THUCYDIDES, Peloponnesian War book 1

The History of the Peloponnesian
War

By Thucydides
Written about 431 BC

Translated by Richard Crawley

London 1910.

The First Book

Chapter I

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

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians
and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that
it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it.
This belief was not without its grounds. The preparations of both the combatants
were in every department in the last state of perfection; and he could see the rest
of the Hellenic race taking sides in the quarrel; those who delayed doing so at
once having it in contemplation. Indeed this was the greatest movement yet known
in history, not only of the Hellenes, but of a large part of the barbarian world-
I had almost said of mankind. For though the events of remote antiquity, and even
those that more immediately preceded the war, could not from lapse of time be clearly
ascertained, yet the evidences which an inquiry carried as far back as was practicable
leads me to trust, all point to the conclusion that there was nothing on a great
scale, either in war or in other matters.

For instance, it is evident that the country now called Hellas had in ancient
times no settled population; on the contrary, migrations were of frequent occurrence,
the several tribes readily abandoning their homes under the pressure of superior
numbers. Without commerce, without freedom of communication either by land or sea,
cultivating no more of their territory than the exigencies of life required, destitute
of capital, never planting their land (for they could not tell when an invader might
not come and take it all away, and when he did come they had no walls to stop him),
thinking that the necessities of daily sustenance could be supplied at one place
as well as another, they cared little for shifting their habitation, and consequently
neither built large cities nor attained to any other form of greatness. The richest
soils were always most subject to this change of masters; such as the district now
called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted, and the most
fertile parts of the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the land favoured the aggrandizement
of particular individuals, and thus created faction which proved a fertile source
of ruin. It also invited invasion. Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its soil
enjoying from a very remote period freedom from faction, never changed its inhabitants.
And here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that the migrations
were the cause of there being no correspondent growth in other parts. The most powerful
victims of war or faction from the rest of Hellas took refuge with the Athenians
as a safe retreat; and at an early period, becoming naturalized, swelled the already
large population of the city to such a height that Attica became at last too small
to hold them, and they had to send out colonies to Ionia.

There is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to my conviction
of the weakness of ancient times. Before the Trojan war there is no indication of
any common action in Hellas, nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name;
on the contrary, before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation
existed, but the country went by the names of the different tribes, in particular
of the Pelasgian. It was not till Hellen and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis,
and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they gradually
acquired from the connection the name of Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before
that name could fasten itself upon all. The best proof of this is furnished by Homer.
Born long after the Trojan War, he nowhere calls all of them by that name, nor indeed
any of them except the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original
Hellenes: in his poems they are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He does not
even use the term barbarian, probably because the Hellenes had not yet been marked
off from the rest of the world by one distinctive appellation. It appears therefore
that the several Hellenic communities, comprising not only those who first acquired
the name, city by city, as they came to understand each other, but also those who
assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole people, were before the Trojan war
prevented by their want of strength and the absence of mutual intercourse from displaying
any collective action.

Indeed, they could not unite for this expedition till they had gained increased
familiarity with the sea. And the first person known to us by tradition as having
established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic
sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first colonies,
expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons governors; and thus did his best
to put down piracy in those waters, a necessary step to secure the revenues for
his own use.

For in early times the Hellenes and the barbarians of the coast and islands,
as communication by sea became more common, were tempted to turn pirates, under
the conduct of their most powerful men; the motives being to serve their own cupidity
and to support the needy. They would fall upon a town unprotected by walls, and
consisting of a mere collection of villages, and would plunder it; indeed, this
came to be the main source of their livelihood, no disgrace being yet attached to
such an achievement, but even some glory. An illustration of this is furnished by
the honour with which some of the inhabitants of the continent still regard a successful
marauder, and by the question we find the old poets everywhere representing the
people as asking of voyagers- “Are they pirates?”- as if those who are asked the
question would have no idea of disclaiming the imputation, or their interrogators
of reproaching them for it. The same rapine prevailed also by land.

And even at the present day many of Hellas still follow the old fashion, the
Ozolian Locrians for instance, the Aetolians, the Acarnanians, and that region of
the continent; and the custom of carrying arms is still kept up among these continentals,
from the old piratical habits. The whole of Hellas used once to carry arms, their
habitations being unprotected and their communication with each other unsafe; indeed,
to wear arms was as much a part of everyday life with them as with the barbarians.
And the fact that the people in these parts of Hellas are still living in the old
way points to a time when the same mode of life was once equally common to all.
The Athenians were the first to lay aside their weapons, and to adopt an easier
and more luxurious mode of life; indeed, it is only lately that their rich old men
left off the luxury of wearing undergarments of linen, and fastening a knot of their
hair with a tie of golden grasshoppers, a fashion which spread to their Ionian kindred
and long prevailed among the old men there. On the contrary, a modest style of dressing,
more in conformity with modern ideas, was first adopted by the Lacedaemonians, the
rich doing their best to assimilate their way of life to that of the common people.
They also set the example of contending naked, publicly stripping and anointing
themselves with oil in their gymnastic exercises. Formerly, even in the Olympic
contests, the athletes who contended wore belts across their middles; and it is
but a few years since that the practice ceased. To this day among some of the barbarians,
especially in Asia, when prizes for boxing and wrestling are offered, belts are
worn by the combatants. And there are many other points in which a likeness might
be shown between the life of the Hellenic world of old and the barbarian of to-day.

With respect to their towns, later on, at an era of increased facilities of navigation
and a greater supply of capital, we find the shores becoming the site of walled
towns, and the isthmuses being occupied for the purposes of commerce and defence
against a neighbour. But the old towns, on account of the great prevalence of piracy,
were built away from the sea, whether on the islands or the continent, and still
remain in their old sites. For the pirates used to plunder one another, and indeed
all coast populations, whether seafaring or not.

The islanders, too, were great pirates. These islanders were Carians and Phoenicians,
by whom most of the islands were colonized, as was proved by the following fact.
During the purification of Delos by Athens in this war all the graves in the island
were taken up, and it was found that above half their inmates were Carians: they
were identified by the fashion of the arms buried with them, and by the method of
interment, which was the same as the Carians still follow. But as soon as Minos
had formed his navy, communication by sea became easier, as he colonized most of
the islands, and thus expelled the malefactors. The coast population now began to
apply themselves more closely to the acquisition of wealth, and their life became
more settled; some even began to build themselves walls on the strength of their
newly acquired riches. For the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion
of the stronger, and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce
the smaller towns to subjection. And it was at a somewhat later stage of this development
that they went on the expedition against Troy.

What enabled Agamemnon to raise the armament was more, in my opinion, his superiority
in strength, than the oaths of Tyndareus, which bound the suitors to follow him.
Indeed, the account given by those Peloponnesians who have been the recipients of
the most credible tradition is this. First of all Pelops, arriving among a needy
population from Asia with vast wealth, acquired such power that, stranger though
he was, the country was called after him; and this power fortune saw fit materially
to increase in the hands of his descendants. Eurystheus had been killed in Attica
by the Heraclids. Atreus was his mother’s brother; and to the hands of his relation,
who had left his father on account of the death of Chrysippus, Eurystheus, when
he set out on his expedition, had committed Mycenae and the government. As time
went on and Eurystheus did not return, Atreus complied with the wishes of the Mycenaeans,
who were influenced by fear of the Heraclids- besides, his power seemed considerable,
and he had not neglected to court the favour of the populace- and assumed the sceptre
of Mycenae and the rest of the dominions of Eurystheus. And so the power of the
descendants of Pelops came to be greater than that of the descendants of Perseus.
To all this Agamemnon succeeded. He had also a navy far stronger than his contemporaries,
so that, in my opinion, fear was quite as strong an element as love in the formation
of the confederate expedition. The strength of his navy is shown by the fact that
his own was the largest contingent, and that of the Arcadians was furnished by him;
this at least is what Homer says, if his testimony is deemed sufficient. Besides,
in his account of the transmission of the sceptre, he calls him “Of many an isle,
and of all Argos king.” Now Agamemnon’s was a continental power; and he could not
have been master of any except the adjacent islands (and these would not be many),
but through the possession of a fleet.

And from this expedition we may infer the character of earlier enterprises. Now
Mycenae may have been a small place, and many of the towns of that age may appear
comparatively insignificant, but no exact observer would therefore feel justified
in rejecting the estimate given by the poets and by tradition of the magnitude of
the armament. For I suppose if Lacedaemon were to become desolate, and the temples
and the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as time went on there
would be a strong disposition with posterity to refuse to accept her fame as a true
exponent of her power. And yet they occupy two-fifths of Peloponnese and lead the
whole, not to speak of their numerous allies without. Still, as the city is neither
built in a compact form nor adorned with magnificent temples and public edifices,
but composed of villages after the old fashion of Hellas, there would be an impression
of inadequacy. Whereas, if Athens were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose
that any inference from the appearance presented to the eye would make her power
to have been twice as great as it is. We have therefore no right to be sceptical,
nor to content ourselves with an inspection of a town to the exclusion of a consideration
of its power; but we may safely conclude that the armament in question surpassed
all before it, as it fell short of modern efforts; if we can here also accept the
testimony of Homer’s poems, in which, without allowing for the exaggeration which
a poet would feel himself licensed to employ, we can see that it was far from equalling
ours. He has represented it as consisting of twelve hundred vessels; the Boeotian
complement of each ship being a hundred and twenty men, that of the ships of Philoctetes
fifty. By this, I conceive, he meant to convey the maximum and the minimum complement:
at any rate, he does not specify the amount of any others in his catalogue of the
ships. That they were all rowers as well as warriors we see from his account of
the ships of Philoctetes, in which all the men at the oar are bowmen. Now it is
improbable that many supernumeraries sailed, if we except the kings and high officers;
especially as they had to cross the open sea with munitions of war, in ships, moreover,
that had no decks, but were equipped in the old piratical fashion. So that if we
strike the average of the largest and smallest ships, the number of those who sailed
will appear inconsiderable, representing, as they did, the whole force of Hellas.
And this was due not so much to scarcity of men as of money. Difficulty of subsistence
made the invaders reduce the numbers of the army to a point at which it might live
on the country during the prosecution of the war. Even after the victory they obtained
on their arrival- and a victory there must have been, or the fortifications of the
naval camp could never have been built- there is no indication of their whole force
having been employed; on the contrary, they seem to have turned to cultivation of
the Chersonese and to piracy from want of supplies. This was what really enabled
the Trojans to keep the field for ten years against them; the dispersion of the
enemy making them always a match for the detachment left behind. If they had brought
plenty of supplies with them, and had persevered in the war without scattering for
piracy and agriculture, they would have easily defeated the Trojans in the field,
since they could hold their own against them with the division on service. In short,
if they had stuck to the siege, the capture of Troy would have cost them less time
and less trouble. But as want of money proved the weakness of earlier expeditions,
so from the same cause even the one in question, more famous than its predecessors,
may be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected to have been inferior to its
renown and to the current opinion about it formed under the tuition of the poets.

Even after the Trojan War, Hellas was still engaged in removing and settling,
and thus could not attain to the quiet which must precede growth. The late return
of the Hellenes from Ilium caused many revolutions, and factions ensued almost everywhere;
and it was the citizens thus driven into exile who founded the cities. Sixty years
after the capture of Ilium, the modern Boeotians were driven out of Arne by the
Thessalians, and settled in the present Boeotia, the former Cadmeis; though there
was a division of them there before, some of whom joined the expedition to Ilium.
Twenty years later, the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese;
so that much had to be done and many years had to elapse before Hellas could attain
to a durable tranquillity undisturbed by removals, and could begin to send out colonies,
as Athens did to Ionia and most of the islands, and the Peloponnesians to most of
Italy and Sicily and some places in the rest of Hellas. All these places were founded
subsequently to the war with Troy.

But as the power of Hellas grew, and the acquisition of wealth became more an
object, the revenues of the states increasing, tyrannies were by their means established
almost everywhere- the old form of government being hereditary monarchy with definite
prerogatives- and Hellas began to fit out fleets and apply herself more closely
to the sea. It is said that the Corinthians were the first to approach the modern
style of naval architecture, and that Corinth was the first place in Hellas where
galleys were built; and we have Ameinocles, a Corinthian shipwright, making four
ships for the Samians. Dating from the end of this war, it is nearly three hundred
years ago that Ameinocles went to Samos. Again, the earliest sea-fight in history
was between the Corinthians and Corcyraeans; this was about two hundred and sixty
years ago, dating from the same time. Planted on an isthmus, Corinth had from time
out of mind been a commercial emporium; as formerly almost all communication between
the Hellenes within and without Peloponnese was carried on overland, and the Corinthian
territory was the highway through which it travelled. She had consequently great
money resources, as is shown by the epithet “wealthy” bestowed by the old poets
on the place, and this enabled her, when traffic by sea became more common, to procure
her navy and put down piracy; and as she could offer a mart for both branches of
the trade, she acquired for herself all the power which a large revenue affords.
Subsequently the Ionians attained to great naval strength in the reign of Cyrus,
the first king of the Persians, and of his son Cambyses, and while they were at
war with the former commanded for a while the Ionian sea. Polycrates also, the tyrant
of Samos, had a powerful navy in the reign of Cambyses, with which he reduced many
of the islands, and among them Rhenea, which he consecrated to the Delian Apollo.
About this time also the Phocaeans, while they were founding Marseilles, defeated
the Carthaginians in a sea-fight. These were the most powerful navies. And even
these, although so many generations had elapsed since the Trojan war, seem to have
been principally composed of the old fifty-oars and long-boats, and to have counted
few galleys among their ranks. Indeed it was only shortly the Persian war, and the
death of Darius the successor of Cambyses, that the Sicilian tyrants and the Corcyraeans
acquired any large number of galleys. For after these there were no navies of any
account in Hellas till the expedition of Xerxes; Aegina, Athens, and others may
have possessed a few vessels, but they were principally fifty-oars. It was quite
at the end of this period that the war with Aegina and the prospect of the barbarian
invasion enabled Themistocles to persuade the Athenians to build the fleet with
which they fought at Salamis; and even these vessels had not complete decks.

The navies, then, of the Hellenes during the period we have traversed were what
I have described. All their insignificance did not prevent their being an element
of the greatest power to those who cultivated them, alike in revenue and in dominion.
They were the means by which the islands were reached and reduced, those of the
smallest area falling the easiest prey. Wars by land there were none, none at least
by which power was acquired; we have the usual border contests, but of distant expeditions
with conquest for object we hear nothing among the Hellenes. There was no union
of subject cities round a great state, no spontaneous combination of equals for
confederate expeditions; what fighting there was consisted merely of local warfare
between rival neighbours. The nearest approach to a coalition took place in the
old war between Chalcis and Eretria; this was a quarrel in which the rest of the
Hellenic name did to some extent take sides.

Various, too, were the obstacles which the national growth encountered in various
localities. The power of the Ionians was advancing with rapid strides, when it came
into collision with Persia, under King Cyrus, who, after having dethroned Croesus
and overrun everything between the Halys and the sea, stopped not till he had reduced
the cities of the coast; the islands being only left to be subdued by Darius and
the Phoenician navy.

Again, wherever there were tyrants, their habit of providing simply for themselves,
of looking solely to their personal comfort and family aggrandizement, made safety
the great aim of their policy, and prevented anything great proceeding from them;
though they would each have their affairs with their immediate neighbours. All this
is only true of the mother country, for in Sicily they attained to very great power.
Thus for a long time everywhere in Hellas do we find causes which make the states
alike incapable of combination for great and national ends, or of any vigorous action
of their own.

But at last a time came when the tyrants of Athens and the far older tyrannies
of the rest of Hellas were, with the exception of those in Sicily, once and for
all put down by Lacedaemon; for this city, though after the settlement of the Dorians,
its present inhabitants, it suffered from factions for an unparalleled length of
time, still at a very early period obtained good laws, and enjoyed a freedom from
tyrants which was unbroken; it has possessed the same form of government for more
than four hundred years, reckoning to the end of the late war, and has thus been
in a position to arrange the affairs of the other states. Not many years after the
deposition of the tyrants, the battle of Marathon was fought between the Medes and
the Athenians. Ten years afterwards, the barbarian returned with the armada for
the subjugation of Hellas. In the face of this great danger, the command of the
confederate Hellenes was assumed by the Lacedaemonians in virtue of their superior
power; and the Athenians, having made up their minds to abandon their city, broke
up their homes, threw themselves into their ships, and became a naval people. This
coalition, after repulsing the barbarian, soon afterwards split into two sections,
which included the Hellenes who had revolted from the King, as well as those who
had aided him in the war. At the end of the one stood Athens, at the head of the
other Lacedaemon, one the first naval, the other the first military power in Hellas.
For a short time the league held together, till the Lacedaemonians and Athenians
quarrelled and made war upon each other with their allies, a duel into which all
the Hellenes sooner or later were drawn, though some might at first remain neutral.
So that the whole period from the Median war to this, with some peaceful intervals,
was spent by each power in war, either with its rival, or with its own revolted
allies, and consequently afforded them constant practice in military matters, and
that experience which is learnt in the school of danger.

The policy of Lacedaemon was not to exact tribute from her allies, but merely
to secure their subservience to her interests by establishing oligarchies among
them; Athens, on the contrary, had by degrees deprived hers of their ships, and
imposed instead contributions in money on all except Chios and Lesbos. Both found
their resources for this war separately to exceed the sum of their strength when
the alliance flourished intact.

Having now given the result of my inquiries into early times, I grant that there
will be a difficulty in believing every particular detail. The way that most men
deal with traditions, even traditions of their own country, is to receive them all
alike as they are delivered, without applying any critical test whatever. The general
Athenian public fancy that Hipparchus was tyrant when he fell by the hands of Harmodius
and Aristogiton, not knowing that Hippias, the eldest of the sons of Pisistratus,
was really supreme, and that Hipparchus and Thessalus were his brothers; and that
Harmodius and Aristogiton suspecting, on the very day, nay at the very moment fixed
on for the deed, that information had been conveyed to Hippias by their accomplices,
concluded that he had been warned, and did not attack him, yet, not liking to be
apprehended and risk their lives for nothing, fell upon Hipparchus near the temple
of the daughters of Leos, and slew him as he was arranging the Panathenaic procession.

There are many other unfounded ideas current among the rest of the Hellenes,
even on matters of contemporary history, which have not been obscured by time. For
instance, there is the notion that the Lacedaemonian kings have two votes each,
the fact being that they have only one; and that there is a company of Pitane, there
being simply no such thing. So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation
of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand. On the whole, however,
the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied
on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying
the exaggeration of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are
attractive at truth’s expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach
of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning
them in the region of legend. Turning from these, we can rest satisfied with having
proceeded upon the clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as
can be expected in matters of such antiquity. To come to this war: despite the known
disposition of the actors in a struggle to overrate its importance, and when it
is over to return to their admiration of earlier events, yet an examination of the
facts will show that it was much greater than the wars which preceded it.

With reference to the speeches in this history, some were delivered before the
war began, others while it was going on; some I heard myself, others I got from
various quarters; it was in all cases difficult to carry them word for word in one’s
memory, so my habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded
of them by the various occasions, of course adhering as closely as possible to the
general sense of what they really said. And with reference to the narrative of events,
far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand,
I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself,
partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report being always tried
by the most severe and detailed tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some
labour from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by
different eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from
undue partiality for one side or the other. The absence of romance in my history
will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by
those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation
of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not
reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay
which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.

The Median War, the greatest achievement of past times, yet found a speedy decision
in two actions by sea and two by land. The Peloponnesian War was prolonged to an
immense length, and, long as it was, it was short without parallel for the misfortunes
that it brought upon Hellas. Never had so many cities been taken and laid desolate,
here by the barbarians, here by the parties contending (the old inhabitants being
sometimes removed to make room for others); never was there so much banishing and
blood-shedding, now on the field of battle, now in the strife of faction. Old stories
of occurrences handed down by tradition, but scantily confirmed by experience, suddenly
ceased to be incredible; there were earthquakes of unparalleled extent and violence;
eclipses of the sun occurred with a frequency unrecorded in previous history; there
were great droughts in sundry places and consequent famines, and that most calamitous
and awfully fatal visitation, the plague. All this came upon them with the late
war, which was begun by the Athenians and Peloponnesians by the dissolution of the
thirty years’ truce made after the conquest of Euboea. To the question why they
broke the treaty, I answer by placing first an account of their grounds of complaint
and points of difference, that no one may ever have to ask the immediate cause which
plunged the Hellenes into a war of such magnitude. The real cause I consider to
be the one which was formally most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of
Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable. Still
it is well to give the grounds alleged by either side which led to the dissolution
of the treaty and the breaking out of the war.

Chapter II

Causes of the War – The Affair of Epidamnus – The Affair of Potidaea.

The city of Epidamnus stands on the right of the entrance of the Ionic Gulf.
Its vicinity is inhabited by the Taulantians, an Illyrian people. The place is a
colony from Corcyra, founded by Phalius, son of Eratocleides, of the family of the
Heraclids, who had according to ancient usage been summoned for the purpose from
Corinth, the mother country. The colonists were joined by some Corinthians, and
others of the Dorian race. Now, as time went on, the city of Epidamnus became great
and populous; but falling a prey to factions arising, it is said, from a war with
her neighbours the barbarians, she became much enfeebled, and lost a considerable
amount of her power. The last act before the war was the expulsion of the nobles
by the people. The exiled party joined the barbarians, and proceeded to plunder
those in the city by sea and land; and the Epidamnians, finding themselves hard
pressed, sent ambassadors to Corcyra beseeching their mother country not to allow
them to perish, but to make up matters between them and the exiles, and to rid them
of the war with the barbarians. The ambassadors seated themselves in the temple
of Hera as suppliants, and made the above requests to the Corcyraeans. But the Corcyraeans
refused to accept their supplication, and they were dismissed without having effected
anything.

When the Epidamnians found that no help could be expected from Corcyra, they
were in a strait what to do next. So they sent to Delphi and inquired of the God
whether they should deliver their city to the Corinthians and endeavour to obtain
some assistance from their founders. The answer he gave them was to deliver the
city and place themselves under Corinthian protection. So the Epidamnians went to
Corinth and delivered over the colony in obedience to the commands of the oracle.
They showed that their founder came from Corinth, and revealed the answer of the
god; and they begged them not to allow them to perish, but to assist them. This
the Corinthians consented to do. Believing the colony to belong as much to themselves
as to the Corcyraeans, they felt it to be a kind of duty to undertake their protection.
Besides, they hated the Corcyraeans for their contempt of the mother country. Instead
of meeting with the usual honours accorded to the parent city by every other colony
at public assemblies, such as precedence at sacrifices, Corinth found herself treated
with contempt by a power which in point of wealth could stand comparison with any
even of the richest communities in Hellas, which possessed great military strength,
and which sometimes could not repress a pride in the high naval position of an,
island whose nautical renown dated from the days of its old inhabitants, the Phaeacians.
This was one reason of the care that they lavished on their fleet, which became
very efficient; indeed they began the war with a force of a hundred and twenty galleys.

All these grievances made Corinth eager to send the promised aid to Epidamnus.
Advertisement was made for volunteer settlers, and a force of Ambraciots, Leucadians,
and Corinthians was dispatched. They marched by land to Apollonia, a Corinthian
colony, the route by sea being avoided from fear of Corcyraean interruption. When
the Corcyraeans heard of the arrival of the settlers and troops in Epidamnus, and
the surrender of the colony to Corinth, they took fire. Instantly putting to sea
with five-and-twenty ships, which were quickly followed by others, they insolently
commanded the Epidamnians to receive back the banished nobles- (it must be premised
that the Epidamnian exiles had come to Corcyra and, pointing to the sepulchres of
their ancestors, had appealed to their kindred to restore them)- and to dismiss
the Corinthian garrison and settlers. But to all this the Epidamnians turned a deaf
ear. Upon this the Corcyraeans commenced operations against them with a fleet of
forty sail. They took with them the exiles, with a view to their restoration, and
also secured the services of the Illyrians. Sitting down before the city, they issued
a proclamation to the effect that any of the natives that chose, and the foreigners,
might depart unharmed, with the alternative of being treated as enemies. On their
refusal the Corcyraeans proceeded to besiege the city, which stands on an isthmus;
and the Corinthians, receiving intelligence of the investment of Epidamnus, got
together an armament and proclaimed a colony to Epidamnus, perfect political equality
being guaranteed to all who chose to go. Any who were not prepared to sail at once
might, by paying down the sum of fifty Corinthian drachmae, have a share in the
colony without leaving Corinth. Great numbers took advantage of this proclamation,
some being ready to start directly, others paying the requisite forfeit. In case
of their passage being disputed by the Corcyraeans, several cities were asked to
lend them a convoy. Megara prepared to accompany them with eight ships, Pale in
Cephallonia with four; Epidaurus furnished five, Hermione one, Troezen two, Leucas
ten, and Ambracia eight. The Thebans and Phliasians were asked for money, the Eleans
for hulls as well; while Corinth herself furnished thirty ships and three thousand
heavy infantry.

When the Corcyraeans heard of their preparations they came to Corinth with envoys
from Lacedaemon and Sicyon, whom they persuaded to accompany them, and bade her
recall the garrison and settlers, as she had nothing to do with Epidamnus. If, however,
she had any claims to make, they were willing to submit the matter to the arbitration
of such of the cities in Peloponnese as should be chosen by mutual agreement, and
that the colony should remain with the city to whom the arbitrators might assign
it. They were also willing to refer the matter to the oracle at Delphi. If, in defiance
of their protestations, war was appealed to, they should be themselves compelled
by this violence to seek friends in quarters where they had no desire to seek them,
and to make even old ties give way to the necessity of assistance. The answer they
got from Corinth was that, if they would withdraw their fleet and the barbarians
from Epidamnus, negotiation might be possible; but, while the town was still being
besieged, going before arbitrators was out of the question. The Corcyraeans retorted
that if Corinth would withdraw her troops from Epidamnus they would withdraw theirs,
or they were ready to let both parties remain in statu quo, an armistice being concluded
till judgment could be given.

Turning a deaf ear to all these proposals, when their ships were manned and their
allies had come in, the Corinthians sent a herald before them to declare war and,
getting under way with seventy-five ships and two thousand heavy infantry, sailed
for Epidamnus to give battle to the Corcyraeans. The fleet was under the command
of Aristeus, son of Pellichas, Callicrates, son of Callias, and Timanor, son of
Timanthes; the troops under that of Archetimus, son of Eurytimus, and Isarchidas,
son of Isarchus. When they had reached Actium in the territory of Anactorium, at
the mouth of the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, where the temple of Apollo stands,
the Corcyraeans sent on a herald in a light boat to warn them not to sail against
them. Meanwhile they proceeded to man their ships, all of which had been equipped
for action, the old vessels being undergirded to make them seaworthy. On the return
of the herald without any peaceful answer from the Corinthians, their ships being
now manned, they put out to sea to meet the enemy with a fleet of eighty sail (forty
were engaged in the siege of Epidamnus), formed line, and went into action, and
gained a decisive victory, and destroyed fifteen of the Corinthian vessels. The
same day had seen Epidamnus compelled by its besiegers to capitulate; the conditions
being that the foreigners should be sold, and the Corinthians kept as prisoners
of war, till their fate should be otherwise decided.

After the engagement the Corcyraeans set up a trophy on Leukimme, a headland
of Corcyra, and slew all their captives except the Corinthians, whom they kept as
prisoners of war. Defeated at sea, the Corinthians and their allies repaired home,
and left the Corcyraeans masters of all the sea about those parts. Sailing to Leucas,
a Corinthian colony, they ravaged their territory, and burnt Cyllene, the harbour
of the Eleans, because they had furnished ships and money to Corinth. For almost
the whole of the period that followed the battle they remained masters of the sea,
and the allies of Corinth were harassed by Corcyraean cruisers. At last Corinth,
roused by the sufferings of her allies, sent out ships and troops in the fall of
the summer, who formed an encampment at Actium and about Chimerium, in Thesprotis,
for the protection of Leucas and the rest of the friendly cities. The Corcyraeans
on their part formed a similar station on Leukimme. Neither party made any movement,
but they remained confronting each other till the end of the summer, and winter
was at hand before either of them returned home.

Corinth, exasperated by the war with the Corcyraeans, spent the whole of the
year after the engagement and that succeeding it in building ships, and in straining
every nerve to form an efficient fleet; rowers being drawn from Peloponnese and
the rest of Hellas by the inducement of large bounties. The Corcyraeans, alarmed
at the news of their preparations, being without a single ally in Hellas (for they
had not enrolled themselves either in the Athenian or in the Lacedaemonian confederacy),
decided to repair to Athens in order to enter into alliance and to endeavour to
procure support from her. Corinth also, hearing of their intentions, sent an embassy
to Athens to prevent the Corcyraean navy being joined by the Athenian, and her prospect
of ordering the war according to her wishes being thus impeded. An assembly was
convoked, and the rival advocates appeared: the Corcyraeans spoke as follows:

“Athenians! when a people that have not rendered any important service or support
to their neighbours in times past, for which they might claim to be repaid, appear
before them as we now appear before you to solicit their assistance, they may fairly
be required to satisfy certain preliminary conditions. They should show, first,
that it is expedient or at least safe to grant their request; next, that they will
retain a lasting sense of the kindness. But if they cannot clearly establish any
of these points, they must not be annoyed if they meet with a rebuff. Now the Corcyraeans
believe that with their petition for assistance they can also give you a satisfactory
answer on these points, and they have therefore dispatched us hither. It has so
happened that our policy as regards you with respect to this request, turns out
to be inconsistent, and as regards our interests, to be at the present crisis inexpedient.
We say inconsistent, because a power which has never in the whole of her past history
been willing to ally herself with any of her neighbours, is now found asking them
to ally themselves with her. And we say inexpedient, because in our present war
with Corinth it has left us in a position of entire isolation, and what once seemed
the wise precaution of refusing to involve ourselves in alliances with other powers,
lest we should also involve ourselves in risks of their choosing, has now proved
to be folly and weakness. It is true that in the late naval engagement we drove
back the Corinthians from our shores single-handed. But they have now got together
a still larger armament from Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas; and we, seeing
our utter inability to cope with them without foreign aid, and the magnitude of
the danger which subjection to them implies, find it necessary to ask help from
you and from every other power. And we hope to be excused if we forswear our old
principle of complete political isolation, a principle which was not adopted with
any sinister intention, but was rather the consequence of an error in judgment.

“Now there are many reasons why in the event of your compliance you will congratulate
yourselves on this request having been made to you. First, because your assistance
will be rendered to a power which, herself inoffensive, is a victim to the injustice
of others. Secondly, because all that we most value is at stake in the present contest,
and your welcome of us under these circumstances will be a proof of goodwill which
will ever keep alive the gratitude you will lay up in our hearts. Thirdly, yourselves
excepted, we are the greatest naval power in Hellas. Moreover, can you conceive
a stroke of good fortune more rare in itself, or more disheartening to your enemies,
than that the power whose adhesion you would have valued above much material and
moral strength should present herself self-invited, should deliver herself into
your hands without danger and without expense, and should lastly put you in the
way of gaining a high character in the eyes of the world, the gratitude of those
whom you shall assist, and a great accession of strength for yourselves? You may
search all history without finding many instances of a people gaining all these
advantages at once, or many instances of a power that comes in quest of assistance
being in a position to give to the people whose alliance she solicits as much safety
and honour as she will receive. But it will be urged that it is only in the case
of a war that we shall be found useful. To this we answer that if any of you imagine
that that war is far off, he is grievously mistaken, and is blind to the fact that
Lacedaemon regards you with jealousy and desires war, and that Corinth is powerful
there- the same, remember, that is your enemy, and is even now trying to subdue
us as a preliminary to attacking you. And this she does to prevent our becoming
united by a common enmity, and her having us both on her hands, and also to ensure
getting the start of you in one of two ways, either by crippling our power or by
making its strength her own. Now it is our policy to be beforehand with her- that
is, for Corcyra to make an offer of alliance and for you to accept it; in fact,
we ought to form plans against her instead of waiting to defeat the plans she forms
against us.

“If she asserts that for you to receive a colony of hers into alliance is not
right, let her know that every colony that is well treated honours its parent state,
but becomes estranged from it by injustice. For colonists are not sent forth on
the understanding that they are to be the slaves of those that remain behind, but
that they are to be their equals. And that Corinth was injuring us is clear. Invited
to refer the dispute about Epidamnus to arbitration, they chose to prosecute their
complaints war rather than by a fair trial. And let their conduct towards us who
are their kindred be a warning to you not to be misled by their deceit, nor to yield
to their direct requests; concessions to adversaries only end in self-reproach,
and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security.

“If it be urged that your reception of us will be a breach of the treaty existing
between you and Lacedaemon, the answer is that we are a neutral state, and that
one of the express provisions of that treaty is that it shall be competent for any
Hellenic state that is neutral to join whichever side it pleases. And it is intolerable
for Corinth to be allowed to obtain men for her navy not only from her allies, but
also from the rest of Hellas, no small number being furnished by your own subjects;
while we are to be excluded both from the alliance left open to us by treaty, and
from any assistance that we might get from other quarters, and you are to be accused
of political immorality if you comply with our request. On the other hand, we shall
have much greater cause to complain of you, if you do not comply with it; if we,
who are in peril and are no enemies of yours, meet with a repulse at your hands,
while Corinth, who is the aggressor and your enemy, not only meets with no hindrance
from you, but is even allowed to draw material for war from your dependencies. This
ought not to be, but you should either forbid her enlisting men in your dominions,
or you should lend us too what help you may think advisable.

“But your real policy is to afford us avowed countenance and support. The advantages
of this course, as we premised in the beginning of our speech, are many. We mention
one that is perhaps the chief. Could there be a clearer guarantee of our good faith
than is offered by the fact that the power which is at enmity with you is also at
enmity with us, and that that power is fully able to punish defection? And there
is a wide difference between declining the alliance of an inland and of a maritime
power. For your first endeavour should be to prevent, if possible, the existence
of any naval power except your own; failing this, to secure the friendship of the
strongest that does exist. And if any of you believe that what we urge is expedient,
but fear to act upon this belief, lest it should lead to a breach of the treaty,
you must remember that on the one hand, whatever your fears, your strength will
be formidable to your antagonists; on the other, whatever the confidence you derive
from refusing to receive us, your weakness will have no terrors for a strong enemy.
You must also remember that your decision is for Athens no less than Corcyra, and
that you are not making the best provision for her interests, if at a time when
you are anxiously scanning the horizon that you may be in readiness for the breaking
out of the war which is all but upon you, you hesitate to attach to your side a
place whose adhesion or estrangement is alike pregnant with the most vital consequences.
For it lies conveniently for the coast- navigation in the direction of Italy and
Sicily, being able to bar the passage of naval reinforcements from thence to Peloponnese,
and from Peloponnese thither; and it is in other respects a most desirable station.
To sum up as shortly as possible, embracing both general and particular considerations,
let this show you the folly of sacrificing us. Remember that there are but three
considerable naval powers in Hellas- Athens, Corcyra, and Corinth- and that if you
allow two of these three to become one, and Corinth to secure us for herself, you
will have to hold the sea against the united fleets of Corcyra and Peloponnese.
But if you receive us, you will have our ships to reinforce you in the struggle.”

Such were the words of the Corcyraeans. After they had finished, the Corinthians
spoke as follows:

“These Corcyraeans in the speech we have just heard do not confine themselves
to the question of their reception into your alliance. They also talk of our being
guilty of injustice, and their being the victims of an unjustifiable war. It becomes
necessary for us to touch upon both these points before we proceed to the rest of
what we have to say, that you may have a more correct idea of the grounds of our
claim, and have good cause to reject their petition. According to them, their old
policy of refusing all offers of alliance was a policy of moderation. It was in
fact adopted for bad ends, not for good; indeed their conduct is such as to make
them by no means desirous of having allies present to witness it, or of having the
shame of asking their concurrence. Besides, their geographical situation makes them
independent of others, and consequently the decision in cases where they injure
any lies not with judges appointed by mutual agreement, but with themselves, because,
while they seldom make voyages to their neighbours, they are constantly being visited
by foreign vessels which are compelled to put in to Corcyra. In short, the object
that they propose to themselves, in their specious policy of complete isolation,
is not to avoid sharing in the crimes of others, but to secure monopoly of crime
to themselves- the licence of outrage wherever they can compel, of fraud wherever
they can elude, and the enjoyment of their gains without shame. And yet if they
were the honest men they pretend to be, the less hold that others had upon them,
the stronger would be the light in which they might have put their honesty by giving
and taking what was just.

“But such has not been their conduct either towards others or towards us. The
attitude of our colony towards us has always been one of estrangement and is now
one of hostility; for, say they: ‘We were not sent out to be ill-treated.’ We rejoin
that we did not found the colony to be insulted by them, but to be their head and
to be regarded with a proper respect. At any rate our other colonies honour us,
and we are much beloved by our colonists; and clearly, if the majority are satisfied
with us, these can have no good reason for a dissatisfaction in which they stand
alone, and we are not acting improperly in making war against them, nor are we making
war against them without having received signal provocation. Besides, if we were
in the wrong, it would be honourable in them to give way to our wishes, and disgraceful
for us to trample on their moderation; but in the pride and licence of wealth they
have sinned again and again against us, and never more deeply than when Epidamnus,
our dependency, which they took no steps to claim in its distress upon our coming
to relieve it, was by them seized, and is now held by force of arms.

“As to their allegation that they wished the question to be first submitted to
arbitration, it is obvious that a challenge coming from the party who is safe in
a commanding position cannot gain the credit due only to him who, before appealing
to arms, in deeds as well as words, places himself on a level with his adversary.
In their case, it was not before they laid siege to the place, but after they at
length understood that we should not tamely suffer it, that they thought of the
specious word arbitration. And not satisfied with their own misconduct there, they
appear here now requiring you to join with them not in alliance but in crime, and
to receive them in spite of their being at enmity with us. But it was when they
stood firmest that they should have made overtures to you, and not at a time when
we have been wronged and they are in peril; nor yet at a time when you will be admitting
to a share in your protection those who never admitted you to a share in their power,
and will be incurring an equal amount of blame from us with those in whose offences
you had no hand. No, they should have shared their power with you before they asked
you to share your fortunes with them.

“So then the reality of the grievances we come to complain of, and the violence
and rapacity of our opponents, have both been proved. But that you cannot equitably
receive them, this you have still to learn. It may be true that one of the provisions
of the treaty is that it shall be competent for any state, whose name was not down
on the list, to join whichever side it pleases. But this agreement is not meant
for those whose object in joining is the injury of other powers, but for those whose
need of support does not arise from the fact of defection, and whose adhesion will
not bring to the power that is mad enough to receive them war instead of peace;
which will be the case with you, if you refuse to listen to us. For you cannot become
their auxiliary and remain our friend; if you join in their attack, you must share
the punishment which the defenders inflict on them. And yet you have the best possible
right to be neutral, or, failing this, you should on the contrary join us against
them. Corinth is at least in treaty with you; with Corcyra you were never even in
truce. But do not lay down the principle that defection is to be patronized. Did
we on the defection of the Samians record our vote against you, when the rest of
the Peloponnesian powers were equally divided on the question whether they should
assist them? No, we told them to their face that every power has a right to punish
its own allies. Why, if you make it your policy to receive and assist all offenders,
you will find that just as many of your dependencies will come over to us, and the
principle that you establish will press less heavily on us than on yourselves.

“This then is what Hellenic law entitles us to demand as a right. But we have
also advice to offer and claims on your gratitude, which, since there is no danger
of our injuring you, as we are not enemies, and since our friendship does not amount
to very frequent intercourse, we say ought to be liquidated at the present juncture.
When you were in want of ships of war for the war against the Aeginetans, before
the Persian invasion, Corinth supplied you with twenty vessels. That good turn,
and the line we took on the Samian question, when we were the cause of the Peloponnesians
refusing to assist them, enabled you to conquer Aegina and to punish Samos. And
we acted thus at crises when, if ever, men are wont in their efforts against their
enemies to forget everything for the sake of victory, regarding him who assists
them then as a friend, even if thus far he has been a foe, and him who opposes them
then as a foe, even if he has thus far been a friend; indeed they allow their real
interests to suffer from their absorbing preoccupation in the struggle.

“Weigh well these considerations, and let your youth learn what they are from
their elders, and let them determine to do unto us as we have done unto you. And
let them not acknowledge the justice of what we say, but dispute its wisdom in the
contingency of war. Not only is the straightest path generally speaking the wisest;
but the coming of the war, which the Corcyraeans have used as a bugbear to persuade
you to do wrong, is still uncertain, and it is not worth while to be carried away
by it into gaining the instant and declared enmity of Corinth. It were, rather,
wise to try and counteract the unfavourable impression which your conduct to Megara
has created. For kindness opportunely shown has a greater power of removing old
grievances than the facts of the case may warrant. And do not be seduced by the
prospect of a great naval alliance. Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate
powers is a greater tower of strength than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice
of permanent tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage. It is now our turn
to benefit by the principle that we laid down at Lacedaemon, that every power has
a right to punish her own allies. We now claim to receive the same from you, and
protest against your rewarding us for benefiting you by our vote by injuring us
by yours. On the contrary, return us like for like, remembering that this is that
very crisis in which he who lends aid is most a friend, and he who opposes is most
a foe. And for these Corcyraeans- neither receive them into alliance in our despite,
nor be their abettors in crime. So do, and you will act as we have a right to expect
of you, and at the same time best consult your own interests.”

Such were the words of the Corinthians.

When the Athenians had heard both out, two assemblies were held. In the first
there was a manifest disposition to listen to the representations of Corinth; in
the second, public feeling had changed and an alliance with Corcyra was decided
on, with certain reservations. It was to be a defensive, not an offensive alliance.
It did not involve a breach of the treaty with Peloponnese: Athens could not be
required to join Corcyra in any attack upon Corinth. But each of the contracting
parties had a right to the other’s assistance against invasion, whether of his own
territory or that of an ally. For it began now to be felt that the coming of the
Peloponnesian war was only a question of time, and no one was willing to see a naval
power of such magnitude as Corcyra sacrificed to Corinth; though if they could let
them weaken each other by mutual conflict, it would be no bad preparation for the
struggle which Athens might one day have to wage with Corinth and the other naval
powers. At the same time the island seemed to lie conveniently on the coasting passage
to Italy and Sicily. With these views, Athens received Corcyra into alliance and,
on the departure of the Corinthians not long afterwards, sent ten ships to their
assistance. They were commanded by Lacedaemonius, the son of Cimon, Diotimus, the
son of Strombichus, and Proteas, the son of Epicles. Their instructions were to
avoid collision with the Corinthian fleet except under certain circumstances. If
it sailed to Corcyra and threatened a landing on her coast, or in any of her possessions,
they were to do their utmost to prevent it. These instructions were prompted by
an anxiety to avoid a breach of the treaty.

Meanwhile the Corinthians completed their preparations, and sailed for Corcyra
with a hundred and fifty ships. Of these Elis furnished ten, Megara twelve, Leucas
ten, Ambracia twenty-seven, Anactorium one, and Corinth herself ninety. Each of
these contingents had its own admiral, the Corinthian being under the command of
Xenoclides, son of Euthycles, with four colleagues. Sailing from Leucas, they made
land at the part of the continent opposite Corcyra. They anchored in the harbour
of Chimerium, in the territory of Thesprotis, above which, at some distance from
the sea, lies the city of Ephyre, in the Elean district. By this city the Acherusian
lake pours its waters into the sea. It gets its name from the river Acheron, which
flows through Thesprotis and falls into the lake. There also the river Thyamis flows,
forming the boundary between Thesprotis and Kestrine; and between these rivers rises
the point of Chimerium. In this part of the continent the Corinthians now came to
anchor, and formed an encampment. When the Corcyraeans saw them coming, they manned
a hundred and ten ships, commanded by Meikiades, Aisimides, and Eurybatus, and stationed
themselves at one of the Sybota isles; the ten Athenian ships being present. On
Point Leukimme they posted their land forces, and a thousand heavy infantry who
had come from Zacynthus to their assistance. Nor were the Corinthians on the mainland
without their allies. The barbarians flocked in large numbers to their assistance,
the inhabitants of this part of the continent being old allies of theirs.

When the Corinthian preparations were completed, they took three days’ provisions
and put out from Chimerium by night, ready for action. Sailing with the dawn, they
sighted the Corcyraean fleet out at sea and coming towards them. When they perceived
each other, both sides formed in order of battle. On the Corcyraean right wing lay
the Athenian ships, the rest of the line being occupied by their own vessels formed
in three squadrons, each of which was commanded by one of the three admirals. Such
was the Corcyraean formation. The Corinthian was as follows: on the right wing lay
the Megarian and Ambraciot ships, in the centre the rest of the allies in order.
But the left was composed of the best sailers in the Corinthian navy, to encounter
the Athenians and the right wing of the Corcyraeans. As soon as the signals were
raised on either side, they joined battle. Both sides had a large number of heavy
infantry on their decks, and a large number of archers and darters, the old imperfect
armament still prevailing. The sea-fight was an obstinate one, though not remarkable
for its science; indeed it was more like a battle by land. Whenever they charged
each other, the multitude and crush of the vessels made it by no means easy to get
loose; besides, their hopes of victory lay principally in the heavy infantry on
the decks, who stood and fought in order, the ships remaining stationary. The manoeuvre
of breaking the line was not tried; in short, strength and pluck had more share
in the fight than science. Everywhere tumult reigned, the battle being one scene
of confusion; meanwhile the Athenian ships, by coming up to the Corcyraeans whenever
they were pressed, served to alarm the enemy, though their commanders could not
join in the battle from fear of their instructions. The right wing of the Corinthians
suffered most. The Corcyraeans routed it, and chased them in disorder to the continent
with twenty ships, sailed up to their camp, and burnt the tents which they found
empty, and plundered the stuff. So in this quarter the Corinthians and their allies
were defeated, and the Corcyraeans were victorious. But where the Corinthians themselves
were, on the left, they gained a decided success; the scanty forces of the Corcyraeans
being further weakened by the want of the twenty ships absent on the pursuit. Seeing
the Corcyraeans hard pressed, the Athenians began at length to assist them more
unequivocally. At first, it is true, they refrained from charging any ships; but
when the rout was becoming patent, and the Corinthians were pressing on, the time
at last came when every one set to, and all distinction was laid aside, and it came
to this point, that the Corinthians and Athenians raised their hands against each
other.

After the rout, the Corinthians, instead of employing themselves in lashing fast
and hauling after them the hulls of the vessels which they had disabled, turned
their attention to the men, whom they butchered as they sailed through, not caring
so much to make prisoners. Some even of their own friends were slain by them, by
mistake, in their ignorance of the defeat of the right wing For the number of the
ships on both sides, and the distance to which they covered the sea, made it difficult,
after they had once joined, to distinguish between the conquering and the conquered;
this battle proving far greater than any before it, any at least between Hellenes,
for the number of vessels engaged. After the Corinthians had chased the Corcyraeans
to the land, they turned to the wrecks and their dead, most of whom they succeeded
in getting hold of and conveying to Sybota, the rendezvous of the land forces furnished
by their barbarian allies. Sybota, it must be known, is a desert harbour of Thesprotis.
This task over, they mustered anew, and sailed against the Corcyraeans, who on their
part advanced to meet them with all their ships that were fit for service and remaining
to them, accompanied by the Athenian vessels, fearing that they might attempt a
landing in their territory. It was by this time getting late, and the paean had
been sung for the attack, when the Corinthians suddenly began to back water. They
had observed twenty Athenian ships sailing up, which had been sent out afterwards
to reinforce the ten vessels by the Athenians, who feared, as it turned out justly,
the defeat of the Corcyraeans and the inability of their handful of ships to protect
them. These ships were thus seen by the Corinthians first. They suspected that they
were from Athens, and that those which they saw were not all, but that there were
more behind; they accordingly began to retire. The Corcyraeans meanwhile had not
sighted them, as they were advancing from a point which they could not so well see,
and were wondering why the Corinthians were backing water, when some caught sight
of them, and cried out that there were ships in sight ahead. Upon this they also
retired; for it was now getting dark, and the retreat of the Corinthians had suspended
hostilities. Thus they parted from each other, and the battle ceased with night.
The Corcyraeans were in their camp at Leukimme, when these twenty ships from Athens,
under the command of Glaucon, the son of Leagrus, and Andocides, son of Leogoras,
bore on through the corpses and the wrecks, and sailed up to the camp, not long
after they were sighted. It was now night, and the Corcyraeans feared that they
might be hostile vessels; but they soon knew them, and the ships came to anchor.

The next day the thirty Athenian vessels put out to sea, accompanied by all the
Corcyraean ships that were seaworthy, and sailed to the harbour at Sybota, where
the Corinthians lay, to see if they would engage. The Corinthians put out from the
land and formed a line in the open sea, but beyond this made no further movement,
having no intention of assuming the offensive. For they saw reinforcements arrived
fresh from Athens, and themselves confronted by numerous difficulties, such as the
necessity of guarding the prisoners whom they had on board and the want of all means
of refitting their ships in a desert place. What they were thinking more about was
how their voyage home was to be effected; they feared that the Athenians might consider
that the treaty was dissolved by the collision which had occurred, and forbid their
departure.

Accordingly they resolved to put some men on board a boat, and send them without
a herald’s wand to the Athenians, as an experiment. Having done so, they spoke as
follows: “You do wrong, Athenians, to begin war and break the treaty. Engaged in
chastising our enemies, we find you placing yourselves in our path in arms against
us. Now if your intentions are to prevent us sailing to Corcyra, or anywhere else
that we may wish, and if you are for breaking the treaty, first take us that are
here and treat us as enemies.” Such was what they said, and all the Corcyraean armament
that were within hearing immediately called out to take them and kill them. But
the Athenians answered as follows: “Neither are we beginning war, Peloponnesians,
nor are we breaking the treaty; but these Corcyraeans are our allies, and we are
come to help them. So if you want to sail anywhere else, we place no obstacle in
your way; but if you are going to sail against Corcyra, or any of her possessions,
we shall do our best to stop you.”

Receiving this answer from the Athenians, the Corinthians commenced preparations
for their voyage home, and set up a trophy in Sybota, on the continent; while the
Corcyraeans took up the wrecks and dead that had been carried out to them by the
current, and by a wind which rose in the night and scattered them in all directions,
and set up their trophy in Sybota, on the island, as victors. The reasons each side
had for claiming the victory were these. The Corinthians had been victorious in
the sea-fight until night; and having thus been enabled to carry off most wrecks
and dead, they were in possession of no fewer than a thousand prisoners of war,
and had sunk close upon seventy vessels. The Corcyraeans had destroyed about thirty
ships, and after the arrival of the Athenians had taken up the wrecks and dead on
their side; they had besides seen the Corinthians retire before them, backing water
on sight of the Athenian vessels, and upon the arrival of the Athenians refuse to
sail out against them from Sybota. Thus both sides claimed the victory.

The Corinthians on the voyage home took Anactorium, which stands at the mouth
of the Ambracian gulf. The place was taken by treachery, being common ground to
the Corcyraeans and Corinthians. After establishing Corinthian settlers there, they
retired home. Eight hundred of the Corcyraeans were slaves; these they sold; two
hundred and fifty they retained in captivity, and treated with great attention,
in the hope that they might bring over their country to Corinth on their return;
most of them being, as it happened, men of very high position in Corcyra. In this
way Corcyra maintained her political existence in the war with Corinth, and the
Athenian vessels left the island. This was the first cause of the war that Corinth
had against the Athenians, viz., that they had fought against them with the Corcyraeans
in time of treaty.

Almost immediately after this, fresh differences arose between the Athenians
and Peloponnesians, and contributed their share to the war. Corinth was forming
schemes for retaliation, and Athens suspected her hostility. The Potidaeans, who
inhabit the isthmus of Pallene, being a Corinthian colony, but tributary allies
of Athens, were ordered to raze the wall looking towards Pallene, to give hostages,
to dismiss the Corinthian magistrates, and in future not to receive the persons
sent from Corinth annually to succeed them. It was feared that they might be persuaded
by Perdiccas and the Corinthians to revolt, and might draw the rest of the allies
in the direction of Thrace to revolt with them. These precautions against the Potidaeans
were taken by the Athenians immediately after the battle at Corcyra. Not only was
Corinth at length openly hostile, but Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians,
had from an old friend and ally been made an enemy. He had been made an enemy by
the Athenians entering into alliance with his brother Philip and Derdas, who were
in league against him. In his alarm he had sent to Lacedaemon to try and involve
the Athenians in a war with the Peloponnesians, and was endeavouring to win over
Corinth in order to bring about the revolt of Potidaea. He also made overtures to
the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace, and to the Bottiaeans, to persuade them
to join in the revolt; for he thought that if these places on the border could be
made his allies, it would be easier to carry on the war with their co-operation.
Alive to all this, and wishing to anticipate the revolt of the cities, the Athenians
acted as follows. They were just then sending off thirty ships and a thousand heavy
infantry for his country under the command of Archestratus, son of Lycomedes, with
four colleagues. They instructed the captains to take hostages of the Potidaeans,
to raze the wall, and to be on their guard against the revolt of the neighbouring
cities.

Meanwhile the Potidaeans sent envoys to Athens on the chance of persuading them
to take no new steps in their matters; they also went to Lacedaemon with the Corinthians
to secure support in case of need. Failing after prolonged negotiation to obtain
anything satisfactory from the Athenians; being unable, for all they could say,
to prevent the vessels that were destined for Macedonia from also sailing against
them; and receiving from the Lacedaemonian government a promise to invade Attica,
if the Athenians should attack Potidaea, the Potidaeans, thus favoured by the moment,
at last entered into league with the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, and revolted. And
Perdiccas induced the Chalcidians to abandon and demolish their towns on the seaboard
and, settling inland at Olynthus, to make that one city a strong place: meanwhile
to those who followed his advice he gave a part of his territory in Mygdonia round
Lake Bolbe as a place of abode while the war against the Athenians should last.
They accordingly demolished their towns, removed inland and prepared for war. The
thirty ships of the Athenians, arriving before the Thracian places, found Potidaea
and the rest in revolt. Their commanders, considering it to be quite impossible
with their present force to carry on war with Perdiccas and with the confederate
towns as well turned to Macedonia, their original destination, and, having established
themselves there, carried on war in co-operation with Philip, and the brothers of
Derdas, who had invaded the country from the interior.

Meanwhile the Corinthians, with Potidaea in revolt and the Athenian ships on
the coast of Macedonia, alarmed for the safety of the place and thinking its danger
theirs, sent volunteers from Corinth, and mercenaries from the rest of Peloponnese,
to the number of sixteen hundred heavy infantry in all, and four hundred light troops.
Aristeus, son of Adimantus, who was always a steady friend to the Potidaeans, took
command of the expedition, and it was principally for love of him that most of the
men from Corinth volunteered. They arrived in Thrace forty days after the revolt
of Potidaea.

The Athenians also immediately received the news of the revolt of the cities.
On being informed that Aristeus and his reinforcements were on their way, they sent
two thousand heavy infantry of their own citizens and forty ships against the places
in revolt, under the command of Callias, son of Calliades, and four colleagues.
They arrived in Macedonia first, and found the force of a thousand men that had
been first sent out, just become masters of Therme and besieging Pydna. Accordingly
they also joined in the investment, and besieged Pydna for a while. Subsequently
they came to terms and concluded a forced alliance with Perdiccas, hastened by the
calls of Potidaea and by the arrival of Aristeus at that place. They withdrew from
Macedonia, going to Beroea and thence to Strepsa, and, after a futile attempt on
the latter place, they pursued by land their march to Potidaea with three thousand
heavy infantry of their own citizens, besides a number of their allies, and six
hundred Macedonian horsemen, the followers of Philip and Pausanias. With these sailed
seventy ships along the coast. Advancing by short marches, on the third day they
arrived at Gigonus, where they encamped.

Meanwhile the Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians with Aristeus were encamped on
the side looking towards Olynthus on the isthmus, in expectation of the Athenians,
and had established their market outside the city. The allies had chosen Aristeus
general of all the infantry; while the command of the cavalry was given to Perdiccas,
who had at once left the alliance of the Athenians and gone back to that of the
Potidaeans, having deputed Iolaus as his general: The plan of Aristeus was to keep
his own force on the isthmus, and await the attack of the Athenians; leaving the
Chalcidians and the allies outside the isthmus, and the two hundred cavalry from
Perdiccas in Olynthus to act upon the Athenian rear, on the occasion of their advancing
against him; and thus to place the enemy between two fires. While Callias the Athenian
general and his colleagues dispatched the Macedonian horse and a few of the allies
to Olynthus, to prevent any movement being made from that quarter, the Athenians
themselves broke up their camp and marched against Potidaea.

After they had arrived at the isthmus, and saw the enemy preparing for battle,
they formed against him, and soon afterwards engaged. The wing of Aristeus, with
the Corinthians and other picked troops round him, routed the wing opposed to it,
and followed for a considerable distance in pursuit. But the rest of the army of
the Potidaeans and of the Peloponnesians was defeated by the Athenians, and took
refuge within the fortifications. Returning from the pursuit, Aristeus perceived
the defeat of the rest of the army. Being at a loss which of the two risks to choose,
whether to go to Olynthus or to Potidaea, he at last determined to draw his men
into as small a space as possible, and force his way with a run into Potidaea. Not
without difficulty, through a storm of missiles, he passed along by the breakwater
through the sea, and brought off most of his men safe, though a few were lost. Meanwhile
the auxiliaries of the Potidaeans from Olynthus, which is about seven miles off
and in sight of Potidaea, when the battle began and the signals were raised, advanced
a little way to render assistance; and the Macedonian horse formed against them
to prevent it. But on victory speedily declaring for the Athenians and the signals
being taken down, they retired back within the wall; and the Macedonians returned
to the Athenians. Thus there were no cavalry present on either side.

After the battle the Athenians set up a trophy, and gave back their dead to the
Potidaeans under truce. The Potidaeans and their allies had close upon three hundred
killed; the Athenians a hundred and fifty of their own citizens, and Callias their
general. The wall on the side of the isthmus had now works at once raised against
it, and manned by the Athenians. That on the side of Pallene had no works raised
against it. They did not think themselves strong enough at once to keep a garrison
in the isthmus and to cross over to Pallene and raise works there; they were afraid
that the Potidaeans and their allies might take advantage of their division to attack
them. Meanwhile the Athenians at home learning that there were no works at Pallene,
some time afterwards sent off sixteen hundred heavy infantry of their own citizens
under the command of Phormio, son of Asopius. Arrived at Pallene, he fixed his headquarters
at Aphytis, and led his army against Potidaea by short marches, ravaging the country
as he advanced. No one venturing to meet him in the field, he raised works against
the wall on the side of Pallene. So at length Potidaea was strongly invested on
either side, and from the sea by the ships co-operating in the blockade.

Aristeus, seeing its investment complete, and having no hope of its salvation,
except in the event of some movement from the Peloponnese, or of some other improbable
contingency, advised all except five hundred to watch for a wind and sail out of
the place, in order that their provisions might last the longer. He was willing
to be himself one of those who remained. Unable to persuade them, and desirous of
acting on the next alternative, and of having things outside in the best posture
possible, he eluded the guardships of the Athenians and sailed out. Remaining among
the Chalcidians, he continued to carry on the war; in particular he laid an ambuscade
near the city of the Sermylians, and cut off many of them; he also communicated
with Peloponnese, and tried to contrive some method by which help might be brought.
Meanwhile, after the completion of the investment of Potidaea, Phormio next employed
his sixteen hundred men in ravaging Chalcidice and Bottica: some of the towns also
were taken by him.

Chapter III.

Congress of the Peloponnesian Confederacy at Lacedaemon.

THE Athenians and Peloponnesians had these antecedent grounds of complaint against
each other: the complaint of Corinth was that her colony of Potidaea, and Corinthian
and Peloponnesian citizens within it, were being besieged; that of Athens against
the Peloponnesians that they had incited a town of hers, a member of her alliance
and a contributor to her revenue, to revolt, and had come and were openly fighting
against her on the side of the Potidaeans. For all this, war had not yet broken
out: there was still truce for a while; for this was a private enterprise on the
part of Corinth. But the siege of Potidaea put an end to her inaction; she had men
inside it: besides, she feared for the place. Immediately summoning the allies to
Lacedaemon, she came and loudly accused Athens of breach of the treaty and aggression
on the rights of Peloponnese. With her, the Aeginetans, formally unrepresented from
fear of Athens, in secret proved not the least urgent of the advocates for war,
asserting that they had not the independence guaranteed to them by the treaty. After
extending the summons to any of their allies and others who might have complaints
to make of Athenian aggression, the Lacedaemonians held their ordinary assembly,
and invited them to speak. There were many who came forward and made their several
accusations; among them the Megarians, in a long list of grievances, called special
attention to the fact of their exclusion from the ports of the Athenian empire and
the market of Athens, in defiance of the treaty.

Last of all the Corinthians came forward, and having let those who preceded them
inflame the Lacedaemonians, now followed with a speech to this effect: “Lacedaemonians!
the confidence which you feel in your constitution and social order, inclines you
to receive any reflections of ours on other powers with a certain scepticism. Hence
springs your moderation, but hence also the rather limited knowledge which you betray
in dealing with foreign politics. Time after time was our voice raised to warn you
of the blows about to be dealt us by Athens, and time after time, instead of taking
the trouble to ascertain the worth of our communications, you contented yourselves
with suspecting the speakers of being inspired by private interest. And so, instead
of calling these allies together before the blow fell, you have delayed to do so
till we are smarting under it; allies among whom we have not the worst title to
speak, as having the greatest complaints to make, complaints of Athenian outrage
and Lacedaemonian neglect. Now if these assaults on the rights of Hellas had been
made in the dark, you might be unacquainted with the facts, and it would be our
duty to enlighten you. As it is, long speeches are not needed where you see servitude
accomplished for some of us, meditated for others- in particular for our allies-
and prolonged preparations in the aggressor against the hour of war. Or what, pray,
is the meaning of their reception of Corcyra by fraud, and their holding it against
us by force? what of the siege of Potidaea?- places one of which lies most conveniently
for any action against the Thracian towns; while the other would have contributed
a very large navy to the Peloponnesians? “For all this you are responsible. You
it was who first allowed them to fortify their city after the Median war, and afterwards
to erect the long walls- you who, then and now, are always depriving of freedom
not only those whom they have enslaved, but also those who have as yet been your
allies. For the true author of the subjugation of a people is not so much the immediate
agent, as the power which permits it having the means to prevent it; particularly
if that power aspires to the glory of being the liberator of Hellas. We are at last
assembled. It has not been easy to assemble, nor even now are our objects defined.
We ought not to be still inquiring into the fact of our wrongs, but into the means
of our defence. For the aggressors with matured plans to oppose to our indecision
have cast threats aside and betaken themselves to action. And we know what are the
paths by which Athenian aggression travels, and how insidious is its progress. A
degree of confidence she may feel from the idea that your bluntness of perception
prevents your noticing her; but it is nothing to the impulse which her advance will
receive from the knowledge that you see, but do not care to interfere. You, Lacedaemonians,
of all the Hellenes are alone inactive, and defend yourselves not by doing anything
but by looking as if you would do something; you alone wait till the power of an
enemy is becoming twice its original size, instead of crushing it in its infancy.
And yet the world used to say that you were to be depended upon; but in your case,
we fear, it said more than the truth. The Mede, we ourselves know, had time to come
from the ends of the earth to Peloponnese, without any force of yours worthy of
the name advancing to meet him. But this was a distant enemy. Well, Athens at all
events is a near neighbour, and yet Athens you utterly disregard; against Athens
you prefer to act on the defensive instead of on the offensive, and to make it an
affair of chances by deferring the struggle till she has grown far stronger than
at first. And yet you know that on the whole the rock on which the barbarian was
wrecked was himself, and that if our present enemy Athens has not again and again
annihilated us, we owe it more to her blunders than to your protection; Indeed,
expectations from you have before now been the ruin of some, whose faith induced
them to omit preparation. “We hope that none of you will consider these words of
remonstrance to be rather words of hostility; men remonstrate with friends who are
in error, accusations they reserve for enemies who have wronged them. Besides, we
consider that we have as good a right as any one to point out a neighbour’s faults,
particularly when we contemplate the great contrast between the two national characters;
a contrast of which, as far as we can see, you have little perception, having never
yet considered what sort of antagonists you will encounter in the Athenians, how
widely, how absolutely different from yourselves.

The Athenians are addicted to innovation, and their designs are characterized
by swiftness alike in conception and execution; you have a genius for keeping what
you have got, accompanied by a total want of invention, and when forced to act you
never go far enough. Again, they are adventurous beyond their power, and daring
beyond their judgment, and in danger they are sanguine; your wont is to attempt
less than is justified by your power, to mistrust even what is sanctioned by your
judgment, and to fancy that from danger there is no release. Further, there is promptitude
on their side against procrastination on yours; they are never at home, you are
never from it: for they hope by their absence to extend their acquisitions, you
fear by your advance to endanger what you have left behind. They are swift to follow
up a success, and slow to recoil from a reverse. Their bodies they spend ungrudgingly
in their country’s cause; their intellect they jealously husband to be employed
in her service. A scheme unexecuted is with them a positive loss, a successful enterprise
a comparative failure. The deficiency created by the miscarriage of an undertaking
is soon filled up by fresh hopes; for they alone are enabled to call a thing hoped
for a thing got, by the speed with which they act upon their resolutions. Thus they
toil on in trouble and danger all the days of their life, with little opportunity
for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting: their only idea of a holiday is to
do what the occasion demands, and to them laborious occupation is less of a misfortune
than the peace of a quiet life. To describe their character in a word, one might
truly say that they were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to give
none to others. “Such is Athens, your antagonist. And yet, Lacedaemonians, you still
delay, and fail to see that peace stays longest with those, who are not more careful
to use their power justly than to show their determination not to submit to injustice.
On the contrary, your ideal of fair dealing is based on the principle that, if you
do not injure others, you need not risk your own fortunes in preventing others from
injuring you. Now you could scarcely have succeeded in such a policy even with a
neighbour like yourselves; but in the present instance, as we have just shown, your
habits are old-fashioned as compared with theirs. It is the law as in art, so in
politics, that improvements ever prevail; and though fixed usages may be best for
undisturbed communities, constant necessities of action must be accompanied by the
constant improvement of methods. Thus it happens that the vast experience of Athens
has carried her further than you on the path of innovation. “Here, at least, let
your procrastination end. For the present, assist your allies and Potidaea in particular,
as you promised, by a speedy invasion of Attica, and do not sacrifice friends and
kindred to their bitterest enemies, and drive the rest of us in despair to some
other alliance. Such a step would not be condemned either by the Gods who received
our oaths, or by the men who witnessed them. The breach of a treaty cannot be laid
to the people whom desertion compels to seek new relations, but to the power that
fails to assist its confederate. But if you will only act, we will stand by you;
it would be unnatural for us to change, and never should we meet with such a congenial
ally. For these reasons choose the right course, and endeavour not to let Peloponnese
under your supremacy degenerate from the prestige that it enjoyed under that of
your ancestors.”

Such were the words of the Corinthians.

There happened to be Athenian envoys present at Lacedaemon on other business.
On hearing the speeches they thought themselves called upon to come before the Lacedaemonians.
Their intention was not to offer a defence on any of the charges which the cities
brought against them, but to show on a comprehensive view that it was not a matter
to be hastily decided on, but one that demanded further consideration. There was
also a wish to call attention to the great power of Athens, and to refresh the memory
of the old and enlighten the ignorance of the young, from a notion that their words
might have the effect of inducing them to prefer tranquillity to war. So they came
to the Lacedaemonians and said that they too, if there was no objection, wished
to speak to their assembly. They replied by inviting them to come forward. The Athenians
advanced, and spoke as follows:

“The object of our mission here was not to argue with your allies, but to attend
to the matters on which our state dispatched us. However, the vehemence of the outcry
that we hear against us has prevailed on us to come forward. It is not to combat
the accusations of the cities (indeed you are not the judges before whom either
we or they can plead), but to prevent your taking the wrong course on matters of
great importance by yielding too readily to the persuasions of your allies. We also
wish to show on a review of the whole indictment that we have a fair title to our
possessions, and that our country has claims to consideration. We need not refer
to remote antiquity: there we could appeal to the voice of tradition, but not to
the experience of our audience. But to the Median War and contemporary history we
must refer, although we are rather tired of continually bringing this subject forward.
In our action during that war we ran great risk to obtain certain advantages: you
had your share in the solid results, do not try to rob us of all share in the good
that the glory may do us. However, the story shall be told not so much to deprecate
hostility as to testify against it, and to show, if you are so ill advised as to
enter into a struggle with Athens, what sort of an antagonist she is likely to prove.
We assert that at Marathon we were at the front, and faced the barbarian single-handed.
That when he came the second time, unable to cope with him by land we went on board
our ships with all our people, and joined in the action at Salamis. This prevented
his taking the Peloponnesian states in detail, and ravaging them with his fleet;
when the multitude of his vessels would have made any combination for self-defence
impossible. The best proof of this was furnished by the invader himself. Defeated
at sea, he considered his power to be no longer what it had been, and retired as
speedily as possible with the greater part of his army.

“Such, then, was the result of the matter, and it was clearly proved that it
was on the fleet of Hellas that her cause depended. Well, to this result we contributed
three very useful elements, viz., the largest number of ships, the ablest commander,
and the most unhesitating patriotism. Our contingent of ships was little less than
two-thirds of the whole four hundred; the commander was Themistocles, through whom
chiefly it was that the battle took place in the straits, the acknowledged salvation
of our cause. Indeed, this was the reason of your receiving him with honours such
as had never been accorded to any foreign visitor. While for daring patriotism we
had no competitors. Receiving no reinforcements from behind, seeing everything in
front of us already subjugated, we had the spirit, after abandoning our city, after
sacrificing our property (instead of deserting the remainder of the league or depriving
them of our services by dispersing), to throw ourselves into our ships and meet
the danger, without a thought of resenting your neglect to assist us. We assert,
therefore, that we conferred on you quite as much as we received. For you had a
stake to fight for; the cities which you had left were still filled with your homes,
and you had the prospect of enjoying them again; and your coming was prompted quite
as much by fear for yourselves as for us; at all events, you never appeared till
we had nothing left to lose. But we left behind us a city that was a city no longer,
and staked our lives for a city that had an existence only in desperate hope, and
so bore our full share in your deliverance and in ours. But if we had copied others,
and allowed fears for our territory to make us give in our adhesion to the Mede
before you came, or if we had suffered our ruin to break our spirit and prevent
us embarking in our ships, your naval inferiority would have made a sea-fight unnecessary,
and his objects would have been peaceably attained. “Surely, Lacedaemonians, neither
by the patriotism that we displayed at that crisis, nor by the wisdom of our counsels,
do we merit our extreme unpopularity with the Hellenes, not at least unpopularity
for our empire. That empire we acquired by no violent means, but because you were
unwilling to prosecute to its conclusion the war against the barbarian, and because
the allies attached themselves to us and spontaneously asked us to assume the command.
And the nature of the case first compelled us to advance our empire to its present
height; fear being our principal motive, though honour and interest afterwards came
in. And at last, when almost all hated us, when some had already revolted and had
been subdued, when you had ceased to be the friends that you once were, and had
become objects of suspicion and dislike, it appeared no longer safe to give up our
empire; especially as all who left us would fall to you. And no one can quarrel
with a people for making, in matters of tremendous risk, the best provision that
it can for its interest. “You, at all events, Lacedaemonians, have used your supremacy
to settle the states in Peloponnese as is agreeable to you. And if at the period
of which we were speaking you had persevered to the end of the matter, and had incurred
hatred in your command, we are sure that you would have made yourselves just as
galling to the allies, and would have been forced to choose between a strong government
and danger to yourselves. It follows that it was not a very wonderful action, or
contrary to the common practice of mankind, if we did accept an empire that was
offered to us, and refused to give it up under the pressure of three of the strongest
motives, fear, honour, and interest. And it was not we who set the example, for
it has always been law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger. Besides,
we believed ourselves to be worthy of our position, and so you thought us till now,
when calculations of interest have made you take up the cry of justice- a consideration
which no one ever yet brought forward to hinder his ambition when he had a chance
of gaining anything by might. And praise is due to all who, if not so superior to
human nature as to refuse dominion, yet respect justice more than their position
compels them to do.

“We imagine that our moderation would be best demonstrated by the conduct of
others who should be placed in our position; but even our equity has very unreasonably
subjected us to condemnation instead of approval. Our abatement of our rights in
the contract trials with our allies, and our causing them to be decided by impartial
laws at Athens, have gained us the character of being litigious. And none care to
inquire why this reproach is not brought against other imperial powers, who treat
their subjects with less moderation than we do; the secret being that where force
can be used, law is not needed. But our subjects are so habituated to associate
with us as equals that any defeat whatever that clashes with their notions of justice,
whether it proceeds from a legal judgment or from the power which our empire gives
us, makes them forget to be grateful for being allowed to retain most of their possessions,
and more vexed at a part being taken, than if we had from the first cast law aside
and openly gratified our covetousness. If we had done so, not even would they have
disputed that the weaker must give way to the stronger. Men’s indignation, it seems,
is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being
cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior. At all events
they contrived to put up with much worse treatment than this from the Mede, yet
they think our rule severe, and this is to be expected, for the present always weighs
heavy on the conquered. This at least is certain. If you were to succeed in overthrowing
us and in taking our place, you would speedily lose the popularity with which fear
of us has invested you, if your policy of to-day is at all to tally with the sample
that you gave of it during the brief period of your command against the Mede. Not
only is your life at home regulated by rules and institutions incompatible with
those of others, but your citizens abroad act neither on these rules nor on those
which are recognized by the rest of Hellas. “Take time then in forming your resolution,
as the matter is of great importance; and do not be persuaded by the opinions and
complaints of others to bring trouble on yourselves, but consider the vast influence
of accident in war, before you are engaged in it. As it continues, it generally
becomes an affair of chances, chances from which neither of us is exempt, and whose
event we must risk in the dark. It is a common mistake in going to war to begin
at the wrong end, to act first, and wait for disaster to discuss the matter. But
we are not yet by any means so misguided, nor, so far as we can see, are you; accordingly,
while it is still open to us both to choose aright, we bid you not to dissolve the
treaty, or to break your oaths, but to have our differences settled by arbitration
according to our agreement. Or else we take the gods who heard the oaths to witness,
and if you begin hostilities, whatever line of action you choose, we will try not
to be behindhand in repelling you.”

Such were the words of the Athenians.

After the Lacedaemonians had heard the complaints of the allies against the Athenians,
and the observations of the latter, they made all withdraw, and consulted by themselves
on the question before them. The opinions of the majority all led to the same conclusion;
the Athenians were open aggressors, and war must be declared at once. But Archidamus,
the Lacedaemonian king, came forward, who had the reputation of being at once a
wise and a moderate man, and made the following speech: “I have not lived so long,
Lacedaemonians, without having had the experience of many wars, and I see those
among you of the same age as myself, who will not fall into the common misfortune
of longing for war from inexperience or from a belief in its advantage and its safety.
This, the war on which you are now debating, would be one of the greatest magnitude,
on a sober consideration of the matter. In a struggle with Peloponnesians and neighbours
our strength is of the same character, and it is possible to move swiftly on the
different points. But a struggle with a people who live in a distant land, who have
also an extraordinary familiarity with the sea, and who are in the highest state
of preparation in every other department; with wealth private and public, with ships,
and horses, and heavy infantry, and a population such as no one other Hellenic place
can equal, and lastly a number of tributary allies- what can justify us in rashly
beginning such a struggle? wherein is our trust that we should rush on it unprepared?
Is it in our ships? There we are inferior; while if we are to practise and become
a match for them, time must intervene. Is it in our money? There we have a far greater
deficiency. We neither have it in our treasury, nor are we ready to contribute it
from our private funds. Confidence might possibly be felt in our superiority in
heavy infantry and population, which will enable us to invade and devastate their
lands. But the Athenians have plenty of other land in their empire, and can import
what they want by sea. Again, if we are to attempt an insurrection of their allies,
these will have to be supported with a fleet, most of them being islanders. What
then is to be our war? For unless we can either beat them at sea, or deprive them
of the revenues which feed their navy, we shall meet with little but disaster. Meanwhile
our honour will be pledged to keeping on, particularly if it be the opinion that
we began the quarrel. For let us never be elated by the fatal hope of the war being
quickly ended by the devastation of their lands. I fear rather that we may leave
it as a legacy to our children; so improbable is it that the Athenian spirit will
be the slave of their land, or Athenian experience be cowed by war. “Not that I
would bid you be so unfeeling as to suffer them to injure your allies, and to refrain
from unmasking their intrigues; but I do bid you not to take up arms at once, but
to send and remonstrate with them in a tone not too suggestive of war, nor again
too suggestive of submission, and to employ the interval in perfecting our own preparations.
The means will be, first, the acquisition of allies, Hellenic or barbarian it matters
not, so long as they are an accession to our strength naval or pecuniary- I say
Hellenic or barbarian, because the odium of such an accession to all who like us
are the objects of the designs of the Athenians is taken away by the law of self-preservation-
and secondly the development of our home resources. If they listen to our embassy,
so much the better; but if not, after the lapse of two or three years our position
will have become materially strengthened, and we can then attack them if we think
proper. Perhaps by that time the sight of our preparations, backed by language equally
significant, will have disposed them to submission, while their land is still untouched,
and while their counsels may be directed to the retention of advantages as yet undestroyed.
For the only light in which you can view their land is that of a hostage in your
hands, a hostage the more valuable the better it is cultivated. This you ought to
spare as long as possible, and not make them desperate, and so increase the difficulty
of dealing with them. For if while still unprepared, hurried away by the complaints
of our allies, we are induced to lay it waste, have a care that we do not bring
deep disgrace and deep perplexity upon Peloponnese. Complaints, whether of communities
or individuals, it is possible to adjust; but war undertaken by a coalition for
sectional interests, whose progress there is no means of foreseeing, does not easily
admit of creditable settlement.

“And none need think it cowardice for a number of confederates to pause before
they attack a single city. The Athenians have allies as numerous as our own, and
allies that pay tribute, and war is a matter not so much of arms as of money, which
makes arms of use. And this is more than ever true in a struggle between a continental
and a maritime power. First, then, let us provide money, and not allow ourselves
to be carried away by the talk of our allies before we have done so: as we shall
have the largest share of responsibility for the consequences be they good or bad,
we have also a right to a tranquil inquiry respecting them. “And the slowness and
procrastination, the parts of our character that are most assailed by their criticism,
need not make you blush. If we undertake the war without preparation, we should
by hastening its commencement only delay its conclusion: further, a free and a famous
city has through all time been ours. The quality which they condemn is really nothing
but a wise moderation; thanks to its possession, we alone do not become insolent
in success and give way less than others in misfortune; we are not carried away
by the pleasure of hearing ourselves cheered on to risks which our judgment condemns;
nor, if annoyed, are we any the more convinced by attempts to exasperate us by accusation.
We are both warlike and wise, and it is our sense of order that makes us so. We
are warlike, because self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and honour
bravery. And we are wise, because we are educated with too little learning to despise
the laws, and with too severe a self-control to disobey them, and are brought up
not to be too knowing in useless matters- such as the knowledge which can give a
specious criticism of an enemy’s plans in theory, but fails to assail them with
equal success in practice- but are taught to consider that the schemes of our enemies
are not dissimilar to our own, and that the freaks of chance are not determinable
by calculation. In practice we always base our preparations against an enemy on
the assumption that his plans are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not
on a belief in his blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we
to believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to think that
the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest school. These practices,
then, which our ancestors have delivered to us, and by whose maintenance we have
always profited, must not be given up. And we must not be hurried into deciding
in a day’s brief space a question which concerns many lives and fortunes and many
cities, and in which honour is deeply involved- but we must decide calmly. This
our strength peculiarly enables us to do. As for the Athenians, send to them on
the matter of Potidaea, send on the matter of the alleged wrongs of the allies,
particularly as they are prepared with legal satisfaction; and to proceed against
one who offers arbitration as against a wrongdoer, law forbids. Meanwhile do not
omit preparation for war. This decision will be the best for yourselves, the most
terrible to your opponents.”

Such were the words of Archidamus.

Last came forward Sthenelaidas, one of the ephors for that year, and spoke to
the Lacedaemonians as follows: “The long speech of the Athenians I do not pretend
to understand. They said a good deal in praise of themselves, but nowhere denied
that they are injuring our allies and Peloponnese. And yet if they behaved well
against the Mede then, but ill towards us now, they deserve double punishment for
having ceased to be good and for having become bad. We meanwhile are the same then
and now, and shall not, if we are wise, disregard the wrongs of our allies, or put
off till to-morrow the duty of assisting those who must suffer to-day. Others have
much money and ships and horses, but we have good allies whom we must not give up
to the Athenians, nor by lawsuits and words decide the matter, as it is anything
but in word that we are harmed, but render instant and powerful help. And let us
not be told that it is fitting for us to deliberate under injustice; long deliberation
is rather fitting for those who have injustice in contemplation. Vote therefore,
Lacedaemonians, for war, as the honour of Sparta demands, and neither allow the
further aggrandizement of Athens, nor betray our allies to ruin, but with the gods
let us advance against the aggressors.” With these words he, as ephor, himself put
the question to the assembly of the Lacedaemonians. He said that he could not determine
which was the loudest acclamation (their mode of decision is by acclamation not
by voting); the fact being that he wished to make them declare their opinion openly
and thus to increase their ardour for war. Accordingly he said: “All Lacedaemonians
who are of opinion that the treaty has been broken, and that Athens is guilty, leave
your seats and go there,” pointing out a certain place; “all who are of the opposite
opinion, there.”

They accordingly stood up and divided; and those who held that the treaty had
been broken were in a decided majority. Summoning the allies, they told them that
their opinion was that Athens had been guilty of injustice, but that they wished
to convoke all the allies and put it to the vote; in order that they might make
war, if they decided to do so, on a common resolution. Having thus gained their
point, the delegates returned home at once; the Athenian envoys a little later,
when they had dispatched the objects of their mission. This decision of the assembly,
judging that the treaty had been broken, was made in the fourteenth year of the
thirty years’ truce, which was entered into after the affair of Euboea. The Lacedaemonians
voted that the treaty had been broken, and that the war must be declared, not so
much because they were persuaded by the arguments of the allies, as because they
feared the growth of the power of the Athenians, seeing most of Hellas already subject
to them.

Chapter IV.

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

THE way in which Athens came to be placed in the circumstances under which her
power grew was this. After the Medes had returned from Europe, defeated by sea and
land by the Hellenes, and after those of them who had fled with their ships to Mycale
had been destroyed, Leotychides, king of the Lacedaemonians, the commander of the
Hellenes at Mycale, departed home with the allies from Peloponnese. But the Athenians
and the allies from Ionia and Hellespont, who had now revolted from the King, remained
and laid siege to Sestos, which was still held by the Medes. After wintering before
it, they became masters of the place on its evacuation by the barbarians; and after
this they sailed away from Hellespont to their respective cities.

Meanwhile the Athenian people, after the departure of the barbarian from their
country, at once proceeded to carry over their children and wives, and such property
as they had left, from the places where they had deposited them, and prepared to
rebuild their city and their walls. For only isolated portions of the circumference
had been left standing, and most of the houses were in ruins; though a few remained,
in which the Persian grandees had taken up their quarters. Perceiving what they
were going to do, the Lacedaemonians sent an embassy to Athens. They would have
themselves preferred to see neither her nor any other city in possession of a wall;
though here they acted principally at the instigation of their allies, who were
alarmed at the strength of her newly acquired navy and the valour which she had
displayed in the war with the Medes. They begged her not only to abstain from building
walls for herself, but also to join them in throwing down the walls that still held
together of the ultra-Peloponnesian cities. The real meaning of their advice, the
suspicion that it contained against the Athenians, was not proclaimed; it was urged
that so the barbarian, in the event of a third invasion, would not have any strong
place, such as he now had in Thebes, for his base of operations; and that Peloponnese
would suffice for all as a base both for retreat and offence. After the Lacedaemonians
had thus spoken, they were, on the advice of Themistocles, immediately dismissed
by the Athenians, with the answer that ambassadors should be sent to Sparta to discuss
the question. Themistocles told the Athenians to send him off with all speed to
Lacedaemon, but not to dispatch his colleagues as soon as they had selected them,
but to wait until they had raised their wall to the height from which defence was
possible. Meanwhile the whole population in the city was to labour at the wall,
the Athenians, their wives, and their children, sparing no edifice, private or public,
which might be of any use to the work, but throwing all down. After giving these
instructions, and adding that he would be responsible for all other matters there,
he departed. Arrived at Lacedaemon he did not seek an audience with the authorities,
but tried to gain time and made excuses. When any of the government asked him why
he did not appear in the assembly, he would say that he was waiting for his colleagues,
who had been detained in Athens by some engagement; however, that he expected their
speedy arrival, and wondered that they were not yet there. At first the Lacedaemonians
trusted the words of Themistocles, through their friendship for him; but when others
arrived, all distinctly declaring that the work was going on and already attaining
some elevation, they did not know how to disbelieve it. Aware of this, he told them
that rumours are deceptive, and should not be trusted; they should send some reputable
persons from Sparta to inspect, whose report might be trusted. They dispatched them
accordingly. Concerning these Themistocles secretly sent word to the Athenians to
detain them as far as possible without putting them under open constraint, and not
to let them go until they had themselves returned. For his colleagues had now joined
him, Abronichus, son of Lysicles, and Aristides, son of Lysimachus, with the news
that the wall was sufficiently advanced; and he feared that when the Lacedaemonians
heard the facts, they might refuse to let them go. So the Athenians detained the
envoys according to his message, and Themistocles had an audience with the Lacedaemonians,
and at last openly told them that Athens was now fortified sufficiently to protect
its inhabitants; that any embassy which the Lacedaemonians or their allies might
wish to send to them should in future proceed on the assumption that the people
to whom they were going was able to distinguish both its own and the general interests.
That when the Athenians thought fit to abandon their city and to embark in their
ships, they ventured on that perilous step without consulting them; and that on
the other hand, wherever they had deliberated with the Lacedaemonians, they had
proved themselves to be in judgment second to none. That they now thought it fit
that their city should have a wall, and that this would be more for the advantage
of both the citizens of Athens and the Hellenic confederacy; for without equal military
strength it was impossible to contribute equal or fair counsel to the common interest.
It followed, he observed, either that all the members of the confederacy should
be without walls, or that the present step should be considered a right one. The
Lacedaemonians did not betray any open signs of anger against the Athenians at what
they heard. The embassy, it seems, was prompted not by a desire to obstruct, but
to guide the counsels of their government: besides, Spartan feeling was at that
time very friendly towards Athens on account of the patriotism which she had displayed
in the struggle with the Mede. Still the defeat of their wishes could not but cause
them secret annoyance. The envoys of each state departed home without complaint.
In this way the Athenians walled their city in a little while. To this day the building
shows signs of the haste of its execution; the foundations are laid of stones of
all kinds, and in some places not wrought or fitted, but placed just in the order
in which they were brought by the different hands; and many columns, too, from tombs,
and sculptured stones were put in with the rest. For the bounds of the city were
extended at every point of the circumference; and so they laid hands on everything
without exception in their haste.

Themistocles also persuaded them to finish the walls of Piraeus, which had been
begun before, in his year of office as archon; being influenced alike by the fineness
of a locality that has three natural harbours, and by the great start which the
Athenians would gain in the acquisition of power by becoming a naval people. For
he first ventured to tell them to stick to the sea and forthwith began to lay the
foundations of the empire. It was by his advice, too, that they built the walls
of that thickness which can still be discerned round Piraeus, the stones being brought
up by two wagons meeting each other. Between the walls thus formed there was neither
rubble nor mortar, but great stones hewn square and fitted together, cramped to
each other on the outside with iron and lead. About half the height that he intended
was finished. His idea was by their size and thickness to keep off the attacks of
an enemy; he thought that they might be adequately defended by a small garrison
of invalids, and the rest be freed for service in the fleet. For the fleet claimed
most of his attention. He saw, as I think, that the approach by sea was easier for
the king’s army than that by land: he also thought Piraeus more valuable than the
upper city; indeed, he was always advising the Athenians, if a day should come when
they were hard pressed by land, to go down into Piraeus, and defy the world with
their fleet. Thus, therefore, the Athenians completed their wall, and commenced
their other buildings immediately after the retreat of the Mede.

Meanwhile Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, was sent out from Lacedaemon as commander-in-chief
of the Hellenes, with twenty ships from Peloponnese. With him sailed the Athenians
with thirty ships, and a number of the other allies. They made an expedition against
Cyprus and subdued most of the island, and afterwards against Byzantium, which was
in the hands of the Medes, and compelled it to surrender. This event took place
while the Spartans were still supreme. But the violence of Pausanias had already
begun to be disagreeable to the Hellenes, particularly to the Ionians and the newly
liberated populations. These resorted to the Athenians and requested them as their
kinsmen to become their leaders, and to stop any attempt at violence on the part
of Pausanias. The Athenians accepted their overtures, and determined to put down
any attempt of the kind and to settle everything else as their interests might seem
to demand. In the meantime the Lacedaemonians recalled Pausanias for an investigation
of the reports which had reached them. Manifold and grave accusations had been brought
against him by Hellenes arriving in Sparta; and, to all appearance, there had been
in him more of the mimicry of a despot than of the attitude of a general. As it
happened, his recall came just at the time when the hatred which he had inspired
had induced the allies to desert him, the soldiers from Peloponnese excepted, and
to range themselves by the side of the Athenians.

On his arrival at Lacedaemon, he was censured for his private acts of oppression,
but was acquitted on the heaviest counts and pronounced not guilty; it must be known
that the charge of Medism formed one of the principal, and to all appearance one
of the best founded, articles against him. The Lacedaemonians did not, however,
restore him to his command, but sent out Dorkis and certain others with a small
force; who found the allies no longer inclined to concede to them the supremacy.
Perceiving this they departed, and the Lacedaemonians did not send out any to succeed
them. They feared for those who went out a deterioration similar to that observable
in Pausanias; besides, they desired to be rid of the Median War, and were satisfied
of the competency of the Athenians for the position, and of their friendship at
the time towards themselves. The Athenians, having thus succeeded to the supremacy
by the voluntary act of the allies through their hatred of Pausanias, fixed which
cities were to contribute money against the barbarian, which ships; their professed
object being to retaliate for their sufferings by ravaging the King’s country.

Now was the time that the office of “Treasurers for Hellas” was first instituted
by the Athenians. These officers received the tribute, as the money contributed
was called. The tribute was first fixed at four hundred and sixty talents. The common
treasury was at Delos, and the congresses were held in the temple. Their supremacy
commenced with independent allies who acted on the resolutions of a common congress.
It was marked by the following undertakings in war and in administration during
the interval between the Median and the present war, against the barbarian, against
their own rebel allies, and against the Peloponnesian powers which would come in
contact with them on various occasions. My excuse for relating these events, and
for venturing on this digression, is that this passage of history has been omitted
by all my predecessors, who have confined themselves either to Hellenic history
before the Median War, or the Median War itself. Hellanicus, it is true, did touch
on these events in his Athenian history; but he is somewhat concise and not accurate
in his dates. Besides, the history of these events contains an explanation of the
growth of the Athenian empire.

First the Athenians besieged and captured Eion on the Strymon from the Medes,
and made slaves of the inhabitants, being under the command of Cimon, son of Miltiades.
Next they enslaved Scyros, the island in the Aegean, containing a Dolopian population,
and colonized it themselves. This was followed by a war against Carystus, in which
the rest of Euboea remained neutral, and which was ended by surrender on conditions.
After this Naxos left the confederacy, and a war ensued, and she had to return after
a siege; this was the first instance of the engagement being broken by the subjugation
of an allied city, a precedent which was followed by that of the rest in the order
which circumstances prescribed. Of all the causes of defection, that connected with
arrears of tribute and vessels, and with failure of service, was the chief; for
the Athenians were very severe and exacting, and made themselves offensive by applying
the screw of necessity to men who were not used to and in fact not disposed for
any continuous labour. In some other respects the Athenians were not the old popular
rulers they had been at first; and if they had more than their fair share of service,
it was correspondingly easy for them to reduce any that tried to leave the confederacy.
For this the allies had themselves to blame; the wish to get off service making
most of them arrange to pay their share of the expense in money instead of in ships,
and so to avoid having to leave their homes. Thus while Athens was increasing her
navy with the funds which they contributed, a revolt always found them without resources
or experience for war. Next we come to the actions by land and by sea at the river
Eurymedon, between the Athenians with their allies, and the Medes, when the Athenians
won both battles on the same day under the conduct of Cimon, son of Miltiades, and
captured and destroyed the whole Phoenician fleet, consisting of two hundred vessels.
Some time afterwards occurred the defection of the Thasians, caused by disagreements
about the marts on the opposite coast of Thrace, and about the mine in their possession.
Sailing with a fleet to Thasos, the Athenians defeated them at sea and effected
a landing on the island. About the same time they sent ten thousand settlers of
their own citizens and the allies to settle the place then called Ennea Hodoi or
Nine Ways, now Amphipolis. They succeeded in gaining possession of Ennea Hodoi from
the Edonians, but on advancing into the interior of Thrace were cut off in Drabescus,
a town of the Edonians, by the assembled Thracians, who regarded the settlement
of the place Ennea Hodoi as an act of hostility. Meanwhile the Thasians being defeated
in the field and suffering siege, appealed to Lacedaemon, and desired her to assist
them by an invasion of Attica. Without informing Athens, she promised and intended
to do so, but was prevented by the occurrence of the earthquake, accompanied by
the secession of the Helots and the Thuriats and Aethaeans of the Perioeci to Ithome.
Most of the Helots were the descendants of the old Messenians that were enslaved
in the famous war; and so all of them came to be called Messenians.

So the Lacedaemonians being engaged in a war with the rebels in Ithome, the Thasians
in the third year of the siege obtained terms from the Athenians by razing their
walls, delivering up their ships, and arranging to pay the moneys demanded at once,
and tribute in future; giving up their possessions on the continent together with
the mine.

The Lacedaemonians, meanwhile, finding the war against the rebels in Ithome likely
to last, invoked the aid of their allies, and especially of the Athenians, who came
in some force under the command of Cimon. The reason for this pressing summons lay
in their reputed skill in siege operations; a long siege had taught the Lacedaemonians
their own deficiency in this art, else they would have taken the place by assault.
The first open quarrel between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians arose out of this
expedition. The Lacedaemonians, when assault failed to take the place, apprehensive
of the enterprising and revolutionary character of the Athenians, and further looking
upon them as of alien extraction, began to fear that, if they remained, they might
be tempted by the besieged in Ithome to attempt some political changes. They accordingly
dismissed them alone of the allies, without declaring their suspicions, but merely
saying that they had now no need of them. But the Athenians, aware that their dismissal
did not proceed from the more honourable reason of the two, but from suspicions
which had been conceived, went away deeply offended, and conscious of having done
nothing to merit such treatment from the Lacedaemonians; and the instant that they
returned home they broke off the alliance which had been made against the Mede,
and allied themselves with Sparta’s enemy Argos; each of the contracting parties
taking the same oaths and making the same alliance with the Thessalians.

Meanwhile the rebels in Ithome, unable to prolong further a ten years’ resistance,
surrendered to Lacedaemon; the conditions being that they should depart from Peloponnese
under safe conduct, and should never set foot in it again: any one who might hereafter
be found there was to be the slave of his captor. It must be known that the Lacedaemonians
had an old oracle from Delphi, to the effect that they should let go the suppliant
of Zeus at Ithome. So they went forth with their children and their wives, and being
received by Athens from the hatred that she now felt for the Lacedaemonians, were
located at Naupactus, which she had lately taken from the Ozolian Locrians. The
Athenians received another addition to their confederacy in the Megarians; who left
the Lacedaemonian alliance, annoyed by a war about boundaries forced on them by
Corinth. The Athenians occupied Megara and Pegae, and built the Megarians their
long walls from the city to Nisaea, in which they placed an Athenian garrison. This
was the principal cause of the Corinthians conceiving such a deadly hatred against
Athens. Meanwhile Inaros, son of Psammetichus, a Libyan king of the Libyans on the
Egyptian border, having his headquarters at Marea, the town above Pharos, caused
a revolt of almost the whole of Egypt from King Artaxerxes and, placing himself
at its head, invited the Athenians to his assistance. Abandoning a Cyprian expedition
upon which they happened to be engaged with two hundred ships of their own and their
allies, they arrived in Egypt and sailed from the sea into the Nile, and making
themselves masters of the river and two-thirds of Memphis, addressed themselves
to the attack of the remaining third, which is called White Castle. Within it were
Persians and Medes who had taken refuge there, and Egyptians who had not joined
the rebellion.

Meanwhile the Athenians, making a descent from their fleet upon Haliae, were
engaged by a force of Corinthians and Epidaurians; and the Corinthians were victorious.
Afterwards the Athenians engaged the Peloponnesian fleet off Cecruphalia; and the
Athenians were victorious. Subsequently war broke out between Aegina and Athens,
and there was a great battle at sea off Aegina between the Athenians and Aeginetans,
each being aided by their allies; in which victory remained with the Athenians,
who took seventy of the enemy’s ships, and landed in the country and commenced a
siege under the command of Leocrates, son of Stroebus. Upon this the Peloponnesians,
desirous of aiding the Aeginetans, threw into Aegina a force of three hundred heavy
infantry, who had before been serving with the Corinthians and Epidaurians. Meanwhile
the Corinthians and their allies occupied the heights of Geraneia, and marched down
into the Megarid, in the belief that, with a large force absent in Aegina and Egypt,
Athens would be unable to help the Megarians without raising the siege of Aegina.
But the Athenians, instead of moving the army of Aegina, raised a force of the old
and young men that had been left in the city, and marched into the Megarid under
the command of Myronides. After a drawn battle with the Corinthians, the rival hosts
parted, each with the impression that they had gained the victory. The Athenians,
however, if anything, had rather the advantage, and on the departure of the Corinthians
set up a trophy. Urged by the taunts of the elders in their city, the Corinthians
made their preparations, and about twelve days afterwards came and set up their
trophy as victors. Sallying out from Megara, the Athenians cut off the party that
was employed in erecting the trophy, and engaged and defeated the rest. In the retreat
of the vanquished army, a considerable division, pressed by the pursuers and mistaking
the road, dashed into a field on some private property, with a deep trench all round
it, and no way out. Being acquainted with the place, the Athenians hemmed their
front with heavy infantry and, placing the light troops round in a circle, stoned
all who had gone in. Corinth here suffered a severe blow. The bulk of her army continued
its retreat home.

About this time the Athenians began to build the long walls to the sea, that
towards Phalerum and that towards Piraeus. Meanwhile the Phocians made an expedition
against Doris, the old home of the Lacedaemonians, containing the towns of Boeum,
Kitinium, and Erineum. They had taken one of these towns, when the Lacedaemonians
under Nicomedes, son of Cleombrotus, commanding for King Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias,
who was still a minor, came to the aid of the Dorians with fifteen hundred heavy
infantry of their own, and ten thousand of their allies. After compelling the Phocians
to restore the town on conditions, they began their retreat. The route by sea, across
the Crissaean Gulf, exposed them to the risk of being stopped by the Athenian fleet;
that across Geraneia seemed scarcely safe, the Athenians holding Megara and Pegae.
For the pass was a difficult one, and was always guarded by the Athenians; and,
in the present instance, the Lacedaemonians had information that they meant to dispute
their passage. So they resolved to remain in Boeotia, and to consider which would
be the safest line of march. They had also another reason for this resolve. Secret
encouragement had been given them by a party in Athens, who hoped to put an end
to the reign of democracy and the building of the Long Walls.

Meanwhile the Athenians marched against them with their whole levy and a thousand
Argives and the respective contingents of the rest of their allies. Altogether they
were fourteen thousand strong. The march was prompted by the notion that the Lacedaemonians
were at a loss how to effect their passage, and also by suspicions of an attempt
to overthrow the democracy. Some cavalry also joined the Athenians from their Thessalian
allies; but these went over to the Lacedaemonians during the battle. The battle
was fought at Tanagra in Boeotia. After heavy loss on both sides, victory declared
for the Lacedaemonians and their allies. After entering the Megarid and cutting
down the fruit trees, the Lacedaemonians returned home across Geraneia and the isthmus.
Sixty-two days after the battle the Athenians marched into Boeotia under the command
of Myronides, defeated the Boeotians in battle at Oenophyta, and became masters
of Boeotia and Phocis. They dismantled the walls of the Tanagraeans, took a hundred
of the richest men of the Opuntian Locrians as hostages, and finished their own
long walls. This was followed by the surrender of the Aeginetans to Athens on conditions;
they pulled down their walls, gave up their ships, and agreed to pay tribute in
future. The Athenians sailed round Peloponnese under Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus,
burnt the arsenal of Lacedaemon, took Chalcis, a town of the Corinthians, and in
a descent upon Sicyon defeated the Sicyonians in battle. Meanwhile the Athenians
in Egypt and their allies were still there, and encountered all the vicissitudes
of war. First the Athenians were masters of Egypt, and the King sent Megabazus a
Persian to Lacedaemon with money to bribe the Peloponnesians to invade Attica and
so draw off the Athenians from Egypt. Finding that the matter made no progress,
and that the money was only being wasted, he recalled Megabazus with the remainder
of the money, and sent Megabuzus, son of Zopyrus, a Persian, with a large army to
Egypt. Arriving by land he defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a battle,
and drove the Hellenes out of Memphis, and at length shut them up in the island
of Prosopitis, where he besieged them for a year and six months. At last, draining
the canal of its waters, which he diverted into another channel, he left their ships
high and dry and joined most of the island to the mainland, and then marched over
on foot and captured it. Thus the enterprise of the Hellenes came to ruin after
six years of war. Of all that large host a few travelling through Libya reached
Cyrene in safety, but most of them perished. And thus Egypt returned to its subjection
to the King, except Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes, whom they were unable to
capture from the extent of the marsh; the marshmen being also the most warlike of
the Egyptians. Inaros, the Libyan king, the sole author of the Egyptian revolt,
was betrayed, taken, and crucified. Meanwhile a relieving squadron of fifty vessels
had sailed from Athens and the rest of the confederacy for Egypt. They put in to
shore at the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, in total ignorance of what had occurred.
Attacked on the land side by the troops, and from the sea by the Phoenician navy,
most of the ships were destroyed; the few remaining being saved by retreat. Such
was the end of the great expedition of the Athenians and their allies to Egypt.
Meanwhile Orestes, son of Echecratidas, the Thessalian king, being an exile from
Thessaly, persuaded the Athenians to restore him. Taking with them the Boeotians
and Phocians their allies, the Athenians marched to Pharsalus in Thessaly. They
became masters of the country, though only in the immediate vicinity of the camp;
beyond which they could not go for fear of the Thessalian cavalry. But they failed
to take the city or to attain any of the other objects of their expedition, and
returned home with Orestes without having effected anything. Not long after this
a thousand of the Athenians embarked in the vessels that were at Pegae (Pegae, it
must be remembered, was now theirs), and sailed along the coast to Sicyon under
the command of Pericles, son of Xanthippus. Landing in Sicyon and defeating the
Sicyonians who engaged them, they immediately took with them the Achaeans and, sailing
across, marched against and laid siege to Oeniadae in Acarnania. Failing however
to take it, they returned home.

Three years afterwards a truce was made between the Peloponnesians and Athenians
for five years. Released from Hellenic war, the Athenians made an expedition to
Cyprus with two hundred vessels of their own and their allies, under the command
of Cimon. Sixty of these were detached to Egypt at the instance of Amyrtaeus, the
king in the marshes; the rest laid siege to Kitium, from which, however, they were
compelled to retire by the death of Cimon and by scarcity of provisions. Sailing
off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought with the Phoenicians, Cyprians, and Cilicians
by land and sea, and, being victorious on both elements departed home, and with
them the returned squadron from Egypt. After this the Lacedaemonians marched out
on a sacred war, and, becoming masters of the temple at Delphi, it in the hands
of the Delphians. Immediately after their retreat, the Athenians marched out, became
masters of the temple, and placed it in the hands of the Phocians. Some time after
this, Orchomenus, Chaeronea, and some other places in Boeotia being in the hands
of the Boeotian exiles, the Athenians marched against the above-mentioned hostile
places with a thousand Athenian heavy infantry and the allied contingents, under
the command of Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus. They took Chaeronea, and made slaves of
the inhabitants, and, leaving a garrison, commenced their return. On their road
they were attacked at Coronea by the Boeotian exiles from Orchomenus, with some
Locrians and Euboean exiles, and others who were of the same way of thinking, were
defeated in battle, and some killed, others taken captive. The Athenians evacuated
all Boeotia by a treaty providing for the recovery of the men; and the exiled Boeotians
returned, and with all the rest regained their independence. This was soon afterwards
followed by the revolt of Euboea from Athens. Pericles had already crossed over
with an army of Athenians to the island, when news was brought to him that Megara
had revolted, that the Peloponnesians were on the point of invading Attica, and
that the Athenian garrison had been cut off by the Megarians, with the exception
of a few who had taken refuge in Nisaea. The Megarians had introduced the Corinthians,
Sicyonians, and Epidaurians into the town before they revolted. Meanwhile Pericles
brought his army back in all haste from Euboea.

After this the Peloponnesians marched into Attica as far as Eleusis and Thrius,
ravaging the country under the conduct of King Pleistoanax, the son of Pausanias,
and without advancing further returned home. The Athenians then crossed over again
to Euboea under the command of Pericles, and subdued the whole of the island: all
but Histiaea was settled by convention; the Histiaeans they expelled from their
homes, and occupied their territory themselves. Not long after their return from
Euboea, they made a truce with the Lacedaemonians and their allies for thirty years,
giving up the posts which they occupied in Peloponnese- Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen,
and Achaia. In the sixth year of the truce, war broke out between the Samians and
Milesians about Priene. Worsted in the war, the Milesians came to Athens with loud
complaints against the Samians. In this they were joined by certain private persons
from Samos itself, who wished to revolutionize the government. Accordingly the Athenians
sailed to Samos with forty ships and set up a democracy; took hostages from the
Samians, fifty boys and as many men, lodged them in Lemnos, and after leaving a
garrison in the island returned home. But some of the Samians had not remained in
the island, but had fled to the continent. Making an agreement with the most powerful
of those in the city, and an alliance with Pissuthnes, son of Hystaspes, the then
satrap of Sardis, they got together a force of seven hundred mercenaries, and under
cover of night crossed over to Samos. Their first step was to rise on the commons,
most of whom they secured; their next to steal their hostages from Lemnos; after
which they revolted, gave up the Athenian garrison left with them and its commanders
to Pissuthnes, and instantly prepared for an expedition against Miletus. The Byzantines
also revolted with them. As soon as the Athenians heard the news, they sailed with
sixty ships against Samos. Sixteen of these went to Caria to look out for the Phoenician
fleet, and to Chios and Lesbos carrying round orders for reinforcements, and so
never engaged; but forty-four ships under the command of Pericles with nine colleagues
gave battle, off the island of Tragia, to seventy Samian vessels, of which twenty
were transports, as they were sailing from Miletus. Victory remained with the Athenians.
Reinforced afterwards by forty ships from Athens, and twenty-five Chian and Lesbian
vessels, the Athenians landed, and having the superiority by land invested the city
with three walls; it was also invested from the sea.

Meanwhile Pericles took sixty ships from the blockading squadron, and departed
in haste for Caunus and Caria, intelligence having been brought in of the approach
of the Phoenician fleet to the aid of the Samians; indeed Stesagoras and others
had left the island with five ships to bring them. But in the meantime the Samians
made a sudden sally, and fell on the camp, which they found unfortified. Destroying
the look-out vessels, and engaging and defeating such as were being launched to
meet them, they remained masters of their own seas for fourteen days, and carried
in and carried out what they pleased. But on the arrival of Pericles, they were
once more shut up. Fresh reinforcements afterwards arrived- forty ships from Athens
with Thucydides, Hagnon, and Phormio; twenty with Tlepolemus and Anticles, and thirty
vessels from Chios and Lesbos. After a brief attempt at fighting, the Samians, unable
to hold out, were reduced after a nine months’ siege and surrendered on conditions;
they razed their walls, gave hostages, delivered up their ships, and arranged to
pay the expenses of the war by instalments. The Byzantines also agreed to be subject
as before.

Chapter V.

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

AFTER this, though not many years later, we at length come to what has been already
related, the affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea, and the events that served as a pretext
for the present war. All these actions of the Hellenes against each other and the
barbarian occurred in the fifty years’ interval between the retreat of Xerxes and
the beginning of the present war. During this interval the Athenians succeeded in
placing their empire on a firmer basis, and advanced their own home power to a very
great height.

The Lacedaemonians, though fully aware of it, opposed it only for a little while,
but remained inactive during most of the period, being of old slow to go to war
except under the pressure of necessity, and in the present instance being hampered
by wars at home; until the growth of the Athenian power could be no longer ignored,
and their own confederacy became the object of its encroachments. They then felt
that they could endure it no longer, but that the time had come for them to throw
themselves heart and soul upon the hostile power, and break it, if they could, by
commencing the present war. And though the Lacedaemonians had made up their own
minds on the fact of the breach of the treaty and the guilt of the Athenians, yet
they sent to Delphi and inquired of the God whether it would be well with them if
they went to war; and, as it is reported, received from him the answer that if they
put their whole strength into the war, victory would be theirs, and the promise
that he himself would be with them, whether invoked or uninvoked. Still they wished
to summon their allies again, and to take their vote on the propriety of making
war. After the ambassadors from the confederates had arrived and a congress had
been convened, they all spoke their minds, most of them denouncing the Athenians
and demanding that the war should begin. In particular the Corinthians. They had
before on their own account canvassed the cities in detail to induce them to vote
for the war, in the fear that it might come too late to save Potidaea; they were
present also on this occasion, and came forward the last, and made the following
speech:

“Fellow allies, we can no longer accuse the Lacedaemonians of having failed in
their duty: they have not only voted for war themselves, but have assembled us here
for that purpose. We say their duty, for supremacy has its duties. Besides equitably
administering private interests, leaders are required to show a special care for
the common welfare in return for the special honours accorded to them by all in
other ways. For ourselves, all who have already had dealings with the Athenians
require no warning to be on their guard against them. The states more inland and
out of the highway of communication should understand that, if they omit to support
the coast powers, the result will be to injure the transit of their produce for
exportation and the reception in exchange of their imports from the sea; and they
must not be careless judges of what is now said, as if it had nothing to do with
them, but must expect that the sacrifice of the powers on the coast will one day
be followed by the extension of the danger to the interior, and must recognize that
their own interests are deeply involved in this discussion. For these reasons they
should not hesitate to exchange peace for war. If wise men remain quiet, while they
are not injured, brave men abandon peace for war when they are injured, returning
to an understanding on a favourable opportunity: in fact, they are neither intoxicated
by their success in war, nor disposed to take an injury for the sake of the delightful
tranquillity of peace. Indeed, to falter for the sake of such delights is, if you
remain inactive, the quickest way of losing the sweets of repose to which you cling;
while to conceive extravagant pretensions from success in war is to forget how hollow
is the confidence by which you are elated. For if many ill-conceived plans have
succeeded through the still greater fatuity of an opponent, many more, apparently
well laid, have on the contrary ended in disgrace. The confidence with which we
form our schemes is never completely justified in their execution; speculation is
carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure. “To apply
these rules to ourselves, if we are now kindling war it is under the pressure of
injury, with adequate grounds of complaint; and after we have chastised the Athenians
we will in season desist. We have many reasons to expect success- first, superiority
in numbers and in military experience, and secondly our general and unvarying obedience
in the execution of orders. The naval strength which they possess shall be raised
by us from our respective antecedent resources, and from the moneys at Olympia and
Delphi. A loan from these enables us to seduce their foreign sailors by the offer
of higher pay. For the power of Athens is more mercenary than national; while ours
will not be exposed to the same risk, as its strength lies more in men than in money.
A single defeat at sea is in all likelihood their ruin: should they hold out, in
that case there will be the more time for us to exercise ourselves in naval matters;
and as soon as we have arrived at an equality in science, we need scarcely ask whether
we shall be their superiors in courage. For the advantages that we have by nature
they cannot acquire by education; while their superiority in science must be removed
by our practice. The money required for these objects shall be provided by our contributions:
nothing indeed could be more monstrous than the suggestion that, while their allies
never tire of contributing for their own servitude, we should refuse to spend for
vengeance and self-preservation the treasure which by such refusal we shall forfeit
to Athenian rapacity and see employed for our own ruin. “We have also other ways
of carrying on the war, such as revolt of their allies, the surest method of depriving
them of their revenues, which are the source of their strength, and establishment
of fortified positions in their country, and various operations which cannot be
foreseen at present. For war of all things proceeds least upon definite rules, but
draws principally upon itself for contrivances to meet an emergency; and in such
cases the party who faces the struggle and keeps his temper best meets with most
security, and he who loses his temper about it with correspondent disaster. Let
us also reflect that if it was merely a number of disputes of territory between
rival neighbours, it might be borne; but here we have an enemy in Athens that is
a match for our whole coalition, and more than a match for any of its members; so
that unless as a body and as individual nationalities and individual cities we make
an unanimous stand against her, she will easily conquer us divided and in detail.
That conquest, terrible as it may sound, would, it must be known, have no other
end than slavery pure and simple; a word which Peloponnese cannot even hear whispered
without disgrace, or without disgrace see so many states abused by one.

Meanwhile the opinion would be either that we were justly so used, or that we
put up with it from cowardice, and were proving degenerate sons in not even securing
for ourselves the freedom which our fathers gave to Hellas; and in allowing the
establishment in Hellas of a tyrant state, though in individual states we think
it our duty to put down sole rulers. And we do not know how this conduct can be
held free from three of the gravest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance.
For we do not suppose that you have taken refuge in that contempt of an enemy which
has proved so fatal in so many instances- a feeling which from the numbers that
it has ruined has come to be called not contemptuous but contemptible. “There is,
however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service
to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives
us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit
of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have a slight
advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that what was won in want
should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly advance to the war for many reasons;
the god has commanded it and promised to be with us, and the rest of Hellas will
all join in the struggle, part from fear, part from interest. You will be the first
to break a treaty which the god, in advising us to go to war, judges to be violated
already, but rather to support a treaty that has been outraged: indeed, treaties
are broken not by resistance but by aggression. “Your position, therefore, from
whatever quarter you may view it, will amply justify you in going to war; and this
step we recommend in the interests of all, bearing in mind that identity of interest
you have taken refuge in that contempt of an enemy which has proved so fatal in
so many instances- a feeling which from the numbers that it has ruined has come
to be called not contemptuous but contemptible. “There is, however, no advantage
in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present. For the
future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling our
efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of labour, and you must
not change the habit, even though you should have a slight advantage in wealth and
resources; for it is not right that what was won in want should be lost in plenty;
no, we must boldly advance to the war for many reasons; the god has commanded it
and promised to be with us, and the rest of Hellas will all join in the struggle,
part from fear, part from interest. You will be the first to break a treaty which
the god, in advising us to go to war, judges to be violated already, but rather
to support a treaty that has been outraged: indeed, treaties are broken not by resistance
but by aggression. “Your position, therefore, from whatever quarter you may view
it, will amply justify you in going to war; and this step we recommend in the interests
of all, bearing in mind that identity of interest you have taken refuge in that
contempt of an enemy which has proved so fatal in so many instances- a feeling which
from the numbers that it has ruined has come to be called not contemptuous but contemptible.
“There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be
of service to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the
present gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue
as the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should
have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that what was
won in want should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly advance to the war for
many reasons; the god has commanded it and promised to be with us, and the rest
of Hellas will all join in the struggle, part from fear, part from interest. You
will be the first to break a treaty which the god, in advising us to go to war,
judges to be violated already, but rather to support a treaty that has been outraged:
indeed, treaties are broken not by resistance but by aggression. “Your position,
therefore, from whatever quarter you may view it, will amply justify you in going
to war; and this step we recommend in the interests of all, bearing in mind that
identity of interest is the surest of bonds, whether between states or individuals.
Delay not, therefore, to assist Potidaea, a Dorian city besieged by Ionians, which
is quite a reversal of the order of things; nor to assert the freedom of the rest.
It is impossible for us to wait any longer when waiting can only mean immediate
disaster for some of us, and, if it comes to be known that we have conferred but
do not venture to protect ourselves, like disaster in the near future for the rest.
Delay not, fellow allies, but, convinced of the necessity of the crisis and the
wisdom of this counsel, vote for the war, undeterred by its immediate terrors, but
looking beyond to the lasting peace by which it will be succeeded. Out of war peace
gains fresh stability, but to refuse to abandon repose for war is not so sure a
method of avoiding danger. We must believe that the tyrant city that has been established
in Hellas has been established against all alike, with a programme of universal
empire, part fulfilled, part in contemplation; let us then attack and reduce it,
and win future security for ourselves and freedom for the Hellenes who are now enslaved.”

Such were the words of the Corinthians.

The Lacedaemonians, having now heard all, give their opinion, took the vote of
all the allied states present in order, great and small alike; and the majority
voted for war. This decided, it was still impossible for them to commence at once,
from their want of preparation; but it was resolved that the means requisite were
to be procured by the different states, and that there was to be no delay. And indeed,
in spite of the time occupied with the necessary arrangements, less than a year
elapsed before Attica was invaded, and the war openly begun. This interval was spent
in sending embassies to Athens charged with complaints, in order to obtain as good
a pretext for war as possible, in the event of her paying no attention to them.
The first Lacedaemonian embassy was to order the Athenians to drive out the curse
of the goddess; the history of which is as follows.

In former generations there was an Athenian of the name of Cylon, a victor at
the Olympic games, of good birth and powerful position, who had married a daughter
of Theagenes, a Megarian, at that time tyrant of Megara. Now this Cylon was inquiring
at Delphi; when he was told by the god to seize the Acropolis of Athens on the grand
festival of Zeus. Accordingly, procuring a force from Theagenes and persuading his
friends to join him, when the Olympic festival in Peloponnese came, he seized the
Acropolis, with the intention of making himself tyrant, thinking that this was the
grand festival of Zeus, and also an occasion appropriate for a victor at the Olympic
games. Whether the grand festival that was meant was in Attica or elsewhere was
a question which he never thought of, and which the oracle did not offer to solve.
For the Athenians also have a festival which is called the grand festival of Zeus
Meilichios or Gracious, viz., the Diasia. It is celebrated outside the city, and
the whole people sacrifice not real victims but a number of bloodless offerings
peculiar to the country. However, fancying he had chosen the right time, he made
the attempt.

As soon as the Athenians perceived it, they flocked in, one and all, from the
country, and sat down, and laid siege to the citadel. But as time went on, weary
of the labour of blockade, most of them departed; the responsibility of keeping
guard being left to the nine archons, with plenary powers to arrange everything
according to their good judgment. It must be known that at that time most political
functions were discharged by the nine archons.

Meanwhile Cylon and his besieged companions were distressed for want of food
and water. Accordingly Cylon and his brother made their escape; but the rest being
hard pressed, and some even dying of famine, seated themselves as suppliants at
the altar in the Acropolis. The Athenians who were charged with the duty of keeping
guard, when they saw them at the point of death in the temple, raised them up on
the understanding that no harm should be done to them, led them out, and slew them.
Some who as they passed by took refuge at the altars of the awful goddesses were
dispatched on the spot. From this deed the men who killed them were called accursed
and guilty against the goddess, they and their descendants. Accordingly these cursed
ones were driven out by the Athenians, driven out again by Cleomenes of Lacedaemon
and an Athenian faction; the living were driven out, and the bones of the dead were
taken up; thus they were cast out. For all that, they came back afterwards, and
their descendants are still in the city. This, then was the curse that the Lacedaemonians
ordered them to drive out. They were actuated primarily, as they pretended, by a
care for the honour of the gods; but they also know that Pericles, son of Xanthippus,
was connected with the curse on his mother’s side, and they thought that his banishment
would materially advance their designs on Athens. Not that they really hoped to
succeed in procuring this; they rather thought to create a prejudice against him
in the eyes of his countrymen from the feeling that the war would be partly caused
by his misfortune. For being the most powerful man of his time, and the leading
Athenian statesman, he opposed the Lacedaemonians in everything, and would have
no concessions, but ever urged the Athenians on to war.

The Athenians retorted by ordering the Lacedaemonians to drive out the curse
of Taenarus. The Lacedaemonians had once raised up some Helot suppliants from the
temple of Poseidon at Taenarus, led them away and slain them; for which they believe
the great earthquake at Sparta to have been a retribution. The Athenians also ordered
them to drive out the curse of the goddess of the Brazen House; the history of which
is as follows.

After Pausanias the Lacedaemonian had been recalled by the Spartans from his
command in the Hellespont (this is his first recall), and had been tried by them
and acquitted, not being again sent out in a public capacity, he took a galley of
Hermione on his own responsibility, without the authority of the Lacedaemonians,
and arrived as a private person in the Hellespont. He came ostensibly for the Hellenic
war, really to carry on his intrigues with the King, which he had begun before his
recall, being ambitious of reigning over Hellas. The circumstance which first enabled
him to lay the King under an obligation, and to make a beginning of the whole design,
was this. Some connections and kinsmen of the King had been taken in Byzantium,
on its capture from the Medes, when he was first there, after the return from Cyprus.
These captives he sent off to the King without the knowledge of the rest of the
allies, the account being that they had escaped from him. He managed this with the
help of Gongylus, an Eretrian, whom he had placed in charge of Byzantium and the
prisoners. He also gave Gongylus a letter for the King, the contents of which were
as follows, as was afterwards discovered: “Pausanias, the general of Sparta, anxious
to do you a favour, sends you these his prisoners of war. I propose also, with your
approval, to marry your daughter, and to make Sparta and the rest of Hellas subject
to you. I may say that I think I am able to do this, with your co-operation. Accordingly
if any of this please you, send a safe man to the sea through whom we may in future
conduct our correspondence.”

This was all that was revealed in the writing, and Xerxes was pleased with the
letter. He sent off Artabazus, son of Pharnaces, to the sea with orders to supersede
Megabates, the previous governor in the satrapy of Daskylion, and to send over as
quickly as possible to Pausanias at Byzantium a letter which he entrusted to him;
to show him the royal signet, and to execute any commission which he might receive
from Pausanias on the King’s matters with all care and fidelity. Artabazus on his
arrival carried the King’s orders into effect, and sent over the letter, which contained
the following answer:

“Thus saith King Xerxes to Pausanias. For the men whom you have saved for me
across sea from Byzantium, an obligation is laid up for you in our house, recorded
for ever; and with your proposals I am well pleased. Let neither night nor day stop
you from diligently performing any of your promises to me; neither for cost of gold
nor of silver let them be hindered, nor yet for number of troops, wherever it may
be that their presence is needed; but with Artabazus, an honourable man whom I send
you, boldly advance my objects and yours, as may be most for the honour and interest
of us both.”

Before held in high honour by the Hellenes as the hero of Plataea, Pausanias,
after the receipt of this letter, became prouder than ever, and could no longer
live in the usual style, but went out of Byzantium in a Median dress, was attended
on his march through Thrace by a bodyguard of Medes and Egyptians, kept a Persian
table, and was quite unable to contain his intentions, but betrayed by his conduct
in trifles what his ambition looked one day to enact on a grander scale. He also
made himself difficult of access, and displayed so violent a temper to every one
without exception that no one could come near him. Indeed, this was the principal
reason why the confederacy went over to the Athenians.

The above-mentioned conduct, coming to the ears of the Lacedaemonians, occasioned
his first recall. And after his second voyage out in the ship of Hermione, without
their orders, he gave proofs of similar behaviour. Besieged and expelled from Byzantium
by the Athenians, he did not return to Sparta; but news came that he had settled
at Colonae in the Troad, and was intriguing with the barbarians, and that his stay
there was for no good purpose; and the ephors, now no longer hesitating, sent him
a herald and a scytale with orders to accompany the herald or be declared a public
enemy. Anxious above everything to avoid suspicion, and confident that he could
quash the charge by means of money, he returned a second time to Sparta. At first
thrown into prison by the ephors (whose powers enable them to do this to the King),
soon compromised the matter and came out again, and offered himself for trial to
any who wished to institute an inquiry concerning him.

Now the Spartans had no tangible proof against him- neither his enemies nor the
nation- of that indubitable kind required for the punishment of a member of the
royal family, and at that moment in high office; he being regent for his first cousin
King Pleistarchus, Leonidas’s son, who was still a minor. But by his contempt of
the laws and imitation of the barbarians, he gave grounds for much suspicion of
his being discontented with things established; all the occasions on which he had
in any way departed from the regular customs were passed in review, and it was remembered
that he had taken upon himself to have inscribed on the tripod at Delphi, which
was dedicated by the Hellenes as the first-fruits of the spoil of the Medes, the
following couplet:

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

At the time the Lacedaemonians had at once erased the couplet, and inscribed
the names of the cities that had aided in the overthrow of the barbarian and dedicated
the offering. Yet it was considered that Pausanias had here been guilty of a grave
offence, which, interpreted by the light of the attitude which he had since assumed,
gained a new significance, and seemed to be quite in keeping with his present schemes.
Besides, they were informed that he was even intriguing with the Helots; and such
indeed was the fact, for he promised them freedom and citizenship if they would
join him in insurrection and would help him to carry out his plans to the end. Even
now, mistrusting the evidence even of the Helots themselves, the ephors would not
consent to take any decided step against him; in accordance with their regular custom
towards themselves, namely, to be slow in taking any irrevocable resolve in the
matter of a Spartan citizen without indisputable proof. At last, it is said, the
person who was going to carry to Artabazus the last letter for the King, a man of
Argilus, once the favourite and most trusty servant of Pausanias, turned informer.
Alarmed by the reflection that none of the previous messengers had ever returned,
having counterfeited the seal, in order that, if he found himself mistaken in his
surmises, or if Pausanias should ask to make some correction, he might not be discovered,
he undid the letter, and found the postscript that he had suspected, viz., an order
to put him to death.

On being shown the letter, the ephors now felt more certain. Still, they wished
to hear Pausanias commit himself with their own ears. Accordingly the man went by
appointment to Taenarus as a suppliant, and there built himself a hut divided into
two by a partition; within which he concealed some of the ephors and let them hear
the whole matter plainly. For Pausanias came to him and asked him the reason of
his suppliant position; and the man reproached him with the order that he had written
concerning him, and one by one declared all the rest of the circumstances, how he
who had never yet brought him into any danger, while employed as agent between him
and the King, was yet just like the mass of his servants to be rewarded with death.
Admitting all this, and telling him not to be angry about the matter, Pausanias
gave him the pledge of raising him up from the temple, and begged him to set off
as quickly as possible, and not to hinder the business in hand.

The ephors listened carefully, and then departed, taking no action for the moment,
but, having at last attained to certainty, were preparing to arrest him in the city.
It is reported that, as he was about to be arrested in the street, he saw from the
face of one of the ephors what he was coming for; another, too, made him a secret
signal, and betrayed it to him from kindness. Setting off with a run for the temple
of the goddess of the Brazen House, the enclosure of which was near at hand, he
succeeded in taking sanctuary before they took him, and entering into a small chamber,
which formed part of the temple, to avoid being exposed to the weather, lay still
there. The ephors, for the moment distanced in the pursuit, afterwards took off
the roof of the chamber, and having made sure that he was inside, shut him in, barricaded
the doors, and staying before the place, reduced him by starvation. When they found
that he was on the point of expiring, just as he was, in the chamber, they brought
him out of the temple, while the breath was still in him, and as soon as he was
brought out he died. They were going to throw him into the Kaiadas, where they cast
criminals, but finally decided to inter him somewhere near. But the god at Delphi
afterwards ordered the Lacedaemonians to remove the tomb to the place of his death-
where he now lies in the consecrated ground, as an inscription on a monument declares-
and, as what had been done was a curse to them, to give back two bodies instead
of one to the goddess of the Brazen House. So they had two brazen statues made,
and dedicated them as a substitute for Pausanias. the Athenians retorted by telling
the Lacedaemonians to drive out what the god himself had pronounced to be a curse.

To return to the Medism of Pausanias. Matter was found in the course of the inquiry
to implicate Themistocles; and the Lacedaemonians accordingly sent envoys to the
Athenians and required them to punish him as they had punished Pausanias. The Athenians
consented to do so. But he had, as it happened, been ostracized, and, with a residence
at Argos, was in the habit of visiting other parts of Peloponnese. So they sent
with the Lacedaemonians, who were ready to join in the pursuit, persons with instructions
to take him wherever they found him. But Themistocles got scent of their intentions,
and fled from Peloponnese to Corcyra, which was under obligations towards him. But
the Corcyraeans alleged that they could not venture to shelter him at the cost of
offending Athens and Lacedaemon, and they conveyed him over to the continent opposite.
Pursued by the officers who hung on the report of his movements, at a loss where
to turn, he was compelled to stop at the house of Admetus, the Molossian king, though
they were not on friendly terms. Admetus happened not to be indoors, but his wife,
to whom he made himself a suppliant, instructed him to take their child in his arms
and sit down by the hearth. Soon afterwards Admetus came in, and Themistocles told
him who he was, and begged him not to revenge on Themistocles in exile any opposition
which his requests might have experienced from Themistocles at Athens. Indeed, he
was now far too low for his revenge; retaliation was only honourable between equals.
Besides, his opposition to the king had only affected the success of a request,
not the safety of his person; if the king were to give him up to the pursuers that
he mentioned, and the fate which they intended for him, he would just be consigning
him to certain death.

The King listened to him and raised him up with his son, as he was sitting with
him in his arms after the most effectual method of supplication, and on the arrival
of the Lacedaemonians not long afterwards, refused to give him up for anything they
could say, but sent him off by land to the other sea to Pydna in Alexander’s dominions,
as he wished to go to the Persian king. There he met with a merchantman on the point
of starting for Ionia. Going on board, he was carried by a storm to the Athenian
squadron which was blockading Naxos. In his alarm- he was luckily unknown to the
people in the vessel- he told the master who he was and what he was flying for,
and said that, if he refused to save him, he would declare that he was taking him
for a bribe. Meanwhile their safety consisted in letting no one leave the ship until
a favourable time for sailing should arise. If he complied with his wishes, he promised
him a proper recompense. The master acted as he desired, and, after lying to for
a day and a night out of reach of the squadron, at length arrived at Ephesus.

After having rewarded him with a present of money, as soon as he received some
from his friends at Athens and from his secret hoards at Argos, Themistocles started
inland with one of the coast Persians, and sent a letter to King Artaxerxes, Xerxes’s
son, who had just come to the throne. Its contents were as follows: “I, Themistocles,
am come to you, who did your house more harm than any of the Hellenes, when I was
compelled to defend myself against your father’s invasion- harm, however, far surpassed
by the good that I did him during his retreat, which brought no danger for me but
much for him. For the past, you are a good turn in my debt”- here he mentioned the
warning sent to Xerxes from Salamis to retreat, as well as his finding the bridges
unbroken, which, as he falsely pretended, was due to him- “for the present, able
to do you great service, I am here, pursued by the Hellenes for my friendship for
you. However, I desire a year’s grace, when I shall be able to declare in person
the objects of my coming.”

It is said that the King approved his intention, and told him to do as he said.
He employed the interval in making what progress he could in the study of the Persian
tongue, and of the customs of the country. Arrived at court at the end of the year,
he attained to very high consideration there, such as no Hellene has ever possessed
before or since; partly from his splendid antecedents, partly from the hopes which
he held out of effecting for him the subjugation of Hellas, but principally by the
proof which experience daily gave of his capacity. For Themistocles was a man who
exhibited the most indubitable signs of genius; indeed, in this particular he has
a claim on our admiration quite extraordinary and unparalleled. By his own native
capacity, alike unformed and unsupplemented by study, he was at once the best judge
in those sudden crises which admit of little or of no deliberation, and the best
prophet of the future, even to its most distant possibilities. An able theoretical
expositor of all that came within the sphere of his practice, he was not without
the power of passing an adequate judgment in matters in which he had no experience.
He could also excellently divine the good and evil which lay hid in the unseen future.
In fine, whether we consider the extent of his natural powers, or the slightness
of his application, this extraordinary man must be allowed to have surpassed all
others in the faculty of intuitively meeting an emergency. Disease was the real
cause of his death; though there is a story of his having ended his life by poison,
on finding himself unable to fulfil his promises to the king. However this may be,
there is a monument to him in the marketplace of Asiatic Magnesia. He was governor
of the district, the King having given him Magnesia, which brought in fifty talents
a year, for bread, Lampsacus, which was considered to be the richest wine country,
for wine, and Myos for other provisions. His bones, it is said, were conveyed home
by his relatives in accordance with his wishes, and interred in Attic ground. This
was done without the knowledge of the Athenians; as it is against the law to bury
in Attica an outlaw for treason. So ends the history of Pausanias and Themistocles,
the Lacedaemonian and the Athenian, the most famous men of their time in Hellas.

To return to the Lacedaemonians. The history of their first embassy, the injunctions
which it conveyed, and the rejoinder which it provoked, concerning the expulsion
of the accursed persons, have been related already. It was followed by a second,
which ordered Athens to raise the siege of Potidaea, and to respect the independence
of Aegina. Above all, it gave her most distinctly to understand that war might be
prevented by the revocation of the Megara decree, excluding the Megarians from the
use of Athenian harbours and of the market of Athens. But Athens was not inclined
either to revoke the decree, or to entertain their other proposals; she accused
the Megarians of pushing their cultivation into the consecrated ground and the unenclosed
land on the border, and of harbouring her runaway slaves. At last an embassy arrived
with the Lacedaemonian ultimatum. The ambassadors were Ramphias, Melesippus, and
Agesander. Not a word was said on any of the old subjects; there was simply this:
“Lacedaemon wishes the peace to continue, and there is no reason why it should not,
if you would leave the Hellenes independent.” Upon this the Athenians held an assembly,
and laid the matter before their consideration. It was resolved to deliberate once
for all on all their demands, and to give them an answer. There were many speakers
who came forward and gave their support to one side or the other, urging the necessity
of war, or the revocation of the decree and the folly of allowing it to stand in
the way of peace. Among them came forward Pericles, son of Xanthippus, the first
man of his time at Athens, ablest alike in counsel and in action, and gave the following
advice:

“There is one principle, Athenians, which I hold to through everything, and that
is the principle of no concession to the Peloponnesians. I know that the spirit
which inspires men while they are being persuaded to make war is not always retained
in action; that as circumstances change, resolutions change. Yet I see that now
as before the same, almost literally the same, counsel is demanded of me; and I
put it to those of you who are allowing yourselves to be persuaded, to support the
national resolves even in the case of reverses, or to forfeit all credit for their
wisdom in the event of success. For sometimes the course of things is as arbitrary
as the plans of man; indeed this is why we usually blame chance for whatever does
not happen as we expected. Now it was clear before that Lacedaemon entertained designs
against us; it is still more clear now. The treaty provides that we shall mutually
submit our differences to legal settlement, and that we shall meanwhile each keep
what we have. Yet the Lacedaemonians never yet made us any such offer, never yet
would accept from us any such offer; on the contrary, they wish complaints to be
settled by war instead of by negotiation; and in the end we find them here dropping
the tone of expostulation and adopting that of command. They order us to raise the
siege of Potidaea, to let Aegina be independent, to revoke the Megara decree; and
they conclude with an ultimatum warning us to leave the Hellenes independent. I
hope that you will none of you think that we shall be going to war for a trifle
if we refuse to revoke the Megara decree, which appears in front of their complaints,
and the revocation of which is to save us from war, or let any feeling of self-reproach
linger in your minds, as if you went to war for slight cause. Why, this trifle contains
the whole seal and trial of your resolution. If you give way, you will instantly
have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into obedience in the
first instance; while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they
must treat you more as equals. Make your decision therefore at once, either to submit
before you are harmed, or if we are to go to war, as I for one think we ought, to
do so without caring whether the ostensible cause be great or small, resolved against
making concessions or consenting to a precarious tenure of our possessions. For
all claims from an equal, urged upon a neighbour as commands before any attempt
at legal settlement, be they great or be they small, have only one meaning, and
that is slavery.

“As to the war and the resources of either party, a detailed comparison will
not show you the inferiority of Athens. Personally engaged in the cultivation of
their land, without funds either private or public, the Peloponnesians are also
without experience in long wars across sea, from the strict limit which poverty
imposes on their attacks upon each other. Powers of this description are quite incapable
of often manning a fleet or often sending out an army: they cannot afford the absence
from their homes, the expenditure from their own funds; and besides, they have not
command of the sea. Capital, it must be remembered, maintains a war more than forced
contributions. Farmers are a class of men that are always more ready to serve in
person than in purse. Confident that the former will survive the dangers, they are
by no means so sure that the latter will not be prematurely exhausted, especially
if the war last longer than they expect, which it very likely will. In a single
battle the Peloponnesians and their allies may be able to defy all Hellas, but they
are incapacitated from carrying on a war against a power different in character
from their own, by the want of the single council-chamber requisite to prompt and
vigorous action, and the substitution of a diet composed of various races, in which
every state possesses an equal vote, and each presses its own ends, a condition
of things which generally results in no action at all. The great wish of some is
to avenge themselves on some particular enemy, the great wish of others to save
their own pocket. Slow in assembling, they devote a very small fraction of the time
to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their
own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come of his neglect, that
it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so,
by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly
decays.

“But the principal point is the hindrance that they will experience from want
of money. The slowness with which it comes in will cause delay; but the opportunities
of war wait for no man. Again, we need not be alarmed either at the possibility
of their raising fortifications in Attica, or at their navy. It would be difficult
for any system of fortifications to establish a rival city, even in time of peace,
much more, surely, in an enemy’s country, with Athens just as much fortified against
it as it against Athens; while a mere post might be able to do some harm to the
country by incursions and by the facilities which it would afford for desertion,
but can never prevent our sailing into their country and raising fortifications
there, and making reprisals with our powerful fleet. For our naval skill is of more
use to us for service on land, than their military skill for service at sea. Familiarity
with the sea they will not find an easy acquisition. If you who have been practising
at it ever since the Median invasion have not yet brought it to perfection, is there
any chance of anything considerable being effected by an agricultural, unseafaring
population, who will besides be prevented from practising by the constant presence
of strong squadrons of observation from Athens? With a small squadron they might
hazard an engagement, encouraging their ignorance by numbers; but the restraint
of a strong force will prevent their moving, and through want of practice they will
grow more clumsy, and consequently more timid. It must be kept in mind that seamanship,
just like anything else, is a matter of art, and will not admit of being taken up
occasionally as an occupation for times of leisure; on the contrary, it is so exacting
as to leave leisure for nothing else.

“Even if they were to touch the moneys at Olympia or Delphi, and try to seduce
our foreign sailors by the temptation of higher pay, that would only be a serious
danger if we could not still be a match for them by embarking our own citizens and
the aliens resident among us. But in fact by this means we are always a match for
them; and, best of all, we have a larger and higher class of native coxswains and
sailors among our own citizens than all the rest of Hellas. And to say nothing of
the danger of such a step, none of our foreign sailors would consent to become an
outlaw from his country, and to take service with them and their hopes, for the
sake of a few days’ high pay.

“This, I think, is a tolerably fair account of the position of the Peloponnesians;
that of Athens is free from the defects that I have criticized in them, and has
other advantages of its own, which they can show nothing to equal. If they march
against our country we will sail against theirs, and it will then be found that
the desolation of the whole of Attica is not the same as that of even a fraction
of Peloponnese; for they will not be able to supply the deficiency except by a battle,
while we have plenty of land both on the islands and the continent. The rule of
the sea is indeed a great matter. Consider for a moment. Suppose that we were islanders;
can you conceive a more impregnable position? Well, this in future should, as far
as possible, be our conception of our position. Dismissing all thought of our land
and houses, we must vigilantly guard the sea and the city. No irritation that we
may feel for the former must provoke us to a battle with the numerical superiority
of the Peloponnesians. A victory would only be succeeded by another battle against
the same superiority: a reverse involves the loss of our allies, the source of our
strength, who will not remain quiet a day after we become unable to march against
them. We must cry not over the loss of houses and land but of men’s lives; since
houses and land do not gain men, but men them. And if I had thought that I could
persuade you, I would have bid you go out and lay them waste with your own hands,
and show the Peloponnesians that this at any rate will not make you submit.

“I have many other reasons to hope for a favourable issue, if you can consent
not to combine schemes of fresh conquest with the conduct of the war, and will abstain
from wilfully involving yourselves in other dangers; indeed, I am more afraid of
our own blunders than of the enemy’s devices. But these matters shall be explained
in another speech, as events require; for the present dismiss these men with the
answer that we will allow Megara the use of our market and harbours, when the Lacedaemonians
suspend their alien acts in favour of us and our allies, there being nothing in
the treaty to prevent either one or the other: that we will leave the cities independent,
if independent we found them when we made the treaty, and when the Lacedaemonians
grant to their cities an independence not involving subservience to Lacedaemonian
interests, but such as each severally may desire: that we are willing to give the
legal satisfaction which our agreements specify, and that we shall not commence
hostilities, but shall resist those who do commence them. This is an answer agreeable
at once to the rights and the dignity of Athens. It must be thoroughly understood
that war is a necessity; but that the more readily we accept it, the less will be
the ardour of our opponents, and that out of the greatest dangers communities and
individuals acquire the greatest glory. Did not our fathers resist the Medes not
only with resources far different from ours, but even when those resources had been
abandoned; and more by wisdom than by fortune, more by daring than by strength,
did not they beat off the barbarian and advance their affairs to their present height?
We must not fall behind them, but must resist our enemies in any way and in every
way, and attempt to hand down our power to our posterity unimpaired.”

Such were the words of Pericles.

The Athenians, persuaded of the wisdom of his advice, voted as he desired, and
answered the Lacedaemonians as he recommended, both on the separate points and in
the general; they would do nothing on dictation, but were ready to have the complaints
settled in a fair and impartial manner by the legal method, which the terms of the
truce prescribed. So the envoys departed home and did not return again.

These were the charges and differences existing between the rival powers before
the war, arising immediately from the affair at Epidamnus and Corcyra. Still intercourse
continued in spite of them, and mutual communication. It was carried on without
heralds, but not without suspicion, as events were occurring which were equivalent
to a breach of the treaty and matter for war.

END OF BOOK I