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The History of the Peloponnesian War

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Title: The History of the Peloponnesian War

Author: Thucydides

Translator: Richard Crawley


        
Release date: December 1, 2004 [eBook #7142]
                Most recently updated: April 3, 2026

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7142

Credits: Albert Imrie and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR ***



THE HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

By Thucydides 431 BC

 Translated by Richard Crawley 


With Permission
to
CONNOP THIRLWALL
Historian of Greece
This Translation of the Work of His
Great Predecessor
is Respectfully Inscribed
by
—The Translator—


CONTENTS

 BOOK I
 CHAPTER I
 CHAPTER II
 CHAPTER III
 CHAPTER IV
 CHAPTER V
 
 BOOK II
 CHAPTER VI
 CHAPTER VII
 CHAPTER VIII
 
 BOOK III
 CHAPTER IX
 CHAPTER X
 CHAPTER XI
 
 BOOK IV
 CHAPTER XII
 CHAPTER XIII
 CHAPTER XIV
 
 BOOK V
 CHAPTER XV
 CHAPTER XVI
 CHAPTER XVII
 
 BOOK VI
 CHAPTER XVIII
 CHAPTER XIX
 CHAPTER XX
 
 BOOK VII
 CHAPTER XXI
 CHAPTER XXII
 CHAPTER XXIII
 
 BOOK VIII
 CHAPTER XXIV
 CHAPTER XXV
 CHAPTER XXVI





BOOK I




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 Mycenæ and the
government. As time went on and Eurystheus did not return, Atreus
complied with the wishes of the Mycenæans, 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 Mycenæ 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 Mycenæ 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 Potidæa


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 Potidæans, 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 Potidæans 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 Potidæa. 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 Potidæans, to raze the wall, and to be on their
guard against the revolt of the neighbouring cities.

Meanwhile the Potidæans 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 Potidæa, the Potidæans,
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 Potidæa 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 Potidæa 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 Potidæans, 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 Potidæa.

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 Potidæa 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 Potidæa 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 Potidæans 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
Potidæans, 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 Potidæa. 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 Potidæans 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 Potidæa, he at last determined to draw his men into as
small a space as possible, and force his way with a run into Potidæa.
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 Potidæans from
Olynthus, which is about seven miles off and in sight of Potidæa, 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 Potidæans under truce. The Potidæans
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 Potidæans 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 Potidæa 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 Potidæa 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 Potidæa, 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 Potidæa, 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 Potidæans. 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 Potidæa 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
Potidæa?—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 Potidæa 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 Potidæa, 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 Potidæa, 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 Potidæa; 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 is the
surest of bonds, whether between states or individuals. Delay not,
therefore, to assist Potidæa, 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 Phœbus 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 Potidæa, 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 Potidæa, 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.




BOOK II




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 Potidæa, 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 wer

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