“In order to keep you from this, I proceed to show that no one state

has ever injured you as much as Mitylene. I can make allowance for

those who revolt because they cannot bear our empire, or who have been

forced to do so by the enemy. But for those who possessed an island

with fortifications; who could fear our enemies only by sea, and there

had their own force of galleys to protect them; who were independent

and held in the highest honour by you—to act as these have done, this

is not revolt—revolt implies oppression; it is deliberate and wanton

aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our bitterest enemies;

a worse offence than a war undertaken on their own account in the

acquisition of power. The fate of those of their neighbours who had

already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson to them; their own

prosperity could not dissuade them from affronting danger; but blindly

confident in the future, and full of hopes beyond their power though

not beyond their ambition, they declared war and made their decision to

prefer might to right, their attack being determined not by provocation

but by the moment which seemed propitious. The truth is that great good

fortune coming suddenly and unexpectedly tends to make a people

insolent; in most cases it is safer for mankind to have success in

reason than out of reason; and it is easier for them, one may say, to

stave off adversity than to preserve prosperity. Our mistake has been

to distinguish the Mitylenians as we have done: had they been long ago

treated like the rest, they never would have so far forgotten

themselves, human nature being as surely made arrogant by consideration

as it is awed by firmness. Let them now therefore be punished as their

crime requires, and do not, while you condemn the aristocracy, absolve

the people. This is certain, that all attacked you without distinction,

although they might have come over to us and been now again in

possession of their city. But no, they thought it safer to throw in

their lot with the aristocracy and so joined their rebellion! Consider

therefore: if you subject to the same punishment the ally who is forced

to rebel by the enemy, and him who does so by his own free choice,

which of them, think you, is there that will not rebel upon the

slightest pretext; when the reward of success is freedom, and the

penalty of failure nothing so very terrible? We meanwhile shall have to

risk our money and our lives against one state after another; and if

successful, shall receive a ruined town from which we can no longer

draw the revenue upon which our strength depends; while if

unsuccessful, we shall have an enemy the more upon our hands, and shall

spend the time that might be employed in combating our existing foes in

warring with our own allies.

“No hope, therefore, that rhetoric may instil or money purchase, of the

mercy due to human infirmity must be held out to the Mitylenians. Their

offence was not involuntary, but of malice and deliberate; and mercy is

only for unwilling offenders. I therefore, now as before, persist

against your reversing your first decision, or giving way to the three

failings most fatal to empire—pity, sentiment, and indulgence.

Compassion is due to those who can reciprocate the feeling, not to

those who will never pity us in return, but are our natural and

necessary foes: the orators who charm us with sentiment may find other

less important arenas for their talents, in the place of one where the

city pays a heavy penalty for a momentary pleasure, themselves

receiving fine acknowledgments for their fine phrases; while indulgence

should be shown towards those who will be our friends in future,

instead of towards men who will remain just what they were, and as much

our enemies as before. To sum up shortly, I say that if you follow my

advice you will do what is just towards the Mitylenians, and at the

same time expedient; while by a different decision you will not oblige

them so much as pass sentence upon yourselves. For if they were right

in rebelling, you must be wrong in ruling. However, if, right or wrong,

you determine to rule, you must carry out your principle and punish the

Mitylenians as your interest requires; or else you must give up your

empire and cultivate honesty without danger. Make up your minds,

therefore, to give them like for like; and do not let the victims who

escaped the plot be more insensible than the conspirators who hatched

it; but reflect what they would have done if victorious over you,

especially they were the aggressors. It is they who wrong their

neighbour without a cause, that pursue their victim to the death, on

account of the danger which they foresee in letting their enemy

survive; since the object of a wanton wrong is more dangerous, if he

escape, than an enemy who has not this to complain of. Do not,

therefore, be traitors to yourselves, but recall as nearly as possible

the moment of suffering and the supreme importance which you then

attached to their reduction; and now pay them back in their turn,

without yielding to present weakness or forgetting the peril that once

hung over you. Punish them as they deserve, and teach your other allies

by a striking example that the penalty of rebellion is death. Let them

once understand this and you will not have so often to neglect your

enemies while you are fighting with your own confederates.”

Such were the words of Cleon. After him Diodotus, son of Eucrates, who

had also in the previous assembly spoken most strongly against putting

the Mitylenians to death, came forward and spoke as follows:

“I do not blame the persons who have reopened the case of the

Mitylenians, nor do I approve the protests which we have heard against

important questions being frequently debated. I think the two things

most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usually goes

hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of

mind. As for the argument that speech ought not to be the exponent of

action, the man who uses it must be either senseless or interested:

senseless if he believes it possible to treat of the uncertain future

through any other medium; interested if, wishing to carry a disgraceful

measure and doubting his ability to speak well in a bad cause, he

thinks to frighten opponents and hearers by well-aimed calumny. What is

still more intolerable is to accuse a speaker of making a display in

order to be paid for it. If ignorance only were imputed, an

unsuccessful speaker might retire with a reputation for honesty, if not

for wisdom; while the charge of dishonesty makes him suspected, if

successful, and thought, if defeated, not only a fool but a rogue. The

city is no gainer by such a system, since fear deprives it of its

advisers; although in truth, if our speakers are to make such

assertions, it would be better for the country if they could not speak

at all, as we should then make fewer blunders. The good citizen ought

to triumph not by frightening his opponents but by beating them fairly

in argument; and a wise city, without over-distinguishing its best

advisers, will nevertheless not deprive them of their due, and, far

from punishing an unlucky counsellor, will not even regard him as

disgraced. In this way successful orators would be least tempted to

sacrifice their convictions to popularity, in the hope of still higher

honours, and unsuccessful speakers to resort to the same popular arts

in order to win over the multitude.

“This is not our way; and, besides, the moment that a man is suspected

of giving advice, however good, from corrupt motives, we feel such a

grudge against him for the gain which after all we are not certain he

will receive, that we deprive the city of its certain benefit. Plain

good advice has thus come to be no less suspected than bad; and the

advocate of the most monstrous measures is not more obliged to use

deceit to gain the people, than the best counsellor is to lie in order

to be believed. The city and the city only, owing to these refinements,

can never be served openly and without disguise; he who does serve it

openly being always suspected of serving himself in some secret way in

return. Still, considering the magnitude of the interests involved, and

the position of affairs, we orators must make it our business to look a

little farther than you who judge offhand; especially as we, your

advisers, are responsible, while you, our audience, are not so. For if

those who gave the advice, and those who took it, suffered equally, you

would judge more calmly; as it is, you visit the disasters into which

the whim of the moment may have led you upon the single person of your

adviser, not upon yourselves, his numerous companions in error.

“However, I have not come forward either to oppose or to accuse in the

matter of Mitylene; indeed, the question before us as sensible men is

not their guilt, but our interests. Though I prove them ever so guilty,

I shall not, therefore, advise their death, unless it be expedient; nor

though they should have claims to indulgence, shall I recommend it,

unless it be dearly for the good of the country. I consider that we are

deliberating for the future more than for the present; and where Cleon

is so positive as to the useful deterrent effects that will follow from

making rebellion capital, I, who consider the interests of the future

quite as much as he, as positively maintain the contrary. And I require

you not to reject my useful considerations for his specious ones: his

speech may have the attraction of seeming the more just in your present

temper against Mitylene; but we are not in a court of justice, but in a

political assembly; and the question is not justice, but how to make

the Mitylenians useful to Athens.

“Now of course communities have enacted the penalty of death for many

offences far lighter than this: still hope leads men to venture, and no

one ever yet put himself in peril without the inward conviction that he

would succeed in his design. Again, was there ever city rebelling that

did not believe that it possessed either in itself or in its alliances

resources adequate to the enterprise? All, states and individuals, are

alike prone to err, and there is no law that will prevent them; or why

should men have exhausted the list of punishments in search of

enactments to protect them from evildoers? It is probable that in early

times the penalties for the greatest offences were less severe, and

that, as these were disregarded, the penalty of death has been by

degrees in most cases arrived at, which is itself disregarded in like

manner. Either then some means of terror more terrible than this must

be discovered, or it must be owned that this restraint is useless; and

that as long as poverty gives men the courage of necessity, or plenty

fills them with the ambition which belongs to insolence and pride, and

the other conditions of life remain each under the thraldom of some

fatal and master passion, so long will the impulse never be wanting to

drive men into danger. Hope also and cupidity, the one leading and the

other following, the one conceiving the attempt, the other suggesting

the facility of succeeding, cause the widest ruin, and, although

invisible agents, are far stronger than the dangers that are seen.

Fortune, too, powerfully helps the delusion and, by the unexpected aid

that she sometimes lends, tempts men to venture with inferior means;

and this is especially the case with communities, because the stakes

played for are the highest, freedom or empire, and, when all are acting

together, each man irrationally magnifies his own capacity. In fine, it

is impossible to prevent, and only great simplicity can hope to

prevent, human nature doing what it has once set its mind upon, by

force of law or by any other deterrent force whatsoever.

“We must not, therefore, commit ourselves to a false policy through a

belief in the efficacy of the punishment of death, or exclude rebels

from the hope of repentance and an early atonement of their error.

Consider a moment. At present, if a city that has already revolted

perceive that it cannot succeed, it will come to terms while it is

still able to refund expenses, and pay tribute afterwards. In the other

case, what city, think you, would not prepare better than is now done,

and hold out to the last against its besiegers, if it is all one

whether it surrender late or soon? And how can it be otherwise than

hurtful to us to be put to the expense of a siege, because surrender is

out of the question; and if we take the city, to receive a ruined town

from which we can no longer draw the revenue which forms our real

strength against the enemy? We must not, therefore, sit as strict

judges of the offenders to our own prejudice, but rather see how by

moderate chastisements we may be enabled to benefit in future by the

revenue-producing powers of our dependencies; and we must make up our

minds to look for our protection not to legal terrors but to careful

administration. At present we do exactly the opposite. When a free

community, held in subjection by force, rises, as is only natural, and

asserts its independence, it is no sooner reduced than we fancy

ourselves obliged to punish it severely; although the right course with

freemen is not to chastise them rigorously when they do rise, but

rigorously to watch them before they rise, and to prevent their ever

entertaining the idea, and, the insurrection suppressed, to make as few

responsible for it as possible.

“Only consider what a blunder you would commit in doing as Cleon

recommends. As things are at present, in all the cities the people is

your friend, and either does not revolt with the oligarchy, or, if

forced to do so, becomes at once the enemy of the insurgents; so that

in the war with the hostile city you have the masses on your side. But

if you butcher the people of Mitylene, who had nothing to do with the

revolt, and who, as soon as they got arms, of their own motion

surrendered the town, first you will commit the crime of killing your

benefactors; and next you will play directly into the hands of the

higher classes, who when they induce their cities to rise, will

immediately have the people on their side, through your having

announced in advance the same punishment for those who are guilty and

for those who are not. On the contrary, even if they were guilty, you

ought to seem not to notice it, in order to avoid alienating the only

class still friendly to us. In short, I consider it far more useful for

the preservation of our empire voluntarily to put up with injustice,

than to put to death, however justly, those whom it is our interest to

keep alive. As for Cleon’s idea that in punishment the claims of

justice and expediency can both be satisfied, facts do not confirm the

possibility of such a combination.

“Confess, therefore, that this is the wisest course, and without

conceding too much either to pity or to indulgence, by neither of which

motives do I any more than Cleon wish you to be influenced, upon the

plain merits of the case before you, be persuaded by me to try calmly

those of the Mitylenians whom Paches sent off as guilty, and to leave

the rest undisturbed. This is at once best for the future, and most

terrible to your enemies at the present moment; inasmuch as good policy

against an adversary is superior to the blind attacks of brute force.”

Such were the words of Diodotus. The two opinions thus expressed were

the ones that most directly contradicted each other; and the Athenians,

notwithstanding their change of feeling, now proceeded to a division,

in which the show of hands was almost equal, although the motion of

Diodotus carried the day. Another galley was at once sent off in haste,

for fear that the first might reach Lesbos in the interval, and the

city be found destroyed; the first ship having about a day and a

night’s start. Wine and barley-cakes were provided for the vessel by

the Mitylenian ambassadors, and great promises made if they arrived in

time; which caused the men to use such diligence upon the voyage that

they took their meals of barley-cakes kneaded with oil and wine as they

rowed, and only slept by turns while the others were at the oar.

Luckily they met with no contrary wind, and the first ship making no

haste upon so horrid an errand, while the second pressed on in the

manner described, the first arrived so little before them, that Paches

had only just had time to read the decree, and to prepare to execute

the sentence, when the second put into port and prevented the massacre.

The danger of Mitylene had indeed been great.

The other party whom Paches had sent off as the prime movers in the

rebellion, were upon Cleon’s motion put to death by the Athenians, the

number being rather more than a thousand. The Athenians also demolished

the walls of the Mitylenians, and took possession of their ships.

Afterwards tribute was not imposed upon the Lesbians; but all their

land, except that of the Methymnians, was divided into three thousand

allotments, three hundred of which were reserved as sacred for the

gods, and the rest assigned by lot to Athenian shareholders, who were

sent out to the island. With these the Lesbians agreed to pay a rent of

two minae a year for each allotment, and cultivated the land

themselves. The Athenians also took possession of the towns on the

continent belonging to the Mitylenians, which thus became for the

future subject to Athens. Such were the events that took place at

Lesbos.

CHAPTER X

Fifth Year of the War—Trial and Execution of the Plataeans— Corcyraean

Revolution

During the same summer, after the reduction of Lesbos, the Athenians

under Nicias, son of Niceratus, made an expedition against the island

of Minoa, which lies off Megara and was used as a fortified post by the

Megarians, who had built a tower upon it. Nicias wished to enable the

Athenians to maintain their blockade from this nearer station instead

of from Budorum and Salamis; to stop the Peloponnesian galleys and

privateers sailing out unobserved from the island, as they had been in

the habit of doing; and at the same time prevent anything from coming

into Megara. Accordingly, after taking two towers projecting on the

side of Nisaea, by engines from the sea, and clearing the entrance into

the channel between the island and the shore, he next proceeded to cut

off all communication by building a wall on the mainland at the point

where a bridge across a morass enabled succours to be thrown into the

island, which was not far off from the continent. A few days sufficing

to accomplish this, he afterwards raised some works in the island also,

and leaving a garrison there, departed with his forces.

About the same time in this summer, the Plataeans, being now without

provisions and unable to support the siege, surrendered to the

Peloponnesians in the following manner. An assault had been made upon

the wall, which the Plataeans were unable to repel. The Lacedaemonian

commander, perceiving their weakness, wished to avoid taking the place

by storm; his instructions from Lacedaemon having been so conceived, in

order that if at any future time peace should be made with Athens, and

they should agree each to restore the places that they had taken in the

war, Plataea might be held to have come over voluntarily, and not be

included in the list. He accordingly sent a herald to them to ask if

they were willing voluntarily to surrender the town to the

Lacedaemonians, and accept them as their judges, upon the understanding

that the guilty should be punished, but no one without form of law. The

Plataeans were now in the last state of weakness, and the herald had no

sooner delivered his message than they surrendered the town. The

Peloponnesians fed them for some days until the judges from Lacedaemon,

who were five in number, arrived. Upon their arrival no charge was

preferred; they simply called up the Plataeans, and asked them whether

they had done the Lacedaemonians and allies any service in the war then

raging. The Plataeans asked leave to speak at greater length, and

deputed two of their number to represent them: Astymachus, son of

Asopolaus, and Lacon, son of Aeimnestus, proxenus of the

Lacedaemonians, who came forward and spoke as follows:

“Lacedaemonians, when we surrendered our city we trusted in you, and

looked forward to a trial more agreeable to the forms of law than the

present, to which we had no idea of being subjected; the judges also in

whose hands we consented to place ourselves were you, and you only

(from whom we thought we were most likely to obtain justice), and not

other persons, as is now the case. As matters stand, we are afraid that

we have been doubly deceived. We have good reason to suspect, not only

that the issue to be tried is the most terrible of all, but that you

will not prove impartial; if we may argue from the fact that no

accusation was first brought forward for us to answer, but we had

ourselves to ask leave to speak, and from the question being put so

shortly, that a true answer to it tells against us, while a false one

can be contradicted. In this dilemma, our safest, and indeed our only

course, seems to be to say something at all risks: placed as we are, we

could scarcely be silent without being tormented by the damning thought

that speaking might have saved us. Another difficulty that we have to

encounter is the difficulty of convincing you. Were we unknown to each

other we might profit by bringing forward new matter with which you

were unacquainted: as it is, we can tell you nothing that you do not

know already, and we fear, not that you have condemned us in your own

minds of having failed in our duty towards you, and make this our

crime, but that to please a third party we have to submit to a trial

the result of which is already decided. Nevertheless, we will place

before you what we can justly urge, not only on the question of the

quarrel which the Thebans have against us, but also as addressing you

and the rest of the Hellenes; and we will remind you of our good

services, and endeavour to prevail with you.

“To your short question, whether we have done the Lacedaemonians and

allies any service in this war, we say, if you ask us as enemies, that

to refrain from serving you was not to do you injury; if as friends,

that you are more in fault for having marched against us. During the

peace, and against the Mede, we acted well: we have not now been the

first to break the peace, and we were the only Boeotians who then

joined in defending against the Mede the liberty of Hellas. Although an

inland people, we were present at the action at Artemisium; in the

battle that took place in our territory we fought by the side of

yourselves and Pausanias; and in all the other Hellenic exploits of the

time we took a part quite out of proportion to our strength. Besides,

you, as Lacedaemonians, ought not to forget that at the time of the

great panic at Sparta, after the earthquake, caused by the secession of

the Helots to Ithome, we sent the third part of our citizens to assist

you.

“On these great and historical occasions such was the part that we

chose, although afterwards we became your enemies. For this you were to

blame. When we asked for your alliance against our Theban oppressors,

you rejected our petition, and told us to go to the Athenians who were

our neighbours, as you lived too far off. In the war we never have done

to you, and never should have done to you, anything unreasonable. If we

refused to desert the Athenians when you asked us, we did no wrong;

they had helped us against the Thebans when you drew back, and we could

no longer give them up with honour; especially as we had obtained their

alliance and had been admitted to their citizenship at our own request,

and after receiving benefits at their hands; but it was plainly our

duty loyally to obey their orders. Besides, the faults that either of

you may commit in your supremacy must be laid, not upon the followers,

but on the chiefs that lead them astray.

“With regard to the Thebans, they have wronged us repeatedly, and their

last aggression, which has been the means of bringing us into our

present position, is within your own knowledge. In seizing our city in

time of peace, and what is more at a holy time in the month, they

justly encountered our vengeance, in accordance with the universal law

which sanctions resistance to an invader; and it cannot now be right

that we should suffer on their account. By taking your own immediate

interest and their animosity as the test of justice, you will prove

yourselves to be rather waiters on expediency than judges of right;

although if they seem useful to you now, we and the rest of the

Hellenes gave you much more valuable help at a time of greater need.

Now you are the assailants, and others fear you; but at the crisis to

which we allude, when the barbarian threatened all with slavery, the

Thebans were on his side. It is just, therefore, to put our patriotism

then against our error now, if error there has been; and you will find

the merit outweighing the fault, and displayed at a juncture when there

were few Hellenes who would set their valour against the strength of

Xerxes, and when greater praise was theirs who preferred the dangerous

path of honour to the safe course of consulting their own interest with

respect to the invasion. To these few we belonged, and highly were we

honoured for it; and yet we now fear to perish by having again acted on

the same principles, and chosen to act well with Athens sooner than

wisely with Sparta. Yet in justice the same cases should be decided in

the same way, and policy should not mean anything else than lasting

gratitude for the service of good ally combined with a proper attention

to one’s own immediate interest.

“Consider also that at present the Hellenes generally regard you as a

pattern of worth and honour; and if you pass an unjust sentence upon us

in this which is no obscure cause, but one in which you, the judges,

are as illustrious as we, the prisoners, are blameless, take care that

displeasure be not felt at an unworthy decision in the matter of

honourable men made by men yet more honourable than they, and at the

consecration in the national temples of spoils taken from the

Plataeans, the benefactors of Hellas. Shocking indeed will it seem for

Lacedaemonians to destroy Plataea, and for the city whose name your

fathers inscribed upon the tripod at Delphi for its good service, to be

by you blotted out from the map of Hellas, to please the Thebans. To

such a depth of misfortune have we fallen that, while the Medes’

success had been our ruin, Thebans now supplant us in your once fond

regards; and we have been subjected to two dangers, the greatest of

any—that of dying of starvation then, if we had not surrendered our

town, and now of being tried for our lives. So that we Plataeans, after

exertions beyond our power in the cause of the Hellenes, are rejected

by all, forsaken and unassisted; helped by none of our allies, and

reduced to doubt the stability of our only hope, yourselves.

“Still, in the name of the gods who once presided over our confederacy,

and of our own good service in the Hellenic cause, we adjure you to

relent; to recall the decision which we fear that the Thebans may have

obtained from you; to ask back the gift that you have given them, that

they disgrace not you by slaying us; to gain a pure instead of a guilty

gratitude, and not to gratify others to be yourselves rewarded with

shame. Our lives may be quickly taken, but it will be a heavy task to

wipe away the infamy of the deed; as we are no enemies whom you might

justly punish, but friends forced into taking arms against you. To

grant us our lives would be, therefore, a righteous judgment; if you

consider also that we are prisoners who surrendered of their own

accord, stretching out our hands for quarter, whose slaughter Hellenic

law forbids, and who besides were always your benefactors. Look at the

sepulchres of your fathers, slain by the Medes and buried in our

country, whom year by year we honoured with garments and all other

dues, and the first-fruits of all that our land produced in their

season, as friends from a friendly country and allies to our old

companions in arms. Should you not decide aright, your conduct would be

the very opposite to ours. Consider only: Pausanias buried them

thinking that he was laying them in friendly ground and among men as

friendly; but you, if you kill us and make the Plataean territory

Theban, will leave your fathers and kinsmen in a hostile soil and among

their murderers, deprived of the honours which they now enjoy. What is

more, you will enslave the land in which the freedom of the Hellenes

was won, make desolate the temples of the gods to whom they prayed

before they overcame the Medes, and take away your ancestral sacrifices

from those who founded and instituted them.

“It were not to your glory, Lacedaemonians, either to offend in this

way against the common law of the Hellenes and against your own

ancestors, or to kill us your benefactors to gratify another’s hatred

without having been wronged yourselves: it were more so to spare us and

to yield to the impressions of a reasonable compassion; reflecting not

merely on the awful fate in store for us, but also on the character of

the sufferers, and on the impossibility of predicting how soon

misfortune may fall even upon those who deserve it not. We, as we have

a right to do and as our need impels us, entreat you, calling aloud

upon the gods at whose common altar all the Hellenes worship, to hear

our request, to be not unmindful of the oaths which your fathers swore,

and which we now plead—we supplicate you by the tombs of your fathers,

and appeal to those that are gone to save us from falling into the

hands of the Thebans and their dearest friends from being given up to

their most detested foes. We also remind you of that day on which we

did the most glorious deeds, by your fathers’ sides, we who now on this

are like to suffer the most dreadful fate. Finally, to do what is

necessary and yet most difficult for men in our situation—that is, to

make an end of speaking, since with that ending the peril of our lives

draws near—in conclusion we say that we did not surrender our city to

the Thebans (to that we would have preferred inglorious starvation),

but trusted in and capitulated to you; and it would be just, if we fail

to persuade you, to put us back in the same position and let us take

the chance that falls to us. And at the same time we adjure you not to

give us up—your suppliants, Lacedaemonians, out of your hands and

faith, Plataeans foremost of the Hellenic patriots, to Thebans, our

most hated enemies—but to be our saviours, and not, while you free the

rest of the Hellenes, to bring us to destruction.”

Such were the words of the Plataeans. The Thebans, afraid that the

Lacedaemonians might be moved by what they had heard, came forward and

said that they too desired to address them, since the Plataeans had,

against their wish, been allowed to speak at length instead of being

confined to a simple answer to the question. Leave being granted, the

Thebans spoke as follows:

“We should never have asked to make this speech if the Plataeans on

their side had contented themselves with shortly answering the

question, and had not turned round and made charges against us, coupled

with a long defence of themselves upon matters outside the present

inquiry and not even the subject of accusation, and with praise of what

no one finds fault with. However, since they have done so, we must

answer their charges and refute their self-praise, in order that

neither our bad name nor their good may help them, but that you may

hear the real truth on both points, and so decide.

“The origin of our quarrel was this. We settled Plataea some time after

the rest of Boeotia, together with other places out of which we had

driven the mixed population. The Plataeans not choosing to recognize

our supremacy, as had been first arranged, but separating themselves

from the rest of the Boeotians, and proving traitors to their

nationality, we used compulsion; upon which they went over to the

Athenians, and with them did as much harm, for which we retaliated.

“Next, when the barbarian invaded Hellas, they say that they were the

only Boeotians who did not Medize; and this is where they most glorify

themselves and abuse us. We say that if they did not Medize, it was

because the Athenians did not do so either; just as afterwards when the

Athenians attacked the Hellenes they, the Plataeans, were again the

only Boeotians who Atticized. And yet consider the forms of our

respective governments when we so acted. Our city at that juncture had

neither an oligarchical constitution in which all the nobles enjoyed

equal rights, nor a democracy, but that which is most opposed to law

and good government and nearest a tyranny—the rule of a close cabal.

These, hoping to strengthen their individual power by the success of

the Mede, kept down by force the people, and brought him into the town.

The city as a whole was not its own mistress when it so acted, and

ought not to be reproached for the errors that it committed while

deprived of its constitution. Examine only how we acted after the

departure of the Mede and the recovery of the constitution; when the

Athenians attacked the rest of Hellas and endeavoured to subjugate our

country, of the greater part of which faction had already made them

masters. Did not we fight and conquer at Coronea and liberate Boeotia,

and do we not now actively contribute to the liberation of the rest,

providing horses to the cause and a force unequalled by that of any

other state in the confederacy?

“Let this suffice to excuse us for our Medism. We will now endeavour to

show that you have injured the Hellenes more than we, and are more

deserving of condign punishment. It was in defence against us, say you,

that you became allies and citizens of Athens. If so, you ought only to

have called in the Athenians against us, instead of joining them in

attacking others: it was open to you to do this if you ever felt that

they were leading you where you did not wish to follow, as Lacedaemon

was already your ally against the Mede, as you so much insist; and this

was surely sufficient to keep us off, and above all to allow you to

deliberate in security. Nevertheless, of your own choice and without

compulsion you chose to throw your lot in with Athens. And you say that

it had been base for you to betray your benefactors; but it was surely

far baser and more iniquitous to sacrifice the whole body of the

Hellenes, your fellow confederates, who were liberating Hellas, than

the Athenians only, who were enslaving it. The return that you made

them was therefore neither equal nor honourable, since you called them

in, as you say, because you were being oppressed yourselves, and then

became their accomplices in oppressing others; although baseness rather

consists in not returning like for like than in not returning what is

justly due but must be unjustly paid.

“Meanwhile, after thus plainly showing that it was not for the sake of

the Hellenes that you alone then did not Medize, but because the

Athenians did not do so either, and you wished to side with them and to

be against the rest; you now claim the benefit of good deeds done to

please your neighbours. This cannot be admitted: you chose the

Athenians, and with them you must stand or fall. Nor can you plead the

league then made and claim that it should now protect you. You

abandoned that league, and offended against it by helping instead of

hindering the subjugation of the Aeginetans and others of its members,

and that not under compulsion, but while in enjoyment of the same

institutions that you enjoy to the present hour, and no one forcing you

as in our case. Lastly, an invitation was addressed to you before you

were blockaded to be neutral and join neither party: this you did not

accept. Who then merit the detestation of the Hellenes more justly than

you, you who sought their ruin under the mask of honour? The former

virtues that you allege you now show not to be proper to your

character; the real bent of your nature has been at length damningly

proved: when the Athenians took the path of injustice you followed

them.

“Of our unwilling Medism and your wilful Atticizing this then is our

explanation. The last wrong wrong of which you complain consists in our

having, as you say, lawlessly invaded your town in time of peace and

festival. Here again we cannot think that we were more in fault than

yourselves. If of our own proper motion we made an armed attack upon

your city and ravaged your territory, we are guilty; but if the first

men among you in estate and family, wishing to put an end to the

foreign connection and to restore you to the common Boeotian country,

of their own free will invited us, wherein is our crime? Where wrong is

done, those who lead, as you say, are more to blame than those who

follow. Not that, in our judgment, wrong was done either by them or by

us. Citizens like yourselves, and with more at stake than you, they

opened their own walls and introduced us into their own city, not as

foes but as friends, to prevent the bad among you from becoming worse;

to give honest men their due; to reform principles without attacking

persons, since you were not to be banished from your city, but brought

home to your kindred, nor to be made enemies to any, but friends alike

to all.

“That our intention was not hostile is proved by our behaviour. We did

no harm to any one, but publicly invited those who wished to live under

a national, Boeotian government to come over to us; which as first you

gladly did, and made an agreement with us and remained tranquil, until

you became aware of the smallness of our numbers. Now it is possible

that there may have been something not quite fair in our entering

without the consent of your commons. At any rate you did not repay us

in kind. Instead of refraining, as we had done, from violence, and

inducing us to retire by negotiation, you fell upon us in violation of

your agreement, and slew some of us in fight, of which we do not so

much complain, for in that there was a certain justice; but others who

held out their hands and received quarter, and whose lives you

subsequently promised us, you lawlessly butchered. If this was not

abominable, what is? And after these three crimes committed one after

the other—the violation of your agreement, the murder of the men

afterwards, and the lying breach of your promise not to kill them, if

we refrained from injuring your property in the country—you still

affirm that we are the criminals and yourselves pretend to escape

justice. Not so, if these your judges decide aright, but you will be

punished for all together.

“Such, Lacedaemonians, are the facts. We have gone into them at some

length both on your account and on our own, that you may fed that you

will justly condemn the prisoners, and we, that we have given an

additional sanction to our vengeance. We would also prevent you from

being melted by hearing of their past virtues, if any such they had:

these may be fairly appealed to by the victims of injustice, but only

aggravate the guilt of criminals, since they offend against their

better nature. Nor let them gain anything by crying and wailing, by

calling upon your fathers’ tombs and their own desolate condition.

Against this we point to the far more dreadful fate of our youth,

butchered at their hands; the fathers of whom either fell at Coronea,

bringing Boeotia over to you, or seated, forlorn old men by desolate

hearths, with far more reason implore your justice upon the prisoners.

The pity which they appeal to is rather due to men who suffer

unworthily; those who suffer justly as they do are on the contrary

subjects for triumph. For their present desolate condition they have

themselves to blame, since they wilfully rejected the better alliance.

Their lawless act was not provoked by any action of ours: hate, not

justice, inspired their decision; and even now the satisfaction which

they afford us is not adequate; they will suffer by a legal sentence,

not as they pretend as suppliants asking for quarter in battle, but as

prisoners who have surrendered upon agreement to take their trial.

Vindicate, therefore, Lacedaemonians, the Hellenic law which they have

broken; and to us, the victims of its violation, grant the reward

merited by our zeal. Nor let us be supplanted in your favour by their

harangues, but offer an example to the Hellenes, that the contests to

which you invite them are of deeds, not words: good deeds can be

shortly stated, but where wrong is done a wealth of language is needed

to veil its deformity. However, if leading powers were to do what you

are now doing, and putting one short question to all alike were to

decide accordingly, men would be less tempted to seek fine phrases to

cover bad actions.”

Such were the words of the Thebans. The Lacedaemonian judges decided

that the question whether they had received any service from the

Plataeans in the war, was a fair one for them to put; as they had

always invited them to be neutral, agreeably to the original covenant

of Pausanias after the defeat of the Mede, and had again definitely

offered them the same conditions before the blockade. This offer having

been refused, they were now, they conceived, by the loyalty of their

intention released from their covenant; and having, as they considered,

suffered evil at the hands of the Plataeans, they brought them in again

one by one and asked each of them the same question, that is to say,

whether they had done the Lacedaemonians and allies any service in the

war; and upon their saying that they had not, took them out and slew

them, all without exception. The number of Plataeans thus massacred was

not less than two hundred, with twenty-five Athenians who had shared in

the siege. The women were taken as slaves. The city the Thebans gave

for about a year to some political emigrants from Megara and to the

surviving Plataeans of their own party to inhabit, and afterwards razed

it to the ground from the very foundations, and built on to the

precinct of Hera an inn two hundred feet square, with rooms all round

above and below, making use for this purpose of the roofs and doors of

the Plataeans: of the rest of the materials in the wall, the brass and

the iron, they made couches which they dedicated to Hera, for whom they

also built a stone chapel of a hundred feet square. The land they

confiscated and let out on a ten years’ lease to Theban occupiers. The

adverse attitude of the Lacedaemonians in the whole Plataean affair was

mainly adopted to please the Thebans, who were thought to be useful in

the war at that moment raging. Such was the end of Plataea, in the

ninety-third year after she became the ally of Athens.

Meanwhile, the forty ships of the Peloponnesians that had gone to the

relief of the Lesbians, and which we left flying across the open sea,

pursued by the Athenians, were caught in a storm off Crete, and

scattering from thence made their way to Peloponnese, where they found

at Cyllene thirteen Leucadian and Ambraciot galleys, with Brasidas, son

of Tellis, lately arrived as counsellor to Alcidas; the Lacedaemonians,

upon the failure of the Lesbian expedition, having resolved to

strengthen their fleet and sail to Corcyra, where a revolution had

broken out, so as to arrive there before the twelve Athenian ships at

Naupactus could be reinforced from Athens. Brasidas and Alcidas began

to prepare accordingly.

The Corcyraean revolution began with the return of the prisoners taken

in the sea-fights off Epidamnus. These the Corinthians had released,

nominally upon the security of eight hundred talents given by their

proxeni, but in reality upon their engagement to bring over Corcyra to

Corinth. These men proceeded to canvass each of the citizens, and to

intrigue with the view of detaching the city from Athens. Upon the

arrival of an Athenian and a Corinthian vessel, with envoys on board, a

conference was held in which the Corcyraeans voted to remain allies of

the Athenians according to their agreement, but to be friends of the

Peloponnesians as they had been formerly. Meanwhile, the returned

prisoners brought Peithias, a volunteer proxenus of the Athenians and

leader of the commons, to trial, upon the charge of enslaving Corcyra

to Athens. He, being acquitted, retorted by accusing five of the

richest of their number of cutting stakes in the ground sacred to Zeus

and Alcinous; the legal penalty being a stater for each stake. Upon

their conviction, the amount of the penalty being very large, they

seated themselves as suppliants in the temples to be allowed to pay it

by instalments; but Peithias, who was one of the senate, prevailed upon

that body to enforce the law; upon which the accused, rendered

desperate by the law, and also learning that Peithias had the

intention, while still a member of the senate, to persuade the people

to conclude a defensive and offensive alliance with Athens, banded

together armed with daggers, and suddenly bursting into the senate

killed Peithias and sixty others, senators and private persons; some

few only of the party of Peithias taking refuge in the Athenian galley,

which had not yet departed.

After this outrage, the conspirators summoned the Corcyraeans to an

assembly, and said that this would turn out for the best, and would

save them from being enslaved by Athens: for the future, they moved to

receive neither party unless they came peacefully in a single ship,

treating any larger number as enemies. This motion made, they compelled

it to be adopted, and instantly sent off envoys to Athens to justify

what had been done and to dissuade the refugees there from any hostile

proceedings which might lead to a reaction.

Upon the arrival of the embassy, the Athenians arrested the envoys and

all who listened to them, as revolutionists, and lodged them in Aegina.

Meanwhile a Corinthian galley arriving in the island with Lacedaemonian

envoys, the dominant Corcyraean party attacked the commons and defeated

them in battle. Night coming on, the commons took refuge in the

Acropolis and the higher parts of the city, and concentrated themselves

there, having also possession of the Hyllaic harbour; their adversaries

occupying the market-place, where most of them lived, and the harbour

adjoining, looking towards the mainland.

The next day passed in skirmishes of little importance, each party

sending into the country to offer freedom to the slaves and to invite

them to join them. The mass of the slaves answered the appeal of the

commons; their antagonists being reinforced by eight hundred

mercenaries from the continent.

After a day’s interval hostilities recommenced, victory remaining with

the commons, who had the advantage in numbers and position, the women

also valiantly assisting them, pelting with tiles from the houses, and

supporting the melee with a fortitude beyond their sex. Towards dusk,

the oligarchs in full rout, fearing that the victorious commons might

assault and carry the arsenal and put them to the sword, fired the

houses round the marketplace and the lodging-houses, in order to bar

their advance; sparing neither their own, nor those of their

neighbours; by which much stuff of the merchants was consumed and the

city risked total destruction, if a wind had come to help the flame by

blowing on it. Hostilities now ceasing, both sides kept quiet, passing

the night on guard, while the Corinthian ship stole out to sea upon the

victory of the commons, and most of the mercenaries passed over

secretly to the continent.

The next day the Athenian general, Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes, came

up from Naupactus with twelve ships and five hundred Messenian heavy

infantry. He at once endeavoured to bring about a settlement, and

persuaded the two parties to agree together to bring to trial ten of

the ringleaders, who presently fled, while the rest were to live in

peace, making terms with each other, and entering into a defensive and

offensive alliance with the Athenians. This arranged, he was about to

sail away, when the leaders of the commons induced him to leave them

five of his ships to make their adversaries less disposed to move,

while they manned and sent with him an equal number of their own. He

had no sooner consented, than they began to enroll their enemies for

the ships; and these, fearing that they might be sent off to Athens,

seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of the Dioscuri. An

attempt on the part of Nicostratus to reassure them and to persuade

them to rise proving unsuccessful, the commons armed upon this pretext,

alleging the refusal of their adversaries to sail with them as a proof

of the hollowness of their intentions, and took their arms out of their

houses, and would have dispatched some whom they fell in with, if

Nicostratus had not prevented it. The rest of the party, seeing what

was going on, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of Hera,

being not less than four hundred in number; until the commons, fearing

that they might adopt some desperate resolution, induced them to rise,

and conveyed them over to the island in front of the temple, where

provisions were sent across to them.

At this stage in the revolution, on the fourth or fifth day after the

removal of the men to the island, the Peloponnesian ships arrived from

Cyllene where they had been stationed since their return from Ionia,

fifty-three in number, still under the command of Alcidas, but with

Brasidas also on board as his adviser; and dropping anchor at Sybota, a

harbour on the mainland, at daybreak made sail for Corcyra.

The Corcyraeans in great confusion and alarm at the state of things in

the city and at the approach of the invader, at once proceeded to equip

sixty vessels, which they sent out, as fast as they were manned,

against the enemy, in spite of the Athenians recommending them to let

them sail out first, and to follow themselves afterwards with all their

ships together. Upon their vessels coming up to the enemy in this

straggling fashion, two immediately deserted: in others the crews were

fighting among themselves, and there was no order in anything that was

done; so that the Peloponnesians, seeing their confusion, placed twenty

ships to oppose the Corcyraeans, and ranged the rest against the twelve

Athenian ships, amongst which were the two vessels Salaminia and

Paralus.

While the Corcyraeans, attacking without judgment and in small

detachments, were already crippled by their own misconduct, the

Athenians, afraid of the numbers of the enemy and of being surrounded,

did not venture to attack the main body or even the centre of the

division opposed to them, but fell upon its wing and sank one vessel;

after which the Peloponnesians formed in a circle, and the Athenians

rowed round them and tried to throw them into disorder. Perceiving

this, the division opposed to the Corcyraeans, fearing a repetition of

the disaster of Naupactus, came to support their friends, and the whole

fleet now bore down, united, upon the Athenians, who retired before it,

backing water, retiring as leisurely as possible in order to give the

Corcyraeans time to escape, while the enemy was thus kept occupied.

Such was the character of this sea-fight, which lasted until sunset.

The Corcyraeans now feared that the enemy would follow up their victory

and sail against the town and rescue the men in the island, or strike

some other blow equally decisive, and accordingly carried the men over

again to the temple of Hera, and kept guard over the city. The

Peloponnesians, however, although victorious in the sea-fight, did not

venture to attack the town, but took the thirteen Corcyraean vessels

which they had captured, and with them sailed back to the continent

from whence they had put out. The next day equally they refrained from

attacking the city, although the disorder and panic were at their

height, and though Brasidas, it is said, urged Alcidas, his superior

officer, to do so, but they landed upon the promontory of Leukimme and

laid waste the country.

Meanwhile the commons in Corcyra, being still in great fear of the

fleet attacking them, came to a parley with the suppliants and their

friends, in order to save the town; and prevailed upon some of them to

go on board the ships, of which they still manned thirty, against the

expected attack. But the Peloponnesians after ravaging the country

until midday sailed away, and towards nightfall were informed by beacon

signals of the approach of sixty Athenian vessels from Leucas, under

the command of Eurymedon, son of Thucles; which had been sent off by

the Athenians upon the news of the revolution and of the fleet with

Alcidas being about to sail for Corcyra.

The Peloponnesians accordingly at once set off in haste by night for

home, coasting along shore; and hauling their ships across the Isthmus

of Leucas, in order not to be seen doubling it, so departed. The

Corcyraeans, made aware of the approach of the Athenian fleet and of

the departure of the enemy, brought the Messenians from outside the

walls into the town, and ordered the fleet which they had manned to

sail round into the Hyllaic harbour; and while it was so doing, slew

such of their enemies as they laid hands on, dispatching afterwards, as

they landed them, those whom they had persuaded to go on board the

ships. Next they went to the sanctuary of Hera and persuaded about

fifty men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death. The

mass of the suppliants who had refused to do so, on seeing what was

taking place, slew each other there in the consecrated ground; while

some hanged themselves upon the trees, and others destroyed themselves

as they were severally able. During seven days that Eurymedon stayed

with his sixty ships, the Corcyraeans were engaged in butchering those

of their fellow citizens whom they regarded as their enemies: and

although the crime imputed was that of attempting to put down the

democracy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their

debtors because of the moneys owed to them. Death thus raged in every

shape; and, as usually happens at such times, there was no length to

which violence did not go; sons were killed by their fathers, and

suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it; while some were

even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there.

So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression which it

made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur. Later on, one

may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed; struggles being every,

where made by the popular chiefs to bring in the Athenians, and by the

oligarchs to introduce the Lacedaemonians. In peace there would have

been neither the pretext nor the wish to make such an invitation; but

in war, with an alliance always at the command of either faction for

the hurt of their adversaries and their own corresponding advantage,

opportunities for bringing in the foreigner were never wanting to the

revolutionary parties. The sufferings which revolution entailed upon

the cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always

will occur, as long as the nature of mankind remains the same; though

in a severer or milder form, and varying in their symptoms, according

to the variety of the particular cases. In peace and prosperity, states

and individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find

themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war

takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough

master, that brings most men’s characters to a level with their

fortunes. Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the

places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done

before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their

inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and the

atrocity of their reprisals. Words had to change their ordinary meaning

and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be

considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious

cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability

to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic

violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a

justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme measures was

always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a

plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but

to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your

party and to be afraid of your adversaries. In fine, to forestall an

intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of a crime where it was

wanting, was equally commended until even blood became a weaker tie

than party, from the superior readiness of those united by the latter

to dare everything without reserve; for such associations had not in

view the blessings derivable from established institutions but were

formed by ambition for their overthrow; and the confidence of their

members in each other rested less on any religious sanction than upon

complicity in crime. The fair proposals of an adversary were met with

jealous precautions by the stronger of the two, and not with a generous

confidence. Revenge also was held of more account than

self-preservation. Oaths of reconciliation, being only proffered on

either side to meet an immediate difficulty, only held good so long as

no other weapon was at hand; but when opportunity offered, he who first

ventured to seize it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this

perfidious vengeance sweeter than an open one, since, considerations of

safety apart, success by treachery won him the palm of superior

intelligence. Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to

call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being

the second as they are proud of being the first. The cause of all these

evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from

these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in

contention. The leaders in the cities, each provided with the fairest

professions, on the one side with the cry of political equality of the

people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought prizes for

themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish,

and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for ascendancy engaged

in the direst excesses; in their acts of vengeance they went to even

greater lengths, not stopping at what justice or the good of the state

demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their only

standard, and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation of an

unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the

animosities of the hour. Thus religion was in honour with neither

party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high

reputation. Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished

between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel, or because envy

would not suffer them to escape.

Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by

reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honour so

largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became

divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. To put an end to

this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath that

could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their

calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were

more intent upon self-defence than capable of confidence. In this

contest the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their

own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they

feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations

of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had recourse

to action: while their adversaries, arrogantly thinking that they

should know in time, and that it was unnecessary to secure by action

what policy afforded, often fell victims to their want of precaution.

Meanwhile Corcyra gave the first example of most of the crimes alluded

to; of the reprisals exacted by the governed who had never experienced

equitable treatment or indeed aught but insolence from their

rulers—when their hour came; of the iniquitous resolves of those who

desired to get rid of their accustomed poverty, and ardently coveted

their neighbours’ goods; and lastly, of the savage and pitiless

excesses into which men who had begun the struggle, not in a class but

in a party spirit, were hurried by their ungovernable passions. In the

confusion into which life was now thrown in the cities, human nature,

always rebelling against the law and now its master, gladly showed

itself ungoverned in passion, above respect for justice, and the enemy

of all superiority; since revenge would not have been set above

religion, and gain above justice, had it not been for the fatal power

of envy. Indeed men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution

of their revenge to set the example of doing away with those general

laws to which all alike can look for salvation in adversity, instead of

allowing them to subsist against the day of danger when their aid may

be required.

While the revolutionary passions thus for the first time displayed

themselves in the factions of Corcyra, Eurymedon and the Athenian fleet

sailed away; after which some five hundred Corcyraean exiles who had

succeeded in escaping, took some forts on the mainland, and becoming

masters of the Corcyraean territory over the water, made this their

base to Plunder their countrymen in the island, and did so much damage

as to cause a severe famine in the town. They also sent envoys to

Lacedaemon and Corinth to negotiate their restoration; but meeting with

no success, afterwards got together boats and mercenaries and crossed

over to the island, being about six hundred in all; and burning their

boats so as to have no hope except in becoming masters of the country,

went up to Mount Istone, and fortifying themselves there, began to

annoy those in the city and obtained command of the country.

At the close of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty ships under

the command of Laches, son of Melanopus, and Charoeades, son of

Euphiletus, to Sicily, where the Syracusans and Leontines were at war.

The Syracusans had for allies all the Dorian cities except

Camarina—these had been included in the Lacedaemonian confederacy from

the commencement of the war, though they had not taken any active part

in it—the Leontines had Camarina and the Chalcidian cities. In Italy

the Locrians were for the Syracusans, the Rhegians for their Leontine

kinsmen. The allies of the Leontines now sent to Athens and appealed to

their ancient alliance and to their Ionian origin, to persuade the

Athenians to send them a fleet, as the Syracusans were blockading them

by land and sea. The Athenians sent it upon the plea of their common

descent, but in reality to prevent the exportation of Sicilian corn to

Peloponnese and to test the possibility of bringing Sicily into

subjection. Accordingly they established themselves at Rhegium in

Italy, and from thence carried on the war in concert with their allies.

CHAPTER XI

Year of the War—Campaigns of Demosthenes in Western Greece—Ruin of

Ambracia

Summer was now over. The winter following, the plague a second time

attacked the Athenians; for although it had never entirely left them,

still there had been a notable abatement in its ravages. The second

visit lasted no less than a year, the first having lasted two; and

nothing distressed the Athenians and reduced their power more than

this. No less than four thousand four hundred heavy infantry in the

ranks died of it and three hundred cavalry, besides a number of the

multitude that was never ascertained. At the same time took place the

numerous earthquakes in Athens, Euboea, and Boeotia, particularly at

Orchomenus in the last-named country.

The same winter the Athenians in Sicily and the Rhegians, with thirty

ships, made an expedition against the islands of Aeolus; it being

impossible to invade them in summer, owing to the want of water. These

islands are occupied by the Liparaeans, a Cnidian colony, who live in

one of them of no great size called Lipara; and from this as their

headquarters cultivate the rest, Didyme, Strongyle, and Hiera. In Hiera

the people in those parts believe that Hephaestus has his forge, from

the quantity of flame which they see it send out by night, and of smoke

by day. These islands lie off the coast of the Sicels and Messinese,

and were allies of the Syracusans. The Athenians laid waste their land,

and as the inhabitants did not submit, sailed back to Rhegium. Thus the

winter ended, and with it ended the fifth year of this war, of which

Thucydides was the historian.

The next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies set out to invade

Attica under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus, and went as far as

the Isthmus, but numerous earthquakes occurring, turned back again

without the invasion taking place. About the same time that these

earthquakes were so common, the sea at Orobiae, in Euboea, retiring

from the then line of coast, returned in a huge wave and invaded a

great part of the town, and retreated leaving some of it still under

water; so that what was once land is now sea; such of the inhabitants

perishing as could not run up to the higher ground in time. A similar

inundation also occurred at Atalanta, the island off the Opuntian

Locrian coast, carrying away part of the Athenian fort and wrecking one

of two ships which were drawn up on the beach. At Peparethus also the

sea retreated a little, without however any inundation following; and

an earthquake threw down part of the wall, the town hall, and a few

other buildings. The cause, in my opinion, of this phenomenon must be

sought in the earthquake. At the point where its shock has been the

most violent, the sea is driven back and, suddenly recoiling with

redoubled force, causes the inundation. Without an earthquake I do not

see how such an accident could happen.

During the same summer different operations were carried on by the

different belligerents in Sicily; by the Siceliots themselves against

each other, and by the Athenians and their allies: I shall however

confine myself to the actions in which the Athenians took part,

choosing the most important. The death of the Athenian general

Charoeades, killed by the Syracusans in battle, left Laches in the sole

command of the fleet, which he now directed in concert with the allies

against Mylae, a place belonging to the Messinese. Two Messinese

battalions in garrison at Mylae laid an ambush for the party landing

from the ships, but were routed with great slaughter by the Athenians

and their allies, who thereupon assaulted the fortification and

compelled them to surrender the Acropolis and to march with them upon

Messina. This town afterwards also submitted upon the approach of the

Athenians and their allies, and gave hostages and all other securities

required.

The same summer the Athenians sent thirty ships round Peloponnese under

Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes, and Procles, son of Theodorus, and

sixty others, with two thousand heavy infantry, against Melos, under

Nicias, son of Niceratus; wishing to reduce the Melians, who, although

islanders, refused to be subjects of Athens or even to join her

confederacy. The devastation of their land not procuring their

submission, the fleet, weighing from Melos, sailed to Oropus in the

territory of Graea, and landing at nightfall, the heavy infantry

started at once from the ships by land for Tanagra in Boeotia, where

they were met by the whole levy from Athens, agreeably to a concerted

signal, under the command of Hipponicus, son of Callias, and Eurymedon,

son of Thucles. They encamped, and passing that day in ravaging the

Tanagraean territory, remained there for the night; and next day, after

defeating those of the Tanagraeans who sailed out against them and some

Thebans who had come up to help the Tanagraeans, took some arms, set up

a trophy, and retired, the troops to the city and the others to the

ships. Nicias with his sixty ships coasted alongshore and ravaged the

Locrian seaboard, and so returned home.

About this time the Lacedaemonians founded their colony of Heraclea in

Trachis, their object being the following: the Malians form in all

three tribes, the Paralians, the Hiereans, and the Trachinians. The

last of these having suffered severely in a war with their neighbours

the Oetaeans, at first intended to give themselves up to Athens; but

afterwards fearing not to find in her the security that they sought,

sent to Lacedaemon, having chosen Tisamenus for their ambassador. In

this embassy joined also the Dorians from the mother country of the

Lacedaemonians, with the same request, as they themselves also suffered

from the same enemy. After hearing them, the Lacedaemonians determined

to send out the colony, wishing to assist the Trachinians and Dorians,

and also because they thought that the proposed town would lie

conveniently for the purposes of the war against the Athenians. A fleet

might be got ready there against Euboea, with the advantage of a short

passage to the island; and the town would also be useful as a station

on the road to Thrace. In short, everything made the Lacedaemonians

eager to found the place. After first consulting the god at Delphi and

receiving a favourable answer, they sent off the colonists, Spartans,

and Perioeci, inviting also any of the rest of the Hellenes who might

wish to accompany them, except Ionians, Achaeans, and certain other

nationalities; three Lacedaemonians leading as founders of the colony,

Leon, Alcidas, and Damagon. The settlement effected, they fortified

anew the city, now called Heraclea, distant about four miles and a half

from Thermopylae and two miles and a quarter from the sea, and

commenced building docks, closing the side towards Thermopylae just by

the pass itself, in order that they might be easily defended.

The foundation of this town, evidently meant to annoy Euboea (the

passage across to Cenaeum in that island being a short one), at first

caused some alarm at Athens, which the event however did nothing to

justify, the town never giving them any trouble. The reason of this was

as follows. The Thessalians, who were sovereign in those parts, and

whose territory was menaced by its foundation, were afraid that it

might prove a very powerful neighbour, and accordingly continually

harassed and made war upon the new settlers, until they at last wore

them out in spite of their originally considerable numbers, people

flocking from all quarters to a place founded by the Lacedaemonians,

and thus thought secure of prosperity. On the other hand the

Lacedaemonians themselves, in the persons of their governors, did their

full share towards ruining its prosperity and reducing its population,

as they frightened away the greater part of the inhabitants by

governing harshly and in some cases not fairly, and thus made it easier

for their neighbours to prevail against them.

The same summer, about the same time that the Athenians were detained

at Melos, their fellow citizens in the thirty ships cruising round

Peloponnese, after cutting off some guards in an ambush at Ellomenus in

Leucadia, subsequently went against Leucas itself with a large

armament, having been reinforced by the whole levy of the Acarnanians

except Oeniadae, and by the Zacynthians and Cephallenians and fifteen

ships from Corcyra. While the Leucadians witnessed the devastation of

their land, without and within the isthmus upon which the town of

Leucas and the temple of Apollo stand, without making any movement on

account of the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, the Acarnanians urged

Demosthenes, the Athenian general, to build a wall so as to cut off the

town from the continent, a measure which they were convinced would

secure its capture and rid them once and for all of a most troublesome

enemy.

Demosthenes however had in the meanwhile been persuaded by the

Messenians that it was a fine opportunity for him, having so large an

army assembled, to attack the Aetolians, who were not only the enemies

of Naupactus, but whose reduction would further make it easy to gain

the rest of that part of the continent for the Athenians. The Aetolian

nation, although numerous and warlike, yet dwelt in unwalled villages

scattered far apart, and had nothing but light armour, and might,

according to the Messenians, be subdued without much difficulty before

succours could arrive. The plan which they recommended was to attack

first the Apodotians, next the Ophionians, and after these the

Eurytanians, who are the largest tribe in Aetolia, and speak, as is

said, a language exceedingly difficult to understand, and eat their

flesh raw. These once subdued, the rest would easily come in.

To this plan Demosthenes consented, not only to please the Messenians,

but also in the belief that by adding the Aetolians to his other

continental allies he would be able, without aid from home, to march

against the Boeotians by way of Ozolian Locris to Kytinium in Doris,

keeping Parnassus on his right until he descended to the Phocians, whom

he could force to join him if their ancient friendship for Athens did

not, as he anticipated, at once decide them to do so. Arrived in Phocis

he was already upon the frontier of Boeotia. He accordingly weighed

from Leucas, against the wish of the Acarnanians, and with his whole

armament sailed along the coast to Sollium, where he communicated to

them his intention; and upon their refusing to agree to it on account

of the non-investment of Leucas, himself with the rest of the forces,

the Cephallenians, the Messenians, and Zacynthians, and three hundred

Athenian marines from his own ships (the fifteen Corcyraean vessels

having departed), started on his expedition against the Aetolians. His

base he established at Oeneon in Locris, as the Ozolian Locrians were

allies of Athens and were to meet him with all their forces in the

interior. Being neighbours of the Aetolians and armed in the same way,

it was thought that they would be of great service upon the expedition,

from their acquaintance with the localities and the warfare of the

inhabitants.

After bivouacking with the army in the precinct of Nemean Zeus, in

which the poet Hesiod is said to have been killed by the people of the

country, according to an oracle which had foretold that he should die

in Nemea, Demosthenes set out at daybreak to invade Aetolia. The first

day he took Potidania, the next Krokyle, and the third Tichium, where

he halted and sent back the booty to Eupalium in Locris, having

determined to pursue his conquests as far as the Ophionians, and, in

the event of their refusing to submit, to return to Naupactus and make

them the objects of a second expedition. Meanwhile the Aetolians had

been aware of his design from the moment of its formation, and as soon

as the army invaded their country came up in great force with all their

tribes; even the most remote Ophionians, the Bomiensians, and

Calliensians, who extend towards the Malian Gulf, being among the

number.

The Messenians, however, adhered to their original advice. Assuring

Demosthenes that the Aetolians were an easy conquest, they urged him to

push on as rapidly as possible, and to try to take the villages as fast

as he came up to them, without waiting until the whole nation should be

in arms against him. Led on by his advisers and trusting in his

fortune, as he had met with no opposition, without waiting for his

Locrian reinforcements, who were to have supplied him with the

light-armed darters in which he was most deficient, he advanced and

stormed Aegitium, the inhabitants flying before him and posting

themselves upon the hills above the town, which stood on high ground

about nine miles from the sea. Meanwhile the Aetolians had gathered to

the rescue, and now attacked the Athenians and their allies, running

down from the hills on every side and darting their javelins, falling

back when the Athenian army advanced, and coming on as it retired; and

for a long while the battle was of this character, alternate advance

and retreat, in both which operations the Athenians had the worst.

Still as long as their archers had arrows left and were able to use

them, they held out, the light-armed Aetolians retiring before the

arrows; but after the captain of the archers had been killed and his

men scattered, the soldiers, wearied out with the constant repetition

of the same exertions and hard pressed by the Aetolians with their

javelins, at last turned and fled, and falling into pathless gullies

and places that they were unacquainted with, thus perished, the

Messenian Chromon, their guide, having also unfortunately been killed.

A great many were overtaken in the pursuit by the swift-footed and

light-armed Aetolians, and fell beneath their javelins; the greater

number however missed their road and rushed into the wood, which had no

ways out, and which was soon fired and burnt round them by the enemy.

Indeed the Athenian army fell victims to death in every form, and

suffered all the vicissitudes of flight; the survivors escaped with

difficulty to the sea and Oeneon in Locris, whence they had set out.

Many of the allies were killed, and about one hundred and twenty

Athenian heavy infantry, not a man less, and all in the prime of life.

These were by far the best men in the city of Athens that fell during

this war. Among the slain was also Procles, the colleague of

Demosthenes. Meanwhile the Athenians took up their dead under truce

from the Aetolians, and retired to Naupactus, and from thence went in

their ships to Athens; Demosthenes staying behind in Naupactus and in

the neighbourhood, being afraid to face the Athenians after the

disaster.

About the same time the Athenians on the coast of Sicily sailed to

Locris, and in a descent which they made from the ships defeated the

Locrians who came against them, and took a fort upon the river Halex.

The same summer the Aetolians, who before the Athenian expedition had

sent an embassy to Corinth and Lacedaemon, composed of Tolophus, an

Ophionian, Boriades, an Eurytanian, and Tisander, an Apodotian,

obtained that an army should be sent them against Naupactus, which had

invited the Athenian invasion. The Lacedaemonians accordingly sent off

towards autumn three thousand heavy infantry of the allies, five

hundred of whom were from Heraclea, the newly founded city in Trachis,

under the command of Eurylochus, a Spartan, accompanied by Macarius and

Menedaius, also Spartans.

The army having assembled at Delphi, Eurylochus sent a herald to the

Ozolian Locrians; the road to Naupactus lying through their territory,

and he having besides conceived the idea of detaching them from Athens.

His chief abettors in Locris were the Amphissians, who were alarmed at

the hostility of the Phocians. These first gave hostages themselves,

and induced the rest to do the same for fear of the invading army;

first, their neighbours the Myonians, who held the most difficult of

the passes, and after them the Ipnians, Messapians, Tritaeans,

Chalaeans, Tolophonians, Hessians, and Oeanthians, all of whom joined

in the expedition; the Olpaeans contenting themselves with giving

hostages, without accompanying the invasion; and the Hyaeans refusing

to do either, until the capture of Polis, one of their villages.

His preparations completed, Eurylochus lodged the hostages in Kytinium,

in Doris, and advanced upon Naupactus through the country of the

Locrians, taking upon his way Oeneon and Eupalium, two of their towns

that refused to join him. Arrived in the Naupactian territory, and

having been now joined by the Aetolians, the army laid waste the land

and took the suburb of the town, which was unfortified; and after this

Molycrium also, a Corinthian colony subject to Athens. Meanwhile the

Athenian Demosthenes, who since the affair in Aetolia had remained near

Naupactus, having had notice of the army and fearing for the town, went

and persuaded the Acarnanians, although not without difficulty because

of his departure from Leucas, to go to the relief of Naupactus. They

accordingly sent with him on board his ships a thousand heavy infantry,

who threw themselves into the place and saved it; the extent of its

wall and the small number of its defenders otherwise placing it in the

greatest danger. Meanwhile Eurylochus and his companions, finding that

this force had entered and that it was impossible to storm the town,

withdrew, not to Peloponnese, but to the country once called Aeolis,

and now Calydon and Pleuron, and to the places in that neighbourhood,

and Proschium in Aetolia; the Ambraciots having come and urged them to

combine with them in attacking Amphilochian Argos and the rest of

Amphilochia and Acarnania; affirming that the conquest of these

countries would bring all the continent into alliance with Lacedaemon.

To this Eurylochus consented, and dismissing the Aetolians, now

remained quiet with his army in those parts, until the time should come

for the Ambraciots to take the field, and for him to join them before

Argos.

Summer was now over. The winter ensuing, the Athenians in Sicily with

their Hellenic allies, and such of the Sicel subjects or allies of

Syracuse as had revolted from her and joined their army, marched

against the Sicel town Inessa, the acropolis of which was held by the

Syracusans, and after attacking it without being able to take it,

retired. In the retreat, the allies retreating after the Athenians were

attacked by the Syracusans from the fort, and a large part of their

army routed with great slaughter. After this, Laches and the Athenians

from the ships made some descents in Locris, and defeating the

Locrians, who came against them with Proxenus, son of Capaton, upon the

river Caicinus, took some arms and departed.

The same winter the Athenians purified Delos, in compliance, it

appears, with a certain oracle. It had been purified before by

Pisistratus the tyrant; not indeed the whole island, but as much of it

as could be seen from the temple. All of it was, however, now purified

in the following way. All the sepulchres of those that had died in

Delos were taken up, and for the future it was commanded that no one

should be allowed either to die or to give birth to a child in the

island; but that they should be carried over to Rhenea, which is so

near to Delos that Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, having added Rhenea to

his other island conquests during his period of naval ascendancy,

dedicated it to the Delian Apollo by binding it to Delos with a chain.

The Athenians, after the purification, celebrated, for the first time,

the quinquennial festival of the Delian games. Once upon a time,

indeed, there was a great assemblage of the Ionians and the

neighbouring islanders at Delos, who used to come to the festival, as

the Ionians now do to that of Ephesus, and athletic and poetical

contests took place there, and the cities brought choirs of dancers.

Nothing can be clearer on this point than the following verses of

Homer, taken from a hymn to Apollo:

Phœbus, wherever thou strayest, far or near,

Delos was still of all thy haunts most dear.

Thither the robed Ionians take their way

With wife and child to keep thy holiday,

Invoke thy favour on each manly game,

And dance and sing in honour of thy name.

That there was also a poetical contest in which the Ionians went to

contend, again is shown by the following, taken from the same hymn.

After celebrating the Delian dance of the women, he ends his song of

praise with these verses, in which he also alludes to himself:

Well, may Apollo keep you all! and so,

Sweethearts, good-bye—yet tell me not I go

Out from your hearts; and if in after hours

Some other wanderer in this world of ours

Touch at your shores, and ask your maidens here

Who sings the songs the sweetest to your ear,

Think of me then, and answer with a smile,

‘A blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle.’

Homer thus attests that there was anciently a great assembly and

festival at Delos. In later times, although the islanders and the

Athenians continued to send the choirs of dancers with sacrifices, the

contests and most of the ceremonies were abolished, probably through

adversity, until the Athenians celebrated the games upon this occasion

with the novelty of horse-races.

The same winter the Ambraciots, as they had promised Eurylochus when

they retained his army, marched out against Amphilochian Argos with

three thousand heavy infantry, and invading the Argive territory

occupied Olpae, a stronghold on a hill near the sea, which had been

formerly fortified by the Acarnanians and used as the place of assizes

for their nation, and which is about two miles and three-quarters from

the city of Argos upon the sea-coast. Meanwhile the Acarnanians went

with a part of their forces to the relief of Argos, and with the rest

encamped in Amphilochia at the place called Crenae, or the Wells, to

watch for Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, and to prevent their

passing through and effecting their junction with the Ambraciots; while

they also sent for Demosthenes, the commander of the Aetolian

expedition, to be their leader, and for the twenty Athenian ships that

were cruising off Peloponnese under the command of Aristotle, son of

Timocrates, and Hierophon, son of Antimnestus. On their part, the

Ambraciots at Olpae sent a messenger to their own city, to beg them to

come with their whole levy to their assistance, fearing that the army

of Eurylochus might not be able to pass through the Acarnanians, and

that they might themselves be obliged to fight single-handed, or be

unable to retreat, if they wished it, without danger.

Meanwhile Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, learning that the

Ambraciots at Olpae had arrived, set out from Proschium with all haste

to join them, and crossing the Achelous advanced through Acarnania,

which they found deserted by its population, who had gone to the relief

of Argos; keeping on their right the city of the Stratians and its

garrison, and on their left the rest of Acarnania. Traversing the

territory of the Stratians, they advanced through Phytia, next,

skirting Medeon, through Limnaea; after which they left Acarnania

behind them and entered a friendly country, that of the Agraeans. From

thence they reached and crossed Mount Thymaus, which belongs to the

Agraeans, and descended into the Argive territory after nightfall, and

passing between the city of Argos and the Acarnanian posts at Crenae,

joined the Ambraciots at Olpae.

Uniting here at daybreak, they sat down at the place called Metropolis,

and encamped. Not long afterwards the Athenians in the twenty ships

came into the Ambracian Gulf to support the Argives, with Demosthenes

and two hundred Messenian heavy infantry, and sixty Athenian archers.

While the fleet off Olpae blockaded the hill from the sea, the

Acarnanians and a few of the Amphilochians, most of whom were kept back

by force by the Ambraciots, had already arrived at Argos, and were

preparing to give battle to the enemy, having chosen Demosthenes to

command the whole of the allied army in concert with their own

generals. Demosthenes led them near to Olpae and encamped, a great

ravine separating the two armies. During five days they remained

inactive; on the sixth both sides formed in order of battle. The army

of the Peloponnesians was the largest and outflanked their opponents;

and Demosthenes fearing that his right might be surrounded, placed in

ambush in a hollow way overgrown with bushes some four hundred heavy

infantry and light troops, who were to rise up at the moment of the

onset behind the projecting left wing of the enemy, and to take them in

the rear. When both sides were ready they joined battle; Demosthenes

being on the right wing with the Messenians and a few Athenians, while

the rest of the line was made up of the different divisions of the

Acarnanians, and of the Amphilochian carters. The Peloponnesians and

Ambraciots were drawn up pell-mell together, with the exception of the

Mantineans, who were massed on the left, without however reaching to

the extremity of the wing, where Eurylochus and his men confronted the

Messenians and Demosthenes.

The Peloponnesians were now well engaged and with their outflanking

wing were upon the point of turning their enemy’s right; when the

Acarnanians from the ambuscade set upon them from behind, and broke

them at the first attack, without their staying to resist; while the

panic into which they fell caused the flight of most of their army,

terrified beyond measure at seeing the division of Eurylochus and their

best troops cut to pieces. Most of the work was done by Demosthenes and

his Messenians, who were posted in this part of the field. Meanwhile

the Ambraciots (who are the best soldiers in those countries) and the

troops upon the right wing, defeated the division opposed to them and

pursued it to Argos. Returning from the pursuit, they found their main

body defeated; and hard pressed by the Acarnanians, with difficulty

made good their passage to Olpae, suffering heavy loss on the way, as

they dashed on without discipline or order, the Mantineans excepted,

who kept their ranks best of any in the army during the retreat.

The battle did not end until the evening. The next day Menedaius, who

on the death of Eurylochus and Macarius had succeeded to the sole

command, being at a loss after so signal a defeat how to stay and

sustain a siege, cut off as he was by land and by the Athenian fleet by

sea, and equally so how to retreat in safety, opened a parley with

Demosthenes and the Acarnanian generals for a truce and permission to

retreat, and at the same time for the recovery of the dead. The dead

they gave back to him, and setting up a trophy took up their own also

to the number of about three hundred. The retreat demanded they refused

publicly to the army; but permission to depart without delay was

secretly granted to the Mantineans and to Menedaius and the other

commanders and principal men of the Peloponnesians by Demosthenes and

his Acarnanian colleagues; who desired to strip the Ambraciots and the

mercenary host of foreigners of their supporters; and, above all, to

discredit the Lacedaemonians and Peloponnesians with the Hellenes in

those parts, as traitors and self-seekers.

While the enemy was taking up his dead and hastily burying them as he

could, and those who obtained permission were secretly planning their

retreat, word was brought to Demosthenes and the Acarnanians that the

Ambraciots from the city, in compliance with the first message from

Olpae, were on the march with their whole levy through Amphilochia to

join their countrymen at Olpae, knowing nothing of what had occurred.

Demosthenes prepared to march with his army against them, and meanwhile

sent on at once a strong division to beset the roads and occupy the

strong positions. In the meantime the Mantineans and others included in

the agreement went out under the pretence of gathering herbs and

firewood, and stole off by twos and threes, picking on the way the

things which they professed to have come out for, until they had gone

some distance from Olpae, when they quickened their pace. The

Ambraciots and such of the rest as had accompanied them in larger

parties, seeing them going on, pushed on in their turn, and began

running in order to catch them up. The Acarnanians at first thought

that all alike were departing without permission, and began to pursue

the Peloponnesians; and believing that they were being betrayed, even

threw a dart or two at some of their generals who tried to stop them

and told them that leave had been given. Eventually, however, they let

pass the Mantineans and Peloponnesians, and slew only the Ambraciots,

there being much dispute and difficulty in distinguishing whether a man

was an Ambraciot or a Peloponnesian. The number thus slain was about

two hundred; the rest escaped into the bordering territory of Agraea,

and found refuge with Salynthius, the friendly king of the Agraeans.

Meanwhile the Ambraciots from the city arrived at Idomene. Idomene

consists of two lofty hills, the higher of which the troops sent on by

Demosthenes succeeded in occupying after nightfall, unobserved by the

Ambraciots, who had meanwhile ascended the smaller and bivouacked under

it. After supper Demosthenes set out with the rest of the army, as soon

as it was evening; himself with half his force making for the pass, and

the remainder going by the Amphilochian hills. At dawn he fell upon the

Ambraciots while they were still abed, ignorant of what had passed, and

fully thinking that it was their own countrymen—Demosthenes having

purposely put the Messenians in front with orders to address them in

the Doric dialect, and thus to inspire confidence in the sentinels, who

would not be able to see them as it was still night. In this way he

routed their army as soon as he attacked it, slaying most of them where

they were, the rest breaking away in flight over the hills. The roads,

however, were already occupied, and while the Amphilochians knew their

own country, the Ambraciots were ignorant of it and could not tell

which way to turn, and had also heavy armour as against a light-armed

enemy, and so fell into ravines and into the ambushes which had been

set for them, and perished there. In their manifold efforts to escape

some even turned to the sea, which was not far off, and seeing the

Athenian ships coasting alongshore just while the action was going on,

swam off to them, thinking it better in the panic they were in, to

perish, if perish they must, by the hands of the Athenians, than by

those of the barbarous and detested Amphilochians. Of the large

Ambraciot force destroyed in this manner, a few only reached the city

in safety; while the Acarnanians, after stripping the dead and setting

up a trophy, returned to Argos.

The next day arrived a herald from the Ambraciots who had fled from

Olpae to the Agraeans, to ask leave to take up the dead that had fallen

after the first engagement, when they left the camp with the Mantineans

and their companions, without, like them, having had permission to do

so. At the sight of the arms of the Ambraciots from the city, the

herald was astonished at their number, knowing nothing of the disaster

and fancying that they were those of their own party. Some one asked

him what he was so astonished at, and how many of them had been killed,

fancying in his turn that this was the herald from the troops at

Idomene. He replied: “About two hundred”; upon which his interrogator

took him up, saying: “Why, the arms you see here are of more than a

thousand.” The herald replied: “Then they are not the arms of those who

fought with us?” The other answered: “Yes, they are, if at least you

fought at Idomene yesterday.” “But we fought with no one yesterday; but

the day before in the retreat.” “However that may be, we fought

yesterday with those who came to reinforce you from the city of the

Ambraciots.” When the herald heard this and knew that the reinforcement

from the city had been destroyed, he broke into wailing and, stunned at

the magnitude of the present evils, went away at once without having

performed his errand, or again asking for the dead bodies. Indeed, this

was by far the greatest disaster that befell any one Hellenic city in

an equal number of days during this war; and I have not set down the

number of the dead, because the amount stated seems so out of

proportion to the size of the city as to be incredible. In any case I

know that if the Acarnanians and Amphilochians had wished to take

Ambracia as the Athenians and Demosthenes advised, they would have done

so without a blow; as it was, they feared that if the Athenians had it

they would be worse neighbours to them than the present.

After this the Acarnanians allotted a third of the spoils to the

Athenians, and divided the rest among their own different towns. The

share of the Athenians was captured on the voyage home; the arms now

deposited in the Attic temples are three hundred panoplies, which the

Acarnanians set apart for Demosthenes, and which he brought to Athens

in person, his return to his country after the Aetolian disaster being

rendered less hazardous by this exploit. The Athenians in the twenty

ships also went off to Naupactus. The Acarnanians and Amphilochians,

after the departure of Demosthenes and the Athenians, granted the

Ambraciots and Peloponnesians who had taken refuge with Salynthius and

the Agraeans a free retreat from Oeniadae, to which place they had

removed from the country of Salynthius, and for the future concluded

with the Ambraciots a treaty and alliance for one hundred years, upon

the terms following. It was to be a defensive, not an offensive

alliance; the Ambraciots could not be required to march with the

Acarnanians against the Peloponnesians, nor the Acarnanians with the

Ambraciots against the Athenians; for the rest the Ambraciots were to

give up the places and hostages that they held of the Amphilochians,

and not to give help to Anactorium, which was at enmity with the

Acarnanians. With this arrangement they put an end to the war. After

this the Corinthians sent a garrison of their own citizens to Ambracia,

composed of three hundred heavy infantry, under the command of

Xenocleides, son of Euthycles, who reached their destination after a

difficult journey across the continent. Such was the history of the

affair of Ambracia.

The same winter the Athenians in Sicily made a descent from their ships

upon the territory of Himera, in concert with the Sicels, who had

invaded its borders from the interior, and also sailed to the islands

of Aeolus. Upon their return to Rhegium they found the Athenian

general, Pythodorus, son of Isolochus, come to supersede Laches in the

command of the fleet. The allies in Sicily had sailed to Athens and

induced the Athenians to send out more vessels to their assistance,

pointing out that the Syracusans who already commanded their land were

making efforts to get together a navy, to avoid being any longer

excluded from the sea by a few vessels. The Athenians proceeded to man

forty ships to send to them, thinking that the war in Sicily would thus

be the sooner ended, and also wishing to exercise their navy. One of

the generals, Pythodorus, was accordingly sent out with a few ships;

Sophocles, son of Sostratides, and Eurymedon, son of Thucles, being

destined to follow with the main body. Meanwhile Pythodorus had taken

the command of Laches’ ships, and towards the end of winter sailed

against the Locrian fort, which Laches had formerly taken, and returned

after being defeated in battle by the Locrians.

In the first days of this spring, the stream of fire issued from Etna,

as on former occasions, and destroyed some land of the Catanians, who

live upon Mount Etna, which is the largest mountain in Sicily. Fifty

years, it is said, had elapsed since the last eruption, there having

been three in all since the Hellenes have inhabited Sicily. Such were

the events of this winter; and with it ended the sixth year of this

war, of which Thucydides was the historian.

BOOK IV

CHAPTER XII

Seventh Year of the War—Occupation of Pylos—Surrender of the Spartan

Army in Sphacteria

Next summer, about the time of the corn’s coming into ear, ten

Syracusan and as many Locrian vessels sailed to Messina, in Sicily, and

occupied the town upon the invitation of the inhabitants; and Messina

revolted from the Athenians. The Syracusans contrived this chiefly

because they saw that the place afforded an approach to Sicily, and

feared that the Athenians might hereafter use it as a base for

attacking them with a larger force; the Locrians because they wished to

carry on hostilities from both sides of the strait and to reduce their

enemies, the people of Rhegium. Meanwhile, the Locrians had invaded the

Rhegian territory with all their forces, to prevent their succouring

Messina, and also at the instance of some exiles from Rhegium who were

with them; the long factions by which that town had been torn rendering

it for the moment incapable of resistance, and thus furnishing an

additional temptation to the invaders. After devastating the country

the Locrian land forces retired, their ships remaining to guard

Messina, while others were being manned for the same destination to

carry on the war from thence.

About the same time in the spring, before the corn was ripe, the

Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under Agis, the son of

Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat down and laid waste the

country. Meanwhile the Athenians sent off the forty ships which they

had been preparing to Sicily, with the remaining generals Eurymedon and

Sophocles; their colleague Pythodorus having already preceded them

thither. These had also instructions as they sailed by to look to the

Corcyraeans in the town, who were being plundered by the exiles in the

mountain. To support these exiles sixty Peloponnesian vessels had

lately sailed, it being thought that the famine raging in the city

would make it easy for them to reduce it. Demosthenes also, who had

remained without employment since his return from Acarnania, applied

and obtained permission to use the fleet, if he wished it, upon the

coast of Peloponnese.

Off Laconia they heard that the Peloponnesian ships were already at

Corcyra, upon which Eurymedon and Sophocles wished to hasten to the

island, but Demosthenes required them first to touch at Pylos and do

what was wanted there, before continuing their voyage. While they were

making objections, a squall chanced to come on and carried the fleet

into Pylos. Demosthenes at once urged them to fortify the place, it

being for this that he had come on the voyage, and made them observe

there was plenty of stone and timber on the spot, and that the place

was strong by nature, and together with much of the country round

unoccupied; Pylos, or Coryphasium, as the Lacedaemonians call it, being

about forty-five miles distant from Sparta, and situated in the old

country of the Messenians. The commanders told him that there was no

lack of desert headlands in Peloponnese if he wished to put the city to

expense by occupying them. He, however, thought that this place was

distinguished from others of the kind by having a harbour close by;

while the Messenians, the old natives of the country, speaking the same

dialect as the Lacedaemonians, could do them the greatest mischief by

their incursions from it, and would at the same time be a trusty

garrison.

After speaking to the captains of companies on the subject, and failing

to persuade either the generals or the soldiers, he remained inactive

with the rest from stress of weather; until the soldiers themselves

wanting occupation were seized with a sudden impulse to go round and

fortify the place. Accordingly they set to work in earnest, and having

no iron tools, picked up stones, and put them together as they happened

to fit, and where mortar was needed, carried it on their backs for want

of hods, stooping down to make it stay on, and clasping their hands

together behind to prevent it falling off; sparing no effort to be able

to complete the most vulnerable points before the arrival of the

Lacedaemonians, most of the place being sufficiently strong by nature

without further fortifications.

Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians were celebrating a festival, and also at

first made light of the news, in the idea that whenever they chose to

take the field the place would be immediately evacuated by the enemy or

easily taken by force; the absence of their army before Athens having

also something to do with their delay. The Athenians fortified the

place on the land side, and where it most required it, in six days, and

leaving Demosthenes with five ships to garrison it, with the main body

of the fleet hastened on their voyage to Corcyra and Sicily.

As soon as the Peloponnesians in Attica heard of the occupation of

Pylos, they hurried back home; the Lacedaemonians and their king Agis

thinking that the matter touched them nearly. Besides having made their

invasion early in the season, and while the corn was still green, most

of their troops were short of provisions: the weather also was

unusually bad for the time of year, and greatly distressed their army.

Many reasons thus combined to hasten their departure and to make this

invasion a very short one; indeed they only stayed fifteen days in

Attica.

About the same time the Athenian general Simonides getting together a

few Athenians from the garrisons, and a number of the allies in those

parts, took Eion in Thrace, a Mendaean colony and hostile to Athens, by

treachery, but had no sooner done so than the Chalcidians and

Bottiaeans came up and beat him out of it, with the loss of many of his

soldiers.

On the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica, the Spartans

themselves and the nearest of the Perioeci at once set out for Pylos,

the other Lacedaemonians following more slowly, as they had just come

in from another campaign. Word was also sent round Peloponnese to come

up as quickly as possible to Pylos; while the sixty Peloponnesian ships

were sent for from Corcyra, and being dragged by their crews across the

isthmus of Leucas, passed unperceived by the Athenian squadron at

Zacynthus, and reached Pylos, where the land forces had arrived before

them. Before the Peloponnesian fleet sailed in, Demosthenes found time

to send out unobserved two ships to inform Eurymedon and the Athenians

on board the fleet at Zacynthus of the danger of Pylos and to summon

them to his assistance. While the ships hastened on their voyage in

obedience to the orders of Demosthenes, the Lacedaemonians prepared to

assault the fort by land and sea, hoping to capture with ease a work

constructed in haste, and held by a feeble garrison. Meanwhile, as they

expected the Athenian ships to arrive from Zacynthus, they intended, if

they failed to take the place before, to block up the entrances of the

harbour to prevent their being able to anchor inside it. For the island

of Sphacteria, stretching along in a line close in front of the

harbour, at once makes it safe and narrows its entrances, leaving a

passage for two ships on the side nearest Pylos and the Athenian

fortifications, and for eight or nine on that next the rest of the

mainland: for the rest, the island was entirely covered with wood, and

without paths through not being inhabited, and about one mile and five

furlongs in length. The inlets the Lacedaemonians meant to close with a

line of ships placed close together, with their prows turned towards

the sea, and, meanwhile, fearing that the enemy might make use of the

island to operate against them, carried over some heavy infantry

thither, stationing others along the coast. By this means the island

and the continent would be alike hostile to the Athenians, as they

would be unable to land on either; and the shore of Pylos itself

outside the inlet towards the open sea having no harbour, and,

therefore, presenting no point which they could use as a base to

relieve their countrymen, they, the Lacedaemonians, without sea-fight

or risk would in all probability become masters of the place, occupied

as it had been on the spur of the moment, and unfurnished with

provisions. This being determined, they carried over to the island the

heavy infantry, drafted by lot from all the companies. Some others had

crossed over before in relief parties, but these last who were left

there were four hundred and twenty in number, with their Helot

attendants, commanded by Epitadas, son of Molobrus.

Meanwhile Demosthenes, seeing the Lacedaemonians about to attack him by

sea and land at once, himself was not idle. He drew up under the

fortification and enclosed in a stockade the galleys remaining to him

of those which had been left him, arming the sailors taken out of them

with poor shields made most of them of osier, it being impossible to

procure arms in such a desert place, and even these having been

obtained from a thirty-oared Messenian privateer and a boat belonging

to some Messenians who happened to have come to them. Among these

Messenians were forty heavy infantry, whom he made use of with the

rest. Posting most of his men, unarmed and armed, upon the best

fortified and strong points of the place towards the interior, with

orders to repel any attack of the land forces, he picked sixty heavy

infantry and a few archers from his whole force, and with these went

outside the wall down to the sea, where he thought that the enemy would

most likely attempt to land. Although the ground was difficult and

rocky, looking towards the open sea, the fact that this was the weakest

part of the wall would, he thought, encourage their ardour, as the

Athenians, confident in their naval superiority, had here paid little

attention to their defences, and the enemy if he could force a landing

might feel secure of taking the place. At this point, accordingly,

going down to the water’s edge, he posted his heavy infantry to

prevent, if possible, a landing, and encouraged them in the following

terms:

“Soldiers and comrades in this adventure, I hope that none of you in

our present strait will think to show his wit by exactly calculating

all the perils that encompass us, but that you will rather hasten to

close with the enemy, without staying to count the odds, seeing in this

your best chance of safety. In emergencies like ours calculation is out

of place; the sooner the danger is faced the better. To my mind also

most of the chances are for us, if we will only stand fast and not

throw away our advantages, overawed by the numbers of the enemy. One of

the points in our favour is the awkwardness of the landing. This,

however, only helps us if we stand our ground. If we give way it will

be practicable enough, in spite of its natural difficulty, without a

defender; and the enemy will instantly become more formidable from the

difficulty he will have in retreating, supposing that we succeed in

repulsing him, which we shall find it easier to do, while he is on

board his ships, than after he has landed and meets us on equal terms.

As to his numbers, these need not too much alarm you. Large as they may

be he can only engage in small detachments, from the impossibility of

bringing to. Besides, the numerical superiority that we have to meet is

not that of an army on land with everything else equal, but of troops

on board ship, upon an element where many favourable accidents are

required to act with effect. I therefore consider that his difficulties

may be fairly set against our numerical deficiencies, and at the same

time I charge you, as Athenians who know by experience what landing

from ships on a hostile territory means, and how impossible it is to

drive back an enemy determined enough to stand his ground and not to be

frightened away by the surf and the terrors of the ships sailing in, to

stand fast in the present emergency, beat back the enemy at the water’s

edge, and save yourselves and the place.”

Thus encouraged by Demosthenes, the Athenians felt more confident, and

went down to meet the enemy, posting themselves along the edge of the

sea. The Lacedaemonians now put themselves in movement and

simultaneously assaulted the fortification with their land forces and

with their ships, forty-three in number, under their admiral,

Thrasymelidas, son of Cratesicles, a Spartan, who made his attack just

where Demosthenes expected. The Athenians had thus to defend themselves

on both sides, from the land and from the sea; the enemy rowing up in

small detachments, the one relieving the other—it being impossible for

many to bring to at once—and showing great ardour and cheering each

other on, in the endeavour to force a passage and to take the

fortification. He who most distinguished himself was Brasidas. Captain

of a galley, and seeing that the captains and steersmen, impressed by

the difficulty of the position, hung back even where a landing might

have seemed possible, for fear of wrecking their vessels, he shouted

out to them, that they must never allow the enemy to fortify himself in

their country for the sake of saving timber, but must shiver their

vessels and force a landing; and bade the allies, instead of hesitating

in such a moment to sacrifice their ships for Lacedaemon in return for

her many benefits, to run them boldly aground, land in one way or

another, and make themselves masters of the place and its garrison.

Not content with this exhortation, he forced his own steersman to run

his ship ashore, and stepping on to the gangway, was endeavouring to

land, when he was cut down by the Athenians, and after receiving many

wounds fainted away. Falling into the bows, his shield slipped off his

arm into the sea, and being thrown ashore was picked up by the

Athenians, and afterwards used for the trophy which they set up for

this attack. The rest also did their best, but were not able to land,

owing to the difficulty of the ground and the unflinching tenacity of

the Athenians. It was a strange reversal of the order of things for

Athenians to be fighting from the land, and from Laconian land too,

against Lacedaemonians coming from the sea; while Lacedaemonians were

trying to land from shipboard in their own country, now become hostile,

to attack Athenians, although the former were chiefly famous at the

time as an inland people and superior by land, the latter as a maritime

people with a navy that had no equal.

After continuing their attacks during that day and most of the next,

the Peloponnesians desisted, and the day after sent some of their ships

to Asine for timber to make engines, hoping to take by their aid, in

spite of its height, the wall opposite the harbour, where the landing

was easiest. At this moment the Athenian fleet from Zacynthus arrived,

now numbering fifty sail, having been reinforced by some of the ships

on guard at Naupactus and by four Chian vessels. Seeing the coast and

the island both crowded with heavy infantry, and the hostile ships in

harbour showing no signs of sailing out, at a loss where to anchor,

they sailed for the moment to the desert island of Prote, not far off,

where they passed the night. The next day they got under way in

readiness to engage in the open sea if the enemy chose to put out to

meet them, being determined in the event of his not doing so to sail in

and attack him. The Lacedaemonians did not put out to sea, and having

omitted to close the inlets as they had intended, remained quiet on

shore, engaged in manning their ships and getting ready, in the case of

any one sailing in, to fight in the harbour, which is a fairly large

one.