The next summer, just as the corn was getting ripe, the Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under the command of Archidamus son of Zeuxidamus, king of Sparta, [2] and ravaged the land; the Athenian horse as usual attacking them wherever it was practicable and preventing the mass of the light troops from advancing from their camp and wasting the parts near the city. [3] After staying the time for which they had taken provisions, the invaders retired and dispersed to their several cities.
3.1
428
4th Year/Summer
ATTICA
The Peloponnesians invade Attica again.
Immediately after the invasion of the Peloponnesians all Lesbos, except Methymna, revolted from the Athenians. The Lesbians had wished to revolt even before the war, but the Spartans would not receive them; and yet now when they did revolt, they were compelled to do so sooner than they had intended. [2] While they were waiting until the moles for their harbors and the ships and walls that they were building should be finished, and for the arrival of archers and grain and other things that they were engaged in bringing from the Pontus, [3] the Tenedians, with whom they were at enmity, and the Methymnians, and some dissident persons in Mytilene itself, who were proxeni of Athens, informed the Athenians that the Mytilenians were forcibly uniting the island under their sovereignty, and that the preparations about which they were so active were all concerted with their kindred the Boeotians, and with the Spartans, with a view to a revolt, and that unless they were immediately prevented, Athens would lose Lesbos.
3.2
428
4th Year/Summer
LESBOS
Lesbos revolts from Athens.
However, the Athenians, distressed by the plague, and by the war that had recently broken out and was now raging, thought it a serious matter to add Lesbos with its fleet and untouched resources to the list of their enemies; and at first would not believe the charge, giving too much weight to their wish that it might not be true. But when an embassy which they sent had failed to persuade the Mytilenians to give up the union and the preparations complained of, they became alarmed, and resolved to strike the first blow. [2] Accordingly, they suddenly sent off forty ships that had been made ready to sail round the Peloponnesus, under the command of Cleippides son of Deinias, and two others; [3] word having been brought to them of a festival in honor of the Malean Apollo outside the city, which is celebrated by the whole people of Mytilene, and at which, if haste were made, they might hope to take them by surprise. If this plan succeeded, well and good; if not, they were to order the Mytilenians to deliver up their ships and to pull down their walls, and if they did not obey, to declare war. [4] The ships accordingly set out; the ten Mytilenian triremes present with the fleet according to the terms of the alliance, were detained by the Athenians and their crews placed in custody. [5] However, the Mytilenians were informed of the expedition by a man who crossed from Athens to Euboea, and going overland to Geraestus, sailed from thence by a merchant vessel which he found on the point of putting to sea, and so arrived at Mytilene the third day after leaving Athens. The Mytilenians accordingly refrained from going out to the temple at Malea, and moreover barricaded and kept guard round the half-finished parts of their walls and harbors.
3.3
428
4th Year/Summer
MYTILENE
When negotiations fail, Athens sends a fleet to Mytilene.
When the Athenians sailed in not long after and saw how things stood, the generals delivered their orders, and upon the Mytilenians refusing to obey, commenced hostilities. [2] The Mytilenians, thus compelled to go to war without notice and unprepared, at first sailed out with their fleet and made some show of fighting a little in front of the harbor; but being driven back by the Athenian ships, immediately offered to parley with the commanders, wishing, if possible, to get the ships away for the present upon any tolerable terms. [3] The Athenian commanders accepted their offers, being themselves fearful that they might not be able to cope with the whole of Lesbos; [4] and an armistice having been concluded, the Mytilenians sent to Athens one of the informers, already repentant of his conduct, and others with him, to try to persuade the Athenians of the innocence of their intentions and to get the fleet recalled. [5] In the meantime, having no great hope of a favorable answer from Athens, they also sent off a trireme with envoys to Sparta, unobserved by the Athenian fleet which was anchored at Malea to the north of the city.
3.4
428
4th Year/Summer
MYTILENE
During an armistice Mytilene sends a secret embassy to Sparta.
[6] While these envoys, having reached Sparta after a difficult journey across the open sea, were negotiating for assistance to be sent them, [3.5.1] the ambassadors from Athens returned without having effected anything; and hostilities were at once renewed by the Mytilenians and the rest of Lesbos, with the exception of the Methymnians, who came to the aid of the Athenians with the Imbrians and Lemnians and some few of the other allies. [2] The Mytilenians made a sortie with all their forces against the Athenian camp; and a battle ensued, in which they gained some slight advantage, but retired notwithstanding, not feeling sufficient confidence in themselves to spend the night upon the field. After this they kept quiet, wishing to wait for the chance of reinforcements arriving from the Peloponnesus before making a second venture; being encouraged by the arrival of Meleas, a Laconian, and Hermaeondas, a Theban, who had been sent off before the insurrection but had been unable to reach Lesbos before the Athenian expedition, and who now stole in in a trireme after the battle, and advised them to send another trireme and envoys back with them, which the Mytilenians accordingly did.
3.5
428
4th Year/Summer
MYTILENE
Hostilities resume. Mytilene sends
more envoys to Sparta.
Meanwhile the Athenians, greatly encouraged by the inaction of the Mytilenians, summoned allies to their aid, who came in all the quicker from seeing so little vigor displayed by the Lesbians, and bringing round their ships to a new station to the south of the city, fortified two camps, one on each side of the city, and instituted a blockade of both the harbors. [2] The sea was thus closed against the Mytilenians, who however commanded the whole country, with the rest of the Lesbians who had now joined them; the Athenians only holding a limited area round their camps, and using Malea more as the station for their ships and their market.
3.6
428
4th Year/Summer
MYTILENE
Athens blockades Mytilene by sea.
While the war went on in this way at Mytilene, the Athenians, about the same time in this summer, also sent thirty ships to the Peloponnesus under Asopius son of Phormio; the Acarnanians insisting that the commander sent should be some son or relative of Phormio. [2] As the ships coasted along shore they ravaged the seaboard of Laconia; [3] after which Asopius sent most of the fleet home and himself went on with twelve vessels to Naupactus. Later, raising the whole Acarnanian population, he made an expedition against Oeniadae, the fleet sailing along the Achelous, while the army laid waste the country. [4] When the inhabitants, however, showed no signs of submitting, he dismissed the land forces and himself sailed to Leucas where, making a descent upon Nericus, he was cut off during his retreat, and most of his troops with him, by the people in those parts aided by some coast guards; [5] after which the Athenians sailed away, recovering their dead from the Leucadians under truce.
3.7
428
4th Year/Summer
PELOPONNESUS
Asopius leads an Athenian fleet around Peloponnesus.
MAP 3.7 MYTILENIAN REVOLT; EXPEDITION OF ASOPIUS
Meanwhile the envoys of the Mytilenians sent out in the first ship were told by the Spartans to come to Olympia, in order that the rest of the allies might hear them and decide upon their matter, and so they journeyed thither. It was the Olympiad in which the Rhodian Dorieus gained his second victory, [2] and the envoys having been introduced to make their speech after the festival, spoke as follows:
3.8
428
4th Year/Summer
OLYMPIA
Mytilenian envoys travel to Olympia.
3.9
428
4th Year/Summer
OLYMPIA
The Mytilenians argue that their revolt is not dishonorable.
3.10
428
4th Year/Summer
OLYMPIA
The Mytilenians say they ceased to trust Athens when her allies were enslaved.
“Spartans and allies, the rule established among the Hellenes is not unknown to us. Those who revolt during a war and forsake their former confederacy are favorably regarded by those who receive them, insofar as they are of use to them, but otherwise are thought less well of, through being considered traitors to their former friends. [2] Nor is this an unfair way of judging, where the rebels and the power from whom they secede are at one in policy and sympathy, and a match for each other in resources and power, and where no reasonable ground exists for the rebellion. But with us and the Athenians this was not the case; [3] and no one need think the worse of us for revolting from them in danger, after having been honored by them in time of peace.”
“Justice and honesty will be the first topics of our speech, especially as we are asking for alliance; because we know that there can never be any solid friendship between individuals, or union between communities that is worth the name, unless the parties be persuaded of each other’s honesty, and be generally congenial the one to the other; since from difference in feeling springs also difference in conduct. [2] The alliance between ourselves and the Athenians began when you withdrew from the war against the Persians and they remained to finish the business. [3] But we did not become allies of the Athenians for the subjugation of the Hellenes, but allies of the Hellenes for their liberation from the Mede; [4] and as long as the Athenians led us fairly we followed them loyally; but when we saw them relax their hostility to the Mede, and try to make the allies their subjects, then our apprehensions began. [5] Unable, however, to unite and defend themselves, on account of the number of confederates that had votes, all the allies were enslaved, except ourselves and the Chians, who continued to send our contingents as independent and nominally free. [6] Given these examples, we could no longer trust Athens as a leader, however, as it seemed unlikely that she would subject our fellow confederates and not do the same to us who were left, if ever she had the power.”
“Had we all been still independent, we could have had more faith in their not attempting any change; but the greater number being their subjects, while they were treating us as equals, they would naturally chafe under this solitary instance of independence as contrasted with the submission of the majority; particularly as they daily grew more powerful, and we more destitute. [2] Now the only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the other: he who would like to encroach is then deterred by the reflection that he will not have odds in his favor. [3] Again, if we were left independent, it was only because they thought they saw their way to empire more clearly by specious language and by the paths of policy than by those of force. [4] Not only were we useful as evidence that powers who had votes like themselves would not, surely, join them in their expeditions, against their will, without the party attacked being in the wrong; but the same system also enabled them to lead the stronger states against the weaker first, and so to leave the former to the last, stripped of their natural allies, and less capable of resistance. [5] But if they had begun with us, while all the states still had their resources under their own control and there was a center to rally round, the work of subjugation would have been found less easy. [6] Besides this, our navy gave them some apprehension: it was always possible that it might unite with you or with some other power, and become dangerous to Athens. [7] The respect which we paid to their community and its leaders for the time being also helped us to maintain our independence. [8] However, we did not expect to be able to do so much longer, if this war had not broken out, from the examples that we had of their conduct to the rest.”
“How then could we put our trust in such friendship or freedom as we had here? We accepted each other against our inclination; fear made them court us in war, and us them in peace; sympathy, the ordinary basis of confidence, had its place supplied by terror, fear having more share than friendship in detaining us in the alliance; and the first party that should be encouraged by the hope of impunity was certain to break faith with the other. [2] So to condemn us for being the first to break off, because they delay the blow that we dread, instead of ourselves delaying to know for certain whether it will be dealt or not, is to take a false view of the case. [3] For if we were equally able with them to meet their plots and imitate their delay, we should be their equals and should be under no necessity of being their subjects; but the liberty of offense being always theirs, that of defense ought clearly to be ours.”
3.11
428
4th Year/Summer
OLYMPIA
The Mytilenians say that their independence was a sham.
3.12
428
4th Year/Summer
OLYMPIA
The Mytilenians assert that their attempt to break such a relationship should not be condemned.
“Such, Spartans and allies, are the grounds and the reasons of our revolt; clear enough to convince our hearers of the fairness of our conduct, and sufficient to alarm ourselves and to make us turn to some means of safety. This we wished to do long ago, when we sent to you on the subject while the peace yet lasted, but were prevented by your refusing to receive us; and now, upon the Boeotians inviting us, we at once responded to the call, and decided upon a twofold revolt, from the Hellenes and from the Athenians, not to aid the latter in harming the former, but to join in their liberation, and not to allow the Athenians in the end to destroy us, but to act in time against them. [2] Our revolt, however has taken place prematurely and without preparation—a fact which makes it all the more incumbent on you to receive us into alliance and to send us speedy relief, in order to show that you support your friends, and at the same time do harm to your enemies. [3] You have an opportunity such as you never had before. Disease and expenditure have wasted the Athenians: their ships are either cruising round your coasts, or engaged in blockading us; [4] and it is not probable that they will have any to spare, if you invade them a second time this summer by sea and land. Either they will offer no resistance to your vessels, or withdraw from both our shores. [5] Nor must it be thought that this is a case of putting yourselves into danger for a country which is not yours. Lesbos may appear far off, but when help is wanted she will be found near enough. It is not in Attica that the war will be decided, as some imagine, but in the countries by which Attica is supported; [6] and the Athenian revenue is drawn from the allies, and will become still larger if they reduce us; as not only will no other state revolt, but our resources will be added to theirs, and we shall be treated worse than those that were enslaved before. [7] But if you will frankly support us, you will add to your side a state that has a large navy, which is your great want; you will smooth the way to the overthrow of the Athenians by depriving them of their allies, who will be greatly encouraged to come over; and you will free yourselves from the accusation made against you of not supporting insurrection. In short, only show yourselves as liberators, and you may count upon having the advantage in the war.”
“Respect, therefore, both the hopes placed in you by the Hellenes, and Olympian Zeus in whose temple we stand virtually as suppliants; become the allies and defenders of the Mytilenians, and do not sacrifice us, who put our lives in jeopardy for a cause in which general good will result to all from our success, and still more general harm if we fail through your refusing to help us. [2] Be the men that the Hellenes think you, and that our fears desire.”
3.13
428
4th Year/Summer
OLYMPIA
The Mytilenians ask Sparta to receive them as allies, to exploit Athenian weaknesses, and to show themselves as true liberators.
3.14
428
4th Year/Summer
OLYMPIA The Mytilenians conclude with an appeal for help.
Such were the words of the Mytilenians. After hearing them out, the Spartans and their allies granted what they urged, took the Lesbians into alliance, and deciding in favor of the invasion of Attica, told the allies present to march as quickly as possible to the Isthmus with two-thirds of their forces. Arriving there first themselves, they prepared hauling machines to carry their ships across from Corinth to the sea on the side of Athens, in order to make their attack by sea and land at once. [2] However, the zeal which they displayed was not imitated by the rest of the allies, who came in but slowly, being both engaged in harvesting their grain and sick of making expeditions.
3.15
428
4th Year/Summer
PELOPONNESUS Sparta accepts Lesbos as an ally and prepares to invade Attica.
Meanwhile the Athenians, who were aware that the preparations of the enemy were due to his conviction of their weakness, wished to show him that he was mistaken, and that they were able, without moving their fleet off Lesbos, to repel with ease the one with which they were menaced from the Peloponnesus. They therefore manned a hundred ships by embarking the citizens of Athens, except the knights and pentecosiomedimni, and the resident aliens; and putting out to the Isthmus, displayed their power and made descents upon the Peloponnesus wherever they pleased. [2] So unexpected was this response that it made the Spartans think that the Lesbians had not spoken the truth; and embarrassed by the nonappearance of the allies, coupled with the news that the thirty ships round the Peloponnesus were ravaging the lands near Sparta, they went back home. [3] Afterwards, however, they prepared a fleet to send to Lesbos, and ordering a total of forty ships from the different cities in the League, appointed Aladas to command the expedition in his capacity of admiral. [4] Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred ships, upon seeing the Spartans go home, went home likewise.
3.16
428
4th Year/Summer
ATHENS Athens deploys one hundred triremes to counter the Spartan forty.
If at the time that this fleet was at sea Athens had almost the largest number of first-rate ships in commission that she ever possessed at any one moment, she had as many or even more when the war began. [2] At that time one hundred guarded Attica, Euboea, and Salamis; a hundred more were cruising round the Peloponnesus, besides those employed at Potidaea and in other places; making a grand total of two hundred and fifty vessels employed on active service in a single summer. [3] It was this, with Potidaea, that most exhausted her revenues—[4] Potidaea being blockaded by a force of hoplites (each drawing two drachmas a day, one for himself and another for his servant), which amounted to three thousand at first, and was kept at this number down to the end of the siege; besides sixteen hundred with Phormio who went away before it was over; and the ships being all paid at the same rate. In this way her money was wasted at first; and this was the largest number of ships ever manned by her.
3.17
428
4th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Athens has 250 triremes at sea, her largest naval deployment during the entire war.
About the same time that the Spartans were at the Isthmus, the Mytilenians marched by land with their mercenaries against Methymna, which they thought to gain by treachery. After assaulting the city, and not meeting with the success that they anticipated, they withdrew to Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus; and taking measures for the better security of these cities and strengthening their walls, hastily returned home. [2] After their departure the Methymnians marched against Antissa, but were defeated in a sortie by the Antissans and their mercenaries, and retreated in haste after losing many of their number. [3] When word of this reached Athens, and the Athenians learned that the Mytilenians were masters of the country and that their own soldiers were unable to hold them in check, they sent out, at about the beginning of autumn, Paches son of Epicurus, to take command, with a thousand Athenian hoplites [4] who worked their own passage and who, upon arriving at Mytilene, built a single wall around it with forts at some of the strongest points. [5] Mytilene was thus blockaded strictly on both sides, by land and by sea; and winter now drew near.
3.18
428
4th Year/Summer
LESBOS The Athenians blockade Mytilene by land.
Although they had for the first time raised a war tax of two hundred talents from their own citizens, the Athenians still needed money for the siege, and sent out twelve ships, under the command of Lysicles and four others, to collect money from their allies. [2] After cruising to different places and laying them under contribution, Lysicles went up the country from Myos, in Caria, across the plain of the Meander as far as the hill of Sandius, and being attacked by the Carians and the people of Anaia, was slain with many of his soldiers.
3.19
428/7
4th Year/Winter
ATHENS-CARIA Athens raises money for the siege.
The same winter the Plataeans, who were still being besieged by the Peloponnesians and Boeotians, distressed by the failure of their provisions, and seeing no hope of relief from Athens, nor any other means of safety, formed a scheme with the Athenians besieged with them for escaping, if possible, by forcing their way over the enemy’s walls. This attempt was suggested by Theaenetus son of Tolmides, a soothsayer, and Eupompides son of Daimachus, one of their generals. At first all were to join; [2] afterwards, half hung back, thinking the risk too great. About two hundred and twenty, however, voluntarily persevered in the attempt, which was carried out in the following way. [3] Ladders were made to match the height of the enemy’s wall, which they measured by the layers of bricks, the side turned toward them not being thoroughly whitewashed. These were counted by many persons at once; and though some might miss the right calculation, most would hit upon it, particularly as they counted over and over again, and were no great way from the wall, but could see it easily enough for their purpose. [4] The length required for the ladders was thus obtained, being calculated from the breadth of the brick.
3.20
428/7
4th Year/Winter
PLATAEA The Plataeans decide to break out.
Now the wall of the Peloponnesians was constructed as follows: it consisted of two lines drawn round the place about sixteen feet apart, one against the Plataeans, the other against any attack on the outside from Athens. [2] The intermediate space was occupied by huts portioned out among the soldiers on guard, and built in one block, so as to give the appearance of a single thick wall with battlements on either side. [3] At intervals of every ten battlements were towers of considerable size, and the same breadth as the wall, reaching right across from its inner to its outer face, with no means of passing except through the middle. [4] Accordingly on stormy and wet nights the battlements were deserted and guard was kept from the towers, which were not far apart and roofed in above.
3.21
428/7
4th Year/Winter
PLATAEA
The Peloponnesian circumvallation works are described.
Such was the structure of the wall by which the Plataeans were blockaded.
When their preparations were completed, they waited for a stormy night of wind and rain without any moon and then set out, guided by the authors of the enterprise. Crossing first the ditch that ran round the city, they next reached the wall of the enemy unperceived by the sentinels, who did not see them in the darkness, or hear them, as the wind drowned with its roar the noise of their approach; [2] besides, they kept a good way off from each other so that they might not be betrayed by the clash of their weapons. They were also lightly equipped, and had only the left foot shod to preserve them from slipping in the mire. [3] They came up to the battlements at one of the intermediate spaces which they knew to be unguarded. Those who carried the ladders went first and planted them; next twelve light-armed soldiers with only a dagger and a breastplate mounted, led by Ammias son of Coroebus (who was the first on the wall), his followers getting up after him and going six to each of the towers. After these came another party of light troops armed with spears whose shields, that they might advance the easier, were carried by men behind, who were to hand them to them when they found themselves in presence of the enemy. [4] After a good many had mounted they were discovered by the sentinels in the towers, by the noise made by a tile knocked down by one of the Plataeans as he was laying hold of the battlements. [5] The alarm was instantly given, and the troops rushed to the wall, not knowing the nature of the danger, owing to the dark night and stormy weather. The Plataeans in the city also chose that moment to make a sortie against the wall of the Peloponnesians upon the side opposite to that on which their men were getting over, in order to divert the attention of the besiegers. [6] Accordingly they remained distracted at their several posts, without any venturing to stir to give help from his own station, and at a loss to guess what was going on. [7] Meanwhile the three hundred set aside for service on emergencies went outside the wall in the direction of the alarm. Fire-signals of an attack were also raised toward Thebes; [8] but the Plataeans in the city at once displayed a number of others, prepared beforehand for this very purpose, in order to render the enemy’s signals unintelligible, and to prevent his friends from getting a true idea of what was happening and coming to his aid before their comrades who had gone out should have made good their escape and be in safety.
3.22
428/7
4th Year/Winter
PLATAEA
The breakout begins.
Meanwhile the first of the scaling-party that had got up, after carrying both the towers and putting the sentinels to the sword, posted themselves inside to prevent anyone coming through against them; and rearing ladders from the wall, sent several men up on the towers, and from their summit and base kept in check all of the enemy that came up, with their missiles, while their main body planted a number of ladders against the wall, and knocking down the battlements, passed over between the towers. [2] Each as soon as he had got over took up his station at the edge of the ditch, shooting arrows and throwing darts at any who came along the wall to stop the passage of his comrades. [3] When all were over, the party on the towers came down, the last of them not without difficulty, and proceeded to the ditch, just as the three hundred came up carrying torches. [4] The Plataeans, standing on the edge of the ditch in the dark, had a good view of their opponents and discharged their arrows and darts upon the unarmed parts of their bodies, while they themselves could not be so well seen in the obscurity for the torches; and thus even the last of them got over the ditch, though not without effort and difficulty; [5] as ice had formed in it, not strong enough to walk upon, but of that watery kind which generally comes with a wind more east than north, and the snow which this wind had caused to fall during the night, had made the water in the ditch rise, so that they could scarcely breast it as they crossed. However, it was mainly the violence of the storm that enabled them to escape at all.
3.23
428/7
4th Year/Winter
PLATAEA
The Plataeans cross over the wall and ditch.
MAP 3.24 PLATAEAN ESCAPE
Starting from the ditch, the Plataeans went all together along the road leading to Thebes, keeping the chapel of the hero Androcrates upon their right, considering that the last road which the Peloponnesians would suspect them of having taken would be that toward their enemies’ country. Indeed they could see them pursuing with torches upon the Athens road toward Cithaeron and Druoskephalai, or Oakheads. [2] After going for rather more than half a mile upon the road to Thebes, the Plataeans turned off and took that leading to the mountain, to Erythrae and Hysiae, and reaching the hills, made good their escape to Athens, two hundred and twelve men in all; some of their number having turned back into the outer ditch. [3] Meanwhile the Peloponnesians gave up the pursuit and returned to their posts; and the Plataeans in the city, knowing nothing of what had passed, and informed by those who had turned back that not a man had escaped, sent out a herald as soon as it was day to make a truce for the recovery of the dead bodies. Then, learning the truth, they desisted. In this way the Plataean party broke out and were saved.
3.24
428/7
4th Year/Winter
PLATAEA
The Plataeans evade pursuit and escape to Athens.
Toward the close of the same winter, Salaethus, a Spartan, was sent out in a trireme from Sparta to Mytilene. Going by sea to Pyrrha, and from thence overland, he passed along the bed of a torrent, where the line of circumvallation was penetrable, and thus entered unperceived into Mytilene. He told the magistrates that Attica would certainly be invaded, that the forty ships destined to relieve them would arrive, and that he had been sent on to announce this and to superintend matters generally. [2] The My tile nians upon this took courage, and laid aside the idea of negotiating with the Athenians; and now this winter ended, and with it ended the fourth year of the war of which Thucydides was the historian.
3.25
428/7
4th Year/Winter
MYTILENE
The Spartan Salaethus arrives in Mytilene.
The next summer the Peloponnesians sent off the forty-two ships for Mytilene, under Alcidas, the admiral, and themselves and their allies invaded Attica, their object being to distract the Athenians by a double movement, and thus to make it less easy for them to act against the fleet sailing to Mytilene. [2] The commander in this invasion was Cleomenes, in the place of King Pausanias son of Pleistoanax, his nephew, who was still a minor. [3] Not content with laying waste whatever had grown up in the parts which they had before devastated, the invaders now extended their ravages to lands passed over in their previous incursions; so that this invasion was more severely felt by the Athenians than any except the second. [4] The enemy stayed on until they had overrun most of the country, in the expectation of hearing from Lesbos of something having been achieved by their fleet, which they thought must by now have got over. However, as none of their expectations were realized, and their provisions began to run short, they retreated and dispersed to their different cities.
3.26
427
5th Year/Summer
ATTICA-AEGEAN
The Peloponnesians invade Attica and send a fleet to Mytilene.
In the meantime the Mytilenians, finding their provisions failing, while the fleet from the Peloponnesus was loitering on the way instead of appearing at Mytilene, were compelled to come to terms with the Athenians in the following manner. [2] Salaethus, having himself ceased to expect the fleet to arrive, now armed The People with heavy armor, which they had not before possessed, with the intention of making a sortie against the Athenians. [3] The People, however, no sooner found themselves in possession of arms than they refused any longer to obey their officers and, meeting in groups, told the authorities to bring the grain reserve out in public and divide it amongst them all, or they would themselves come to terms with the Athenians and deliver up the city.
3.27
427
5th Year/Summer
MYTILENE
After Salaethus arms the Mytilenean commoners, they revolt.
Those in power, aware of their inability to prevent this, and of the danger they would be in if left out of the capitulation, publicly agreed with Paches and the army to surrender Mytilene unconditionally and to admit the troops into the city upon the understanding that the Mytilenians should be allowed to send an embassy to Athens to plead their cause, and that Paches should not imprison, make slaves of, or put to death any of the citizens until its return. [2] Such were the terms of the capitulation; in spite of which the chief authors of the negotiation with Sparta were so completely overcome by terror when the army entered, that they went and seated themselves by the altars, from which they were raised up by Paches under promise that he would do them no wrong, and lodged by him in Tenedos, until he should learn the pleasure of the Athenians concerning them. [3] Paches also sent some triremes and seized Antissa, and took such other military measures as he thought advisable.
3.28
427
5th Year/Summer
MYTILENE
Mytilene surrenders to Athens.
Meanwhile, the Peloponnesians in the forty ships, who ought to have made all haste to relieve Mytilene, lost time in coming round the Peloponnesus itself, and proceeding leisurely on the remainder of the voyage, made Delos without having been seen by the Athenians at Athens, and from thence arriving at Icarus and Myconus, there first heard of the fall of Mytilene. [2] Wishing to know the truth, they put into Embatum, in the territory of Erythrae, about seven days after the capture of the city. Here they learned the truth, and began to consider what they were to do; and Teutiaplus, an Elean, addressed them as follows:
3.29
427
5th Year/Summer
ERYTHRAE
The Spartan fleet crosses the Aegean to Asia.
“Alcidas and Peloponnesians who share with me the command of this armament, my advice is to sail just as we are to Mytilene, before we have been heard of. [2] We may expect to find the Athenians as much on their guard as men generally are who have just taken a city: this will certainly be so by sea, where they have no idea of any enemy attacking them, and where our strength, as it happens, mainly lies; while even their land forces are probably scattered about the houses in the carelessness of victory. [3] If therefore we were to fall upon them suddenly and in the night, I have hopes, with the help of the well-wishers that we may have left inside the city, that we shall become masters of the place. [4] Let us not shrink from the risk, but let us remember that this is just the occasion for one of the baseless panics common in war; and that to be able to guard against these in one’s own case, and to detect the moment when an attack will find an enemy at this disadvantage, is what makes a successful general.”
3.30
427
5th Year/Summer
ERYTHRAE
Alcidas rejects a proposal to surprise the Athenians at Mytilene.
MAP 3.29 ALGIDAS IN IONIA
These words of Teutiaplus failing to move Aladas, some of the Ionian exiles and the Lesbians with the expedition began to urge him, since this seemed too dangerous, to seize one of the Ionian cities or the Aeolic city of Cyme, to use as a base for effecting the revolt of Ionia. This was by no means a hopeless enterprise, as their coming was welcome everywhere; their object would be by this move to deprive Athens of her chief source of revenue, and at the same time to saddle her with expense, if she chose to blockade them; and they would probably induce Pissuthnes to join them in the war. [2] However, Aladas gave this proposal as bad a reception as the other, being eager, since he had come too late for Mytilene, to find himself back in the Peloponnesus as soon as possible.
3.31
427
5th Year/Summer
ERYTHRAE
Alcidas also rejects a proposal to foment revolt against Athens in Ionia.
Accordingly he put out from Embatum and proceeded along shore; and touching at the Teian city, Myonnesus, there butchered most of the prisoners that he had taken on his passage. [2] Upon his coming to anchor at Ephesus, envoys came to him from the Samians at Anaia, and told him that he was not going the right way to free Hellas in massacring men who had never raised a hand against him, and who were not enemies of his, but allies of Athens against their will, and that if he did not stop he would turn many more friends into enemies than enemies into friends. [3] Alcidas agreed to this, and let go all the Chians still in his hands and some of the others that he had taken, since the inhabitants, rather than fleeing, came up to him because they assumed his vessels were Athenian, and had no sort of expectation that Peloponnesian ships would venture over to Ionia while the Athenians commanded the sea.
3.32
427
5th Year/Summer
AEGEAN
Before fleeing, Alcidas executes many prisoners. He is finally persuaded to release the rest.
From Ephesus Alcidas set sail in haste and fled. He had been seen while still at anchor off Clarus by the Athenian triremes the Salaminia and the Paralus, which happened to be sailing from Athens, and fearing pursuit he now made across the open sea, fully determined to touch nowhere, if he could help it, until he got to the Peloponnesus. [2] Meanwhile news of him had come in to Paches from the territory of Erythrae and indeed from all quarters. As Ionia was unfortified, great fears were felt that the Peloponnesians coasting along shore, even if they did not intend to stay, might make descents in passing and plunder the cities; and now the triremes Salaminia and the Paralus, having seen him at Clarus, themselves brought intelligence of the fact. [3] Paches accordingly gave hot chase, and continued the pursuit as far as the isle of Patmos, and then finding that Alcidas had got on too far to be overtaken, came back again. Meanwhile he thought it fortunate that, as he had not fallen in with them out at sea, he had not overtaken them anywhere where they would have been forced to encamp, and so give him the trouble of blockading them.
3.33
427
5th Year/Summer
AEGEAN
Paches pursues Alacidas’ fleet but fails to catch it.
On his return along shore Paches touched, among other places, at Notium, the port of Colophon, where the Colophonians had settled after the capture of the upper city by Itamenes and the barbarians, who had been called in by certain individuals in a party quarrel. The capture of the city took place about the time of the second Peloponnesian invasion of Attica. [2] However, the refugees, after settling at Notium, again split up into factions, one of which called in Arcadian and barbarian mercenaries from Pissuthnes, and entrenching these in a quarter apart, formed a new community with the Median party of the Colophonians who joined them from the upper city. Their opponents had retired into exile, and now called in Paches, [3] who invited Hippias, the commander of the Arcadians in the fortified quarter, to a parley, upon condition that, if they could not agree, he was to be put back safe and sound in the fortification. However, upon his coming out to him, Paches put him into custody, though not in chains, and attacked suddenly and took by surprise the fortification, and putting the Arcadians and the barbarians found in it to the sword, afterwards took Hippias into it as he had promised, and, as soon as he was inside, seized him and slaughtered him. [4] Paches then gave up Notium to the Colophonians not of the Medizing party; and settlers were afterwards sent out from Athens, and the place colonized according to Athenian laws, after collecting all the Colophonians found in any of the cities.
3.34
427
5th Year/Summer
NOTIUM
Paches tricks Hippias and captures Notium.
Arrived at Mytilene, Paches reduced Pyrrha and Eresus; and finding the Spartan, Salaethus, in hiding in the city, sent him off to Athens, together with the Mytilenians that he had placed in Tenedos, and any other persons that he thought concerned in the revolt. [2] He also sent back the greater part of his forces, remaining with the rest to settle Mytilene and the rest of Lesbos as he thought best.
3.35
427
5th Year/Summer
MYTILENE
Paches reconquers Lesbos.
Upon the arrival of the prisoners with Salaethus, the Athenians at once put the latter to death, although he offered, among other things, to procure the withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from Plataea, which was still under siege; [2] and after deliberating as to what they should do with the former, in the fury of the moment determined to put to death not only the prisoners at Athens, but the whole adult male population of Mytilene, and to make slaves of the women and children. It was noted that Mytilene had revolted without being, in the same way as the rest, subjected to the empire; and what above all swelled the wrath of the Athenians was the fact of the Peloponnesian fleet having ventured over to Ionia to her support, a fact which was held to argue a long-meditated rebellion. [3] They accordingly sent a trireme to communicate the decree to Paches, commanding him to lose no time in despatching the Mytilenians. [4] The morrow brought repentance with it and reflection on the horrid cruelty of a decree which condemned a whole city to the fate merited only by the guilty. [5] This was no sooner perceived by the Mytilenian ambassadors at Athens and their Athenian supporters than they moved the authorities to put the question again to the vote; which they the more easily consented to do, as they themselves plainly saw that most of the citizens wished someone to give them an opportunity for reconsidering the matter. [6] An assembly was therefore at once called, and after much expression of opinion upon both sides, Cleon son of Cleaenetus, the same who had carried the former motion of putting the Mytilenians to death, the most violent man at Athens, and at that time by far the most powerful with The People, came forward again and spoke as follows:
3.36
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
After first condemning the Mytilenians to death, the Athenians decide to vote again.
“I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is incapable of empire, and never more so than by your present change of mind in the matter of Mytilene. [2] Fears or plots being unknown to you in your daily relations with each other, you feel just the same with regard to your allies, and never reflect that the mistakes into which you may be led by listening to their appeals, or by giving way to your own compassion, are full of danger to yourselves, and bring you no thanks for your weakness from your allies; entirely forgetting that your empire is a despotism and your subjects disaffected conspirators, whose obedience is insured not by your suicidal concessions, but by the superiority given you by your own strength and not their loyalty. [3] The most alarming feature in the case is the constant change of measures with which we appear to be threatened, and our seeming ignorance of the fact that bad laws which are never changed are better for a city than good ones that have no authority; that unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than quick-witted insubordination; and that ordinary men usually manage public affairs better than their more gifted fellows. [4] The latter are always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to overrule every proposition brought forward, thinking that they cannot show their wit in more important matters, and by such behavior too often ruin their country; while those who mistrust their own cleverness are content to be less learned than the laws, and less able to pick holes in the speech of a good speaker; and being fair judges rather than rival athletes, generally conduct affairs successfully. [5] These we ought to imitate, instead of being led on by cleverness and intellectual rivalry to advise the people against our real opinions.”
3.37
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Cleon calls the Athenians inconstant and argues for the original decision to execute the Mytilenians.
3.38
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Cleon criticizes the Athenians for permitting clever points of debate to distract them from obvious facts.
3.39
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Cleon asserts that The People and the oligarchs of Mytilene are equally guilty.
“For myself, I adhere to my former opinion, and wonder at those who have proposed to reopen the case of the Mytilenians, and who are thus causing a delay which is all in favor of the guilty, by making the sufferer proceed against the offender with the edge of his anger blunted; although where vengeance follows most closely upon the wrong, it best equals it and most amply requites it. I wonder also who will be the man who will maintain the contrary, and will pretend to show that the crimes of the Mytilenians are of service to us, and our misfortunes injurious to the allies. [2] Such a man must plainly either have such confidence in his rhetoric as to attempt to prove that what has been once for all decided is still undetermined, or be bribed to try to delude us by elaborate sophistic arguments. [3] In such contests the state gives the rewards to others, and takes the dangers for herself. [4] The persons to blame are you who are so foolish as to institute these contests; who go to see an oration as you would to see a sight, take your facts on hearsay, judge of the practicability of a project by the wit of its advocates, and trust for the truth as to past events, not to the fact which you saw more than to the clever strictures which you heard; [5] the easy victims of newfangled arguments, unwilling to follow received conclusions; slaves to every new paradox, despisers of the commonplace; [6] the first wish of every man being that he could speak himself, the next to rival those who can speak by seeming to keep up with their ideas by applauding every hit almost before it is made, and by being as quick in catching an argument as you are slow in foreseeing its consequences; [7] asking, if I may so say, for something different from the conditions under which we live, and yet comprehending inadequately those very conditions; very slaves to the pleasure of the ear, and more like the audience of a rhetorician than the council of a city.”
“In order to keep you from this, I proceed to show that no one state has ever injured you as much as Mytilene. [2] 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 triremes to protect them; who were independent and held in the highest honor 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 offense than a war undertaken on their own account in the acquisition of power. [3] The fate of those of their neighbors 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. [4] 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. [5] Our mistake has been to distinguish the Mytilenians 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. [6] 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! [7] 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? [8] We meanwhile shall have to risk our money and our lives against one state after another; and if successful, shall receive a ruined city 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, must be held out to the Mytilenians, that their rhetoric may inspire or money purchase the mercy due to human infirmity. Their offense was not involuntary, but of malice and deliberate; and mercy is only for unwilling offenders. [2] 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. [3] 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 toward those who will be our friends in future, instead of toward men who will remain just what they were, and as much our enemies as before. [4] To sum up shortly, I say that if you follow my advice you will do what is just toward the Mytilenians, 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 Mytilenians as your interest requires; or else you must give up your empire and cultivate honesty without danger. [5] 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 as they were the aggressors. [6] It is they who wrong their neighbor 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. [7] 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.”
3.40
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Cleon concludes that compassion is inappropriate for national foes, and that severe punishment is a necessary example.
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 Mytilenians to death, came forward and spoke as follows:
3.41
Diodotus speaks next.
3.42 427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Diodotus argues for calm deliberation without haste or passion.
“I do not blame the persons who have reopened the case of the Mytilenians, 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. [2] As for the argument that speech ought not to be the exponent of action, the man who uses it must be either senseless or personally interested: senseless if he believes it possible to deal with 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. [3] 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. [4] 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. [5] The good citizen ought to triumph not by frightening his opponents but by beating them fairly in argument; and a wise city, without overdistinguishing its best advisers, will nevertheless not deprive them of their due, and far from punishing an unlucky counselor will not even regard him as disgraced. [6] In this way successful orators would be least tempted to sacrifice their convictions for popularity, in the hope of still higher honors, 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. [2] 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 counselor is to lie in order to be believed. [3] 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 further than you who judge offhand; especially as we, your advisers, are responsible, while you, our audience, are not so. [5] 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.”
3.43
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Diodotus declares that orators deserve respect and should be heeded.
3.44
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Diodotus argues that Athens’ best interest, not justice, is the proper objective of the assembly.
“However, I have not come forward either to oppose or to accuse in the matter of Mytilene; indeed, the question before us as sensible men is not their guilt, but our interests. [2] 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 clearly for the good of the country. [3] 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 a capital offense, I who consider the interests of the future quite as much as he, as positively maintain the contrary. [4] 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 Mytilene; 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 Mytilenians useful to Athens.”
“Now of course communities have enacted the penalty of death for many offenses 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. [2] 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? [3] 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 offenses 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. [4] Either then some means of terror more terrible than this must be discovered, or it must be admitted 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 each of the other conditions of life remains subjugated to some fatal and master passion, so long will the impulse never be wanting to drive men into danger. [5] Hope also and greed, 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. [6] 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. [7] In short, 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.”
3.45
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Diodotus points out that some people will transgress regardless of the severity of punishments.
3.46
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Diodotus says that Athens’ advantage here requires moderation.
“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. [2] 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? [3] 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 city from which we can no longer draw the revenue which forms our real strength against the enemy? [4] 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. [5] 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; [6] 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. [2] 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. [3] But if you butcher The People of Mytilene, who had nothing to do with the revolt, and who, as soon as they got arms, of their own motion surrendered the city, 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. [4] 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. [5] In short, I consider it far more useful for the preservation of our empire to put up with injustice voluntarily, 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.”
3.47
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Diodotus argues that since the commons are friendly to Athens and delivered the city when they could, it would be a blunder to execute them.
3.48
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Diodotus concludes with a plea for calm consideration.
“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 Mytilenians whom Paches sent off as guilty, and to leave the rest undisturbed. [2] 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.”
ILLUSTRATION 3.48 FOUR SIDES OF A BRONZE SPEAR BUTT FOUND AT ATHENS SHOWING TRACES OF LETTERS SAYING THAT IT WAS TAKEN FROM LESBIANS AND DEDICATED TO THE DIOSCURI, UNDOUBTEDLY WHEN THE ATHENIANS PUT DOWN THE REVOLT OF THEIR LESBIAN ALLIES IN 427
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 vote in which the show of hands was almost equal, although the motion of Diodotus carried the day. [2] Another trireme 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. [3] Wine and barley-cakes were provided for the vessel by the Mytilenian 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. [4] 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 Mytilene had indeed been great.
3.49
427
5th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Athens votes to spare Mytilene.
MITYLENE
The news arrives just in time to save the Mytilenians.
MAP 3.51 MEGARA, NISAEA, MINOA
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 Mytilenians, and took possession of their ships. [2] 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. [3] The Athenians also took possession of the cities on the continent belonging to the Mytilenians, which thus became for the future subject to Athens. Such were the events that took place at Lesbos.
3.50
427
5th Year/Summer
LESBOS
Mytilene is punished.
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. [2] Nicias wished to enable the Athenians to maintain their blockade from this nearer station instead of from Budorum and Salamis; to stop the Peloponnesian triremes 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. [3] Accordingly, after taking two towers projecting on the side of Nisaea by siege 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 reinforcements to be thrown into the island, which was not far off from the continent. [4] A few days sufficing to accomplish this, he afterwards raised a fort on the island also, and leaving a garrison there, departed with his forces.
3.51
427
5th Year/Summer
MEGARA-MINOS
Nicias fortifies Minoa opposite Megara.
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. [2] An assault had been made upon the wall, which the Plataeans were unable to repel. The Spartan commander, perceiving their weakness, wished to avoid taking the place by storm; his instructions from Sparta 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 city to the Spartans, and accept them as their judges, upon the understanding that the guilty should be punished, but no one without form of law. [3] The Plataeans were now in the last state of weakness, and the herald had no sooner delivered his message than they surrendered the city. The Peloponnesians fed them for some days until the judges from Sparta, who were five in number, arrived. [4] Upon their arrival no charge was preferred; they simply called up the Plataeans, and asked them whether they had done the Spartans 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 Spartans, who came forward and spoke as follows:
3.52
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
Plataea surrenders.
3.53
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Plataeans complain of the unusual and summary form of their trial.
“Spartans, 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. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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 toward 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 endeavor to prevail with you. [2] To your short question, whether we have done the Spartans 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. [3] 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 the liberty of Hellas against the Persian. [4] 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. [5] Besides, you, as Spartans, 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 occasions in the past 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 neighbors, as you lived too far off. [2] In the war we never have done to you, and never would have done to you, anything unreasonable. [3] 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 honor; 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. [4] 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.”
3.54
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Plataeans claim to have helped Sparta against both the Persians and the Messenian Helots.
3.55
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Plataeans argue that since Sparta sent Plataea to Athens for alliance, Sparta must now accept Plataean loyalty to Athens.
3.56
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Plataeans call on Sparta to deny Theban wrath and to reward past Plataean help.
3.57
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Plataeans say that Sparta’s reputation will suffer if she permits Thebes to destroy Plataea.
“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. [2] 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. [3] By taking your own immediate interest and their animosity as the test of justice, you will prove yourselves to be servants of expediency rather than judges of right; [4] 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. [5] 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 valor against the strength of Xerxes, and when greater praise was theirs who preferred the dangerous path of honor to the safe course of consulting their own interest with respect to the invasion. [6] To these few we belonged, and highly were we honored 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. [7] 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 a 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 model of worth and honor; 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 honorable men made by men yet more honorable than they, and at the consecration in the national temples of spoils taken from the Plataeans, the benefactors of Hellas. [2] Shocking indeed will it seem for Spartans 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. [3] 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 city, and now of being tried for our lives. [4] 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 appeal to you to relent; to rescind 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. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] Look at the tombs of your fathers, slain by the Persians and buried in our country, whom year by year we honored 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: [5] 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 honors 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 Persians, and take away your ancestral sacrifices from those who founded and instituted them.”
3.58
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Plataeans contrast themselves, who care for the graves of Spartans who fell beside them fighting the Persians, with the Thebans, who fought against the Spartans with the Persians.
3.59
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Plataeans conclude that they surrendered their city to Sparta, not to Thebes.
“It were not to your glory, Spartans, 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 would be more to your glory 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. [2] 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 prevent the dearest friends of the Hellenes 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 day are likely to suffer the most dreadful fate. [3] 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—[4] we say in conclusion 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 Plataeans, foremost among the Hellenic patriots, and suppliants to you, beseech you not to give us up out of your hands and faith to our most hated enemies, the Thebans, but to be our saviors. Do not, while you free the rest of the Hellenes, bring us to destruction.”
Such were the words of the Plataeans. The Thebans, afraid that the Spartans 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:
3.60
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Thebans ask to speak.
3.61
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Thebans describe the origin of their quarrel with the Plataeans.
“We should never have asked to make this speech if the Plataeans on their side had contented themselves with briefly answering the question, and had not turned round and made charges against us, coupled with a long defense 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. [2] 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 us 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. [2] And yet consider the forms of our respective governments when we so acted. Our city at that juncture had neither an oligarchic 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. [3] These, hoping to strengthen their individual power by the success of the Persians, kept the people down by force, and brought them into the city. 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. [4] Examine only how we acted after the departure of the Persians and the recovery of the constitution; when the Athenians attacked the rest of Hellas and endeavored to subjugate our country, of the greater part of which faction had already made them masters. Did we not 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 unequaled by that of any other state in the confederacy?”
3.62
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Thebans say their government was a tyranny when it Medized, acting against the desires of the people. Now that they have recovered their constitution, Thebes is foremost in the fight against Athenian hegemony.
3.63
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Thebans criticize the Plataeans for helping the Athenians to subjugate other Hellenes.
“Let this suffice to excuse us for our Medism. We will now endeavor to show that you have injured the Hellenes more than we, and are more deserving of condign punishment. [2] It was in defense 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 Sparta 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. [3] 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. [4] The return that you made them was therefore neither equal nor honorable, since you called them in, as you say, because you were being oppressed yourselves, and then became their accomplices in oppressing others; one should indeed return like for like, but it is base to do so when such repayment unjustly harms others.”
“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; [2] you now claim the benefit of good deeds done to please your neighbors. 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. [3] 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 besieged to be neutral and join neither party: this you did not accept. [4] Who then merit the detestation of the Hellenes more justly than you, you who sought their ruin under the mask of honor? 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.”
[5]“Of our unwilling Medism and your willful Atticizing this, then, is our explanation.”
3.64
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Thebans emphasize the willingness of the Plataeans to serve Athens, pointing out that they rejected an offer to remain neutral in the current struggle.
3.65
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
Though Theban Medizing was unwilling, Plataean Atticizing was willful. Some Plataean citizens acted honorably to help Thebes in the attack on their city to save it from its worst elements.
“The last wrong of which you complain consists in our having, as you say, lawlessly invaded your city in time of peace and festival. Here again we cannot think that we were more in fault than yourselves. [2] 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. [3] 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 behavior. We did no harm to anyone, but publicly invited those who wished to live under a national, Boeotian government to come over to us; [2] which at 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 People. 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? [3] 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.”
3.66
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Thebans say their intentions were not hostile, but that the Plataeans criminally violated their own agreement when they slew their prisoners.
3.67
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Thebans conclude that the Plataeans are unworthy of pity, for they bear full responsibility for their plight after rejecting the Hellenes.
“Such, Spartans, are the facts. We have gone into them at some length both on your account and on our own, that you may feel that you will justly condemn the prisoners, and we, that we have given an additional sanction to our vengeance. [2] 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. [3] 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, who with far more reason implore your justice upon the prisoners. [4] The pity which they appeal to is due rather to men who suffer unworthily; those who suffer justly, as they do, are on the contrary subjects for triumph. [5] For their present desolate condition they have themselves to blame, since they willfully 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. [6] Vindicate, therefore, the Hellenic law which they have broken, Spartans, and grant to us, the victims of its violation, the reward merited by our zeal. Nor let us be supplanted in your favor 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. [7] 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 Spartan 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 Persians, 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 Spartans and allies any service in the war; and upon their saying that they had not, took them out and slew them all without exception. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] The adverse attitude of the Spartans 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.
3.68
427
5th Year/Summer
PLATAEA
The Plataeans are executed and their city razed.
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 the Peloponnesus, where they found at Cyllene thirteen Leucadian and Ambraciot triremes, with Brasidas son of Tellis lately arrived as counselor to Alcidas; [2] the Spartans, upon the failure of the Lesbian expedition, resolved to strengthen their fleet and sail to Corcyra, where a revolution had broken out, and to arrive there before the twelve Athenian ships at Naupactus could be reinforced from Athens. Brasidas and Alcidas began to prepare accordingly.
3.69
427
5th Year/Summer
PELOPONNESUS
The Peloponnesian fleet returns to Cyllene.
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 aim of detaching the city from Athens. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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. [5] 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 installments; but Peithias, who was one of the council, prevailed upon that body to enforce the law; [6] upon which the accused, rendered desperate by the law, and also learning that Peithias had the intention, while still a member of the council, to persuade the people to conclude a defensive and offensive alliance with Athens, banded together armed with daggers, and suddenly bursting into the Council killed Peithias and sixty others, council members and private persons; some few only of the party of Peithias taking refuge in the Athenian trireme, which had not yet departed.
3.70
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
The Corcyraean oligarchs revolt.
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, [2] 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.
3.71
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
The oligarchs declare Corcyra’s neutrality.
Upon the arrival of the embassy, the Athenians arrested the envoys and all who listened to them as revolutionists, and lodged them in Aegina. [2] Meanwhile a Corinthian trireme arriving in the island with Spartan envoys, those in control of Corcyra attacked The People and defeated them in battle. [3] Night coming on, The People took refuge in the Acropolis and the higher parts of the city, and concentrated themselves there, having also possession of the Hyllaic harbor, their adversaries occupying the agora, where most of them lived, and the harbor adjoining, looking toward the mainland.
3.72
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
Corcyraean oligarchs attack The People.
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 People; their antagonists being reinforced by eight hundred mercenaries from the mainland.
3.73
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
Both sides seek support from the slaves.
After a day’s interval hostilities recommenced, victory remaining with The People, who had the advantage in numbers and position, the women also valiantly assisting them, pelting with tiles from the houses, and supporting the mêlée with a fortitude beyond their sex. [2] Toward dusk, the oligarchs in full rout, fearing that the victorious commons might assault and carry the arsenal and put them to the sword, set fire to the houses round the agora and the lodging-houses, in order to bar their advance; sparing neither their own, nor those of their neighbors; 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. [3] Hostilities now ceased, and while both sides kept quiet, passing the night on guard, the Corinthian ship stole out to sea upon the victory of The People, and most of the mercenaries passed over secretly to the continent.
3.74
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
The oligarchs are defeated.
The next day the Athenian general, Nicostratus son of Diitrephes, came up from Naupactus with twelve ships and five hundred Messenian hoplites. He at once endeavored to bring about a settlement, and persuaded the two parties to agree together to bring to trial ten of the ringleaders, who were no longer in the city, while the rest were to live in peace, making terms with each other, and entering into an alliance with the Athenians. [2] This arranged, he was about to sail away, when the leaders of The People induced him to leave them five of his ships to make their adversaries less disposed to make trouble, while they manned and sent with him an equal number of their own. [3] 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. [4] When an attempt by Nicostratus to reassure them and to persuade them to rise proved unsuccessful, The People 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 even have killed some whom they fell in with if Nicostratus had not prevented it. [5] The rest of the party, being not less than four hundred in number, seeing what was going on, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of Hera until The People, 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.
3.75
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
The Athenian Nicostratus attempts to arrange a truce.
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 harbor on the mainland, at daybreak made sail for Corcyra.
3.76
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
The Peloponnesian fleet arrives at 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. [2] 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; [3] 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.
3.77
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
The Corcyraeans launch a disorganized naval attack.
MAP 3.76 CORCYRA AND VICINITY: CITY OF CORCYRA
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 center 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. [2] Perceiving this, the Peloponnesian division opposed to the Corcyraeans, fearing a repetition of the disaster of Naupactus, came to support their friends, and the whole fleet, now united, bore down upon the Athenians, [3] who retired before it, backing water, withdrawing as leisurely as possible in order to give the Corcyraeans time to escape while the enemy was thus kept occupied. [4] Such was the character of this sea fight, which lasted until sunset.
3.78
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
The Peloponnesians defeat the Corcyraeans at sea.
The Corcyraeans now feared that the enemy would follow up their victory and sail against the city and rescue the men in the island, or strike some other equally decisive blow, and accordingly carried the men over again to the temple of Hera, and kept guard over the city. [2] The Peloponnesians, however, although victorious in the sea fight, did not venture to attack the city, but took the thirteen Corcyraean vessels which they had captured, and with them sailed back to the continent from whence they had put out. [3] The next day they again 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.
3.79
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
The Peloponnesians fail to exploit their victory.
Meanwhile The People 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 city; and prevailed upon some of them to go on board the ships, of which they still manned thirty, against the expected attack. [2] But the Peloponnesians after ravaging the country until midday sailed away, and toward 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 Aladas being about to sail for Corcyra.
3.80
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
The Peloponnesians learn of the approach of a large Athenian fleet.
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. [2] 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 city, and ordered the fleet which they had manned to sail round into the Hyllaic harbor; and while it was so doing, slew such of their enemies as they laid hands on, killing 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. [3] 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. [4] 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. [5] 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.
3.81
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
As the Peloponnesians flee, the Corcyraean popular faction massacres its domestic foes.
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 everywhere made by the popular leaders to bring in the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Spartans. 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. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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 supporter; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question incapacity to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting a justifiable means of self-defense. [5] 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 short, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of a crime where it was lacking was equally commended, [6] 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 sought not the blessings derivable from established institutions but were formed by ambition to overthrow them; and the confidence of their members in each other rested less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime. [7] 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 offered on either side to meet an immediate difficulty, only held good so long as no other weapon was at hand; but when opportunity arose, 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 prize for 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. [8] 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 made the fairest professions: on the one side with the cry of political equality of The People, on the other of a moderate aristocracy; but they sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish and, stopping at nothing in their struggles for ascendancy, engaged in direct excesses. In their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not limiting them to 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 honor 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.
3.82
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
Thucydides describes the evils of revolution.
Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honor so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow. [2] 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-defense than capable of confidence. [3] 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 could provide, often fell victims to their lack of precaution.
3.83
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
Thucydides’ description of the evils of revolution is continued.
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 anything 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 neighbors’ 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. [2] 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. [3] 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.
3.84
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
Thucydides’ description of the evils of revolution is concluded.
While the revolutionary passions thus for the first time displayed themselves in the factions of Corcyra, Eurymedon and the Athenian fleet sailed away; [2] 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 on the mainland, made this their base to plunder their countrymen in the island, and did so much damage as to cause a severe famine in the city. [3] They also sent envoys to Sparta 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 harm those in the city and obtain command of the country.
3.85
427
5th Year/Summer
CORCYRA
The Corcyraean revolution leads to famine and chronic civil strife.
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, [2] where the Syracusans and Leontines were at war. The Syracusans had for allies all the Dorian cities except Camarina—these had all 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. [3] 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. [4] The Athenians sent it upon the plea of their common descent, but in reality to prevent the exportation of Sicilian corn to the Peloponnesus 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.
3.86
427
5th Year/Summer
SICILY
The Athenians send a fleet to Sicily.
MAP 3.86 SICILIAN OPERATIONS IN 427
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. [2] 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. [3] No less than four thousand four hundred hoplites in the ranks died of it and three hundred cavalry, besides a number of the multitude that was never ascertained. [4] At the same time took place the numerous earthquakes in Athens, Euboea, and Boeotia, particularly at Orchomenus in the last-named country.
3.87
427/6
5th Year/Winter
ATHENS
The plague returns to Athens.
ILLUSTRATION 3.86 FRAGMENT OF A TREATY BETWEEN ATHENS AND RHEGIUM FROM 433 B.C.
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. [2] These islands are occupied by the Liparians, 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. [3] 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 Messanians, and were allies of the Syracusans. [4] 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.
3.88
427/6
5th Year/Winter
SICILY
The Athenians raid the Aeolian islands.
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. [2] 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 city, 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. [3] 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. [4] At Peparethus also the sea retreated a little, without however any inundation following; and an earthquake threw down part of the wall, the city hall, and a few other buildings. [5] 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.
3.89
426
6th Year/Summer
ATTICA-EUBOEA
The Peloponnesian invasion of Attica turns back due to earthquakes.
During the same summer different operations were carried on by the different belligerents in Sicily; by the Sicelians 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. [2] The death of the Athenian general Charoeades, killed by the Syracusans in battle, left Laches in sole command of the fleet, which he now directed in concert with the allies against Mylae, a place belonging to the Messanians. Two Messanian battalions in garrison at Mylae laid an ambush for the party landing from the ships, [3] 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 Messana. [4] This city afterwards also submitted upon the approach of the Athenians and their allies, and gave hostages and all other securities required.
3.90
426
6th Year/Summer
SICILY
Messana submits to the Athenians.
The same summer the Athenians sent thirty ships round the Peloponnesus under Demosthenes son of Alcisthenes, and Proeles son of Theodorus, and sixty others, with two thousand hoplites, against Melos, under Nicias son of Niceratus. [2] They wished to reduce the Melians, who, although islanders, refused to be subjects of Athens or even to join her confederacy. [3] When the devastation of their land failed to make the Melians submit, the fleet left Melos and sailed to Oropus in the territory of Graea where, landing at nightfall, the hoplites started at once from the ships by land for Tanagra in Boeotia. [4] There they were met by the whole levy from Athens, according to their prearranged signal, under the command of Hipponicus son of Callias, and Eurymedon son of Thucles. [5] They encamped and, passing that day in ravaging the Tanagran territory, remained there for the night. The next day, after defeating those Tanagrans who sallied out against them and some Thebans who had come up to help the Tanagrans, they took some arms, set up a trophy, and retired—one group to the city and the other to the ships. [6] Nicias with his sixty ships coasted along shore and ravaged the Locrian seaboard, and so returned home.
3.91
426
6th Year/Summer
MELOS-BOEOTIA
Nicias’ expedition to Melos and Tanagra is described.
About this time the Spartans founded their colony of Heraclea in Trachis, their object being the following: [2] the Malians are divided into three tribes—the Paralians, the Hiereans, and the Trachinians. The last of these, having suffered severely in a war with their neighbors 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 Tisamenus, whom they chose as ambassador, to Sparta. [3] The Dorians from the mother country of the Spartans also joined in this embassy with the same request, as they themselves also suffered from the same enemy. [4] After hearing them, the Spartans determined to send out the colony, wishing to assist the Trachinians and Dorians, and also because they thought that the proposed city would be effectively located for the purposes of the war against the Athenians. A fleet might be made ready there against Euboea, with the advantage of a short passage to the island; and the city would also be useful as a station on the road to Thrace. In short, everything made the Spartans eager to found the place. [5] After first consulting the god at Delphi and receiving a favorable answer, they sent off the colonists, Spartans and Perioikoi, inviting also any of the rest of the Hellenes who might wish to accompany them, except Ionians, Achaeans, and certain other nationalities; three Spartans leading as founders of the colony, Leon, Alcidas, and Damagon. [6] They established and fortified the city, now called Heraclea, on a new site, about four miles and a half from Thermopylae and two miles and a quarter from the sea; and commenced building docks, closing the side toward Thermopylae just by the pass itself, in order that they might be easily defended.
3.92
426
6th Year/Summer
HERACLEA IN TRACHIS
Sparta establishes the new polis of Heraclea in Trachis.
The foundation of this city, evidently meant to annoy Euboea (the passage across to Cenaeum in that island being a short one), at first caused some alarm at Athens, but in fact the city never caused them any trouble. [2] The reason for 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 neighbor, and so they harassed and made war upon the new settlers continually until they at last wore them out in spite of their originally considerable numbers—people had flocked there from all quarters, believing that any place founded by the Spartans was sure to prosper. On the other hand the Spartans themselves, in the persons of their governors, did their full share toward 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 neighbors to prevail against them.
3.93
426
6th Year/Summer
HERACLEA IN TRACHIS
Heraclea does not thrive.
The same summer, about the same time that the Athenians were detained at Melos, their fellow citizens in the thirty ships cruising round the Peloponnesus, after cutting off some guards in an ambush at Ellomenus in the territory of Leucas, 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. [2] While the Leucadians witnessed the devastation of their land, without and within the isthmus upon which the city 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 city 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.
3.94
426
6th Year/Summer
LEUCAS
Demosthenes attacks Leucas.
[3] 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 mainland region for the Athenians. [4] The Aetolians, although numerous and warlike, dwelt in unwalled villages scattered far apart, had nothing but light armor, and might, according to the Messenians, be subdued without much difficulty before help could arrive. [5] The plan which they recommended was to attack first the Apodotians, next the Ophionians, and after these the Eurytanians. These last are the largest tribe in Aetolia. They speak, as is said, a language exceedingly difficult to understand and eat their flesh raw. Once these tribes were subdued, the rest would readily come over.
MAP 3.93 EXPEDITIONS OF NICIAS AND DEMOSTHENES, EARLY 426
To this plan Demosthenes consented, not only to please the Messenians, but also in the belief that by adding the Aetolians to his other mainland allies he would be able, without aid from home, to march against the Boeotians by way of Ozolian Locris to Cytinium 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 persuade them to do so. Once in Phocis he would be upon the frontier of Boeotia. Accordingly, he sailed from Leucas against the wish of the Acarnanians, and with his whole armament cruised along the coast to Sollium [2] where he communicated to them his intention. When they refused to agree to his plan because he would not build the wall against Leucas, Demosthenes sailed against the Aetolians with the rest of the forces: the Cephallenians, the Messenians, the Zacynthians, and the three hundred Athenian marines from his own ships (the fifteen Corcyraean vessels having departed). [3] He established his base 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 neighbors 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.
3.95
426
6th Year/Summer
AETOLIA
Demosthenes decides to attack Aetolia.
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. [2] 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. [3] However, the Aetolians had been aware of his design from the moment of its formation, and as soon as the army invaded their country, had come up in great force with all their tribes; even the most remote Ophionians, the Bomiensians, and the Calliensians, whose territory extends toward the Malian gulf,3a being among the number.
3.96
426
6th Year/Summer
AETOLIA
Demosthenes invades Aetolia.
The Messenians, adhering to their original advice, assured Demosthenes that the Aetolians were an easy conquest. They urged him to push on as rapidly as possible 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. [2] Led on by his advisers and trusting in his fortune—as he had met with no opposition—and 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, whose inhabitants fled before him and posted themselves upon the hills above the city, which stood on high ground about nine miles from the sea. [3] 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 of which operations the Athenians had the worst.
3.97
426
6th Year/Summer
AETOLIA
The Aetolians counterattack at Aegitium.
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, worn 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. [2] 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 ignited and burnt round them by the enemy. [3] 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. [4] Many of the allies were killed, and about one hundred and twenty Athenian hoplites, 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. [5] 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 neighborhood, being afraid to face the Athenians after the disaster.
3.98
426
6th Year/Summer
AETOLIA
The Athenians are routed with heavy losses.
MAP 3.98 DEMOSTHENES IN AETOLIA; EURYLOCHUS’ ATTACK AGAINST NAUPACTUS
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.
3.99
SICILY
The Athenians attack Locris.
The same summer the Aetolians, who before the Athenian expedition had sent an embassy to Corinth and Sparta, composed of Tolophus, an Ophionian, Boriades, an Eurytanian, and Tisander, an Apodotian, persuaded them that an army should be sent to join them in an attack on Naupactus, which had prompted the Athenian invasion. [2] Accordingly, toward autumn, the Spartans sent out, under the command of the Spartiates Eurylochos, Macarius, and Menedaius, a force of three thousand hoplites of the allies, five hundred of whom came from the recently founded city of Heraclea in Trachis.
3.100
426
6th Year/Summer
SPARTA
The Aetolians persuade the Spartans to attack Naupactus.
The army having assembled at Delphi, Eurylochus sent a herald to the Ozolian Locrians, as the road to Naupactus ran through their territory, and he had also conceived the idea of detaching them from Athens. [2] 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 neighbors 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.
3.101
426
6th Year/Summer
DELPHI
The Spartan general Eurylochus prepares to attack Naupactus.
His preparations completed, Eurylochus lodged the hostages in Cytinium, in Doris, and advanced upon Naupactus through the country of the Locrians, taking upon his way Oeneon and Eupalium, two of their cities that refused to join him. [2] Having 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 city, which was unfortified; and after this Molycrium also, a Corinthian colony subject to Athens.
3.102
426
6th Year/Summer
NAUPACTUS
Eurylochus’ attack on Naupactus is thwarted by the arrival of Acarnanian hoplites.
[3] Meanwhile the Athenian Demosthenes, who since the affair in Aetolia had remained near Naupactus, having had intelligence of the army’s approach, and fearing for the city, went and persuaded the Acarnanians, although not without difficulty because of his departure from Leucas, to go to the relief of Naupactus. [4] They accordingly sent with him on board his ships a thousand hoplites, 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.
[5] Meanwhile Eurylochus and his companions, finding that this force had entered and that it was impossible to storm the city, withdrew, not to the Peloponnesus, but to the country once called Aeolis and now Calydon and Pleuron, and to the places in that neighborhood and Proschium in Aetolia; [6] because the Ambraciots had 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 Sparta. [7] 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 city Inessa, the Acropolis of which was held by the Syracusans, and after attacking it without being able to take it, retired. [2] In the retreat, the allies marching behind the Athenians were attacked by the Syracusans from the fort, and a large part of their army was routed with great slaughter. [3] After this, Laches and the Athenians from the ships made some descents in Locri and, defeating the Locrians who came against them with Proxenus son of Capaton, upon the river Caicinus, took some arms and departed.
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SICILY
The Athenians attack Inessa and Locri.
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. [2] All the remains of those that had died in Delos were removed, 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.
3.104
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DELOS
The Athenians purify Delos and celebrate the first Delian Games.
After the purification, the Athenians celebrated, for the first time, the quinquennial festival of the Delian games. [3] Once upon a time, indeed, there was a great assemblage of the Ionians and the neighboring 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. [4] Nothing can be clearer on this point than the following verses of Homer, taken from a hymn to Apollo:—
Phoebus, where’er 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 favor on each manly game,
And dance and sing in honor of thy name.
[5] That there was also a poetical contest in which the Ionians went to contend is shown again 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,
Dear hearts, goodbye—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.
[6] Homer thus attests that there was a great assembly and festival at Delos in ancient times. Later, 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 hoplites, 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 court of justice for their nation, and which lies about two miles and three-quarters from the city of Argos upon the seacoast. [2] 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 joining up with the Ambraciots. [3] 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 the Peloponnesus under the command of Aristotle son of Timocrates, and Hierophon son of Antimnestus. [4] For 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 on their own, or be unable to retreat if they wished, without danger.
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AMPHILOCHIA
Ambracia attacks Amphilochia; allies of both sides march to help.
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 Amphilochian Argos); keeping on their right the city of Stratus and its garrison, and on their left the rest of Acarnania. [2] 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. [3] From thence they reached and crossed Mount Thyamus, 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.
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AMPHILOCHIA
Eurylochus joins the Ambraciots at Olpae.
MAP 3.106 EURYLOCHUS’ AND DEMOSTHENES’ CAMPAIGN IN AMPHILOCHIA
Uniting here at daybreak, they halted 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 hoplites, and sixty Athenian archers. [2] While the fleet off Olpae blockaded the hill from the sea, the Acarnanians and a few of the Amphilochians (for most of them were perforce detained 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. [3] 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 some four hundred hoplites and light troops in ambush in a sunken road overgrown with bushes. These were to rise up at the onset of battle behind the projecting left wing of the enemy, and to take them in the rear. [4] 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 dart throwers. The Peloponnesians and Ambraciots were drawn up mixed together, except for 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.
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AMPHILOCHIA
Demosthenes plans an ambush.
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. [2] Meanwhile the Ambraciots (who are the best soldiers in those parts), and the troops upon the right wing, defeated the division opposed to them and pursued it to Argos. [3] Returning from the pursuit, they found their main body defeated and hard pressed by the Acarnanians; they made good their passage to Olpae with difficulty, suffering heavy loss on the way, as they dashed on without discipline or order, except for the Mantineans, who kept their ranks better than any in the army during the retreat. The battle did not end until the evening.
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AMPHILOCHIA
The Peloponnesians and Ambraciots are defeated.
The next day Menedaïus, who on the death of Eurylochus and Macarius had succeeded to the sole command, being at a loss after so severe 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 unable 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. [2] 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 requested retreat they refused publicly to the army; but permission to depart without delay was secretly granted to the Mantineans and to Menedaïus and the other commanders and principal men of the Peloponnesians by Demosthenes and his Acarnanian colleagues. They desired thus to strip the Ambraciots and their foreign mercenaries of their Peloponnesian supporters; and, above all, to discredit the Spartans and Peloponnesians with the Hellenes in those parts, as traitors and self-seekers. [3] 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, [3.110.1] 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. [2] Demosthenes prepared to march with his army against them, and meanwhile sent on at once a strong division to set ambushes on the roads and occupy the strong positions.
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AMPHILOCHIA
The Peloponnesians secretly request and receive permission to withdraw.
3.110
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6th Year/Winter
AMPHILOCHIA
Demosthenes learns of the approach of another Ambraciot army.
In the meantime the Mantineans and others included in the agreement went out under the pretense 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. [2] 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 up to them. [3] 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 own 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, [4] 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.
3.111
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AMPHILOCHIA
The Peloponnesians attempt to leave their Ambraciot allies and escape.
Meanwhile the Ambraciots from the city arrived at Idomene. Idomene consists of two lofty hills, the highest of which the troops sent on by Demosthenes succeeded in occupying after nightfall, unobserved by the Ambraciots, who had previously ascended the smaller and bivouacked upon it. [2] 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. [3] 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—[4] 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. [5] 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, [6] hindered by the fact that they wore heavy armor against a light-armed foe. 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 so fell into ravines and into the ambushes which had been set for them, and perished there. [7] In their manifold efforts to escape some even turned to the sea, which was not far off, and seeing the Athenian ships coasting along shore 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. [8] Of the large Ambraciot force destroyed in this manner, only a few reached the city in safety; while the Acarnanians, after stripping the dead and setting up a trophy, returned to Argos.
3.112
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AMPHILOCHIA
Demosthenes routs the Ambraciot reinforcements in a dawn attack.
The next day a herald arrived 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. [2] 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. [3] Someone 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, [4] “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.” [5] 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. [6] 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 striking a blow; as it was, they feared that if the Athenians had it they would be worse neighbors to them than the present.
3.113
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6th Year/Winter
AMPHILOCHIA
Thucydides offers the anecdote of the Ambraciot herald.
After this the Acarnanians allotted a third of the spoils to the Athenians, and divided the rest among their own different cities. 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. [2] 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, [3] 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. [4] 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 hoplites, 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.
3.114
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6th Year/Winter
AMPHILOCHIA Demosthenes returns to Athens. The Amphilochians and Ambraciots make peace.
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. [2] Upon their return to Rhegium they found the Athenian general, Pythodorus son of Isolochus, come to supersede Laches in the command of the fleet. [3] 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. [4] 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. [5] 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. [6] Meanwhile Pythodorus had taken the command of Laches’ ships, and toward the end of winter sailed against the Locrian fort, which Laches had formerly taken, and returned after being defeated in battle by the Locrians.
3.115
426/5
6th Year/Winter
SICILY The Athenians send reinforcements to Sicily.
MAP 3.115 SICILIAN OPERATION, 426/5
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. [2] Fifty years, it is said, had elapsed since the last eruption, there having been three in all since the Hellenes have inhabited Sicily. [3] Such were the events of this winter; and with it ended the sixth year of this war, of which Thucydides was the historian.
3.116
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6th Year/Winter
SICILY Mount Etna erupts.
Attica: Map 3.7, BX.
Lesbos: Map 3.7, AY.
Methymna: Map 3.7, AY.
The Grain Route from the Pontus (Euxine sea, Map 3.7, locator) region was serviced by cargo ships that passed through the Bosporus (Map 3.7, AY) and the Hellespont (Map 3.7, AY).
Tenedos: Map 3.7, AY.
Mytilene, Lesbos: Map 3.7, AY.
A proxenus, although a citizen and resident of his own state, served as a “friend or representative” (much like a modern honorary consul) of a foreign state.
Boeotia: Map 3.7, BX. The Lesbians were Aeolians, like their founders, the Boeotians; see 7.57.5.
Cape Malea, Lesbos, probable location of the festival: Map 3.7, AY.
Triremes were the standard warship of this period; see Appendix G, Trireme Warfare, ©4-7.
Cape Geraestus, Euboea: Map 3.7, BX.
The location of this Malea is unknown.
Imbros, Lemnos: Map 3.7, AY.
These Mytilenean envoys to Sparta are mentioned next in 3.8.
Military market: Greek soldiers and sailors were expected to purchase their food from local markets with their own money. Athenian military efforts at Mytilene are next mentioned in 3.18.
Laconia: Map 3.7, BX.
Naupactus: Map 3.7, BX.
Acarnania: Map 3.7, AX. Thucydides here picks up the narrative of events in Acarnania from 2.102 and continues it next in 3.94.
Oeniadae: Map 3.7, BX.
Achelous river: Map 3.7, AX.
Leucas: Map 3.7, AX.
Nericus, Leucas: Map 3.7, AX.
This truce was granted according to the ritual of hoplite battle; see Appendix F, Land Warfare, ©6.
Olympia: Map 3.7, BX. These are the envoys whose despatch was mentioned in 3.5.
The “rest of the allies” here refers to the Peloponnesian League (See Appendix D, The Peloponnesian League, ©3-4).
An “Olympiad” in this case was one of the quadrennial Olympic festivals which were celebrated with athletic contests and games. See Appendix I, Religious Festivals, ©5, andAppendix K, Calendars and Dating Systems, ©4.
Thucydides describes this withdrawal in 1.95.7. See Appendix E, The Persians, ©4.
The Mytilenians here allude to votes of the council o f the Delian League (see 1.96.2-1.97.1). See also Appendix B , The Athenian Empire, ©2.
Chios: Map 3.7, BY. The Chians and the Lesbians were the only members of Athens’ empire still contributing ships and men rather than money to the alliance.
See the Introduction (see. II.v) for a discussion of the speeches in Thucydides.
At the Isthmus of Corinth (Map 3.7, BX) remains of an ancient trackway on which specially made carts hauled ships across the Isthmus to avoid the long and sometimes difficult voyage around the Peloponnesus can still be seen today; see illustration 8.8.
The knights and pentecosiomedimni were the two richest property classes at Athens and were most likely to serve as heavy infantry or cavalry. Resident aliens ( metics) had rights and obligations but were not citizens. See Appendix A, The Athenian Government, ©2.
Alcidas and his fleet are next mentioned in 3.26.
A hoplite is a heavily armed infantry man; see the Glossary or Appendix F, Land Warfare, ©2.
Drachmas: see Appendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©3.
Some scholars regard this chapter as not genuine, others as misplaced. But from it we may calculate some of the military expenditures draining the Athenian treasury. The three thousand hoplites and their servants at Potidaea would cost six thousand drachmas or one talent per day. Since the two hundred men of a trireme’s crew received at this period one drachma a day each, it cost one talent a month to keep a trireme at sea, or one talent per day to keep a fleet of thirty triremes at sea. Thus, if Athens really deployed some 250 triremes at this time, these ships and her siege of Potidaea would have cost her treasury more than nine talents per day.
Mytilene, Methymna, on Lesbos: Map 3.29, AY. Thucydides here returns to military events on Lesbos from 3.6.
Antissa, Pyrrha, Eresus, on Lesbos: Map 3.29, AY.
“Worked their own passage”: the hoplites served as rowers in the triremes that carried them to Lesbos.
The narrative of Mytilene and Lesbos is continued in 3.25.
Talent: a unit of weight and money. See Appendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©5.
It is generally believed that when Thucydides reports such collections of money, it is a sign that the tribute has been increased in the course of the preceding summer. See Appendix B, The Athenian Empire, ©2, 10, and note 4.75.1b.
Myos: Map 3.29, BY.
Caria: Map 3.29, BY.
Meander river: Map 3.29, BY.
Hill of Sandius, approximate location: Map 3.29, BY.
Anaia: Map 3.29, BY. Anaia was the base of Samian exiles hostile to Athens; see 3.32.2,4.75.1.
Thebes: Map 3.24.
For the roads from Plataea, see Map 3.24. This map is based in part on one in J. B. Bury, A History of Greece (New York: 1913), Map 51, p. 279.
Erythrae, Hisiae: Map 3.24.
Athens: Map 3.24
Heralds, already a venerable Greek institution in Thucydides’ day, operated under the protection of the god Hermes, and were easily identified by the staff they carried. They alone could travel unmolested between states or armies at war in order to deliver messages, take back replies, and make perfunctory arrangements.
Events at Plataea are taken up again in 3.52.
This chapter continues the narrative of Mytilene and Lesbos (Map 3.29, AX.) from 3.18.
Pyrrha: Map 3.29, AX.
Circumvallation: the building of a wall to surround or isolate a city by land.
This is the fleet described in 3.16.3; it will be mentioned next in 3.29.
Paches was sent to take command of the Athenian forces at Mytilene in 3.18.3.
It would have been sacrilege, an insult to the gods, to harm someone who had taken refuge at an altar; see note 1.126.11a.
Tenedos: Map 3.29, AX.
Antissa: Map 3.29 AX.
These are Alcidas and his forty (or forty-two) ships mentioned in 3.26.
Delos: Map 3.29, BX.
Myconus, Icarus: Map 3.29, BX.
The exact location of Embatum is not known, but it must have been near Erythrae; see Map 3.29, BY.
Cyme, Aeolis: Map 3.29, AY; Ionia: Map 3.29, BY. See Appendix H, Dialects and Ethnic Groups, ©6-8, for information on the Ionians and the Aeolians.
Pissuthnes son of Hystaspes was the Persian governor of Sardis (Map 3.29, AY); see 1.115.4.
Teos and the Teian town Myonnesus: Map 3.29, BY.
Ephesus: Map 3.29, BY.
These were the Samian exiles hostile to Athens; see 3.19.2 and 4.75.1. Anaia, Samos: Map 3.29, BY.
Clarus: Map 3.29, BY.
The Salaminia and the Paralus were special state triremes used on sacred embassies and official business; see 3.77.3 in Corcyra, 6.53.1, and 6.61.4-7 in Sicily to fetch Alcibiades; 8.73.5-6 at Samos, and 8.74.1-2 in the revolution at Athens; and 8.86.9 at Argos and Samos.
The narrative of Alcidas’ fleet continues at 3.69.
Some scholars hold that the cities of Ionia had been obliged by Athens to pull down their walls for the sake of imperial security. Others think that the measure was required by the terms of the “Peace of Callias,” a treaty between the Athenians and the Persians; see Appendix E, The Persians, ©5-6.
Patmos: Map 3.29, BX.
Notium, Colophon: Map 3.29, BY.
These barbarians are Persians. Itamenes is otherwise unknown, nor is it known whether he was acting under the orders of Pissuthnes, the Persian governor [satrap] at Sardis.
Greeks who took the Persian side in any conflict were said to have “Medized.”
Pyrrha, Eresus: Map 3.29, AX.
Tenedos (Map 3.29, AX), where Paches had sent the authors of the revolt in 3.28.2. Their fate is described in 3.50.1.
As a ship-contributing ally, Mytilene was different from those who paid money tribute; see 7.57.4.
To put an issue to the vote a second time in the Athenian assembly was not an easy or a trivial matter. See 6.14.1 and note 6.14.1a.
As they did to Pericles in 2.65.3.
A mina was a unit of currency equal to one sixtieth of a talent, or one hundred drachmae. The 2,700 allotments renting for two minae each produced an annual rental of 5,400 minae or ninety talents. SeeAppendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©5. See also Appendix B, The Athenian Empire, ©9, on Athenian clerouchs.
The story of Mytilene is resumed in 4.52.
Minoa: Map 3.51, inset, shows a possible location of the ancient island, which is no longer an island today. The map above is based in part on one in A.W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, ii (Oxford, 1956), 334-36.
Megara: Map 3.51.
Budorum, possible location: Map 3.51, inset; Salamis: Map 3.51, and inset.
Nisaea: Map 3.51.
This picks up the Plataean narrative from 3.24.
Proxenus: see note 3.2.3c.
Artemisium: Map 3.93, AY; site of a naval battle between Persians and Greeks in 480.
For this earthquake and the revolt of the Helots, see 1.101 and 2.27.2.
The Plataeans refer here to the Theban attack of 431 described in 2.2-2.6.
Xerxes was the Persian King who led the invasion of Greece in 480.
The Plataeans refer here to the tripod dedicated at Delphi in celebration of the victory over the Persians at Plataea (1.132.2-3.) Much of this tripod still exists in Istanbul and its inscription can still be read today. See illustration 1.132.
See Appendix E, The Persians, ©4.
Thucydides mentions the battle of Coronea in 1.113.2; for its location, see Map 4.5, BY.
Thucydides mentions the battle of Coronea in 1.113.2; for its location, see Map 4.7, BY.
Some scholars do not accept that Thucydides wrote “the Thebans” here, and suppose that it was the Spartans, their allies, that carried out these acts.
This is another instance of the salvage of woodwork; see note at 2.14.1a.
Plataea was restored in 386 B.C. under the “King’s Peace”; see Epilogue, ©4, and Appendix E, The Persians, ©11.
This picks up the narrative of Alcidas’ fleet from 3.33.
Cyllene: Map 3.76.
These sea battles were fought near Sybota, a long way from Epidamnus. They are described in 1.49-50. Thucydides last described events on Corcyra in 1.55.
Eight hundred talents was an enormous sum, more than Athens’ annual tribute at that time. See A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, iii (Oxford, 1956), 359, andAppendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©5.
Proxeni: see note 3.2.3c.
The stater was a unit of currency; probably in this case the Corinthian stater, almost equal to two Attic drachmas; see Appendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©4. According to A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, iii (Oxford, 1956), 360, this fine seems too small to distress rich men, unless they had cut thousands of the stakes over many years. It was of course criminal sacrilege to touch land dedicated to a god. Athens based her Megarian Decree publicly on the grounds that the Megarians had cultivated consecrated ground (1.139.2).
Aegina: Map 3.93, BY.
For possible locations of the Acropolis and other “high parts” of the city of Corcyra, see Map 3.76, inset. This inset of the city of Corcyra follows the map and discussion of A. W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, ii (Oxford, 1956), 370-72.
Agora: the marketplace and the social center of a classical Greek city.
These “Messenians” now lived at Naupactus (Map 3.76), where Athens had settled them after they surrendered to Sparta at Ithome and were forced to leave the Peloponnesus (see 1.103.1-3).
No suppliant could be molested without insult to the gods, particularly that god or gods in whose temple or at whose altar the suppliant had taken refuge.
The temple of Hera and the island in front of it, possible location: Map 3.76, inset.
Cyllene: Map 3.76.
Sybota: Map 3.76.
The Salaminia and the Paralus were special state triremes used for official business.
On the “sinking” of triremes, see note 2.91.3a and Appendix G, Trireme Warfare, ©9.
Thucydides refers here to the naval battle in 429 that took place in the sea off Patrae, and which he described in 2.83-84.
Cape Leukimme: Map 3.76.
Leucas: Map 3.76.
Isthmus of Leucas: Map 3.76.
These are the five hundred Messenian hoplites who had arrived with Nicostratus in 3.75.1.
Hyllaic harbor at Corcyra, probable location: Map 3.76, inset.
Temple of Hera, Corcyra, approximate location: Map 3.76, inset.
To harm someone who had taken refuge at an altar was a sacrilegious crime.
Mount Istone, Corcyra: Map 3.76. Thucydides’ narrative returns to Corcyra in 4.46.
Sicily: Map 3.86.
Syracuse: Map 3.86.
Leontini: Map 3.86.
Camarina: Map 3.86. For the Dorian cities, see Appendix H, Dialects and Ethnic Groups, ©4-8.
Leontini, Naxos, and Rhegium (Map 3.86) were all founded by Chalas of Euboea (Map 4.7, BY).
Locri (Epizephyrian, in Italy): Map 3.86.
Rhegium: Map 3.86.
Events in Sicily are continued at 3.88.
The first outbreak of plague in Athens was extensively described in 2.47-55.
Orchomenus, Boeotia, and Euboea: Map 3.93, AY.
Aeolian islands: Map 3.86. This continues the narrative from 3.86.
Cnidus: Map 4.44, locator.
Lipara, Didyme, Strongyle, Hiera, Aeolian islands: Map 3.86.
Events in Sicily are continued at 3.90.
The Isthmus of Corinth: Map 3.93, BY.
Orobiae, in Euboea: Map 3.93, AY.
Atalanta: Map 3.93, AY; see 2.32.
Locris (Opuntian): Map 3.93, AY.
Peparethus: Map 3.93, AY.
Mylae: Map 3.86. This continues the narrative from 3.88.
Messana: Map 3.86.
Events in Sicily continue at 3.99.
The voyage of this fleet is described in 3.94ff.
Melos: Map 3.93, BY. A second Athenian assault on Melos is described in 5.84.
Oropus: Map 3.93, AY.
Tanagra: Map 3.93, AY.
A trophy was a set of captured armor arranged on a pole and raised at or near the battlefield by the victors. See Appendix F, Land Warfare, $6.
Heraclea in Trachis: Map 3.93, AX. The city next appears in Thucydides at 3.100.
Territory of the Malians: Map 3.93, AY. Territory of the Oetae: Map 3.93, AX.
Euboea: Map 3.93, AY.
Thrace: Map 3.93, locator.
For a description of the perioikoi, see the Glossary and Appendix C, Spartan Institutions, ©9.
Thermopylae: Map 3.93, AY. See note 4.36.3a.
Cenaeum, western cape of Euboea: Map 3.93, AY.
Thessaly: Map 3.93, AY.
Operations at Melos were described in 3.91. These thirty ships were the fleet under Demosthenes and Procles mentioned in 3.91.1.
Ellomenus on Leucas: precise location unknown.
Leucas: Map 3.93, AX.
Acarnania: Map 3.93, AX. This briefly picks up the narrative of Acarnanian events from 3.7; it continues next in 3.102.
Oeniadae: Map 3.93, AX.
Zacynthus: Map 3.93, BX.
Cephallenia: Map 3.93, AX.
Corcyra: Map 3.93, AX
These were Messenians from Naupactus where Athens settled them; see 1.103.1-3 and note 3.75.1a.
Aetolia: Map 3.93, AX.
Naupactus: Map 3.93, AX, and Map 3.98, AX.
The boundaries of the territories of these peoples are unclear, but the territory of the Apodotians bordered Ozolian Locris (Map 3.93, AX) to the east, and the Ophionions and Eurytanions each lived successively further north.
Boeotia: Map 3.98, BY.
Locris (Ozolian): Map 3.93, AX.
Cytinium in Doris: Map 3.98, AY.
Mount Parnassus: Map 3.98, AY.
Phocis: Map 3.98, AY.
Sollium: Map 3.93, AX.
Oeneon in Ozolian Locris: Map 3.98, AX.
This religious precinct of Nemean Zeus must have been in Ozolian Locris (Map 3.98, AY), whereas the famous sanctuary of Nemea was situated in the Peloponnesus between Argos and Corinth. See Map 5.58, AY.
The locations of Potidania, Krokyle, and Tichium, all small unwalled places, have not been established.
Eupalium: Map 3.98, AX.
Malian gulf: Map 3.98, AY.
Aegitium, possible location: Map 3.98, AX.
Even the relatively uncivilized Aetolians respect this traditional truce for the return of the dead that must be granted according to the ritual of the hoplite battle; see Appendix F, Land Warfare, ©6.
This chapter continues the Sicilian narrative from 3.90; it will be continued further at 3.103. The location of the fort on the river Halex is unknown (it is probably the same as the one mentioned in 3.116). For the Halex river and (Epizephyrian) Locri in Italy, see Map 3.86 or Map 3.115.
Naupactus: Map 3.98, AX.
A Spartiate is a full citizen of Sparta and a member of the highest Spartan military caste.
Heraclea in Trachis: Map 3.98, AY. The city’s foundation is described in 3.92. It next appears in the narrative in 4.78.
Delphi: Map 3.98, AY.
Locris (Ozolian): Map 3.98, AY.
Amphissa: Map 3.98, AY.
Phocis: Map 3.98, AY.
The Myonians, Messapians, Tritaeans, Chalaeans, Tolophonians, Hessians, Oeanthians, Olpaeans and Hyaeans are peoples of Ozolian Locris, all but the last two apparently listed in order of their locations from east to west (according to Simon Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides, i (Oxford, 1991), 515.
Cytinium in Doris: Map 3.98, AY.
Oeneon, Eupalium: Map 3.98, AX.
Aetolia: Map 3.98, AX.
Molycrium, possible location: Map 3.98, AX.
Acarnania: Map 3.106, AX. This briefly picks up the Acarnanian narrative from 3.94; it will be continued next in 3.105.
For Demosthenes’ departure from Leucas (Map 3.106, AX), see 3.94-95.
Calydon: Map 3.106, BY.
Pleuron: Map 3.106, BY.
Proschium: Map 3.106, BY.
Ambracia: Map 3.106, AX.
Amphilochia: Map 3.106, AY, and inset; Amphilochian Argos, possible location: Map 3.106, inset.
The narrative of events in the west of Hellas is continued at 3.105.
Inessa: Map 3.115. This follows the last narrative concerning Sicily at 3.99.
Syracuse: Map 3.115.
Locri (Epizephyrian, in Italy): Map 3.115.
Caicinus river, probable course: Map 3.115. Events in Sicily are picked up again in 3.115.
Delos: Map 3.93, BY. This purification, and the Carian artifacts discovered when the graves were dug up, is mentioned in 1.8. Further purification steps are described in 5.1.
Rhenea: Map 3.93, BY.
See Appendix I, Classical Greek Religious Festivals, ©5 and 8. These festivals often included athletic and cultural contests like those held every five years at Delos.
Ephesus: Map 4.44, AY.
This continues the narrative that ended at 3.102.
Amphilochian Argos, possible location: Map 3.106, inset.
Olpae, possible location: Map 3.106, inset.
Acarnania: Map 3.106, AX.
Amphilochia: Map 3.106, AY and inset.
Crenae, possible location: Map 3.106, inset.
For Demosthenes’ Aetolian expedition, see 3.95-98.
Ambracia: Map 3.106, AX.
Proschium: Map 3.106, BY.
Achelous river: Map 3.106, BY.
The source of the possible sites of Amphilochian Argos, Limnaea, Crenae, Olpae, Metropolis, and Idomene is N.G.L. Hammond, “The Campaign in Amphilochia during the Archidamian War,” The Annual of the British School at Athens, 1937, 128-40.
Stratus: Map 3.106, AX.
Phytia, Medeon, and Limnaea cannot be definitely located; possible sites for them are shown on Map 3.106, AX, and inset.
Agraea: Map 3.106, AY, and inset.
Mount Thyamus: Map 3.106, inset.
“Metropolis,” possible location: Map 3.106, inset.
Ambracian gulf: Map 3.106, AX.
Truce, return of the dead, and trophy, all according to the ritual of hoplite warfare; see Appendix F, Land Warfare, ©6.
The message referred to can be found in 3.105.4.
Agraea: Map 3.106, AX, and inset.
Idomene, possible location: Map 3.106, inset.
These Messenians, although settled now in Naupactus (see note 3.75.1a), were Dorians from Messenia in the Peloponnesus (Map 4.5, BX), and spoke the contemporary Doric dialect of Greek. See Appendix H, Ancient Greek Dialects and Ethnic Groups, ©9.
The herald’s errand: see Appendix F, Land Warfare, ©6.
Oeniadae: Map 3.106, BX.
Anactorium: Map 3.106, AX.
This picks up the Sicilian narrative from 3.103.
Himera:Map3.115.
Aeolian (Lipari) islands: Map 3.115.
The story of these forty ships is continued at 4.2.
The location of this fort is unknown. It was probably the fort on the River Halex, captured by Laches in 3.99 and undoubtedly retaken by the Locrians. Locri (Epizephyrian): Map 3.115.
Mount Etna: Map 3.115.
Catana: Map 3.115.