to the oracle at Delphi. If, in defiance of their
protestations, war was appealed to, they should be themselves
compelled by this violence to seek friends in quarters where they
had no desire to seek them, and to make even old ties give way to
the necessity of assistance. The answer they got from Corinth was
that, if they would withdraw their fleet and the barbarians from
Epidamnus, negotiation might be possible; but, while the town was
still being besieged, going before arbitrators was out of the
question. The Corcyraeans retorted that if Corinth would withdraw
her troops from Epidamnus they would withdraw theirs, or they were
ready to let both parties remain in statu quo, an armistice being
concluded till judgment could be given.
Turning a deaf ear to all these proposals, when their ships were
manned and their allies had come in, the Corinthians sent a herald
before them to declare war and, getting under way with seventy-five
ships and two thousand heavy infantry, sailed for Epidamnus to give
battle to the Corcyraeans. The fleet was under the command of
Aristeus, son of Pellichas, Callicrates, son of Callias, and
Timanor, son of Timanthes; the troops under that of Archetimus, son of
Eurytimus, and Isarchidas, son of Isarchus. When they had reached
Actium in the territory of Anactorium, at the mouth of the mouth of
the Gulf of Ambracia, where the temple of Apollo stands, the
Corcyraeans sent on a herald in a light boat to warn them not to
sail against them. Meanwhile they proceeded to man their ships, all of
which had been equipped for action, the old vessels being
undergirded to make them seaworthy. On the return of the herald
without any peaceful answer from the Corinthians, their ships being
now manned, they put out to sea to meet the enemy with a fleet of
eighty sail (forty were engaged in the siege of Epidamnus), formed
line, and went into action, and gained a decisive victory, and
destroyed fifteen of the Corinthian vessels. The same day had seen
Epidamnus compelled by its besiegers to capitulate; the conditions
being that the foreigners should be sold, and the Corinthians kept
as prisoners of war, till their fate should be otherwise decided.
After the engagement the Corcyraeans set up a trophy on Leukimme,
a headland of Corcyra, and slew all their captives except the
Corinthians, whom they kept as prisoners of war. Defeated at sea,
the Corinthians and their allies repaired home, and left the
Corcyraeans masters of all the sea about those parts. Sailing to
Leucas, a Corinthian colony, they ravaged their territory, and burnt
Cyllene, the harbour of the Eleans, because they had furnished ships
and money to Corinth. For almost the whole of the period that followed
the battle they remained masters of the sea, and the allies of Corinth
were harassed by Corcyraean cruisers. At last Corinth, roused by the
sufferings of her allies, sent out ships and troops in the fall of the
summer, who formed an encampment at Actium and about Chimerium, in
Thesprotis, for the protection of Leucas and the rest of the
friendly cities. The Corcyraeans on their part formed a similar
station on Leukimme. Neither party made any movement, but they
remained confronting each other till the end of the summer, and winter
was at hand before either of them returned home.
Corinth, exasperated by the war with the Corcyraeans, spent the
whole of the year after the engagement and that succeeding it in
building ships, and in straining every nerve to form an efficient
fleet; rowers being drawn from Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas by
the inducement of large bounties. The Corcyraeans, alarmed at the news
of their preparations, being without a single ally in Hellas (for they
had not enrolled themselves either in the Athenian or in the
Lacedaemonian confederacy), decided to repair to Athens in order to
enter into alliance and to endeavour to procure support from her.
Corinth also, hearing of their intentions, sent an embassy to Athens
to prevent the Corcyraean navy being joined by the Athenian, and her
prospect of ordering the war according to her wishes being thus
impeded. An assembly was convoked, and the rival advocates appeared:
the Corcyraeans spoke as follows:
"Athenians! when a people that have not rendered any important
service or support to their neighbours in times past, for which they
might claim to be repaid, appear before them as we now appear before
you to solicit their assistance, they may fairly be required to
satisfy certain preliminary conditions. They should show, first,
that it is expedient or at least safe to grant their request; next,
that they will retain a lasting sense of the kindness. But if they
cannot clearly establish any of these points, they must not be annoyed
if they meet with a rebuff. Now the Corcyraeans believe that with
their petition for assistance they can also give you a satisfactory
answer on these points, and they have therefore dispatched us
hither. It has so happened that our policy as regards you with respect
to this request, turns out to be inconsistent, and as regards our
interests, to be at the present crisis inexpedient. We say
inconsistent, because a power which has never in the whole of her past
history been willing to ally herself with any of her neighbours, is
now found asking them to ally themselves with her. And we say
inexpedient, because in our present war with Corinth it has left us in
a position of entire isolation, and what once seemed the wise
precaution of refusing to involve ourselves in alliances with other
powers, lest we should also involve ourselves in risks of their
choosing, has now proved to be folly and weakness. It is true that
in the late naval engagement we drove back the Corinthians from our
shores single-handed. But they have now got together a still larger
armament from Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas; and we, seeing our
utter inability to cope with them without foreign aid, and the
magnitude of the danger which subjection to them implies, find it
necessary to ask help from you and from every other power. And we hope
to be excused if we forswear our old principle of complete political
isolation, a principle which was not adopted with any sinister
intention, but was rather the consequence of an error in judgment.
"Now there are many reasons why in the event of your compliance
you will congratulate yourselves on this request having been made to
you. First, because your assistance will be rendered to a power which,
herself inoffensive, is a victim to the injustice of others. Secondly,
because all that we most value is at stake in the present contest, and
your welcome of us under these circumstances will be a proof of
goodwill which will ever keep alive the gratitude you will lay up in
our hearts. Thirdly, yourselves excepted, we are the greatest naval
power in Hellas. Moreover, can you conceive a stroke of good fortune
more rare in itself, or more disheartening to your enemies, than
that the power whose adhesion you would have valued above much
material and moral strength should present herself self-invited,
should deliver herself into your hands without danger and without
expense, and should lastly put you in the way of gaining a high
character in the eyes of the world, the gratitude of those whom you
shall assist, and a great accession of strength for yourselves? You
may search all history without finding many instances of a people
gaining all these advantages at once, or many instances of a power
that comes in quest of assistance being in a position to give to the
people whose alliance she solicits as much safety and honour as she
will receive. But it will be urged that it is only in the case of a
war that we shall be found useful. To this we answer that if any of
you imagine that that war is far off, he is grievously mistaken, and
is blind to the fact that Lacedaemon regards you with jealousy and
desires war, and that Corinth is powerful there- the same, remember,
that is your enemy, and is even now trying to subdue us as a
preliminary to attacking you. And this she does to prevent our
becoming united by a common enmity, and her having us both on her
hands, and also to ensure getting the start of you in one of two ways,
either by crippling our power or by making its strength her own. Now
it is our policy to be beforehand with her- that is, for Corcyra to
make an offer of alliance and for you to accept it; in fact, we
ought to form plans against her instead of waiting to defeat the plans
she forms against us.
"If she asserts that for you to receive a colony of hers into
alliance is not right, let her know that every colony that is well
treated honours its parent state, but becomes estranged from it by
injustice. For colonists are not sent forth on the understanding
that they are to be the slaves of those that remain behind, but that
they are to be their equals. And that Corinth was injuring us is
clear. Invited to refer the dispute about Epidamnus to arbitration,
they chose to prosecute their complaints war rather than by a fair
trial. And let their conduct towards us who are their kindred be a
warning to you not to be misled by their deceit, nor to yield to their
direct requests; concessions to adversaries only end in self-reproach,
and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the
chance of security.
"If it be urged that your reception of us will be a breach of the
treaty existing between you and Lacedaemon, the answer is that we
are a neutral state, and that one of the express provisions of that
treaty is that it shall be competent for any Hellenic state that is
neutral to join whichever side it pleases. And it is intolerable for
Corinth to be allowed to obtain men for her navy not only from her
allies, but also from the rest of Hellas, no small number being
furnished by your own subjects; while we are to be excluded both
from the alliance left open to us by treaty, and from any assistance
that we might get from other quarters, and you are to be accused of
political immorality if you comply with our request. On the other
hand, we shall have much greater cause to complain of you, if you do
not comply with it; if we, who are in peril and are no enemies of
yours, meet with a repulse at your hands, while Corinth, who is the
aggressor and your enemy, not only meets with no hindrance from you,
but is even allowed to draw material for war from your dependencies.
This ought not to be, but you should either forbid her enlisting men
in your dominions, or you should lend us too what help you may think
advisable.
"But your real policy is to afford us avowed countenance and
support. The advantages of this course, as we premised in the
beginning of our speech, are many. We mention one that is perhaps
the chief. Could there be a clearer guarantee of our good faith than
is offered by the fact that the power which is at enmity with you is
also at enmity with us, and that that power is fully able to punish
defection? And there is a wide difference between declining the
alliance of an inland and of a maritime power. For your first
endeavour should be to prevent, if possible, the existence of any
naval power except your own; failing this, to secure the friendship of
the strongest that does exist. And if any of you believe that what
we urge is expedient, but fear to act upon this belief, lest it should
lead to a breach of the treaty, you must remember that on the one
hand, whatever your fears, your strength will be formidable to your
antagonists; on the other, whatever the confidence you derive from
refusing to receive us, your weakness will have no terrors for a
strong enemy. You must also remember that your decision is for
Athens no less than Corcyra, and that you are not making the best
provision for her interests, if at a time when you are anxiously
scanning the horizon that you may be in readiness for the breaking out
of the war which is all but upon you, you hesitate to attach to your
side a place whose adhesion or estrangement is alike pregnant with the
most vital consequences. For it lies conveniently for the coast-
navigation in the direction of Italy and Sicily, being able to
bar the passage of naval reinforcements from thence to Peloponnese,
and from Peloponnese thither; and it is in other respects a most
desirable station. To sum up as shortly as possible, embracing both
general and particular considerations, let this show you the folly
of sacrificing us. Remember that there are but three considerable
naval powers in Hellas- Athens, Corcyra, and Corinth- and that if you
allow two of these three to become one, and Corinth to secure us for
herself, you will have to hold the sea against the united fleets of
Corcyra and Peloponnese. But if you receive us, you will have our
ships to reinforce you in the struggle."
Such were the words of the Corcyraeans. After they had finished, the
Corinthians spoke as follows:
"These Corcyraeans in the speech we have just heard do not confine
themselves to the question of their reception into your alliance. They
also talk of our being guilty of injustice, and their being the
victims of an unjustifiable war. It becomes necessary for us to
touch upon both these points before we proceed to the rest of what
we have to say, that you may have a more correct idea of the grounds
of our claim, and have good cause to reject their petition.
According to them, their old policy of refusing all offers of alliance
was a policy of moderation. It was in fact adopted for bad ends, not
for good; indeed their conduct is such as to make them by no means
desirous of having allies present to witness it, or of having the
shame of asking their concurrence. Besides, their geographical
situation makes them independent of others, and consequently the
decision in cases where they injure any lies not with judges appointed
by mutual agreement, but with themselves, because, while they seldom
make voyages to their neighbours, they are constantly being visited by
foreign vessels which are compelled to put in to Corcyra. In short,
the object that they propose to themselves, in their specious policy
of complete isolation, is not to avoid sharing in the crimes of
others, but to secure monopoly of crime to themselves- the licence of
outrage wherever they can compel, of fraud wherever they can elude,
and the enjoyment of their gains without shame. And yet if they were
the honest men they pretend to be, the less hold that others had
upon them, the stronger would be the light in which they might have
put their honesty by giving and taking what was just.
"But such has not been their conduct either towards others or
towards us. The attitude of our colony towards us has always been
one of estrangement and is now one of hostility; for, say they: 'We
were not sent out to be ill-treated.' We rejoin that we did not
found the colony to be insulted by them, but to be their head and to
be regarded with a proper respect. At any rate our other colonies
honour us, and we are much beloved by our colonists; and clearly, if
the majority are satisfied with us, these can have no good reason
for a dissatisfaction in which they stand alone, and we are not acting
improperly in making war against them, nor are we making war against
them without having received signal provocation. Besides, if we were
in the wrong, it would be honourable in them to give way to our
wishes, and disgraceful for us to trample on their moderation; but
in the pride and licence of wealth they have sinned again and again
against us, and never more deeply than when Epidamnus, our dependency,
which they took no steps to claim in its distress upon our coming to
relieve it, was by them seized, and is now held by force of arms.
"As to their allegation that they wished the question to be first
submitted to arbitration, it is obvious that a challenge coming from
the party who is safe in a commanding position cannot gain the
credit due only to him who, before appealing to arms, in deeds as well
as words, places himself on a level with his adversary. In their case,
it was not before they laid siege to the place, but after they at
length understood that we should not tamely suffer it, that they
thought of the specious word arbitration. And not satisfied with their
own misconduct there, they appear here now requiring you to join
with them not in alliance but in crime, and to receive them in spite
of their being at enmity with us. But it was when they stood firmest
that they should have made overtures to you, and not at a time when we
have been wronged and they are in peril; nor yet at a time when you
will be admitting to a share in your protection those who never
admitted you to a share in their power, and will be incurring an equal
amount of blame from us with those in whose offences you had no
hand. No, they should have shared their power with you before they
asked you to share your fortunes with them.
"So then the reality of the grievances we come to complain of, and
the violence and rapacity of our opponents, have both been proved. But
that you cannot equitably receive them, this you have still to
learn. It may be true that one of the provisions of the treaty is that
it shall be competent for any state, whose name was not down on the
list, to join whichever side it pleases. But this agreement is not
meant for those whose object in joining is the injury of other powers,
but for those whose need of support does not arise from the fact of
defection, and whose adhesion will not bring to the power that is
mad enough to receive them war instead of peace; which will be the
case with you, if you refuse to listen to us. For you cannot become
their auxiliary and remain our friend; if you join in their attack,
you must share the punishment which the defenders inflict on them. And
yet you have the best possible right to be neutral, or, failing
this, you should on the contrary join us against them. Corinth is at
least in treaty with you; with Corcyra you were never even in truce.
But do not lay down the principle that defection is to be
patronized. Did we on the defection of the Samians record our vote
against you, when the rest of the Peloponnesian powers were equally
divided on the question whether they should assist them? No, we told
them to their face that every power has a right to punish its own
allies. Why, if you make it your policy to receive and assist all
offenders, you will find that just as many of your dependencies will
come over to us, and the principle that you establish will press
less heavily on us than on yourselves.
"This then is what Hellenic law entitles us to demand as a right.
But we have also advice to offer and claims on your gratitude,
which, since there is no danger of our injuring you, as we are not
enemies, and since our friendship does not amount to very frequent
intercourse, we say ought to be liquidated at the present juncture.
When you were in want of ships of war for the war against the
Aeginetans, before the Persian invasion, Corinth supplied you with
twenty vessels. That good turn, and the line we took on the Samian
question, when we were the cause of the Peloponnesians refusing to
assist them, enabled you to conquer Aegina and to punish Samos. And we
acted thus at crises when, if ever, men are wont in their efforts
against their enemies to forget everything for the sake of victory,
regarding him who assists them then as a friend, even if thus far he
has been a foe, and him who opposes them then as a foe, even if he has
thus far been a friend; indeed they allow their real interests to
suffer from their absorbing preoccupation in the struggle.
"Weigh well these considerations, and let your youth learn what they
are from their elders, and let them determine to do unto us as we have
done unto you. And let them not acknowledge the justice of what we
say, but dispute its wisdom in the contingency of war. Not only is the
straightest path generally speaking the wisest; but the coming of
the war, which the Corcyraeans have used as a bugbear to persuade
you to do wrong, is still uncertain, and it is not worth while to be
carried away by it into gaining the instant and declared enmity of
Corinth. It were, rather, wise to try and counteract the
unfavourable impression which your conduct to Megara has created.
For kindness opportunely shown has a greater power of removing old
grievances than the facts of the case may warrant. And do not be
seduced by the prospect of a great naval alliance. Abstinence from all
injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength
than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent
tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage. It is now our turn
to benefit by the principle that we laid down at Lacedaemon, that
every power has a right to punish her own allies. We now claim to
receive the same from you, and protest against your rewarding us for
benefiting you by our vote by injuring us by yours. On the contrary,
return us like for like, remembering that this is that very crisis in
which he who lends aid is most a friend, and he who opposes is most a
foe. And for these Corcyraeans- neither receive them into alliance in
our despite, nor be their abettors in crime. So do, and you will act
as we have a right to expect of you, and at the same time best consult
your own interests."
Such were the words of the Corinthians.
When the Athenians had heard both out, two assemblies were held.
In the first there was a manifest disposition to listen to the
representations of Corinth; in the second, public feeling had
changed and an alliance with Corcyra was decided on, with certain
reservations. It was to be a defensive, not an offensive alliance.
It did not involve a breach of the treaty with Peloponnese: Athens
could not be required to join Corcyra in any attack upon Corinth.
But each of the contracting parties had a right to the other's
assistance against invasion, whether of his own territory or that of
an ally. For it began now to be felt that the coming of the
Peloponnesian war was only a question of time, and no one was
willing to see a naval power of such magnitude as Corcyra sacrificed
to Corinth; though if they could let them weaken each other by
mutual conflict, it would be no bad preparation for the struggle which
Athens might one day have to wage with Corinth and the other naval
powers. At the same time the island seemed to lie conveniently on
the coasting passage to Italy and Sicily. With these views, Athens
received Corcyra into alliance and, on the departure of the
Corinthians not long afterwards, sent ten ships to their assistance.
They were commanded by Lacedaemonius, the son of Cimon, Diotimus,
the son of Strombichus, and Proteas, the son of Epicles. Their
instructions were to avoid collision with the Corinthian fleet
except under certain circumstances. If it sailed to Corcyra and
threatened a landing on her coast, or in any of her possessions,
they were to do their utmost to prevent it. These instructions were
prompted by an anxiety to avoid a breach of the treaty.
Meanwhile the Corinthians completed their preparations, and sailed
for Corcyra with a hundred and fifty ships. Of these Elis furnished
ten, Megara twelve, Leucas ten, Ambracia twenty-seven, Anactorium one,
and Corinth herself ninety. Each of these contingents had its own
admiral, the Corinthian being under the command of Xenoclides, son of
Euthycles, with four colleagues. Sailing from Leucas, they made land
at the part of the continent opposite Corcyra. They anchored in the
harbour of Chimerium, in the territory of Thesprotis, above which,
at some distance from the sea, lies the city of Ephyre, in the Elean
district. By this city the Acherusian lake pours its waters into the
sea. It gets its name from the river Acheron, which flows through
Thesprotis and falls into the lake. There also the river Thyamis
flows, forming the boundary between Thesprotis and Kestrine; and
between these rivers rises the point of Chimerium. In this part of the
continent the Corinthians now came to anchor, and formed an
encampment. When the Corcyraeans saw them coming, they manned a
hundred and ten ships, commanded by Meikiades, Aisimides, and
Eurybatus, and stationed themselves at one of the Sybota isles; the
ten Athenian ships being present. On Point Leukimme they posted
their land forces, and a thousand heavy infantry who had come from
Zacynthus to their assistance. Nor were the Corinthians on the
mainland without their allies. The barbarians flocked in large numbers
to their assistance, the inhabitants of this part of the continent
being old allies of theirs.
When the Corinthian preparations were completed, they took three
days' provisions and put out from Chimerium by night, ready for
action. Sailing with the dawn, they sighted the Corcyraean fleet out
at sea and coming towards them. When they perceived each other, both
sides formed in order of battle. On the Corcyraean right wing lay
the Athenian ships, the rest of the line being occupied by their own
vessels formed in three squadrons, each of which was commanded by
one of the three admirals. Such was the Corcyraean formation. The
Corinthian was as follows: on the right wing lay the Megarian and
Ambraciot ships, in the centre the rest of the allies in order. But
the left was composed of the best sailers in the Corinthian navy, to
encounter the Athenians and the right wing of the Corcyraeans. As soon
as the signals were raised on either side, they joined battle. Both
sides had a large number of heavy infantry on their decks, and a large
number of archers and darters, the old imperfect armament still
prevailing. The sea-fight was an obstinate one, though not
remarkable for its science; indeed it was more like a battle by
land. Whenever they charged each other, the multitude and crush of the
vessels made it by no means easy to get loose; besides, their hopes of
victory lay principally in the heavy infantry on the decks, who
stood and fought in order, the ships remaining stationary. The
manoeuvre of breaking the line was not tried; in short, strength and
pluck had more share in the fight than science. Everywhere tumult
reigned, the battle being one scene of confusion; meanwhile the
Athenian ships, by coming up to the Corcyraeans whenever they were
pressed, served to alarm the enemy, though their commanders could
not join in the battle from fear of their instructions. The right wing
of the Corinthians suffered most. The Corcyraeans routed it, and
chased them in disorder to the continent with twenty ships, sailed
up to their camp, and burnt the tents which they found empty, and
plundered the stuff. So in this quarter the Corinthians and their
allies were defeated, and the Corcyraeans were victorious. But where
the Corinthians themselves were, on the left, they gained a decided
success; the scanty forces of the Corcyraeans being further weakened
by the want of the twenty ships absent on the pursuit. Seeing the
Corcyraeans hard pressed, the Athenians began at length to assist them
more unequivocally. At first, it is true, they refrained from charging
any ships; but when the rout was becoming patent, and the
Corinthians were pressing on, the time at last came when every one set
to, and all distinction was laid aside, and it came to this point,
that the Corinthians and Athenians raised their hands against each
other.
After the rout, the Corinthians, instead of employing themselves
in lashing fast and hauling after them the hulls of the vessels
which they had disabled, turned their attention to the men, whom
they butchered as they sailed through, not caring so much to make
prisoners. Some even of their own friends were slain by them, by
mistake, in their ignorance of the defeat of the right wing For the
number of the ships on both sides, and the distance to which they
covered the sea, made it difficult, after they had once joined, to
distinguish between the conquering and the conquered; this battle
proving far greater than any before it, any at least between Hellenes,
for the number of vessels engaged. After the Corinthians had chased
the Corcyraeans to the land, they turned to the wrecks and their dead,
most of whom they succeeded in getting hold of and conveying to
Sybota, the rendezvous of the land forces furnished by their barbarian
allies. Sybota, it must be known, is a desert harbour of Thesprotis.
This task over, they mustered anew, and sailed against the
Corcyraeans, who on their part advanced to meet them with all their
ships that were fit for service and remaining to them, accompanied
by the Athenian vessels, fearing that they might attempt a landing
in their territory. It was by this time getting late, and the paean
had been sung for the attack, when the Corinthians suddenly began to
back water. They had observed twenty Athenian ships sailing up,
which had been sent out afterwards to reinforce the ten vessels by the
Athenians, who feared, as it turned out justly, the defeat of the
Corcyraeans and the inability of their handful of ships to protect
them. These ships were thus seen by the Corinthians first. They
suspected that they were from Athens, and that those which they saw
were not all, but that there were more behind; they accordingly
began to retire. The Corcyraeans meanwhile had not sighted them, as
they were advancing from a point which they could not so well see, and
were wondering why the Corinthians were backing water, when some
caught sight of them, and cried out that there were ships in sight
ahead. Upon this they also retired; for it was now getting dark, and
the retreat of the Corinthians had suspended hostilities. Thus they
parted from each other, and the battle ceased with night. The
Corcyraeans were in their camp at Leukimme, when these twenty ships
from Athens, under the command of Glaucon, the son of Leagrus, and
Andocides, son of Leogoras, bore on through the corpses and the
wrecks, and sailed up to the camp, not long after they were sighted.
It was now night, and the Corcyraeans feared that they might be
hostile vessels; but they soon knew them, and the ships came to
anchor.
The next day the thirty Athenian vessels put out to sea, accompanied
by all the Corcyraean ships that were seaworthy, and sailed to the
harbour at Sybota, where the Corinthians lay, to see if they would
engage. The Corinthians put out from the land and formed a line in the
open sea, but beyond this made no further movement, having no
intention of assuming the offensive. For they saw reinforcements
arrived fresh from Athens, and themselves confronted by numerous
difficulties, such as the necessity of guarding the prisoners whom
they had on board and the want of all means of refitting their ships
in a desert place. What they were thinking more about was how their
voyage home was to be effected; they feared that the Athenians might
consider that the treaty was dissolved by the collision which had
occurred, and forbid their departure.
Accordingly they resolved to put some men on board a boat, and
send them without a herald's wand to the Athenians, as an
experiment. Having done so, they spoke as follows: "You do wrong,
Athenians, to begin war and break the treaty. Engaged in chastising
our enemies, we find you placing yourselves in our path in arms
against us. Now if your intentions are to prevent us sailing to
Corcyra, or anywhere else that we may wish, and if you are for
breaking the treaty, first take us that are here and treat us as
enemies." Such was what they said, and all the Corcyraean armament
that were within hearing immediately called out to take them and
kill them. But the Athenians answered as follows: "Neither are we
beginning war, Peloponnesians, nor are we breaking the treaty; but
these Corcyraeans are our allies, and we are come to help them. So
if you want to sail anywhere else, we place no obstacle in your way;
but if you are going to sail against Corcyra, or any of her
possessions, we shall do our best to stop you."
Receiving this answer from the Athenians, the Corinthians
commenced preparations for their voyage home, and set up a trophy in
Sybota, on the continent; while the Corcyraeans took up the wrecks and
dead that had been carried out to them by the current, and by a wind
which rose in the night and scattered them in all directions, and
set up their trophy in Sybota, on the island, as victors. The
reasons each side had for claiming the victory were these. The
Corinthians had been victorious in the sea-fight until night; and
having thus been enabled to carry off most wrecks and dead, they
were in possession of no fewer than a thousand prisoners of war, and
had sunk close upon seventy vessels. The Corcyraeans had destroyed
about thirty ships, and after the arrival of the Athenians had taken
up the wrecks and dead on their side; they had besides seen the
Corinthians retire before them, backing water on sight of the Athenian
vessels, and upon the arrival of the Athenians refuse to sail out
against them from Sybota. Thus both sides claimed the victory.
The Corinthians on the voyage home took Anactorium, which stands
at the mouth of the Ambracian gulf. The place was taken by
treachery, being common ground to the Corcyraeans and Corinthians.
After establishing Corinthian settlers there, they retired home. Eight
hundred of the Corcyraeans were slaves; these they sold; two hundred
and fifty they retained in captivity, and treated with great
attention, in the hope that they might bring over their country to
Corinth on their return; most of them being, as it happened, men of
very high position in Corcyra. In this way Corcyra maintained her
political existence in the war with Corinth, and the Athenian
vessels left the island. This was the first cause of the war that
Corinth had against the Athenians, viz., that they had fought
against them with the Corcyraeans in time of treaty.
Almost immediately after this, fresh differences arose between the
Athenians and Peloponnesians, and contributed their share to the
war. Corinth was forming schemes for retaliation, and Athens suspected
her hostility. The Potidaeans, who inhabit the isthmus of Pallene,
being a Corinthian colony, but tributary allies of Athens, were
ordered to raze the wall looking towards Pallene, to give hostages, to
dismiss the Corinthian magistrates, and in future not to receive the
persons sent from Corinth annually to succeed them. It was feared that
they might be persuaded by Perdiccas and the Corinthians to revolt,
and might draw the rest of the allies in the direction of Thrace to
revolt with them. These precautions against the Potidaeans were
taken by the Athenians immediately after the battle at Corcyra. Not
only was Corinth at length openly hostile, but Perdiccas, son of
Alexander, king of the Macedonians, had from an old friend and ally
been made an enemy. He had been made an enemy by the Athenians
entering into alliance with his brother Philip and Derdas, who were in
league against him. In his alarm he had sent to Lacedaemon to try
and involve the Athenians in a war with the Peloponnesians, and was
endeavouring to win over Corinth in order to bring about the revolt of
Potidaea. He also made overtures to the Chalcidians in the direction
of Thrace, and to the Bottiaeans, to persuade them to join in the
revolt; for he thought that if these places on the border could be
made his allies, it would be easier to carry on the war with their
co-operation. Alive to all this, and wishing to anticipate the
revolt of the cities, the Athenians acted as follows. They were just
then sending off thirty ships and a thousand heavy infantry for his
country under the command of Archestratus, son of Lycomedes, with four
colleagues. They instructed the captains to take hostages of the
Potidaeans, to raze the wall, and to be on their guard against the
revolt of the neighbouring cities.
Meanwhile the Potidaeans sent envoys to Athens on the chance of
persuading them to take no new steps in their matters; they also
went to Lacedaemon with the Corinthians to secure support in case of
need. Failing after prolonged negotiation to obtain anything
satisfactory from the Athenians; being unable, for all they could say,
to prevent the vessels that were destined for Macedonia from also
sailing against them; and receiving from the Lacedaemonian
government a promise to invade Attica, if the Athenians should
attack Potidaea, the Potidaeans, thus favoured by the moment, at
last entered into league with the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, and
revolted. And Perdiccas induced the Chalcidians to abandon and
demolish their towns on the seaboard and, settling inland at Olynthus,
to make that one city a strong place: meanwhile to those who
followed his advice he gave a part of his territory in Mygdonia
round Lake Bolbe as a place of abode while the war against the
Athenians should last. They accordingly demolished their towns,
removed inland and prepared for war. The thirty ships of the
Athenians, arriving before the Thracian places, found Potidaea and the
rest in revolt. Their commanders, considering it to be quite
impossible with their present force to carry on war with Perdiccas and
with the confederate towns as well turned to Macedonia, their original
destination, and, having established themselves there, carried on
war in co-operation with Philip, and the brothers of Derdas, who had
invaded the country from the interior.
Meanwhile the Corinthians, with Potidaea in revolt and the
Athenian ships on the coast of Macedonia, alarmed for the safety of
the place and thinking its danger theirs, sent volunteers from
Corinth, and mercenaries from the rest of Peloponnese, to the number
of sixteen hundred heavy infantry in all, and four hundred light
troops. Aristeus, son of Adimantus, who was always a steady friend
to the Potidaeans, took command of the expedition, and it was
principally for love of him that most of the men from Corinth
volunteered. They arrived in Thrace forty days after the revolt of
Potidaea.
The Athenians also immediately received the news of the revolt of
the cities. On being informed that Aristeus and his reinforcements
were on their way, they sent two thousand heavy infantry of their
own citizens and forty ships against the places in revolt, under the
command of Callias, son of Calliades, and four colleagues. They
arrived in Macedonia first, and found the force of a thousand men that
had been first sent out, just become masters of Therme and besieging
Pydna. Accordingly they also joined in the investment, and besieged
Pydna for a while. Subsequently they came to terms and concluded a
forced alliance with Perdiccas, hastened by the calls of Potidaea
and by the arrival of Aristeus at that place. They withdrew from
Macedonia, going to Beroea and thence to Strepsa, and, after a
futile attempt on the latter place, they pursued by land their march
to Potidaea with three thousand heavy infantry of their own
citizens, besides a number of their allies, and six hundred Macedonian
horsemen, the followers of Philip and Pausanias. With these sailed
seventy ships along the coast. Advancing by short marches, on the
third day they arrived at Gigonus, where they encamped.
Meanwhile the Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians with Aristeus were
encamped on the side looking towards Olynthus on the isthmus, in
expectation of the Athenians, and had established their market outside
the city. The allies had chosen Aristeus general of all the
infantry; while the command of the cavalry was given to Perdiccas, who
had at once left the alliance of the Athenians and gone back to that
of the Potidaeans, having deputed Iolaus as his general: The plan of
Aristeus was to keep his own force on the isthmus, and await the
attack of the Athenians; leaving the Chalcidians and the allies
outside the isthmus, and the two hundred cavalry from Perdiccas in
Olynthus to act upon the Athenian rear, on the occasion of their
advancing against him; and thus to place the enemy between two
fires. While Callias the Athenian general and his colleagues
dispatched the Macedonian horse and a few of the allies to Olynthus,
to prevent any movement being made from that quarter, the Athenians
themselves broke up their camp and marched against Potidaea. After
they had arrived at the isthmus, and saw the enemy preparing for
battle, they formed against him, and soon afterwards engaged. The wing
of Aristeus, with the Corinthians and other picked troops round him,
routed the wing opposed to it, and followed for a considerable
distance in pursuit. But the rest of the army of the Potidaeans and of
the Peloponnesians was defeated by the Athenians, and took refuge
within the fortifications. Returning from the pursuit, Aristeus
perceived the defeat of the rest of the army. Being at a loss which of
the two risks to choose, whether to go to Olynthus or to Potidaea,
he at last determined to draw his men into as small a space as
possible, and force his way with a run into Potidaea. Not without
difficulty, through a storm of missiles, he passed along by the
breakwater through the sea, and brought off most of his men safe,
though a few were lost. Meanwhile the auxiliaries of the Potidaeans
from Olynthus, which is about seven miles off and in sight of
Potidaea, when the battle began and the signals were raised,
advanced a little way to render assistance; and the Macedonian horse
formed against them to prevent it. But on victory speedily declaring
for the Athenians and the signals being taken down, they retired
back within the wall; and the Macedonians returned to the Athenians.
Thus there were no cavalry present on either side. After the battle
the Athenians set up a trophy, and gave back their dead to the
Potidaeans under truce. The Potidaeans and their allies had close upon
three hundred killed; the Athenians a hundred and fifty of their own
citizens, and Callias their general.
The wall on the side of the isthmus had now works at once raised
against it, and manned by the Athenians. That on the side of Pallene
had no works raised against it. They did not think themselves strong
enough at once to keep a garrison in the isthmus and to cross over
to Pallene and raise works there; they were afraid that the Potidaeans
and their allies might take advantage of their division to attack
them. Meanwhile the Athenians at home learning that there were no
works at Pallene, some time afterwards sent off sixteen hundred
heavy infantry of their own citizens under the command of Phormio, son
of Asopius. Arrived at Pallene, he fixed his headquarters at
Aphytis, and led his army against Potidaea by short marches,
ravaging the country as he advanced. No one venturing to meet him in
the field, he raised works against the wall on the side of Pallene. So
at length Potidaea was strongly invested on either side, and from
the sea by the ships co-operating in the blockade. Aristeus, seeing
its investment complete, and having no hope of its salvation, except
in the event of some movement from the Peloponnese, or of some other
improbable contingency, advised all except five hundred to watch for a
wind and sail out of the place, in order that their provisions might
last the longer. He was willing to be himself one of those who
remained. Unable to persuade them, and desirous of acting on the
next alternative, and of having things outside in the best posture
possible, he eluded the guardships of the Athenians and sailed out.
Remaining among the Chalcidians, he continued to carry on the war;
in particular he laid an ambuscade near the city of the Sermylians,
and cut off many of them; he also communicated with Peloponnese, and
tried to contrive some method by which help might be brought.
Meanwhile, after the completion of the investment of Potidaea, Phormio
next employed his sixteen hundred men in ravaging Chalcidice and
Bottica: some of the towns also were taken by him.
CHAPTER III.

Congress of the Peloponnesian Confederacy
at Lacedaemon

THE Athenians and Peloponnesians had these antecedent grounds of
complaint against each other: the complaint of Corinth was that her
colony of Potidaea, and Corinthian and Peloponnesian citizens within
it, were being besieged; that of Athens against the Peloponnesians
that they had incited a town of hers, a member of her alliance and a
contributor to her revenue, to revolt, and had come and were openly
fighting against her on the side of the Potidaeans. For all this,
war had not yet broken out: there was still truce for a while; for
this was a private enterprise on the part of Corinth.
But the siege of Potidaea put an end to her inaction; she had men
inside it: besides, she feared for the place. Immediately summoning
the allies to Lacedaemon, she came and loudly accused Athens of breach
of the treaty and aggression on the rights of Peloponnese. With her,
the Aeginetans, formally unrepresented from fear of Athens, in
secret proved not the least urgent of the advocates for war, asserting
that they had not the independence guaranteed to them by the treaty.
After extending the summons to any of their allies and others who
might have complaints to make of Athenian aggression, the
Lacedaemonians held their ordinary assembly, and invited them to
speak. There were many who came forward and made their several
accusations; among them the Megarians, in a long list of grievances,
called special attention to the fact of their exclusion from the ports
of the Athenian empire and the market of Athens, in defiance of the
treaty. Last of all the Corinthians came forward, and having let those
who preceded them inflame the Lacedaemonians, now followed with a
speech to this effect:
"Lacedaemonians! the confidence which you feel in your
constitution and social order, inclines you to receive any reflections
of ours on other powers with a certain scepticism. Hence springs
your moderation, but hence also the rather limited knowledge which you
betray in dealing with foreign politics. Time after time was our voice
raised to warn you of the blows about to be dealt us by Athens, and
time after time, instead of taking the trouble to ascertain the
worth of our communications, you contented yourselves with
suspecting the speakers of being inspired by private interest. And so,
instead of calling these allies together before the blow fell, you
have delayed to do so till we are smarting under it; allies among whom
we have not the worst title to speak, as having the greatest
complaints to make, complaints of Athenian outrage and Lacedaemonian
neglect. Now if these assaults on the rights of Hellas had been made
in the dark, you might be unacquainted with the facts, and it would be
our duty to enlighten you. As it is, long speeches are not needed
where you see servitude accomplished for some of us, meditated for
others- in particular for our allies- and prolonged preparations in
the aggressor against the hour of war. Or what, pray, is the meaning
of their reception of Corcyra by fraud, and their holding it against
us by force? what of the siege of Potidaea?- places one of which lies
most conveniently for any action against the Thracian towns; while the
other would have contributed a very large navy to the Peloponnesians?
"For all this you are responsible. You it was who first allowed them
to fortify their city after the Median war, and afterwards to erect
the long walls- you who, then and now, are always depriving of
freedom not only those whom they have enslaved, but also those who
have as yet been your allies. For the true author of the subjugation
of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as the power which
permits it having the means to prevent it; particularly if that
power aspires to the glory of being the liberator of Hellas. We are at
last assembled. It has not been easy to assemble, nor even now are our
objects defined. We ought not to be still inquiring into the fact of
our wrongs, but into the means of our defence. For the aggressors with
matured plans to oppose to our indecision have cast threats aside
and betaken themselves to action. And we know what are the paths by
which Athenian aggression travels, and how insidious is its
progress. A degree of confidence she may feel from the idea that
your bluntness of perception prevents your noticing her; but it is
nothing to the impulse which her advance will receive from the
knowledge that you see, but do not care to interfere. You,
Lacedaemonians, of all the Hellenes are alone inactive, and defend
yourselves not by doing anything but by looking as if you would do
something; you alone wait till the power of an enemy is becoming twice
its original size, instead of crushing it in its infancy. And yet
the world used to say that you were to be depended upon; but in your
case, we fear, it said more than the truth. The Mede, we ourselves
know, had time to come from the ends of the earth to Peloponnese,
without any force of yours worthy of the name advancing to meet him.
But this was a distant enemy. Well, Athens at all events is a near
neighbour, and yet Athens you utterly disregard; against Athens you
prefer to act on the defensive instead of on the offensive, and to
make it an affair of chances by deferring the struggle till she has
grown far stronger than at first. And yet you know that on the whole
the rock on which the barbarian was wrecked was himself, and that if
our present enemy Athens has not again and again annihilated us, we
owe it more to her blunders than to your protection; Indeed,
expectations from you have before now been the ruin of some, whose
faith induced them to omit preparation.
"We hope that none of you will consider these words of
remonstrance to be rather words of hostility; men remonstrate with
friends who are in error, accusations they reserve for enemies who
have wronged them. Besides, we consider that we have as good a right
as any one to point out a neighbour's faults, particularly when we
contemplate the great contrast between the two national characters;
a contrast of which, as far as we can see, you have little perception,
having never yet considered what sort of antagonists you will
encounter in the Athenians, how widely, how absolutely different
from yourselves. The Athenians are addicted to innovation, and their
designs are characterized by swiftness alike in conception and
execution; you have a genius for keeping what you have got,
accompanied by a total want of invention, and when forced to act you
never go far enough. Again, they are adventurous beyond their power,
and daring beyond their judgment, and in danger they are sanguine;
your wont is to attempt less than is justified by your power, to
mistrust even what is sanctioned by your judgment, and to fancy that
from danger there is no release. Further, there is promptitude on
their side against procrastination on yours; they are never at home,
you are never from it: for they hope by their absence to extend
their acquisitions, you fear by your advance to endanger what you have
left behind. They are swift to follow up a success, and slow to recoil
from a reverse. Their bodies they spend ungrudgingly in their
country's cause; their intellect they jealously husband to be employed
in her service. A scheme unexecuted is with them a positive loss, a
successful enterprise a comparative failure. The deficiency created by
the miscarriage of an undertaking is soon filled up by fresh hopes;
for they alone are enabled to call a thing hoped for a thing got, by
the speed with which they act upon their resolutions. Thus they toil
on in trouble and danger all the days of their life, with little
opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting: their only
idea of a holiday is to do what the occasion demands, and to them
laborious occupation is less of a misfortune than the peace of a quiet
life. To describe their character in a word, one might truly say
that they were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to
give none to others.
"Such is Athens, your antagonist. And yet, Lacedaemonians, you still
delay, and fail to see that peace stays longest with those, who are
not more careful to use their power justly than to show their
determination not to submit to injustice. On the contrary, your
ideal of fair dealing is based on the principle that, if you do not
injure others, you need not risk your own fortunes in preventing
others from injuring you. Now you could scarcely have succeeded in
such a policy even with a neighbour like yourselves; but in the
present instance, as we have just shown, your habits are old-fashioned
as compared with theirs. It is the law as in art, so in politics, that
improvements ever prevail; and though fixed usages may be best for
undisturbed communities, constant necessities of action must be
accompanied by the constant improvement of methods. Thus it happens
that the vast experience of Athens has carried her further than you on
the path of innovation.
"Here, at least, let your procrastination end. For the present,
assist your allies and Potidaea in particular, as you promised, by a
speedy invasion of Attica, and do not sacrifice friends and kindred to
their bitterest enemies, and drive the rest of us in despair to some
other alliance. Such a step would not be condemned either by the
Gods who received our oaths, or by the men who witnessed them. The
breach of a treaty cannot be laid to the people whom desertion compels
to seek new relations, but to the power that fails to assist its
confederate. But if you will only act, we will stand by you; it
would be unnatural for us to change, and never should we meet with
such a congenial ally. For these reasons choose the right course,
and endeavour not to let Peloponnese under your supremacy degenerate
from the prestige that it enjoyed under that of your ancestors."
Such were the words of the Corinthians. There happened to be
Athenian envoys present at Lacedaemon on other business. On hearing
the speeches they thought themselves called upon to come before the
Lacedaemonians. Their intention was not to offer a defence on any of
the charges which the cities brought against them, but to show on a
comprehensive view that it was not a matter to be hastily decided
on, but one that demanded further consideration. There was also a wish
to call attention to the great power of Athens, and to refresh the
memory of the old and enlighten the ignorance of the young, from a
notion that their words might have the effect of inducing them to
prefer tranquillity to war. So they came to the Lacedaemonians and
said that they too, if there was no objection, wished to speak to
their assembly. They replied by inviting them to come forward. The
Athenians advanced, and spoke as follows:
"The object of our mission here was not to argue with your allies,
but to attend to the matters on which our state dispatched us.
However, the vehemence of the outcry that we hear against us has
prevailed on us to come forward. It is not to combat the accusations
of the cities (indeed you are not the judges before whom either we
or they can plead), but to prevent your taking the wrong course on
matters of great importance by yielding too readily to the persuasions
of your allies. We also wish to show on a review of the whole
indictment that we have a fair title to our possessions, and that
our country has claims to consideration. We need not refer to remote
antiquity: there we could appeal to the voice of tradition, but not to
the experience of our audience. But to the Median War and contemporary
history we must refer, although we are rather tired of continually
bringing this subject forward. In our action during that war we ran
great risk to obtain certain advantages: you had your share in the
solid results, do not try to rob us of all share in the good that
the glory may do us. However, the story shall be told not so much to
deprecate hostility as to testify against it, and to show, if you
are so ill advised as to enter into a struggle with Athens, what
sort of an antagonist she is likely to prove. We assert that at
Marathon we were at the front, and faced the barbarian
single-handed. That when he came the second time, unable to cope
with him by land we went on board our ships with all our people, and
joined in the action at Salamis. This prevented his taking the
Peloponnesian states in detail, and ravaging them with his fleet; when
the multitude of his vessels would have made any combination for
self-defence impossible. The best proof of this was furnished by the
invader himself. Defeated at sea, he considered his power to be no
longer what it had been, and retired as speedily as possible with
the greater part of his army.
"Such, then, was the result of the matter, and it was clearly proved
that it was on the fleet of Hellas that her cause depended. Well, to
this result we contributed three very useful elements, viz., the
largest number of ships, the ablest commander, and the most
unhesitating patriotism. Our contingent of ships was little less
than two-thirds of the whole four hundred; the commander was
Themistocles, through whom chiefly it was that the battle took place
in the straits, the acknowledged salvation of our cause. Indeed,
this was the reason of your receiving him with honours such as had
never been accorded to any foreign visitor. While for daring
patriotism we had no competitors. Receiving no reinforcements from
behind, seeing everything in front of us already subjugated, we had
the spirit, after abandoning our city, after sacrificing our
property (instead of deserting the remainder of the league or
depriving them of our services by dispersing), to throw ourselves into
our ships and meet the danger, without a thought of resenting your
neglect to assist us. We assert, therefore, that we conferred on you
quite as much as we received. For you had a stake to fight for; the
cities which you had left were still filled with your homes, and you
had the prospect of enjoying them again; and your coming was
prompted quite as much by fear for yourselves as for us; at all
events, you never appeared till we had nothing left to lose. But we
left behind us a city that was a city no longer, and staked our
lives for a city that had an existence only in desperate hope, and
so bore our full share in your deliverance and in ours. But if we
had copied others, and allowed fears for our territory to make us give
in our adhesion to the Mede before you came, or if we had suffered our
ruin to break our spirit and prevent us embarking in our ships, your
naval inferiority would have made a sea-fight unnecessary, and his
objects would have been peaceably attained.
"Surely, Lacedaemonians, neither by the patriotism that we displayed
at that crisis, nor by the wisdom of our counsels, do we merit our
extreme unpopularity with the Hellenes, not at least unpopularity
for our empire. That empire we acquired by no violent means, but
because you were unwilling to prosecute to its conclusion the war
against the barbarian, and because the allies attached themselves to
us and spontaneously asked us to assume the command. And the nature of
the case first compelled us to advance our empire to its present
height; fear being our principal motive, though honour and interest
afterwards came in. And at last, when almost all hated us, when some
had already revolted and had been subdued, when you had ceased to be
the friends that you once were, and had become objects of suspicion
and dislike, it appeared no longer safe to give up our empire;
especially as all who left us would fall to you. And no one can
quarrel with a people for making, in matters of tremendous risk, the
best provision that it can for its interest.
"You, at all events, Lacedaemonians, have used your supremacy to
settle the states in Peloponnese as is agreeable to you. And if at the
period of which we were speaking you had persevered to the end of
the matter, and had incurred hatred in your command, we are sure
that you would have made yourselves just as galling to the allies, and
would have been forced to choose between a strong government and
danger to yourselves. It follows that it was not a very wonderful
action, or contrary to the common practice of mankind, if we did
accept an empire that was offered to us, and refused to give it up
under the pressure of three of the strongest motives, fear, honour,
and interest. And it was not we who set the example, for it has always
been law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger. Besides,
we believed ourselves to be worthy of our position, and so you thought
us till now, when calculations of interest have made you take up the
cry of justice- a consideration which no one ever yet brought forward
to hinder his ambition when he had a chance of gaining anything by
might. And praise is due to all who, if not so superior to human
nature as to refuse dominion, yet respect justice more than their
position compels them to do.
"We imagine that our moderation would be best demonstrated by the
conduct of others who should be placed in our position; but even our
equity has very unreasonably subjected us to condemnation instead of
approval. Our abatement of our rights in the contract trials with
our allies, and our causing them to be decided by impartial laws at
Athens, have gained us the character of being litigious. And none care
to inquire why this reproach is not brought against other imperial
powers, who treat their subjects with less moderation than we do;
the secret being that where force can be used, law is not needed.
But our subjects are so habituated to associate with us as equals that
any defeat whatever that clashes with their notions of justice,
whether it proceeds from a legal judgment or from the power which
our empire gives us, makes them forget to be grateful for being
allowed to retain most of their possessions, and more vexed at a
part being taken, than if we had from the first cast law aside and
openly gratified our covetousness. If we had done so, not even would
they have disputed that the weaker must give way to the stronger.
Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by
violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the
second like being compelled by a superior. At all events they
contrived to put up with much worse treatment than this from the Mede,
yet they think our rule severe, and this is to be expected, for the
present always weighs heavy on the conquered. This at least is
certain. If you were to succeed in overthrowing us and in taking our
place, you would speedily lose the popularity with which fear of us
has invested you, if your policy of to-day is at all to tally with the
sample that you gave of it during the brief period of your command
against the Mede. Not only is your life at home regulated by rules and
institutions incompatible with those of others, but your citizens
abroad act neither on these rules nor on those which are recognized by
the rest of Hellas.
"Take time then in forming your resolution, as the matter is of
great importance; and do not be persuaded by the opinions and
complaints of others to bring trouble on yourselves, but consider
the vast influence of accident in war, before you are engaged in it.
As it continues, it generally becomes an affair of chances, chances
from which neither of us is exempt, and whose event we must risk in
the dark. It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong
end, to act first, and wait for disaster to discuss the matter. But we
are not yet by any means so misguided, nor, so far as we can see,
are you; accordingly, while it is still open to us both to choose
aright, we bid you not to dissolve the treaty, or to break your oaths,
but to have our differences settled by arbitration according to our
agreement. Or else we take the gods who heard the oaths to witness,
and if you begin hostilities, whatever line of action you choose, we
will try not to be behindhand in repelling you."
Such were the words of the Athenians. After the Lacedaemonians had
heard the complaints of the allies against the Athenians, and the
observations of the latter, they made all withdraw, and consulted by
themselves on the question before them. The opinions of the majority
all led to the same conclusion; the Athenians were open aggressors,
and war must be declared at once. But Archidamus, the Lacedaemonian
king, came forward, who had the reputation of being at once a wise and
a moderate man, and made the following speech:
"I have not lived so long, Lacedaemonians, without having had the
experience of many wars, and I see those among you of the same age
as myself, who will not fall into the common misfortune of longing for
war from inexperience or from a belief in its advantage and its
safety. This, the war on which you are now debating, would be one of
the greatest magnitude, on a sober consideration of the matter. In a
struggle with Peloponnesians and neighbours our strength is of the
same character, and it is possible to move swiftly on the different
points. But a struggle with a people who live in a distant land, who
have also an extraordinary familiarity with the sea, and who are in
the highest state of preparation in every other department; with
wealth private and public, with ships, and horses, and heavy infantry,
and a population such as no one other Hellenic place can equal, and
lastly a number of tributary allies- what can justify us in rashly
beginning such a struggle? wherein is our trust that we should rush on
it unprepared? Is it in our ships? There we are inferior; while if
we are to practise and become a match for them, time must intervene.
Is it in our money? There we have a far greater deficiency. We neither
have it in our treasury, nor are we ready to contribute it from our
private funds. Confidence might possibly be felt in our superiority in
heavy infantry and population, which will enable us to invade and
devastate their lands. But the Athenians have plenty of other land
in their empire, and can import what they want by sea. Again, if we
are to attempt an insurrection of their allies, these will have to
be supported with a fleet, most of them being islanders. What then
is to be our war? For unless we can either beat them at sea, or
deprive them of the revenues which feed their navy, we shall meet with
little but disaster. Meanwhile our honour will be pledged to keeping
on, particularly if it be the opinion that we began the quarrel. For
let us never be elated by the fatal hope of the war being quickly
ended by the devastation of their lands. I fear rather that we may
leave it as a legacy to our children; so improbable is it that the
Athenian spirit will be the slave of their land, or Athenian
experience be cowed by war.
"Not that I would bid you be so unfeeling as to suffer them to
injure your allies, and to refrain from unmasking their intrigues; but
I do bid you not to take up arms at once, but to send and
remonstrate with them in a tone not too suggestive of war, nor again
too suggestive of submission, and to employ the interval in perfecting
our own preparations. The means will be, first, the acquisition of
allies, Hellenic or barbarian it matters not, so long as they are an
accession to our strength naval or pecuniary- I say Hellenic or
barbarian, because the odium of such an accession to all who like us
are the objects of the designs of the Athenians is taken away by the
law of self-preservation- and secondly the development of our home
resources. If they listen to our embassy, so much the better; but if
not, after the lapse of two or three years our position will have
become materially strengthened, and we can then attack them if we
think proper. Perhaps by that time the sight of our preparations,
backed by language equally significant, will have disposed them to
submission, while their land is still untouched, and while their
counsels may be directed to the retention of advantages as yet
undestroyed. For the only light in which you can view their land is
that of a hostage in your hands, a hostage the more valuable the
better it is cultivated. This you ought to spare as long as
possible, and not make them desperate, and so increase the
difficulty of dealing with them. For if while still unprepared,
hurried away by the complaints of our allies, we are induced to lay it
waste, have a care that we do not bring deep disgrace and deep
perplexity upon Peloponnese. Complaints, whether of communities or
individuals, it is possible to adjust; but war undertaken by a
coalition for sectional interests, whose progress there is no means of
foreseeing, does not easily admit of creditable settlement.
"And none need think it cowardice for a number of confederates to
pause before they attack a single city. The Athenians have allies as
numerous as our own, and allies that pay tribute, and war is a
matter not so much of arms as of money, which makes arms of use. And
this is more than ever true in a struggle between a continental and
a maritime power. First, then, let us provide money, and not allow
ourselves to be carried away by the talk of our allies before we
have done so: as we shall have the largest share of responsibility for
the consequences be they good or bad, we have also a right to a
tranquil inquiry respecting them.
"And the slowness and procrastination, the parts of our character
that are most assailed by their criticism, need not make you blush. If
we undertake the war without preparation, we should by hastening its
commencement only delay its conclusion: further, a free and a famous
city has through all time been ours. The quality which they condemn is
really nothing but a wise moderation; thanks to its possession, we
alone do not become insolent in success and give way less than
others in misfortune; we are not carried away by the pleasure of
hearing ourselves cheered on to risks which our judgment condemns;
nor, if annoyed, are we any the more convinced by attempts to
exasperate us by accusation. We are both warlike and wise, and it is
our sense of order that makes us so. We are warlike, because
self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and honour
bravery. And we are wise, because we are educated with too little
learning to despise the laws, and with too severe a self-control to
disobey them, and are brought up not to be too knowing in useless
matters- such as the knowledge which can give a specious criticism of
an enemy's plans in theory, but fails to assail them with equal
success in practice- but are taught to consider that the schemes of
our enemies are not dissimilar to our own, and that the freaks of
chance are not determinable by calculation. In practice we always base
our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are
good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his
blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to
believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to
think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest
school. These practices, then, which our ancestors have delivered to
us, and by whose maintenance we have always profited, must not be
given up. And we must not be hurried into deciding in a day's brief
space a question which concerns many lives and fortunes and many
cities, and in which honour is deeply involved- but we must decide
calmly. This our strength peculiarly enables us to do. As for the
Athenians, send to them on the matter of Potidaea, send on the
matter of the alleged wrongs of the allies, particularly as they are
prepared with legal satisfaction; and to proceed against one who
offers arbitration as against a wrongdoer, law forbids. Meanwhile do
not omit preparation for war. This decision will be the best for
yourselves, the most terrible to your opponents."
Such were the words of Archidamus. Last came forward Sthenelaidas,
one of the ephors for that year, and spoke to the Lacedaemonians as
follows:
"The long speech of the Athenians I do not pretend to understand.
They said a good deal in praise of themselves, but nowhere denied that
they are injuring our allies and Peloponnese. And yet if they
behaved well against the Mede then, but ill towards us now, they
deserve double punishment for having ceased to be good and for
having become bad. We meanwhile are the same then and now, and shall
not, if we are wise, disregard the wrongs of our allies, or put off
till to-morrow the duty of assisting those who must suffer to-day.
Others have much money and ships and horses, but we have good allies
whom we must not give up to the Athenians, nor by lawsuits and words
decide the matter, as it is anything but in word that we are harmed,
but render instant and powerful help. And let us not be told that it
is fitting for us to deliberate under injustice; long deliberation
is rather fitting for those who have injustice in contemplation.
Vote therefore, Lacedaemonians, for war, as the honour of Sparta
demands, and neither allow the further aggrandizement of Athens, nor
betray our allies to ruin, but with the gods let us advance against
the aggressors."
With these words he, as ephor, himself put the question to the
assembly of the Lacedaemonians. He said that he could not determine
which was the loudest acclamation (their mode of decision is by
acclamation not by voting); the fact being that he wished to make them
declare their opinion openly and thus to increase their ardour for
war. Accordingly he said: "All Lacedaemonians who are of opinion
that the treaty has been broken, and that Athens is guilty, leave your
seats and go there," pointing out a certain place; "all who are of the
opposite opinion, there." They accordingly stood up and divided; and
those who held that the treaty had been broken were in a decided
majority. Summoning the allies, they told them that their opinion
was that Athens had been guilty of injustice, but that they wished
to convoke all the allies and put it to the vote; in order that they
might make war, if they decided to do so, on a common resolution.
Having thus gained their point, the delegates returned home at once;
the Athenian envoys a little later, when they had dispatched the
objects of their mission. This decision of the assembly, judging
that the treaty had been broken, was made in the fourteenth year of
the thirty years' truce, which was entered into after the affair of
Euboea.
The Lacedaemonians voted that the treaty had been broken, and that
the war must be declared, not so much because they were persuaded by
the arguments of the allies, as because they feared the growth of
the power of the Athenians, seeing most of Hellas already subject to
them.
CHAPTER IV.

From the end of the Persian to the beginning
of the Peloponnesian War - The Progress
from Supremacy to Empire

THE way in which Athens came to be placed in the circumstances
under which her power grew was this. After the Medes had returned
from Europe, defeated by sea and land by the Hellenes, and after
those of them who had fled with their ships to Mycale had been
destroyed, Leotychides, king of the Lacedaemonians, the commander of
the Hellenes at Mycale, departed home with the allies from
Peloponnese. But the Athenians and the allies from Ionia and
Hellespont, who had now revolted from the King, remained and laid
siege to Sestos, which was still held by the Medes. After wintering
before it, they became masters of the place on its evacuation by the
barbarians; and after this they sailed away from Hellespont to their
respective cities. Meanwhile the Athenian people, after the departure
of the barbarian from their country, at once proceeded to carry over
their children and wives, and such property as they had left, from
the places where they had deposited them, and prepared to rebuild
their city and their walls. For only isolated portions of the
circumference had been left standing, and most of the houses were in
ruins; though a few remained, in which the Persian grandees had taken
up their quarters.
Perceiving what they were going to do, the Lacedaemonians sent an
embassy to Athens. They would have themselves preferred to see neither
her nor any other city in possession of a wall; though here they acted
principally at the instigation of their allies, who were alarmed at
the strength of her newly acquired navy and the valour which she had
displayed in the war with the Medes. They begged her not only to
abstain from building walls for herself, but also to join them in
throwing down the walls that still held together of the
ultra-Peloponnesian cities. The real meaning of their advice, the
suspicion that it contained against the Athenians, was not proclaimed;
it was urged that so the barbarian, in the event of a third
invasion, would not have any strong place, such as he now had in
Thebes, for his base of operations; and that Peloponnese would suffice
for all as a base both for retreat and offence. After the
Lacedaemonians had thus spoken, they were, on the advice of
Themistocles, immediately dismissed by the Athenians, with the
answer that ambassadors should be sent to Sparta to discuss the
question. Themistocles told the Athenians to send him off with all
speed to Lacedaemon, but not to dispatch his colleagues as soon as
they had selected them, but to wait until they had raised their wall
to the height from which defence was possible. Meanwhile the whole
population in the city was to labour at the wall, the Athenians, their
wives, and their children, sparing no edifice, private or public,
which might be of any use to the work, but throwing all down. After
giving these instructions, and adding that he would be responsible for
all other matters there, he departed. Arrived at Lacedaemon he did not
seek an audience with the authorities, but tried to gain time and made
excuses. When any of the government asked him why he did not appear in
the assembly, he would say that he was waiting for his colleagues, who
had been detained in Athens by some engagement; however, that he
expected their speedy arrival, and wondered that they were not yet
there. At first the Lacedaemonians trusted the words of
Themistocles, through their friendship for him; but when others
arrived, all distinctly declaring that the work was going on and
already attaining some elevation, they did not know how to
disbelieve it. Aware of this, he told them that rumours are deceptive,
and should not be trusted; they should send some reputable persons
from Sparta to inspect, whose report might be trusted. They dispatched
them accordingly. Concerning these Themistocles secretly sent word
to the Athenians to detain them as far as possible without putting
them under open constraint, and not to let them go until they had
themselves returned. For his colleagues had now joined him,
Abronichus, son of Lysicles, and Aristides, son of Lysimachus, with
the news that the wall was sufficiently advanced; and he feared that
when the Lacedaemonians heard the facts, they might refuse to let them
go. So the Athenians detained the envoys according to his message, and
Themistocles had an audience with the Lacedaemonians, and at last
openly told them that Athens was now fortified sufficiently to protect
its inhabitants; that any embassy which the Lacedaemonians or their
allies might wish to send to them should in future proceed on the
assumption that the people to whom they were going was able to
distinguish both its own and the general interests. That when the
Athenians thought fit to abandon their city and to embark in their
ships, they ventured on that perilous step without consulting them;
and that on the other hand, wherever they had deliberated with the
Lacedaemonians, they had proved themselves to be in judgment second to
none. That they now thought it fit that their city should have a wall,
and that this would be more for the advantage of both the citizens
of Athens and the Hellenic confederacy; for without equal military
strength it was impossible to contribute equal or fair counsel to
the common interest. It followed, he observed, either that all the
members of the confederacy should be without walls, or that the
present step should be considered a right one.
The Lacedaemonians did not betray any open signs of anger against
the Athenians at what they heard. The embassy, it seems, was
prompted not by a desire to obstruct, but to guide the counsels of
their government: besides, Spartan feeling was at that time very
friendly towards Athens on account of the patriotism which she had
displayed in the struggle with the Mede. Still the defeat of their
wishes could not but cause them secret annoyance. The envoys of each
state departed home without complaint.
In this way the Athenians walled their city in a little while. To
this day the building shows signs of the haste of its execution; the
foundations are laid of stones of all kinds, and in some places not
wrought or fitted, but placed just in the order in which they were
brought by the different hands; and many columns, too, from tombs, and
sculptured stones were put in with the rest. For the bounds of the
city were extended at every point of the circumference; and so they
laid hands on everything without exception in their haste.
Themistocles also persuaded them to finish the walls of Piraeus, which
had been begun before, in his year of office as archon; being
influenced alike by the fineness of a locality that has three
natural harbours, and by the great start which the Athenians would
gain in the acquisition of power by becoming a naval people. For he
first ventured to tell them to stick to the sea and forthwith began to
lay the foundations of the empire. It was by his advice, too, that
they built the walls of that thickness which can still be discerned
round Piraeus, the stones being brought up by two wagons meeting
each other. Between the walls thus formed there was neither rubble nor
mortar, but great stones hewn square and fitted together, cramped to
each other on the outside with iron and lead. About half the height
that he intended was finished. His idea was by their size and
thickness to keep off the attacks of an enemy; he thought that they
might be adequately defended by a small garrison of invalids, and
the rest be freed for service in the fleet. For the fleet claimed most
of his attention. He saw, as I think, that the approach by sea was
easier for the king's army than that by land: he also thought
Piraeus more valuable than the upper city; indeed, he was always
advising the Athenians, if a day should come when they were hard
pressed by land, to go down into Piraeus, and defy the world with
their fleet. Thus, therefore, the Athenians completed their wall,
and commenced their other buildings immediately after the retreat of
the Mede.
Meanwhile Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, was sent out from
Lacedaemon as commander-in-chief of the Hellenes, with twenty ships
from Peloponnese. With him sailed the Athenians with thirty ships, and
a number of the other allies. They made an expedition against Cyprus
and subdued most of the island, and afterwards against Byzantium,
which was in the hands of the Medes, and compelled it to surrender.
This event took place while the Spartans were still supreme. But the
violence of Pausanias had already begun to be disagreeable to the
Hellenes, particularly to the Ionians and the newly liberated
populations. These resorted to the Athenians and requested them as
their kinsmen to become their leaders, and to stop any attempt at
violence on the part of Pausanias. The Athenians accepted their
overtures, and determined to put down any attempt of the kind and to
settle everything else as their interests might seem to demand. In the
meantime the Lacedaemonians recalled Pausanias for an investigation of
the reports which had reached them. Manifold and grave accusations had
been brought against him by Hellenes arriving in Sparta; and, to all
appearance, there had been in him more of the mimicry of a despot than
of the attitude of a general. As it happened, his recall came just
at the time when the hatred which he had inspired had induced the
allies to desert him, the soldiers from Peloponnese excepted, and to
range themselves by the side of the Athenians. On his arrival at
Lacedaemon, he was censured for his private acts of oppression, but
was acquitted on the heaviest counts and pronounced not guilty; it
must be known that the charge of Medism formed one of the principal,
and to all appearance one of the best founded, articles against him.
The Lacedaemonians did not, however, restore him to his command, but
sent out Dorkis and certain others with a small force; who found the
allies no longer inclined to concede to them the supremacy. Perceiving
this they departed, and the Lacedaemonians did not send out any to
succeed them. They feared for those who went out a deterioration
similar to that observable in Pausanias; besides, they desired to be
rid of the Median War, and were satisfied of the competency of the
Athenians for the position, and of their friendship at the time
towards themselves.
The Athenians, having thus succeeded to the supremacy by the
voluntary act of the allies through their hatred of Pausanias, fixed
which cities were to contribute money against the barbarian, which
ships; their professed object being to retaliate for their
sufferings by ravaging the King's country. Now was the time that the
office of "Treasurers for Hellas" was first instituted by the
Athenians. These officers received the tribute, as the money
contributed was called. The tribute was first fixed at four hundred
and sixty talents. The common treasury was at Delos, and the
congresses were held in the temple. Their supremacy commenced with
independent allies who acted on the resolutions of a common
congress. It was marked by the following undertakings in war and in
administration during the interval between the Median and the
present war, against the barbarian, against their own rebel allies,
and against the Peloponnesian powers which would come in contact
with them on various occasions. My excuse for relating these events,
and for venturing on this digression, is that this passage of
history has been omitted by all my predecessors, who have confined
themselves either to Hellenic history before the Median War, or the
Median War itself. Hellanicus, it is true, did touch on these events
in his Athenian history; but he is somewhat concise and not accurate
in his dates. Besides, the history of these events contains an
explanation of the growth of the Athenian empire.
First the Athenians besieged and captured Eion on the Strymon from
the Medes, and made slaves of the inhabitants, being under the command
of Cimon, son of Miltiades. Next they enslaved Scyros, the island in
the Aegean, containing a Dolopian population, and colonized it
themselves. This was followed by a war against Carystus, in which
the rest of Euboea remained neutral, and which was ended by
surrender on conditions. After this Naxos left the confederacy, and
a war ensued, and she had to return after a siege; this was the
first instance of the engagement being broken by the subjugation of an
allied city, a precedent which was followed by that of the rest in the
order which circumstances prescribed. Of all the causes of
defection, that connected with arrears of tribute and vessels, and
with failure of service, was the chief; for the Athenians were very
severe and exacting, and made themselves offensive by applying the
screw of necessity to men who were not used to and in fact not
disposed for any continuous labour. In some other respects the
Athenians were not the old popular rulers they had been at first;
and if they had more than their fair share of service, it was
correspondingly easy for them to reduce any that tried to leave the
confederacy. For this the allies had themselves to blame; the wish
to get off service making most of them arrange to pay their share of
the expense in money instead of in ships, and so to avoid having to
leave their homes. Thus while Athens was increasing her navy with
the funds which they contributed, a revolt always found them without
resources or experience for war.
Next we come to the actions by land and by sea at the river
Eurymedon, between the Athenians with their allies, and the Medes,
when the Athenians won both battles on the same day under the
conduct of Cimon, son of Miltiades, and captured and destroyed the
whole Phoenician fleet, consisting of two hundred vessels. Some time
afterwards occurred the defection of the Thasians, caused by
disagreements about the marts on the opposite coast of Thrace, and
about the mine in their possession. Sailing with a fleet to Thasos,
the Athenians defeated them at sea and effected a landing on the
island. About the same time they sent ten thousand settlers of their
own citizens and the allies to settle the place then called Ennea
Hodoi or Nine Ways, now Amphipolis. They succeeded in gaining
possession of Ennea Hodoi from the Edonians, but on advancing into the
interior of Thrace were cut off in Drabescus, a town of the
Edonians, by the assembled Thracians, who regarded the settlement of
the place Ennea Hodoi as an act of hostility. Meanwhile the Thasians
being defeated in the field and suffering siege, appealed to
Lacedaemon, and desired her to assist them by an invasion of Attica.
Without informing Athens, she promised and intended to do so, but
was prevented by the occurrence of the earthquake, accompanied by
the secession of the Helots and the Thuriats and Aethaeans of the
Perioeci to Ithome. Most of the Helots were the descendants of the old
Messenians that were enslaved in the famous war; and so all of them
came to be called Messenians. So the Lacedaemonians being engaged in a
war with the rebels in Ithome, the Thasians in the third year of the
siege obtained terms from the Athenians by razing their walls,
delivering up their ships, and arranging to pay the moneys demanded at
once, and tribute in future; giving up their possessions on the
continent together with the mine.
The Lacedaemonians, meanwhile, finding the war against the rebels in
Ithome likely to last, invoked the aid of their allies, and especially
of the Athenians, who came in some force under the command of Cimon.
The reason for this pressing summons lay in their reputed skill in
siege operations; a long siege had taught the Lacedaemonians their own
deficiency in this art, else they would have taken the place by
assault. The first open quarrel between the Lacedaemonians and
Athenians arose out of this expedition. The Lacedaemonians, when
assault failed to take the place, apprehensive of the enterprising and
revolutionary character of the Athenians, and further looking upon
them as of alien extraction, began to fear that, if they remained,
they might be tempted by the besieged in Ithome to attempt some
political changes. They accordingly dismissed them alone of the
allies, without declaring their suspicions, but merely saying that
they had now no need of them. But the Athenians, aware that their
dismissal did not proceed from the more honourable reason of the
two, but from suspicions which had been conceived, went away deeply
offended, and conscious of having done nothing to merit such treatment
from the Lacedaemonians; and the instant that they returned home
they broke off the alliance which had been made against the Mede,
and allied themselves with Sparta's enemy Argos; each of the
contracting parties taking the same oaths and making the same alliance
with the Thessalians.
Meanwhile the rebels in Ithome, unable to prolong further a ten
years' resistance, surrendered to Lacedaemon; the conditions being
that they should depart from Peloponnese under safe conduct, and
should never set foot in it again: any one who might hereafter be
found there was to be the slave of his captor. It must be known that
the Lacedaemonians had an old oracle from Delphi, to the effect that
they should let go the suppliant of Zeus at Ithome. So they went forth
with their children and their wives, and being received by Athens from
the hatred that she now felt for the Lacedaemonians, were located at
Naupactus, which she had lately taken from the Ozolian Locrians. The
Athenians received another addition to their confederacy in the
Megarians; who left the Lacedaemonian alliance, annoyed by a war about
boundaries forced on them by Corinth. The Athenians occupied Megara
and Pegae, and built the Megarians their long walls from the city to
Nisaea, in which they placed an Athenian garrison. This was the
principal cause of the Corinthians conceiving such a deadly hatred
against Athens.
Meanwhile Inaros, son of Psammetichus, a Libyan king of the
Libyans on the Egyptian border, having his headquarters at Marea,
the town above Pharos, caused a revolt of almost the whole of Egypt
from King Artaxerxes and, placing himself at its head, invited the
Athenians to his assistance. Abandoning a Cyprian expedition upon
which they happened to be engaged with two hundred ships of their
own and their allies, they arrived in Egypt and sailed from the sea
into the Nile, and making themselves masters of the river and
two-thirds of Memphis, addressed themselves to the attack of the
remaining third, which is called White Castle. Within it were Persians
and Medes who had taken refuge there, and Egyptians who had not joined
the rebellion.
Meanwhile the Athenians, making a descent from their fleet upon
Haliae, were engaged by a force of Corinthians and Epidaurians; and
the Corinthians were victorious. Afterwards the Athenians engaged
the Peloponnesian fleet off Cecruphalia; and the Athenians were
victorious. Subsequently war broke out between Aegina and Athens,
and there was a great battle at sea off Aegina between the Athenians
and Aeginetans, each being aided by their allies; in which victory
remained with the Athenians, who took seventy of the enemy's ships,
and landed in the country and commenced a siege under the command of
Leocrates, son of Stroebus. Upon this the Peloponnesians, desirous
of aiding the Aeginetans, threw into Aegina a force of three hundred
heavy infantry, who had before been serving with the Corinthians and
Epidaurians. Meanwhile the Corinthians and their allies occupied the
heights of Geraneia, and marched down into the Megarid, in the
belief that, with a large force absent in Aegina and Egypt, Athens
would be unable to help the Megarians without raising the siege of
Aegina. But the Athenians, instead of moving the army of Aegina,
raised a force of the old and young men that had been left in the
city, and marched into the Megarid under the command of Myronides.
After a drawn battle with the Corinthians, the rival hosts parted,
each with the impression that they had gained the victory. The
Athenians, however, if anything, had rather the advantage, and on
the departure of the Corinthians set up a trophy. Urged by the
taunts of the elders in their city, the Corinthians made their
preparations, and about twelve days afterwards came and set up their
trophy as victors. Sallying out from Megara, the Athenians cut off the
party that was employed in erecting the trophy, and engaged and
defeated the rest. In the retreat of the vanquished army, a
considerable division, pressed by the pursuers and mistaking the road,
dashed into a field on some private property, with a deep trench all
round it, and no way out. Being acquainted with the place, the
Athenians hemmed their front with heavy infantry and, placing the
light troops round in a circle, stoned all who had gone in. Corinth
here suffered a severe blow. The bulk of her army continued its
retreat home.
About this time the Athenians began to build the long walls to the
sea, that towards Phalerum and that towards Piraeus. Meanwhile the
Phocians made an expedition against Doris, the old home of the
Lacedaemonians, containing the towns of Boeum, Kitinium, and
Erineum. They had taken one of these towns, when the Lacedaemonians
under Nicomedes, son of Cleombrotus, commanding for King
Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, who was still a minor, came to the
aid of the Dorians with fifteen hundred heavy infantry of their own,
and ten thousand of their allies. After compelling the Phocians to
restore the town on conditions, they began their retreat. The route by
sea, across the Crissaean Gulf, exposed them to the risk of being
stopped by the Athenian fleet; that across Geraneia seemed scarcely
safe, the Athenians holding Megara and Pegae. For the pass was a
difficult one, and was always guarded by the Athenians; and, in the
present instance, the Lacedaemonians had information that they meant
to dispute their passage. So they resolved to remain in Boeotia, and
to consider which would be the safest line of march. They had also
another reason for this resolve. Secret encouragement had been given
them by a party in Athens, who hoped to put an end to the reign of
democracy and the building of the Long Walls. Meanwhile the
Athenians marched against them with their whole levy and a thousand
Argives and the respective contingents of the rest of their allies.
Altogether they were fourteen thousand strong. The march was
prompted by the notion that the Lacedaemonians were at a loss how to
effect their passage, and also by suspicions of an attempt to
overthrow the democracy. Some cavalry also joined the Athenians from
their Thessalian allies; but these went over to the Lacedaemonians
during the battle.
The battle was fought at Tanagra in Boeotia. After heavy loss on
both sides, victory declared for the Lacedaemonians and their
allies. After entering the Megarid and cutting down the fruit trees,
the Lacedaemonians returned home across Geraneia and the isthmus.
Sixty-two days after the battle the Athenians marched into Boeotia
under the command of Myronides, defeated the Boeotians in battle at
Oenophyta, and became masters of Boeotia and Phocis. They dismantled
the walls of the Tanagraeans, took a hundred of the richest men of the
Opuntian Locrians as hostages, and finished their own long walls. This
was followed by the surrender of the Aeginetans to Athens on
conditions; they pulled down their walls, gave up their ships, and
agreed to pay tribute in future. The Athenians sailed round
Peloponnese under Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus, burnt the arsenal of
Lacedaemon, took Chalcis, a town of the Corinthians, and in a
descent upon Sicyon defeated the Sicyonians in battle.
Meanwhile the Athenians in Egypt and their allies were still
there, and encountered all the vicissitudes of war. First the
Athenians were masters of Egypt, and the King sent Megabazus a Persian
to Lacedaemon with money to bribe the Peloponnesians to invade
Attica and so draw off the Athenians from Egypt. Finding that the
matter made no progress, and that the money was only being wasted,
he recalled Megabazus with the remainder of the money, and sent
Megabuzus, son of Zopyrus, a Persian, with a large army to Egypt.
Arriving by land he defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a
battle, and drove the Hellenes out of Memphis, and at length shut them
up in the island of Prosopitis, where he besieged them for a year
and six months. At last, draining the canal of its waters, which he
diverted into another channel, he left their ships high and dry and
joined most of the island to the mainland, and then marched over on
foot and captured it. Thus the enterprise of the Hellenes came to ruin
after six years of war. Of all that large host a few travelling
through Libya reached Cyrene in safety, but most of them perished. And
thus Egypt returned to its subjection to the King, except Amyrtaeus,
the king in the marshes, whom they were unable to capture from the
extent of the marsh; the marshmen being also the most warlike of the
Egyptians. Inaros, the Libyan king, the sole author of the Egyptian
revolt, was betrayed, taken, and crucified. Meanwhile a relieving
squadron of fifty vessels had sailed from Athens and the rest of the
confederacy for Egypt. They put in to shore at the Mendesian mouth
of the Nile, in total ignorance of what had occurred. Attacked on
the land side by the troops, and from the sea by the Phoenician
navy, most of the ships were destroyed; the few remaining being
saved by retreat. Such was the end of the great expedition of the
Athenians and their allies to Egypt.
Meanwhile Orestes, son of Echecratidas, the Thessalian king, being
an exile from Thessaly, persuaded the Athenians to restore him. Taking
with them the Boeotians and Phocians their allies, the Athenians
marched to Pharsalus in Thessaly. They became masters of the
country, though only in the immediate vicinity of the camp; beyond
which they could not go for fear of the Thessalian cavalry. But they
failed to take the city or to attain any of the other objects of their
expedition, and returned home with Orestes without having effected
anything. Not long after this a thousand of the Athenians embarked
in the vessels that were at Pegae (Pegae, it must be remembered, was
now theirs), and sailed along the coast to Sicyon under the command of
Pericles, son of Xanthippus. Landing in Sicyon and defeating the
Sicyonians who engaged them, they immediately took with them the
Achaeans and, sailing across, marched against and laid siege to
Oeniadae in Acarnania. Failing however to take it, they returned home.
Three years afterwards a truce was made between the Peloponnesians
and Athenians for five years. Released from Hellenic war, the
Athenians made an expedition to Cyprus with two hundred vessels of
their own and their allies, under the command of Cimon. Sixty of these
were detached to Egypt at the instance of Amyrtaeus, the king in the
marshes; the rest laid siege to Kitium, from which, however, they were
compelled to retire by the death of Cimon and by scarcity of
provisions. Sailing off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought with the
Phoenicians, Cyprians, and Cilicians by land and sea, and, being
victorious on both elements departed home, and with them the
returned squadron from Egypt. After this the Lacedaemonians marched
out on a sacred war, and, becoming masters of the temple at Delphi, it
in the hands of the Delphians. Immediately after their retreat, the
Athenians marched out, became masters of the temple, and placed it
in the hands of the Phocians.
Some time after this, Orchomenus, Chaeronea, and some other places
in Boeotia being in the hands of the Boeotian exiles, the Athenians
marched against the above-mentioned hostile places with a thousand
Athenian heavy infantry and the allied contingents, under the
command of Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus. They took Chaeronea, and made
slaves of the inhabitants, and, leaving a garrison, commenced their
return. On their road they were attacked at Coronea by the Boeotian
exiles from Orchomenus, with some Locrians and Euboean exiles, and
others who were of the same way of thinking, were defeated in
battle, and some killed, others taken captive. The Athenians evacuated
all Boeotia by a treaty providing for the recovery of the men; and the
exiled Boeotians returned, and with all the rest regained their
independence.
This was soon afterwards followed by the revolt of Euboea from
Athens. Pericles had already crossed over with an army of Athenians to
the island, when news was brought to him that Megara had revolted,
that the Peloponnesians were on the point of invading Attica, and that
the Athenian garrison had been cut off by the Megarians, with the
exception of a few who had taken refuge in Nisaea. The Megarians had
introduced the Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians into the
town before they revolted. Meanwhile Pericles brought his army back in
all haste from Euboea. After this the Peloponnesians marched into
Attica as far as Eleusis and Thrius, ravaging the country under the
conduct of King Pleistoanax, the son of Pausanias, and without
advancing further returned home. The Athenians then crossed over again
to Euboea under the command of Pericles, and subdued the whole of
the island: all but Histiaea was settled by convention; the Histiaeans
they expelled from their homes, and occupied their territory
themselves.
Not long after their return from Euboea, they made a truce with
the Lacedaemonians and their allies for thirty years, giving up the
posts which they occupied in Peloponnese- Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and
Achaia. In the sixth year of the truce, war broke out between the
Samians and Milesians about Priene. Worsted in the war, the
Milesians came to Athens with loud complaints against the Samians.
In this they were joined by certain private persons from Samos itself,
who wished to revolutionize the government. Accordingly the
Athenians sailed to Samos with forty ships and set up a democracy;
took hostages from the Samians, fifty boys and as many men, lodged
them in Lemnos, and after leaving a garrison in the island returned
home. But some of the Samians had not remained in the island, but
had fled to the continent. Making an agreement with the most
powerful of those in the city, and an alliance with Pissuthnes, son of
Hystaspes, the then satrap of Sardis, they got together a force of
seven hundred mercenaries, and under cover of night crossed over to
Samos. Their first step was to rise on the commons, most of whom
they secured; their next to steal their hostages from Lemnos; after
which they revolted, gave up the Athenian garrison left with them
and its commanders to Pissuthnes, and instantly prepared for an
expedition against Miletus. The Byzantines also revolted with them.
As soon as the Athenians heard the news, they sailed with sixty
ships against Samos. Sixteen of these went to Caria to look out for
the Phoenician fleet, and to Chios and Lesbos carrying round orders
for reinforcements, and so never engaged; but forty-four ships under
the command of Pericles with nine colleagues gave battle, off the
island of Tragia, to seventy Samian vessels, of which twenty were
transports, as they were sailing from Miletus. Victory remained with
the Athenians. Reinforced afterwards by forty ships from Athens, and
twenty-five Chian and Lesbian vessels, the Athenians landed, and
having the superiority by land invested the city with three walls;
it was also invested from the sea. Meanwhile Pericles took sixty ships
from the blockading squadron, and departed in haste for Caunus and
Caria, intelligence having been brought in of the approach of the
Phoenician fleet to the aid of the Samians; indeed Stesagoras and
others had left the island with five ships to bring them. But in the
meantime the Samians made a sudden sally, and fell on the camp,
which they found unfortified. Destroying the look-out vessels, and
engaging and defeating such as were being launched to meet them,
they remained masters of their own seas for fourteen days, and carried
in and carried out what they pleased. But on the arrival of
Pericles, they were once more shut up. Fresh reinforcements afterwards
arrived- forty ships from Athens with Thucydides, Hagnon, and
Phormio; twenty with Tlepolemus and Anticles, and thirty vessels
from Chios and Lesbos. After a brief attempt at fighting, the Samians,
unable to hold out, were reduced after a nine months' siege and
surrendered on conditions; they razed their walls, gave hostages,
delivered up their ships, and arranged to pay the expenses of the
war by instalments. The Byzantines also agreed to be subject as
before.
CHAPTER V.

Second Congress at Lacedaemon - Preparations
for War and Diplomatic Skirmishes - Cylon -
Pausanias - Themistocles

AFTER this, though not many years later, we at length come to what
has been already related, the affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea, and the
events that served as a pretext for the present war. All these actions
of the Hellenes against each other and the barbarian occurred in the
fifty years' interval between the retreat of Xerxes and the
beginning of the present war. During this interval the Athenians
succeeded in placing their empire on a firmer basis, and advanced
their own home power to a very great height. The Lacedaemonians,
though fully aware of it, opposed it only for a little while, but
remained inactive during most of the period, being of old slow to go
to war except under the pressure of necessity, and in the present
instance being hampered by wars at home; until the growth of the
Athenian power could be no longer ignored, and their own confederacy
became the object of its encroachments. They then felt that they could
endure it no longer, but that the time had come for them to throw
themselves heart and soul upon the hostile power, and break it, if
they could, by commencing the present war. And though the
Lacedaemonians had made up their own minds on the fact of the breach
of the treaty and the guilt of the Athenians, yet they sent to
Delphi and inquired of the God whether it would be well with them if
they went to war; and, as it is reported, received from him the answer
that if they put their whole strength into the war, victory would be
theirs, and the promise that he himself would be with them, whether
invoked or uninvoked. Still they wished to summon their allies
again, and to take their vote on the propriety of making war. After
the ambassadors from the confederates had arrived and a congress had
been convened, they all spoke their minds, most of them denouncing the
Athenians and demanding that the war should begin. In particular the
Corinthians. They had before on their own account canvassed the cities
in detail to induce them to vote for the war, in the fear that it
might come too late to save Potidaea; they were present also on this
occasion, and came forward the last, and made the following speech:
"Fellow allies, we can no longer accuse the Lacedaemonians of having
failed in their duty: they have not only voted for war themselves, but
have assembled us here for that purpose. We say their duty, for
supremacy has its duties. Besides equitably administering private
interests, leaders are required to show a special care for the
common welfare in return for the special honours accorded to them by
all in other ways. For ourselves, all who have already had dealings
with the Athenians require no warning to be on their guard against
them. The states more inland and out of the highway of communication
should understand that, if they omit to support the coast powers,
the result will be to injure the transit of their produce for
exportation and the reception in exchange of their imports from the
sea; and they must not be careless judges of what is now said, as if
it had nothing to do with them, but must expect that the sacrifice
of the powers on the coast will one day be followed by the extension
of the danger to the interior, and must recognize that their own
interests are deeply involved in this discussion. For these reasons
they should not hesitate to exchange peace for war. If wise men remain
quiet, while they are not injured, brave men abandon peace for war
when they are injured, returning to an understanding on a favourable
opportunity: in fact, they are neither intoxicated by their success in
war, nor disposed to take an injury for the sake of the delightful
tranquillity of peace. Indeed, to falter for the sake of such delights
is, if you remain inactive, the quickest way of losing the sweets of
repose to which you cling; while to conceive extravagant pretensions
from success in war is to forget how hollow is the confidence by which
you are elated. For if many ill-conceived plans have succeeded through
the still greater fatuity of an opponent, many more, apparently well
laid, have on the contrary ended in disgrace. The confidence with
which we form our schemes is never completely justified in their
execution; speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes
to action, fear causes failure.
"To apply these rules to ourselves, if we are now kindling war it is
under the pressure of injury, with adequate grounds of complaint;
and after we have chastised the Athenians we will in season desist. We
have many reasons to expect success- first, superiority in numbers
and in military experience, and secondly our general and unvarying
obedience in the execution of orders. The naval strength which they
possess shall be raised by us from our respective antecedent
resources, and from the moneys at Olympia and Delphi. A loan from
these enables us to seduce their foreign sailors by the offer of
higher pay. For the power of Athens is more mercenary than national;
while ours will not be exposed to the same risk, as its strength
lies more in men than in money. A single defeat at sea is in all
likelihood their ruin: should they hold out, in that case there will
be the more time for us to exercise ourselves in naval matters; and as
soon as we have arrived at an equality in science, we need scarcely
ask whether we shall be their superiors in courage. For the advantages
that we have by nature they cannot acquire by education; while their
superiority in science must be removed by our practice. The money
required for these objects shall be provided by our contributions:
nothing indeed could be more monstrous than the suggestion that, while
their allies never tire of contributing for their own servitude, we
should refuse to spend for vengeance and self-preservation the
treasure which by such refusal we shall forfeit to Athenian rapacity
and see employed for our own ruin.

"We have also other ways of carrying on the war, such as revolt of
their allies, the surest method of depriving them of their revenues,
which are the source of their strength, and establishment of fortified
positions in their country, and various operations which cannot be
foreseen at present. For war of all things proceeds least upon
definite rules, but draws principally upon itself for contrivances
to meet an emergency; and in such cases the party who faces the
struggle and keeps his temper best meets with most security, and he
who loses his temper about it with correspondent disaster. Let us also
reflect that if it was merely a number of disputes of territory
between rival neighbours, it might be borne; but here we have an enemy
in Athens that is a match for our whole coalition, and more than a
match for any of its members; so that unless as a body and as
individual nationalities and individual cities we make an unanimous
stand against her, she will easily conquer us divided and in detail.
That conquest, terrible as it may sound, would, it must be known, have
no other end than slavery pure and simple; a word which Peloponnese
cannot even hear whispered without disgrace, or without disgrace see
so many states abused by one. Meanwhile the opinion would be either
that we were justly so used, or that we put up with it from cowardice,
and were proving degenerate sons in not even securing for ourselves
the freedom which our fathers gave to Hellas; and in allowing the
establishment in Hellas of a tyrant state, though in individual states
we think it our duty to put down sole rulers. And we do not know how
this conduct can be held free from three of the gravest failings, want
of sense, of courage, or of vigilance. For we do not suppose that
you have taken refuge in that contempt of an enemy which has proved so
fatal in so many instances- a feeling which from the numbers that it
has ruined has come to be called not contemptuous but contemptible.
"There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past
further than may be of service to the present. For the future we
must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling
our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of
labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have
a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that
what was won in want should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly
advance to the war for many reasons; the god has commanded it and
promised to be with us, and the rest of Hellas will all join in the
struggle, part from fear, part from interest. You will be the first to
break a treaty which the god, in advising us to go to war, judges to
be violated already, but rather to support a treaty that has been
outraged: indeed, treaties are broken not by resistance but by
aggression.
"Your position, therefore, from whatever quarter you may view it,
will amply justify you in going to war; and this step we recommend
in the interests of all, bearing in mind that identity of interest
you have taken refuge in that contempt of an enemy which has proved so
fatal in so many instances- a feeling which from the numbers that it
has ruined has come to be called not contemptuous but contemptible.
"There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past
further than may be of service to the present. For the future we
must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling
our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of
labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have
a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that
what was won in want should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly
advance to the war for many reasons; the god has commanded it and
promised to be with us, and the rest of Hellas will all join in the
struggle, part from fear, part from interest. You will be the first to
break a treaty which the god, in advising us to go to war, judges to
be violated already, but rather to support a treaty that has been
outraged: indeed, treaties are broken not by resistance but by
aggression.
"Your position, therefore, from whatever quarter you may view it,
will amply justify you in going to war; and this step we recommend
in the interests of all, bearing in mind that identity of interest
you have taken refuge in that contempt of an enemy which has proved so
fatal in so many instances- a feeling which from the numbers that it
has ruined has come to be called not contemptuous but contemptible.
"There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past
further than may be of service to the present. For the future we
must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling
our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of
labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have
a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that
what was won in want should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly
advance to the war for many reasons; the god has commanded it and
promised to be with us, and the rest of Hellas will all join in the
struggle, part from fear, part from interest. You will be the first to
break a treaty which the god, in advising us to go to war, judges to
be violated already, but rather to support a treaty that has been
outraged: indeed, treaties are broken not by resistance but by
aggression.
"Your position, therefore, from whatever quarter you may view it,
will amply justify you in going to war; and this step we recommend
in the interests of all, bearing in mind that identity of interest
is the surest of bonds, whether between states or individuals. Delay
not, therefore, to assist Potidaea, a Dorian city besieged by Ionians,
which is quite a reversal of the order of things; nor to assert the
freedom of the rest. It is impossible for us to wait any longer when
waiting can only mean immediate disaster for some of us, and, if it
comes to be known that we have conferred but do not venture to protect
ourselves, like disaster in the near future for the rest. Delay not,
fellow allies, but, convinced of the necessity of the crisis and the
wisdom of this counsel, vote for the war, undeterred by its
immediate terrors, but looking beyond to the lasting peace by which it
will be succeeded. Out of war peace gains fresh stability, but to
refuse to abandon repose for war is not so sure a method of avoiding
danger. We must believe that the tyrant city that has been established
in Hellas has been established against all alike, with a programme
of universal empire, part fulfilled, part in contemplation; let us
then attack and reduce it, and win future security for ourselves and
freedom for the Hellenes who are now enslaved."
Such were the words of the Corinthians. The Lacedaemonians, having
now heard all, give their opinion, took the vote of all the allied
states present in order, great and small alike; and the majority voted
for war. This decided, it was still impossible for them to commence at
once, from their want of preparation; but it was resolved that the
means requisite were to be procured by the different states, and
that there was to be no delay. And indeed, in spite of the time
occupied with the necessary arrangements, less than a year elapsed
before Attica was invaded, and the war openly begun.
This interval was spent in sending embassies to Athens charged
with complaints, in order to obtain as good a pretext for war as
possible, in the event of her paying no attention to them. The first
Lacedaemonian embassy was to order the Athenians to drive out the
curse of the goddess; the history of which is as follows. In former
generations there was an Athenian of the name of Cylon, a victor at
the Olympic games, of good birth and powerful position, who had
married a daughter of Theagenes, a Megarian, at that time tyrant of
Megara. Now this Cylon was inquiring at Delphi; when he was told by
the god to seize the Acropolis of Athens on the grand festival of
Zeus. Accordingly, procuring a force from Theagenes and persuading his
friends to join him, when the Olympic festival in Peloponnese came, he
seized the Acropolis, with the intention of making himself tyrant,
thinking that this was the grand festival of Zeus, and also an
occasion appropriate for a victor at the Olympic games. Whether the
grand festival that was meant was in Attica or elsewhere was a
question which he never thought of, and which the oracle did not offer
to solve. For the Athenians also have a festival which is called the
grand festival of Zeus Meilichios or Gracious, viz., the Diasia. It is
celebrated outside the city, and the whole people sacrifice not real
victims but a number of bloodless offerings peculiar to the country.
However, fancying he had chosen the right time, he made the attempt.
As soon as the Athenians perceived it, they flocked in, one and all,
from the country, and sat down, and laid siege to the citadel. But
as time went on, weary of the labour of blockade, most of them
departed; the responsibility of keeping guard being left to the nine
archons, with plenary powers to arrange everything according to
their good judgment. It must be known that at that time most political
functions were discharged by the nine archons. Meanwhile Cylon and his
besieged companions were distressed for want of food and water.
Accordingly Cylon and his brother made their escape; but the rest
being hard pressed, and some even dying of famine, seated themselves
as suppliants at the altar in the Acropolis. The Athenians who were
charged with the duty of keeping guard, when they saw them at the
point of death in the temple, raised them up on the understanding that
no harm should be done to them, led them out, and slew them. Some
who as they passed by took refuge at the altars of the awful goddesses
were dispatched on the spot. From this deed the men who killed them
were called accursed and guilty against the goddess, they and their
descendants. Accordingly these cursed ones were driven out by the
Athenians, driven out again by Cleomenes of Lacedaemon and an Athenian
faction; the living were driven out, and the bones of the dead were
taken up; thus they were cast out. For all that, they came back
afterwards, and their descendants are still in the city.
This, then was the curse that the Lacedaemonians ordered them to
drive out. They were actuated primarily, as they pretended, by a
care for the honour of the gods; but they also know that Pericles, son
of Xanthippus, was connected with the curse on his mother's side,
and they thought that his banishment would materially advance their
designs on Athens. Not that they really hoped to succeed in
procuring this; they rather thought to create a prejudice against
him in the eyes of his countrymen from the feeling that the war
would be partly caused by his misfortune. For being the most
powerful man of his time, and the leading Athenian statesman, he
opposed the Lacedaemonians in everything, and would have no
concessions, but ever urged the Athenians on to war.
The Athenians retorted by ordering the Lacedaemonians to drive out
the curse of Taenarus. The Lacedaemonians had once raised up some
Helot suppliants from the temple of Poseidon at Taenarus, led them
away and slain them; for which they believe the great earthquake at
Sparta to have been a retribution. The Athenians also ordered them
to drive out the curse of the goddess of the Brazen House; the history
of which is as follows. After Pausanias the Lacedaemonian had been
recalled by the Spartans from his command in the Hellespont (this is
his first recall), and had been tried by them and acquitted, not being
again sent out in a public capacity, he took a galley of Hermione on
his own responsibility, without the authority of the Lacedaemonians,
and arrived as a private person in the Hellespont. He came
ostensibly for the Hellenic war, really to carry on his intrigues with
the King, which he had begun before his recall, being ambitious of
reigning over Hellas. The circumstance which first enabled him to
lay the King under an obligation, and to make a beginning of the whole
design, was this. Some connections and kinsmen of the King had been
taken in Byzantium, on its capture from the Medes, when he was first
there, after the return from Cyprus. These captives he sent off to the
King without the knowledge of the rest of the allies, the account
being that they had escaped from him. He managed this with the help of
Gongylus, an Eretrian, whom he had placed in charge of Byzantium and
the prisoners. He also gave Gongylus a letter for the King, the
contents of which were as follows, as was afterwards discovered:
"Pausanias, the general of Sparta, anxious to do you a favour, sends
you these his prisoners of war. I propose also, with your approval, to
marry your daughter, and to make Sparta and the rest of Hellas subject
to you. I may say that I think I am able to do this, with your
co-operation. Accordingly if any of this please you, send a safe man
to the sea through whom we may in future conduct our correspondence."
This was all that was revealed in the writing, and Xerxes was
pleased with the letter. He sent off Artabazus, son of Pharnaces, to
the sea with orders to supersede Megabates, the previous governor in
the satrapy of Daskylion, and to send over as quickly as possible to
Pausanias at Byzantium a letter which he entrusted to him; to show him
the royal signet, and to execute any commission which he might receive
from Pausanias on the King's matters with all care and fidelity.
Artabazus on his arrival carried the King's orders into effect, and
sent over the letter, which contained the following answer: "Thus
saith King Xerxes to Pausanias. For the men whom you have saved for me
across sea from Byzantium, an obligation is laid up for you in our
house, recorded for ever; and with your proposals I am well pleased.
Let neither night nor day stop you from diligently performing any of
your promises to me; neither for cost of gold nor of silver let them
be hindered, nor yet for number of troops, wherever it may be that
their presence is needed; but with Artabazus, an honourable man whom I
send you, boldly advance my objects and yours, as may be most for
the honour and interest of us both."
Before held in high honour by the Hellenes as the hero of Plataea,
Pausanias, after the receipt of this letter, became prouder than ever,
and could no longer live in the usual style, but went out of Byzantium
in a Median dress, was attended on his march through Thrace by a
bodyguard of Medes and Egyptians, kept a Persian table, and was
quite unable to contain his intentions, but betrayed by his conduct in
trifles what his ambition looked one day to enact on a grander
scale. He also made himself difficult of access, and displayed so
violent a temper to every one without exception that no one could come
near him. Indeed, this was the principal reason why the confederacy
went over to the Athenians.
The above-mentioned conduct, coming to the ears of the
Lacedaemonians, occasioned his first recall. And after his second
voyage out in the ship of Hermione, without their orders, he gave
proofs of similar behaviour. Besieged and expelled from Byzantium by
the Athenians, he did not return to Sparta; but news came that he
had settled at Colonae in the Troad, and was intriguing with the
barbarians, and that his stay there was for no good purpose; and the
ephors, now no longer hesitating, sent him a herald and a scytale with
orders to accompany the herald or be declared a public enemy.
Anxious above everything to avoid suspicion, and confident that he
could quash the charge by means of money, he returned a second time to
Sparta. At first thrown into prison by the ephors (whose powers enable
them to do this to the King), soon compromised the matter and came out
again, and offered himself for trial to any who wished to institute an
inquiry concerning him.
Now the Spartans had no tangible proof against him- neither his
enemies nor the nation- of that indubitable kind required for the
punishment of a member of the royal family, and at that moment in high
office; he being regent for his first cousin King Pleistarchus,
Leonidas's son, who was still a minor. But by his contempt of the laws
and imitation of the barbarians, he gave grounds for much suspicion of
his being discontented with things established; all the occasions on
which he had in any way departed from the regular customs were
passed in review, and it was remembered that he had taken upon himself
to have inscribed on the tripod at Delphi, which was dedicated by
the Hellenes as the first-fruits of the spoil of the Medes, the
following couplet:

The Mede defeated, great Pausanias raised
This monument, that Phoebus might be praised.

At the time the Lacedaemonians had at once erased the couplet, and
inscribed the names of the cities that had aided in the overthrow of
the barbarian and dedicated the offering. Yet it was considered that
Pausanias had here been guilty of a grave offence, which,
interpreted by the light of the attitude which he had since assumed,
gained a new significance, and seemed to be quite in keeping with
his present schemes. Besides, they were informed that he was even
intriguing with the Helots; and such indeed was the fact, for he
promised them freedom and citizenship if they would join him in
insurrection and would help him to carry out his plans to the end.
Even now, mistrusting the evidence even of the Helots themselves,
the ephors would not consent to take any decided step against him;
in accordance with their regular custom towards themselves, namely, to
be slow in taking any irrevocable resolve in the matter of a Spartan
citizen without indisputable proof. At last, it is said, the person
who was going to carry to Artabazus the last letter for the King, a
man of Argilus, once the favourite and most trusty servant of
Pausanias, turned informer. Alarmed by the reflection that none of the
previous messengers had ever returned, having counterfeited the
seal, in order that, if he found himself mistaken in his surmises,
or if Pausanias should ask to make some correction, he might not be
discovered, he undid the letter, and found the postscript that he
had suspected, viz., an order to put him to death.
On being shown the letter, the ephors now felt more certain.
Still, they wished to hear Pausanias commit himself with their own
ears. Accordingly the man went by appointment to Taenarus as a
suppliant, and there built himself a hut divided into two by a
partition; within which he concealed some of the ephors and let them
hear the whole matter plainly. For Pausanias came to him and asked him
the reason of his suppliant position; and the man reproached him
with the order that he had written concerning him, and one by one
declared all the rest of the circumstances, how he who had never yet
brought him into any danger, while employed as agent between him and
the King, was yet just like the mass of his servants to be rewarded
with death. Admitting all this, and telling him not to be angry
about the matter, Pausanias gave him the pledge of raising him up from
the temple, and begged him to set off as quickly as possible, and
not to hinder the business in hand.
The ephors listened carefully, and then departed, taking no action
for the moment, but, having at last attained to certainty, were
preparing to arrest him in the city. It is reported that, as he was
about to be arrested in the street, he saw from the face of one of the
ephors what he was coming for; another, too, made him a secret signal,
and betrayed it to him from kindness. Setting off with a run for the
temple of the goddess of the Brazen House, the enclosure of which
was near at hand, he succeeded in taking sanctuary before they took
him, and entering into a small chamber, which formed part of the
temple, to avoid being exposed to the weather, lay still there. The
ephors, for the moment distanced in the pursuit, afterwards took off
the roof of the chamber, and having made sure that he was inside, shut
him in, barricaded the doors, and staying before the place, reduced
him by starvation. When they found that he was on the point of
expiring, just as he was, in the chamber, they brought him out of
the temple, while the breath was still in him, and as soon as he was
brought out he died. They were going to throw him into the Kaiadas,
where they cast criminals, but finally decided to inter him
somewhere near. But the god at Delphi afterwards ordered the
Lacedaemonians to remove the tomb to the place of his death- where he
now lies in the consecrated ground, as an inscription on a monument
declares- and, as what had been done was a curse to them, to give
back two bodies instead of one to the goddess of the Brazen House.
So they had two brazen statues made, and dedicated them as a
substitute for Pausanias. the Athenians retorted by telling the
Lacedaemonians to drive out what the god himself had pronounced to
be a curse.
To return to the Medism of Pausanias. Matter was found in the course
of the inquiry to implicate Themistocles; and the Lacedaemonians
accordingly sent envoys to the Athenians and required them to punish
him as they had punished Pausanias. The Athenians consented to do
so. But he had, as it happened, been ostracized, and, with a residence
at Argos, was in the habit of visiting other parts of Peloponnese.
So they sent with the Lacedaemonians, who were ready to join in the
pursuit, persons with instructions to take him wherever they found
him. But Themistocles got scent of their intentions, and fled from
Peloponnese to Corcyra, which was under obligations towards him. But
the Corcyraeans alleged that they could not venture to shelter him
at the cost of offending Athens and Lacedaemon, and they conveyed
him over to the continent opposite. Pursued by the officers who hung
on the report of his movements, at a loss where to turn, he was
compelled to stop at the house of Admetus, the Molossian king,
though they were not on friendly terms. Admetus happened not to be
indoors, but his wife, to whom he made himself a suppliant, instructed
him to take their child in his arms and sit down by the hearth. Soon
afterwards Admetus came in, and Themistocles told him who he was,
and begged him not to revenge on Themistocles in exile any
opposition which his requests might have experienced from Themistocles
at Athens. Indeed, he was now far too low for his revenge; retaliation
was only honourable between equals. Besides, his opposition to the
king had only affected the success of a request, not the safety of his
person; if the king were to give him up to the pursuers that he
mentioned, and the fate which they intended for him, he would just
be consigning him to certain death.
The King listened to him and raised him up with his son, as he was
sitting with him in his arms after the most effectual method of
supplication, and on the arrival of the Lacedaemonians not long
afterwards, refused to give him up for anything they could say, but
sent him off by land to the other sea to Pydna in Alexander's
dominions, as he wished to go to the Persian king. There he met with a
merchantman on the point of starting for Ionia. Going on board, he was
carried by a storm to the Athenian squadron which was blockading
Naxos. In his alarm- he was luckily unknown to the people in the
vessel- he told the master who he was and what he was flying for, and
said that, if he refused to save him, he would declare that he was
taking him for a bribe. Meanwhile their safety consisted in letting no
one leave the ship until a favourable time for sailing should arise.
If he complied with his wishes, he promised him a proper recompense.
The master acted as he desired, and, after lying to for a day and a
night out of reach of the squadron, at length arrived at Ephesus.
After having rewarded him with a present of money, as soon as he
received some from his friends at Athens and from his secret hoards at
Argos, Themistocles started inland with one of the coast Persians, and
sent a letter to King Artaxerxes, Xerxes's son, who had just come to
the throne. Its contents were as follows: "I, Themistocles, am come to
you, who did your house more harm than any of the Hellenes, when I was
compelled to defend myself against your father's invasion- harm,
however, far surpassed by the good that I did him during his
retreat, which brought no danger for me but much for him. For the
past, you are a good turn in my debt"- here he mentioned the warning
sent to Xerxes from Salamis to retreat, as well as his finding the
bridges unbroken, which, as he falsely pretended, was due to him-
"for the present, able to do you great service, I am here, pursued
by the Hellenes for my friendship for you. However, I desire a
year's grace, when I shall be able to declare in person the objects of
my coming."
It is said that the King approved his intention, and told him to
do as he said. He employed the interval in making what progress he
could in the study of the Persian tongue, and of the customs of the
country. Arrived at court at the end of the year, he attained to
very high consideration there, such as no Hellene has ever possessed
before or since; partly from his splendid antecedents, partly from the
hopes which he held out of effecting for him the subjugation of
Hellas, but principally by the proof which experience daily gave of
his capacity. For Themistocles was a man who exhibited the most
indubitable signs of genius; indeed, in this particular he has a claim
on our admiration quite extraordinary and unparalleled. By his own
native capacity, alike unformed and unsupplemented by study, he was at
once the best judge in those sudden crises which admit of little or of
no deliberation, and the best prophet of the future, even to its
most distant possibilities. An able theoretical expositor of all
that came within the sphere of his practice, he was not without the
power of passing an adequate judgment in matters in which he had no
experience. He could also excellently divine the good and evil which
lay hid in the unseen future. In fine, whether we consider the
extent of his natural powers, or the slightness of his application,
this extraordinary man must be allowed to have surpassed all others in
the faculty of intuitively meeting an emergency. Disease was the
real cause of his death; though there is a story of his having ended
his life by poison, on finding himself unable to fulfil his promises
to the king. However this may be, there is a monument to him in the
marketplace of Asiatic Magnesia. He was governor of the district,
the King having given him Magnesia, which brought in fifty talents a
year, for bread, Lampsacus, which was considered to be the richest
wine country, for wine, and Myos for other provisions. His bones, it
is said, were conveyed home by his relatives in accordance with his
wishes, and interred in Attic ground. This was done without the
knowledge of the Athenians; as it is against the law to bury in Attica
an outlaw for treason. So ends the history of Pausanias and
Themistocles, the Lacedaemonian and the Athenian, the most famous
men of their time in Hellas.
To return to the Lacedaemonians. The history of their first embassy,
the injunctions which it conveyed, and the rejoinder which it
provoked, concerning the expulsion of the accursed persons, have
been related already. It was followed by a second, which ordered
Athens to raise the siege of Potidaea, and to respect the independence
of Aegina. Above all, it gave her most distinctly to understand that
war might be prevented by the revocation of the Megara decree,
excluding the Megarians from the use of Athenian harbours and of the
market of Athens. But Athens was not inclined either to revoke the
decree, or to entertain their other proposals; she accused the
Megarians of pushing their cultivation into the consecrated ground and
the unenclosed land on the border, and of harbouring her runaway
slaves. At last an embassy arrived with the Lacedaemonian ultimatum.
The ambassadors were Ramphias, Melesippus, and Agesander. Not a word
was said on any of the old subjects; there was simply this:
"Lacedaemon wishes the peace to continue, and there is no reason why
it should not, if you would leave the Hellenes independent." Upon this
the Athenians held an assembly, and laid the matter before their
consideration. It was resolved to deliberate once for all on all their
demands, and to give them an answer. There were many speakers who came
forward and gave their support to one side or the other, urging the
necessity of war, or the revocation of the decree and the folly of
allowing it to stand in the way of peace. Among them came forward
Pericles, son of Xanthippus, the first man of his time at Athens,
ablest alike in counsel and in action, and gave the following advice:
"There is one principle, Athenians, which I hold to through
everything, and that is the principle of no concession to the
Peloponnesians. I know that the spirit which inspires men while they
are being persuaded to make war is not always retained in action; that
as circumstances change, resolutions change. Yet I see that now as
before the same, almost literally the same, counsel is demanded of me;
and I put it to those of you who are allowing yourselves to be
persuaded, to support the national resolves even in the case of
reverses, or to forfeit all credit for their wisdom in the event of
success. For sometimes the course of things is as arbitrary as the
plans of man; indeed this is why we usually blame chance for
whatever does not happen as we expected. Now it was clear before
that Lacedaemon entertained designs against us; it is still more clear
now. The treaty provides that we shall mutually submit our differences
to legal settlement, and that we shall meanwhile each keep what we
have. Yet the Lacedaemonians never yet made us any such offer, never
yet would accept from us any such offer; on the contrary, they wish
complaints to be settled by war instead of by negotiation; and in
the end we find them here dropping the tone of expostulation and
adopting that of command. They order us to raise the siege of
Potidaea, to let Aegina be independent, to revoke the Megara decree;
and they conclude with an ultimatum warning us to leave the Hellenes
independent. I hope that you will none of you think that we shall be
going to war for a trifle if we refuse to revoke the Megara decree,
which appears in front of their complaints, and the revocation of
which is to save us from war, or let any feeling of self-reproach
linger in your minds, as if you went to war for slight cause. Why,
this trifle contains the whole seal and trial of your resolution. If
you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand,
as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance;
while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they
must treat you more as equals. Make your decision therefore at once,
either to submit before you are harmed, or if we are to go to war,
as I for one think we ought, to do so without caring whether the
ostensible cause be great or small, resolved against making
concessions or consenting to a precarious tenure of our possessions.
For all claims from an equal, urged upon a neighbour as commands
before any attempt at legal settlement, be they great or be they
small, have only one meaning, and that is slavery.
"As to the war and the resources of either party, a detailed
comparison will not show you the inferiority of Athens. Personally
engaged in the cultivation of their land, without funds either private
or public, the Peloponnesians are also without experience in long wars
across sea, from the strict limit which poverty imposes on their
attacks upon each other. Powers of this description are quite
incapable of often manning a fleet or often sending out an army:
they cannot afford the absence from their homes, the expenditure
from their own funds; and besides, they have not command of the sea.
Capital, it must be remembered, maintains a war more than forced
contributions. Farmers are a class of men that are always more ready
to serve in person than in purse. Confident that the former will
survive the dangers, they are by no means so sure that the latter will
not be prematurely exhausted, especially if the war last longer than
they expect, which it very likely will. In a single battle the
Peloponnesians and their allies may be able to defy all Hellas, but
they are incapacitated from carrying on a war against a power
different in character from their own, by the want of the single
council-chamber requisite to prompt and vigorous action, and the
substitution of a diet composed of various races, in which every state
possesses an equal vote, and each presses its own ends, a condition of
things which generally results in no action at all. The great wish
of some is to avenge themselves on some particular enemy, the great
wish of others to save their own pocket. Slow in assembling, they
devote a very small fraction of the time to the consideration of any
public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects.
Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come of his neglect, that
it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for
him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately,
the common cause imperceptibly decays.
"But the principal point is the hindrance that they will
experience from want of money. The slowness with which it comes in
will cause delay; but the opportunities of war wait for no man. Again,
we need not be alarmed either at the possibility of their raising
fortifications in Attica, or at their navy. It would be difficult
for any system of fortifications to establish a rival city, even in
time of peace, much more, surely, in an enemy's country, with Athens
just as much fortified against it as it against Athens; while a mere
post might be able to do some harm to the country by incursions and by
the facilities which it would afford for desertion, but can never
prevent our sailing into their country and raising fortifications
there, and making reprisals with our powerful fleet. For our naval
skill is of more use to us for service on land, than their military
skill for service at sea. Familiarity with the sea they will not
find an easy acquisition. If you who have been practising at it ever
since the Median invasion have not yet brought it to perfection, is
there any chance of anything considerable being effected by an
agricultural, unseafaring population, who will besides be prevented
from practising by the constant presence of strong squadrons of
observation from Athens? With a small squadron they might hazard an
engagement, encouraging their ignorance by numbers; but the
restraint of a strong force will prevent their moving, and through
want of practice they will grow more clumsy, and consequently more
timid. It must be kept in mind that seamanship, just like anything
else, is a matter of art, and will not admit of being taken up
occasionally as an occupation for times of leisure; on the contrary,
it is so exacting as to leave leisure for nothing else.
"Even if they were to touch the moneys at Olympia or Delphi, and try
to seduce our foreign sailors by the temptation of higher pay, that
would only be a serious danger if we could not still be a match for
them by embarking our own citizens and the aliens resident among us.
But in fact by this means we are always a match for them; and, best of
all, we have a larger and higher class of native coxswains and sailors
among our own citizens than all the rest of Hellas. And to say nothing
of the danger of such a step, none of our foreign sailors would
consent to become an outlaw from his country, and to take service with
them and their hopes, for the sake of a few days' high pay.
"This, I think, is a tolerably fair account of the position of the
Peloponnesians; that of Athens is free from the defects that I have
criticized in them, and has other advantages of its own, which they
can show nothing to equal. If they march against our country we will
sail against theirs, and it will then be found that the desolation
of the whole of Attica is not the same as that of even a fraction of
Peloponnese; for they will not be able to supply the deficiency except
by a battle, while we have plenty of land both on the islands and
the continent. The rule of the sea is indeed a great matter.
Consider for a moment. Suppose that we were islanders; can you
conceive a more impregnable position? Well, this in future should,
as far as possible, be our conception of our position. Dismissing
all thought of our land and houses, we must vigilantly guard the sea
and the city. No irritation that we may feel for the former must
provoke us to a battle with the numerical superiority of the
Peloponnesians. A victory would only be succeeded by another battle
against the same superiority: a reverse involves the loss of our
allies, the source of our strength, who will not remain quiet a day
after we become unable to march against them. We must cry not over the
loss of houses and land but of men's lives; since houses and land do
not gain men, but men them. And if I had thought that I could persuade
you, I would have bid you go out and lay them waste with your own
hands, and show the Peloponnesians that this at any rate will not make
you submit.
"I have many other reasons to hope for a favourable issue, if you
can consent not to combine schemes of fresh conquest with the
conduct of the war, and will abstain from wilfully involving
yourselves in other dangers; indeed, I am more afraid of our own
blunders than of the enemy's devices. But these matters shall be
explained in another speech, as events require; for the present
dismiss these men with the answer that we will allow Megara the use of
our market and harbours, when the Lacedaemonians suspend their alien
acts in favour of us and our allies, there being nothing in the treaty
to prevent either one or the other: that we will leave the cities
independent, if independent we found them when we made the treaty, and
when the Lacedaemonians grant to their cities an independence not
involving subservience to Lacedaemonian interests, but such as each
severally may desire: that we are willing to give the legal
satisfaction which our agreements specify, and that we shall not
commence hostilities, but shall resist those who do commence them.
This is an answer agreeable at once to the rights and the dignity of
Athens. It must be thoroughly understood that war is a necessity;
but that the more readily we accept it, the less will be the ardour of
our opponents, and that out of the greatest dangers communities and
individuals acquire the greatest glory. Did not our fathers resist the
Medes not only with resources far different from ours, but even when
those resources had been abandoned; and more by wisdom than by
fortune, more by daring than by strength, did not they beat off the
barbarian and advance their affairs to their present height? We must
not fall behind them, but must resist our enemies in any way and in
every way, and attempt to hand down our power to our posterity
unimpaired."
Such were the words of Pericles. The Athenians, persuaded of the
wisdom of his advice, voted as he desired, and answered the
Lacedaemonians as he recommended, both on the separate points and in
the general; they would do nothing on dictation, but were ready to
have the complaints settled in a fair and impartial manner by the
legal method, which the terms of the truce prescribed. So the envoys
departed home and did not return again.
These were the charges and differences existing between the rival
powers before the war, arising immediately from the affair at
Epidamnus and Corcyra. Still intercourse continued in spite of them,
and mutual communication. It was carried on without heralds, but not
without suspicion, as events were occurring which were equivalent to a
breach of the treaty and matter for war.
The Second Book.
CHAPTER VI.

Beginning of the Peloponnesian War -
First Invasion of Attica - Funeral
Oration of Pericles

THE war between the Athenians and Peloponnesians and the allies on
either side now really begins. For now all intercourse except
through the medium of heralds ceased, and hostilities were commenced
and prosecuted without intermission. The history follows the
chronological order of events by summers and winters.
The thirty years' truce which was entered into after the conquest of
Euboea lasted fourteen years. In the fifteenth, in the forty-eighth
year of the priestess-ship of Chrysis at Argos, in the ephorate of
Aenesias at Sparta, in the last month but two of the archonship of
Pythodorus at Athens, and six months after the battle of Potidaea,
just at the beginning of spring, a Theban force a little over three
hundred strong, under the command of their Boeotarchs, Pythangelus,
son of Phyleides, and Diemporus, son of Onetorides, about the first
watch of the night, made an armed entry into Plataea, a town of
Boeotia in alliance with Athens. The gates were opened to them by a
Plataean called Naucleides, who, with his party, had invited them
in, meaning to put to death the citizens of the opposite party,
bring over the city to Thebes, and thus obtain power for themselves.
This was arranged through Eurymachus, son of Leontiades, a person of
great influence at Thebes. For Plataea had always been at variance
with Thebes; and the latter, foreseeing that war was at hand, wished
to surprise her old enemy in time of peace, before hostilities had
actually broken out. Indeed this was how they got in so easily without
being observed, as no guard had been posted. After the soldiers had
grounded arms in the market-place, those who had invited them in
wished them to set to work at once and go to their enemies' houses.
This, however, the Thebans refused to do, but determined to make a
conciliatory proclamation, and if possible to come to a friendly
understanding with the citizens. Their herald accordingly invited
any who wished to resume their old place in the confederacy of their
countrymen to ground arms with them, for they thought that in this way
the city would readily join them.
On becoming aware of the presence of the Thebans within their gates,
and of the sudden occupation of the town, the Plataeans concluded in
their alarm that more had entered than was really the case, the
night preventing their seeing them. They accordingly came to terms
and, accepting the proposal, made no movement; especially as the
Thebans offered none of them any violence. But somehow or other,
during the negotiations, they discovered the scanty numbers of the
Thebans, and decided that they could easily attack and overpower them;
the mass of the Plataeans being averse to revolting from Athens. At
all events they resolved to attempt it. Digging through the party
walls of the houses, they thus managed to join each other without
being seen going through the streets, in which they placed wagons
without the beasts in them, to serve as a barricade, and arranged
everything else as seemed convenient for the occasion. When everything
had been done that circumstances permitted, they watched their
opportunity and went out of their houses against the enemy. It was
still night, though daybreak was at hand: in daylight it was thought
that their attack would be met by men full of courage and on equal
terms with their assailants, while in darkness it would fall upon
panic-stricken troops, who would also be at a disadvantage from
their enemy's knowledge of the locality. So they made their assault at
once, and came to close quarters as quickly as they could.
The Thebans, finding themselves outwitted, immediately closed up
to repel all attacks made upon them. Twice or thrice they beat back
their assailants. But the men shouted and charged them, the women
and slaves screamed and yelled from the houses and pelted them with
stones and tiles; besides, it had been raining hard all night; and
so at last their courage gave way, and they turned and fled through
the town. Most of the fugitives were quite ignorant of the right
ways out, and this, with the mud, and the darkness caused by the
moon being in her last quarter, and the fact that their pursuers
knew their way about and could easily stop their escape, proved
fatal to many. The only gate open was the one by which they had
entered, and this was shut by one of the Plataeans driving the spike
of a javelin into the bar instead of the bolt; so that even here there
was no longer any means of exit. They were now chased all over the
town. Some got on the wall and threw themselves over, in most cases
with a fatal result. One party managed to find a deserted gate, and
obtaining an axe from a woman, cut through the bar; but as they were
soon observed only a few succeeded in getting out. Others were cut off
in detail in different parts of the city. The most numerous and
compact body rushed into a large building next to the city wall: the
doors on the side of the street happened to be open, and the Thebans
fancied that they were the gates of the town, and that there was a
passage right through to the outside. The Plataeans, seeing their
enemies in a trap, now consulted whether they should set fire to the
building and burn them just as they were, or whether there was
anything else that they could do with them; until at length these
and the rest of the Theban survivors found wandering about the town
agreed to an unconditional surrender of themselves and their arms to
the Plataeans.
While such was the fate of the party in Plataea, the rest of the
Thebans who were to have joined them with all their forces before
daybreak, in case of anything miscarrying with the body that had
entered, received the news of the affair on the road, and pressed
forward to their succour. Now Plataea is nearly eight miles from
Thebes, and their march delayed by the rain that had fallen in the
night, for the river Asopus had risen and was not easy of passage; and
so, having to march in the rain, and being hindered in crossing the
river, they arrived too late, and found the whole party either slain
or captive. When they learned what had happened, they at once formed a
design against the Plataeans outside the city. As the attack had
been made in time of peace, and was perfectly unexpected, there were
of course men and stock in the fields; and the Thebans wished if
possible to have some prisoners to exchange against their countrymen
in the town, should any chance to have been taken alive. Such was
their plan. But the Plataeans suspected their intention almost
before it was formed, and becoming alarmed for their fellow citizens
outside the town, sent a herald to the Thebans, reproaching them for
their unscrupulous attempt to seize their city in time of peace, and
warning them against any outrage on those outside. Should the
warning be disregarded, they threatened to put to death the men they
had in their hands, but added that, on the Thebans retiring from their
territory, they would surrender the prisoners to their friends. This
is the Theban account of the matter, and they say that they had an
oath given them. The Plataeans, on the other hand, do not admit any
promise of an immediate surrender, but make it contingent upon
subsequent negotiation: the oath they deny altogether. Be this as it
may, upon the Thebans retiring from their territory without committing
any injury, the Plataeans hastily got in whatever they had in the
country and immediately put the men to death. The prisoners were a
hundred and eighty in number; Eurymachus, the person with whom the
traitors had negotiated, being one.
This done, the Plataeans sent a messenger to Athens, gave back the
dead to the Thebans under a truce, and arranged things in the city
as seemed best to meet the present emergency. The Athenians meanwhile,
having had word of the affair sent them immediately after its
occurrence, had instantly seized all the Boeotians in Attica, and sent
a herald to the Plataeans to forbid their proceeding to extremities
with their Theban prisoners without instructions from Athens. The news
of the men's death had of course not arrived; the first messenger
having left Plataea just when the Thebans entered it, the second
just after their defeat and capture; so there was no later news.
Thus the Athenians sent orders in ignorance of the facts; and the
herald on his arrival found the men slain. After this the Athenians
marched to Plataea and brought in provisions, and left a garrison in
the place, also taking away the women and children and such of the men
as were least efficient.
After the affair at Plataea, the treaty had been broken by an
overt act, and Athens at once prepared for war, as did also Lacedaemon
and her allies. They resolved to send embassies to the King and to
such other of the barbarian powers as either party could look to for
assistance, and tried to ally themselves with the independent states
at home. Lacedaemon, in addition to the existing marine, gave orders
to the states that had declared for her in Italy and Sicily to build
vessels up to a grand total of five hundred, the quota of each city
being determined by its size, and also to provide a specified sum of
money. Till these were ready they were to remain neutral and to
admit single Athenian ships into their harbours. Athens on her part
reviewed her existing confederacy, and sent embassies to the places
more immediately round Peloponnese- Corcyra, Cephallenia, Acarnania,
and Zacynthus- perceiving that if these could be relied on she could
carry the war all round Peloponnese.
And if both sides nourished the boldest hopes and put forth their
utmost strength for the war, this was only natural. Zeal is always
at its height at the commencement of an undertaking; and on this
particular occasion Peloponnese and Athens were both full of young men
whose inexperience made them eager to take up arms, while the rest
of Hellas stood straining with excitement at the conflict of its
leading cities. Everywhere predictions were being recited and
oracles being chanted by such persons as collect them, and this not
only in the contending cities. Further, some while before this,
there was an earthquake at Delos, for the first time in the memory
of the Hellenes. This was said and thought to be ominous of the events
impending; indeed, nothing of the kind that happened was allowed to
pass without remark. The good wishes of men made greatly for the
Lacedaemonians, especially as they proclaimed themselves the
liberators of Hellas. No private or public effort that could help them
in speech or action was omitted; each thinking that the cause suffered
wherever he could not himself see to it. So general was the
indignation felt against Athens, whether by those who wished to escape
from her empire, or were apprehensive of being absorbed by it. Such
were the preparations and such the feelings with which the contest
opened.
The allies of the two belligerents were the following. These were
the allies of Lacedaemon: all the Peloponnesians within the Isthmus
except the Argives and Achaeans, who were neutral; Pellene being the
only Achaean city that first joined in the war, though her example was
afterwards followed by the rest. Outside Peloponnese the Megarians,
Locrians, Boeotians, Phocians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and
Anactorians. Of these, ships were furnished by the Corinthians,
Megarians, Sicyonians, Pellenians, Eleans, Ambraciots, and Leucadians;
and cavalry by the Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians. The other states
sent infantry. This was the Lacedaemonian confederacy. That of
Athens comprised the Chians, Lesbians, Plataeans, the Messenians in
Naupactus, most of the Acarnanians, the Corcyraeans, Zacynthians,
and some tributary cities in the following countries, viz., Caria upon
the sea with her Dorian neighbours, Ionia, the Hellespont, the
Thracian towns, the islands lying between Peloponnese and Crete
towards the east, and all the Cyclades except Melos and Thera. Of
these, ships were furnished by Chios, Lesbos, and Corcyra, infantry
and money by the rest. Such were the allies of either party and
their resources for the war.
Immediately after the affair at Plataea, Lacedaemon sent round
orders to the cities in Peloponnese and the rest of her confederacy to
prepare troops and the provisions requisite for a foreign campaign, in
order to invade Attica. The several states were ready at the time
appointed and assembled at the Isthmus: the contingent of each city
being two-thirds of its whole force. After the whole army had
mustered, the Lacedaemonian king, Archidamus, the leader of the
expedition, called together the generals of all the states and the
principal persons and officers, and exhorted them as follows:
"Peloponnesians and allies, our fathers made many campaigns both
within and without Peloponnese, and the elder men among us here are
not without experience in war. Yet we have never set out with a larger
force than the present; and if our numbers and efficiency are
remarkable, so also is the power of the state against which we
march. We ought not then to show ourselves inferior to our
ancestors, or unequal to our own reputation. For the hopes and
attention of all Hellas are bent upon the present effort, and its
sympathy is with the enemy of the hated Athens. Therefore, numerous as
the invading army may appear to be, and certain as some may think it
that our adversary will not meet us in the field, this is no sort of
justification for the least negligence upon the march; but the
officers and men of each particular city should always be prepared for
the advent of danger in their own quarters. The course of war cannot
be foreseen, and its attacks are generally dictated by the impulse
of the moment; and where overweening self-confidence has despised
preparation, a wise apprehension often been able to make head
against superior numbers. Not that confidence is out of place in an
army of invasion, but in an enemy's country it should also be
accompanied by the precautions of apprehension: troops will by this
combination be best inspired for dealing a blow, and best secured
against receiving one. In the present instance, the city against which
we are going, far from being so impotent for defence, is on the
contrary most excellently equipped at all points; so that we have
every reason to expect that they will take the field against us, and
that if they have not set out already before we are there, they will
certainly do so when they see us in their territory wasting and
destroying their property. For men are always exasperated at suffering
injuries to which they are not accustomed, and on seeing them
inflicted before their very eyes; and where least inclined for
reflection, rush with the greatest heat to action. The Athenians are
the very people of all others to do this, as they aspire to rule the
rest of the world, and are more in the habit of invading and
ravaging their neighbours' territory, than of seeing their own treated
in the like fashion. Considering, therefore, the power of the state
against which we are marching, and the greatness of the reputation
which, according to the event, we shall win or lose for our
ancestors and ourselves, remember as you follow where you may be led
to regard discipline and vigilance as of the first importance, and
to obey with alacrity the orders transmitted to you; as nothing
contributes so much to the credit and safety of an army as the union
of large bodies by a single discipline."
With this brief speech dismissing the assembly, Archidamus first
sent off Melesippus, son of Diacritus, a Spartan, to Athens, in case
she should be more inclined to submit on seeing the Peloponnesians
actually on the march. But the Athenians did not admit into the city
or to their assembly, Pericles having already carried a motion against
admitting either herald or embassy from the Lacedaemonians after
they had once marched out.
The herald was accordingly sent away without an audience, and
ordered to be beyond the frontier that same day; in future, if those
who sent him had a proposition to make, they must retire to their
own territory before they dispatched embassies to Athens. An escort
was sent with Melesippus to prevent his holding communication with any
one. When he reached the frontier and was just going to be
dismissed, he departed with these words: "This day will be the
beginning of great misfortunes to the Hellenes." As soon as he arrived
at the camp, and Archidamus learnt that the Athenians had still no
thoughts of submitting, he at length began his march, and advanced
with his army into their territory. Meanwhile the Boeotians, sending
their contingent and cavalry to join the Peloponnesian expedition,
went to Plataea with the remainder and laid waste the country.
While the Peloponnesians were still mustering at the Isthmus, or
on the march before they invaded Attica, Pericles, son of
Xanthippus, one of the ten generals of the Athenians, finding that the
invasion was to take place, conceived the idea that Archidamus, who
happened to be his friend, might possibly pass by his estate without
ravaging it. This he might do, either from a personal wish to oblige
him, or acting under instructions from Lacedaemon for the purpose of
creating a prejudice against him, as had been before attempted in
the demand for the expulsion of the accursed family. He accordingly
took the precaution of announcing to the Athenians in the assembly
that, although Archidamus was his friend, yet this friendship should
not extend to the detriment of the state, and that in case the enemy
should make his houses and lands an exception to the rest and not
pillage them, he at once gave them up to be public property, so that
they should not bring him into suspicion. He also gave the citizens
some advice on their present affairs in the same strain as before.
They were to prepare for the war, and to carry in their property
from the country. They were not to go out to battle, but to come
into the city and guard it, and get ready their fleet, in which
their real strength lay. They were also to keep a tight rein on
their allies- the strength of Athens being derived from the money
brought in by their payments, and success in war depending principally
upon conduct and capital. had no reason to despond. Apart from other
sources of income, an average revenue of six hundred talents of silver
was drawn from the tribute of the allies; and there were still six
thousand talents of coined silver in the Acropolis, out of nine
thousand seven hundred that had once been there, from which the
money had been taken for the porch of the Acropolis, the other
public buildings, and for Potidaea. This did not include the
uncoined gold and silver in public and private offerings, the sacred
vessels for the processions and games, the Median spoils, and
similar resources to the amount of five hundred talents. To this he
added the treasures of the other temples. These were by no means
inconsiderable, and might fairly be used. Nay, if they were ever
absolutely driven to it, they might take even the gold ornaments of
Athene herself; for the statue contained forty talents of pure gold
and it was all removable. This might be used for self-preservation,
and must every penny of it be restored. Such was their financial
position- surely a satisfactory one. Then they had an army of
thirteen thousand heavy infantry, besides sixteen thousand more in the
garrisons and on home duty at Athens. This was at first the number
of men on guard in the event of an invasion: it was composed of the
oldest and youngest levies and the resident aliens who had heavy
armour. The Phaleric wall ran for four miles, before it joined that
round the city; and of this last nearly five had a guard, although
part of it was left without one, viz., that between the Long Wall
and the Phaleric. Then there were the Long Walls to Piraeus, a
distance of some four miles and a half, the outer of which was manned.
Lastly, the circumference of Piraeus with Munychia was nearly seven
miles and a half; only half of this, however, was guarded. Pericles
also showed them that they had twelve hundred horse including
mounted archers, with sixteen hundred archers unmounted, and three
hundred galleys fit for service. Such were the resources of Athens
in the different departments when the Peloponnesian invasion was
impending and hostilities were being commenced. Pericles also urged
his usual arguments for expecting a favourable issue to the war.
The Athenians listened to his advice, and began to carry in their
wives and children from the country, and all their household
furniture, even to the woodwork of their houses which they took
down. Their sheep and cattle they sent over to Euboea and the adjacent
islands. But they found it hard to move, as most of them had been
always used to live in the country.
From very early times this had been more the case with the Athenians
than with others. Under Cecrops and the first kings, down to the reign
of Theseus, Attica had always consisted of a number of independent
townships, each with its own town hall and magistrates. Except in
times of danger the king at Athens was not consulted; in ordinary
seasons they carried on their government and settled their affairs
without his interference; sometimes even they waged war against him,
as in the case of the Eleusinians with Eumolpus against Erechtheus. In
Theseus, however, they had a king of equal intelligence and power; and
one of the chief features in his organization of the country was to
abolish the council-chambers and magistrates of the petty cities,
and to merge them in the single council-chamber and town hall of the
present capital. Individuals might still enjoy their private
property just as before, but they were henceforth compelled to have
only one political centre, viz., Athens; which thus counted all the
inhabitants of Attica among her citizens, so that when Theseus died he
left a great state behind him. Indeed, from him dates the Synoecia, or
Feast of Union; which is paid for by the state, and which the
Athenians still keep in honour of the goddess. Before this the city
consisted of the present citadel and the district beneath it looking
rather towards the south. This is shown by the fact that the temples
of the other deities, besides that of Athene, are in the citadel;
and even those that are outside it are mostly situated in this quarter
of the city, as that of the Olympian Zeus, of the Pythian Apollo, of
Earth, and of Dionysus in the Marshes, the same in whose honour the
older Dionysia are to this day celebrated in the month of Anthesterion
not only by the Athenians but also by their Ionian descendants.
There are also other ancient temples in this quarter. The fountain
too, which, since the alteration made by the tyrants, has been
called Enneacrounos, or Nine Pipes, but which, when the spring was
open, went by the name of Callirhoe, or Fairwater, was in those
days, from being so near, used for the most important offices. Indeed,
the old fashion of using the water before marriage and for other
sacred purposes is still kept up. Again, from their old residence in
that quarter, the citadel is still known among Athenians as the city.

The Athenians thus long lived scattered over Attica in independent
townships. Even after the centralization of Theseus, old habit still
prevailed; and from the early times down to the present war most
Athenians still lived in the country with their families and
households, and were consequently not at all inclined to move now,
especially as they had only just restored their establishments after
the Median invasion. Deep was their trouble and discontent at
abandoning their houses and the hereditary temples of the ancient
constitution, and at having to change their habits of life and to
bid farewell to what each regarded as his native city.
When they arrived at Athens, though a few had houses of their own to
go to, or could find an asylum with friends or relatives, by far the
greater number had to take up their dwelling in the parts of the
city that were not built over and in the temples and chapels of the
heroes, except the Acropolis and the temple of the Eleusinian
Demeter and such other Places as were always kept closed. The
occupation of the plot of ground lying below the citadel called the
Pelasgian had been forbidden by a curse; and there was also an ominous
fragment of a Pythian oracle which said:

Leave the Pelasgian parcel desolate,
Woe worth the day that men inhabit it!

Yet this too was now built over in the necessity of the moment. And in
my opinion, if the oracle proved true, it was in the opposite sense to
what was expected. For the misfortunes of the state did not arise from
the unlawful occupation, but the necessity of the occupation from
the war; and though the god did not mention this, he foresaw that it
would be an evil day for Athens in which the plot came to be
inhabited. Many also took up their quarters in the towers of the walls
or wherever else they could. For when they were all come in, the
city proved too small to hold them; though afterwards they divided the
Long Walls and a great part of Piraeus into lots and settled there.
All this while great attention was being given to the war; the
allies were being mustered, and an armament of a hundred ships
equipped for Peloponnese. Such was the state of preparation at Athens.
Meanwhile the army of the Peloponnesians was advancing. The first
town they came to in Attica was Oenoe, where they to enter the
country. Sitting down before it, they prepared to assault the wall
with engines and otherwise. Oenoe, standing upon the Athenian and
Boeotian border, was of course a walled town, and was used as a
fortress by the Athenians in time of war. So the Peloponnesians
prepared for their assault, and wasted some valuable time before the
place. This delay brought the gravest censure upon Archidamus. Even
during the levying of the war he had credit for weakness and
Athenian sympathies by the half measures he had advocated; and after
the army had assembled he had further injured himself in public
estimation by his loitering at the Isthmus and the slowness with which
the rest of the march had been conducted. But all this was as
nothing to the delay at Oenoe. During this interval the Athenians were
carrying in their property; and it was the belief of the
Peloponnesians that a quick advance would have found everything
still out, had it not been for his procrastination. Such was the
feeling of the army towards Archidamus during the siege. But he, it is
said, expected that the Athenians would shrink from letting their land
be wasted, and would make their submission while it was still
uninjured; and this was why he waited.
But after he had assaulted Oenoe, and every possible attempt to take
it had failed, as no herald came from Athens, he at last broke up
his camp and invaded Attica. This was about eighty days after the
Theban attempt upon Plataea, just in the middle of summer, when the
corn was ripe, and Archidamus, son of Zeuxis, king of Lacedaemon,
was in command. Encamping in Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, they
began their ravages, and putting to flight some Athenian horse at a
place called Rheiti, or the Brooks, they then advanced, keeping
Mount Aegaleus on their right, through Cropia, until they reached
Acharnae, the largest of the Athenian demes or townships. Sitting down
before it, they formed a camp there, and continued their ravages for a
long while.
The reason why Archidamus remained in order of battle at Acharnae
during this incursion, instead of descending into the plain, is said
to have been this. He hoped that the Athenians might possibly be
tempted by the multitude of their youth and the unprecedented
efficiency of their service to come out to battle and attempt to
stop the devastation of their lands. Accordingly, as they had met
him at Eleusis or the Thriasian plain, he tried if they could be
provoked to a sally by the spectacle of a camp at Acharnae. He thought
the place itself a good position for encamping; and it seemed likely
that such an important part of the state as the three thousand heavy
infantry of the Acharnians would refuse to submit to the ruin of their
property, and would force a battle on the rest of the citizens. On the
other hand, should the Athenians not take the field during this
incursion, he could then fearlessly ravage the plain in future
invasions, and extend his advance up to the very walls of Athens.
After the Acharnians had lost their own property they would be less
willing to risk themselves for that of their neighbours; and so
there would be division in the Athenian counsels. These were the
motives of Archidamus for remaining at Acharnae.
In the meanwhile, as long as the army was at Eleusis and the
Thriasian plain, hopes were still entertained of its not advancing any
nearer. It was remembered that Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king
of Lacedaemon, had invaded Attica with a Peloponnesian army fourteen
years before, but had retreated without advancing farther than Eleusis
and Thria, which indeed proved the cause of his exile from Sparta,
as it was thought he had been bribed to retreat. But when they saw the
army at Acharnae, barely seven miles from Athens, they lost all
patience. The territory of Athens was being ravaged before the very
eyes of the Athenians, a sight which the young men had never seen
before and the old only in the Median wars; and it was naturally
thought a grievous insult, and the determination was universal,
especially among the young men, to sally forth and stop it. Knots were
formed in the streets and engaged in hot discussion; for if the
proposed sally was warmly recommended, it was also in some cases
opposed. Oracles of the most various import were recited by the
collectors, and found eager listeners in one or other of the
disputants. Foremost in pressing for the sally were the Acharnians, as
constituting no small part of the army of the state, and as it was
their land that was being ravaged. In short, the whole city was in a
most excited state; Pericles was the object of general indignation;
his previous counsels were totally forgotten; he was abused for not
leading out the army which he commanded, and was made responsible
for the whole of the public suffering.
He, meanwhile, seeing anger and infatuation just now in the
ascendant, and of his wisdom in refusing a sally, would not call
either assembly or meeting of the people, fearing the fatal results of
a debate inspired by passion and not by prudence. Accordingly he
addressed himself to the defence of the city, and kept it as quiet
as possible, though he constantly sent out cavalry to prevent raids on
the lands near the city from flying parties of the enemy. There was
a trifling affair at Phrygia between a squadron of the Athenian
horse with the Thessalians and the Boeotian cavalry; in which the
former had rather the best of it, until the heavy infantry advanced to
the support of the Boeotians, when the Thessalians and Athenians
were routed and lost a few men, whose bodies, however, were
recovered the same day without a truce. The next day the
Peloponnesians set up a trophy. Ancient alliance brought the
Thessalians to the aid of Athens; those who came being the Larisaeans,
Pharsalians, Cranonians, Pyrasians, Gyrtonians, and Pheraeans. The
Larisaean commanders were Polymedes and Aristonus, two party leaders
in Larisa; the Pharsalian general was Menon; each of the other
cities had also its own commander.
In the meantime the Peloponnesians, as the Athenians did not come
out to engage them, broke up from Acharnae and ravaged some of the
demes between Mount Parnes and Brilessus. While they were in Attica
the Athenians sent off the hundred ships which they had been preparing
round Peloponnese, with a thousand heavy infantry and four hundred
archers on board, under the command of Carcinus, son of Xenotimus,
Proteas, son of Epicles, and Socrates, son of Antigenes. This armament
weighed anchor and started on its cruise, and the Peloponnesians,
after remaining in Attica as long as their provisions lasted,
retired through Boeotia by a different road to that by which they
had entered. As they passed Oropus they ravaged the territory of
Graea, which is held by the Oropians from Athens, and reaching
Peloponnese broke up to their respective cities.
After they had retired the Athenians set guards by land and sea at
the points at which they intended to have regular stations during
the war. They also resolved to set apart a special fund of a
thousand talents from the moneys in the Acropolis. This was not to
be spent, but the current expenses of the war were to be otherwise
provided for. If any one should move or put to the vote a
proposition for using the money for any purpose whatever except that
of defending the city in the event of the enemy bringing a fleet to
make an attack by sea, it should be a capital offence. With this sum
of money they also set aside a special fleet of one hundred galleys,
the best ships of each year, with their captains. None of these were
to be used except with the money and against the same peril, should
such peril arise.
Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred ships round Peloponnese,
reinforced by a Corcyraean squadron of fifty vessels and some others
of the allies in those parts, cruised about the coasts and ravaged the
country. Among other places they landed in Laconia and made an assault
upon Methone; there being no garrison in the place, and the wall being
weak. But it so happened that Brasidas, son of Tellis, a Spartan,
was in command of a guard for the defence of the district. Hearing
of the attack, he hurried with a hundred heavy infantry to the
assistance of the besieged, and dashing through the army of the
Athenians, which was scattered over the country and had its
attention turned to the wall, threw himself into Methone. He lost a
few men in making good his entrance, but saved the place and won the
thanks of Sparta by his exploit, being thus the first officer who
obtained this notice during the war. The Athenians at once weighed
anchor and continued their cruise. Touching at Pheia in Elis, they
ravaged the country for two days and defeated a picked force of
three hundred men that had come from the vale of Elis and the
immediate neighbourhood to the rescue. But a stiff squall came down
upon them, and, not liking to face it in a place where there was no
harbour, most of them got on board their ships, and doubling Point
Ichthys sailed into the port of Pheia. In the meantime the Messenians,
and some others who could not get on board, marched over by land and
took Pheia. The fleet afterwards sailed round and picked them up and
then put to sea; Pheia being evacuated, as the main army of the Eleans
had now come up. The Athenians continued their cruise, and ravaged
other places on the coast.
About the same time the Athenians sent thirty ships to cruise
round Locris and also to guard Euboea; Cleopompus, son of Clinias,
being in command. Making descents from the fleet he ravaged certain
places on the sea-coast, and captured Thronium and took hostages
from it. He also defeated at Alope the Locrians that had assembled
to resist him.

During the summer the Athenians also expelled the Aeginetans with
their wives and children from Aegina, on the ground of their having
been the chief agents in bringing the war upon them. Besides, Aegina
lies so near Peloponnese that it seemed safer to send colonists of
their own to hold it, and shortly afterwards the settlers were sent
out. The banished Aeginetans found an asylum in Thyrea, which was
given to them by Lacedaemon, not only on account of her quarrel with
Athens, but also because the Aeginetans had laid her under obligations
at the time of the earthquake and the revolt of the Helots. The
territory of Thyrea is on the frontier of Argolis and Laconia,
reaching down to the sea. Those of the Aeginetans who did not settle
here were scattered over the rest of Hellas.
The same summer, at the beginning of a new lunar month, the only
time by the way at which it appears possible, the sun was eclipsed
after noon. After it had assumed the form of a crescent and some of
the stars had come out, it returned to its natural shape.
During the same summer Nymphodorus, son of Pythes, an Abderite,
whose sister Sitalces had married, was made their proxenus by the
Athenians and sent for to Athens. They had hitherto considered him
their enemy; but he had great influence with Sitalces, and they wished
this prince to become their ally. Sitalces was the son of Teres and
King of the Thracians. Teres, the father of Sitalces, was the first to
establish the great kingdom of the Odrysians on a scale quite
unknown to the rest of Thrace, a large portion of the Thracians
being independent. This Teres is in no way related to Tereus who
married Pandion's daughter Procne from Athens; nor indeed did they
belong to the same part of Thrace. Tereus lived in Daulis, part of
what is now called Phocis, but which at that time was inhabited by
Thracians. It was in this land that the women perpetrated the
outrage upon Itys; and many of the poets when they mention the
nightingale call it the Daulian bird. Besides, Pandion in
contracting an alliance for his daughter would consider the advantages
of mutual assistance, and would naturally prefer a match at the
above moderate distance to the journey of many days which separates
Athens from the Odrysians. Again the names are different; and this
Teres was king of the Odrysians, the first by the way who attained
to any power. Sitalces, his son, was now sought as an ally by the
Athenians, who desired his aid in the reduction of the Thracian
towns and of Perdiccas. Coming to Athens, Nymphodorus concluded the
alliance with Sitalces and made his son Sadocus an Athenian citizen,
and promised to finish the war in Thrace by persuading Sitalces to
send the Athenians a force of Thracian horse and targeteers. He also
reconciled them with Perdiccas, and induced them to restore Therme
to him; upon which Perdiccas at once joined the Athenians and
Phormio in an expedition against the Chalcidians. Thus Sitalces, son
of Teres, King of the Thracians, and Perdiccas, son of Alexander, King
of the Macedonians, became allies of Athens.
Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred vessels were still cruising
round Peloponnese. After taking Sollium, a town belonging to
Corinth, and presenting the city and territory to the Acarnanians of
Palaira, they stormed Astacus, expelled its tyrant Evarchus, and
gained the place for their confederacy. Next they sailed to the island
of Cephallenia and brought it over without using force. Cephallenia
lies off Acarnania and Leucas, and consists of four states, the
Paleans, Cranians, Samaeans, and Pronaeans. Not long afterwards the
fleet returned to Athens. Towards the autumn of this year the
Athenians invaded the Megarid with their whole levy, resident aliens
included, under the command of Pericles, son of Xanthippus. The
Athenians in the hundred ships round Peloponnese on their journey home
had just reached Aegina, and hearing that the citizens at home were in
full force at Megara, now sailed over and joined them. This was
without doubt the largest army of Athenians ever assembled, the
state being still in the flower of her strength and yet unvisited by
the plague. Full ten thousand heavy infantry were in the field, all
Athenian citizens, besides the three thousand before Potidaea. Then
the resident aliens who joined in the incursion were at least three
thousand strong; besides which there was a multitude of light
troops. They ravaged the greater part of the territory, and then
retired. Other incursions into the Megarid were afterwards made by the
Athenians annually during the war, sometimes only with cavalry,
sometimes with all their forces. This went on until the capture of
Nisaea. Atalanta also, the desert island off the Opuntian coast, was
towards the end of this summer converted into a fortified post by
the Athenians, in order to prevent privateers issuing from Opus and
the rest of Locris and plundering Euboea. Such were the events of this
summer after the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica.
In the ensuing winter the Acarnanian Evarchus, wishing to return
to Astacus, persuaded the Corinthians to sail over with forty ships
and fifteen hundred heavy infantry and restore him; himself also
hiring some mercenaries. In command of the force were Euphamidas,
son of Aristonymus, Timoxenus, son of Timocrates, and Eumachus, son of
Chrysis, who sailed over and restored him and, after failing in an
attempt on some places on the Acarnanian coast which they were
desirous of gaining, began their voyage home. Coasting along shore
they touched at Cephallenia and made a descent on the Cranian
territory, and losing some men by the treachery of the Cranians, who
fell suddenly upon them after having agreed to treat, put to sea
somewhat hurriedly and returned home.
In the same winter the Athenians gave a funeral at the public cost
to those who had first fallen in this war. It was a custom of their
ancestors, and the manner of it is as follows. Three days before the
ceremony, the bones of the dead are laid out in a tent which has
been erected; and their friends bring to their relatives such
offerings as they please. In the funeral procession cypress coffins
are borne in cars, one for each tribe; the bones of the deceased being
placed in the coffin of their tribe. Among these is carried one
empty bier decked for the missing, that is, for those whose bodies
could not be recovered. Any citizen or stranger who pleases, joins
in the procession: and the female relatives are there to wail at the
burial. The dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the Beautiful
suburb of the city, in which those who fall in war are always
buried; with the exception of those slain at Marathon, who for their
singular and extraordinary valour were interred on the spot where they
fell. After the bodies have been laid in the earth, a man chosen by
the state, of approved wisdom and eminent reputation, pronounces
over them an appropriate panegyric; after which all retire. Such is
the manner of the burying; and throughout the whole of the war,
whenever the occasion arose, the established custom was observed.
Meanwhile these were the first that had fallen, and Pericles, son of
Xanthippus, was chosen to pronounce their eulogium. When the proper
time arrived, he advanced from the sepulchre to an elevated platform
in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as possible, and spoke as
follows:
"Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made
this speech part of the law, telling us that it is well that it should
be delivered at the burial of those who fall in battle. For myself,
I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in
deeds would be sufficiently rewarded by honours also shown by deeds;
such as you now see in this funeral prepared at the people's cost. And
I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to
be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall
according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly
upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers
that you are speaking the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is
familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has
not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it
to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be
led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own
nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they
can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the
actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with
it incredulity. However, since our ancestors have stamped this
custom with their approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law and
to try to satisfy your several wishes and opinions as best I may.
"I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that
they should have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like
the present. They dwelt in the country without break in the succession
from generation to generation, and handed it down free to the
present time by their valour. And if our more remote ancestors deserve
praise, much more do our own fathers, who added to their inheritance
the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains to be able to
leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation. Lastly,
there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented by
those of us here, who are still more or less in the vigour of life;
while the mother country has been furnished by us with everything that
can enable her to depend on her own resources whether for war or for
peace. That part of our history which tells of the military
achievements which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready
valour with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of
Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my
hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by. But
what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of
government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits
out of which it sprang; these are questions which I may try to solve
before I proceed to my panegyric upon these men; since I think this to
be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may properly
dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens or
foreigners, may listen with advantage.
"Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states;
we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its
administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it
is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal
justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing,
advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class
considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again
does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is
not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we
enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There,
far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do
not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what
he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot
fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But
all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as
citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to
obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the
protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute
book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot
be broken without acknowledged disgrace.
"Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh
itself from business. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year
round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily
source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen; while the magnitude
of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbour, so that
to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury
as those of his own.
"If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our
antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien
acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing,
although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our
liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native
spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from
their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at
Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to
encounter every legitimate danger. In proof of this it may be
noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone, but
bring with them all their confederates; while we Athenians advance
unsupported into the territory of a neighbour, and fighting upon a
foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their
homes. Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy,
because we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our
citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so that,
wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength, a
success against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the
nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of our
entire people. And yet if with habits not of labour but of ease, and
courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing to encounter
danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of
hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as
fearlessly as those who are never free from them.
"Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of
admiration. We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge
without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and
place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in
declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides
politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary
citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still
fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding
him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as
useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot
originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a
stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable
preliminary to any wise action at all. Again, in our enterprises we
present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each
carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons;
although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of
reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most
justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and
pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In
generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by
conferring, not by receiving, favours. Yet, of course, the doer of the
favour is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness
to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less
keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be
a payment, not a free gift. And it is only the Athenians, who,
fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from
calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.
"In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I
doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to
depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a
versatility, as the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown
out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state
acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone of her
contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation,
and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the
antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to
question her title by merit to rule. Rather, the admiration of the
present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our
power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far
from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose
verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they
gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land
to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or
for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us. Such is the
Athens for which these men, in the assertion of their resolve not to
lose her, nobly fought and died; and well may every one of their
survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.
"Indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our
country, it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the
same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose, and also that the
panegyric of the men over whom I am now speaking might be by
definite proofs established. That panegyric is now in a great
measure complete; for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what
the heroism of these and their like have made her, men whose fame,
unlike that of most Hellenes, will be found to be only commensurate
with their deserts. And if a test of worth be wanted, it is to be
found in their closing scene, and this not only in cases in which it
set the final seal upon their merit, but also in those in which it
gave the first intimation of their having any. For there is justice in
the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a
cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action
has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than
outweighed his demerits as an individual. But none of these allowed
either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his
spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to
tempt him to shrink from danger. No, holding that vengeance upon their
enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings, and
reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully
determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance, and to
let their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of
final success, in the business before them they thought fit to act
boldly and trust in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting, rather
than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonour, but met danger
face to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their
fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but from their glory.
"So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must
determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you
may pray that it may have a happier issue. And not contented with
ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up
with the defence of your country, though these would furnish a
valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as
the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed
your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your
hearts; and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you
must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling
of honour in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no
personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive
their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the
most glorious contribution that they could offer. For this offering of
their lives made in common by them all they each of them
individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a
sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been
deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid
up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or
story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole
earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the
column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every
breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that
of the heart. These take as your model and, judging happiness to be
the fruit of freedom and freedom of valour, never decline the
dangers of war. For it is not the miserable that would most justly
be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is
rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet
unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in
its consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of
cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death
which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!
"Comfort, therefore, not condolence, is what I have to offer to
the parents of the dead who may be here. Numberless are the chances to
which, as they know, the life of man is subject; but fortunate
indeed are they who draw for their lot a death so glorious as that
which has caused your mourning, and to whom life has been so exactly
measured as to terminate in the happiness in which it has been passed.
Still I know that this is a hard saying, especially when those are
in question of whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the
homes of others blessings of which once you also boasted: for grief is
felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for
the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed. Yet you who
are still of an age to beget children must bear up in the hope of
having others in their stead; not only will they help you to forget
those whom you have lost, but will be to the state at once a
reinforcement and a security; for never can a fair or just policy be
expected of the citizen who does not, like his fellows, bring to the
decision the interests and apprehensions of a father. While those of
you who have passed your prime must congratulate yourselves with the
thought that the best part of your life was fortunate, and that the
brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed.
For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour
it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age
and helplessness.
"Turning to the sons or brothers of the dead, I see an arduous
struggle before you. When a man is gone, all are wont to praise him,
and should your merit be ever so transcendent, you will still find
it difficult not merely to overtake, but even to approach their
renown. The living have envy to contend with, while those who are no
longer in our path are honoured with a goodwill into which rivalry
does not enter. On the other hand, if I must say anything on the
subject of female excellence to those of you who will now be in
widowhood, it will be all comprised in this brief exhortation. Great
will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and
greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men, whether
for good or for bad.
"My task is now finished. I have performed it to the best of my
ability, and in word, at least, the requirements of the law are now
satisfied. If deeds be in question, those who are here interred have
received part of their honours already, and for the rest, their
children will be brought up till manhood at the public expense: the
state thus offers a valuable prize, as the garland of victory in
this race of valour, for the reward both of those who have fallen
and their survivors. And where the rewards for merit are greatest,
there are found the best citizens.
"And now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your
relatives, you may depart."
CHAPTER VII.

Second Year of the War - The Plague of Athens
- Position and Policy of Pericles - Fall
of Potidaea

SUCH was the funeral that took place during this winter, with
which the first year of the war came to an end. In the first days of
summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies, with two-thirds of their
forces as before, invaded Attica, under the command of Archidamus, son
of Zeuxidamus, King of Lacedaemon, and sat down and laid waste the
country. Not many days after their arrival in Attica the plague
first began to show itself among the Athenians. It was said that it
had broken out in many places previously in the neighbourhood of
Lemnos and elsewhere; but a pestilence of such extent and mortality
was nowhere remembered. Neither were the physicians at first of any
service, ignorant as they were of the proper way to treat it, but they
died themselves the most thickly, as they visited the sick most often;
nor did any human art succeed any better. Supplications in the
temples, divinations, and so forth were found equally futile, till the
overwhelming nature of the disaster at last put a stop to them
altogether.
It first began, it is said, in the parts of Ethiopia above Egypt,
and thence descended into Egypt and Libya and into most of the
King's country. Suddenly falling upon Athens, it first attacked the
population in Piraeus- which was the occasion of their saying that
the Peloponnesians had poisoned the reservoirs, there being as yet
no wells there- and afterwards appeared in the upper city, when the
deaths became much more frequent. All speculation as to its origin and
its causes, if causes can be found adequate to produce so great a
disturbance, I leave to other writers, whether lay or professional;
for myself, I shall simply set down its nature, and explain the
symptoms by which perhaps it may be recognized by the student, if it
should ever break out again. This I can the better do, as I had the
disease myself, and watched its operation in the case of others.
That year then is admitted to have been otherwise unprecedentedly
free from sickness; and such few cases as occurred all determined in
this. As a rule, however, there was no ostensible cause; but people in
good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the
head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such
as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and
fetid breath. These symptoms were followed by sneezing and hoarseness,
after which the pain soon reached the chest, and produced a hard
cough. When it fixed in the stomach, it upset it; and discharges of
bile of every kind named by physicians ensued, accompanied by very
great distress. In most cases also an ineffectual retching followed,
producing violent spasms, which in some cases ceased soon after, in
others much later. Externally the body was not very hot to the
touch, nor pale in its appearance, but reddish, livid, and breaking
out into small pustules and ulcers. But internally it burned so that
the patient could not bear to have on him clothing or linen even of
the very lightest description; or indeed to be otherwise than stark
naked. What they would have liked best would have been to throw
themselves into cold water; as indeed was done by some of the
neglected sick, who plunged into the rain-tanks in their agonies of
unquenchable thirst; though it made no difference whether they drank
little or much. Besides this, the miserable feeling of not being
able to rest or sleep never ceased to torment them. The body meanwhile
did not waste away so long as the distemper was at its height, but
held out to a marvel against its ravages; so that when they succumbed,
as in most cases, on the seventh or eighth day to the internal
inflammation, they had still some strength in them. But if they passed
this stage, and the disease descended further into the bowels,
inducing a violent ulceration there accompanied by severe diarrhoea,
this brought on a weakness which was generally fatal. For the disorder
first settled in the head, ran its course from thence through the
whole of the body, and, even where it did not prove mortal, it still
left its mark on the extremities; for it settled in the privy parts,
the fingers and the toes, and many escaped with the loss of these,
some too with that of their eyes. Others again were seized with an
entire loss of memory on their first recovery, and did not know either
themselves or their friends.
But while the nature of the distemper was such as to baffle all
description, and its attacks almost too grievous for human nature to
endure, it was still in the following circumstance that its difference
from all ordinary disorders was most clearly shown. All the birds
and beasts that prey upon human bodies, either abstained from touching
them (though there were many lying unburied), or died after tasting
them. In proof of this, it was noticed that birds of this kind
actually disappeared; they were not about the bodies, or indeed to
be seen at all. But of course the effects which I have mentioned could
best be studied in a domestic animal like the dog.
Such then, if we pass over the varieties of particular cases which
were many and peculiar, were the general features of the distemper.
Meanwhile the town enjoyed an immunity from all the ordinary
disorders; or if any case occurred, it ended in this. Some died in
neglect, others in the midst of every attention. No remedy was found
that could be used as a specific; for what did good in one case, did
harm in another. Strong and weak constitutions proved equally
incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away, although dieted
with the utmost precaution. By far the most terrible feature in the
malady was the dejection which ensued when any one felt himself
sickening, for the despair into which they instantly fell took away
their power of resistance, and left them a much easier prey to the
disorder; besides which, there was the awful spectacle of men dying
like sheep, through having caught the infection in nursing each other.
This caused the greatest mortality. On the one hand, if they were
afraid to visit each other, they perished from neglect; indeed many
houses were emptied of their inmates for want of a nurse: on the
other, if they ventured to do so, death was the consequence. This
was especially the case with such as made any pretensions to goodness:
honour made them unsparing of themselves in their attendance in
their friends' houses, where even the members of the family were at
last worn out by the moans of the dying, and succumbed to the force of
the disaster. Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease
that the sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what
it was from experience, and had now no fear for themselves; for the
same man was never attacked twice- never at least fatally. And such
persons not only received the congratulations of others, but
themselves also, in the elation of the moment, half entertained the
vain hope that they were for the future safe from any disease
whatsoever.
An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the
country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new
arrivals. As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be
lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the
mortality raged without restraint. The bodies of dying men lay one
upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and
gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water. The
sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of
corpses of persons that had died there, just as they were; for as
the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of
them, became utterly careless of everything, whether sacred or
profane. All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and
they buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want of the
proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died
already, had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes
getting the start of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own
dead body upon the stranger's pyre and ignited it; sometimes they
tossed the corpse which they were carrying on the top of another
that was burning, and so went off.
Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its
origin to the plague. Men now coolly ventured on what they had
formerly done in a corner, and not just as they pleased, seeing the
rapid transitions produced by persons in prosperity suddenly dying and
those who before had nothing succeeding to their property. So they
resolved to spend quickly and enjoy themselves, regarding their
lives and riches as alike things of a day. Perseverance in what men
called honour was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether
they would be spared to attain the object; but it was settled that
present enjoyment, and all that contributed to it, was both honourable
and useful. Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain
them. As for the first, they judged it to be just the same whether
they worshipped them or not, as they saw all alike perishing; and
for the last, no one expected to live to be brought to trial for his
offences, but each felt that a far severer sentence had been already
passed upon them all and hung ever over their heads, and before this
fell it was only reasonable to enjoy life a little.
Such was the nature of the calamity, and heavily did it weigh on the
Athenians; death raging within the city and devastation without. Among
other things which they remembered in their distress was, very
naturally, the following verse which the old men said had long ago
been uttered:

A Dorian war shall come and with it death.

So a dispute arose as to whether dearth and not death had not been the
word in the verse; but at the present juncture, it was of course
decided in favour of the latter; for the people made their
recollection fit in with their sufferings. I fancy, however, that if
another Dorian war should ever afterwards come upon us, and a dearth
should happen to accompany it, the verse will probably be read
accordingly. The oracle also which had been given to the
Lacedaemonians was now remembered by those who knew of it. When the
god was asked whether they should go to war, he answered that if
they put their might into it, victory would be theirs, and that he
would himself be with them. With this oracle events were supposed to
tally. For the plague broke out as soon as the Peloponnesians
invaded Attica, and never entering Peloponnese (not at least to an
extent worth noticing), committed its worst ravages at Athens, and
next to Athens, at the most populous of the other towns. Such was
the history of the plague.
After ravaging the plain, the Peloponnesians advanced into the
Paralian region as far as Laurium, where the Athenian silver mines
are, and first laid waste the side looking towards Peloponnese, next
that which faces Euboea and Andros. But Pericles, who was still
general, held the same opinion as in the former invasion, and would
not let the Athenians march out against them.
However, while they were still in the plain, and had not yet entered
the Paralian land, he had prepared an armament of a hundred ships
for Peloponnese, and when all was ready put out to sea. On board the
ships he took four thousand Athenian heavy infantry, and three hundred
cavalry in horse transports, and then for the first time made out of
old galleys; fifty Chian and Lesbian vessels also joining in the
expedition. When this Athenian armament put out to sea, they left
the Peloponnesians in Attica in the Paralian region. Arriving at
Epidaurus in Peloponnese they ravaged most of the territory, and
even had hopes of taking the town by an assault: in this however
they were not successful. Putting out from Epidaurus, they laid
waste the territory of Troezen, Halieis, and Hermione, all towns on
the coast of Peloponnese, and thence sailing to Prasiai, a maritime
town in Laconia, ravaged part of its territory, and took and sacked
the place itself; after which they returned home, but found the
Peloponnesians gone and no longer in Attica.
During the whole time that the Peloponnesians were in Attica and the
Athenians on the expedition in their ships, men kept dying of the
plague both in the armament and in Athens. Indeed it was actually
asserted that the departure of the Peloponnesians was hastened by fear
of the disorder; as they heard from deserters that it was in the city,
and also could see the burials going on. Yet in this invasion they
remained longer than in any other, and ravaged the whole country,
for they were about forty days in Attica.
The same summer Hagnon, son of Nicias, and Cleopompus, son of
Clinias, the colleagues of Pericles, took the armament of which he had
lately made use, and went off upon an expedition against the
Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace and Potidaea, which was still
under siege. As soon as they arrived, they brought up their engines
against Potidaea and tried every means of taking it, but did not
succeed either in capturing the city or in doing anything else
worthy of their preparations. For the plague attacked them here
also, and committed such havoc as to cripple them completely, even the
previously healthy soldiers of the former expedition catching the
infection from Hagnon's troops; while Phormio and the sixteen
hundred men whom he commanded only escaped by being no longer in the
neighbourhood of the Chalcidians. The end of it was that Hagnon
returned with his ships to Athens, having lost one thousand and
fifty out of four thousand heavy infantry in about forty days;
though the soldiers stationed there before remained in the country and
carried on the siege of Potidaea.
After the second invasion of the Peloponnesians a change came over
the spirit of the Athenians. Their land had now been twice laid waste;
and war and pestilence at once pressed heavy upon them. They began
to find fault with Pericles, as the author of the war and the cause of
all their misfortunes, and became eager to come to terms with
Lacedaemon, and actually sent ambassadors thither, who did not however
succeed in their mission. Their despair was now complete and all
vented itself upon Pericles. When he saw them exasperated at the
present turn of affairs and acting exactly as he had anticipated, he
called an assembly, being (it must be remembered) still general,
with the double object of restoring confidence and of leading them
from these angry feelings to a calmer and more hopeful state of
mind. He accordingly came forward and spoke as follows:
"I was not unprepared for the indignation of which I have been the
object, as I know its causes; and I have called an assembly for the
purpose of reminding you upon certain points, and of protesting
against your being unreasonably irritated with me, or cowed by your
sufferings. I am of opinion that national greatness is more for the
advantage of private citizens, than any individual well-being
coupled with public humiliation. A man may be personally ever so
well off, and yet if his country be ruined he must be ruined with
it; whereas a flourishing commonwealth always affords chances of
salvation to unfortunate individuals. Since then a state can support
the misfortunes of private citizens, while they cannot support hers,
it is surely the duty of every one to be forward in her defence, and
not like you to be so confounded with your domestic afflictions as
to give up all thoughts of the common safety, and to blame me for
having counselled war and yourselves for having voted it. And yet if
you are angry with me, it is with one who, as I believe, is second
to no man either in knowledge of the proper policy, or in the
ability to expound it, and who is moreover not only a patriot but an
honest one. A man possessing that knowledge without that faculty of
exposition might as well have no idea at all on the matter: if he
had both these gifts, but no love for his country, he would be but a
cold advocate for her interests; while were his patriotism not proof
against bribery, everything would go for a price. So that if you
thought that I was even moderately distinguished for these qualities
when you took my advice and went to war, there is certainly no
reason now why I should be charged with having done wrong.
"For those of course who have a free choice in the matter and
whose fortunes are not at stake, war is the greatest of follies. But
if the only choice was between submission with loss of independence,
and danger with the hope of preserving that independence, in such a
case it is he who will not accept the risk that deserves blame, not he
who will. I am the same man and do not alter, it is you who change,
since in fact you took my advice while unhurt, and waited for
misfortune to repent of it; and the apparent error of my policy lies
in the infirmity of your resolution, since the suffering that it
entails is being felt by every one among you, while its advantage is
still remote and obscure to all, and a great and sudden reverse having
befallen you, your mind is too much depressed to persevere in your
resolves. For before what is sudden, unexpected, and least within
calculation, the spirit quails; and putting all else aside, the plague
has certainly been an emergency of this kind. Born, however, as you
are, citizens of a great state, and brought up, as you have been, with
habits equal to your birth, you should be ready to face the greatest
disasters and still to keep unimpaired the lustre of your name. For
the judgment of mankind is as relentless to the weakness that falls
short of a recognized renown, as it is jealous of the arrogance that
aspires higher than its due. Cease then to grieve for your private
afflictions, and address yourselves instead to the safety of the
commonwealth.
"If you shrink before the exertions which the war makes necessary,
and fear that after all they may not have a happy result, you know the
reasons by which I have often demonstrated to you the groundlessness
of your apprehensions. If those are not enough, I will now reveal an
advantage arising from the greatness of your dominion, which I think
has never yet suggested itself to you, which I never mentioned in my
previous speeches, and which has so bold a sound that I should
scarce adventure it now, were it not for the unnatural depression
which I see around me. You perhaps think that your empire extends only
over your allies; I will declare to you the truth. The visible field
of action has two parts, land and sea. In the whole of one of these
you are completely supreme, not merely as far as you use it at
present, but also to what further extent you may think fit: in fine,
your naval resources are such that your vessels may go where they
please, without the King or any other nation on earth being able to
stop them. So that although you may think it a great privation to lose
the use of your land and houses, still you must see that this power is
something widely different; and instead of fretting on their
account, you should really regard them in the light of the gardens and
other accessories that embellish a great fortune, and as, in
comparison, of little moment. You should know too that liberty
preserved by your efforts will easily recover for us what we have
lost, while, the knee once bowed, even what you have will pass from
you. Your fathers receiving these possessions not from others, but
from themselves, did not let slip what their labour had acquired,
but delivered them safe to you; and in this respect at least you
must prove yourselves their equals, remembering that to lose what
one has got is more disgraceful than to be balked in getting, and
you must confront your enemies not merely with spirit but with
disdain. Confidence indeed a blissful ignorance can impart, ay, even
to a coward's breast, but disdain is the privilege of those who,
like us, have been assured by reflection of their superiority to their
adversary. And where the chances are the same, knowledge fortifies
courage by the contempt which is its consequence, its trust being
placed, not in hope, which is the prop of the desperate, but in a
judgment grounded upon existing resources, whose anticipations are
more to be depended upon.
"Again, your country has a right to your services in sustaining
the glories of her position. These are a common source of pride to you
all, and you cannot decline the burdens of empire and still expect
to share its honours. You should remember also that what you are
fighting against is not merely slavery as an exchange for
independence, but also loss of empire and danger from the
animosities incurred in its exercise. Besides, to recede is no
longer possible, if indeed any of you in the alarm of the moment has
become enamoured of the honesty of such an unambitious part. For
what you hold is, to speak somewhat plainly, a tyranny; to take it
perhaps was wrong, but to let it go is unsafe. And men of these
retiring views, making converts of others, would quickly ruin a state;
indeed the result would be the same if they could live independent
by themselves; for the retiring and unambitious are never secure
without vigorous protectors at their side; in fine, such qualities are
useless to an imperial city, though they may help a dependency to an
unmolested servitude.
"But you must not be seduced by citizens like these or angry with
me- who, if I voted for war, only did as you did yourselves- in spite
of the enemy having invaded your country and done what you could be
certain that he would do, if you refused to comply with his demands;
and although besides what we counted for, the plague has come upon
us- the only point indeed at which our calculation has been at fault.
It is this, I know, that has had a large share in making me more
unpopular than I should otherwise have been- quite undeservedly,
unless you are also prepared to give me the credit of any success with
which chance may present you. Besides, the hand of heaven must be
borne with resignation, that of the enemy with fortitude; this was the
old way at Athens, and do not you prevent it being so still. Remember,
too, that if your country has the greatest name in all the world, it
is because she never bent before disaster; because she has expended
more life and effort in war than any other city, and has won for
herself a power greater than any hitherto known, the memory of which
will descend to the latest posterity; even if now, in obedience to the
general law of decay, we should ever be forced to yield, still it will
be remembered that we held rule over more Hellenes than any other
Hellenic state, that we sustained the greatest wars against their
united or separate powers, and inhabited a city unrivalled by any
other in resources or magnitude. These glories may incur the censure
of the slow and unambitious; but in the breast of energy they will
awake emulation, and in those who must remain without them an
envious regret. Hatred and unpopularity at the moment have fallen to
the lot of all who have aspired to rule others; but where odium must
be incurred, true wisdom incurs it for the highest objects. Hatred
also is short-lived; but that which makes the splendour of the present
and the glory of the future remains for ever unforgotten. Make your
decision, therefore, for glory then and honour now, and attain both
objects by instant and zealous effort: do not send heralds to
Lacedaemon, and do not betray any sign of being oppressed by your
present sufferings, since they whose minds are least sensitive to
calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the
greatest men and the greatest communities."
Such were the arguments by which Pericles tried to cure the
Athenians of their anger against him and to divert their thoughts from
their immediate afflictions. As a community he succeeded in convincing
them; they not only gave up all idea of sending to Lacedaemon, but
applied themselves with increased energy to the war; still as
private individuals they could not help smarting under their
sufferings, the common people having been deprived of the little
that they were possessed, while the higher orders had lost fine
properties with costly establishments and buildings in the country,
and, worst of all, had war instead of peace. In fact, the public
feeling against him did not subside until he had been fined. Not
long afterwards, however, according to the way of the multitude,
they again elected him general and committed all their affairs to
his hands, having now become less sensitive to their private and
domestic afflictions, and understanding that he was the best man of
all for the public necessities. For as long as he was at the head of
the state during the peace, he pursued a moderate and conservative
policy; and in his time its greatness was at its height. When the
war broke out, here also he seems to have rightly gauged the power
of his country. He outlived its commencement two years and six months,
and the correctness of his previsions respecting it became better
known by his death. He told them to wait quietly, to pay attention
to their marine, to attempt no new conquests, and to expose the city
to no hazards during the war, and doing this, promised them a
favourable result. What they did was the very contrary, allowing
private ambitions and private interests, in matters apparently quite
foreign to the war, to lead them into projects unjust both to
themselves and to their allies- projects whose success would only
conduce to the honour and advantage of private persons, and whose
failure entailed certain disaster on the country in the war. The
causes of this are not far to seek. Pericles indeed, by his rank,
ability, and known integrity, was enabled to exercise an independent
control over the multitude- in short, to lead them instead of being
led by them; for as he never sought power by improper means, he was
never compelled to flatter them, but, on the contrary, enjoyed so high
an estimation that he could afford to anger them by contradiction.
Whenever he saw them unseasonably and insolently elated, he would with
a word reduce them to alarm; on the other hand, if they fell victims
to a panic, he could at once restore them to confidence. In short,
what was nominally a democracy became in his hands government by the
first citizen. With his successors it was different. More on a level
with one another, and each grasping at supremacy, they ended by
committing even the conduct of state affairs to the whims of the
multitude. This, as might have been expected in a great and
sovereign state, produced a host of blunders, and amongst them the
Sicilian expedition; though this failed not so much through a
miscalculation of the power of those against whom it was sent, as
through a fault in the senders in not taking the best measures
afterwards to assist those who had gone out, but choosing rather to
occupy themselves with private cabals for the leadership of the
commons, by which they not only paralysed operations in the field, but
also first introduced civil discord at home. Yet after losing most
of their fleet besides other forces in Sicily, and with faction
already dominant in the city, they could still for three years make
head against their original adversaries, joined not only by the
Sicilians, but also by their own allies nearly all in revolt, and at
last by the King's son, Cyrus, who furnished the funds for the
Peloponnesian navy. Nor did they finally succumb till they fell the
victims of their own intestine disorders. So superfluously abundant
were the resources from which the genius of Pericles foresaw an easy
triumph in the war over the unaided forces of the Peloponnesians.
During the same summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies made an
expedition with a hundred ships against Zacynthus, an island lying off
the coast of Elis, peopled by a colony of Achaeans from Peloponnese,
and in alliance with Athens. There were a thousand Lacedaemonian heavy
infantry on board, and Cnemus, a Spartan, as admiral. They made a
descent from their ships, and ravaged most of the country; but as
the inhabitants would not submit, they sailed back home.
At the end of the same summer the Corinthian Aristeus, Aneristus,
Nicolaus, and Stratodemus, envoys from Lacedaemon, Timagoras, a
Tegean, and a private individual named Pollis from Argos, on their way
to Asia to persuade the King to supply funds and join in the war, came
to Sitalces, son of Teres in Thrace, with the idea of inducing him, if
possible, to forsake the alliance of Athens and to march on Potidaea
then besieged by an Athenian force, and also of getting conveyed by
his means to their destination across the Hellespont to Pharnabazus,
who was to send them up the country to the King. But there chanced
to be with Sitalces some Athenian ambassadors- Learchus, son of
Callimachus, and Ameiniades, son of Philemon- who persuaded Sitalces'
son, Sadocus, the new Athenian citizen, to put the men into their
hands and thus prevent their crossing over to the King and doing their
part to injure the country of his choice. He accordingly had them
seized, as they were travelling through Thrace to the vessel in
which they were to cross the Hellespont, by a party whom he had sent
on with Learchus and Ameiniades, and gave orders for their delivery to
the Athenian ambassadors, by whom they were brought to Athens. On
their arrival, the Athenians, afraid that Aristeus, who had been
notably the prime mover in the previous affairs of Potidaea and
their Thracian possessions, might live to do them still more
mischief if he escaped, slew them all the same day, without giving
them a trial or hearing the defence which they wished to offer, and
cast their bodies into a pit; thinking themselves justified in using
in retaliation the same mode of warfare which the Lacedaemonians had
begun, when they slew and cast into pits all the Athenian and allied
traders whom they caught on board the merchantmen round Peloponnese.
Indeed, at the outset of the war, the Lacedaemonians butchered as
enemies all whom they took on the sea, whether allies of Athens or
neutrals.
About the same time towards the close of the summer, the Ambraciot
forces, with a number of barbarians that they had raised, marched
against the Amphilochian Argos and the rest of that country. The
origin of their enmity against the Argives was this. This Argos and
the rest of Amphilochia were colonized by Amphilochus, son of
Amphiaraus. Dissatisfied with the state of affairs at home on his
return thither after the Trojan War, he built this city in the
Ambracian Gulf, and named it Argos after his own country. This was the
largest town in Amphilochia, and its inhabitants the most powerful.
Under the pressure of misfortune many generations afterwards, they
called in the Ambraciots, their neighbours on the Amphilochian border,
to join their colony; and it was by this union with the Ambraciots
that they learnt their present Hellenic speech, the rest of the
Amphilochians being barbarians. After a time the Ambraciots expelled
the Argives and held the city themselves. Upon this the
Amphilochians gave themselves over to the Acarnanians; and the two
together called the Athenians, who sent them Phormio as general and
thirty ships; upon whose arrival they took Argos by storm, and made
slaves of the Ambraciots; and the Amphilochians and Acarnanians
inhabited the town in common. After this began the alliance between
the Athenians and Acarnanians. The enmity of the Ambraciots against
the Argives thus commenced with the enslavement of their citizens; and
afterwards during the war they collected this armament among
themselves and the Chaonians, and other of the neighbouring
barbarians. Arrived before Argos, they became masters of the
country; but not being successful in their attacks upon the town,
returned home and dispersed among their different peoples.
Such were the events of the summer. The ensuing winter the Athenians
sent twenty ships round Peloponnese, under the command of Phormio, who
stationed himself at Naupactus and kept watch against any one
sailing in or out of Corinth and the Crissaean Gulf. Six others went
to Caria and Lycia under Melesander, to collect tribute in those
parts, and also to prevent the Peloponnesian privateers from taking up
their station in those waters and molesting the passage of the
merchantmen from Phaselis and Phoenicia and the adjoining continent.
However, Melesander, going up the country into Lycia with a force of
Athenians from the ships and the allies, was defeated and killed in
battle, with the loss of a number of his troops.
The same winter the Potidaeans at length found themselves no
longer able to hold out against their besiegers. The inroads of the
Peloponnesians into Attica had not had the desired effect of making
the Athenians raise the siege. Provisions there were none left; and so
far had distress for food gone in Potidaea that, besides a number of
other horrors, instances had even occurred of the people having
eaten one another. in this extremity they at last made proposals for
capitulating to the Athenian generals in command against
them- Xenophon, son of Euripides, Hestiodorus, son of Aristocleides,
and Phanomachus, son of Callimachus. The generals accepted their
proposals, seeing the sufferings of the army in so exposed a position;
besides which the state had already spent two thousand talents upon
the siege. The terms of the capitulation were as follows: a free
passage out for themselves, their children, wives and auxiliaries,
with one garment apiece, the women with two, and a fixed sum of
money for their journey. Under this treaty they went out to Chalcidice
and other places, according as was their power. The Athenians,
however, blamed the generals for granting terms without instructions
from home, being of opinion that the place would have had to surrender
at discretion. They afterwards sent settlers of their own to Potidaea,
and colonized it. Such were the events of the winter, and so ended the
second year of this war of which Thucydides was the historian.
CHAPTER VIII.

Third Year of the War - Investment of Plataea -
Naval Victories of Phormio - Thracian
Irruption into Macedonia under Sitalces

THE next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies, instead of
invading Attica, marched against Plataea, under the command of
Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. He had
encamped his army and was about to lay waste the country, when the
Plataeans hastened to send envoys to him, and spoke as follows:
"Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, in invading the Plataean territory,
you do what is wrong in itself, and worthy neither of yourselves nor
of the fathers who begot you. Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, your
countryman, after freeing Hellas from the Medes with the help of
those Hellenes who were willing to undertake the risk of the battle
fought near our city, offered sacrifice to Zeus the Liberator in the
marketplace of Plataea, and calling all the allies together restored
to the Plataeans their city and territory, and declared it
independent and inviolate against aggression or conquest. Should any
such be attempted, the allies present were to help according to their
power. Your fathers rewarded us thus for the courage and patriotism
that we displayed at that perilous epoch; but you do just the
contrary, coming with our bitterest enemies, the Thebans, to enslave
us. We appeal, therefore, to the gods to whom the oaths were then
made, to the gods of your ancestors, and lastly to those of our
country, and call upon you to refrain from violating our territory
or transgressing the oaths, and to let us live independent, as
Pausanias decreed."
The Plataeans had got thus far when they were cut short by
Archidamus saying: "There is justice, Plataeans, in what you say, if
you act up to your words. According, to the grant of Pausanias,
continue to be independent yourselves, and join in freeing those of
your fellow countrymen who, after sharing in the perils of that
period, joined in the oaths to you, and are now subject to the
Athenians; for it is to free them and the rest that all this provision
and war has been made. I could wish that you would share our labours
and abide by the oaths yourselves; if this is impossible, do what we
have already required of you- remain neutral, enjoying your own; join
neither side, but receive both as friends, neither as allies for the
war. With this we shall be satisfied." Such were the words of
Archidamus. The Plataeans, after hearing what he had to say, went into
the city and acquainted the people with what had passed, and presently
returned for answer that it was impossible for them to do what he
proposed without consulting the Athenians, with whom their children
and wives now were; besides which they had their fears for the town.
After his departure, what was to prevent the Athenians from coming and
taking it out of their hands, or the Thebans, who would be included in
the oaths, from taking advantage of the proposed neutrality to make
a second attempt to seize the city? Upon these points he tried to
reassure them by saying: "You have only to deliver over the city and
houses to us Lacedaemonians, to point out the boundaries of your land,
the number of your fruit-trees, and whatever else can be numerically
stated, and yourselves to withdraw wherever you like as long as the
war shall last. When it is over we will restore to you whatever we
received, and in the interim hold it in trust and keep it in
cultivation, paying you a sufficient allowance."
When they had heard what he had to say, they re-entered the city,
and after consulting with the people said that they wished first to
acquaint the Athenians with this proposal, and in the event of their
approving to accede to it; in the meantime they asked him to grant
them a truce and not to lay waste their territory. He accordingly
granted a truce for the number of days requisite for the journey,
and meanwhile abstained from ravaging their territory. The Plataean
envoys went to Athens, and consulted with the Athenians, and
returned with the following message to those in the city: "The
Athenians say, Plataeans, that they never hitherto, since we became
their allies, on any occasion abandoned us to an enemy, nor will
they now neglect us, but will help us according to their ability;
and they adjure you by the oaths which your fathers swore, to keep the
alliance unaltered."
On the delivery of this message by the envoys, the Plataeans
resolved not to be unfaithful to the Athenians but to endure, if it
must be, seeing their lands laid waste and any other trials that might
come to them, and not to send out again, but to answer from the wall
that it was impossible for them to do as the Lacedaemonians
proposed. As soon as he had received this answer, King Archidamus
proceeded first to make a solemn appeal to the gods and heroes of
the country in words following: "Ye gods and heroes of the Plataean
territory, be my witnesses that not as aggressors originally, nor
until these had first departed from the common oath, did we invade
this land, in which our fathers offered you their prayers before
defeating the Medes, and which you made auspicious to the Hellenic
arms; nor shall we be aggressors in the measures to which we may now
resort, since we have made many fair proposals but have not been
successful. Graciously accord that those who were the first to
offend may be punished for it, and that vengeance may be attained by
those who would righteously inflict it."
After this appeal to the gods Archidamus put his army in motion.
First he enclosed the town with a palisade formed of the fruit-trees
which they cut down, to prevent further egress from Plataea; next they
threw up a mound against the city, hoping that the largeness of the
force employed would ensure the speedy reduction of the place. They
accordingly cut down timber from Cithaeron, and built it up on
either side, laying it like lattice-work to serve as a wall to keep
the mound from spreading abroad, and carried to it wood and stones and
earth and whatever other material might help to complete it. They
continued to work at the mound for seventy days and nights without
intermission, being divided into relief parties to allow of some being
employed in carrying while others took sleep and refreshment; the
Lacedaemonian officer attached to each contingent keeping the men to
the work. But the Plataeans, observing the progress of the mound,
constructed a wall of wood and fixed it upon that part of the city
wall against which the mound was being erected, and built up bricks
inside it which they took from the neighbouring houses. The timbers
served to bind the building together, and to prevent its becoming weak
as it advanced in height; it had also a covering of skins and hides,
which protected the woodwork against the attacks of burning missiles
and allowed the men to work in safety. Thus the wall was raised to a
great height, and the mound opposite made no less rapid progress.
The Plataeans also thought of another expedient; they pulled out
part of the wall upon which the mound abutted, and carried the earth
into the city.
Discovering this the Peloponnesians twisted up clay in wattles of
reed and threw it into the breach formed in the mound, in order to
give it consistency and prevent its being carried away like the
soil. Stopped in this way the Plataeans changed their mode of
operation, and digging a mine from the town calculated their way under
the mound, and began to carry off its material as before. This went on
for a long while without the enemy outside finding it out, so that for
all they threw on the top their mound made no progress in
proportion, being carried away from beneath and constantly settling
down in the vacuum. But the Plataeans, fearing that even thus they
might not be able to hold out against the superior numbers of the
enemy, had yet another invention. They stopped working at the large
building in front of the mound, and starting at either end of it
inside from the old low wall, built a new one in the form of a
crescent running in towards the town; in order that in the event of
the great wall being taken this might remain, and the enemy have to
throw up a fresh mound against it, and as they advanced within might
not only have their trouble over again, but also be exposed to
missiles on their flanks. While raising the mound the Peloponnesians
also brought up engines against the city, one of which was brought
up upon the mound against the great building and shook down a good
piece of it, to the no small alarm of the Plataeans. Others were
advanced against different parts of the wall but were lassoed and
broken by the Plataeans; who also hung up great beams by long iron
chains from either extremity of two poles laid on the wall and
projecting over it, and drew them up at an angle whenever any point
was threatened by the engine, and loosing their hold let the beam go
with its chains slack, so that it fell with a run and snapped off
the nose of the battering ram.
After this the Peloponnesians, finding that their engines effected
nothing, and that their mound was met by the counterwork, concluded
that their present means of offence were unequal to the taking of
the city, and prepared for its circumvallation. First, however, they
determined to try the effects of fire and see whether they could
not, with the help of a wind, burn the town, as it was not a large
one; indeed they thought of every possible expedient by which the
place might be reduced without the expense of a blockade. They
accordingly brought faggots of brushwood and threw them from the
mound, first into the space between it and the wall; and this soon
becoming full from the number of hands at work, they next heaped the
faggots up as far into the town as they could reach from the top,
and then lighted the wood by setting fire to it with sulphur and
pitch. The consequence was a fire greater than any one had ever yet
seen produced by human agency, though it could not of course be
compared to the spontaneous conflagrations sometimes known to occur
through the wind rubbing the branches of a mountain forest together.
And this fire was not only remarkable for its magnitude, but was also,
at the end of so many perils, within an ace of proving fatal to the
Plataeans; a great part of the town became entirely inaccessible,
and had a wind blown upon it, in accordance with the hopes of the
enemy, nothing could have saved them. As it was, there is also a story
of heavy rain and thunder having come on by which the fire was put out
and the danger averted.
Failing in this last attempt the Peloponnesians left a portion of
their forces on the spot, dismissing the rest, and built a wall of
circumvallation round the town, dividing the ground among the
various cities present; a ditch being made within and without the
lines, from which they got their bricks. All being finished by about
the rising of Arcturus, they left men enough to man half the wall, the
rest being manned by the Boeotians, and drawing off their army
dispersed to their several cities. The Plataeans had before sent off
their wives and children and oldest men and the mass of the
non-combatants to Athens; so that the number of the besieged left in
the place comprised four hundred of their own citizens, eighty
Athenians, and a hundred and ten women to bake their bread. This was
the sum total at the commencement of the siege, and there was no one
else within the walls, bond or free. Such were the arrangements made
for the blockade of Plataea.
The same summer and simultaneously with the expedition against
Plataea, the Athenians marched with two thousand heavy infantry and
two hundred horse against the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace
and the Bottiaeans, just as the corn was getting ripe, under the
command of Xenophon, son of Euripides, with two colleagues. Arriving
before Spartolus in Bottiaea, they destroyed the corn and had some
hopes of the city coming over through the intrigues of a faction
within. But those of a different way of thinking had sent to Olynthus;
and a garrison of heavy infantry and other troops arrived accordingly.
These issuing from Spartolus were engaged by the Athenians in front of
the town: the Chalcidian heavy infantry, and some auxiliaries with
them, were beaten and retreated into Spartolus; but the Chalcidian
horse and light troops defeated the horse and light troops of the
Athenians. The Chalcidians had already a few targeteers from Crusis,
and presently after the battle were joined by some others from
Olynthus; upon seeing whom the light troops from Spartolus, emboldened
by this accession and by their previous success, with the help of
the Chalcidian horse and the reinforcement just arrived again attacked
the Athenians, who retired upon the two divisions which they had
left with their baggage. Whenever the Athenians advanced, their
adversary gave way, pressing them with missiles the instant they began
to retire. The Chalcidian horse also, riding up and charging them just
as they pleased, at last caused a panic amongst them and routed and
pursued them to a great distance. The Athenians took refuge in
Potidaea, and afterwards recovered their dead under truce, and
returned to Athens with the remnant of their army; four hundred and
thirty men and all the generals having fallen. The Chalcidians and
Bottiaeans set up a trophy, took up their dead, and dispersed to their
several cities.
The same summer, not long after this, the Ambraciots and
Chaonians, being desirous of reducing the whole of Acarnania and
detaching it from Athens, persuaded the Lacedaemonians to equip a
fleet from their confederacy and send a thousand heavy infantry to
Acarnania, representing that, if a combined movement were made by land
and sea, the coast Acarnanians would be unable to march, and the
conquest of Zacynthus and Cephallenia easily following on the
possession of Acarnania, the cruise round Peloponnese would be no
longer so convenient for the Athenians. Besides which there was a hope
of taking Naupactus. The Lacedaemonians accordingly at once sent off a
few vessels with Cnemus, who was still high admiral, and the heavy
infantry on board; and sent round orders for the fleet to equip as
quickly as possible and sail to Leucas. The Corinthians were the
most forward in the business; the Ambraciots being a colony of theirs.
While the ships from Corinth, Sicyon, and the neighbourhood were
getting ready, and those from Leucas, Anactorium, and Ambracia,
which had arrived before, were walting for them at Leucas, Cnemus
and his thousand heavy infantry had run into the gulf, giving the slip
to Phormio, the commander of the Athenian squadron stationed off
Naupactus, and began at once to prepare for the land expedition. The
Hellenic troops with him consisted of the Ambraciots, Leucadians,
and Anactorians, and the thousand Peloponnesians with whom he came;
the barbarian of a thousand Chaonians, who, belonging to a nation that
has no king, were led by Photys and Nicanor, the two members of the
royal family to whom the chieftainship for that year had been
confided. With the Chaonians came also some Thesprotians, like them
without a king, some Molossians and Atintanians led by Sabylinthus,
the guardian of King Tharyps who was still a minor, and some
Paravaeans, under their king Oroedus, accompanied by a thousand
Orestians, subjects of King Antichus and placed by him under the
command of Oroedus. There were also a thousand Macedonians sent by
Perdiccas without the knowledge of the Athenians, but they arrived too
late. With this force Cnemus set out, without waiting for the fleet
from Corinth. Passing through the territory of Amphilochian Argos, and
sacking the open village of Limnaea, they advanced to Stratus the
Acarnanian capital; this once taken, the rest of the country, they
felt convinced, would speedily follow.
The Acarnanians, finding themselves invaded by a large army by land,
and from the sea threatened by a hostile fleet, made no combined
attempt at resistance, but remained to defend their homes, and sent
for help to Phormio, who replied that, when a fleet was on the point
of sailing from Corinth, it was impossible for him to leave
Naupactus unprotected. The Peloponnesians meanwhile and their allies
advanced upon Stratus in three divisions, with the intention of
encamping near it and attempting the wall by force if they failed to
succeed by negotiation. The order of march was as follows: the
centre was occupied by the Chaonians and the rest of the barbarians,
with the Leucadians and Anactorians and their followers on the
right, and Cnemus with the Peloponnesians and Ambraciots on the
left; each division being a long way off from, and sometimes even
out of sight of, the others. The Hellenes advanced in good order,
keeping a look-out till they encamped in a good position; but the
Chaonians, filled with self-confidence, and having the highest
character for courage among the tribes of that part of the
continent, without waiting to occupy their camp, rushed on with the
rest of the barbarians, in the idea that they should take the town
by assault and obtain the sole glory of the enterprise. While they
were coming on, the Stratians, becoming aware how things stood, and
thinking that the defeat of this division would considerably
dishearten the Hellenes behind it, occupied the environs of the town
with ambuscades, and as soon as they approached engaged them at
close quarters from the city and the ambuscades. A panic seizing the
Chaonians, great numbers of them were slain; and as soon as they
were seen to give way the rest of the barbarians turned and fled.
Owing to the distance by which their allies had preceded them, neither
of the Hellenic divisions knew anything of the battle, but fancied
they were hastening on to encamp. However, when the flying
barbarians broke in upon them, they opened their ranks to receive
them, brought their divisions together, and stopped quiet where they
were for the day; the Stratians not offering to engage them, as the
rest of the Acarnanians had not yet arrived, but contenting themselves
with slinging at them from a distance, which distressed them
greatly, as there was no stirring without their armour. The
Acarnanians would seem to excel in this mode of warfare.
As soon as night fell, Cnemus hastily drew off his army to the river
Anapus, about nine miles from Stratus, recovering his dead next day
under truce, and being there joined by the friendly Oeniadae, fell
back upon their city before the enemy's reinforcements came up. From
hence each returned home; and the Stratians set up a trophy for the
battle with the barbarians.
Meanwhile the fleet from Corinth and the rest of the confederates in
the Crissaean Gulf, which was to have co-operated with Cnemus and
prevented the coast Acarnanians from joining their countrymen in the
interior, was disabled from doing so by being compelled about the same
time as the battle at Stratus to fight with Phormio and the twenty
Athenian vessels stationed at Naupactus. For they were watched, as
they coasted along out of the gulf, by Phormio, who wished to attack
in the open sea. But the Corinthians and allies had started for
Acarnania without any idea of fighting at sea, and with vessels more
like transports for carrying soldiers; besides which, they never
dreamed of the twenty Athenian ships venturing to engage their
forty-seven. However, while they were coasting along their own
shore, there were the Athenians sailing along in line with them; and
when they tried to cross over from Patrae in Achaea to the mainland on
the other side, on their way to Acarnania, they saw them again
coming out from Chalcis and the river Evenus to meet them. They
slipped from their moorings in the night, but were observed, and
were at length compelled to fight in mid passage. Each state that
contributed to the armament had its own general; the Corinthian
commanders were Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas. The
Peloponnesians ranged their vessels in as large a circle as possible
without leaving an opening, with the prows outside and the sterns
in; and placed within all the small craft in company, and their five
best sailers to issue out at a moment's notice and strengthen any
point threatened by the enemy.
The Athenians, formed in line, sailed round and round them, and
forced them to contract their circle, by continually brushing past and
making as though they would attack at once, having been previously
cautioned by Phormio not to do so till he gave the signal. His hope
was that the Peloponnesians would not retain their order like a
force on shore, but that the ships would fall foul of one another
and the small craft cause confusion; and if the wind should blow
from the gulf (in expectation of which he kept sailing round them, and
which usually rose towards morning), they would not, he felt sure,
remain steady an instant. He also thought that it rested with him to
attack when he pleased, as his ships were better sailers, and that
an attack timed by the coming of the wind would tell best. When the
wind came down, the enemy's ships were now in a narrow space, and what
with the wind and the small craft dashing against them, at once fell
into confusion: ship fell foul of ship, while the crews were pushing
them off with poles, and by their shouting, swearing, and struggling
with one another, made captains' orders and boatswains' cries alike
inaudible, and through being unable for want of practice to clear
their oars in the rough water, prevented the vessels from obeying
their helmsmen properly. At this moment Phormio gave the signal, and
the Athenians attacked. Sinking first one of the admirals, they then
disabled all they came across, so that no one thought of resistance
for the confusion, but fled for Patrae and Dyme in Achaea. The
Athenians gave chase and captured twelve ships, and taking most of the
men out of them sailed to Molycrium, and after setting up a trophy
on the promontory of Rhium and dedicating a ship to Poseidon, returned
to Naupactus. As for the Peloponnesians, they at once sailed with
their remaining ships along the coast from Dyme and Patrae to Cyllene,
the Eleian arsenal; where Cnemus, and the ships from Leucas that
were to have joined them, also arrived after the battle at Stratus.
The Lacedaemonians now sent to the fleet to Cnemus three
commissioners- Timocrates, Bradidas, and Lycophron- with orders to
prepare to engage again with better fortune, and not to be driven from
the sea by a few vessels; for they could not at all account for
their discomfiture, the less so as it was their first attempt at
sea; and they fancied that it was not that their marine was so
inferior, but that there had been misconduct somewhere, not
considering the long experience of the Athenians as compared with
the little practice which they had had themselves. The commissioners
were accordingly sent in anger. As soon as they arrived they set to
work with Cnemus to order ships from the different states, and to
put those which they already had in fighting order. Meanwhile
Phormio sent word to Athens of their preparations and his own victory,
and desired as many ships as possible to be speedily sent to him, as
he stood in daily expectation of a battle. Twenty were accordingly
sent, but instructions were given to their commander to go first to
Crete. For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortys, who was proxenus of the
Athenians, had persuaded them to sail against Cydonia, promising to
procure the reduction of that hostile town; his real wish being to
oblige the Polichnitans, neighbours of the Cydonians. He accordingly
went with the ships to Crete, and, accompanied by the Polichnitans,
laid waste the lands of the Cydonians; and, what with adverse winds
and stress of weather wasted no little time there.
While the Athenians were thus detained in Crete, the
Peloponnesians in Cyllene got ready for battle, and coasted along to
Panormus in Achaea, where their land army had come to support them.
Phormio also coasted along to Molycrian Rhium, and anchored outside it
with twenty ships, the same as he had fought with before. This Rhium
was friendly to the Athenians. The other, in Peloponnese, lies
opposite to it; the sea between them is about three-quarters of a mile
broad, and forms the mouth of the Crissaean gulf. At this, the Achaean
Rhium, not far off Panormus, where their army lay, the
Peloponnesians now cast anchor with seventy-seven ships, when they saw
the Athenians do so. For six or seven days they remained opposite each
other, practising and preparing for the battle; the one resolved not
to sail out of the Rhia into the open sea, for fear of the disaster
which had already happened to them, the other not to sail into the
straits, thinking it advantageous to the enemy, to fight in the
narrows. At last Cnemus and Brasidas and the rest of the Peloponnesian
commanders, being desirous of bringing on a battle as soon as
possible, before reinforcements should arrive from Athens, and
noticing that the men were most of them cowed by the previous defeat
and out of heart for the business, first called them together and
encouraged them as follows:
"Peloponnesians, the late engagement, which may have made some of
you afraid of the one now in prospect, really gives no just ground for
apprehension. Preparation for it, as you know, there was little
enough; and the object of our voyage was not so much to fight at sea
as an expedition by land. Besides this, the chances of war were
largely against us; and perhaps also inexperience had something to
do with our failure in our first naval action. It was not,
therefore, cowardice that produced our defeat, nor ought the
determination which force has not quelled, but which still has a
word to say with its adversary, to lose its edge from the result of an
accident; but admitting the possibility of a chance miscarriage, we
should know that brave hearts must be always brave, and while they
remain so can never put forward inexperience as an excuse for
misconduct. Nor are you so behind the enemy in experience as you are
ahead of him in courage; and although the science of your opponents
would, if valour accompanied it, have also the presence of mind to
carry out at in emergency the lesson it has learnt, yet a faint
heart will make all art powerless in the face of danger. For fear
takes away presence of mind, and without valour art is useless.
Against their superior experience set your superior daring, and
against the fear induced by defeat the fact of your having been then
unprepared; remember, too, that you have always the advantage of
superior numbers, and of engaging off your own coast, supported by
your heavy infantry; and as a rule, numbers and equipment give
victory. At no point, therefore, is defeat likely; and as for our
previous mistakes, the very fact of their occurrence will teach us
better for the future. Steersmen and sailors may, therefore,
confidently attend to their several duties, none quitting the
station assigned to them: as for ourselves, we promise to prepare
for the engagement at least as well as your previous commanders, and
to give no excuse for any one misconducting himself. Should any insist
on doing so, he shall meet with the punishment he deserves, while
the brave shall be honoured with the appropriate rewards of valour."
The Peloponnesian commanders encouraged their men after this
fashion. Phormio, meanwhile, being himself not without fears for the
courage of his men, and noticing that they were forming in groups
among themselves and were alarmed at the odds against them, desired to
call them together and give them confidence and counsel in the present
emergency. He had before continually told them, and had accustomed
their minds to the idea, that there was no numerical superiority
that they could not face; and the men themselves had long been
persuaded that Athenians need never retire before any quantity of
Peloponnesian vessels. At the moment, however, he saw that they were
dispirited by the sight before them, and wishing to refresh their
confidence, called them together and spoke as follows:
"I see, my men, that you are frightened by the number of the
enemy, and I have accordingly called you together, not liking you to
be afraid of what is not really terrible. In the first place, the
Peloponnesians, already defeated, and not even themselves thinking
that they are a match for us, have not ventured to meet us on equal
terms, but have equipped this multitude of ships against us. Next,
as to that upon which they most rely, the courage which they suppose
constitutional to them, their confidence here only arises from the
success which their experience in land service usually gives them, and
which they fancy will do the same for them at sea. But this
advantage will in all justice belong to us on this element, if to them
on that; as they are not superior to us in courage, but we are each of
us more confident, according to our experience in our particular
department. Besides, as the Lacedaemonians use their supremacy over
their allies to promote their own glory, they are most of them being
brought into danger against their will, or they would never, after
such a decided defeat, have ventured upon a fresh engagement. You need
not, therefore, be afraid of their dash. You, on the contrary, inspire
a much greater and better founded alarm, both because of your late
victory and also of their belief that we should not face them unless
about to do something worthy of a success so signal. An adversary
numerically superior, like the one before us, comes into action
trusting more to strength than to resolution; while he who voluntarily
confronts tremendous odds must have very great internal resources to
draw upon. For these reasons the Peloponnesians fear our irrational
audacity more than they would ever have done a more commensurate
preparation. Besides, many armaments have before now succumbed to an
inferior through want of skill or sometimes of courage; neither of
which defects certainly are ours. As to the battle, it shall not be,
if I can help it, in the strait, nor will I sail in there at all;
seeing that in a contest between a number of clumsily managed
vessels and a small, fast, well-handled squadron, want of sea room
is an undoubted disadvantage. One cannot run down an enemy properly
without having a sight of him a good way off, nor can one retire at
need when pressed; one can neither break the line nor return upon
his rear, the proper tactics for a fast sailer; but the naval action
necessarily becomes a land one, in which numbers must decide the
matter. For all this I will provide as far as can be. Do you stay at
your posts by your ships, and be sharp at catching the word of
command, the more so as we are observing one another from so short a
distance; and in action think order and silence
all-important- qualities useful in war generally, and in naval
engagements in particular; and behave before the enemy in a manner
worthy of your past exploits. The issues you will fight for are
great- to destroy the naval hopes of the Peloponnesians or to bring
nearer to the Athenians their fears for the sea. And I may once more
remind you that you have defeated most of them already; and beaten men
do not face a danger twice with the same determination."
Such was the exhortation of Phormio. The Peloponnesians finding that
the Athenians did not sail into the gulf and the narrows, in order
to lead them in whether they wished it or not, put out at dawn, and
forming four abreast, sailed inside the gulf in the direction of their
own country, the right wing leading as they had lain at anchor. In
this wing were placed twenty of their best sailers; so that in the
event of Phormio thinking that their object was Naupactus, and
coasting along thither to save the place, the Athenians might not be
able to escape their onset by getting outside their wing, but might be
cut off by the vessels in question. As they expected, Phormio, in
alarm for the place at that moment emptied of its garrison, as soon as
he saw them put out, reluctantly and hurriedly embarked and sailed
along shore; the Messenian land forces moving along also to support
him. The Peloponnesians seeing him coasting along with his ships in
single file, and by this inside the gulf and close inshore as they
so much wished, at one signal tacked suddenly and bore down in line at
their best speed on the Athenians, hoping to cut off the whole
squadron. The eleven leading vessels, however, escaped the
Peloponnesian wing and its sudden movement, and reached the more
open water; but the rest were overtaken as they tried to run
through, driven ashore and disabled; such of the crews being slain
as had not swum out of them. Some of the ships the Peloponnesians
lashed to their own, and towed off empty; one they took with the men
in it; others were just being towed off, when they were saved by the
Messenians dashing into the sea with their armour and fighting from
the decks that they had boarded.
Thus far victory was with the Peloponnesians, and the Athenian fleet
destroyed; the twenty ships in the right wing being meanwhile in chase
of the eleven Athenian vessels that had escaped their sudden
movement and reached the more open water. These, with the exception of
one ship, all outsailed them and got safe into Naupactus, and
forming close inshore opposite the temple of Apollo, with their
prows facing the enemy, prepared to defend themselves in case the
Peloponnesians should sail inshore against them. After a while the
Peloponnesians came up, chanting the paean for their victory as they
sailed on; the single Athenian ship remaining being chased by a
Leucadian far ahead of the rest. But there happened to be a
merchantman lying at anchor in the roadstead, which the Athenian
ship found time to sail round, and struck the Leucadian in chase
amidships and sank her. An exploit so sudden and unexpected produced a
panic among the Peloponnesians; and having fallen out of order in
the excitement of victory, some of them dropped their oars and stopped
their way in order to let the main body come up- an unsafe thing to
do considering how near they were to the enemy's prows; while others
ran aground in the shallows, in their ignorance of the localities.
Elated at this incident, the Athenians at one word gave a cheer, and
dashed at the enemy, who, embarrassed by his mistakes and the disorder
in which he found himself, only stood for an instant, and then fled
for Panormus, whence he had put out. The Athenians following on his
heels took the six vessels nearest them, and recovered those of
their own which had been disabled close inshore and taken in tow at
the beginning of the action; they killed some of the crews and took
some prisoners. On board the Leucadian which went down off the
merchantman, was the Lacedaemonian Timocrates, who killed himself when
the ship was sunk, and was cast up in the harbour of Naupactus. The
Athenians on their return set up a trophy on the spot from which
they had put out and turned the day, and picking up the wrecks and
dead that were on their shore, gave back to the enemy their dead under
truce. The Peloponnesians also set up a trophy as victors for the
defeat inflicted upon the ships they had disabled in shore, and
dedicated the vessel which they had taken at Achaean Rhium, side by
side with the trophy. After this, apprehensive of the reinforcement
expected from Athens, all except the Leucadians sailed into the
Crissaean Gulf for Corinth. Not long after their retreat, the twenty
Athenian ships, which were to have joined Phormio before the battle,
arrived at Naupactus.
Thus the summer ended. Winter was now at hand; but dispersing the
fleet, which had retired to Corinth and the Crissaean Gulf, Cnemus,
Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian captains allowed themselves to
be persuaded by the Megarians to make an attempt upon Piraeus, the
port of Athens, which from her decided superiority at sea had been
naturally left unguarded and open. Their plan was as follows: The
men were each to take their oar, cushion, and rowlock thong, and,
going overland from Corinth to the sea on the Athenian side, to get to
Megara as quickly as they could, and launching forty vessels, which
happened to be in the docks at Nisaea, to sail at once to Piraeus.
There was no fleet on the look-out in the harbour, and no one had
the least idea of the enemy attempting a surprise; while an open
attack would, it was thought, never be deliberately ventured on, or,
if in contemplation, would be speedily known at Athens. Their plan
formed, the next step was to put it in execution. Arriving by night
and launching the vessels from Nisaea, they sailed, not to Piraeus
as they had originally intended, being afraid of the risk, besides
which there was some talk of a wind having stopped them, but to the
point of Salamis that looks towards Megara; where there was a fort and
a squadron of three ships to prevent anything sailing in or out of
Megara. This fort they assaulted, and towed off the galleys empty, and
surprising the inhabitants began to lay waste the rest of the island.
Meanwhile fire signals were raised to alarm Athens, and a panic
ensued there as serious as any that occurred during the war. The
idea in the city was that the enemy had already sailed into Piraeus:
in Piraeus it was thought that they had taken Salamis and might at any
moment arrive in the port; as indeed might easily have been done if
their hearts had been a little firmer: certainly no wind would have
prevented them. As soon as day broke, the Athenians assembled in
full force, launched their ships, and embarking in haste and uproar
went with the fleet to Salamis, while their soldiery mounted guard
in Piraeus. The Peloponnesians, on becoming aware of the coming
relief, after they had overrun most of Salamis, hastily sailed off
with their plunder and captives and the three ships from Fort
Budorum to Nisaea; the state of their ships also causing them some
anxiety, as it was a long while since they had been launched, and they
were not water-tight. Arrived at Megara, they returned back on foot to
Corinth. The Athenians finding them no longer at Salamis, sailed
back themselves; and after this made arrangements for guarding Piraeus
more diligently in future, by closing the harbours, and by other
suitable precautions.
About the same time, at the beginning of this winter, Sitalces,
son of Teres, the Odrysian king of Thrace, made an expedition
against Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and the
Chalcidians in the neighbourhood of Thrace; his object being to
enforce one promise and fulfil another. On the one hand Perdiccas
had made him a promise, when hard pressed at the commencement of the
war, upon condition that Sitalces should reconcile the Athenians to
him and not attempt to restore his brother and enemy, the pretender
Philip, but had not offered to fulfil his engagement; on the other he,
Sitalces, on entering into alliance with the Athenians, had agreed
to put an end to the Chalcidian war in Thrace. These were the two
objects of his invasion. With him he brought Amyntas, the son of
Philip, whom he destined for the throne of Macedonia, and some
Athenian envoys then at his court on this business, and Hagnon as
general; for the Athenians were to join him against the Chalcidians
with a fleet and as many soldiers as they could get together.
Beginning with the Odrysians, he first called out the Thracian
tribes subject to him between Mounts Haemus and Rhodope and the Euxine
and Hellespont; next the Getae beyond Haemus, and the other hordes
settled south of the Danube in the neighbourhood of the Euxine, who,
like the Getae, border on the Scythians and are armed in the same
manner, being all mounted archers. Besides these he summoned many of
the hill Thracian independent swordsmen, called Dii and mostly
inhabiting Mount Rhodope, some of whom came as mercenaries, others
as volunteers; also the Agrianes and Laeaeans, and the rest of the
Paeonian tribes in his empire, at the confines of which these lay,
extending up to the Laeaean Paeonians and the river Strymon, which
flows from Mount Scombrus through the country of the Agrianes and
Laeaeans; there the empire of Sitalces ends and the territory of the
independent Paeonians begins. Bordering on the Triballi, also
independent, were the Treres and Tilataeans, who dwell to the north of
Mount Scombrus and extend towards the setting sun as far as the
river Oskius. This river rises in the same mountains as the Nestus and
Hebrus, a wild and extensive range connected with Rhodope.
The empire of the Odrysians extended along the seaboard from
Abdera to the mouth of the Danube in the Euxine. The navigation of
this coast by the shortest route takes a merchantman four days and
four nights with a wind astern the whole way: by land an active man,
travelling by the shortest road, can get from Abdera to the Danube
in eleven days. Such was the length of its coast line. Inland from
Byzantium to the Laeaeans and the Strymon, the farthest limit of its
extension into the interior, it is a journey of thirteen days for an
active man. The tribute from all the barbarian districts and the
Hellenic cities, taking what they brought in under Seuthes, the
successor of Sitalces, who raised it to its greatest height,
amounted to about four hundred talents in gold and silver. There
were also presents in gold and silver to a no less amount, besides
stuff, plain and embroidered, and other articles, made not only for
the king, but also for the Odrysian lords and nobles. For there was
here established a custom opposite to that prevailing in the Persian
kingdom, namely, of taking rather than giving; more disgrace being
attached to not giving when asked than to asking and being refused;
and although this prevailed elsewhere in Thrace, it was practised most
extensively among the powerful Odrysians, it being impossible to get
anything done without a present. It was thus a very powerful
kingdom; in revenue and general prosperity surpassing all in Europe
between the Ionian Gulf and the Euxine, and in numbers and military
resources coming decidedly next to the Scythians, with whom indeed
no people in Europe can bear comparison, there not being even in
Asia any nation singly a match for them if unanimous, though of course
they are not on a level with other races in general intelligence and
the arts of civilized life.
It was the master of this empire that now prepared to take the
field. When everything was ready, he set out on his march for
Macedonia, first through his own dominions, next over the desolate
range of Cercine that divides the Sintians and Paeonians, crossing
by a road which he had made by felling the timber on a former campaign
against the latter people. Passing over these mountains, with the
Paeonians on his right and the Sintians and Maedians on the left, he
finally arrived at Doberus, in Paeonia, losing none of his army on the
march, except perhaps by sickness, but receiving some augmentations,
many of the independent Thracians volunteering to join him in the hope
of plunder; so that the whole is said to have formed a grand total
of a hundred and fifty thousand. Most of this was infantry, though
there was about a third cavalry, furnished principally by the
Odrysians themselves and next to them by the Getae. The most warlike
of the infantry were the independent swordsmen who came down from
Rhodope; the rest of the mixed multitude that followed him being
chiefly formidable by their numbers.
Assembling in Doberus, they prepared for descending from the heights
upon Lower Macedonia, where the dominions of Perdiccas lay; for the
Lyncestae, Elimiots, and other tribes more inland, though
Macedonians by blood, and allies and dependants of their kindred,
still have their own separate governments. The country on the sea
coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the
father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from
Argos. This was effected by the expulsion from Pieria of the Pierians,
who afterwards inhabited Phagres and other places under Mount
Pangaeus, beyond the Strymon (indeed the country between Pangaeus
and the sea is still called the Pierian Gulf); of the Bottiaeans, at
present neighbours of the Chalcidians, from Bottia, and by the
acquisition in Paeonia of a narrow strip along the river Axius
extending to Pella and the sea; the district of Mygdonia, between
the Axius and the Strymon, being also added by the expulsion of the
Edonians. From Eordia also were driven the Eordians, most of whom
perished, though a few of them still live round Physca, and the
Almopians from Almopia. These Macedonians also conquered places
belonging to the other tribes, which are still theirs- Anthemus,
Crestonia, Bisaltia, and much of Macedonia proper. The whole is now
called Macedonia, and at the time of the invasion of Sitalces,
Perdiccas, Alexander's son, was the reigning king.
These Macedonians, unable to take the field against so numerous an
invader, shut themselves up in such strong places and fortresses as
the country possessed. Of these there was no great number, most of
those now found in the country having been erected subsequently by
Archelaus, the son of Perdiccas, on his accession, who also cut
straight roads, and otherwise put the kingdom on a better footing as
regards horses, heavy infantry, and other war material than had been
done by all the eight kings that preceded him. Advancing from Doberus,
the Thracian host first invaded what had been once Philip's
government, and took Idomene by assault, Gortynia, Atalanta, and
some other places by negotiation, these last coming over for love of
Philip's son, Amyntas, then with Sitalces. Laying siege to Europus,
and failing to take it, he next advanced into the rest of Macedonia to
the left of Pella and Cyrrhus, not proceeding beyond this into
Bottiaea and Pieria, but staying to lay waste Mygdonia, Crestonia, and
Anthemus.
The Macedonians never even thought of meeting him with infantry; but
the Thracian host was, as opportunity offered, attacked by handfuls of
their horse, which had been reinforced from their allies in the
interior. Armed with cuirasses, and excellent horsemen, wherever these
charged they overthrew all before them, but ran considerable risk in
entangling themselves in the masses of the enemy, and so finally
desisted from these efforts, deciding that they were not strong enough
to venture against numbers so superior.
Meanwhile Sitalces opened negotiations with Perdiccas on the objects
of his expedition; and finding that the Athenians, not believing
that he would come, did not appear with their fleet, though they
sent presents and envoys, dispatched a large part of his army
against the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, and shutting them up inside
their walls laid waste their country. While he remained in these
parts, the people farther south, such as the Thessalians, Magnetes,
and the other tribes subject to the Thessalians, and the Hellenes as
far as Thermopylae, all feared that the army might advance against
them, and prepared accordingly. These fears were shared by the
Thracians beyond the Strymon to the north, who inhabited the plains,
such as the Panaeans, the Odomanti, the Droi, and the Dersaeans, all
of whom are independent. It was even matter of conversation among
the Hellenes who were enemies of Athens whether he might not be
invited by his ally to advance also against them. Meanwhile he held
Chalcidice and Bottice and Macedonia, and was ravaging them all; but
finding that he was not succeeding in any of the objects of his
invasion, and that his army was without provisions and was suffering
from the severity of the season, he listened to the advice of Seuthes,
son of Spardacus, his nephew and highest officer, and decided to
retreat without delay. This Seuthes had been secretly gained by
Perdiccas by the promise of his sister in marriage with a rich
dowry. In accordance with this advice, and after a stay of thirty days
in all, eight of which were spent in Chalcidice, he retired home as
quickly as he could; and Perdiccas afterwards gave his sister
Stratonice to Seuthes as he had promised. Such was the history of
the expedition of Sitalces.
In the course of this winter, after the dispersion of the
Peloponnesian fleet, the Athenians in Naupactus, under Phormio,
coasted along to Astacus and disembarked, and marched into the
interior of Acarnania with four hundred Athenian heavy infantry and
four hundred Messenians. After expelling some suspected persons from
Stratus, Coronta, and other places, and restoring Cynes, son of
Theolytus, to Coronta, they returned to their ships, deciding that
it was impossible in the winter season to march against Oeniadae, a
place which, unlike the rest of Acarnania, had been always hostile
to them; for the river Achelous flowing from Mount Pindus through
Dolopia and the country of the Agraeans and Amphilochians and the
plain of Acarnania, past the town of Stratus in the upper part of
its course, forms lakes where it falls into the sea round Oeniadae,
and thus makes it impracticable for an army in winter by reason of the
water. Opposite to Oeniadae lie most of the islands called
Echinades, so close to the mouths of the Achelous that that powerful
stream is constantly forming deposits against them, and has already
joined some of the islands to the continent, and seems likely in no
long while to do the same with the rest. For the current is strong,
deep, and turbid, and the islands are so thick together that they
serve to imprison the alluvial deposit and prevent its dispersing,
lying, as they do, not in one line, but irregularly, so as to leave no
direct passage for the water into the open sea. The islands in
question are uninhabited and of no great size. There is also a story
that Alcmaeon, son of Amphiraus, during his wanderings after the
murder of his mother was bidden by Apollo to inhabit this spot,
through an oracle which intimated that he would have no release from
his terrors until he should find a country to dwell in which had not
been seen by the sun, or existed as land at the time he slew his
mother; all else being to him polluted ground. Perplexed at this,
the story goes on to say, he at last observed this deposit of the
Achelous, and considered that a place sufficient to support life upon,
might have been thrown up during the long interval that had elapsed
since the death of his mother and the beginning of his wanderings.
Settling, therefore, in the district round Oeniadae, he founded a
dominion, and left the country its name from his son Acarnan. Such
is the story we have received concerning Alcmaeon.
The Athenians and Phormio putting back from Acarnania and arriving
at Naupactus, sailed home to Athens in the spring, taking with them
the ships that they had captured, and such of the prisoners made in
the late actions as were freemen; who were exchanged, man for man. And
so ended this winter, and the third year of this war, of which
Thucydides was the historian.
The Third Book.
CHAPTER IX.

Fourth and Fifth Years of the War -
Revolt of Mitylene

THE next summer, just as the corn was getting ripe, the
Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under the command of
Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat
down and ravaged the land; the Athenian horse as usual attacking them,
wherever it was practicable, and preventing the mass of the light
troops from advancing from their camp and wasting the parts near the
city. After staying the time for which they had taken provisions,
the invaders retired and dispersed to their several cities.
Immediately after the invasion of the Peloponnesians all Lesbos,
except Methymna, revolted from the Athenians. The Lesbians had
wished to revolt even before the war, but the Lacedaemonians would not
receive them; and yet now when they did revolt, they were compelled to
do so sooner than they had intended. While they were waiting until the
moles for their harbours and the ships and walls that they had in
building should be finished, and for the arrival of archers and corn
and other things that they were engaged in fetching from the Pontus,
the Tenedians, with whom they were at enmity, and the Methymnians, and
some factious persons in Mitylene itself, who were proxeni of
Athens, informed the Athenians that the Mitylenians were forcibly
uniting the island under their sovereignty, and that the
preparations about which they were so active, were all concerted
with the Boeotians their kindred and the Lacedaemonians with a view to
a revolt, and that, unless they were immediately prevented, Athens
would lose Lesbos.
However, the Athenians, distressed by the plague, and by the war
that had recently broken out and was now raging, thought it a
serious matter to add Lesbos with its fleet and untouched resources to
the list of their enemies; and at first would not believe the
charge, giving too much weight to their wish that it might not be
true. But when an embassy which they sent had failed to persuade the
Mitylenians to give up the union and preparations complained of,
they became alarmed, and resolved to strike the first blow. They
accordingly suddenly sent off forty ships that had been got ready to
sail round Peloponnese, under the command of Cleippides, son of
Deinias, and two others; word having been brought them of a festival
in honour of the Malean Apollo outside the town, which is kept by
the whole people of Mitylene, and at which, if haste were made, they
might hope to take them by surprise. If this plan succeeded, well
and good; if not, they were to order the Mitylenians to deliver up
their ships and to pull down their walls, and if they did not obey, to
declare war. The ships accordingly set out; the ten galleys, forming
the contingent of the Mitylenians present with the fleet according
to the terms of the alliance, being detained by the Athenians, and
their crews placed in custody. However, the Mitylenians were
informed of the expedition by a man who crossed from Athens to Euboea,
and going overland to Geraestus, sailed from thence by a merchantman
which he found on the point of putting to sea, and so arrived at
Mitylene the third day after leaving Athens. The Mitylenians
accordingly refrained from going out to the temple at Malea, and
moreover barricaded and kept guard round the half-finished parts of
their walls and harbours.
When the Athenians sailed in not long after and saw how things
stood, the generals delivered their orders, and upon the Mitylenians
refusing to obey, commenced hostilities. The Mitylenians, thus
compelled to go to war without notice and unprepared, at first
sailed out with their fleet and made some show of fighting, a little
in front of the harbour; but being driven back by the Athenian
ships, immediately offered to treat with the commanders, wishing, if
possible, to get the ships away for the present upon any tolerable
terms. The Athenian commanders accepted their offers, being themselves
fearful that they might not be able to cope with the whole of
Lesbos; and an armistice having been concluded, the Mitylenians sent
to Athens one of the informers, already repentant of his conduct,
and others with him, to try to persuade the Athenians of the innocence
of their intentions and to get the fleet recalled. In the meantime,
having no great hope of a favourable answer from Athens, they also
sent off a galley with envoys to Lacedaemon, unobserved by the
Athenian fleet which was anchored at Malea to the north of the town.
While these envoys, reaching Lacedaemon after a difficult journey
across the open sea, were negotiating for succours being sent them,
the ambassadors from Athens returned without having effected anything;
and hostilities were at once begun by the Mitylenians and the rest
of Lesbos, with the exception of the Methymnians, who came to the
aid of the Athenians with the Imbrians and Lemnians and some few of
the other allies. The Mitylenians made a sortie with all their
forces against the Athenian camp; and a battle ensued, in which they
gained some slight advantage, but retired notwithstanding, not feeling
sufficient confidence in themselves to spend the night upon the field.
After this they kept quiet, wishing to wait for the chance of
reinforcements arriving from Peloponnese before making a second
venture, being encouraged by the arrival of Meleas, a Laconian, and
Hermaeondas, a Theban, who had been sent off before the insurrection
but had been unable to reach Lesbos before the Athenian expedition,
and who now stole in in a galley after the battle, and advised them to
send another galley and envoys back with them, which the Mitylenians
accordingly did.
Meanwhile the Athenians, greatly encouraged by the inaction of the
Mitylenians, summoned allies to their aid, who came in all the quicker
from seeing so little vigour displayed by the Lesbians, and bringing
round their ships to a new station to the south of the town, fortified
two camps, one on each side of the city, and instituted a blockade
of both the harbours. The sea was thus closed against the Mitylenians,
who, however, commanded the whole country, with the rest of the
Lesbians who had now joined them; the Athenians only holding a limited
area round their camps, and using Malea more as the station for
their ships and their market.
While the war went on in this way at Mitylene, the Athenians,
about the same time in this summer, also sent thirty ships to
Peloponnese under Asopius, son of Phormio; the Acarnanians insisting
that the commander sent should be some son or relative of Phormio.
As the ships coasted along shore they ravaged the seaboard of Laconia;
after which Asopius sent most of the fleet home, and himself went on
with twelve vessels to Naupactus, and afterwards raising the whole
Acarnanian population made an expedition against Oeniadae, the fleet
sailing along the Achelous, while the army laid waste the country. The
inhabitants, however, showing no signs of submitting, he dismissed the
land forces and himself sailed to Leucas, and making a descent upon
Nericus was cut off during his retreat, and most of his troops with
him, by the people in those parts aided by some coastguards; after
which the Athenians sailed away, recovering their dead from the
Leucadians under truce.
Meanwhile the envoys of the Mitylenians sent out in the first ship
were told by the Lacedaemonians to come to Olympia, in order that
the rest of the allies might hear them and decide upon their matter,
and so they journeyed thither. It was the Olympiad in which the
Rhodian Dorieus gained his second victory, and the envoys having
been introduced to make their speech after the festival, spoke as
follows:
"Lacedaemonians and allies, the rule established among the
Hellenes is not unknown to us. Those who revolt in war and forsake
their former confederacy are favourably regarded by those who
receive them, in so far as they are of use to them, but otherwise
are thought less well of, through being considered traitors to their
former friends. Nor is this an unfair way of judging, where the rebels
and the power from whom they secede are at one in policy and sympathy,
and a match for each other in resources and power, and where no
reasonable ground exists for the rebellion. But with us and the
Athenians this was not the case; and no one need think the worse of us
for revolting from them in danger, after having been honoured by
them in time of peace.
"Justice and honesty will be the first topics of our speech,
especially as we are asking for alliance; because we know that there
can never be any solid friendship between individuals, or union
between communities that is worth the name, unless the parties be
persuaded of each other's honesty, and be generally congenial the
one to the other; since from difference in feeling springs also
difference in conduct. Between ourselves and the Athenians alliance
began, when you withdrew from the Median War and they remained to
finish the business. But we did not become allies of the Athenians for
the subjugation of the Hellenes, but allies of the Hellenes for
their liberation from the Mede; and as long as the Athenians led us
fairly we followed them loyally; but when we saw them relax their
hostility to the Mede, to try to compass the subjection of the allies,
then our apprehensions began. Unable, however, to unite and defend
themselves, on account of the number of confederates that had votes,
all the allies were enslaved, except ourselves and the Chians, who
continued to send our contingents as independent and nominally free.
Trust in Athens as a leader, however, we could no longer feel, judging
by the examples already given; it being unlikely that she would reduce
our fellow confederates, and not do the same by us who were left, if
ever she had the power.
"Had we all been still independent, we could have had more faith
in their not attempting any change; but the greater number being their
subjects, while they were treating us as equals, they would
naturally chafe under this solitary instance of independence as
contrasted with the submission of the majority; particularly as they
daily grew more powerful, and we more destitute. Now the only sure
basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the
other; he who would like to encroach is then deterred by the
reflection that he will not have odds in his favour. Again, if we were
left independent, it was only because they thought they saw their
way to empire more clearly by specious language and by the paths of
policy than by those of force. Not only were we useful as evidence
that powers who had votes, like themselves, would not, surely, join
them in their expeditions, against their will, without the party
attacked being in the wrong; but the same system also enabled them
to lead the stronger states against the weaker first, and so to
leave the former to the last, stripped of their natural allies, and
less capable of resistance. But if they had begun with us, while all
the states still had their resources under their own control, and
there was a centre to rally round, the work of subjugation would
have been found less easy. Besides this, our navy gave them some
apprehension: it was always possible that it might unite with you or
with some other power, and become dangerous to Athens. The court which
we paid to their commons and its leaders for the time being also
helped us to maintain our independence. However, we did not expect
to be able to do so much longer, if this war had not broken out,
from the examples that we had had of their conduct to the rest.
"How then could we put our trust in such friendship or freedom as we
had here? We accepted each other against our inclination; fear made
them court us in war, and us them in peace; sympathy, the ordinary
basis of confidence, had its place supplied by terror, fear having
more share than friendship in detaining us in the alliance; and the
first party that should be encouraged by the hope of impunity was
certain to break faith with the other. So that to condemn us for being
the first to break off, because they delay the blow that we dread,
instead of ourselves delaying to know for certain whether it will be
dealt or not, is to take a false view of the case. For if we were
equally able with them to meet their plots and imitate their delay, we
should be their equals and should be under no necessity of being their
subjects; but the liberty of offence being always theirs, that of
defence ought clearly to be ours.
"Such, Lacedaemonians and allies, are the grounds and the reasons of
our revolt; clear enough to convince our hearers of the fairness of
our conduct, and sufficient to alarm ourselves, and to make us turn to
some means of safety. This we wished to do long ago, when we sent to
you on the subject while the peace yet lasted, but were balked by your
refusing to receive us; and now, upon the Boeotians inviting us, we at
once responded to the call, and decided upon a twofold revolt, from
the Hellenes and from the Athenians, not to aid the latter in
harming the former, but to join in their liberation, and not to
allow the Athenians in the end to destroy us, but to act in time
against them. Our revolt, however, has taken place prematurely and
without preparation- a fact which makes it all the more incumbent on
you to receive us into alliance and to send us speedy relief, in order
to show that you support your friends, and at the same time do harm to
your enemies. You have an opportunity such as you never had before.
Disease and expenditure have wasted the Athenians: their ships are
either cruising round your coasts, or engaged in blockading us; and it
is not probable that they will have any to spare, if you invade them a
second time this summer by sea and land; but they will either offer no
resistance to your vessels, or withdraw from both our shores. Nor must
it be thought that this is a case of putting yourselves into danger
for a country which is not yours. Lesbos may appear far off, but
when help is wanted she will be found near enough. It is not in Attica
that the war will be decided, as some imagine, but in the countries by
which Attica is supported; and the Athenian revenue is drawn from
the allies, and will become still larger if they reduce us; as not
only will no other state revolt, but our resources will be added to
theirs, and we shall be treated worse than those that were enslaved
before. But if you will frankly support us, you will add to your
side a state that has a large navy, which is your great want; you will
smooth the way to the overthrow of the Athenians by depriving them
of their allies, who will be greatly encouraged to come over; and
you will free yourselves from the imputation made against you, of
not supporting insurrection. In short, only show yourselves as
liberators, and you may count upon having the advantage in the war.
"Respect, therefore, the hopes placed in you by the Hellenes, and
that Olympian Zeus, in whose temple we stand as very suppliants;
become the allies and defenders of the Mitylenians, and do not
sacrifice us, who put our lives upon the hazard, in a cause in which
general good will result to all from our success, and still more
general harm if we fail through your refusing to help us; but be the
men that the Hellenes think you, and our fears desire."
Such were the words of the Mitylenians. After hearing them out,
the Lacedaemonians and confederates granted what they urged, and
took the Lesbians into alliance, and deciding in favour of the
invasion of Attica, told the allies present to march as quickly as
possible to the Isthmus with two-thirds of their forces; and
arriving there first themselves, got ready hauling machines to carry
their ships across from Corinth to the sea on the side of Athens, in
order to make their attack by sea and land at once. However, the
zeal which they displayed was not imitated by the rest of the
confederates, who came in but slowly, being engaged in harvesting
their corn and sick of making expeditions.
Meanwhile the Athenians, aware that the preparations of the enemy
were due to his conviction of their weakness, and wishing to show
him that he was mistaken, and that they were able, without moving
the Lesbian fleet, to repel with ease that with which they were
menaced from Peloponnese, manned a hundred ships by embarking the
citizens of Athens, except the knights and Pentacosiomedimni, and
the resident aliens; and putting out to the Isthmus, displayed their
power, and made descents upon Peloponnese wherever they pleased. A
disappointment so signal made the Lacedaemonians think that the
Lesbians had not spoken the truth; and embarrassed by the
non-appearance of the confederates, coupled with the news that the
thirty ships round Peloponnese were ravaging the lands near Sparta,
they went back home. Afterwards, however, they got ready a fleet to
send to Lesbos, and ordering a total of forty ships from the different
cities in the league, appointed Alcidas to command the expedition in
his capacity of high admiral. Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred
ships, upon seeing the Lacedaemonians go home, went home likewise.
If, at the time that this fleet was at sea, Athens had almost the
largest number of first-rate ships in commission that she ever
possessed at any one moment, she had as many or even more when the war
began. At that time one hundred guarded Attica, Euboea, and Salamis; a
hundred more were cruising round Peloponnese, besides those employed
at Potidaea and in other places; making a grand total of two hundred
and fifty vessels employed on active service in a single summer. It
was this, with Potidaea, that most exhausted her revenues- Potidaea
being blockaded by a force of heavy infantry (each drawing two
drachmae a day, one for himself and another for his servant), which
amounted to three thousand at first, and was kept at this number
down to the end of the siege; besides sixteen hundred with Phormio who
went away before it was over; and the ships being all paid at the same
rate. In this way her money was wasted at first; and this was the
largest number of ships ever manned by her.
About the same time that the Lacedaemonians were at the Isthmus, the
Mitylenians marched by land with their mercenaries against Methymna,
which they thought to gain by treachery. After assaulting the town,
and not meeting with the success that they anticipated, they
withdrew to Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus; and taking measures for the
better security of these towns and strengthening their walls,
hastily returned home. After their departure the Methymnians marched
against Antissa, but were defeated in a sortie by the Antissians and
their mercenaries, and retreated in haste after losing many of their
number. Word of this reaching Athens, and the Athenians learning
that the Mitylenians were masters of the country and their own
soldiers unable to hold them in check, they sent out about the
beginning of autumn Paches, son of Epicurus, to take the command,
and a thousand Athenian heavy infantry; who worked their own passage
and, arriving at Mitylene, built a single wall all round it, forts
being erected at some of the strongest points. Mitylene was thus
blockaded strictly on both sides, by land and by sea; and winter now
drew near.
The Athenians needing money for the siege, although they had for the
first time raised a contribution of two hundred talents from their own
citizens, now sent out twelve ships to levy subsidies from their
allies, with Lysicles and four others in command. After cruising to
different places and laying them under contribution, Lysicles went
up the country from Myus, in Caria, across the plain of the Meander,
as far as the hill of Sandius; and being attacked by the Carians and
the people of Anaia, was slain with many of his soldiers.
The same winter the Plataeans, who were still being besieged by
the Peloponnesians and Boeotians, distressed by the failure of their
provisions, and seeing no hope of relief from Athens, nor any other
means of safety, formed a scheme with the Athenians besieged with them
for escaping, if possible, by forcing their way over the enemy's
walls; the attempt having been suggested by Theaenetus, son of
Tolmides, a soothsayer, and Eupompides, son of Daimachus, one of their
generals. At first all were to join: afterwards, half hung back,
thinking the risk great; about two hundred and twenty, however,
voluntarily persevered in the attempt, which was carried out in the
following way. Ladders were made to match the height of the enemy's
wall, which they measured by the layers of bricks, the side turned
towards them not being thoroughly whitewashed. These were counted by
many persons at once; and though some might miss the right
calculation, most would hit upon it, particularly as they counted over
and over again, and were no great way from the wall, but could see
it easily enough for their purpose. The length required for the
ladders was thus obtained, being calculated from the breadth of the
brick.
Now the wall of the Peloponnesians was constructed as follows. It
consisted of two lines drawn round the place, one against the
Plataeans, the other against any attack on the outside from Athens,
about sixteen feet apart. The intermediate space of sixteen feet was
occupied by huts portioned out among the soldiers on guard, and
built in one block, so as to give the appearance of a single thick
wall with battlements on either side. At intervals of every ten
battlements were towers of considerable size, and the same breadth
as the wall, reaching right across from its inner to its outer face,
with no means of passing except through the middle. Accordingly on
stormy and wet nights the battlements were deserted, and guard kept
from the towers, which were not far apart and roofed in above.
Such being the structure of the wall by which the Plataeans were
blockaded, when their preparations were completed, they waited for a
stormy night of wind and rain and without any moon, and then set
out, guided by the authors of the enterprise. Crossing first the ditch
that ran round the town, they next gained the wall of the enemy
unperceived by the sentinels, who did not see them in the darkness, or
hear them, as the wind drowned with its roar the noise of their
approach; besides which they kept a good way off from each other, that
they might not be betrayed by the clash of their weapons. They were
also lightly equipped, and had only the left foot shod to preserve
them from slipping in the mire. They came up to the battlements at one
of the intermediate spaces where they knew them to be unguarded: those
who carried the ladders went first and planted them; next twelve
light-armed soldiers with only a dagger and a breastplate mounted, led
by Ammias, son of Coroebus, who was the first on the wall; his
followers getting up after him and going six to each of the towers.
After these came another party of light troops armed with spears,
whose shields, that they might advance the easier, were carried by men
behind, who were to hand them to them when they found themselves in
presence of the enemy. After a good many had mounted they were
discovered by the sentinels in the towers, by the noise made by a tile
which was knocked down by one of the Plataeans as he was laying hold
of the battlements. The alarm was instantly given, and the troops
rushed to the wall, not knowing the nature of the danger, owing to the
dark night and stormy weather; the Plataeans in the town having also
chosen that moment to make a sortie against the wall of the
Peloponnesians upon the side opposite to that on which their men
were getting over, in order to divert the attention of the
besiegers. Accordingly they remained distracted at their several
posts, without any venturing to stir to give help from his own
station, and at a loss to guess what was going on. Meanwhile the three
hundred set aside for service on emergencies went outside the wall
in the direction of the alarm. Fire-signals of an attack were also
raised towards Thebes; but the Plataeans in the town at once displayed
a number of others, prepared beforehand for this very purpose, in
order to render the enemy's signals unintelligible, and to prevent his
friends getting a true idea of what was passing and coming to his
aid before their comrades who had gone out should have made good their
escape and be in safety.

Meanwhile the first of the scaling party that had got up, after
carrying both the towers and putting the sentinels to the sword,
posted themselves inside to prevent any one coming through against
them; and rearing ladders from the wall, sent several men up on the
towers, and from their summit and base kept in check all of the
enemy that came up, with their missiles, while their main body planted
a number of ladders against the wall, and knocking down the
battlements, passed over between the towers; each as soon as he had
got over taking up his station at the edge of the ditch, and plying
from thence with arrows and darts any who came along the wall to
stop the passage of his comrades. When all were over, the party on the
towers came down, the last of them not without difficulty, and
proceeded to the ditch, just as the three hundred came up carrying
torches. The Plataeans, standing on the edge of the ditch in the dark,
had a good view of their opponents, and discharged their arrows and
darts upon the unarmed parts of their bodies, while they themselves
could not be so well seen in the obscurity for the torches; and thus
even the last of them got over the ditch, though not without effort
and difficulty; as ice had formed in it, not strong enough to walk
upon, but of that watery kind which generally comes with a wind more
east than north, and the snow which this wind had caused to fall
during the night had made the water in the ditch rise, so. that they
could scarcely breast it as they crossed. However, it was mainly the
violence of the storm that enabled them to effect their escape at all.
Starting from the ditch, the Plataeans went all together along the
road leading to Thebes, keeping the chapel of the hero Androcrates
upon their right; considering that the last road which the
Peloponnesians would suspect them of having taken would be that
towards their enemies' country. Indeed they could see them pursuing
with torches upon the Athens road towards Cithaeron and
Druoskephalai or Oakheads. After going for rather more than half a
mile upon the road to Thebes, the Plataeans turned off and took that
leading to the mountain, to Erythrae and Hysiae, and reaching the
hills, made good their escape to Athens, two hundred and twelve men in
all; some of their number having turned back into the town before
getting over the wall, and one archer having been taken prisoner at
the outer ditch. Meanwhile the Peloponnesians gave up the pursuit
and returned to their posts; and the Plataeans in the town, knowing
nothing of what had passed, and informed by those who had turned
back that not a man had escaped, sent out a herald as soon as it was
day to make a truce for the recovery of the dead bodies, and then,
learning the truth, desisted. In this way the Plataean party got
over and were saved.
Towards the close of the same winter, Salaethus, a Lacedaemonian,
was sent out in a galley from Lacedaemon to Mitylene. Going by sea
to Pyrrha, and from thence overland, he passed along the bed of a
torrent, where the line of circumvallation was passable, and thus
entering unperceived into Mitylene told the magistrates that Attica
would certainly be invaded, and the forty ships destined to relieve
them arrive, and that he had been sent on to announce this and to
superintend matters generally. The Mitylenians upon this took courage,
and laid aside the idea of treating with the Athenians; and now this
winter ended, and with it ended the fourth year of the war of which
Thucydides was the historian.
The next summer the Peloponnesians sent off the forty-two ships
for Mitylene, under Alcidas, their high admiral, and themselves and
their allies invaded Attica, their object being to distract the
Athenians by a double movement, and thus to make it less easy for them
to act against the fleet sailing to Mitylene. The commander in this
invasion was Cleomenes, in the place of King Pausanias, son of
Pleistoanax, his nephew, who was still a minor. Not content with
laying waste whatever had shot up in the parts which they had before
devastated, the invaders now extended their ravages to lands passed
over in their previous incursions; so that this invasion was more
severely felt by the Athenians than any except the second; the enemy
staying on and on until they had overrun most of the country, in the
expectation of hearing from Lesbos of something having been achieved
by their fleet, which they thought must now have got over. However, as
they did not obtain any of the results expected, and their
provisions began to run short, they retreated and dispersed to their
different cities.
In the meantime the Mitylenians, finding their provisions failing,
while the fleet from Peloponnese was loitering on the way instead of
appearing at Mitylene, were compelled to come to terms with the
Athenians in the following manner. Salaethus having himself ceased
to expect the fleet to arrive, now armed the commons with heavy
armour, which they had not before possessed, with the intention of
making a sortie against the Athenians. The commons, however, no sooner
found themselves possessed of arms than they refused any longer to
obey their officers; and forming in knots together, told the
authorities to bring out in public the provisions and divide them
amongst them all, or they would themselves come to terms with the
Athenians and deliver up the city.
The government, aware of their inability to prevent this, and of the
danger they would be in, if left out of the capitulation, publicly
agreed with Paches and the army to surrender Mitylene at discretion
and to admit the troops into the town; upon the understanding that the
Mitylenians should be allowed to send an embassy to Athens to plead
their cause, and that Paches should not imprison, make slaves of, or
put to death any of the citizens until its return. Such were the terms
of the capitulation; in spite of which the chief authors of the
negotiation with Lacedaemon were so completely overcome by terror when
the army entered that they went and seated themselves by the altars,
from which they were raised up by Paches under promise that he would
do them no wrong, and lodged by him in Tenedos, until he should
learn the pleasure of the Athenians concerning them. Paches also
sent some galleys and seized Antissa, and took such other military
measures as he thought advisable.
Meanwhile the Peloponnesians in the forty ships, who ought to have
made all haste to relieve Mitylene, lost time in coming round
Peloponnese itself, and proceeding leisurely on the remainder of the
voyage, made Delos without having been seen by the Athenians at
Athens, and from thence arriving at Icarus and Myconus, there first
heard of the fall of Mitylene. Wishing to know the truth, they put
into Embatum, in the Erythraeid, about seven days after the capture of
the town. Here they learned the truth, and began to consider what they
were to do; and Teutiaplus, an Elean, addressed them as follows:
"Alcidas and Peloponnesians who share with me the command of this
armament, my advice is to sail just as we are to Mitylene, before we
have been heard of. We may expect to find the Athenians as much off
their guard as men generally are who have just taken a city: this will
certainly be so by sea, where they have no idea of any enemy attacking
them, and where our strength, as it happens, mainly lies; while even
their land forces are probably scattered about the houses in the
carelessness of victory. If therefore we were to fall upon them
suddenly and in the night, I have hopes, with the help of the
well-wishers that we may have left inside the town, that we shall
become masters of the place. Let us not shrink from the risk, but
let us remember that this is just the occasion for one of the baseless
panics common in war: and that to be able to guard against these in
one's own case, and to detect the moment when an attack will find an
enemy at this disadvantage, is what makes a successful general."
These words of Teutiaplus failing to move Alcidas, some of the
Ionian exiles and the Lesbians with the expedition began to urge
him, since this seemed too dangerous, to seize one of the Ionian
cities or the Aeolic town of Cyme, to use as a base for effecting
the revolt of Ionia. This was by no means a hopeless enterprise, as
their coming was welcome everywhere; their object would be by this
move to deprive Athens of her chief source of revenue, and at the same
time to saddle her with expense, if she chose to blockade them; and
they would probably induce Pissuthnes to join them in the war.
However, Alcidas gave this proposal as bad a reception as the other,
being eager, since he had come too late for Mitylene, to find
himself back in Peloponnese as soon as possible.
Accordingly he put out from Embatum and proceeded along shore; and
touching at the Teian town, Myonnesus, there butchered most of the
prisoners that he had taken on his passage. Upon his coming to
anchor at Ephesus, envoys came to him from the Samians at Anaia, and
told him that he was not going the right way to free Hellas in
massacring men who had never raised a hand against him, and who were
not enemies of his, but allies of Athens against their will, and
that if he did not stop he would turn many more friends into enemies
than enemies into friends. Alcidas agreed to this, and let go all
the Chians still in his hands and some of the others that he had
taken; the inhabitants, instead of flying at the sight of his vessels,
rather coming up to them, taking them for Athenian, having no sort
of expectation that while the Athenians commanded the sea
Peloponnesian ships would venture over to Ionia.
From Ephesus Alcidas set sail in haste and fled. He had been seen by
the Salaminian and Paralian galleys, which happened to be sailing from
Athens, while still at anchor off Clarus; and fearing pursuit he now
made across the open sea, fully determined to touch nowhere, if he
could help it, until he got to Peloponnese. Meanwhile news of him
had come in to Paches from the Erythraeid, and indeed from all
quarters. As Ionia was unfortified, great fears were felt that the
Peloponnesians coasting along shore, even if they did not intend to
stay, might make descents in passing and plunder the towns; and now
the Paralian and Salaminian, having seen him at Clarus, themselves
brought intelligence of the fact. Paches accordingly gave hot chase,
and continued the pursuit as far as the isle of Patmos, and then
finding that Alcidas had got on too far to be overtaken, came back
again. Meanwhile he thought it fortunate that, as he had not fallen in
with them out at sea, he had not overtaken them anywhere where they
would have been forced to encamp, and so give him the trouble of
blockading them.
On his return along shore he touched, among other places, at Notium,
the port of Colophon, where the Colophonians had settled after the
capture of the upper town by Itamenes and the barbarians, who had been
called in by certain individuals in a party quarrel. The capture of
the town took place about the time of the second Peloponnesian
invasion of Attica. However, the refugees, after settling at Notium,
again split up into factions, one of which called in Arcadian and
barbarian mercenaries from Pissuthnes and, entrenching these in a
quarter apart, formed a new community with the Median party of the
Colophonians who joined them from the upper town. Their opponents
had retired into exile, and now called in Paches, who invited Hippias,
the commander of the Arcadians in the fortified quarter, to a
parley, upon condition that, if they could not agree, he was to be put
back safe and sound in the fortification. However, upon his coming out
to him, he put him into custody, though not in chains, and attacked
suddenly and took by surprise the fortification, and putting the
Arcadians and the barbarians found in it to the sword, afterwards took
Hippias into it as he had promised, and, as soon as he was inside,
seized him and shot him down. Paches then gave up Notium to the
Colophonians not of the Median party; and settlers were afterwards
sent out from Athens, and the place colonized according to Athenian
laws, after collecting all the Colophonians found in any of the
cities.
Arrived at Mitylene, Paches reduced Pyrrha and Eresus; and finding
the Lacedaemonian, Salaethus, in hiding in the town, sent him off to
Athens, together with the Mitylenians that he had placed in Tenedos,
and any other persons that he thought concerned in the revolt. He also
sent back the greater part of his forces, remaining with the rest to
settle Mitylene and the rest of Lesbos as he thought best.
Upon the arrival of the prisoners with Salaethus, the Athenians at
once put the latter to death, although he offered, among other things,
to procure the withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from Plataea, which
was still under siege; and after deliberating as to what they should
do with the former, in the fury of the moment determined to put to
death not only the prisoners at Athens, but the whole adult male
population of Mitylene, and to make slaves of the women and
children. It was remarked that Mitylene had revolted without being,
like the rest, subjected to the empire; and what above all swelled the
wrath of the Athenians was the fact of the Peloponnesian fleet
having ventured over to Ionia to her support, a fact which was held to
argue a long meditated rebellion. They accordingly sent a galley to
communicate the decree to Paches, commanding him to lose no time in
dispatching the Mitylenians. The morrow brought repentance with it and
reflection on the horrid cruelty of a decree, which condemned a
whole city to the fate merited only by the guilty. This was no
sooner perceived by the Mitylenian ambassadors at Athens and their
Athenian supporters, than they moved the authorities to put the
question again to the vote; which they the more easily consented to
do, as they themselves plainly saw that most of the citizens wished
some one to give them an opportunity for reconsidering the matter.
An assembly was therefore at once called, and after much expression of
opinion upon both sides, Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, the same who had
carried the former motion of putting the Mitylenians to death, the
most violent man at Athens, and at that time by far the most
powerful with the commons, came forward again and spoke as follows:
"I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is
incapable of empire, and never more so than by your present change
of mind in the matter of Mitylene. Fears or plots being unknown to you
in your daily relations with each other, you feel just the same with
regard to your allies, and never reflect that the mistakes into
which you may be led by listening to their appeals, or by giving way
to your own compassion, are full of danger to yourselves, and bring
you no thanks for your weakness from your allies; entirely
forgetting that your empire is a despotism and your subjects
disaffected conspirators, whose obedience is ensured not by your
suicidal concessions, but by the superiority given you by your own
strength and not their loyalty. The most alarming feature in the
case is the constant change of measures with which we appear to be
threatened, and our seeming ignorance of the fact that bad laws
which are never changed are better for a city than good ones that have
no authority; that unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than
quick-witted insubordination; and that ordinary men usually manage
public affairs better than their more gifted fellows. The latter are
always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to overrule every
proposition brought forward, thinking that they cannot show their
wit in more important matters, and by such behaviour too often ruin
their country; while those who mistrust their own cleverness are
content to be less learned than the laws, and less able to pick
holes in the speech of a good speaker; and being fair judges rather
than rival athletes, generally conduct affairs successfully. These
we ought to imitate, instead of being led on by cleverness and
intellectual rivalry to advise your people against our real opinions.
"For myself, I adhere to my former opinion, and wonder at those
who have proposed to reopen the case of the Mitylenians, and who are
thus causing a delay which is all in favour of the guilty, by making
the sufferer proceed against the offender with the edge of his anger
blunted; although where vengeance follows most closely upon the wrong,
it best equals it and most amply requites it. I wonder also who will
be the man who will maintain the contrary, and will pretend to show
that the crimes of the Mitylenians are of service to us, and our
misfortunes injurious to the allies. Such a man must plainly either
have such confidence in his rhetoric as to adventure to prove that
what has been once for all decided is still undetermined, or be bribed
to try to delude us by elaborate sophisms. In such contests the
state gives the rewards to others, and takes the dangers for
herself. The persons to blame are you who are so foolish as to
institute these contests; who go to see an oration as you would to see
a sight, take your facts on hearsay, judge of the practicability of
a project by the wit of its advocates, and trust for the truth as to
past events not to the fact which you saw more than to the clever
strictures which you heard; the easy victims of new-fangled arguments,
unwilling to follow received conclusions; slaves to every new paradox,
despisers of the commonplace; the first wish of every man being that
he could speak himself, the next to rival those who can speak by
seeming to be quite up with their ideas by applauding every hit almost
before it is made, and by being as quick in catching an argument as
you are slow in foreseeing its consequences; asking, if I may so
say, for something different from the conditions under which we
live, and yet comprehending inadequately those very conditions; very
slaves to the pleasure of the ear, and more like the audience of a
rhetorician than the council of a city.
"In order to keep you from this, I proceed to show that no one state
has ever injured you as much as Mitylene. I can make allowance for
those who revolt because they cannot bear our empire, or who have been
forced to do so by the enemy. But for those who possessed an island
with fortifications; who could fear our enemies only by sea, and there
had their own force of galleys to protect them; who were independent
and held in the highest honour by you- to act as these have done,
this is not revolt- revolt implies oppression; it is deliberate and
wanton aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our
bitterest enemies; a worse offence than a war undertaken on their
own account in the acquisition of power. The fate of those of their
neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson
to them; their own prosperity could not dissuade them from
affronting danger; but blindly confident in the future, and full of
hopes beyond their power though not beyond their ambition, they
declared war and made their decision to prefer might to right, their
attack being determined not by provocation but by the moment which
seemed propitious. The truth is that great good fortune coming
suddenly and unexpectedly tends to make a people insolent; in most
cases it is safer for mankind to have success in reason than out of
reason; and it is easier for them, one may say, to stave off adversity
than to preserve prosperity. Our mistake has been to distinguish the
Mitylenians as we have done: had they been long ago treated like the
rest, they never would have so far forgotten themselves, human
nature being as surely made arrogant by consideration as it is awed by
firmness. Let them now therefore be punished as their crime
requires, and do not, while you condemn the aristocracy, absolve the
people. This is certain, that all attacked you without distinction,
although they might have come over to us and been now again in
possession of their city. But no, they thought it safer to throw in
their lot with the aristocracy and so joined their rebellion! Consider
therefore: if you subject to the same punishment the ally who is
forced to rebel by the enemy, and him who does so by his own free
choice, which of them, think you, is there that will not rebel upon
the slightest pretext; when the reward of success is freedom, and
the penalty of failure nothing so very terrible? We meanwhile shall
have to risk our money and our lives against one state after
another; and if successful, shall receive a ruined town from which
we can no longer draw the revenue upon which our strength depends;
while if unsuccessful, we shall have an enemy the more upon our hands,
and shall spend the time that might be employed in combating our
existing foes in warring with our own allies.
"No hope, therefore, that rhetoric may instil or money purchase,
of the mercy due to human infirmity must be held out to the
Mitylenians. Their offence was not involuntary, but of malice and
deliberate; and mercy is only for unwilling offenders. I therefore,
now as before, persist against your reversing your first decision,
or giving way to the three failings most fatal to empire- pity,
sentiment, and indulgence. Compassion is due to those who can
reciprocate the feeling, not to those who will never pity us in
return, but are our natural and necessary foes: the orators who
charm us with sentiment may find other less important arenas for their
talents, in the place of one where the city pays a heavy penalty for a
momentary pleasure, themselves receiving fine acknowledgments for
their fine phrases; while indulgence should be shown towards those who
will be our friends in future, instead of towards men who will
remain just what they were, and as much our enemies as before. To
sum up shortly, I say that if you follow my advice you will do what is
just towards the Mitylenians, and at the same time expedient; while by
a different decision you will not oblige them so much as pass sentence
upon yourselves. For if they were right in rebelling, you must be
wrong in ruling. However, if, right or wrong, you determine to rule,
you must carry out your principle and punish the Mitylenians as your
interest requires; or else you must give up your empire and
cultivate honesty without danger. Make up your minds, therefore, to
give them like for like; and do not let the victims who escaped the
plot be more insensible than the conspirators who hatched it; but
reflect what they would have done if victorious over you, especially
they were the aggressors. It is they who wrong their neighbour without
a cause, that pursue their victim to the death, on account of the
danger which they foresee in letting their enemy survive; since the
object of a wanton wrong is more dangerous, if he escape, than an
enemy who has not this to complain of. Do not, therefore, be
traitors to yourselves, but recall as nearly as possible the moment of
suffering and the supreme importance which you then attached to
their reduction; and now pay them back in their turn, without yielding
to present weakness or forgetting the peril that once hung over you.
Punish them as they deserve, and teach your other allies by a striking
example that the penalty of rebellion is death. Let them once
understand this and you will not have so often to neglect your enemies
while you are fighting with your own confederates."
Such were the words of Cleon. After him Diodotus, son of Eucrates,
who had also in the previous assembly spoken most strongly against
putting the Mitylenians to death, came forward and spoke as follows:
"I do not blame the persons who have reopened the case of the
Mitylenians, nor do I approve the protests which we have heard against
important questions being frequently debated. I think the two things
most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usually goes
hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of
mind. As for the argument that speech ought not to be the exponent
of action, the man who uses it must be either senseless or interested:
senseless if he believes it possible to treat of the uncertain
future through any other medium; interested if, wishing to carry a
disgraceful measure and doubting his ability to speak well in a bad
cause, he thinks to frighten opponents and hearers by well-aimed
calumny. What is still more intolerable is to accuse a speaker of
making a display in order to be paid for it. If ignorance only were
imputed, an unsuccessful speaker might retire with a reputation for
honesty, if not for wisdom; while the charge of dishonesty makes him
suspected, if successful, and thought, if defeated, not only a fool
but a rogue. The city is no gainer by such a system, since fear
deprives it of its advisers; although in truth, if our speakers are to
make such assertions, it would be better for the country if they could
not speak at all, as we should then make fewer blunders. The good
citizen ought to triumph not by frightening his opponents but by
beating them fairly in argument; and a wise city, without
over-distinguishing its best advisers, will nevertheless not deprive
them of their due, and, far from punishing an unlucky counsellor, will
not even regard him as disgraced. In this way successful orators would
be least tempted to sacrifice their convictions to popularity, in
the hope of still higher honours, and unsuccessful speakers to
resort to the same popular arts in order to win over the multitude.
"This is not our way; and, besides, the moment that a man is
suspected of giving advice, however good, from corrupt motives, we
feel such a grudge against him for the gain which after all we are not
certain he will receive, that we deprive the city of its certain
benefit. Plain good advice has thus come to be no less suspected
than bad; and the advocate of the most monstrous measures is not
more obliged to use deceit to gain the people, than the best
counsellor is to lie in order to be believed. The city and the city
only, owing to these refinements, can never be served openly and
without disguise; he who does serve it openly being always suspected
of serving himself in some secret way in return. Still, considering
the magnitude of the interests involved, and the position of
affairs, we orators must make it our business to look a little farther
than you who judge offhand; especially as we, your advisers, are
responsible, while you, our audience, are not so. For if those who
gave the advice, and those who took it, suffered equally, you would
judge more calmly; as it is, you visit the disasters into which the
whim of the moment may have led you upon the single person of your
adviser, not upon yourselves, his numerous companions in error.
"However, I have not come forward either to oppose or to accuse in
the matter of Mitylene; indeed, the question before us as sensible men
is not their guilt, but our interests. Though I prove them ever so
guilty, I shall not, therefore, advise their death, unless it be
expedient; nor though they should have claims to indulgence, shall I
recommend it, unless it be dearly for the good of the country. I
consider that we are deliberating for the future more than for the
present; and where Cleon is so positive as to the useful deterrent
effects that will follow from making rebellion capital, I, who
consider the interests of the future quite as much as he, as
positively maintain the contrary. And I require you not to reject my
useful considerations for his specious ones: his speech may have the
attraction of seeming the more just in your present temper against
Mitylene; but we are not in a court of justice, but in a political
assembly; and the question is not justice, but how to make the
Mitylenians useful to Athens.
"Now of course communities have enacted the penalty of death for
many offences far lighter than this: still hope leads men to
venture, and no one ever yet put himself in peril without the inward
conviction that he would succeed in his design. Again, was there
ever city rebelling that did not believe that it possessed either in
itself or in its alliances resources adequate to the enterprise?
All, states and individuals, are alike prone to err, and there is no
law that will prevent them; or why should men have exhausted the
list of punishments in search of enactments to protect them from
evildoers? It is probable that in early times the penalties for the
greatest offences were less severe, and that, as these were
disregarded, the penalty of death has been by degrees in most cases
arrived at, which is itself disregarded in like manner. Either then
some means of terror more terrible than this must be discovered, or it
must be owned that this restraint is useless; and that as long as
poverty gives men the courage of necessity, or plenty fills them
with the ambition which belongs to insolence and pride, and the
other conditions of life remain each under the thraldom of some
fatal and master passion, so long will the impulse never be wanting to
drive men into danger. Hope also and cupidity, the one leading and the
other following, the one conceiving the attempt, the other
suggesting the facility of succeeding, cause the widest ruin, and,
although invisible agents, are far stronger than the dangers that
are seen. Fortune, too, powerfully helps the delusion and, by the
unexpected aid that she sometimes lends, tempts men to venture with
inferior means; and this is especially the case with communities,
because the stakes played for are the highest, freedom or empire, and,
when all are acting together, each man irrationally magnifies his
own capacity. In fine, it is impossible to prevent, and only great
simplicity can hope to prevent, human nature doing what it has once
set its mind upon, by force of law or by any other deterrent force
whatsoever.

"We must not, therefore, commit ourselves to a false policy
through a belief in the efficacy of the punishment of death, or
exclude rebels from the hope of repentance and an early atonement of
their error. Consider a moment. At present, if a city that has already
revolted perceive that it cannot succeed, it will come to terms
while it is still able to refund expenses, and pay tribute afterwards.
In the other case, what city, think you, would not prepare better than
is now done, and hold out to the last against its besiegers, if it
is all one whether it surrender late or soon? And how can it be
otherwise than hurtful to us to be put to the expense of a siege,
because surrender is out of the question; and if we take the city,
to receive a ruined town from which we can no longer draw the
revenue which forms our real strength against the enemy? We must
not, therefore, sit as strict judges of the offenders to our own
prejudice, but rather see how by moderate chastisements we may be
enabled to benefit in future by the revenue-producing powers of our
dependencies; and we must make up our minds to look for our protection
not to legal terrors but to careful administration. At present we do
exactly the opposite. When a free community, held in subjection by
force, rises, as is only natural, and asserts its independence, it
is no sooner reduced than we fancy ourselves obliged to punish it
severely; although the right course with freemen is not to chastise
them rigorously when they do rise, but rigorously to watch them before
they rise, and to prevent their ever entertaining the idea, and, the
insurrection suppressed, to make as few responsible for it as
possible.
"Only consider what a blunder you would commit in doing as Cleon
recommends. As things are at present, in all the cities the people
is your friend, and either does not revolt with the oligarchy, or,
if forced to do so, becomes at once the enemy of the insurgents; so
that in the war with the hostile city you have the masses on your
side. But if you butcher the people of Mitylene, who had nothing to do
with the revolt, and who, as soon as they got arms, of their own
motion surrendered the town, first you will commit the crime of
killing your benefactors; and next you will play directly into the
hands of the higher classes, who when they induce their cities to
rise, will immediately have the people on their side, through your
having announced in advance the same punishment for those who are
guilty and for those who are not. On the contrary, even if they were
guilty, you ought to seem not to notice it, in order to avoid
alienating the only class still friendly to us. In short, I consider
it far more useful for the preservation of our empire voluntarily to
put up with injustice, than to put to death, however justly, those
whom it is our interest to keep alive. As for Cleon's idea that in
punishment the claims of justice and expediency can both be satisfied,
facts do not confirm the possibility of such a combination.
"Confess, therefore, that this is the wisest course, and without
conceding too much either to pity or to indulgence, by neither of
which motives do I any more than Cleon wish you to be influenced, upon
the plain merits of the case before you, be persuaded by me to try
calmly those of the Mitylenians whom Paches sent off as guilty, and to
leave the rest undisturbed. This is at once best for the future, and
most terrible to your enemies at the present moment; inasmuch as
good policy against an adversary is superior to the blind attacks of
brute force."
Such were the words of Diodotus. The two opinions thus expressed
were the ones that most directly contradicted each other; and the
Athenians, notwithstanding their change of feeling, now proceeded to a
division, in which the show of hands was almost equal, although the
motion of Diodotus carried the day. Another galley was at once sent
off in haste, for fear that the first might reach Lesbos in the
interval, and the city be found destroyed; the first ship having about
a day and a night's start. Wine and barley-cakes were provided for the
vessel by the Mitylenian ambassadors, and great promises made if
they arrived in time; which caused the men to use such diligence
upon the voyage that they took their meals of barley-cakes kneaded
with oil and wine as they rowed, and only slept by turns while the
others were at the oar. Luckily they met with no contrary wind, and
the first ship making no haste upon so horrid an errand, while the
second pressed on in the manner described, the first arrived so little
before them, that Paches had only just had time to read the decree,
and to prepare to execute the sentence, when the second put into
port and prevented the massacre. The danger of Mitylene had indeed
been great.
The other party whom Paches had sent off as the prime movers in
the rebellion, were upon Cleon's motion put to death by the Athenians,
the number being rather more than a thousand. The Athenians also
demolished the walls of the Mitylenians, and took possession of
their ships. Afterwards tribute was not imposed upon the Lesbians; but
all their land, except that of the Methymnians, was divided into three
thousand allotments, three hundred of which were reserved as sacred
for the gods, and the rest assigned by lot to Athenian shareholders,
who were sent out to the island. With these the Lesbians agreed to pay
a rent of two minae a year for each allotment, and cultivated the land
themselves. The Athenians also took possession of the towns on the
continent belonging to the Mitylenians, which thus became for the
future subject to Athens. Such were the events that took place at
Lesbos.
CHAPTER X.

Fifth Year of the War - Trial and Execution of
the Plataeans - Corcyraean Revolution

DURING the same summer, after the reduction of Lesbos, the Athenians
under Nicias, son of Niceratus, made an expedition against the
island of Minoa, which lies off Megara and was used as a fortified
post by the Megarians, who had built a tower upon it. Nicias wished to
enable the Athenians to maintain their blockade from this nearer
station instead of from Budorum and Salamis; to stop the Peloponnesian
galleys and privateers sailing out unobserved from the island, as they
had been in the habit of doing; and at the same time prevent
anything from coming into Megara. Accordingly, after taking two towers
projecting on the side of Nisaea, by engines from the sea, and
clearing the entrance into the channel between the island and the
shore, he next proceeded to cut off all communication by building a
wall on the mainland at the point where a bridge across a morass
enabled succours to be thrown into the island, which was not far off
from the continent. A few days sufficing to accomplish this, he
afterwards raised some works in the island also, and leaving a
garrison there, departed with his forces.
About the same time in this summer, the Plataeans, being now without
provisions and unable to support the siege, surrendered to the
Peloponnesians in the following manner. An assault had been made
upon the wall, which the Plataeans were unable to repel. The
Lacedaemonian commander, perceiving their weakness, wished to avoid
taking the place by storm; his instructions from Lacedaemon having
been so conceived, in order that if at any future time peace should be
made with Athens, and they should agree each to restore the places
that they had taken in the war, Plataea might be held to have come
over voluntarily, and not be included in the list. He accordingly sent
a herald to them to ask if they were willing voluntarily to
surrender the town to the Lacedaemonians, and accept them as their
judges, upon the understanding that the guilty should be punished, but
no one without form of law. The Plataeans were now in the last state
of weakness, and the herald had no sooner delivered his message than
they surrendered the town. The Peloponnesians fed them for some days
until the judges from Lacedaemon, who were five in number, arrived.
Upon their arrival no charge was preferred; they simply called up
the Plataeans, and asked them whether they had done the Lacedaemonians
and allies any service in the war then raging. The Plataeans asked
leave to speak at greater length, and deputed two of their number to
represent them: Astymachus, son of Asopolaus, and Lacon, son of
Aeimnestus, proxenus of the Lacedaemonians, who came forward and spoke
as follows:
"Lacedaemonians, when we surrendered our city we trusted in you, and
looked forward to a trial more agreeable to the forms of law than
the present, to which we had no idea of being subjected; the judges
also in whose hands we consented to place ourselves were you, and
you only (from whom we thought we were most likely to obtain justice),
and not other persons, as is now the case. As matters stand, we are
afraid that we have been doubly deceived. We have good reason to
suspect, not only that the issue to be tried is the most terrible of
all, but that you will not prove impartial; if we may argue from the
fact that no accusation was first brought forward for us to answer,
but we had ourselves to ask leave to speak, and from the question
being put so shortly, that a true answer to it tells against us, while
a false one can be contradicted. In this dilemma, our safest, and
indeed our only course, seems to be to say something at all risks:
placed as we are, we could scarcely be silent without being
tormented by the damning thought that speaking might have saved us.
Another difficulty that we have to encounter is the difficulty of
convincing you. Were we unknown to each other we might profit by
bringing forward new matter with which you were unacquainted: as it
is, we can tell you nothing that you do not know already, and we fear,
not that you have condemned us in your own minds of having failed in
our duty towards you, and make this our crime, but that to please a
third party we have to submit to a trial the result of which is
already decided. Nevertheless, we will place before you what we can
justly urge, not only on the question of the quarrel which the Thebans
have against us, but also as addressing you and the rest of the
Hellenes; and we will remind you of our good services, and endeavour
to prevail with you.
"To your short question, whether we have done the Lacedaemonians and
allies any service in this war, we say, if you ask us as enemies, that
to refrain from serving you was not to do you injury; if as friends,
that you are more in fault for having marched against us. During the
peace, and against the Mede, we acted well: we have not now been the
first to break the peace, and we were the only Boeotians who then
joined in defending against the Mede the liberty of Hellas. Although
an inland people, we were present at the action at Artemisium; in
the battle that took place in our territory we fought by the side of
yourselves and Pausanias; and in all the other Hellenic exploits of
the time we took a part quite out of proportion to our strength.
Besides, you, as Lacedaemonians, ought not to forget that at the
time of the great panic at Sparta, after the earthquake, caused by the
secession of the Helots to Ithome, we sent the third part of our
citizens to assist you.
"On these great and historical occasions such was the part that we
chose, although afterwards we became your enemies. For this you were
to blame. When we asked for your alliance against our Theban
oppressors, you rejected our petition, and told us to go to the
Athenians who were our neighbours, as you lived too far off. In the
war we never have done to you, and never should have done to you,
anything unreasonable. If we refused to desert the Athenians when
you asked us, we did no wrong; they had helped us against the
Thebans when you drew back, and we could no longer give them up with
honour; especially as we had obtained their alliance and had been
admitted to their citizenship at our own request, and after
receiving benefits at their hands; but it was plainly our duty loyally
to obey their orders. Besides, the faults that either of you may
commit in your supremacy must be laid, not upon the followers, but
on the chiefs that lead them astray.
"With regard to the Thebans, they have wronged us repeatedly, and
their last aggression, which has been the means of bringing us into
our present position, is within your own knowledge. In seizing our
city in time of peace, and what is more at a holy time in the month,
they justly encountered our vengeance, in accordance with the
universal law which sanctions resistance to an invader; and it
cannot now be right that we should suffer on their account. By
taking your own immediate interest and their animosity as the test
of justice, you will prove yourselves to be rather waiters on
expediency than judges of right; although if they seem useful to you
now, we and the rest of the Hellenes gave you much more valuable
help at a time of greater need. Now you are the assailants, and others
fear you; but at the crisis to which we allude, when the barbarian
threatened all with slavery, the Thebans were on his side. It is just,
therefore, to put our patriotism then against our error now, if
error there has been; and you will find the merit outweighing the
fault, and displayed at a juncture when there were few Hellenes who
would set their valour against the strength of Xerxes, and when
greater praise was theirs who preferred the dangerous path of honour
to the safe course of consulting their own interest with respect to
the invasion. To these few we belonged, and highly were we honoured
for it; and yet we now fear to perish by having again acted on the
same principles, and chosen to act well with Athens sooner than wisely
with Sparta. Yet in justice the same cases should be decided in the
same way, and policy should not mean anything else than lasting
gratitude for the service of good ally combined with a proper
attention to one's own immediate interest.
"Consider also that at present the Hellenes generally regard you
as a pattern of worth and honour; and if you pass an unjust sentence
upon us in this which is no obscure cause, but one in which you, the
judges, are as illustrious as we, the prisoners, are blameless, take
care that displeasure be not felt at an unworthy decision in the
matter of honourable men made by men yet more honourable than they,
and at the consecration in the national temples of spoils taken from
the Plataeans, the benefactors of Hellas. Shocking indeed will it seem
for Lacedaemonians to destroy Plataea, and for the city whose name
your fathers inscribed upon the tripod at Delphi for its good service,
to be by you blotted out from the map of Hellas, to please the
Thebans. To such a depth of misfortune have we fallen that, while
the Medes' success had been our ruin, Thebans now supplant us in
your once fond regards; and we have been subjected to two dangers, the
greatest of any- that of dying of starvation then, if we had not
surrendered our town, and now of being tried for our lives. So that we
Plataeans, after exertions beyond our power in the cause of the
Hellenes, are rejected by all, forsaken and unassisted; helped by none
of our allies, and reduced to doubt the stability of our only hope,
yourselves.
"Still, in the name of the gods who once presided over our
confederacy, and of our own good service in the Hellenic cause, we
adjure you to relent; to recall the decision which we fear that the
Thebans may have obtained from you; to ask back the gift that you have
given them, that they disgrace not you by slaying us; to gain a pure
instead of a guilty gratitude, and not to gratify others to be
yourselves rewarded with shame. Our lives may be quickly taken, but it
will be a heavy task to wipe away the infamy of the deed; as we are no
enemies whom you might justly punish, but friends forced into taking
arms against you. To grant us our lives would be, therefore, a
righteous judgment; if you consider also that we are prisoners who
surrendered of their own accord, stretching out our hands for quarter,
whose slaughter Hellenic law forbids, and who besides were always your
benefactors. Look at the sepulchres of your fathers, slain by the
Medes and buried in our country, whom year by year we honoured with
garments and all other dues, and the first-fruits of all that our land
produced in their season, as friends from a friendly country and
allies to our old companions in arms. Should you not decide aright,
your conduct would be the very opposite to ours. Consider only:
Pausanias buried them thinking that he was laying them in friendly
ground and among men as friendly; but you, if you kill us and make the
Plataean territory Theban, will leave your fathers and kinsmen in a
hostile soil and among their murderers, deprived of the honours
which they now enjoy. What is more, you will enslave the land in which
the freedom of the Hellenes was won, make desolate the temples of
the gods to whom they prayed before they overcame the Medes, and
take away your ancestral sacrifices from those who founded and
instituted them.
"It were not to your glory, Lacedaemonians, either to offend in this
way against the common law of the Hellenes and against your own
ancestors, or to kill us your benefactors to gratify another's
hatred without having been wronged yourselves: it were more so to
spare us and to yield to the impressions of a reasonable compassion;
reflecting not merely on the awful fate in store for us, but also on
the character of the sufferers, and on the impossibility of predicting
how soon misfortune may fall even upon those who deserve it not. We,
as we have a right to do and as our need impels us, entreat you,
calling aloud upon the gods at whose common altar all the Hellenes
worship, to hear our request, to be not unmindful of the oaths which
your fathers swore, and which we now plead- we supplicate you by the
tombs of your fathers, and appeal to those that are gone to save us
from falling into the hands of the Thebans and their dearest friends
from being given up to their most detested foes. We also remind you of
that day on which we did the most glorious deeds, by your fathers'
sides, we who now on this are like to suffer the most dreadful fate.
Finally, to do what is necessary and yet most difficult for men in our
situation- that is, to make an end of speaking, since with that
ending the peril of our lives draws near- in conclusion we say that
we did not surrender our city to the Thebans (to that we would have
preferred inglorious starvation), but trusted in and capitulated to
you; and it would be just, if we fail to persuade you, to put us
back in the same position and let us take the chance that falls to us.
And at the same time we adjure you not to give us up- your
suppliants, Lacedaemonians, out of your hands and faith, Plataeans
foremost of the Hellenic patriots, to Thebans, our most hated
enemies- but to be our saviours, and not, while you free the rest of
the Hellenes, to bring us to destruction."
Such were the words of the Plataeans. The Thebans, afraid that the
Lacedaemonians might be moved by what they had heard, came forward and
said that they too desired to address them, since the Plataeans had,
against their wish, been allowed to speak at length instead of being
confined to a simple answer to the question. Leave being granted,
the Thebans spoke as follows:
"We should never have asked to make this speech if the Plataeans
on their side had contented themselves with shortly answering the
question, and had not turned round and made charges against us,
coupled with a long defence of themselves upon matters outside the
present inquiry and not even the subject of accusation, and with
praise of what no one finds fault with. However, since they have
done so, we must answer their charges and refute their self-praise, in
order that neither our bad name nor their good may help them, but that
you may hear the real truth on both points, and so decide.
"The origin of our quarrel was this. We settled Plataea some time
after the rest of Boeotia, together with other places out of which
we had driven the mixed population. The Plataeans not choosing to
recognize our supremacy, as had been first arranged, but separating
themselves from the rest of the Boeotians, and proving traitors to
their nationality, we used compulsion; upon which they went over to
the Athenians, and with them did as much harm, for which we
retaliated.
"Next, when the barbarian invaded Hellas, they say that they were
the only Boeotians who did not Medize; and this is where they most
glorify themselves and abuse us. We say that if they did not Medize,
it was because the Athenians did not do so either; just as
afterwards when the Athenians attacked the Hellenes they, the
Plataeans, were again the only Boeotians who Atticized. And yet
consider the forms of our respective governments when we so acted. Our
city at that juncture had neither an oligarchical constitution in
which all the nobles enjoyed equal rights, nor a democracy, but that
which is most opposed to law and good government and nearest a
tyranny- the rule of a close cabal. These, hoping to strengthen their
individual power by the success of the Mede, kept down by force the
people, and brought him into the town. The city as a whole was not its
own mistress when it so acted, and ought not to be reproached for
the errors that it committed while deprived of its constitution.
Examine only how we acted after the departure of the Mede and the
recovery of the constitution; when the Athenians attacked the rest
of Hellas and endeavoured to subjugate our country, of the greater
part of which faction had already made them masters. Did not we
fight and conquer at Coronea and liberate Boeotia, and do we not now
actively contribute to the liberation of the rest, providing horses to
the cause and a force unequalled by that of any other state in the
confederacy?
"Let this suffice to excuse us for our Medism. We will now endeavour
to show that you have injured the Hellenes more than we, and are
more deserving of condign punishment. It was in defence against us,
say you, that you became allies and citizens of Athens. If so, you
ought only to have called in the Athenians against us, instead of
joining them in attacking others: it was open to you to do this if you
ever felt that they were leading you where you did not wish to follow,
as Lacedaemon was already your ally against the Mede, as you so much
insist; and this was surely sufficient to keep us off, and above all
to allow you to deliberate in security. Nevertheless, of your own
choice and without compulsion you chose to throw your lot in with
Athens. And you say that it had been base for you to betray your
benefactors; but it was surely far baser and more iniquitous to
sacrifice the whole body of the Hellenes, your fellow confederates,
who were liberating Hellas, than the Athenians only, who were
enslaving it. The return that you made them was therefore neither
equal nor honourable, since you called them in, as you say, because
you were being oppressed yourselves, and then became their accomplices
in oppressing others; although baseness rather consists in not
returning like for like than in not returning what is justly due but
must be unjustly paid.
"Meanwhile, after thus plainly showing that it was not for the
sake of the Hellenes that you alone then did not Medize, but because
the Athenians did not do so either, and you wished to side with them
and to be against the rest; you now claim the benefit of good deeds
done to please your neighbours. This cannot be admitted: you chose the
Athenians, and with them you must stand or fall. Nor can you plead the
league then made and claim that it should now protect you. You
abandoned that league, and offended against it by helping instead of
hindering the subjugation of the Aeginetans and others of its members,
and that not under compulsion, but while in enjoyment of the same
institutions that you enjoy to the present hour, and no one forcing
you as in our case. Lastly, an invitation was addressed to you
before you were blockaded to be neutral and join neither party: this
you did not accept. Who then merit the detestation of the Hellenes
more justly than you, you who sought their ruin under the mask of
honour? The former virtues that you allege you now show not to be
proper to your character; the real bent of your nature has been at
length damningly proved: when the Athenians took the path of injustice
you followed them.
"Of our unwilling Medism and your wilful Atticizing this then is our
explanation. The last wrong wrong of which you complain consists in
our having, as you say, lawlessly invaded your town in time of peace
and festival. Here again we cannot think that we were more in fault
than yourselves. If of our own proper motion we made an armed attack
upon your city and ravaged your territory, we are guilty; but if the
first men among you in estate and family, wishing to put an end to the
foreign connection and to restore you to the common Boeotian
country, of their own free will invited us, wherein is our crime?
Where wrong is done, those who lead, as you say, are more to blame
than those who follow. Not that, in our judgment, wrong was done
either by them or by us. Citizens like yourselves, and with more at
stake than you, they opened their own walls and introduced us into
their own city, not as foes but as friends, to prevent the bad among
you from becoming worse; to give honest men their due; to reform
principles without attacking persons, since you were not to be
banished from your city, but brought home to your kindred, nor to be
made enemies to any, but friends alike to all.
"That our intention was not hostile is proved by our behaviour. We
did no harm to any one, but publicly invited those who wished to
live under a national, Boeotian government to come over to us; which
as first you gladly did, and made an agreement with us and remained
tranquil, until you became aware of the smallness of our numbers.
Now it is possible that there may have been something not quite fair
in our entering without the consent of your commons. At any rate you
did not repay us in kind. Instead of refraining, as we had done,
from violence, and inducing us to retire by negotiation, you fell upon
us in violation of your agreement, and slew some of us in fight, of
which we do not so much complain, for in that there was a certain
justice; but others who held out their hands and received quarter, and
whose lives you subsequently promised us, you lawlessly butchered.
If this was not abominable, what is? And after these three crimes
committed one after the other- the violation of your agreement, the
murder of the men afterwards, and the lying breach of your promise not
to kill them, if we refrained from injuring your property in the
country- you still affirm that we are the criminals and yourselves
pretend to escape justice. Not so, if these your judges decide aright,
but you will be punished for all together.
"Such, Lacedaemonians, are the facts. We have gone into them at some
length both on your account and on our own, that you may fed that
you will justly condemn the prisoners, and we, that we have given an
additional sanction to our vengeance. We would also prevent you from
being melted by hearing of their past virtues, if any such they had:
these may be fairly appealed to by the victims of injustice, but
only aggravate the guilt of criminals, since they offend against their
better nature. Nor let them gain anything by crying and wailing, by
calling upon your fathers' tombs and their own desolate condition.
Against this we point to the far more dreadful fate of our youth,
butchered at their hands; the fathers of whom either fell at
Coronea, bringing Boeotia over to you, or seated, forlorn old men by
desolate hearths, with far more reason implore your justice upon the
prisoners. The pity which they appeal to is rather due to men who
suffer unworthily; those who suffer justly as they do are on the
contrary subjects for triumph. For their present desolate condition
they have themselves to blame, since they wilfully rejected the better
alliance. Their lawless act was not provoked by any action of ours:
hate, not justice, inspired their decision; and even now the
satisfaction which they afford us is not adequate; they will suffer by
a legal sentence, not as they pretend as suppliants asking for quarter
in battle, but as prisoners who have surrendered upon agreement to
take their trial. Vindicate, therefore, Lacedaemonians, the Hellenic
law which they have broken; and to us, the victims of its violation,
grant the reward merited by our zeal. Nor let us be supplanted in your
favour by their harangues, but offer an example to the Hellenes,
that the contests to which you invite them are of deeds, not words:
good deeds can be shortly stated, but where wrong is done a wealth
of language is needed to veil its deformity. However, if leading
powers were to do what you are now doing, and putting one short
question to all alike were to decide accordingly, men would be less
tempted to seek fine phrases to cover bad actions."
Such were the words of the Thebans. The Lacedaemonian judges decided
that the question whether they had received any service from the
Plataeans in the war, was a fair one for them to put; as they had
always invited them to be neutral, agreeably to the original
covenant of Pausanias after the defeat of the Mede, and had again
definitely offered them the same conditions before the blockade.
This offer having been refused, they were now, they conceived, by
the loyalty of their intention released from their covenant; and
having, as they considered, suffered evil at the hands of the
Plataeans, they brought them in again one by one and asked each of
them the same question, that is to say, whether they had done the
Lacedaemonians and allies any service in the war; and upon their
saying that they had not, took them out and slew them, all without
exception. The number of Plataeans thus massacred was not less than
two hundred, with twenty-five Athenians who had shared in the siege.
The women were taken as slaves. The city the Thebans gave for about
a year to some political emigrants from Megara and to the surviving
Plataeans of their own party to inhabit, and afterwards razed it to
the ground from the very foundations, and built on to the precinct
of Hera an inn two hundred feet square, with rooms all round above and
below, making use for this purpose of the roofs and doors of the
Plataeans: of the rest of the materials in the wall, the brass and the
iron, they made couches which they dedicated to Hera, for whom they
also built a stone chapel of a hundred feet square. The land they
confiscated and let out on a ten years' lease to Theban occupiers. The
adverse attitude of the Lacedaemonians in the whole Plataean affair
was mainly adopted to please the Thebans, who were thought to be
useful in the war at that moment raging. Such was the end of
Plataea, in the ninety-third year after she became the ally of Athens.
Meanwhile, the forty ships of the Peloponnesians that had gone to
the relief of the Lesbians, and which we left flying across the open
sea, pursued by the Athenians, were caught in a storm off Crete, and
scattering from thence made their way to Peloponnese, where they found
at Cyllene thirteen Leucadian and Ambraciot galleys, with Brasidas,
son of Tellis, lately arrived as counsellor to Alcidas; the
Lacedaemonians, upon the failure of the Lesbian expedition, having
resolved to strengthen their fleet and sail to Corcyra, where a
revolution had broken out, so as to arrive there before the twelve
Athenian ships at Naupactus could be reinforced from Athens.
Brasidas and Alcidas began to prepare accordingly.
The Corcyraean revolution began with the return of the prisoners
taken in the sea-fights off Epidamnus. These the Corinthians had
released, nominally upon the security of eight hundred talents given
by their proxeni, but in reality upon their engagement to bring over
Corcyra to Corinth. These men proceeded to canvass each of the
citizens, and to intrigue with the view of detaching the city from
Athens. Upon the arrival of an Athenian and a Corinthian vessel,
with envoys on board, a conference was held in which the Corcyraeans
voted to remain allies of the Athenians according to their
agreement, but to be friends of the Peloponnesians as they had been
formerly. Meanwhile, the returned prisoners brought Peithias, a
volunteer proxenus of the Athenians and leader of the commons, to
trial, upon the charge of enslaving Corcyra to Athens. He, being
acquitted, retorted by accusing five of the richest of their number of
cutting stakes in the ground sacred to Zeus and Alcinous; the legal
penalty being a stater for each stake. Upon their conviction, the
amount of the penalty being very large, they seated themselves as
suppliants in the temples to be allowed to pay it by instalments;
but Peithias, who was one of the senate, prevailed upon that body to
enforce the law; upon which the accused, rendered desperate by the
law, and also learning that Peithias had the intention, while still
a member of the senate, to persuade the people to conclude a defensive
and offensive alliance with Athens, banded together armed with
daggers, and suddenly bursting into the senate killed Peithias and
sixty others, senators and private persons; some few only of the party
of Peithias taking refuge in the Athenian galley, which had not yet
departed.
After this outrage, the conspirators summoned the Corcyraeans to
an assembly, and said that this would turn out for the best, and would
save them from being enslaved by Athens: for the future, they moved to
receive neither party unless they came peacefully in a single ship,
treating any larger number as enemies. This motion made, they
compelled it to be adopted, and instantly sent off envoys to Athens to
justify what had been done and to dissuade the refugees there from any
hostile proceedings which might lead to a reaction.
Upon the arrival of the embassy, the Athenians arrested the envoys
and all who listened to them, as revolutionists, and lodged them in
Aegina. Meanwhile a Corinthian galley arriving in the island with
Lacedaemonian envoys, the dominant Corcyraean party attacked the
commons and defeated them in battle. Night coming on, the commons took
refuge in the Acropolis and the higher parts of the city, and
concentrated themselves there, having also possession of the Hyllaic
harbour; their adversaries occupying the market-place, where most of
them lived, and the harbour adjoining, looking towards the mainland.
The next day passed in skirmishes of little importance, each party
sending into the country to offer freedom to the slaves and to
invite them to join them. The mass of the slaves answered the appeal
of the commons; their antagonists being reinforced by eight hundred
mercenaries from the continent.
After a day's interval hostilities recommenced, victory remaining
with the commons, who had the advantage in numbers and position, the
women also valiantly assisting them, pelting with tiles from the
houses, and supporting the melee with a fortitude beyond their sex.
Towards dusk, the oligarchs in full rout, fearing that the
victorious commons might assault and carry the arsenal and put them to
the sword, fired the houses round the marketplace and the
lodging-houses, in order to bar their advance; sparing neither their
own, nor those of their neighbours; by which much stuff of the
merchants was consumed and the city risked total destruction, if a
wind had come to help the flame by blowing on it. Hostilities now
ceasing, both sides kept quiet, passing the night on guard, while
the Corinthian ship stole out to sea upon the victory of the
commons, and most of the mercenaries passed over secretly to the
continent.
The next day the Athenian general, Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes,
came up from Naupactus with twelve ships and five hundred Messenian
heavy infantry. He at once endeavoured to bring about a settlement,
and persuaded the two parties to agree together to bring to trial
ten of the ringleaders, who presently fled, while the rest were to
live in peace, making terms with each other, and entering into a
defensive and offensive alliance with the Athenians. This arranged, he
was about to sail away, when the leaders of the commons induced him to
leave them five of his ships to make their adversaries less disposed
to move, while they manned and sent with him an equal number of
their own. He had no sooner consented, than they began to enroll their
enemies for the ships; and these, fearing that they might be sent
off to Athens, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of the
Dioscuri. An attempt on the part of Nicostratus to reassure them and
to persuade them to rise proving unsuccessful, the commons armed
upon this pretext, alleging the refusal of their adversaries to sail
with them as a proof of the hollowness of their intentions, and took
their arms out of their houses, and would have dispatched some whom
they fell in with, if Nicostratus had not prevented it. The rest of
the party, seeing what was going on, seated themselves as suppliants
in the temple of Hera, being not less than four hundred in number;
until the commons, fearing that they might adopt some desperate
resolution, induced them to rise, and conveyed them over to the island
in front of the temple, where provisions were sent across to them.
At this stage in the revolution, on the fourth or fifth day after
the removal of the men to the island, the Peloponnesian ships
arrived from Cyllene where they had been stationed since their
return from Ionia, fifty-three in number, still under the command of
Alcidas, but with Brasidas also on board as his adviser; and
dropping anchor at Sybota, a harbour on the mainland, at daybreak made
sail for Corcyra.
The Corcyraeans in great confusion and alarm at the state of
things in the city and at the approach of the invader, at once
proceeded to equip sixty vessels, which they sent out, as fast as they
were manned, against the enemy, in spite of the Athenians recommending
them to let them sail out first, and to follow themselves afterwards
with all their ships to. gether. Upon their vessels coming up to the
enemy in this straggling fashion, two immediately deserted: in
others the crews were fighting among themselves, and there was no
order in anything that was done; so that the Peloponnesians, seeing
their confusion, placed twenty ships to oppose the Corcyraeans, and
ranged the rest against the twelve Athenian ships, amongst which
were the two vessels Salaminia and Paralus.
While the Corcyraeans, attacking without judgment and in small
detachments, were already crippled by their own misconduct, the
Athenians, afraid of the numbers of the enemy and of being surrounded,
did not venture to attack the main body or even the centre of the
division opposed to them, but fell upon its wing and sank one
vessel; after which the Peloponnesians formed in a circle, and the
Athenians rowed round them and tried to throw them into disorder.
Perceiving this, the division opposed to the Corcyraeans, fearing a
repetition of the disaster of Naupactus, came to support their
friends, and the whole fleet now bore down, united, upon the
Athenians, who retired before it, backing water, retiring as leisurely
as possible in order to give the Corcyraeans time to escape, while the
enemy was thus kept occupied. Such was the character of this
sea-fight, which lasted until sunset.
The Corcyraeans now feared that the enemy would follow up their
victory and sail against the town and rescue the men in the island, or
strike some other blow equally decisive, and accordingly carried the
men over again to the temple of Hera, and kept guard over the city.
The Peloponnesians, however, although victorious in the sea-fight, did
not venture to attack the town, but took the thirteen Corcyraean
vessels which they had captured, and with them sailed back to the
continent from whence they had put out. The next day equally they
refrained from attacking the city, although the disorder and panic
were at their height, and though Brasidas, it is said, urged
Alcidas, his superior officer, to do so, but they landed upon the
promontory of Leukimme and laid waste the country.
Meanwhile the commons in Corcyra, being still in great fear of the
fleet attacking them, came to a parley with the suppliants and their
friends, in order to save the town; and prevailed upon some of them to
go on board the ships, of which they still manned thirty, against
the expected attack. But the Peloponnesians after ravaging the country
until midday sailed away, and towards nightfall were informed by
beacon signals of the approach of sixty Athenian vessels from
Leucas, under the command of Eurymedon, son of Thucles; which had been
sent off by the Athenians upon the news of the revolution and of the
fleet with Alcidas being about to sail for Corcyra.
The Peloponnesians accordingly at once set off in haste by night for
home, coasting along shore; and hauling their ships across the Isthmus
of Leucas, in order not to be seen doubling it, so departed. The
Corcyraeans, made aware of the approach of the Athenian fleet and of
the departure of the enemy, brought the Messenians from outside the
walls into the town, and ordered the fleet which they had manned to
sail round into the Hyllaic harbour; and while it was so doing, slew
such of their enemies as they laid hands on, dispatching afterwards,
as they landed them, those whom they had persuaded to go on board
the ships. Next they went to the sanctuary of Hera and persuaded about
fifty men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death. The
mass of the suppliants who had refused to do so, on seeing what was
taking place, slew each other there in the consecrated ground; while
some hanged themselves upon the trees, and others destroyed themselves
as they were severally able. During seven days that Eurymedon stayed
with his sixty ships, the Corcyraeans were engaged in butchering those
of their fellow citizens whom they regarded as their enemies: and
although the crime imputed was that of attempting to put down the
democracy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their
debtors because of the moneys owed to them. Death thus raged in
every shape; and, as usually happens at such times, there was no
length to which violence did not go; sons were killed by their
fathers, and suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it; while
some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there.
So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression
which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur.
Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed;
struggles being every, where made by the popular chiefs to bring in
the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Lacedaemonians.
In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to
make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the
command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and
their own corresponding advantage, opportunities for bringing in the
foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties. The
sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and
terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as
the nature of mankind remains the same; though in a severer or
milder form, and varying in their symptoms, according to the variety
of the particular cases. In peace and prosperity, states and
individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find
themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war
takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough
master, that brings most men's characters to a level with their
fortunes. Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the
places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been
done before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their
inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and
the atrocity of their reprisals. Words had to change their ordinary
meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity
came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation,
specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness;
ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.
Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting,
a justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme
measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected.
To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a
still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either
was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries. In
fine, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of
a crime where it was wanting, was equally commended until even blood
became a weaker tie than party, from the superior readiness of those
united by the latter to dare everything without reserve; for such
associations had not in view the blessings derivable from
established institutions but were formed by ambition for their
overthrow; and the confidence of their members in each other rested
less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime. The fair
proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the
stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge
also was held of more account than self-preservation. Oaths of
reconciliation, being only proffered on either side to meet an
immediate difficulty, only held good so long as no other weapon was at
hand; but when opportunity offered, he who first ventured to seize
it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this perfidious
vengeance sweeter than an open one, since, considerations of safety
apart, success by treachery won him the palm of superior intelligence.
Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues
clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the
second as they are proud of being the first. The cause of all these
evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from
these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in
contention. The leaders in the cities, each provided with the
fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political
equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought
prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended
to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for
ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses; in their acts of
vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what
justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party
caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal
readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of
the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour. Thus religion
was in honour with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to
arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation. Meanwhile the moderate
part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not
joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to
escape.
Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by
reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honour so
largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became
divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. To put an end
to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath
that could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their
calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were
more intent upon self-defence than capable of confidence. In this
contest the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their
own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they
feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations
of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had
recourse to action: while their adversaries, arrogantly thinking
that they should know in time, and that it was unnecessary to secure
by action what policy afforded, often fell victims to their want of
precaution.
Meanwhile Corcyra gave the first example of most of the crimes
alluded to; of the reprisals exacted by the governed who had never
experienced equitable treatment or indeed aught but insolence from
their rulers- when their hour came; of the iniquitous resolves of
those who desired to get rid of their accustomed poverty, and ardently
coveted their neighbours' goods; and lastly, of the savage and
pitiless excesses into which men who had begun the struggle, not in
a class but in a party spirit, were hurried by their ungovernable
passions. In the confusion into which life was now thrown in the
cities, human nature, always rebelling against the law and now its
master, gladly showed itself ungoverned in passion, above respect
for justice, and the enemy of all superiority; since revenge would not
have been set above religion, and gain above justice, had it not
been for the fatal power of envy. Indeed men too often take upon
themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of
doing away with those general laws to which all alike can look for
salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against
the day of danger when their aid may be required.
While the revolutionary passions thus for the first time displayed
themselves in the factions of Corcyra, Eurymedon and the Athenian
fleet sailed away; after which some five hundred Corcyraean exiles who
had succeeded in escaping, took some forts on the mainland, and
becoming masters of the Corcyraean territory over the water, made this
their base to Plunder their countrymen in the island, and did so
much damage as to cause a severe famine in the town. They also sent
envoys to Lacedaemon and Corinth to negotiate their restoration; but
meeting with no success, afterwards got together boats and mercenaries
and crossed over to the island, being about six hundred in all; and
burning their boats so as to have no hope except in becoming masters
of the country, went up to Mount Istone, and fortifying themselves
there, began to annoy those in the city and obtained command of the
country.
At the close of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty ships
under the command of Laches, son of Melanopus, and Charoeades, son
of Euphiletus, to Sicily, where the Syracusans and Leontines were at
war. The Syracusans had for allies all the Dorian cities except
Camarina- these had been included in the Lacedaemonian confederacy
from the commencement of the war, though they had not taken any active
part in it- the Leontines had Camarina and the Chalcidian cities. In
Italy the Locrians were for the Syracusans, the Rhegians for their
Leontine kinsmen. The allies of the Leontines now sent to Athens and
appealed to their ancient alliance and to their Ionian origin, to
persuade the Athenians to send them a fleet, as the Syracusans were
blockading them by land and sea. The Athenians sent it upon the plea
of their common descent, but in reality to prevent the exportation
of Sicilian corn to Peloponnese and to test the possibility of
bringing Sicily into subjection. Accordingly they established
themselves at Rhegium in Italy, and from thence carried on the war
in concert with their allies.
CHAPTER XI.

Year of the War - Campaigns of Demosthenes
in Western Greece - Ruin of Ambracia

SUMMER was now over. The winter following, the plague a second
time attacked the Athenians; for although it had never entirely left
them, still there had been a notable abatement in its ravages. The
second visit lasted no less than a year, the first having lasted
two; and nothing distressed the Athenians and reduced their power more
than this. No less than four thousand four hundred heavy infantry in
the ranks died of it and three hundred cavalry, besides a number of
the multitude that was never ascertained. At the same time took
place the numerous earthquakes in Athens, Euboea, and Boeotia,
particularly at Orchomenus in the last-named country.
The same winter the Athenians in Sicily and the Rhegians, with
thirty ships, made an expedition against the islands of Aeolus; it
being impossible to invade them in summer, owing to the want of water.
These islands are occupied by the Liparaeans, a Cnidian colony, who
live in one of them of no great size called Lipara; and from this as
their headquarters cultivate the rest, Didyme, Strongyle, and Hiera.
In Hiera the people in those parts believe that Hephaestus has his
forge, from the quantity of flame which they see it send out by night,
and of smoke by day. These islands lie off the coast of the Sicels and
Messinese, and were allies of the Syracusans. The Athenians laid waste
their land, and as the inhabitants did not submit, sailed back to
Rhegium. Thus the winter ended, and with it ended the fifth year of
this war, of which Thucydides was the historian.
The next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies set out to
invade Attica under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus, and went
as far as the Isthmus, but numerous earthquakes occurring, turned back
again without the invasion taking place. About the same time that
these earthquakes were so common, the sea at Orobiae, in Euboea,
retiring from the then line of coast, returned in a huge wave and
invaded a great part of the town, and retreated leaving some of it
still under water; so that what was once land is now sea; such of
the inhabitants perishing as could not run up to the higher ground
in time. A similar inundation also occurred at Atalanta, the island
off the Opuntian Locrian coast, carrying away part of the Athenian
fort and wrecking one of two ships which were drawn up on the beach.
At Peparethus also the sea retreated a little, without however any
inundation following; and an earthquake threw down part of the wall,
the town hall, and a few other buildings. The cause, in my opinion, of
this phenomenon must be sought in the earthquake. At the point where
its shock has been the most violent, the sea is driven back and,
suddenly recoiling with redoubled force, causes the inundation.
Without an earthquake I do not see how such an accident could happen.
During the same summer different operations were carried on by the
different beligerents in Sicily; by the Siceliots themselves against
each other, and by the Athenians and their allies: I shall however
confine myself to the actions in which the Athenians took part,
choosing the most important. The death of the Athenian general
Charoeades, killed by the Syracusans in battle, left Laches in the
sole command of the fleet, which he now directed in concert with the
allies against Mylae, a place belonging to the Messinese. Two
Messinese battalions in garrison at Mylae laid an ambush for the party
landing from the ships, but were routed with great slaughter by the
Athenians and their allies, who thereupon assaulted the
fortification and compelled them to surrender the Acropolis and to
march with them upon Messina. This town afterwards also submitted upon
the approach of the Athenians and their allies, and gave hostages
and all other securities required.
The same summer the Athenians sent thirty ships round Peloponnese
under Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes, and Procles, son of
Theodorus, and sixty others, with two thousand heavy infantry, against
Melos, under Nicias, son of Niceratus; wishing to reduce the
Melians, who, although islanders, refused to be subjects of Athens
or even to join her confederacy. The devastation of their land not
procuring their submission, the fleet, weighing from Melos, sailed
to Oropus in the territory of Graea, and landing at nightfall, the
heavy infantry started at once from the ships by land for Tanagra in
Boeotia, where they were met by the whole levy from Athens,
agreeably to a concerted signal, under the command of Hipponicus,
son of Callias, and Eurymedon, son of Thucles. They encamped, and
passing that day in ravaging the Tanagraean territory, remained
there for the night; and next day, after defeating those of the
Tanagraeans who sailed out against them and some Thebans who had
come up to help the Tanagraeans, took some arms, set up a trophy,
and retired, the troops to the city and the others to the ships.
Nicias with his sixty ships coasted alongshore and ravaged the Locrian
seaboard, and so returned home.
About this time the Lacedaemonians founded their colony of
Heraclea in Trachis, their object being the following: the Malians
form in all three tribes, the Paralians, the Hiereans, and the
Trachinians. The last of these having suffered severely in a war
with their neighbours the Oetaeans, at first intended to give
themselves up to Athens; but afterwards fearing not to find in her the
security that they sought, sent to Lacedaemon, having chosen Tisamenus
for their ambassador. In this embassy joined also the Dorians from the
mother country of the Lacedaemonians, with the same request, as they
themselves also suffered from the same enemy. After hearing them,
the Lacedaemonians determined to send out the colony, wishing to
assist the Trachinians and Dorians, and also because they thought that
the proposed town would lie conveniently for the purposes of the war
against the Athenians. A fleet might be got ready there against
Euboea, with the advantage of a short passage to the island; and the
town would also be useful as a station on the road to Thrace. In
short, everything made the Lacedaemonians eager to found the place.
After first consulting the god at Delphi and receiving a favourable
answer, they sent off the colonists, Spartans, and Perioeci,
inviting also any of the rest of the Hellenes who might wish to
accompany them, except Ionians, Achaeans, and certain other
nationalities; three Lacedaemonians leading as founders of the colony,
Leon, Alcidas, and Damagon. The settlement effected, they fortified
anew the city, now called Heraclea, distant about four miles and a
half from Thermopylae and two miles and a quarter from the sea, and
commenced building docks, closing the side towards Thermopylae just by
the pass itself, in order that they might be easily defended.
The foundation of this town, evidently meant to annoy Euboea (the
passage across to Cenaeum in that island being a short one), at
first caused some alarm at Athens, which the event however did nothing
to justify, the town never giving them any trouble. The reason of this
was as follows. The Thessalians, who were sovereign in those parts,
and whose territory was menaced by its foundation, were afraid that it
might prove a very powerful neighbour, and accordingly continually
harassed and made war upon the new settlers, until they at last wore
them out in spite of their originally considerable numbers, people
flocking from all quarters to a place founded by the Lacedaemonians,
and thus thought secure of prosperity. On the other hand the
Lacedaemonians themselves, in the persons of their governors, did
their full share towards ruining its prosperity and reducing its
population, as they frightened away the greater part of the
inhabitants by governing harshly and in some cases not fairly, and
thus made it easier for their neighbours to prevail against them.
The same summer, about the same time that the Athenians were
detained at Melos, their fellow citizens in the thirty ships
cruising round Peloponnese, after cutting off some guards in an ambush
at Ellomenus in Leucadia, subsequently went against Leucas itself with
a large armament, having been reinforced by the whole levy of the
Acarnanians except Oeniadae, and by the Zacynthians and
Cephallenians and fifteen ships from Corcyra. While the Leucadians
witnessed the devastation of their land, without and within the
isthmus upon which the town of Leucas and the temple of Apollo
stand, without making any movement on account of the overwhelming
numbers of the enemy, the Acarnanians urged Demosthenes, the
Athenian general, to build a wall so as to cut off the town from the
continent, a measure which they were convinced would secure its
capture and rid them once and for all of a most troublesome enemy.
Demosthenes however had in the meanwhile been persuaded by the
Messenians that it was a fine opportunity for him, having so large
an army assembled, to attack the Aetolians, who were not only the
enemies of Naupactus, but whose reduction would further make it easy
to gain the rest of that part of the continent for the Athenians.
The Aetolian nation, although numerous and warlike, yet dwelt in
unwalled villages scattered far apart, and had nothing but light
armour, and might, according to the Messenians, be subdued without
much difficulty before succours could arrive. The plan which they
recommended was to attack first the Apodotians, next the Ophionians,
and after these the Eurytanians, who are the largest tribe in Aetolia,
and speak, as is said, a language exceedingly difficult to understand,
and eat their flesh raw. These once subdued, the rest would easily
come in.
To this plan Demosthenes consented, not only to please the
Messenians, but also in the belief that by adding the Aetolians to his
other continental allies he would be able, without aid from home, to
march against the Boeotians by way of Ozolian Locris to Kytinium in
Doris, keeping Parnassus on his right until he descended to the
Phocians, whom he could force to join him if their ancient
friendship for Athens did not, as he anticipated, at once decide
them to do so. Arrived in Phocis he was already upon the frontier of
Boeotia. He accordingly weighed from Leucas, against the wish of the
Acarnanians, and with his whole armament sailed along the coast to
Sollium, where he communicated to them his intention; and upon their
refusing to agree to it on account of the non-investment of Leucas,
himself with the rest of the forces, the Cephallenians, the
Messenians, and Zacynthians, and three hundred Athenian marines from
his own ships (the fifteen Corcyraean vessels having departed),
started on his expedition against the Aetolians. His base he
established at Oeneon in Locris, as the Ozolian Locrians were allies
of Athens and were to meet him with all their forces in the
interior. Being neighbours of the Aetolians and armed in the same way,
it was thought that they would be of great service upon the
expedition, from their acquaintance with the localities and the
warfare of the inhabitants.
After bivouacking with the army in the precinct of Nemean Zeus, in
which the poet Hesiod is said to have been killed by the people of the
country, according to an oracle which had foretold that he should
die in Nemea, Demosthenes set out at daybreak to invade Aetolia. The
first day he took Potidania, the next Krokyle, and the third
Tichium, where he halted and sent back the booty to Eupalium in
Locris, having determined to pursue his conquests as far as the
Ophionians, and, in the event of their refusing to submit, to return
to Naupactus and make them the objects of a second expedition.
Meanwhile the Aetolians had been aware of his design from the moment
of its formation, and as soon as the army invaded their country came
up in great force with all their tribes; even the most remote
Ophionians, the Bomiensians, and Calliensians, who extend towards
the Malian Gulf, being among the number.
The Messenians, however, adhered to their original advice.
Assuring Demosthenes that the Aetolians were an easy conquest, they
urged him to push on as rapidly as possible, and to try to take the
villages as fast as he came up to them, without waiting until the
whole nation should be in arms against him. Led on by his advisers and
trusting in his fortune, as he had met with no opposition, without
waiting for his Locrian reinforcements, who were to have supplied
him with the light-armed darters in which he was most deficient, he
advanced and stormed Aegitium, the inhabitants flying before him and
posting themselves upon the hills above the town, which stood on
high ground about nine miles from the sea. Meanwhile the Aetolians had
gathered to the rescue, and now attacked the Athenians and their
allies, running down from the hills on every side and darting their
javelins, falling back when the Athenian army advanced, and coming
on as it retired; and for a long while the battle was of this
character, alternate advance and retreat, in both which operations the
Athenians had the worst.
Still as long as their archers had arrows left and were able to
use them, they held out, the light-armed Aetolians retiring before the
arrows; but after the captain of the archers had been killed and his
men scattered, the soldiers, wearied out with the constant
repetition of the same exertions and hard pressed by the Aetolians
with their javelins, at last turned and fled, and falling into
pathless gullies and places that they were unacquainted with, thus
perished, the Messenian Chromon, their guide, having also
unfortunately been killed. A great many were overtaken in the
pursuit by the swift-footed and light-armed Aetolians, and fell
beneath their javelins; the greater number however missed their road
and rushed into the wood, which had no ways out, and which was soon
fired and burnt round them by the enemy. Indeed the Athenian army fell
victims to death in every form, and suffered all the vicissitudes of
flight; the survivors escaped with difficulty to the sea and Oeneon in
Locris, whence they had set out. Many of the allies were killed, and
about one hundred and twenty Athenian heavy infantry, not a man
less, and all in the prime of life. These were by far the best men
in the city of Athens that fell during this war. Among the slain was
also Procles, the colleague of Demosthenes. Meanwhile the Athenians
took up their dead under truce from the Aetolians, and retired to
Naupactus, and from thence went in their ships to Athens;
Demosthenes staying behind in Naupactus and in the neighbourhood,
being afraid to face the Athenians after the disaster.
About the same time the Athenians on the coast of Sicily sailed to
Locris, and in a descent which they made from the ships defeated the
Locrians who came against them, and took a fort upon the river Halex.
The same summer the Aetolians, who before the Athenian expedition
had sent an embassy to Corinth and Lacedaemon, composed of Tolophus,
an Ophionian, Boriades, an Eurytanian, and Tisander, an Apodotian,
obtained that an army should be sent them against Naupactus, which had
invited the Athenian invasion. The Lacedaemonians accordingly sent off
towards autumn three thousand heavy infantry of the allies, five
hundred of whom were from Heraclea, the newly founded city in Trachis,
under the command of Eurylochus, a Spartan, accompanied by Macarius
and Menedaius, also Spartans.
The army having assembled at Delphi, Eurylochus sent a herald to the
Ozolian Locrians; the road to Naupactus lying through their territory,
and he having besides conceived the idea of detaching them from
Athens. His chief abettors in Locris were the Amphissians, who were
alarmed at the hostility of the Phocians. These first gave hostages
themselves, and induced the rest to do the same for fear of the
invading army; first, their neighbours the Myonians, who held the most
difficult of the passes, and after them the Ipnians, Messapians,
Tritaeans, Chalaeans, Tolophonians, Hessians, and Oeanthians, all of
whom joined in the expedition; the Olpaeans contenting themselves with
giving hostages, without accompanying the invasion; and the Hyaeans
refusing to do either, until the capture of Polis, one of their
villages.
His preparations completed, Eurylochus lodged the hostages in
Kytinium, in Doris, and advanced upon Naupactus through the country of
the Locrians, taking upon his way Oeneon and Eupalium, two of their
towns that refused to join him. Arrived in the Naupactian territory,
and having been now joined by the Aetolians, the army laid waste the
land and took the suburb of the town, which was unfortified; and after
this Molycrium also, a Corinthian colony subject to Athens.
Meanwhile the Athenian Demosthenes, who since the affair in Aetolia
had remained near Naupactus, having had notice of the army and fearing
for the town, went and persuaded the Acarnanians, although not without
difficulty because of his departure from Leucas, to go to the relief
of Naupactus. They accordingly sent with him on board his ships a
thousand heavy infantry, who threw themselves into the place and saved
it; the extent of its wall and the small number of its defenders
otherwise placing it in the greatest danger. Meanwhile Eurylochus
and his companions, finding that this force had entered and that it
was impossible to storm the town, withdrew, not to Peloponnese, but to
the country once called Aeolis, and now Calydon and Pleuron, and to
the places in that neighbourhood, and Proschium in Aetolia; the
Ambraciots having come and urged them to combine with them in
attacking Amphilochian Argos and the rest of Amphilochia and
Acarnania; affirming that the conquest of these countries would
bring all the continent into alliance with Lacedaemon. To this
Eurylochus consented, and dismissing the Aetolians, now remained quiet
with his army in those parts, until the time should come for the
Ambraciots to take the field, and for him to join them before Argos.
Summer was now over. The winter ensuing, the Athenians in Sicily
with their Hellenic allies, and such of the Sicel subjects or allies
of Syracuse as had revolted from her and joined their army, marched
against the Sicel town Inessa, the acropolis of which was held by
the Syracusans, and after attacking it without being able to take
it, retired. In the retreat, the allies retreating after the Athenians
were attacked by the Syracusans from the fort, and a large part of
their army routed with great slaughter. After this, Laches and the
Athenians from the ships made some descents in Locris, and defeating
the Locrians, who came against them with Proxenus, son of Capaton,
upon the river Caicinus, took some arms and departed.
The same winter the Athenians purified Delos, in compliance, it
appears, with a certain oracle. It had been purified before by
Pisistratus the tyrant; not indeed the whole island, but as much of it
as could be seen from the temple. All of it was, however, now purified
in the following way. All the sepulchres of those that had died in
Delos were taken up, and for the future it was commanded that no one
should be allowed either to die or to give birth to a child in the
island; but that they should be carried over to Rhenea, which is so
near to Delos that Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, having added Rhenea to
his other island conquests during his period of naval ascendancy,
dedicated it to the Delian Apollo by binding it to Delos with a chain.
The Athenians, after the purification, celebrated, for the first
time, the quinquennial festival of the Delian games. Once upon a time,
indeed, there was a great assemblage of the Ionians and the
neighbouring islanders at Delos, who used to come to the festival,
as the Ionians now do to that of Ephesus, and athletic and poetical
contests took place there, and the cities brought choirs of dancers.
Nothing can be clearer on this point than the following verses of
Homer, taken from a hymn to Apollo:

Phoebus, wherever thou strayest, far or near,
Delos was still of all thy haunts most dear.
Thither the robed Ionians take their way
With wife and child to keep thy holiday,
Invoke thy favour on each manly game,
And dance and sing in honour of thy name.

That there was also a poetical contest in which the Ionians went
to contend, again is shown by the following, taken from the same hymn.
After celebrating the Delian dance of the women, he ends his song of
praise with these verses, in which he also alludes to himself:

Well, may Apollo keep you all! and so,
Sweethearts, good-bye- yet tell me not I go
Out from your hearts; and if in after hours
Some other wanderer in this world of ours
Touch at your shores, and ask your maidens here
Who sings the songs the sweetest to your ear,
Think of me then, and answer with a smile,
'A blind old man of Scio's rocky isle.'

Homer thus attests that there was anciently a great assembly and
festival at Delos. In later times, although the islanders and the
Athenians continued to send the choirs of dancers with sacrifices, the
contests and most of the ceremonies were abolished, probably through
adversity, until the Athenians celebrated the games upon this occasion
with the novelty of horse-races.
The same winter the Ambraciots, as they had promised Eurylochus when
they retained his army, marched out against Amphilochian Argos with
three thousand heavy infantry, and invading the Argive territory
occupied Olpae, a stronghold on a hill near the sea, which had been
formerly fortified by the Acarnanians and used as the place of assizes
for their nation, and which is about two miles and three-quarters from
the city of Argos upon the sea-coast. Meanwhile the Acarnanians went
with a part of their forces to the relief of Argos, and with the
rest encamped in Amphilochia at the place called Crenae, or the Wells,
to watch for Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, and to prevent their
passing through and effecting their junction with the Ambraciots;
while they also sent for Demosthenes, the commander of the Aetolian
expedition, to be their leader, and for the twenty Athenian ships that
were cruising off Peloponnese under the command of Aristotle, son of
Timocrates, and Hierophon, son of Antimnestus. On their part, the
Ambraciots at Olpae sent a messenger to their own city, to beg them to
come with their whole levy to their assistance, fearing that the
army of Eurylochus might not be able to pass through the
Acarnanians, and that they might themselves be obliged to fight
single-handed, or be unable to retreat, if they wished it, without
danger.
Meanwhile Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, learning that the
Ambraciots at Olpae had arrived, set out from Proschium with all haste
to join them, and crossing the Achelous advanced through Acarnania,
which they found deserted by its population, who had gone to the
relief of Argos; keeping on their right the city of the Stratians
and its garrison, and on their left the rest of Acarnania.
Traversing the territory of the Stratians, they advanced through
Phytia, next, skirting Medeon, through Limnaea; after which they
left Acarnania behind them and entered a friendly country, that of the
Agraeans. From thence they reached and crossed Mount Thymaus, which
belongs to the Agraeans, and descended into the Argive territory after
nightfall, and passing between the city of Argos and the Acarnanian
posts at Crenae, joined the Ambraciots at Olpae.
Uniting here at daybreak, they sat down at the place called
Metropolis, and encamped. Not long afterwards the Athenians in the
twenty ships came into the Ambracian Gulf to support the Argives, with
Demosthenes and two hundred Messenian heavy infantry, and sixty
Athenian archers. While the fleet off Olpae blockaded the hill from
the sea, the Acarnanians and a few of the Amphilochians, most of
whom were kept back by force by the Ambraciots, had already arrived at
Argos, and were preparing to give battle to the enemy, having chosen
Demosthenes to command the whole of the allied army in concert with
their own generals. Demosthenes led them near to Olpae and encamped, a
great ravine separating the two armies. During five days they remained
inactive; on the sixth both sides formed in order of battle. The
army of the Peloponnesians was the largest and outflanked their
opponents; and Demosthenes fearing that his right might be surrounded,
placed in ambush in a hollow way overgrown with bushes some four
hundred heavy infantry and light troops, who were to rise up at the
moment of the onset behind the projecting left wing of the enemy,
and to take them in the rear. When both sides were ready they joined
battle; Demosthenes being on the right wing with the Messenians and
a few Athenians, while the rest of the line was made up of the
different divisions of the Acarnanians, and of the Amphilochian
carters. The Peloponnesians and Ambraciots were drawn up pell-mell
together, with the exception of the Mantineans, who were massed on the
left, without however reaching to the extremity of the wing, where
Eurylochus and his men confronted the Messenians and Demosthenes.
The Peloponnesians were now well engaged and with their
outflanking wing were upon the point of turning their enemy's right;
when the Acarnanians from the ambuscade set upon them from behind, and
broke them at the first attack, without their staying to resist; while
the panic into which they fell caused the flight of most of their
army, terrified beyond measure at seeing the division of Eurylochus
and their best troops cut to pieces. Most of the work was done by
Demosthenes and his Messenians, who were posted in this part of the
field. Meanwhile the Ambraciots (who are the best soldiers in those
countries) and the troops upon the right wing, defeated the division
opposed to them and pursued it to Argos. Returning from the pursuit,
they found their main body defeated; and hard pressed by the
Acarnanians, with difficulty made good their passage to Olpae,
suffering heavy loss on the way, as they dashed on without
discipline or order, the Mantineans excepted, who kept their ranks
best of any in the army during the retreat.
The battle did not end until the evening. The next day Menedaius,
who on the death of Eurylochus and Macarius had succeeded to the
sole command, being at a loss after so signal a defeat how to stay and
sustain a siege, cut off as he was by land and by the Athenian fleet
by sea, and equally so how to retreat in safety, opened a parley
with Demosthenes and the Acarnanian generals for a truce and
permission to retreat, and at the same time for the recovery of the
dead. The dead they gave back to him, and setting up a trophy took
up their own also to the number of about three hundred. The retreat
demanded they refused publicly to the army; but permission to depart
without delay was secretly granted to the Mantineans and to
Menedaius and the other commanders and principal men of the
Peloponnesians by Demosthenes and his Acarnanian colleagues; who
desired to strip the Ambraciots and the mercenary host of foreigners
of their supporters; and, above all, to discredit the Lacedaemonians
and Peloponnesians with the Hellenes in those parts, as traitors and
self-seekers.
While the enemy was taking up his dead and hastily burying them as
he could, and those who obtained permission were secretly planning
their retreat, word was brought to Demosthenes and the Acarnanians
that the Ambraciots from the city, in compliance with the first
message from Olpae, were on the march with their whole levy through
Amphilochia to join their countrymen at Olpae, knowing nothing of what
had occurred. Demosthenes prepared to march with his army against
them, and meanwhile sent on at once a strong division to beset the
roads and occupy the strong positions. In the meantime the
Mantineans and others included in the agreement went out under the
pretence of gathering herbs and firewood, and stole off by twos and
threes, picking on the way the things which they professed to have
come out for, until they had gone some distance from Olpae, when
they quickened their pace. The Ambraciots and such of the rest as
had accompanied them in larger parties, seeing them going on, pushed
on in their turn, and began running in order to catch them up. The
Acarnanians at first thought that all alike were departing without
permission, and began to pursue the Peloponnesians; and believing that
they were being betrayed, even threw a dart or two at some of their
generals who tried to stop them and told them that leave had been
given. Eventually, however, they let pass the Mantineans and
Peloponnesians, and slew only the Ambraciots, there being much dispute
and difficulty in distinguishing whether a man was an Ambraciot or a
Peloponnesian. The number thus slain was about two hundred; the rest
escaped into the bordering territory of Agraea, and found refuge
with Salynthius, the friendly king of the Agraeans.
Meanwhile the Ambraciots from the city arrived at Idomene. Idomene
consists of two lofty hills, the higher of which the troops sent on by
Demosthenes succeeded in occupying after nightfall, unobserved by
the Ambraciots, who had meanwhile ascended the smaller and
bivouacked under it. After supper Demosthenes set out with the rest of
the army, as soon as it was evening; himself with half his force
making for the pass, and the remainder going by the Amphilochian
hills. At dawn he fell upon the Ambraciots while they were still abed,
ignorant of what had passed, and fully thinking that it was their
own countrymen- Demosthenes having purposely put the Messenians in
front with orders to address them in the Doric dialect, and thus to
inspire confidence in the sentinels, who would not be able to see them
as it was still night. In this way he routed their army as soon as
he attacked it, slaying most of them where they were, the rest
breaking away in flight over the hills. The roads, however, were
already occupied, and while the Amphilochians knew their own
country, the Ambraciots were ignorant of it and could not tell which
way to turn, and had also heavy armour as against a light-armed enemy,
and so fell into ravines and into the ambushes which had been set
for them, and perished there. In their manifold efforts to escape some
even turned to the sea, which was not far off, and seeing the Athenian
ships coasting alongshore just while the action was going on, swam off
to them, thinking it better in the panic they were in, to perish, if
perish they must, by the hands of the Athenians, than by those of
the barbarous and detested Amphilochians. Of the large Ambraciot force
destroyed in this manner, a few only reached the city in safety; while
the Acarnanians, after stripping the dead and setting up a trophy,
returned to Argos.
The next day arrived a herald from the Ambraciots who had fled
from Olpae to the Agraeans, to ask leave to take up the dead that
had fallen after the first engagement, when they left the camp with
the Mantineans and their companions, without, like them, having had
permission to do so. At the sight of the arms of the Ambraciots from
the city, the herald was astonished at their number, knowing nothing
of the disaster and fancying that they were those of their own
party. Some one asked him what he was so astonished at, and how many
of them had been killed, fancying in his turn that this was the herald
from the troops at Idomene. He replied: "About two hundred"; upon
which his interrogator took him up, saying: "Why, the arms you see
here are of more than a thousand." The herald replied: "Then they
are not the arms of those who fought with us?" The other answered:
"Yes, they are, if at least you fought at Idomene yesterday." "But
we fought with no one yesterday; but the day before in the retreat."
"However that may be, we fought yesterday with those who came to
reinforce you from the city of the Ambraciots." When the herald
heard this and knew that the reinforcement from the city had been
destroyed, he broke into wailing and, stunned at the magnitude of
the present evils, went away at once without having performed his
errand, or again asking for the dead bodies. Indeed, this was by far
the greatest disaster that befell any one Hellenic city in an equal
number of days during this war; and I have not set down the number
of the dead, because the amount stated seems so out of proportion to
the size of the city as to be incredible. In any case I know that if
the Acarnanians and Amphilochians had wished to take Ambracia as the
Athenians and Demosthenes advised, they would have done so without a
blow; as it was, they feared that if the Athenians had it they would
be worse neighbours to them than the present.
After this the Acarnanians allotted a third of the spoils to the
Athenians, and divided the rest among their own different towns. The
share of the Athenians was captured on the voyage home; the arms now
deposited in the Attic temples are three hundred panoplies, which
the Acarnanians set apart for Demosthenes, and which he brought to
Athens in person, his return to his country after the Aetolian
disaster being rendered less hazardous by this exploit. The
Athenians in the twenty ships also went off to Naupactus. The
Acarnanians and Amphilochians, after the departure of Demosthenes
and the Athenians, granted the Ambraciots and Peloponnesians who had
taken refuge with Salynthius and the Agraeans a free retreat from
Oeniadae, to which place they had removed from the country of
Salynthius, and for the future concluded with the Ambraciots a
treaty and alliance for one hundred years, upon the terms following.
It was to be a defensive, not an offensive alliance; the Ambraciots
could not be required to march with the Acarnanians against the
Peloponnesians, nor the Acarnanians with the Ambraciots against the
Athenians; for the rest the Ambraciots were to give up the places
and hostages that they held of the Amphilochians, and not to give help
to Anactorium, which was at enmity with the Acarnanians. With this
arrangement they put an end to the war. After this the Corinthians
sent a garrison of their own citizens to Ambracia, composed of three
hundred heavy infantry, under the command of Xenocleides, son of
Euthycles, who reached their destination after a difficult journey
across the continent. Such was the history of the affair of Ambracia.
The same winter the Athenians in Sicily made a descent from their
ships upon the territory of Himera, in concert with the Sicels, who
had invaded its borders from the interior, and also sailed to the
islands of Aeolus. Upon their return to Rhegium they found the
Athenian general, Pythodorus, son of Isolochus, come to supersede
Laches in the command of the fleet. The allies in Sicily had sailed to
Athens and induced the Athenians to send out more vessels to their
assistance, pointing out that the Syracusans who already commanded
their land were making efforts to get together a navy, to avoid
being any longer excluded from the sea by a few vessels. The Athenians
proceeded to man forty ships to send to them, thinking that the war in
Sicily would thus be the sooner ended, and also wishing to exercise
their navy. One of the generals, Pythodorus, was accordingly sent
out with a few ships; Sophocles, son of Sostratides, and Eurymedon,
son of Thucles, being destined to follow with the main body. Meanwhile
Pythodorus had taken the command of Laches' ships, and towards the end
of winter sailed against the Locrian fort, which Laches had formerly
taken, and returned after being defeated in battle by the Locrians.
In the first days of this spring, the stream of fire issued from
Etna, as on former occasions, and destroyed some land of the
Catanians, who live upon Mount Etna, which is the largest mountain
in Sicily. Fifty years, it is said, had elapsed since the last
eruption, there having been three in all since the Hellenes have
inhabited Sicily. Such were the events of this winter; and with it
ended the sixth year of this war, of which Thucydides was the
historian.
The Fourth Book.
CHAPTER XII.

Seventh Year of the War - Occupation of Pylos -
Surrender of the Spartan Army in Sphacteria

NEXT summer, about the time of the corn's coming into ear, ten
Syracusan and as many Locrian vessels sailed to Messina, in Sicily,
and occupied the town upon the invitation of the inhabitants; and
Messina revolted from the Athenians. The Syracusans contrived this
chiefly because they saw that the place afforded an approach to
Sicily, and feared that the Athenians might hereafter use it as a base
for attacking them with a larger force; the Locrians because they
wished to carry on hostilities from both sides of the strait and to
reduce their enemies, the people of Rhegium. Meanwhile, the Locrians
had invaded the Rhegian territory with all their forces, to prevent
their succouring Messina, and also at the instance of some exiles from
Rhegium who were with them; the long factions by which that town had
been torn rendering it for the moment incapable of resistance, and
thus furnishing an additional temptation to the invaders. After
devastating the country the Locrian land forces retired, their ships
remaining to guard Messina, while others were being manned for the
same destination to carry on the war from thence.
About the same time in the spring, before the corn was ripe, the
Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under Agis, the son
of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat down and laid waste
the country. Meanwhile the Athenians sent off the forty ships which
they had been preparing to Sicily, with the remaining generals
Eurymedon and Sophocles; their colleague Pythodorus having already
preceded them thither. These had also instructions as they sailed by
to look to the Corcyraeans in the town, who were being plundered by
the exiles in the mountain. To support these exiles sixty
Peloponnesian vessels had lately sailed, it being thought that the
famine raging in the city would make it easy for them to reduce it.
Demosthenes also, who had remained without employment since his return
from Acarnania, applied and obtained permission to use the fleet, if
he wished it, upon the coast of Peloponnese.

Off Laconia they heard that the Peloponnesian ships were already
at Corcyra, upon which Eurymedon and Sophocles wished to hasten to the
island, but Demosthenes required them first to touch at Pylos and do
what was wanted there, before continuing their voyage. While they were
making objections, a squall chanced to come on and carried the fleet
into Pylos. Demosthenes at once urged them to fortify the place, it
being for this that he had come on the voyage, and made them observe
there was plenty of stone and timber on the spot, and that the place
was strong by nature, and together with much of the country round
unoccupied; Pylos, or Coryphasium, as the Lacedaemonians call it,
being about forty-five miles distant from Sparta, and situated in
the old country of the Messenians. The commanders told him that
there was no lack of desert headlands in Peloponnese if he wished to
put the city to expense by occupying them. He, however, thought that
this place was distinguished from others of the kind by having a
harbour close by; while the Messenians, the old natives of the
country, speaking the same dialect as the Lacedaemonians, could do
them the greatest mischief by their incursions from it, and would at
the same time be a trusty garrison.
After speaking to the captains of companies on the subject, and
failing to persuade either the generals or the soldiers, he remained
inactive with the rest from stress of weather; until the soldiers
themselves wanting occupation were seized with a sudden impulse to
go round and fortify the place. Accordingly they set to work in
earnest, and having no iron tools, picked up stones, and put them
together as they happened to fit, and where mortar was needed, carried
it on their backs for want of hods, stooping down to make it stay
on, and clasping their hands together behind to prevent it falling
off; sparing no effort to be able to complete the most vulnerable
points before the arrival of the Lacedaemonians, most of the place
being sufficiently strong by nature without further fortifications.
Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians were celebrating a festival, and also
at first made light of the news, in the idea that whenever they
chose to take the field the place would be immediately evacuated by
the enemy or easily taken by force; the absence of their army before
Athens having also something to do with their delay. The Athenians
fortified the place on the land side, and where it most required it,
in six days, and leaving Demosthenes with five ships to garrison it,
with the main body of the fleet hastened on their voyage to Corcyra
and Sicily.
As soon as the Peloponnesians in Attica heard of the occupation of
Pylos, they hurried back home; the Lacedaemonians and their king
Agis thinking that the matter touched them nearly. Besides having made
their invasion early in the season, and while the corn was still
green, most of their troops were short of provisions: the weather also
was unusually bad for the time of year, and greatly distressed their
army. Many reasons thus combined to hasten their departure and to make
this invasion a very short one; indeed they only stayed fifteen days
in Attica.
About the same time the Athenian general Simonides getting
together a few Athenians from the garrisons, and a number of the
allies in those parts, took Eion in Thrace, a Mendaean colony and
hostile to Athens, by treachery, but had no sooner done so than the
Chalcidians and Bottiaeans came up and beat him out of it, with the
loss of many of his soldiers.
On the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica, the Spartans
themselves and the nearest of the Perioeci at once set out for
Pylos, the other Lacedaemonians following more slowly, as they had
just come in from another campaign. Word was also sent round
Peloponnese to come up as quickly as possible to Pylos; while the
sixty Peloponnesian ships were sent for from Corcyra, and being
dragged by their crews across the isthmus of Leucas, passed
unperceived by the Athenian squadron at Zacynthus, and reached
Pylos, where the land forces had arrived before them. Before the
Peloponnesian fleet sailed in, Demosthenes found time to send out
unobserved two ships to inform Eurymedon and the Athenians on board
the fleet at Zacynthus of the danger of Pylos and to summon them to
his assistance. While the ships hastened on their voyage in
obedience to the orders of Demosthenes, the Lacedaemonians prepared to
assault the fort by land and sea, hoping to capture with ease a work
constructed in haste, and held by a feeble garrison. Meanwhile, as
they expected the Athenian ships to arrive from Zacynthus, they
intended, if they failed to take the place before, to block up the
entrances of the harbour to prevent their being able to anchor
inside it. For the island of Sphacteria, stretching along in a line
close in front of the harbour, at once makes it safe and narrows its
entrances, leaving a passage for two ships on the side nearest Pylos
and the Athenian fortifications, and for eight or nine on that next
the rest of the mainland: for the rest, the island was entirely
covered with wood, and without paths through not being inhabited,
and about one mile and five furlongs in length. The inlets the
Lacedaemonians meant to close with a line of ships placed close
together, with their prows turned towards the sea, and, meanwhile,
fearing that the enemy might make use of the island to operate against
them, carried over some heavy infantry thither, stationing others
along the coast. By this means the island and the continent would be
alike hostile to the Athenians, as they would be unable to land on
either; and the shore of Pylos itself outside the inlet towards the
open sea having no harbour, and, therefore, presenting no point
which they could use as a base to relieve their countrymen, they,
the Lacedaemonians, without sea-fight or risk would in all probability
become masters of the place, occupied as it had been on the spur of
the moment, and unfurnished with provisions. This being determined,
they carried over to the island the heavy infantry, drafted by lot
from all the companies. Some others had crossed over before in
relief parties, but these last who were left there were four hundred
and twenty in number, with their Helot attendants, commanded by
Epitadas, son of Molobrus.
Meanwhile Demosthenes, seeing the Lacedaemonians about to attack him
by sea and land at once, himself was not idle. He drew up under the
fortification and enclosed in a stockade the galleys remaining to
him of those which had been left him, arming the sailors taken out
of them with poor shields made most of them of osier, it being
impossible to procure arms in such a desert place, and even these
having been obtained from a thirty-oared Messenian privateer and a
boat belonging to some Messenians who happened to have come to them.
Among these Messenians were forty heavy infantry, whom he made use
of with the rest. Posting most of his men, unarmed and armed, upon the
best fortified and strong points of the place towards the interior,
with orders to repel any attack of the land forces, he picked sixty
heavy infantry and a few archers from his whole force, and with
these went outside the wall down to the sea, where he thought that the
enemy would most likely attempt to land. Although the ground was
difficult and rocky, looking towards the open sea, the fact that
this was the weakest part of the wall would, he thought, encourage
their ardour, as the Athenians, confident in their naval
superiority, had here paid little attention to their defences, and the
enemy if he could force a landing might feel secure of taking the
place. At this point, accordingly, going down to the water's edge,
he posted his heavy infantry to prevent, if possible, a landing, and
encouraged them in the following terms:
"Soldiers and comrades in this adventure, I hope that none of you in
our present strait will think to show his wit by exactly calculating
all the perils that encompass us, but that you will rather hasten to
close with the enemy, without staying to count the odds, seeing in
this your best chance of safety. In emergencies like ours
calculation is out of place; the sooner the danger is faced the
better. To my mind also most of the chances are for us, if we will
only stand fast and not throw away our advantages, overawed by the
numbers of the enemy. One of the points in our favour is the
awkwardness of the landing. This, however, only helps us if we stand
our ground. If we give way it will be practicable enough, in spite
of its natural difficulty, without a defender; and the enemy will
instantly become more formidable from the difficulty he will have in
retreating, supposing that we succeed in repulsing him, which we shall
find it easier to do, while he is on board his ships, than after he
has landed and meets us on equal terms. As to his numbers, these
need not too much alarm you. Large as they may be he can only engage
in small detachments, from the impossibility of bringing to.
Besides, the numerical superiority that we have to meet is not that of
an army on land with everything else equal, but of troops on board
ship, upon an element where many favourable accidents are required
to act with effect. I therefore consider that his difficulties may
be fairly set against our numerical deficiencies, and at the same time
I charge you, as Athenians who know by experience what landing from
ships on a hostile territory means, and how impossible it is to
drive back an enemy determined enough to stand his ground and not to
be frightened away by the surf and the terrors of the ships sailing
in, to stand fast in the present emergency, beat back the enemy at the
water's edge, and save yourselves and the place."
Thus encouraged by Demosthenes, the Athenians felt more confident,
and went down to meet the enemy, posting themselves along the edge
of the sea. The Lacedaemonians now put themselves in movement and
simultaneously assaulted the fortification with their land forces
and with their ships, forty-three in number, under their admiral,
Thrasymelidas, son of Cratesicles, a Spartan, who made his attack just
where Demosthenes expected. The Athenians had thus to defend
themselves on both sides, from the land and from the sea; the enemy
rowing up in small detachments, the one relieving the other- it being
impossible for many to bring to at once- and showing great ardour and
cheering each other on, in the endeavour to force a passage and to
take the fortification. He who most distinguished himself was
Brasidas. Captain of a galley, and seeing that the captains and
steersmen, impressed by the difficulty of the position, hung back even
where a landing might have seemed possible, for fear of wrecking their
vessels, he shouted out to them, that they must never allow the
enemy to fortify himself in their country for the sake of saving
timber, but must shiver their vessels and force a landing; and bade
the allies, instead of hesitating in such a moment to sacrifice
their ships for Lacedaemon in return for her many benefits, to run
them boldly aground, land in one way or another, and make themselves
masters of the place and its garrison.
Not content with this exhortation, he forced his own steersman to
run his ship ashore, and stepping on to the gangway, was
endeavouring to land, when he was cut down by the Athenians, and after
receiving many wounds fainted away. Falling into the bows, his
shield slipped off his arm into the sea, and being thrown ashore was
picked up by the Athenians, and afterwards used for the trophy which
they set up for this attack. The rest also did their best, but were
not able to land, owing to the difficulty of the ground and the
unflinching tenacity of the Athenians. It was a strange reversal of
the order of things for Athenians to be fighting from the land, and
from Laconian land too, against Lacedaemonians coming from the sea;
while Lacedaemonians were trying to land from shipboard in their own
country, now become hostile, to attack Athenians, although the
former were chiefly famous at the time as an inland people and
superior by land, the latter as a maritime people with a navy that had
no equal.
After continuing their attacks during that day and most of the next,
the Peloponnesians desisted, and the day after sent some of their
ships to Asine for timber to make engines, hoping to take by their
aid, in spite of its height, the wall opposite the harbour, where
the landing was easiest. At this moment the Athenian fleet from
Zacynthus arrived, now numbering fifty sail, having been reinforced by
some of the ships on guard at Naupactus and by four Chian vessels.
Seeing the coast and the island both crowded with heavy infantry,
and the hostile ships in harbour showing no signs of sailing out, at a
loss where to anchor, they sailed for the moment to the desert
island