initial commit of ebook 7142HEADmain

1 files changed, 19727 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/plpwr10.txt b/old/plpwr10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf36b94
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/plpwr10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,19727 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The History of the Peloponnesian War
+
+Author: Thucydides
+        translated by Richard Crawley
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7142]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 15, 2003]
+[Date last updated: June 19, 2004]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR ***
+
+
+
+
+This etext was prepared by Albert Imrie, Colorado, USA
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
+by Thucydides 431 BC
+
+translated by Richard Crawley
+
+
+
+
+With Permission
+to
+CONNOP THIRLWALL
+Historian of Greece
+This Translation of the Work of His
+Great Predecessor
+is Respectfully Inscribed
+by
+-The Translator-
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+CHAPTER I
+The state of Greece from the earliest Times to the
+Commencement of the Peloponnesian War
+
+CHAPTER II
+Causes of the War - The Affair of Epidamnus -
+The Affair of Potidaea
+
+CHAPTER III
+Congress of the Peloponnesian Confederacy at
+Lacedaemon
+
+CHAPTER IV
+From the End of the Persian to the Beginning of
+the Peloponnesian War - The Progress from
+Supremacy to Empire
+
+CHAPTER V
+Second Congress at Lacedaemon - Preparations for
+War and Diplomatic Skirmishes - Cylon -
+Pausanias - Themistocles
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+CHAPTER VI
+Beginning of the Peloponnesian War - First
+Invasion of Attica - Funeral Oration of Pericles
+
+CHAPTER VII
+Second Year of the War - The Plague of Athens -
+Position and Policy of Pericles - Fall of Potidaea
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+Third Year of the War - Investment of Plataea -
+Naval Victories of Phormio - Thracian Irruption
+into Macedonia under Sitalces
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+CHAPTER IX
+Fourth and Fifth Years of the War - Revolt of
+Mitylene
+
+CHAPTER X
+Fifth Year of the War - Trial and Execution of the
+Plataeans - Corcyraean Revolution
+
+CHAPTER XI
+Sixth Year of the War - Campaigns of Demosthenes
+in Western Greece - Ruin of Ambracia
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+CHAPTER XII
+Seventh Year of the War - Occupation of pylos -
+Surrender of the Spartan Army in Sphacteria
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+Seventh and Eighth Years of the War - End of
+Corcyraean Revolution - Peace of Gela -
+Capture of Nisaea
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+Eighth and Ninth Years of the War - Invasion of
+Boeotia - Fall of Amphipolis - Brilliant Successes
+of Brasidas
+
+
+BOOK V
+
+CHAPTER XV
+Tenth Year of the War - Death of Cleon and
+Brasidas - Peace of Nicias
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+Feeling against Sparta in Peloponnese - League
+of the Mantineans, Eleans, Argives, and
+Athenians - Battle of Mantinea and breaking up of
+the League
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+Sixteenth Year of the War - The Melian
+Conference - Fate of Melos
+
+
+BOOK VI
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+Seventeenth Year of the War - The Sicilian
+Campaign - Affair of the Hermae - Departure of the
+Expedition
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+Seventeenth Year of the War - Parties at Syracuse -
+Story of Harmodius and Aristogiton -
+Disgrace of Alcibiades
+
+CHAPTER XX
+Seventeenth and Eighteenth Years of the War -
+Inaction of the Athenian Army - Alcibiades at
+Sparta -Investment of Syracuse
+
+
+BOOK VII
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+Eighteenth and Nineteenth Years of the War -
+Arrival of Gylippus at Syracuse - Fortification
+of Decelea - Successes of the Syracusans
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+Nineteenth Year of the War - Arrival of
+Demosthenes - Defeat of the Athenians at Epipolae -
+Folly and Obstinacy of Nicias
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+Nineteenth Year of the War - Battles in the Great
+Harbour - Retreat and Annihilation of the
+Athenian Army
+
+
+BOOK VIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+Nineteenth and Twentieth Years of the War -
+Revolt of Ionia - Intervention of Persia - The
+War in Ionia
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+Twentieth and Twenty-first Years of the War -
+Intrigues of Alcibiades - Withdrawal of the
+Persian Subsidies - Oligarchical Coup d'Etat
+at Athens - Patriotism of the Army at Samos
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+Twenty first Year of the War - Recall of
+Alcibiades to Samos - Revolt of Euboea and
+Downfall of the Four Hundred - Battle of Cynossema
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_The State of Greece from the earliest Times to the
+Commencement of the Peloponnesian War_
+
+Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between
+the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment
+that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war
+and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it.
+This belief was not without its grounds.  The preparations of
+both the combatants were in every department in the last state
+of perfection; and he could see the rest of the Hellenic race
+taking sides in the quarrel; those who delayed doing so at once
+having it in contemplation.  Indeed this was the greatest movement
+yet known in history, not only of the Hellenes, but of a large
+part of the barbarian world--I had almost said of mankind.  For
+though the events of remote antiquity, and even those that more
+immediately preceded the war, could not from lapse of time be
+clearly ascertained, yet the evidences which an inquiry carried
+as far back as was practicable leads me to trust, all point to
+the conclusion that there was nothing on a great scale, either in
+war or in other matters.
+
+For instance, it is evident that the country now called Hellas
+had in ancient times no settled population; on the contrary,
+migrations were of frequent occurrence, the several tribes
+readily abandoning their homes under the pressure of superior
+numbers.  Without commerce, without freedom of communication
+either by land or sea, cultivating no more of their territory
+than the exigencies of life required, destitute of capital,
+never planting their land (for they could not tell when an invader
+might not come and take it all away, and when he did come they
+had no walls to stop him), thinking that the necessities of
+daily sustenance could be supplied at one place as well as
+another, they cared little for shifting their habitation, and
+consequently neither built large cities nor attained to any other
+form of greatness.  The richest soils were always most subject
+to this change of masters; such as the district now called
+Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted,
+and the most fertile parts of the rest of Hellas.  The goodness
+of the land favoured the aggrandizement of particular individuals,
+and thus created faction which proved a fertile source of ruin.
+It also invited invasion. Accordingly Attica, from the poverty
+of its soil enjoying from a very remote period freedom from
+faction, never changed its inhabitants.  And here is no
+inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that the migrations
+were the cause of there being no correspondent growth in other
+parts.  The most powerful victims of war or faction from
+the rest of Hellas took refuge with the Athenians as a safe
+retreat; and at an early period, becoming naturalized,
+swelled the already large population of the city to such a
+height that Attica became at last too small to hold them, and
+they had to send out colonies to Ionia.
+
+There is also another circumstance that contributes not a little
+to my conviction of the weakness of ancient times.  Before the Trojan
+war there is no indication of any common action in Hellas, nor
+indeed of the universal prevalence of the name; on the contrary,
+before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation
+existed, but the country went by the names of the different tribes, in
+particular of the Pelasgian.  It was not till Hellen and his sons
+grew strong in Phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other
+cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection
+the name of Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name
+could fasten itself upon all.  The best proof of this is furnished by
+Homer.  Born long after the Trojan War, he nowhere calls all of them by
+that name, nor indeed any of them except the followers of Achilles
+from Phthiotis, who were the original Hellenes: in his poems they
+are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans.  He does not even use the
+term barbarian, probably because the Hellenes had not yet been
+marked off from the rest of the world by one distinctive
+appellation.  It appears therefore that the several Hellenic
+communities, comprising not only those who first acquired the name,
+city by city, as they came to understand each other, but also those
+who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole people, were before
+the Trojan war prevented by their want of strength and the absence
+of mutual intercourse from displaying any collective action.
+
+Indeed, they could not unite for this expedition till they had
+gained increased familiarity with the sea.  And the first person
+known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos.  He
+made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and
+ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first
+colonies, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons governors;
+and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters, a
+necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use.
+
+For in early times the Hellenes and the barbarians of the coast
+and islands, as communication by sea became more common, were
+tempted to turn pirates, under the conduct of their most powerful men;
+the motives being to serve their own cupidity and to support the
+needy.  They would fall upon a town unprotected by walls, and
+consisting of a mere collection of villages, and would plunder it;
+indeed, this came to be the main source of their livelihood, no
+disgrace being yet attached to such an achievement, but even some
+glory.  An illustration of this is furnished by the honour with which
+some of the inhabitants of the continent still regard a successful
+marauder, and by the question we find the old poets everywhere
+representing the people as asking of voyagers--"Are they pirates?"--as
+if those who are asked the question would have no idea of
+disclaiming the imputation, or their interrogators of reproaching them
+for it.  The same rapine prevailed also by land.
+
+And even at the present day many of Hellas still follow the old
+fashion, the Ozolian Locrians for instance, the Aetolians, the
+Acarnanians, and that region of the continent; and the custom of
+carrying arms is still kept up among these continentals, from the
+old piratical habits.  The whole of Hellas used once to carry arms,
+their habitations being unprotected and their communication with
+each other unsafe; indeed, to wear arms was as much a part of everyday
+life with them as with the barbarians.  And the fact that the people in
+these parts of Hellas are still living in the old way points to a time
+when the same mode of life was once equally common to all.  The
+Athenians were the first to lay aside their weapons, and to adopt an
+easier and more luxurious mode of life; indeed, it is only lately that
+their rich old men left off the luxury of wearing undergarments of
+linen, and fastening a knot of their hair with a tie of golden
+grasshoppers, a fashion which spread to their Ionian kindred and
+long prevailed among the old men there.  On the contrary, a modest
+style of dressing, more in conformity with modern ideas, was first
+adopted by the Lacedaemonians, the rich doing their best to assimilate
+their way of life to that of the common people.  They also set the
+example of contending naked, publicly stripping and anointing
+themselves with oil in their gymnastic exercises.  Formerly, even in
+the Olympic contests, the athletes who contended wore belts across
+their middles; and it is but a few years since that the practice
+ceased.  To this day among some of the barbarians, especially in
+Asia, when prizes for boxing and wrestling are offered, belts are worn
+by the combatants.  And there are many other points in which a likeness
+might be shown between the life of the Hellenic world of old and the
+barbarian of to-day.
+
+With respect to their towns, later on, at an era of increased
+facilities of navigation and a greater supply of capital, we find
+the shores becoming the site of walled towns, and the isthmuses
+being occupied for the purposes of commerce and defence against a
+neighbour.  But the old towns, on account of the great prevalence of
+piracy, were built away from the sea, whether on the islands or the
+continent, and still remain in their old sites.  For the pirates used
+to plunder one another, and indeed all coast populations, whether
+seafaring or not.
+
+The islanders, too, were great pirates.  These islanders were Carians
+and Phoenicians, by whom most of the islands were colonized, as was
+proved by the following fact.  During the purification of Delos by
+Athens in this war all the graves in the island were taken up, and
+it was found that above half their inmates were Carians: they were
+identified by the fashion of the arms buried with them, and by the
+method of interment, which was the same as the Carians still follow.
+But as soon as Minos had formed his navy, communication by sea
+became easier, as he colonized most of the islands, and thus
+expelled the malefactors.  The coast population now began to apply
+themselves more closely to the acquisition of wealth, and their life
+became more settled; some even began to build themselves walls on
+the strength of their newly acquired riches.  For the love of gain
+would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the
+possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the
+smaller towns to subjection.  And it was at a somewhat later stage of
+this development that they went on the expedition against Troy.
+
+What enabled Agamemnon to raise the armament was more, in my
+opinion, his superiority in strength, than the oaths of Tyndareus,
+which bound the suitors to follow him.  Indeed, the account given by
+those Peloponnesians who have been the recipients of the most credible
+tradition is this.  First of all Pelops, arriving among a needy
+population from Asia with vast wealth, acquired such power that,
+stranger though he was, the country was called after him; and this
+power fortune saw fit materially to increase in the hands of his
+descendants.  Eurystheus had been killed in Attica by the Heraclids.
+Atreus was his mother's brother; and to the hands of his relation, who
+had left his father on account of the death of Chrysippus, Eurystheus,
+when he set out on his expedition, had committed Mycenae and the
+government.  As time went on and Eurystheus did not return, Atreus
+complied with the wishes of the Mycenaeans, who were influenced by
+fear of the Heraclids--besides, his power seemed considerable, and he
+had not neglected to court the favour of the populace--and assumed
+the sceptre of Mycenae and the rest of the dominions of Eurystheus.
+And so the power of the descendants of Pelops came to be greater
+than that of the descendants of Perseus.  To all this Agamemnon
+succeeded.  He had also a navy far stronger than his contemporaries, so
+that, in my opinion, fear was quite as strong an element as love in
+the formation of the confederate expedition.  The strength of his
+navy is shown by the fact that his own was the largest contingent, and
+that of the Arcadians was furnished by him; this at least is what
+Homer says, if his testimony is deemed sufficient.  Besides, in his
+account of the transmission of the sceptre, he calls him
+
+   Of many an isle, and of all Argos king.
+
+Now Agamemnon's was a continental power; and he could not have been
+master of any except the adjacent islands (and these would not be
+many), but through the possession of a fleet.
+
+And from this expedition we may infer the character of earlier
+enterprises.  Now Mycenae may have been a small place, and many of
+the towns of that age may appear comparatively insignificant, but no
+exact observer would therefore feel justified in rejecting the
+estimate given by the poets and by tradition of the magnitude of the
+armament.  For I suppose if Lacedaemon were to become desolate, and the
+temples and the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as
+time went on there would be a strong disposition with posterity to
+refuse to accept her fame as a true exponent of her power.  And yet
+they occupy two-fifths of Peloponnese and lead the whole, not to speak
+of their numerous allies without.  Still, as the city is neither
+built in a compact form nor adorned with magnificent temples and
+public edifices, but composed of villages after the old fashion of
+Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy.  Whereas, if Athens
+were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose that any inference
+from the appearance presented to the eye would make her power to
+have been twice as great as it is.  We have therefore no right to be
+sceptical, nor to content ourselves with an inspection of a town to
+the exclusion of a consideration of its power; but we may safely
+conclude that the armament in question surpassed all before it, as
+it fell short of modern efforts; if we can here also accept the
+testimony of Homer's poems, in which, without allowing for the
+exaggeration which a poet would feel himself licensed to employ, we
+can see that it was far from equalling ours.  He has represented it
+as consisting of twelve hundred vessels; the Boeotian complement of
+each ship being a hundred and twenty men, that of the ships of
+Philoctetes fifty.  By this, I conceive, he meant to convey the maximum
+and the minimum complement: at any rate, he does not specify the
+amount of any others in his catalogue of the ships.  That they were all
+rowers as well as warriors we see from his account of the ships of
+Philoctetes, in which all the men at the oar are bowmen.  Now it is
+improbable that many supernumeraries sailed, if we except the kings
+and high officers; especially as they had to cross the open sea with
+munitions of war, in ships, moreover, that had no decks, but were
+equipped in the old piratical fashion.  So that if we strike the
+average of the largest and smallest ships, the number of those who
+sailed will appear inconsiderable, representing, as they did, the
+whole force of Hellas.  And this was due not so much to scarcity of men
+as of money.  Difficulty of subsistence made the invaders reduce the
+numbers of the army to a point at which it might live on the country
+during the prosecution of the war.  Even after the victory they
+obtained on their arrival--and a victory there must have been, or the
+fortifications of the naval camp could never have been built--there
+is no indication of their whole force having been employed; on the
+contrary, they seem to have turned to cultivation of the Chersonese
+and to piracy from want of supplies.  This was what really enabled
+the Trojans to keep the field for ten years against them; the
+dispersion of the enemy making them always a match for the
+detachment left behind.  If they had brought plenty of supplies with
+them, and had persevered in the war without scattering for piracy
+and agriculture, they would have easily defeated the Trojans in the
+field, since they could hold their own against them with the
+division on service.  In short, if they had stuck to the siege, the
+capture of Troy would have cost them less time and less trouble.  But
+as want of money proved the weakness of earlier expeditions, so from
+the same cause even the one in question, more famous than its
+predecessors, may be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected to
+have been inferior to its renown and to the current opinion about it
+formed under the tuition of the poets.
+
+Even after the Trojan War, Hellas was still engaged in removing
+and settling, and thus could not attain to the quiet which must
+precede growth.  The late return of the Hellenes from Ilium caused many
+revolutions, and factions ensued almost everywhere; and it was the
+citizens thus driven into exile who founded the cities.  Sixty years
+after the capture of Ilium, the modern Boeotians were driven out of
+Arne by the Thessalians, and settled in the present Boeotia, the
+former Cadmeis; though there was a division of them there before, some
+of whom joined the expedition to Ilium.  Twenty years later, the
+Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese; so that
+much had to be done and many years had to elapse before Hellas could
+attain to a durable tranquillity undisturbed by removals, and could
+begin to send out colonies, as Athens did to Ionia and most of the
+islands, and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and Sicily and some
+places in the rest of Hellas.  All these places were founded
+subsequently to the war with Troy.
+
+But as the power of Hellas grew, and the acquisition of wealth
+became more an object, the revenues of the states increasing,
+tyrannies were by their means established almost everywhere--the old
+form of government being hereditary monarchy with definite
+prerogatives--and Hellas began to fit out fleets and apply herself
+more closely to the sea.  It is said that the Corinthians were the
+first to approach the modern style of naval architecture, and that
+Corinth was the first place in Hellas where galleys were built; and
+we have Ameinocles, a Corinthian shipwright, making four ships for
+the Samians.  Dating from the end of this war, it is nearly three
+hundred years ago that Ameinocles went to Samos.  Again, the earliest
+sea-fight in history was between the Corinthians and Corcyraeans; this
+was about two hundred and sixty years ago, dating from the same time.
+Planted on an isthmus, Corinth had from time out of mind been a
+commercial emporium; as formerly almost all communication between the
+Hellenes within and without Peloponnese was carried on overland, and
+the Corinthian territory was the highway through which it travelled.
+She had consequently great money resources, as is shown by the epithet
+"wealthy" bestowed by the old poets on the place, and this enabled
+her, when traffic by sea became more common, to procure her navy and
+put down piracy; and as she could offer a mart for both branches of
+the trade, she acquired for herself all the power which a large
+revenue affords.  Subsequently the Ionians attained to great naval
+strength in the reign of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and of
+his son Cambyses, and while they were at war with the former commanded
+for a while the Ionian sea.  Polycrates also, the tyrant of Samos,
+had a powerful navy in the reign of Cambyses, with which he reduced
+many of the islands, and among them Rhenea, which he consecrated to
+the Delian Apollo.  About this time also the Phocaeans, while they were
+founding Marseilles, defeated the Carthaginians in a sea-fight.
+These were the most powerful navies.  And even these, although so
+many generations had elapsed since the Trojan war, seem to have been
+principally composed of the old fifty-oars and long-boats, and to have
+counted few galleys among their ranks.  Indeed it was only shortly
+the Persian war, and the death of Darius the successor of Cambyses,
+that the Sicilian tyrants and the Corcyraeans acquired any large
+number of galleys.  For after these there were no navies of any account
+in Hellas till the expedition of Xerxes; Aegina, Athens, and others
+may have possessed a few vessels, but they were principally
+fifty-oars.  It was quite at the end of this period that the war with
+Aegina and the prospect of the barbarian invasion enabled Themistocles
+to persuade the Athenians to build the fleet with which they fought at
+Salamis; and even these vessels had not complete decks.
+
+The navies, then, of the Hellenes during the period we have
+traversed were what I have described.  All their insignificance did not
+prevent their being an element of the greatest power to those who
+cultivated them, alike in revenue and in dominion.  They were the means
+by which the islands were reached and reduced, those of the smallest
+area falling the easiest prey.  Wars by land there were none, none at
+least by which power was acquired; we have the usual border
+contests, but of distant expeditions with conquest for object we
+hear nothing among the Hellenes.  There was no union of subject
+cities round a great state, no spontaneous combination of equals for
+confederate expeditions; what fighting there was consisted merely of
+local warfare between rival neighbours.  The nearest approach to a
+coalition took place in the old war between Chalcis and Eretria;
+this was a quarrel in which the rest of the Hellenic name did to
+some extent take sides.
+
+Various, too, were the obstacles which the national growth
+encountered in various localities.  The power of the Ionians was
+advancing with rapid strides, when it came into collision with Persia,
+under King Cyrus, who, after having dethroned Croesus and overrun
+everything between the Halys and the sea, stopped not till he had
+reduced the cities of the coast; the islands being only left to be
+subdued by Darius and the Phoenician navy.
+
+Again, wherever there were tyrants, their habit of providing
+simply for themselves, of looking solely to their personal comfort and
+family aggrandizement, made safety the great aim of their policy,
+and prevented anything great proceeding from them; though they would
+each have their affairs with their immediate neighbours.  All this is
+only true of the mother country, for in Sicily they attained to very
+great power.  Thus for a long time everywhere in Hellas do we find
+causes which make the states alike incapable of combination for
+great and national ends, or of any vigorous action of their own.
+
+But at last a time came when the tyrants of Athens and the far older
+tyrannies of the rest of Hellas were, with the exception of those in
+Sicily, once and for all put down by Lacedaemon; for this city, though
+after the settlement of the Dorians, its present inhabitants, it
+suffered from factions for an unparalleled length of time, still at
+a very early period obtained good laws, and enjoyed a freedom from
+tyrants which was unbroken; it has possessed the same form of
+government for more than four hundred years, reckoning to the end of
+the late war, and has thus been in a position to arrange the affairs
+of the other states.  Not many years after the deposition of the
+tyrants, the battle of Marathon was fought between the Medes and the
+Athenians.  Ten years afterwards, the barbarian returned with the
+armada for the subjugation of Hellas.  In the face of this great
+danger, the command of the confederate Hellenes was assumed by the
+Lacedaemonians in virtue of their superior power; and the Athenians,
+having made up their minds to abandon their city, broke up their
+homes, threw themselves into their ships, and became a naval people.
+This coalition, after repulsing the barbarian, soon afterwards split
+into two sections, which included the Hellenes who had revolted from
+the King, as well as those who had aided him in the war.  At the end of
+the one stood Athens, at the head of the other Lacedaemon, one the
+first naval, the other the first military power in Hellas.  For a short
+time the league held together, till the Lacedaemonians and Athenians
+quarrelled and made war upon each other with their allies, a duel into
+which all the Hellenes sooner or later were drawn, though some might
+at first remain neutral.  So that the whole period from the Median
+war to this, with some peaceful intervals, was spent by each power
+in war, either with its rival, or with its own revolted allies, and
+consequently afforded them constant practice in military matters,
+and that experience which is learnt in the school of danger.
+
+The policy of Lacedaemon was not to exact tribute from her allies,
+but merely to secure their subservience to her interests by
+establishing oligarchies among them; Athens, on the contrary, had by
+degrees deprived hers of their ships, and imposed instead
+contributions in money on all except Chios and Lesbos.  Both found
+their resources for this war separately to exceed the sum of their
+strength when the alliance flourished intact.
+
+Having now given the result of my inquiries into early times, I
+grant that there will be a difficulty in believing every particular
+detail.  The way that most men deal with traditions, even traditions of
+their own country, is to receive them all alike as they are delivered,
+without applying any critical test whatever.  The general Athenian
+public fancy that Hipparchus was tyrant when he fell by the hands of
+Harmodius and Aristogiton, not knowing that Hippias, the eldest of the
+sons of Pisistratus, was really supreme, and that Hipparchus and
+Thessalus were his brothers; and that Harmodius and Aristogiton
+suspecting, on the very day, nay at the very moment fixed on for the
+deed, that information had been conveyed to Hippias by their
+accomplices, concluded that he had been warned, and did not attack
+him, yet, not liking to be apprehended and risk their lives for
+nothing, fell upon Hipparchus near the temple of the daughters of
+Leos, and slew him as he was arranging the Panathenaic procession.
+
+There are many other unfounded ideas current among the rest of the
+Hellenes, even on matters of contemporary history, which have not been
+obscured by time.  For instance, there is the notion that the
+Lacedaemonian kings have two votes each, the fact being that they have
+only one; and that there is a company of Pitane, there being simply no
+such thing.  So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of
+truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.  On the
+whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted
+may, I believe, safely be relied on.  Assuredly they will not be
+disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration
+of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are
+attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of
+the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of
+historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend.  Turning
+from these, we can rest satisfied with having proceeded upon the
+clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as can be
+expected in matters of such antiquity.  To come to this war: despite
+the known disposition of the actors in a struggle to overrate its
+importance, and when it is over to return to their admiration of
+earlier events, yet an examination of the facts will show that it
+was much greater than the wars which preceded it.
+
+With reference to the speeches in this history, some were
+delivered before the war began, others while it was going on; some I
+heard myself, others I got from various quarters; it was in all
+cases difficult to carry them word for word in one's memory, so my
+habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion
+demanded of them by the various occasions, of course adhering as
+closely as possible to the general sense of what they really said.  And
+with reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting
+myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not
+even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw
+myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report
+being always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible.
+My conclusions have cost me some labour from the want of coincidence
+between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses,
+arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue
+partiality for one side or the other.  The absence of romance in my
+history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be
+judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of
+the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the
+course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I
+shall be content.  In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay
+which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for
+all time.
+
+The Median War, the greatest achievement of past times, yet found
+a speedy decision in two actions by sea and two by land.  The
+Peloponnesian War was prolonged to an immense length, and, long as
+it was, it was short without parallel for the misfortunes that it
+brought upon Hellas.  Never had so many cities been taken and laid
+desolate, here by the barbarians, here by the parties contending
+(the old inhabitants being sometimes removed to make room for others);
+never was there so much banishing and blood-shedding, now on the field
+of battle, now in the strife of faction.  Old stories of occurrences
+handed down by tradition, but scantily confirmed by experience,
+suddenly ceased to be incredible; there were earthquakes of
+unparalleled extent and violence; eclipses of the sun occurred with
+a frequency unrecorded in previous history; there were great
+droughts in sundry places and consequent famines, and that most
+calamitous and awfully fatal visitation, the plague.  All this came
+upon them with the late war, which was begun by the Athenians and
+Peloponnesians by the dissolution of the thirty years' truce made
+after the conquest of Euboea.  To the question why they broke the
+treaty, I answer by placing first an account of their grounds of
+complaint and points of difference, that no one may ever have to ask
+the immediate cause which plunged the Hellenes into a war of such
+magnitude.  The real cause I consider to be the one which was
+formally most kept out of sight.  The growth of the power of Athens,
+and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war
+inevitable.  Still it is well to give the grounds alleged by either
+side which led to the dissolution of the treaty and the breaking out
+of the war.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_Causes of the War - The Affair of Epidamnus -
+The Affair of Potidaea_
+
+The city of Epidamnus stands on the right of the entrance of the
+Ionic Gulf.  Its vicinity is inhabited by the Taulantians, an
+Illyrian people.  The place is a colony from Corcyra, founded by
+Phalius, son of Eratocleides, of the family of the Heraclids, who
+had according to ancient usage been summoned for the purpose from
+Corinth, the mother country.  The colonists were joined by some
+Corinthians, and others of the Dorian race.  Now, as time went on,
+the city of Epidamnus became great and populous; but falling a prey to
+factions arising, it is said, from a war with her neighbours the
+barbarians, she became much enfeebled, and lost a considerable
+amount of her power.  The last act before the war was the expulsion
+of the nobles by the people.  The exiled party joined the barbarians,
+and proceeded to plunder those in the city by sea and land; and the
+Epidamnians, finding themselves hard pressed, sent ambassadors to
+Corcyra beseeching their mother country not to allow them to perish,
+but to make up matters between them and the exiles, and to rid them of
+the war with the barbarians.  The ambassadors seated themselves in
+the temple of Hera as suppliants, and made the above requests to the
+Corcyraeans.  But the Corcyraeans refused to accept their supplication,
+and they were dismissed without having effected anything.
+
+When the Epidamnians found that no help could be expected from
+Corcyra, they were in a strait what to do next.  So they sent to Delphi
+and inquired of the God whether they should deliver their city to
+the Corinthians and endeavour to obtain some assistance from their
+founders.  The answer he gave them was to deliver the city and place
+themselves under Corinthian protection.  So the Epidamnians went to
+Corinth and delivered over the colony in obedience to the commands
+of the oracle.  They showed that their founder came from Corinth, and
+revealed the answer of the god; and they begged them not to allow them
+to perish, but to assist them.  This the Corinthians consented to do.
+Believing the colony to belong as much to themselves as to the
+Corcyraeans, they felt it to be a kind of duty to undertake their
+protection.  Besides, they hated the Corcyraeans for their contempt
+of the mother country.  Instead of meeting with the usual honours
+accorded to the parent city by every other colony at public
+assemblies, such as precedence at sacrifices, Corinth found herself
+treated with contempt by a power which in point of wealth could
+stand comparison with any even of the richest communities in Hellas,
+which possessed great military strength, and which sometimes could not
+repress a pride in the high naval position of an, island whose
+nautical renown dated from the days of its old inhabitants, the
+Phaeacians.  This was one reason of the care that they lavished on
+their fleet, which became very efficient; indeed they began the war
+with a force of a hundred and twenty galleys.
+
+All these grievances made Corinth eager to send the promised aid
+to Epidamnus.  Advertisement was made for volunteer settlers, and a
+force of Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Corinthians was dispatched.
+They marched by land to Apollonia, a Corinthian colony, the route by
+sea being avoided from fear of Corcyraean interruption.  When the
+Corcyraeans heard of the arrival of the settlers and troops in
+Epidamnus, and the surrender of the colony to Corinth, they took fire.
+Instantly putting to sea with five-and-twenty ships, which were
+quickly followed by others, they insolently commanded the
+Epidamnians to receive back the banished nobles--(it must be premised
+that the Epidamnian exiles had come to Corcyra and, pointing to the
+sepulchres of their ancestors, had appealed to their kindred to
+restore them)--and to dismiss the Corinthian garrison and settlers.
+But to all this the Epidamnians turned a deaf ear.  Upon this the
+Corcyraeans commenced operations against them with a fleet of forty
+sail.  They took with them the exiles, with a view to their
+restoration, and also secured the services of the Illyrians.  Sitting
+down before the city, they issued a proclamation to the effect that
+any of the natives that chose, and the foreigners, might depart
+unharmed, with the alternative of being treated as enemies.  On their
+refusal the Corcyraeans proceeded to besiege the city, which stands on
+an isthmus; and the Corinthians, receiving intelligence of the
+investment of Epidamnus, got together an armament and proclaimed a
+colony to Epidamnus, perfect political equality being guaranteed to
+all who chose to go.  Any who were not prepared to sail at once
+might, by paying down the sum of fifty Corinthian drachmae, have a
+share in the colony without leaving Corinth.  Great numbers took
+advantage of this proclamation, some being ready to start directly,
+others paying the requisite forfeit.  In case of their passage being
+disputed by the Corcyraeans, several cities were asked to lend them
+a convoy.  Megara prepared to accompany them with eight ships, Pale
+in Cephallonia with four; Epidaurus furnished five, Hermione one,
+Troezen two, Leucas ten, and Ambracia eight.  The Thebans and
+Phliasians were asked for money, the Eleans for hulls as well; while
+Corinth herself furnished thirty ships and three thousand heavy
+infantry.
+
+When the Corcyraeans heard of their preparations they came to
+Corinth with envoys from Lacedaemon and Sicyon, whom they persuaded to
+accompany them, and bade her recall the garrison and settlers, as
+she had nothing to do with Epidamnus.  If, however, she had any
+claims to make, they were willing to submit the matter to the
+arbitration of such of the cities in Peloponnese as should be chosen
+by mutual agreement, and that the colony should remain with the city
+to whom the arbitrators might assign it.  They were also willing to
+refer the matter to the oracle at Delphi.  If, in defiance of their
+protestations, war was appealed to, they should be themselves
+compelled by this violence to seek friends in quarters where they
+had no desire to seek them, and to make even old ties give way to
+the necessity of assistance.  The answer they got from Corinth was
+that, if they would withdraw their fleet and the barbarians from
+Epidamnus, negotiation might be possible; but, while the town was
+still being besieged, going before arbitrators was out of the
+question.  The Corcyraeans retorted that if Corinth would withdraw
+her troops from Epidamnus they would withdraw theirs, or they were
+ready to let both parties remain in statu quo, an armistice being
+concluded till judgment could be given.
+
+Turning a deaf ear to all these proposals, when their ships were
+manned and their allies had come in, the Corinthians sent a herald
+before them to declare war and, getting under way with seventy-five
+ships and two thousand heavy infantry, sailed for Epidamnus to give
+battle to the Corcyraeans.  The fleet was under the command of
+Aristeus, son of Pellichas, Callicrates, son of Callias, and
+Timanor, son of Timanthes; the troops under that of Archetimus, son of
+Eurytimus, and Isarchidas, son of Isarchus.  When they had reached
+Actium in the territory of Anactorium, at the mouth of the mouth of
+the Gulf of Ambracia, where the temple of Apollo stands, the
+Corcyraeans sent on a herald in a light boat to warn them not to
+sail against them.  Meanwhile they proceeded to man their ships, all of
+which had been equipped for action, the old vessels being
+undergirded to make them seaworthy.  On the return of the herald
+without any peaceful answer from the Corinthians, their ships being
+now manned, they put out to sea to meet the enemy with a fleet of
+eighty sail (forty were engaged in the siege of Epidamnus), formed
+line, and went into action, and gained a decisive victory, and
+destroyed fifteen of the Corinthian vessels.  The same day had seen
+Epidamnus compelled by its besiegers to capitulate; the conditions
+being that the foreigners should be sold, and the Corinthians kept
+as prisoners of war, till their fate should be otherwise decided.
+
+After the engagement the Corcyraeans set up a trophy on Leukimme,
+a headland of Corcyra, and slew all their captives except the
+Corinthians, whom they kept as prisoners of war.  Defeated at sea,
+the Corinthians and their allies repaired home, and left the
+Corcyraeans masters of all the sea about those parts.  Sailing to
+Leucas, a Corinthian colony, they ravaged their territory, and burnt
+Cyllene, the harbour of the Eleans, because they had furnished ships
+and money to Corinth.  For almost the whole of the period that followed
+the battle they remained masters of the sea, and the allies of Corinth
+were harassed by Corcyraean cruisers.  At last Corinth, roused by the
+sufferings of her allies, sent out ships and troops in the fall of the
+summer, who formed an encampment at Actium and about Chimerium, in
+Thesprotis, for the protection of Leucas and the rest of the
+friendly cities.  The Corcyraeans on their part formed a similar
+station on Leukimme.  Neither party made any movement, but they
+remained confronting each other till the end of the summer, and winter
+was at hand before either of them returned home.
+
+Corinth, exasperated by the war with the Corcyraeans, spent the
+whole of the year after the engagement and that succeeding it in
+building ships, and in straining every nerve to form an efficient
+fleet; rowers being drawn from Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas by
+the inducement of large bounties.  The Corcyraeans, alarmed at the news
+of their preparations, being without a single ally in Hellas (for they
+had not enrolled themselves either in the Athenian or in the
+Lacedaemonian confederacy), decided to repair to Athens in order to
+enter into alliance and to endeavour to procure support from her.
+Corinth also, hearing of their intentions, sent an embassy to Athens
+to prevent the Corcyraean navy being joined by the Athenian, and her
+prospect of ordering the war according to her wishes being thus
+impeded.  An assembly was convoked, and the rival advocates appeared:
+the Corcyraeans spoke as follows:
+
+"Athenians! when a people that have not rendered any important
+service or support to their neighbours in times past, for which they
+might claim to be repaid, appear before them as we now appear before
+you to solicit their assistance, they may fairly be required to
+satisfy certain preliminary conditions.  They should show, first,
+that it is expedient or at least safe to grant their request; next,
+that they will retain a lasting sense of the kindness.  But if they
+cannot clearly establish any of these points, they must not be annoyed
+if they meet with a rebuff.  Now the Corcyraeans believe that with
+their petition for assistance they can also give you a satisfactory
+answer on these points, and they have therefore dispatched us
+hither.  It has so happened that our policy as regards you with respect
+to this request, turns out to be inconsistent, and as regards our
+interests, to be at the present crisis inexpedient.  We say
+inconsistent, because a power which has never in the whole of her past
+history been willing to ally herself with any of her neighbours, is
+now found asking them to ally themselves with her.  And we say
+inexpedient, because in our present war with Corinth it has left us in
+a position of entire isolation, and what once seemed the wise
+precaution of refusing to involve ourselves in alliances with other
+powers, lest we should also involve ourselves in risks of their
+choosing, has now proved to be folly and weakness.  It is true that
+in the late naval engagement we drove back the Corinthians from our
+shores single-handed.  But they have now got together a still larger
+armament from Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas; and we, seeing our
+utter inability to cope with them without foreign aid, and the
+magnitude of the danger which subjection to them implies, find it
+necessary to ask help from you and from every other power.  And we hope
+to be excused if we forswear our old principle of complete political
+isolation, a principle which was not adopted with any sinister
+intention, but was rather the consequence of an error in judgment.
+
+"Now there are many reasons why in the event of your compliance
+you will congratulate yourselves on this request having been made to
+you.  First, because your assistance will be rendered to a power which,
+herself inoffensive, is a victim to the injustice of others.  Secondly,
+because all that we most value is at stake in the present contest, and
+your welcome of us under these circumstances will be a proof of
+goodwill which will ever keep alive the gratitude you will lay up in
+our hearts.  Thirdly, yourselves excepted, we are the greatest naval
+power in Hellas.  Moreover, can you conceive a stroke of good fortune
+more rare in itself, or more disheartening to your enemies, than
+that the power whose adhesion you would have valued above much
+material and moral strength should present herself self-invited,
+should deliver herself into your hands without danger and without
+expense, and should lastly put you in the way of gaining a high
+character in the eyes of the world, the gratitude of those whom you
+shall assist, and a great accession of strength for yourselves? You
+may search all history without finding many instances of a people
+gaining all these advantages at once, or many instances of a power
+that comes in quest of assistance being in a position to give to the
+people whose alliance she solicits as much safety and honour as she
+will receive.  But it will be urged that it is only in the case of a
+war that we shall be found useful.  To this we answer that if any of
+you imagine that that war is far off, he is grievously mistaken, and
+is blind to the fact that Lacedaemon regards you with jealousy and
+desires war, and that Corinth is powerful there--the same, remember,
+that is your enemy, and is even now trying to subdue us as a
+preliminary to attacking you.  And this she does to prevent our
+becoming united by a common enmity, and her having us both on her
+hands, and also to ensure getting the start of you in one of two ways,
+either by crippling our power or by making its strength her own.  Now
+it is our policy to be beforehand with her--that is, for Corcyra to
+make an offer of alliance and for you to accept it; in fact, we
+ought to form plans against her instead of waiting to defeat the plans
+she forms against us.
+
+"If she asserts that for you to receive a colony of hers into
+alliance is not right, let her know that every colony that is well
+treated honours its parent state, but becomes estranged from it by
+injustice.  For colonists are not sent forth on the understanding
+that they are to be the slaves of those that remain behind, but that
+they are to be their equals.  And that Corinth was injuring us is
+clear.  Invited to refer the dispute about Epidamnus to arbitration,
+they chose to prosecute their complaints war rather than by a fair
+trial.  And let their conduct towards us who are their kindred be a
+warning to you not to be misled by their deceit, nor to yield to their
+direct requests; concessions to adversaries only end in self-reproach,
+and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the
+chance of security.
+
+"If it be urged that your reception of us will be a breach of the
+treaty existing between you and Lacedaemon, the answer is that we
+are a neutral state, and that one of the express provisions of that
+treaty is that it shall be competent for any Hellenic state that is
+neutral to join whichever side it pleases.  And it is intolerable for
+Corinth to be allowed to obtain men for her navy not only from her
+allies, but also from the rest of Hellas, no small number being
+furnished by your own subjects; while we are to be excluded both
+from the alliance left open to us by treaty, and from any assistance
+that we might get from other quarters, and you are to be accused of
+political immorality if you comply with our request.  On the other
+hand, we shall have much greater cause to complain of you, if you do
+not comply with it; if we, who are in peril and are no enemies of
+yours, meet with a repulse at your hands, while Corinth, who is the
+aggressor and your enemy, not only meets with no hindrance from you,
+but is even allowed to draw material for war from your dependencies.
+This ought not to be, but you should either forbid her enlisting men
+in your dominions, or you should lend us too what help you may think
+advisable.
+
+"But your real policy is to afford us avowed countenance and
+support.  The advantages of this course, as we premised in the
+beginning of our speech, are many.  We mention one that is perhaps
+the chief.  Could there be a clearer guarantee of our good faith than
+is offered by the fact that the power which is at enmity with you is
+also at enmity with us, and that that power is fully able to punish
+defection? And there is a wide difference between declining the
+alliance of an inland and of a maritime power.  For your first
+endeavour should be to prevent, if possible, the existence of any
+naval power except your own; failing this, to secure the friendship of
+the strongest that does exist.  And if any of you believe that what
+we urge is expedient, but fear to act upon this belief, lest it should
+lead to a breach of the treaty, you must remember that on the one
+hand, whatever your fears, your strength will be formidable to your
+antagonists; on the other, whatever the confidence you derive from
+refusing to receive us, your weakness will have no terrors for a
+strong enemy.  You must also remember that your decision is for Athens
+no less than Corcyra, and that you are not making the best provision
+for her interests, if at a time when you are anxiously scanning the
+horizon that you may be in readiness for the breaking out of the war
+which is all but upon you, you hesitate to attach to your side a
+place whose adhesion or estrangement is alike pregnant with the most
+vital consequences.  For it lies conveniently for the coast-navigation
+in the direction of Italy and Sicily, being able to bar the passage
+of naval reinforcements from thence to Peloponnese, and from
+Peloponnese thither; and it is in other respects a most desirable
+station.  To sum up as shortly as possible, embracing both general
+and particular considerations, let this show you the folly of
+sacrificing us.  Remember that there are but three considerable
+naval powers in Hellas--Athens, Corcyra, and Corinth--and that if you
+allow two of these three to become one, and Corinth to secure us for
+herself, you will have to hold the sea against the united fleets of
+Corcyra and Peloponnese.  But if you receive us, you will have our
+ships to reinforce you in the struggle."
+
+Such were the words of the Corcyraeans.  After they had finished, the
+Corinthians spoke as follows:
+
+"These Corcyraeans in the speech we have just heard do not confine
+themselves to the question of their reception into your alliance.  They
+also talk of our being guilty of injustice, and their being the
+victims of an unjustifiable war.  It becomes necessary for us to
+touch upon both these points before we proceed to the rest of what
+we have to say, that you may have a more correct idea of the grounds
+of our claim, and have good cause to reject their petition.
+According to them, their old policy of refusing all offers of alliance
+was a policy of moderation.  It was in fact adopted for bad ends, not
+for good; indeed their conduct is such as to make them by no means
+desirous of having allies present to witness it, or of having the
+shame of asking their concurrence.  Besides, their geographical
+situation makes them independent of others, and consequently the
+decision in cases where they injure any lies not with judges appointed
+by mutual agreement, but with themselves, because, while they seldom
+make voyages to their neighbours, they are constantly being visited by
+foreign vessels which are compelled to put in to Corcyra.  In short,
+the object that they propose to themselves, in their specious policy
+of complete isolation, is not to avoid sharing in the crimes of
+others, but to secure monopoly of crime to themselves--the licence of
+outrage wherever they can compel, of fraud wherever they can elude,
+and the enjoyment of their gains without shame.  And yet if they were
+the honest men they pretend to be, the less hold that others had
+upon them, the stronger would be the light in which they might have
+put their honesty by giving and taking what was just.
+
+"But such has not been their conduct either towards others or
+towards us.  The attitude of our colony towards us has always been
+one of estrangement and is now one of hostility; for, say they: 'We
+were not sent out to be ill-treated.' We rejoin that we did not
+found the colony to be insulted by them, but to be their head and to
+be regarded with a proper respect.  At any rate our other colonies
+honour us, and we are much beloved by our colonists; and clearly, if
+the majority are satisfied with us, these can have no good reason
+for a dissatisfaction in which they stand alone, and we are not acting
+improperly in making war against them, nor are we making war against
+them without having received signal provocation.  Besides, if we were
+in the wrong, it would be honourable in them to give way to our
+wishes, and disgraceful for us to trample on their moderation; but
+in the pride and licence of wealth they have sinned again and again
+against us, and never more deeply than when Epidamnus, our dependency,
+which they took no steps to claim in its distress upon our coming to
+relieve it, was by them seized, and is now held by force of arms.
+
+"As to their allegation that they wished the question to be first
+submitted to arbitration, it is obvious that a challenge coming from
+the party who is safe in a commanding position cannot gain the
+credit due only to him who, before appealing to arms, in deeds as well
+as words, places himself on a level with his adversary.  In their case,
+it was not before they laid siege to the place, but after they at
+length understood that we should not tamely suffer it, that they
+thought of the specious word arbitration.  And not satisfied with their
+own misconduct there, they appear here now requiring you to join
+with them not in alliance but in crime, and to receive them in spite
+of their being at enmity with us.  But it was when they stood firmest
+that they should have made overtures to you, and not at a time when we
+have been wronged and they are in peril; nor yet at a time when you
+will be admitting to a share in your protection those who never
+admitted you to a share in their power, and will be incurring an equal
+amount of blame from us with those in whose offences you had no
+hand.  No, they should have shared their power with you before they
+asked you to share your fortunes with them.
+
+"So then the reality of the grievances we come to complain of, and
+the violence and rapacity of our opponents, have both been proved.  But
+that you cannot equitably receive them, this you have still to
+learn.  It may be true that one of the provisions of the treaty is that
+it shall be competent for any state, whose name was not down on the
+list, to join whichever side it pleases.  But this agreement is not
+meant for those whose object in joining is the injury of other powers,
+but for those whose need of support does not arise from the fact of
+defection, and whose adhesion will not bring to the power that is
+mad enough to receive them war instead of peace; which will be the
+case with you, if you refuse to listen to us.  For you cannot become
+their auxiliary and remain our friend; if you join in their attack,
+you must share the punishment which the defenders inflict on them.  And
+yet you have the best possible right to be neutral, or, failing
+this, you should on the contrary join us against them.  Corinth is at
+least in treaty with you; with Corcyra you were never even in truce.
+But do not lay down the principle that defection is to be
+patronized.  Did we on the defection of the Samians record our vote
+against you, when the rest of the Peloponnesian powers were equally
+divided on the question whether they should assist them? No, we told
+them to their face that every power has a right to punish its own
+allies.  Why, if you make it your policy to receive and assist all
+offenders, you will find that just as many of your dependencies will
+come over to us, and the principle that you establish will press
+less heavily on us than on yourselves.
+
+"This then is what Hellenic law entitles us to demand as a right.
+But we have also advice to offer and claims on your gratitude,
+which, since there is no danger of our injuring you, as we are not
+enemies, and since our friendship does not amount to very frequent
+intercourse, we say ought to be liquidated at the present juncture.
+When you were in want of ships of war for the war against the
+Aeginetans, before the Persian invasion, Corinth supplied you with
+twenty vessels.  That good turn, and the line we took on the Samian
+question, when we were the cause of the Peloponnesians refusing to
+assist them, enabled you to conquer Aegina and to punish Samos.  And we
+acted thus at crises when, if ever, men are wont in their efforts
+against their enemies to forget everything for the sake of victory,
+regarding him who assists them then as a friend, even if thus far he
+has been a foe, and him who opposes them then as a foe, even if he has
+thus far been a friend; indeed they allow their real interests to
+suffer from their absorbing preoccupation in the struggle.
+
+"Weigh well these considerations, and let your youth learn what they
+are from their elders, and let them determine to do unto us as we have
+done unto you.  And let them not acknowledge the justice of what we
+say, but dispute its wisdom in the contingency of war.  Not only is the
+straightest path generally speaking the wisest; but the coming of
+the war, which the Corcyraeans have used as a bugbear to persuade
+you to do wrong, is still uncertain, and it is not worth while to be
+carried away by it into gaining the instant and declared enmity of
+Corinth.  It were, rather, wise to try and counteract the
+unfavourable impression which your conduct to Megara has created.
+For kindness opportunely shown has a greater power of removing old
+grievances than the facts of the case may warrant.  And do not be
+seduced by the prospect of a great naval alliance.  Abstinence from all
+injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength
+than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent
+tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage.  It is now our turn
+to benefit by the principle that we laid down at Lacedaemon, that
+every power has a right to punish her own allies.  We now claim to
+receive the same from you, and protest against your rewarding us for
+benefiting you by our vote by injuring us by yours.  On the contrary,
+return us like for like, remembering that this is that very crisis in
+which he who lends aid is most a friend, and he who opposes is most a
+foe.  And for these Corcyraeans--neither receive them into alliance in
+our despite, nor be their abettors in crime.  So do, and you will act
+as we have a right to expect of you, and at the same time best consult
+your own interests."
+
+Such were the words of the Corinthians.
+
+When the Athenians had heard both out, two assemblies were held.
+In the first there was a manifest disposition to listen to the
+representations of Corinth; in the second, public feeling had
+changed and an alliance with Corcyra was decided on, with certain
+reservations.  It was to be a defensive, not an offensive alliance.
+It did not involve a breach of the treaty with Peloponnese: Athens
+could not be required to join Corcyra in any attack upon Corinth.
+But each of the contracting parties had a right to the other's
+assistance against invasion, whether of his own territory or that of
+an ally.  For it began now to be felt that the coming of the
+Peloponnesian war was only a question of time, and no one was
+willing to see a naval power of such magnitude as Corcyra sacrificed
+to Corinth; though if they could let them weaken each other by
+mutual conflict, it would be no bad preparation for the struggle which
+Athens might one day have to wage with Corinth and the other naval
+powers.  At the same time the island seemed to lie conveniently on
+the coasting passage to Italy and Sicily.  With these views, Athens
+received Corcyra into alliance and, on the departure of the
+Corinthians not long afterwards, sent ten ships to their assistance.
+They were commanded by Lacedaemonius, the son of Cimon, Diotimus,
+the son of Strombichus, and Proteas, the son of Epicles.  Their
+instructions were to avoid collision with the Corinthian fleet
+except under certain circumstances.  If it sailed to Corcyra and
+threatened a landing on her coast, or in any of her possessions,
+they were to do their utmost to prevent it.  These instructions were
+prompted by an anxiety to avoid a breach of the treaty.
+
+Meanwhile the Corinthians completed their preparations, and sailed
+for Corcyra with a hundred and fifty ships.  Of these Elis furnished
+ten, Megara twelve, Leucas ten, Ambracia twenty-seven, Anactorium one,
+and Corinth herself ninety.  Each of these contingents had its own
+admiral, the Corinthian being under the command of Xenoclides, son of
+Euthycles, with four colleagues.  Sailing from Leucas, they made land
+at the part of the continent opposite Corcyra.  They anchored in the
+harbour of Chimerium, in the territory of Thesprotis, above which,
+at some distance from the sea, lies the city of Ephyre, in the Elean
+district.  By this city the Acherusian lake pours its waters into the
+sea.  It gets its name from the river Acheron, which flows through
+Thesprotis and falls into the lake.  There also the river Thyamis
+flows, forming the boundary between Thesprotis and Kestrine; and
+between these rivers rises the point of Chimerium.  In this part of the
+continent the Corinthians now came to anchor, and formed an
+encampment.  When the Corcyraeans saw them coming, they manned a
+hundred and ten ships, commanded by Meikiades, Aisimides, and
+Eurybatus, and stationed themselves at one of the Sybota isles; the
+ten Athenian ships being present.  On Point Leukimme they posted
+their land forces, and a thousand heavy infantry who had come from
+Zacynthus to their assistance.  Nor were the Corinthians on the
+mainland without their allies.  The barbarians flocked in large numbers
+to their assistance, the inhabitants of this part of the continent
+being old allies of theirs.
+
+When the Corinthian preparations were completed, they took three
+days' provisions and put out from Chimerium by night, ready for
+action.  Sailing with the dawn, they sighted the Corcyraean fleet out
+at sea and coming towards them.  When they perceived each other, both
+sides formed in order of battle.  On the Corcyraean right wing lay
+the Athenian ships, the rest of the line being occupied by their own
+vessels formed in three squadrons, each of which was commanded by
+one of the three admirals.  Such was the Corcyraean formation.  The
+Corinthian was as follows: on the right wing lay the Megarian and
+Ambraciot ships, in the centre the rest of the allies in order.  But
+the left was composed of the best sailers in the Corinthian navy, to
+encounter the Athenians and the right wing of the Corcyraeans.  As soon
+as the signals were raised on either side, they joined battle.  Both
+sides had a large number of heavy infantry on their decks, and a large
+number of archers and darters, the old imperfect armament still
+prevailing.  The sea-fight was an obstinate one, though not
+remarkable for its science; indeed it was more like a battle by
+land.  Whenever they charged each other, the multitude and crush of the
+vessels made it by no means easy to get loose; besides, their hopes of
+victory lay principally in the heavy infantry on the decks, who
+stood and fought in order, the ships remaining stationary.  The
+manoeuvre of breaking the line was not tried; in short, strength and
+pluck had more share in the fight than science.  Everywhere tumult
+reigned, the battle being one scene of confusion; meanwhile the
+Athenian ships, by coming up to the Corcyraeans whenever they were
+pressed, served to alarm the enemy, though their commanders could
+not join in the battle from fear of their instructions.  The right wing
+of the Corinthians suffered most.  The Corcyraeans routed it, and
+chased them in disorder to the continent with twenty ships, sailed
+up to their camp, and burnt the tents which they found empty, and
+plundered the stuff.  So in this quarter the Corinthians and their
+allies were defeated, and the Corcyraeans were victorious.  But where
+the Corinthians themselves were, on the left, they gained a decided
+success; the scanty forces of the Corcyraeans being further weakened
+by the want of the twenty ships absent on the pursuit.  Seeing the
+Corcyraeans hard pressed, the Athenians began at length to assist them
+more unequivocally.  At first, it is true, they refrained from charging
+any ships; but when the rout was becoming patent, and the
+Corinthians were pressing on, the time at last came when every one set
+to, and all distinction was laid aside, and it came to this point,
+that the Corinthians and Athenians raised their hands against each
+other.
+
+After the rout, the Corinthians, instead of employing themselves
+in lashing fast and hauling after them the hulls of the vessels
+which they had disabled, turned their attention to the men, whom
+they butchered as they sailed through, not caring so much to make
+prisoners.  Some even of their own friends were slain by them, by
+mistake, in their ignorance of the defeat of the right wing For the
+number of the ships on both sides, and the distance to which they
+covered the sea, made it difficult, after they had once joined, to
+distinguish between the conquering and the conquered; this battle
+proving far greater than any before it, any at least between Hellenes,
+for the number of vessels engaged.  After the Corinthians had chased
+the Corcyraeans to the land, they turned to the wrecks and their dead,
+most of whom they succeeded in getting hold of and conveying to
+Sybota, the rendezvous of the land forces furnished by their barbarian
+allies.  Sybota, it must be known, is a desert harbour of Thesprotis.
+This task over, they mustered anew, and sailed against the
+Corcyraeans, who on their part advanced to meet them with all their
+ships that were fit for service and remaining to them, accompanied
+by the Athenian vessels, fearing that they might attempt a landing
+in their territory.  It was by this time getting late, and the paean
+had been sung for the attack, when the Corinthians suddenly began to
+back water.  They had observed twenty Athenian ships sailing up,
+which had been sent out afterwards to reinforce the ten vessels by the
+Athenians, who feared, as it turned out justly, the defeat of the
+Corcyraeans and the inability of their handful of ships to protect
+them.  These ships were thus seen by the Corinthians first.  They
+suspected that they were from Athens, and that those which they saw
+were not all, but that there were more behind; they accordingly
+began to retire.  The Corcyraeans meanwhile had not sighted them, as
+they were advancing from a point which they could not so well see, and
+were wondering why the Corinthians were backing water, when some
+caught sight of them, and cried out that there were ships in sight
+ahead.  Upon this they also retired; for it was now getting dark, and
+the retreat of the Corinthians had suspended hostilities.  Thus they
+parted from each other, and the battle ceased with night.  The
+Corcyraeans were in their camp at Leukimme, when these twenty ships
+from Athens, under the command of Glaucon, the son of Leagrus, and
+Andocides, son of Leogoras, bore on through the corpses and the
+wrecks, and sailed up to the camp, not long after they were sighted.
+It was now night, and the Corcyraeans feared that they might be
+hostile vessels; but they soon knew them, and the ships came to
+anchor.
+
+The next day the thirty Athenian vessels put out to sea, accompanied
+by all the Corcyraean ships that were seaworthy, and sailed to the
+harbour at Sybota, where the Corinthians lay, to see if they would
+engage.  The Corinthians put out from the land and formed a line in the
+open sea, but beyond this made no further movement, having no
+intention of assuming the offensive.  For they saw reinforcements
+arrived fresh from Athens, and themselves confronted by numerous
+difficulties, such as the necessity of guarding the prisoners whom
+they had on board and the want of all means of refitting their ships
+in a desert place.  What they were thinking more about was how their
+voyage home was to be effected; they feared that the Athenians might
+consider that the treaty was dissolved by the collision which had
+occurred, and forbid their departure.
+
+Accordingly they resolved to put some men on board a boat, and
+send them without a herald's wand to the Athenians, as an
+experiment.  Having done so, they spoke as follows: "You do wrong,
+Athenians, to begin war and break the treaty.  Engaged in chastising
+our enemies, we find you placing yourselves in our path in arms
+against us.  Now if your intentions are to prevent us sailing to
+Corcyra, or anywhere else that we may wish, and if you are for
+breaking the treaty, first take us that are here and treat us as
+enemies." Such was what they said, and all the Corcyraean armament
+that were within hearing immediately called out to take them and
+kill them.  But the Athenians answered as follows: "Neither are we
+beginning war, Peloponnesians, nor are we breaking the treaty; but
+these Corcyraeans are our allies, and we are come to help them.  So
+if you want to sail anywhere else, we place no obstacle in your way;
+but if you are going to sail against Corcyra, or any of her
+possessions, we shall do our best to stop you."
+
+Receiving this answer from the Athenians, the Corinthians
+commenced preparations for their voyage home, and set up a trophy in
+Sybota, on the continent; while the Corcyraeans took up the wrecks and
+dead that had been carried out to them by the current, and by a wind
+which rose in the night and scattered them in all directions, and
+set up their trophy in Sybota, on the island, as victors.  The
+reasons each side had for claiming the victory were these.  The
+Corinthians had been victorious in the sea-fight until night; and
+having thus been enabled to carry off most wrecks and dead, they
+were in possession of no fewer than a thousand prisoners of war, and
+had sunk close upon seventy vessels.  The Corcyraeans had destroyed
+about thirty ships, and after the arrival of the Athenians had taken
+up the wrecks and dead on their side; they had besides seen the
+Corinthians retire before them, backing water on sight of the Athenian
+vessels, and upon the arrival of the Athenians refuse to sail out
+against them from Sybota.  Thus both sides claimed the victory.
+
+The Corinthians on the voyage home took Anactorium, which stands
+at the mouth of the Ambracian gulf.  The place was taken by
+treachery, being common ground to the Corcyraeans and Corinthians.
+After establishing Corinthian settlers there, they retired home.  Eight
+hundred of the Corcyraeans were slaves; these they sold; two hundred
+and fifty they retained in captivity, and treated with great
+attention, in the hope that they might bring over their country to
+Corinth on their return; most of them being, as it happened, men of
+very high position in Corcyra.  In this way Corcyra maintained her
+political existence in the war with Corinth, and the Athenian
+vessels left the island.  This was the first cause of the war that
+Corinth had against the Athenians, viz. , that they had fought
+against them with the Corcyraeans in time of treaty.
+
+Almost immediately after this, fresh differences arose between the
+Athenians and Peloponnesians, and contributed their share to the
+war.  Corinth was forming schemes for retaliation, and Athens suspected
+her hostility.  The Potidaeans, who inhabit the isthmus of Pallene,
+being a Corinthian colony, but tributary allies of Athens, were
+ordered to raze the wall looking towards Pallene, to give hostages, to
+dismiss the Corinthian magistrates, and in future not to receive the
+persons sent from Corinth annually to succeed them.  It was feared that
+they might be persuaded by Perdiccas and the Corinthians to revolt,
+and might draw the rest of the allies in the direction of Thrace to
+revolt with them.  These precautions against the Potidaeans were
+taken by the Athenians immediately after the battle at Corcyra.  Not
+only was Corinth at length openly hostile, but Perdiccas, son of
+Alexander, king of the Macedonians, had from an old friend and ally
+been made an enemy.  He had been made an enemy by the Athenians
+entering into alliance with his brother Philip and Derdas, who were in
+league against him.  In his alarm he had sent to Lacedaemon to try
+and involve the Athenians in a war with the Peloponnesians, and was
+endeavouring to win over Corinth in order to bring about the revolt of
+Potidaea.  He also made overtures to the Chalcidians in the direction
+of Thrace, and to the Bottiaeans, to persuade them to join in the
+revolt; for he thought that if these places on the border could be
+made his allies, it would be easier to carry on the war with their
+co-operation.  Alive to all this, and wishing to anticipate the
+revolt of the cities, the Athenians acted as follows.  They were just
+then sending off thirty ships and a thousand heavy infantry for his
+country under the command of Archestratus, son of Lycomedes, with four
+colleagues.  They instructed the captains to take hostages of the
+Potidaeans, to raze the wall, and to be on their guard against the
+revolt of the neighbouring cities.
+
+Meanwhile the Potidaeans sent envoys to Athens on the chance of
+persuading them to take no new steps in their matters; they also
+went to Lacedaemon with the Corinthians to secure support in case of
+need.  Failing after prolonged negotiation to obtain anything
+satisfactory from the Athenians; being unable, for all they could say,
+to prevent the vessels that were destined for Macedonia from also
+sailing against them; and receiving from the Lacedaemonian
+government a promise to invade Attica, if the Athenians should
+attack Potidaea, the Potidaeans, thus favoured by the moment, at
+last entered into league with the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, and
+revolted.  And Perdiccas induced the Chalcidians to abandon and
+demolish their towns on the seaboard and, settling inland at Olynthus,
+to make that one city a strong place: meanwhile to those who
+followed his advice he gave a part of his territory in Mygdonia
+round Lake Bolbe as a place of abode while the war against the
+Athenians should last.  They accordingly demolished their towns,
+removed inland and prepared for war.  The thirty ships of the
+Athenians, arriving before the Thracian places, found Potidaea and the
+rest in revolt.  Their commanders, considering it to be quite
+impossible with their present force to carry on war with Perdiccas and
+with the confederate towns as well turned to Macedonia, their original
+destination, and, having established themselves there, carried on
+war in co-operation with Philip, and the brothers of Derdas, who had
+invaded the country from the interior.
+
+Meanwhile the Corinthians, with Potidaea in revolt and the
+Athenian ships on the coast of Macedonia, alarmed for the safety of
+the place and thinking its danger theirs, sent volunteers from
+Corinth, and mercenaries from the rest of Peloponnese, to the number
+of sixteen hundred heavy infantry in all, and four hundred light
+troops.  Aristeus, son of Adimantus, who was always a steady friend
+to the Potidaeans, took command of the expedition, and it was
+principally for love of him that most of the men from Corinth
+volunteered.  They arrived in Thrace forty days after the revolt of
+Potidaea.
+
+The Athenians also immediately received the news of the revolt of
+the cities.  On being informed that Aristeus and his reinforcements
+were on their way, they sent two thousand heavy infantry of their
+own citizens and forty ships against the places in revolt, under the
+command of Callias, son of Calliades, and four colleagues.  They
+arrived in Macedonia first, and found the force of a thousand men that
+had been first sent out, just become masters of Therme and besieging
+Pydna.  Accordingly they also joined in the investment, and besieged
+Pydna for a while.  Subsequently they came to terms and concluded a
+forced alliance with Perdiccas, hastened by the calls of Potidaea
+and by the arrival of Aristeus at that place.  They withdrew from
+Macedonia, going to Beroea and thence to Strepsa, and, after a
+futile attempt on the latter place, they pursued by land their march
+to Potidaea with three thousand heavy infantry of their own
+citizens, besides a number of their allies, and six hundred Macedonian
+horsemen, the followers of Philip and Pausanias.  With these sailed
+seventy ships along the coast.  Advancing by short marches, on the
+third day they arrived at Gigonus, where they encamped.
+
+Meanwhile the Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians with Aristeus were
+encamped on the side looking towards Olynthus on the isthmus, in
+expectation of the Athenians, and had established their market outside
+the city.  The allies had chosen Aristeus general of all the
+infantry; while the command of the cavalry was given to Perdiccas, who
+had at once left the alliance of the Athenians and gone back to that
+of the Potidaeans, having deputed Iolaus as his general: The plan of
+Aristeus was to keep his own force on the isthmus, and await the
+attack of the Athenians; leaving the Chalcidians and the allies
+outside the isthmus, and the two hundred cavalry from Perdiccas in
+Olynthus to act upon the Athenian rear, on the occasion of their
+advancing against him; and thus to place the enemy between two
+fires.  While Callias the Athenian general and his colleagues
+dispatched the Macedonian horse and a few of the allies to Olynthus,
+to prevent any movement being made from that quarter, the Athenians
+themselves broke up their camp and marched against Potidaea.  After
+they had arrived at the isthmus, and saw the enemy preparing for
+battle, they formed against him, and soon afterwards engaged.  The wing
+of Aristeus, with the Corinthians and other picked troops round him,
+routed the wing opposed to it, and followed for a considerable
+distance in pursuit.  But the rest of the army of the Potidaeans and of
+the Peloponnesians was defeated by the Athenians, and took refuge
+within the fortifications.  Returning from the pursuit, Aristeus
+perceived the defeat of the rest of the army.  Being at a loss which of
+the two risks to choose, whether to go to Olynthus or to Potidaea,
+he at last determined to draw his men into as small a space as
+possible, and force his way with a run into Potidaea.  Not without
+difficulty, through a storm of missiles, he passed along by the
+breakwater through the sea, and brought off most of his men safe,
+though a few were lost.  Meanwhile the auxiliaries of the Potidaeans
+from Olynthus, which is about seven miles off and in sight of
+Potidaea, when the battle began and the signals were raised,
+advanced a little way to render assistance; and the Macedonian horse
+formed against them to prevent it.  But on victory speedily declaring
+for the Athenians and the signals being taken down, they retired
+back within the wall; and the Macedonians returned to the Athenians.
+Thus there were no cavalry present on either side.  After the battle
+the Athenians set up a trophy, and gave back their dead to the
+Potidaeans under truce.  The Potidaeans and their allies had close upon
+three hundred killed; the Athenians a hundred and fifty of their own
+citizens, and Callias their general.
+
+The wall on the side of the isthmus had now works at once raised
+against it, and manned by the Athenians.  That on the side of Pallene
+had no works raised against it.  They did not think themselves strong
+enough at once to keep a garrison in the isthmus and to cross over
+to Pallene and raise works there; they were afraid that the Potidaeans
+and their allies might take advantage of their division to attack
+them.  Meanwhile the Athenians at home learning that there were no
+works at Pallene, some time afterwards sent off sixteen hundred
+heavy infantry of their own citizens under the command of Phormio, son
+of Asopius.  Arrived at Pallene, he fixed his headquarters at
+Aphytis, and led his army against Potidaea by short marches,
+ravaging the country as he advanced.  No one venturing to meet him in
+the field, he raised works against the wall on the side of Pallene.  So
+at length Potidaea was strongly invested on either side, and from
+the sea by the ships co-operating in the blockade.  Aristeus, seeing
+its investment complete, and having no hope of its salvation, except
+in the event of some movement from the Peloponnese, or of some other
+improbable contingency, advised all except five hundred to watch for a
+wind and sail out of the place, in order that their provisions might
+last the longer.  He was willing to be himself one of those who
+remained.  Unable to persuade them, and desirous of acting on the
+next alternative, and of having things outside in the best posture
+possible, he eluded the guardships of the Athenians and sailed out.
+Remaining among the Chalcidians, he continued to carry on the war;
+in particular he laid an ambuscade near the city of the Sermylians,
+and cut off many of them; he also communicated with Peloponnese, and
+tried to contrive some method by which help might be brought.
+Meanwhile, after the completion of the investment of Potidaea, Phormio
+next employed his sixteen hundred men in ravaging Chalcidice and
+Bottica: some of the towns also were taken by him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_Congress of the Peloponnesian Confederacy at Lacedaemon_
+
+The Athenians and Peloponnesians had these antecedent grounds of
+complaint against each other: the complaint of Corinth was that her
+colony of Potidaea, and Corinthian and Peloponnesian citizens within
+it, were being besieged; that of Athens against the Peloponnesians
+that they had incited a town of hers, a member of her alliance and a
+contributor to her revenue, to revolt, and had come and were openly
+fighting against her on the side of the Potidaeans.  For all this,
+war had not yet broken out: there was still truce for a while; for
+this was a private enterprise on the part of Corinth.
+
+But the siege of Potidaea put an end to her inaction; she had men
+inside it: besides, she feared for the place.  Immediately summoning
+the allies to Lacedaemon, she came and loudly accused Athens of breach
+of the treaty and aggression on the rights of Peloponnese.  With her,
+the Aeginetans, formally unrepresented from fear of Athens, in
+secret proved not the least urgent of the advocates for war, asserting
+that they had not the independence guaranteed to them by the treaty.
+After extending the summons to any of their allies and others who
+might have complaints to make of Athenian aggression, the
+Lacedaemonians held their ordinary assembly, and invited them to
+speak.  There were many who came forward and made their several
+accusations; among them the Megarians, in a long list of grievances,
+called special attention to the fact of their exclusion from the ports
+of the Athenian empire and the market of Athens, in defiance of the
+treaty.  Last of all the Corinthians came forward, and having let those
+who preceded them inflame the Lacedaemonians, now followed with a
+speech to this effect:
+
+"Lacedaemonians! the confidence which you feel in your
+constitution and social order, inclines you to receive any reflections
+of ours on other powers with a certain scepticism.  Hence springs
+your moderation, but hence also the rather limited knowledge which you
+betray in dealing with foreign politics.  Time after time was our voice
+raised to warn you of the blows about to be dealt us by Athens, and
+time after time, instead of taking the trouble to ascertain the
+worth of our communications, you contented yourselves with
+suspecting the speakers of being inspired by private interest.  And so,
+instead of calling these allies together before the blow fell, you
+have delayed to do so till we are smarting under it; allies among whom
+we have not the worst title to speak, as having the greatest
+complaints to make, complaints of Athenian outrage and Lacedaemonian
+neglect.  Now if these assaults on the rights of Hellas had been made
+in the dark, you might be unacquainted with the facts, and it would be
+our duty to enlighten you.  As it is, long speeches are not needed
+where you see servitude accomplished for some of us, meditated for
+others--in particular for our allies--and prolonged preparations in
+the aggressor against the hour of war.  Or what, pray, is the meaning
+of their reception of Corcyra by fraud, and their holding it against
+us by force? what of the siege of Potidaea?--places one of which lies
+most conveniently for any action against the Thracian towns; while the
+other would have contributed a very large navy to the Peloponnesians?
+
+"For all this you are responsible.  You it was who first allowed them
+to fortify their city after the Median war, and afterwards to erect
+the long walls--you who, then and now, are always depriving of
+freedom not only those whom they have enslaved, but also those who
+have as yet been your allies.  For the true author of the subjugation
+of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as the power which
+permits it having the means to prevent it; particularly if that
+power aspires to the glory of being the liberator of Hellas.  We are at
+last assembled.  It has not been easy to assemble, nor even now are our
+objects defined.  We ought not to be still inquiring into the fact of
+our wrongs, but into the means of our defence.  For the aggressors with
+matured plans to oppose to our indecision have cast threats aside
+and betaken themselves to action.  And we know what are the paths by
+which Athenian aggression travels, and how insidious is its
+progress.  A degree of confidence she may feel from the idea that
+your bluntness of perception prevents your noticing her; but it is
+nothing to the impulse which her advance will receive from the
+knowledge that you see, but do not care to interfere.  You,
+Lacedaemonians, of all the Hellenes are alone inactive, and defend
+yourselves not by doing anything but by looking as if you would do
+something; you alone wait till the power of an enemy is becoming twice
+its original size, instead of crushing it in its infancy.  And yet
+the world used to say that you were to be depended upon; but in your
+case, we fear, it said more than the truth.  The Mede, we ourselves
+know, had time to come from the ends of the earth to Peloponnese,
+without any force of yours worthy of the name advancing to meet him.
+But this was a distant enemy.  Well, Athens at all events is a near
+neighbour, and yet Athens you utterly disregard; against Athens you
+prefer to act on the defensive instead of on the offensive, and to
+make it an affair of chances by deferring the struggle till she has
+grown far stronger than at first.  And yet you know that on the whole
+the rock on which the barbarian was wrecked was himself, and that if
+our present enemy Athens has not again and again annihilated us, we
+owe it more to her blunders than to your protection; Indeed,
+expectations from you have before now been the ruin of some, whose
+faith induced them to omit preparation.
+
+"We hope that none of you will consider these words of
+remonstrance to be rather words of hostility; men remonstrate with
+friends who are in error, accusations they reserve for enemies who
+have wronged them.  Besides, we consider that we have as good a right
+as any one to point out a neighbour's faults, particularly when we
+contemplate the great contrast between the two national characters;
+a contrast of which, as far as we can see, you have little perception,
+having never yet considered what sort of antagonists you will
+encounter in the Athenians, how widely, how absolutely different
+from yourselves.  The Athenians are addicted to innovation, and their
+designs are characterized by swiftness alike in conception and
+execution; you have a genius for keeping what you have got,
+accompanied by a total want of invention, and when forced to act you
+never go far enough.  Again, they are adventurous beyond their power,
+and daring beyond their judgment, and in danger they are sanguine;
+your wont is to attempt less than is justified by your power, to
+mistrust even what is sanctioned by your judgment, and to fancy that
+from danger there is no release.  Further, there is promptitude on
+their side against procrastination on yours; they are never at home,
+you are never from it: for they hope by their absence to extend
+their acquisitions, you fear by your advance to endanger what you have
+left behind.  They are swift to follow up a success, and slow to recoil
+from a reverse.  Their bodies they spend ungrudgingly in their
+country's cause; their intellect they jealously husband to be employed
+in her service.  A scheme unexecuted is with them a positive loss, a
+successful enterprise a comparative failure.  The deficiency created by
+the miscarriage of an undertaking is soon filled up by fresh hopes;
+for they alone are enabled to call a thing hoped for a thing got, by
+the speed with which they act upon their resolutions.  Thus they toil
+on in trouble and danger all the days of their life, with little
+opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting: their only
+idea of a holiday is to do what the occasion demands, and to them
+laborious occupation is less of a misfortune than the peace of a quiet
+life.  To describe their character in a word, one might truly say
+that they were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to
+give none to others.
+
+"Such is Athens, your antagonist.  And yet, Lacedaemonians, you still
+delay, and fail to see that peace stays longest with those, who are
+not more careful to use their power justly than to show their
+determination not to submit to injustice.  On the contrary, your
+ideal of fair dealing is based on the principle that, if you do not
+injure others, you need not risk your own fortunes in preventing
+others from injuring you.  Now you could scarcely have succeeded in
+such a policy even with a neighbour like yourselves; but in the
+present instance, as we have just shown, your habits are old-fashioned
+as compared with theirs.  It is the law as in art, so in politics, that
+improvements ever prevail; and though fixed usages may be best for
+undisturbed communities, constant necessities of action must be
+accompanied by the constant improvement of methods.  Thus it happens
+that the vast experience of Athens has carried her further than you on
+the path of innovation.
+
+"Here, at least, let your procrastination end.  For the present,
+assist your allies and Potidaea in particular, as you promised, by a
+speedy invasion of Attica, and do not sacrifice friends and kindred to
+their bitterest enemies, and drive the rest of us in despair to some
+other alliance.  Such a step would not be condemned either by the
+Gods who received our oaths, or by the men who witnessed them.  The
+breach of a treaty cannot be laid to the people whom desertion compels
+to seek new relations, but to the power that fails to assist its
+confederate.  But if you will only act, we will stand by you; it
+would be unnatural for us to change, and never should we meet with
+such a congenial ally.  For these reasons choose the right course,
+and endeavour not to let Peloponnese under your supremacy degenerate
+from the prestige that it enjoyed under that of your ancestors."
+
+Such were the words of the Corinthians.  There happened to be
+Athenian envoys present at Lacedaemon on other business.  On hearing
+the speeches they thought themselves called upon to come before the
+Lacedaemonians.  Their intention was not to offer a defence on any of
+the charges which the cities brought against them, but to show on a
+comprehensive view that it was not a matter to be hastily decided
+on, but one that demanded further consideration.  There was also a wish
+to call attention to the great power of Athens, and to refresh the
+memory of the old and enlighten the ignorance of the young, from a
+notion that their words might have the effect of inducing them to
+prefer tranquillity to war.  So they came to the Lacedaemonians and
+said that they too, if there was no objection, wished to speak to
+their assembly.  They replied by inviting them to come forward.  The
+Athenians advanced, and spoke as follows:
+
+"The object of our mission here was not to argue with your allies,
+but to attend to the matters on which our state dispatched us.
+However, the vehemence of the outcry that we hear against us has
+prevailed on us to come forward.  It is not to combat the accusations
+of the cities (indeed you are not the judges before whom either we
+or they can plead), but to prevent your taking the wrong course on
+matters of great importance by yielding too readily to the persuasions
+of your allies.  We also wish to show on a review of the whole
+indictment that we have a fair title to our possessions, and that
+our country has claims to consideration.  We need not refer to remote
+antiquity: there we could appeal to the voice of tradition, but not to
+the experience of our audience.  But to the Median War and contemporary
+history we must refer, although we are rather tired of continually
+bringing this subject forward.  In our action during that war we ran
+great risk to obtain certain advantages: you had your share in the
+solid results, do not try to rob us of all share in the good that
+the glory may do us.  However, the story shall be told not so much to
+deprecate hostility as to testify against it, and to show, if you
+are so ill advised as to enter into a struggle with Athens, what
+sort of an antagonist she is likely to prove.  We assert that at
+Marathon we were at the front, and faced the barbarian
+single-handed.  That when he came the second time, unable to cope
+with him by land we went on board our ships with all our people, and
+joined in the action at Salamis.  This prevented his taking the
+Peloponnesian states in detail, and ravaging them with his fleet; when
+the multitude of his vessels would have made any combination for
+self-defence impossible.  The best proof of this was furnished by the
+invader himself.  Defeated at sea, he considered his power to be no
+longer what it had been, and retired as speedily as possible with
+the greater part of his army.
+
+"Such, then, was the result of the matter, and it was clearly proved
+that it was on the fleet of Hellas that her cause depended.  Well, to
+this result we contributed three very useful elements, viz., the
+largest number of ships, the ablest commander, and the most
+unhesitating patriotism.  Our contingent of ships was little less
+than two-thirds of the whole four hundred; the commander was
+Themistocles, through whom chiefly it was that the battle took place
+in the straits, the acknowledged salvation of our cause.  Indeed,
+this was the reason of your receiving him with honours such as had
+never been accorded to any foreign visitor.  While for daring
+patriotism we had no competitors.  Receiving no reinforcements from
+behind, seeing everything in front of us already subjugated, we had
+the spirit, after abandoning our city, after sacrificing our
+property (instead of deserting the remainder of the league or
+depriving them of our services by dispersing), to throw ourselves into
+our ships and meet the danger, without a thought of resenting your
+neglect to assist us.  We assert, therefore, that we conferred on you
+quite as much as we received.  For you had a stake to fight for; the
+cities which you had left were still filled with your homes, and you
+had the prospect of enjoying them again; and your coming was
+prompted quite as much by fear for yourselves as for us; at all
+events, you never appeared till we had nothing left to lose.  But we
+left behind us a city that was a city no longer, and staked our
+lives for a city that had an existence only in desperate hope, and
+so bore our full share in your deliverance and in ours.  But if we
+had copied others, and allowed fears for our territory to make us give
+in our adhesion to the Mede before you came, or if we had suffered our
+ruin to break our spirit and prevent us embarking in our ships, your
+naval inferiority would have made a sea-fight unnecessary, and his
+objects would have been peaceably attained.
+
+"Surely, Lacedaemonians, neither by the patriotism that we displayed
+at that crisis, nor by the wisdom of our counsels, do we merit our
+extreme unpopularity with the Hellenes, not at least unpopularity
+for our empire.  That empire we acquired by no violent means, but
+because you were unwilling to prosecute to its conclusion the war
+against the barbarian, and because the allies attached themselves to
+us and spontaneously asked us to assume the command.  And the nature of
+the case first compelled us to advance our empire to its present
+height; fear being our principal motive, though honour and interest
+afterwards came in.  And at last, when almost all hated us, when some
+had already revolted and had been subdued, when you had ceased to be
+the friends that you once were, and had become objects of suspicion
+and dislike, it appeared no longer safe to give up our empire;
+especially as all who left us would fall to you.  And no one can
+quarrel with a people for making, in matters of tremendous risk, the
+best provision that it can for its interest.
+
+"You, at all events, Lacedaemonians, have used your supremacy to
+settle the states in Peloponnese as is agreeable to you.  And if at the
+period of which we were speaking you had persevered to the end of
+the matter, and had incurred hatred in your command, we are sure
+that you would have made yourselves just as galling to the allies, and
+would have been forced to choose between a strong government and
+danger to yourselves.  It follows that it was not a very wonderful
+action, or contrary to the common practice of mankind, if we did
+accept an empire that was offered to us, and refused to give it up
+under the pressure of three of the strongest motives, fear, honour,
+and interest.  And it was not we who set the example, for it has always
+been law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger.  Besides,
+we believed ourselves to be worthy of our position, and so you thought
+us till now, when calculations of interest have made you take up the
+cry of justice--a consideration which no one ever yet brought forward
+to hinder his ambition when he had a chance of gaining anything by
+might.  And praise is due to all who, if not so superior to human
+nature as to refuse dominion, yet respect justice more than their
+position compels them to do.
+
+"We imagine that our moderation would be best demonstrated by the
+conduct of others who should be placed in our position; but even our
+equity has very unreasonably subjected us to condemnation instead of
+approval.  Our abatement of our rights in the contract trials with
+our allies, and our causing them to be decided by impartial laws at
+Athens, have gained us the character of being litigious.  And none care
+to inquire why this reproach is not brought against other imperial
+powers, who treat their subjects with less moderation than we do;
+the secret being that where force can be used, law is not needed.
+But our subjects are so habituated to associate with us as equals that
+any defeat whatever that clashes with their notions of justice,
+whether it proceeds from a legal judgment or from the power which
+our empire gives us, makes them forget to be grateful for being
+allowed to retain most of their possessions, and more vexed at a
+part being taken, than if we had from the first cast law aside and
+openly gratified our covetousness.  If we had done so, not even would
+they have disputed that the weaker must give way to the stronger.
+Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by
+violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the
+second like being compelled by a superior.  At all events they
+contrived to put up with much worse treatment than this from the Mede,
+yet they think our rule severe, and this is to be expected, for the
+present always weighs heavy on the conquered.  This at least is
+certain.  If you were to succeed in overthrowing us and in taking our
+place, you would speedily lose the popularity with which fear of us
+has invested you, if your policy of to-day is at all to tally with the
+sample that you gave of it during the brief period of your command
+against the Mede.  Not only is your life at home regulated by rules and
+institutions incompatible with those of others, but your citizens
+abroad act neither on these rules nor on those which are recognized by
+the rest of Hellas.
+
+"Take time then in forming your resolution, as the matter is of
+great importance; and do not be persuaded by the opinions and
+complaints of others to bring trouble on yourselves, but consider
+the vast influence of accident in war, before you are engaged in it.
+As it continues, it generally becomes an affair of chances, chances
+from which neither of us is exempt, and whose event we must risk in
+the dark.  It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong
+end, to act first, and wait for disaster to discuss the matter.  But we
+are not yet by any means so misguided, nor, so far as we can see,
+are you; accordingly, while it is still open to us both to choose
+aright, we bid you not to dissolve the treaty, or to break your oaths,
+but to have our differences settled by arbitration according to our
+agreement.  Or else we take the gods who heard the oaths to witness,
+and if you begin hostilities, whatever line of action you choose, we
+will try not to be behindhand in repelling you."
+
+Such were the words of the Athenians.  After the Lacedaemonians had
+heard the complaints of the allies against the Athenians, and the
+observations of the latter, they made all withdraw, and consulted by
+themselves on the question before them.  The opinions of the majority
+all led to the same conclusion; the Athenians were open aggressors,
+and war must be declared at once.  But Archidamus, the Lacedaemonian
+king, came forward, who had the reputation of being at once a wise and
+a moderate man, and made the following speech:
+
+"I have not lived so long, Lacedaemonians, without having had the
+experience of many wars, and I see those among you of the same age
+as myself, who will not fall into the common misfortune of longing for
+war from inexperience or from a belief in its advantage and its
+safety.  This, the war on which you are now debating, would be one of
+the greatest magnitude, on a sober consideration of the matter.  In a
+struggle with Peloponnesians and neighbours our strength is of the
+same character, and it is possible to move swiftly on the different
+points.  But a struggle with a people who live in a distant land, who
+have also an extraordinary familiarity with the sea, and who are in
+the highest state of preparation in every other department; with
+wealth private and public, with ships, and horses, and heavy infantry,
+and a population such as no one other Hellenic place can equal, and
+lastly a number of tributary allies--what can justify us in rashly
+beginning such a struggle? wherein is our trust that we should rush on
+it unprepared? Is it in our ships? There we are inferior; while if
+we are to practise and become a match for them, time must intervene.
+Is it in our money? There we have a far greater deficiency.  We neither
+have it in our treasury, nor are we ready to contribute it from our
+private funds.  Confidence might possibly be felt in our superiority in
+heavy infantry and population, which will enable us to invade and
+devastate their lands.  But the Athenians have plenty of other land
+in their empire, and can import what they want by sea.  Again, if we
+are to attempt an insurrection of their allies, these will have to
+be supported with a fleet, most of them being islanders.  What then
+is to be our war? For unless we can either beat them at sea, or
+deprive them of the revenues which feed their navy, we shall meet with
+little but disaster.  Meanwhile our honour will be pledged to keeping
+on, particularly if it be the opinion that we began the quarrel.  For
+let us never be elated by the fatal hope of the war being quickly
+ended by the devastation of their lands.  I fear rather that we may
+leave it as a legacy to our children; so improbable is it that the
+Athenian spirit will be the slave of their land, or Athenian
+experience be cowed by war.
+
+"Not that I would bid you be so unfeeling as to suffer them to
+injure your allies, and to refrain from unmasking their intrigues; but
+I do bid you not to take up arms at once, but to send and
+remonstrate with them in a tone not too suggestive of war, nor again
+too suggestive of submission, and to employ the interval in perfecting
+our own preparations.  The means will be, first, the acquisition of
+allies, Hellenic or barbarian it matters not, so long as they are an
+accession to our strength naval or pecuniary--I say Hellenic or
+barbarian, because the odium of such an accession to all who like us
+are the objects of the designs of the Athenians is taken away by the
+law of self-preservation--and secondly the development of our home
+resources.  If they listen to our embassy, so much the better; but if
+not, after the lapse of two or three years our position will have
+become materially strengthened, and we can then attack them if we
+think proper.  Perhaps by that time the sight of our preparations,
+backed by language equally significant, will have disposed them to
+submission, while their land is still untouched, and while their
+counsels may be directed to the retention of advantages as yet
+undestroyed.  For the only light in which you can view their land is
+that of a hostage in your hands, a hostage the more valuable the
+better it is cultivated.  This you ought to spare as long as
+possible, and not make them desperate, and so increase the
+difficulty of dealing with them.  For if while still unprepared,
+hurried away by the complaints of our allies, we are induced to lay it
+waste, have a care that we do not bring deep disgrace and deep
+perplexity upon Peloponnese.  Complaints, whether of communities or
+individuals, it is possible to adjust; but war undertaken by a
+coalition for sectional interests, whose progress there is no means of
+foreseeing, does not easily admit of creditable settlement.
+
+"And none need think it cowardice for a number of confederates to
+pause before they attack a single city.  The Athenians have allies as
+numerous as our own, and allies that pay tribute, and war is a
+matter not so much of arms as of money, which makes arms of use.  And
+this is more than ever true in a struggle between a continental and
+a maritime power.  First, then, let us provide money, and not allow
+ourselves to be carried away by the talk of our allies before we
+have done so: as we shall have the largest share of responsibility for
+the consequences be they good or bad, we have also a right to a
+tranquil inquiry respecting them.
+
+"And the slowness and procrastination, the parts of our character
+that are most assailed by their criticism, need not make you blush.  If
+we undertake the war without preparation, we should by hastening its
+commencement only delay its conclusion: further, a free and a famous
+city has through all time been ours.  The quality which they condemn is
+really nothing but a wise moderation; thanks to its possession, we
+alone do not become insolent in success and give way less than
+others in misfortune; we are not carried away by the pleasure of
+hearing ourselves cheered on to risks which our judgment condemns;
+nor, if annoyed, are we any the more convinced by attempts to
+exasperate us by accusation.  We are both warlike and wise, and it is
+our sense of order that makes us so.  We are warlike, because
+self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and honour
+bravery.  And we are wise, because we are educated with too little
+learning to despise the laws, and with too severe a self-control to
+disobey them, and are brought up not to be too knowing in useless
+matters--such as the knowledge which can give a specious criticism of
+an enemy's plans in theory, but fails to assail them with equal
+success in practice--but are taught to consider that the schemes of
+our enemies are not dissimilar to our own, and that the freaks of
+chance are not determinable by calculation.  In practice we always base
+our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are
+good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his
+blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions.  Nor ought we to
+believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to
+think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest
+school.  These practices, then, which our ancestors have delivered to
+us, and by whose maintenance we have always profited, must not be
+given up.  And we must not be hurried into deciding in a day's brief
+space a question which concerns many lives and fortunes and many
+cities, and in which honour is deeply involved--but we must decide
+calmly.  This our strength peculiarly enables us to do.  As for the
+Athenians, send to them on the matter of Potidaea, send on the
+matter of the alleged wrongs of the allies, particularly as they are
+prepared with legal satisfaction; and to proceed against one who
+offers arbitration as against a wrongdoer, law forbids.  Meanwhile do
+not omit preparation for war.  This decision will be the best for
+yourselves, the most terrible to your opponents."
+
+Such were the words of Archidamus.  Last came forward Sthenelaidas,
+one of the ephors for that year, and spoke to the Lacedaemonians as
+follows:
+
+"The long speech of the Athenians I do not pretend to understand.
+They said a good deal in praise of themselves, but nowhere denied that
+they are injuring our allies and Peloponnese.  And yet if they
+behaved well against the Mede then, but ill towards us now, they
+deserve double punishment for having ceased to be good and for
+having become bad.  We meanwhile are the same then and now, and shall
+not, if we are wise, disregard the wrongs of our allies, or put off
+till to-morrow the duty of assisting those who must suffer to-day.
+Others have much money and ships and horses, but we have good allies
+whom we must not give up to the Athenians, nor by lawsuits and words
+decide the matter, as it is anything but in word that we are harmed,
+but render instant and powerful help.  And let us not be told that it
+is fitting for us to deliberate under injustice; long deliberation
+is rather fitting for those who have injustice in contemplation.
+Vote therefore, Lacedaemonians, for war, as the honour of Sparta
+demands, and neither allow the further aggrandizement of Athens, nor
+betray our allies to ruin, but with the gods let us advance against
+the aggressors."
+
+With these words he, as ephor, himself put the question to the
+assembly of the Lacedaemonians.  He said that he could not determine
+which was the loudest acclamation (their mode of decision is by
+acclamation not by voting); the fact being that he wished to make them
+declare their opinion openly and thus to increase their ardour for
+war.  Accordingly he said: "All Lacedaemonians who are of opinion
+that the treaty has been broken, and that Athens is guilty, leave your
+seats and go there," pointing out a certain place; "all who are of the
+opposite opinion, there." They accordingly stood up and divided; and
+those who held that the treaty had been broken were in a decided
+majority.  Summoning the allies, they told them that their opinion
+was that Athens had been guilty of injustice, but that they wished
+to convoke all the allies and put it to the vote; in order that they
+might make war, if they decided to do so, on a common resolution.
+Having thus gained their point, the delegates returned home at once;
+the Athenian envoys a little later, when they had dispatched the
+objects of their mission.  This decision of the assembly, judging
+that the treaty had been broken, was made in the fourteenth year of
+the thirty years' truce, which was entered into after the affair of
+Euboea.
+
+The Lacedaemonians voted that the treaty had been broken, and that
+the war must be declared, not so much because they were persuaded by
+the arguments of the allies, as because they feared the growth of
+the power of the Athenians, seeing most of Hellas already subject to
+them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_From the end of the Persian to the beginning of the
+Peloponnesian War - The Progress from Supremacy to Empire_
+
+The way in which Athens came to be placed in the circumstances
+under which her power grew was this.  After the Medes had returned
+from Europe, defeated by sea and land by the Hellenes, and after
+those of them who had fled with their ships to Mycale had been
+destroyed, Leotychides, king of the Lacedaemonians, the commander of
+the Hellenes at Mycale, departed home with the allies from
+Peloponnese.  But the Athenians and the allies from Ionia and
+Hellespont, who had now revolted from the King, remained and laid
+siege to Sestos, which was still held by the Medes.  After wintering
+before it, they became masters of the place on its evacuation by the
+barbarians; and after this they sailed away from Hellespont to their
+respective cities.  Meanwhile the Athenian people, after the departure
+of the barbarian from their country, at once proceeded to carry over
+their children and wives, and such property as they had left, from
+the places where they had deposited them, and prepared to rebuild
+their city and their walls.  For only isolated portions of the
+circumference had been left standing, and most of the houses were in
+ruins; though a few remained, in which the Persian grandees had taken
+up their quarters.
+
+Perceiving what they were going to do, the Lacedaemonians sent an
+embassy to Athens.  They would have themselves preferred to see neither
+her nor any other city in possession of a wall; though here they acted
+principally at the instigation of their allies, who were alarmed at
+the strength of her newly acquired navy and the valour which she had
+displayed in the war with the Medes.  They begged her not only to
+abstain from building walls for herself, but also to join them in
+throwing down the walls that still held together of the
+ultra-Peloponnesian cities.  The real meaning of their advice, the
+suspicion that it contained against the Athenians, was not proclaimed;
+it was urged that so the barbarian, in the event of a third
+invasion, would not have any strong place, such as he now had in
+Thebes, for his base of operations; and that Peloponnese would suffice
+for all as a base both for retreat and offence.  After the
+Lacedaemonians had thus spoken, they were, on the advice of
+Themistocles, immediately dismissed by the Athenians, with the
+answer that ambassadors should be sent to Sparta to discuss the
+question.  Themistocles told the Athenians to send him off with all
+speed to Lacedaemon, but not to dispatch his colleagues as soon as
+they had selected them, but to wait until they had raised their wall
+to the height from which defence was possible.  Meanwhile the whole
+population in the city was to labour at the wall, the Athenians, their
+wives, and their children, sparing no edifice, private or public,
+which might be of any use to the work, but throwing all down.  After
+giving these instructions, and adding that he would be responsible for
+all other matters there, he departed.  Arrived at Lacedaemon he did not
+seek an audience with the authorities, but tried to gain time and made
+excuses.  When any of the government asked him why he did not appear in
+the assembly, he would say that he was waiting for his colleagues, who
+had been detained in Athens by some engagement; however, that he
+expected their speedy arrival, and wondered that they were not yet
+there.  At first the Lacedaemonians trusted the words of
+Themistocles, through their friendship for him; but when others
+arrived, all distinctly declaring that the work was going on and
+already attaining some elevation, they did not know how to
+disbelieve it.  Aware of this, he told them that rumours are deceptive,
+and should not be trusted; they should send some reputable persons
+from Sparta to inspect, whose report might be trusted.  They dispatched
+them accordingly.  Concerning these Themistocles secretly sent word
+to the Athenians to detain them as far as possible without putting
+them under open constraint, and not to let them go until they had
+themselves returned.  For his colleagues had now joined him,
+Abronichus, son of Lysicles, and Aristides, son of Lysimachus, with
+the news that the wall was sufficiently advanced; and he feared that
+when the Lacedaemonians heard the facts, they might refuse to let them
+go.  So the Athenians detained the envoys according to his message, and
+Themistocles had an audience with the Lacedaemonians, and at last
+openly told them that Athens was now fortified sufficiently to protect
+its inhabitants; that any embassy which the Lacedaemonians or their
+allies might wish to send to them should in future proceed on the
+assumption that the people to whom they were going was able to
+distinguish both its own and the general interests.  That when the
+Athenians thought fit to abandon their city and to embark in their
+ships, they ventured on that perilous step without consulting them;
+and that on the other hand, wherever they had deliberated with the
+Lacedaemonians, they had proved themselves to be in judgment second to
+none.  That they now thought it fit that their city should have a wall,
+and that this would be more for the advantage of both the citizens
+of Athens and the Hellenic confederacy; for without equal military
+strength it was impossible to contribute equal or fair counsel to
+the common interest.  It followed, he observed, either that all the
+members of the confederacy should be without walls, or that the
+present step should be considered a right one.
+
+The Lacedaemonians did not betray any open signs of anger against
+the Athenians at what they heard.  The embassy, it seems, was
+prompted not by a desire to obstruct, but to guide the counsels of
+their government: besides, Spartan feeling was at that time very
+friendly towards Athens on account of the patriotism which she had
+displayed in the struggle with the Mede.  Still the defeat of their
+wishes could not but cause them secret annoyance.  The envoys of each
+state departed home without complaint.
+
+In this way the Athenians walled their city in a little while.  To
+this day the building shows signs of the haste of its execution; the
+foundations are laid of stones of all kinds, and in some places not
+wrought or fitted, but placed just in the order in which they were
+brought by the different hands; and many columns, too, from tombs, and
+sculptured stones were put in with the rest.  For the bounds of the
+city were extended at every point of the circumference; and so they
+laid hands on everything without exception in their haste.
+Themistocles also persuaded them to finish the walls of Piraeus, which
+had been begun before, in his year of office as archon; being
+influenced alike by the fineness of a locality that has three
+natural harbours, and by the great start which the Athenians would
+gain in the acquisition of power by becoming a naval people.  For he
+first ventured to tell them to stick to the sea and forthwith began to
+lay the foundations of the empire.  It was by his advice, too, that
+they built the walls of that thickness which can still be discerned
+round Piraeus, the stones being brought up by two wagons meeting
+each other.  Between the walls thus formed there was neither rubble nor
+mortar, but great stones hewn square and fitted together, cramped to
+each other on the outside with iron and lead.  About half the height
+that he intended was finished.  His idea was by their size and
+thickness to keep off the attacks of an enemy; he thought that they
+might be adequately defended by a small garrison of invalids, and
+the rest be freed for service in the fleet.  For the fleet claimed most
+of his attention.  He saw, as I think, that the approach by sea was
+easier for the king's army than that by land: he also thought
+Piraeus more valuable than the upper city; indeed, he was always
+advising the Athenians, if a day should come when they were hard
+pressed by land, to go down into Piraeus, and defy the world with
+their fleet.  Thus, therefore, the Athenians completed their wall,
+and commenced their other buildings immediately after the retreat of
+the Mede.
+
+Meanwhile Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, was sent out from
+Lacedaemon as commander-in-chief of the Hellenes, with twenty ships
+from Peloponnese.  With him sailed the Athenians with thirty ships, and
+a number of the other allies.  They made an expedition against Cyprus
+and subdued most of the island, and afterwards against Byzantium,
+which was in the hands of the Medes, and compelled it to surrender.
+This event took place while the Spartans were still supreme.  But the
+violence of Pausanias had already begun to be disagreeable to the
+Hellenes, particularly to the Ionians and the newly liberated
+populations.  These resorted to the Athenians and requested them as
+their kinsmen to become their leaders, and to stop any attempt at
+violence on the part of Pausanias.  The Athenians accepted their
+overtures, and determined to put down any attempt of the kind and to
+settle everything else as their interests might seem to demand.  In the
+meantime the Lacedaemonians recalled Pausanias for an investigation of
+the reports which had reached them.  Manifold and grave accusations had
+been brought against him by Hellenes arriving in Sparta; and, to all
+appearance, there had been in him more of the mimicry of a despot than
+of the attitude of a general.  As it happened, his recall came just
+at the time when the hatred which he had inspired had induced the
+allies to desert him, the soldiers from Peloponnese excepted, and to
+range themselves by the side of the Athenians.  On his arrival at
+Lacedaemon, he was censured for his private acts of oppression, but
+was acquitted on the heaviest counts and pronounced not guilty; it
+must be known that the charge of Medism formed one of the principal,
+and to all appearance one of the best founded, articles against him.
+The Lacedaemonians did not, however, restore him to his command, but
+sent out Dorkis and certain others with a small force; who found the
+allies no longer inclined to concede to them the supremacy.  Perceiving
+this they departed, and the Lacedaemonians did not send out any to
+succeed them.  They feared for those who went out a deterioration
+similar to that observable in Pausanias; besides, they desired to be
+rid of the Median War, and were satisfied of the competency of the
+Athenians for the position, and of their friendship at the time
+towards themselves.
+
+The Athenians, having thus succeeded to the supremacy by the
+voluntary act of the allies through their hatred of Pausanias, fixed
+which cities were to contribute money against the barbarian, which
+ships; their professed object being to retaliate for their
+sufferings by ravaging the King's country.  Now was the time that the
+office of "Treasurers for Hellas" was first instituted by the
+Athenians.  These officers received the tribute, as the money
+contributed was called.  The tribute was first fixed at four hundred
+and sixty talents.  The common treasury was at Delos, and the
+congresses were held in the temple.  Their supremacy commenced with
+independent allies who acted on the resolutions of a common
+congress.  It was marked by the following undertakings in war and in
+administration during the interval between the Median and the
+present war, against the barbarian, against their own rebel allies,
+and against the Peloponnesian powers which would come in contact
+with them on various occasions.  My excuse for relating these events,
+and for venturing on this digression, is that this passage of
+history has been omitted by all my predecessors, who have confined
+themselves either to Hellenic history before the Median War, or the
+Median War itself.  Hellanicus, it is true, did touch on these events
+in his Athenian history; but he is somewhat concise and not accurate
+in his dates.  Besides, the history of these events contains an
+explanation of the growth of the Athenian empire.
+
+First the Athenians besieged and captured Eion on the Strymon from
+the Medes, and made slaves of the inhabitants, being under the command
+of Cimon, son of Miltiades.  Next they enslaved Scyros, the island in
+the Aegean, containing a Dolopian population, and colonized it
+themselves.  This was followed by a war against Carystus, in which
+the rest of Euboea remained neutral, and which was ended by
+surrender on conditions.  After this Naxos left the confederacy, and
+a war ensued, and she had to return after a siege; this was the
+first instance of the engagement being broken by the subjugation of an
+allied city, a precedent which was followed by that of the rest in the
+order which circumstances prescribed.  Of all the causes of
+defection, that connected with arrears of tribute and vessels, and
+with failure of service, was the chief; for the Athenians were very
+severe and exacting, and made themselves offensive by applying the
+screw of necessity to men who were not used to and in fact not
+disposed for any continuous labour.  In some other respects the
+Athenians were not the old popular rulers they had been at first;
+and if they had more than their fair share of service, it was
+correspondingly easy for them to reduce any that tried to leave the
+confederacy.  For this the allies had themselves to blame; the wish
+to get off service making most of them arrange to pay their share of
+the expense in money instead of in ships, and so to avoid having to
+leave their homes.  Thus while Athens was increasing her navy with
+the funds which they contributed, a revolt always found them without
+resources or experience for war.
+
+Next we come to the actions by land and by sea at the river
+Eurymedon, between the Athenians with their allies, and the Medes,
+when the Athenians won both battles on the same day under the
+conduct of Cimon, son of Miltiades, and captured and destroyed the
+whole Phoenician fleet, consisting of two hundred vessels.  Some time
+afterwards occurred the defection of the Thasians, caused by
+disagreements about the marts on the opposite coast of Thrace, and
+about the mine in their possession.  Sailing with a fleet to Thasos,
+the Athenians defeated them at sea and effected a landing on the
+island.  About the same time they sent ten thousand settlers of their
+own citizens and the allies to settle the place then called Ennea
+Hodoi or Nine Ways, now Amphipolis.  They succeeded in gaining
+possession of Ennea Hodoi from the Edonians, but on advancing into the
+interior of Thrace were cut off in Drabescus, a town of the
+Edonians, by the assembled Thracians, who regarded the settlement of
+the place Ennea Hodoi as an act of hostility.  Meanwhile the Thasians
+being defeated in the field and suffering siege, appealed to
+Lacedaemon, and desired her to assist them by an invasion of Attica.
+Without informing Athens, she promised and intended to do so, but
+was prevented by the occurrence of the earthquake, accompanied by
+the secession of the Helots and the Thuriats and Aethaeans of the
+Perioeci to Ithome.  Most of the Helots were the descendants of the old
+Messenians that were enslaved in the famous war; and so all of them
+came to be called Messenians.  So the Lacedaemonians being engaged in a
+war with the rebels in Ithome, the Thasians in the third year of the
+siege obtained terms from the Athenians by razing their walls,
+delivering up their ships, and arranging to pay the moneys demanded at
+once, and tribute in future; giving up their possessions on the
+continent together with the mine.
+
+The Lacedaemonians, meanwhile, finding the war against the rebels in
+Ithome likely to last, invoked the aid of their allies, and especially
+of the Athenians, who came in some force under the command of Cimon.
+The reason for this pressing summons lay in their reputed skill in
+siege operations; a long siege had taught the Lacedaemonians their own
+deficiency in this art, else they would have taken the place by
+assault.  The first open quarrel between the Lacedaemonians and
+Athenians arose out of this expedition.  The Lacedaemonians, when
+assault failed to take the place, apprehensive of the enterprising and
+revolutionary character of the Athenians, and further looking upon
+them as of alien extraction, began to fear that, if they remained,
+they might be tempted by the besieged in Ithome to attempt some
+political changes.  They accordingly dismissed them alone of the
+allies, without declaring their suspicions, but merely saying that
+they had now no need of them.  But the Athenians, aware that their
+dismissal did not proceed from the more honourable reason of the
+two, but from suspicions which had been conceived, went away deeply
+offended, and conscious of having done nothing to merit such treatment
+from the Lacedaemonians; and the instant that they returned home
+they broke off the alliance which had been made against the Mede,
+and allied themselves with Sparta's enemy Argos; each of the
+contracting parties taking the same oaths and making the same alliance
+with the Thessalians.
+
+Meanwhile the rebels in Ithome, unable to prolong further a ten
+years' resistance, surrendered to Lacedaemon; the conditions being
+that they should depart from Peloponnese under safe conduct, and
+should never set foot in it again: any one who might hereafter be
+found there was to be the slave of his captor.  It must be known that
+the Lacedaemonians had an old oracle from Delphi, to the effect that
+they should let go the suppliant of Zeus at Ithome.  So they went forth
+with their children and their wives, and being received by Athens from
+the hatred that she now felt for the Lacedaemonians, were located at
+Naupactus, which she had lately taken from the Ozolian Locrians.  The
+Athenians received another addition to their confederacy in the
+Megarians; who left the Lacedaemonian alliance, annoyed by a war about
+boundaries forced on them by Corinth.  The Athenians occupied Megara
+and Pegae, and built the Megarians their long walls from the city to
+Nisaea, in which they placed an Athenian garrison.  This was the
+principal cause of the Corinthians conceiving such a deadly hatred
+against Athens.
+
+Meanwhile Inaros, son of Psammetichus, a Libyan king of the
+Libyans on the Egyptian border, having his headquarters at Marea,
+the town above Pharos, caused a revolt of almost the whole of Egypt
+from King Artaxerxes and, placing himself at its head, invited the
+Athenians to his assistance.  Abandoning a Cyprian expedition upon
+which they happened to be engaged with two hundred ships of their
+own and their allies, they arrived in Egypt and sailed from the sea
+into the Nile, and making themselves masters of the river and
+two-thirds of Memphis, addressed themselves to the attack of the
+remaining third, which is called White Castle.  Within it were Persians
+and Medes who had taken refuge there, and Egyptians who had not joined
+the rebellion.
+
+Meanwhile the Athenians, making a descent from their fleet upon
+Haliae, were engaged by a force of Corinthians and Epidaurians; and
+the Corinthians were victorious.  Afterwards the Athenians engaged
+the Peloponnesian fleet off Cecruphalia; and the Athenians were
+victorious.  Subsequently war broke out between Aegina and Athens,
+and there was a great battle at sea off Aegina between the Athenians
+and Aeginetans, each being aided by their allies; in which victory
+remained with the Athenians, who took seventy of the enemy's ships,
+and landed in the country and commenced a siege under the command of
+Leocrates, son of Stroebus.  Upon this the Peloponnesians, desirous
+of aiding the Aeginetans, threw into Aegina a force of three hundred
+heavy infantry, who had before been serving with the Corinthians and
+Epidaurians.  Meanwhile the Corinthians and their allies occupied the
+heights of Geraneia, and marched down into the Megarid, in the
+belief that, with a large force absent in Aegina and Egypt, Athens
+would be unable to help the Megarians without raising the siege of
+Aegina.  But the Athenians, instead of moving the army of Aegina,
+raised a force of the old and young men that had been left in the
+city, and marched into the Megarid under the command of Myronides.
+After a drawn battle with the Corinthians, the rival hosts parted,
+each with the impression that they had gained the victory.  The
+Athenians, however, if anything, had rather the advantage, and on
+the departure of the Corinthians set up a trophy.  Urged by the
+taunts of the elders in their city, the Corinthians made their
+preparations, and about twelve days afterwards came and set up their
+trophy as victors.  Sallying out from Megara, the Athenians cut off the
+party that was employed in erecting the trophy, and engaged and
+defeated the rest.  In the retreat of the vanquished army, a
+considerable division, pressed by the pursuers and mistaking the road,
+dashed into a field on some private property, with a deep trench all
+round it, and no way out.  Being acquainted with the place, the
+Athenians hemmed their front with heavy infantry and, placing the
+light troops round in a circle, stoned all who had gone in.  Corinth
+here suffered a severe blow.  The bulk of her army continued its
+retreat home.
+
+About this time the Athenians began to build the long walls to the
+sea, that towards Phalerum and that towards Piraeus.  Meanwhile the
+Phocians made an expedition against Doris, the old home of the
+Lacedaemonians, containing the towns of Boeum, Kitinium, and
+Erineum.  They had taken one of these towns, when the Lacedaemonians
+under Nicomedes, son of Cleombrotus, commanding for King
+Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, who was still a minor, came to the
+aid of the Dorians with fifteen hundred heavy infantry of their own,
+and ten thousand of their allies.  After compelling the Phocians to
+restore the town on conditions, they began their retreat.  The route by
+sea, across the Crissaean Gulf, exposed them to the risk of being
+stopped by the Athenian fleet; that across Geraneia seemed scarcely
+safe, the Athenians holding Megara and Pegae.  For the pass was a
+difficult one, and was always guarded by the Athenians; and, in the
+present instance, the Lacedaemonians had information that they meant
+to dispute their passage.  So they resolved to remain in Boeotia, and
+to consider which would be the safest line of march.  They had also
+another reason for this resolve.  Secret encouragement had been given
+them by a party in Athens, who hoped to put an end to the reign of
+democracy and the building of the Long Walls.  Meanwhile the
+Athenians marched against them with their whole levy and a thousand
+Argives and the respective contingents of the rest of their allies.
+Altogether they were fourteen thousand strong.  The march was
+prompted by the notion that the Lacedaemonians were at a loss how to
+effect their passage, and also by suspicions of an attempt to
+overthrow the democracy.  Some cavalry also joined the Athenians from
+their Thessalian allies; but these went over to the Lacedaemonians
+during the battle.
+
+The battle was fought at Tanagra in Boeotia.  After heavy loss on
+both sides, victory declared for the Lacedaemonians and their
+allies.  After entering the Megarid and cutting down the fruit trees,
+the Lacedaemonians returned home across Geraneia and the isthmus.
+Sixty-two days after the battle the Athenians marched into Boeotia
+under the command of Myronides, defeated the Boeotians in battle at
+Oenophyta, and became masters of Boeotia and Phocis.  They dismantled
+the walls of the Tanagraeans, took a hundred of the richest men of the
+Opuntian Locrians as hostages, and finished their own long walls.  This
+was followed by the surrender of the Aeginetans to Athens on
+conditions; they pulled down their walls, gave up their ships, and
+agreed to pay tribute in future.  The Athenians sailed round
+Peloponnese under Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus, burnt the arsenal of
+Lacedaemon, took Chalcis, a town of the Corinthians, and in a
+descent upon Sicyon defeated the Sicyonians in battle.
+
+Meanwhile the Athenians in Egypt and their allies were still
+there, and encountered all the vicissitudes of war.  First the
+Athenians were masters of Egypt, and the King sent Megabazus a Persian
+to Lacedaemon with money to bribe the Peloponnesians to invade
+Attica and so draw off the Athenians from Egypt.  Finding that the
+matter made no progress, and that the money was only being wasted,
+he recalled Megabazus with the remainder of the money, and sent
+Megabuzus, son of Zopyrus, a Persian, with a large army to Egypt.
+Arriving by land he defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a
+battle, and drove the Hellenes out of Memphis, and at length shut them
+up in the island of Prosopitis, where he besieged them for a year
+and six months.  At last, draining the canal of its waters, which he
+diverted into another channel, he left their ships high and dry and
+joined most of the island to the mainland, and then marched over on
+foot and captured it.  Thus the enterprise of the Hellenes came to ruin
+after six years of war.  Of all that large host a few travelling
+through Libya reached Cyrene in safety, but most of them perished.  And
+thus Egypt returned to its subjection to the King, except Amyrtaeus,
+the king in the marshes, whom they were unable to capture from the
+extent of the marsh; the marshmen being also the most warlike of the
+Egyptians.  Inaros, the Libyan king, the sole author of the Egyptian
+revolt, was betrayed, taken, and crucified.  Meanwhile a relieving
+squadron of fifty vessels had sailed from Athens and the rest of the
+confederacy for Egypt.  They put in to shore at the Mendesian mouth
+of the Nile, in total ignorance of what had occurred.  Attacked on
+the land side by the troops, and from the sea by the Phoenician
+navy, most of the ships were destroyed; the few remaining being
+saved by retreat.  Such was the end of the great expedition of the
+Athenians and their allies to Egypt.
+
+Meanwhile Orestes, son of Echecratidas, the Thessalian king, being
+an exile from Thessaly, persuaded the Athenians to restore him.  Taking
+with them the Boeotians and Phocians their allies, the Athenians
+marched to Pharsalus in Thessaly.  They became masters of the
+country, though only in the immediate vicinity of the camp; beyond
+which they could not go for fear of the Thessalian cavalry.  But they
+failed to take the city or to attain any of the other objects of their
+expedition, and returned home with Orestes without having effected
+anything.  Not long after this a thousand of the Athenians embarked
+in the vessels that were at Pegae (Pegae, it must be remembered, was
+now theirs), and sailed along the coast to Sicyon under the command of
+Pericles, son of Xanthippus.  Landing in Sicyon and defeating the
+Sicyonians who engaged them, they immediately took with them the
+Achaeans and, sailing across, marched against and laid siege to
+Oeniadae in Acarnania.  Failing however to take it, they returned home.
+
+Three years afterwards a truce was made between the Peloponnesians
+and Athenians for five years.  Released from Hellenic war, the
+Athenians made an expedition to Cyprus with two hundred vessels of
+their own and their allies, under the command of Cimon.  Sixty of these
+were detached to Egypt at the instance of Amyrtaeus, the king in the
+marshes; the rest laid siege to Kitium, from which, however, they were
+compelled to retire by the death of Cimon and by scarcity of
+provisions.  Sailing off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought with the
+Phoenicians, Cyprians, and Cilicians by land and sea, and, being
+victorious on both elements departed home, and with them the
+returned squadron from Egypt.  After this the Lacedaemonians marched
+out on a sacred war, and, becoming masters of the temple at Delphi, it
+in the hands of the Delphians.  Immediately after their retreat, the
+Athenians marched out, became masters of the temple, and placed it
+in the hands of the Phocians.
+
+Some time after this, Orchomenus, Chaeronea, and some other places
+in Boeotia being in the hands of the Boeotian exiles, the Athenians
+marched against the above-mentioned hostile places with a thousand
+Athenian heavy infantry and the allied contingents, under the
+command of Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus.  They took Chaeronea, and made
+slaves of the inhabitants, and, leaving a garrison, commenced their
+return.  On their road they were attacked at Coronea by the Boeotian
+exiles from Orchomenus, with some Locrians and Euboean exiles, and
+others who were of the same way of thinking, were defeated in
+battle, and some killed, others taken captive.  The Athenians evacuated
+all Boeotia by a treaty providing for the recovery of the men; and the
+exiled Boeotians returned, and with all the rest regained their
+independence.
+
+This was soon afterwards followed by the revolt of Euboea from
+Athens.  Pericles had already crossed over with an army of Athenians to
+the island, when news was brought to him that Megara had revolted,
+that the Peloponnesians were on the point of invading Attica, and that
+the Athenian garrison had been cut off by the Megarians, with the
+exception of a few who had taken refuge in Nisaea.  The Megarians had
+introduced the Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians into the
+town before they revolted.  Meanwhile Pericles brought his army back in
+all haste from Euboea.  After this the Peloponnesians marched into
+Attica as far as Eleusis and Thrius, ravaging the country under the
+conduct of King Pleistoanax, the son of Pausanias, and without
+advancing further returned home.  The Athenians then crossed over again
+to Euboea under the command of Pericles, and subdued the whole of
+the island: all but Histiaea was settled by convention; the Histiaeans
+they expelled from their homes, and occupied their territory
+themselves.
+
+Not long after their return from Euboea, they made a truce with
+the Lacedaemonians and their allies for thirty years, giving up the
+posts which they occupied in Peloponnese--Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and
+Achaia.  In the sixth year of the truce, war broke out between the
+Samians and Milesians about Priene.  Worsted in the war, the
+Milesians came to Athens with loud complaints against the Samians.
+In this they were joined by certain private persons from Samos itself,
+who wished to revolutionize the government.  Accordingly the
+Athenians sailed to Samos with forty ships and set up a democracy;
+took hostages from the Samians, fifty boys and as many men, lodged
+them in Lemnos, and after leaving a garrison in the island returned
+home.  But some of the Samians had not remained in the island, but
+had fled to the continent.  Making an agreement with the most
+powerful of those in the city, and an alliance with Pissuthnes, son of
+Hystaspes, the then satrap of Sardis, they got together a force of
+seven hundred mercenaries, and under cover of night crossed over to
+Samos.  Their first step was to rise on the commons, most of whom
+they secured; their next to steal their hostages from Lemnos; after
+which they revolted, gave up the Athenian garrison left with them
+and its commanders to Pissuthnes, and instantly prepared for an
+expedition against Miletus. The Byzantines also revolted with them. 
+
+As soon as the Athenians heard the news, they sailed with sixty
+ships against Samos.  Sixteen of these went to Caria to look out for
+the Phoenician fleet, and to Chios and Lesbos carrying round orders
+for reinforcements, and so never engaged; but forty-four ships under
+the command of Pericles with nine colleagues gave battle, off the
+island of Tragia, to seventy Samian vessels, of which twenty were
+transports, as they were sailing from Miletus.  Victory remained with
+the Athenians.  Reinforced afterwards by forty ships from Athens, and
+twenty-five Chian and Lesbian vessels, the Athenians landed, and
+having the superiority by land invested the city with three walls;
+it was also invested from the sea.  Meanwhile Pericles took sixty ships
+from the blockading squadron, and departed in haste for Caunus and
+Caria, intelligence having been brought in of the approach of the
+Phoenician fleet to the aid of the Samians; indeed Stesagoras and
+others had left the island with five ships to bring them.  But in the
+meantime the Samians made a sudden sally, and fell on the camp,
+which they found unfortified.  Destroying the look-out vessels, and
+engaging and defeating such as were being launched to meet them,
+they remained masters of their own seas for fourteen days, and carried
+in and carried out what they pleased.  But on the arrival of
+Pericles, they were once more shut up.  Fresh reinforcements afterwards
+arrived--forty ships from Athens with Thucydides, Hagnon, and
+Phormio; twenty with Tlepolemus and Anticles, and thirty vessels
+from Chios and Lesbos.  After a brief attempt at fighting, the Samians,
+unable to hold out, were reduced after a nine months' siege and
+surrendered on conditions; they razed their walls, gave hostages,
+delivered up their ships, and arranged to pay the expenses of the
+war by instalments.  The Byzantines also agreed to be subject as
+before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_Second Congress at Lacedaemon - Preparations for War and
+Diplomatic Skirmishes - Cylon - Pausanias - Themistocles_
+
+After this, though not many years later, we at length come to what
+has been already related, the affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea, and the
+events that served as a pretext for the present war.  All these actions
+of the Hellenes against each other and the barbarian occurred in the
+fifty years' interval between the retreat of Xerxes and the
+beginning of the present war.  During this interval the Athenians
+succeeded in placing their empire on a firmer basis, and advanced
+their own home power to a very great height.  The Lacedaemonians,
+though fully aware of it, opposed it only for a little while, but
+remained inactive during most of the period, being of old slow to go
+to war except under the pressure of necessity, and in the present
+instance being hampered by wars at home; until the growth of the
+Athenian power could be no longer ignored, and their own confederacy
+became the object of its encroachments.  They then felt that they could
+endure it no longer, but that the time had come for them to throw
+themselves heart and soul upon the hostile power, and break it, if
+they could, by commencing the present war.  And though the
+Lacedaemonians had made up their own minds on the fact of the breach
+of the treaty and the guilt of the Athenians, yet they sent to
+Delphi and inquired of the God whether it would be well with them if
+they went to war; and, as it is reported, received from him the answer
+that if they put their whole strength into the war, victory would be
+theirs, and the promise that he himself would be with them, whether
+invoked or uninvoked.  Still they wished to summon their allies
+again, and to take their vote on the propriety of making war.  After
+the ambassadors from the confederates had arrived and a congress had
+been convened, they all spoke their minds, most of them denouncing the
+Athenians and demanding that the war should begin.  In particular the
+Corinthians.  They had before on their own account canvassed the cities
+in detail to induce them to vote for the war, in the fear that it
+might come too late to save Potidaea; they were present also on this
+occasion, and came forward the last, and made the following speech:
+
+"Fellow allies, we can no longer accuse the Lacedaemonians of having
+failed in their duty: they have not only voted for war themselves, but
+have assembled us here for that purpose.  We say their duty, for
+supremacy has its duties.  Besides equitably administering private
+interests, leaders are required to show a special care for the
+common welfare in return for the special honours accorded to them by
+all in other ways.  For ourselves, all who have already had dealings
+with the Athenians require no warning to be on their guard against
+them.  The states more inland and out of the highway of communication
+should understand that, if they omit to support the coast powers,
+the result will be to injure the transit of their produce for
+exportation and the reception in exchange of their imports from the
+sea; and they must not be careless judges of what is now said, as if
+it had nothing to do with them, but must expect that the sacrifice
+of the powers on the coast will one day be followed by the extension
+of the danger to the interior, and must recognize that their own
+interests are deeply involved in this discussion.  For these reasons
+they should not hesitate to exchange peace for war.  If wise men remain
+quiet, while they are not injured, brave men abandon peace for war
+when they are injured, returning to an understanding on a favourable
+opportunity: in fact, they are neither intoxicated by their success in
+war, nor disposed to take an injury for the sake of the delightful
+tranquillity of peace.  Indeed, to falter for the sake of such delights
+is, if you remain inactive, the quickest way of losing the sweets of
+repose to which you cling; while to conceive extravagant pretensions
+from success in war is to forget how hollow is the confidence by which
+you are elated.  For if many ill-conceived plans have succeeded through
+the still greater fatuity of an opponent, many more, apparently well
+laid, have on the contrary ended in disgrace.  The confidence with
+which we form our schemes is never completely justified in their
+execution; speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes
+to action, fear causes failure.
+
+"To apply these rules to ourselves, if we are now kindling war it is
+under the pressure of injury, with adequate grounds of complaint;
+and after we have chastised the Athenians we will in season desist.  We
+have many reasons to expect success--first, superiority in numbers
+and in military experience, and secondly our general and unvarying
+obedience in the execution of orders.  The naval strength which they
+possess shall be raised by us from our respective antecedent
+resources, and from the moneys at Olympia and Delphi.  A loan from
+these enables us to seduce their foreign sailors by the offer of
+higher pay.  For the power of Athens is more mercenary than national;
+while ours will not be exposed to the same risk, as its strength
+lies more in men than in money.  A single defeat at sea is in all
+likelihood their ruin: should they hold out, in that case there will
+be the more time for us to exercise ourselves in naval matters; and as
+soon as we have arrived at an equality in science, we need scarcely
+ask whether we shall be their superiors in courage.  For the advantages
+that we have by nature they cannot acquire by education; while their
+superiority in science must be removed by our practice.  The money
+required for these objects shall be provided by our contributions:
+nothing indeed could be more monstrous than the suggestion that, while
+their allies never tire of contributing for their own servitude, we
+should refuse to spend for vengeance and self-preservation the
+treasure which by such refusal we shall forfeit to Athenian rapacity
+and see employed for our own ruin.
+
+"We have also other ways of carrying on the war, such as revolt of
+their allies, the surest method of depriving them of their revenues,
+which are the source of their strength, and establishment of fortified
+positions in their country, and various operations which cannot be
+foreseen at present.  For war of all things proceeds least upon
+definite rules, but draws principally upon itself for contrivances
+to meet an emergency; and in such cases the party who faces the
+struggle and keeps his temper best meets with most security, and he
+who loses his temper about it with correspondent disaster.  Let us also
+reflect that if it was merely a number of disputes of territory
+between rival neighbours, it might be borne; but here we have an enemy
+in Athens that is a match for our whole coalition, and more than a
+match for any of its members; so that unless as a body and as
+individual nationalities and individual cities we make an unanimous
+stand against her, she will easily conquer us divided and in detail.
+That conquest, terrible as it may sound, would, it must be known, have
+no other end than slavery pure and simple; a word which Peloponnese
+cannot even hear whispered without disgrace, or without disgrace see
+so many states abused by one.  Meanwhile the opinion would be either
+that we were justly so used, or that we put up with it from cowardice,
+and were proving degenerate sons in not even securing for ourselves
+the freedom which our fathers gave to Hellas; and in allowing the
+establishment in Hellas of a tyrant state, though in individual states
+we think it our duty to put down sole rulers.  And we do not know how
+this conduct can be held free from three of the gravest failings, want
+of sense, of courage, or of vigilance.  For we do not suppose that
+you have taken refuge in that contempt of an enemy which has proved so
+fatal in so many instances--a feeling which from the numbers that it
+has ruined has come to be called not contemptuous but contemptible.
+
+"There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past
+further than may be of service to the present.  For the future we
+must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling
+our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of
+labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have
+a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that
+what was won in want should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly
+advance to the war for many reasons; the god has commanded it and
+promised to be with us, and the rest of Hellas will all join in the
+struggle, part from fear, part from interest.  You will be the first to
+break a treaty which the god, in advising us to go to war, judges to
+be violated already, but rather to support a treaty that has been
+outraged: indeed, treaties are broken not by resistance but by
+aggression.
+
+"Your position, therefore, from whatever quarter you may view it,
+will amply justify you in going to war; and this step we recommend
+in the interests of all, bearing in mind that identity of interest
+is the surest of bonds, whether between states or individuals.  Delay
+not, therefore, to assist Potidaea, a Dorian city besieged by Ionians,
+which is quite a reversal of the order of things; nor to assert the
+freedom of the rest.  It is impossible for us to wait any longer when
+waiting can only mean immediate disaster for some of us, and, if it
+comes to be known that we have conferred but do not venture to protect
+ourselves, like disaster in the near future for the rest.  Delay not,
+fellow allies, but, convinced of the necessity of the crisis and the
+wisdom of this counsel, vote for the war, undeterred by its
+immediate terrors, but looking beyond to the lasting peace by which it
+will be succeeded.  Out of war peace gains fresh stability, but to
+refuse to abandon repose for war is not so sure a method of avoiding
+danger.  We must believe that the tyrant city that has been established
+in Hellas has been established against all alike, with a programme
+of universal empire, part fulfilled, part in contemplation; let us
+then attack and reduce it, and win future security for ourselves and
+freedom for the Hellenes who are now enslaved."
+
+Such were the words of the Corinthians.  The Lacedaemonians, having
+now heard all, give their opinion, took the vote of all the allied
+states present in order, great and small alike; and the majority voted
+for war.  This decided, it was still impossible for them to commence at
+once, from their want of preparation; but it was resolved that the
+means requisite were to be procured by the different states, and
+that there was to be no delay.  And indeed, in spite of the time
+occupied with the necessary arrangements, less than a year elapsed
+before Attica was invaded, and the war openly begun.
+
+This interval was spent in sending embassies to Athens charged
+with complaints, in order to obtain as good a pretext for war as
+possible, in the event of her paying no attention to them.  The first
+Lacedaemonian embassy was to order the Athenians to drive out the
+curse of the goddess; the history of which is as follows.  In former
+generations there was an Athenian of the name of Cylon, a victor at
+the Olympic games, of good birth and powerful position, who had
+married a daughter of Theagenes, a Megarian, at that time tyrant of
+Megara.  Now this Cylon was inquiring at Delphi; when he was told by
+the god to seize the Acropolis of Athens on the grand festival of
+Zeus.  Accordingly, procuring a force from Theagenes and persuading his
+friends to join him, when the Olympic festival in Peloponnese came, he
+seized the Acropolis, with the intention of making himself tyrant,
+thinking that this was the grand festival of Zeus, and also an
+occasion appropriate for a victor at the Olympic games.  Whether the
+grand festival that was meant was in Attica or elsewhere was a
+question which he never thought of, and which the oracle did not offer
+to solve.  For the Athenians also have a festival which is called the
+grand festival of Zeus Meilichios or Gracious, viz., the Diasia.  It is
+celebrated outside the city, and the whole people sacrifice not real
+victims but a number of bloodless offerings peculiar to the country.
+However, fancying he had chosen the right time, he made the attempt.
+As soon as the Athenians perceived it, they flocked in, one and all,
+from the country, and sat down, and laid siege to the citadel.  But
+as time went on, weary of the labour of blockade, most of them
+departed; the responsibility of keeping guard being left to the nine
+archons, with plenary powers to arrange everything according to
+their good judgment.  It must be known that at that time most political
+functions were discharged by the nine archons.  Meanwhile Cylon and his
+besieged companions were distressed for want of food and water.
+Accordingly Cylon and his brother made their escape; but the rest
+being hard pressed, and some even dying of famine, seated themselves
+as suppliants at the altar in the Acropolis.  The Athenians who were
+charged with the duty of keeping guard, when they saw them at the
+point of death in the temple, raised them up on the understanding that
+no harm should be done to them, led them out, and slew them.  Some
+who as they passed by took refuge at the altars of the awful goddesses
+were dispatched on the spot.  From this deed the men who killed them
+were called accursed and guilty against the goddess, they and their
+descendants.  Accordingly these cursed ones were driven out by the
+Athenians, driven out again by Cleomenes of Lacedaemon and an Athenian
+faction; the living were driven out, and the bones of the dead were
+taken up; thus they were cast out.  For all that, they came back
+afterwards, and their descendants are still in the city.
+
+This, then was the curse that the Lacedaemonians ordered them to
+drive out.  They were actuated primarily, as they pretended, by a
+care for the honour of the gods; but they also know that Pericles, son
+of Xanthippus, was connected with the curse on his mother's side,
+and they thought that his banishment would materially advance their
+designs on Athens.  Not that they really hoped to succeed in
+procuring this; they rather thought to create a prejudice against
+him in the eyes of his countrymen from the feeling that the war
+would be partly caused by his misfortune.  For being the most
+powerful man of his time, and the leading Athenian statesman, he
+opposed the Lacedaemonians in everything, and would have no
+concessions, but ever urged the Athenians on to war.
+
+The Athenians retorted by ordering the Lacedaemonians to drive out
+the curse of Taenarus.  The Lacedaemonians had once raised up some
+Helot suppliants from the temple of Poseidon at Taenarus, led them
+away and slain them; for which they believe the great earthquake at
+Sparta to have been a retribution.  The Athenians also ordered them
+to drive out the curse of the goddess of the Brazen House; the history
+of which is as follows.  After Pausanias the Lacedaemonian had been
+recalled by the Spartans from his command in the Hellespont (this is
+his first recall), and had been tried by them and acquitted, not being
+again sent out in a public capacity, he took a galley of Hermione on
+his own responsibility, without the authority of the Lacedaemonians,
+and arrived as a private person in the Hellespont.  He came
+ostensibly for the Hellenic war, really to carry on his intrigues with
+the King, which he had begun before his recall, being ambitious of
+reigning over Hellas.  The circumstance which first enabled him to
+lay the King under an obligation, and to make a beginning of the whole
+design, was this.  Some connections and kinsmen of the King had been
+taken in Byzantium, on its capture from the Medes, when he was first
+there, after the return from Cyprus.  These captives he sent off to the
+King without the knowledge of the rest of the allies, the account
+being that they had escaped from him.  He managed this with the help of
+Gongylus, an Eretrian, whom he had placed in charge of Byzantium and
+the prisoners.  He also gave Gongylus a letter for the King, the
+contents of which were as follows, as was afterwards discovered:
+"Pausanias, the general of Sparta, anxious to do you a favour, sends
+you these his prisoners of war.  I propose also, with your approval, to
+marry your daughter, and to make Sparta and the rest of Hellas subject
+to you.  I may say that I think I am able to do this, with your
+co-operation.  Accordingly if any of this please you, send a safe man
+to the sea through whom we may in future conduct our correspondence."
+
+This was all that was revealed in the writing, and Xerxes was
+pleased with the letter.  He sent off Artabazus, son of Pharnaces, to
+the sea with orders to supersede Megabates, the previous governor in
+the satrapy of Daskylion, and to send over as quickly as possible to
+Pausanias at Byzantium a letter which he entrusted to him; to show him
+the royal signet, and to execute any commission which he might receive
+from Pausanias on the King's matters with all care and fidelity.
+Artabazus on his arrival carried the King's orders into effect, and
+sent over the letter, which contained the following answer: "Thus
+saith King Xerxes to Pausanias.  For the men whom you have saved for me
+across sea from Byzantium, an obligation is laid up for you in our
+house, recorded for ever; and with your proposals I am well pleased.
+Let neither night nor day stop you from diligently performing any of
+your promises to me; neither for cost of gold nor of silver let them
+be hindered, nor yet for number of troops, wherever it may be that
+their presence is needed; but with Artabazus, an honourable man whom I
+send you, boldly advance my objects and yours, as may be most for
+the honour and interest of us both."
+
+Before held in high honour by the Hellenes as the hero of Plataea,
+Pausanias, after the receipt of this letter, became prouder than ever,
+and could no longer live in the usual style, but went out of Byzantium
+in a Median dress, was attended on his march through Thrace by a
+bodyguard of Medes and Egyptians, kept a Persian table, and was
+quite unable to contain his intentions, but betrayed by his conduct in
+trifles what his ambition looked one day to enact on a grander
+scale.  He also made himself difficult of access, and displayed so
+violent a temper to every one without exception that no one could come
+near him.  Indeed, this was the principal reason why the confederacy
+went over to the Athenians.
+
+The above-mentioned conduct, coming to the ears of the
+Lacedaemonians, occasioned his first recall.  And after his second
+voyage out in the ship of Hermione, without their orders, he gave
+proofs of similar behaviour.  Besieged and expelled from Byzantium by
+the Athenians, he did not return to Sparta; but news came that he
+had settled at Colonae in the Troad, and was intriguing with the
+barbarians, and that his stay there was for no good purpose; and the
+ephors, now no longer hesitating, sent him a herald and a scytale with
+orders to accompany the herald or be declared a public enemy.
+Anxious above everything to avoid suspicion, and confident that he
+could quash the charge by means of money, he returned a second time to
+Sparta.  At first thrown into prison by the ephors (whose powers enable
+them to do this to the King), soon compromised the matter and came out
+again, and offered himself for trial to any who wished to institute an
+inquiry concerning him.
+
+Now the Spartans had no tangible proof against him--neither his
+enemies nor the nation--of that indubitable kind required for the
+punishment of a member of the royal family, and at that moment in high
+office; he being regent for his first cousin King Pleistarchus,
+Leonidas's son, who was still a minor.  But by his contempt of the laws
+and imitation of the barbarians, he gave grounds for much suspicion of
+his being discontented with things established; all the occasions on
+which he had in any way departed from the regular customs were
+passed in review, and it was remembered that he had taken upon himself
+to have inscribed on the tripod at Delphi, which was dedicated by
+the Hellenes as the first-fruits of the spoil of the Medes, the
+following couplet:
+
+   The Mede defeated, great Pausanias raised
+   This monument, that Phoebus might be praised.
+
+At the time the Lacedaemonians had at once erased the couplet, and
+inscribed the names of the cities that had aided in the overthrow of
+the barbarian and dedicated the offering.  Yet it was considered that
+Pausanias had here been guilty of a grave offence, which,
+interpreted by the light of the attitude which he had since assumed,
+gained a new significance, and seemed to be quite in keeping with
+his present schemes.  Besides, they were informed that he was even
+intriguing with the Helots; and such indeed was the fact, for he
+promised them freedom and citizenship if they would join him in
+insurrection and would help him to carry out his plans to the end.
+Even now, mistrusting the evidence even of the Helots themselves,
+the ephors would not consent to take any decided step against him;
+in accordance with their regular custom towards themselves, namely, to
+be slow in taking any irrevocable resolve in the matter of a Spartan
+citizen without indisputable proof.  At last, it is said, the person
+who was going to carry to Artabazus the last letter for the King, a
+man of Argilus, once the favourite and most trusty servant of
+Pausanias, turned informer.  Alarmed by the reflection that none of the
+previous messengers had ever returned, having counterfeited the
+seal, in order that, if he found himself mistaken in his surmises,
+or if Pausanias should ask to make some correction, he might not be
+discovered, he undid the letter, and found the postscript that he
+had suspected, viz. an order to put him to death.
+
+On being shown the letter, the ephors now felt more certain.
+Still, they wished to hear Pausanias commit himself with their own
+ears.  Accordingly the man went by appointment to Taenarus as a
+suppliant, and there built himself a hut divided into two by a
+partition; within which he concealed some of the ephors and let them
+hear the whole matter plainly.  For Pausanias came to him and asked him
+the reason of his suppliant position; and the man reproached him
+with the order that he had written concerning him, and one by one
+declared all the rest of the circumstances, how he who had never yet
+brought him into any danger, while employed as agent between him and
+the King, was yet just like the mass of his servants to be rewarded
+with death.  Admitting all this, and telling him not to be angry
+about the matter, Pausanias gave him the pledge of raising him up from
+the temple, and begged him to set off as quickly as possible, and
+not to hinder the business in hand.
+
+The ephors listened carefully, and then departed, taking no action
+for the moment, but, having at last attained to certainty, were
+preparing to arrest him in the city.  It is reported that, as he was
+about to be arrested in the street, he saw from the face of one of the
+ephors what he was coming for; another, too, made him a secret signal,
+and betrayed it to him from kindness.  Setting off with a run for the
+temple of the goddess of the Brazen House, the enclosure of which
+was near at hand, he succeeded in taking sanctuary before they took
+him, and entering into a small chamber, which formed part of the
+temple, to avoid being exposed to the weather, lay still there.  The
+ephors, for the moment distanced in the pursuit, afterwards took off
+the roof of the chamber, and having made sure that he was inside, shut
+him in, barricaded the doors, and staying before the place, reduced
+him by starvation.  When they found that he was on the point of
+expiring, just as he was, in the chamber, they brought him out of
+the temple, while the breath was still in him, and as soon as he was
+brought out he died.  They were going to throw him into the Kaiadas,
+where they cast criminals, but finally decided to inter him
+somewhere near.  But the god at Delphi afterwards ordered the
+Lacedaemonians to remove the tomb to the place of his death--where he
+now lies in the consecrated ground, as an inscription on a monument
+declares--and, as what had been done was a curse to them, to give
+back two bodies instead of one to the goddess of the Brazen House.
+So they had two brazen statues made, and dedicated them as a
+substitute for Pausanias.  the Athenians retorted by telling the
+Lacedaemonians to drive out what the god himself had pronounced to
+be a curse.
+
+To return to the Medism of Pausanias.  Matter was found in the course
+of the inquiry to implicate Themistocles; and the Lacedaemonians
+accordingly sent envoys to the Athenians and required them to punish
+him as they had punished Pausanias.  The Athenians consented to do
+so.  But he had, as it happened, been ostracized, and, with a residence
+at Argos, was in the habit of visiting other parts of Peloponnese.
+So they sent with the Lacedaemonians, who were ready to join in the
+pursuit, persons with instructions to take him wherever they found
+him.  But Themistocles got scent of their intentions, and fled from
+Peloponnese to Corcyra, which was under obligations towards him.  But
+the Corcyraeans alleged that they could not venture to shelter him
+at the cost of offending Athens and Lacedaemon, and they conveyed
+him over to the continent opposite.  Pursued by the officers who hung
+on the report of his movements, at a loss where to turn, he was
+compelled to stop at the house of Admetus, the Molossian king,
+though they were not on friendly terms.  Admetus happened not to be
+indoors, but his wife, to whom he made himself a suppliant, instructed
+him to take their child in his arms and sit down by the hearth.  Soon
+afterwards Admetus came in, and Themistocles told him who he was,
+and begged him not to revenge on Themistocles in exile any
+opposition which his requests might have experienced from Themistocles
+at Athens.  Indeed, he was now far too low for his revenge; retaliation
+was only honourable between equals.  Besides, his opposition to the
+king had only affected the success of a request, not the safety of his
+person; if the king were to give him up to the pursuers that he
+mentioned, and the fate which they intended for him, he would just
+be consigning him to certain death.
+
+The King listened to him and raised him up with his son, as he was
+sitting with him in his arms after the most effectual method of
+supplication, and on the arrival of the Lacedaemonians not long
+afterwards, refused to give him up for anything they could say, but
+sent him off by land to the other sea to Pydna in Alexander's
+dominions, as he wished to go to the Persian king.  There he met with a
+merchantman on the point of starting for Ionia.  Going on board, he was
+carried by a storm to the Athenian squadron which was blockading
+Naxos.  In his alarm--he was luckily unknown to the people in the
+vessel--he told the master who he was and what he was flying for, and
+said that, if he refused to save him, he would declare that he was
+taking him for a bribe.  Meanwhile their safety consisted in letting no
+one leave the ship until a favourable time for sailing should arise.
+If he complied with his wishes, he promised him a proper recompense.
+The master acted as he desired, and, after lying to for a day and a
+night out of reach of the squadron, at length arrived at Ephesus.
+
+After having rewarded him with a present of money, as soon as he
+received some from his friends at Athens and from his secret hoards at
+Argos, Themistocles started inland with one of the coast Persians, and
+sent a letter to King Artaxerxes, Xerxes's son, who had just come to
+the throne.  Its contents were as follows: "I, Themistocles, am come to
+you, who did your house more harm than any of the Hellenes, when I was
+compelled to defend myself against your father's invasion--harm,
+however, far surpassed by the good that I did him during his
+retreat, which brought no danger for me but much for him.  For the
+past, you are a good turn in my debt"--here he mentioned the warning
+sent to Xerxes from Salamis to retreat, as well as his finding the
+bridges unbroken, which, as he falsely pretended, was due to him--
+"for the present, able to do you great service, I am here, pursued
+by the Hellenes for my friendship for you.  However, I desire a
+year's grace, when I shall be able to declare in person the objects of
+my coming."
+
+It is said that the King approved his intention, and told him to
+do as he said.  He employed the interval in making what progress he
+could in the study of the Persian tongue, and of the customs of the
+country.  Arrived at court at the end of the year, he attained to
+very high consideration there, such as no Hellene has ever possessed
+before or since; partly from his splendid antecedents, partly from the
+hopes which he held out of effecting for him the subjugation of
+Hellas, but principally by the proof which experience daily gave of
+his capacity.  For Themistocles was a man who exhibited the most
+indubitable signs of genius; indeed, in this particular he has a claim
+on our admiration quite extraordinary and unparalleled.  By his own
+native capacity, alike unformed and unsupplemented by study, he was at
+once the best judge in those sudden crises which admit of little or of
+no deliberation, and the best prophet of the future, even to its
+most distant possibilities.  An able theoretical expositor of all
+that came within the sphere of his practice, he was not without the
+power of passing an adequate judgment in matters in which he had no
+experience.  He could also excellently divine the good and evil which
+lay hid in the unseen future.  In fine, whether we consider the
+extent of his natural powers, or the slightness of his application,
+this extraordinary man must be allowed to have surpassed all others in
+the faculty of intuitively meeting an emergency.  Disease was the
+real cause of his death; though there is a story of his having ended
+his life by poison, on finding himself unable to fulfil his promises
+to the king.  However this may be, there is a monument to him in the
+marketplace of Asiatic Magnesia.  He was governor of the district,
+the King having given him Magnesia, which brought in fifty talents a
+year, for bread, Lampsacus, which was considered to be the richest
+wine country, for wine, and Myos for other provisions.  His bones, it
+is said, were conveyed home by his relatives in accordance with his
+wishes, and interred in Attic ground.  This was done without the
+knowledge of the Athenians; as it is against the law to bury in Attica
+an outlaw for treason.  So ends the history of Pausanias and
+Themistocles, the Lacedaemonian and the Athenian, the most famous
+men of their time in Hellas.
+
+To return to the Lacedaemonians.  The history of their first embassy,
+the injunctions which it conveyed, and the rejoinder which it
+provoked, concerning the expulsion of the accursed persons, have
+been related already.  It was followed by a second, which ordered
+Athens to raise the siege of Potidaea, and to respect the independence
+of Aegina.  Above all, it gave her most distinctly to understand that
+war might be prevented by the revocation of the Megara decree,
+excluding the Megarians from the use of Athenian harbours and of the
+market of Athens.  But Athens was not inclined either to revoke the
+decree, or to entertain their other proposals; she accused the
+Megarians of pushing their cultivation into the consecrated ground and
+the unenclosed land on the border, and of harbouring her runaway
+slaves.  At last an embassy arrived with the Lacedaemonian ultimatum.
+The ambassadors were Ramphias, Melesippus, and Agesander.  Not a word
+was said on any of the old subjects; there was simply this:
+"Lacedaemon wishes the peace to continue, and there is no reason why
+it should not, if you would leave the Hellenes independent." Upon this
+the Athenians held an assembly, and laid the matter before their
+consideration.  It was resolved to deliberate once for all on all their
+demands, and to give them an answer.  There were many speakers who came
+forward and gave their support to one side or the other, urging the
+necessity of war, or the revocation of the decree and the folly of
+allowing it to stand in the way of peace.  Among them came forward
+Pericles, son of Xanthippus, the first man of his time at Athens,
+ablest alike in counsel and in action, and gave the following advice:
+
+"There is one principle, Athenians, which I hold to through
+everything, and that is the principle of no concession to the
+Peloponnesians.  I know that the spirit which inspires men while they
+are being persuaded to make war is not always retained in action; that
+as circumstances change, resolutions change.  Yet I see that now as
+before the same, almost literally the same, counsel is demanded of me;
+and I put it to those of you who are allowing yourselves to be
+persuaded, to support the national resolves even in the case of
+reverses, or to forfeit all credit for their wisdom in the event of
+success.  For sometimes the course of things is as arbitrary as the
+plans of man; indeed this is why we usually blame chance for
+whatever does not happen as we expected.  Now it was clear before
+that Lacedaemon entertained designs against us; it is still more clear
+now.  The treaty provides that we shall mutually submit our differences
+to legal settlement, and that we shall meanwhile each keep what we
+have.  Yet the Lacedaemonians never yet made us any such offer, never
+yet would accept from us any such offer; on the contrary, they wish
+complaints to be settled by war instead of by negotiation; and in
+the end we find them here dropping the tone of expostulation and
+adopting that of command.  They order us to raise the siege of
+Potidaea, to let Aegina be independent, to revoke the Megara decree;
+and they conclude with an ultimatum warning us to leave the Hellenes
+independent.  I hope that you will none of you think that we shall be
+going to war for a trifle if we refuse to revoke the Megara decree,
+which appears in front of their complaints, and the revocation of
+which is to save us from war, or let any feeling of self-reproach
+linger in your minds, as if you went to war for slight cause.  Why,
+this trifle contains the whole seal and trial of your resolution.  If
+you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand,
+as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance;
+while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they
+must treat you more as equals.  Make your decision therefore at once,
+either to submit before you are harmed, or if we are to go to war,
+as I for one think we ought, to do so without caring whether the
+ostensible cause be great or small, resolved against making
+concessions or consenting to a precarious tenure of our possessions.
+For all claims from an equal, urged upon a neighbour as commands
+before any attempt at legal settlement, be they great or be they
+small, have only one meaning, and that is slavery.
+
+"As to the war and the resources of either party, a detailed
+comparison will not show you the inferiority of Athens.  Personally
+engaged in the cultivation of their land, without funds either private
+or public, the Peloponnesians are also without experience in long wars
+across sea, from the strict limit which poverty imposes on their
+attacks upon each other.  Powers of this description are quite
+incapable of often manning a fleet or often sending out an army:
+they cannot afford the absence from their homes, the expenditure
+from their own funds; and besides, they have not command of the sea.
+Capital, it must be remembered, maintains a war more than forced
+contributions.  Farmers are a class of men that are always more ready
+to serve in person than in purse.  Confident that the former will
+survive the dangers, they are by no means so sure that the latter will
+not be prematurely exhausted, especially if the war last longer than
+they expect, which it very likely will.  In a single battle the
+Peloponnesians and their allies may be able to defy all Hellas, but
+they are incapacitated from carrying on a war against a power
+different in character from their own, by the want of the single
+council-chamber requisite to prompt and vigorous action, and the
+substitution of a diet composed of various races, in which every state
+possesses an equal vote, and each presses its own ends, a condition of
+things which generally results in no action at all.  The great wish
+of some is to avenge themselves on some particular enemy, the great
+wish of others to save their own pocket.  Slow in assembling, they
+devote a very small fraction of the time to the consideration of any
+public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects.
+Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come of his neglect, that
+it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for
+him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately,
+the common cause imperceptibly decays.
+
+"But the principal point is the hindrance that they will
+experience from want of money.  The slowness with which it comes in
+will cause delay; but the opportunities of war wait for no man.  Again,
+we need not be alarmed either at the possibility of their raising
+fortifications in Attica, or at their navy.  It would be difficult
+for any system of fortifications to establish a rival city, even in
+time of peace, much more, surely, in an enemy's country, with Athens
+just as much fortified against it as it against Athens; while a mere
+post might be able to do some harm to the country by incursions and by
+the facilities which it would afford for desertion, but can never
+prevent our sailing into their country and raising fortifications
+there, and making reprisals with our powerful fleet.  For our naval
+skill is of more use to us for service on land, than their military
+skill for service at sea.  Familiarity with the sea they will not
+find an easy acquisition.  If you who have been practising at it ever
+since the Median invasion have not yet brought it to perfection, is
+there any chance of anything considerable being effected by an
+agricultural, unseafaring population, who will besides be prevented
+from practising by the constant presence of strong squadrons of
+observation from Athens? With a small squadron they might hazard an
+engagement, encouraging their ignorance by numbers; but the
+restraint of a strong force will prevent their moving, and through
+want of practice they will grow more clumsy, and consequently more
+timid.  It must be kept in mind that seamanship, just like anything
+else, is a matter of art, and will not admit of being taken up
+occasionally as an occupation for times of leisure; on the contrary,
+it is so exacting as to leave leisure for nothing else.
+
+"Even if they were to touch the moneys at Olympia or Delphi, and try
+to seduce our foreign sailors by the temptation of higher pay, that
+would only be a serious danger if we could not still be a match for
+them by embarking our own citizens and the aliens resident among us.
+But in fact by this means we are always a match for them; and, best of
+all, we have a larger and higher class of native coxswains and sailors
+among our own citizens than all the rest of Hellas.  And to say nothing
+of the danger of such a step, none of our foreign sailors would
+consent to become an outlaw from his country, and to take service with
+them and their hopes, for the sake of a few days' high pay.
+
+"This, I think, is a tolerably fair account of the position of the
+Peloponnesians; that of Athens is free from the defects that I have
+criticized in them, and has other advantages of its own, which they
+can show nothing to equal.  If they march against our country we will
+sail against theirs, and it will then be found that the desolation
+of the whole of Attica is not the same as that of even a fraction of
+Peloponnese; for they will not be able to supply the deficiency except
+by a battle, while we have plenty of land both on the islands and
+the continent.  The rule of the sea is indeed a great matter.
+Consider for a moment.  Suppose that we were islanders; can you
+conceive a more impregnable position? Well, this in future should,
+as far as possible, be our conception of our position.  Dismissing
+all thought of our land and houses, we must vigilantly guard the sea
+and the city.  No irritation that we may feel for the former must
+provoke us to a battle with the numerical superiority of the
+Peloponnesians.  A victory would only be succeeded by another battle
+against the same superiority: a reverse involves the loss of our
+allies, the source of our strength, who will not remain quiet a day
+after we become unable to march against them.  We must cry not over the
+loss of houses and land but of men's lives; since houses and land do
+not gain men, but men them.  And if I had thought that I could persuade
+you, I would have bid you go out and lay them waste with your own
+hands, and show the Peloponnesians that this at any rate will not make
+you submit.
+
+"I have many other reasons to hope for a favourable issue, if you
+can consent not to combine schemes of fresh conquest with the
+conduct of the war, and will abstain from wilfully involving
+yourselves in other dangers; indeed, I am more afraid of our own
+blunders than of the enemy's devices.  But these matters shall be
+explained in another speech, as events require; for the present
+dismiss these men with the answer that we will allow Megara the use of
+our market and harbours, when the Lacedaemonians suspend their alien
+acts in favour of us and our allies, there being nothing in the treaty
+to prevent either one or the other: that we will leave the cities
+independent, if independent we found them when we made the treaty, and
+when the Lacedaemonians grant to their cities an independence not
+involving subservience to Lacedaemonian interests, but such as each
+severally may desire: that we are willing to give the legal
+satisfaction which our agreements specify, and that we shall not
+commence hostilities, but shall resist those who do commence them.
+This is an answer agreeable at once to the rights and the dignity of
+Athens.  It must be thoroughly understood that war is a necessity;
+but that the more readily we accept it, the less will be the ardour of
+our opponents, and that out of the greatest dangers communities and
+individuals acquire the greatest glory.  Did not our fathers resist the
+Medes not only with resources far different from ours, but even when
+those resources had been abandoned; and more by wisdom than by
+fortune, more by daring than by strength, did not they beat off the
+barbarian and advance their affairs to their present height? We must
+not fall behind them, but must resist our enemies in any way and in
+every way, and attempt to hand down our power to our posterity
+unimpaired."
+
+Such were the words of Pericles.  The Athenians, persuaded of the
+wisdom of his advice, voted as he desired, and answered the
+Lacedaemonians as he recommended, both on the separate points and in
+the general; they would do nothing on dictation, but were ready to
+have the complaints settled in a fair and impartial manner by the
+legal method, which the terms of the truce prescribed.  So the envoys
+departed home and did not return again.
+
+These were the charges and differences existing between the rival
+powers before the war, arising immediately from the affair at
+Epidamnus and Corcyra.  Still intercourse continued in spite of them,
+and mutual communication.  It was carried on without heralds, but not
+without suspicion, as events were occurring which were equivalent to a
+breach of the treaty and matter for war.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_Beginning of the Peloponnesian War - First Invasion of Attica -
+Funeral Oration of Pericles_
+
+The war between the Athenians and Peloponnesians and the allies on
+either side now really begins.  For now all intercourse except
+through the medium of heralds ceased, and hostilities were commenced
+and prosecuted without intermission.  The history follows the
+chronological order of events by summers and winters.
+
+The thirty years' truce which was entered into after the conquest of
+Euboea lasted fourteen years.  In the fifteenth, in the forty-eighth
+year of the priestess-ship of Chrysis at Argos, in the ephorate of
+Aenesias at Sparta, in the last month but two of the archonship of
+Pythodorus at Athens, and six months after the battle of Potidaea,
+just at the beginning of spring, a Theban force a little over three
+hundred strong, under the command of their Boeotarchs, Pythangelus,
+son of Phyleides, and Diemporus, son of Onetorides, about the first
+watch of the night, made an armed entry into Plataea, a town of
+Boeotia in alliance with Athens.  The gates were opened to them by a
+Plataean called Naucleides, who, with his party, had invited them
+in, meaning to put to death the citizens of the opposite party,
+bring over the city to Thebes, and thus obtain power for themselves.
+This was arranged through Eurymachus, son of Leontiades, a person of
+great influence at Thebes.  For Plataea had always been at variance
+with Thebes; and the latter, foreseeing that war was at hand, wished
+to surprise her old enemy in time of peace, before hostilities had
+actually broken out.  Indeed this was how they got in so easily without
+being observed, as no guard had been posted.  After the soldiers had
+grounded arms in the market-place, those who had invited them in
+wished them to set to work at once and go to their enemies' houses.
+This, however, the Thebans refused to do, but determined to make a
+conciliatory proclamation, and if possible to come to a friendly
+understanding with the citizens.  Their herald accordingly invited
+any who wished to resume their old place in the confederacy of their
+countrymen to ground arms with them, for they thought that in this way
+the city would readily join them.
+
+On becoming aware of the presence of the Thebans within their gates,
+and of the sudden occupation of the town, the Plataeans concluded in
+their alarm that more had entered than was really the case, the
+night preventing their seeing them.  They accordingly came to terms
+and, accepting the proposal, made no movement; especially as the
+Thebans offered none of them any violence.  But somehow or other,
+during the negotiations, they discovered the scanty numbers of the
+Thebans, and decided that they could easily attack and overpower them;
+the mass of the Plataeans being averse to revolting from Athens.  At
+all events they resolved to attempt it.  Digging through the party
+walls of the houses, they thus managed to join each other without
+being seen going through the streets, in which they placed wagons
+without the beasts in them, to serve as a barricade, and arranged
+everything else as seemed convenient for the occasion.  When everything
+had been done that circumstances permitted, they watched their
+opportunity and went out of their houses against the enemy.  It was
+still night, though daybreak was at hand: in daylight it was thought
+that their attack would be met by men full of courage and on equal
+terms with their assailants, while in darkness it would fall upon
+panic-stricken troops, who would also be at a disadvantage from
+their enemy's knowledge of the locality.  So they made their assault at
+once, and came to close quarters as quickly as they could.
+
+The Thebans, finding themselves outwitted, immediately closed up
+to repel all attacks made upon them.  Twice or thrice they beat back
+their assailants.  But the men shouted and charged them, the women
+and slaves screamed and yelled from the houses and pelted them with
+stones and tiles; besides, it had been raining hard all night; and
+so at last their courage gave way, and they turned and fled through
+the town.  Most of the fugitives were quite ignorant of the right
+ways out, and this, with the mud, and the darkness caused by the
+moon being in her last quarter, and the fact that their pursuers
+knew their way about and could easily stop their escape, proved
+fatal to many.  The only gate open was the one by which they had
+entered, and this was shut by one of the Plataeans driving the spike
+of a javelin into the bar instead of the bolt; so that even here there
+was no longer any means of exit.  They were now chased all over the
+town.  Some got on the wall and threw themselves over, in most cases
+with a fatal result.  One party managed to find a deserted gate, and
+obtaining an axe from a woman, cut through the bar; but as they were
+soon observed only a few succeeded in getting out.  Others were cut off
+in detail in different parts of the city.  The most numerous and
+compact body rushed into a large building next to the city wall: the
+doors on the side of the street happened to be open, and the Thebans
+fancied that they were the gates of the town, and that there was a
+passage right through to the outside.  The Plataeans, seeing their
+enemies in a trap, now consulted whether they should set fire to the
+building and burn them just as they were, or whether there was
+anything else that they could do with them; until at length these
+and the rest of the Theban survivors found wandering about the town
+agreed to an unconditional surrender of themselves and their arms to
+the Plataeans.
+
+While such was the fate of the party in Plataea, the rest of the
+Thebans who were to have joined them with all their forces before
+daybreak, in case of anything miscarrying with the body that had
+entered, received the news of the affair on the road, and pressed
+forward to their succour.  Now Plataea is nearly eight miles from
+Thebes, and their march delayed by the rain that had fallen in the
+night, for the river Asopus had risen and was not easy of passage; and
+so, having to march in the rain, and being hindered in crossing the
+river, they arrived too late, and found the whole party either slain
+or captive.  When they learned what had happened, they at once formed a
+design against the Plataeans outside the city.  As the attack had
+been made in time of peace, and was perfectly unexpected, there were
+of course men and stock in the fields; and the Thebans wished if
+possible to have some prisoners to exchange against their countrymen
+in the town, should any chance to have been taken alive.  Such was
+their plan.  But the Plataeans suspected their intention almost
+before it was formed, and becoming alarmed for their fellow citizens
+outside the town, sent a herald to the Thebans, reproaching them for
+their unscrupulous attempt to seize their city in time of peace, and
+warning them against any outrage on those outside.  Should the
+warning be disregarded, they threatened to put to death the men they
+had in their hands, but added that, on the Thebans retiring from their
+territory, they would surrender the prisoners to their friends.  This
+is the Theban account of the matter, and they say that they had an
+oath given them.  The Plataeans, on the other hand, do not admit any
+promise of an immediate surrender, but make it contingent upon
+subsequent negotiation: the oath they deny altogether.  Be this as it
+may, upon the Thebans retiring from their territory without committing
+any injury, the Plataeans hastily got in whatever they had in the
+country and immediately put the men to death.  The prisoners were a
+hundred and eighty in number; Eurymachus, the person with whom the
+traitors had negotiated, being one.
+
+This done, the Plataeans sent a messenger to Athens, gave back the
+dead to the Thebans under a truce, and arranged things in the city
+as seemed best to meet the present emergency.  The Athenians meanwhile,
+having had word of the affair sent them immediately after its
+occurrence, had instantly seized all the Boeotians in Attica, and sent
+a herald to the Plataeans to forbid their proceeding to extremities
+with their Theban prisoners without instructions from Athens.  The news
+of the men's death had of course not arrived; the first messenger
+having left Plataea just when the Thebans entered it, the second
+just after their defeat and capture; so there was no later news.
+Thus the Athenians sent orders in ignorance of the facts; and the
+herald on his arrival found the men slain.  After this the Athenians
+marched to Plataea and brought in provisions, and left a garrison in
+the place, also taking away the women and children and such of the men
+as were least efficient.
+
+After the affair at Plataea, the treaty had been broken by an
+overt act, and Athens at once prepared for war, as did also Lacedaemon
+and her allies.  They resolved to send embassies to the King and to
+such other of the barbarian powers as either party could look to for
+assistance, and tried to ally themselves with the independent states
+at home.  Lacedaemon, in addition to the existing marine, gave orders
+to the states that had declared for her in Italy and Sicily to build
+vessels up to a grand total of five hundred, the quota of each city
+being determined by its size, and also to provide a specified sum of
+money.  Till these were ready they were to remain neutral and to
+admit single Athenian ships into their harbours.  Athens on her part
+reviewed her existing confederacy, and sent embassies to the places
+more immediately round Peloponnese--Corcyra, Cephallenia, Acarnania,
+and Zacynthus--perceiving that if these could be relied on she could
+carry the war all round Peloponnese.
+
+And if both sides nourished the boldest hopes and put forth their
+utmost strength for the war, this was only natural.  Zeal is always
+at its height at the commencement of an undertaking; and on this
+particular occasion Peloponnese and Athens were both full of young men
+whose inexperience made them eager to take up arms, while the rest
+of Hellas stood straining with excitement at the conflict of its
+leading cities.  Everywhere predictions were being recited and
+oracles being chanted by such persons as collect them, and this not
+only in the contending cities.  Further, some while before this,
+there was an earthquake at Delos, for the first time in the memory
+of the Hellenes.  This was said and thought to be ominous of the events
+impending; indeed, nothing of the kind that happened was allowed to
+pass without remark.  The good wishes of men made greatly for the
+Lacedaemonians, especially as they proclaimed themselves the
+liberators of Hellas.  No private or public effort that could help them
+in speech or action was omitted; each thinking that the cause suffered
+wherever he could not himself see to it.  So general was the
+indignation felt against Athens, whether by those who wished to escape
+from her empire, or were apprehensive of being absorbed by it.  Such
+were the preparations and such the feelings with which the contest
+opened.
+
+The allies of the two belligerents were the following.  These were
+the allies of Lacedaemon: all the Peloponnesians within the Isthmus
+except the Argives and Achaeans, who were neutral; Pellene being the
+only Achaean city that first joined in the war, though her example was
+afterwards followed by the rest.  Outside Peloponnese the Megarians,
+Locrians, Boeotians, Phocians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and
+Anactorians.  Of these, ships were furnished by the Corinthians,
+Megarians, Sicyonians, Pellenians, Eleans, Ambraciots, and Leucadians;
+and cavalry by the Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians.  The other states
+sent infantry.  This was the Lacedaemonian confederacy.  That of
+Athens comprised the Chians, Lesbians, Plataeans, the Messenians in
+Naupactus, most of the Acarnanians, the Corcyraeans, Zacynthians,
+and some tributary cities in the following countries, viz., Caria upon
+the sea with her Dorian neighbours, Ionia, the Hellespont, the
+Thracian towns, the islands lying between Peloponnese and Crete
+towards the east, and all the Cyclades except Melos and Thera.  Of
+these, ships were furnished by Chios, Lesbos, and Corcyra, infantry
+and money by the rest.  Such were the allies of either party and
+their resources for the war.
+
+Immediately after the affair at Plataea, Lacedaemon sent round
+orders to the cities in Peloponnese and the rest of her confederacy to
+prepare troops and the provisions requisite for a foreign campaign, in
+order to invade Attica.  The several states were ready at the time
+appointed and assembled at the Isthmus: the contingent of each city
+being two-thirds of its whole force.  After the whole army had
+mustered, the Lacedaemonian king, Archidamus, the leader of the
+expedition, called together the generals of all the states and the
+principal persons and officers, and exhorted them as follows:
+
+"Peloponnesians and allies, our fathers made many campaigns both
+within and without Peloponnese, and the elder men among us here are
+not without experience in war.  Yet we have never set out with a larger
+force than the present; and if our numbers and efficiency are
+remarkable, so also is the power of the state against which we
+march.  We ought not then to show ourselves inferior to our
+ancestors, or unequal to our own reputation.  For the hopes and
+attention of all Hellas are bent upon the present effort, and its
+sympathy is with the enemy of the hated Athens.  Therefore, numerous as
+the invading army may appear to be, and certain as some may think it
+that our adversary will not meet us in the field, this is no sort of
+justification for the least negligence upon the march; but the
+officers and men of each particular city should always be prepared for
+the advent of danger in their own quarters.  The course of war cannot
+be foreseen, and its attacks are generally dictated by the impulse
+of the moment; and where overweening self-confidence has despised
+preparation, a wise apprehension often been able to make head
+against superior numbers.  Not that confidence is out of place in an
+army of invasion, but in an enemy's country it should also be
+accompanied by the precautions of apprehension: troops will by this
+combination be best inspired for dealing a blow, and best secured
+against receiving one.  In the present instance, the city against which
+we are going, far from being so impotent for defence, is on the
+contrary most excellently equipped at all points; so that we have
+every reason to expect that they will take the field against us, and
+that if they have not set out already before we are there, they will
+certainly do so when they see us in their territory wasting and
+destroying their property.  For men are always exasperated at suffering
+injuries to which they are not accustomed, and on seeing them
+inflicted before their very eyes; and where least inclined for
+reflection, rush with the greatest heat to action.  The Athenians are
+the very people of all others to do this, as they aspire to rule the
+rest of the world, and are more in the habit of invading and
+ravaging their neighbours' territory, than of seeing their own treated
+in the like fashion.  Considering, therefore, the power of the state
+against which we are marching, and the greatness of the reputation
+which, according to the event, we shall win or lose for our
+ancestors and ourselves, remember as you follow where you may be led
+to regard discipline and vigilance as of the first importance, and
+to obey with alacrity the orders transmitted to you; as nothing
+contributes so much to the credit and safety of an army as the union
+of large bodies by a single discipline."
+
+With this brief speech dismissing the assembly, Archidamus first
+sent off Melesippus, son of Diacritus, a Spartan, to Athens, in case
+she should be more inclined to submit on seeing the Peloponnesians
+actually on the march.  But the Athenians did not admit into the city
+or to their assembly, Pericles having already carried a motion against
+admitting either herald or embassy from the Lacedaemonians after
+they had once marched out.
+
+The herald was accordingly sent away without an audience, and
+ordered to be beyond the frontier that same day; in future, if those
+who sent him had a proposition to make, they must retire to their
+own territory before they dispatched embassies to Athens.  An escort
+was sent with Melesippus to prevent his holding communication with any
+one.  When he reached the frontier and was just going to be
+dismissed, he departed with these words: "This day will be the
+beginning of great misfortunes to the Hellenes." As soon as he arrived
+at the camp, and Archidamus learnt that the Athenians had still no
+thoughts of submitting, he at length began his march, and advanced
+with his army into their territory.  Meanwhile the Boeotians, sending
+their contingent and cavalry to join the Peloponnesian expedition,
+went to Plataea with the remainder and laid waste the country.
+
+While the Peloponnesians were still mustering at the Isthmus, or
+on the march before they invaded Attica, Pericles, son of
+Xanthippus, one of the ten generals of the Athenians, finding that the
+invasion was to take place, conceived the idea that Archidamus, who
+happened to be his friend, might possibly pass by his estate without
+ravaging it.  This he might do, either from a personal wish to oblige
+him, or acting under instructions from Lacedaemon for the purpose of
+creating a prejudice against him, as had been before attempted in
+the demand for the expulsion of the accursed family.  He accordingly
+took the precaution of announcing to the Athenians in the assembly
+that, although Archidamus was his friend, yet this friendship should
+not extend to the detriment of the state, and that in case the enemy
+should make his houses and lands an exception to the rest and not
+pillage them, he at once gave them up to be public property, so that
+they should not bring him into suspicion.  He also gave the citizens
+some advice on their present affairs in the same strain as before.
+They were to prepare for the war, and to carry in their property
+from the country.  They were not to go out to battle, but to come
+into the city and guard it, and get ready their fleet, in which
+their real strength lay.  They were also to keep a tight rein on
+their allies--the strength of Athens being derived from the money
+brought in by their payments, and success in war depending principally
+upon conduct and capital.  had no reason to despond.  Apart from other
+sources of income, an average revenue of six hundred talents of silver
+was drawn from the tribute of the allies; and there were still six
+thousand talents of coined silver in the Acropolis, out of nine
+thousand seven hundred that had once been there, from which the
+money had been taken for the porch of the Acropolis, the other
+public buildings, and for Potidaea.  This did not include the
+uncoined gold and silver in public and private offerings, the sacred
+vessels for the processions and games, the Median spoils, and
+similar resources to the amount of five hundred talents.  To this he
+added the treasures of the other temples.  These were by no means
+inconsiderable, and might fairly be used.  Nay, if they were ever
+absolutely driven to it, they might take even the gold ornaments of
+Athene herself; for the statue contained forty talents of pure gold
+and it was all removable.  This might be used for self-preservation,
+and must every penny of it be restored.  Such was their financial
+position--surely a satisfactory one.  Then they had an army of
+thirteen thousand heavy infantry, besides sixteen thousand more in the
+garrisons and on home duty at Athens.  This was at first the number
+of men on guard in the event of an invasion: it was composed of the
+oldest and youngest levies and the resident aliens who had heavy
+armour.  The Phaleric wall ran for four miles, before it joined that
+round the city; and of this last nearly five had a guard, although
+part of it was left without one, viz., that between the Long Wall
+and the Phaleric.  Then there were the Long Walls to Piraeus, a
+distance of some four miles and a half, the outer of which was manned.
+Lastly, the circumference of Piraeus with Munychia was nearly seven
+miles and a half; only half of this, however, was guarded.  Pericles
+also showed them that they had twelve hundred horse including
+mounted archers, with sixteen hundred archers unmounted, and three
+hundred galleys fit for service.  Such were the resources of Athens
+in the different departments when the Peloponnesian invasion was
+impending and hostilities were being commenced.  Pericles also urged
+his usual arguments for expecting a favourable issue to the war.
+
+The Athenians listened to his advice, and began to carry in their
+wives and children from the country, and all their household
+furniture, even to the woodwork of their houses which they took
+down.  Their sheep and cattle they sent over to Euboea and the adjacent
+islands.  But they found it hard to move, as most of them had been
+always used to live in the country.
+
+From very early times this had been more the case with the Athenians
+than with others.  Under Cecrops and the first kings, down to the reign
+of Theseus, Attica had always consisted of a number of independent
+townships, each with its own town hall and magistrates.  Except in
+times of danger the king at Athens was not consulted; in ordinary
+seasons they carried on their government and settled their affairs
+without his interference; sometimes even they waged war against him,
+as in the case of the Eleusinians with Eumolpus against Erechtheus.  In
+Theseus, however, they had a king of equal intelligence and power; and
+one of the chief features in his organization of the country was to
+abolish the council-chambers and magistrates of the petty cities,
+and to merge them in the single council-chamber and town hall of the
+present capital.  Individuals might still enjoy their private
+property just as before, but they were henceforth compelled to have
+only one political centre, viz., Athens; which thus counted all the
+inhabitants of Attica among her citizens, so that when Theseus died he
+left a great state behind him.  Indeed, from him dates the Synoecia, or
+Feast of Union; which is paid for by the state, and which the
+Athenians still keep in honour of the goddess.  Before this the city
+consisted of the present citadel and the district beneath it looking
+rather towards the south.  This is shown by the fact that the temples
+of the other deities, besides that of Athene, are in the citadel;
+and even those that are outside it are mostly situated in this quarter
+of the city, as that of the Olympian Zeus, of the Pythian Apollo, of
+Earth, and of Dionysus in the Marshes, the same in whose honour the
+older Dionysia are to this day celebrated in the month of Anthesterion
+not only by the Athenians but also by their Ionian descendants.
+There are also other ancient temples in this quarter.  The fountain
+too, which, since the alteration made by the tyrants, has been
+called Enneacrounos, or Nine Pipes, but which, when the spring was
+open, went by the name of Callirhoe, or Fairwater, was in those
+days, from being so near, used for the most important offices.  Indeed,
+the old fashion of using the water before marriage and for other
+sacred purposes is still kept up.  Again, from their old residence in
+that quarter, the citadel is still known among Athenians as the city.
+
+The Athenians thus long lived scattered over Attica in independent
+townships.  Even after the centralization of Theseus, old habit still
+prevailed; and from the early times down to the present war most
+Athenians still lived in the country with their families and
+households, and were consequently not at all inclined to move now,
+especially as they had only just restored their establishments after
+the Median invasion.  Deep was their trouble and discontent at
+abandoning their houses and the hereditary temples of the ancient
+constitution, and at having to change their habits of life and to
+bid farewell to what each regarded as his native city.
+
+When they arrived at Athens, though a few had houses of their own to
+go to, or could find an asylum with friends or relatives, by far the
+greater number had to take up their dwelling in the parts of the
+city that were not built over and in the temples and chapels of the
+heroes, except the Acropolis and the temple of the Eleusinian
+Demeter and such other Places as were always kept closed.  The
+occupation of the plot of ground lying below the citadel called the
+Pelasgian had been forbidden by a curse; and there was also an ominous
+fragment of a Pythian oracle which said:
+
+Leave the Pelasgian parcel desolate,
+Woe worth the day that men inhabit it!
+
+Yet this too was now built over in the necessity of the moment.  And in
+my opinion, if the oracle proved true, it was in the opposite sense to
+what was expected.  For the misfortunes of the state did not arise from
+the unlawful occupation, but the necessity of the occupation from
+the war; and though the god did not mention this, he foresaw that it
+would be an evil day for Athens in which the plot came to be
+inhabited.  Many also took up their quarters in the towers of the walls
+or wherever else they could.  For when they were all come in, the
+city proved too small to hold them; though afterwards they divided the
+Long Walls and a great part of Piraeus into lots and settled there.
+All this while great attention was being given to the war; the
+allies were being mustered, and an armament of a hundred ships
+equipped for Peloponnese.  Such was the state of preparation at Athens.
+
+Meanwhile the army of the Peloponnesians was advancing.  The first
+town they came to in Attica was Oenoe, where they to enter the
+country.  Sitting down before it, they prepared to assault the wall
+with engines and otherwise.  Oenoe, standing upon the Athenian and
+Boeotian border, was of course a walled town, and was used as a
+fortress by the Athenians in time of war.  So the Peloponnesians
+prepared for their assault, and wasted some valuable time before the
+place.  This delay brought the gravest censure upon Archidamus.  Even
+during the levying of the war he had credit for weakness and
+Athenian sympathies by the half measures he had advocated; and after
+the army had assembled he had further injured himself in public
+estimation by his loitering at the Isthmus and the slowness with which
+the rest of the march had been conducted.  But all this was as
+nothing to the delay at Oenoe.  During this interval the Athenians were
+carrying in their property; and it was the belief of the
+Peloponnesians that a quick advance would have found everything
+still out, had it not been for his procrastination.  Such was the
+feeling of the army towards Archidamus during the siege.  But he, it is
+said, expected that the Athenians would shrink from letting their land
+be wasted, and would make their submission while it was still
+uninjured; and this was why he waited.
+
+But after he had assaulted Oenoe, and every possible attempt to take
+it had failed, as no herald came from Athens, he at last broke up
+his camp and invaded Attica.  This was about eighty days after the
+Theban attempt upon Plataea, just in the middle of summer, when the
+corn was ripe, and Archidamus, son of Zeuxis, king of Lacedaemon,
+was in command.  Encamping in Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, they
+began their ravages, and putting to flight some Athenian horse at a
+place called Rheiti, or the Brooks, they then advanced, keeping
+Mount Aegaleus on their right, through Cropia, until they reached
+Acharnae, the largest of the Athenian demes or townships.  Sitting down
+before it, they formed a camp there, and continued their ravages for a
+long while.
+
+The reason why Archidamus remained in order of battle at Acharnae
+during this incursion, instead of descending into the plain, is said
+to have been this.  He hoped that the Athenians might possibly be
+tempted by the multitude of their youth and the unprecedented
+efficiency of their service to come out to battle and attempt to
+stop the devastation of their lands.  Accordingly, as they had met
+him at Eleusis or the Thriasian plain, he tried if they could be
+provoked to a sally by the spectacle of a camp at Acharnae.  He thought
+the place itself a good position for encamping; and it seemed likely
+that such an important part of the state as the three thousand heavy
+infantry of the Acharnians would refuse to submit to the ruin of their
+property, and would force a battle on the rest of the citizens.  On the
+other hand, should the Athenians not take the field during this
+incursion, he could then fearlessly ravage the plain in future
+invasions, and extend his advance up to the very walls of Athens.
+After the Acharnians had lost their own property they would be less
+willing to risk themselves for that of their neighbours; and so
+there would be division in the Athenian counsels.  These were the
+motives of Archidamus for remaining at Acharnae.
+
+In the meanwhile, as long as the army was at Eleusis and the
+Thriasian plain, hopes were still entertained of its not advancing any
+nearer.  It was remembered that Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king
+of Lacedaemon, had invaded Attica with a Peloponnesian army fourteen
+years before, but had retreated without advancing farther than Eleusis
+and Thria, which indeed proved the cause of his exile from Sparta,
+as it was thought he had been bribed to retreat.  But when they saw the
+army at Acharnae, barely seven miles from Athens, they lost all
+patience.  The territory of Athens was being ravaged before the very
+eyes of the Athenians, a sight which the young men had never seen
+before and the old only in the Median wars; and it was naturally
+thought a grievous insult, and the determination was universal,
+especially among the young men, to sally forth and stop it.  Knots were
+formed in the streets and engaged in hot discussion; for if the
+proposed sally was warmly recommended, it was also in some cases
+opposed.  Oracles of the most various import were recited by the
+collectors, and found eager listeners in one or other of the
+disputants.  Foremost in pressing for the sally were the Acharnians, as
+constituting no small part of the army of the state, and as it was
+their land that was being ravaged.  In short, the whole city was in a
+most excited state; Pericles was the object of general indignation;
+his previous counsels were totally forgotten; he was abused for not
+leading out the army which he commanded, and was made responsible
+for the whole of the public suffering.
+
+He, meanwhile, seeing anger and infatuation just now in the
+ascendant, and of his wisdom in refusing a sally, would not call
+either assembly or meeting of the people, fearing the fatal results of
+a debate inspired by passion and not by prudence.  Accordingly he
+addressed himself to the defence of the city, and kept it as quiet
+as possible, though he constantly sent out cavalry to prevent raids on
+the lands near the city from flying parties of the enemy.  There was
+a trifling affair at Phrygia between a squadron of the Athenian
+horse with the Thessalians and the Boeotian cavalry; in which the
+former had rather the best of it, until the heavy infantry advanced to
+the support of the Boeotians, when the Thessalians and Athenians
+were routed and lost a few men, whose bodies, however, were
+recovered the same day without a truce.  The next day the
+Peloponnesians set up a trophy.  Ancient alliance brought the
+Thessalians to the aid of Athens; those who came being the Larisaeans,
+Pharsalians, Cranonians, Pyrasians, Gyrtonians, and Pheraeans.  The
+Larisaean commanders were Polymedes and Aristonus, two party leaders
+in Larisa; the Pharsalian general was Menon; each of the other
+cities had also its own commander.
+
+In the meantime the Peloponnesians, as the Athenians did not come
+out to engage them, broke up from Acharnae and ravaged some of the
+demes between Mount Parnes and Brilessus.  While they were in Attica
+the Athenians sent off the hundred ships which they had been preparing
+round Peloponnese, with a thousand heavy infantry and four hundred
+archers on board, under the command of Carcinus, son of Xenotimus,
+Proteas, son of Epicles, and Socrates, son of Antigenes.  This armament
+weighed anchor and started on its cruise, and the Peloponnesians,
+after remaining in Attica as long as their provisions lasted,
+retired through Boeotia by a different road to that by which they
+had entered.  As they passed Oropus they ravaged the territory of
+Graea, which is held by the Oropians from Athens, and reaching
+Peloponnese broke up to their respective cities.
+
+After they had retired the Athenians set guards by land and sea at
+the points at which they intended to have regular stations during
+the war.  They also resolved to set apart a special fund of a
+thousand talents from the moneys in the Acropolis.  This was not to
+be spent, but the current expenses of the war were to be otherwise
+provided for.  If any one should move or put to the vote a
+proposition for using the money for any purpose whatever except that
+of defending the city in the event of the enemy bringing a fleet to
+make an attack by sea, it should be a capital offence.  With this sum
+of money they also set aside a special fleet of one hundred galleys,
+the best ships of each year, with their captains.  None of these were
+to be used except with the money and against the same peril, should
+such peril arise.
+
+Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred ships round Peloponnese,
+reinforced by a Corcyraean squadron of fifty vessels and some others
+of the allies in those parts, cruised about the coasts and ravaged the
+country.  Among other places they landed in Laconia and made an assault
+upon Methone; there being no garrison in the place, and the wall being
+weak.  But it so happened that Brasidas, son of Tellis, a Spartan,
+was in command of a guard for the defence of the district.  Hearing
+of the attack, he hurried with a hundred heavy infantry to the
+assistance of the besieged, and dashing through the army of the
+Athenians, which was scattered over the country and had its
+attention turned to the wall, threw himself into Methone.  He lost a
+few men in making good his entrance, but saved the place and won the
+thanks of Sparta by his exploit, being thus the first officer who
+obtained this notice during the war.  The Athenians at once weighed
+anchor and continued their cruise.  Touching at Pheia in Elis, they
+ravaged the country for two days and defeated a picked force of
+three hundred men that had come from the vale of Elis and the
+immediate neighbourhood to the rescue.  But a stiff squall came down
+upon them, and, not liking to face it in a place where there was no
+harbour, most of them got on board their ships, and doubling Point
+Ichthys sailed into the port of Pheia.  In the meantime the Messenians,
+and some others who could not get on board, marched over by land and
+took Pheia.  The fleet afterwards sailed round and picked them up and
+then put to sea; Pheia being evacuated, as the main army of the Eleans
+had now come up.  The Athenians continued their cruise, and ravaged
+other places on the coast.
+
+About the same time the Athenians sent thirty ships to cruise
+round Locris and also to guard Euboea; Cleopompus, son of Clinias,
+being in command.  Making descents from the fleet he ravaged certain
+places on the sea-coast, and captured Thronium and took hostages
+from it.  He also defeated at Alope the Locrians that had assembled
+to resist him.
+
+During the summer the Athenians also expelled the Aeginetans with
+their wives and children from Aegina, on the ground of their having
+been the chief agents in bringing the war upon them.  Besides, Aegina
+lies so near Peloponnese that it seemed safer to send colonists of
+their own to hold it, and shortly afterwards the settlers were sent
+out.  The banished Aeginetans found an asylum in Thyrea, which was
+given to them by Lacedaemon, not only on account of her quarrel with
+Athens, but also because the Aeginetans had laid her under obligations
+at the time of the earthquake and the revolt of the Helots.  The
+territory of Thyrea is on the frontier of Argolis and Laconia,
+reaching down to the sea.  Those of the Aeginetans who did not settle
+here were scattered over the rest of Hellas.
+
+The same summer, at the beginning of a new lunar month, the only
+time by the way at which it appears possible, the sun was eclipsed
+after noon.  After it had assumed the form of a crescent and some of
+the stars had come out, it returned to its natural shape.
+
+During the same summer Nymphodorus, son of Pythes, an Abderite,
+whose sister Sitalces had married, was made their proxenus by the
+Athenians and sent for to Athens.  They had hitherto considered him
+their enemy; but he had great influence with Sitalces, and they wished
+this prince to become their ally.  Sitalces was the son of Teres and
+King of the Thracians.  Teres, the father of Sitalces, was the first to
+establish the great kingdom of the Odrysians on a scale quite
+unknown to the rest of Thrace, a large portion of the Thracians
+being independent.  This Teres is in no way related to Tereus who
+married Pandion's daughter Procne from Athens; nor indeed did they
+belong to the same part of Thrace.  Tereus lived in Daulis, part of
+what is now called Phocis, but which at that time was inhabited by
+Thracians.  It was in this land that the women perpetrated the
+outrage upon Itys; and many of the poets when they mention the
+nightingale call it the Daulian bird.  Besides, Pandion in
+contracting an alliance for his daughter would consider the advantages
+of mutual assistance, and would naturally prefer a match at the
+above moderate distance to the journey of many days which separates
+Athens from the Odrysians.  Again the names are different; and this
+Teres was king of the Odrysians, the first by the way who attained
+to any power.  Sitalces, his son, was now sought as an ally by the
+Athenians, who desired his aid in the reduction of the Thracian
+towns and of Perdiccas.  Coming to Athens, Nymphodorus concluded the
+alliance with Sitalces and made his son Sadocus an Athenian citizen,
+and promised to finish the war in Thrace by persuading Sitalces to
+send the Athenians a force of Thracian horse and targeteers.  He also
+reconciled them with Perdiccas, and induced them to restore Therme
+to him; upon which Perdiccas at once joined the Athenians and
+Phormio in an expedition against the Chalcidians.  Thus Sitalces, son
+of Teres, King of the Thracians, and Perdiccas, son of Alexander, King
+of the Macedonians, became allies of Athens.
+
+Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred vessels were still cruising
+round Peloponnese.  After taking Sollium, a town belonging to
+Corinth, and presenting the city and territory to the Acarnanians of
+Palaira, they stormed Astacus, expelled its tyrant Evarchus, and
+gained the place for their confederacy.  Next they sailed to the island
+of Cephallenia and brought it over without using force.  Cephallenia
+lies off Acarnania and Leucas, and consists of four states, the
+Paleans, Cranians, Samaeans, and Pronaeans.  Not long afterwards the
+fleet returned to Athens.  Towards the autumn of this year the
+Athenians invaded the Megarid with their whole levy, resident aliens
+included, under the command of Pericles, son of Xanthippus.  The
+Athenians in the hundred ships round Peloponnese on their journey home
+had just reached Aegina, and hearing that the citizens at home were in
+full force at Megara, now sailed over and joined them.  This was
+without doubt the largest army of Athenians ever assembled, the
+state being still in the flower of her strength and yet unvisited by
+the plague.  Full ten thousand heavy infantry were in the field, all
+Athenian citizens, besides the three thousand before Potidaea.  Then
+the resident aliens who joined in the incursion were at least three
+thousand strong; besides which there was a multitude of light
+troops.  They ravaged the greater part of the territory, and then
+retired.  Other incursions into the Megarid were afterwards made by the
+Athenians annually during the war, sometimes only with cavalry,
+sometimes with all their forces.  This went on until the capture of
+Nisaea.  Atalanta also, the desert island off the Opuntian coast, was
+towards the end of this summer converted into a fortified post by
+the Athenians, in order to prevent privateers issuing from Opus and
+the rest of Locris and plundering Euboea.  Such were the events of this
+summer after the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica.
+
+In the ensuing winter the Acarnanian Evarchus, wishing to return
+to Astacus, persuaded the Corinthians to sail over with forty ships
+and fifteen hundred heavy infantry and restore him; himself also
+hiring some mercenaries.  In command of the force were Euphamidas,
+son of Aristonymus, Timoxenus, son of Timocrates, and Eumachus, son of
+Chrysis, who sailed over and restored him and, after failing in an
+attempt on some places on the Acarnanian coast which they were
+desirous of gaining, began their voyage home.  Coasting along shore
+they touched at Cephallenia and made a descent on the Cranian
+territory, and losing some men by the treachery of the Cranians, who
+fell suddenly upon them after having agreed to treat, put to sea
+somewhat hurriedly and returned home.
+
+In the same winter the Athenians gave a funeral at the public cost
+to those who had first fallen in this war.  It was a custom of their
+ancestors, and the manner of it is as follows.  Three days before the
+ceremony, the bones of the dead are laid out in a tent which has
+been erected; and their friends bring to their relatives such
+offerings as they please.  In the funeral procession cypress coffins
+are borne in cars, one for each tribe; the bones of the deceased being
+placed in the coffin of their tribe.  Among these is carried one
+empty bier decked for the missing, that is, for those whose bodies
+could not be recovered.  Any citizen or stranger who pleases, joins
+in the procession: and the female relatives are there to wail at the
+burial.  The dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the Beautiful
+suburb of the city, in which those who fall in war are always
+buried; with the exception of those slain at Marathon, who for their
+singular and extraordinary valour were interred on the spot where they
+fell.  After the bodies have been laid in the earth, a man chosen by
+the state, of approved wisdom and eminent reputation, pronounces
+over them an appropriate panegyric; after which all retire.  Such is
+the manner of the burying; and throughout the whole of the war,
+whenever the occasion arose, the established custom was observed.
+Meanwhile these were the first that had fallen, and Pericles, son of
+Xanthippus, was chosen to pronounce their eulogium.  When the proper
+time arrived, he advanced from the sepulchre to an elevated platform
+in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as possible, and spoke as
+follows:
+
+"Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made
+this speech part of the law, telling us that it is well that it should
+be delivered at the burial of those who fall in battle.  For myself,
+I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in
+deeds would be sufficiently rewarded by honours also shown by deeds;
+such as you now see in this funeral prepared at the people's cost.  And
+I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to
+be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall
+according as he spoke well or ill.  For it is hard to speak properly
+upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers
+that you are speaking the truth.  On the one hand, the friend who is
+familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has
+not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it
+to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be
+led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own
+nature.  For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they
+can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the
+actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with
+it incredulity.  However, since our ancestors have stamped this
+custom with their approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law and
+to try to satisfy your several wishes and opinions as best I may.
+
+"I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that
+they should have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like
+the present.  They dwelt in the country without break in the succession
+from generation to generation, and handed it down free to the
+present time by their valour.  And if our more remote ancestors deserve
+praise, much more do our own fathers, who added to their inheritance
+the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains to be able to
+leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation.  Lastly,
+there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented by
+those of us here, who are still more or less in the vigour of life;
+while the mother country has been furnished by us with everything that
+can enable her to depend on her own resources whether for war or for
+peace.  That part of our history which tells of the military
+achievements which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready
+valour with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of
+Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my
+hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by.  But
+what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of
+government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits
+out of which it sprang; these are questions which I may try to solve
+before I proceed to my panegyric upon these men; since I think this to
+be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may properly
+dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens or
+foreigners, may listen with advantage.
+
+"Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states;
+we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves.  Its
+administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it
+is called a democracy.  If we look to the laws, they afford equal
+justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing,
+advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class
+considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again
+does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is
+not hindered by the obscurity of his condition.  The freedom which we
+enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life.  There,
+far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do
+not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what
+he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot
+fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty.  But
+all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as
+citizens.  Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to
+obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the
+protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute
+book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot
+be broken without acknowledged disgrace.
+
+"Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh
+itself from business.  We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year
+round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily
+source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen; while the magnitude
+of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbour, so that
+to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury
+as those of his own.
+
+"If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our
+antagonists.  We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien
+acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing,
+although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our
+liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native
+spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from
+their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at
+Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to
+encounter every legitimate danger.  In proof of this it may be
+noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone, but
+bring with them all their confederates; while we Athenians advance
+unsupported into the territory of a neighbour, and fighting upon a
+foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their
+homes.  Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy,
+because we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our
+citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so that,
+wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength, a
+success against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the
+nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of our
+entire people.  And yet if with habits not of labour but of ease, and
+courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing to encounter
+danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of
+hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as
+fearlessly as those who are never free from them.
+
+"Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of
+admiration.  We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge
+without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and
+place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in
+declining the struggle against it.  Our public men have, besides
+politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary
+citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still
+fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding
+him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as
+useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot
+originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a
+stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable
+preliminary to any wise action at all.  Again, in our enterprises we
+present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each
+carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons;
+although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of
+reflection.  But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most
+justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and
+pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger.  In
+generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by
+conferring, not by receiving, favours.  Yet, of course, the doer of the
+favour is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness
+to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less
+keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be
+a payment, not a free gift.  And it is only the Athenians, who,
+fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from
+calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.
+
+"In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I
+doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to
+depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a
+versatility, as the Athenian.  And that this is no mere boast thrown
+out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state
+acquired by these habits proves.  For Athens alone of her
+contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation,
+and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the
+antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to
+question her title by merit to rule.  Rather, the admiration of the
+present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our
+power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far
+from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose
+verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they
+gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land
+to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or
+for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us.  Such is the
+Athens for which these men, in the assertion of their resolve not to
+lose her, nobly fought and died; and well may every one of their
+survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.
+
+"Indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our
+country, it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the
+same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose, and also that the
+panegyric of the men over whom I am now speaking might be by
+definite proofs established.  That panegyric is now in a great
+measure complete; for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what
+the heroism of these and their like have made her, men whose fame,
+unlike that of most Hellenes, will be found to be only commensurate
+with their deserts.  And if a test of worth be wanted, it is to be
+found in their closing scene, and this not only in cases in which it
+set the final seal upon their merit, but also in those in which it
+gave the first intimation of their having any.  For there is justice in
+the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a
+cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action
+has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than
+outweighed his demerits as an individual.  But none of these allowed
+either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his
+spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to
+tempt him to shrink from danger.  No, holding that vengeance upon their
+enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings, and
+reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully
+determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance, and to
+let their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of
+final success, in the business before them they thought fit to act
+boldly and trust in themselves.  Thus choosing to die resisting, rather
+than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonour, but met danger
+face to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their
+fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but from their glory.
+
+"So died these men as became Athenians.  You, their survivors, must
+determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you
+may pray that it may have a happier issue.  And not contented with
+ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up
+with the defence of your country, though these would furnish a
+valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as
+the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed
+your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your
+hearts; and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you
+must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling
+of honour in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no
+personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive
+their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the
+most glorious contribution that they could offer.  For this offering of
+their lives made in common by them all they each of them
+individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a
+sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been
+deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid
+up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or
+story shall call for its commemoration.  For heroes have the whole
+earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the
+column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every
+breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that
+of the heart.  These take as your model and, judging happiness to be
+the fruit of freedom and freedom of valour, never decline the
+dangers of war.  For it is not the miserable that would most justly
+be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is
+rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet
+unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in
+its consequences.  And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of
+cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death
+which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!
+
+"Comfort, therefore, not condolence, is what I have to offer to
+the parents of the dead who may be here.  Numberless are the chances to
+which, as they know, the life of man is subject; but fortunate
+indeed are they who draw for their lot a death so glorious as that
+which has caused your mourning, and to whom life has been so exactly
+measured as to terminate in the happiness in which it has been passed.
+Still I know that this is a hard saying, especially when those are
+in question of whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the
+homes of others blessings of which once you also boasted: for grief is
+felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for
+the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed.  Yet you who
+are still of an age to beget children must bear up in the hope of
+having others in their stead; not only will they help you to forget
+those whom you have lost, but will be to the state at once a
+reinforcement and a security; for never can a fair or just policy be
+expected of the citizen who does not, like his fellows, bring to the
+decision the interests and apprehensions of a father.  While those of
+you who have passed your prime must congratulate yourselves with the
+thought that the best part of your life was fortunate, and that the
+brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed.
+For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour
+it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age
+and helplessness.
+
+"Turning to the sons or brothers of the dead, I see an arduous
+struggle before you.  When a man is gone, all are wont to praise him,
+and should your merit be ever so transcendent, you will still find
+it difficult not merely to overtake, but even to approach their
+renown.  The living have envy to contend with, while those who are no
+longer in our path are honoured with a goodwill into which rivalry
+does not enter.  On the other hand, if I must say anything on the
+subject of female excellence to those of you who will now be in
+widowhood, it will be all comprised in this brief exhortation.  Great
+will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and
+greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men, whether
+for good or for bad.
+
+"My task is now finished.  I have performed it to the best of my
+ability, and in word, at least, the requirements of the law are now
+satisfied.  If deeds be in question, those who are here interred have
+received part of their honours already, and for the rest, their
+children will be brought up till manhood at the public expense: the
+state thus offers a valuable prize, as the garland of victory in
+this race of valour, for the reward both of those who have fallen
+and their survivors.  And where the rewards for merit are greatest,
+there are found the best citizens.
+
+"And now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your
+relatives, you may depart."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_Second Year of the War - The Plague of Athens - Position and
+Policy of Pericles - Fall of Potidaea_
+
+Such was the funeral that took place during this winter, with
+which the first year of the war came to an end.  In the first days of
+summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies, with two-thirds of their
+forces as before, invaded Attica, under the command of Archidamus, son
+of Zeuxidamus, King of Lacedaemon, and sat down and laid waste the
+country.  Not many days after their arrival in Attica the plague
+first began to show itself among the Athenians.  It was said that it
+had broken out in many places previously in the neighbourhood of
+Lemnos and elsewhere; but a pestilence of such extent and mortality
+was nowhere remembered.  Neither were the physicians at first of any
+service, ignorant as they were of the proper way to treat it, but they
+died themselves the most thickly, as they visited the sick most often;
+nor did any human art succeed any better.  Supplications in the
+temples, divinations, and so forth were found equally futile, till the
+overwhelming nature of the disaster at last put a stop to them
+altogether.
+
+It first began, it is said, in the parts of Ethiopia above Egypt,
+and thence descended into Egypt and Libya and into most of the
+King's country.  Suddenly falling upon Athens, it first attacked the
+population in Piraeus--which was the occasion of their saying that
+the Peloponnesians had poisoned the reservoirs, there being as yet
+no wells there--and afterwards appeared in the upper city, when the
+deaths became much more frequent.  All speculation as to its origin and
+its causes, if causes can be found adequate to produce so great a
+disturbance, I leave to other writers, whether lay or professional;
+for myself, I shall simply set down its nature, and explain the
+symptoms by which perhaps it may be recognized by the student, if it
+should ever break out again.  This I can the better do, as I had the
+disease myself, and watched its operation in the case of others.
+
+That year then is admitted to have been otherwise unprecedentedly
+free from sickness; and such few cases as occurred all determined in
+this.  As a rule, however, there was no ostensible cause; but people in
+good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the
+head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such
+as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and
+fetid breath.  These symptoms were followed by sneezing and hoarseness,
+after which the pain soon reached the chest, and produced a hard
+cough.  When it fixed in the stomach, it upset it; and discharges of
+bile of every kind named by physicians ensued, accompanied by very
+great distress.  In most cases also an ineffectual retching followed,
+producing violent spasms, which in some cases ceased soon after, in
+others much later.  Externally the body was not very hot to the
+touch, nor pale in its appearance, but reddish, livid, and breaking
+out into small pustules and ulcers.  But internally it burned so that
+the patient could not bear to have on him clothing or linen even of
+the very lightest description; or indeed to be otherwise than stark
+naked.  What they would have liked best would have been to throw
+themselves into cold water; as indeed was done by some of the
+neglected sick, who plunged into the rain-tanks in their agonies of
+unquenchable thirst; though it made no difference whether they drank
+little or much.  Besides this, the miserable feeling of not being
+able to rest or sleep never ceased to torment them.  The body meanwhile
+did not waste away so long as the distemper was at its height, but
+held out to a marvel against its ravages; so that when they succumbed,
+as in most cases, on the seventh or eighth day to the internal
+inflammation, they had still some strength in them.  But if they passed
+this stage, and the disease descended further into the bowels,
+inducing a violent ulceration there accompanied by severe diarrhoea,
+this brought on a weakness which was generally fatal.  For the disorder
+first settled in the head, ran its course from thence through the
+whole of the body, and, even where it did not prove mortal, it still
+left its mark on the extremities; for it settled in the privy parts,
+the fingers and the toes, and many escaped with the loss of these,
+some too with that of their eyes.  Others again were seized with an
+entire loss of memory on their first recovery, and did not know either
+themselves or their friends.
+
+But while the nature of the distemper was such as to baffle all
+description, and its attacks almost too grievous for human nature to
+endure, it was still in the following circumstance that its difference
+from all ordinary disorders was most clearly shown.  All the birds
+and beasts that prey upon human bodies, either abstained from touching
+them (though there were many lying unburied), or died after tasting
+them.  In proof of this, it was noticed that birds of this kind
+actually disappeared; they were not about the bodies, or indeed to
+be seen at all.  But of course the effects which I have mentioned could
+best be studied in a domestic animal like the dog.
+
+Such then, if we pass over the varieties of particular cases which
+were many and peculiar, were the general features of the distemper.
+Meanwhile the town enjoyed an immunity from all the ordinary
+disorders; or if any case occurred, it ended in this.  Some died in
+neglect, others in the midst of every attention.  No remedy was found
+that could be used as a specific; for what did good in one case, did
+harm in another.  Strong and weak constitutions proved equally
+incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away, although dieted
+with the utmost precaution.  By far the most terrible feature in the
+malady was the dejection which ensued when any one felt himself
+sickening, for the despair into which they instantly fell took away
+their power of resistance, and left them a much easier prey to the
+disorder; besides which, there was the awful spectacle of men dying
+like sheep, through having caught the infection in nursing each other.
+This caused the greatest mortality.  On the one hand, if they were
+afraid to visit each other, they perished from neglect; indeed many
+houses were emptied of their inmates for want of a nurse: on the
+other, if they ventured to do so, death was the consequence.  This
+was especially the case with such as made any pretensions to goodness:
+honour made them unsparing of themselves in their attendance in
+their friends' houses, where even the members of the family were at
+last worn out by the moans of the dying, and succumbed to the force of
+the disaster.  Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease
+that the sick and the dying found most compassion.  These knew what
+it was from experience, and had now no fear for themselves; for the
+same man was never attacked twice--never at least fatally.  And such
+persons not only received the congratulations of others, but
+themselves also, in the elation of the moment, half entertained the
+vain hope that they were for the future safe from any disease
+whatsoever.
+
+An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the
+country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new
+arrivals.  As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be
+lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the
+mortality raged without restraint.  The bodies of dying men lay one
+upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and
+gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water.  The
+sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of
+corpses of persons that had died there, just as they were; for as
+the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of
+them, became utterly careless of everything, whether sacred or
+profane.  All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and
+they buried the bodies as best they could.  Many from want of the
+proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died
+already, had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes
+getting the start of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own
+dead body upon the stranger's pyre and ignited it; sometimes they
+tossed the corpse which they were carrying on the top of another
+that was burning, and so went off.
+
+Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its
+origin to the plague.  Men now coolly ventured on what they had
+formerly done in a corner, and not just as they pleased, seeing the
+rapid transitions produced by persons in prosperity suddenly dying and
+those who before had nothing succeeding to their property.  So they
+resolved to spend quickly and enjoy themselves, regarding their
+lives and riches as alike things of a day.  Perseverance in what men
+called honour was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether
+they would be spared to attain the object; but it was settled that
+present enjoyment, and all that contributed to it, was both honourable
+and useful.  Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain
+them.  As for the first, they judged it to be just the same whether
+they worshipped them or not, as they saw all alike perishing; and
+for the last, no one expected to live to be brought to trial for his
+offences, but each felt that a far severer sentence had been already
+passed upon them all and hung ever over their heads, and before this
+fell it was only reasonable to enjoy life a little.
+
+Such was the nature of the calamity, and heavily did it weigh on the
+Athenians; death raging within the city and devastation without.  Among
+other things which they remembered in their distress was, very
+naturally, the following verse which the old men said had long ago
+been uttered:
+
+   A Dorian war shall come and with it death.
+
+So a dispute arose as to whether dearth and not death had not been the
+word in the verse; but at the present juncture, it was of course
+decided in favour of the latter; for the people made their
+recollection fit in with their sufferings.  I fancy, however, that if
+another Dorian war should ever afterwards come upon us, and a dearth
+should happen to accompany it, the verse will probably be read
+accordingly.  The oracle also which had been given to the
+Lacedaemonians was now remembered by those who knew of it.  When the
+god was asked whether they should go to war, he answered that if
+they put their might into it, victory would be theirs, and that he
+would himself be with them.  With this oracle events were supposed to
+tally.  For the plague broke out as soon as the Peloponnesians
+invaded Attica, and never entering Peloponnese (not at least to an
+extent worth noticing), committed its worst ravages at Athens, and
+next to Athens, at the most populous of the other towns.  Such was
+the history of the plague.
+
+After ravaging the plain, the Peloponnesians advanced into the
+Paralian region as far as Laurium, where the Athenian silver mines
+are, and first laid waste the side looking towards Peloponnese, next
+that which faces Euboea and Andros.  But Pericles, who was still
+general, held the same opinion as in the former invasion, and would
+not let the Athenians march out against them.
+
+However, while they were still in the plain, and had not yet entered
+the Paralian land, he had prepared an armament of a hundred ships
+for Peloponnese, and when all was ready put out to sea.  On board the
+ships he took four thousand Athenian heavy infantry, and three hundred
+cavalry in horse transports, and then for the first time made out of
+old galleys; fifty Chian and Lesbian vessels also joining in the
+expedition.  When this Athenian armament put out to sea, they left
+the Peloponnesians in Attica in the Paralian region.  Arriving at
+Epidaurus in Peloponnese they ravaged most of the territory, and
+even had hopes of taking the town by an assault: in this however
+they were not successful.  Putting out from Epidaurus, they laid
+waste the territory of Troezen, Halieis, and Hermione, all towns on
+the coast of Peloponnese, and thence sailing to Prasiai, a maritime
+town in Laconia, ravaged part of its territory, and took and sacked
+the place itself; after which they returned home, but found the
+Peloponnesians gone and no longer in Attica.
+
+During the whole time that the Peloponnesians were in Attica and the
+Athenians on the expedition in their ships, men kept dying of the
+plague both in the armament and in Athens.  Indeed it was actually
+asserted that the departure of the Peloponnesians was hastened by fear
+of the disorder; as they heard from deserters that it was in the city,
+and also could see the burials going on.  Yet in this invasion they
+remained longer than in any other, and ravaged the whole country,
+for they were about forty days in Attica.
+
+The same summer Hagnon, son of Nicias, and Cleopompus, son of
+Clinias, the colleagues of Pericles, took the armament of which he had
+lately made use, and went off upon an expedition against the
+Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace and Potidaea, which was still
+under siege.  As soon as they arrived, they brought up their engines
+against Potidaea and tried every means of taking it, but did not
+succeed either in capturing the city or in doing anything else
+worthy of their preparations.  For the plague attacked them here
+also, and committed such havoc as to cripple them completely, even the
+previously healthy soldiers of the former expedition catching the
+infection from Hagnon's troops; while Phormio and the sixteen
+hundred men whom he commanded only escaped by being no longer in the
+neighbourhood of the Chalcidians.  The end of it was that Hagnon
+returned with his ships to Athens, having lost one thousand and
+fifty out of four thousand heavy infantry in about forty days;
+though the soldiers stationed there before remained in the country and
+carried on the siege of Potidaea.
+
+After the second invasion of the Peloponnesians a change came over
+the spirit of the Athenians.  Their land had now been twice laid waste;
+and war and pestilence at once pressed heavy upon them.  They began
+to find fault with Pericles, as the author of the war and the cause of
+all their misfortunes, and became eager to come to terms with
+Lacedaemon, and actually sent ambassadors thither, who did not however
+succeed in their mission.  Their despair was now complete and all
+vented itself upon Pericles.  When he saw them exasperated at the
+present turn of affairs and acting exactly as he had anticipated, he
+called an assembly, being (it must be remembered) still general,
+with the double object of restoring confidence and of leading them
+from these angry feelings to a calmer and more hopeful state of
+mind.  He accordingly came forward and spoke as follows:
+
+"I was not unprepared for the indignation of which I have been the
+object, as I know its causes; and I have called an assembly for the
+purpose of reminding you upon certain points, and of protesting
+against your being unreasonably irritated with me, or cowed by your
+sufferings.  I am of opinion that national greatness is more for the
+advantage of private citizens, than any individual well-being
+coupled with public humiliation.  A man may be personally ever so
+well off, and yet if his country be ruined he must be ruined with
+it; whereas a flourishing commonwealth always affords chances of
+salvation to unfortunate individuals.  Since then a state can support
+the misfortunes of private citizens, while they cannot support hers,
+it is surely the duty of every one to be forward in her defence, and
+not like you to be so confounded with your domestic afflictions as
+to give up all thoughts of the common safety, and to blame me for
+having counselled war and yourselves for having voted it.  And yet if
+you are angry with me, it is with one who, as I believe, is second
+to no man either in knowledge of the proper policy, or in the
+ability to expound it, and who is moreover not only a patriot but an
+honest one.  A man possessing that knowledge without that faculty of
+exposition might as well have no idea at all on the matter: if he
+had both these gifts, but no love for his country, he would be but a
+cold advocate for her interests; while were his patriotism not proof
+against bribery, everything would go for a price.  So that if you
+thought that I was even moderately distinguished for these qualities
+when you took my advice and went to war, there is certainly no
+reason now why I should be charged with having done wrong.
+
+"For those of course who have a free choice in the matter and
+whose fortunes are not at stake, war is the greatest of follies.  But
+if the only choice was between submission with loss of independence,
+and danger with the hope of preserving that independence, in such a
+case it is he who will not accept the risk that deserves blame, not he
+who will.  I am the same man and do not alter, it is you who change,
+since in fact you took my advice while unhurt, and waited for
+misfortune to repent of it; and the apparent error of my policy lies
+in the infirmity of your resolution, since the suffering that it
+entails is being felt by every one among you, while its advantage is
+still remote and obscure to all, and a great and sudden reverse having
+befallen you, your mind is too much depressed to persevere in your
+resolves.  For before what is sudden, unexpected, and least within
+calculation, the spirit quails; and putting all else aside, the plague
+has certainly been an emergency of this kind.  Born, however, as you
+are, citizens of a great state, and brought up, as you have been, with
+habits equal to your birth, you should be ready to face the greatest
+disasters and still to keep unimpaired the lustre of your name.  For
+the judgment of mankind is as relentless to the weakness that falls
+short of a recognized renown, as it is jealous of the arrogance that
+aspires higher than its due.  Cease then to grieve for your private
+afflictions, and address yourselves instead to the safety of the
+commonwealth.
+
+"If you shrink before the exertions which the war makes necessary,
+and fear that after all they may not have a happy result, you know the
+reasons by which I have often demonstrated to you the groundlessness
+of your apprehensions.  If those are not enough, I will now reveal an
+advantage arising from the greatness of your dominion, which I think
+has never yet suggested itself to you, which I never mentioned in my
+previous speeches, and which has so bold a sound that I should
+scarce adventure it now, were it not for the unnatural depression
+which I see around me.  You perhaps think that your empire extends only
+over your allies; I will declare to you the truth.  The visible field
+of action has two parts, land and sea.  In the whole of one of these
+you are completely supreme, not merely as far as you use it at
+present, but also to what further extent you may think fit: in fine,
+your naval resources are such that your vessels may go where they
+please, without the King or any other nation on earth being able to
+stop them.  So that although you may think it a great privation to lose
+the use of your land and houses, still you must see that this power is
+something widely different; and instead of fretting on their
+account, you should really regard them in the light of the gardens and
+other accessories that embellish a great fortune, and as, in
+comparison, of little moment.  You should know too that liberty
+preserved by your efforts will easily recover for us what we have
+lost, while, the knee once bowed, even what you have will pass from
+you.  Your fathers receiving these possessions not from others, but
+from themselves, did not let slip what their labour had acquired,
+but delivered them safe to you; and in this respect at least you
+must prove yourselves their equals, remembering that to lose what
+one has got is more disgraceful than to be balked in getting, and
+you must confront your enemies not merely with spirit but with
+disdain.  Confidence indeed a blissful ignorance can impart, ay, even
+to a coward's breast, but disdain is the privilege of those who,
+like us, have been assured by reflection of their superiority to their
+adversary.  And where the chances are the same, knowledge fortifies
+courage by the contempt which is its consequence, its trust being
+placed, not in hope, which is the prop of the desperate, but in a
+judgment grounded upon existing resources, whose anticipations are
+more to be depended upon.
+
+"Again, your country has a right to your services in sustaining
+the glories of her position.  These are a common source of pride to you
+all, and you cannot decline the burdens of empire and still expect
+to share its honours.  You should remember also that what you are
+fighting against is not merely slavery as an exchange for
+independence, but also loss of empire and danger from the
+animosities incurred in its exercise.  Besides, to recede is no
+longer possible, if indeed any of you in the alarm of the moment has
+become enamoured of the honesty of such an unambitious part.  For
+what you hold is, to speak somewhat plainly, a tyranny; to take it
+perhaps was wrong, but to let it go is unsafe.  And men of these
+retiring views, making converts of others, would quickly ruin a state;
+indeed the result would be the same if they could live independent
+by themselves; for the retiring and unambitious are never secure
+without vigorous protectors at their side; in fine, such qualities are
+useless to an imperial city, though they may help a dependency to an
+unmolested servitude.
+
+"But you must not be seduced by citizens like these or angry with
+me--who, if I voted for war, only did as you did yourselves--in spite
+of the enemy having invaded your country and done what you could be
+certain that he would do, if you refused to comply with his demands;
+and although besides what we counted for, the plague has come upon
+us--the only point indeed at which our calculation has been at fault.
+It is this, I know, that has had a large share in making me more
+unpopular than I should otherwise have been--quite undeservedly,
+unless you are also prepared to give me the credit of any success with
+which chance may present you.  Besides, the hand of heaven must be
+borne with resignation, that of the enemy with fortitude; this was the
+old way at Athens, and do not you prevent it being so still.  Remember,
+too, that if your country has the greatest name in all the world, it
+is because she never bent before disaster; because she has expended
+more life and effort in war than any other city, and has won for
+herself a power greater than any hitherto known, the memory of which
+will descend to the latest posterity; even if now, in obedience to the
+general law of decay, we should ever be forced to yield, still it will
+be remembered that we held rule over more Hellenes than any other
+Hellenic state, that we sustained the greatest wars against their
+united or separate powers, and inhabited a city unrivalled by any
+other in resources or magnitude.  These glories may incur the censure
+of the slow and unambitious; but in the breast of energy they will
+awake emulation, and in those who must remain without them an
+envious regret.  Hatred and unpopularity at the moment have fallen to
+the lot of all who have aspired to rule others; but where odium must
+be incurred, true wisdom incurs it for the highest objects.  Hatred
+also is short-lived; but that which makes the splendour of the present
+and the glory of the future remains for ever unforgotten.  Make your
+decision, therefore, for glory then and honour now, and attain both
+objects by instant and zealous effort: do not send heralds to
+Lacedaemon, and do not betray any sign of being oppressed by your
+present sufferings, since they whose minds are least sensitive to
+calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the
+greatest men and the greatest communities."
+
+Such were the arguments by which Pericles tried to cure the
+Athenians of their anger against him and to divert their thoughts from
+their immediate afflictions.  As a community he succeeded in convincing
+them; they not only gave up all idea of sending to Lacedaemon, but
+applied themselves with increased energy to the war; still as
+private individuals they could not help smarting under their
+sufferings, the common people having been deprived of the little
+that they were possessed, while the higher orders had lost fine
+properties with costly establishments and buildings in the country,
+and, worst of all, had war instead of peace.  In fact, the public
+feeling against him did not subside until he had been fined.  Not
+long afterwards, however, according to the way of the multitude,
+they again elected him general and committed all their affairs to
+his hands, having now become less sensitive to their private and
+domestic afflictions, and understanding that he was the best man of
+all for the public necessities.  For as long as he was at the head of
+the state during the peace, he pursued a moderate and conservative
+policy; and in his time its greatness was at its height.  When the
+war broke out, here also he seems to have rightly gauged the power
+of his country.  He outlived its commencement two years and six months,
+and the correctness of his previsions respecting it became better
+known by his death.  He told them to wait quietly, to pay attention
+to their marine, to attempt no new conquests, and to expose the city
+to no hazards during the war, and doing this, promised them a
+favourable result.  What they did was the very contrary, allowing
+private ambitions and private interests, in matters apparently quite
+foreign to the war, to lead them into projects unjust both to
+themselves and to their allies--projects whose success would only
+conduce to the honour and advantage of private persons, and whose
+failure entailed certain disaster on the country in the war.  The
+causes of this are not far to seek.  Pericles indeed, by his rank,
+ability, and known integrity, was enabled to exercise an independent
+control over the multitude--in short, to lead them instead of being
+led by them; for as he never sought power by improper means, he was
+never compelled to flatter them, but, on the contrary, enjoyed so high
+an estimation that he could afford to anger them by contradiction.
+Whenever he saw them unseasonably and insolently elated, he would with
+a word reduce them to alarm; on the other hand, if they fell victims
+to a panic, he could at once restore them to confidence.  In short,
+what was nominally a democracy became in his hands government by the
+first citizen.  With his successors it was different.  More on a level
+with one another, and each grasping at supremacy, they ended by
+committing even the conduct of state affairs to the whims of the
+multitude.  This, as might have been expected in a great and
+sovereign state, produced a host of blunders, and amongst them the
+Sicilian expedition; though this failed not so much through a
+miscalculation of the power of those against whom it was sent, as
+through a fault in the senders in not taking the best measures
+afterwards to assist those who had gone out, but choosing rather to
+occupy themselves with private cabals for the leadership of the
+commons, by which they not only paralysed operations in the field, but
+also first introduced civil discord at home.  Yet after losing most
+of their fleet besides other forces in Sicily, and with faction
+already dominant in the city, they could still for three years make
+head against their original adversaries, joined not only by the
+Sicilians, but also by their own allies nearly all in revolt, and at
+last by the King's son, Cyrus, who furnished the funds for the
+Peloponnesian navy.  Nor did they finally succumb till they fell the
+victims of their own intestine disorders.  So superfluously abundant
+were the resources from which the genius of Pericles foresaw an easy
+triumph in the war over the unaided forces of the Peloponnesians.
+
+During the same summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies made an
+expedition with a hundred ships against Zacynthus, an island lying off
+the coast of Elis, peopled by a colony of Achaeans from Peloponnese,
+and in alliance with Athens.  There were a thousand Lacedaemonian heavy
+infantry on board, and Cnemus, a Spartan, as admiral.  They made a
+descent from their ships, and ravaged most of the country; but as
+the inhabitants would not submit, they sailed back home.
+
+At the end of the same summer the Corinthian Aristeus, Aneristus,
+Nicolaus, and Stratodemus, envoys from Lacedaemon, Timagoras, a
+Tegean, and a private individual named Pollis from Argos, on their way
+to Asia to persuade the King to supply funds and join in the war, came
+to Sitalces, son of Teres in Thrace, with the idea of inducing him, if
+possible, to forsake the alliance of Athens and to march on Potidaea
+then besieged by an Athenian force, and also of getting conveyed by
+his means to their destination across the Hellespont to Pharnabazus,
+who was to send them up the country to the King.  But there chanced
+to be with Sitalces some Athenian ambassadors--Learchus, son of
+Callimachus, and Ameiniades, son of Philemon--who persuaded Sitalces'
+son, Sadocus, the new Athenian citizen, to put the men into their
+hands and thus prevent their crossing over to the King and doing their
+part to injure the country of his choice.  He accordingly had them
+seized, as they were travelling through Thrace to the vessel in
+which they were to cross the Hellespont, by a party whom he had sent
+on with Learchus and Ameiniades, and gave orders for their delivery to
+the Athenian ambassadors, by whom they were brought to Athens.  On
+their arrival, the Athenians, afraid that Aristeus, who had been
+notably the prime mover in the previous affairs of Potidaea and
+their Thracian possessions, might live to do them still more
+mischief if he escaped, slew them all the same day, without giving
+them a trial or hearing the defence which they wished to offer, and
+cast their bodies into a pit; thinking themselves justified in using
+in retaliation the same mode of warfare which the Lacedaemonians had
+begun, when they slew and cast into pits all the Athenian and allied
+traders whom they caught on board the merchantmen round Peloponnese.
+Indeed, at the outset of the war, the Lacedaemonians butchered as
+enemies all whom they took on the sea, whether allies of Athens or
+neutrals.
+
+About the same time towards the close of the summer, the Ambraciot
+forces, with a number of barbarians that they had raised, marched
+against the Amphilochian Argos and the rest of that country.  The
+origin of their enmity against the Argives was this.  This Argos and
+the rest of Amphilochia were colonized by Amphilochus, son of
+Amphiaraus.  Dissatisfied with the state of affairs at home on his
+return thither after the Trojan War, he built this city in the
+Ambracian Gulf, and named it Argos after his own country.  This was the
+largest town in Amphilochia, and its inhabitants the most powerful.
+Under the pressure of misfortune many generations afterwards, they
+called in the Ambraciots, their neighbours on the Amphilochian border,
+to join their colony; and it was by this union with the Ambraciots
+that they learnt their present Hellenic speech, the rest of the
+Amphilochians being barbarians.  After a time the Ambraciots expelled
+the Argives and held the city themselves.  Upon this the
+Amphilochians gave themselves over to the Acarnanians; and the two
+together called the Athenians, who sent them Phormio as general and
+thirty ships; upon whose arrival they took Argos by storm, and made
+slaves of the Ambraciots; and the Amphilochians and Acarnanians
+inhabited the town in common.  After this began the alliance between
+the Athenians and Acarnanians.  The enmity of the Ambraciots against
+the Argives thus commenced with the enslavement of their citizens; and
+afterwards during the war they collected this armament among
+themselves and the Chaonians, and other of the neighbouring
+barbarians.  Arrived before Argos, they became masters of the
+country; but not being successful in their attacks upon the town,
+returned home and dispersed among their different peoples.
+
+Such were the events of the summer.  The ensuing winter the Athenians
+sent twenty ships round Peloponnese, under the command of Phormio, who
+stationed himself at Naupactus and kept watch against any one
+sailing in or out of Corinth and the Crissaean Gulf.  Six others went
+to Caria and Lycia under Melesander, to collect tribute in those
+parts, and also to prevent the Peloponnesian privateers from taking up
+their station in those waters and molesting the passage of the
+merchantmen from Phaselis and Phoenicia and the adjoining continent.
+However, Melesander, going up the country into Lycia with a force of
+Athenians from the ships and the allies, was defeated and killed in
+battle, with the loss of a number of his troops.
+
+The same winter the Potidaeans at length found themselves no
+longer able to hold out against their besiegers.  The inroads of the
+Peloponnesians into Attica had not had the desired effect of making
+the Athenians raise the siege.  Provisions there were none left; and so
+far had distress for food gone in Potidaea that, besides a number of
+other horrors, instances had even occurred of the people having
+eaten one another.  In this extremity they at last made proposals for
+capitulating to the Athenian generals in command against
+them--Xenophon, son of Euripides, Hestiodorus, son of Aristocleides,
+and Phanomachus, son of Callimachus.  The generals accepted their
+proposals, seeing the sufferings of the army in so exposed a position;
+besides which the state had already spent two thousand talents upon
+the siege.  The terms of the capitulation were as follows: a free
+passage out for themselves, their children, wives and auxiliaries,
+with one garment apiece, the women with two, and a fixed sum of
+money for their journey.  Under this treaty they went out to Chalcidice
+and other places, according as was their power.  The Athenians,
+however, blamed the generals for granting terms without instructions
+from home, being of opinion that the place would have had to surrender
+at discretion.  They afterwards sent settlers of their own to Potidaea,
+and colonized it.  Such were the events of the winter, and so ended the
+second year of this war of which Thucydides was the historian.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_Third Year of the War - Investment of Plataea - Naval Victories
+of Phormio - Thracian Irruption into Macedonia under Sitalces_
+
+The next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies, instead of
+invading Attica, marched against Plataea, under the command of
+Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians.  He had
+encamped his army and was about to lay waste the country, when the
+Plataeans hastened to send envoys to him, and spoke as follows:
+"Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, in invading the Plataean territory,
+you do what is wrong in itself, and worthy neither of yourselves nor
+of the fathers who begot you.  Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, your
+countryman, after freeing Hellas from the Medes with the help of
+those Hellenes who were willing to undertake the risk of the battle
+fought near our city, offered sacrifice to Zeus the Liberator in the
+marketplace of Plataea, and calling all the allies together restored
+to the Plataeans their city and territory, and declared it
+independent and inviolate against aggression or conquest.  Should any
+such be attempted, the allies present were to help according to their
+power.  Your fathers rewarded us thus for the courage and patriotism
+that we displayed at that perilous epoch; but you do just the
+contrary, coming with our bitterest enemies, the Thebans, to enslave
+us.  We appeal, therefore, to the gods to whom the oaths were then
+made, to the gods of your ancestors, and lastly to those of our
+country, and call upon you to refrain from violating our territory
+or transgressing the oaths, and to let us live independent, as
+Pausanias decreed."
+
+The Plataeans had got thus far when they were cut short by
+Archidamus saying: "There is justice, Plataeans, in what you say, if
+you act up to your words.  According, to the grant of Pausanias,
+continue to be independent yourselves, and join in freeing those of
+your fellow countrymen who, after sharing in the perils of that
+period, joined in the oaths to you, and are now subject to the
+Athenians; for it is to free them and the rest that all this provision
+and war has been made.  I could wish that you would share our labours
+and abide by the oaths yourselves; if this is impossible, do what we
+have already required of you--remain neutral, enjoying your own; join
+neither side, but receive both as friends, neither as allies for the
+war.  With this we shall be satisfied." Such were the words of
+Archidamus.  The Plataeans, after hearing what he had to say, went into
+the city and acquainted the people with what had passed, and presently
+returned for answer that it was impossible for them to do what he
+proposed without consulting the Athenians, with whom their children
+and wives now were; besides which they had their fears for the town.
+After his departure, what was to prevent the Athenians from coming and
+taking it out of their hands, or the Thebans, who would be included in
+the oaths, from taking advantage of the proposed neutrality to make
+a second attempt to seize the city? Upon these points he tried to
+reassure them by saying: "You have only to deliver over the city and
+houses to us Lacedaemonians, to point out the boundaries of your land,
+the number of your fruit-trees, and whatever else can be numerically
+stated, and yourselves to withdraw wherever you like as long as the
+war shall last.  When it is over we will restore to you whatever we
+received, and in the interim hold it in trust and keep it in
+cultivation, paying you a sufficient allowance."
+
+When they had heard what he had to say, they re-entered the city,
+and after consulting with the people said that they wished first to
+acquaint the Athenians with this proposal, and in the event of their
+approving to accede to it; in the meantime they asked him to grant
+them a truce and not to lay waste their territory.  He accordingly
+granted a truce for the number of days requisite for the journey,
+and meanwhile abstained from ravaging their territory.  The Plataean
+envoys went to Athens, and consulted with the Athenians, and
+returned with the following message to those in the city: "The
+Athenians say, Plataeans, that they never hitherto, since we became
+their allies, on any occasion abandoned us to an enemy, nor will
+they now neglect us, but will help us according to their ability;
+and they adjure you by the oaths which your fathers swore, to keep the
+alliance unaltered."
+
+On the delivery of this message by the envoys, the Plataeans
+resolved not to be unfaithful to the Athenians but to endure, if it
+must be, seeing their lands laid waste and any other trials that might
+come to them, and not to send out again, but to answer from the wall
+that it was impossible for them to do as the Lacedaemonians
+proposed.  As soon as he had received this answer, King Archidamus
+proceeded first to make a solemn appeal to the gods and heroes of
+the country in words following: "Ye gods and heroes of the Plataean
+territory, be my witnesses that not as aggressors originally, nor
+until these had first departed from the common oath, did we invade
+this land, in which our fathers offered you their prayers before
+defeating the Medes, and which you made auspicious to the Hellenic
+arms; nor shall we be aggressors in the measures to which we may now
+resort, since we have made many fair proposals but have not been
+successful.  Graciously accord that those who were the first to
+offend may be punished for it, and that vengeance may be attained by
+those who would righteously inflict it."
+
+After this appeal to the gods Archidamus put his army in motion.
+First he enclosed the town with a palisade formed of the fruit-trees
+which they cut down, to prevent further egress from Plataea; next they
+threw up a mound against the city, hoping that the largeness of the
+force employed would ensure the speedy reduction of the place.  They
+accordingly cut down timber from Cithaeron, and built it up on
+either side, laying it like lattice-work to serve as a wall to keep
+the mound from spreading abroad, and carried to it wood and stones and
+earth and whatever other material might help to complete it.  They
+continued to work at the mound for seventy days and nights without
+intermission, being divided into relief parties to allow of some being
+employed in carrying while others took sleep and refreshment; the
+Lacedaemonian officer attached to each contingent keeping the men to
+the work.  But the Plataeans, observing the progress of the mound,
+constructed a wall of wood and fixed it upon that part of the city
+wall against which the mound was being erected, and built up bricks
+inside it which they took from the neighbouring houses.  The timbers
+served to bind the building together, and to prevent its becoming weak
+as it advanced in height; it had also a covering of skins and hides,
+which protected the woodwork against the attacks of burning missiles
+and allowed the men to work in safety.  Thus the wall was raised to a
+great height, and the mound opposite made no less rapid progress.
+The Plataeans also thought of another expedient; they pulled out
+part of the wall upon which the mound abutted, and carried the earth
+into the city.
+
+Discovering this the Peloponnesians twisted up clay in wattles of
+reed and threw it into the breach formed in the mound, in order to
+give it consistency and prevent its being carried away like the
+soil.  Stopped in this way the Plataeans changed their mode of
+operation, and digging a mine from the town calculated their way under
+the mound, and began to carry off its material as before.  This went on
+for a long while without the enemy outside finding it out, so that for
+all they threw on the top their mound made no progress in
+proportion, being carried away from beneath and constantly settling
+down in the vacuum.  But the Plataeans, fearing that even thus they
+might not be able to hold out against the superior numbers of the
+enemy, had yet another invention.  They stopped working at the large
+building in front of the mound, and starting at either end of it
+inside from the old low wall, built a new one in the form of a
+crescent running in towards the town; in order that in the event of
+the great wall being taken this might remain, and the enemy have to
+throw up a fresh mound against it, and as they advanced within might
+not only have their trouble over again, but also be exposed to
+missiles on their flanks.  While raising the mound the Peloponnesians
+also brought up engines against the city, one of which was brought
+up upon the mound against the great building and shook down a good
+piece of it, to the no small alarm of the Plataeans.  Others were
+advanced against different parts of the wall but were lassoed and
+broken by the Plataeans; who also hung up great beams by long iron
+chains from either extremity of two poles laid on the wall and
+projecting over it, and drew them up at an angle whenever any point
+was threatened by the engine, and loosing their hold let the beam go
+with its chains slack, so that it fell with a run and snapped off
+the nose of the battering ram.
+
+After this the Peloponnesians, finding that their engines effected
+nothing, and that their mound was met by the counterwork, concluded
+that their present means of offence were unequal to the taking of
+the city, and prepared for its circumvallation.  First, however, they
+determined to try the effects of fire and see whether they could
+not, with the help of a wind, burn the town, as it was not a large
+one; indeed they thought of every possible expedient by which the
+place might be reduced without the expense of a blockade.  They
+accordingly brought faggots of brushwood and threw them from the
+mound, first into the space between it and the wall; and this soon
+becoming full from the number of hands at work, they next heaped the
+faggots up as far into the town as they could reach from the top,
+and then lighted the wood by setting fire to it with sulphur and
+pitch.  The consequence was a fire greater than any one had ever yet
+seen produced by human agency, though it could not of course be
+compared to the spontaneous conflagrations sometimes known to occur
+through the wind rubbing the branches of a mountain forest together.
+And this fire was not only remarkable for its magnitude, but was also,
+at the end of so many perils, within an ace of proving fatal to the
+Plataeans; a great part of the town became entirely inaccessible,
+and had a wind blown upon it, in accordance with the hopes of the
+enemy, nothing could have saved them.  As it was, there is also a story
+of heavy rain and thunder having come on by which the fire was put out
+and the danger averted.
+
+Failing in this last attempt the Peloponnesians left a portion of
+their forces on the spot, dismissing the rest, and built a wall of
+circumvallation round the town, dividing the ground among the
+various cities present; a ditch being made within and without the
+lines, from which they got their bricks.  All being finished by about
+the rising of Arcturus, they left men enough to man half the wall, the
+rest being manned by the Boeotians, and drawing off their army
+dispersed to their several cities.  The Plataeans had before sent off
+their wives and children and oldest men and the mass of the
+non-combatants to Athens; so that the number of the besieged left in
+the place comprised four hundred of their own citizens, eighty
+Athenians, and a hundred and ten women to bake their bread.  This was
+the sum total at the commencement of the siege, and there was no one
+else within the walls, bond or free.  Such were the arrangements made
+for the blockade of Plataea.
+
+The same summer and simultaneously with the expedition against
+Plataea, the Athenians marched with two thousand heavy infantry and
+two hundred horse against the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace
+and the Bottiaeans, just as the corn was getting ripe, under the
+command of Xenophon, son of Euripides, with two colleagues.  Arriving
+before Spartolus in Bottiaea, they destroyed the corn and had some
+hopes of the city coming over through the intrigues of a faction
+within.  But those of a different way of thinking had sent to Olynthus;
+and a garrison of heavy infantry and other troops arrived accordingly.
+These issuing from Spartolus were engaged by the Athenians in front of
+the town: the Chalcidian heavy infantry, and some auxiliaries with
+them, were beaten and retreated into Spartolus; but the Chalcidian
+horse and light troops defeated the horse and light troops of the
+Athenians.  The Chalcidians had already a few targeteers from Crusis,
+and presently after the battle were joined by some others from
+Olynthus; upon seeing whom the light troops from Spartolus, emboldened
+by this accession and by their previous success, with the help of
+the Chalcidian horse and the reinforcement just arrived again attacked
+the Athenians, who retired upon the two divisions which they had
+left with their baggage.  Whenever the Athenians advanced, their
+adversary gave way, pressing them with missiles the instant they began
+to retire.  The Chalcidian horse also, riding up and charging them just
+as they pleased, at last caused a panic amongst them and routed and
+pursued them to a great distance.  The Athenians took refuge in
+Potidaea, and afterwards recovered their dead under truce, and
+returned to Athens with the remnant of their army; four hundred and
+thirty men and all the generals having fallen.  The Chalcidians and
+Bottiaeans set up a trophy, took up their dead, and dispersed to their
+several cities.
+
+The same summer, not long after this, the Ambraciots and
+Chaonians, being desirous of reducing the whole of Acarnania and
+detaching it from Athens, persuaded the Lacedaemonians to equip a
+fleet from their confederacy and send a thousand heavy infantry to
+Acarnania, representing that, if a combined movement were made by land
+and sea, the coast Acarnanians would be unable to march, and the
+conquest of Zacynthus and Cephallenia easily following on the
+possession of Acarnania, the cruise round Peloponnese would be no
+longer so convenient for the Athenians.  Besides which there was a hope
+of taking Naupactus.  The Lacedaemonians accordingly at once sent off a
+few vessels with Cnemus, who was still high admiral, and the heavy
+infantry on board; and sent round orders for the fleet to equip as
+quickly as possible and sail to Leucas.  The Corinthians were the
+most forward in the business; the Ambraciots being a colony of theirs.
+While the ships from Corinth, Sicyon, and the neighbourhood were
+getting ready, and those from Leucas, Anactorium, and Ambracia,
+which had arrived before, were waiting for them at Leucas, Cnemus
+and his thousand heavy infantry had run into the gulf, giving the slip
+to Phormio, the commander of the Athenian squadron stationed off
+Naupactus, and began at once to prepare for the land expedition.  The
+Hellenic troops with him consisted of the Ambraciots, Leucadians,
+and Anactorians, and the thousand Peloponnesians with whom he came;
+the barbarian of a thousand Chaonians, who, belonging to a nation that
+has no king, were led by Photys and Nicanor, the two members of the
+royal family to whom the chieftainship for that year had been
+confided.  With the Chaonians came also some Thesprotians, like them
+without a king, some Molossians and Atintanians led by Sabylinthus,
+the guardian of King Tharyps who was still a minor, and some
+Paravaeans, under their king Oroedus, accompanied by a thousand
+Orestians, subjects of King Antichus and placed by him under the
+command of Oroedus.  There were also a thousand Macedonians sent by
+Perdiccas without the knowledge of the Athenians, but they arrived too
+late.  With this force Cnemus set out, without waiting for the fleet
+from Corinth.  Passing through the territory of Amphilochian Argos, and
+sacking the open village of Limnaea, they advanced to Stratus the
+Acarnanian capital; this once taken, the rest of the country, they
+felt convinced, would speedily follow.
+
+The Acarnanians, finding themselves invaded by a large army by land,
+and from the sea threatened by a hostile fleet, made no combined
+attempt at resistance, but remained to defend their homes, and sent
+for help to Phormio, who replied that, when a fleet was on the point
+of sailing from Corinth, it was impossible for him to leave
+Naupactus unprotected.  The Peloponnesians meanwhile and their allies
+advanced upon Stratus in three divisions, with the intention of
+encamping near it and attempting the wall by force if they failed to
+succeed by negotiation.  The order of march was as follows: the
+centre was occupied by the Chaonians and the rest of the barbarians,
+with the Leucadians and Anactorians and their followers on the
+right, and Cnemus with the Peloponnesians and Ambraciots on the
+left; each division being a long way off from, and sometimes even
+out of sight of, the others.  The Hellenes advanced in good order,
+keeping a look-out till they encamped in a good position; but the
+Chaonians, filled with self-confidence, and having the highest
+character for courage among the tribes of that part of the
+continent, without waiting to occupy their camp, rushed on with the
+rest of the barbarians, in the idea that they should take the town
+by assault and obtain the sole glory of the enterprise.  While they
+were coming on, the Stratians, becoming aware how things stood, and
+thinking that the defeat of this division would considerably
+dishearten the Hellenes behind it, occupied the environs of the town
+with ambuscades, and as soon as they approached engaged them at
+close quarters from the city and the ambuscades.  A panic seizing the
+Chaonians, great numbers of them were slain; and as soon as they
+were seen to give way the rest of the barbarians turned and fled.
+Owing to the distance by which their allies had preceded them, neither
+of the Hellenic divisions knew anything of the battle, but fancied
+they were hastening on to encamp.  However, when the flying
+barbarians broke in upon them, they opened their ranks to receive
+them, brought their divisions together, and stopped quiet where they
+were for the day; the Stratians not offering to engage them, as the
+rest of the Acarnanians had not yet arrived, but contenting themselves
+with slinging at them from a distance, which distressed them
+greatly, as there was no stirring without their armour.  The
+Acarnanians would seem to excel in this mode of warfare.
+
+As soon as night fell, Cnemus hastily drew off his army to the river
+Anapus, about nine miles from Stratus, recovering his dead next day
+under truce, and being there joined by the friendly Oeniadae, fell
+back upon their city before the enemy's reinforcements came up.  From
+hence each returned home; and the Stratians set up a trophy for the
+battle with the barbarians.
+
+Meanwhile the fleet from Corinth and the rest of the confederates in
+the Crissaean Gulf, which was to have co-operated with Cnemus and
+prevented the coast Acarnanians from joining their countrymen in the
+interior, was disabled from doing so by being compelled about the same
+time as the battle at Stratus to fight with Phormio and the twenty
+Athenian vessels stationed at Naupactus.  For they were watched, as
+they coasted along out of the gulf, by Phormio, who wished to attack
+in the open sea.  But the Corinthians and allies had started for
+Acarnania without any idea of fighting at sea, and with vessels more
+like transports for carrying soldiers; besides which, they never
+dreamed of the twenty Athenian ships venturing to engage their
+forty-seven.  However, while they were coasting along their own
+shore, there were the Athenians sailing along in line with them; and
+when they tried to cross over from Patrae in Achaea to the mainland on
+the other side, on their way to Acarnania, they saw them again
+coming out from Chalcis and the river Evenus to meet them.  They
+slipped from their moorings in the night, but were observed, and
+were at length compelled to fight in mid passage.  Each state that
+contributed to the armament had its own general; the Corinthian
+commanders were Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas.  The
+Peloponnesians ranged their vessels in as large a circle as possible
+without leaving an opening, with the prows outside and the sterns
+in; and placed within all the small craft in company, and their five
+best sailers to issue out at a moment's notice and strengthen any
+point threatened by the enemy.
+
+The Athenians, formed in line, sailed round and round them, and
+forced them to contract their circle, by continually brushing past and
+making as though they would attack at once, having been previously
+cautioned by Phormio not to do so till he gave the signal.  His hope
+was that the Peloponnesians would not retain their order like a
+force on shore, but that the ships would fall foul of one another
+and the small craft cause confusion; and if the wind should blow
+from the gulf (in expectation of which he kept sailing round them, and
+which usually rose towards morning), they would not, he felt sure,
+remain steady an instant.  He also thought that it rested with him to
+attack when he pleased, as his ships were better sailers, and that
+an attack timed by the coming of the wind would tell best.  When the
+wind came down, the enemy's ships were now in a narrow space, and what
+with the wind and the small craft dashing against them, at once fell
+into confusion: ship fell foul of ship, while the crews were pushing
+them off with poles, and by their shouting, swearing, and struggling
+with one another, made captains' orders and boatswains' cries alike
+inaudible, and through being unable for want of practice to clear
+their oars in the rough water, prevented the vessels from obeying
+their helmsmen properly.  At this moment Phormio gave the signal, and
+the Athenians attacked.  Sinking first one of the admirals, they then
+disabled all they came across, so that no one thought of resistance
+for the confusion, but fled for Patrae and Dyme in Achaea.  The
+Athenians gave chase and captured twelve ships, and taking most of the
+men out of them sailed to Molycrium, and after setting up a trophy
+on the promontory of Rhium and dedicating a ship to Poseidon, returned
+to Naupactus.  As for the Peloponnesians, they at once sailed with
+their remaining ships along the coast from Dyme and Patrae to Cyllene,
+the Eleian arsenal; where Cnemus, and the ships from Leucas that
+were to have joined them, also arrived after the battle at Stratus.
+
+The Lacedaemonians now sent to the fleet to Cnemus three
+commissioners--Timocrates, Bradidas, and Lycophron--with orders to
+prepare to engage again with better fortune, and not to be driven from
+the sea by a few vessels; for they could not at all account for
+their discomfiture, the less so as it was their first attempt at
+sea; and they fancied that it was not that their marine was so
+inferior, but that there had been misconduct somewhere, not
+considering the long experience of the Athenians as compared with
+the little practice which they had had themselves.  The commissioners
+were accordingly sent in anger.  As soon as they arrived they set to
+work with Cnemus to order ships from the different states, and to
+put those which they already had in fighting order.  Meanwhile
+Phormio sent word to Athens of their preparations and his own victory,
+and desired as many ships as possible to be speedily sent to him, as
+he stood in daily expectation of a battle.  Twenty were accordingly
+sent, but instructions were given to their commander to go first to
+Crete.  For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortys, who was proxenus of the
+Athenians, had persuaded them to sail against Cydonia, promising to
+procure the reduction of that hostile town; his real wish being to
+oblige the Polichnitans, neighbours of the Cydonians.  He accordingly
+went with the ships to Crete, and, accompanied by the Polichnitans,
+laid waste the lands of the Cydonians; and, what with adverse winds
+and stress of weather wasted no little time there.
+
+While the Athenians were thus detained in Crete, the
+Peloponnesians in Cyllene got ready for battle, and coasted along to
+Panormus in Achaea, where their land army had come to support them.
+Phormio also coasted along to Molycrian Rhium, and anchored outside it
+with twenty ships, the same as he had fought with before.  This Rhium
+was friendly to the Athenians.  The other, in Peloponnese, lies
+opposite to it; the sea between them is about three-quarters of a mile
+broad, and forms the mouth of the Crissaean gulf.  At this, the Achaean
+Rhium, not far off Panormus, where their army lay, the
+Peloponnesians now cast anchor with seventy-seven ships, when they saw
+the Athenians do so.  For six or seven days they remained opposite each
+other, practising and preparing for the battle; the one resolved not
+to sail out of the Rhia into the open sea, for fear of the disaster
+which had already happened to them, the other not to sail into the
+straits, thinking it advantageous to the enemy, to fight in the
+narrows.  At last Cnemus and Brasidas and the rest of the Peloponnesian
+commanders, being desirous of bringing on a battle as soon as
+possible, before reinforcements should arrive from Athens, and
+noticing that the men were most of them cowed by the previous defeat
+and out of heart for the business, first called them together and
+encouraged them as follows:
+
+"Peloponnesians, the late engagement, which may have made some of
+you afraid of the one now in prospect, really gives no just ground for
+apprehension.  Preparation for it, as you know, there was little
+enough; and the object of our voyage was not so much to fight at sea
+as an expedition by land.  Besides this, the chances of war were
+largely against us; and perhaps also inexperience had something to
+do with our failure in our first naval action.  It was not,
+therefore, cowardice that produced our defeat, nor ought the
+determination which force has not quelled, but which still has a
+word to say with its adversary, to lose its edge from the result of an
+accident; but admitting the possibility of a chance miscarriage, we
+should know that brave hearts must be always brave, and while they
+remain so can never put forward inexperience as an excuse for
+misconduct.  Nor are you so behind the enemy in experience as you are
+ahead of him in courage; and although the science of your opponents
+would, if valour accompanied it, have also the presence of mind to
+carry out at in emergency the lesson it has learnt, yet a faint
+heart will make all art powerless in the face of danger.  For fear
+takes away presence of mind, and without valour art is useless.
+Against their superior experience set your superior daring, and
+against the fear induced by defeat the fact of your having been then
+unprepared; remember, too, that you have always the advantage of
+superior numbers, and of engaging off your own coast, supported by
+your heavy infantry; and as a rule, numbers and equipment give
+victory.  At no point, therefore, is defeat likely; and as for our
+previous mistakes, the very fact of their occurrence will teach us
+better for the future.  Steersmen and sailors may, therefore,
+confidently attend to their several duties, none quitting the
+station assigned to them: as for ourselves, we promise to prepare
+for the engagement at least as well as your previous commanders, and
+to give no excuse for any one misconducting himself.  Should any insist
+on doing so, he shall meet with the punishment he deserves, while
+the brave shall be honoured with the appropriate rewards of valour."
+
+The Peloponnesian commanders encouraged their men after this
+fashion.  Phormio, meanwhile, being himself not without fears for the
+courage of his men, and noticing that they were forming in groups
+among themselves and were alarmed at the odds against them, desired to
+call them together and give them confidence and counsel in the present
+emergency.  He had before continually told them, and had accustomed
+their minds to the idea, that there was no numerical superiority
+that they could not face; and the men themselves had long been
+persuaded that Athenians need never retire before any quantity of
+Peloponnesian vessels.  At the moment, however, he saw that they were
+dispirited by the sight before them, and wishing to refresh their
+confidence, called them together and spoke as follows:
+
+"I see, my men, that you are frightened by the number of the
+enemy, and I have accordingly called you together, not liking you to
+be afraid of what is not really terrible.  In the first place, the
+Peloponnesians, already defeated, and not even themselves thinking
+that they are a match for us, have not ventured to meet us on equal
+terms, but have equipped this multitude of ships against us.  Next,
+as to that upon which they most rely, the courage which they suppose
+constitutional to them, their confidence here only arises from the
+success which their experience in land service usually gives them, and
+which they fancy will do the same for them at sea.  But this
+advantage will in all justice belong to us on this element, if to them
+on that; as they are not superior to us in courage, but we are each of
+us more confident, according to our experience in our particular
+department.  Besides, as the Lacedaemonians use their supremacy over
+their allies to promote their own glory, they are most of them being
+brought into danger against their will, or they would never, after
+such a decided defeat, have ventured upon a fresh engagement.  You need
+not, therefore, be afraid of their dash.  You, on the contrary, inspire
+a much greater and better founded alarm, both because of your late
+victory and also of their belief that we should not face them unless
+about to do something worthy of a success so signal.  An adversary
+numerically superior, like the one before us, comes into action
+trusting more to strength than to resolution; while he who voluntarily
+confronts tremendous odds must have very great internal resources to
+draw upon.  For these reasons the Peloponnesians fear our irrational
+audacity more than they would ever have done a more commensurate
+preparation.  Besides, many armaments have before now succumbed to an
+inferior through want of skill or sometimes of courage; neither of
+which defects certainly are ours.  As to the battle, it shall not be,
+if I can help it, in the strait, nor will I sail in there at all;
+seeing that in a contest between a number of clumsily managed
+vessels and a small, fast, well-handled squadron, want of sea room
+is an undoubted disadvantage.  One cannot run down an enemy properly
+without having a sight of him a good way off, nor can one retire at
+need when pressed; one can neither break the line nor return upon
+his rear, the proper tactics for a fast sailer; but the naval action
+necessarily becomes a land one, in which numbers must decide the
+matter.  For all this I will provide as far as can be.  Do you stay at
+your posts by your ships, and be sharp at catching the word of
+command, the more so as we are observing one another from so short a
+distance; and in action think order and silence
+all-important--qualities useful in war generally, and in naval
+engagements in particular; and behave before the enemy in a manner
+worthy of your past exploits.  The issues you will fight for are
+great--to destroy the naval hopes of the Peloponnesians or to bring
+nearer to the Athenians their fears for the sea.  And I may once more
+remind you that you have defeated most of them already; and beaten men
+do not face a danger twice with the same determination."
+
+Such was the exhortation of Phormio.  The Peloponnesians finding that
+the Athenians did not sail into the gulf and the narrows, in order
+to lead them in whether they wished it or not, put out at dawn, and
+forming four abreast, sailed inside the gulf in the direction of their
+own country, the right wing leading as they had lain at anchor.  In
+this wing were placed twenty of their best sailers; so that in the
+event of Phormio thinking that their object was Naupactus, and
+coasting along thither to save the place, the Athenians might not be
+able to escape their onset by getting outside their wing, but might be
+cut off by the vessels in question.  As they expected, Phormio, in
+alarm for the place at that moment emptied of its garrison, as soon as
+he saw them put out, reluctantly and hurriedly embarked and sailed
+along shore; the Messenian land forces moving along also to support
+him.  The Peloponnesians seeing him coasting along with his ships in
+single file, and by this inside the gulf and close inshore as they
+so much wished, at one signal tacked suddenly and bore down in line at
+their best speed on the Athenians, hoping to cut off the whole
+squadron.  The eleven leading vessels, however, escaped the
+Peloponnesian wing and its sudden movement, and reached the more
+open water; but the rest were overtaken as they tried to run
+through, driven ashore and disabled; such of the crews being slain
+as had not swum out of them.  Some of the ships the Peloponnesians
+lashed to their own, and towed off empty; one they took with the men
+in it; others were just being towed off, when they were saved by the
+Messenians dashing into the sea with their armour and fighting from
+the decks that they had boarded.
+
+Thus far victory was with the Peloponnesians, and the Athenian fleet
+destroyed; the twenty ships in the right wing being meanwhile in chase
+of the eleven Athenian vessels that had escaped their sudden
+movement and reached the more open water.  These, with the exception of
+one ship, all outsailed them and got safe into Naupactus, and
+forming close inshore opposite the temple of Apollo, with their
+prows facing the enemy, prepared to defend themselves in case the
+Peloponnesians should sail inshore against them.  After a while the
+Peloponnesians came up, chanting the paean for their victory as they
+sailed on; the single Athenian ship remaining being chased by a
+Leucadian far ahead of the rest.  But there happened to be a
+merchantman lying at anchor in the roadstead, which the Athenian
+ship found time to sail round, and struck the Leucadian in chase
+amidships and sank her.  An exploit so sudden and unexpected produced a
+panic among the Peloponnesians; and having fallen out of order in
+the excitement of victory, some of them dropped their oars and stopped
+their way in order to let the main body come up--an unsafe thing to
+do considering how near they were to the enemy's prows; while others
+ran aground in the shallows, in their ignorance of the localities.
+
+Elated at this incident, the Athenians at one word gave a cheer, and
+dashed at the enemy, who, embarrassed by his mistakes and the disorder
+in which he found himself, only stood for an instant, and then fled
+for Panormus, whence he had put out.  The Athenians following on his
+heels took the six vessels nearest them, and recovered those of
+their own which had been disabled close inshore and taken in tow at
+the beginning of the action; they killed some of the crews and took
+some prisoners.  On board the Leucadian which went down off the
+merchantman, was the Lacedaemonian Timocrates, who killed himself when
+the ship was sunk, and was cast up in the harbour of Naupactus.  The
+Athenians on their return set up a trophy on the spot from which
+they had put out and turned the day, and picking up the wrecks and
+dead that were on their shore, gave back to the enemy their dead under
+truce.  The Peloponnesians also set up a trophy as victors for the
+defeat inflicted upon the ships they had disabled in shore, and
+dedicated the vessel which they had taken at Achaean Rhium, side by
+side with the trophy.  After this, apprehensive of the reinforcement
+expected from Athens, all except the Leucadians sailed into the
+Crissaean Gulf for Corinth.  Not long after their retreat, the twenty
+Athenian ships, which were to have joined Phormio before the battle,
+arrived at Naupactus.
+
+Thus the summer ended.  Winter was now at hand; but dispersing the
+fleet, which had retired to Corinth and the Crissaean Gulf, Cnemus,
+Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian captains allowed themselves to
+be persuaded by the Megarians to make an attempt upon Piraeus, the
+port of Athens, which from her decided superiority at sea had been
+naturally left unguarded and open.  Their plan was as follows: The
+men were each to take their oar, cushion, and rowlock thong, and,
+going overland from Corinth to the sea on the Athenian side, to get to
+Megara as quickly as they could, and launching forty vessels, which
+happened to be in the docks at Nisaea, to sail at once to Piraeus.
+There was no fleet on the look-out in the harbour, and no one had
+the least idea of the enemy attempting a surprise; while an open
+attack would, it was thought, never be deliberately ventured on, or,
+if in contemplation, would be speedily known at Athens.  Their plan
+formed, the next step was to put it in execution.  Arriving by night
+and launching the vessels from Nisaea, they sailed, not to Piraeus
+as they had originally intended, being afraid of the risk, besides
+which there was some talk of a wind having stopped them, but to the
+point of Salamis that looks towards Megara; where there was a fort and
+a squadron of three ships to prevent anything sailing in or out of
+Megara.  This fort they assaulted, and towed off the galleys empty, and
+surprising the inhabitants began to lay waste the rest of the island.
+
+Meanwhile fire signals were raised to alarm Athens, and a panic
+ensued there as serious as any that occurred during the war.  The
+idea in the city was that the enemy had already sailed into Piraeus:
+in Piraeus it was thought that they had taken Salamis and might at any
+moment arrive in the port; as indeed might easily have been done if
+their hearts had been a little firmer: certainly no wind would have
+prevented them.  As soon as day broke, the Athenians assembled in
+full force, launched their ships, and embarking in haste and uproar
+went with the fleet to Salamis, while their soldiery mounted guard
+in Piraeus.  The Peloponnesians, on becoming aware of the coming
+relief, after they had overrun most of Salamis, hastily sailed off
+with their plunder and captives and the three ships from Fort
+Budorum to Nisaea; the state of their ships also causing them some
+anxiety, as it was a long while since they had been launched, and they
+were not water-tight.  Arrived at Megara, they returned back on foot to
+Corinth.  The Athenians finding them no longer at Salamis, sailed
+back themselves; and after this made arrangements for guarding Piraeus
+more diligently in future, by closing the harbours, and by other
+suitable precautions.
+
+About the same time, at the beginning of this winter, Sitalces,
+son of Teres, the Odrysian king of Thrace, made an expedition
+against Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and the
+Chalcidians in the neighbourhood of Thrace; his object being to
+enforce one promise and fulfil another.  On the one hand Perdiccas
+had made him a promise, when hard pressed at the commencement of the
+war, upon condition that Sitalces should reconcile the Athenians to
+him and not attempt to restore his brother and enemy, the pretender
+Philip, but had not offered to fulfil his engagement; on the other he,
+Sitalces, on entering into alliance with the Athenians, had agreed
+to put an end to the Chalcidian war in Thrace.  These were the two
+objects of his invasion.  With him he brought Amyntas, the son of
+Philip, whom he destined for the throne of Macedonia, and some
+Athenian envoys then at his court on this business, and Hagnon as
+general; for the Athenians were to join him against the Chalcidians
+with a fleet and as many soldiers as they could get together.
+
+Beginning with the Odrysians, he first called out the Thracian
+tribes subject to him between Mounts Haemus and Rhodope and the Euxine
+and Hellespont; next the Getae beyond Haemus, and the other hordes
+settled south of the Danube in the neighbourhood of the Euxine, who,
+like the Getae, border on the Scythians and are armed in the same
+manner, being all mounted archers.  Besides these he summoned many of
+the hill Thracian independent swordsmen, called Dii and mostly
+inhabiting Mount Rhodope, some of whom came as mercenaries, others
+as volunteers; also the Agrianes and Laeaeans, and the rest of the
+Paeonian tribes in his empire, at the confines of which these lay,
+extending up to the Laeaean Paeonians and the river Strymon, which
+flows from Mount Scombrus through the country of the Agrianes and
+Laeaeans; there the empire of Sitalces ends and the territory of the
+independent Paeonians begins.  Bordering on the Triballi, also
+independent, were the Treres and Tilataeans, who dwell to the north of
+Mount Scombrus and extend towards the setting sun as far as the
+river Oskius.  This river rises in the same mountains as the Nestus and
+Hebrus, a wild and extensive range connected with Rhodope.
+
+The empire of the Odrysians extended along the seaboard from
+Abdera to the mouth of the Danube in the Euxine.  The navigation of
+this coast by the shortest route takes a merchantman four days and
+four nights with a wind astern the whole way: by land an active man,
+travelling by the shortest road, can get from Abdera to the Danube
+in eleven days.  Such was the length of its coast line.  Inland from
+Byzantium to the Laeaeans and the Strymon, the farthest limit of its
+extension into the interior, it is a journey of thirteen days for an
+active man.  The tribute from all the barbarian districts and the
+Hellenic cities, taking what they brought in under Seuthes, the
+successor of Sitalces, who raised it to its greatest height,
+amounted to about four hundred talents in gold and silver.  There
+were also presents in gold and silver to a no less amount, besides
+stuff, plain and embroidered, and other articles, made not only for
+the king, but also for the Odrysian lords and nobles.  For there was
+here established a custom opposite to that prevailing in the Persian
+kingdom, namely, of taking rather than giving; more disgrace being
+attached to not giving when asked than to asking and being refused;
+and although this prevailed elsewhere in Thrace, it was practised most
+extensively among the powerful Odrysians, it being impossible to get
+anything done without a present.  It was thus a very powerful
+kingdom; in revenue and general prosperity surpassing all in Europe
+between the Ionian Gulf and the Euxine, and in numbers and military
+resources coming decidedly next to the Scythians, with whom indeed
+no people in Europe can bear comparison, there not being even in
+Asia any nation singly a match for them if unanimous, though of course
+they are not on a level with other races in general intelligence and
+the arts of civilized life.
+
+It was the master of this empire that now prepared to take the
+field.  When everything was ready, he set out on his march for
+Macedonia, first through his own dominions, next over the desolate
+range of Cercine that divides the Sintians and Paeonians, crossing
+by a road which he had made by felling the timber on a former campaign
+against the latter people.  Passing over these mountains, with the
+Paeonians on his right and the Sintians and Maedians on the left, he
+finally arrived at Doberus, in Paeonia, losing none of his army on the
+march, except perhaps by sickness, but receiving some augmentations,
+many of the independent Thracians volunteering to join him in the hope
+of plunder; so that the whole is said to have formed a grand total
+of a hundred and fifty thousand.  Most of this was infantry, though
+there was about a third cavalry, furnished principally by the
+Odrysians themselves and next to them by the Getae.  The most warlike
+of the infantry were the independent swordsmen who came down from
+Rhodope; the rest of the mixed multitude that followed him being
+chiefly formidable by their numbers.
+
+Assembling in Doberus, they prepared for descending from the heights
+upon Lower Macedonia, where the dominions of Perdiccas lay; for the
+Lyncestae, Elimiots, and other tribes more inland, though
+Macedonians by blood, and allies and dependants of their kindred,
+still have their own separate governments.  The country on the sea
+coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the
+father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from
+Argos.  This was effected by the expulsion from Pieria of the Pierians,
+who afterwards inhabited Phagres and other places under Mount
+Pangaeus, beyond the Strymon (indeed the country between Pangaeus
+and the sea is still called the Pierian Gulf); of the Bottiaeans, at
+present neighbours of the Chalcidians, from Bottia, and by the
+acquisition in Paeonia of a narrow strip along the river Axius
+extending to Pella and the sea; the district of Mygdonia, between
+the Axius and the Strymon, being also added by the expulsion of the
+Edonians.  From Eordia also were driven the Eordians, most of whom
+perished, though a few of them still live round Physca, and the
+Almopians from Almopia.  These Macedonians also conquered places
+belonging to the other tribes, which are still theirs--Anthemus,
+Crestonia, Bisaltia, and much of Macedonia proper.  The whole is now
+called Macedonia, and at the time of the invasion of Sitalces,
+Perdiccas, Alexander's son, was the reigning king.
+
+These Macedonians, unable to take the field against so numerous an
+invader, shut themselves up in such strong places and fortresses as
+the country possessed.  Of these there was no great number, most of
+those now found in the country having been erected subsequently by
+Archelaus, the son of Perdiccas, on his accession, who also cut
+straight roads, and otherwise put the kingdom on a better footing as
+regards horses, heavy infantry, and other war material than had been
+done by all the eight kings that preceded him.  Advancing from Doberus,
+the Thracian host first invaded what had been once Philip's
+government, and took Idomene by assault, Gortynia, Atalanta, and
+some other places by negotiation, these last coming over for love of
+Philip's son, Amyntas, then with Sitalces.  Laying siege to Europus,
+and failing to take it, he next advanced into the rest of Macedonia to
+the left of Pella and Cyrrhus, not proceeding beyond this into
+Bottiaea and Pieria, but staying to lay waste Mygdonia, Crestonia, and
+Anthemus.
+
+The Macedonians never even thought of meeting him with infantry; but
+the Thracian host was, as opportunity offered, attacked by handfuls of
+their horse, which had been reinforced from their allies in the
+interior.  Armed with cuirasses, and excellent horsemen, wherever these
+charged they overthrew all before them, but ran considerable risk in
+entangling themselves in the masses of the enemy, and so finally
+desisted from these efforts, deciding that they were not strong enough
+to venture against numbers so superior.
+
+Meanwhile Sitalces opened negotiations with Perdiccas on the objects
+of his expedition; and finding that the Athenians, not believing
+that he would come, did not appear with their fleet, though they
+sent presents and envoys, dispatched a large part of his army
+against the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, and shutting them up inside
+their walls laid waste their country.  While he remained in these
+parts, the people farther south, such as the Thessalians, Magnetes,
+and the other tribes subject to the Thessalians, and the Hellenes as
+far as Thermopylae, all feared that the army might advance against
+them, and prepared accordingly.  These fears were shared by the
+Thracians beyond the Strymon to the north, who inhabited the plains,
+such as the Panaeans, the Odomanti, the Droi, and the Dersaeans, all
+of whom are independent.  It was even matter of conversation among
+the Hellenes who were enemies of Athens whether he might not be
+invited by his ally to advance also against them.  Meanwhile he held
+Chalcidice and Bottice and Macedonia, and was ravaging them all; but
+finding that he was not succeeding in any of the objects of his
+invasion, and that his army was without provisions and was suffering
+from the severity of the season, he listened to the advice of Seuthes,
+son of Spardacus, his nephew and highest officer, and decided to
+retreat without delay.  This Seuthes had been secretly gained by
+Perdiccas by the promise of his sister in marriage with a rich
+dowry.  In accordance with this advice, and after a stay of thirty days
+in all, eight of which were spent in Chalcidice, he retired home as
+quickly as he could; and Perdiccas afterwards gave his sister
+Stratonice to Seuthes as he had promised.  Such was the history of
+the expedition of Sitalces.
+
+In the course of this winter, after the dispersion of the
+Peloponnesian fleet, the Athenians in Naupactus, under Phormio,
+coasted along to Astacus and disembarked, and marched into the
+interior of Acarnania with four hundred Athenian heavy infantry and
+four hundred Messenians.  After expelling some suspected persons from
+Stratus, Coronta, and other places, and restoring Cynes, son of
+Theolytus, to Coronta, they returned to their ships, deciding that
+it was impossible in the winter season to march against Oeniadae, a
+place which, unlike the rest of Acarnania, had been always hostile
+to them; for the river Achelous flowing from Mount Pindus through
+Dolopia and the country of the Agraeans and Amphilochians and the
+plain of Acarnania, past the town of Stratus in the upper part of
+its course, forms lakes where it falls into the sea round Oeniadae,
+and thus makes it impracticable for an army in winter by reason of the
+water.  Opposite to Oeniadae lie most of the islands called
+Echinades, so close to the mouths of the Achelous that that powerful
+stream is constantly forming deposits against them, and has already
+joined some of the islands to the continent, and seems likely in no
+long while to do the same with the rest.  For the current is strong,
+deep, and turbid, and the islands are so thick together that they
+serve to imprison the alluvial deposit and prevent its dispersing,
+lying, as they do, not in one line, but irregularly, so as to leave no
+direct passage for the water into the open sea.  The islands in
+question are uninhabited and of no great size.  There is also a story
+that Alcmaeon, son of Amphiraus, during his wanderings after the
+murder of his mother was bidden by Apollo to inhabit this spot,
+through an oracle which intimated that he would have no release from
+his terrors until he should find a country to dwell in which had not
+been seen by the sun, or existed as land at the time he slew his
+mother; all else being to him polluted ground.  Perplexed at this,
+the story goes on to say, he at last observed this deposit of the
+Achelous, and considered that a place sufficient to support life upon,
+might have been thrown up during the long interval that had elapsed
+since the death of his mother and the beginning of his wanderings.
+Settling, therefore, in the district round Oeniadae, he founded a
+dominion, and left the country its name from his son Acarnan.  Such
+is the story we have received concerning Alcmaeon.
+
+The Athenians and Phormio putting back from Acarnania and arriving
+at Naupactus, sailed home to Athens in the spring, taking with them
+the ships that they had captured, and such of the prisoners made in
+the late actions as were freemen; who were exchanged, man for man.  And
+so ended this winter, and the third year of this war, of which
+Thucydides was the historian.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_Fourth and Fifth Years of the War - Revolt of Mitylene_
+
+The next summer, just as the corn was getting ripe, the
+Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under the command of
+Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat
+down and ravaged the land; the Athenian horse as usual attacking them,
+wherever it was practicable, and preventing the mass of the light
+troops from advancing from their camp and wasting the parts near the
+city.  After staying the time for which they had taken provisions,
+the invaders retired and dispersed to their several cities.
+
+Immediately after the invasion of the Peloponnesians all Lesbos,
+except Methymna, revolted from the Athenians.  The Lesbians had
+wished to revolt even before the war, but the Lacedaemonians would not
+receive them; and yet now when they did revolt, they were compelled to
+do so sooner than they had intended.  While they were waiting until the
+moles for their harbours and the ships and walls that they had in
+building should be finished, and for the arrival of archers and corn
+and other things that they were engaged in fetching from the Pontus,
+the Tenedians, with whom they were at enmity, and the Methymnians, and
+some factious persons in Mitylene itself, who were proxeni of
+Athens, informed the Athenians that the Mitylenians were forcibly
+uniting the island under their sovereignty, and that the
+preparations about which they were so active, were all concerted
+with the Boeotians their kindred and the Lacedaemonians with a view to
+a revolt, and that, unless they were immediately prevented, Athens
+would lose Lesbos.
+
+However, the Athenians, distressed by the plague, and by the war
+that had recently broken out and was now raging, thought it a
+serious matter to add Lesbos with its fleet and untouched resources to
+the list of their enemies; and at first would not believe the
+charge, giving too much weight to their wish that it might not be
+true.  But when an embassy which they sent had failed to persuade the
+Mitylenians to give up the union and preparations complained of,
+they became alarmed, and resolved to strike the first blow.  They
+accordingly suddenly sent off forty ships that had been got ready to
+sail round Peloponnese, under the command of Cleippides, son of
+Deinias, and two others; word having been brought them of a festival
+in honour of the Malean Apollo outside the town, which is kept by
+the whole people of Mitylene, and at which, if haste were made, they
+might hope to take them by surprise.  If this plan succeeded, well
+and good; if not, they were to order the Mitylenians to deliver up
+their ships and to pull down their walls, and if they did not obey, to
+declare war.  The ships accordingly set out; the ten galleys, forming
+the contingent of the Mitylenians present with the fleet according
+to the terms of the alliance, being detained by the Athenians, and
+their crews placed in custody.  However, the Mitylenians were
+informed of the expedition by a man who crossed from Athens to Euboea,
+and going overland to Geraestus, sailed from thence by a merchantman
+which he found on the point of putting to sea, and so arrived at
+Mitylene the third day after leaving Athens.  The Mitylenians
+accordingly refrained from going out to the temple at Malea, and
+moreover barricaded and kept guard round the half-finished parts of
+their walls and harbours.
+
+When the Athenians sailed in not long after and saw how things
+stood, the generals delivered their orders, and upon the Mitylenians
+refusing to obey, commenced hostilities.  The Mitylenians, thus
+compelled to go to war without notice and unprepared, at first
+sailed out with their fleet and made some show of fighting, a little
+in front of the harbour; but being driven back by the Athenian
+ships, immediately offered to treat with the commanders, wishing, if
+possible, to get the ships away for the present upon any tolerable
+terms.  The Athenian commanders accepted their offers, being themselves
+fearful that they might not be able to cope with the whole of
+Lesbos; and an armistice having been concluded, the Mitylenians sent
+to Athens one of the informers, already repentant of his conduct,
+and others with him, to try to persuade the Athenians of the innocence
+of their intentions and to get the fleet recalled.  In the meantime,
+having no great hope of a favourable answer from Athens, they also
+sent off a galley with envoys to Lacedaemon, unobserved by the
+Athenian fleet which was anchored at Malea to the north of the town.
+
+While these envoys, reaching Lacedaemon after a difficult journey
+across the open sea, were negotiating for succours being sent them,
+the ambassadors from Athens returned without having effected anything;
+and hostilities were at once begun by the Mitylenians and the rest
+of Lesbos, with the exception of the Methymnians, who came to the
+aid of the Athenians with the Imbrians and Lemnians and some few of
+the other allies.  The Mitylenians made a sortie with all their
+forces against the Athenian camp; and a battle ensued, in which they
+gained some slight advantage, but retired notwithstanding, not feeling
+sufficient confidence in themselves to spend the night upon the field.
+After this they kept quiet, wishing to wait for the chance of
+reinforcements arriving from Peloponnese before making a second
+venture, being encouraged by the arrival of Meleas, a Laconian, and
+Hermaeondas, a Theban, who had been sent off before the insurrection
+but had been unable to reach Lesbos before the Athenian expedition,
+and who now stole in in a galley after the battle, and advised them to
+send another galley and envoys back with them, which the Mitylenians
+accordingly did.
+
+Meanwhile the Athenians, greatly encouraged by the inaction of the
+Mitylenians, summoned allies to their aid, who came in all the quicker
+from seeing so little vigour displayed by the Lesbians, and bringing
+round their ships to a new station to the south of the town, fortified
+two camps, one on each side of the city, and instituted a blockade
+of both the harbours.  The sea was thus closed against the Mitylenians,
+who, however, commanded the whole country, with the rest of the
+Lesbians who had now joined them; the Athenians only holding a limited
+area round their camps, and using Malea more as the station for
+their ships and their market.
+
+While the war went on in this way at Mitylene, the Athenians,
+about the same time in this summer, also sent thirty ships to
+Peloponnese under Asopius, son of Phormio; the Acarnanians insisting
+that the commander sent should be some son or relative of Phormio.
+As the ships coasted along shore they ravaged the seaboard of Laconia;
+after which Asopius sent most of the fleet home, and himself went on
+with twelve vessels to Naupactus, and afterwards raising the whole
+Acarnanian population made an expedition against Oeniadae, the fleet
+sailing along the Achelous, while the army laid waste the country.  The
+inhabitants, however, showing no signs of submitting, he dismissed the
+land forces and himself sailed to Leucas, and making a descent upon
+Nericus was cut off during his retreat, and most of his troops with
+him, by the people in those parts aided by some coastguards; after
+which the Athenians sailed away, recovering their dead from the
+Leucadians under truce.
+
+Meanwhile the envoys of the Mitylenians sent out in the first ship
+were told by the Lacedaemonians to come to Olympia, in order that
+the rest of the allies might hear them and decide upon their matter,
+and so they journeyed thither.  It was the Olympiad in which the
+Rhodian Dorieus gained his second victory, and the envoys having
+been introduced to make their speech after the festival, spoke as
+follows:
+
+"Lacedaemonians and allies, the rule established among the
+Hellenes is not unknown to us.  Those who revolt in war and forsake
+their former confederacy are favourably regarded by those who
+receive them, in so far as they are of use to them, but otherwise
+are thought less well of, through being considered traitors to their
+former friends.  Nor is this an unfair way of judging, where the rebels
+and the power from whom they secede are at one in policy and sympathy,
+and a match for each other in resources and power, and where no
+reasonable ground exists for the rebellion.  But with us and the
+Athenians this was not the case; and no one need think the worse of us
+for revolting from them in danger, after having been honoured by
+them in time of peace.
+
+"Justice and honesty will be the first topics of our speech,
+especially as we are asking for alliance; because we know that there
+can never be any solid friendship between individuals, or union
+between communities that is worth the name, unless the parties be
+persuaded of each other's honesty, and be generally congenial the
+one to the other; since from difference in feeling springs also
+difference in conduct.  Between ourselves and the Athenians alliance
+began, when you withdrew from the Median War and they remained to
+finish the business.  But we did not become allies of the Athenians for
+the subjugation of the Hellenes, but allies of the Hellenes for
+their liberation from the Mede; and as long as the Athenians led us
+fairly we followed them loyally; but when we saw them relax their
+hostility to the Mede, to try to compass the subjection of the allies,
+then our apprehensions began.  Unable, however, to unite and defend
+themselves, on account of the number of confederates that had votes,
+all the allies were enslaved, except ourselves and the Chians, who
+continued to send our contingents as independent and nominally free.
+Trust in Athens as a leader, however, we could no longer feel, judging
+by the examples already given; it being unlikely that she would reduce
+our fellow confederates, and not do the same by us who were left, if
+ever she had the power.
+
+"Had we all been still independent, we could have had more faith
+in their not attempting any change; but the greater number being their
+subjects, while they were treating us as equals, they would
+naturally chafe under this solitary instance of independence as
+contrasted with the submission of the majority; particularly as they
+daily grew more powerful, and we more destitute.  Now the only sure
+basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the
+other; he who would like to encroach is then deterred by the
+reflection that he will not have odds in his favour.  Again, if we were
+left independent, it was only because they thought they saw their
+way to empire more clearly by specious language and by the paths of
+policy than by those of force.  Not only were we useful as evidence
+that powers who had votes, like themselves, would not, surely, join
+them in their expeditions, against their will, without the party
+attacked being in the wrong; but the same system also enabled them
+to lead the stronger states against the weaker first, and so to
+leave the former to the last, stripped of their natural allies, and
+less capable of resistance.  But if they had begun with us, while all
+the states still had their resources under their own control, and
+there was a centre to rally round, the work of subjugation would
+have been found less easy.  Besides this, our navy gave them some
+apprehension: it was always possible that it might unite with you or
+with some other power, and become dangerous to Athens.  The court which
+we paid to their commons and its leaders for the time being also
+helped us to maintain our independence.  However, we did not expect
+to be able to do so much longer, if this war had not broken out,
+from the examples that we had had of their conduct to the rest.
+
+"How then could we put our trust in such friendship or freedom as we
+had here? We accepted each other against our inclination; fear made
+them court us in war, and us them in peace; sympathy, the ordinary
+basis of confidence, had its place supplied by terror, fear having
+more share than friendship in detaining us in the alliance; and the
+first party that should be encouraged by the hope of impunity was
+certain to break faith with the other.  So that to condemn us for being
+the first to break off, because they delay the blow that we dread,
+instead of ourselves delaying to know for certain whether it will be
+dealt or not, is to take a false view of the case.  For if we were
+equally able with them to meet their plots and imitate their delay, we
+should be their equals and should be under no necessity of being their
+subjects; but the liberty of offence being always theirs, that of
+defence ought clearly to be ours.
+
+"Such, Lacedaemonians and allies, are the grounds and the reasons of
+our revolt; clear enough to convince our hearers of the fairness of
+our conduct, and sufficient to alarm ourselves, and to make us turn to
+some means of safety.  This we wished to do long ago, when we sent to
+you on the subject while the peace yet lasted, but were balked by your
+refusing to receive us; and now, upon the Boeotians inviting us, we at
+once responded to the call, and decided upon a twofold revolt, from
+the Hellenes and from the Athenians, not to aid the latter in
+harming the former, but to join in their liberation, and not to
+allow the Athenians in the end to destroy us, but to act in time
+against them.  Our revolt, however, has taken place prematurely and
+without preparation--a fact which makes it all the more incumbent on
+you to receive us into alliance and to send us speedy relief, in order
+to show that you support your friends, and at the same time do harm to
+your enemies.  You have an opportunity such as you never had before.
+Disease and expenditure have wasted the Athenians: their ships are
+either cruising round your coasts, or engaged in blockading us; and it
+is not probable that they will have any to spare, if you invade them a
+second time this summer by sea and land; but they will either offer no
+resistance to your vessels, or withdraw from both our shores.  Nor must
+it be thought that this is a case of putting yourselves into danger
+for a country which is not yours.  Lesbos may appear far off, but
+when help is wanted she will be found near enough.  It is not in Attica
+that the war will be decided, as some imagine, but in the countries by
+which Attica is supported; and the Athenian revenue is drawn from
+the allies, and will become still larger if they reduce us; as not
+only will no other state revolt, but our resources will be added to
+theirs, and we shall be treated worse than those that were enslaved
+before.  But if you will frankly support us, you will add to your
+side a state that has a large navy, which is your great want; you will
+smooth the way to the overthrow of the Athenians by depriving them
+of their allies, who will be greatly encouraged to come over; and
+you will free yourselves from the imputation made against you, of
+not supporting insurrection.  In short, only show yourselves as
+liberators, and you may count upon having the advantage in the war.
+
+"Respect, therefore, the hopes placed in you by the Hellenes, and
+that Olympian Zeus, in whose temple we stand as very suppliants;
+become the allies and defenders of the Mitylenians, and do not
+sacrifice us, who put our lives upon the hazard, in a cause in which
+general good will result to all from our success, and still more
+general harm if we fail through your refusing to help us; but be the
+men that the Hellenes think you, and our fears desire."
+
+Such were the words of the Mitylenians.  After hearing them out,
+the Lacedaemonians and confederates granted what they urged, and
+took the Lesbians into alliance, and deciding in favour of the
+invasion of Attica, told the allies present to march as quickly as
+possible to the Isthmus with two-thirds of their forces; and
+arriving there first themselves, got ready hauling machines to carry
+their ships across from Corinth to the sea on the side of Athens, in
+order to make their attack by sea and land at once.  However, the
+zeal which they displayed was not imitated by the rest of the
+confederates, who came in but slowly, being engaged in harvesting
+their corn and sick of making expeditions.
+
+Meanwhile the Athenians, aware that the preparations of the enemy
+were due to his conviction of their weakness, and wishing to show
+him that he was mistaken, and that they were able, without moving
+the Lesbian fleet, to repel with ease that with which they were
+menaced from Peloponnese, manned a hundred ships by embarking the
+citizens of Athens, except the knights and Pentacosiomedimni, and
+the resident aliens; and putting out to the Isthmus, displayed their
+power, and made descents upon Peloponnese wherever they pleased.  A
+disappointment so signal made the Lacedaemonians think that the
+Lesbians had not spoken the truth; and embarrassed by the
+non-appearance of the confederates, coupled with the news that the
+thirty ships round Peloponnese were ravaging the lands near Sparta,
+they went back home.  Afterwards, however, they got ready a fleet to
+send to Lesbos, and ordering a total of forty ships from the different
+cities in the league, appointed Alcidas to command the expedition in
+his capacity of high admiral.  Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred
+ships, upon seeing the Lacedaemonians go home, went home likewise.
+
+If, at the time that this fleet was at sea, Athens had almost the
+largest number of first-rate ships in commission that she ever
+possessed at any one moment, she had as many or even more when the war
+began.  At that time one hundred guarded Attica, Euboea, and Salamis; a
+hundred more were cruising round Peloponnese, besides those employed
+at Potidaea and in other places; making a grand total of two hundred
+and fifty vessels employed on active service in a single summer.  It
+was this, with Potidaea, that most exhausted her revenues--Potidaea
+being blockaded by a force of heavy infantry (each drawing two
+drachmae a day, one for himself and another for his servant), which
+amounted to three thousand at first, and was kept at this number
+down to the end of the siege; besides sixteen hundred with Phormio who
+went away before it was over; and the ships being all paid at the same
+rate.  In this way her money was wasted at first; and this was the
+largest number of ships ever manned by her.
+
+About the same time that the Lacedaemonians were at the Isthmus, the
+Mitylenians marched by land with their mercenaries against Methymna,
+which they thought to gain by treachery.  After assaulting the town,
+and not meeting with the success that they anticipated, they
+withdrew to Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus; and taking measures for the
+better security of these towns and strengthening their walls,
+hastily returned home.  After their departure the Methymnians marched
+against Antissa, but were defeated in a sortie by the Antissians and
+their mercenaries, and retreated in haste after losing many of their
+number.  Word of this reaching Athens, and the Athenians learning
+that the Mitylenians were masters of the country and their own
+soldiers unable to hold them in check, they sent out about the
+beginning of autumn Paches, son of Epicurus, to take the command,
+and a thousand Athenian heavy infantry; who worked their own passage
+and, arriving at Mitylene, built a single wall all round it, forts
+being erected at some of the strongest points.  Mitylene was thus
+blockaded strictly on both sides, by land and by sea; and winter now
+drew near.
+
+The Athenians needing money for the siege, although they had for the
+first time raised a contribution of two hundred talents from their own
+citizens, now sent out twelve ships to levy subsidies from their
+allies, with Lysicles and four others in command.  After cruising to
+different places and laying them under contribution, Lysicles went
+up the country from Myus, in Caria, across the plain of the Meander,
+as far as the hill of Sandius; and being attacked by the Carians and
+the people of Anaia, was slain with many of his soldiers.
+
+The same winter the Plataeans, who were still being besieged by
+the Peloponnesians and Boeotians, distressed by the failure of their
+provisions, and seeing no hope of relief from Athens, nor any other
+means of safety, formed a scheme with the Athenians besieged with them
+for escaping, if possible, by forcing their way over the enemy's
+walls; the attempt having been suggested by Theaenetus, son of
+Tolmides, a soothsayer, and Eupompides, son of Daimachus, one of their
+generals.  At first all were to join: afterwards, half hung back,
+thinking the risk great; about two hundred and twenty, however,
+voluntarily persevered in the attempt, which was carried out in the
+following way.  Ladders were made to match the height of the enemy's
+wall, which they measured by the layers of bricks, the side turned
+towards them not being thoroughly whitewashed.  These were counted by
+many persons at once; and though some might miss the right
+calculation, most would hit upon it, particularly as they counted over
+and over again, and were no great way from the wall, but could see
+it easily enough for their purpose.  The length required for the
+ladders was thus obtained, being calculated from the breadth of the
+brick.
+
+Now the wall of the Peloponnesians was constructed as follows.  It
+consisted of two lines drawn round the place, one against the
+Plataeans, the other against any attack on the outside from Athens,
+about sixteen feet apart.  The intermediate space of sixteen feet was
+occupied by huts portioned out among the soldiers on guard, and
+built in one block, so as to give the appearance of a single thick
+wall with battlements on either side.  At intervals of every ten
+battlements were towers of considerable size, and the same breadth
+as the wall, reaching right across from its inner to its outer face,
+with no means of passing except through the middle.  Accordingly on
+stormy and wet nights the battlements were deserted, and guard kept
+from the towers, which were not far apart and roofed in above.
+
+Such being the structure of the wall by which the Plataeans were
+blockaded, when their preparations were completed, they waited for a
+stormy night of wind and rain and without any moon, and then set
+out, guided by the authors of the enterprise.  Crossing first the ditch
+that ran round the town, they next gained the wall of the enemy
+unperceived by the sentinels, who did not see them in the darkness, or
+hear them, as the wind drowned with its roar the noise of their
+approach; besides which they kept a good way off from each other, that
+they might not be betrayed by the clash of their weapons.  They were
+also lightly equipped, and had only the left foot shod to preserve
+them from slipping in the mire.  They came up to the battlements at one
+of the intermediate spaces where they knew them to be unguarded: those
+who carried the ladders went first and planted them; next twelve
+light-armed soldiers with only a dagger and a breastplate mounted, led
+by Ammias, son of Coroebus, who was the first on the wall; his
+followers getting up after him and going six to each of the towers.
+After these came another party of light troops armed with spears,
+whose shields, that they might advance the easier, were carried by men
+behind, who were to hand them to them when they found themselves in
+presence of the enemy.  After a good many had mounted they were
+discovered by the sentinels in the towers, by the noise made by a tile
+which was knocked down by one of the Plataeans as he was laying hold
+of the battlements.  The alarm was instantly given, and the troops
+rushed to the wall, not knowing the nature of the danger, owing to the
+dark night and stormy weather; the Plataeans in the town having also
+chosen that moment to make a sortie against the wall of the
+Peloponnesians upon the side opposite to that on which their men
+were getting over, in order to divert the attention of the
+besiegers.  Accordingly they remained distracted at their several
+posts, without any venturing to stir to give help from his own
+station, and at a loss to guess what was going on.  Meanwhile the three
+hundred set aside for service on emergencies went outside the wall
+in the direction of the alarm.  Fire-signals of an attack were also
+raised towards Thebes; but the Plataeans in the town at once displayed
+a number of others, prepared beforehand for this very purpose, in
+order to render the enemy's signals unintelligible, and to prevent his
+friends getting a true idea of what was passing and coming to his
+aid before their comrades who had gone out should have made good their
+escape and be in safety.
+
+Meanwhile the first of the scaling party that had got up, after
+carrying both the towers and putting the sentinels to the sword,
+posted themselves inside to prevent any one coming through against
+them; and rearing ladders from the wall, sent several men up on the
+towers, and from their summit and base kept in check all of the
+enemy that came up, with their missiles, while their main body planted
+a number of ladders against the wall, and knocking down the
+battlements, passed over between the towers; each as soon as he had
+got over taking up his station at the edge of the ditch, and plying
+from thence with arrows and darts any who came along the wall to
+stop the passage of his comrades.  When all were over, the party on the
+towers came down, the last of them not without difficulty, and
+proceeded to the ditch, just as the three hundred came up carrying
+torches.  The Plataeans, standing on the edge of the ditch in the dark,
+had a good view of their opponents, and discharged their arrows and
+darts upon the unarmed parts of their bodies, while they themselves
+could not be so well seen in the obscurity for the torches; and thus
+even the last of them got over the ditch, though not without effort
+and difficulty; as ice had formed in it, not strong enough to walk
+upon, but of that watery kind which generally comes with a wind more
+east than north, and the snow which this wind had caused to fall
+during the night had made the water in the ditch rise, so that they
+could scarcely breast it as they crossed.  However, it was mainly the
+violence of the storm that enabled them to effect their escape at all.
+
+Starting from the ditch, the Plataeans went all together along the
+road leading to Thebes, keeping the chapel of the hero Androcrates
+upon their right; considering that the last road which the
+Peloponnesians would suspect them of having taken would be that
+towards their enemies' country.  Indeed they could see them pursuing
+with torches upon the Athens road towards Cithaeron and
+Druoskephalai or Oakheads.  After going for rather more than half a
+mile upon the road to Thebes, the Plataeans turned off and took that
+leading to the mountain, to Erythrae and Hysiae, and reaching the
+hills, made good their escape to Athens, two hundred and twelve men in
+all; some of their number having turned back into the town before
+getting over the wall, and one archer having been taken prisoner at
+the outer ditch.  Meanwhile the Peloponnesians gave up the pursuit
+and returned to their posts; and the Plataeans in the town, knowing
+nothing of what had passed, and informed by those who had turned
+back that not a man had escaped, sent out a herald as soon as it was
+day to make a truce for the recovery of the dead bodies, and then,
+learning the truth, desisted.  In this way the Plataean party got
+over and were saved.
+
+Towards the close of the same winter, Salaethus, a Lacedaemonian,
+was sent out in a galley from Lacedaemon to Mitylene.  Going by sea
+to Pyrrha, and from thence overland, he passed along the bed of a
+torrent, where the line of circumvallation was passable, and thus
+entering unperceived into Mitylene told the magistrates that Attica
+would certainly be invaded, and the forty ships destined to relieve
+them arrive, and that he had been sent on to announce this and to
+superintend matters generally.  The Mitylenians upon this took courage,
+and laid aside the idea of treating with the Athenians; and now this
+winter ended, and with it ended the fourth year of the war of which
+Thucydides was the historian.
+
+The next summer the Peloponnesians sent off the forty-two ships
+for Mitylene, under Alcidas, their high admiral, and themselves and
+their allies invaded Attica, their object being to distract the
+Athenians by a double movement, and thus to make it less easy for them
+to act against the fleet sailing to Mitylene.  The commander in this
+invasion was Cleomenes, in the place of King Pausanias, son of
+Pleistoanax, his nephew, who was still a minor.  Not content with
+laying waste whatever had shot up in the parts which they had before
+devastated, the invaders now extended their ravages to lands passed
+over in their previous incursions; so that this invasion was more
+severely felt by the Athenians than any except the second; the enemy
+staying on and on until they had overrun most of the country, in the
+expectation of hearing from Lesbos of something having been achieved
+by their fleet, which they thought must now have got over.  However, as
+they did not obtain any of the results expected, and their
+provisions began to run short, they retreated and dispersed to their
+different cities.
+
+In the meantime the Mitylenians, finding their provisions failing,
+while the fleet from Peloponnese was loitering on the way instead of
+appearing at Mitylene, were compelled to come to terms with the
+Athenians in the following manner.  Salaethus having himself ceased
+to expect the fleet to arrive, now armed the commons with heavy
+armour, which they had not before possessed, with the intention of
+making a sortie against the Athenians.  The commons, however, no sooner
+found themselves possessed of arms than they refused any longer to
+obey their officers; and forming in knots together, told the
+authorities to bring out in public the provisions and divide them
+amongst them all, or they would themselves come to terms with the
+Athenians and deliver up the city.
+
+The government, aware of their inability to prevent this, and of the
+danger they would be in, if left out of the capitulation, publicly
+agreed with Paches and the army to surrender Mitylene at discretion
+and to admit the troops into the town; upon the understanding that the
+Mitylenians should be allowed to send an embassy to Athens to plead
+their cause, and that Paches should not imprison, make slaves of, or
+put to death any of the citizens until its return.  Such were the terms
+of the capitulation; in spite of which the chief authors of the
+negotiation with Lacedaemon were so completely overcome by terror when
+the army entered that they went and seated themselves by the altars,
+from which they were raised up by Paches under promise that he would
+do them no wrong, and lodged by him in Tenedos, until he should
+learn the pleasure of the Athenians concerning them.  Paches also
+sent some galleys and seized Antissa, and took such other military
+measures as he thought advisable.
+
+Meanwhile the Peloponnesians in the forty ships, who ought to have
+made all haste to relieve Mitylene, lost time in coming round
+Peloponnese itself, and proceeding leisurely on the remainder of the
+voyage, made Delos without having been seen by the Athenians at
+Athens, and from thence arriving at Icarus and Myconus, there first
+heard of the fall of Mitylene.  Wishing to know the truth, they put
+into Embatum, in the Erythraeid, about seven days after the capture of
+the town.  Here they learned the truth, and began to consider what they
+were to do; and Teutiaplus, an Elean, addressed them as follows:
+
+"Alcidas and Peloponnesians who share with me the command of this
+armament, my advice is to sail just as we are to Mitylene, before we
+have been heard of.  We may expect to find the Athenians as much off
+their guard as men generally are who have just taken a city: this will
+certainly be so by sea, where they have no idea of any enemy attacking
+them, and where our strength, as it happens, mainly lies; while even
+their land forces are probably scattered about the houses in the
+carelessness of victory.  If therefore we were to fall upon them
+suddenly and in the night, I have hopes, with the help of the
+well-wishers that we may have left inside the town, that we shall
+become masters of the place.  Let us not shrink from the risk, but
+let us remember that this is just the occasion for one of the baseless
+panics common in war: and that to be able to guard against these in
+one's own case, and to detect the moment when an attack will find an
+enemy at this disadvantage, is what makes a successful general."
+
+These words of Teutiaplus failing to move Alcidas, some of the
+Ionian exiles and the Lesbians with the expedition began to urge
+him, since this seemed too dangerous, to seize one of the Ionian
+cities or the Aeolic town of Cyme, to use as a base for effecting
+the revolt of Ionia.  This was by no means a hopeless enterprise, as
+their coming was welcome everywhere; their object would be by this
+move to deprive Athens of her chief source of revenue, and at the same
+time to saddle her with expense, if she chose to blockade them; and
+they would probably induce Pissuthnes to join them in the war.
+However, Alcidas gave this proposal as bad a reception as the other,
+being eager, since he had come too late for Mitylene, to find
+himself back in Peloponnese as soon as possible.
+
+Accordingly he put out from Embatum and proceeded along shore; and
+touching at the Teian town, Myonnesus, there butchered most of the
+prisoners that he had taken on his passage.  Upon his coming to
+anchor at Ephesus, envoys came to him from the Samians at Anaia, and
+told him that he was not going the right way to free Hellas in
+massacring men who had never raised a hand against him, and who were
+not enemies of his, but allies of Athens against their will, and
+that if he did not stop he would turn many more friends into enemies
+than enemies into friends.  Alcidas agreed to this, and let go all
+the Chians still in his hands and some of the others that he had
+taken; the inhabitants, instead of flying at the sight of his vessels,
+rather coming up to them, taking them for Athenian, having no sort
+of expectation that while the Athenians commanded the sea
+Peloponnesian ships would venture over to Ionia.
+
+From Ephesus Alcidas set sail in haste and fled.  He had been seen by
+the Salaminian and Paralian galleys, which happened to be sailing from
+Athens, while still at anchor off Clarus; and fearing pursuit he now
+made across the open sea, fully determined to touch nowhere, if he
+could help it, until he got to Peloponnese.  Meanwhile news of him
+had come in to Paches from the Erythraeid, and indeed from all
+quarters.  As Ionia was unfortified, great fears were felt that the
+Peloponnesians coasting along shore, even if they did not intend to
+stay, might make descents in passing and plunder the towns; and now
+the Paralian and Salaminian, having seen him at Clarus, themselves
+brought intelligence of the fact.  Paches accordingly gave hot chase,
+and continued the pursuit as far as the isle of Patmos, and then
+finding that Alcidas had got on too far to be overtaken, came back
+again.  Meanwhile he thought it fortunate that, as he had not fallen in
+with them out at sea, he had not overtaken them anywhere where they
+would have been forced to encamp, and so give him the trouble of
+blockading them.
+
+On his return along shore he touched, among other places, at Notium,
+the port of Colophon, where the Colophonians had settled after the
+capture of the upper town by Itamenes and the barbarians, who had been
+called in by certain individuals in a party quarrel.  The capture of
+the town took place about the time of the second Peloponnesian
+invasion of Attica.  However, the refugees, after settling at Notium,
+again split up into factions, one of which called in Arcadian and
+barbarian mercenaries from Pissuthnes and, entrenching these in a
+quarter apart, formed a new community with the Median party of the
+Colophonians who joined them from the upper town.  Their opponents
+had retired into exile, and now called in Paches, who invited Hippias,
+the commander of the Arcadians in the fortified quarter, to a
+parley, upon condition that, if they could not agree, he was to be put
+back safe and sound in the fortification.  However, upon his coming out
+to him, he put him into custody, though not in chains, and attacked
+suddenly and took by surprise the fortification, and putting the
+Arcadians and the barbarians found in it to the sword, afterwards took
+Hippias into it as he had promised, and, as soon as he was inside,
+seized him and shot him down.  Paches then gave up Notium to the
+Colophonians not of the Median party; and settlers were afterwards
+sent out from Athens, and the place colonized according to Athenian
+laws, after collecting all the Colophonians found in any of the
+cities.
+
+Arrived at Mitylene, Paches reduced Pyrrha and Eresus; and finding
+the Lacedaemonian, Salaethus, in hiding in the town, sent him off to
+Athens, together with the Mitylenians that he had placed in Tenedos,
+and any other persons that he thought concerned in the revolt.  He also
+sent back the greater part of his forces, remaining with the rest to
+settle Mitylene and the rest of Lesbos as he thought best.
+
+Upon the arrival of the prisoners with Salaethus, the Athenians at
+once put the latter to death, although he offered, among other things,
+to procure the withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from Plataea, which
+was still under siege; and after deliberating as to what they should
+do with the former, in the fury of the moment determined to put to
+death not only the prisoners at Athens, but the whole adult male
+population of Mitylene, and to make slaves of the women and
+children.  It was remarked that Mitylene had revolted without being,
+like the rest, subjected to the empire; and what above all swelled the
+wrath of the Athenians was the fact of the Peloponnesian fleet
+having ventured over to Ionia to her support, a fact which was held to
+argue a long meditated rebellion.  They accordingly sent a galley to
+communicate the decree to Paches, commanding him to lose no time in
+dispatching the Mitylenians.  The morrow brought repentance with it and
+reflection on the horrid cruelty of a decree, which condemned a
+whole city to the fate merited only by the guilty.  This was no
+sooner perceived by the Mitylenian ambassadors at Athens and their
+Athenian supporters, than they moved the authorities to put the
+question again to the vote; which they the more easily consented to
+do, as they themselves plainly saw that most of the citizens wished
+some one to give them an opportunity for reconsidering the matter.
+An assembly was therefore at once called, and after much expression of
+opinion upon both sides, Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, the same who had
+carried the former motion of putting the Mitylenians to death, the
+most violent man at Athens, and at that time by far the most
+powerful with the commons, came forward again and spoke as follows:
+
+"I have often before now been convinced that a democracy is
+incapable of empire, and never more so than by your present change
+of mind in the matter of Mitylene.  Fears or plots being unknown to you
+in your daily relations with each other, you feel just the same with
+regard to your allies, and never reflect that the mistakes into
+which you may be led by listening to their appeals, or by giving way
+to your own compassion, are full of danger to yourselves, and bring
+you no thanks for your weakness from your allies; entirely
+forgetting that your empire is a despotism and your subjects
+disaffected conspirators, whose obedience is ensured not by your
+suicidal concessions, but by the superiority given you by your own
+strength and not their loyalty.  The most alarming feature in the
+case is the constant change of measures with which we appear to be
+threatened, and our seeming ignorance of the fact that bad laws
+which are never changed are better for a city than good ones that have
+no authority; that unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than
+quick-witted insubordination; and that ordinary men usually manage
+public affairs better than their more gifted fellows.  The latter are
+always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to overrule every
+proposition brought forward, thinking that they cannot show their
+wit in more important matters, and by such behaviour too often ruin
+their country; while those who mistrust their own cleverness are
+content to be less learned than the laws, and less able to pick
+holes in the speech of a good speaker; and being fair judges rather
+than rival athletes, generally conduct affairs successfully.  These
+we ought to imitate, instead of being led on by cleverness and
+intellectual rivalry to advise your people against our real opinions.
+
+"For myself, I adhere to my former opinion, and wonder at those
+who have proposed to reopen the case of the Mitylenians, and who are
+thus causing a delay which is all in favour of the guilty, by making
+the sufferer proceed against the offender with the edge of his anger
+blunted; although where vengeance follows most closely upon the wrong,
+it best equals it and most amply requites it.  I wonder also who will
+be the man who will maintain the contrary, and will pretend to show
+that the crimes of the Mitylenians are of service to us, and our
+misfortunes injurious to the allies.  Such a man must plainly either
+have such confidence in his rhetoric as to adventure to prove that
+what has been once for all decided is still undetermined, or be bribed
+to try to delude us by elaborate sophisms.  In such contests the
+state gives the rewards to others, and takes the dangers for
+herself.  The persons to blame are you who are so foolish as to
+institute these contests; who go to see an oration as you would to see
+a sight, take your facts on hearsay, judge of the practicability of
+a project by the wit of its advocates, and trust for the truth as to
+past events not to the fact which you saw more than to the clever
+strictures which you heard; the easy victims of new-fangled arguments,
+unwilling to follow received conclusions; slaves to every new paradox,
+despisers of the commonplace; the first wish of every man being that
+he could speak himself, the next to rival those who can speak by
+seeming to be quite up with their ideas by applauding every hit almost
+before it is made, and by being as quick in catching an argument as
+you are slow in foreseeing its consequences; asking, if I may so
+say, for something different from the conditions under which we
+live, and yet comprehending inadequately those very conditions; very
+slaves to the pleasure of the ear, and more like the audience of a
+rhetorician than the council of a city.
+
+"In order to keep you from this, I proceed to show that no one state
+has ever injured you as much as Mitylene.  I can make allowance for
+those who revolt because they cannot bear our empire, or who have been
+forced to do so by the enemy.  But for those who possessed an island
+with fortifications; who could fear our enemies only by sea, and there
+had their own force of galleys to protect them; who were independent
+and held in the highest honour by you--to act as these have done,
+this is not revolt--revolt implies oppression; it is deliberate and
+wanton aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our
+bitterest enemies; a worse offence than a war undertaken on their
+own account in the acquisition of power.  The fate of those of their
+neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued was no lesson
+to them; their own prosperity could not dissuade them from
+affronting danger; but blindly confident in the future, and full of
+hopes beyond their power though not beyond their ambition, they
+declared war and made their decision to prefer might to right, their
+attack being determined not by provocation but by the moment which
+seemed propitious.  The truth is that great good fortune coming
+suddenly and unexpectedly tends to make a people insolent; in most
+cases it is safer for mankind to have success in reason than out of
+reason; and it is easier for them, one may say, to stave off adversity
+than to preserve prosperity.  Our mistake has been to distinguish the
+Mitylenians as we have done: had they been long ago treated like the
+rest, they never would have so far forgotten themselves, human
+nature being as surely made arrogant by consideration as it is awed by
+firmness.  Let them now therefore be punished as their crime
+requires, and do not, while you condemn the aristocracy, absolve the
+people.  This is certain, that all attacked you without distinction,
+although they might have come over to us and been now again in
+possession of their city.  But no, they thought it safer to throw in
+their lot with the aristocracy and so joined their rebellion! Consider
+therefore: if you subject to the same punishment the ally who is
+forced to rebel by the enemy, and him who does so by his own free
+choice, which of them, think you, is there that will not rebel upon
+the slightest pretext; when the reward of success is freedom, and
+the penalty of failure nothing so very terrible? We meanwhile shall
+have to risk our money and our lives against one state after
+another; and if successful, shall receive a ruined town from which
+we can no longer draw the revenue upon which our strength depends;
+while if unsuccessful, we shall have an enemy the more upon our hands,
+and shall spend the time that might be employed in combating our
+existing foes in warring with our own allies.
+
+"No hope, therefore, that rhetoric may instil or money purchase,
+of the mercy due to human infirmity must be held out to the
+Mitylenians.  Their offence was not involuntary, but of malice and
+deliberate; and mercy is only for unwilling offenders.  I therefore,
+now as before, persist against your reversing your first decision,
+or giving way to the three failings most fatal to empire--pity,
+sentiment, and indulgence.  Compassion is due to those who can
+reciprocate the feeling, not to those who will never pity us in
+return, but are our natural and necessary foes: the orators who
+charm us with sentiment may find other less important arenas for their
+talents, in the place of one where the city pays a heavy penalty for a
+momentary pleasure, themselves receiving fine acknowledgments for
+their fine phrases; while indulgence should be shown towards those who
+will be our friends in future, instead of towards men who will
+remain just what they were, and as much our enemies as before.  To
+sum up shortly, I say that if you follow my advice you will do what is
+just towards the Mitylenians, and at the same time expedient; while by
+a different decision you will not oblige them so much as pass sentence
+upon yourselves.  For if they were right in rebelling, you must be
+wrong in ruling.  However, if, right or wrong, you determine to rule,
+you must carry out your principle and punish the Mitylenians as your
+interest requires; or else you must give up your empire and
+cultivate honesty without danger.  Make up your minds, therefore, to
+give them like for like; and do not let the victims who escaped the
+plot be more insensible than the conspirators who hatched it; but
+reflect what they would have done if victorious over you, especially
+they were the aggressors.  It is they who wrong their neighbour without
+a cause, that pursue their victim to the death, on account of the
+danger which they foresee in letting their enemy survive; since the
+object of a wanton wrong is more dangerous, if he escape, than an
+enemy who has not this to complain of.  Do not, therefore, be
+traitors to yourselves, but recall as nearly as possible the moment of
+suffering and the supreme importance which you then attached to
+their reduction; and now pay them back in their turn, without yielding
+to present weakness or forgetting the peril that once hung over you.
+Punish them as they deserve, and teach your other allies by a striking
+example that the penalty of rebellion is death.  Let them once
+understand this and you will not have so often to neglect your enemies
+while you are fighting with your own confederates."
+
+Such were the words of Cleon.  After him Diodotus, son of Eucrates,
+who had also in the previous assembly spoken most strongly against
+putting the Mitylenians to death, came forward and spoke as follows:
+
+"I do not blame the persons who have reopened the case of the
+Mitylenians, nor do I approve the protests which we have heard against
+important questions being frequently debated.  I think the two things
+most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion; haste usually goes
+hand in hand with folly, passion with coarseness and narrowness of
+mind.  As for the argument that speech ought not to be the exponent
+of action, the man who uses it must be either senseless or interested:
+senseless if he believes it possible to treat of the uncertain
+future through any other medium; interested if, wishing to carry a
+disgraceful measure and doubting his ability to speak well in a bad
+cause, he thinks to frighten opponents and hearers by well-aimed
+calumny.  What is still more intolerable is to accuse a speaker of
+making a display in order to be paid for it.  If ignorance only were
+imputed, an unsuccessful speaker might retire with a reputation for
+honesty, if not for wisdom; while the charge of dishonesty makes him
+suspected, if successful, and thought, if defeated, not only a fool
+but a rogue.  The city is no gainer by such a system, since fear
+deprives it of its advisers; although in truth, if our speakers are to
+make such assertions, it would be better for the country if they could
+not speak at all, as we should then make fewer blunders.  The good
+citizen ought to triumph not by frightening his opponents but by
+beating them fairly in argument; and a wise city, without
+over-distinguishing its best advisers, will nevertheless not deprive
+them of their due, and, far from punishing an unlucky counsellor, will
+not even regard him as disgraced.  In this way successful orators would
+be least tempted to sacrifice their convictions to popularity, in
+the hope of still higher honours, and unsuccessful speakers to
+resort to the same popular arts in order to win over the multitude.
+
+"This is not our way; and, besides, the moment that a man is
+suspected of giving advice, however good, from corrupt motives, we
+feel such a grudge against him for the gain which after all we are not
+certain he will receive, that we deprive the city of its certain
+benefit.  Plain good advice has thus come to be no less suspected
+than bad; and the advocate of the most monstrous measures is not
+more obliged to use deceit to gain the people, than the best
+counsellor is to lie in order to be believed.  The city and the city
+only, owing to these refinements, can never be served openly and
+without disguise; he who does serve it openly being always suspected
+of serving himself in some secret way in return.  Still, considering
+the magnitude of the interests involved, and the position of
+affairs, we orators must make it our business to look a little farther
+than you who judge offhand; especially as we, your advisers, are
+responsible, while you, our audience, are not so.  For if those who
+gave the advice, and those who took it, suffered equally, you would
+judge more calmly; as it is, you visit the disasters into which the
+whim of the moment may have led you upon the single person of your
+adviser, not upon yourselves, his numerous companions in error.
+
+"However, I have not come forward either to oppose or to accuse in
+the matter of Mitylene; indeed, the question before us as sensible men
+is not their guilt, but our interests.  Though I prove them ever so
+guilty, I shall not, therefore, advise their death, unless it be
+expedient; nor though they should have claims to indulgence, shall I
+recommend it, unless it be dearly for the good of the country.  I
+consider that we are deliberating for the future more than for the
+present; and where Cleon is so positive as to the useful deterrent
+effects that will follow from making rebellion capital, I, who
+consider the interests of the future quite as much as he, as
+positively maintain the contrary.  And I require you not to reject my
+useful considerations for his specious ones: his speech may have the
+attraction of seeming the more just in your present temper against
+Mitylene; but we are not in a court of justice, but in a political
+assembly; and the question is not justice, but how to make the
+Mitylenians useful to Athens.
+
+"Now of course communities have enacted the penalty of death for
+many offences far lighter than this: still hope leads men to
+venture, and no one ever yet put himself in peril without the inward
+conviction that he would succeed in his design.  Again, was there
+ever city rebelling that did not believe that it possessed either in
+itself or in its alliances resources adequate to the enterprise?
+All, states and individuals, are alike prone to err, and there is no
+law that will prevent them; or why should men have exhausted the
+list of punishments in search of enactments to protect them from
+evildoers? It is probable that in early times the penalties for the
+greatest offences were less severe, and that, as these were
+disregarded, the penalty of death has been by degrees in most cases
+arrived at, which is itself disregarded in like manner.  Either then
+some means of terror more terrible than this must be discovered, or it
+must be owned that this restraint is useless; and that as long as
+poverty gives men the courage of necessity, or plenty fills them
+with the ambition which belongs to insolence and pride, and the
+other conditions of life remain each under the thraldom of some
+fatal and master passion, so long will the impulse never be wanting to
+drive men into danger.  Hope also and cupidity, the one leading and the
+other following, the one conceiving the attempt, the other
+suggesting the facility of succeeding, cause the widest ruin, and,
+although invisible agents, are far stronger than the dangers that
+are seen.  Fortune, too, powerfully helps the delusion and, by the
+unexpected aid that she sometimes lends, tempts men to venture with
+inferior means; and this is especially the case with communities,
+because the stakes played for are the highest, freedom or empire, and,
+when all are acting together, each man irrationally magnifies his
+own capacity.  In fine, it is impossible to prevent, and only great
+simplicity can hope to prevent, human nature doing what it has once
+set its mind upon, by force of law or by any other deterrent force
+whatsoever.
+
+"We must not, therefore, commit ourselves to a false policy
+through a belief in the efficacy of the punishment of death, or
+exclude rebels from the hope of repentance and an early atonement of
+their error.  Consider a moment.  At present, if a city that has already
+revolted perceive that it cannot succeed, it will come to terms
+while it is still able to refund expenses, and pay tribute afterwards.
+In the other case, what city, think you, would not prepare better than
+is now done, and hold out to the last against its besiegers, if it
+is all one whether it surrender late or soon? And how can it be
+otherwise than hurtful to us to be put to the expense of a siege,
+because surrender is out of the question; and if we take the city,
+to receive a ruined town from which we can no longer draw the
+revenue which forms our real strength against the enemy? We must
+not, therefore, sit as strict judges of the offenders to our own
+prejudice, but rather see how by moderate chastisements we may be
+enabled to benefit in future by the revenue-producing powers of our
+dependencies; and we must make up our minds to look for our protection
+not to legal terrors but to careful administration.  At present we do
+exactly the opposite.  When a free community, held in subjection by
+force, rises, as is only natural, and asserts its independence, it
+is no sooner reduced than we fancy ourselves obliged to punish it
+severely; although the right course with freemen is not to chastise
+them rigorously when they do rise, but rigorously to watch them before
+they rise, and to prevent their ever entertaining the idea, and, the
+insurrection suppressed, to make as few responsible for it as
+possible.
+
+"Only consider what a blunder you would commit in doing as Cleon
+recommends.  As things are at present, in all the cities the people
+is your friend, and either does not revolt with the oligarchy, or,
+if forced to do so, becomes at once the enemy of the insurgents; so
+that in the war with the hostile city you have the masses on your
+side.  But if you butcher the people of Mitylene, who had nothing to do
+with the revolt, and who, as soon as they got arms, of their own
+motion surrendered the town, first you will commit the crime of
+killing your benefactors; and next you will play directly into the
+hands of the higher classes, who when they induce their cities to
+rise, will immediately have the people on their side, through your
+having announced in advance the same punishment for those who are
+guilty and for those who are not.  On the contrary, even if they were
+guilty, you ought to seem not to notice it, in order to avoid
+alienating the only class still friendly to us.  In short, I consider
+it far more useful for the preservation of our empire voluntarily to
+put up with injustice, than to put to death, however justly, those
+whom it is our interest to keep alive.  As for Cleon's idea that in
+punishment the claims of justice and expediency can both be satisfied,
+facts do not confirm the possibility of such a combination.
+
+"Confess, therefore, that this is the wisest course, and without
+conceding too much either to pity or to indulgence, by neither of
+which motives do I any more than Cleon wish you to be influenced, upon
+the plain merits of the case before you, be persuaded by me to try
+calmly those of the Mitylenians whom Paches sent off as guilty, and to
+leave the rest undisturbed.  This is at once best for the future, and
+most terrible to your enemies at the present moment; inasmuch as
+good policy against an adversary is superior to the blind attacks of
+brute force."
+
+Such were the words of Diodotus.  The two opinions thus expressed
+were the ones that most directly contradicted each other; and the
+Athenians, notwithstanding their change of feeling, now proceeded to a
+division, in which the show of hands was almost equal, although the
+motion of Diodotus carried the day.  Another galley was at once sent
+off in haste, for fear that the first might reach Lesbos in the
+interval, and the city be found destroyed; the first ship having about
+a day and a night's start.  Wine and barley-cakes were provided for the
+vessel by the Mitylenian ambassadors, and great promises made if
+they arrived in time; which caused the men to use such diligence
+upon the voyage that they took their meals of barley-cakes kneaded
+with oil and wine as they rowed, and only slept by turns while the
+others were at the oar.  Luckily they met with no contrary wind, and
+the first ship making no haste upon so horrid an errand, while the
+second pressed on in the manner described, the first arrived so little
+before them, that Paches had only just had time to read the decree,
+and to prepare to execute the sentence, when the second put into
+port and prevented the massacre.  The danger of Mitylene had indeed
+been great.
+
+The other party whom Paches had sent off as the prime movers in
+the rebellion, were upon Cleon's motion put to death by the Athenians,
+the number being rather more than a thousand.  The Athenians also
+demolished the walls of the Mitylenians, and took possession of
+their ships.  Afterwards tribute was not imposed upon the Lesbians; but
+all their land, except that of the Methymnians, was divided into three
+thousand allotments, three hundred of which were reserved as sacred
+for the gods, and the rest assigned by lot to Athenian shareholders,
+who were sent out to the island.  With these the Lesbians agreed to pay
+a rent of two minae a year for each allotment, and cultivated the land
+themselves.  The Athenians also took possession of the towns on the
+continent belonging to the Mitylenians, which thus became for the
+future subject to Athens.  Such were the events that took place at
+Lesbos.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_Fifth Year of the War - Trial and Execution of the Plataeans -
+Corcyraean Revolution_
+
+During the same summer, after the reduction of Lesbos, the Athenians
+under Nicias, son of Niceratus, made an expedition against the
+island of Minoa, which lies off Megara and was used as a fortified
+post by the Megarians, who had built a tower upon it.  Nicias wished to
+enable the Athenians to maintain their blockade from this nearer
+station instead of from Budorum and Salamis; to stop the Peloponnesian
+galleys and privateers sailing out unobserved from the island, as they
+had been in the habit of doing; and at the same time prevent
+anything from coming into Megara.  Accordingly, after taking two towers
+projecting on the side of Nisaea, by engines from the sea, and
+clearing the entrance into the channel between the island and the
+shore, he next proceeded to cut off all communication by building a
+wall on the mainland at the point where a bridge across a morass
+enabled succours to be thrown into the island, which was not far off
+from the continent.  A few days sufficing to accomplish this, he
+afterwards raised some works in the island also, and leaving a
+garrison there, departed with his forces.
+
+About the same time in this summer, the Plataeans, being now without
+provisions and unable to support the siege, surrendered to the
+Peloponnesians in the following manner.  An assault had been made
+upon the wall, which the Plataeans were unable to repel.  The
+Lacedaemonian commander, perceiving their weakness, wished to avoid
+taking the place by storm; his instructions from Lacedaemon having
+been so conceived, in order that if at any future time peace should be
+made with Athens, and they should agree each to restore the places
+that they had taken in the war, Plataea might be held to have come
+over voluntarily, and not be included in the list.  He accordingly sent
+a herald to them to ask if they were willing voluntarily to
+surrender the town to the Lacedaemonians, and accept them as their
+judges, upon the understanding that the guilty should be punished, but
+no one without form of law.  The Plataeans were now in the last state
+of weakness, and the herald had no sooner delivered his message than
+they surrendered the town.  The Peloponnesians fed them for some days
+until the judges from Lacedaemon, who were five in number, arrived.
+Upon their arrival no charge was preferred; they simply called up
+the Plataeans, and asked them whether they had done the Lacedaemonians
+and allies any service in the war then raging.  The Plataeans asked
+leave to speak at greater length, and deputed two of their number to
+represent them: Astymachus, son of Asopolaus, and Lacon, son of
+Aeimnestus, proxenus of the Lacedaemonians, who came forward and spoke
+as follows:
+
+"Lacedaemonians, when we surrendered our city we trusted in you, and
+looked forward to a trial more agreeable to the forms of law than
+the present, to which we had no idea of being subjected; the judges
+also in whose hands we consented to place ourselves were you, and
+you only (from whom we thought we were most likely to obtain justice),
+and not other persons, as is now the case.  As matters stand, we are
+afraid that we have been doubly deceived.  We have good reason to
+suspect, not only that the issue to be tried is the most terrible of
+all, but that you will not prove impartial; if we may argue from the
+fact that no accusation was first brought forward for us to answer,
+but we had ourselves to ask leave to speak, and from the question
+being put so shortly, that a true answer to it tells against us, while
+a false one can be contradicted.  In this dilemma, our safest, and
+indeed our only course, seems to be to say something at all risks:
+placed as we are, we could scarcely be silent without being
+tormented by the damning thought that speaking might have saved us.
+Another difficulty that we have to encounter is the difficulty of
+convincing you.  Were we unknown to each other we might profit by
+bringing forward new matter with which you were unacquainted: as it
+is, we can tell you nothing that you do not know already, and we fear,
+not that you have condemned us in your own minds of having failed in
+our duty towards you, and make this our crime, but that to please a
+third party we have to submit to a trial the result of which is
+already decided.  Nevertheless, we will place before you what we can
+justly urge, not only on the question of the quarrel which the Thebans
+have against us, but also as addressing you and the rest of the
+Hellenes; and we will remind you of our good services, and endeavour
+to prevail with you.
+
+"To your short question, whether we have done the Lacedaemonians and
+allies any service in this war, we say, if you ask us as enemies, that
+to refrain from serving you was not to do you injury; if as friends,
+that you are more in fault for having marched against us.  During the
+peace, and against the Mede, we acted well: we have not now been the
+first to break the peace, and we were the only Boeotians who then
+joined in defending against the Mede the liberty of Hellas.  Although
+an inland people, we were present at the action at Artemisium; in
+the battle that took place in our territory we fought by the side of
+yourselves and Pausanias; and in all the other Hellenic exploits of
+the time we took a part quite out of proportion to our strength.
+Besides, you, as Lacedaemonians, ought not to forget that at the
+time of the great panic at Sparta, after the earthquake, caused by the
+secession of the Helots to Ithome, we sent the third part of our
+citizens to assist you.
+
+"On these great and historical occasions such was the part that we
+chose, although afterwards we became your enemies.  For this you were
+to blame.  When we asked for your alliance against our Theban
+oppressors, you rejected our petition, and told us to go to the
+Athenians who were our neighbours, as you lived too far off.  In the
+war we never have done to you, and never should have done to you,
+anything unreasonable.  If we refused to desert the Athenians when
+you asked us, we did no wrong; they had helped us against the
+Thebans when you drew back, and we could no longer give them up with
+honour; especially as we had obtained their alliance and had been
+admitted to their citizenship at our own request, and after
+receiving benefits at their hands; but it was plainly our duty loyally
+to obey their orders.  Besides, the faults that either of you may
+commit in your supremacy must be laid, not upon the followers, but
+on the chiefs that lead them astray.
+
+"With regard to the Thebans, they have wronged us repeatedly, and
+their last aggression, which has been the means of bringing us into
+our present position, is within your own knowledge.  In seizing our
+city in time of peace, and what is more at a holy time in the month,
+they justly encountered our vengeance, in accordance with the
+universal law which sanctions resistance to an invader; and it
+cannot now be right that we should suffer on their account.  By
+taking your own immediate interest and their animosity as the test
+of justice, you will prove yourselves to be rather waiters on
+expediency than judges of right; although if they seem useful to you
+now, we and the rest of the Hellenes gave you much more valuable
+help at a time of greater need.  Now you are the assailants, and others
+fear you; but at the crisis to which we allude, when the barbarian
+threatened all with slavery, the Thebans were on his side.  It is just,
+therefore, to put our patriotism then against our error now, if
+error there has been; and you will find the merit outweighing the
+fault, and displayed at a juncture when there were few Hellenes who
+would set their valour against the strength of Xerxes, and when
+greater praise was theirs who preferred the dangerous path of honour
+to the safe course of consulting their own interest with respect to
+the invasion.  To these few we belonged, and highly were we honoured
+for it; and yet we now fear to perish by having again acted on the
+same principles, and chosen to act well with Athens sooner than wisely
+with Sparta.  Yet in justice the same cases should be decided in the
+same way, and policy should not mean anything else than lasting
+gratitude for the service of good ally combined with a proper
+attention to one's own immediate interest.
+
+"Consider also that at present the Hellenes generally regard you
+as a pattern of worth and honour; and if you pass an unjust sentence
+upon us in this which is no obscure cause, but one in which you, the
+judges, are as illustrious as we, the prisoners, are blameless, take
+care that displeasure be not felt at an unworthy decision in the
+matter of honourable men made by men yet more honourable than they,
+and at the consecration in the national temples of spoils taken from
+the Plataeans, the benefactors of Hellas.  Shocking indeed will it seem
+for Lacedaemonians to destroy Plataea, and for the city whose name
+your fathers inscribed upon the tripod at Delphi for its good service,
+to be by you blotted out from the map of Hellas, to please the
+Thebans.  To such a depth of misfortune have we fallen that, while
+the Medes' success had been our ruin, Thebans now supplant us in
+your once fond regards; and we have been subjected to two dangers, the
+greatest of any--that of dying of starvation then, if we had not
+surrendered our town, and now of being tried for our lives.  So that we
+Plataeans, after exertions beyond our power in the cause of the
+Hellenes, are rejected by all, forsaken and unassisted; helped by none
+of our allies, and reduced to doubt the stability of our only hope,
+yourselves.
+
+"Still, in the name of the gods who once presided over our
+confederacy, and of our own good service in the Hellenic cause, we
+adjure you to relent; to recall the decision which we fear that the
+Thebans may have obtained from you; to ask back the gift that you have
+given them, that they disgrace not you by slaying us; to gain a pure
+instead of a guilty gratitude, and not to gratify others to be
+yourselves rewarded with shame.  Our lives may be quickly taken, but it
+will be a heavy task to wipe away the infamy of the deed; as we are no
+enemies whom you might justly punish, but friends forced into taking
+arms against you.  To grant us our lives would be, therefore, a
+righteous judgment; if you consider also that we are prisoners who
+surrendered of their own accord, stretching out our hands for quarter,
+whose slaughter Hellenic law forbids, and who besides were always your
+benefactors.  Look at the sepulchres of your fathers, slain by the
+Medes and buried in our country, whom year by year we honoured with
+garments and all other dues, and the first-fruits of all that our land
+produced in their season, as friends from a friendly country and
+allies to our old companions in arms.  Should you not decide aright,
+your conduct would be the very opposite to ours.  Consider only:
+Pausanias buried them thinking that he was laying them in friendly
+ground and among men as friendly; but you, if you kill us and make the
+Plataean territory Theban, will leave your fathers and kinsmen in a
+hostile soil and among their murderers, deprived of the honours
+which they now enjoy.  What is more, you will enslave the land in which
+the freedom of the Hellenes was won, make desolate the temples of
+the gods to whom they prayed before they overcame the Medes, and
+take away your ancestral sacrifices from those who founded and
+instituted them.
+
+"It were not to your glory, Lacedaemonians, either to offend in this
+way against the common law of the Hellenes and against your own
+ancestors, or to kill us your benefactors to gratify another's
+hatred without having been wronged yourselves: it were more so to
+spare us and to yield to the impressions of a reasonable compassion;
+reflecting not merely on the awful fate in store for us, but also on
+the character of the sufferers, and on the impossibility of predicting
+how soon misfortune may fall even upon those who deserve it not.  We,
+as we have a right to do and as our need impels us, entreat you,
+calling aloud upon the gods at whose common altar all the Hellenes
+worship, to hear our request, to be not unmindful of the oaths which
+your fathers swore, and which we now plead--we supplicate you by the
+tombs of your fathers, and appeal to those that are gone to save us
+from falling into the hands of the Thebans and their dearest friends
+from being given up to their most detested foes.  We also remind you of
+that day on which we did the most glorious deeds, by your fathers'
+sides, we who now on this are like to suffer the most dreadful fate.
+Finally, to do what is necessary and yet most difficult for men in our
+situation--that is, to make an end of speaking, since with that
+ending the peril of our lives draws near--in conclusion we say that
+we did not surrender our city to the Thebans (to that we would have
+preferred inglorious starvation), but trusted in and capitulated to
+you; and it would be just, if we fail to persuade you, to put us
+back in the same position and let us take the chance that falls to us.
+And at the same time we adjure you not to give us up--your
+suppliants, Lacedaemonians, out of your hands and faith, Plataeans
+foremost of the Hellenic patriots, to Thebans, our most hated
+enemies--but to be our saviours, and not, while you free the rest of
+the Hellenes, to bring us to destruction."
+
+Such were the words of the Plataeans.  The Thebans, afraid that the
+Lacedaemonians might be moved by what they had heard, came forward and
+said that they too desired to address them, since the Plataeans had,
+against their wish, been allowed to speak at length instead of being
+confined to a simple answer to the question.  Leave being granted,
+the Thebans spoke as follows:
+
+"We should never have asked to make this speech if the Plataeans
+on their side had contented themselves with shortly answering the
+question, and had not turned round and made charges against us,
+coupled with a long defence of themselves upon matters outside the
+present inquiry and not even the subject of accusation, and with
+praise of what no one finds fault with.  However, since they have
+done so, we must answer their charges and refute their self-praise, in
+order that neither our bad name nor their good may help them, but that
+you may hear the real truth on both points, and so decide.
+
+"The origin of our quarrel was this.  We settled Plataea some time
+after the rest of Boeotia, together with other places out of which
+we had driven the mixed population.  The Plataeans not choosing to
+recognize our supremacy, as had been first arranged, but separating
+themselves from the rest of the Boeotians, and proving traitors to
+their nationality, we used compulsion; upon which they went over to
+the Athenians, and with them did as much harm, for which we
+retaliated.
+
+"Next, when the barbarian invaded Hellas, they say that they were
+the only Boeotians who did not Medize; and this is where they most
+glorify themselves and abuse us.  We say that if they did not Medize,
+it was because the Athenians did not do so either; just as
+afterwards when the Athenians attacked the Hellenes they, the
+Plataeans, were again the only Boeotians who Atticized.  And yet
+consider the forms of our respective governments when we so acted.  Our
+city at that juncture had neither an oligarchical constitution in
+which all the nobles enjoyed equal rights, nor a democracy, but that
+which is most opposed to law and good government and nearest a
+tyranny--the rule of a close cabal.  These, hoping to strengthen their
+individual power by the success of the Mede, kept down by force the
+people, and brought him into the town.  The city as a whole was not its
+own mistress when it so acted, and ought not to be reproached for
+the errors that it committed while deprived of its constitution.
+Examine only how we acted after the departure of the Mede and the
+recovery of the constitution; when the Athenians attacked the rest
+of Hellas and endeavoured to subjugate our country, of the greater
+part of which faction had already made them masters.  Did not we
+fight and conquer at Coronea and liberate Boeotia, and do we not now
+actively contribute to the liberation of the rest, providing horses to
+the cause and a force unequalled by that of any other state in the
+confederacy?
+
+"Let this suffice to excuse us for our Medism.  We will now endeavour
+to show that you have injured the Hellenes more than we, and are
+more deserving of condign punishment.  It was in defence against us,
+say you, that you became allies and citizens of Athens.  If so, you
+ought only to have called in the Athenians against us, instead of
+joining them in attacking others: it was open to you to do this if you
+ever felt that they were leading you where you did not wish to follow,
+as Lacedaemon was already your ally against the Mede, as you so much
+insist; and this was surely sufficient to keep us off, and above all
+to allow you to deliberate in security.  Nevertheless, of your own
+choice and without compulsion you chose to throw your lot in with
+Athens.  And you say that it had been base for you to betray your
+benefactors; but it was surely far baser and more iniquitous to
+sacrifice the whole body of the Hellenes, your fellow confederates,
+who were liberating Hellas, than the Athenians only, who were
+enslaving it.  The return that you made them was therefore neither
+equal nor honourable, since you called them in, as you say, because
+you were being oppressed yourselves, and then became their accomplices
+in oppressing others; although baseness rather consists in not
+returning like for like than in not returning what is justly due but
+must be unjustly paid.
+
+"Meanwhile, after thus plainly showing that it was not for the
+sake of the Hellenes that you alone then did not Medize, but because
+the Athenians did not do so either, and you wished to side with them
+and to be against the rest; you now claim the benefit of good deeds
+done to please your neighbours.  This cannot be admitted: you chose the
+Athenians, and with them you must stand or fall.  Nor can you plead the
+league then made and claim that it should now protect you.  You
+abandoned that league, and offended against it by helping instead of
+hindering the subjugation of the Aeginetans and others of its members,
+and that not under compulsion, but while in enjoyment of the same
+institutions that you enjoy to the present hour, and no one forcing
+you as in our case.  Lastly, an invitation was addressed to you
+before you were blockaded to be neutral and join neither party: this
+you did not accept.  Who then merit the detestation of the Hellenes
+more justly than you, you who sought their ruin under the mask of
+honour? The former virtues that you allege you now show not to be
+proper to your character; the real bent of your nature has been at
+length damningly proved: when the Athenians took the path of injustice
+you followed them.
+
+"Of our unwilling Medism and your wilful Atticizing this then is our
+explanation.  The last wrong wrong of which you complain consists in
+our having, as you say, lawlessly invaded your town in time of peace
+and festival.  Here again we cannot think that we were more in fault
+than yourselves.  If of our own proper motion we made an armed attack
+upon your city and ravaged your territory, we are guilty; but if the
+first men among you in estate and family, wishing to put an end to the
+foreign connection and to restore you to the common Boeotian
+country, of their own free will invited us, wherein is our crime?
+Where wrong is done, those who lead, as you say, are more to blame
+than those who follow.  Not that, in our judgment, wrong was done
+either by them or by us.  Citizens like yourselves, and with more at
+stake than you, they opened their own walls and introduced us into
+their own city, not as foes but as friends, to prevent the bad among
+you from becoming worse; to give honest men their due; to reform
+principles without attacking persons, since you were not to be
+banished from your city, but brought home to your kindred, nor to be
+made enemies to any, but friends alike to all.
+
+"That our intention was not hostile is proved by our behaviour.  We
+did no harm to any one, but publicly invited those who wished to
+live under a national, Boeotian government to come over to us; which
+as first you gladly did, and made an agreement with us and remained
+tranquil, until you became aware of the smallness of our numbers.
+Now it is possible that there may have been something not quite fair
+in our entering without the consent of your commons.  At any rate you
+did not repay us in kind.  Instead of refraining, as we had done,
+from violence, and inducing us to retire by negotiation, you fell upon
+us in violation of your agreement, and slew some of us in fight, of
+which we do not so much complain, for in that there was a certain
+justice; but others who held out their hands and received quarter, and
+whose lives you subsequently promised us, you lawlessly butchered.
+If this was not abominable, what is? And after these three crimes
+committed one after the other--the violation of your agreement, the
+murder of the men afterwards, and the lying breach of your promise not
+to kill them, if we refrained from injuring your property in the
+country--you still affirm that we are the criminals and yourselves
+pretend to escape justice.  Not so, if these your judges decide aright,
+but you will be punished for all together.
+
+"Such, Lacedaemonians, are the facts.  We have gone into them at some
+length both on your account and on our own, that you may fed that
+you will justly condemn the prisoners, and we, that we have given an
+additional sanction to our vengeance.  We would also prevent you from
+being melted by hearing of their past virtues, if any such they had:
+these may be fairly appealed to by the victims of injustice, but
+only aggravate the guilt of criminals, since they offend against their
+better nature.  Nor let them gain anything by crying and wailing, by
+calling upon your fathers' tombs and their own desolate condition.
+Against this we point to the far more dreadful fate of our youth,
+butchered at their hands; the fathers of whom either fell at
+Coronea, bringing Boeotia over to you, or seated, forlorn old men by
+desolate hearths, with far more reason implore your justice upon the
+prisoners.  The pity which they appeal to is rather due to men who
+suffer unworthily; those who suffer justly as they do are on the
+contrary subjects for triumph.  For their present desolate condition
+they have themselves to blame, since they wilfully rejected the better
+alliance.  Their lawless act was not provoked by any action of ours:
+hate, not justice, inspired their decision; and even now the
+satisfaction which they afford us is not adequate; they will suffer by
+a legal sentence, not as they pretend as suppliants asking for quarter
+in battle, but as prisoners who have surrendered upon agreement to
+take their trial.  Vindicate, therefore, Lacedaemonians, the Hellenic
+law which they have broken; and to us, the victims of its violation,
+grant the reward merited by our zeal.  Nor let us be supplanted in your
+favour by their harangues, but offer an example to the Hellenes,
+that the contests to which you invite them are of deeds, not words:
+good deeds can be shortly stated, but where wrong is done a wealth
+of language is needed to veil its deformity.  However, if leading
+powers were to do what you are now doing, and putting one short
+question to all alike were to decide accordingly, men would be less
+tempted to seek fine phrases to cover bad actions."
+
+Such were the words of the Thebans.  The Lacedaemonian judges decided
+that the question whether they had received any service from the
+Plataeans in the war, was a fair one for them to put; as they had
+always invited them to be neutral, agreeably to the original
+covenant of Pausanias after the defeat of the Mede, and had again
+definitely offered them the same conditions before the blockade.
+This offer having been refused, they were now, they conceived, by
+the loyalty of their intention released from their covenant; and
+having, as they considered, suffered evil at the hands of the
+Plataeans, they brought them in again one by one and asked each of
+them the same question, that is to say, whether they had done the
+Lacedaemonians and allies any service in the war; and upon their
+saying that they had not, took them out and slew them, all without
+exception.  The number of Plataeans thus massacred was not less than
+two hundred, with twenty-five Athenians who had shared in the siege.
+The women were taken as slaves.  The city the Thebans gave for about
+a year to some political emigrants from Megara and to the surviving
+Plataeans of their own party to inhabit, and afterwards razed it to
+the ground from the very foundations, and built on to the precinct
+of Hera an inn two hundred feet square, with rooms all round above and
+below, making use for this purpose of the roofs and doors of the
+Plataeans: of the rest of the materials in the wall, the brass and the
+iron, they made couches which they dedicated to Hera, for whom they
+also built a stone chapel of a hundred feet square.  The land they
+confiscated and let out on a ten years' lease to Theban occupiers.  The
+adverse attitude of the Lacedaemonians in the whole Plataean affair
+was mainly adopted to please the Thebans, who were thought to be
+useful in the war at that moment raging.  Such was the end of
+Plataea, in the ninety-third year after she became the ally of Athens.
+
+Meanwhile, the forty ships of the Peloponnesians that had gone to
+the relief of the Lesbians, and which we left flying across the open
+sea, pursued by the Athenians, were caught in a storm off Crete, and
+scattering from thence made their way to Peloponnese, where they found
+at Cyllene thirteen Leucadian and Ambraciot galleys, with Brasidas,
+son of Tellis, lately arrived as counsellor to Alcidas; the
+Lacedaemonians, upon the failure of the Lesbian expedition, having
+resolved to strengthen their fleet and sail to Corcyra, where a
+revolution had broken out, so as to arrive there before the twelve
+Athenian ships at Naupactus could be reinforced from Athens.
+Brasidas and Alcidas began to prepare accordingly.
+
+The Corcyraean revolution began with the return of the prisoners
+taken in the sea-fights off Epidamnus.  These the Corinthians had
+released, nominally upon the security of eight hundred talents given
+by their proxeni, but in reality upon their engagement to bring over
+Corcyra to Corinth.  These men proceeded to canvass each of the
+citizens, and to intrigue with the view of detaching the city from
+Athens.  Upon the arrival of an Athenian and a Corinthian vessel,
+with envoys on board, a conference was held in which the Corcyraeans
+voted to remain allies of the Athenians according to their
+agreement, but to be friends of the Peloponnesians as they had been
+formerly.  Meanwhile, the returned prisoners brought Peithias, a
+volunteer proxenus of the Athenians and leader of the commons, to
+trial, upon the charge of enslaving Corcyra to Athens.  He, being
+acquitted, retorted by accusing five of the richest of their number of
+cutting stakes in the ground sacred to Zeus and Alcinous; the legal
+penalty being a stater for each stake.  Upon their conviction, the
+amount of the penalty being very large, they seated themselves as
+suppliants in the temples to be allowed to pay it by instalments;
+but Peithias, who was one of the senate, prevailed upon that body to
+enforce the law; upon which the accused, rendered desperate by the
+law, and also learning that Peithias had the intention, while still
+a member of the senate, to persuade the people to conclude a defensive
+and offensive alliance with Athens, banded together armed with
+daggers, and suddenly bursting into the senate killed Peithias and
+sixty others, senators and private persons; some few only of the party
+of Peithias taking refuge in the Athenian galley, which had not yet
+departed.
+
+After this outrage, the conspirators summoned the Corcyraeans to
+an assembly, and said that this would turn out for the best, and would
+save them from being enslaved by Athens: for the future, they moved to
+receive neither party unless they came peacefully in a single ship,
+treating any larger number as enemies.  This motion made, they
+compelled it to be adopted, and instantly sent off envoys to Athens to
+justify what had been done and to dissuade the refugees there from any
+hostile proceedings which might lead to a reaction.
+
+Upon the arrival of the embassy, the Athenians arrested the envoys
+and all who listened to them, as revolutionists, and lodged them in
+Aegina.  Meanwhile a Corinthian galley arriving in the island with
+Lacedaemonian envoys, the dominant Corcyraean party attacked the
+commons and defeated them in battle.  Night coming on, the commons took
+refuge in the Acropolis and the higher parts of the city, and
+concentrated themselves there, having also possession of the Hyllaic
+harbour; their adversaries occupying the market-place, where most of
+them lived, and the harbour adjoining, looking towards the mainland.
+
+The next day passed in skirmishes of little importance, each party
+sending into the country to offer freedom to the slaves and to
+invite them to join them.  The mass of the slaves answered the appeal
+of the commons; their antagonists being reinforced by eight hundred
+mercenaries from the continent.
+
+After a day's interval hostilities recommenced, victory remaining
+with the commons, who had the advantage in numbers and position, the
+women also valiantly assisting them, pelting with tiles from the
+houses, and supporting the melee with a fortitude beyond their sex.
+Towards dusk, the oligarchs in full rout, fearing that the
+victorious commons might assault and carry the arsenal and put them to
+the sword, fired the houses round the marketplace and the
+lodging-houses, in order to bar their advance; sparing neither their
+own, nor those of their neighbours; by which much stuff of the
+merchants was consumed and the city risked total destruction, if a
+wind had come to help the flame by blowing on it.  Hostilities now
+ceasing, both sides kept quiet, passing the night on guard, while
+the Corinthian ship stole out to sea upon the victory of the
+commons, and most of the mercenaries passed over secretly to the
+continent.
+
+The next day the Athenian general, Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes,
+came up from Naupactus with twelve ships and five hundred Messenian
+heavy infantry.  He at once endeavoured to bring about a settlement,
+and persuaded the two parties to agree together to bring to trial
+ten of the ringleaders, who presently fled, while the rest were to
+live in peace, making terms with each other, and entering into a
+defensive and offensive alliance with the Athenians.  This arranged, he
+was about to sail away, when the leaders of the commons induced him to
+leave them five of his ships to make their adversaries less disposed
+to move, while they manned and sent with him an equal number of
+their own.  He had no sooner consented, than they began to enroll their
+enemies for the ships; and these, fearing that they might be sent
+off to Athens, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of the
+Dioscuri.  An attempt on the part of Nicostratus to reassure them and
+to persuade them to rise proving unsuccessful, the commons armed
+upon this pretext, alleging the refusal of their adversaries to sail
+with them as a proof of the hollowness of their intentions, and took
+their arms out of their houses, and would have dispatched some whom
+they fell in with, if Nicostratus had not prevented it.  The rest of
+the party, seeing what was going on, seated themselves as suppliants
+in the temple of Hera, being not less than four hundred in number;
+until the commons, fearing that they might adopt some desperate
+resolution, induced them to rise, and conveyed them over to the island
+in front of the temple, where provisions were sent across to them.
+
+At this stage in the revolution, on the fourth or fifth day after
+the removal of the men to the island, the Peloponnesian ships
+arrived from Cyllene where they had been stationed since their
+return from Ionia, fifty-three in number, still under the command of
+Alcidas, but with Brasidas also on board as his adviser; and
+dropping anchor at Sybota, a harbour on the mainland, at daybreak made
+sail for Corcyra.
+
+The Corcyraeans in great confusion and alarm at the state of
+things in the city and at the approach of the invader, at once
+proceeded to equip sixty vessels, which they sent out, as fast as they
+were manned, against the enemy, in spite of the Athenians recommending
+them to let them sail out first, and to follow themselves afterwards
+with all their ships together.  Upon their vessels coming up to the
+enemy in this straggling fashion, two immediately deserted: in
+others the crews were fighting among themselves, and there was no
+order in anything that was done; so that the Peloponnesians, seeing
+their confusion, placed twenty ships to oppose the Corcyraeans, and
+ranged the rest against the twelve Athenian ships, amongst which
+were the two vessels Salaminia and Paralus.
+
+While the Corcyraeans, attacking without judgment and in small
+detachments, were already crippled by their own misconduct, the
+Athenians, afraid of the numbers of the enemy and of being surrounded,
+did not venture to attack the main body or even the centre of the
+division opposed to them, but fell upon its wing and sank one
+vessel; after which the Peloponnesians formed in a circle, and the
+Athenians rowed round them and tried to throw them into disorder.
+Perceiving this, the division opposed to the Corcyraeans, fearing a
+repetition of the disaster of Naupactus, came to support their
+friends, and the whole fleet now bore down, united, upon the
+Athenians, who retired before it, backing water, retiring as leisurely
+as possible in order to give the Corcyraeans time to escape, while the
+enemy was thus kept occupied.  Such was the character of this
+sea-fight, which lasted until sunset.
+
+The Corcyraeans now feared that the enemy would follow up their
+victory and sail against the town and rescue the men in the island, or
+strike some other blow equally decisive, and accordingly carried the
+men over again to the temple of Hera, and kept guard over the city.
+The Peloponnesians, however, although victorious in the sea-fight, did
+not venture to attack the town, but took the thirteen Corcyraean
+vessels which they had captured, and with them sailed back to the
+continent from whence they had put out.  The next day equally they
+refrained from attacking the city, although the disorder and panic
+were at their height, and though Brasidas, it is said, urged
+Alcidas, his superior officer, to do so, but they landed upon the
+promontory of Leukimme and laid waste the country.
+
+Meanwhile the commons in Corcyra, being still in great fear of the
+fleet attacking them, came to a parley with the suppliants and their
+friends, in order to save the town; and prevailed upon some of them to
+go on board the ships, of which they still manned thirty, against
+the expected attack.  But the Peloponnesians after ravaging the country
+until midday sailed away, and towards nightfall were informed by
+beacon signals of the approach of sixty Athenian vessels from
+Leucas, under the command of Eurymedon, son of Thucles; which had been
+sent off by the Athenians upon the news of the revolution and of the
+fleet with Alcidas being about to sail for Corcyra.
+
+The Peloponnesians accordingly at once set off in haste by night for
+home, coasting along shore; and hauling their ships across the Isthmus
+of Leucas, in order not to be seen doubling it, so departed.  The
+Corcyraeans, made aware of the approach of the Athenian fleet and of
+the departure of the enemy, brought the Messenians from outside the
+walls into the town, and ordered the fleet which they had manned to
+sail round into the Hyllaic harbour; and while it was so doing, slew
+such of their enemies as they laid hands on, dispatching afterwards,
+as they landed them, those whom they had persuaded to go on board
+the ships.  Next they went to the sanctuary of Hera and persuaded about
+fifty men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death.  The
+mass of the suppliants who had refused to do so, on seeing what was
+taking place, slew each other there in the consecrated ground; while
+some hanged themselves upon the trees, and others destroyed themselves
+as they were severally able.  During seven days that Eurymedon stayed
+with his sixty ships, the Corcyraeans were engaged in butchering those
+of their fellow citizens whom they regarded as their enemies: and
+although the crime imputed was that of attempting to put down the
+democracy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their
+debtors because of the moneys owed to them.  Death thus raged in
+every shape; and, as usually happens at such times, there was no
+length to which violence did not go; sons were killed by their
+fathers, and suppliants dragged from the altar or slain upon it; while
+some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there.
+
+So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression
+which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur.
+Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed;
+struggles being every, where made by the popular chiefs to bring in
+the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Lacedaemonians.
+In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to
+make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the
+command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and
+their own corresponding advantage, opportunities for bringing in the
+foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties.  The
+sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and
+terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as
+the nature of mankind remains the same; though in a severer or
+milder form, and varying in their symptoms, according to the variety
+of the particular cases.  In peace and prosperity, states and
+individuals have better sentiments, because they do not find
+themselves suddenly confronted with imperious necessities; but war
+takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough
+master, that brings most men's characters to a level with their
+fortunes.  Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the
+places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been
+done before, carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their
+inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and
+the atrocity of their reprisals.  Words had to change their ordinary
+meaning and to take that which was now given them.  Reckless audacity
+came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation,
+specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness;
+ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.
+Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting,
+a justifiable means of self-defence.  The advocate of extreme
+measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected.
+To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a
+still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either
+was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries.  In
+fine, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of
+a crime where it was wanting, was equally commended until even blood
+became a weaker tie than party, from the superior readiness of those
+united by the latter to dare everything without reserve; for such
+associations had not in view the blessings derivable from
+established institutions but were formed by ambition for their
+overthrow; and the confidence of their members in each other rested
+less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime.  The fair
+proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the
+stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence.  Revenge
+also was held of more account than self-preservation.  Oaths of
+reconciliation, being only proffered on either side to meet an
+immediate difficulty, only held good so long as no other weapon was at
+hand; but when opportunity offered, he who first ventured to seize
+it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this perfidious
+vengeance sweeter than an open one, since, considerations of safety
+apart, success by treachery won him the palm of superior intelligence.
+Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues
+clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the
+second as they are proud of being the first.  The cause of all these
+evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from
+these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in
+contention.  The leaders in the cities, each provided with the
+fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political
+equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought
+prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended
+to cherish, and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for
+ascendancy engaged in the direst excesses; in their acts of
+vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what
+justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party
+caprice of the moment their only standard, and invoking with equal
+readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of
+the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour.  Thus religion
+was in honour with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to
+arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation.  Meanwhile the moderate
+part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not
+joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to
+escape.
+
+Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by
+reason of the troubles.  The ancient simplicity into which honour so
+largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became
+divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow.  To put an end
+to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath
+that could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their
+calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were
+more intent upon self-defence than capable of confidence.  In this
+contest the blunter wits were most successful.  Apprehensive of their
+own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they
+feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations
+of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had
+recourse to action: while their adversaries, arrogantly thinking
+that they should know in time, and that it was unnecessary to secure
+by action what policy afforded, often fell victims to their want of
+precaution.
+
+Meanwhile Corcyra gave the first example of most of the crimes
+alluded to; of the reprisals exacted by the governed who had never
+experienced equitable treatment or indeed aught but insolence from
+their rulers--when their hour came; of the iniquitous resolves of
+those who desired to get rid of their accustomed poverty, and ardently
+coveted their neighbours' goods; and lastly, of the savage and
+pitiless excesses into which men who had begun the struggle, not in
+a class but in a party spirit, were hurried by their ungovernable
+passions.  In the confusion into which life was now thrown in the
+cities, human nature, always rebelling against the law and now its
+master, gladly showed itself ungoverned in passion, above respect
+for justice, and the enemy of all superiority; since revenge would not
+have been set above religion, and gain above justice, had it not
+been for the fatal power of envy.  Indeed men too often take upon
+themselves in the prosecution of their revenge to set the example of
+doing away with those general laws to which all alike can look for
+salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to subsist against
+the day of danger when their aid may be required.
+
+While the revolutionary passions thus for the first time displayed
+themselves in the factions of Corcyra, Eurymedon and the Athenian
+fleet sailed away; after which some five hundred Corcyraean exiles who
+had succeeded in escaping, took some forts on the mainland, and
+becoming masters of the Corcyraean territory over the water, made this
+their base to Plunder their countrymen in the island, and did so
+much damage as to cause a severe famine in the town.  They also sent
+envoys to Lacedaemon and Corinth to negotiate their restoration; but
+meeting with no success, afterwards got together boats and mercenaries
+and crossed over to the island, being about six hundred in all; and
+burning their boats so as to have no hope except in becoming masters
+of the country, went up to Mount Istone, and fortifying themselves
+there, began to annoy those in the city and obtained command of the
+country.
+
+At the close of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty ships
+under the command of Laches, son of Melanopus, and Charoeades, son
+of Euphiletus, to Sicily, where the Syracusans and Leontines were at
+war.  The Syracusans had for allies all the Dorian cities except
+Camarina--these had been included in the Lacedaemonian confederacy
+from the commencement of the war, though they had not taken any active
+part in it--the Leontines had Camarina and the Chalcidian cities.  In
+Italy the Locrians were for the Syracusans, the Rhegians for their
+Leontine kinsmen.  The allies of the Leontines now sent to Athens and
+appealed to their ancient alliance and to their Ionian origin, to
+persuade the Athenians to send them a fleet, as the Syracusans were
+blockading them by land and sea.  The Athenians sent it upon the plea
+of their common descent, but in reality to prevent the exportation
+of Sicilian corn to Peloponnese and to test the possibility of
+bringing Sicily into subjection.  Accordingly they established
+themselves at Rhegium in Italy, and from thence carried on the war
+in concert with their allies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_Year of the War - Campaigns of Demosthenes in Western Greece -
+Ruin of Ambracia_
+
+Summer was now over.  The winter following, the plague a second
+time attacked the Athenians; for although it had never entirely left
+them, still there had been a notable abatement in its ravages.  The
+second visit lasted no less than a year, the first having lasted
+two; and nothing distressed the Athenians and reduced their power more
+than this.  No less than four thousand four hundred heavy infantry in
+the ranks died of it and three hundred cavalry, besides a number of
+the multitude that was never ascertained.  At the same time took
+place the numerous earthquakes in Athens, Euboea, and Boeotia,
+particularly at Orchomenus in the last-named country.
+
+The same winter the Athenians in Sicily and the Rhegians, with
+thirty ships, made an expedition against the islands of Aeolus; it
+being impossible to invade them in summer, owing to the want of water.
+These islands are occupied by the Liparaeans, a Cnidian colony, who
+live in one of them of no great size called Lipara; and from this as
+their headquarters cultivate the rest, Didyme, Strongyle, and Hiera.
+In Hiera the people in those parts believe that Hephaestus has his
+forge, from the quantity of flame which they see it send out by night,
+and of smoke by day.  These islands lie off the coast of the Sicels and
+Messinese, and were allies of the Syracusans.  The Athenians laid waste
+their land, and as the inhabitants did not submit, sailed back to
+Rhegium.  Thus the winter ended, and with it ended the fifth year of
+this war, of which Thucydides was the historian.
+
+The next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies set out to
+invade Attica under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus, and went
+as far as the Isthmus, but numerous earthquakes occurring, turned back
+again without the invasion taking place.  About the same time that
+these earthquakes were so common, the sea at Orobiae, in Euboea,
+retiring from the then line of coast, returned in a huge wave and
+invaded a great part of the town, and retreated leaving some of it
+still under water; so that what was once land is now sea; such of
+the inhabitants perishing as could not run up to the higher ground
+in time.  A similar inundation also occurred at Atalanta, the island
+off the Opuntian Locrian coast, carrying away part of the Athenian
+fort and wrecking one of two ships which were drawn up on the beach.
+At Peparethus also the sea retreated a little, without however any
+inundation following; and an earthquake threw down part of the wall,
+the town hall, and a few other buildings.  The cause, in my opinion, of
+this phenomenon must be sought in the earthquake.  At the point where
+its shock has been the most violent, the sea is driven back and,
+suddenly recoiling with redoubled force, causes the inundation.
+Without an earthquake I do not see how such an accident could happen.
+
+During the same summer different operations were carried on by the
+different belligerents in Sicily; by the Siceliots themselves against
+each other, and by the Athenians and their allies: I shall however
+confine myself to the actions in which the Athenians took part,
+choosing the most important.  The death of the Athenian general
+Charoeades, killed by the Syracusans in battle, left Laches in the
+sole command of the fleet, which he now directed in concert with the
+allies against Mylae, a place belonging to the Messinese.  Two
+Messinese battalions in garrison at Mylae laid an ambush for the party
+landing from the ships, but were routed with great slaughter by the
+Athenians and their allies, who thereupon assaulted the
+fortification and compelled them to surrender the Acropolis and to
+march with them upon Messina.  This town afterwards also submitted upon
+the approach of the Athenians and their allies, and gave hostages
+and all other securities required.
+
+The same summer the Athenians sent thirty ships round Peloponnese
+under Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes, and Procles, son of
+Theodorus, and sixty others, with two thousand heavy infantry, against
+Melos, under Nicias, son of Niceratus; wishing to reduce the
+Melians, who, although islanders, refused to be subjects of Athens
+or even to join her confederacy.  The devastation of their land not
+procuring their submission, the fleet, weighing from Melos, sailed
+to Oropus in the territory of Graea, and landing at nightfall, the
+heavy infantry started at once from the ships by land for Tanagra in
+Boeotia, where they were met by the whole levy from Athens,
+agreeably to a concerted signal, under the command of Hipponicus,
+son of Callias, and Eurymedon, son of Thucles.  They encamped, and
+passing that day in ravaging the Tanagraean territory, remained
+there for the night; and next day, after defeating those of the
+Tanagraeans who sailed out against them and some Thebans who had
+come up to help the Tanagraeans, took some arms, set up a trophy,
+and retired, the troops to the city and the others to the ships.
+Nicias with his sixty ships coasted alongshore and ravaged the Locrian
+seaboard, and so returned home.
+
+About this time the Lacedaemonians founded their colony of
+Heraclea in Trachis, their object being the following: the Malians
+form in all three tribes, the Paralians, the Hiereans, and the
+Trachinians.  The last of these having suffered severely in a war
+with their neighbours the Oetaeans, at first intended to give
+themselves up to Athens; but afterwards fearing not to find in her the
+security that they sought, sent to Lacedaemon, having chosen Tisamenus
+for their ambassador.  In this embassy joined also the Dorians from the
+mother country of the Lacedaemonians, with the same request, as they
+themselves also suffered from the same enemy.  After hearing them,
+the Lacedaemonians determined to send out the colony, wishing to
+assist the Trachinians and Dorians, and also because they thought that
+the proposed town would lie conveniently for the purposes of the war
+against the Athenians.  A fleet might be got ready there against
+Euboea, with the advantage of a short passage to the island; and the
+town would also be useful as a station on the road to Thrace.  In
+short, everything made the Lacedaemonians eager to found the place.
+After first consulting the god at Delphi and receiving a favourable
+answer, they sent off the colonists, Spartans, and Perioeci,
+inviting also any of the rest of the Hellenes who might wish to
+accompany them, except Ionians, Achaeans, and certain other
+nationalities; three Lacedaemonians leading as founders of the colony,
+Leon, Alcidas, and Damagon.  The settlement effected, they fortified
+anew the city, now called Heraclea, distant about four miles and a
+half from Thermopylae and two miles and a quarter from the sea, and
+commenced building docks, closing the side towards Thermopylae just by
+the pass itself, in order that they might be easily defended.
+
+The foundation of this town, evidently meant to annoy Euboea (the
+passage across to Cenaeum in that island being a short one), at
+first caused some alarm at Athens, which the event however did nothing
+to justify, the town never giving them any trouble.  The reason of this
+was as follows.  The Thessalians, who were sovereign in those parts,
+and whose territory was menaced by its foundation, were afraid that it
+might prove a very powerful neighbour, and accordingly continually
+harassed and made war upon the new settlers, until they at last wore
+them out in spite of their originally considerable numbers, people
+flocking from all quarters to a place founded by the Lacedaemonians,
+and thus thought secure of prosperity.  On the other hand the
+Lacedaemonians themselves, in the persons of their governors, did
+their full share towards ruining its prosperity and reducing its
+population, as they frightened away the greater part of the
+inhabitants by governing harshly and in some cases not fairly, and
+thus made it easier for their neighbours to prevail against them.
+
+The same summer, about the same time that the Athenians were
+detained at Melos, their fellow citizens in the thirty ships
+cruising round Peloponnese, after cutting off some guards in an ambush
+at Ellomenus in Leucadia, subsequently went against Leucas itself with
+a large armament, having been reinforced by the whole levy of the
+Acarnanians except Oeniadae, and by the Zacynthians and
+Cephallenians and fifteen ships from Corcyra.  While the Leucadians
+witnessed the devastation of their land, without and within the
+isthmus upon which the town of Leucas and the temple of Apollo
+stand, without making any movement on account of the overwhelming
+numbers of the enemy, the Acarnanians urged Demosthenes, the
+Athenian general, to build a wall so as to cut off the town from the
+continent, a measure which they were convinced would secure its
+capture and rid them once and for all of a most troublesome enemy.
+
+Demosthenes however had in the meanwhile been persuaded by the
+Messenians that it was a fine opportunity for him, having so large
+an army assembled, to attack the Aetolians, who were not only the
+enemies of Naupactus, but whose reduction would further make it easy
+to gain the rest of that part of the continent for the Athenians.
+The Aetolian nation, although numerous and warlike, yet dwelt in
+unwalled villages scattered far apart, and had nothing but light
+armour, and might, according to the Messenians, be subdued without
+much difficulty before succours could arrive.  The plan which they
+recommended was to attack first the Apodotians, next the Ophionians,
+and after these the Eurytanians, who are the largest tribe in Aetolia,
+and speak, as is said, a language exceedingly difficult to understand,
+and eat their flesh raw.  These once subdued, the rest would easily
+come in.
+
+To this plan Demosthenes consented, not only to please the
+Messenians, but also in the belief that by adding the Aetolians to his
+other continental allies he would be able, without aid from home, to
+march against the Boeotians by way of Ozolian Locris to Kytinium in
+Doris, keeping Parnassus on his right until he descended to the
+Phocians, whom he could force to join him if their ancient
+friendship for Athens did not, as he anticipated, at once decide
+them to do so.  Arrived in Phocis he was already upon the frontier of
+Boeotia.  He accordingly weighed from Leucas, against the wish of the
+Acarnanians, and with his whole armament sailed along the coast to
+Sollium, where he communicated to them his intention; and upon their
+refusing to agree to it on account of the non-investment of Leucas,
+himself with the rest of the forces, the Cephallenians, the
+Messenians, and Zacynthians, and three hundred Athenian marines from
+his own ships (the fifteen Corcyraean vessels having departed),
+started on his expedition against the Aetolians.  His base he
+established at Oeneon in Locris, as the Ozolian Locrians were allies
+of Athens and were to meet him with all their forces in the
+interior.  Being neighbours of the Aetolians and armed in the same way,
+it was thought that they would be of great service upon the
+expedition, from their acquaintance with the localities and the
+warfare of the inhabitants.
+
+After bivouacking with the army in the precinct of Nemean Zeus, in
+which the poet Hesiod is said to have been killed by the people of the
+country, according to an oracle which had foretold that he should
+die in Nemea, Demosthenes set out at daybreak to invade Aetolia.  The
+first day he took Potidania, the next Krokyle, and the third
+Tichium, where he halted and sent back the booty to Eupalium in
+Locris, having determined to pursue his conquests as far as the
+Ophionians, and, in the event of their refusing to submit, to return
+to Naupactus and make them the objects of a second expedition.
+Meanwhile the Aetolians had been aware of his design from the moment
+of its formation, and as soon as the army invaded their country came
+up in great force with all their tribes; even the most remote
+Ophionians, the Bomiensians, and Calliensians, who extend towards
+the Malian Gulf, being among the number.
+
+The Messenians, however, adhered to their original advice.
+Assuring Demosthenes that the Aetolians were an easy conquest, they
+urged him to push on as rapidly as possible, and to try to take the
+villages as fast as he came up to them, without waiting until the
+whole nation should be in arms against him.  Led on by his advisers and
+trusting in his fortune, as he had met with no opposition, without
+waiting for his Locrian reinforcements, who were to have supplied
+him with the light-armed darters in which he was most deficient, he
+advanced and stormed Aegitium, the inhabitants flying before him and
+posting themselves upon the hills above the town, which stood on
+high ground about nine miles from the sea.  Meanwhile the Aetolians had
+gathered to the rescue, and now attacked the Athenians and their
+allies, running down from the hills on every side and darting their
+javelins, falling back when the Athenian army advanced, and coming
+on as it retired; and for a long while the battle was of this
+character, alternate advance and retreat, in both which operations the
+Athenians had the worst.
+
+Still as long as their archers had arrows left and were able to
+use them, they held out, the light-armed Aetolians retiring before the
+arrows; but after the captain of the archers had been killed and his
+men scattered, the soldiers, wearied out with the constant
+repetition of the same exertions and hard pressed by the Aetolians
+with their javelins, at last turned and fled, and falling into
+pathless gullies and places that they were unacquainted with, thus
+perished, the Messenian Chromon, their guide, having also
+unfortunately been killed.  A great many were overtaken in the
+pursuit by the swift-footed and light-armed Aetolians, and fell
+beneath their javelins; the greater number however missed their road
+and rushed into the wood, which had no ways out, and which was soon
+fired and burnt round them by the enemy.  Indeed the Athenian army fell
+victims to death in every form, and suffered all the vicissitudes of
+flight; the survivors escaped with difficulty to the sea and Oeneon in
+Locris, whence they had set out.  Many of the allies were killed, and
+about one hundred and twenty Athenian heavy infantry, not a man
+less, and all in the prime of life.  These were by far the best men
+in the city of Athens that fell during this war.  Among the slain was
+also Procles, the colleague of Demosthenes.  Meanwhile the Athenians
+took up their dead under truce from the Aetolians, and retired to
+Naupactus, and from thence went in their ships to Athens;
+Demosthenes staying behind in Naupactus and in the neighbourhood,
+being afraid to face the Athenians after the disaster.
+
+About the same time the Athenians on the coast of Sicily sailed to
+Locris, and in a descent which they made from the ships defeated the
+Locrians who came against them, and took a fort upon the river Halex.
+
+The same summer the Aetolians, who before the Athenian expedition
+had sent an embassy to Corinth and Lacedaemon, composed of Tolophus,
+an Ophionian, Boriades, an Eurytanian, and Tisander, an Apodotian,
+obtained that an army should be sent them against Naupactus, which had
+invited the Athenian invasion.  The Lacedaemonians accordingly sent off
+towards autumn three thousand heavy infantry of the allies, five
+hundred of whom were from Heraclea, the newly founded city in Trachis,
+under the command of Eurylochus, a Spartan, accompanied by Macarius
+and Menedaius, also Spartans.
+
+The army having assembled at Delphi, Eurylochus sent a herald to the
+Ozolian Locrians; the road to Naupactus lying through their territory,
+and he having besides conceived the idea of detaching them from
+Athens.  His chief abettors in Locris were the Amphissians, who were
+alarmed at the hostility of the Phocians.  These first gave hostages
+themselves, and induced the rest to do the same for fear of the
+invading army; first, their neighbours the Myonians, who held the most
+difficult of the passes, and after them the Ipnians, Messapians,
+Tritaeans, Chalaeans, Tolophonians, Hessians, and Oeanthians, all of
+whom joined in the expedition; the Olpaeans contenting themselves with
+giving hostages, without accompanying the invasion; and the Hyaeans
+refusing to do either, until the capture of Polis, one of their
+villages.
+
+His preparations completed, Eurylochus lodged the hostages in
+Kytinium, in Doris, and advanced upon Naupactus through the country of
+the Locrians, taking upon his way Oeneon and Eupalium, two of their
+towns that refused to join him.  Arrived in the Naupactian territory,
+and having been now joined by the Aetolians, the army laid waste the
+land and took the suburb of the town, which was unfortified; and after
+this Molycrium also, a Corinthian colony subject to Athens.
+Meanwhile the Athenian Demosthenes, who since the affair in Aetolia
+had remained near Naupactus, having had notice of the army and fearing
+for the town, went and persuaded the Acarnanians, although not without
+difficulty because of his departure from Leucas, to go to the relief
+of Naupactus.  They accordingly sent with him on board his ships a
+thousand heavy infantry, who threw themselves into the place and saved
+it; the extent of its wall and the small number of its defenders
+otherwise placing it in the greatest danger.  Meanwhile Eurylochus
+and his companions, finding that this force had entered and that it
+was impossible to storm the town, withdrew, not to Peloponnese, but to
+the country once called Aeolis, and now Calydon and Pleuron, and to
+the places in that neighbourhood, and Proschium in Aetolia; the
+Ambraciots having come and urged them to combine with them in
+attacking Amphilochian Argos and the rest of Amphilochia and
+Acarnania; affirming that the conquest of these countries would
+bring all the continent into alliance with Lacedaemon.  To this
+Eurylochus consented, and dismissing the Aetolians, now remained quiet
+with his army in those parts, until the time should come for the
+Ambraciots to take the field, and for him to join them before Argos.
+
+Summer was now over.  The winter ensuing, the Athenians in Sicily
+with their Hellenic allies, and such of the Sicel subjects or allies
+of Syracuse as had revolted from her and joined their army, marched
+against the Sicel town Inessa, the acropolis of which was held by
+the Syracusans, and after attacking it without being able to take
+it, retired.  In the retreat, the allies retreating after the Athenians
+were attacked by the Syracusans from the fort, and a large part of
+their army routed with great slaughter.  After this, Laches and the
+Athenians from the ships made some descents in Locris, and defeating
+the Locrians, who came against them with Proxenus, son of Capaton,
+upon the river Caicinus, took some arms and departed.
+
+The same winter the Athenians purified Delos, in compliance, it
+appears, with a certain oracle.  It had been purified before by
+Pisistratus the tyrant; not indeed the whole island, but as much of it
+as could be seen from the temple.  All of it was, however, now purified
+in the following way.  All the sepulchres of those that had died in
+Delos were taken up, and for the future it was commanded that no one
+should be allowed either to die or to give birth to a child in the
+island; but that they should be carried over to Rhenea, which is so
+near to Delos that Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, having added Rhenea to
+his other island conquests during his period of naval ascendancy,
+dedicated it to the Delian Apollo by binding it to Delos with a chain.
+
+The Athenians, after the purification, celebrated, for the first
+time, the quinquennial festival of the Delian games.  Once upon a time,
+indeed, there was a great assemblage of the Ionians and the
+neighbouring islanders at Delos, who used to come to the festival,
+as the Ionians now do to that of Ephesus, and athletic and poetical
+contests took place there, and the cities brought choirs of dancers.
+Nothing can be clearer on this point than the following verses of
+Homer, taken from a hymn to Apollo:
+
+   Phoebus, wherever thou strayest, far or near,
+   Delos was still of all thy haunts most dear.
+   Thither the robed Ionians take their way
+   With wife and child to keep thy holiday,
+   Invoke thy favour on each manly game,
+   And dance and sing in honour of thy name.
+
+That there was also a poetical contest in which the Ionians went
+to contend, again is shown by the following, taken from the same hymn.
+After celebrating the Delian dance of the women, he ends his song of
+praise with these verses, in which he also alludes to himself:
+
+   Well, may Apollo keep you all! and so,
+   Sweethearts, good-bye--yet tell me not I go
+   Out from your hearts; and if in after hours
+   Some other wanderer in this world of ours
+   Touch at your shores, and ask your maidens here
+   Who sings the songs the sweetest to your ear,
+   Think of me then, and answer with a smile,
+   'A blind old man of Scio's rocky isle.'
+
+Homer thus attests that there was anciently a great assembly and
+festival at Delos.  In later times, although the islanders and the
+Athenians continued to send the choirs of dancers with sacrifices, the
+contests and most of the ceremonies were abolished, probably through
+adversity, until the Athenians celebrated the games upon this occasion
+with the novelty of horse-races.
+
+The same winter the Ambraciots, as they had promised Eurylochus when
+they retained his army, marched out against Amphilochian Argos with
+three thousand heavy infantry, and invading the Argive territory
+occupied Olpae, a stronghold on a hill near the sea, which had been
+formerly fortified by the Acarnanians and used as the place of assizes
+for their nation, and which is about two miles and three-quarters from
+the city of Argos upon the sea-coast.  Meanwhile the Acarnanians went
+with a part of their forces to the relief of Argos, and with the
+rest encamped in Amphilochia at the place called Crenae, or the Wells,
+to watch for Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, and to prevent their
+passing through and effecting their junction with the Ambraciots;
+while they also sent for Demosthenes, the commander of the Aetolian
+expedition, to be their leader, and for the twenty Athenian ships that
+were cruising off Peloponnese under the command of Aristotle, son of
+Timocrates, and Hierophon, son of Antimnestus.  On their part, the
+Ambraciots at Olpae sent a messenger to their own city, to beg them to
+come with their whole levy to their assistance, fearing that the
+army of Eurylochus might not be able to pass through the
+Acarnanians, and that they might themselves be obliged to fight
+single-handed, or be unable to retreat, if they wished it, without
+danger.
+
+Meanwhile Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, learning that the
+Ambraciots at Olpae had arrived, set out from Proschium with all haste
+to join them, and crossing the Achelous advanced through Acarnania,
+which they found deserted by its population, who had gone to the
+relief of Argos; keeping on their right the city of the Stratians
+and its garrison, and on their left the rest of Acarnania.
+Traversing the territory of the Stratians, they advanced through
+Phytia, next, skirting Medeon, through Limnaea; after which they
+left Acarnania behind them and entered a friendly country, that of the
+Agraeans.  From thence they reached and crossed Mount Thymaus, which
+belongs to the Agraeans, and descended into the Argive territory after
+nightfall, and passing between the city of Argos and the Acarnanian
+posts at Crenae, joined the Ambraciots at Olpae.
+
+Uniting here at daybreak, they sat down at the place called
+Metropolis, and encamped.  Not long afterwards the Athenians in the
+twenty ships came into the Ambracian Gulf to support the Argives, with
+Demosthenes and two hundred Messenian heavy infantry, and sixty
+Athenian archers.  While the fleet off Olpae blockaded the hill from
+the sea, the Acarnanians and a few of the Amphilochians, most of
+whom were kept back by force by the Ambraciots, had already arrived at
+Argos, and were preparing to give battle to the enemy, having chosen
+Demosthenes to command the whole of the allied army in concert with
+their own generals.  Demosthenes led them near to Olpae and encamped, a
+great ravine separating the two armies.  During five days they remained
+inactive; on the sixth both sides formed in order of battle.  The
+army of the Peloponnesians was the largest and outflanked their
+opponents; and Demosthenes fearing that his right might be surrounded,
+placed in ambush in a hollow way overgrown with bushes some four
+hundred heavy infantry and light troops, who were to rise up at the
+moment of the onset behind the projecting left wing of the enemy,
+and to take them in the rear.  When both sides were ready they joined
+battle; Demosthenes being on the right wing with the Messenians and
+a few Athenians, while the rest of the line was made up of the
+different divisions of the Acarnanians, and of the Amphilochian
+carters.  The Peloponnesians and Ambraciots were drawn up pell-mell
+together, with the exception of the Mantineans, who were massed on the
+left, without however reaching to the extremity of the wing, where
+Eurylochus and his men confronted the Messenians and Demosthenes.
+
+The Peloponnesians were now well engaged and with their
+outflanking wing were upon the point of turning their enemy's right;
+when the Acarnanians from the ambuscade set upon them from behind, and
+broke them at the first attack, without their staying to resist; while
+the panic into which they fell caused the flight of most of their
+army, terrified beyond measure at seeing the division of Eurylochus
+and their best troops cut to pieces.  Most of the work was done by
+Demosthenes and his Messenians, who were posted in this part of the
+field.  Meanwhile the Ambraciots (who are the best soldiers in those
+countries) and the troops upon the right wing, defeated the division
+opposed to them and pursued it to Argos.  Returning from the pursuit,
+they found their main body defeated; and hard pressed by the
+Acarnanians, with difficulty made good their passage to Olpae,
+suffering heavy loss on the way, as they dashed on without
+discipline or order, the Mantineans excepted, who kept their ranks
+best of any in the army during the retreat.
+
+The battle did not end until the evening.  The next day Menedaius,
+who on the death of Eurylochus and Macarius had succeeded to the
+sole command, being at a loss after so signal a defeat how to stay and
+sustain a siege, cut off as he was by land and by the Athenian fleet
+by sea, and equally so how to retreat in safety, opened a parley
+with Demosthenes and the Acarnanian generals for a truce and
+permission to retreat, and at the same time for the recovery of the
+dead.  The dead they gave back to him, and setting up a trophy took
+up their own also to the number of about three hundred.  The retreat
+demanded they refused publicly to the army; but permission to depart
+without delay was secretly granted to the Mantineans and to
+Menedaius and the other commanders and principal men of the
+Peloponnesians by Demosthenes and his Acarnanian colleagues; who
+desired to strip the Ambraciots and the mercenary host of foreigners
+of their supporters; and, above all, to discredit the Lacedaemonians
+and Peloponnesians with the Hellenes in those parts, as traitors and
+self-seekers.
+
+While the enemy was taking up his dead and hastily burying them as
+he could, and those who obtained permission were secretly planning
+their retreat, word was brought to Demosthenes and the Acarnanians
+that the Ambraciots from the city, in compliance with the first
+message from Olpae, were on the march with their whole levy through
+Amphilochia to join their countrymen at Olpae, knowing nothing of what
+had occurred.  Demosthenes prepared to march with his army against
+them, and meanwhile sent on at once a strong division to beset the
+roads and occupy the strong positions.  In the meantime the
+Mantineans and others included in the agreement went out under the
+pretence of gathering herbs and firewood, and stole off by twos and
+threes, picking on the way the things which they professed to have
+come out for, until they had gone some distance from Olpae, when
+they quickened their pace.  The Ambraciots and such of the rest as
+had accompanied them in larger parties, seeing them going on, pushed
+on in their turn, and began running in order to catch them up.  The
+Acarnanians at first thought that all alike were departing without
+permission, and began to pursue the Peloponnesians; and believing that
+they were being betrayed, even threw a dart or two at some of their
+generals who tried to stop them and told them that leave had been
+given.  Eventually, however, they let pass the Mantineans and
+Peloponnesians, and slew only the Ambraciots, there being much dispute
+and difficulty in distinguishing whether a man was an Ambraciot or a
+Peloponnesian.  The number thus slain was about two hundred; the rest
+escaped into the bordering territory of Agraea, and found refuge
+with Salynthius, the friendly king of the Agraeans.
+
+Meanwhile the Ambraciots from the city arrived at Idomene.  Idomene
+consists of two lofty hills, the higher of which the troops sent on by
+Demosthenes succeeded in occupying after nightfall, unobserved by
+the Ambraciots, who had meanwhile ascended the smaller and
+bivouacked under it.  After supper Demosthenes set out with the rest of
+the army, as soon as it was evening; himself with half his force
+making for the pass, and the remainder going by the Amphilochian
+hills.  At dawn he fell upon the Ambraciots while they were still abed,
+ignorant of what had passed, and fully thinking that it was their
+own countrymen--Demosthenes having purposely put the Messenians in
+front with orders to address them in the Doric dialect, and thus to
+inspire confidence in the sentinels, who would not be able to see them
+as it was still night.  In this way he routed their army as soon as
+he attacked it, slaying most of them where they were, the rest
+breaking away in flight over the hills.  The roads, however, were
+already occupied, and while the Amphilochians knew their own
+country, the Ambraciots were ignorant of it and could not tell which
+way to turn, and had also heavy armour as against a light-armed enemy,
+and so fell into ravines and into the ambushes which had been set
+for them, and perished there.  In their manifold efforts to escape some
+even turned to the sea, which was not far off, and seeing the Athenian
+ships coasting alongshore just while the action was going on, swam off
+to them, thinking it better in the panic they were in, to perish, if
+perish they must, by the hands of the Athenians, than by those of
+the barbarous and detested Amphilochians.  Of the large Ambraciot force
+destroyed in this manner, a few only reached the city in safety; while
+the Acarnanians, after stripping the dead and setting up a trophy,
+returned to Argos.
+
+The next day arrived a herald from the Ambraciots who had fled
+from Olpae to the Agraeans, to ask leave to take up the dead that
+had fallen after the first engagement, when they left the camp with
+the Mantineans and their companions, without, like them, having had
+permission to do so.  At the sight of the arms of the Ambraciots from
+the city, the herald was astonished at their number, knowing nothing
+of the disaster and fancying that they were those of their own
+party.  Some one asked him what he was so astonished at, and how many
+of them had been killed, fancying in his turn that this was the herald
+from the troops at Idomene.  He replied: "About two hundred"; upon
+which his interrogator took him up, saying: "Why, the arms you see
+here are of more than a thousand." The herald replied: "Then they
+are not the arms of those who fought with us?" The other answered:
+"Yes, they are, if at least you fought at Idomene yesterday." "But
+we fought with no one yesterday; but the day before in the retreat."
+"However that may be, we fought yesterday with those who came to
+reinforce you from the city of the Ambraciots." When the herald
+heard this and knew that the reinforcement from the city had been
+destroyed, he broke into wailing and, stunned at the magnitude of
+the present evils, went away at once without having performed his
+errand, or again asking for the dead bodies.  Indeed, this was by far
+the greatest disaster that befell any one Hellenic city in an equal
+number of days during this war; and I have not set down the number
+of the dead, because the amount stated seems so out of proportion to
+the size of the city as to be incredible.  In any case I know that if
+the Acarnanians and Amphilochians had wished to take Ambracia as the
+Athenians and Demosthenes advised, they would have done so without a
+blow; as it was, they feared that if the Athenians had it they would
+be worse neighbours to them than the present.
+
+After this the Acarnanians allotted a third of the spoils to the
+Athenians, and divided the rest among their own different towns.  The
+share of the Athenians was captured on the voyage home; the arms now
+deposited in the Attic temples are three hundred panoplies, which
+the Acarnanians set apart for Demosthenes, and which he brought to
+Athens in person, his return to his country after the Aetolian
+disaster being rendered less hazardous by this exploit.  The
+Athenians in the twenty ships also went off to Naupactus.  The
+Acarnanians and Amphilochians, after the departure of Demosthenes
+and the Athenians, granted the Ambraciots and Peloponnesians who had
+taken refuge with Salynthius and the Agraeans a free retreat from
+Oeniadae, to which place they had removed from the country of
+Salynthius, and for the future concluded with the Ambraciots a
+treaty and alliance for one hundred years, upon the terms following.
+It was to be a defensive, not an offensive alliance; the Ambraciots
+could not be required to march with the Acarnanians against the
+Peloponnesians, nor the Acarnanians with the Ambraciots against the
+Athenians; for the rest the Ambraciots were to give up the places
+and hostages that they held of the Amphilochians, and not to give help
+to Anactorium, which was at enmity with the Acarnanians.  With this
+arrangement they put an end to the war.  After this the Corinthians
+sent a garrison of their own citizens to Ambracia, composed of three
+hundred heavy infantry, under the command of Xenocleides, son of
+Euthycles, who reached their destination after a difficult journey
+across the continent.  Such was the history of the affair of Ambracia.
+
+The same winter the Athenians in Sicily made a descent from their
+ships upon the territory of Himera, in concert with the Sicels, who
+had invaded its borders from the interior, and also sailed to the
+islands of Aeolus.  Upon their return to Rhegium they found the
+Athenian general, Pythodorus, son of Isolochus, come to supersede
+Laches in the command of the fleet.  The allies in Sicily had sailed to
+Athens and induced the Athenians to send out more vessels to their
+assistance, pointing out that the Syracusans who already commanded
+their land were making efforts to get together a navy, to avoid
+being any longer excluded from the sea by a few vessels.  The Athenians
+proceeded to man forty ships to send to them, thinking that the war in
+Sicily would thus be the sooner ended, and also wishing to exercise
+their navy.  One of the generals, Pythodorus, was accordingly sent
+out with a few ships; Sophocles, son of Sostratides, and Eurymedon,
+son of Thucles, being destined to follow with the main body.  Meanwhile
+Pythodorus had taken the command of Laches' ships, and towards the end
+of winter sailed against the Locrian fort, which Laches had formerly
+taken, and returned after being defeated in battle by the Locrians.
+
+In the first days of this spring, the stream of fire issued from
+Etna, as on former occasions, and destroyed some land of the
+Catanians, who live upon Mount Etna, which is the largest mountain
+in Sicily.  Fifty years, it is said, had elapsed since the last
+eruption, there having been three in all since the Hellenes have
+inhabited Sicily.  Such were the events of this winter; and with it
+ended the sixth year of this war, of which Thucydides was the
+historian.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_Seventh Year of the War - Occupation of Pylos - Surrender of
+the Spartan Army in Sphacteria_
+
+Next summer, about the time of the corn's coming into ear, ten
+Syracusan and as many Locrian vessels sailed to Messina, in Sicily,
+and occupied the town upon the invitation of the inhabitants; and
+Messina revolted from the Athenians.  The Syracusans contrived this
+chiefly because they saw that the place afforded an approach to
+Sicily, and feared that the Athenians might hereafter use it as a base
+for attacking them with a larger force; the Locrians because they
+wished to carry on hostilities from both sides of the strait and to
+reduce their enemies, the people of Rhegium.  Meanwhile, the Locrians
+had invaded the Rhegian territory with all their forces, to prevent
+their succouring Messina, and also at the instance of some exiles from
+Rhegium who were with them; the long factions by which that town had
+been torn rendering it for the moment incapable of resistance, and
+thus furnishing an additional temptation to the invaders.  After
+devastating the country the Locrian land forces retired, their ships
+remaining to guard Messina, while others were being manned for the
+same destination to carry on the war from thence.
+
+About the same time in the spring, before the corn was ripe, the
+Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under Agis, the son
+of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat down and laid waste
+the country.  Meanwhile the Athenians sent off the forty ships which
+they had been preparing to Sicily, with the remaining generals
+Eurymedon and Sophocles; their colleague Pythodorus having already
+preceded them thither.  These had also instructions as they sailed by
+to look to the Corcyraeans in the town, who were being plundered by
+the exiles in the mountain.  To support these exiles sixty
+Peloponnesian vessels had lately sailed, it being thought that the
+famine raging in the city would make it easy for them to reduce it.
+Demosthenes also, who had remained without employment since his return
+from Acarnania, applied and obtained permission to use the fleet, if
+he wished it, upon the coast of Peloponnese.
+
+Off Laconia they heard that the Peloponnesian ships were already
+at Corcyra, upon which Eurymedon and Sophocles wished to hasten to the
+island, but Demosthenes required them first to touch at Pylos and do
+what was wanted there, before continuing their voyage.  While they were
+making objections, a squall chanced to come on and carried the fleet
+into Pylos.  Demosthenes at once urged them to fortify the place, it
+being for this that he had come on the voyage, and made them observe
+there was plenty of stone and timber on the spot, and that the place
+was strong by nature, and together with much of the country round
+unoccupied; Pylos, or Coryphasium, as the Lacedaemonians call it,
+being about forty-five miles distant from Sparta, and situated in
+the old country of the Messenians.  The commanders told him that
+there was no lack of desert headlands in Peloponnese if he wished to
+put the city to expense by occupying them.  He, however, thought that
+this place was distinguished from others of the kind by having a
+harbour close by; while the Messenians, the old natives of the
+country, speaking the same dialect as the Lacedaemonians, could do
+them the greatest mischief by their incursions from it, and would at
+the same time be a trusty garrison.
+
+After speaking to the captains of companies on the subject, and
+failing to persuade either the generals or the soldiers, he remained
+inactive with the rest from stress of weather; until the soldiers
+themselves wanting occupation were seized with a sudden impulse to
+go round and fortify the place.  Accordingly they set to work in
+earnest, and having no iron tools, picked up stones, and put them
+together as they happened to fit, and where mortar was needed, carried
+it on their backs for want of hods, stooping down to make it stay
+on, and clasping their hands together behind to prevent it falling
+off; sparing no effort to be able to complete the most vulnerable
+points before the arrival of the Lacedaemonians, most of the place
+being sufficiently strong by nature without further fortifications.
+
+Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians were celebrating a festival, and also
+at first made light of the news, in the idea that whenever they
+chose to take the field the place would be immediately evacuated by
+the enemy or easily taken by force; the absence of their army before
+Athens having also something to do with their delay.  The Athenians
+fortified the place on the land side, and where it most required it,
+in six days, and leaving Demosthenes with five ships to garrison it,
+with the main body of the fleet hastened on their voyage to Corcyra
+and Sicily.
+
+As soon as the Peloponnesians in Attica heard of the occupation of
+Pylos, they hurried back home; the Lacedaemonians and their king
+Agis thinking that the matter touched them nearly.  Besides having made
+their invasion early in the season, and while the corn was still
+green, most of their troops were short of provisions: the weather also
+was unusually bad for the time of year, and greatly distressed their
+army.  Many reasons thus combined to hasten their departure and to make
+this invasion a very short one; indeed they only stayed fifteen days
+in Attica.
+
+About the same time the Athenian general Simonides getting
+together a few Athenians from the garrisons, and a number of the
+allies in those parts, took Eion in Thrace, a Mendaean colony and
+hostile to Athens, by treachery, but had no sooner done so than the
+Chalcidians and Bottiaeans came up and beat him out of it, with the
+loss of many of his soldiers.
+
+On the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica, the Spartans
+themselves and the nearest of the Perioeci at once set out for
+Pylos, the other Lacedaemonians following more slowly, as they had
+just come in from another campaign.  Word was also sent round
+Peloponnese to come up as quickly as possible to Pylos; while the
+sixty Peloponnesian ships were sent for from Corcyra, and being
+dragged by their crews across the isthmus of Leucas, passed
+unperceived by the Athenian squadron at Zacynthus, and reached
+Pylos, where the land forces had arrived before them.  Before the
+Peloponnesian fleet sailed in, Demosthenes found time to send out
+unobserved two ships to inform Eurymedon and the Athenians on board
+the fleet at Zacynthus of the danger of Pylos and to summon them to
+his assistance.  While the ships hastened on their voyage in
+obedience to the orders of Demosthenes, the Lacedaemonians prepared to
+assault the fort by land and sea, hoping to capture with ease a work
+constructed in haste, and held by a feeble garrison.  Meanwhile, as
+they expected the Athenian ships to arrive from Zacynthus, they
+intended, if they failed to take the place before, to block up the
+entrances of the harbour to prevent their being able to anchor
+inside it.  For the island of Sphacteria, stretching along in a line
+close in front of the harbour, at once makes it safe and narrows its
+entrances, leaving a passage for two ships on the side nearest Pylos
+and the Athenian fortifications, and for eight or nine on that next
+the rest of the mainland: for the rest, the island was entirely
+covered with wood, and without paths through not being inhabited,
+and about one mile and five furlongs in length.  The inlets the
+Lacedaemonians meant to close with a line of ships placed close
+together, with their prows turned towards the sea, and, meanwhile,
+fearing that the enemy might make use of the island to operate against
+them, carried over some heavy infantry thither, stationing others
+along the coast.  By this means the island and the continent would be
+alike hostile to the Athenians, as they would be unable to land on
+either; and the shore of Pylos itself outside the inlet towards the
+open sea having no harbour, and, therefore, presenting no point
+which they could use as a base to relieve their countrymen, they,
+the Lacedaemonians, without sea-fight or risk would in all probability
+become masters of the place, occupied as it had been on the spur of
+the moment, and unfurnished with provisions.  This being determined,
+they carried over to the island the heavy infantry, drafted by lot
+from all the companies.  Some others had crossed over before in
+relief parties, but these last who were left there were four hundred
+and twenty in number, with their Helot attendants, commanded by
+Epitadas, son of Molobrus.
+
+Meanwhile Demosthenes, seeing the Lacedaemonians about to attack him
+by sea and land at once, himself was not idle.  He drew up under the
+fortification and enclosed in a stockade the galleys remaining to
+him of those which had been left him, arming the sailors taken out
+of them with poor shields made most of them of osier, it being
+impossible to procure arms in such a desert place, and even these
+having been obtained from a thirty-oared Messenian privateer and a
+boat belonging to some Messenians who happened to have come to them.
+Among these Messenians were forty heavy infantry, whom he made use
+of with the rest.  Posting most of his men, unarmed and armed, upon the
+best fortified and strong points of the place towards the interior,
+with orders to repel any attack of the land forces, he picked sixty
+heavy infantry and a few archers from his whole force, and with
+these went outside the wall down to the sea, where he thought that the
+enemy would most likely attempt to land.  Although the ground was
+difficult and rocky, looking towards the open sea, the fact that
+this was the weakest part of the wall would, he thought, encourage
+their ardour, as the Athenians, confident in their naval
+superiority, had here paid little attention to their defences, and the
+enemy if he could force a landing might feel secure of taking the
+place.  At this point, accordingly, going down to the water's edge,
+he posted his heavy infantry to prevent, if possible, a landing, and
+encouraged them in the following terms:
+
+"Soldiers and comrades in this adventure, I hope that none of you in
+our present strait will think to show his wit by exactly calculating
+all the perils that encompass us, but that you will rather hasten to
+close with the enemy, without staying to count the odds, seeing in
+this your best chance of safety.  In emergencies like ours
+calculation is out of place; the sooner the danger is faced the
+better.  To my mind also most of the chances are for us, if we will
+only stand fast and not throw away our advantages, overawed by the
+numbers of the enemy.  One of the points in our favour is the
+awkwardness of the landing.  This, however, only helps us if we stand
+our ground.  If we give way it will be practicable enough, in spite
+of its natural difficulty, without a defender; and the enemy will
+instantly become more formidable from the difficulty he will have in
+retreating, supposing that we succeed in repulsing him, which we shall
+find it easier to do, while he is on board his ships, than after he
+has landed and meets us on equal terms.  As to his numbers, these
+need not too much alarm you.  Large as they may be he can only engage
+in small detachments, from the impossibility of bringing to.
+Besides, the numerical superiority that we have to meet is not that of
+an army on land with everything else equal, but of troops on board
+ship, upon an element where many favourable accidents are required
+to act with effect.  I therefore consider that his difficulties may
+be fairly set against our numerical deficiencies, and at the same time
+I charge you, as Athenians who know by experience what landing from
+ships on a hostile territory means, and how impossible it is to
+drive back an enemy determined enough to stand his ground and not to
+be frightened away by the surf and the terrors of the ships sailing
+in, to stand fast in the present emergency, beat back the enemy at the
+water's edge, and save yourselves and the place."
+
+Thus encouraged by Demosthenes, the Athenians felt more confident,
+and went down to meet the enemy, posting themselves along the edge
+of the sea.  The Lacedaemonians now put themselves in movement and
+simultaneously assaulted the fortification with their land forces
+and with their ships, forty-three in number, under their admiral,
+Thrasymelidas, son of Cratesicles, a Spartan, who made his attack just
+where Demosthenes expected.  The Athenians had thus to defend
+themselves on both sides, from the land and from the sea; the enemy
+rowing up in small detachments, the one relieving the other--it being
+impossible for many to bring to at once--and showing great ardour and
+cheering each other on, in the endeavour to force a passage and to
+take the fortification.  He who most distinguished himself was
+Brasidas.  Captain of a galley, and seeing that the captains and
+steersmen, impressed by the difficulty of the position, hung back even
+where a landing might have seemed possible, for fear of wrecking their
+vessels, he shouted out to them, that they must never allow the
+enemy to fortify himself in their country for the sake of saving
+timber, but must shiver their vessels and force a landing; and bade
+the allies, instead of hesitating in such a moment to sacrifice
+their ships for Lacedaemon in return for her many benefits, to run
+them boldly aground, land in one way or another, and make themselves
+masters of the place and its garrison.
+
+Not content with this exhortation, he forced his own steersman to
+run his ship ashore, and stepping on to the gangway, was
+endeavouring to land, when he was cut down by the Athenians, and after
+receiving many wounds fainted away.  Falling into the bows, his
+shield slipped off his arm into the sea, and being thrown ashore was
+picked up by the Athenians, and afterwards used for the trophy which
+they set up for this attack.  The rest also did their best, but were
+not able to land, owing to the difficulty of the ground and the
+unflinching tenacity of the Athenians.  It was a strange reversal of
+the order of things for Athenians to be fighting from the land, and
+from Laconian land too, against Lacedaemonians coming from the sea;
+while Lacedaemonians were trying to land from shipboard in their own
+country, now become hostile, to attack Athenians, although the
+former were chiefly famous at the time as an inland people and
+superior by land, the latter as a maritime people with a navy that had
+no equal.
+
+After continuing their attacks during that day and most of the next,
+the Peloponnesians desisted, and the day after sent some of their
+ships to Asine for timber to make engines, hoping to take by their
+aid, in spite of its height, the wall opposite the harbour, where
+the landing was easiest.  At this moment the Athenian fleet from
+Zacynthus arrived, now numbering fifty sail, having been reinforced by
+some of the ships on guard at Naupactus and by four Chian vessels.
+Seeing the coast and the island both crowded with heavy infantry,
+and the hostile ships in harbour showing no signs of sailing out, at a
+loss where to anchor, they sailed for the moment to the desert
+island of Prote, not far off, where they passed the night.  The next
+day they got under way in readiness to engage in the open sea if the
+enemy chose to put out to meet them, being determined in the event
+of his not doing so to sail in and attack him.  The Lacedaemonians
+did not put out to sea, and having omitted to close the inlets as they
+had intended, remained quiet on shore, engaged in manning their
+ships and getting ready, in the case of any one sailing in, to fight
+in the harbour, which is a fairly large one.
+
+Perceiving this, the Athenians advanced against them by each
+inlet, and falling on the enemy's fleet, most of which was by this
+time afloat and in line, at once put it to flight, and giving chase as
+far as the short distance allowed, disabled a good many vessels and
+took five, one with its crew on board; dashing in at the rest that had
+taken refuge on shore, and battering some that were still being
+manned, before they could put out, and lashing on to their own ships
+and towing off empty others whose crews had fled.  At this sight the
+Lacedaemonians, maddened by a disaster which cut off their men on
+the island, rushed to the rescue, and going into the sea with their
+heavy armour, laid hold of the ships and tried to drag them back, each
+man thinking that success depended on his individual exertions.
+Great was the melee, and quite in contradiction to the naval tactics
+usual to the two combatants; the Lacedaemonians in their excitement
+and dismay being actually engaged in a sea-fight on land, while the
+victorious Athenians, in their eagerness to push their success as
+far as possible, were carrying on a land-fight from their ships.  After
+great exertions and numerous wounds on both sides they separated,
+the Lacedaemonians saving their empty ships, except those first taken;
+and both parties returning to their camp, the Athenians set up a
+trophy, gave back the dead, secured the wrecks, and at once began to
+cruise round and jealously watch the island, with its intercepted
+garrison, while the Peloponnesians on the mainland, whose
+contingents had now all come up, stayed where they were before Pylos.
+
+When the news of what had happened at Pylos reached Sparta, the
+disaster was thought so serious that the Lacedaemonians resolved
+that the authorities should go down to the camp, and decide on the
+spot what was best to be done.  There, seeing that it was impossible to
+help their men, and not wishing to risk their being reduced by
+hunger or overpowered by numbers, they determined, with the consent of
+the Athenian generals, to conclude an armistice at Pylos and send
+envoys to Athens to obtain a convention, and to endeavour to get
+back their men as quickly as possible.
+
+The generals accepting their offers, an armistice was concluded upon
+the terms following:
+
+That the Lacedaemonians should bring to Pylos and deliver up to
+the Athenians the ships that had fought in the late engagement, and
+all in Laconia that were vessels of war, and should make no attack
+on the fortification either by land or by sea.
+
+That the Athenians should allow the Lacedaemonians on the mainland
+to send to the men in the island a certain fixed quantity of corn
+ready kneaded, that is to say, two quarts of barley meal, one pint
+of wine, and a piece of meat for each man, and half the same
+quantity for a servant.
+
+That this allowance should be sent in under the eyes of the
+Athenians, and that no boat should sail to the island except openly.
+
+That the Athenians should continue to the island same as before,
+without however landing upon it, and should refrain from attacking the
+Peloponnesian troops either by land or by sea.
+
+That if either party should infringe any of these terms in the
+slightest particular, the armistice should be at once void.
+
+That the armistice should hold good until the return of the
+Lacedaemonian envoys from Athens--the Athenians sending them thither
+in a galley and bringing them back again--and upon the arrival of the
+envoys should be at an end, and the ships be restored by the Athenians
+in the same state as they received them.
+
+Such were the terms of the armistice, and the ships were delivered
+over to the number of sixty, and the envoys sent off accordingly.
+Arrived at Athens they spoke as follows:
+
+"Athenians, the Lacedaemonians sent us to try to find some way of
+settling the affair of our men on the island, that shall be at once
+satisfactory to our interests, and as consistent with our dignity in
+our misfortune as circumstances permit.  We can venture to speak at
+some length without any departure from the habit of our country.  Men
+of few words where many are not wanted, we can be less brief when
+there is a matter of importance to be illustrated and an end to be
+served by its illustration.  Meanwhile we beg you to take what we may
+say, not in a hostile spirit, nor as if we thought you ignorant and
+wished to lecture you, but rather as a suggestion on the best course
+to be taken, addressed to intelligent judges.  You can now, if you
+choose, employ your present success to advantage, so as to keep what
+you have got and gain honour and reputation besides, and you can avoid
+the mistake of those who meet with an extraordinary piece of good
+fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp continually at something
+further, through having already succeeded without expecting it.
+While those who have known most vicissitudes of good and bad, have
+also justly least faith in their prosperity; and to teach your city
+and ours this lesson experience has not been wanting.
+
+"To be convinced of this you have only to look at our present
+misfortune.  What power in Hellas stood higher than we did? and yet
+we are come to you, although we formerly thought ourselves more able
+to grant what we are now here to ask.  Nevertheless, we have not been
+brought to this by any decay in our power, or through having our heads
+turned by aggrandizement; no, our resources are what they have
+always been, and our error has been an error of judgment, to which all
+are equally liable.  Accordingly, the prosperity which your city now
+enjoys, and the accession that it has lately received, must not make
+you fancy that fortune will be always with you.  Indeed sensible men
+are prudent enough to treat their gains as precarious, just as they
+would also keep a clear head in adversity, and think that war, so
+far from staying within the limit to which a combatant may wish to
+confine it, will run the course that its chances prescribe; and
+thus, not being puffed up by confidence in military success, they
+are less likely to come to grief, and most ready to make peace, if
+they can, while their fortune lasts.  This, Athenians, you have a
+good opportunity to do now with us, and thus to escape the possible
+disasters which may follow upon your refusal, and the consequent
+imputation of having owed to accident even your present advantages,
+when you might have left behind you a reputation for power and
+wisdom which nothing could endanger.
+
+"The Lacedaemonians accordingly invite you to make a treaty and to
+end the war, and offer peace and alliance and the most friendly and
+intimate relations in every way and on every occasion between us;
+and in return ask for the men on the island, thinking it better for
+both parties not to stand out to the end, on the chance of some
+favourable accident enabling the men to force their way out, or of
+their being compelled to succumb under the pressure of blockade.
+Indeed if great enmities are ever to be really settled, we think it
+will be, not by the system of revenge and military success, and by
+forcing an opponent to swear to a treaty to his disadvantage, but when
+the more fortunate combatant waives these his privileges, to be guided
+by gentler feelings conquers his rival in generosity, and accords
+peace on more moderate conditions than he expected.  From that
+moment, instead of the debt of revenge which violence must entail, his
+adversary owes a debt of generosity to be paid in kind, and is
+inclined by honour to stand to his agreement.  And men oftener act in
+this manner towards their greatest enemies than where the quarrel is
+of less importance; they are also by nature as glad to give way to
+those who first yield to them, as they are apt to be provoked by
+arrogance to risks condemned by their own judgment.
+
+"To apply this to ourselves: if peace was ever desirable for both
+parties, it is surely so at the present moment, before anything
+irremediable befall us and force us to hate you eternally,
+personally as well as politically, and you to miss the advantages that
+we now offer you.  While the issue is still in doubt, and you have
+reputation and our friendship in prospect, and we the compromise of
+our misfortune before anything fatal occur, let us be reconciled,
+and for ourselves choose peace instead of war, and grant to the rest
+of the Hellenes a remission from their sufferings, for which be sure
+they will think they have chiefly you to thank.  The war that they
+labour under they know not which began, but the peace that concludes
+it, as it depends on your decision, will by their gratitude be laid to
+your door.  By such a decision you can become firm friends with the
+Lacedaemonians at their own invitation, which you do not force from
+them, but oblige them by accepting.  And from this friendship
+consider the advantages that are likely to follow: when Attica and
+Sparta are at one, the rest of Hellas, be sure, will remain in
+respectful inferiority before its heads."
+
+Such were the words of the Lacedaemonians, their idea being that the
+Athenians, already desirous of a truce and only kept back by their
+opposition, would joyfully accept a peace freely offered, and give
+back the men.  The Athenians, however, having the men on the island,
+thought that the treaty would be ready for them whenever they chose to
+make it, and grasped at something further.  Foremost to encourage
+them in this policy was Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, a popular leader
+of the time and very powerful with the multitude, who persuaded them
+to answer as follows: First, the men in the island must surrender
+themselves and their arms and be brought to Athens.  Next, the
+Lacedaemonians must restore Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and Achaia, all
+places acquired not by arms, but by the previous convention, under
+which they had been ceded by Athens herself at a moment of disaster,
+when a truce was more necessary to her than at present.  This done they
+might take back their men, and make a truce for as long as both
+parties might agree.
+
+To this answer the envoys made no reply, but asked that
+commissioners might be chosen with whom they might confer on each
+point, and quietly talk the matter over and try to come to some
+agreement.  Hereupon Cleon violently assailed them, saying that he knew
+from the first that they had no right intentions, and that it was
+clear enough now by their refusing to speak before the people, and
+wanting to confer in secret with a committee of two or three.  No, if
+they meant anything honest let them say it out before all.  The
+Lacedaemonians, however, seeing that whatever concessions they might
+be prepared to make in their misfortune, it was impossible for them to
+speak before the multitude and lose credit with their allies for a
+negotiation which might after all miscarry, and on the other hand,
+that the Athenians would never grant what they asked upon moderate
+terms, returned from Athens without having effected anything.
+
+Their arrival at once put an end to the armistice at Pylos, and
+the Lacedaemonians asked back their ships according to the convention.
+The Athenians, however, alleged an attack on the fort in contravention
+of the truce, and other grievances seemingly not worth mentioning, and
+refused to give them back, insisting upon the clause by which the
+slightest infringement made the armistice void.  The Lacedaemonians,
+after denying the contravention and protesting against their bad faith
+in the matter of the ships, went away and earnestly addressed
+themselves to the war.  Hostilities were now carried on at Pylos upon
+both sides with vigour.  The Athenians cruised round the island all day
+with two ships going different ways; and by night, except on the
+seaward side in windy weather, anchored round it with their whole
+fleet, which, having been reinforced by twenty ships from Athens
+come to aid in the blockade, now numbered seventy sail; while the
+Peloponnesians remained encamped on the continent, making attacks on
+the fort, and on the look-out for any opportunity which might offer
+itself for the deliverance of their men.
+
+Meanwhile the Syracusans and their allies in Sicily had brought up
+to the squadron guarding Messina the reinforcement which we left
+them preparing, and carried on the war from thence, incited chiefly by
+the Locrians from hatred of the Rhegians, whose territory they had
+invaded with all their forces.  The Syracusans also wished to try their
+fortune at sea, seeing that the Athenians had only a few ships
+actually at Rhegium, and hearing that the main fleet destined to
+join them was engaged in blockading the island.  A naval victory,
+they thought, would enable them to blockade Rhegium by sea and land,
+and easily to reduce it; a success which would at once place their
+affairs upon a solid basis, the promontory of Rhegium in Italy and
+Messina in Sicily being so near each other that it would be impossible
+for the Athenians to cruise against them and command the strait.  The
+strait in question consists of the sea between Rhegium and Messina, at
+the point where Sicily approaches nearest to the continent, and is the
+Charybdis through which the story makes Ulysses sail; and the
+narrowness of the passage and the strength of the current that pours
+in from the vast Tyrrhenian and Sicilian mains, have rightly given
+it a bad reputation.
+
+In this strait the Syracusans and their allies were compelled to
+fight, late in the day, about the passage of a boat, putting out
+with rather more than thirty ships against sixteen Athenian and
+eight Rhegian vessels.  Defeated by the Athenians they hastily set off,
+each for himself, to their own stations at Messina and Rhegium, with
+the loss of one ship; night coming on before the battle was
+finished.  After this the Locrians retired from the Rhegian
+territory, and the ships of the Syracusans and their allies united and
+came to anchor at Cape Pelorus, in the territory of Messina, where
+their land forces joined them.  Here the Athenians and Rhegians
+sailed up, and seeing the ships unmanned, made an attack, in which
+they in their turn lost one vessel, which was caught by a grappling
+iron, the crew saving themselves by swimming.  After this the
+Syracusans got on board their ships, and while they were being towed
+alongshore to Messina, were again attacked by the Athenians, but
+suddenly got out to sea and became the assailants, and caused them
+to lose another vessel.  After thus holding their own in the voyage
+alongshore and in the engagement as above described, the Syracusans
+sailed on into the harbour of Messina.
+
+Meanwhile the Athenians, having received warning that Camarina was
+about to be betrayed to the Syracusans by Archias and his party,
+sailed thither; and the Messinese took this opportunity to attack by
+sea and land with all their forces their Chalcidian neighbour,
+Naxos.  The first day they forced the Naxians to keep their walls,
+and laid waste their country; the next they sailed round with their
+ships, and laid waste their land on the river Akesines, while their
+land forces menaced the city.  Meanwhile the Sicels came down from
+the high country in great numbers, to aid against the Messinese; and
+the Naxians, elated at the sight, and animated by a belief that the
+Leontines and their other Hellenic allies were coming to their
+support, suddenly sallied out from the town, and attacked and routed
+the Messinese, killing more than a thousand of them; while the
+remainder suffered severely in their retreat home, being attacked by
+the barbarians on the road, and most of them cut off.  The ships put in
+to Messina, and afterwards dispersed for their different homes.  The
+Leontines and their allies, with the Athenians, upon this at once
+turned their arms against the now weakened Messina, and attacked,
+the Athenians with their ships on the side of the harbour, and the
+land forces on that of the town.  The Messinese, however, sallying
+out with Demoteles and some Locrians who had been left to garrison the
+city after the disaster, suddenly attacked and routed most of the
+Leontine army, killing a great number; upon seeing which the Athenians
+landed from their ships, and falling on the Messinese in disorder
+chased them back into the town, and setting up a trophy retired to
+Rhegium.  After this the Hellenes in Sicily continued to make war on
+each other by land, without the Athenians.
+
+Meanwhile the Athenians at Pylos were still besieging the
+Lacedaemonians in the island, the Peloponnesian forces on the
+continent remaining where they were.  The blockade was very laborious
+for the Athenians from want of food and water; there was no spring
+except one in the citadel of Pylos itself, and that not a large one,
+and most of them were obliged to grub up the shingle on the sea
+beach and drink such water as they could find.  They also suffered from
+want of room, being encamped in a narrow space; and as there was no
+anchorage for the ships, some took their meals on shore in their turn,
+while the others were anchored out at sea.  But their greatest
+discouragement arose from the unexpectedly long time which it took
+to reduce a body of men shut up in a desert island, with only brackish
+water to drink, a matter which they had imagined would take them
+only a few days.  The fact was that the Lacedaemonians had made
+advertisement for volunteers to carry into the island ground corn,
+wine, cheese, and any other food useful in a siege; high prices
+being offered, and freedom promised to any of the Helots who should
+succeed in doing so.  The Helots accordingly were most forward to
+engage in this risky traffic, putting off from this or that part of
+Peloponnese, and running in by night on the seaward side of the
+island.  They were best pleased, however, when they could catch a
+wind to carry them in.  It was more easy to elude the look-out of the
+galleys, when it blew from the seaward, as it became impossible for
+them to anchor round the island; while the Helots had their boats
+rated at their value in money, and ran them ashore, without caring how
+they landed, being sure to find the soldiers waiting for them at the
+landing-places.  But all who risked it in fair weather were taken.
+Divers also swam in under water from the harbour, dragging by a cord
+in skins poppyseed mixed with honey, and bruised linseed; these at
+first escaped notice, but afterwards a look-out was kept for them.
+In short, both sides tried every possible contrivance, the one to
+throw in provisions, and the other to prevent their introduction.
+
+At Athens, meanwhile, the news that the army was in great
+distress, and that corn found its way in to the men in the island,
+caused no small perplexity; and the Athenians began to fear that
+winter might come on and find them still engaged in the blockade.  They
+saw that the convoying of provisions round Peloponnese would be then
+impossible.  The country offered no resources in itself, and even in
+summer they could not send round enough.  The blockade of a place
+without harbours could no longer be kept up; and the men would
+either escape by the siege being abandoned, or would watch for bad
+weather and sail out in the boats that brought in their corn.  What
+caused still more alarm was the attitude of the Lacedaemonians, who
+must, it was thought by the Athenians, feel themselves on strong
+ground not to send them any more envoys; and they began to repent
+having rejected the treaty.  Cleon, perceiving the disfavour with which
+he was regarded for having stood in the way of the convention, now
+said that their informants did not speak the truth; and upon the
+messengers recommending them, if they did not believe them, to send
+some commissioners to see, Cleon himself and Theagenes were chosen
+by the Athenians as commissioners.  Aware that he would now be
+obliged either to say what had been already said by the men whom he
+was slandering, or be proved a liar if he said the contrary, he told
+the Athenians, whom he saw to be not altogether disinclined for a
+fresh expedition, that instead of sending and wasting their time and
+opportunities, if they believed what was told them, they ought to sail
+against the men.  And pointing at Nicias, son of Niceratus, then
+general, whom he hated, he tauntingly said that it would be easy, if
+they had men for generals, to sail with a force and take those in
+the island, and that if he had himself been in command, he would
+have done it.
+
+Nicias, seeing the Athenians murmuring against Cleon for not sailing
+now if it seemed to him so easy, and further seeing himself the object
+of attack, told him that for all that the generals cared, he might
+take what force he chose and make the attempt.  At first Cleon
+fancied that this resignation was merely a figure of speech, and was
+ready to go, but finding that it was seriously meant, he drew back,
+and said that Nicias, not he, was general, being now frightened, and
+having never supposed that Nicias would go so far as to retire in
+his favour.  Nicias, however, repeated his offer, and resigned the
+command against Pylos, and called the Athenians to witness that he did
+so.  And as the multitude is wont to do, the more Cleon shrank from the
+expedition and tried to back out of what he had said, the more they
+encouraged Nicias to hand over his command, and clamoured at Cleon
+to go.  At last, not knowing how to get out of his words, he
+undertook the expedition, and came forward and said that he was not
+afraid of the Lacedaemonians, but would sail without taking any one
+from the city with him, except the Lemnians and Imbrians that were
+at Athens, with some targeteers that had come up from Aenus, and
+four hundred archers from other quarters.  With these and the
+soldiers at Pylos, he would within twenty days either bring the
+Lacedaemonians alive, or kill them on the spot.  The Athenians could
+not help laughing at his fatuity, while sensible men comforted
+themselves with the reflection that they must gain in either
+circumstance; either they would be rid of Cleon, which they rather
+hoped, or if disappointed in this expectation, would reduce the
+Lacedaemonians.
+
+After he had settled everything in the assembly, and the Athenians
+had voted him the command of the expedition, he chose as his colleague
+Demosthenes, one of the generals at Pylos, and pushed forward the
+preparations for his voyage.  His choice fell upon Demosthenes
+because he heard that he was contemplating a descent on the island;
+the soldiers distressed by the difficulties of the position, and
+rather besieged than besiegers, being eager to fight it out, while the
+firing of the island had increased the confidence of the general.  He
+had been at first afraid, because the island having never been
+inhabited was almost entirely covered with wood and without paths,
+thinking this to be in the enemy's favour, as he might land with a
+large force, and yet might suffer loss by an attack from an unseen
+position.  The mistakes and forces of the enemy the wood would in a
+great measure conceal from him, while every blunder of his own
+troops would be at once detected, and they would be thus able to
+fall upon him unexpectedly just where they pleased, the attack being
+always in their power.  If, on the other hand, he should force them
+to engage in the thicket, the smaller number who knew the country
+would, he thought, have the advantage over the larger who were
+ignorant of it, while his own army might be cut off imperceptibly,
+in spite of its numbers, as the men would not be able to see where
+to succour each other.
+
+The Aetolian disaster, which had been mainly caused by the wood, had
+not a little to do with these reflections.  Meanwhile, one of the
+soldiers who were compelled by want of room to land on the extremities
+of the island and take their dinners, with outposts fixed to prevent a
+surprise, set fire to a little of the wood without meaning to do so;
+and as it came on to blow soon afterwards, almost the whole was
+consumed before they were aware of it.  Demosthenes was now able for
+the first time to see how numerous the Lacedaemonians really were,
+having up to this moment been under the impression that they took in
+provisions for a smaller number; he also saw that the Athenians
+thought success important and were anxious about it, and that it was
+now easier to land on the island, and accordingly got ready for the
+attempt, sent for troops from the allies in the neighbourhood, and
+pushed forward his other preparations.  At this moment Cleon arrived at
+Pylos with the troops which he had asked for, having sent on word to
+say that he was coming.  The first step taken by the two generals after
+their meeting was to send a herald to the camp on the mainland, to ask
+if they were disposed to avoid all risk and to order the men on the
+island to surrender themselves and their arms, to be kept in gentle
+custody until some general convention should be concluded.
+
+On the rejection of this proposition the generals let one day
+pass, and the next, embarking all their heavy infantry on board a
+few ships, put out by night, and a little before dawn landed on both
+sides of the island from the open sea and from the harbour, being
+about eight hundred strong, and advanced with a run against the
+first post in the island.
+
+The enemy had distributed his force as follows: In this first post
+there were about thirty heavy infantry; the centre and most level
+part, where the water was, was held by the main body, and by
+Epitadas their commander; while a small party guarded the very end
+of the island, towards Pylos, which was precipitous on the sea-side
+and very difficult to attack from the land, and where there was also a
+sort of old fort of stones rudely put together, which they thought
+might be useful to them, in case they should be forced to retreat.
+Such was their disposition.
+
+The advanced post thus attacked by the Athenians was at once put
+to the sword, the men being scarcely out of bed and still arming,
+the landing having taken them by surprise, as they fancied the ships
+were only sailing as usual to their stations for the night.  As soon as
+day broke, the rest of the army landed, that is to say, all the
+crews of rather more than seventy ships, except the lowest rank of
+oars, with the arms they carried, eight hundred archers, and as many
+targeteers, the Messenian reinforcements, and all the other troops
+on duty round Pylos, except the garrison on the fort.  The tactics of
+Demosthenes had divided them into companies of two hundred, more or
+less, and made them occupy the highest points in order to paralyse the
+enemy by surrounding him on every side and thus leaving him without
+any tangible adversary, exposed to the cross-fire of their host; plied
+by those in his rear if he attacked in front, and by those on one
+flank if he moved against those on the other.  In short, wherever he
+went he would have the assailants behind him, and these light-armed
+assailants, the most awkward of all; arrows, darts, stones, and slings
+making them formidable at a distance, and there being no means of
+getting at them at close quarters, as they could conquer flying, and
+the moment their pursuer turned they were upon him.  Such was the
+idea that inspired Demosthenes in his conception of the descent, and
+presided over its execution.
+
+Meanwhile the main body of the troops in the island (that under
+Epitadas), seeing their outpost cut off and an army advancing
+against them, serried their ranks and pressed forward to close with
+the Athenian heavy infantry in front of them, the light troops being
+upon their flanks and rear.  However, they were not able to engage or
+to profit by their superior skill, the light troops keeping them in
+check on either side with their missiles, and the heavy infantry
+remaining stationary instead of advancing to meet them; and although
+they routed the light troops wherever they ran up and approached too
+closely, yet they retreated fighting, being lightly equipped, and
+easily getting the start in their flight, from the difficult and
+rugged nature of the ground, in an island hitherto desert, over
+which the Lacedaemonians could not pursue them with their heavy
+armour.
+
+After this skirmishing had lasted some little while, the
+Lacedaemonians became unable to dash out with the same rapidity as
+before upon the points attacked, and the light troops finding that
+they now fought with less vigour, became more confident.  They could
+see with their own eyes that they were many times more numerous than
+the enemy; they were now more familiar with his aspect and found him
+less terrible, the result not having justified the apprehensions which
+they had suffered, when they first landed in slavish dismay at the
+idea of attacking Lacedaemonians; and accordingly their fear
+changing to disdain, they now rushed all together with loud shouts
+upon them, and pelted them with stones, darts, and arrows, whichever
+came first to hand.  The shouting accompanying their onset confounded
+the Lacedaemonians, unaccustomed to this mode of fighting; dust rose
+from the newly burnt wood, and it was impossible to see in front of
+one with the arrows and stones flying through clouds of dust from
+the hands of numerous assailants.  The Lacedaemonians had now to
+sustain a rude conflict; their caps would not keep out the arrows,
+darts had broken off in the armour of the wounded, while they
+themselves were helpless for offence, being prevented from using their
+eyes to see what was before them, and unable to hear the words of
+command for the hubbub raised by the enemy; danger encompassed them on
+every side, and there was no hope of any means of defence or safety.
+
+At last, after many had been already wounded in the confined space
+in which they were fighting, they formed in close order and retired on
+the fort at the end of the island, which was not far off, and to their
+friends who held it.  The moment they gave way, the light troops became
+bolder and pressed upon them, shouting louder than ever, and killed as
+many as they came up with in their retreat, but most of the
+Lacedaemonians made good their escape to the fort, and with the
+garrison in it ranged themselves all along its whole extent to repulse
+the enemy wherever it was assailable.  The Athenians pursuing, unable
+to surround and hem them in, owing to the strength of the ground,
+attacked them in front and tried to storm the position.  For a long
+time, indeed for most of the day, both sides held out against all
+the torments of the battle, thirst, and sun, the one endeavouring to
+drive the enemy from the high ground, the other to maintain himself
+upon it, it being now more easy for the Lacedaemonians to defend
+themselves than before, as they could not be surrounded on the flanks.
+
+The struggle began to seem endless, when the commander of the
+Messenians came to Cleon and Demosthenes, and told them that they were
+losing their labour: but if they would give him some archers and light
+troops to go round on the enemy's rear by a way he would undertake
+to find, he thought he could force the approach.  Upon receiving what
+he asked for, he started from a point out of sight in order not to
+be seen by the enemy, and creeping on wherever the precipices of the
+island permitted, and where the Lacedaemonians, trusting to the
+strength of the ground, kept no guard, succeeded after the greatest
+difficulty in getting round without their seeing him, and suddenly
+appeared on the high ground in their rear, to the dismay of the
+surprised enemy and the still greater joy of his expectant friends.
+The Lacedaemonians thus placed between two fires, and in the same
+dilemma, to compare small things with great, as at Thermopylae,
+where the defenders were cut off through the Persians getting round by
+the path, being now attacked in front and behind, began to give way,
+and overcome by the odds against them and exhausted from want of food,
+retreated.
+
+The Athenians were already masters of the approaches when Cleon
+and Demosthenes perceiving that, if the enemy gave way a single step
+further, they would be destroyed by their soldiery, put a stop to
+the battle and held their men back; wishing to take the Lacedaemonians
+alive to Athens, and hoping that their stubbornness might relax on
+hearing the offer of terms, and that they might surrender and yield to
+the present overwhelming danger.  Proclamation was accordingly made, to
+know if they would surrender themselves and their arms to the
+Athenians to be dealt at their discretion.
+
+The Lacedaemonians hearing this offer, most of them lowered their
+shields and waved their hands to show that they accepted it.
+Hostilities now ceased, and a parley was held between Cleon and
+Demosthenes and Styphon, son of Pharax, on the other side; since
+Epitadas, the first of the previous commanders, had been killed, and
+Hippagretas, the next in command, left for dead among the slain,
+though still alive, and thus the command had devolved upon Styphon
+according to the law, in case of anything happening to his
+superiors.  Styphon and his companions said they wished to send a
+herald to the Lacedaemonians on the mainland, to know what they were
+to do.  The Athenians would not let any of them go, but themselves
+called for heralds from the mainland, and after questions had been
+carried backwards and forwards two or three times, the last man that
+passed over from the Lacedaemonians on the continent brought this
+message: "The Lacedaemonians bid you to decide for yourselves so
+long as you do nothing dishonourable"; upon which after consulting
+together they surrendered themselves and their arms.  The Athenians,
+after guarding them that day and night, the next morning set up a
+trophy in the island, and got ready to sail, giving their prisoners in
+batches to be guarded by the captains of the galleys; and the
+Lacedaemonians sent a herald and took up their dead.  The number of the
+killed and prisoners taken in the island was as follows: four
+hundred and twenty heavy infantry had passed over; three hundred all
+but eight were taken alive to Athens; the rest were killed.  About a
+hundred and twenty of the prisoners were Spartans.  The Athenian loss
+was small, the battle not having been fought at close quarters.
+
+The blockade in all, counting from the fight at sea to the battle in
+the island, had lasted seventy-two days.  For twenty of these, during
+the absence of the envoys sent to treat for peace, the men had
+provisions given them, for the rest they were fed by the smugglers.
+Corn and other victual was found in the island; the commander Epitadas
+having kept the men upon half rations.  The Athenians and
+Peloponnesians now each withdrew their forces from Pylos, and went
+home, and crazy as Cleon's promise was, he fulfilled it, by bringing
+the men to Athens within the twenty days as he had pledged himself
+to do.
+
+Nothing that happened in the war surprised the Hellenes so much as
+this.  It was the opinion that no force or famine could make the
+Lacedaemonians give up their arms, but that they would fight on as
+they could, and die with them in their hands: indeed people could
+scarcely believe that those who had surrendered were of the same stuff
+as the fallen; and an Athenian ally, who some time after insultingly
+asked one of the prisoners from the island if those that had fallen
+were men of honour, received for answer that the atraktos--that is,
+the arrow--would be worth a great deal if it could tell men of honour
+from the rest; in allusion to the fact that the killed were those whom
+the stones and the arrows happened to hit.
+
+Upon the arrival of the men the Athenians determined to keep them in
+prison until the peace, and if the Peloponnesians invaded their
+country in the interval, to bring them out and put them to death.
+Meanwhile the defence of Pylos was not forgotten; the Messenians
+from Naupactus sent to their old country, to which Pylos formerly
+belonged, some of the likeliest of their number, and began a series of
+incursions into Laconia, which their common dialect rendered most
+destructive.  The Lacedaemonians, hitherto without experience of
+incursions or a warfare of the kind, finding the Helots deserting, and
+fearing the march of revolution in their country, began to be
+seriously uneasy, and in spite of their unwillingness to betray this
+to the Athenians began to send envoys to Athens, and tried to
+recover Pylos and the prisoners.  The Athenians, however, kept grasping
+at more, and dismissed envoy after envoy without their having effected
+anything.  Such was the history of the affair of Pylos.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_Seventh and Eighth Years of the War - End of Corcyraean Revolution -
+Peace of Gela - Capture of Nisaea_
+
+The same summer, directly after these events, the Athenians made
+an expedition against the territory of Corinth with eighty ships and
+two thousand Athenian heavy infantry, and two hundred cavalry on board
+horse transports, accompanied by the Milesians, Andrians, and
+Carystians from the allies, under the command of Nicias, son of
+Niceratus, with two colleagues.  Putting out to sea they made land at
+daybreak between Chersonese and Rheitus, at the beach of the country
+underneath the Solygian hill, upon which the Dorians in old times
+established themselves and carried on war against the Aeolian
+inhabitants of Corinth, and where a village now stands called Solygia.
+The beach where the fleet came to is about a mile and a half from
+the village, seven miles from Corinth, and two and a quarter from
+the Isthmus.  The Corinthians had heard from Argos of the coming of the
+Athenian armament, and had all come up to the Isthmus long before,
+with the exception of those who lived beyond it, and also of five
+hundred who were away in garrison in Ambracia and Leucadia; and they
+were there in full force watching for the Athenians to land.  These
+last, however, gave them the slip by coming in the dark; and being
+informed by signals of the fact the Corinthians left half their number
+at Cenchreae, in case the Athenians should go against Crommyon, and
+marched in all haste to the rescue.
+
+Battus, one of the two generals present at the action, went with a
+company to defend the village of Solygia, which was unfortified;
+Lycophron remaining to give battle with the rest.  The Corinthians
+first attacked the right wing of the Athenians, which had just
+landed in front of Chersonese, and afterwards the rest of the army.
+The battle was an obstinate one, and fought throughout hand to hand.
+The right wing of the Athenians and Carystians, who had been placed at
+the end of the line, received and with some difficulty repulsed the
+Corinthians, who thereupon retreated to a wall upon the rising
+ground behind, and throwing down the stones upon them, came on again
+singing the paean, and being received by the Athenians, were again
+engaged at close quarters.  At this moment a Corinthian company
+having come to the relief of the left wing, routed and pursued the
+Athenian right to the sea, whence they were in their turn driven
+back by the Athenians and Carystians from the ships.  Meanwhile the
+rest of the army on either side fought on tenaciously, especially
+the right wing of the Corinthians, where Lycophron sustained the
+attack of the Athenian left, which it was feared might attempt the
+village of Solygia.
+
+After holding on for a long while without either giving way, the
+Athenians aided by their horse, of which the enemy had none, at
+length routed the Corinthians, who retired to the hill and, halting,
+remained quiet there, without coming down again.  It was in this rout
+of the right wing that they had the most killed, Lycophron their
+general being among the number.  The rest of the army, broken and put
+to flight in this way without being seriously pursued or hurried,
+retired to the high ground and there took up its position.  The
+Athenians, finding that the enemy no longer offered to engage them,
+stripped his dead and took up their own and immediately set up a
+trophy.  Meanwhile, the half of the Corinthians left at Cenchreae to
+guard against the Athenians sailing on Crommyon, although unable to
+see the battle for Mount Oneion, found out what was going on by the
+dust, and hurried up to the rescue; as did also the older Corinthians
+from the town, upon discovering what had occurred.  The Athenians
+seeing them all coming against them, and thinking that they were
+reinforcements arriving from the neighbouring Peloponnesians,
+withdrew in haste to their ships with their spoils and their own
+dead, except two that they left behind, not being able to find them,
+and going on board crossed over to the islands opposite, and from
+thence sent a herald, and took up under truce the bodies which they
+had left behind.  Two hundred and twelve Corinthians fell in the
+battle, and rather less than fifty Athenians.
+
+Weighing from the islands, the Athenians sailed the same day to
+Crommyon in the Corinthian territory, about thirteen miles from the
+city, and coming to anchor laid waste the country, and passed the
+night there.  The next day, after first coasting along to the territory
+of Epidaurus and making a descent there, they came to Methana
+between Epidaurus and Troezen, and drew a wall across and fortified
+the isthmus of the peninsula, and left a post there from which
+incursions were henceforth made upon the country of Troezen, Haliae,
+and Epidaurus.  After walling off this spot, the fleet sailed off home.
+
+While these events were going on, Eurymedon and Sophocles had put to
+sea with the Athenian fleet from Pylos on their way to Sicily and,
+arriving at Corcyra, joined the townsmen in an expedition against
+the party established on Mount Istone, who had crossed over, as I have
+mentioned, after the revolution and become masters of the country,
+to the great hurt of the inhabitants.  Their stronghold having been
+taken by an attack, the garrison took refuge in a body upon some
+high ground and there capitulated, agreeing to give up their mercenary
+auxiliaries, lay down their arms, and commit themselves to the
+discretion of the Athenian people.  The generals carried them across
+under truce to the island of Ptychia, to be kept in custody until they
+could be sent to Athens, upon the understanding that, if any were
+caught running away, all would lose the benefit of the treaty.
+Meanwhile the leaders of the Corcyraean commons, afraid that the
+Athenians might spare the lives of the prisoners, had recourse to
+the following stratagem.  They gained over some few men on the island
+by secretly sending friends with instructions to provide them with a
+boat, and to tell them, as if for their own sakes, that they had
+best escape as quickly as possible, as the Athenian generals were
+going to give them up to the Corcyraean people.
+
+These representations succeeding, it was so arranged that the men
+were caught sailing out in the boat that was provided, and the
+treaty became void accordingly, and the whole body were given up to
+the Corcyraeans.  For this result the Athenian generals were in a great
+measure responsible; their evident disinclination to sail for
+Sicily, and thus to leave to others the honour of conducting the men
+to Athens, encouraged the intriguers in their design and seemed to
+affirm the truth of their representations.  The prisoners thus handed
+over were shut up by the Corcyraeans in a large building, and
+afterwards taken out by twenties and led past two lines of heavy
+infantry, one on each side, being bound together, and beaten and
+stabbed by the men in the lines whenever any saw pass a personal
+enemy; while men carrying whips went by their side and hastened on the
+road those that walked too slowly.
+
+As many as sixty men were taken out and killed in this way without
+the knowledge of their friends in the building, who fancied they
+were merely being moved from one prison to another.  At last,
+however, someone opened their eyes to the truth, upon which they
+called upon the Athenians to kill them themselves, if such was their
+pleasure, and refused any longer to go out of the building, and said
+they would do all they could to prevent any one coming in.  The
+Corcyraeans, not liking themselves to force a passage by the doors,
+got up on the top of the building, and breaking through the roof,
+threw down the tiles and let fly arrows at them, from which the
+prisoners sheltered themselves as well as they could.  Most of their
+number, meanwhile, were engaged in dispatching themselves by thrusting
+into their throats the arrows shot by the enemy, and hanging
+themselves with the cords taken from some beds that happened to be
+there, and with strips made from their clothing; adopting, in short,
+every possible means of self-destruction, and also falling victims
+to the missiles of their enemies on the roof.  Night came on while
+these horrors were enacting, and most of it had passed before they
+were concluded.  When it was day the Corcyraeans threw them in layers
+upon wagons and carried them out of the city.  All the women taken in
+the stronghold were sold as slaves.  In this way the Corcyraeans of the
+mountain were destroyed by the commons; and so after terrible excesses
+the party strife came to an end, at least as far as the period of this
+war is concerned, for of one party there was practically nothing left.
+Meanwhile the Athenians sailed off to Sicily, their primary
+destination, and carried on the war with their allies there.
+
+At the close of the summer, the Athenians at Naupactus and the
+Acarnanians made an expedition against Anactorium, the Corinthian town
+lying at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, and took it by treachery;
+and the Acarnanians themselves, sending settlers from all parts of
+Acarnania, occupied the place.
+
+Summer was now over.  During the winter ensuing, Aristides, son of
+Archippus, one of the commanders of the Athenian ships sent to collect
+money from the allies, arrested at Eion, on the Strymon,
+Artaphernes, a Persian, on his way from the King to Lacedaemon.  He was
+conducted to Athens, where the Athenians got his dispatches translated
+from the Assyrian character and read them.  With numerous references to
+other subjects, they in substance told the Lacedaemonians that the
+King did not know what they wanted, as of the many ambassadors they
+had sent him no two ever told the same story; if however they were
+prepared to speak plainly they might send him some envoys with this
+Persian.  The Athenians afterwards sent back Artaphernes in a galley to
+Ephesus, and ambassadors with him, who heard there of the death of
+King Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, which took place about that time,
+and so returned home.
+
+The same winter the Chians pulled down their new wall at the command
+of the Athenians, who suspected them of meditating an insurrection,
+after first however obtaining pledges from the Athenians, and security
+as far as this was possible for their continuing to treat them as
+before.  Thus the winter ended, and with it ended the seventh year of
+this war of which Thucydides is the historian.
+
+In first days of the next summer there was an eclipse of the sun
+at the time of new moon, and in the early part of the same month an
+earthquake.  Meanwhile, the Mitylenian and other Lesbian exiles set
+out, for the most part from the continent, with mercenaries hired in
+Peloponnese, and others levied on the spot, and took Rhoeteum, but
+restored it without injury on the receipt of two thousand Phocaean
+staters.  After this they marched against Antandrus and took the town
+by treachery, their plan being to free Antandrus and the rest of the
+Actaean towns, formerly owned by Mitylene but now held by the
+Athenians.  Once fortified there, they would have every facility for
+ship-building from the vicinity of Ida and the consequent abundance of
+timber, and plenty of other supplies, and might from this base
+easily ravage Lesbos, which was not far off, and make themselves
+masters of the Aeolian towns on the continent.
+
+While these were the schemes of the exiles, the Athenians in the
+same summer made an expedition with sixty ships, two thousand heavy
+infantry, a few cavalry, and some allied troops from Miletus and other
+parts, against Cythera, under the command of Nicias, son of Niceratus,
+Nicostratus, son of Diotrephes, and Autocles, son of Tolmaeus.  Cythera
+is an island lying off Laconia, opposite Malea; the inhabitants are
+Lacedaemonians of the class of the Perioeci; and an officer called the
+judge of Cythera went over to the place annually from Sparta.  A
+garrison of heavy infantry was also regularly sent there, and great
+attention paid to the island, as it was the landing-place for the
+merchantmen from Egypt and Libya, and at the same time secured Laconia
+from the attacks of privateers from the sea, at the only point where
+it is assailable, as the whole coast rises abruptly towards the
+Sicilian and Cretan seas.
+
+Coming to land here with their armament, the Athenians with ten
+ships and two thousand Milesian heavy infantry took the town of
+Scandea, on the sea; and with the rest of their forces landing on
+the side of the island looking towards Malea, went against the lower
+town of Cythera, where they found all the inhabitants encamped.  A
+battle ensuing, the Cytherians held their ground for some little
+while, and then turned and fled into the upper town, where they soon
+afterwards capitulated to Nicias and his colleagues, agreeing to leave
+their fate to the decision of the Athenians, their lives only being
+safe.  A correspondence had previously been going on between Nicias and
+certain of the inhabitants, which caused the surrender to be
+effected more speedily, and upon terms more advantageous, present
+and future, for the Cytherians; who would otherwise have been expelled
+by the Athenians on account of their being Lacedaemonians and their
+island being so near to Laconia.  After the capitulation, the Athenians
+occupied the town of Scandea near the harbour, and appointing a
+garrison for Cythera, sailed to Asine, Helus, and most of the places
+on the sea, and making descents and passing the night on shore at such
+spots as were convenient, continued ravaging the country for about
+seven days.
+
+The Lacedaemonians seeing the Athenians masters of Cythera, and
+expecting descents of the kind upon their coasts, nowhere opposed them
+in force, but sent garrisons here and there through the country,
+consisting of as many heavy infantry as the points menaced seemed to
+require, and generally stood very much upon the defensive.  After the
+severe and unexpected blow that had befallen them in the island, the
+occupation of Pylos and Cythera, and the apparition on every side of a
+war whose rapidity defied precaution, they lived in constant fear of
+internal revolution, and now took the unusual step of raising four
+hundred horse and a force of archers, and became more timid than
+ever in military matters, finding themselves involved in a maritime
+struggle, which their organization had never contemplated, and that
+against Athenians, with whom an enterprise unattempted was always
+looked upon as a success sacrificed.  Besides this, their late numerous
+reverses of fortune, coming close one upon another without any reason,
+had thoroughly unnerved them, and they were always afraid of a
+second disaster like that on the island, and thus scarcely dared to
+take the field, but fancied that they could not stir without a
+blunder, for being new to the experience of adversity they had lost
+all confidence in themselves.
+
+Accordingly they now allowed the Athenians to ravage their seaboard,
+without making any movement, the garrisons in whose neighbourhood
+the descents were made always thinking their numbers insufficient, and
+sharing the general feeling.  A single garrison which ventured to
+resist, near Cotyrta and Aphrodisia, struck terror by its charge
+into the scattered mob of light troops, but retreated, upon being
+received by the heavy infantry, with the loss of a few men and some
+arms, for which the Athenians set up a trophy, and then sailed off
+to Cythera.  From thence they sailed round to Epidaurus Limera, ravaged
+part of the country, and so came to Thyrea in the Cynurian
+territory, upon the Argive and Laconian border.  This district had been
+given by its Lacedaemonian owners to the expelled Aeginetans to
+inhabit, in return for their good offices at the time of the
+earthquake and the rising of the Helots; and also because, although
+subjects of Athens, they had always sided with Lacedaemon.
+
+While the Athenians were still at sea, the Aeginetans evacuated a
+fort which they were building upon the coast, and retreated into the
+upper town where they lived, rather more than a mile from the sea.  One
+of the Lacedaemonian district garrisons which was helping them in
+the work, refused to enter here with them at their entreaty,
+thinking it dangerous to shut themselves up within the wall, and
+retiring to the high ground remained quiet, not considering themselves
+a match for the enemy.  Meanwhile the Athenians landed, and instantly
+advanced with all their forces and took Thyrea.  The town they burnt,
+pillaging what was in it; the Aeginetans who were not slain in
+action they took with them to Athens, with Tantalus, son of Patrocles,
+their Lacedaemonian commander, who had been wounded and taken
+prisoner.  They also took with them a few men from Cythera whom they
+thought it safest to remove.  These the Athenians determined to lodge
+in the islands: the rest of the Cytherians were to retain their
+lands and pay four talents tribute; the Aeginetans captured to be
+all put to death, on account of the old inveterate feud; and
+Tantalus to share the imprisonment of the Lacedaemonians taken on
+the island.
+
+The same summer, the inhabitants of Camarina and Gela in Sicily
+first made an armistice with each other, after which embassies from
+all the other Sicilian cities assembled at Gela to try to bring
+about a pacification.  After many expressions of opinion on one side
+and the other, according to the griefs and pretensions of the
+different parties complaining, Hermocrates, son of Hermon, a
+Syracusan, the most influential man among them, addressed the
+following words to the assembly:
+
+"If I now address you, Sicilians, it is not because my city is the
+least in Sicily or the greatest sufferer by the war, but in order to
+state publicly what appears to me to be the best policy for the
+whole island.  That war is an evil is a proposition so familiar to
+every one that it would be tedious to develop it.  No one is forced
+to engage in it by ignorance, or kept out of it by fear, if he fancies
+there is anything to be gained by it.  To the former the gain appears
+greater than the danger, while the latter would rather stand the
+risk than put up with any immediate sacrifice.  But if both should
+happen to have chosen the wrong moment for acting in this way,
+advice to make peace would not be unserviceable; and this, if we did
+but see it, is just what we stand most in need of at the present
+juncture.
+
+"I suppose that no one will dispute that we went to war at first
+in order to serve our own several interests, that we are now, in
+view of the same interests, debating how we can make peace; and that
+if we separate without having as we think our rights, we shall go to
+war again.  And yet, as men of sense, we ought to see that our separate
+interests are not alone at stake in the present congress: there is
+also the question whether we have still time to save Sicily, the whole
+of which in my opinion is menaced by Athenian ambition; and we ought
+to find in the name of that people more imperious arguments for
+peace than any which I can advance, when we see the first power in
+Hellas watching our mistakes with the few ships that she has at
+present in our waters, and under the fair name of alliance
+speciously seeking to turn to account the natural hostility that
+exists between us.  If we go to war, and call in to help us a people
+that are ready enough to carry their arms even where they are not
+invited; and if we injure ourselves at our own expense, and at the
+same time serve as the pioneers of their dominion, we may expect, when
+they see us worn out, that they will one day come with a larger
+armament, and seek to bring all of us into subjection.
+
+"And yet as sensible men, if we call in allies and court danger,
+it should be in order to enrich our different countries with new
+acquisitions, and not to ruin what they possess already; and we should
+understand that the intestine discords which are so fatal to
+communities generally, will be equally so to Sicily, if we, its
+inhabitants, absorbed in our local quarrels, neglect the common enemy.
+These considerations should reconcile individual with individual,
+and city with city, and unite us in a common effort to save the
+whole of Sicily.  Nor should any one imagine that the Dorians only
+are enemies of Athens, while the Chalcidian race is secured by its
+Ionian blood; the attack in question is not inspired by hatred of
+one of two nationalities, but by a desire for the good things in
+Sicily, the common property of us all.  This is proved by the
+Athenian reception of the Chalcidian invitation: an ally who has never
+given them any assistance whatever, at once receives from them
+almost more than the treaty entitles him to.  That the Athenians should
+cherish this ambition and practise this policy is very excusable;
+and I do not blame those who wish to rule, but those who are
+over-ready to serve.  It is just as much in men's nature to rule
+those who submit to them, as it is to resist those who molest them;
+one is not less invariable than the other.  Meanwhile all who see these
+dangers and refuse to provide for them properly, or who have come here
+without having made up their minds that our first duty is to unite
+to get rid of the common peril, are mistaken.  The quickest way to be
+rid of it is to make peace with each other; since the Athenians menace
+us not from their own country, but from that of those who invited them
+here.  In this way instead of war issuing in war, peace quietly ends
+our quarrels; and the guests who come hither under fair pretences
+for bad ends, will have good reason for going away without having
+attained them.
+
+"So far as regards the Athenians, such are the great advantages
+proved inherent in a wise policy.  Independently of this, in the face
+of the universal consent, that peace is the first of blessings, how
+can we refuse to make it amongst ourselves; or do you not think that
+the good which you have, and the ills that you complain of, would be
+better preserved and cured by quiet than by war; that peace has its
+honours and splendours of a less perilous kind, not to mention the
+numerous other blessings that one might dilate on, with the not less
+numerous miseries of war? These considerations should teach you not to
+disregard my words, but rather to look in them every one for his own
+safety.  If there be any here who feels certain either by right or
+might to effect his object, let not this surprise be to him too severe
+a disappointment.  Let him remember that many before now have tried
+to chastise a wrongdoer, and failing to punish their enemy have not
+even saved themselves; while many who have trusted in force to gain an
+advantage, instead of gaining anything more, have been doomed to
+lose what they had.  Vengeance is not necessarily successful because
+wrong has been done, or strength sure because it is confident; but the
+incalculable element in the future exercises the widest influence, and
+is the most treacherous, and yet in fact the most useful of all
+things, as it frightens us all equally, and thus makes us consider
+before attacking each other.
+
+"Let us therefore now allow the undefined fear of this unknown
+future, and the immediate terror of the Athenians' presence, to
+produce their natural impression, and let us consider any failure to
+carry out the programmes that we may each have sketched out for
+ourselves as sufficiently accounted for by these obstacles, and send
+away the intruder from the country; and if everlasting peace be
+impossible between us, let us at all events make a treaty for as
+long a term as possible, and put off our private differences to
+another day.  In fine, let us recognize that the adoption of my
+advice will leave us each citizens of a free state, and as such
+arbiters of our own destiny, able to return good or bad offices with
+equal effect; while its rejection will make us dependent on others,
+and thus not only impotent to repel an insult, but on the most
+favourable supposition, friends to our direst enemies, and at feud
+with our natural friends.
+
+"For myself, though, as I said at first, the representative of a
+great city, and able to think less of defending myself than of
+attacking others, I am prepared to concede something in prevision of
+these dangers.  I am not inclined to ruin myself for the sake of
+hurting my enemies, or so blinded by animosity as to think myself
+equally master of my own plans and of fortune which I cannot
+command; but I am ready to give up anything in reason.  I call upon the
+rest of you to imitate my conduct of your own free will, without being
+forced to do so by the enemy.  There is no disgrace in connections
+giving way to one another, a Dorian to a Dorian, or a Chalcidian to
+his brethren; above and beyond this we are neighbours, live in the
+same country, are girt by the same sea, and go by the same name of
+Sicilians.  We shall go to war again, I suppose, when the time comes,
+and again make peace among ourselves by means of future congresses;
+but the foreign invader, if we are wise, will always find us united
+against him, since the hurt of one is the danger of all; and we
+shall never, in future, invite into the island either allies or
+mediators.  By so acting we shall at the present moment do for Sicily a
+double service, ridding her at once of the Athenians, and of civil
+war, and in future shall live in freedom at home, and be less
+menaced from abroad."
+
+Such were the words of Hermocrates.  The Sicilians took his advice,
+and came to an understanding among themselves to end the war, each
+keeping what they had--the Camarinaeans taking Morgantina at a price
+fixed to be paid to the Syracusans--and the allies of the Athenians
+called the officers in command, and told them that they were going
+to make peace and that they would be included in the treaty.  The
+generals assenting, the peace was concluded, and the Athenian fleet
+afterwards sailed away from Sicily.  Upon their arrival at Athens,
+the Athenians banished Pythodorus and Sophocles, and fined Eurymedon
+for having taken bribes to depart when they might have subdued Sicily.
+So thoroughly had the present prosperity persuaded the citizens that
+nothing could withstand them, and that they could achieve what was
+possible and impracticable alike, with means ample or inadequate it
+mattered not.  The secret of this was their general extraordinary
+success, which made them confuse their strength with their hopes.
+
+The same summer the Megarians in the city, pressed by the
+hostilities of the Athenians, who invaded their country twice every
+year with all their forces, and harassed by the incursions of their
+own exiles at Pegae, who had been expelled in a revolution by the
+popular party, began to ask each other whether it would not be
+better to receive back their exiles, and free the town from one of its
+two scourges.  The friends of the emigrants, perceiving the
+agitation, now more openly than before demanded the adoption of this
+proposition; and the leaders of the commons, seeing that the
+sufferings of the times had tired out the constancy of their
+supporters, entered in their alarm into correspondence with the
+Athenian generals, Hippocrates, son of Ariphron, and Demosthenes,
+son of Alcisthenes, and resolved to betray the town, thinking this
+less dangerous to themselves than the return of the party which they
+had banished.  It was accordingly arranged that the Athenians should
+first take the long walls extending for nearly a mile from the city to
+the port of Nisaea, to prevent the Peloponnesians coming to the rescue
+from that place, where they formed the sole garrison to secure the
+fidelity of Megara; and that after this the attempt should be made
+to put into their hands the upper town, which it was thought would
+then come over with less difficulty.
+
+The Athenians, after plans had been arranged between themselves
+and their correspondents both as to words and actions, sailed by night
+to Minoa, the island off Megara, with six hundred heavy infantry under
+the command of Hippocrates, and took post in a quarry not far off, out
+of which bricks used to be taken for the walls; while Demosthenes, the
+other commander, with a detachment of Plataean light troops and
+another of Peripoli, placed himself in ambush in the precinct of
+Enyalius, which was still nearer.  No one knew of it, except those
+whose business it was to know that night.  A little before daybreak,
+the traitors in Megara began to act.  Every night for a long time back,
+under pretence of marauding, in order to have a means of opening the
+gates, they had been used, with the consent of the officer in command,
+to carry by night a sculling boat upon a cart along the ditch to the
+sea, and so to sail out, bringing it back again before day upon the
+cart, and taking it within the wall through the gates, in order, as
+they pretended, to baffle the Athenian blockade at Minoa, there
+being no boat to be seen in the harbour.  On the present occasion the
+cart was already at the gates, which had been opened in the usual
+way for the boat, when the Athenians, with whom this had been
+concerted, saw it, and ran at the top of their speed from the ambush
+in order to reach the gates before they were shut again, and while the
+cart was still there to prevent their being closed; their Megarian
+accomplices at the same moment killing the guard at the gates.  The
+first to run in was Demosthenes with his Plataeans and Peripoli,
+just where the trophy now stands; and he was no sooner within the
+gates than the Plataeans engaged and defeated the nearest party of
+Peloponnesians who had taken the alarm and come to the rescue, and
+secured the gates for the approaching Athenian heavy infantry.
+
+After this, each of the Athenians as fast as they entered went
+against the wall.  A few of the Peloponnesian garrison stood their
+ground at first, and tried to repel the assault, and some of them were
+killed; but the main body took fright and fled; the night attack and
+the sight of the Megarian traitors in arms against them making them
+think that all Megara had gone over to the enemy.  It so happened
+also that the Athenian herald of his own idea called out and invited
+any of the Megarians that wished, to join the Athenian ranks; and this
+was no sooner heard by the garrison than they gave way, and, convinced
+that they were the victims of a concerted attack, took refuge in
+Nisaea.  By daybreak, the walls being now taken and the Megarians in
+the city in great agitation, the persons who had negotiated with the
+Athenians, supported by the rest of the popular party which was
+privy to the plot, said that they ought to open the gates and march
+out to battle.  It had been concerted between them that the Athenians
+should rush in, the moment that the gates were opened, while the
+conspirators were to be distinguished from the rest by being
+anointed with oil, and so to avoid being hurt.  They could open the
+gates with more security, as four thousand Athenian heavy infantry
+from Eleusis, and six hundred horse, had marched all night, according
+to agreement, and were now close at hand.  The conspirators were all
+ready anointed and at their posts by the gates, when one of their
+accomplices denounced the plot to the opposite party, who gathered
+together and came in a body, and roundly said that they must not march
+out--a thing they had never yet ventured on even when in greater force
+than at present--or wantonly compromise the safety of the town, and
+that if what they said was not attended to, the battle would have to
+be fought in Megara.  For the rest, they gave no signs of their
+knowledge of the intrigue, but stoutly maintained that their advice
+was the best, and meanwhile kept close by and watched the gates,
+making it impossible for the conspirators to effect their purpose.
+
+The Athenian generals seeing that some obstacle had arisen, and that
+the capture of the town by force was no longer practicable, at once
+proceeded to invest Nisaea, thinking that, if they could take it
+before relief arrived, the surrender of Megara would soon follow.
+Iron, stone-masons, and everything else required quickly coming up
+from Athens, the Athenians started from the wall which they
+occupied, and from this point built a cross wall looking towards
+Megara down to the sea on either side of Nisaea; the ditch and the
+walls being divided among the army, stones and bricks taken from the
+suburb, and the fruit-trees and timber cut down to make a palisade
+wherever this seemed necessary; the houses also in the suburb with the
+addition of battlements sometimes entering into the fortification.  The
+whole of this day the work continued, and by the afternoon of the next
+the wall was all but completed, when the garrison in Nisaea, alarmed
+by the absolute want of provisions, which they used to take in for the
+day from the upper town, not anticipating any speedy relief from the
+Peloponnesians, and supposing Megara to be hostile, capitulated to the
+Athenians on condition that they should give up their arms, and should
+each be ransomed for a stipulated sum; their Lacedaemonian
+commander, and any others of his countrymen in the place, being left
+to the discretion of the Athenians.  On these conditions they
+surrendered and came out, and the Athenians broke down the long
+walls at their point of junction with Megara, took possession of
+Nisaea, and went on with their other preparations.
+
+Just at this time the Lacedaemonian Brasidas, son of Tellis,
+happened to be in the neighbourhood of Sicyon and Corinth, getting
+ready an army for Thrace.  As soon as he heard of the capture of the
+walls, fearing for the Peloponnesians in Nisaea and the safety of
+Megara, he sent to the Boeotians to meet him as quickly as possible at
+Tripodiscus, a village so called of the Megarid, under Mount Geraneia,
+and went himself, with two thousand seven hundred Corinthian heavy
+infantry, four hundred Phliasians, six hundred Sicyonians, and such
+troops of his own as he had already levied, expecting to find Nisaea
+not yet taken.  Hearing of its fall (he had marched out by night to
+Tripodiscus), he took three hundred picked men from the army,
+without waiting till his coming should be known, and came up to Megara
+unobserved by the Athenians, who were down by the sea, ostensibly, and
+really if possible, to attempt Nisaea, but above all to get into
+Megara and secure the town.  He accordingly invited the townspeople
+to admit his party, saying that he had hopes of recovering Nisaea.
+
+However, one of the Megarian factions feared that he might expel
+them and restore the exiles; the other that the commons,
+apprehensive of this very danger, might set upon them, and the city be
+thus destroyed by a battle within its gates under the eyes of the
+ambushed Athenians.  He was accordingly refused admittance, both
+parties electing to remain quiet and await the event; each expecting a
+battle between the Athenians and the relieving army, and thinking it
+safer to see their friends victorious before declaring in their
+favour.
+
+Unable to carry his point, Brasidas went back to the rest of the
+army.  At daybreak the Boeotians joined him.  Having determined to
+relieve Megara, whose danger they considered their own, even before
+hearing from Brasidas, they were already in full force at Plataea,
+when his messenger arrived to add spurs to their resolution; and
+they at once sent on to him two thousand two hundred heavy infantry,
+and six hundred horse, returning home with the main body.  The whole
+army thus assembled numbered six thousand heavy infantry.  The Athenian
+heavy infantry were drawn up by Nisaea and the sea; but the light
+troops being scattered over the plain were attacked by the Boeotian
+horse and driven to the sea, being taken entirely by surprise, as on
+previous occasions no relief had ever come to the Megarians from any
+quarter.  Here the Boeotians were in their turn charged and engaged
+by the Athenian horse, and a cavalry action ensued which lasted a long
+time, and in which both parties claimed the victory.  The Athenians
+killed and stripped the leader of the Boeotian horse and some few of
+his comrades who had charged right up to Nisaea, and remaining masters
+of the bodies gave them back under truce, and set up a trophy; but
+regarding the action as a whole the forces separated without either
+side having gained a decisive advantage, the Boeotians returning to
+their army and the Athenians to Nisaea.
+
+After this Brasidas and the army came nearer to the sea and to
+Megara, and taking up a convenient position, remained quiet in order
+of battle, expecting to be attacked by the Athenians and knowing
+that the Megarians were waiting to see which would be the victor.  This
+attitude seemed to present two advantages.  Without taking the
+offensive or willingly provoking the hazards of a battle, they
+openly showed their readiness to fight, and thus without bearing the
+burden of the day would fairly reap its honours; while at the same
+time they effectually served their interests at Megara.  For if they
+had failed to show themselves they would not have had a chance, but
+would have certainly been considered vanquished, and have lost the
+town.  As it was, the Athenians might possibly not be inclined to
+accept their challenge, and their object would be attained without
+fighting.  And so it turned out.  The Athenians formed outside the
+long walls and, the enemy not attacking, there remained motionless;
+their generals having decided that the risk was too unequal.  In fact
+most of their objects had been already attained; and they would have
+to begin a battle against superior numbers, and if victorious could
+only gain Megara, while a defeat would destroy the flower of their
+heavy soldiery.  For the enemy it was different; as even the states
+actually represented in his army risked each only a part of its entire
+force, he might well be more audacious.  Accordingly, after waiting for
+some time without either side attacking, the Athenians withdrew to
+Nisaea, and the Peloponnesians after them to the point from which they
+had set out.  The friends of the Megarian exiles now threw aside
+their hesitation, and opened the gates to Brasidas and the
+commanders from the different states--looking upon him as the victor
+and upon the Athenians as having declined the battle--and receiving
+them into the town proceeded to discuss matters with them; the party
+in correspondence with the Athenians being paralysed by the turn
+things had taken.
+
+Afterwards Brasidas let the allies go home, and himself went back to
+Corinth, to prepare for his expedition to Thrace, his original
+destination.  The Athenians also returning home, the Megarians in the
+city most implicated in the Athenian negotiation, knowing that they
+had been detected, presently disappeared; while the rest conferred
+with the friends of the exiles, and restored the party at Pegae, after
+binding them under solemn oaths to take no vengeance for the past, and
+only to consult the real interests of the town.  However, as soon as
+they were in office, they held a review of the heavy infantry, and
+separating the battalions, picked out about a hundred of their
+enemies, and of those who were thought to be most involved in the
+correspondence with the Athenians, brought them before the people, and
+compelling the vote to be given openly, had them condemned and
+executed, and established a close oligarchy in the town--a revolution
+which lasted a very long while, although effected by a very few
+partisans.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+_Eighth and Ninth Years of the War - Invasion of Boeotia -
+Fall of Amphipolis - Brilliant Successes of Brasidas_
+
+The same summer the Mitylenians were about to fortify Antandrus,
+as they had intended, when Demodocus and Aristides, the commanders
+of the Athenian squadron engaged in levying subsidies, heard on the
+Hellespont of what was being done to the place (Lamachus their
+colleague having sailed with ten ships into the Pontus) and
+conceived fears of its becoming a second Anaia-the place in which
+the Samian exiles had established themselves to annoy Samos, helping
+the Peloponnesians by sending pilots to their navy, and keeping the
+city in agitation and receiving all its outlaws.  They accordingly
+got together a force from the allies and set sail, defeated in
+battle the troops that met them from Antandrus, and retook the
+place.  Not long after, Lamachus, who had sailed into the Pontus,
+lost his ships at anchor in the river Calex, in the territory of
+Heraclea, rain having fallen in the interior and the flood coming
+suddenly down upon them; and himself and his troops passed by land
+through the Bithynian Thracians on the Asiatic side, and arrived at
+Chalcedon, the Megarian colony at the mouth of the Pontus.
+
+The same summer the Athenian general, Demosthenes, arrived at
+Naupactus with forty ships immediately after the return from the
+Megarid.  Hippocrates and himself had had overtures made to them by
+certain men in the cities in Boeotia, who wished to change the
+constitution and introduce a democracy as at Athens; Ptoeodorus, a
+Theban exile, being the chief mover in this intrigue.  The seaport
+town of Siphae, in the bay of Crisae, in the Thespian territory, was
+to be betrayed to them by one party; Chaeronea (a dependency of what
+was formerly called the Minyan, now the Boeotian, Orchomenus) to be
+put into their hands by another from that town, whose exiles were
+very active in the business, hiring men in Peloponnese.  Some Phocians
+also were in the plot, Chaeronea being the frontier town of Boeotia
+and close to Phanotis in Phocia.  Meanwhile the Athenians were to
+seize Delium, the sanctuary of Apollo, in the territory of Tanagra
+looking towards Euboea; and all these events were to take place
+simultaneously upon a day appointed, in order that the Boeotians
+might be unable to unite to oppose them at Delium, being everywhere
+detained by disturbances at home.  Should the enterprise succeed, and
+Delium be fortified, its authors confidently expected that even if no
+revolution should immediately follow in Boeotia, yet with these
+places in their hands, and the country being harassed by incursions,
+and a refuge in each instance near for the partisans engaged in them,
+things would not remain as they were, but that the rebels being
+supported by the Athenians and the forces of the oligarchs divided,
+it would be possible after a while to settle matters according to
+their wishes.
+
+Such was the plot in contemplation.  Hippocrates with a force
+raised at home awaited the proper moment to take the field against the
+Boeotians; while he sent on Demosthenes with the forty ships above
+mentioned to Naupactus, to raise in those parts an army of Acarnanians
+and of the other allies, and sail and receive Siphae from the
+conspirators; a day having been agreed on for the simultaneous
+execution of both these operations.  Demosthenes on his arrival found
+Oeniadae already compelled by the united Acarnanians to join the
+Athenian confederacy, and himself raising all the allies in those
+countries marched against and subdued Salynthius and the Agraeans;
+after which he devoted himself to the preparations necessary to enable
+him to be at Siphae by the time appointed.
+
+About the same time in the summer, Brasidas set out on his march for
+the Thracian places with seventeen hundred heavy infantry, and
+arriving at Heraclea in Trachis, from thence sent on a messenger to
+his friends at Pharsalus, to ask them to conduct himself and his
+army through the country.  Accordingly there came to Melitia in
+Achaia Panaerus, Dorus, Hippolochidas, Torylaus, and Strophacus, the
+Chalcidian proxenus, under whose escort he resumed his march, being
+accompanied also by other Thessalians, among whom was Niconidas from
+Larissa, a friend of Perdiccas.  It was never very easy to traverse
+Thessaly without an escort; and throughout all Hellas for an armed
+force to pass without leave through a neighbour's country was a
+delicate step to take.  Besides this the Thessalian people had always
+sympathized with the Athenians.  Indeed if instead of the customary
+close oligarchy there had been a constitutional government in
+Thessaly, he would never have been able to proceed; since even as it
+was, he was met on his march at the river Enipeus by certain of the
+opposite party who forbade his further progress, and complained of his
+making the attempt without the consent of the nation.  To this his
+escort answered that they had no intention of taking him through
+against their will; they were only friends in attendance on an
+unexpected visitor.  Brasidas himself added that he came as a friend to
+Thessaly and its inhabitants, his arms not being directed against them
+but against the Athenians, with whom he was at war, and that although
+he knew of no quarrel between the Thessalians and Lacedaemonians to
+prevent the two nations having access to each other's territory, he
+neither would nor could proceed against their wishes; he could only
+beg them not to stop him.  With this answer they went away, and he took
+the advice of his escort, and pushed on without halting, before a
+greater force might gather to prevent him.  Thus in the day that he set
+out from Melitia he performed the whole distance to Pharsalus, and
+encamped on the river Apidanus; and so to Phacium and from thence to
+Perrhaebia.  Here his Thessalian escort went back, and the
+Perrhaebians, who are subjects of Thessaly, set him down at Dium in
+the dominions of Perdiccas, a Macedonian town under Mount Olympus,
+looking towards Thessaly.
+
+In this way Brasidas hurried through Thessaly before any one could
+be got ready to stop him, and reached Perdiccas and Chalcidice.  The
+departure of the army from Peloponnese had been procured by the
+Thracian towns in revolt against Athens and by Perdiccas, alarmed at
+the successes of the Athenians.  The Chalcidians thought that they
+would be the first objects of an Athenian expedition, not that the
+neighbouring towns which had not yet revolted did not also secretly
+join in the invitation; and Perdiccas also had his apprehensions on
+account of his old quarrels with the Athenians, although not openly at
+war with them, and above all wished to reduce Arrhabaeus, king of
+the Lyncestians.  It had been less difficult for them to get an army to
+leave Peloponnese, because of the ill fortune of the Lacedaemonians at
+the present moment.  The attacks of the Athenians upon Peloponnese, and
+in particular upon Laconia, might, it was hoped, be diverted most
+effectually by annoying them in return, and by sending an army to
+their allies, especially as they were willing to maintain it and asked
+for it to aid them in revolting.  The Lacedaemonians were also glad
+to have an excuse for sending some of the Helots out of the country,
+for fear that the present aspect of affairs and the occupation of
+Pylos might encourage them to move.  Indeed fear of their numbers and
+obstinacy even persuaded the Lacedaemonians to the action which I
+shall now relate, their policy at all times having been governed by
+the necessity of taking precautions against them.  The Helots were
+invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their number who
+claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in
+order that they might receive their freedom; the object being to
+test them, as it was thought that the first to claim their freedom
+would be the most high-spirited and the most apt to rebel.  As many
+as two thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves
+and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new freedom.  The
+Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever
+knew how each of them perished.  The Spartans now therefore gladly sent
+seven hundred as heavy infantry with Brasidas, who recruited the
+rest of his force by means of money in Peloponnese.
+
+Brasidas himself was sent out by the Lacedaemonians mainly at his
+own desire, although the Chalcidians also were eager to have a man
+so thorough as he had shown himself whenever there was anything to
+be done at Sparta, and whose after-service abroad proved of the utmost
+use to his country.  At the present moment his just and moderate
+conduct towards the towns generally succeeded in procuring their
+revolt, besides the places which he managed to take by treachery;
+and thus when the Lacedaemonians desired to treat, as they
+ultimately did, they had places to offer in exchange, and the burden
+of war meanwhile shifted from Peloponnese.  Later on in the war,
+after the events in Sicily, the present valour and conduct of
+Brasidas, known by experience to some, by hearsay to others, was
+what mainly created in the allies of Athens a feeling for the
+Lacedaemonians.  He was the first who went out and showed himself so
+good a man at all points as to leave behind him the conviction that
+the rest were like him.
+
+Meanwhile his arrival in the Thracian country no sooner became known
+to the Athenians than they declared war against Perdiccas, whom they
+regarded as the author of the expedition, and kept a closer watch on
+their allies in that quarter.
+
+Upon the arrival of Brasidas and his army, Perdiccas immediately
+started with them and with his own forces against Arrhabaeus, son of
+Bromerus, king of the Lyncestian Macedonians, his neighbour, with whom
+he had a quarrel and whom he wished to subdue.  However, when he
+arrived with his army and Brasidas at the pass leading into Lyncus,
+Brasidas told him that before commencing hostilities he wished to go
+and try to persuade Arrhabaeus to become the ally of Lacedaemon,
+this latter having already made overtures intimating his willingness
+to make Brasidas arbitrator between them, and the Chalcidian envoys
+accompanying him having warned him not to remove the apprehensions
+of Perdiccas, in order to ensure his greater zeal in their cause.
+Besides, the envoys of Perdiccas had talked at Lacedaemon about his
+bringing many of the places round him into alliance with them; and
+thus Brasidas thought he might take a larger view of the question of
+Arrhabaeus.  Perdiccas however retorted that he had not brought him
+with him to arbitrate in their quarrel, but to put down the enemies
+whom he might point out to him; and that while he, Perdiccas,
+maintained half his army it was a breach of faith for Brasidas to
+parley with Arrhabaeus.  Nevertheless Brasidas disregarded the wishes
+of Perdiccas and held the parley in spite of him, and suffered himself
+to be persuaded to lead off the army without invading the country of
+Arrhabaeus; after which Perdiccas, holding that faith had not been
+kept with him, contributed only a third instead of half of the support
+of the army.
+
+The same summer, without loss of time, Brasidas marched with the
+Chalcidians against Acanthus, a colony of the Andrians, a little
+before vintage.  The inhabitants were divided into two parties on the
+question of receiving him; those who had joined the Chalcidians in
+inviting him, and the popular party.  However, fear for their fruit,
+which was still out, enabled Brasidas to persuade the multitude to
+admit him alone, and to hear what he had to say before making a
+decision; and he was admitted accordingly and appeared before the
+people, and not being a bad speaker for a Lacedaemonian, addressed
+them as follows:
+
+"Acanthians, the Lacedaemonians have sent out me and my army to make
+good the reason that we gave for the war when we began it, viz.,
+that we were going to war with the Athenians in order to free
+Hellas.  Our delay in coming has been caused by mistaken expectations
+as to the war at home, which led us to hope, by our own unassisted
+efforts and without your risking anything, to effect the speedy
+downfall of the Athenians; and you must not blame us for this, as we
+are now come the moment that we were able, prepared with your aid to
+do our best to subdue them.  Meanwhile I am astonished at finding
+your gates shut against me, and at not meeting with a better
+welcome.  We Lacedaemonians thought of you as allies eager to have
+us, to whom we should come in spirit even before we were with you in
+body; and in this expectation undertook all the risks of a march of
+many days through a strange country, so far did our zeal carry us.
+It will be a terrible thing if after this you have other intentions,
+and mean to stand in the way of your own and Hellenic freedom.  It is
+not merely that you oppose me yourselves; but wherever I may go people
+will be less inclined to join me, on the score that you, to whom I
+first came--an important town like Acanthus, and prudent men like the
+Acanthians--refused to admit me.  I shall have nothing to prove that
+the reason which I advance is the true one; it will be said either
+that there is something unfair in the freedom which I offer, or that
+I am in insufficient force and unable to protect you against an
+attack from Athens.  Yet when I went with the army which I now have to
+the relief of Nisaea, the Athenians did not venture to engage me
+although in greater force than I; and it is not likely they will
+ever send across sea against you an army as numerous as they had at
+Nisaea.  And for myself, I have come here not to hurt but to free the
+Hellenes, witness the solemn oaths by which I have bound my government
+that the allies that I may bring over shall be independent; and
+besides my object in coming is not by force or fraud to obtain your
+alliance, but to offer you mine to help you against your Athenian
+masters.  I protest, therefore, against any suspicions of my intentions
+after the guarantees which I offer, and equally so against doubts of
+my ability to protect you, and I invite you to join me without
+hesitation.
+
+"Some of you may hang back because they have private enemies, and
+fear that I may put the city into the hands of a party: none need be
+more tranquil than they.  I am not come here to help this party or
+that; and I do not consider that I should be bringing you freedom in
+any real sense, if I should disregard your constitution, and enslave
+the many to the few or the few to the many.  This would be heavier than
+a foreign yoke; and we Lacedaemonians, instead of being thanked for
+our pains, should get neither honour nor glory, but, contrariwise,
+reproaches.  The charges which strengthen our hands in the war
+against the Athenians would on our own showing be merited by
+ourselves, and more hateful in us than in those who make no
+pretensions to honesty; as it is more disgraceful for persons of
+character to take what they covet by fair-seeming fraud than by open
+force; the one aggression having for its justification the might which
+fortune gives, the other being simply a piece of clever roguery.  A
+matter which concerns us thus nearly we naturally look to most
+jealously; and over and above the oaths that I have mentioned, what
+stronger assurance can you have, when you see that our words, compared
+with the actual facts, produce the necessary conviction that it is our
+interest to act as we say?
+
+"If to these considerations of mine you put in the plea of
+inability, and claim that your friendly feeling should save you from
+being hurt by your refusal; if you say that freedom, in your
+opinion, is not without its dangers, and that it is right to offer
+it to those who can accept it, but not to force it on any against
+their will, then I shall take the gods and heroes of your country to
+witness that I came for your good and was rejected, and shall do my
+best to compel you by laying waste your land.  I shall do so without
+scruple, being justified by the necessity which constrains me,
+first, to prevent the Lacedaemonians from being damaged by you,
+their friends, in the event of your nonadhesion, through the moneys
+that you pay to the Athenians; and secondly, to prevent the Hellenes
+from being hindered by you in shaking off their servitude.  Otherwise
+indeed we should have no right to act as we propose; except in the
+name of some public interest, what call should we Lacedaemonians
+have to free those who do not wish it? Empire we do not aspire to:
+it is what we are labouring to put down; and we should wrong the
+greater number if we allowed you to stand in the way of the
+independence that we offer to all.  Endeavour, therefore, to decide
+wisely, and strive to begin the work of liberation for the Hellenes,
+and lay up for yourselves endless renown, while you escape private
+loss, and cover your commonwealth with glory."
+
+Such were the words of Brasidas.  The Acanthians, after much had been
+said on both sides of the question, gave their votes in secret, and
+the majority, influenced by the seductive arguments of Brasidas and by
+fear for their fruit, decided to revolt from Athens; not however
+admitting the army until they had taken his personal security for
+the oaths sworn by his government before they sent him out, assuring
+the independence of the allies whom he might bring over.  Not long
+after, Stagirus, a colony of the Andrians, followed their example
+and revolted.
+
+Such were the events of this summer.  It was in the first days of the
+winter following that the places in Boeotia were to be put into the
+hands of the Athenian generals, Hippocrates and Demosthenes, the
+latter of whom was to go with his ships to Siphae, the former to
+Delium.  A mistake, however, was made in the days on which they were
+each to start; and Demosthenes, sailing first to Siphae, with the
+Acarnanians and many of the allies from those parts on board, failed
+to effect anything, through the plot having been betrayed by
+Nicomachus, a Phocian from Phanotis, who told the Lacedaemonians,
+and they the Boeotians.  Succours accordingly flocked in from all parts
+of Boeotia, Hippocrates not being yet there to make his diversion, and
+Siphae and Chaeronea were promptly secured, and the conspirators,
+informed of the mistake, did not venture on any movement in the towns.
+
+Meanwhile Hippocrates made a levy in mass of the citizens,
+resident aliens, and foreigners in Athens, and arrived at his
+destination after the Boeotians had already come back from Siphae, and
+encamping his army began to fortify Delium, the sanctuary of Apollo,
+in the following manner.  A trench was dug all round the temple and the
+consecrated ground, and the earth thrown up from the excavation was
+made to do duty as a wall, in which stakes were also planted, the
+vines round the sanctuary being cut down and thrown in, together
+with stones and bricks pulled down from the houses near; every
+means, in short, being used to run up the rampart.  Wooden towers
+were also erected where they were wanted, and where there was no
+part of the temple buildings left standing, as on the side where the
+gallery once existing had fallen in.  The work was begun on the third
+day after leaving home, and continued during the fourth, and till
+dinnertime on the fifth, when most of it being now finished the army
+removed from Delium about a mile and a quarter on its way home.  From
+this point most of the light troops went straight on, while the
+heavy infantry halted and remained where they were; Hippocrates having
+stayed behind at Delium to arrange the posts, and to give directions
+for the completion of such part of the outworks as had been left
+unfinished.
+
+During the days thus employed the Boeotians were mustering at
+Tanagra, and by the time that they had come in from all the towns,
+found the Athenians already on their way home.  The rest of the
+eleven Boeotarchs were against giving battle, as the enemy was no
+longer in Boeotia, the Athenians being just over the Oropian border,
+when they halted; but Pagondas, son of Aeolidas, one of the Boeotarchs
+of Thebes (Arianthides, son of Lysimachidas, being the other), and
+then commander-in-chief, thought it best to hazard a battle.  He
+accordingly called the men to him, company after company, to prevent
+their all leaving their arms at once, and urged them to attack the
+Athenians, and stand the issue of a battle, speaking as follows:
+
+"Boeotians, the idea that we ought not to give battle to the
+Athenians, unless we came up with them in Boeotia, is one which should
+never have entered into the head of any of us, your generals.  It was
+to annoy Boeotia that they crossed the frontier and built a fort in
+our country; and they are therefore, I imagine, our enemies wherever
+we may come up with them, and from wheresoever they may have come to
+act as enemies do.  And if any one has taken up with the idea in
+question for reasons of safety, it is high time for him to change
+his mind.  The party attacked, whose own country is in danger, can
+scarcely discuss what is prudent with the calmness of men who are in
+full enjoyment of what they have got, and are thinking of attacking
+a neighbour in order to get more.  It is your national habit, in your
+country or out of it, to oppose the same resistance to a foreign
+invader; and when that invader is Athenian, and lives upon your
+frontier besides, it is doubly imperative to do so.  As between
+neighbours generally, freedom means simply a determination to hold
+one's own; and with neighbours like these, who are trying to enslave
+near and far alike, there is nothing for it but to fight it out to the
+last.  Look at the condition of the Euboeans and of most of the rest of
+Hellas, and be convinced that others have to fight with their
+neighbours for this frontier or that, but that for us conquest means
+one frontier for the whole country, about which no dispute can be
+made, for they will simply come and take by force what we have.  So
+much more have we to fear from this neighbour than from another.
+Besides, people who, like the Athenians in the present instance, are
+tempted by pride of strength to attack their neighbours, usually march
+most confidently against those who keep still, and only defend
+themselves in their own country, but think twice before they grapple
+with those who meet them outside their frontier and strike the first
+blow if opportunity offers.  The Athenians have shown us this
+themselves; the defeat which we inflicted upon them at Coronea, at the
+time when our quarrels had allowed them to occupy the country, has
+given great security to Boeotia until the present day.  Remembering
+this, the old must equal their ancient exploits, and the young, the
+sons of the heroes of that time, must endeavour not to disgrace
+their native valour; and trusting in the help of the god whose
+temple has been sacrilegiously fortified, and in the victims which
+in our sacrifices have proved propitious, we must march against the
+enemy, and teach him that he must go and get what he wants by
+attacking someone who will not resist him, but that men whose glory it
+is to be always ready to give battle for the liberty of their own
+country, and never unjustly to enslave that of others, will not let
+him go without a struggle."
+
+By these arguments Pagondas persuaded the Boeotians to attack the
+Athenians, and quickly breaking up his camp led his army forward, it
+being now late in the day.  On nearing the enemy, he halted in a
+position where a hill intervening prevented the two armies from seeing
+each other, and then formed and prepared for action.  Meanwhile
+Hippocrates at Delium, informed of the approach of the Boeotians, sent
+orders to his troops to throw themselves into line, and himself joined
+them not long afterwards, leaving about three hundred horse behind him
+at Delium, at once to guard the place in case of attack, and to
+watch their opportunity and fall upon the Boeotians during the battle.
+The Boeotians placed a detachment to deal with these, and when
+everything was arranged to their satisfaction appeared over the
+hill, and halted in the order which they had determined on, to the
+number of seven thousand heavy infantry, more than ten thousand
+light troops, one thousand horse, and five hundred targeteers.  On
+their right were the Thebans and those of their province, in the
+centre the Haliartians, Coronaeans, Copaeans, and the other people
+around the lake, and on the left the Thespians, Tanagraeans, and
+Orchomenians, the cavalry and the light troops being at the
+extremity of each wing.  The Thebans formed twenty-five shields deep,
+the rest as they pleased.  Such was the strength and disposition of the
+Boeotian army.
+
+On the side of the Athenians, the heavy infantry throughout the
+whole army formed eight deep, being in numbers equal to the enemy,
+with the cavalry upon the two wings.  Light troops regularly armed
+there were none in the army, nor had there ever been any at Athens.
+Those who had joined in the invasion, though many times more
+numerous than those of the enemy, had mostly followed unarmed, as part
+of the levy in mass of the citizens and foreigners at Athens, and
+having started first on their way home were not present in any number.
+The armies being now in line and upon the point of engaging,
+Hippocrates, the general, passed along the Athenian ranks, and
+encouraged them as follows:
+
+"Athenians, I shall only say a few words to you, but brave men
+require no more, and they are addressed more to your understanding
+than to your courage.  None of you must fancy that we are going out
+of our way to run this risk in the country of another.  Fought in their
+territory the battle will be for ours: if we conquer, the
+Peloponnesians will never invade your country without the Boeotian
+horse, and in one battle you will win Boeotia and in a manner free
+Attica.  Advance to meet them then like citizens of a country in
+which you all glory as the first in Hellas, and like sons of the
+fathers who beat them at Oenophyta with Myronides and thus gained
+possession of Boeotia."
+
+Hippocrates had got half through the army with his exhortation, when
+the Boeotians, after a few more hasty words from Pagondas, struck up
+the paean, and came against them from the hill; the Athenians
+advancing to meet them, and closing at a run.  The extreme wing of
+neither army came into action, one like the other being stopped by the
+water-courses in the way; the rest engaged with the utmost
+obstinacy, shield against shield.  The Boeotian left, as far as the
+centre, was worsted by the Athenians.  The Thespians in that part of
+the field suffered most severely.  The troops alongside them having
+given way, they were surrounded in a narrow space and cut down
+fighting hand to hand; some of the Athenians also fell into
+confusion in surrounding the enemy and mistook and so killed each
+other.  In this part of the field the Boeotians were beaten, and
+retreated upon the troops still fighting; but the right, where the
+Thebans were, got the better of the Athenians and shoved them
+further and further back, though gradually at first.  It so happened
+also that Pagondas, seeing the distress of his left, had sent two
+squadrons of horse, where they could not be seen, round the hill,
+and their sudden appearance struck a panic into the victorious wing of
+the Athenians, who thought that it was another army coming against
+them.  At length in both parts of the field, disturbed by this panic,
+and with their line broken by the advancing Thebans, the whole
+Athenian army took to flight.  Some made for Delium and the sea, some
+for Oropus, others for Mount Parnes, or wherever they had hopes of
+safety, pursued and cut down by the Boeotians, and in particular by
+the cavalry, composed partly of Boeotians and partly of Locrians,
+who had come up just as the rout began.  Night however coming on to
+interrupt the pursuit, the mass of the fugitives escaped more easily
+than they would otherwise have done.  The next day the troops at Oropus
+and Delium returned home by sea, after leaving a garrison in the
+latter place, which they continued to hold notwithstanding the defeat.
+
+The Boeotians set up a trophy, took up their own dead, and
+stripped those of the enemy, and leaving a guard over them retired
+to Tanagra, there to take measures for attacking Delium.  Meanwhile a
+herald came from the Athenians to ask for the dead, but was met and
+turned back by a Boeotian herald, who told him that he would effect
+nothing until the return of himself the Boeotian herald, and who
+then went on to the Athenians, and told them on the part of the
+Boeotians that they had done wrong in transgressing the law of the
+Hellenes.  Of what use was the universal custom protecting the
+temples in an invaded country, if the Athenians were to fortify Delium
+and live there, acting exactly as if they were on unconsecrated
+ground, and drawing and using for their purposes the water which they,
+the Boeotians, never touched except for sacred uses? Accordingly for
+the god as well as for themselves, in the name of the deities
+concerned, and of Apollo, the Boeotians invited them first to evacuate
+the temple, if they wished to take up the dead that belonged to them.
+
+After these words from the herald, the Athenians sent their own
+herald to the Boeotians to say that they had not done any wrong to the
+temple, and for the future would do it no more harm than they could
+help; not having occupied it originally in any such design, but to
+defend themselves from it against those who were really wronging them.
+The law of the Hellenes was that conquest of a country, whether more
+or less extensive, carried with it possession of the temples in that
+country, with the obligation to keep up the usual ceremonies, at least
+as far as possible.  The Boeotians and most other people who had turned
+out the owners of a country, and put themselves in their places by
+force, now held as of right the temples which they originally
+entered as usurpers.  If the Athenians could have conquered more of
+Boeotia this would have been the case with them: as things stood,
+the piece of it which they had got they should treat as their own, and
+not quit unless obliged.  The water they had disturbed under the
+impulsion of a necessity which they had not wantonly incurred,
+having been forced to use it in defending themselves against the
+Boeotians who first invaded Attica.  Besides, anything done under the
+pressure of war and danger might reasonably claim indulgence even in
+the eye of the god; or why, pray, were the altars the asylum for
+involuntary offences? Transgression also was a term applied to
+presumptuous offenders, not to the victims of adverse circumstances.
+In short, which were most impious--the Boeotians who wished to barter
+dead bodies for holy places, or the Athenians who refused to give up
+holy places to obtain what was theirs by right? The condition of
+evacuating Boeotia must therefore be withdrawn.  They were no longer in
+Boeotia.  They stood where they stood by the right of the sword.  All
+that the Boeotians had to do was to tell them to take up their dead
+under a truce according to the national custom.
+
+The Boeotians replied that if they were in Boeotia, they must
+evacuate that country before taking up their dead; if they were in
+their own territory, they could do as they pleased: for they knew
+that, although the Oropid where the bodies as it chanced were lying
+(the battle having been fought on the borders) was subject to
+Athens, yet the Athenians could not get them without their leave.
+Besides, why should they grant a truce for Athenian ground? And what
+could be fairer than to tell them to evacuate Boeotia if they wished
+to get what they asked? The Athenian herald accordingly returned
+with this answer, without having accomplished his object.
+
+Meanwhile the Boeotians at once sent for darters and slingers from
+the Malian Gulf, and with two thousand Corinthian heavy infantry who
+had joined them after the battle, the Peloponnesian garrison which had
+evacuated Nisaea, and some Megarians with them, marched against
+Delium, and attacked the fort, and after divers efforts finally
+succeeded in taking it by an engine of the following description.  They
+sawed in two and scooped out a great beam from end to end, and fitting
+it nicely together again like a pipe, hung by chains a cauldron at one
+extremity, with which communicated an iron tube projecting from the
+beam, which was itself in great part plated with iron.  This they
+brought up from a distance upon carts to the part of the wall
+principally composed of vines and timber, and when it was near,
+inserted huge bellows into their end of the beam and blew with them.
+The blast passing closely confined into the cauldron, which was filled
+with lighted coals, sulphur and pitch, made a great blaze, and set
+fire to the wall, which soon became untenable for its defenders, who
+left it and fled; and in this way the fort was taken.  Of the
+garrison some were killed and two hundred made prisoners; most of
+the rest got on board their ships and returned home.
+
+Soon after the fall of Delium, which took place seventeen days after
+the battle, the Athenian herald, without knowing what had happened,
+came again for the dead, which were now restored by the Boeotians, who
+no longer answered as at first.  Not quite five hundred Boeotians
+fell in the battle, and nearly one thousand Athenians, including
+Hippocrates the general, besides a great number of light troops and
+camp followers.
+
+Soon after this battle Demosthenes, after the failure of his
+voyage to Siphae and of the plot on the town, availed himself of the
+Acarnanian and Agraean troops and of the four hundred Athenian heavy
+infantry which he had on board, to make a descent on the Sicyonian
+coast.  Before however all his ships had come to shore, the
+Sicyonians came up and routed and chased to their ships those that had
+landed, killing some and taking others prisoners; after which they set
+up a trophy, and gave back the dead under truce.
+
+About the same time with the affair of Delium took place the death
+of Sitalces, king of the Odrysians, who was defeated in battle, in a
+campaign against the Triballi; Seuthes, son of Sparadocus, his nephew,
+succeeding to the kingdom of the Odrysians, and of the rest of
+Thrace ruled by Sitalces.
+
+The same winter Brasidas, with his allies in the Thracian places,
+marched against Amphipolis, the Athenian colony on the river
+Strymon.  A settlement upon the spot on which the city now stands was
+before attempted by Aristagoras, the Milesian (when he fled from
+King Darius), who was however dislodged by the Edonians; and
+thirty-two years later by the Athenians, who sent thither ten thousand
+settlers of their own citizens, and whoever else chose to go.  These
+were cut off at Drabescus by the Thracians.  Twenty-nine years after,
+the Athenians returned (Hagnon, son of Nicias, being sent out as
+leader of the colony) and drove out the Edonians, and founded a town
+on the spot, formerly called Ennea Hodoi or Nine Ways.  The base from
+which they started was Eion, their commercial seaport at the mouth
+of the river, not more than three miles from the present town, which
+Hagnon named Amphipolis, because the Strymon flows round it on two
+sides, and he built it so as to be conspicuous from the sea and land
+alike, running a long wall across from river to river, to complete the
+circumference.
+
+Brasidas now marched against this town, starting from Arne in
+Chalcidice.  Arriving about dusk at Aulon and Bromiscus, where the lake
+of Bolbe runs into the sea, he supped there, and went on during the
+night.  The weather was stormy and it was snowing a little, which
+encouraged him to hurry on, in order, if possible, to take every one
+at Amphipolis by surprise, except the party who were to betray it.  The
+plot was carried on by some natives of Argilus, an Andrian colony,
+residing in Amphipolis, where they had also other accomplices gained
+over by Perdiccas or the Chalcidians.  But the most active in the
+matter were the inhabitants of Argilus itself, which is close by,
+who had always been suspected by the Athenians, and had had designs on
+the place.  These men now saw their opportunity arrive with Brasidas,
+and having for some time been in correspondence with their
+countrymen in Amphipolis for the betrayal of the town, at once
+received him into Argilus, and revolted from the Athenians, and that
+same night took him on to the bridge over the river; where he found
+only a small guard to oppose him, the town being at some distance from
+the passage, and the walls not reaching down to it as at present.  This
+guard he easily drove in, partly through there being treason in
+their ranks, partly from the stormy state of the weather and the
+suddenness of his attack, and so got across the bridge, and
+immediately became master of all the property outside; the
+Amphipolitans having houses all over the quarter.
+
+The passage of Brasidas was a complete surprise to the people in the
+town; and the capture of many of those outside, and the flight of
+the rest within the wall, combined to produce great confusion among
+the citizens; especially as they did not trust one another.  It is even
+said that if Brasidas, instead of stopping to pillage, had advanced
+straight against the town, he would probably have taken it.  In fact,
+however, he established himself where he was and overran the country
+outside, and for the present remained inactive, vainly awaiting a
+demonstration on the part of his friends within.  Meanwhile the party
+opposed to the traitors proved numerous enough to prevent the gates
+being immediately thrown open, and in concert with Eucles, the
+general, who had come from Athens to defend the place, sent to the
+other commander in Thrace, Thucydides, son of Olorus, the author of
+this history, who was at the isle of Thasos, a Parian colony, half a
+day's sail from Amphipolis, to tell him to come to their relief.  On
+receipt of this message he at once set sail with seven ships which
+he had with him, in order, if possible, to reach Amphipolis in time to
+prevent its capitulation, or in any case to save Eion.
+
+Meanwhile Brasidas, afraid of succours arriving by sea from
+Thasos, and learning that Thucydides possessed the right of working
+the gold mines in that part of Thrace, and had thus great influence
+with the inhabitants of the continent, hastened to gain the town, if
+possible, before the people of Amphipolis should be encouraged by
+his arrival to hope that he could save them by getting together a
+force of allies from the sea and from Thrace, and so refuse to
+surrender.  He accordingly offered moderate terms, proclaiming that any
+of the Amphipolitans and Athenians who chose, might continue to
+enjoy their property with full rights of citizenship; while those
+who did not wish to stay had five days to depart, taking their
+property with them.
+
+The bulk of the inhabitants, upon hearing this, began to change
+their minds, especially as only a small number of the citizens were
+Athenians, the majority having come from different quarters, and
+many of the prisoners outside had relations within the walls.  They
+found the proclamation a fair one in comparison of what their fear had
+suggested; the Athenians being glad to go out, as they thought they
+ran more risk than the rest, and further, did not expect any speedy
+relief, and the multitude generally being content at being left in
+possession of their civic rights, and at such an unexpected reprieve
+from danger.  The partisans of Brasidas now openly advocated this
+course, seeing that the feeling of the people had changed, and that
+they no longer gave ear to the Athenian general present; and thus
+the surrender was made and Brasidas was admitted by them on the
+terms of his proclamation.  In this way they gave up the city, and late
+in the same day Thucydides and his ships entered the harbour of
+Eion, Brasidas having just got hold of Amphipolis, and having been
+within a night of taking Eion: had the ships been less prompt in
+relieving it, in the morning it would have been his.
+
+After this Thucydides put all in order at Eion to secure it
+against any present or future attack of Brasidas, and received such as
+had elected to come there from the interior according to the terms
+agreed on.  Meanwhile Brasidas suddenly sailed with a number of boats
+down the river to Eion to see if he could not seize the point
+running out from the wall, and so command the entrance; at the same
+time he attempted it by land, but was beaten off on both sides and had
+to content himself with arranging matters at Amphipolis and in the
+neighbourhood.  Myrcinus, an Edonian town, also came over to him; the
+Edonian king Pittacus having been killed by the sons of Goaxis and his
+own wife Brauro; and Galepsus and Oesime, which are Thasian
+colonies, not long after followed its example.  Perdiccas too came up
+immediately after the capture and joined in these arrangements.
+
+The news that Amphipolis was in the hands of the enemy caused
+great alarm at Athens.  Not only was the town valuable for the timber
+it afforded for shipbuilding, and the money that it brought in; but
+also, although the escort of the Thessalians gave the Lacedaemonians a
+means of reaching the allies of Athens as far as the Strymon, yet as
+long as they were not masters of the bridge but were watched on the
+side of Eion by the Athenian galleys, and on the land side impeded
+by a large and extensive lake formed by the waters of the river, it
+was impossible for them to go any further.  Now, on the contrary, the
+path seemed open.  There was also the fear of the allies revolting,
+owing to the moderation displayed by Brasidas in all his conduct,
+and to the declarations which he was everywhere making that he sent
+out to free Hellas.  The towns subject to the Athenians, hearing of the
+capture of Amphipolis and of the terms accorded to it, and of the
+gentleness of Brasidas, felt most strongly encouraged to change
+their condition, and sent secret messages to him, begging him to
+come on to them; each wishing to be the first to revolt.  Indeed
+there seemed to be no danger in so doing; their mistake in their
+estimate of the Athenian power was as great as that power afterwards
+turned out to be, and their judgment was based more upon blind wishing
+than upon any sound prevision; for it is a habit of mankind to entrust
+to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to
+thrust aside what they do not fancy.  Besides the late severe blow
+which the Athenians had met with in Boeotia, joined to the
+seductive, though untrue, statements of Brasidas, about the
+Athenians not having ventured to engage his single army at Nisaea,
+made the allies confident, and caused them to believe that no Athenian
+force would be sent against them.  Above all the wish to do what was
+agreeable at the moment, and the likelihood that they should find
+the Lacedaemonians full of zeal at starting, made them eager to
+venture.  Observing this, the Athenians sent garrisons to the different
+towns, as far as was possible at such short notice and in winter;
+while Brasidas sent dispatches to Lacedaemon asking for
+reinforcements, and himself made preparations for building galleys
+in the Strymon.  The Lacedaemonians however did not send him any,
+partly through envy on the part of their chief men, partly because
+they were more bent on recovering the prisoners of the island and
+ending the war.
+
+The same winter the Megarians took and razed to the foundations
+the long walls which had been occupied by the Athenians; and
+Brasidas after the capture of Amphipolis marched with his allies
+against Acte, a promontory running out from the King's dike with an
+inward curve, and ending in Athos, a lofty mountain looking towards
+the Aegean Sea.  In it are various towns, Sane, an Andrian colony,
+close to the canal, and facing the sea in the direction of Euboea; the
+others being Thyssus, Cleone, Acrothoi, Olophyxus, and Dium, inhabited
+by mixed barbarian races speaking the two languages.  There is also a
+small Chalcidian element; but the greater number are
+Tyrrheno-Pelasgians once settled in Lemnos and Athens, and Bisaltians,
+Crestonians, and Edonians; the towns being all small ones.  Most of
+these came over to Brasidas; but Sane and Dium held out and saw
+their land ravaged by him and his army.
+
+Upon their not submitting, he at once marched against Torone in
+Chalcidice, which was held by an Athenian garrison, having been
+invited by a few persons who were prepared to hand over the town.
+Arriving in the dark a little before daybreak, he sat down with his
+army near the temple of the Dioscuri, rather more than a quarter of
+a mile from the city.  The rest of the town of Torone and the Athenians
+in garrison did not perceive his approach; but his partisans knowing
+that he was coming (a few of them had secretly gone out to meet him)
+were on the watch for his arrival, and were no sooner aware of it than
+they took it to them seven light-armed men with daggers, who alone
+of twenty men ordered on this service dared to enter, commanded by
+Lysistratus an Olynthian.  These passed through the sea wall, and
+without being seen went up and put to the sword the garrison of the
+highest post in the town, which stands on a hill, and broke open the
+postern on the side of Canastraeum.
+
+Brasidas meanwhile came a little nearer and then halted with his
+main body, sending on one hundred targeteers to be ready to rush in
+first, the moment that a gate should be thrown open and the beacon
+lighted as agreed.  After some time passed in waiting and wondering
+at the delay, the targeteers by degrees got up close to the town.
+The Toronaeans inside at work with the party that had entered had by
+this time broken down the postern and opened the gates leading to
+the market-place by cutting through the bar, and first brought some
+men round and let them in by the postern, in order to strike a panic
+into the surprised townsmen by suddenly attacking them from behind and
+on both sides at once; after which they raised the fire-signal as
+had been agreed, and took in by the market gates the rest of the
+targeteers.
+
+Brasidas seeing the signal told the troops to rise, and dashed
+forward amid the loud hurrahs of his men, which carried dismay among
+the astonished townspeople.  Some burst in straight by the gate, others
+over some square pieces of timber placed against the wall (which has
+fallen down and was being rebuilt) to draw up stones; Brasidas and the
+greater number making straight uphill for the higher part of the town,
+in order to take it from top to bottom, and once for all, while the
+rest of the multitude spread in all directions.
+
+The capture of the town was effected before the great body of the
+Toronaeans had recovered from their surprise and confusion; but the
+conspirators and the citizens of their party at once joined the
+invaders.  About fifty of the Athenian heavy infantry happened to be
+sleeping in the market-place when the alarm reached them.  A few of
+these were killed fighting; the rest escaped, some by land, others
+to the two ships on the station, and took refuge in Lecythus, a fort
+garrisoned by their own men in the corner of the town running out into
+the sea and cut off by a narrow isthmus; where they were joined by the
+Toronaeans of their party.
+
+Day now arrived, and the town being secured, Brasidas made a
+proclamation to the Toronaeans who had taken refuge with the
+Athenians, to come out, as many as chose, to their homes without
+fearing for their rights or persons, and sent a herald to invite the
+Athenians to accept a truce, and to evacuate Lecythus with their
+property, as being Chalcidian ground.  The Athenians refused this
+offer, but asked for a truce for a day to take up their dead.  Brasidas
+granted it for two days, which he employed in fortifying the houses
+near, and the Athenians in doing the same to their positions.
+Meanwhile he called a meeting of the Toronaeans, and said very much
+what he had said at Acanthus, namely, that they must not look upon
+those who had negotiated with him for the capture of the town as bad
+men or as traitors, as they had not acted as they had done from
+corrupt motives or in order to enslave the city, but for the good
+and freedom of Torone; nor again must those who had not shared in
+the enterprise fancy that they would not equally reap its fruits, as
+he had not come to destroy either city or individual.  This was the
+reason of his proclamation to those that had fled for refuge to the
+Athenians: he thought none the worse of them for their friendship
+for the Athenians; he believed that they had only to make trial of the
+Lacedaemonians to like them as well, or even much better, as acting
+much more justly: it was for want of such a trial that they were now
+afraid of them.  Meanwhile he warned all of them to prepare to be
+staunch allies, and for being held responsible for all faults in
+future: for the past, they had not wronged the Lacedaemonians but
+had been wronged by others who were too strong for them, and any
+opposition that they might have offered him could be excused.
+
+Having encouraged them with this address, as soon as the truce
+expired he made his attack upon Lecythus; the Athenians defending
+themselves from a poor wall and from some houses with parapets.  One
+day they beat him off; the next the enemy were preparing to bring up
+an engine against them from which they meant to throw fire upon the
+wooden defences, and the troops were already coming up to the point
+where they fancied they could best bring up the engine, and where
+place was most assailable; meanwhile the Athenians put a wooden
+tower upon a house opposite, and carried up a quantity of jars and
+casks of water and big stones, and a large number of men also
+climbed up.  The house thus laden too heavily suddenly broke down
+with a loud crash; at which the men who were near and saw it were more
+vexed than frightened; but those not so near, and still more those
+furthest off, thought that the place was already taken at that
+point, and fled in haste to the sea and the ships.
+
+Brasidas, perceiving that they were deserting the parapet, and
+seeing what was going on, dashed forward with his troops, and
+immediately took the fort, and put to the sword all whom he found in
+it.  In this way the place was evacuated by the Athenians, who went
+across in their boats and ships to Pallene.  Now there is a temple of
+Athene in Lecythus, and Brasidas had proclaimed in the moment of
+making the assault that he would give thirty silver minae to the man
+first on the wall.  Being now of opinion that the capture was
+scarcely due to human means, he gave the thirty minae to the goddess
+for her temple, and razed and cleared Lecythus, and made the whole
+of it consecrated ground.  The rest of the winter he spent in
+settling the places in his hands, and in making designs upon the rest;
+and with the expiration of the winter the eighth year of this war
+ended.
+
+In the spring of the summer following, the Lacedaemonians and
+Athenians made an armistice for a year; the Athenians thinking that
+they would thus have full leisure to take their precautions before
+Brasidas could procure the revolt of any more of their towns, and
+might also, if it suited them, conclude a general peace; the
+Lacedaemonians divining the actual fears of the Athenians, and
+thinking that after once tasting a respite from trouble and misery
+they would be more disposed to consent to a reconciliation, and to
+give back the prisoners, and make a treaty for the longer period.
+The great idea of the Lacedaemonians was to get back their men while
+Brasidas's good fortune lasted: further successes might make the
+struggle a less unequal one in Chalcidice, but would leave them
+still deprived of their men, and even in Chalcidice not more than a
+match for the Athenians and by no means certain of victory.  An
+armistice was accordingly concluded by Lacedaemon and her allies
+upon the terms following:
+
+1.  As to the temple and oracle of the Pythian Apollo, we are
+agreed that whosoever will shall have access to it, without fraud or
+fear, according to the usages of his forefathers.  The Lacedaemonians
+and the allies present agree to this, and promise to send heralds to
+the Boeotians and Phocians, and to do their best to persuade them to
+agree likewise.
+
+2.  As to the treasure of the god, we agree to exert ourselves to
+detect all malversators, truly and honestly following the customs of
+our forefathers, we and you and all others willing to do so, all
+following the customs of our forefathers.  As to these points the
+Lacedaemonians and the other allies are agreed as has been said.
+
+3.  As to what follows, the Lacedaemonians and the other allies
+agree, if the Athenians conclude a treaty, to remain, each of us in
+our own territory, retaining our respective acquisitions: the garrison
+in Coryphasium keeping within Buphras and Tomeus: that in Cythera
+attempting no communication with the Peloponnesian confederacy,
+neither we with them, nor they with us: that in Nisaea and Minoa not
+crossing the road leading from the gates of the temple of Nisus to
+that of Poseidon and from thence straight to the bridge at Minoa:
+the Megarians and the allies being equally bound not to cross this
+road, and the Athenians retaining the island they have taken,
+without any communication on either side: as to Troezen, each side
+retaining what it has, and as was arranged with the Athenians.
+
+4.  As to the use of the sea, so far as refers to their own coast
+and to that of their confederacy, that the Lacedaemonians and their
+allies may voyage upon it in any vessel rowed by oars and of not
+more than five hundred talents tonnage, not a vessel of war.
+
+5.  That all heralds and embassies, with as many attendants as they
+please, for concluding the war and adjusting claims, shall have free
+passage, going and coming, to Peloponnese or Athens by land and by
+sea.
+
+6.  That during the truce, deserters whether bond or free shall
+be received neither by you, nor by us.
+
+7.  Further, that satisfaction shall be given by you to us and by
+us to you according to the public law of our several countries, all
+disputes being settled by law without recourse to hostilities.
+
+The Lacedaemonians and allies agree to these articles; but if
+you have anything fairer or juster to suggest, come to Lacedaemon
+and let us know: whatever shall be just will meet with no objection
+either from the Lacedaemonians or from the allies.  Only let those
+who come come with full powers, as you desire us.  The truce shall be
+for one year.
+
+Approved by the people.
+
+The tribe of Acamantis had the prytany, Phoenippus was
+secretary, Niciades chairman.  Laches moved, in the name of the good
+luck of the Athenians, that they should conclude the armistice upon
+the terms agreed upon by the Lacedaemonians and the allies.  It was
+agreed accordingly in the popular assembly that the armistice should
+be for one year, beginning that very day, the fourteenth of the
+month of Elaphebolion; during which time ambassadors and heralds
+should go and come between the two countries to discuss the bases of a
+pacification.  That the generals and prytanes should call an assembly
+of the people, in which the Athenians should first consult on the
+peace, and on the mode in which the embassy for putting an end to
+the war should be admitted.  That the embassy now present should at
+once take the engagement before the people to keep well and truly this
+truce for one year.
+
+On these terms the Lacedaemonians concluded with the Athenians and
+their allies on the twelfth day of the Spartan month Gerastius; the
+allies also taking the oaths.  Those who concluded and poured the
+libation were Taurus, son of Echetimides, Athenaeus, son of
+Pericleidas, and Philocharidas, son of Eryxidaidas, Lacedaemonians;
+Aeneas, son of Ocytus, and Euphamidas, son of Aristonymus,
+Corinthians; Damotimus, son of Naucrates, and Onasimus, son of
+Megacles, Sicyonians; Nicasus, son of Cecalus, and Menecrates, son
+of Amphidorus, Megarians; and Amphias, son of Eupaidas, an Epidaurian;
+and the Athenian generals Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes, Nicias,
+son of Niceratus, and Autocles, son of Tolmaeus.  Such was the
+armistice, and during the whole of it conferences went on on the
+subject of a pacification.
+
+In the days in which they were going backwards and forwards to these
+conferences, Scione, a town in Pallene, revolted from Athens, and went
+over to Brasidas.  The Scionaeans say that they are Pallenians from
+Peloponnese, and that their first founders on their voyage from Troy
+were carried in to this spot by the storm which the Achaeans were
+caught in, and there settled.  The Scionaeans had no sooner revolted
+than Brasidas crossed over by night to Scione, with a friendly
+galley ahead and himself in a small boat some way behind; his idea
+being that if he fell in with a vessel larger than the boat he would
+have the galley to defend him, while a ship that was a match for the
+galley would probably neglect the small vessel to attack the large
+one, and thus leave him time to escape.  His passage effected, he
+called a meeting of the Scionaeans and spoke to the same effect as
+at Acanthus and Torone, adding that they merited the utmost
+commendation, in that, in spite of Pallene within the isthmus being
+cut off by the Athenian occupation of Potidaea and of their own
+practically insular position, they had of their own free will gone
+forward to meet their liberty instead of timorously waiting until they
+had been by force compelled to their own manifest good.  This was a
+sign that they would valiantly undergo any trial, however great; and
+if he should order affairs as he intended, he should count them
+among the truest and sincerest friends of the Lacedaemonians, and
+would in every other way honour them.
+
+The Scionaeans were elated by his language, and even those who had
+at first disapproved of what was being done catching the general
+confidence, they determined on a vigorous conduct of the war, and
+welcomed Brasidas with all possible honours, publicly crowning him
+with a crown of gold as the liberator of Hellas; while private persons
+crowded round him and decked him with garlands as though he had been
+an athlete.  Meanwhile Brasidas left them a small garrison for the
+present and crossed back again, and not long afterwards sent over a
+larger force, intending with the help of the Scionaeans to attempt
+Mende and Potidaea before the Athenians should arrive; Scione, he
+felt, being too like an island for them not to relieve it.  He had
+besides intelligence in the above towns about their betrayal.
+
+In the midst of his designs upon the towns in question, a galley
+arrived with the commissioners carrying round the news of the
+armistice, Aristonymus for the Athenians and Athenaeus for the
+Lacedaemonians.  The troops now crossed back to Torone, and the
+commissioners gave Brasidas notice of the convention.  All the
+Lacedaemonian allies in Thrace accepted what had been done; and
+Aristonymus made no difficulty about the rest, but finding, on
+counting the days, that the Scionaeans had revolted after the date
+of the convention, refused to include them in it.  To this Brasidas
+earnestly objected, asserting that the revolt took place before, and
+would not give up the town.  Upon Aristonymus reporting the case to
+Athens, the people at once prepared to send an expedition to Scione.
+Upon this, envoys arrived from Lacedaemon, alleging that this would be
+a breach of the truce, and laying claim to the town upon the faith
+of the assertion of Brasidas, and meanwhile offering to submit the
+question to arbitration.  Arbitration, however, was what the
+Athenians did not choose to risk; being determined to send troops at
+once to the place, and furious at the idea of even the islanders now
+daring to revolt, in a vain reliance upon the power of the
+Lacedaemonians by land.  Besides the facts of the revolt were rather as
+the Athenians contended, the Scionaeans having revolted two days after
+the convention.  Cleon accordingly succeeded in carrying a decree to
+reduce and put to death the Scionaeans; and the Athenians employed the
+leisure which they now enjoyed in preparing for the expedition.
+
+Meanwhile Mende revolted, a town in Pallene and a colony of the
+Eretrians, and was received without scruple by Brasidas, in spite of
+its having evidently come over during the armistice, on account of
+certain infringements of the truce alleged by him against the
+Athenians.  This audacity of Mende was partly caused by seeing Brasidas
+forward in the matter and by the conclusions drawn from his refusal to
+betray Scione; and besides, the conspirators in Mende were few, and,
+as I have already intimated, had carried on their practices too long
+not to fear detection for themselves, and not to wish to force the
+inclination of the multitude.  This news made the Athenians more
+furious than ever, and they at once prepared against both towns.
+Brasidas, expecting their arrival, conveyed away to Olynthus in
+Chalcidice the women and children of the Scionaeans and Mendaeans, and
+sent over to them five hundred Peloponnesian heavy infantry and
+three hundred Chalcidian targeteers, all under the command of
+Polydamidas.
+
+Leaving these two towns to prepare together against the speedy
+arrival of the Athenians, Brasidas and Perdiccas started on a second
+joint expedition into Lyncus against Arrhabaeus; the latter with the
+forces of his Macedonian subjects, and a corps of heavy infantry
+composed of Hellenes domiciled in the country; the former with the
+Peloponnesians whom he still had with him and the Chalcidians,
+Acanthians, and the rest in such force as they were able.  In all there
+were about three thousand Hellenic heavy infantry, accompanied by
+all the Macedonian cavalry with the Chalcidians, near one thousand
+strong, besides an immense crowd of barbarians.  On entering the
+country of Arrhabaeus, they found the Lyncestians encamped awaiting
+them, and themselves took up a position opposite.  The infantry on
+either side were upon a hill, with a plain between them, into which
+the horse of both armies first galloped down and engaged a cavalry
+action.  After this the Lyncestian heavy infantry advanced from their
+hill to join their cavalry and offered battle; upon which Brasidas and
+Perdiccas also came down to meet them, and engaged and routed them
+with heavy loss; the survivors taking refuge upon the heights and
+there remaining inactive.  The victors now set up a trophy and waited
+two or three days for the Illyrian mercenaries who were to join
+Perdiccas.  Perdiccas then wished to go on and attack the villages of
+Arrhabaeus, and to sit still no longer; but Brasidas, afraid that
+the Athenians might sail up during his absence, and of something
+happening to Mende, and seeing besides that the Illyrians did not
+appear, far from seconding this wish was anxious to return.
+
+While they were thus disputing, the news arrived that the
+Illyrians had actually betrayed Perdiccas and had joined Arrhabaeus;
+and the fear inspired by their warlike character made both parties now
+think it best to retreat.  However, owing to the dispute, nothing had
+been settled as to when they should start; and night coming on, the
+Macedonians and the barbarian crowd took fright in a moment in one
+of those mysterious panics to which great armies are liable; and
+persuaded that an army many times more numerous than that which had
+really arrived was advancing and all but upon them, suddenly broke and
+fled in the direction of home, and thus compelled Perdiccas, who at
+first did not perceive what had occurred, to depart without seeing
+Brasidas, the two armies being encamped at a considerable distance
+from each other.  At daybreak Brasidas, perceiving that the Macedonians
+had gone on, and that the Illyrians and Arrhabaeus were on the point
+of attacking him, formed his heavy infantry into a square, with the
+light troops in the centre, and himself also prepared to retreat.
+Posting his youngest soldiers to dash out wherever the enemy should
+attack them, he himself with three hundred picked men in the rear
+intended to face about during the retreat and beat off the most
+forward of their assailants, Meanwhile, before the enemy approached,
+he sought to sustain the courage of his soldiers with the following
+hasty exhortation:
+
+"Peloponnesians, if I did not suspect you of being dismayed at being
+left alone to sustain the attack of a numerous and barbarian enemy,
+I should just have said a few words to you as usual without further
+explanation.  As it is, in the face of the desertion of our friends and
+the numbers of the enemy, I have some advice and information to offer,
+which, brief as they must be, will, I hope, suffice for the more
+important points.  The bravery that you habitually display in war
+does not depend on your having allies at your side in this or that
+encounter, but on your native courage; nor have numbers any terrors
+for citizens of states like yours, in which the many do not rule the
+few, but rather the few the many, owing their position to nothing else
+than to superiority in the field.  Inexperience now makes you afraid of
+barbarians; and yet the trial of strength which you had with the
+Macedonians among them, and my own judgment, confirmed by what I
+hear from others, should be enough to satisfy you that they will not
+prove formidable.  Where an enemy seems strong but is really weak, a
+true knowledge of the facts makes his adversary the bolder, just as
+a serious antagonist is encountered most confidently by those who do
+not know him.  Thus the present enemy might terrify an inexperienced
+imagination; they are formidable in outward bulk, their loud yelling
+is unbearable, and the brandishing of their weapons in the air has a
+threatening appearance.  But when it comes to real fighting with an
+opponent who stands his ground, they are not what they seemed; they
+have no regular order that they should be ashamed of deserting their
+positions when hard pressed; flight and attack are with them equally
+honourable, and afford no test of courage; their independent mode of
+fighting never leaving any one who wants to run away without a fair
+excuse for so doing.  In short, they think frightening you at a
+secure distance a surer game than meeting you hand to hand;
+otherwise they would have done the one and not the other.  You can thus
+plainly see that the terrors with which they were at first invested
+are in fact trifling enough, though to the eye and ear very prominent.
+Stand your ground therefore when they advance, and again wait your
+opportunity to retire in good order, and you will reach a place of
+safety all the sooner, and will know for ever afterwards that rabble
+such as these, to those who sustain their first attack, do but show
+off their courage by threats of the terrible things that they are
+going to do, at a distance, but with those who give way to them are
+quick enough to display their heroism in pursuit when they can do so
+without danger."
+
+With this brief address Brasidas began to lead off his army.
+Seeing this, the barbarians came on with much shouting and hubbub,
+thinking that he was flying and that they would overtake him and cut
+him off.  But wherever they charged they found the young men ready to
+dash out against them, while Brasidas with his picked company
+sustained their onset.  Thus the Peloponnesians withstood the first
+attack, to the surprise of the enemy, and afterwards received and
+repulsed them as fast as they came on, retiring as soon as their
+opponents became quiet.  The main body of the barbarians ceased
+therefore to molest the Hellenes with Brasidas in the open country,
+and leaving behind a certain number to harass their march, the rest
+went on after the flying Macedonians, slaying those with whom they
+came up, and so arrived in time to occupy the narrow pass between
+two hills that leads into the country of Arrhabaeus.  They knew that
+this was the only way by which Brasidas could retreat, and now
+proceeded to surround him just as he entered the most impracticable
+part of the road, in order to cut him off.
+
+Brasidas, perceiving their intention, told his three hundred to
+run on without order, each as quickly as he could, to the hill which
+seemed easiest to take, and to try to dislodge the barbarians
+already there, before they should be joined by the main body closing
+round him.  These attacked and overpowered the party upon the hill, and
+the main army of the Hellenes now advanced with less difficulty
+towards it--the barbarians being terrified at seeing their men on
+that side driven from the height and no longer following the main
+body, who, they considered, had gained the frontier and made good
+their escape.  The heights once gained, Brasidas now proceeded more
+securely, and the same day arrived at Arnisa, the first town in the
+dominions of Perdiccas.  The soldiers, enraged at the desertion of
+the Macedonians, vented their rage on all their yokes of oxen which
+they found on the road, and on any baggage which had tumbled off (as
+might easily happen in the panic of a night retreat), by unyoking
+and cutting down the cattle and taking the baggage for themselves.
+From this moment Perdiccas began to regard Brasidas as an enemy and to
+feel against the Peloponnesians a hatred which could not be
+congenial to the adversary of the Athenians.  However, he departed from
+his natural interests and made it his endeavour to come to terms
+with the latter and to get rid of the former.
+
+On his return from Macedonia to Torone, Brasidas found the Athenians
+already masters of Mende, and remained quiet where he was, thinking it
+now out of his power to cross over into Pallene and assist the
+Mendaeans, but he kept good watch over Torone.  For about the same time
+as the campaign in Lyncus, the Athenians sailed upon the expedition
+which we left them preparing against Mende and Scione, with fifty
+ships, ten of which were Chians, one thousand Athenian heavy
+infantry and six hundred archers, one hundred Thracian mercenaries and
+some targeteers drawn from their allies in the neighbourhood, under
+the command of Nicias, son of Niceratus, and Nicostratus, son of
+Diitrephes.  Weighing from Potidaea, the fleet came to land opposite
+the temple of Poseidon, and proceeded against Mende; the men of
+which town, reinforced by three hundred Scionaeans, with their
+Peloponnesian auxiliaries, seven hundred heavy infantry in all,
+under Polydamidas, they found encamped upon a strong hill outside
+the city.  These Nicias, with one hundred and twenty light-armed
+Methonaeans, sixty picked men from the Athenian heavy infantry, and
+all the archers, tried to reach by a path running up the hill, but
+received a wound and found himself unable to force the position; while
+Nicostratus, with all the rest of the army, advancing upon the hill,
+which was naturally difficult, by a different approach further off,
+was thrown into utter disorder; and the whole Athenian army narrowly
+escaped being defeated.  For that day, as the Mendaeans and their
+allies showed no signs of yielding, the Athenians retreated and
+encamped, and the Mendaeans at nightfall returned into the town.
+
+The next day the Athenians sailed round to the Scione side, and took
+the suburb, and all day plundered the country, without any one
+coming out against them, partly because of intestine disturbances in
+the town; and the following night the three hundred Scionaeans
+returned home.  On the morrow Nicias advanced with half the army to the
+frontier of Scione and laid waste the country; while Nicostratus
+with the remainder sat down before the town near the upper gate on the
+road to Potidaea.  The arms of the Mendaeans and of their Peloponnesian
+auxiliaries within the wall happened to be piled in that quarter,
+where Polydamidas accordingly began to draw them up for battle,
+encouraging the Mendaeans to make a sortie.  At this moment one of
+the popular party answered him factiously that they would not go out
+and did not want a war, and for thus answering was dragged by the
+arm and knocked about by Polydamidas.  Hereupon the infuriated
+commons at once seized their arms and rushed at the Peloponnesians and
+at their allies of the opposite faction.  The troops thus assaulted
+were at once routed, partly from the suddenness of the conflict and
+partly through fear of the gates being opened to the Athenians, with
+whom they imagined that the attack had been concerted.  As many as were
+not killed on the spot took refuge in the citadel, which they had held
+from the first; and the whole, Athenian army, Nicias having by this
+time returned and being close to the city, now burst into Mende, which
+had opened its gates without any convention, and sacked it just as
+if they had taken it by storm, the generals even finding some
+difficulty in restraining them from also massacring the inhabitants.
+After this the Athenians told the Mendaeans that they might retain
+their civil rights, and themselves judge the supposed authors of the
+revolt; and cut off the party in the citadel by a wall built down to
+the sea on either side, appointing troops to maintain the blockade.
+Having thus secured Mende, they proceeded against Scione.
+
+The Scionaeans and Peloponnesians marched out against them,
+occupying a strong hill in front of the town, which had to be captured
+by the enemy before they could invest the place.  The Athenians stormed
+the hill, defeated and dislodged its occupants, and, having encamped
+and set up a trophy, prepared for the work of circumvallation.  Not
+long after they had begun their operations, the auxiliaries besieged
+in the citadel of Mende forced the guard by the sea-side and arrived
+by night at Scione, into which most of them succeeded in entering,
+passing through the besieging army.
+
+While the investment of Scione was in progress, Perdiccas sent a
+herald to the Athenian generals and made peace with the Athenians,
+through spite against Brasidas for the retreat from Lyncus, from which
+moment indeed he had begun to negotiate.  The Lacedaemonian
+Ischagoras was just then upon the point of starting with an army
+overland to join Brasidas; and Perdiccas, being now required by Nicias
+to give some proof of the sincerity of his reconciliation to the
+Athenians, and being himself no longer disposed to let the
+Peloponnesians into his country, put in motion his friends in
+Thessaly, with whose chief men he always took care to have
+relations, and so effectually stopped the army and its preparation
+that they did not even try the Thessalians.  Ischagoras himself,
+however, with Ameinias and Aristeus, succeeded in reaching Brasidas;
+they had been commissioned by the Lacedaemonians to inspect the
+state of affairs, and brought out from Sparta (in violation of all
+precedent) some of their young men to put in command of the towns,
+to guard against their being entrusted to the persons upon the spot.
+Brasidas accordingly placed Clearidas, son of Cleonymus, in
+Amphipolis, and Pasitelidas, son of Hegesander, in Torone.
+
+The same summer the Thebans dismantled the wall of the Thespians
+on the charge of Atticism, having always wished to do so, and now
+finding it an easy matter, as the flower of the Thespian youth had
+perished in the battle with the Athenians.  The same summer also the
+temple of Hera at Argos was burnt down, through Chrysis, the
+priestess, placing a lighted torch near the garlands and then
+falling asleep, so that they all caught fire and were in a blaze
+before she observed it.  Chrysis that very night fled to Phlius for
+fear of the Argives, who, agreeably to the law in such a case,
+appointed another priestess named Phaeinis.  Chrysis at the time of her
+flight had been priestess for eight years of the present war and
+half the ninth.  At the close of the summer the investment of Scione
+was completed, and the Athenians, leaving a detachment to maintain the
+blockade, returned with the rest of their army.
+
+During the winter following, the Athenians and Lacedaemonians were
+kept quiet by the armistice; but the Mantineans and Tegeans, and their
+respective allies, fought a battle at Laodicium, in the Oresthid.
+The victory remained doubtful, as each side routed one of the wings
+opposed to them, and both set up trophies and sent spoils to Delphi.
+After heavy loss on both sides the battle was undecided, and night
+interrupted the action; yet the Tegeans passed the night on the
+field and set up a trophy at once, while the Mantineans withdrew to
+Bucolion and set up theirs afterwards.
+
+At the close of the same winter, in fact almost in spring,
+Brasidas made an attempt upon Potidaea.  He arrived by night, and
+succeeded in planting a ladder against the wall without being
+discovered, the ladder being planted just in the interval between
+the passing round of the bell and the return of the man who brought it
+back.  Upon the garrison, however, taking the alarm immediately
+afterwards, before his men came up, he quickly led off his troops,
+without waiting until it was day.  So ended the winter and the ninth
+year of this war of which Thucydides is the historian.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK V
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+_Tenth Year of the War - Death of Cleon and Brasidas -
+Peace of Nicias_
+
+The next summer the truce for a year ended, after lasting until
+the Pythian games.  During the armistice the Athenians expelled the
+Delians from Delos, concluding that they must have been polluted by
+some old offence at the time of their consecration, and that this
+had been the omission in the previous purification of the island,
+which, as I have related, had been thought to have been duly
+accomplished by the removal of the graves of the dead.  The Delians had
+Atramyttium in Asia given them by Pharnaces, and settled there as they
+removed from Delos.
+
+Meanwhile Cleon prevailed on the Athenians to let him set sail at
+the expiration of the armistice for the towns in the direction of
+Thrace with twelve hundred heavy infantry and three hundred horse from
+Athens, a large force of the allies, and thirty ships.  First
+touching at the still besieged Scione, and taking some heavy
+infantry from the army there, he next sailed into Cophos, a harbour in
+the territory of Torone, which is not far from the town.  From
+thence, having learnt from deserters that Brasidas was not in
+Torone, and that its garrison was not strong enough to give him
+battle, he advanced with his army against the town, sending ten
+ships to sail round into the harbour.  He first came to the
+fortification lately thrown up in front of the town by Brasidas in
+order to take in the suburb, to do which he had pulled down part of
+the original wall and made it all one city.  To this point Pasitelidas,
+the Lacedaemonian commander, with such garrison as there was in the
+place, hurried to repel the Athenian assault; but finding himself hard
+pressed, and seeing the ships that had been sent round sailing into
+the harbour, Pasitelidas began to be afraid that they might get up
+to the city before its defenders were there and, the fortification
+being also carried, he might be taken prisoner, and so abandoned the
+outwork and ran into the town.  But the Athenians from the ships had
+already taken Torone, and their land forces following at his heels
+burst in with him with a rush over the part of the old wall that had
+been pulled down, killing some of the Peloponnesians and Toronaeans in
+the melee, and making prisoners of the rest, and Pasitelidas their
+commander amongst them.  Brasidas meanwhile had advanced to relieve
+Torone, and had only about four miles more to go when he heard of
+its fall on the road, and turned back again.  Cleon and the Athenians
+set up two trophies, one by the harbour, the other by the
+fortification and, making slaves of the wives and children of the
+Toronaeans, sent the men with the Peloponnesians and any Chalcidians
+that were there, to the number of seven hundred, to Athens; whence,
+however, they all came home afterwards, the Peloponnesians on the
+conclusion of peace, and the rest by being exchanged against other
+prisoners with the Olynthians.  About the same time Panactum, a
+fortress on the Athenian border, was taken by treachery by the
+Boeotians.  Meanwhile Cleon, after placing a garrison in Torone,
+weighed anchor and sailed around Athos on his way to Amphipolis.
+
+About the same time Phaeax, son of Erasistratus, set sail with two
+colleagues as ambassador from Athens to Italy and Sicily.  The
+Leontines, upon the departure of the Athenians from Sicily after the
+pacification, had placed a number of new citizens upon the roll, and
+the commons had a design for redividing the land; but the upper
+classes, aware of their intention, called in the Syracusans and
+expelled the commons.  These last were scattered in various directions;
+but the upper classes came to an agreement with the Syracusans,
+abandoned and laid waste their city, and went and lived at Syracuse,
+where they were made citizens.  Afterwards some of them were
+dissatisfied, and leaving Syracuse occupied Phocaeae, a quarter of the
+town of Leontini, and Bricinniae, a strong place in the Leontine
+country, and being there joined by most of the exiled commons
+carried on war from the fortifications.  The Athenians hearing this,
+sent Phaeax to see if they could not by some means so convince their
+allies there and the rest of the Sicilians of the ambitious designs of
+Syracuse as to induce them to form a general coalition against her,
+and thus save the commons of Leontini.  Arrived in Sicily, Phaeax
+succeeded at Camarina and Agrigentum, but meeting with a repulse at
+Gela did not go on to the rest, as he saw that he should not succeed
+with them, but returned through the country of the Sicels to Catana,
+and after visiting Bricinniae as he passed, and encouraging its
+inhabitants, sailed back to Athens.
+
+During his voyage along the coast to and from Sicily, he treated
+with some cities in Italy on the subject of friendship with Athens,
+and also fell in with some Locrian settlers exiled from Messina, who
+had been sent thither when the Locrians were called in by one of the
+factions that divided Messina after the pacification of Sicily, and
+Messina came for a time into the hands of the Locrians.  These being
+met by Phaeax on their return home received no injury at his hands, as
+the Locrians had agreed with him for a treaty with Athens.  They were
+the only people of the allies who, when the reconciliation between the
+Sicilians took place, had not made peace with her; nor indeed would
+they have done so now, if they had not been pressed by a war with
+the Hipponians and Medmaeans who lived on their border, and were
+colonists of theirs.  Phaeax meanwhile proceeded on his voyage, and
+at length arrived at Athens.
+
+Cleon, whom we left on his voyage from Torone to Amphipolis, made
+Eion his base, and after an unsuccessful assault upon the Andrian
+colony of Stagirus, took Galepsus, a colony of Thasos, by storm.  He
+now sent envoys to Perdiccas to command his attendance with an army,
+as provided by the alliance; and others to Thrace, to Polles, king
+of the Odomantians, who was to bring as many Thracian mercenaries as
+possible; and himself remained inactive in Eion, awaiting their
+arrival.  Informed of this, Brasidas on his part took up a position
+of observation upon Cerdylium, a place situated in the Argilian
+country on high ground across the river, not far from Amphipolis,
+and commanding a view on all sides, and thus made it impossible for
+Cleon's army to move without his seeing it; for he fully expected that
+Cleon, despising the scanty numbers of his opponent, would march
+against Amphipolis with the force that he had got with him.  At the
+same time Brasidas made his preparations, calling to his standard
+fifteen hundred Thracian mercenaries and all the Edonians, horse and
+targeteers; he also had a thousand Myrcinian and Chalcidian
+targeteers, besides those in Amphipolis, and a force of heavy infantry
+numbering altogether about two thousand, and three hundred Hellenic
+horse.  Fifteen hundred of these he had with him upon Cerdylium; the
+rest were stationed with Clearidas in Amphipolis.
+
+After remaining quiet for some time, Cleon was at length obliged
+to do as Brasidas expected.  His soldiers, tired of their inactivity,
+began also seriously to reflect on the weakness and incompetence of
+their commander, and the skill and valour that would be opposed to
+him, and on their own original unwillingness to accompany him.  These
+murmurs coming to the ears of Cleon, he resolved not to disgust the
+army by keeping it in the same place, and broke up his camp and
+advanced.  The temper of the general was what it had been at Pylos, his
+success on that occasion having given him confidence in his
+capacity.  He never dreamed of any one coming out to fight him, but
+said that he was rather going up to view the place; and if he waited
+for his reinforcements, it was not in order to make victory secure
+in case he should be compelled to engage, but to be enabled to
+surround and storm the city.  He accordingly came and posted his army
+upon a strong hill in front of Amphipolis, and proceeded to examine
+the lake formed by the Strymon, and how the town lay on the side of
+Thrace.  He thought to retire at pleasure without fighting, as there
+was no one to be seen upon the wall or coming out of the gates, all of
+which were shut.  Indeed, it seemed a mistake not to have brought
+down engines with him; he could then have taken the town, there
+being no one to defend it.
+
+As soon as Brasidas saw the Athenians in motion he descended himself
+from Cerdylium and entered Amphipolis.  He did not venture to go out in
+regular order against the Athenians: he mistrusted his strength, and
+thought it inadequate to the attempt; not in numbers--these were not
+so unequal--but in quality, the flower of the Athenian army being in
+the field, with the best of the Lemnians and Imbrians.  He therefore
+prepared to assail them by stratagem.  By showing the enemy the
+number of his troops, and the shifts which he had been put to to to
+arm them, he thought that he should have less chance of beating him
+than by not letting him have a sight of them, and thus learn how
+good a right he had to despise them.  He accordingly picked out a
+hundred and fifty heavy infantry and, putting the rest under
+Clearidas, determined to attack suddenly before the Athenians retired;
+thinking that he should not have again such a chance of catching
+them alone, if their reinforcements were once allowed to come up;
+and so calling all his soldiers together in order to encourage them
+and explain his intention, spoke as follows:
+
+"Peloponnesians, the character of the country from which we have
+come, one which has always owed its freedom to valour, and the fact
+that you are Dorians and the enemy you are about to fight Ionians,
+whom you are accustomed to beat, are things that do not need further
+comment.  But the plan of attack that I propose to pursue, this it is
+as well to explain, in order that the fact of our adventuring with a
+part instead of with the whole of our forces may not damp your courage
+by the apparent disadvantage at which it places you.  I imagine it is
+the poor opinion that he has of us, and the fact that he has no idea
+of any one coming out to engage him, that has made the enemy march
+up to the place and carelessly look about him as he is doing,
+without noticing us.  But the most successful soldier will always be
+the man who most happily detects a blunder like this, and who
+carefully consulting his own means makes his attack not so much by
+open and regular approaches, as by seizing the opportunity of the
+moment; and these stratagems, which do the greatest service to our
+friends by most completely deceiving our enemies, have the most
+brilliant name in war.  Therefore, while their careless confidence
+continues, and they are still thinking, as in my judgment they are now
+doing, more of retreat than of maintaining their position, while their
+spirit is slack and not high-strung with expectation, I with the men
+under my command will, if possible, take them by surprise and fall
+with a run upon their centre; and do you, Clearidas, afterwards,
+when you see me already upon them, and, as is likely, dealing terror
+among them, take with you the Amphipolitans, and the rest of the
+allies, and suddenly open the gates and dash at them, and hasten to
+engage as quickly as you can.  That is our best chance of
+establishing a panic among them, as a fresh assailant has always
+more terrors for an enemy than the one he is immediately engaged with.
+Show yourself a brave man, as a Spartan should; and do you, allies,
+follow him like men, and remember that zeal, honour, and obedience
+mark the good soldier, and that this day will make you either free men
+and allies of Lacedaemon, or slaves of Athens; even if you escape
+without personal loss of liberty or life, your bondage will be on
+harsher terms than before, and you will also hinder the liberation
+of the rest of the Hellenes.  No cowardice then on your part, seeing
+the greatness of the issues at stake, and I will show that what I
+preach to others I can practise myself."
+
+After this brief speech Brasidas himself prepared for the sally, and
+placed the rest with Clearidas at the Thracian gates to support him as
+had been agreed.  Meanwhile he had been seen coming down from Cerdylium
+and then in the city, which is overlooked from the outside,
+sacrificing near the temple of Athene; in short, all his movements had
+been observed, and word was brought to Cleon, who had at the moment
+gone on to look about him, that the whole of the enemy's force could
+be seen in the town, and that the feet of horses and men in great
+numbers were visible under the gates, as if a sally were intended.
+Upon hearing this he went up to look, and having done so, being
+unwilling to venture upon the decisive step of a battle before his
+reinforcements came up, and fancying that he would have time to
+retire, bid the retreat be sounded and sent orders to the men to
+effect it by moving on the left wing in the direction of Eion, which
+was indeed the only way practicable.  This however not being quick
+enough for him, he joined the retreat in person and made the right
+wing wheel round, thus turning its unarmed side to the enemy.  It was
+then that Brasidas, seeing the Athenian force in motion and his
+opportunity come, said to the men with him and the rest: "Those
+fellows will never stand before us, one can see that by the way
+their spears and heads are going.  Troops which do as they do seldom
+stand a charge.  Quick, someone, and open the gates I spoke of, and let
+us be out and at them with no fears for the result." Accordingly
+issuing out by the palisade gate and by the first in the long wall
+then existing, he ran at the top of his speed along the straight road,
+where the trophy now stands as you go by the steepest part of the
+hill, and fell upon and routed the centre of the Athenians,
+panic-stricken by their own disorder and astounded at his audacity.  At
+the same moment Clearidas in execution of his orders issued out from
+the Thracian gates to support him, and also attacked the enemy.  The
+result was that the Athenians, suddenly and unexpectedly attacked on
+both sides, fell into confusion; and their left towards Eion, which
+had already got on some distance, at once broke and fled.  Just as it
+was in full retreat and Brasidas was passing on to attack the right,
+he received a wound; but his fall was not perceived by the
+Athenians, as he was taken up by those near him and carried off the
+field.  The Athenian right made a better stand, and though Cleon, who
+from the first had no thought of fighting, at once fled and was
+overtaken and slain by a Myrcinian targeteer, his infantry forming
+in close order upon the hill twice or thrice repulsed the attacks of
+Clearidas, and did not finally give way until they were surrounded and
+routed by the missiles of the Myrcinian and Chalcidian horse and the
+targeteers.  Thus the Athenian army was all now in flight; and such
+as escaped being killed in the battle, or by the Chalcidian horse
+and the targeteers, dispersed among the hills, and with difficulty
+made their way to Eion.  The men who had taken up and rescued Brasidas,
+brought him into the town with the breath still in him: he lived to
+hear of the victory of his troops, and not long after expired.  The
+rest of the army returning with Clearidas from the pursuit stripped
+the dead and set up a trophy.
+
+After this all the allies attended in arms and buried Brasidas at the
+public expense in the city, in front of what is now the marketplace,
+and the Amphipolitans, having enclosed his tomb, ever afterwards
+sacrifice to him as a hero and have given to him the honour of games
+and annual offerings.  They constituted him the founder of their
+colony, and pulled down the Hagnonic erections, and obliterated
+everything that could be interpreted as a memorial of his having
+founded the place; for they considered that Brasidas had been their
+preserver, and courting as they did the alliance of Lacedaemon for
+fear of Athens, in their present hostile relations with the latter
+they could no longer with the same advantage or satisfaction pay
+Hagnon his honours.  They also gave the Athenians back their dead.
+About six hundred of the latter had fallen and only seven of the
+enemy, owing to there having been no regular engagement, but the
+affair of accident and panic that I have described.  After taking up
+their dead the Athenians sailed off home, while Clearidas and his
+troops remained to arrange matters at Amphipolis.
+
+About the same time three Lacedaemonians--Ramphias, Autocharidas,
+and Epicydidas--led a reinforcement of nine hundred heavy infantry to
+the towns in the direction of Thrace, and arriving at Heraclea in
+Trachis reformed matters there as seemed good to them.  While they
+delayed there, this battle took place and so the summer ended.
+
+With the beginning of the winter following, Ramphias and his
+companions penetrated as far as Pierium in Thessaly; but as the
+Thessalians opposed their further advance, and Brasidas whom they came
+to reinforce was dead, they turned back home, thinking that the moment
+had gone by, the Athenians being defeated and gone, and themselves not
+equal to the execution of Brasidas's designs.  The main cause however
+of their return was because they knew that when they set out
+Lacedaemonian opinion was really in favour of peace.
+
+Indeed it so happened that directly after the battle of Amphipolis
+and the retreat of Ramphias from Thessaly, both sides ceased to
+prosecute the war and turned their attention to peace.  Athens had
+suffered severely at Delium, and again shortly afterwards at
+Amphipolis, and had no longer that confidence in her strength which
+had made her before refuse to treat, in the belief of ultimate victory
+which her success at the moment had inspired; besides, she was
+afraid of her allies being tempted by her reverses to rebel more
+generally, and repented having let go the splendid opportunity for
+peace which the affair of Pylos had offered.  Lacedaemon, on the
+other hand, found the event of the war to falsify her notion that a
+few years would suffice for the overthrow of the power of the
+Athenians by the devastation of their land.  She had suffered on the
+island a disaster hitherto unknown at Sparta; she saw her country
+plundered from Pylos and Cythera; the Helots were deserting, and she
+was in constant apprehension that those who remained in Peloponnese
+would rely upon those outside and take advantage of the situation to
+renew their old attempts at revolution.  Besides this, as chance
+would have it, her thirty years' truce with the Argives was upon the
+point of expiring; and they refused to renew it unless Cynuria were
+restored to them; so that it seemed impossible to fight Argos and
+Athens at once.  She also suspected some of the cities in Peloponnese
+of intending to go over to the enemy and that was indeed the case.
+
+These considerations made both sides disposed for an
+accommodation; the Lacedaemonians being probably the most eager, as
+they ardently desired to recover the men taken upon the island, the
+Spartans among whom belonged to the first families and were
+accordingly related to the governing body in Lacedaemon.
+Negotiations had been begun directly after their capture, but the
+Athenians in their hour of triumph would not consent to any reasonable
+terms; though after their defeat at Delium, Lacedaemon, knowing that
+they would be now more inclined to listen, at once concluded the
+armistice for a year, during which they were to confer together and
+see if a longer period could not be agreed upon.
+
+Now, however, after the Athenian defeat at Amphipolis, and the death
+of Cleon and Brasidas, who had been the two principal opponents of
+peace on either side--the latter from the success and honour which
+war gave him, the former because he thought that, if tranquillity were
+restored, his crimes would be more open to detection and his
+slanders less credited--the foremost candidates for power in either
+city, Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of Lacedaemon, and Nicias,
+son of Niceratus, the most fortunate general of his time, each desired
+peace more ardently than ever.  Nicias, while still happy and honoured,
+wished to secure his good fortune, to obtain a present release from
+trouble for himself and his countrymen, and hand down to posterity a
+name as an ever-successful statesman, and thought the way to do this
+was to keep out of danger and commit himself as little as possible
+to fortune, and that peace alone made this keeping out of danger
+possible.  Pleistoanax, again, was assailed by his enemies for his
+restoration, and regularly held up by them to the prejudice of his
+countrymen, upon every reverse that befell them, as though his
+unjust restoration were the cause; the accusation being that he and
+his brother Aristocles had bribed the prophetess of Delphi to tell the
+Lacedaemonian deputations which successively arrived at the temple
+to bring home the seed of the demigod son of Zeus from abroad, else
+they would have to plough with a silver share.  In this way, it was
+insisted, in time he had induced the Lacedaemonians in the
+nineteenth year of his exile to Lycaeum (whither he had gone when
+banished on suspicion of having been bribed to retreat from Attica,
+and had built half his house within the consecrated precinct of Zeus
+for fear of the Lacedaemonians), to restore him with the same dances
+and sacrifices with which they had instituted their kings upon the
+first settlement of Lacedaemon.  The smart of this accusation, and
+the reflection that in peace no disaster could occur, and that when
+Lacedaemon had recovered her men there would be nothing for his
+enemies to take hold of (whereas, while war lasted, the highest
+station must always bear the scandal of everything that went wrong),
+made him ardently desire a settlement.  Accordingly this winter was
+employed in conferences; and as spring rapidly approached, the
+Lacedaemonians sent round orders to the cities to prepare for a
+fortified occupation of Attica, and held this as a sword over the
+heads of the Athenians to induce them to listen to their overtures;
+and at last, after many claims had been urged on either side at the
+conferences a peace was agreed on upon the following basis.  Each party
+was to restore its conquests, but Athens was to keep Nisaea; her
+demand for Plataea being met by the Thebans asserting that they had
+acquired the place not by force or treachery, but by the voluntary
+adhesion upon agreement of its citizens; and the same, according to
+the Athenian account, being the history of her acquisition of
+Nisaea.  This arranged, the Lacedaemonians summoned their allies, and
+all voting for peace except the Boeotians, Corinthians, Eleans, and
+Megarians, who did not approve of these proceedings, they concluded
+the treaty and made peace, each of the contracting parties swearing to
+the following articles:
+
+The Athenians and Lacedaemonians and their allies made a treaty,
+and swore to it, city by city, as follows;
+
+1.  Touching the national temples, there shall be a free passage by
+land and by sea to all who wish it, to sacrifice, travel, consult, and
+attend the oracle or games, according to the customs of their
+countries.
+
+2.  The temple and shrine of Apollo at Delphi and the Delphians
+shall be governed by their own laws, taxed by their own state, and
+judged by their own judges, the land and the people, according to
+the custom of their country.
+
+3.  The treaty shall be binding for fifty years upon the
+Athenians and the allies of the Athenians, and upon the Lacedaemonians
+and the allies of the Lacedaemonians, without fraud or hurt by land or
+by sea.
+
+4.  It shall not be lawful to take up arms, with intent to do hurt,
+either for the Lacedaemonians and their allies against the Athenians
+and their allies, or for the Athenians and their allies against the
+Lacedaemonians and their allies, in any way or means whatsoever.  But
+should any difference arise between them they are to have recourse
+to law and oaths, according as may be agreed between the parties.
+
+5.  The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall give back
+Amphipolis to the Athenians.  Nevertheless, in the case of cities given
+up by the Lacedaemonians to the Athenians, the inhabitants shall be
+allowed to go where they please and to take their property with
+them: and the cities shall be independent, paying only the tribute
+of Aristides.  And it shall not be lawful for the Athenians or their
+allies to carry on war against them after the treaty has been
+concluded, so long as the tribute is paid.  The cities referred to
+are Argilus, Stagirus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, and Spartolus.
+These cities shall be neutral, allies neither of the Lacedaemonians
+nor of the Athenians: but if the cities consent, it shall be lawful
+for the Athenians to make them their allies, provided always that
+the cities wish it.  The Mecybernaeans, Sanaeans, and Singaeans shall
+inhabit their own cities, as also the Olynthians and Acanthians: but
+the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall give back Panactum to the
+Athenians.
+
+6.  The Athenians shall give back Coryphasium, Cythera, Methana,
+Lacedaemonians that are in the prison at Athens or elsewhere in the
+Athenian dominions, and shall let go the Peloponnesians besieged in
+Scione, and all others in Scione that are allies of the
+Lacedaemonians, and all whom Brasidas sent in there, and any others of
+the allies of the Lacedaemonians that may be in the prison at Athens
+or elsewhere in the Athenian dominions.
+
+7.  The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall in like manner give
+back any of the Athenians or their allies that they may have in
+their hands.
+
+8.  In the case of Scione, Torone, and Sermylium, and any other
+cities that the Athenians may have, the Athenians may adopt such
+measures as they please.
+
+9.  The Athenians shall take an oath to the Lacedaemonians and
+their allies, city by city.  Every man shall swear by the most
+binding oath of his country, seventeen from each city.  The oath
+shall be as follows; "I will abide by this agreement and treaty
+honestly and without deceit." In the same way an oath shall be taken
+by the Lacedaemonians and their allies to the Athenians: and the
+oath shall be renewed annually by both parties.  Pillars shall be
+erected at Olympia, Pythia, the Isthmus, at Athens in the Acropolis,
+and at Lacedaemon in the temple at Amyclae.
+
+10.  If anything be forgotten, whatever it be, and on whatever
+point, it shall be consistent with their oath for both parties, the
+Athenians and Lacedaemonians, to alter it, according to their
+discretion.
+
+The treaty begins from the ephoralty of Pleistolas in
+Lacedaemon, on the 27th day of the month of Artemisium, and from the
+archonship, of Alcaeus at Athens, on the 25th day of the month of
+Elaphebolion.  Those who took the oath and poured the libations for the
+Lacedaemonians were Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetis, Chionis,
+Metagenes, Acanthus, Daithus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas,
+Antippus, Tellis, Alcinadas, Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus: for the
+Athenians, Lampon, Isthmonicus, Nicias, Laches, Euthydemus, Procles,
+Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates,
+Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, and Demosthenes.
+
+This treaty was made in the spring, just at the end of winter,
+directly after the city festival of Dionysus, just ten years, with the
+difference of a few days, from the first invasion of Attica and the
+commencement of this war.  This must be calculated by the seasons
+rather than by trusting to the enumeration of the names of the several
+magistrates or offices of honour that are used to mark past events.
+Accuracy is impossible where an event may have occurred in the
+beginning, or middle, or at any period in their tenure of office.
+But by computing by summers and winters, the method adopted in this
+history, it will be found that, each of these amounting to half a
+year, there were ten summers and as many winters contained in this
+first war.
+
+Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians, to whose lot it fell to begin the work
+of restitution, immediately set free all the prisoners of war in their
+possession, and sent Ischagoras, Menas, and Philocharidas as envoys to
+the towns in the direction of Thrace, to order Clearidas to hand
+over Amphipolis to the Athenians, and the rest of their allies each to
+accept the treaty as it affected them.  They, however, did not like its
+terms, and refused to accept it; Clearidas also, willing to oblige the
+Chalcidians, would not hand over the town, averring his inability to
+do so against their will.  Meanwhile he hastened in person to
+Lacedaemon with envoys from the place, to defend his disobedience
+against the possible accusations of Ischagoras and his companions, and
+also to see whether it was too late for the agreement to be altered;
+and on finding the Lacedaemonians were bound, quickly set out back
+again with instructions from them to hand over the place, if possible,
+or at all events to bring out the Peloponnesians that were in it.
+
+The allies happened to be present in person at Lacedaemon, and those
+who had not accepted the treaty were now asked by the Lacedaemonians
+to adopt it.  This, however, they refused to do, for the same reasons
+as before, unless a fairer one than the present were agreed upon;
+and remaining firm in their determination were dismissed by the
+Lacedaemonians, who now decided on forming an alliance with the
+Athenians, thinking that Argos, who had refused the application of
+Ampelidas and Lichas for a renewal of the treaty, would without Athens
+be no longer formidable, and that the rest of the Peloponnese would be
+most likely to keep quiet, if the coveted alliance of Athens were shut
+against them.  Accordingly, after conference with the Athenian
+ambassadors, an alliance was agreed upon and oaths were exchanged,
+upon the terms following:
+
+1.  The Lacedaemonians shall be allies of the Athenians for fifty
+years.
+
+2.  Should any enemy invade the territory of Lacedaemon and
+injure the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians shall help in such way as
+they most effectively can, according to their power.  But if the
+invader be gone after plundering the country, that city shall be the
+enemy of Lacedaemon and Athens, and shall be chastised by both, and
+one shall not make peace without the other.  This to be honestly,
+loyally, and without fraud.
+
+3.  Should any enemy invade the territory of Athens and injure
+the Athenians, the Lacedaemonians shall help them in such way as
+they most effectively can, according to their power.  But if the
+invader be gone after plundering the country, that city shall be the
+enemy of Lacedaemon and Athens, and shall be chastised by both, and
+one shall not make peace without the other.  This to be honestly,
+loyally, and without fraud.
+
+4.  Should the slave population rise, the Athenians shall help
+the Lacedaemonians with all their might, according to their power.
+
+5.  This treaty shall be sworn to by the same persons on either
+side that swore to the other.  It shall be renewed annually by the
+Lacedaemonians going to Athens for the Dionysia, and the Athenians
+to Lacedaemon for the Hyacinthia, and a pillar shall be set up by
+either party: at Lacedaemon near the statue of Apollo at Amyclae,
+and at Athens on the Acropolis near the statue of Athene.  Should the
+Lacedaemonians and Athenians see to add to or take away from the
+alliance in any particular, it shall be consistent with their oaths
+for both parties to do so, according to their discretion.
+
+Those who took the oath for the Lacedaemonians were Pleistoanax,
+Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daithus,
+Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antippus, Alcinadas, Tellis,
+Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus; for the Athenians, Lampon,
+Isthmionicus, Laches, Nicias, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon,
+Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates,
+Leon, Lamachus, and Demosthenes.
+
+This alliance was made not long after the treaty; and the
+Athenians gave back the men from the island to the Lacedaemonians, and
+the summer of the eleventh year began.  This completes the history of
+the first war, which occupied the whole of the ten years previously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+_Feeling against Sparta in Peloponnese - League of the Mantineans,
+Eleans, Argives, and Athenians - Battle of Mantinea and
+breaking up of the League_
+
+After the treaty and the alliance between the Lacedaemonians and
+Athenians, concluded after the ten years' war, in the ephorate of
+Pleistolas at Lacedaemon, and the archonship of Alcaeus at Athens, the
+states which had accepted them were at peace; but the Corinthians
+and some of the cities in Peloponnese trying to disturb the
+settlement, a fresh agitation was instantly commenced by the allies
+against Lacedaemon.  Further, the Lacedaemonians, as time went on,
+became suspected by the Athenians through their not performing some of
+the provisions in the treaty; and though for six years and ten
+months they abstained from invasion of each other's territory, yet
+abroad an unstable armistice did not prevent either party doing the
+other the most effectual injury, until they were finally obliged to
+break the treaty made after the ten years' war and to have recourse to
+open hostilities.
+
+The history of this period has been also written by the same
+Thucydides, an Athenian, in the chronological order of events by
+summers and winters, to the time when the Lacedaemonians and their
+allies put an end to the Athenian empire, and took the Long Walls
+and Piraeus.  The war had then lasted for twenty-seven years in all.
+Only a mistaken judgment can object to including the interval of
+treaty in the war.  Looked at by the light of facts it cannot, it
+will be found, be rationally considered a state of peace, where
+neither party either gave or got back all that they had agreed,
+apart from the violations of it which occurred on both sides in the
+Mantinean and Epidaurian wars and other instances, and the fact that
+the allies in the direction of Thrace were in as open hostility as
+ever, while the Boeotians had only a truce renewed every ten days.
+So that the first ten years' war, the treacherous armistice that
+followed it, and the subsequent war will, calculating by the
+seasons, be found to make up the number of years which I have
+mentioned, with the difference of a few days, and to afford an
+instance of faith in oracles being for once justified by the event.
+I certainly all along remember from the beginning to the end of the
+war its being commonly declared that it would last thrice nine
+years.  I lived through the whole of it, being of an age to
+comprehend events, and giving my attention to them in order to know
+the exact truth about them.  It was also my fate to be an exile from my
+country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis; and being
+present with both parties, and more especially with the Peloponnesians
+by reason of my exile, I had leisure to observe affairs somewhat
+particularly.  I will accordingly now relate the differences that arose
+after the ten years' war, the breach of the treaty, and the
+hostilities that followed.
+
+After the conclusion of the fifty years' truce and of the
+subsequent alliance, the embassies from Peloponnese which had been
+summoned for this business returned from Lacedaemon.  The rest went
+straight home, but the Corinthians first turned aside to Argos and
+opened negotiations with some of the men in office there, pointing
+out that Lacedaemon could have no good end in view, but only the
+subjugation of Peloponnese, or she would never have entered into
+treaty and alliance with the once detested Athenians, and that the
+duty of consulting for the safety of Peloponnese had now fallen upon
+Argos, who should immediately pass a decree inviting any Hellenic
+state that chose, such state being independent and accustomed to meet
+fellow powers upon the fair and equal ground of law and justice, to
+make a defensive alliance with the Argives; appointing a few
+individuals with plenipotentiary powers, instead of making the people
+the medium of negotiation, in order that, in the case of an applicant
+being rejected, the fact of his overtures might not be made public.
+They said that many would come over from hatred of the Lacedaemonians.
+After this explanation of their views, the Corinthians returned home.
+
+The persons with whom they had communicated reported the proposal to
+their government and people, and the Argives passed the decree and
+chose twelve men to negotiate an alliance for any Hellenic state
+that wished it, except Athens and Lacedaemon, neither of which
+should be able to join without reference to the Argive people.  Argos
+came into the plan the more readily because she saw that war with
+Lacedaemon was inevitable, the truce being on the point of expiring;
+and also because she hoped to gain the supremacy of Peloponnese.  For
+at this time Lacedaemon had sunk very low in public estimation
+because of her disasters, while the Argives were in a most
+flourishing condition, having taken no part in the Attic war, but
+having on the contrary profited largely by their neutrality.  The
+Argives accordingly prepared to receive into alliance any of the
+Hellenes that desired it.
+
+The Mantineans and their allies were the first to come over through
+fear of the Lacedaemonians.  Having taken advantage of the war against
+Athens to reduce a large part of Arcadia into subjection, they
+thought that Lacedaemon would not leave them undisturbed in their
+conquests, now that she had leisure to interfere, and consequently
+gladly turned to a powerful city like Argos, the historical enemy of
+the Lacedaemonians, and a sister democracy.  Upon the defection of
+Mantinea, the rest of Peloponnese at once began to agitate the
+propriety of following her example, conceiving that the Mantineans
+not have changed sides without good reason; besides which they were
+angry with Lacedaemon among other reasons for having inserted in the
+treaty with Athens that it should be consistent with their oaths for
+both parties, Lacedaemonians and Athenians, to add to or take away
+from it according to their discretion.  It was this clause that was
+the real origin of the panic in Peloponnese, by exciting suspicions
+of a Lacedaemonian and Athenian combination against their liberties:
+any alteration should properly have been made conditional upon the
+consent of the whole body of the allies.  With these apprehensions
+there was a very general desire in each state to place itself in
+alliance with Argos.
+
+In the meantime the Lacedaemonians perceiving the agitation going on
+in Peloponnese, and that Corinth was the author of it and was
+herself about to enter into alliance with the Argives, sent
+ambassadors thither in the hope of preventing what was in
+contemplation.  They accused her of having brought it all about, and
+told her that she could not desert Lacedaemon and become the ally of
+Argos, without adding violation of her oaths to the crime which she
+had already committed in not accepting the treaty with Athens, when it
+had been expressly agreed that the decision of the majority of the
+allies should be binding, unless the gods or heroes stood in the
+way.  Corinth in her answer, delivered before those of her allies who
+had like her refused to accept the treaty, and whom she had previously
+invited to attend, refrained from openly stating the injuries she
+complained of, such as the non-recovery of Sollium or Anactorium
+from the Athenians, or any other point in which she thought she had
+been prejudiced, but took shelter under the pretext that she could not
+give up her Thracian allies, to whom her separate individual
+security had been given, when they first rebelled with Potidaea, as
+well as upon subsequent occasions.  She denied, therefore, that she
+committed any violation of her oaths to the allies in not entering
+into the treaty with Athens; having sworn upon the faith of the gods
+to her Thracian friends, she could not honestly give them up.  Besides,
+the expression was, "unless the gods or heroes stand in the way."
+Now here, as it appeared to her, the gods stood in the way.  This was
+what she said on the subject of her former oaths.  As to the Argive
+alliance, she would confer with her friends and do whatever was right.
+The Lacedaemonian envoys returning home, some Argive ambassadors who
+happened to be in Corinth pressed her to conclude the alliance without
+further delay, but were told to attend at the next congress to be held
+at Corinth.
+
+Immediately afterwards an Elean embassy arrived, and first making an
+alliance with Corinth went on from thence to Argos, according to their
+instructions, and became allies of the Argives, their country being
+just then at enmity with Lacedaemon and Lepreum.  Some time back
+there had been a war between the Lepreans and some of the Arcadians;
+and the Eleans being called in by the former with the offer of half
+their lands, had put an end to the war, and leaving the land in the
+hands of its Leprean occupiers had imposed upon them the tribute of
+a talent to the Olympian Zeus.  Till the Attic war this tribute was
+paid by the Lepreans, who then took the war as an excuse for no longer
+doing so, and upon the Eleans using force appealed to Lacedaemon.
+The case was thus submitted to her arbitrament; but the Eleans,
+suspecting the fairness of the tribunal, renounced the reference and
+laid waste the Leprean territory.  The Lacedaemonians nevertheless
+decided that the Lepreans were independent and the Eleans
+aggressors, and as the latter did not abide by the arbitration, sent a
+garrison of heavy infantry into Lepreum.  Upon this the Eleans, holding
+that Lacedaemon had received one of their rebel subjects, put
+forward the convention providing that each confederate should come out
+of the Attic war in possession of what he had when he went into it,
+and considering that justice had not been done them went over to the
+Argives, and now made the alliance through their ambassadors, who
+had been instructed for that purpose.  Immediately after them the
+Corinthians and the Thracian Chalcidians became allies of Argos.
+Meanwhile the Boeotians and Megarians, who acted together, remained
+quiet, being left to do as they pleased by Lacedaemon, and thinking
+that the Argive democracy would not suit so well with their
+aristocratic government as the Lacedaemonian constitution.
+
+About the same time in this summer Athens succeeded in reducing
+Scione, put the adult males to death, and, making slaves of the
+women and children, gave the land for the Plataeans to live in.  She
+also brought back the Delians to Delos, moved by her misfortunes in
+the field and by the commands of the god at Delphi.  Meanwhile the
+Phocians and Locrians commenced hostilities.  The Corinthians and
+Argives, being now in alliance, went to Tegea to bring about its
+defection from Lacedaemon, seeing that, if so considerable a state
+could be persuaded to join, all Peloponnese would be with them.  But
+when the Tegeans said that they would do nothing against Lacedaemon,
+the hitherto zealous Corinthians relaxed their activity, and began
+to fear that none of the rest would now come over.  Still they went
+to the Boeotians and tried to persuade them to alliance and a common
+action generally with Argos and themselves, and also begged them to go
+with them to Athens and obtain for them a ten days' truce similar to
+that made between the Athenians and Boeotians not long after the fifty
+years' treaty, and, in the event of the Athenians refusing, to throw
+up the armistice, and not make any truce in future without Corinth.
+These were the requests of the Corinthians.  The Boeotians stopped them
+on the subject of the Argive alliance, but went with them to Athens,
+where however they failed to obtain the ten days' truce; the
+Athenian answer being that the Corinthians had truce already, as being
+allies of Lacedaemon.  Nevertheless the Boeotians did not throw up
+their ten days' truce, in spite of the prayers and reproaches of the
+Corinthians for their breach of faith; and these last had to content
+themselves with a de facto armistice with Athens.
+
+The same summer the Lacedaemonians marched  into Arcadia with
+their whole levy under Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of
+Lacedaemon, against the Parrhasians, who were subjects of Mantinea,
+and a faction of whom had invited their aid.  They also meant to
+demolish, if possible, the fort of Cypsela which the Mantineans had
+built and garrisoned in the Parrhasian territory, to annoy the
+district of Sciritis in Laconia.  The Lacedaemonians accordingly laid
+waste the Parrhasian country, and the Mantineans, placing their town
+in the hands of an Argive garrison, addressed themselves to the
+defence of their confederacy, but being unable to save Cypsela or
+the Parrhasian towns went back to Mantinea.  Meanwhile the
+Lacedaemonians made the Parrhasians independent, razed the fortress,
+and returned home.
+
+The same summer the soldiers from Thrace who had gone out with
+Brasidas came back, having been brought from thence after the treaty
+by Clearidas; and the Lacedaemonians decreed that the Helots who had
+fought with Brasidas should be free and allowed to live where they
+liked, and not long afterwards settled them with the Neodamodes at
+Lepreum, which is situated on the Laconian and Elean border;
+Lacedaemon being at this time at enmity with Elis.  Those however of
+the Spartans who had been taken prisoners on the island and had
+surrendered their arms might, it was feared, suppose that they were to
+be subjected to some degradation in consequence of their misfortune,
+and so make some attempt at revolution, if left in possession of their
+franchise.  These were therefore at once disfranchised, although some
+of them were in office at the time, and thus placed under a disability
+to take office, or buy and sell anything.  After some time, however,
+the franchise was restored to them.
+
+The same summer the Dians took Thyssus, a town on Acte by Athos in
+alliance with Athens.  During the whole of this summer intercourse
+between the Athenians and Peloponnesians continued, although each
+party began to suspect the other directly after the treaty, because of
+the places specified in it not being restored.  Lacedaemon, to whose
+lot it had fallen to begin by restoring Amphipolis and the other
+towns, had not done so.  She had equally failed to get the treaty
+accepted by her Thracian allies, or by the Boeotians or the
+Corinthians; although she was continually promising to unite with
+Athens in compelling their compliance, if it were longer refused.
+She also kept fixing a time at which those who still refused to come
+in were to be declared enemies to both parties, but took care not to
+bind herself by any written agreement.  Meanwhile the Athenians, seeing
+none of these professions performed in fact, began to suspect the
+honesty of her intentions, and consequently not only refused to comply
+with her demands for Pylos, but also repented having given up the
+prisoners from the island, and kept tight hold of the other places,
+until Lacedaemon's part of the treaty should be fulfilled.  Lacedaemon,
+on the other hand, said she had done what she could, having given up
+the Athenian prisoners of war in her possession, evacuated Thrace, and
+performed everything else in her power.  Amphipolis it was out of her
+ability to restore; but she would endeavour to bring the Boeotians and
+Corinthians into the treaty, to recover Panactum, and send home all
+the Athenian prisoners of war in Boeotia.  Meanwhile she required
+that Pylos should be restored, or at all events that the Messenians
+and Helots should be withdrawn, as her troops had been from Thrace,
+and the place garrisoned, if necessary, by the Athenians themselves.
+After a number of different conferences held during the summer, she
+succeeded in persuading Athens to withdraw from Pylos the Messenians
+and the rest of the Helots and deserters from Laconia, who were
+accordingly settled by her at Cranii in Cephallenia.  Thus during
+this summer there was peace and intercourse between the two peoples.
+
+Next winter, however, the ephors under whom the treaty had been made
+were no longer in office, and some of their successors were directly
+opposed to it.  Embassies now arrived from the Lacedaemonian
+confederacy, and the Athenians, Boeotians, and Corinthians also
+presented themselves at Lacedaemon, and after much discussion and no
+agreement between them, separated for their several homes; when
+Cleobulus and Xenares, the two ephors who were the most anxious to
+break off the treaty, took advantage of this opportunity to
+communicate privately with the Boeotians and Corinthians, and,
+advising them to act as much as possible together, instructed the
+former first to enter into alliance with Argos, and then try and bring
+themselves and the Argives into alliance with Lacedaemon.  The
+Boeotians would so be least likely to be compelled to come into the
+Attic treaty; and the Lacedaemonians would prefer gaining the
+friendship and alliance of Argos even at the price of the hostility of
+Athens and the rupture of the treaty.  The Boeotians knew that an
+honourable friendship with Argos had been long the desire of
+Lacedaemon; for the Lacedaemonians believed that this would
+considerably facilitate the conduct of the war outside Peloponnese.
+Meanwhile they begged the Boeotians to place Panactum in her hands
+in order that she might, if possible, obtain Pylos in exchange for it,
+and so be more in a position to resume hostilities with Athens.
+
+After receiving these instructions for their governments from
+Xenares and Cleobulus and their friends at Lacedaemon, the Boeotians
+and Corinthians departed.  On their way home they were joined by two
+persons high in office at Argos, who had waited for them on the
+road, and who now sounded them upon the possibility of the Boeotians
+joining the Corinthians, Eleans, and Mantineans in becoming the allies
+of Argos, in the idea that if this could be effected they would be
+able, thus united, to make peace or war as they pleased either against
+Lacedaemon or any other power.  The Boeotian envoys were were pleased
+at thus hearing themselves accidentally asked to do what their friends
+at Lacedaemon had told them; and the two Argives perceiving that their
+proposal was agreeable, departed with a promise to send ambassadors to
+the Boeotians.  On their arrival the Boeotians reported to the
+Boeotarchs what had been said to them at Lacedaemon and also by the
+Argives who had met them, and the Boeotarchs, pleased with the idea,
+embraced it with the more eagerness from the lucky coincidence of
+Argos soliciting the very thing wanted by their friends at Lacedaemon.
+Shortly afterwards ambassadors appeared from Argos with the
+proposals indicated; and the Boeotarchs approved of the terms and
+dismissed the ambassadors with a promise to send envoys to Argos to
+negotiate the alliance.
+
+In the meantime it was decided by the Boeotarchs, the Corinthians,
+the Megarians, and the envoys from Thrace first to interchange oaths
+together to give help to each other whenever it was required and not
+to make war or peace except in common; after which the Boeotians and
+Megarians, who acted together, should make the alliance with Argos.
+But before the oaths were taken the Boeotarchs communicated these
+proposals to the four councils of the Boeotians, in whom the supreme
+power resides, and advised them to interchange oaths with all such
+cities as should be willing to enter into a defensive league with
+the Boeotians.  But the members of the Boeotian councils refused
+their assent to the proposal, being afraid of offending Lacedaemon
+by entering into a league with the deserter Corinth; the Boeotarchs
+not having acquainted them with what had passed at Lacedaemon and with
+the advice given by Cleobulus and Xenares and the Boeotian partisans
+there, namely, that they should become allies of Corinth and Argos
+as a preliminary to a junction with Lacedaemon; fancying that, even if
+they should say nothing about this, the councils would not vote
+against what had been decided and advised by the Boeotarchs.  This
+difficulty arising, the Corinthians and the envoys from Thrace
+departed without anything having been concluded; and the Boeotarchs,
+who had previously intended after carrying this to try and effect
+the alliance with Argos, now omitted to bring the Argive question
+before the councils, or to send to Argos the envoys whom they had
+promised; and a general coldness and delay ensued in the matter.
+
+In this same winter Mecyberna was assaulted and taken by the
+Olynthians, having an Athenian garrison inside it.
+
+All this while negotiations had been going on between the
+Athenians and Lacedaemonians about the conquests still retained by
+each, and Lacedaemon, hoping that if Athens were to get back
+Panactum from the Boeotians she might herself recover Pylos, now
+sent an embassy to the Boeotians, and begged them to place Panactum
+and their Athenian prisoners in her hands, in order that she might
+exchange them for Pylos.  This the Boeotians refused to do, unless
+Lacedaemon made a separate alliance with them as she had done with
+Athens.  Lacedaemon knew that this would be a breach of faith to
+Athens, as it had been agreed that neither of them should make peace
+or war without the other; yet wishing to obtain Panactum which she
+hoped to exchange for Pylos, and the party who pressed for the
+dissolution of the treaty strongly affecting the Boeotian
+connection, she at length concluded the alliance just as winter gave
+way to spring; and Panactum was instantly razed.  And so the eleventh
+year of the war ended.
+
+In the first days of the summer following, the Argives, seeing
+that the promised ambassadors from Boeotia did not arrive, and that
+Panactum was being demolished, and that a separate alliance had been
+concluded between the Boeotians and Lacedaemonians, began to be afraid
+that Argos might be left alone, and all the confederacy go over to
+Lacedaemon.  They fancied that the Boeotians had been persuaded by
+the Lacedaemonians to raze Panactum and to enter into the treaty
+with the Athenians, and that Athens was privy to this arrangement, and
+even her alliance, therefore, no longer open to them--a resource
+which they had always counted upon, by reason of the dissensions
+existing, in the event of the noncontinuance of their treaty with
+Lacedaemon.  In this strait the Argives, afraid that, as the result
+of refusing to renew the treaty with Lacedaemon and of aspiring to the
+supremacy in Peloponnese, they would have the Lacedaemonians, Tegeans,
+Boeotians, and Athenians on their hands all at once, now hastily
+sent off Eustrophus and Aeson, who seemed the persons most likely to
+be acceptable, as envoys to Lacedaemon, with the view of making as
+good a treaty as they could with the Lacedaemonians, upon such terms
+as could be got, and being left in peace.
+
+Having reached Lacedaemon, their ambassadors proceeded to
+negotiate the terms of the proposed treaty.  What the Argives first
+demanded was that they might be allowed to refer to the arbitration of
+some state or private person the question of the Cynurian land, a
+piece of frontier territory about which they have always been
+disputing, and which contains the towns of Thyrea and Anthene, and
+is occupied by the Lacedaemonians.  The Lacedaemonians at first said
+that they could not allow this point to be discussed, but were ready
+to conclude upon the old terms.  Eventually, however, the Argive
+ambassadors succeeded in obtaining from them this concession: For
+the present there was to be a truce for fifty years, but it should
+be competent for either party, there being neither plague nor war in
+Lacedaemon or Argos, to give a formal challenge and decide the
+question of this territory by battle, as on a former occasion, when
+both sides claimed the victory; pursuit not being allowed beyond the
+frontier of Argos or Lacedaemon.  The Lacedaemonians at first thought
+this mere folly; but at last, anxious at any cost to have the
+friendship of Argos they agreed to the terms demanded, and reduced
+them to writing.  However, before any of this should become binding,
+the ambassadors were to return to Argos and communicate with their
+people and, in the event of their approval, to come at the feast of
+the Hyacinthia and take the oaths.
+
+The envoys returned accordingly.  In the meantime, while the Argives
+were engaged in these negotiations, the Lacedaemonian ambassadors--
+Andromedes, Phaedimus, and Antimenidas--who were to receive
+the prisoners from the Boeotians and restore them and Panactum to
+the Athenians, found that the Boeotians had themselves razed Panactum,
+upon the plea that oaths had been anciently exchanged between their
+people and the Athenians, after a dispute on the subject to the effect
+that neither should inhabit the place, but that they should graze it
+in common.  As for the Athenian prisoners of war in the hands of the
+Boeotians, these were delivered over to Andromedes and his colleagues,
+and by them conveyed to Athens and given back.  The envoys at the
+same time announced the razing of Panactum, which to them seemed as
+good as its restitution, as it would no longer lodge an enemy of
+Athens.  This announcement was received with great indignation by the
+Athenians, who thought that the Lacedaemonians had played them
+false, both in the matter of the demolition of Panactum, which ought
+to have been restored to them standing, and in having, as they now
+heard, made a separate alliance with the Boeotians, in spite of
+their previous promise to join Athens in compelling the adhesion of
+those who refused to accede to the treaty.  The Athenians also
+considered the other points in which Lacedaemon had failed in her
+compact, and thinking that they had been overreached, gave an angry
+answer to the ambassadors and sent them away.
+
+The breach between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians having gone thus
+far, the party at Athens, also, who wished to cancel the treaty,
+immediately put themselves in motion.  Foremost amongst these was
+Alcibiades, son of Clinias, a man yet young in years for any other
+Hellenic city, but distinguished by the splendour of his ancestry.
+Alcibiades thought the Argive alliance really preferable, not that
+personal pique had not also a great deal to do with his opposition; he
+being offended with the Lacedaemonians for having negotiated the
+treaty through Nicias and Laches, and having overlooked him on account
+of his youth, and also for not having shown him the respect due to the
+ancient connection of his family with them as their proxeni, which,
+renounced by his grandfather, he had lately himself thought to renew
+by his attentions to their prisoners taken in the island.  Being
+thus, as he thought, slighted on all hands, he had in the first
+instance spoken against the treaty, saying that the Lacedaemonians
+were not to be trusted, but that they only treated, in order to be
+enabled by this means to crush Argos, and afterwards to attack
+Athens alone; and now, immediately upon the above occurring, he sent
+privately to the Argives, telling them to come as quickly as
+possible to Athens, accompanied by the Mantineans and Eleans, with
+proposals of alliance; as the moment was propitious and he himself
+would do all he could to help them.
+
+Upon receiving this message and discovering that the Athenians,
+far from being privy to the Boeotian alliance, were involved in a
+serious quarrel with the Lacedaemonians, the Argives paid no further
+attention to the embassy which they had just sent to Lacedaemon on the
+subject of the treaty, and began to incline rather towards the
+Athenians, reflecting that, in the event of war, they would thus
+have on their side a city that was not only an ancient ally of
+Argos, but a sister democracy and very powerful at sea.  They
+accordingly at once sent ambassadors to Athens to treat for an
+alliance, accompanied by others from Elis and Mantinea.
+
+At the same time arrived in haste from Lacedaemon an embassy
+consisting of persons reputed well disposed towards the
+Athenians--Philocharidas, Leon, and Endius--for fear that the
+Athenians in their irritation might conclude alliance with the
+Argives, and also to ask back Pylos in exchange for Panactum, and in
+defence of the alliance with the Boeotians to plead that it had not
+been made to hurt the Athenians.  Upon the envoys speaking in the
+senate upon these points, and stating that they had come with full
+powers to settle all others at issue between them, Alcibiades became
+afraid that, if they were to repeat these statements to the popular
+assembly, they might gain the multitude, and the Argive alliance might
+be rejected, and accordingly had recourse to the following
+stratagem.  He persuaded the Lacedaemonians by a solemn assurance
+that if they would say nothing of their full powers in the assembly,
+he would give back Pylos to them (himself, the present opponent of its
+restitution, engaging to obtain this from the Athenians), and would
+settle the other points at issue.  His plan was to detach them from
+Nicias and to disgrace them before the people, as being without
+sincerity in their intentions, or even common consistency in their
+language, and so to get the Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans taken into
+alliance.  This plan proved successful.  When the envoys appeared before
+the people, and upon the question being put to them, did not say as
+they had said in the senate, that they had come with full powers,
+the Athenians lost all patience, and carried away by Alcibiades, who
+thundered more loudly than ever against the Lacedaemonians, were ready
+instantly to introduce the Argives and their companions and to take
+them into alliance.  An earthquake, however, occurring, before anything
+definite had been done, this assembly was adjourned.
+
+In the assembly held the next day, Nicias, in spite of the
+Lacedaemonians having been deceived themselves, and having allowed him
+to be deceived also in not admitting that they had come with full
+powers, still maintained that it was best to be friends with the
+Lacedaemonians, and, letting the Argive proposals stand over, to
+send once more to Lacedaemon and learn her intentions.  The adjournment
+of the war could only increase their own prestige and injure that of
+their rivals; the excellent state of their affairs making it their
+interest to preserve this prosperity as long as possible, while
+those of Lacedaemon were so desperate that the sooner she could try
+her fortune again the better.  He succeeded accordingly in persuading
+them to send ambassadors, himself being among the number, to invite
+the Lacedaemonians, if they were really sincere, to restore Panactum
+intact with Amphipolis, and to abandon their alliance with the
+Boeotians (unless they consented to accede to the treaty), agreeably
+to the stipulation which forbade either to treat without the other.
+The ambassadors were also directed to say that the Athenians, had they
+wished to play false, might already have made alliance with the
+Argives, who were indeed come to Athens for that very purpose, and
+went off furnished with instructions as to any other complaints that
+the Athenians had to make.  Having reached Lacedaemon, they
+communicated their instructions, and concluded by telling the
+Lacedaemonians that unless they gave up their alliance with the
+Boeotians, in the event of their not acceding to the treaty, the
+Athenians for their part would ally themselves with the Argives and
+their friends.  The Lacedaemonians, however, refused to give up the
+Boeotian alliance--the party of Xenares the ephor, and such as shared
+their view, carrying the day upon this point--but renewed the oaths
+at the request of Nicias, who feared to return without having
+accomplished anything and to be disgraced; as was indeed his fate,
+he being held the author of the treaty with Lacedaemon.  When he
+returned, and the Athenians heard that nothing had been done at
+Lacedaemon, they flew into a passion, and deciding that faith had
+not been kept with them, took advantage of the presence of the Argives
+and their allies, who had been introduced by Alcibiades, and made a
+treaty and alliance with them upon the terms following:
+
+The Athenians, Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans, acting for
+themselves and the allies in their respective empires, made a treaty
+for a hundred years, to be without fraud or hurt by land and by sea.
+
+1.  It shall not be lawful to carry on war, either for the Argives,
+Eleans, Mantineans, and their allies, against the Athenians, or the
+allies in the Athenian empire: or for the Athenians and their allies
+against the Argives, Eleans, Mantineans, or their allies, in any way
+or means whatsoever.
+
+The Athenians, Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans shall be allies for a
+hundred years upon the terms following:
+
+2.  If an enemy invade the country of the Athenians, the Argives,
+Eleans, and Mantineans shall go to the relief of Athens, according
+as the Athenians may require by message, in such way as they most
+effectually can, to the best of their power.  But if the invader be
+gone after plundering the territory, the offending state shall be
+the enemy of the Argives, Mantineans, Eleans, and Athenians, and war
+shall be made against it by all these cities: and no one of the cities
+shall be able to make peace with that state, except all the above
+cities agree to do so.
+
+3.  Likewise the Athenians shall go to the relief of Argos,
+Mantinea, and Elis, if an enemy invade the country of Elis,
+Mantinea, or Argos, according as the above cities may require by
+message, in such way as they most effectually can, to the best of
+their power.  But if the invader be gone after plundering the
+territory, the state offending shall be the enemy of the Athenians,
+Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans, and war shall be made against it by
+all these cities, and peace may not be made with that state except all
+the above cities agree to it.
+
+4.  No armed force shall be allowed to pass for hostile purposes
+through the country of the powers contracting, or of the allies in
+their respective empires, or to go by sea, except all the
+cities--that is to say, Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Elis--vote for
+such passage.
+
+5.  The relieving troops shall be maintained by the city sending
+them for thirty days from their arrival in the city that has
+required them, and upon their return in the same way: if their
+services be desired for a longer period, the city that sent for them
+shall maintain them, at the rate of three Aeginetan obols per day
+for a heavy-armed soldier, archer, or light soldier, and an
+Aeginetan drachma for a trooper.
+
+6.  The city sending for the troops shall have the command when the
+war is in its own country: but in case of the cities resolving upon
+a joint expedition the command shall be equally divided among all
+the cities.
+
+7.  The treaty shall be sworn to by the Athenians for themselves
+and their allies, by the Argives, Mantineans, Eleans, and their
+allies, by each state individually.  Each shall swear the oath most
+binding in his country over full-grown victims: the oath being as
+follows:
+
+"I STAND BY THE ALLIANCE AND ITS ARTICLES, JUSTLY, INNOCENTLY, AND
+SINCERELY, AND I WILL NOT TRANSGRESS THE SAME IN ANY WAY OR MEANS
+WHATSOEVER."
+
+The oath shall be taken at Athens by the Senate and the magistrates,
+the Prytanes administering it: at Argos by the Senate, the Eighty, and the
+Artynae, the Eighty administering it: at Mantinea by the Demiurgi, the
+Senate, and the other magistrates, the Theori and Polemarchs
+administering it: at Elis by the Demiurgi, the magistrates, and the
+Six Hundred, the Demiurgi and the Thesmophylaces administering it.  The
+oaths shall be renewed by the Athenians going to Elis, Mantinea, and
+Argos thirty days before the Olympic games: by the Argives,
+Mantineans, and Eleans going to Athens ten days before the great feast
+of the Panathenaea.  The articles of the treaty, the oaths, and the
+alliance shall be inscribed on a stone pillar by the Athenians in
+the citadel, by the Argives in the market-place, in the temple of
+Apollo: by the Mantineans in the temple of Zeus, in the
+market-place: and a brazen pillar shall be erected jointly by them
+at the Olympic games now at hand.  Should the above cities see good
+to make any addition in these articles, whatever all the above
+cities shall agree upon, after consulting together, shall be binding.
+
+Although the treaty and alliances were thus concluded, still the
+treaty between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians was not renounced by
+either party.  Meanwhile Corinth, although the ally of the Argives, did
+not accede to the new treaty, any more than she had done to the
+alliance, defensive and offensive, formed before this between the
+Eleans, Argives, and Mantineans, when she declared herself content
+with the first alliance, which was defensive only, and which bound
+them to help each other, but not to join in attacking any.  The
+Corinthians thus stood aloof from their allies, and again turned their
+thoughts towards Lacedaemon.
+
+At the Olympic games which were held this summer, and in which the
+Arcadian Androsthenes was victor the first time in the wrestling and
+boxing, the Lacedaemonians were excluded from the temple by the
+Eleans, and thus prevented from sacrificing or contending, for
+having refused to pay the fine specified in the Olympic law imposed
+upon them by the Eleans, who alleged that they had attacked Fort
+Phyrcus, and sent heavy infantry of theirs into Lepreum during the
+Olympic truce.  The amount of the fine was two thousand minae, two
+for each heavy-armed soldier, as the law prescribes.  The
+Lacedaemonians sent envoys, and pleaded that the imposition was
+unjust; saying that the truce had not yet been proclaimed at
+Lacedaemon when the heavy infantry were sent off.  But the Eleans
+affirmed that the armistice with them had already begun (they proclaim
+it first among themselves), and that the aggression of the
+Lacedaemonians had taken them by surprise while they were living
+quietly as in time of peace, and not expecting anything.  Upon this the
+Lacedaemonians submitted, that if the Eleans really believed that they
+had committed an aggression, it was useless after that to proclaim the
+truce at Lacedaemon; but they had proclaimed it notwithstanding, as
+believing nothing of the kind, and from that moment the Lacedaemonians
+had made no attack upon their country.  Nevertheless the Eleans adhered
+to what they had said, that nothing would persuade them that an
+aggression had not been committed; if, however, the Lacedaemonians
+would restore Lepreum, they would give up their own share of the money
+and pay that of the god for them.
+
+As this proposal was not accepted, the Eleans tried a second.
+Instead of restoring Lepreum, if this was objected to, the
+Lacedaemonians should ascend the altar of the Olympian Zeus, as they
+were so anxious to have access to the temple, and swear before the
+Hellenes that they would surely pay the fine at a later day.  This
+being also refused, the Lacedaemonians were excluded from the
+temple, the sacrifice, and the games, and sacrificed at home; the
+Lepreans being the only other Hellenes who did not attend.  Still the
+Eleans were afraid of the Lacedaemonians sacrificing by force, and
+kept guard with a heavy-armed company of their young men; being also
+joined by a thousand Argives, the same number of Mantineans, and by
+some Athenian cavalry who stayed at Harpina during the feast.  Great
+fears were felt in the assembly of the Lacedaemonians coming in
+arms, especially after Lichas, son of Arcesilaus, a Lacedaemonian, had
+been scourged on the course by the umpires; because, upon his horses
+being the winners, and the Boeotian people being proclaimed the victor
+on account of his having no right to enter, he came forward on the
+course and crowned the charioteer, in order to show that the chariot
+was his.  After this incident all were more afraid than ever, and
+firmly looked for a disturbance: the Lacedaemonians, however, kept
+quiet, and let the feast pass by, as we have seen.  After the Olympic
+games, the Argives and the allies repaired to Corinth to invite her to
+come over to them.  There they found some Lacedaemonian envoys; and a
+long discussion ensued, which after all ended in nothing, as an
+earthquake occurred, and they dispersed to their different homes.
+
+Summer was now over.  The winter following a battle took place
+between the Heracleots in Trachinia and the Aenianians, Dolopians,
+Malians, and certain of the Thessalians, all tribes bordering on and
+hostile to the town, which directly menaced their country.
+Accordingly, after having opposed and harassed it from its very
+foundation by every means in their power, they now in this battle
+defeated the Heracleots, Xenares, son of Cnidis, their Lacedaemonian
+commander, being among the slain.  Thus the winter ended and the
+twelfth year of this war ended also.  After the battle, Heraclea was so
+terribly reduced that in the first days of the summer following the
+Boeotians occupied the place and sent away the Lacedaemonian
+Agesippidas for misgovernment, fearing that the town might be taken by
+the Athenians while the Lacedaemonians were distracted with the
+affairs of Peloponnese.  The Lacedaemonians, nevertheless, were
+offended with them for what they had done.
+
+The same summer Alcibiades, son of Clinias, now one of the
+generals at Athens, in concert with the Argives and the allies, went
+into Peloponnese with a few Athenian heavy infantry and archers and
+some of the allies in those parts whom he took up as he passed, and
+with this army marched here and there through Peloponnese, and settled
+various matters connected with the alliance, and among other things
+induced the Patrians to carry their walls down to the sea, intending
+himself also to build a fort near the Achaean Rhium.  However, the
+Corinthians and Sicyonians, and all others who would have suffered
+by its being built, came up and hindered him.
+
+The same summer war broke out between the Epidaurians and Argives.
+The pretext was that the Epidaurians did not send an offering for
+their pasture-land to Apollo Pythaeus, as they were bound to do, the
+Argives having the chief management of the temple; but, apart from
+this pretext, Alcibiades and the Argives were determined, if possible,
+to gain possession of Epidaurus, and thus to ensure the neutrality
+of Corinth and give the Athenians a shorter passage for their
+reinforcements from Aegina than if they had to sail round Scyllaeum.
+The Argives accordingly prepared to invade Epidaurus by themselves, to
+exact the offering.
+
+About the same time the Lacedaemonians marched out with all their
+people to Leuctra upon their frontier, opposite to Mount Lycaeum,
+under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus, without any one
+knowing their destination, not even the cities that sent the
+contingents.  The sacrifices, however, for crossing the frontier not
+proving propitious, the Lacedaemonians returned home themselves, and
+sent word to the allies to be ready to march after the month
+ensuing, which happened to be the month of Carneus, a holy time for
+the Dorians.  Upon the retreat of the Lacedaemonians the Argives
+marched out on the last day but three of the month before Carneus, and
+keeping this as the day during the whole time that they were out,
+invaded and plundered Epidaurus.  The Epidaurians summoned their allies
+to their aid, some of whom pleaded the month as an excuse; others came
+as far as the frontier of Epidaurus and there remained inactive.
+
+While the Argives were in Epidaurus embassies from the cities
+assembled at Mantinea, upon the invitation of the Athenians.  The
+conference having begun, the Corinthian Euphamidas said that their
+actions did not agree with their words; while they were sitting
+deliberating about peace, the Epidaurians and their allies and the
+Argives were arrayed against each other in arms; deputies from each
+party should first go and separate the armies, and then the talk about
+peace might be resumed.  In compliance with this suggestion, they
+went and brought back the Argives from Epidaurus, and afterwards
+reassembled, but without succeeding any better in coming to a
+conclusion; and the Argives a second time invaded Epidaurus and
+plundered the country.  The Lacedaemonians also marched out to
+Caryae; but the frontier sacrifices again proving unfavourable, they
+went back again, and the Argives, after ravaging about a third of
+the Epidaurian territory, returned home.  Meanwhile a thousand Athenian
+heavy infantry had come to their aid under the command of
+Alcibiades, but finding that the Lacedaemonian expedition was at an
+end, and that they were no longer wanted, went back again.
+
+So passed the summer.  The next winter the Lacedaemonians managed
+to elude the vigilance of the Athenians, and sent in a garrison of
+three hundred men to Epidaurus, under the command of Agesippidas.  Upon
+this the Argives went to the Athenians and complained of their
+having allowed an enemy to pass by sea, in spite of the clause in
+the treaty by which the allies were not to allow an enemy to pass
+through their country.  Unless, therefore, they now put the
+Messenians and Helots in Pylos to annoy the Lacedaemonians, they,
+the Argives, should consider that faith had not been kept with them.
+The Athenians were persuaded by Alcibiades to inscribe at the bottom
+of the Laconian pillar that the Lacedaemonians had not kept their
+oaths, and to convey the Helots at Cranii to Pylos to plunder the
+country; but for the rest they remained quiet as before.  During this
+winter hostilities went on between the Argives and Epidaurians,
+without any pitched battle taking place, but only forays and
+ambuscades, in which the losses were small and fell now on one side
+and now on the other.  At the close of the winter, towards the
+beginning of spring, the Argives went with scaling ladders to
+Epidaurus, expecting to find it left unguarded on account of the war
+and to be able to take it by assault, but returned unsuccessful.  And
+the winter ended, and with it the thirteenth year of the war ended
+also.
+
+In the middle of the next summer the Lacedaemonians, seeing the
+Epidaurians, their allies, in distress, and the rest of Peloponnese
+either in revolt or disaffected, concluded that it was high time for
+them to interfere if they wished to stop the progress of the evil, and
+accordingly with their full force, the Helots included, took the field
+against Argos, under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus, king of
+the Lacedaemonians.  The Tegeans and the other Arcadian allies of
+Lacedaemon joined in the expedition.  The allies from the rest of
+Peloponnese and from outside mustered at Phlius; the Boeotians with
+five thousand heavy infantry and as many light troops, and five
+hundred horse and the same number of dismounted troopers; the
+Corinthians with two thousand heavy infantry; the rest more or less as
+might happen; and the Phliasians with all their forces, the army being
+in their country.
+
+The preparations of the Lacedaemonians from the first had been known
+to the Argives, who did not, however, take the field until the enemy
+was on his road to join the rest at Phlius.  Reinforced by the
+Mantineans with their allies, and by three thousand Elean heavy
+infantry, they advanced and fell in with the Lacedaemonians at
+Methydrium in Arcadia.  Each party took up its position upon a hill,
+and the Argives prepared to engage the Lacedaemonians while they
+were alone; but Agis eluded them by breaking up his camp in the night,
+and proceeded to join the rest of the allies at Phlius.  The Argives
+discovering this at daybreak, marched first to Argos and then to the
+Nemean road, by which they expected the Lacedaemonians and their
+allies would come down.  However, Agis, instead of taking this road
+as they expected, gave the Lacedaemonians, Arcadians, and
+Epidaurians their orders, and went along another difficult road, and
+descended into the plain of Argos.  The Corinthians, Pellenians, and
+Phliasians marched by another steep road; while the Boeotians,
+Megarians, and Sicyonians had instructions to come down by the
+Nemean road where the Argives were posted, in order that, if the enemy
+advanced into the plain against the troops of Agis, they might fall
+upon his rear with their cavalry.  These dispositions concluded, Agis
+invaded the plain and began to ravage Saminthus and other places.
+
+Discovering this, the Argives came up from Nemea, day having now
+dawned.  On their way they fell in with the troops of the Phliasians
+and Corinthians, and killed a few of the Phliasians and had perhaps
+a few more of their own men killed by the Corinthians.  Meanwhile the
+Boeotians, Megarians, and Sicyonians, advancing upon Nemea according
+to their instructions, found the Argives no longer there, as they
+had gone down on seeing their property ravaged, and were now forming
+for battle, the Lacedaemonians imitating their example.  The Argives
+were now completely surrounded; from the plain the Lacedaemonians
+and their allies shut them off from their city; above them were the
+Corinthians, Phliasians, and Pellenians; and on the side of Nemea
+the Boeotians, Sicyonians, and Megarians.  Meanwhile their army was
+without cavalry, the Athenians alone among the allies not having yet
+arrived.  Now the bulk of the Argives and their allies did not see
+the danger of their position, but thought that they could not have a
+fairer field, having intercepted the Lacedaemonians in their own
+country and close to the city.  Two men, however, in the Argive army,
+Thrasylus, one of the five generals, and Alciphron, the
+Lacedaemonian proxenus, just as the armies were upon the point of
+engaging, went and held a parley with Agis and urged him not to
+bring on a battle, as the Argives were ready to refer to fair and
+equal arbitration whatever complaints the Lacedaemonians might have
+against them, and to make a treaty and live in peace in future.
+
+The Argives who made these statements did so upon their own
+authority, not by order of the people, and Agis on his accepted
+their proposals, and without himself either consulting the majority,
+simply communicated the matter to a single individual, one of the high
+officers accompanying the expedition, and granted the Argives a
+truce for four months, in which to fulfil their promises; after
+which he immediately led off the army without giving any explanation
+to any of the other allies.  The Lacedaemonians and allies followed
+their general out of respect for the law, but amongst themselves
+loudly blamed Agis for going away from so fair a field (the enemy
+being hemmed in on every side by infantry and cavalry) without
+having done anything worthy of their strength.  Indeed this was by
+far the finest Hellenic army ever yet brought together; and it
+should have been seen while it was still united at Nemea, with the
+Lacedaemonians in full force, the Arcadians, Boeotians, Corinthians,
+Sicyonians, Pellenians, Phliasians and Megarians, and all these the
+flower of their respective populations, thinking themselves a match
+not merely for the Argive confederacy, but for another such added to
+it.  The army thus retired blaming Agis, and returned every man to
+his home.  The Argives however blamed still more loudly the persons who
+had concluded the truce without consulting the people, themselves
+thinking that they had let escape with the Lacedaemonians an
+opportunity such as they should never see again; as the struggle would
+have been under the walls of their city, and by the side of many and
+brave allies.  On their return accordingly they began to stone
+Thrasylus in the bed of the Charadrus, where they try all military
+causes before entering the city.  Thrasylus fled to the altar, and so
+saved his life; his property however they confiscated.
+
+After this arrived a thousand Athenian heavy infantry and three
+hundred horse, under the command of Laches and Nicostratus; whom the
+Argives, being nevertheless loath to break the truce with the
+Lacedaemonians, begged to depart, and refused to bring before the
+people, to whom they had a communication to make, until compelled to
+do so by the entreaties of the Mantineans and Eleans, who were still
+at Argos.  The Athenians, by the mouth of Alcibiades their ambassador
+there present, told the Argives and the allies that they had no
+right to make a truce at all without the consent of their fellow
+confederates, and now that the Athenians had arrived so opportunely
+the war ought to be resumed.  These arguments proving successful with
+the allies, they immediately marched upon Orchomenos, all except the
+Argives, who, although they had consented like the rest, stayed behind
+at first, but eventually joined the others.  They now all sat down
+and besieged Orchomenos, and made assaults upon it; one of their
+reasons for desiring to gain this place being that hostages from
+Arcadia had been lodged there by the Lacedaemonians.  The Orchomenians,
+alarmed at the weakness of their wall and the numbers of the enemy,
+and at the risk they ran of perishing before relief arrived,
+capitulated upon condition of joining the league, of giving hostages
+of their own to the Mantineans, and giving up those lodged with them
+by the Lacedaemonians.  Orchomenos thus secured, the allies now
+consulted as to which of the remaining places they should attack next.
+The Eleans were urgent for Lepreum; the Mantineans for Tegea; and
+the Argives and Athenians giving their support to the Mantineans,
+the Eleans went home in a rage at their not having voted for
+Lepreum; while the rest of the allies made ready at Mantinea for going
+against Tegea, which a party inside had arranged to put into their
+hands.
+
+Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians, upon their return from Argos after
+concluding the four months' truce, vehemently blamed Agis for not
+having subdued Argos, after an opportunity such as they thought they
+had never had before; for it was no easy matter to bring so many and
+so good allies together.  But when the news arrived of the capture of
+Orchomenos, they became more angry than ever, and, departing from
+all precedent, in the heat of the moment had almost decided to raze
+his house, and to fine him ten thousand drachmae.  Agis however
+entreated them to do none of these things, promising to atone for
+his fault by good service in the field, failing which they might
+then do to him whatever they pleased; and they accordingly abstained
+from razing his house or fining him as they had threatened to do,
+and now made a law, hitherto unknown at Lacedaemon, attaching to him
+ten Spartans as counsellors, without whose consent he should have no
+power to lead an army out of the city.
+
+At this juncture arrived word from their friends in Tegea that,
+unless they speedily appeared, Tegea would go over from them to the
+Argives and their allies, if it had not gone over already.  Upon this
+news a force marched out from Lacedaemon, of the Spartans and Helots
+and all their people, and that instantly and upon a scale never before
+witnessed.  Advancing to Orestheum in Maenalia, they directed the
+Arcadians in their league to follow close after them to Tegea, and,
+going on themselves as far as Orestheum, from thence sent back the
+sixth part of the Spartans, consisting of the oldest and youngest men,
+to guard their homes, and with the rest of their army arrived at
+Tegea; where their Arcadian allies soon after joined them.  Meanwhile
+they sent to Corinth, to the Boeotians, the Phocians, and Locrians,
+with orders to come up as quickly as possible to Mantinea.  These had
+but short notice; and it was not easy except all together, and after
+waiting for each other, to pass through the enemy's country, which lay
+right across and blocked up the line of communication.  Nevertheless
+they made what haste they could.  Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians with the
+Arcadian allies that had joined them, entered the territory of
+Mantinea, and encamping near the temple of Heracles began to plunder
+the country.
+
+Here they were seen by the Argives and their allies, who immediately
+took up a strong and difficult position, and formed in order of
+battle.  The Lacedaemonians at once advanced against them, and came
+on within a stone's throw or javelin's cast, when one of the older
+men, seeing the enemy's position to be a strong one, hallooed to
+Agis that he was minded to cure one evil with another; meaning that he
+wished to make amends for his retreat, which had been so much
+blamed, from Argos, by his present untimely precipitation.  Meanwhile
+Agis, whether in consequence of this halloo or of some sudden new idea
+of his own, quickly led back his army without engaging, and entering
+the Tegean territory, began to turn off into that of Mantinea the
+water about which the Mantineans and Tegeans are always fighting, on
+account of the extensive damage it does to whichever of the two
+countries it falls into.  His object in this was to make the Argives
+and their allies come down from the hill, to resist the diversion of
+the water, as they would be sure to do when they knew of it, and
+thus to fight the battle in the plain.  He accordingly stayed that
+day where he was, engaged in turning off the water.  The Argives and
+their allies were at first amazed at the sudden retreat of the enemy
+after advancing so near, and did not know what to make of it; but when
+he had gone away and disappeared, without their having stirred to
+pursue him, they began anew to find fault with their generals, who had
+not only let the Lacedaemonians get off before, when they were so
+happily intercepted before Argos, but who now again allowed them to
+run away, without any one pursuing them, and to escape at their
+leisure while the Argive army was leisurely betrayed.
+  The generals, half-stunned for the moment, afterwards led them
+down from the hill, and went forward and encamped in the plain, with
+the intention of attacking the enemy.
+
+The next day the Argives and their allies formed in the order in
+which they meant to fight, if they chanced to encounter the enemy; and
+the Lacedaemonians returning from the water to their old encampment by
+the temple of Heracles, suddenly saw their adversaries close in
+front of them, all in complete order, and advanced from the hill.  A
+shock like that of the present moment the Lacedaemonians do not ever
+remember to have experienced: there was scant time for preparation, as
+they instantly and hastily fell into their ranks, Agis, their king,
+directing everything, agreeably to the law.  For when a king is in
+the field all commands proceed from him: he gives the word to the
+Polemarchs; they to the Lochages; these to the Pentecostyes; these
+again to the Enomotarchs, and these last to the Enomoties.  In short
+all orders required pass in the same way and quickly reach the troops;
+as almost the whole Lacedaemonian army, save for a small part,
+consists of officers under officers, and the care of what is to be
+done falls upon many.
+
+In this battle the left wing was composed of the Sciritae, who in
+a Lacedaemonian army have always that post to themselves alone; next
+to these were the soldiers of Brasidas from Thrace, and the Neodamodes
+with them; then came the Lacedaemonians themselves, company after
+company, with the Arcadians of Heraea at their side.  After these
+were the Maenalians, and on the right wing the Tegeans with a few of
+the Lacedaemonians at the extremity; their cavalry being posted upon
+the two wings.  Such was the Lacedaemonian formation.  That of their
+opponents was as follows: On the right were the Mantineans, the action
+taking place in their country; next to them the allies from Arcadia;
+after whom came the thousand picked men of the Argives, to whom the
+state had given a long course of military training at the public
+expense; next to them the rest of the Argives, and after them their
+allies, the Cleonaeans and Orneans, and lastly the Athenians on the
+extreme left, and lastly the Athenians on the extreme left, and
+their own cavalry with them.
+
+Such were the order and the forces of the two combatants.  The
+Lacedaemonian army looked the largest; though as to putting down the
+numbers of either host, or of the contingents composing it, I could
+not do so with any accuracy.  Owing to the secrecy of their
+government the number of the Lacedaemonians was not known, and men are
+so apt to brag about the forces of their country that the estimate
+of their opponents was not trusted.  The following calculation,
+however, makes it possible to estimate the numbers of the
+Lacedaemonians present upon this occasion.  There were seven
+companies in the field without counting the Sciritae, who numbered six
+hundred men: in each company there were four Pentecostyes, and in
+the Pentecosty four Enomoties.  The first rank of the Enomoty was
+composed of four soldiers: as to the depth, although they had not been
+all drawn up alike, but as each captain chose, they were generally
+ranged eight deep; the first rank along the whole line, exclusive of
+the Sciritae, consisted of four hundred and forty-eight men.
+
+The armies being now on the eve of engaging, each contingent
+received some words of encouragement from its own commander.  The
+Mantineans were, reminded that they were going to fight for their
+country and to avoid returning to the experience of servitude after
+having tasted that of empire; the Argives, that they would contend for
+their ancient supremacy, to regain their once equal share of
+Peloponnese of which they had been so long deprived, and to punish
+an enemy and a neighbour for a thousand wrongs; the Athenians, of
+the glory of gaining the honours of the day with so many and brave
+allies in arms, and that a victory over the Lacedaemonians in
+Peloponnese would cement and extend their empire, and would besides
+preserve Attica from all invasions in future.  These were the
+incitements addressed to the Argives and their allies.  The
+Lacedaemonians meanwhile, man to man, and with their war-songs in
+the ranks, exhorted each brave comrade to remember what he had
+learnt before; well aware that the long training of action was of more
+saving virtue than any brief verbal exhortation, though never so
+well delivered.
+
+After this they joined battle, the Argives and their allies
+advancing with haste and fury, the Lacedaemonians slowly and to the
+music of many flute-players--a standing institution in their army,
+that has nothing to do with religion, but is meant to make them
+advance evenly, stepping in time, without break their order, as
+large armies are apt to do in the moment of engaging.
+
+Just before the battle joined, King Agis resolved upon the following
+manoeuvre.  All armies are alike in this: on going into action they get
+forced out rather on their right wing, and one and the other overlap
+with this adversary's left; because fear makes each man do his best to
+shelter his unarmed side with the shield of the man next him on the
+right, thinking that the closer the shields are locked together the
+better will he be protected.  The man primarily responsible for this is
+the first upon the right wing, who is always striving to withdraw from
+the enemy his unarmed side; and the same apprehension makes the rest
+follow him.  On the present occasion the Mantineans reached with
+their wing far beyond the Sciritae, and the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans
+still farther beyond the Athenians, as their army was the largest.
+Agis, afraid of his left being surrounded, and thinking that the
+Mantineans outflanked it too far, ordered the Sciritae and
+Brasideans to move out from their place in the ranks and make the line
+even with the Mantineans, and told the Polemarchs Hipponoidas and
+Aristocles to fill up the gap thus formed, by throwing themselves into
+it with two companies taken from the right wing; thinking that his
+right would still be strong enough and to spare, and that the line
+fronting the Mantineans would gain in solidity.
+
+However, as he gave these orders in the moment of the onset, and
+at short notice, it so happened that Aristocles and Hipponoidas
+would not move over, for which offence they were afterwards banished
+from Sparta, as having been guilty of cowardice; and the enemy
+meanwhile closed before the Sciritae (whom Agis on seeing that the two
+companies did not move over ordered to return to their place) had time
+to fill up the breach in question.  Now it was, however, that the
+Lacedaemonians, utterly worsted in respect of skill, showed themselves
+as superior in point of courage.  As soon as they came to close
+quarters with the enemy, the Mantinean right broke their Sciritae
+and Brasideans, and, bursting in with their allies and the thousand
+picked Argives into the unclosed breach in their line, cut up and
+surrounded the Lacedaemonians, and drove them in full rout to the
+wagons, slaying some of the older men on guard there.  But the
+Lacedaemonians, worsted in this part of the field, with the rest of
+their army, and especially the centre, where the three hundred
+knights, as they are called, fought round King Agis, fell on the older
+men of the Argives and the five companies so named, and on the
+Cleonaeans, the Orneans, and the Athenians next them, and instantly
+routed them; the greater number not even waiting to strike a blow, but
+giving way the moment that they came on, some even being trodden under
+foot, in their fear of being overtaken by their assailants.
+
+The army of the Argives and their allies, having given way in this
+quarter, was now completely cut in two, and the Lacedaemonian and
+Tegean right simultaneously closing round the Athenians with the
+troops that outflanked them, these last found themselves placed
+between two fires, being surrounded on one side and already defeated
+on the other.  Indeed they would have suffered more severely than any
+other part of the army, but for the services of the cavalry which they
+had with them.  Agis also on perceiving the distress of his left
+opposed to the Mantineans and the thousand Argives, ordered all the
+army to advance to the support of the defeated wing; and while this
+took place, as the enemy moved past and slanted away from them, the
+Athenians escaped at their leisure, and with them the beaten Argive
+division.  Meanwhile the Mantineans and their allies and the picked
+body of the Argives ceased to press the enemy, and seeing their
+friends defeated and the Lacedaemonians in full advance upon them,
+took to flight.  Many of the Mantineans perished; but the bulk of the
+picked body of the Argives made good their escape.  The flight and
+retreat, however, were neither hurried nor long; the Lacedaemonians
+fighting long and stubbornly until the rout of their enemy, but that
+once effected, pursuing for a short time and not far.
+
+Such was the battle, as nearly as possible as I have described it;
+the greatest that had occurred for a very long while among the
+Hellenes, and joined by the most considerable states.  The
+Lacedaemonians took up a position in front of the enemy's dead, and
+immediately set up a trophy and stripped the slain; they took up their
+own dead and carried them back to Tegea, where they buried them, and
+restored those of the enemy under truce.  The Argives, Orneans, and
+Cleonaeans had seven hundred killed; the Mantineans two hundred, and
+the Athenians and Aeginetans also two hundred, with both their
+generals.  On the side of the Lacedaemonians, the allies did not suffer
+any loss worth speaking of: as to the Lacedaemonians themselves it was
+difficult to learn the truth; it is said, however, that there were
+slain about three hundred of them.
+
+While the battle was impending, Pleistoanax, the other king, set out
+with a reinforcement composed of the oldest and youngest men, and
+got as far as Tegea, where he heard of the victory and went back
+again.  The Lacedaemonians also sent and turned back the allies from
+Corinth and from beyond the Isthmus, and returning themselves
+dismissed their allies, and kept the Carnean holidays, which
+happened to be at that time.  The imputations cast upon them by the
+Hellenes at the time, whether of cowardice on account of the
+disaster in the island, or of mismanagement and slowness generally,
+were all wiped out by this single action: fortune, it was thought,
+might have humbled them, but the men themselves were the same as ever.
+
+The day before this battle, the Epidaurians with all their forces
+invaded the deserted Argive territory, and cut off many of the
+guards left there in the absence of the Argive army.  After the
+battle three thousand Elean heavy infantry arriving to aid the
+Mantineans, and a reinforcement of one thousand Athenians, all these
+allies marched at once against Epidaurus, while the Lacedaemonians
+were keeping the Carnea, and dividing the work among them began to
+build a wall round the city.  The rest left off; but the Athenians
+finished at once the part assigned to them round Cape Heraeum; and
+having all joined in leaving a garrison in the fortification in
+question, they returned to their respective cities.
+
+Summer now came to an end.  In the first days of the next winter,
+when the Carnean holidays were over, the Lacedaemonians took the
+field, and arriving at Tegea sent on to Argos proposals of
+accommodation.  They had before had a party in the town desirous of
+overthrowing the democracy; and after the battle that had been fought,
+these were now far more in a position to persuade the people to listen
+to terms.  Their plan was first to make a treaty with the
+Lacedaemonians, to be followed by an alliance, and after this to
+fall upon the commons.  Lichas, son of Arcesilaus, the Argive proxenus,
+accordingly arrived at Argos with two proposals from Lacedaemon, to
+regulate the conditions of war or peace, according as they preferred
+the one or the other.  After much discussion, Alcibiades happening to
+be in the town, the Lacedaemonian party, who now ventured to act
+openly, persuaded the Argives to accept the proposal for
+accommodation; which ran as follows:
+
+The assembly of the Lacedaemonians agrees to treat with the
+Argives upon the terms following:
+
+1.  The Argives shall restore to the Orchomenians their children,
+and to the Maenalians their men, and shall restore the men they have
+in Mantinea to the Lacedaemonians.
+
+2.  They shall evacuate Epidaurus, and raze the fortification
+there.  If the Athenians refuse to withdraw from Epidaurus, they
+shall be declared enemies of the Argives and of the Lacedaemonians,
+and of the allies of the Lacedaemonians and the allies of the Argives.
+
+3.  If the Lacedaemonians have any children in their custody,
+they shall restore them every one to his city.
+
+4.  As to the offering to the god, the Argives, if they wish, shall
+impose an oath upon the Epidaurians, but, if not, they shall swear
+it themselves.
+
+5.  All the cities in Peloponnese, both small and great, shall be
+independent according to the customs of their country.
+
+6.  If any of the powers outside Peloponnese invade Peloponnesian
+territory, the parties contracting shall unite to repel them, on
+such terms as they may agree upon, as being most fair for the
+Peloponnesians.
+
+7.  All allies of the Lacedaemonians outside Peloponnese shall be
+on the same footing as the Lacedaemonians, and the allies of the
+Argives shall be on the same footing as the Argives, being left in
+enjoyment of their own possessions.
+
+8.  This treaty shall be shown to the allies, and shall be concluded,
+if they approve; if the allies think fit, they may send the treaty
+to be considered at home.
+
+The Argives began by accepting this proposal, and the
+Lacedaemonian army returned home from Tegea.  After this intercourse
+was renewed between them, and not long afterwards the same party
+contrived that the Argives should give up the league with the
+Mantineans, Eleans, and Athenians, and should make a treaty and
+alliance with the Lacedaemonians; which was consequently done upon the
+terms following:
+
+The Lacedaemonians and Argives agree to a treaty and alliance
+for fifty years upon the terms following:
+
+1.  All disputes shall be decided by fair and impartial
+arbitration, agreeably to the customs of the two countries.
+
+2.  The rest of the cities in Peloponnese may be included in this
+treaty and alliance, as independent and sovereign, in full enjoyment
+of what they possess, all disputes being decided by fair and impartial
+arbitration, agreeably to the customs of the said cities.
+
+3.  All allies of the Lacedaemonians outside Peloponnese shall be
+upon the same footing as the Lacedaemonians themselves, and the allies
+of the Argives shall be upon the same footing as the Argives
+themselves, continuing to enjoy what they possess.
+
+4.  If it shall be anywhere necessary to make an expedition in
+common, the Lacedaemonians and Argives shall consult upon it and
+decide, as may be most fair for the allies.
+
+5.  If any of the cities, whether inside or outside Peloponnese,
+have a question whether of frontiers or otherwise, it must be settled,
+but if one allied city should have a quarrel with another allied city,
+it must be referred to some third city thought impartial by both
+parties.  Private citizens shall have their disputes decided
+according to the laws of their several countries.
+
+The treaty and above alliance concluded, each party at once released
+everything whether acquired by war or otherwise, and thenceforth
+acting in common voted to receive neither herald nor embassy from
+the Athenians unless they evacuated their forts and withdrew from
+Peloponnese, and also to make neither peace nor war with any, except
+jointly.  Zeal was not wanting: both parties sent envoys to the
+Thracian places and to Perdiccas, and persuaded the latter to join
+their league.  Still he did not at once break off from Athens, although
+minded to do so upon seeing the way shown him by Argos, the original
+home of his family.  They also renewed their old oaths with the
+Chalcidians and took new ones: the Argives, besides, sent
+ambassadors to the Athenians, bidding them evacuate the fort at
+Epidaurus.  The Athenians, seeing their own men outnumbered by the rest
+of the garrison, sent Demosthenes to bring them out.  This general,
+under colour of a gymnastic contest which he arranged on his
+arrival, got the rest of the garrison out of the place, and shut the
+gates behind them.  Afterwards the Athenians renewed their treaty
+with the Epidaurians, and by themselves gave up the fortress.
+
+After the defection of Argos from the league, the Mantineans, though
+they held out at first, in the end finding themselves powerless
+without the Argives, themselves too came to terms with Lacedaemon, and
+gave up their sovereignty over the towns.  The Lacedaemonians and
+Argives, each a thousand strong, now took the field together, and
+the former first went by themselves to Sicyon and made the
+government there more oligarchical than before, and then both,
+uniting, put down the democracy at Argos and set up an oligarchy
+favourable to Lacedaemon.  These events occurred at the close of the
+winter, just before spring; and the fourteenth year of the war
+ended.  The next summer the people of Dium, in Athos, revolted from the
+Athenians to the Chalcidians, and the Lacedaemonians settled affairs
+in Achaea in a way more agreeable to the interests of their country.
+Meanwhile the popular party at Argos little by little gathered new
+consistency and courage, and waited for the moment of the
+Gymnopaedic festival at Lacedaemon, and then fell upon the
+oligarchs.  After a fight in the city, victory declared for the
+commons, who slew some of their opponents and banished others.  The
+Lacedaemonians for a long while let the messages of their friends at
+Argos remain without effect.  At last they put off the Gymnopaediae and
+marched to their succour, but learning at Tegea the defeat of the
+oligarchs, refused to go any further in spite of the entreaties of
+those who had escaped, and returned home and kept the festival.
+Later on, envoys arrived with messages from the Argives in the town
+and from the exiles, when the allies were also at Sparta; and after
+much had been said on both sides, the Lacedaemonians decided that
+the party in the town had done wrong, and resolved to march against
+Argos, but kept delaying and putting off the matter.  Meanwhile the
+commons at Argos, in fear of the Lacedaemonians, began again to
+court the Athenian alliance, which they were convinced would be of the
+greatest service to them; and accordingly proceeded to build long
+walls to the sea, in order that in case of a blockade by land; with
+the help of the Athenians they might have the advantage of importing
+what they wanted by sea.  Some of the cities in Peloponnese were also
+privy to the building of these walls; and the Argives with all their
+people, women and slaves not excepted, addressed themselves to the
+work, while carpenters and masons came to them from Athens.
+
+Summer was now over.  The winter following the Lacedaemonians,
+hearing of the walls that were building, marched against Argos with
+their allies, the Corinthians excepted, being also not without
+intelligence in the city itself; Agis, son of Archidamus, their
+king, was in command.  The intelligence which they counted upon
+within the town came to nothing; they however took and razed the walls
+which were being built, and after capturing the Argive town Hysiae and
+killing all the freemen that fell into their hands, went back and
+dispersed every man to his city.  After this the Argives marched into
+Phlius and plundered it for harbouring their exiles, most of whom
+had settled there, and so returned home.  The same winter the Athenians
+blockaded Macedonia, on the score of the league entered into by
+Perdiccas with the Argives and Lacedaemonians, and also of his
+breach of his engagements on the occasion of the expedition prepared
+by Athens against the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace and
+against Amphipolis, under the command of Nicias, son of Niceratus,
+which had to be broken up mainly because of his desertion.  He was
+therefore proclaimed an enemy.  And thus the winter ended, and the
+fifteenth year of the war ended with it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+_Sixteenth Year of the War - The Melian Conference - Fate of Melos_
+
+The next summer Alcibiades sailed with twenty ships to Argos and
+seized the suspected persons still left of the Lacedaemonian faction
+to the number of three hundred, whom the Athenians forthwith lodged in
+the neighbouring islands of their empire.  The Athenians also made an
+expedition against the isle of Melos with thirty ships of their own,
+six Chian, and two Lesbian vessels, sixteen hundred heavy infantry,
+three hundred archers, and twenty mounted archers from Athens, and
+about fifteen hundred heavy infantry from the allies and the
+islanders.  The Melians are a colony of Lacedaemon that would not
+submit to the Athenians like the other islanders, and at first
+remained neutral and took no part in the struggle, but afterwards upon
+the Athenians using violence and plundering their territory, assumed
+an attitude of open hostility.  Cleomedes, son of Lycomedes, and
+Tisias, son of Tisimachus, the generals, encamping in their
+territory with the above armament, before doing any harm to their
+land, sent envoys to negotiate.  These the Melians did not bring before
+the people, but bade them state the object of their mission to the
+magistrates and the few; upon which the Athenian envoys spoke as
+follows:
+
+Athenians.  Since the negotiations are not to go on before the
+people, in order that we may not be able to speak straight on
+without interruption, and deceive the ears of the multitude by
+seductive arguments which would pass without refutation (for we know
+that this is the meaning of our being brought before the few), what if
+you who sit there were to pursue a method more cautious still? Make no
+set speech yourselves, but take us up at whatever you do not like, and
+settle that before going any farther.  And first tell us if this
+proposition of ours suits you.
+
+The Melian commissioners answered:
+
+Melians.  To the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you
+propose there is nothing to object; but your military preparations are
+too far advanced to agree with what you say, as we see you are come to
+be judges in your own cause, and that all we can reasonably expect
+from this negotiation is war, if we prove to have right on our side
+and refuse to submit, and in the contrary case, slavery.
+
+Athenians.  If you have met to reason about presentiments of the
+future, or for anything else than to consult for the safety of your
+state upon the facts that you see before you, we will give over;
+otherwise we will go on.
+
+Melians.  It is natural and excusable for men in our position to turn
+more ways than one both in thought and utterance.  However, the
+question in this conference is, as you say, the safety of our country;
+and the discussion, if you please, can proceed in the way which you
+propose.
+
+Athenians.  For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious
+pretences--either of how we have a right to our empire because we
+overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you
+have done us--and make a long speech which would not be believed; and
+in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by
+saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their
+colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is
+feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you
+know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in
+question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can
+and the weak suffer what they must.
+
+Melians.  As we think, at any rate, it is expedient--we speak as we
+are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of
+interest--that you should not destroy what is our common protection,
+the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and
+right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they
+can be got to pass current.  And you are as much interested in this
+as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance
+and an example for the world to meditate upon.
+
+Athenians.  The end of our empire, if end it should, does not
+frighten us: a rival empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was
+our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the vanquished as
+subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers.  This,
+however, is a risk that we are content to take.  We will now proceed to
+show you that we are come here in the interest of our empire, and that
+we shall say what we are now going to say, for the preservation of
+your country; as we would fain exercise that empire over you without
+trouble, and see you preserved for the good of us both.
+
+Melians.  And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as
+for you to rule?
+
+Athenians.  Because you would have the advantage of submitting before
+suffering the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.
+
+Melians.  So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends
+instead of enemies, but allies of neither side.
+
+Athenians.  No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your
+friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and
+your enmity of our power.
+
+Melians.  Is that your subjects' idea of equity, to put those who
+have nothing to do with you in the same category with peoples that are
+most of them your own colonists, and some conquered rebels?
+
+Athenians.  As far as right goes they think one has as much of it
+as the other, and that if any maintain their independence it is
+because they are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is
+because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we
+should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are
+islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important
+that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of the sea.
+
+Melians.  But do you consider that there is no security in the policy
+which we indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about
+justice and invite us to obey your interest, we also must explain
+ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide.  How
+can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look
+at case from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what
+is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and
+to force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of
+it?
+
+Athenians.  Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us
+but little alarm; the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their
+taking precautions against us; it is rather islanders like yourselves,
+outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke, who would be
+the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into
+obvious danger.
+
+Melians.  Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and
+your subjects to get rid of it, it were surely great baseness and
+cowardice in us who are still free not to try everything that can be
+tried, before submitting to your yoke.
+
+Athenians.  Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an
+equal one, with honour as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a
+question of self-preservation and of not resisting those who are far
+stronger than you are.
+
+Melians.  But we know that the fortune of war is sometimes more
+impartial than the disproportion of numbers might lead one to suppose;
+to submit is to give ourselves over to despair, while action still
+preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect.
+
+Athenians.  Hope, danger's comforter, may be indulged in by those who
+have abundant resources, if not without loss at all events without
+ruin; but its nature is to be extravagant, and those who go so far
+as to put their all upon the venture see it in its true colours only
+when they are ruined; but so long as the discovery would enable them
+to guard against it, it is never found wanting.  Let not this be the
+case with you, who are weak and hang on a single turn of the scale;
+nor be like the vulgar, who, abandoning such security as human means
+may still afford, when visible hopes fail them in extremity, turn to
+invisible, to prophecies and oracles, and other such inventions that
+delude men with hopes to their destruction.
+
+Melians.  You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the
+difficulty of contending against your power and fortune, unless the
+terms be equal.  But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as
+good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that
+what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the
+Lacedaemonians, who are bound, if only for very shame, to come to
+the aid of their kindred.  Our confidence, therefore, after all is
+not so utterly irrational.
+
+Athenians.  When you speak of the favour of the gods, we may as
+fairly hope for that as yourselves; neither our pretensions nor our
+conduct being in any way contrary to what men believe of the gods,
+or practise among themselves.  Of the gods we believe, and of men we
+know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever
+they can.  And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or
+to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall
+leave it to exist for ever after us; all we do is to make use of it,
+knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have,
+would do the same as we do.  Thus, as far as the gods are concerned, we
+have no fear and no reason to fear that we shall be at a disadvantage.
+But when we come to your notion about the Lacedaemonians, which
+leads you to believe that shame will make them help you, here we bless
+your simplicity but do not envy your folly.  The Lacedaemonians, when
+their own interests or their country's laws are in question, are the
+worthiest men alive; of their conduct towards others much might be
+said, but no clearer idea of it could be given than by shortly
+saying that of all the men we know they are most conspicuous in
+considering what is agreeable honourable, and what is expedient
+just.  Such a way of thinking does not promise much for the safety
+which you now unreasonably count upon.
+
+Melians.  But it is for this very reason that we now trust to their
+respect for expediency to prevent them from betraying the Melians,
+their colonists, and thereby losing the confidence of their friends in
+Hellas and helping their enemies.
+
+Athenians.  Then you do not adopt the view that expediency goes
+with security, while justice and honour cannot be followed without
+danger; and danger the Lacedaemonians generally court as little as
+possible.
+
+Melians.  But we believe that they would be more likely to face
+even danger for our sake, and with more confidence than for others, as
+our nearness to Peloponnese makes it easier for them to act, and our
+common blood ensures our fidelity.
+
+Athenians.  Yes, but what an intending ally trusts to is not the
+goodwill of those who ask his aid, but a decided superiority of
+power for action; and the Lacedaemonians look to this even more than
+others.  At least, such is their distrust of their home resources
+that it is only with numerous allies that they attack a neighbour; now
+is it likely that while we are masters of the sea they will cross over
+to an island?
+
+Melians.  But they would have others to send.  The Cretan Sea is a
+wide one, and it is more difficult for those who command it to
+intercept others, than for those who wish to elude them to do so
+safely.  And should the Lacedaemonians miscarry in this, they would
+fall upon your land, and upon those left of your allies whom
+Brasidas did not reach; and instead of places which are not yours, you
+will have to fight for your own country and your own confederacy.
+
+Athenians.  Some diversion of the kind you speak of you may one day
+experience, only to learn, as others have done, that the Athenians
+never once yet withdrew from a siege for fear of any.  But we are
+struck by the fact that, after saying you would consult for the safety
+of your country, in all this discussion you have mentioned nothing
+which men might trust in and think to be saved by.  Your strongest
+arguments depend upon hope and the future, and your actual resources
+are too scanty, as compared with those arrayed against you, for you to
+come out victorious.  You will therefore show great blindness of
+judgment, unless, after allowing us to retire, you can find some
+counsel more prudent than this.  You will surely not be caught by
+that idea of disgrace, which in dangers that are disgraceful, and at
+the same time too plain to be mistaken, proves so fatal to mankind;
+since in too many cases the very men that have their eyes perfectly
+open to what they are rushing into, let the thing called disgrace,
+by the mere influence of a seductive name, lead them on to a point
+at which they become so enslaved by the phrase as in fact to fall
+wilfully into hopeless disaster, and incur disgrace more disgraceful
+as the companion of error, than when it comes as the result of
+misfortune.  This, if you are well advised, you will guard against; and
+you will not think it dishonourable to submit to the greatest city
+in Hellas, when it makes you the moderate offer of becoming its
+tributary ally, without ceasing to enjoy the country that belongs to
+you; nor when you have the choice given you between war and
+security, will you be so blinded as to choose the worse.  And it is
+certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms
+with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on the
+whole succeed best.  Think over the matter, therefore, after our
+withdrawal, and reflect once and again that it is for your country
+that you are consulting, that you have not more than one, and that
+upon this one deliberation depends its prosperity or ruin.
+
+The Athenians now withdrew from the conference; and the Melians,
+left to themselves, came to a decision corresponding with what they
+had maintained in the discussion, and answered: "Our resolution,
+Athenians, is the same as it was at first.  We will not in a moment
+deprive of freedom a city that has been inhabited these seven
+hundred years; but we put our trust in the fortune by which the gods
+have preserved it until now, and in the help of men, that is, of the
+Lacedaemonians; and so we will try and save ourselves.  Meanwhile we
+invite you to allow us to be friends to you and foes to neither party,
+and to retire from our country after making such a treaty as shall
+seem fit to us both."
+
+Such was the answer of the Melians.  The Athenians now departing from
+the conference said: "Well, you alone, as it seems to us, judging from
+these resolutions, regard what is future as more certain than what
+is before your eyes, and what is out of sight, in your eagerness, as
+already coming to pass; and as you have staked most on, and trusted
+most in, the Lacedaemonians, your fortune, and your hopes, so will you
+be most completely deceived."
+
+The Athenian envoys now returned to the army; and the Melians
+showing no signs of yielding, the generals at once betook themselves
+to hostilities, and drew a line of circumvallation round the
+Melians, dividing the work among the different states.  Subsequently
+the Athenians returned with most of their army, leaving behind them
+a certain number of their own citizens and of the allies to keep guard
+by land and sea.  The force thus left stayed on and besieged the place.
+
+About the same time the Argives invaded the territory of Phlius
+and lost eighty men cut off in an ambush by the Phliasians and
+Argive exiles.  Meanwhile the Athenians at Pylos took so much plunder
+from the Lacedaemonians that the latter, although they still refrained
+from breaking off the treaty and going to war with Athens, yet
+proclaimed that any of their people that chose might plunder the
+Athenians.  The Corinthians also commenced hostilities with the
+Athenians for private quarrels of their own; but the rest of the
+Peloponnesians stayed quiet.  Meanwhile the Melians attacked by night
+and took the part of the Athenian lines over against the market, and
+killed some of the men, and brought in corn and all else that they
+could find useful to them, and so returned and kept quiet, while the
+Athenians took measures to keep better guard in future.
+
+Summer was now over.  The next winter the Lacedaemonians intended
+to invade the Argive territory, but arriving at the frontier found the
+sacrifices for crossing unfavourable, and went back again.  This
+intention of theirs gave the Argives suspicions of certain of their
+fellow citizens, some of whom they arrested; others, however,
+escaped them.  About the same time the Melians again took another
+part of the Athenian lines which were but feebly garrisoned.
+Reinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under
+the command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the siege was now pressed
+vigorously; and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians
+surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who put to death all the
+grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for
+slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists and inhabited
+the place themselves.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VI
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+_Seventeenth Year of the War - The Sicilian Campaign -
+Affair of the Hermae - Departure of the Expedition_
+
+The same winter the Athenians resolved to sail again to Sicily, with
+a greater armament than that under Laches and Eurymedon, and, if
+possible, to conquer the island; most of them being ignorant of its
+size and of the number of its inhabitants, Hellenic and barbarian, and
+of the fact that they were undertaking a war not much inferior to that
+against the Peloponnesians.  For the voyage round Sicily in a
+merchantman is not far short of eight days; and yet, large as the
+island is, there are only two miles of sea to prevent its being
+mainland.
+
+It was settled originally as follows, and the peoples that
+occupied it are these.  The earliest inhabitants spoken of in any
+part of the country are the Cyclopes and Laestrygones; but I cannot
+tell of what race they were, or whence they came or whither they went,
+and must leave my readers to what the poets have said of them and to
+what may be generally known concerning them.  The Sicanians appear to
+have been the next settlers, although they pretend to have been the
+first of all and aborigines; but the facts show that they were
+Iberians, driven by the Ligurians from the river Sicanus in Iberia.  It
+was from them that the island, before called Trinacria, took its
+name of Sicania, and to the present day they inhabit the west of
+Sicily.  On the fall of Ilium, some of the Trojans escaped from the
+Achaeans, came in ships to Sicily, and settled next to the Sicanians
+under the general name of Elymi; their towns being called Eryx and
+Egesta.  With them settled some of the Phocians carried on their way
+from Troy by a storm, first to Libya, and afterwards from thence to
+Sicily.  The Sicels crossed over to Sicily from their first home Italy,
+flying from the Opicans, as tradition says and as seems not
+unlikely, upon rafts, having watched till the wind set down the strait
+to effect the passage; although perhaps they may have sailed over in
+some other way.  Even at the present day there are still Sicels in
+Italy; and the country got its name of Italy from Italus, a king of
+the Sicels, so called.  These went with a great host to Sicily,
+defeated the Sicanians in battle and forced them to remove to the
+south and west of the island, which thus came to be called Sicily
+instead of Sicania, and after they crossed over continued to enjoy the
+richest parts of the country for near three hundred years before any
+Hellenes came to Sicily; indeed they still hold the centre and north
+of the island.  There were also Phoenicians living all round Sicily,
+who had occupied promontories upon the sea coasts and the islets
+adjacent for the purpose of trading with the Sicels.  But when the
+Hellenes began to arrive in considerable numbers by sea, the
+Phoenicians abandoned most of their stations, and drawing together
+took up their abode in Motye, Soloeis, and Panormus, near the Elymi,
+partly because they confided in their alliance, and also because these
+are the nearest points for the voyage between Carthage and Sicily.
+
+These were the barbarians in Sicily, settled as I have said.  Of
+the Hellenes, the first to arrive were Chalcidians from Euboea with
+Thucles, their founder.  They founded Naxos and built the altar to
+Apollo Archegetes, which now stands outside the town, and upon which
+the deputies for the games sacrifice before sailing from Sicily.
+Syracuse was founded the year afterwards by Archias, one of the
+Heraclids from Corinth, who began by driving out the Sicels from the
+island upon which the inner city now stands, though it is no longer
+surrounded by water: in process of time the outer town also was
+taken within the walls and became populous.  Meanwhile Thucles and
+the Chalcidians set out from Naxos in the fifth year after the
+foundation of Syracuse, and drove out the Sicels by arms and founded
+Leontini and afterwards Catana; the Catanians themselves choosing
+Evarchus as their founder.
+
+About the same time Lamis arrived in Sicily with a colony from
+Megara, and after founding a place called Trotilus beyond the river
+Pantacyas, and afterwards leaving it and for a short while joining the
+Chalcidians at Leontini, was driven out by them and founded Thapsus.
+After his death his companions were driven out of Thapsus, and founded
+a place called the Hyblaean Megara; Hyblon, a Sicel king, having given
+up the place and inviting them thither.  Here they lived two hundred
+and forty-five years; after which they were expelled from the city and
+the country by the Syracusan tyrant Gelo.  Before their expulsion,
+however, a hundred years after they had settled there, they sent out
+Pamillus and founded Selinus; he having come from their mother country
+Megara to join them in its foundation.  Gela was founded by
+Antiphemus from Rhodes and Entimus from Crete, who joined in leading a
+colony thither, in the forty-fifth year after the foundation of
+Syracuse.  The town took its name from the river Gelas, the place where
+the citadel now stands, and which was first fortified, being called
+Lindii.  The institutions which they adopted were Dorian.  Near one
+hundred and eight years after the foundation of Gela, the Geloans
+founded Acragas (Agrigentum), so called from the river of that name,
+and made Aristonous and Pystilus their founders; giving their own
+institutions to the colony.  Zancle was originally founded by pirates
+from Cuma, the Chalcidian town in the country of the Opicans:
+afterwards, however, large numbers came from Chalcis and the rest of
+Euboea, and helped to people the place; the founders being Perieres
+and Crataemenes from Cuma and Chalcis respectively.  It first had the
+name of Zancle given it by the Sicels, because the place is shaped
+like a sickle, which the Sicels call zanclon; but upon the original
+settlers being afterwards expelled by some Samians and other Ionians
+who landed in Sicily flying from the Medes, and the Samians in their
+turn not long afterwards by Anaxilas, tyrant of Rhegium, the town
+was by him colonized with a mixed population, and its name changed
+to Messina, after his old country.
+
+Himera was founded from Zancle by Euclides, Simus, and Sacon, most
+of those who went to the colony being Chalcidians; though they were
+joined by some exiles from Syracuse, defeated in a civil war, called
+the Myletidae.  The language was a mixture of Chalcidian and Doric, but
+the institutions which prevailed were the Chalcidian.  Acrae and
+Casmenae were founded by the Syracusans; Acrae seventy years after
+Syracuse, Casmenae nearly twenty after Acrae.  Camarina was first
+founded by the Syracusans, close upon a hundred and thirty-five
+years after the building of Syracuse; its founders being Daxon and
+Menecolus.  But the Camarinaeans being expelled by arms by the
+Syracusans for having revolted, Hippocrates, tyrant of Gela, some time
+later receiving their land in ransom for some Syracusan prisoners,
+resettled Camarina, himself acting as its founder.  Lastly, it was
+again depopulated by Gelo, and settled once more for the third time by
+the Geloans.
+
+Such is the list of the peoples, Hellenic and barbarian,
+inhabiting Sicily, and such the magnitude of the island which the
+Athenians were now bent upon invading; being ambitious in real truth
+of conquering the whole, although they had also the specious design of
+succouring their kindred and other allies in the island.  But they were
+especially incited by envoys from Egesta, who had come to Athens and
+invoked their aid more urgently than ever.  The Egestaeans had gone
+to war with their neighbours the Selinuntines upon questions of
+marriage and disputed territory, and the Selinuntines had procured the
+alliance of the Syracusans, and pressed Egesta hard by land and sea.
+The Egestaeans now reminded the Athenians of the alliance made in
+the time of Laches, during the former Leontine war, and begged them to
+send a fleet to their aid, and among a number of other
+considerations urged as a capital argument that if the Syracusans were
+allowed to go unpunished for their depopulation of Leontini, to ruin
+the allies still left to Athens in Sicily, and to get the whole
+power of the island into their hands, there would be a danger of their
+one day coming with a large force, as Dorians, to the aid of their
+Dorian brethren, and as colonists, to the aid of the Peloponnesians
+who had sent them out, and joining these in pulling down the
+Athenian empire.  The Athenians would, therefore, do well to unite with
+the allies still left to them, and to make a stand against the
+Syracusans; especially as they, the Egestaeans, were prepared to
+furnish money sufficient for the war.  The Athenians, hearing these
+arguments constantly repeated in their assemblies by the Egestaeans
+and their supporters, voted first to send envoys to Egesta, to see
+if there was really the money that they talked of in the treasury
+and temples, and at the same time to ascertain in what posture was the
+war with the Selinuntines.
+
+The envoys of the Athenians were accordingly dispatched to Sicily.
+The same winter the Lacedaemonians and their allies, the Corinthians
+excepted, marched into the Argive territory, and ravaged a small
+part of the land, and took some yokes of oxen and carried off some
+corn.  They also settled the Argive exiles at Orneae, and left them a
+few soldiers taken from the rest of the army; and after making a truce
+for a certain while, according to which neither Orneatae nor Argives
+were to injure each other's territory, returned home with the army.
+Not long afterwards the Athenians came with thirty ships and six
+hundred heavy infantry, and the Argives joining them with all their
+forces, marched out and besieged the men in Orneae for one day; but
+the garrison escaped by night, the besiegers having bivouacked some
+way off.  The next day the Argives, discovering it, razed Orneae to the
+ground, and went back again; after which the Athenians went home in
+their ships.  Meanwhile the Athenians took by sea to Methone on the
+Macedonian border some cavalry of their own and the Macedonian
+exiles that were at Athens, and plundered the country of Perdiccas.
+Upon this the Lacedaemonians sent to the Thracian Chalcidians, who had
+a truce with Athens from one ten days to another, urging them to
+join Perdiccas in the war, which they refused to do.  And the winter
+ended, and with it ended the sixteenth year of this war of which
+Thucydides is the historian.
+
+Early in the spring of the following summer the Athenian envoys
+arrived from Sicily, and the Egestaeans with them, bringing sixty
+talents of uncoined silver, as a month's pay for sixty ships, which
+they were to ask to have sent them.  The Athenians held an assembly
+and, after hearing from the Egestaeans and their own envoys a
+report, as attractive as it was untrue, upon the state of affairs
+generally, and in particular as to the money, of which, it was said,
+there was abundance in the temples and the treasury, voted to send
+sixty ships to Sicily, under the command of Alcibiades, son of
+Clinias, Nicias, son of Niceratus, and Lamachus, son of Xenophanes,
+who were appointed with full powers; they were to help the
+Egestaeans against the Selinuntines, to restore Leontini upon
+gaining any advantage in the war, and to order all other matters in
+Sicily as they should deem best for the interests of Athens.  Five days
+after this a second assembly was held, to consider the speediest means
+of equipping the ships, and to vote whatever else might be required by
+the generals for the expedition; and Nicias, who had been chosen to
+the command against his will, and who thought that the state was not
+well advised, but upon a slight aid specious pretext was aspiring to
+the conquest of the whole of Sicily, a great matter to achieve, came
+forward in the hope of diverting the Athenians from the enterprise,
+and gave them the following counsel:
+
+"Although this assembly was convened to consider the preparations to
+be made for sailing to Sicily, I think, notwithstanding, that we
+have still this question to examine, whether it be better to send out
+the ships at all, and that we ought not to give so little consideration
+to a matter of such moment, or let ourselves be persuaded by
+foreigners into undertaking a war with which we have nothing to do.
+And yet, individually, I gain in honour by such a course, and fear as
+little as other men for my person--not that I think a man need be
+any the worse citizen for taking some thought for his person and
+estate; on the contrary, such a man would for his own sake desire
+the prosperity of his country more than others--nevertheless,
+as I have never spoken against my convictions to gain honour, I
+shall not begin to do so now, but shall say what I think best.
+Against your character any words of mine would be weak enough, if
+I were to advise your keeping what you have got and not risking
+what is actually yours for advantages which are dubious in themselves,
+and which you may or may not attain.  I will, therefore, content
+myself with showing that your ardour is out of season, and your
+ambition not easy of accomplishment.
+
+"I affirm, then, that you leave many enemies behind you here to go
+yonder and bring more back with you.  You imagine, perhaps, that the
+treaty which you have made can be trusted; a treaty that will continue
+to exist nominally, as long as you keep quiet--for nominal it has
+become, owing to the practices of certain men here and at Sparta--but
+which in the event of a serious reverse in any quarter would not delay
+our enemies a moment in attacking us; first, because the convention
+was forced upon them by disaster and was less honourable to them
+than to us; and secondly, because in this very convention there are
+many points that are still disputed.  Again, some of the most
+powerful states have never yet accepted the arrangement at all.  Some
+of these are at open war with us; others (as the Lacedaemonians do not
+yet move) are restrained by truces renewed every ten days, and it is
+only too probable that if they found our power divided, as we are
+hurrying to divide it, they would attack us vigorously with the
+Siceliots, whose alliance they would have in the past valued as they
+would that of few others.  A man ought, therefore, to consider these
+points, and not to think of running risks with a country placed so
+critically, or of grasping at another empire before we have secured
+the one we have already; for in fact the Thracian Chalcidians have
+been all these years in revolt from us without being yet subdued,
+and others on the continents yield us but a doubtful obedience.
+Meanwhile the Egestaeans, our allies, have been wronged, and we run to
+help them, while the rebels who have so long wronged us still wait for
+punishment.
+
+"And yet the latter, if brought under, might be kept under; while
+the Sicilians, even if conquered, are too far off and too numerous
+to be ruled without difficulty.  Now it is folly to go against men
+who could not be kept under even if conquered, while failure would
+leave us in a very different position from that which we occupied
+before the enterprise.  The Siceliots, again, to take them as they
+are at present, in the event of a Syracusan conquest (the favourite
+bugbear of the Egestaeans), would to my thinking be even less
+dangerous to us than before.  At present they might possibly come
+here as separate states for love of Lacedaemon; in the other case
+one empire would scarcely attack another; for after joining the
+Peloponnesians to overthrow ours, they could only expect to see the
+same hands overthrow their own in the same way.  The Hellenes in Sicily
+would fear us most if we never went there at all, and next to this, if
+after displaying our power we went away again as soon as possible.
+We all know that that which is farthest off, and the reputation of
+which can least be tested, is the object of admiration; at the least
+reverse they would at once begin to look down upon us, and would
+join our enemies here against us.  You have yourselves experienced this
+with regard to the Lacedaemonians and their allies, whom your
+unexpected success, as compared with what you feared at first, has
+made you suddenly despise, tempting you further to aspire to the
+conquest of Sicily.  Instead, however, of being puffed up by the
+misfortunes of your adversaries, you ought to think of breaking
+their spirit before giving yourselves up to confidence, and to
+understand that the one thought awakened in the Lacedaemonians by
+their disgrace is how they may even now, if possible, overthrow us and
+repair their dishonour; inasmuch as military reputation is their
+oldest and chiefest study.  Our struggle, therefore, if we are wise,
+will not be for the barbarian Egestaeans in Sicily, but how to
+defend ourselves most effectually against the oligarchical
+machinations of Lacedaemon.
+
+"We should also remember that we are but now enjoying some respite
+from a great pestilence and from war, to the no small benefit of our
+estates and persons, and that it is right to employ these at home on
+our own behalf, instead of using them on behalf of these exiles
+whose interest it is to lie as fairly as they can, who do nothing
+but talk themselves and leave the danger to others, and who if they
+succeed will show no proper gratitude, and if they fail will drag down
+their friends with them.  And if there be any man here, overjoyed at
+being chosen to command, who urges you to make the expedition,
+merely for ends of his own--specially if he be still too young to
+command--who seeks to be admired for his stud of horses, but on
+account of its heavy expenses hopes for some profit from his
+appointment, do not allow such a one to maintain his private splendour
+at his country's risk, but remember that such persons injure the
+public fortune while they squander their own, and that this is a
+matter of importance, and not for a young man to decide or hastily to
+take in hand.
+
+"When I see such persons now sitting here at the side of that same
+individual and summoned by him, alarm seizes me; and I, in my turn,
+summon any of the older men that may have such a person sitting next
+him not to let himself be shamed down, for fear of being thought a
+coward if he do not vote for war, but, remembering how rarely
+success is got by wishing and how often by forecast, to leave to
+them the mad dream of conquest, and as a true lover of his country,
+now threatened by the greatest danger in its history, to hold up his
+hand on the other side; to vote that the Siceliots be left in the
+limits now existing between us, limits of which no one can complain
+(the Ionian sea for the coasting voyage, and the Sicilian across the
+open main), to enjoy their own possessions and to settle their own
+quarrels; that the Egestaeans, for their part, be told to end by
+themselves with the Selinuntines the war which they began without
+consulting the Athenians; and that for the future we do not enter into
+alliance, as we have been used to do, with people whom we must help in
+their need, and who can never help us in ours.
+
+"And you, Prytanis, if you think it your duty to care for the
+commonwealth, and if you wish to show yourself a good citizen, put the
+question to the vote, and take a second time the opinions of the
+Athenians.  If you are afraid to move the question again, consider that
+a violation of the law cannot carry any prejudice with so many
+abettors, that you will be the physician of your misguided city, and
+that the virtue of men in office is briefly this, to do their
+country as much good as they can, or in any case no harm that they can
+avoid."
+
+Such were the words of Nicias.  Most of the Athenians that came
+forward spoke in favour of the expedition, and of not annulling what
+had been voted, although some spoke on the other side.  By far the
+warmest advocate of the expedition was, however, Alcibiades, son of
+Clinias, who wished to thwart Nicias both as his political opponent
+and also because of the attack he had made upon him in his speech, and
+who was, besides, exceedingly ambitious of a command by which he hoped
+to reduce Sicily and Carthage, and personally to gain in wealth and
+reputation by means of his successes.  For the position he held among
+the citizens led him to indulge his tastes beyond what his real
+means would bear, both in keeping horses and in the rest of his
+expenditure; and this later on had not a little to do with the ruin of
+the Athenian state.  Alarmed at the greatness of his licence in his own
+life and habits, and of the ambition which he showed in all things
+soever that he undertook, the mass of the people set him down as a
+pretender to the tyranny, and became his enemies; and although
+publicly his conduct of the war was as good as could be desired,
+individually, his habits gave offence to every one, and caused them to
+commit affairs to other hands, and thus before long to ruin the
+city.  Meanwhile he now came forward and gave the following advice to
+the Athenians:
+
+"Athenians, I have a better right to command than others--I must
+begin with this as Nicias has attacked me--and at the same time I
+believe myself to be worthy of it.  The things for which I am abused,
+bring fame to my ancestors and to myself, and to the country profit
+besides.  The Hellenes, after expecting to see our city ruined by the
+war, concluded it to be even greater than it really is, by reason of
+the magnificence with which I represented it at the Olympic games,
+when I sent into the lists seven chariots, a number never before
+entered by any private person, and won the first prize, and was second
+and fourth, and took care to have everything else in a style worthy of
+my victory.  Custom regards such displays as honourable, and they
+cannot be made without leaving behind them an impression of power.
+Again, any splendour that I may have exhibited at home in providing
+choruses or otherwise, is naturally envied by my fellow citizens,
+but in the eyes of foreigners has an air of strength as in the other
+instance.  And this is no useless folly, when a man at his own
+private cost benefits not himself only, but his city: nor is it unfair
+that he who prides himself on his position should refuse to be upon an
+equality with the rest.  He who is badly off has his misfortunes all to
+himself, and as we do not see men courted in adversity, on the like
+principle a man ought to accept the insolence of prosperity; or
+else, let him first mete out equal measure to all, and then demand
+to have it meted out to him.  What I know is that persons of this
+kind and all others that have attained to any distinction, although
+they may be unpopular in their lifetime in their relations with
+their fellow-men and especially with their equals, leave to
+posterity the desire of claiming connection with them even without any
+ground, and are vaunted by the country to which they belonged, not
+as strangers or ill-doers, but as fellow-countrymen and heroes.  Such
+are my aspirations, and however I am abused for them in private, the
+question is whether any one manages public affairs better than I do.
+Having united the most powerful states of Peloponnese, without great
+danger or expense to you, I compelled the Lacedaemonians to stake
+their all upon the issue of a single day at Mantinea; and although
+victorious in the battle, they have never since fully recovered
+confidence.
+
+"Thus did my youth and so-called monstrous folly find fitting
+arguments to deal with the power of the Peloponnesians, and by its
+ardour win their confidence and prevail.  And do not be afraid of my
+youth now, but while I am still in its flower, and Nicias appears
+fortunate, avail yourselves to the utmost of the services of us
+both.  Neither rescind your resolution to sail to Sicily, on the ground
+that you would be going to attack a great power.  The cities in
+Sicily are peopled by motley rabbles, and easily change their
+institutions and adopt new ones in their stead; and consequently the
+inhabitants, being without any feeling of patriotism, are not provided
+with arms for their persons, and have not regularly established
+themselves on the land; every man thinks that either by fair words
+or by party strife he can obtain something at the public expense,
+and then in the event of a catastrophe settle in some other country,
+and makes his preparations accordingly.  From a mob like this you
+need not look for either unanimity in counsel or concert in action;
+but they will probably one by one come in as they get a fair offer,
+especially if they are torn by civil strife as we are told.
+Moreover, the Siceliots have not so many heavy infantry as they boast;
+just as the Hellenes generally did not prove so numerous as each state
+reckoned itself, but Hellas greatly over-estimated their numbers,
+and has hardly had an adequate force of heavy infantry throughout this
+war.  The states in Sicily, therefore, from all that I can hear, will
+be found as I say, and I have not pointed out all our advantages,
+for we shall have the help of many barbarians, who from their hatred
+of the Syracusans will join us in attacking them; nor will the
+powers at home prove any hindrance, if you judge rightly.  Our
+fathers with these very adversaries, which it is said we shall now
+leave behind us when we sail, and the Mede as their enemy as well,
+were able to win the empire, depending solely on their superiority
+at sea.  The Peloponnesians had never so little hope against us as at
+present; and let them be ever so sanguine, although strong enough to
+invade our country even if we stay at home, they can never hurt us
+with their navy, as we leave one of our own behind us that is a
+match for them.
+
+"In this state of things what reason can we give to ourselves for
+holding back, or what excuse can we offer to our allies in Sicily
+for not helping them? They are our confederates, and we are bound to
+assist them, without objecting that they have not assisted us.  We
+did not take them into alliance to have them to help us in Hellas, but
+that they might so annoy our enemies in Sicily as to prevent them from
+coming over here and attacking us.  It is thus that empire has been
+won, both by us and by all others that have held it, by a constant
+readiness to support all, whether barbarians or Hellenes, that
+invite assistance; since if all were to keep quiet or to pick and
+choose whom they ought to assist, we should make but few new
+conquests, and should imperil those we have already won.  Men do not
+rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike
+the first blow to prevent the attack being made.  And we cannot fix the
+exact point at which our empire shall stop; we have reached a position
+in which we must not be content with retaining but must scheme to
+extend it, for, if we cease to rule others, we are in danger of
+being ruled ourselves.  Nor can you look at inaction from the same
+point of view as others, unless you are prepared to change your habits
+and make them like theirs.
+
+"Be convinced, then, that we shall augment our power at home by this
+adventure abroad, and let us make the expedition, and so humble the
+pride of the Peloponnesians by sailing off to Sicily, and letting them
+see how little we care for the peace that we are now enjoying; and
+at the same time we shall either become masters, as we very easily
+may, of the whole of Hellas through the accession of the Sicilian
+Hellenes, or in any case ruin the Syracusans, to the no small
+advantage of ourselves and our allies.  The faculty of staying if
+successful, or of returning, will be secured to us by our navy, as
+we shall be superior at sea to all the Siceliots put together.  And
+do not let the do-nothing policy which Nicias advocates, or his
+setting of the young against the old, turn you from your purpose,
+but in the good old fashion by which our fathers, old and young
+together, by their united counsels brought our affairs to their
+present height, do you endeavour still to advance them;
+understanding that neither youth nor old age can do anything the one
+without the other, but that levity, sobriety, and deliberate
+judgment are strongest when united, and that, by sinking into
+inaction, the city, like everything else, will wear itself out, and
+its skill in everything decay; while each fresh struggle will give
+it fresh experience, and make it more used to defend itself not in
+word but in deed.  In short, my conviction is that a city not
+inactive by nature could not choose a quicker way to ruin itself
+than by suddenly adopting such a policy, and that the safest rule of
+life is to take one's character and institutions for better and for
+worse, and to live up to them as closely as one can."
+
+Such were the words of Alcibiades.  After hearing him and the
+Egestaeans and some Leontine exiles, who came forward reminding them
+of their oaths and imploring their assistance, the Athenians became
+more eager for the expedition than before.  Nicias, perceiving that
+it would be now useless to try to deter them by the old line of
+argument, but thinking that he might perhaps alter their resolution by
+the extravagance of his estimates, came forward a second time and
+spoke as follows:
+
+"I see, Athenians, that you are thoroughly bent upon the expedition,
+and therefore hope that all will turn out as we wish, and proceed to
+give you my opinion at the present juncture.  From all that I hear we
+are going against cities that are great and not subject to one
+another, or in need of change, so as to be glad to pass from
+enforced servitude to an easier condition, or in the least likely to
+accept our rule in exchange for freedom; and, to take only the
+Hellenic towns, they are very numerous for one island.  Besides Naxos
+and Catana, which I expect to join us from their connection with
+Leontini, there are seven others armed at all points just like our own
+power, particularly Selinus and Syracuse, the chief objects of our
+expedition.  These are full of heavy infantry, archers, and darters,
+have galleys in abundance and crowds to man them; they have also
+money, partly in the hands of private persons, partly in the temples
+at Selinus, and at Syracuse first-fruits from some of the barbarians
+as well.  But their chief advantage over us lies in the number of their
+horses, and in the fact that they grow their corn at home instead of
+importing it.
+
+"Against a power of this kind it will not do to have merely a weak
+naval armament, but we shall want also a large land army to sail
+with us, if we are to do anything worthy of our ambition, and are
+not to be shut out from the country by a numerous cavalry;
+especially if the cities should take alarm and combine, and we
+should be left without friends (except the Egestaeans) to furnish us
+with horse to defend ourselves with.  It would be disgraceful to have
+to retire under compulsion, or to send back for reinforcements,
+owing to want of reflection at first: we must therefore start from
+home with a competent force, seeing that we are going to sail far from
+our country, and upon an expedition not like any which you may
+undertaken undertaken the quality of allies, among your subject states
+here in Hellas, where any additional supplies needed were easily drawn
+from the friendly territory; but we are cutting ourselves off, and
+going to a land entirely strange, from which during four months in
+winter it is not even easy for a messenger get to Athens.
+
+"I think, therefore, that we ought to take great numbers of heavy
+infantry, both from Athens and from our allies, and not merely from
+our subjects, but also any we may be able to get for love or for money
+in Peloponnese, and great numbers also of archers and slingers, to
+make head against the Sicilian horse.  Meanwhile we must have an
+overwhelming superiority at sea, to enable us the more easily to carry
+in what we want; and we must take our own corn in merchant vessels,
+that is to say, wheat and parched barley, and bakers from the mills
+compelled to serve for pay in the proper proportion; in order that
+in case of our being weather-bound the armament may not want
+provisions, as it is not every city that will be able to entertain
+numbers like ours.  We must also provide ourselves with everything else
+as far as we can, so as not to be dependent upon others; and above all
+we must take with us from home as much money as possible, as the
+sums talked of as ready at Egesta are readier, you may be sure, in
+talk than in any other way.
+
+"Indeed, even if we leave Athens with a force not only equal to that
+of the enemy except in the number of heavy infantry in the field,
+but even at all points superior to him, we shall still find it
+difficult to conquer Sicily or save ourselves.  We must not disguise
+from ourselves that we go to found a city among strangers and enemies,
+and that he who undertakes such an enterprise should be prepared to
+become master of the country the first day he lands, or failing in
+this to find everything hostile to him.  Fearing this, and knowing that
+we shall have need of much good counsel and more good fortune--a hard
+matter for mortal man to aspire to--I wish as far as may be to make
+myself independent of fortune before sailing, and when I do sail, to
+be as safe as a strong force can make me.  This I believe to be
+surest for the country at large, and safest for us who are to go on
+the expedition.  If any one thinks differently I resign to him my
+command."
+
+With this Nicias concluded, thinking that he should either disgust
+the Athenians by the magnitude of the undertaking, or, if obliged to
+sail on the expedition, would thus do so in the safest way possible.
+The Athenians, however, far from having their taste for the voyage
+taken away by the burdensomeness of the preparations, became more
+eager for it than ever; and just the contrary took place of what
+Nicias had thought, as it was held that he had given good advice,
+and that the expedition would be the safest in the world.  All alike
+fell in love with the enterprise.  The older men thought that they
+would either subdue the places against which they were to sail, or
+at all events, with so large a force, meet with no disaster; those
+in the prime of life felt a longing for foreign sights and spectacles,
+and had no doubt that they should come safe home again; while the idea
+of the common people and the soldiery was to earn wages at the moment,
+and make conquests that would supply a never-ending fund of pay for
+the future.  With this enthusiasm of the majority, the few that liked
+it not, feared to appear unpatriotic by holding up their hands against
+it, and so kept quiet.
+
+At last one of the Athenians came forward and called upon Nicias and
+told him that he ought not to make excuses or put them off, but say at
+once before them all what forces the Athenians should vote him.  Upon
+this he said, not without reluctance, that he would advise upon that
+matter more at leisure with his colleagues; as far however as he could
+see at present, they must sail with at least one hundred galleys--the
+Athenians providing as many transports as they might determine, and
+sending for others from the allies--not less than five thousand heavy
+infantry in all, Athenian and allied, and if possible more; and the
+rest of the armament in proportion; archers from home and from
+Crete, and slingers, and whatever else might seem desirable, being got
+ready by the generals and taken with them.
+
+Upon hearing this the Athenians at once voted that the generals
+should have full powers in the matter of the numbers of the army and
+of the expedition generally, to do as they judged best for the
+interests of Athens.  After this the preparations began; messages being
+sent to the allies and the rolls drawn up at home.  And as the city had
+just recovered from the plague and the long war, and a number of young
+men had grown up and capital had accumulated by reason of the truce,
+everything was the more easily provided.
+
+In the midst of these preparations all the stone Hermae in the
+city of Athens, that is to say the customary square figures, so common
+in the doorways of private houses and temples, had in one night most
+of them their fares mutilated.  No one knew who had done it, but
+large public rewards were offered to find the authors; and it was
+further voted that any one who knew of any other act of impiety having
+been committed should come and give information without fear of
+consequences, whether he were citizen, alien, or slave.  The matter was
+taken up the more seriously, as it was thought to be ominous for the
+expedition, and part of a conspiracy to bring about a revolution and
+to upset the democracy.
+
+Information was given accordingly by some resident aliens and body
+servants, not about the Hermae but about some previous mutilations
+of other images perpetrated by young men in a drunken frolic, and of
+mock celebrations of the mysteries, averred to take place in private
+houses.  Alcibiades being implicated in this charge, it was taken
+hold of by those who could least endure him, because he stood in the
+way of their obtaining the undisturbed direction of the people, and
+who thought that if he were once removed the first place would be
+theirs.  These accordingly magnified the matter and loudly proclaimed
+that the affair of the mysteries and the mutilation of the Hermae were
+part and parcel of a scheme to overthrow the democracy, and that
+nothing of all this had been done without Alcibiades; the proofs
+alleged being the general and undemocratic licence of his life and
+habits.
+
+Alcibiades repelled on the spot the charges in question, and also
+before going on the expedition, the preparations for which were now
+complete, offered to stand his trial, that it might be seen whether he
+was guilty of the acts imputed to him; desiring to be punished if
+found guilty, but, if acquitted, to take the command.  Meanwhile he
+protested against their receiving slanders against him in his absence,
+and begged them rather to put him to death at once if he were
+guilty, and pointed out the imprudence of sending him out at the
+head of so large an army, with so serious a charge still undecided.
+But his enemies feared that he would have the army for him if he
+were tried immediately, and that the people might relent in favour
+of the man whom they already caressed as the cause of the Argives
+and some of the Mantineans joining in the expedition, and did their
+utmost to get this proposition rejected, putting forward other orators
+who said that he ought at present to sail and not delay the
+departure of the army, and be tried on his return within a fixed
+number of days; their plan being to have him sent for and brought home
+for trial upon some graver charge, which they would the more easily
+get up in his absence.  Accordingly it was decreed that he should sail.
+
+After this the departure for Sicily took place, it being now about
+midsummer.  Most of the allies, with the corn transports and the
+smaller craft and the rest of the expedition, had already received
+orders to muster at Corcyra, to cross the Ionian Sea from thence in
+a body to the Iapygian promontory.  But the Athenians themselves, and
+such of their allies as happened to be with them, went down to Piraeus
+upon a day appointed at daybreak, and began to man the ships for
+putting out to sea.  With them also went down the whole population, one
+may say, of the city, both citizens and foreigners; the inhabitants of
+the country each escorting those that belonged to them, their friends,
+their relatives, or their sons, with hope and lamentation upon their
+way, as they thought of the conquests which they hoped to make, or
+of the friends whom they might never see again, considering the long
+voyage which they were going to make from their country.  Indeed, at
+this moment, when they were now upon the point of parting from one
+another, the danger came more home to them than when they voted for
+the expedition; although the strength of the armament, and the profuse
+provision which they remarked in every department, was a sight that
+could not but comfort them.  As for the foreigners and the rest of
+the crowd, they simply went to see a sight worth looking at and
+passing all belief.
+
+Indeed this armament that first sailed out was by far the most
+costly and splendid Hellenic force that had ever been sent out by a
+single city up to that time.  In mere number of ships and heavy
+infantry that against Epidaurus under Pericles, and the same when
+going against Potidaea under Hagnon, was not inferior; containing as
+it did four thousand Athenian heavy infantry, three hundred horse, and
+one hundred galleys accompanied by fifty Lesbian and Chian vessels and
+many allies besides.  But these were sent upon a short voyage and
+with a scanty equipment.  The present expedition was formed in
+contemplation of a long term of service by land and sea alike, and was
+furnished with ships and troops so as to be ready for either as
+required.  The fleet had been elaborately equipped at great cost to the
+captains and the state; the treasury giving a drachma a day to each
+seaman, and providing empty ships, sixty men-of-war and forty
+transports, and manning these with the best crews obtainable; while
+the captains gave a bounty in addition to the pay from the treasury to
+the thranitae and crews generally, besides spending lavishly upon
+figure-heads and equipments, and one and all making the utmost
+exertions to enable their own ships to excel in beauty and fast
+sailing.  Meanwhile the land forces had been picked from the best
+muster-rolls, and vied with each other in paying great attention to
+their arms and personal accoutrements.  From this resulted not only a
+rivalry among themselves in their different departments, but an idea
+among the rest of the Hellenes that it was more a display of power and
+resources than an armament against an enemy.  For if any one had
+counted up the public expenditure of the state, and the private outlay
+of individuals--that is to say, the sums which the state had already
+spent upon the expedition and was sending out in the hands of the
+generals, and those which individuals had expended upon their personal
+outfit, or as captains of galleys had laid out and were still to lay
+out upon their vessels; and if he had added to this the journey
+money which each was likely to have provided himself with,
+independently of the pay from the treasury, for a voyage of such
+length, and what the soldiers or traders took with them for the
+purpose of exchange--it would have been found that many talents in
+all were being taken out of the city.  Indeed the expedition became not
+less famous for its wonderful boldness and for the splendour of its
+appearance, than for its overwhelming strength as compared with the
+peoples against whom it was directed, and for the fact that this was
+the longest passage from home hitherto attempted, and the most
+ambitious in its objects considering the resources of those who
+undertook it.
+
+The ships being now manned, and everything put on board with which
+they meant to sail, the trumpet commanded silence, and the prayers
+customary before putting out to sea were offered, not in each ship
+by itself, but by all together to the voice of a herald; and bowls
+of wine were mixed through all the armament, and libations made by the
+soldiers and their officers in gold and silver goblets.  In their
+prayers joined also the crowds on shore, the citizens and all others
+that wished them well.  The hymn sung and the libations finished,
+they put out to sea, and first out in column then raced each other
+as far as Aegina, and so hastened to reach Corcyra, where the rest
+of the allied forces were also assembling.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+_Seventeenth Year of the War - Parties at Syracuse - Story of
+Harmodius and Aristogiton - Disgrace of Alcibiades_
+
+Meanwhile at Syracuse news came in from many quarters of the
+expedition, but for a long while met with no credence whatever.
+Indeed, an assembly was held in which speeches, as will be seen,
+were delivered by different orators, believing or contradicting the
+report of the Athenian expedition; among whom Hermocrates, son of
+Hermon, came forward, being persuaded that he knew the truth of the
+matter, and gave the following counsel:
+
+"Although I shall perhaps be no better believed than others have
+been when I speak upon the reality of the expedition, and although I
+know that those who either make or repeat statements thought not
+worthy of belief not only gain no converts but are thought fools for
+their pains, I shall certainly not be frightened into holding my
+tongue when the state is in danger, and when I am persuaded that I can
+speak with more authority on the matter than other persons.  Much as
+you wonder at it, the Athenians nevertheless have set out against us
+with a large force, naval and military, professedly to help the
+Egestaeans and to restore Leontini, but really to conquer Sicily,
+and above all our city, which once gained, the rest, they think,
+will easily follow.  Make up your minds, therefore, to see them
+speedily here, and see how you can best repel them with the means
+under your hand, and do be taken off your guard through despising
+the news, or neglect the common weal through disbelieving it.
+Meanwhile those who believe me need not be dismayed at the force or
+daring of the enemy.  They will not be able to do us more hurt than
+we shall do them; nor is the greatness of their armament altogether
+without advantage to us.  Indeed, the greater it is the better, with
+regard to the rest of the Siceliots, whom dismay will make more
+ready to join us; and if we defeat or drive them away, disappointed of
+the objects of their ambition (for I do not fear for a moment that
+they will get what they want), it will be a most glorious exploit
+for us, and in my judgment by no means an unlikely one.  Few indeed
+have been the large armaments, either Hellenic or barbarian, that have
+gone far from home and been successful.  They cannot be more numerous
+than the people of the country and their neighbours, all of whom
+fear leagues together; and if they miscarry for want of supplies in
+a foreign land, to those against whom their plans were laid none the
+less they leave renown, although they may themselves have been the
+main cause of their own discomfort.  Thus these very Athenians rose
+by the defeat of the Mede, in a great measure due to accidental
+causes, from the mere fact that Athens had been the object of his
+attack; and this may very well be the case with us also.
+
+"Let us, therefore, confidently begin preparations here; let us send
+and confirm some of the Sicels, and obtain the friendship and alliance
+of others, and dispatch envoys to the rest of Sicily to show that
+the danger is common to all, and to Italy to get them to become our
+allies, or at all events to refuse to receive the Athenians.  I also
+think that it would be best to send to Carthage as well; they are by
+no means there without apprehension, but it is their constant fear
+that the Athenians may one day attack their city, and they may perhaps
+think that they might themselves suffer by letting Sicily be
+sacrificed, and be willing to help us secretly if not openly, in one
+way if not in another.  They are the best able to do so, if they
+will, of any of the present day, as they possess most gold and silver,
+by which war, like everything else, flourishes.  Let us also send to
+Lacedaemon and Corinth, and ask them to come here and help us as
+soon as possible, and to keep alive the war in Hellas.  But the true
+thing of all others, in my opinion, to do at the present moment, is
+what you, with your constitutional love of quiet, will be slow to see,
+and what I must nevertheless mention.  If we Siceliots, all together,
+or at least as many as possible besides ourselves, would only launch
+the whole of our actual navy with two months' provisions, and meet the
+Athenians at Tarentum and the Iapygian promontory, and show them
+that before fighting for Sicily they must first fight for their
+passage across the Ionian Sea, we should strike dismay into their
+army, and set them on thinking that we have a base for our
+defensive--for Tarentum is ready to receive us--while they have a wide
+sea to cross with all their armament, which could with difficulty keep
+its order through so long a voyage, and would be easy for us to attack
+as it came on slowly and in small detachments.  On the other hand, if
+they were to lighten their vessels, and draw together their fast
+sailers and with these attack us, we could either fall upon them
+when they were wearied with rowing, or if we did not choose to do
+so, we could retire to Tarentum; while they, having crossed with few
+provisions just to give battle, would be hard put to it in desolate
+places, and would either have to remain and be blockaded, or to try to
+sail along the coast, abandoning the rest of their armament, and being
+further discouraged by not knowing for certain whether the cities
+would receive them.  In my opinion this consideration alone would be
+sufficient to deter them from putting out from Corcyra; and what
+with deliberating and reconnoitring our numbers and whereabouts,
+they would let the season go on until winter was upon them, or,
+confounded by so unexpected a circumstance, would break up the
+expedition, especially as their most experienced general has, as I
+hear, taken the command against his will, and would grasp at the first
+excuse offered by any serious demonstration of ours.  We should also be
+reported, I am certain, as more numerous than we really are, and men's
+minds are affected by what they hear, and besides the first to attack,
+or to show that they mean to defend themselves against an attack,
+inspire greater fear because men see that they are ready for the
+emergency.  This would just be the case with the Athenians at
+present.  They are now attacking us in the belief that we shall not
+resist, having a right to judge us severely because we did not help
+the Lacedaemonians in crushing them; but if they were to see us
+showing a courage for which they are not prepared, they would be
+more dismayed by the surprise than they could ever be by our actual
+power.  I could wish to persuade you to show this courage; but if
+this cannot be, at all events lose not a moment in preparing generally
+for the war; and remember all of you that contempt for an assailant is
+best shown by bravery in action, but that for the present the best
+course is to accept the preparations which fear inspires as giving the
+surest promise of safety, and to act as if the danger was real.  That
+the Athenians are coming to attack us, and are already upon the
+voyage, and all but here--this is what I am sure of."
+
+Thus far spoke Hermocrates.  Meanwhile the people of Syracuse were at
+great strife among themselves; some contending that the Athenians
+had no idea of coming and that there was no truth in what he said;
+some asking if they did come what harm they could do that would not be
+repaid them tenfold in return; while others made light of the whole
+affair and turned it into ridicule.  In short, there were few that
+believed Hermocrates and feared for the future.  Meanwhile Athenagoras,
+the leader of the people and very powerful at that time with the
+masses, came forward and spoke as follows:
+
+"For the Athenians, he who does not wish that they may be as
+misguided as they are supposed to be, and that they may come here to
+become our subjects, is either a coward or a traitor to his country;
+while as for those who carry such tidings and fill you with so much
+alarm, I wonder less at their audacity than at their folly if they
+flatter themselves that we do not see through them.  The fact is that
+they have their private reasons to be afraid, and wish to throw the
+city into consternation to have their own terrors cast into the
+shade by the public alarm.  In short, this is what these reports are
+worth; they do not arise of themselves, but are concocted by men who
+are always causing agitation here in Sicily.  However, if you are
+well advised, you will not be guided in your calculation of
+probabilities by what these persons tell you, but by what shrewd men
+and of large experience, as I esteem the Athenians to be, would be
+likely to do.  Now it is not likely that they would leave the
+Peloponnesians behind them, and before they have well ended the war in
+Hellas wantonly come in quest of a new war quite as arduous in Sicily;
+indeed, in my judgment, they are only too glad that we do not go and
+attack them, being so many and so great cities as we are.
+
+"However, if they should come as is reported, I consider Sicily
+better able to go through with the war than Peloponnese, as being at
+all points better prepared, and our city by itself far more than a
+match for this pretended army of invasion, even were it twice as large
+again.  I know that they will not have horses with them, or get any
+here, except a few perhaps from the Egestaeans; or be able to bring
+a force of heavy infantry equal in number to our own, in ships which
+will already have enough to do to come all this distance, however
+lightly laden, not to speak of the transport of the other stores
+required against a city of this magnitude, which will be no slight
+quantity.  In fact, so strong is my opinion upon the subject, that I do
+not well see how they could avoid annihilation if they brought with
+them another city as large as Syracuse, and settled down and carried
+on war from our frontier; much less can they hope to succeed with
+all Sicily hostile to them, as all Sicily will be, and with only a
+camp pitched from the ships, and composed of tents and bare
+necessaries, from which they would not be able to stir far for fear of
+our cavalry.
+
+"But the Athenians see this as I tell you, and as I have reason to
+know are looking after their possessions at home, while persons here
+invent stories that neither are true nor ever will be.  Nor is this the
+first time that I see these persons, when they cannot resort to deeds,
+trying by such stories and by others even more abominable to
+frighten your people and get into their hands the government: it is
+what I see always.  And I cannot help fearing that trying so often they
+may one day succeed, and that we, as long as we do not feel the smart,
+may prove too weak for the task of prevention, or, when the
+offenders are known, of pursuit.  The result is that our city is rarely
+at rest, but is subject to constant troubles and to contests as
+frequent against herself as against the enemy, not to speak of
+occasional tyrannies and infamous cabals.  However, I will try, if
+you will support me, to let nothing of this happen in our time, by
+gaining you, the many, and by chastising the authors of such
+machinations, not merely when they are caught in the act--a difficult
+feat to accomplish--but also for what they have the wish though not
+the power to do; as it is necessary to punish an enemy not only for
+what he does, but also beforehand for what he intends to do, if the
+first to relax precaution would not be also the first to suffer.  I
+shall also reprove, watch, and on occasion warn the few--the most
+effectual way, in my opinion, of turning them from their evil courses.
+And after all, as I have often asked, what would you have, young men?
+Would you hold office at once? The law forbids it, a law enacted
+rather because you are not competent than to disgrace you when
+competent.  Meanwhile you would not be on a legal equality with the
+many! But how can it be right that citizens of the same state should
+be held unworthy of the same privileges?
+
+"It will be said, perhaps, that democracy is neither wise nor
+equitable, but that the holders of property are also the best fitted
+to rule.  I say, on the contrary, first, that the word demos, or
+people, includes the whole state, oligarchy only a part; next, that if
+the best guardians of property are the rich, and the best
+counsellors the wise, none can hear and decide so well as the many;
+and that all these talents, severally and collectively, have their
+just place in a democracy.  But an oligarchy gives the many their share
+of the danger, and not content with the largest part takes and keeps
+the whole of the profit; and this is what the powerful and young among
+you aspire to, but in a great city cannot possibly obtain.
+
+"But even now, foolish men, most senseless of all the Hellenes
+that I know, if you have no sense of the wickedness of your designs,
+or most criminal if you have that sense and still dare to pursue
+them--even now, if it is not a case for repentance, you may still
+learn wisdom, and thus advance the interest of the country, the common
+interest of us all.  Reflect that in the country's prosperity the men
+of merit in your ranks will have a share and a larger share than the
+great mass of your fellow countrymen, but that if you have other
+designs you run a risk of being deprived of all; and desist from
+reports like these, as the people know your object and will not put up
+with it.  If the Athenians arrive, this city will repulse them in a
+manner worthy of itself; we have moreover, generals who will see to
+this matter.  And if nothing of this be true, as I incline to
+believe, the city will not be thrown into a panic by your
+intelligence, or impose upon itself a self-chosen servitude by
+choosing you for its rulers; the city itself will look into the
+matter, and will judge your words as if they were acts, and, instead
+of allowing itself to be deprived of its liberty by listening to
+you, will strive to preserve that liberty, by taking care to have
+always at hand the means of making itself respected."
+
+Such were the words of Athenagoras.  One of the generals now stood up
+and stopped any other speakers coming forward, adding these words of
+his own with reference to the matter in hand: "It is not well for
+speakers to utter calumnies against one another, or for their
+hearers to entertain them; we ought rather to look to the intelligence
+that we have received, and see how each man by himself and the city as
+a whole may best prepare to repel the invaders.  Even if there be no
+need, there is no harm in the state being furnished with horses and
+arms and all other insignia of war; and we will undertake to see to
+and order this, and to send round to the cities to reconnoitre and
+do all else that may appear desirable.  Part of this we have seen to
+already, and whatever we discover shall be laid before you." After
+these words from the general, the Syracusans departed from the
+assembly.
+
+In the meantime the Athenians with all their allies had now
+arrived at Corcyra.  Here the generals began by again reviewing the
+armament, and made arrangements as to the order in which they were
+to anchor and encamp, and dividing the whole fleet into three
+divisions, allotted one to each of their number, to avoid sailing
+all together and being thus embarrassed for water, harbourage, or
+provisions at the stations which they might touch at, and at the
+same time to be generally better ordered and easier to handle, by each
+squadron having its own commander.  Next they sent on three ships to
+Italy and Sicily to find out which of the cities would receive them,
+with instructions to meet them on the way and let them know before
+they put in to land.
+
+After this the Athenians weighed from Corcyra, and proceeded to
+cross to Sicily with an armament now consisting of one hundred and
+thirty-four galleys in all (besides two Rhodian fifty-oars), of
+which one hundred were Athenian vessels--sixty men-of-war, and forty
+troopships--and the remainder from Chios and the other allies; five
+thousand and one hundred heavy infantry in all, that is to say,
+fifteen hundred Athenian citizens from the rolls at Athens and seven
+hundred Thetes shipped as marines, and the rest allied troops, some of
+them Athenian subjects, and besides these five hundred Argives, and
+two hundred and fifty Mantineans serving for hire; four hundred and
+eighty archers in all, eighty of whom were Cretans, seven hundred
+slingers from Rhodes, one hundred and twenty light-armed exiles from
+Megara, and one horse-transport carrying thirty horses.
+
+Such was the strength of the first armament that sailed over for the
+war.  The supplies for this force were carried by thirty ships of
+burden laden with corn, which conveyed the bakers, stone-masons, and
+carpenters, and the tools for raising fortifications, accompanied by
+one hundred boats, like the former pressed into the service, besides
+many other boats and ships of burden which followed the armament
+voluntarily for purposes of trade; all of which now left Corcyra and
+struck across the Ionian Sea together.  The whole force making land
+at the Iapygian promontory and Tarentum, with more or less good
+fortune, coasted along the shores of Italy, the cities shutting
+their markets and gates against them, and according them nothing but
+water and liberty to anchor, and Tarentum and Locri not even that,
+until they arrived at Rhegium, the extreme point of Italy.  Here at
+length they reunited, and not gaining admission within the walls
+pitched a camp outside the city in the precinct of Artemis, where a
+market was also provided for them, and drew their ships on shore and
+kept quiet.  Meanwhile they opened negotiations with the Rhegians,
+and called upon them as Chalcidians to assist their Leontine
+kinsmen; to which the Rhegians replied that they would not side with
+either party, but should await the decision of the rest of the
+Italiots, and do as they did.  Upon this the Athenians now began to
+consider what would be the best action to take in the affairs of
+Sicily, and meanwhile waited for the ships sent on to come back from
+Egesta, in order to know whether there was really there the money
+mentioned by the messengers at Athens.
+
+In the meantime came in from all quarters to the Syracusans, as well
+as from their own officers sent to reconnoitre, the positive tidings
+that the fleet was at Rhegium; upon which they laid aside their
+incredulity and threw themselves heart and soul into the work of
+preparation.  Guards or envoys, as the case might be, were sent round
+to the Sicels, garrisons put into the posts of the Peripoli in the
+country, horses and arms reviewed in the city to see that nothing
+was wanting, and all other steps taken to prepare for a war which
+might be upon them at any moment.
+
+Meanwhile the three ships that had been sent on came from Egesta
+to the Athenians at Rhegium, with the news that so far from there
+being the sums promised, all that could be produced was thirty
+talents.  The generals were not a little disheartened at being thus
+disappointed at the outset, and by the refusal to join in the
+expedition of the Rhegians, the people they had first tried to gain
+and had had had most reason to count upon, from their relationship
+to the Leontines and constant friendship for Athens.  If Nicias was
+prepared for the news from Egesta, his two colleagues were taken
+completely by surprise.  The Egestaeans had had recourse to the
+following stratagem, when the first envoys from Athens came to inspect
+their resources.  They took the envoys in question to the temple of
+Aphrodite at Eryx and showed them the treasures deposited there:
+bowls, wine-ladles, censers, and a large number of other pieces of
+plate, which from being in silver gave an impression of wealth quite
+out of proportion to their really small value.  They also privately
+entertained the ships' crews, and collected all the cups of gold and
+silver that they could find in Egesta itself or could borrow in the
+neighbouring Phoenician and Hellenic towns, and each brought them to
+the banquets as their own; and as all used pretty nearly the same, and
+everywhere a great quantity of plate was shown, the effect was most
+dazzling upon the Athenian sailors, and made them talk loudly of the
+riches they had seen when they got back to Athens.  The dupes in
+question--who had in their turn persuaded the rest--when the news got
+abroad that there was not the money supposed at Egesta, were much
+blamed by the soldiers.
+
+Meanwhile the generals consulted upon what was to be done.  The
+opinion of Nicias was to sail with all the armament to Selinus, the
+main object of the expedition, and if the Egestaeans could provide
+money for the whole force, to advise accordingly; but if they could
+not, to require them to supply provisions for the sixty ships that
+they had asked for, to stay and settle matters between them and the
+Selinuntines either by force or by agreement, and then to coast past
+the other cities, and after displaying the power of Athens and proving
+their zeal for their friends and allies, to sail home again (unless
+they should have some sudden and unexpected opportunity of serving the
+Leontines, or of bringing over some of the other cities), and not to
+endanger the state by wasting its home resources.
+
+Alcibiades said that a great expedition like the present must not
+disgrace itself by going away without having done anything; heralds
+must be sent to all the cities except Selinus and Syracuse, and
+efforts be made to make some of the Sicels revolt from the Syracusans,
+and to obtain the friendship of others, in order to have corn and
+troops; and first of all to gain the Messinese, who lay right in the
+passage and entrance to Sicily, and would afford an excellent
+harbour and base for the army.  Thus, after bringing over the towns and
+knowing who would be their allies in the war, they might at length
+attack Syracuse and Selinus; unless the latter came to terms with
+Egesta and the former ceased to oppose the restoration of Leontini.
+
+Lamachus, on the other hand, said that they ought to sail straight
+to Syracuse, and fight their battle at once under the walls of the
+town while the people were still unprepared, and the panic at its
+height.  Every armament was most terrible at first; if it allowed
+time to run on without showing itself, men's courage revived, and they
+saw it appear at last almost with indifference.  By attacking suddenly,
+while Syracuse still trembled at their coming, they would have the
+best chance of gaining a victory for themselves and of striking a
+complete panic into the enemy by the aspect of their numbers--which
+would never appear so considerable as at present--by the anticipation
+of coming disaster, and above all by the immediate danger of the
+engagement.  They might also count upon surprising many in the fields
+outside, incredulous of their coming; and at the moment that the enemy
+was carrying in his property the army would not want for booty if it
+sat down in force before the city.  The rest of the Siceliots would
+thus be immediately less disposed to enter into alliance with the
+Syracusans, and would join the Athenians, without waiting to see which
+were the strongest.  They must make Megara their naval station as a
+place to retreat to and a base from which to attack: it was an
+uninhabited place at no great distance from Syracuse either by land or
+by sea.
+
+After speaking to this effect, Lamachus nevertheless gave his
+support to the opinion of Alcibiades.  After this Alcibiades sailed
+in his own vessel across to Messina with proposals of alliance, but
+met with no success, the inhabitants answering that they could not
+receive him within their walls, though they would provide him with a
+market outside.  Upon this he sailed back to Rhegium.  Immediately
+upon his return the generals manned and victualled sixty ships out
+of the whole fleet and coasted along to Naxos, leaving the rest of the
+armament behind them at Rhegium with one of their number.  Received
+by the Naxians, they then coasted on to Catana, and being refused
+admittance by the inhabitants, there being a Syracusan party in the
+town, went on to the river Terias.  Here they bivouacked, and the
+next day sailed in single file to Syracuse with all their ships except
+ten which they sent on in front to sail into the great harbour and see
+if there was any fleet launched, and to proclaim by herald from
+shipboard that the Athenians were come to restore the Leontines to
+their country, as being their allies and kinsmen, and that such of
+them, therefore, as were in Syracuse should leave it without fear
+and join their friends and benefactors the Athenians.  After making
+this proclamation and reconnoitring the city and the harbours, and the
+features of the country which they would have to make their base of
+operations in the war, they sailed back to Catana.
+
+An assembly being held here, the inhabitants refused to receive
+the armament, but invited the generals to come in and say what they
+desired; and while Alcibiades was speaking and the citizens were
+intent on the assembly, the soldiers broke down an ill-walled-up
+postern gate without being observed, and getting inside the town,
+flocked into the marketplace.  The Syracusan party in the town no
+sooner saw the army inside than they became frightened and withdrew,
+not being at all numerous; while the rest voted for an alliance with
+the Athenians and invited them to fetch the rest of their forces
+from Rhegium.  After this the Athenians sailed to Rhegium, and put off,
+this time with all the armament, for Catana, and fell to work at their
+camp immediately upon their arrival.
+
+Meanwhile word was brought them from Camarina that if they went
+there the town would go over to them, and also that the Syracusans
+were manning a fleet.  The Athenians accordingly sailed alongshore with
+all their armament, first to Syracuse, where they found no fleet
+manning, and so always along the coast to Camarina, where they brought
+to at the beach, and sent a herald to the people, who, however,
+refused to receive them, saying that their oaths bound them to receive
+the Athenians only with a single vessel, unless they themselves sent
+for more.  Disappointed here, the Athenians now sailed back again,
+and after landing and plundering on Syracusan territory and losing
+some stragglers from their light infantry through the coming up of the
+Syracusan horse, so got back to Catana.
+
+There they found the Salaminia come from Athens for Alcibiades, with
+orders for him to sail home to answer the charges which the state
+brought against him, and for certain others of the soldiers who with
+him were accused of sacrilege in the matter of the mysteries and of
+the Hermae.  For the Athenians, after the departure of the
+expedition, had continued as active as ever in investigating the facts
+of the mysteries and of the Hermae, and, instead of testing the
+informers, in their suspicious temper welcomed all indifferently,
+arresting and imprisoning the best citizens upon the evidence of
+rascals, and preferring to sift the matter to the bottom sooner than
+to let an accused person of good character pass unquestioned, owing to
+the rascality of the informer.  The commons had heard how oppressive
+the tyranny of Pisistratus and his sons had become before it ended,
+and further that that had been put down at last, not by themselves and
+Harmodius, but by the Lacedaemonians, and so were always in fear and
+took everything suspiciously.
+
+Indeed, the daring action of Aristogiton and Harmodius was
+undertaken in consequence of a love affair, which I shall relate at
+some length, to show that the Athenians are not more accurate than the
+rest of the world in their accounts of their own tyrants and of the
+facts of their own history.  Pisistratus dying at an advanced age in
+possession of the tyranny, was succeeded by his eldest son, Hippias,
+and not Hipparchus, as is vulgarly believed.  Harmodius was then in the
+flower of youthful beauty, and Aristogiton, a citizen in the middle
+rank of life, was his lover and possessed him.  Solicited without
+success by Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, Harmodius told Aristogiton,
+and the enraged lover, afraid that the powerful Hipparchus might
+take Harmodius by force, immediately formed a design, such as his
+condition in life permitted, for overthrowing the tyranny.  In the
+meantime Hipparchus, after a second solicitation of Harmodius,
+attended with no better success, unwilling to use violence, arranged
+to insult him in some covert way.  Indeed, generally their government
+was not grievous to the multitude, or in any way odious in practice;
+and these tyrants cultivated wisdom and virtue as much as any, and
+without exacting from the Athenians more than a twentieth of their
+income, splendidly adorned their city, and carried on their wars,
+and provided sacrifices for the temples.  For the rest, the city was
+left in full enjoyment of its existing laws, except that care was
+always taken to have the offices in the hands of some one of the
+family.  Among those of them that held the yearly archonship at
+Athens was Pisistratus, son of the tyrant Hippias, and named after his
+grandfather, who dedicated during his term of office the altar to
+the twelve gods in the market-place, and that of Apollo in the Pythian
+precinct.  The Athenian people afterwards built on to and lengthened
+the altar in the market-place, and obliterated the inscription; but
+that in the Pythian precinct can still be seen, though in faded
+letters, and is to the following effect:
+
+Pisistratus, the son of Hippias,
+Sent up this record of his archonship
+In precinct of Apollo Pythias.
+
+That Hippias was the eldest son and succeeded to the government,
+is what I positively assert as a fact upon which I have had more exact
+accounts than others, and may be also ascertained by the following
+circumstance.  He is the only one of the legitimate brothers that
+appears to have had children; as the altar shows, and the pillar
+placed in the Athenian Acropolis, commemorating the crime of the
+tyrants, which mentions no child of Thessalus or of Hipparchus, but
+five of Hippias, which he had by Myrrhine, daughter of Callias, son of
+Hyperechides; and naturally the eldest would have married first.
+Again, his name comes first on the pillar after that of his father;
+and this too is quite natural, as he was the eldest after him, and the
+reigning tyrant.  Nor can I ever believe that Hippias would have
+obtained the tyranny so easily, if Hipparchus had been in power when
+he was killed, and he, Hippias, had had to establish himself upon
+the same day; but he had no doubt been long accustomed to overawe
+the citizens, and to be obeyed by his mercenaries, and thus not only
+conquered, but conquered with ease, without experiencing any of the
+embarrassment of a younger brother unused to the exercise of
+authority.  It was the sad fate which made Hipparchus famous that got
+him also the credit with posterity of having been tyrant.
+
+To return to Harmodius; Hipparchus having been repulsed in his
+solicitations insulted him as he had resolved, by first inviting a
+sister of his, a young girl, to come and bear a basket in a certain
+procession, and then rejecting her, on the plea that she had never
+been invited at all owing to her unworthiness.  If Harmodius was
+indignant at this, Aristogiton for his sake now became more
+exasperated than ever; and having arranged everything with those who
+were to join them in the enterprise, they only waited for the great
+feast of the Panathenaea, the sole day upon which the citizens forming
+part of the procession could meet together in arms without
+suspicion.  Aristogiton and Harmodius were to begin, but were to be
+supported immediately by their accomplices against the bodyguard.
+The conspirators were not many, for better security, besides which
+they hoped that those not in the plot would be carried away by the
+example of a few daring spirits, and use the arms in their hands to
+recover their liberty.
+
+At last the festival arrived; and Hippias with his bodyguard was
+outside the city in the Ceramicus, arranging how the different parts
+of the procession were to proceed.  Harmodius and Aristogiton had
+already their daggers and were getting ready to act, when seeing one
+of their accomplices talking familiarly with Hippias, who was easy
+of access to every one, they took fright, and concluded that they were
+discovered and on the point of being taken; and eager if possible to
+be revenged first upon the man who had wronged them and for whom
+they had undertaken all this risk, they rushed, as they were, within
+the gates, and meeting with Hipparchus by the Leocorium recklessly
+fell upon him at once, infuriated, Aristogiton by love, and
+Harmodius by insult, and smote him and slew him.  Aristogiton escaped
+the guards at the moment, through the crowd running up, but was
+afterwards taken and dispatched in no merciful way: Harmodius was
+killed on the spot.
+
+When the news was brought to Hippias in the Ceramicus, he at once
+proceeded not to the scene of action, but to the armed men in the
+procession, before they, being some distance away, knew anything of
+the matter, and composing his features for the occasion, so as not
+to betray himself, pointed to a certain spot, and bade them repair
+thither without their arms.  They withdrew accordingly, fancying he had
+something to say; upon which he told the mercenaries to remove the
+arms, and there and then picked out the men he thought guilty and
+all found with daggers, the shield and spear being the usual weapons
+for a procession.
+
+In this way offended love first led Harmodius and Aristogiton to
+conspire, and the alarm of the moment to commit the rash action
+recounted.  After this the tyranny pressed harder on the Athenians, and
+Hippias, now grown more fearful, put to death many of the citizens,
+and at the same time began to turn his eyes abroad for a refuge in
+case of revolution.  Thus, although an Athenian, he gave his
+daughter, Archedice, to a Lampsacene, Aeantides, son of the tyrant
+of Lampsacus, seeing that they had great influence with Darius.  And
+there is her tomb in Lampsacus with this inscription:
+
+Archedice lies buried in this earth,
+Hippias her sire, and Athens gave her birth;
+Unto her bosom pride was never known,
+Though daughter, wife, and sister to the throne.
+
+Hippias, after reigning three years longer over the Athenians, was
+deposed in the fourth by the Lacedaemonians and the banished
+Alcmaeonidae, and went with a safe conduct to Sigeum, and to Aeantides
+at Lampsacus, and from thence to King Darius; from whose court he
+set out twenty years after, in his old age, and came with the Medes to
+Marathon.
+
+With these events in their minds, and recalling everything they knew
+by hearsay on the subject, the Athenian people grow difficult of
+humour and suspicious of the persons charged in the affair of the
+mysteries, and persuaded that all that had taken place was part of
+an oligarchical and monarchical conspiracy.  In the state of irritation
+thus produced, many persons of consideration had been already thrown
+into prison, and far from showing any signs of abating, public feeling
+grew daily more savage, and more arrests were made; until at last
+one of those in custody, thought to be the most guilty of all, was
+induced by a fellow prisoner to make a revelation, whether true or not
+is a matter on which there are two opinions, no one having been
+able, either then or since, to say for certain who did the deed.
+However this may be, the other found arguments to persuade him, that
+even if he had not done it, he ought to save himself by gaining a
+promise of impunity, and free the state of its present suspicions;
+as he would be surer of safety if he confessed after promise of
+impunity than if he denied and were brought to trial.  He accordingly
+made a revelation, affecting himself and others in the affair of the
+Hermae; and the Athenian people, glad at last, as they supposed, to
+get at the truth, and furious until then at not being able to discover
+those who had conspired against the commons, at once let go the
+informer and all the rest whom he had not denounced, and bringing
+the accused to trial executed as many as were apprehended, and
+condemned to death such as had fled and set a price upon their
+heads.  In this it was, after all, not clear whether the sufferers
+had been punished unjustly, while in any case the rest of the city
+received immediate and manifest relief.
+
+To return to Alcibiades: public feeling was very hostile to him,
+being worked on by the same enemies who had attacked him before he
+went out; and now that the Athenians fancied that they had got at
+the truth of the matter of the Hermae, they believed more firmly
+than ever that the affair of the mysteries also, in which he was
+implicated, had been contrived by him in the same intention and was
+connected with the plot against the democracy.  Meanwhile it so
+happened that, just at the time of this agitation, a small force of
+Lacedaemonians had advanced as far as the Isthmus, in pursuance of
+some scheme with the Boeotians.  It was now thought that this had
+come by appointment, at his instigation, and not on account of the
+Boeotians, and that, if the citizens had not acted on the
+information received, and forestalled them by arresting the prisoners,
+the city would have been betrayed.  The citizens went so far as to
+sleep one night armed in the temple of Theseus within the walls.  The
+friends also of Alcibiades at Argos were just at this time suspected
+of a design to attack the commons; and the Argive hostages deposited
+in the islands were given up by the Athenians to the Argive people
+to be put to death upon that account: in short, everywhere something
+was found to create suspicion against Alcibiades.  It was therefore
+decided to bring him to trial and execute him, and the Salaminia was
+sent to Sicily for him and the others named in the information, with
+instructions to order him to come and answer the charges against
+him, but not to arrest him, because they wished to avoid causing any
+agitation in the army or among the enemy in Sicily, and above all to
+retain the services of the Mantineans and Argives, who, it was
+thought, had been induced to join by his influence.  Alcibiades, with
+his own ship and his fellow accused, accordingly sailed off with the
+Salaminia from Sicily, as though to return to Athens, and went with
+her as far as Thurii, and there they left the ship and disappeared,
+being afraid to go home for trial with such a prejudice existing
+against them.  The crew of the Salaminia stayed some time looking for
+Alcibiades and his companions, and at length, as they were nowhere
+to be found, set sail and departed.  Alcibiades, now an outlaw, crossed
+in a boat not long after from Thurii to Peloponnese; and the Athenians
+passed sentence of death by default upon him and those in his company.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+_Seventeenth and Eighteenth Years of the War - Inaction of
+the Athenian Army - Alcibiades at Sparta - Investment of Syracuse_
+
+The Athenian generals left in Sicily now divided the armament into
+two parts, and, each taking one by lot, sailed with the whole for
+Selinus and Egesta, wishing to know whether the Egestaeans would
+give the money, and to look into the question of Selinus and ascertain
+the state of the quarrel between her and Egesta.  Coasting along
+Sicily, with the shore on their left, on the side towards the Tyrrhene
+Gulf they touched at Himera, the only Hellenic city in that part of
+the island, and being refused admission resumed their voyage.  On their
+way they took Hyccara, a petty Sicanian seaport, nevertheless at war
+with Egesta, and making slaves of the inhabitants gave up the town
+to the Egestaeans, some of whose horse had joined them; after which
+the army proceeded through the territory of the Sicels until it
+reached Catana, while the fleet sailed along the coast with the slaves
+on board.  Meanwhile Nicias sailed straight from Hyccara along the
+coast and went to Egesta and, after transacting his other business and
+receiving thirty talents, rejoined the forces.  They now sold their
+slaves for the sum of one hundred and twenty talents, and sailed round
+to their Sicel allies to urge them to send troops; and meanwhile
+went with half their own force to the hostile town of Hybla in the
+territory of Gela, but did not succeed in taking it.
+
+Summer was now over.  The winter following, the Athenians at once
+began to prepare for moving on Syracuse, and the Syracusans on their
+side for marching against them.  From the moment when the Athenians
+failed to attack them instantly as they at first feared and
+expected, every day that passed did something to revive their courage;
+and when they saw them sailing far away from them on the other side of
+Sicily, and going to Hybla only to fail in their attempts to storm it,
+they thought less of them than ever, and called upon their generals,
+as the multitude is apt to do in its moments of confidence, to lead
+them to Catana, since the enemy would not come to them.  Parties also
+of the Syracusan horse employed in reconnoitring constantly rode up to
+the Athenian armament, and among other insults asked them whether they
+had not really come to settle with the Syracusans in a foreign country
+rather than to resettle the Leontines in their own.
+
+Aware of this, the Athenian generals determined to draw them out
+in mass as far as possible from the city, and themselves in the
+meantime to sail by night alongshore, and take up at their leisure a
+convenient position.  This they knew they could not so well do, if they
+had to disembark from their ships in front of a force prepared for
+them, or to go by land openly.  The numerous cavalry of the
+Syracusans (a force which they were themselves without) would then
+be able to do the greatest mischief to their light troops and the
+crowd that followed them; but this plan would enable them to take up a
+position in which the horse could do them no hurt worth speaking of,
+some Syracusan exiles with the army having told them of the spot
+near the Olympieum, which they afterwards occupied.  In pursuance of
+their idea, the generals imagined the following stratagem.  They sent
+to Syracuse a man devoted to them, and by the Syracusan generals
+thought to be no less in their interest; he was a native of Catana,
+and said he came from persons in that place, whose names the Syracusan
+generals were acquainted with, and whom they knew to be among the
+members of their party still left in the city.  He told them that the
+Athenians passed the night in the town, at some distance from their
+arms, and that if the Syracusans would name a day and come with all
+their people at daybreak to attack the armament, they, their
+friends, would close the gates upon the troops in the city, and set
+fire to the vessels, while the Syracusans would easily take the camp
+by an attack upon the stockade.  In this they would be aided by many of
+the Catanians, who were already prepared to act, and from whom he
+himself came.
+
+The generals of the Syracusans, who did not want confidence, and who
+had intended even without this to march on Catana, believed the man
+without any sufficient inquiry, fixed at once a day upon which they
+would be there, and dismissed him, and the Selinuntines and others
+of their allies having now arrived, gave orders for all the Syracusans
+to march out in mass.  Their preparations completed, and the time fixed
+for their arrival being at hand, they set out for Catana, and passed
+the night upon the river Symaethus, in the Leontine territory.
+Meanwhile the Athenians no sooner knew of their approach than they
+took all their forces and such of the Sicels or others as had joined
+them, put them on board their ships and boats, and sailed by night
+to Syracuse.  Thus, when morning broke the Athenians were landing
+opposite the Olympieum ready to seize their camping ground, and the
+Syracusan horse having ridden up first to Catana and found that all
+the armament had put to sea, turned back and told the infantry, and
+then all turned back together, and went to the relief of the city.
+
+In the meantime, as the march before the Syracusans was a long
+one, the Athenians quietly sat down their army in a convenient
+position, where they could begin an engagement when they pleased,
+and where the Syracusan cavalry would have least opportunity of
+annoying them, either before or during the action, being fenced off on
+one side by walls, houses, trees, and by a marsh, and on the other
+by cliffs.  They also felled the neighbouring trees and carried them
+down to the sea, and formed a palisade alongside of their ships, and
+with stones which they picked up and wood hastily raised a fort at
+Daskon, the most vulnerable point of their position, and broke down
+the bridge over the Anapus.  These preparations were allowed to go on
+without any interruption from the city, the first hostile force to
+appear being the Syracusan cavalry, followed afterwards by all the
+foot together.  At first they came close up to the Athenian army, and
+then, finding that they did not offer to engage, crossed the
+Helorine road and encamped for the night.
+
+The next day the Athenians and their allies prepared for battle,
+their dispositions being as follows: Their right wing was occupied
+by the Argives and Mantineans, the centre by the Athenians, and the
+rest of the field by the other allies.  Half their army was drawn up
+eight deep in advance, half close to their tents in a hollow square,
+formed also eight deep, which had orders to look out and be ready to
+go to the support of the troops hardest pressed.  The camp followers
+were placed inside this reserve.  The Syracusans, meanwhile, formed
+their heavy infantry sixteen deep, consisting of the mass levy of
+their own people, and such allies as had joined them, the strongest
+contingent being that of the Selinuntines; next to them the cavalry of
+the Geloans, numbering two hundred in all, with about twenty horse and
+fifty archers from Camarina.  The cavalry was posted on their right,
+full twelve hundred strong, and next to it the darters.  As the
+Athenians were about to begin the attack, Nicias went along the lines,
+and addressed these words of encouragement to the army and the nations
+composing it:
+
+"Soldiers, a long exhortation is little needed by men like
+ourselves, who are here to fight in the same battle, the force
+itself being, to my thinking, more fit to inspire confidence than a
+fine speech with a weak army.  Where we have Argives, Mantineans,
+Athenians, and the first of the islanders in the ranks together, it
+were strange indeed, with so many and so brave companions in arms,
+if we did not feel confident of victory; especially when we have
+mass levies opposed to our picked troops, and what is more, Siceliots,
+who may disdain us but will not stand against us, their skill not
+being at all commensurate to their rashness.  You may also remember
+that we are far from home and have no friendly land near, except
+what your own swords shall win you; and here I put before you a motive
+just the reverse of that which the enemy are appealing to; their cry
+being that they shall fight for their country, mine that we shall
+fight for a country that is not ours, where we must conquer or
+hardly get away, as we shall have their horse upon us in great
+numbers.  Remember, therefore, your renown, and go boldly against the
+enemy, thinking the present strait and necessity more terrible than
+they."
+
+After this address Nicias at once led on the army.  The Syracusans
+were not at that moment expecting an immediate engagement, and some
+had even gone away to the town, which was close by; these now ran up
+as hard as they could and, though behind time, took their places
+here or there in the main body as fast as they joined it.  Want of zeal
+or daring was certainly not the fault of the Syracusans, either in
+this or the other battles, but although not inferior in courage, so
+far as their military science might carry them, when this failed
+them they were compelled to give up their resolution also.  On the
+present occasion, although they had not supposed that the Athenians
+would begin the attack, and although constrained to stand upon their
+defence at short notice, they at once took up their arms and
+advanced to meet them.  First, the stone-throwers, slingers, and
+archers of either army began skirmishing, and routed or were routed by
+one another, as might be expected between light troops; next,
+soothsayers brought forward the usual victims, and trumpeters urged on
+the heavy infantry to the charge; and thus they advanced, the
+Syracusans to fight for their country, and each individual for his
+safety that day and liberty hereafter; in the enemy's army, the
+Athenians to make another's country theirs and to save their own
+from suffering by their defeat; the Argives and independent allies
+to help them in getting what they came for, and to earn by victory
+another sight of the country they had left behind; while the subject
+allies owed most of their ardour to the desire of self-preservation,
+which they could only hope for if victorious; next to which, as a
+secondary motive, came the chance of serving on easier terms, after
+helping the Athenians to a fresh conquest.
+
+The armies now came to close quarters, and for a long while fought
+without either giving ground.  Meanwhile there occurred some claps of
+thunder with lightning and heavy rain, which did not fail to add to
+the fears of the party fighting for the first time, and very little
+acquainted with war; while to their more experienced adversaries these
+phenomena appeared to be produced by the time of year, and much more
+alarm was felt at the continued resistance of the enemy.  At last the
+Argives drove in the Syracusan left, and after them the Athenians
+routed the troops opposed to them, and the Syracusan army was thus cut
+in two and betook itself to flight.  The Athenians did not pursue
+far, being held in check by the numerous and undefeated Syracusan
+horse, who attacked and drove back any of their heavy infantry whom
+they saw pursuing in advance of the rest; in spite of which the
+victors followed so far as was safe in a body, and then went back
+and set up a trophy.  Meanwhile the Syracusans rallied at the
+Helorine road, where they re-formed as well as they could under the
+circumstances, and even sent a garrison of their own citizens to the
+Olympieum, fearing that the Athenians might lay hands on some of the
+treasures there.  The rest returned to the town.
+
+The Athenians, however, did not go to the temple, but collected
+their dead and laid them upon a pyre, and passed the night upon the
+field.  The next day they gave the enemy back their dead under truce,
+to the number of about two hundred and sixty, Syracusans and allies,
+and gathered together the bones of their own, some fifty, Athenians
+and allies, and taking the spoils of the enemy, sailed back to Catana.
+It was now winter; and it did not seem possible for the moment to
+carry on the war before Syracuse, until horse should have been sent
+for from Athens and levied among the allies in Sicily--to do away
+with their utter inferiority in cavalry--and money should have been
+collected in the country and received from Athens, and until some of
+the cities, which they hoped would be now more disposed to listen to
+them after the battle, should have been brought over, and corn and all
+other necessaries provided, for a campaign in the spring against
+Syracuse.
+
+With this intention they sailed off to Naxos and Catana for the
+winter.  Meanwhile the Syracusans burned their dead and then held an
+assembly, in which Hermocrates, son of Hermon, a man who with a
+general ability of the first order had given proofs of military
+capacity and brilliant courage in the war, came forward and encouraged
+them, and told them not to let what had occurred make them give way,
+since their spirit had not been conquered, but their want of
+discipline had done the mischief.  Still they had not been beaten by so
+much as might have been expected, especially as they were, one might
+say, novices in the art of war, an army of artisans opposed to the
+most practised soldiers in Hellas.  What had also done great mischief
+was the number of the generals (there were fifteen of them) and the
+quantity of orders given, combined with the disorder and
+insubordination of the troops.  But if they were to have a few
+skilful generals, and used this winter in preparing their heavy
+infantry, finding arms for such as had not got any, so as to make them
+as numerous as possible, and forcing them to attend to their
+training generally, they would have every chance of beating their
+adversaries, courage being already theirs and discipline in the
+field having thus been added to it.  Indeed, both these qualities would
+improve, since danger would exercise them in discipline, while their
+courage would be led to surpass itself by the confidence which skill
+inspires.  The generals should be few and elected with full powers, and
+an oath should be taken to leave them entire discretion in their
+command: if they adopted this plan, their secrets would be better
+kept, all preparations would be properly made, and there would be no
+room for excuses.
+
+The Syracusans heard him, and voted everything as he advised, and
+elected three generals, Hermocrates himself, Heraclides, son of
+Lysimachus, and Sicanus, son of Execestes.  They also sent envoys to
+Corinth and Lacedaemon to procure a force of allies to join them,
+and to induce the Lacedaemonians for their sakes openly to address
+themselves in real earnest to the war against the Athenians, that they
+might either have to leave Sicily or be less able to send
+reinforcements to their army there.
+
+The Athenian forces at Catana now at once sailed against Messina, in
+the expectation of its being betrayed to them.  The intrigue,
+however, after all came to nothing: Alcibiades, who was in the secret,
+when he left his command upon the summons from home, foreseeing that
+he would be outlawed, gave information of the plot to the friends of
+the Syracusans in Messina, who had at once put to death its authors,
+and now rose in arms against the opposite faction with those of
+their way of thinking, and succeeded in preventing the admission of
+the Athenians.  The latter waited for thirteen days, and then, as
+they were exposed to the weather and without provisions, and met
+with no success, went back to Naxos, where they made places for
+their ships to lie in, erected a palisade round their camp, and
+retired into winter quarters; meanwhile they sent a galley to Athens
+for money and cavalry to join them in the spring.  During the winter
+the Syracusans built a wall on to the city, so as to take in the
+statue of Apollo Temenites, all along the side looking towards
+Epipolae, to make the task of circumvallation longer and more
+difficult, in case of their being defeated, and also erected a fort at
+Megara and another in the Olympieum, and stuck palisades along the sea
+wherever there was a landing Place.  Meanwhile, as they knew that the
+Athenians were wintering at Naxos, they marched with all their
+people to Catana, and ravaged the land and set fire to the tents and
+encampment of the Athenians, and so returned home.  Learning also
+that the Athenians were sending an embassy to Camarina, on the
+strength of the alliance concluded in the time of Laches, to gain,
+if possible, that city, they sent another from Syracuse to oppose
+them.  They had a shrewd suspicion that the Camarinaeans had not sent
+what they did send for the first battle very willingly; and they now
+feared that they would refuse to assist them at all in future, after
+seeing the success of the Athenians in the action, and would join
+the latter on the strength of their old friendship.  Hermocrates,
+with some others, accordingly arrived at Camarina from Syracuse, and
+Euphemus and others from the Athenians; and an assembly of the
+Camarinaeans having been convened, Hermocrates spoke as follows, in
+the hope of prejudicing them against the Athenians:
+
+"Camarinaeans, we did not come on this embassy because we were
+afraid of your being frightened by the actual forces of the Athenians,
+but rather of your being gained by what they would say to you before
+you heard anything from us.  They are come to Sicily with the pretext
+that you know, and the intention which we all suspect, in my opinion
+less to restore the Leontines to their homes than to oust us from
+ours; as it is out of all reason that they should restore in Sicily
+the cities that they lay waste in Hellas, or should cherish the
+Leontine Chalcidians because of their Ionian blood and keep in
+servitude the Euboean Chalcidians, of whom the Leontines are a colony.
+No; but the same policy which has proved so successful in Hellas is
+now being tried in Sicily.  After being chosen as the leaders of the
+Ionians and of the other allies of Athenian origin, to punish the
+Mede, the Athenians accused some of failure in military service,
+some of fighting against each other, and others, as the case might be,
+upon any colourable pretext that could be found, until they thus
+subdued them all.  In fine, in the struggle against the Medes, the
+Athenians did not fight for the liberty of the Hellenes, or the
+Hellenes for their own liberty, but the former to make their
+countrymen serve them instead of him, the latter to change one
+master for another, wiser indeed than the first, but wiser for evil.
+
+"But we are not now come to declare to an audience familiar with
+them the misdeeds of a state so open to accusation as is the Athenian,
+but much rather to blame ourselves, who, with the warnings we
+possess in the Hellenes in those parts that have been enslaved through
+not supporting each other, and seeing the same sophisms being now
+tried upon ourselves--such as restorations of Leontine kinsfolk and
+support of Egestaean allies--do not stand together and resolutely
+show them that here are no Ionians, or Hellespontines, or islanders,
+who change continually, but always serve a master, sometimes the
+Mede and sometimes some other, but free Dorians from independent
+Peloponnese, dwelling in Sicily.  Or, are we waiting until we be
+taken in detail, one city after another; knowing as we do that in no
+other way can we be conquered, and seeing that they turn to this plan,
+so as to divide some of us by words, to draw some by the bait of an
+alliance into open war with each other, and to ruin others by such
+flattery as different circumstances may render acceptable? And do we
+fancy when destruction first overtakes a distant fellow countryman
+that the danger will not come to each of us also, or that he who
+suffers before us will suffer in himself alone?
+
+"As for the Camarinaean who says that it is the Syracusan, not he,
+that is the enemy of the Athenian, and who thinks it hard to have to
+encounter risk in behalf of my country, I would have him bear in
+mind that he will fight in my country, not more for mine than for
+his own, and by so much the more safely in that he will enter on the
+struggle not alone, after the way has been cleared by my ruin, but
+with me as his ally, and that the object of the Athenian is not so
+much to punish the enmity of the Syracusan as to use me as a blind
+to secure the friendship of the Camarinaean.  As for him who envies
+or even fears us (and envied and feared great powers must always
+be), and who on this account wishes Syracuse to be humbled to teach us
+a lesson, but would still have her survive, in the interest of his own
+security the wish that he indulges is not humanly possible.  A man
+can control his own desires, but he cannot likewise control
+circumstances; and in the event of his calculations proving
+mistaken, he may live to bewail his own misfortune, and wish to be
+again envying my prosperity.  An idle wish, if he now sacrifice us
+and refuse to take his share of perils which are the same, in
+reality though not in name, for him as for us; what is nominally the
+preservation of our power being really his own salvation.  It was to be
+expected that you, of all people in the world, Camarinaeans, being our
+immediate neighbours and the next in danger, would have foreseen this,
+and instead of supporting us in the lukewarm way that you are now
+doing, would rather come to us of your own accord, and be now offering
+at Syracuse the aid which you would have asked for at Camarina, if
+to Camarina the Athenians had first come, to encourage us to resist
+the invader.  Neither you, however, nor the rest have as yet
+bestirred yourselves in this direction.
+
+"Fear perhaps will make you study to do right both by us and by
+the invaders, and plead that you have an alliance with the
+Athenians.  But you made that alliance, not against your friends, but
+against the enemies that might attack you, and to help the Athenians
+when they were wronged by others, not when as now they are wronging
+their neighbours.  Even the Rhegians, Chalcidians though they be,
+refuse to help to restore the Chalcidian Leontines; and it would be
+strange if, while they suspect the gist of this fine pretence and
+are wise without reason, you, with every reason on your side, should
+yet choose to assist your natural enemies, and should join with
+their direst foes in undoing those whom nature has made your own
+kinsfolk.  This is not to do right; but you should help us without fear
+of their armament, which has no terrors if we hold together, but
+only if we let them succeed in their endeavours to separate us;
+since even after attacking us by ourselves and being victorious in
+battle, they had to go off without effecting their purpose.
+
+"United, therefore, we have no cause to despair, but rather new
+encouragement to league together; especially as succour will come to
+us from the Peloponnesians, in military matters the undoubted
+superiors of the Athenians.  And you need not think that your prudent
+policy of taking sides with neither, because allies of both, is either
+safe for you or fair to us.  Practically it is not as fair as it
+pretends to be.  If the vanquished be defeated, and the victor conquer,
+through your refusing to join, what is the effect of your abstention
+but to leave the former to perish unaided, and to allow the latter
+to offend unhindered? And yet it were more honourable to join those
+who are not only the injured party, but your own kindred, and by so
+doing to defend the common interests of Sicily and save your friends
+the Athenians from doing wrong.
+
+"In conclusion, we Syracusans say that it is useless for us to
+demonstrate either to you or to the rest what you know already as well
+as we do; but we entreat, and if our entreaty fail, we protest that we
+are menaced by our eternal enemies the Ionians, and are betrayed by
+you our fellow Dorians.  If the Athenians reduce us, they will owe
+their victory to your decision, but in their own name will reap the
+honour, and will receive as the prize of their triumph the very men
+who enabled them to gain it.  On the other hand, if we are the
+conquerors, you will have to pay for having been the cause of our
+danger.  Consider, therefore; and now make your choice between the
+security which present servitude offers and the prospect of conquering
+with us and so escaping disgraceful submission to an Athenian master
+and avoiding the lasting enmity of Syracuse."
+
+Such were the words of Hermocrates; after whom Euphemus, the
+Athenian ambassador, spoke as follows:
+
+"Although we came here only to renew the former alliance, the attack
+of the Syracusans compels us to speak of our empire and of the good
+right we have to it.  The best proof of this the speaker himself
+furnished, when he called the Ionians eternal enemies of the
+Dorians.  It is the fact; and the Peloponnesian Dorians being our
+superiors in numbers and next neighbours, we Ionians looked out for
+the best means of escaping their domination.  After the Median War we
+had a fleet, and so got rid of the empire and supremacy of the
+Lacedaemonians, who had no right to give orders to us more than we
+to them, except that of being the strongest at that moment; and
+being appointed leaders of the King's former subjects, we continue
+to be so, thinking that we are least likely to fall under the dominion
+of the Peloponnesians, if we have a force to defend ourselves with,
+and in strict truth having done nothing unfair in reducing to
+subjection the Ionians and islanders, the kinsfolk whom the Syracusans
+say we have enslaved.  They, our kinsfolk, came against their mother
+country, that is to say against us, together with the Mede, and,
+instead of having the courage to revolt and sacrifice their property
+as we did when we abandoned our city, chose to be slaves themselves,
+and to try to make us so.
+
+"We, therefore, deserve to rule because we placed the largest
+fleet and an unflinching patriotism at the service of the Hellenes,
+and because these, our subjects, did us mischief by their ready
+subservience to the Medes; and, desert apart, we seek to strengthen
+ourselves against the Peloponnesians.  We make no fine profession of
+having a right to rule because we overthrew the barbarian
+single-handed, or because we risked what we did risk for the freedom
+of the subjects in question any more than for that of all, and for our
+own: no one can be quarrelled with for providing for his proper
+safety.  If we are now here in Sicily, it is equally in the interest of
+our security, with which we perceive that your interest also
+coincides.  We prove this from the conduct which the Syracusans cast
+against us and which you somewhat too timorously suspect; knowing that
+those whom fear has made suspicious may be carried away by the charm
+of eloquence for the moment, but when they come to act follow their
+interests.
+
+"Now, as we have said, fear makes us hold our empire in Hellas,
+and fear makes us now come, with the help of our friends, to order
+safely matters in Sicily, and not to enslave any but rather to prevent
+any from being enslaved.  Meanwhile, let no one imagine that we are
+interesting ourselves in you without your having anything to do with
+us, seeing that, if you are preserved and able to make head against
+the Syracusans, they will be less likely to harm us by sending
+troops to the Peloponnesians.  In this way you have everything to do
+with us, and on this account it is perfectly reasonable for us to
+restore the Leontines, and to make them, not subjects like their
+kinsmen in Euboea, but as powerful as possible, to help us by annoying
+the Syracusans from their frontier.  In Hellas we are alone a match for
+our enemies; and as for the assertion that it is out of all reason
+that we should free the Sicilian, while we enslave the Chalcidian, the
+fact is that the latter is useful to us by being without arms and
+contributing money only; while the former, the Leontines and our other
+friends, cannot be too independent.
+
+"Besides, for tyrants and imperial cities nothing is unreasonable if
+expedient, no one a kinsman unless sure; but friendship or enmity is
+everywhere an affair of time and circumstance.  Here, in Sicily, our
+interest is not to weaken our friends, but by means of their
+strength to cripple our enemies.  Why doubt this? In Hellas we treat
+our allies as we find them useful.  The Chians and Methymnians govern
+themselves and furnish ships; most of the rest have harder terms and
+pay tribute in money; while others, although islanders and easy for us
+to take, are free altogether, because they occupy convenient positions
+round Peloponnese.  In our settlement of the states here in Sicily,
+we should therefore; naturally be guided by our interest, and by fear,
+as we say, of the Syracusans.  Their ambition is to rule you, their
+object to use the suspicions that we excite to unite you, and then,
+when we have gone away without effecting anything, by force or through
+your isolation, to become the masters of Sicily.  And masters they must
+become, if you unite with them; as a force of that magnitude would
+be no longer easy for us to deal with united, and they would be more
+than a match for you as soon as we were away.
+
+"Any other view of the case is condemned by the facts.  When you
+first asked us over, the fear which you held out was that of danger to
+Athens if we let you come under the dominion of Syracuse; and it is
+not right now to mistrust the very same argument by which you
+claimed to convince us, or to give way to suspicion because we are
+come with a larger force against the power of that city.  Those whom
+you should really distrust are the Syracusans.  We are not able to stay
+here without you, and if we proved perfidious enough to bring you into
+subjection, we should be unable to keep you in bondage, owing to the
+length of the voyage and the difficulty of guarding large, and in a
+military sense continental, towns: they, the Syracusans, live close to
+you, not in a camp, but in a city greater than the force we have
+with us, plot always against you, never let slip an opportunity once
+offered, as they have shown in the case of the Leontines and others,
+and now have the face, just as if you were fools, to invite you to aid
+them against the power that hinders this, and that has thus far
+maintained Sicily independent.  We, as against them, invite you to a
+much more real safety, when we beg you not to betray that common
+safety which we each have in the other, and to reflect that they, even
+without allies, will, by their numbers, have always the way open to
+you, while you will not often have the opportunity of defending
+yourselves with such numerous auxiliaries; if, through your
+suspicions, you once let these go away unsuccessful or defeated, you
+will wish to see if only a handful of them back again, when the day is
+past in which their presence could do anything for you.
+
+"But we hope, Camarinaeans, that the calumnies of the Syracusans
+will not be allowed to succeed either with you or with the rest: we
+have told you the whole truth upon the things we are suspected of, and
+will now briefly recapitulate, in the hope of convincing you.  We
+assert that we are rulers in Hellas in order not to be subjects;
+liberators in Sicily that we may not be harmed by the Sicilians;
+that we are compelled to interfere in many things, because we have
+many things to guard against; and that now, as before, we are come
+as allies to those of you who suffer wrong in this island, not without
+invitation but upon invitation.  Accordingly, instead of making
+yourselves judges or censors of our conduct, and trying to turn us,
+which it were now difficult to do, so far as there is anything in
+our interfering policy or in our character that chimes in with your
+interest, this take and make use of; and be sure that, far from
+being injurious to all alike, to most of the Hellenes that policy is
+even beneficial.  Thanks to it, all men in all places, even where we
+are not, who either apprehend or meditate aggression, from the near
+prospect before them, in the one case, of obtaining our intervention
+in their favour, in the other, of our arrival making the venture
+dangerous, find themselves constrained, respectively, to be moderate
+against their will, and to be preserved without trouble of their
+own.  Do not you reject this security that is open to all who desire
+it, and is now offered to you; but do like others, and instead of
+being always on the defensive against the Syracusans, unite with us,
+and in your turn at last threaten them."
+
+Such were the words of Euphemus.  What the Camarinaeans felt was
+this.  Sympathizing with the Athenians, except in so far as they
+might be afraid of their subjugating Sicily, they had always been at
+enmity with their neighbour Syracuse.  From the very fact, however,
+that they were their neighbours, they feared the Syracusans most of
+the two, and being apprehensive of their conquering even without them,
+both sent them in the first instance the few horsemen mentioned, and
+for the future determined to support them most in fact, although as
+sparingly as possible; but for the moment in order not to seem to
+slight the Athenians, especially as they had been successful in the
+engagement, to answer both alike.  Agreeably to this resolution they
+answered that as both the contending parties happened to be allies
+of theirs, they thought it most consistent with their oaths at present
+to side with neither; with which answer the ambassadors of either
+party departed.
+
+In the meantime, while Syracuse pursued her preparations for war,
+the Athenians were encamped at Naxos, and tried by negotiation to gain
+as many of the Sicels as possible.  Those more in the low lands, and
+subjects of Syracuse, mostly held aloof; but the peoples of the
+interior who had never been otherwise than independent, with few
+exceptions, at once joined the Athenians, and brought down corn to the
+army, and in some cases even money.  The Athenians marched against
+those who refused to join, and forced some of them to do so; in the
+case of others they were stopped by the Syracusans sending garrisons
+and reinforcements.  Meanwhile the Athenians moved their winter
+quarters from Naxos to Catana, and reconstructed the camp burnt by the
+Syracusans, and stayed there the rest of the winter.  They also sent
+a galley to Carthage, with proffers of friendship, on the chance of
+obtaining assistance, and another to Tyrrhenia; some of the cities
+there having spontaneously offered to join them in the war.  They
+also sent round to the Sicels and to Egesta, desiring them to send
+them as many horses as possible, and meanwhile prepared bricks,
+iron, and all other things necessary for the work of
+circumvallation, intending by the spring to begin hostilities.
+
+In the meantime the Syracusan envoys dispatched to Corinth and
+Lacedaemon tried as they passed along the coast to persuade the
+Italiots to interfere with the proceedings of the Athenians, which
+threatened Italy quite as much as Syracuse, and having arrived at
+Corinth made a speech calling on the Corinthians to assist them on the
+ground of their common origin.  The Corinthians voted at once to aid
+them heart and soul themselves, and then sent on envoys with them to
+Lacedaemon, to help them to persuade her also to prosecute the war
+with the Athenians more openly at home and to send succours to Sicily.
+The envoys from Corinth having reached Lacedaemon found there
+Alcibiades with his fellow refugees, who had at once crossed over in a
+trading vessel from Thurii, first to Cyllene in Elis, and afterwards
+from thence to Lacedaemon; upon the Lacedaemonians' own invitation,
+after first obtaining a safe conduct, as he feared them for the part
+he had taken in the affair of Mantinea.  The result was that the
+Corinthians, Syracusans, and Alcibiades, pressing all the same request
+in the assembly of the Lacedaemonians, succeeded in persuading them;
+but as the ephors and the authorities, although resolved to send
+envoys to Syracuse to prevent their surrendering to the Athenians,
+showed no disposition to send them any assistance, Alcibiades now came
+forward and inflamed and stirred the Lacedaemonians by speaking as
+follows:
+
+"I am forced first to speak to you of the prejudice with which I
+am regarded, in order that suspicion may not make you disinclined to
+listen to me upon public matters.  The connection, with you as your
+proxeni, which the ancestors of our family by reason of some
+discontent renounced, I personally tried to renew by my good offices
+towards you, in particular upon the occasion of the disaster at Pylos.
+But although I maintained this friendly attitude, you yet chose to
+negotiate the peace with the Athenians through my enemies, and thus to
+strengthen them and to discredit me.  You had therefore no right to
+complain if I turned to the Mantineans and Argives, and seized other
+occasions of thwarting and injuring you; and the time has now come
+when those among you, who in the bitterness of the moment may have
+been then unfairly angry with me, should look at the matter in its
+true light, and take a different view.  Those again who judged me
+unfavourably, because I leaned rather to the side of the commons, must
+not think that their dislike is any better founded.  We have always
+been hostile to tyrants, and all who oppose arbitrary power are called
+commons; hence we continued to act as leaders of the multitude;
+besides which, as democracy was the government of the city, it was
+necessary in most things to conform to established conditions.
+However, we endeavoured to be more moderate than the licentious temper
+of the times; and while there were others, formerly as now, who
+tried to lead the multitude astray--the same who banished me--our
+party was that of the whole people, our creed being to do our part
+in preserving the form of government under which the city enjoyed
+the utmost greatness and freedom, and which we had found existing.
+As for democracy, the men of sense among us knew what it was, and I
+perhaps as well as any, as I have the more cause to complain of it;
+but there is nothing new to be said of a patent absurdity; meanwhile
+we did not think it safe to alter it under the pressure of your
+hostility.
+
+"So much then for the prejudices with which I am regarded: I now can
+call your attention to the questions you must consider, and upon which
+superior knowledge perhaps permits me to speak.  We sailed to Sicily
+first to conquer, if possible, the Siceliots, and after them the
+Italiots also, and finally to assail the empire and city of
+Carthage.  In the event of all or most of these schemes succeeding,
+we were then to attack Peloponnese, bringing with us the entire
+force of the Hellenes lately acquired in those parts, and taking a
+number of barbarians into our pay, such as the Iberians and others
+in those countries, confessedly the most warlike known, and building
+numerous galleys in addition to those which we had already, timber
+being plentiful in Italy; and with this fleet blockading Peloponnese
+from the sea and assailing it with our armies by land, taking some
+of the cities by storm, drawing works of circumvallation round others,
+we hoped without difficulty to effect its reduction, and after this to
+rule the whole of the Hellenic name.  Money and corn meanwhile for
+the better execution of these plans were to be supplied in
+sufficient quantities by the newly acquired places in those countries,
+independently of our revenues here at home.
+
+"You have thus heard the history of the present expedition from
+the man who most exactly knows what our objects were; and the
+remaining generals will, if they can, carry these out just the same.
+But that the states in Sicily must succumb if you do not help them,
+I will now show.  Although the Siceliots, with all their
+inexperience, might even now be saved if their forces were united, the
+Syracusans alone, beaten already in one battle with all their people
+and blockaded from the sea, will be unable to withstand the Athenian
+armament that is now there.  But if Syracuse falls, all Sicily falls
+also, and Italy immediately afterwards; and the danger which I just
+now spoke of from that quarter will before long be upon you.  None need
+therefore fancy that Sicily only is in question; Peloponnese will be
+so also, unless you speedily do as I tell you, and send on board
+ship to Syracuse troops that shall able to row their ships themselves,
+and serve as heavy infantry the moment that they land; and what I
+consider even more important than the troops, a Spartan as
+commanding officer to discipline the forces already on foot and to
+compel recusants to serve.  The friends that you have already will thus
+become more confident, and the waverers will be encouraged to join
+you.  Meanwhile you must carry on the war here more openly, that the
+Syracusans, seeing that you do not forget them, may put heart into
+their resistance, and that the Athenians may be less able to reinforce
+their armament.  You must fortify Decelea in Attica, the blow of
+which the Athenians are always most afraid and the only one that
+they think they have not experienced in the present war; the surest
+method of harming an enemy being to find out what he most fears, and
+to choose this means of attacking him, since every one naturally knows
+best his own weak points and fears accordingly.  The fortification in
+question, while it benefits you, will create difficulties for your
+adversaries, of which I shall pass over many, and shall only mention
+the chief.  Whatever property there is in the country will most of it
+become yours, either by capture or surrender; and the Athenians will
+at once be deprived of their revenues from the silver mines at
+Laurium, of their present gains from their land and from the law
+courts, and above all of the revenue from their allies, which will
+be paid less regularly, as they lose their awe of Athens and see you
+addressing yourselves with vigour to the war.  The zeal and speed
+with which all this shall be done depends, Lacedaemonians, upon
+yourselves; as to its possibility, I am quite confident, and I have
+little fear of being mistaken.
+
+"Meanwhile I hope that none of you will think any the worse of me
+if, after having hitherto passed as a lover of my country, I now
+actively join its worst enemies in attacking it, or will suspect
+what I say as the fruit of an outlaw's enthusiasm.  I am an outlaw from
+the iniquity of those who drove me forth, not, if you will be guided
+by me, from your service; my worst enemies are not you who only harmed
+your foes, but they who forced their friends to become enemies; and
+love of country is what I do not feel when I am wronged, but what I
+felt when secure in my rights as a citizen.  Indeed I do not consider
+that I am now attacking a country that is still mine; I am rather
+trying to recover one that is mine no longer; and the true lover of
+his country is not he who consents to lose it unjustly rather than
+attack it, but he who longs for it so much that he will go all lengths
+to recover it.  For myself, therefore, Lacedaemonians, I beg you to use
+me without scruple for danger and trouble of every kind, and to
+remember the argument in every one's mouth, that if I did you great
+harm as an enemy, I could likewise do you good service as a friend,
+inasmuch as I know the plans of the Athenians, while I only guessed
+yours.  For yourselves I entreat you to believe that your most
+capital interests are now under deliberation; and I urge you to send
+without hesitation the expeditions to Sicily and Attica; by the
+presence of a small part of your forces you will save important cities
+in that island, and you will destroy the power of Athens both
+present and prospective; after this you will dwell in security and
+enjoy the supremacy over all Hellas, resting not on force but upon
+consent and affection."
+
+Such were the words of Alcibiades.  The Lacedaemonians, who had
+themselves before intended to march against Athens, but were still
+waiting and looking about them, at once became much more in earnest
+when they received this particular information from Alcibiades, and
+considered that they had heard it from the man who best knew the truth
+of the matter.  Accordingly they now turned their attention to the
+fortifying of Decelea and sending immediate aid to the Sicilians;
+and naming Gylippus, son of Cleandridas, to the command of the
+Syracusans, bade him consult with that people and with the Corinthians
+and arrange for succours reaching the island, in the best and
+speediest way possible under the circumstances.  Gylippus desired the
+Corinthians to send him at once two ships to Asine, and to prepare the
+rest that they intended to send, and to have them ready to sail at the
+proper time.  Having settled this, the envoys departed from Lacedaemon.
+
+In the meantime arrived the Athenian galley from Sicily sent by
+the generals for money and cavalry; and the Athenians, after hearing
+what they wanted, voted to send the supplies for the armament and
+the cavalry.  And the winter ended, and with it ended the seventeenth
+year of the present war of which Thucydides is the historian.
+
+The next summer, at the very beginning of the season, the
+Athenians in Sicily put out from Catana, and sailed along shore to
+Megara in Sicily, from which, as I have mentioned above, the
+Syracusans expelled the inhabitants in the time of their tyrant
+Gelo, themselves occupying the territory.  Here the Athenians landed
+and laid waste the country, and after an unsuccessful attack upon a
+fort of the Syracusans, went on with the fleet and army to the river
+Terias, and advancing inland laid waste the plain and set fire to
+the corn; and after killing some of a small Syracusan party which they
+encountered, and setting up a trophy, went back again to their
+ships.  They now sailed to Catana and took in provisions there, and
+going with their whole force against Centoripa, a town of the
+Sicels, acquired it by capitulation, and departed, after also
+burning the corn of the Inessaeans and Hybleans.  Upon their return
+to Catana they found the horsemen arrived from Athens, to the number
+of two hundred and fifty (with their equipments, but without their
+horses which were to be procured upon the spot), and thirty mounted
+archers and three hundred talents of silver.
+
+The same spring the Lacedaemonians marched against Argos, and went
+as far as Cleonae, when an earthquake occurred and caused them to
+return.  After this the Argives invaded the Thyreatid, which is on
+their border, and took much booty from the Lacedaemonians, which was
+sold for no less than twenty-five talents.  The same summer, not long
+after, the Thespian commons made an attack upon the party in office,
+which was not successful, but succours arrived from Thebes, and some
+were caught, while others took refuge at Athens.
+
+The same summer the Syracusans learned that the Athenians had been
+joined by their cavalry, and were on the point of marching against
+them; and seeing that without becoming masters of Epipolae, a
+precipitous spot situated exactly over the town, the Athenians could
+not, even if victorious in battle, easily invest them, they determined
+to guard its approaches, in order that the enemy might not ascend
+unobserved by this, the sole way by which ascent was possible, as
+the remainder is lofty ground, and falls right down to the city, and
+can all be seen from inside; and as it lies above the rest the place
+is called by the Syracusans Epipolae or Overtown.  They accordingly
+went out in mass at daybreak into the meadow along the river Anapus,
+their new generals, Hermocrates and his colleagues, having just come
+into office, and held a review of their heavy infantry, from whom they
+first selected a picked body of six hundred, under the command of
+Diomilus, an exile from Andros, to guard Epipolae, and to be ready
+to muster at a moment's notice to help wherever help should be
+required.
+
+Meanwhile the Athenians, the very same morning, were holding a
+review, having already made land unobserved with all the armament from
+Catana, opposite a place called Leon, not much more than half a mile
+from Epipolae, where they disembarked their army, bringing the fleet
+to anchor at Thapsus, a peninsula running out into the sea, with a
+narrow isthmus, and not far from the city of Syracuse either by land
+or water.  While the naval force of the Athenians threw a stockade
+across the isthmus and remained quiet at Thapsus, the land army
+immediately went on at a run to Epipolae, and succeeded in getting
+up by Euryelus before the Syracusans perceived them, or could come
+up from the meadow and the review.  Diomilus with his six hundred and
+the rest advanced as quickly as they could, but they had nearly
+three miles to go from the meadow before reaching them.  Attacking in
+this way in considerable disorder, the Syracusans were defeated in
+battle at Epipolae and retired to the town, with a loss of about three
+hundred killed, and Diomilus among the number.  After this the
+Athenians set up a trophy and restored to the Syracusans their dead
+under truce, and next day descended to Syracuse itself; and no one
+coming out to meet them, reascended and built a fort at Labdalum, upon
+the edge of the cliffs of Epipolae, looking towards Megara, to serve
+as a magazine for their baggage and money, whenever they advanced to
+battle or to work at the lines.
+
+Not long afterwards three hundred cavalry came to them from
+Egesta, and about a hundred from the Sicels, Naxians, and others;
+and thus, with the two hundred and fifty from Athens, for whom they
+had got horses from the Egestaeans and Catanians, besides others
+that they bought, they now mustered six hundred and fifty cavalry in
+all.  After posting a garrison in Labdalum, they advanced to Syca,
+where they sat down and quickly built the Circle or centre of their
+wall of circumvallation.  The Syracusans, appalled at the rapidity with
+which the work advanced, determined to go out against them and give
+battle and interrupt it; and the two armies were already in battle
+array, when the Syracusan generals observed that their troops found
+such difficulty in getting into line, and were in such disorder,
+that they led them back into the town, except part of the cavalry.
+These remained and hindered the Athenians from carrying stones or
+dispersing to any great distance, until a tribe of the Athenian
+heavy infantry, with all the cavalry, charged and routed the Syracusan
+horse with some loss; after which they set up a trophy for the cavalry
+action.
+
+The next day the Athenians began building the wall to the north of
+the Circle, at the same time collecting stone and timber, which they
+kept laying down towards Trogilus along the shortest line for their
+works from the great harbour to the sea; while the Syracusans,
+guided by their generals, and above all by Hermocrates, instead of
+risking any more general engagements, determined to build a
+counterwork in the direction in which the Athenians were going to
+carry their wall.  If this could be completed in time, the enemy's
+lines would be cut; and meanwhile, if he were to attempt to
+interrupt them by an attack, they would send a part of their forces
+against him, and would secure the approaches beforehand with their
+stockade, while the Athenians would have to leave off working with
+their whole force in order to attend to them.  They accordingly sallied
+forth and began to build, starting from their city, running a cross
+wall below the Athenian Circle, cutting down the olives and erecting
+wooden towers.  As the Athenian fleet had not yet sailed round into the
+great harbour, the Syracusans still commanded the seacoast, and the
+Athenians brought their provisions by land from Thapsus.
+
+The Syracusans now thought the stockades and stonework of their
+counterwall sufficiently far advanced; and as the Athenians, afraid of
+being divided and so fighting at a disadvantage, and intent upon their
+own wall, did not come out to interrupt them, they left one tribe to
+guard the new work and went back into the city.  Meanwhile the
+Athenians destroyed their pipes of drinking-water carried
+underground into the city; and watching until the rest of the
+Syracusans were in their tents at midday, and some even gone away into
+the city, and those in the stockade keeping but indifferent guard,
+appointed three hundred picked men of their own, and some men picked
+from the light troops and armed for the purpose, to run suddenly as
+fast as they could to the counterwork, while the rest of the army
+advanced in two divisions, the one with one of the generals to the
+city in case of a sortie, the other with the other general to the
+stockade by the postern gate.  The three hundred attacked and took
+the stockade, abandoned by its garrison, who took refuge in the
+outworks round the statue of Apollo Temenites.  Here the pursuers burst
+in with them, and after getting in were beaten out by the
+Syracusans, and some few of the Argives and Athenians slain; after
+which the whole army retired, and having demolished the counterwork
+and pulled up the stockade, carried away the stakes to their own
+lines, and set up a trophy.
+
+The next day the Athenians from the Circle proceeded to fortify
+the cliff above the marsh which on this side of Epipolae looks towards
+the great harbour; this being also the shortest line for their work to
+go down across the plain and the marsh to the harbour.  Meanwhile the
+Syracusans marched out and began a second stockade, starting from
+the city, across the middle of the marsh, digging a trench alongside
+to make it impossible for the Athenians to carry their wall down to
+the sea.  As soon as the Athenians had finished their work at the cliff
+they again attacked the stockade and ditch of the Syracusans.  Ordering
+the fleet to sail round from Thapsus into the great harbour of
+Syracuse, they descended at about dawn from Epipolae into the plain,
+and laying doors and planks over the marsh, where it was muddy and
+firmest, crossed over on these, and by daybreak took the ditch and the
+stockade, except a small portion which they captured afterwards.  A
+battle now ensued, in which the Athenians were victorious, the right
+wing of the Syracusans flying to the town and the left to the river.
+The three hundred picked Athenians, wishing to cut off their
+passage, pressed on at a run to the bridge, when the alarmed
+Syracusans, who had with them most of their cavalry, closed and routed
+them, hurling them back upon the Athenian right wing, the first
+tribe of which was thrown into a panic by the shock.  Seeing this,
+Lamachus came to their aid from the Athenian left with a few archers
+and with the Argives, and crossing a ditch, was left alone with a
+few that had crossed with him, and was killed with five or six of
+his men.  These the Syracusans managed immediately to snatch up in
+haste and get across the river into a place of security, themselves
+retreating as the rest of the Athenian army now came up.
+
+Meanwhile those who had at first fled for refuge to the city, seeing
+the turn affairs were taking, now rallied from the town and formed
+against the Athenians in front of them, sending also a part of their
+number to the Circle on Epipolae, which they hoped to take while
+denuded of its defenders.  These took and destroyed the Athenian
+outwork of a thousand feet, the Circle itself being saved by Nicias,
+who happened to have been left in it through illness, and who now
+ordered the servants to set fire to the engines and timber thrown down
+before the wall; want of men, as he was aware, rendering all other
+means of escape impossible.  This step was justified by the result, the
+Syracusans not coming any further on account of the fire, but
+retreating.  Meanwhile succours were coming up from the Athenians
+below, who had put to flight the troops opposed to them; and the fleet
+also, according to orders, was sailing from Thapsus into the great
+harbour.  Seeing this, the troops on the heights retired in haste,
+and the whole army of the Syracusans re-entered the city, thinking
+that with their present force they would no longer be able to hinder
+the wall reaching the sea.
+
+After this the Athenians set up a trophy and restored to the
+Syracusans their dead under truce, receiving in return Lamachus and
+those who had fallen with him.  The whole of their forces, naval and
+military, being now with them, they began from Epipolae and the cliffs
+and enclosed the Syracusans with a double wall down to the sea.
+Provisions were now brought in for the armament from all parts of
+Italy; and many of the Sicels, who had hitherto been looking to see
+how things went, came as allies to the Athenians: there also arrived
+three ships of fifty oars from Tyrrhenia.  Meanwhile everything else
+progressed favourably for their hopes.  The Syracusans began to despair
+of finding safety in arms, no relief having reached them from
+Peloponnese, and were now proposing terms of capitulation among
+themselves and to Nicias, who after the death of Lamachus was left
+sole commander.  No decision was come to, but, as was natural with
+men in difficulties and besieged more straitly than before, there
+was much discussion with Nicias and still more in the town.  Their
+present misfortunes had also made them suspicious of one another;
+and the blame of their disasters was thrown upon the ill-fortune or
+treachery of the generals under whose command they had happened; and
+these were deposed and others, Heraclides, Eucles, and Tellias,
+elected in their stead.
+
+Meanwhile the Lacedaemonian, Gylippus, and the ships from Corinth
+were now off Leucas, intent upon going with all haste to the relief of
+Sicily.  The reports that reached them being of an alarming kind, and
+all agreeing in the falsehood that Syracuse was already completely
+invested, Gylippus abandoned all hope of Sicily, and wishing to save
+Italy, rapidly crossed the Ionian Sea to Tarentum with the Corinthian,
+Pythen, two Laconian, and two Corinthian vessels, leaving the
+Corinthians to follow him after manning, in addition to their own ten,
+two Leucadian and two Ambraciot ships.  From Tarentum Gylippus first
+went on an embassy to Thurii, and claimed anew the rights of
+citizenship which his father had enjoyed; failing to bring over the
+townspeople, he weighed anchor and coasted along Italy.  Opposite the
+Terinaean Gulf he was caught by the wind which blows violently and
+steadily from the north in that quarter, and was carried out to sea;
+and after experiencing very rough weather, remade Tarentum, where he
+hauled ashore and refitted such of his ships as had suffered most from
+the tempest.  Nicias heard of his approach, but, like the Thurians,
+despised the scanty number of his ships, and set down piracy as the
+only probable object of the voyage, and so took no precautions for the
+present.
+
+About the same time in this summer, the Lacedaemonians invaded Argos
+with their allies, and laid waste most of the country.  The Athenians
+went with thirty ships to the relief of the Argives, thus breaking
+their treaty with the Lacedaemonians in the most overt manner.  Up to
+this time incursions from Pylos, descents on the coast of the rest
+of Peloponnese, instead of on the Laconian, had been the extent of
+their co-operation with the Argives and Mantineans; and although the
+Argives had often begged them to land, if only for a moment, with
+their heavy infantry in Laconia, lay waste ever so little of it with
+them, and depart, they had always refused to do so.  Now, however,
+under the command of Phytodorus, Laespodius, and Demaratus, they
+landed at Epidaurus Limera, Prasiae, and other places, and plundered
+the country; and thus furnished the Lacedaemonians with a better
+pretext for hostilities against Athens.  After the Athenians had
+retired from Argos with their fleet, and the Lacedaemonians also,
+the Argives made an incursion into the Phlisaid, and returned home
+after ravaging their land and killing some of the inhabitants.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VII
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+_Eighteenth and Nineteenth Years of the War - Arrival of
+Gylippus at Syracuse - Fortification of Decelea -
+Successes of the Syracusans_
+
+After refitting their ships, Gylippus and Pythen coasted along
+from Tarentum to Epizephyrian Locris.  They now received the more
+correct information that Syracuse was not yet completely invested, but
+that it was still possible for an army arriving at Epipolae to
+effect an entrance; and they consulted, accordingly, whether they
+should keep Sicily on their right and risk sailing in by sea, or,
+leaving it on their left, should first sail to Himera and, taking with
+them the Himeraeans and any others that might agree to join them, go
+to Syracuse by land.  Finally they determined to sail for Himera,
+especially as the four Athenian ships which Nicias had at length
+sent off, on hearing that they were at Locris, had not yet arrived
+at Rhegium.  Accordingly, before these reached their post, the
+Peloponnesians crossed the strait and, after touching at Rhegium and
+Messina, came to Himera.  Arrived there, they persuaded the
+Himeraeans to join in the war, and not only to go with them themselves
+but to provide arms for the seamen from their vessels which they had
+drawn ashore at Himera; and they sent and appointed a place for the
+Selinuntines to meet them with all their forces.  A few troops were
+also promised by the Geloans and some of the Sicels, who were now
+ready to join them with much greater alacrity, owing to the recent
+death of Archonidas, a powerful Sicel king in that neighbourhood and
+friendly to Athens, and owing also to the vigour shown by Gylippus
+in coming from Lacedaemon.  Gylippus now took with him about seven
+hundred of his sailors and marines, that number only having arms, a
+thousand heavy infantry and light troops from Himera with a body of
+a hundred horse, some light troops and cavalry from Selinus, a few
+Geloans, and Sicels numbering a thousand in all, and set out on his
+march for Syracuse.
+
+Meanwhile the Corinthian fleet from Leucas made all haste to arrive;
+and one of their commanders, Gongylus, starting last with a single
+ship, was the first to reach Syracuse, a little before Gylippus.
+Gongylus found the Syracusans on the point of holding an assembly to
+consider whether they should put an end to the war.  This he prevented,
+and reassured them by telling them that more vessels were still to
+arrive, and that Gylippus, son of Cleandridas, had been dispatched
+by the Lacedaemonians to take the command.  Upon this the Syracusans
+took courage, and immediately marched out with all their forces to
+meet Gylippus, who they found was now close at hand.  Meanwhile
+Gylippus, after taking Ietae, a fort of the Sicels, on his way, formed
+his army in order of battle, and so arrived at Epipolae, and ascending
+by Euryelus, as the Athenians had done at first, now advanced with the
+Syracusans against the Athenian lines.  His arrival chanced at a
+critical moment.  The Athenians had already finished a double wall of
+six or seven furlongs to the great harbour, with the exception of a
+small portion next the sea, which they were still engaged upon; and in
+the remainder of the circle towards Trogilus on the other sea,
+stones had been laid ready for building for the greater part of the
+distance, and some points had been left half finished, while others
+were entirely completed.  The danger of Syracuse had indeed been great.
+
+Meanwhile the Athenians, recovering from the confusion into which
+they had been first thrown by the sudden approach of Gylippus and
+the Syracusans, formed in order of battle.  Gylippus halted at a
+short distance off and sent on a herald to tell them that, if they
+would evacuate Sicily with bag and baggage within five days' time,
+he was willing to make a truce accordingly.  The Athenians treated this
+proposition with contempt, and dismissed the herald without an answer.
+After this both sides began to prepare for action.  Gylippus, observing
+that the Syracusans were in disorder and did not easily fall into
+line, drew off his troops more into the open ground, while Nicias
+did not lead on the Athenians but lay still by his own wall.  When
+Gylippus saw that they did not come on, he led off his army to the
+citadel of the quarter of Apollo Temenites, and passed the night
+there.  On the following day he led out the main body of his army, and,
+drawing them up in order of battle before the walls of the Athenians
+to prevent their going to the relief of any other quarter,
+dispatched a strong force against Fort Labdalum, and took it, and
+put all whom he found in it to the sword, the place not being within
+sight of the Athenians.  On the same day an Athenian galley that lay
+moored off the harbour was captured by the Syracusans.
+
+After this the Syracusans and their allies began to carry a single
+wall, starting from the city, in a slanting direction up Epipolae,
+in order that the Athenians, unless they could hinder the work,
+might be no longer able to invest them.  Meanwhile the Athenians,
+having now finished their wall down to the sea, had come up to the
+heights; and part of their wall being weak, Gylippus drew out his army
+by night and attacked it.  However, the Athenians who happened to be
+bivouacking outside took the alarm and came out to meet him, upon
+seeing which he quickly led his men back again.  The Athenians now
+built their wall higher, and in future kept guard at this point
+themselves, disposing their confederates along the remainder of the
+works, at the stations assigned to them.  Nicias also determined to
+fortify Plemmyrium, a promontory over against the city, which juts out
+and narrows the mouth of the Great Harbour.  He thought that the
+fortification of this place would make it easier to bring in supplies,
+as they would be able to carry on their blockade from a less distance,
+near to the port occupied by the Syracusans; instead of being obliged,
+upon every movement of the enemy's navy, to put out against them
+from the bottom of the great harbour.  Besides this, he now began to
+pay more attention to the war by sea, seeing that the coming of
+Gylippus had diminished their hopes by land.  Accordingly, he
+conveyed over his ships and some troops, and built three forts in
+which he placed most of his baggage, and moored there for the future
+the larger craft and men-of-war.  This was the first and chief occasion
+of the losses which the crews experienced.  The water which they used
+was scarce and had to be fetched from far, and the sailors could not
+go out for firewood without being cut off by the Syracusan horse,
+who were masters of the country; a third of the enemy's cavalry
+being stationed at the little town of Olympieum, to prevent plundering
+incursions on the part of the Athenians at Plemmyrium.  Meanwhile
+Nicias learned that the rest of the Corinthian fleet was
+approaching, and sent twenty ships to watch for them, with orders to
+be on the look-out for them about Locris and Rhegium and the
+approach to Sicily.
+
+Gylippus, meanwhile, went on with the wall across Epipolae, using
+the stones which the Athenians had laid down for their own wall, and
+at the same time constantly led out the Syracusans and their allies,
+and formed them in order of battle in front of the lines, the
+Athenians forming against him.  At last he thought that the moment
+was come, and began the attack; and a hand-to-hand fight ensued
+between the lines, where the Syracusan cavalry could be of no use; and
+the Syracusans and their allies were defeated and took up their dead
+under truce, while the Athenians erected a trophy.  After this Gylippus
+called the soldiers together, and said that the fault was not theirs
+but his; he had kept their lines too much within the works, and had
+thus deprived them of the services of their cavalry and darters.  He
+would now, therefore, lead them on a second time.  He begged them to
+remember that in material force they would be fully a match for
+their opponents, while, with respect to moral advantages, it were
+intolerable if Peloponnesians and Dorians should not feel confident of
+overcoming Ionians and islanders with the motley rabble that
+accompanied them, and of driving them out of the country.
+
+After this he embraced the first opportunity that offered of again
+leading them against the enemy.  Now Nicias and the Athenians held
+the opinion that even if the Syracusans should not wish to offer
+battle, it was necessary for them to prevent the building of the cross
+wall, as it already almost overlapped the extreme point of their
+own, and if it went any further it would from that moment make no
+difference whether they fought ever so many successful actions, or
+never fought at all.  They accordingly came out to meet the Syracusans.
+Gylippus led out his heavy infantry further from the fortifications
+than on the former occasion, and so joined battle; posting his horse
+and darters upon the flank of the Athenians in the open space, where
+the works of the two walls terminated.  During the engagement the
+cavalry attacked and routed the left wing of the Athenians, which
+was opposed to them; and the rest of the Athenian army was in
+consequence defeated by the Syracusans and driven headlong within
+their lines.  The night following the Syracusans carried their wall
+up to the Athenian works and passed them, thus putting it out of their
+power any longer to stop them, and depriving them, even if
+victorious in the field, of all chance of investing the city for the
+future.
+
+After this the remaining twelve vessels of the Corinthians,
+Ambraciots, and Leucadians sailed into the harbour under the command
+of Erasinides, a Corinthian, having eluded the Athenian ships on
+guard, and helped the Syracusans in completing the remainder of the
+cross wall.  Meanwhile Gylippus went into the rest of Sicily to raise
+land and naval forces, and also to bring over any of the cities that
+either were lukewarm in the cause or had hitherto kept out of the
+war altogether.  Syracusan and Corinthian envoys were also dispatched
+to Lacedaemon and Corinth to get a fresh force sent over, in any way
+that might offer, either in merchant vessels or transports, or in
+any other manner likely to prove successful, as the Athenians too were
+sending for reinforcements; while the Syracusans proceeded to man a
+fleet and to exercise, meaning to try their fortune in this way
+also, and generally became exceedingly confident.
+
+Nicias perceiving this, and seeing the strength of the enemy and his
+own difficulties daily increasing, himself also sent to Athens.  He had
+before sent frequent reports of events as they occurred, and felt it
+especially incumbent upon him to do so now, as he thought that they
+were in a critical position, and that, unless speedily recalled or
+strongly reinforced from home, they had no hope of safety.  He
+feared, however, that the messengers, either through inability to
+speak, or through failure of memory, or from a wish to please the
+multitude, might not report the truth, and so thought it best to write
+a letter, to ensure that the Athenians should know his own opinion
+without its being lost in transmission, and be able to decide upon the
+real facts of the case.
+
+His emissaries, accordingly, departed with the letter and the
+requisite verbal instructions; and he attended to the affairs of the
+army, making it his aim now to keep on the defensive and to avoid
+any unnecessary danger.
+
+At the close of the same summer the Athenian general Euetion marched
+in concert with Perdiccas with a large body of Thracians against
+Amphipolis, and failing to take it brought some galleys round into the
+Strymon, and blockaded the town from the river, having his base at
+Himeraeum.
+
+Summer was now over.  The winter ensuing, the persons sent by Nicias,
+reaching Athens, gave the verbal messages which had been entrusted
+to them, and answered any questions that were asked them, and
+delivered the letter.  The clerk of the city now came forward and
+read out to the Athenians the letter, which was as follows:
+
+"Our past operations, Athenians, have been made known to you by many
+other letters; it is now time for you to become equally familiar
+with our present condition, and to take your measures accordingly.
+We had defeated in most of our engagements with them the Syracusans,
+against whom we were sent, and we had built the works which we now
+occupy, when Gylippus arrived from Lacedaemon with an army obtained
+from Peloponnese and from some of the cities in Sicily.  In our first
+battle with him we were victorious; in the battle on the following day
+we were overpowered by a multitude of cavalry and darters, and
+compelled to retire within our lines.  We have now, therefore, been
+forced by the numbers of those opposed to us to discontinue the work
+of circumvallation, and to remain inactive; being unable to make use
+even of all the force we have, since a large portion of our heavy
+infantry is absorbed in the defence of our lines.  Meanwhile the
+enemy have carried a single wall past our lines, thus making it
+impossible for us to invest them in future, until this cross wall be
+attacked by a strong force and captured.  So that the besieger in
+name has become, at least from the land side, the besieged in reality;
+as we are prevented by their cavalry from even going for any
+distance into the country.
+
+"Besides this, an embassy has been dispatched to Peloponnese to
+procure reinforcements, and Gylippus has gone to the cities in Sicily,
+partly in the hope of inducing those that are at present neutral to
+join him in the war, partly of bringing from his allies additional
+contingents for the land forces and material for the navy.  For I
+understand that they contemplate a combined attack, upon our lines
+with their land forces and with their fleet by sea.  You must none of
+you be surprised that I say by sea also.  They have discovered that the
+length of the time we have now been in commission has rotted our ships
+and wasted our crews, and that with the entireness of our crews and
+the soundness of our ships the pristine efficiency of our navy has
+departed.  For it is impossible for us to haul our ships ashore and
+careen them, because, the enemy's vessels being as many or more than
+our own, we are constantly anticipating an attack.  Indeed, they may be
+seen exercising, and it lies with them to take the initiative; and not
+having to maintain a blockade, they have greater facilities for drying
+their ships.
+
+"This we should scarcely be able to do, even if we had plenty of
+ships to spare, and were freed from our present necessity of
+exhausting all our strength upon the blockade.  For it is already
+difficult to carry in supplies past Syracuse; and were we to relax our
+vigilance in the slightest degree it would become impossible.  The
+losses which our crews have suffered and still continue to suffer
+arise from the following causes.  Expeditions for fuel and for
+forage, and the distance from which water has to be fetched, cause our
+sailors to be cut off by the Syracusan cavalry; the loss of our
+previous superiority emboldens our slaves to desert; our foreign
+seamen are impressed by the unexpected appearance of a navy against
+us, and the strength of the enemy's resistance; such of them as were
+pressed into the service take the first opportunity of departing to
+their respective cities; such as were originally seduced by the
+temptation of high pay, and expected little fighting and large
+gains, leave us either by desertion to the enemy or by availing
+themselves of one or other of the various facilities of escape which
+the magnitude of Sicily affords them.  Some even engage in trade
+themselves and prevail upon the captains to take Hyccaric slaves on
+board in their place; thus they have ruined the efficiency of our
+navy.
+
+"Now I need not remind you that the time during which a crew is in
+its prime is short, and that the number of sailors who can start a
+ship on her way and keep the rowing in time is small.  But by far my
+greatest trouble is, that holding the post which I do, I am
+prevented by the natural indocility of the Athenian seaman from
+putting a stop to these evils; and that meanwhile we have no source
+from which to recruit our crews, which the enemy can do from many
+quarters, but are compelled to depend both for supplying the crews
+in service and for making good our losses upon the men whom we brought
+with us.  For our present confederates, Naxos and Catana, are incapable
+of supplying us.  There is only one thing more wanting to our
+opponents, I mean the defection of our Italian markets.  If they were
+to see you neglect to relieve us from our present condition, and
+were to go over to the enemy, famine would compel us to evacuate,
+and Syracuse would finish the war without a blow.
+
+"I might, it is true, have written to you something different and
+more agreeable than this, but nothing certainly more useful, if it
+is desirable for you to know the real state of things here before
+taking your measures.  Besides I know that it is your nature to love to
+be told the best side of things, and then to blame the teller if the
+expectations which he has raised in your minds are not answered by the
+result; and I therefore thought it safest to declare to you the truth.
+
+"Now you are not to think that either your generals or your soldiers
+have ceased to be a match for the forces originally opposed to them.
+But you are to reflect that a general Sicilian coalition is being
+formed against us; that a fresh army is expected from Peloponnese,
+while the force we have here is unable to cope even with our present
+antagonists; and you must promptly decide either to recall us or to
+send out to us another fleet and army as numerous again, with a
+large sum of money, and someone to succeed me, as a disease in the
+kidneys unfits me for retaining my post.  I have, I think, some claim
+on your indulgence, as while I was in my prime I did you much good
+service in my commands.  But whatever you mean to do, do it at the
+commencement of spring and without delay, as the enemy will obtain his
+Sicilian reinforcements shortly, those from Peloponnese after a longer
+interval; and unless you attend to the matter the former will be
+here before you, while the latter will elude you as they have done
+before."
+
+Such were the contents of Nicias's letter.  When the Athenians had
+heard it they refused to accept his resignation, but chose him two
+colleagues, naming Menander and Euthydemus, two of the officers at the
+seat of war, to fill their places until their arrival, that Nicias
+might not be left alone in his sickness to bear the whole weight of
+affairs.  They also voted to send out another army and navy, drawn
+partly from the Athenians on the muster-roll, partly from the
+allies.  The colleagues chosen for Nicias were Demosthenes, son of
+Alcisthenes, and Eurymedon, son of Thucles.  Eurymedon was sent off
+at once, about the time of the winter solstice, with ten ships, a
+hundred and twenty talents of silver, and instructions to tell the
+army that reinforcements would arrive, and that care would be taken of
+them; but Demosthenes stayed behind to organize the expedition,
+meaning to start as soon as it was spring, and sent for troops to
+the allies, and meanwhile got together money, ships, and heavy
+infantry at home.
+
+The Athenians also sent twenty vessels round Peloponnese to
+prevent any one crossing over to Sicily from Corinth or Peloponnese.
+For the Corinthians, filled with confidence by the favourable
+alteration in Sicilian affairs which had been reported by the envoys
+upon their arrival, and convinced that the fleet which they had before
+sent out had not been without its use, were now preparing to
+dispatch a force of heavy infantry in merchant vessels to Sicily,
+while the Lacedaemonians did the like for the rest of Peloponnese.  The
+Corinthians also manned a fleet of twenty-five vessels, intending to
+try the result of a battle with the squadron on guard at Naupactus,
+and meanwhile to make it less easy for the Athenians there to hinder
+the departure of their merchantmen, by obliging them to keep an eye
+upon the galleys thus arrayed against them.
+
+In the meantime the Lacedaemonians prepared for their invasion of
+Attica, in accordance with their own previous resolve, and at the
+instigation of the Syracusans and Corinthians, who wished for an
+invasion to arrest the reinforcements which they heard that Athens was
+about to send to Sicily.  Alcibiades also urgently advised the
+fortification of Decelea, and a vigorous prosecution of the war.  But
+the Lacedaemonians derived most encouragement from the belief that
+Athens, with two wars on her hands, against themselves and against the
+Siceliots, would be more easy to subdue, and from the conviction
+that she had been the first to infringe the truce.  In the former
+war, they considered, the offence had been more on their own side,
+both on account of the entrance of the Thebans into Plataea in time of
+peace, and also of their own refusal to listen to the Athenian offer
+of arbitration, in spite of the clause in the former treaty that where
+arbitration should be offered there should be no appeal to arms.  For
+this reason they thought that they deserved their misfortunes, and
+took to heart seriously the disaster at Pylos and whatever else had
+befallen them.  But when, besides the ravages from Pylos, which went on
+without any intermission, the thirty Athenian ships came out from
+Argos and wasted part of Epidaurus, Prasiae, and other places; when
+upon every dispute that arose as to the interpretation of any doubtful
+point in the treaty, their own offers of arbitration were always
+rejected by the Athenians, the Lacedaemonians at length decided that
+Athens had now committed the very same offence as they had before
+done, and had become the guilty party; and they began to be full of
+ardour for the war.  They spent this winter in sending round to their
+allies for iron, and in getting ready the other implements for
+building their fort; and meanwhile began raising at home, and also
+by forced requisitions in the rest of Peloponnese, a force to be
+sent out in the merchantmen to their allies in Sicily.  Winter thus
+ended, and with it the eighteenth year of this war of which Thucydides
+is the historian.
+
+In the first days of the spring following, at an earlier period than
+usual, the Lacedaemonians and their allies invaded Attica, under the
+command of Agis, son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians.  They
+began by devastating the parts bordering upon the plain, and next
+proceeded to fortify Decelea, dividing the work among the different
+cities.  Decelea is about thirteen or fourteen miles from the city of
+Athens, and the same distance or not much further from Boeotia; and
+the fort was meant to annoy the plain and the richest parts of the
+country, being in sight of Athens.  While the Peloponnesians and
+their allies in Attica were engaged in the work of fortification,
+their countrymen at home sent off, at about the same time, the heavy
+infantry in the merchant vessels to Sicily; the Lacedaemonians
+furnishing a picked force of Helots and Neodamodes (or freedmen),
+six hundred heavy infantry in all, under the command of Eccritus, a
+Spartan; and the Boeotians three hundred heavy infantry, commanded
+by two Thebans, Xenon and Nicon, and by Hegesander, a Thespian.
+These were among the first to put out into the open sea, starting from
+Taenarus in Laconia.  Not long after their departure the Corinthians
+sent off a force of five hundred heavy infantry, consisting partly
+of men from Corinth itself, and partly of Arcadian mercenaries, placed
+under the command of Alexarchus, a Corinthian.  The Sicyonians also
+sent off two hundred heavy infantry at same time as the Corinthians,
+under the command of Sargeus, a Sicyonian.  Meantime the
+five-and-twenty vessels manned by Corinth during the winter lay
+confronting the twenty Athenian ships at Naupactus until the heavy
+infantry in the merchantmen were fairly on their way from Peloponnese;
+thus fulfilling the object for which they had been manned
+originally, which was to divert the attention of the Athenians from
+the merchantmen to the galleys.
+
+During this time the Athenians were not idle.  Simultaneously with
+the fortification of Decelea, at the very beginning of spring, they
+sent thirty ships round Peloponnese, under Charicles, son of
+Apollodorus, with instructions to call at Argos and demand a force
+of their heavy infantry for the fleet, agreeably to the alliance.  At
+the same time they dispatched Demosthenes to Sicily, as they had
+intended, with sixty Athenian and five Chian vessels, twelve hundred
+Athenian heavy infantry from the muster-roll, and as many of the
+islanders as could be raised in the different quarters, drawing upon
+the other subject allies for whatever they could supply that would
+be of use for the war.  Demosthenes was instructed first to sail
+round with Charicles and to operate with him upon the coasts of
+Laconia, and accordingly sailed to Aegina and there waited for the
+remainder of his armament, and for Charicles to fetch the Argive
+troops.
+
+In Sicily, about the same time in this spring, Gylippus came to
+Syracuse with as many troops as he could bring from the cities which
+he had persuaded to join.  Calling the Syracusans together, he told
+them that they must man as many ships as possible, and try their
+hand at a sea-fight, by which he hoped to achieve an advantage in
+the war not unworthy of the risk.  With him Hermocrates actively joined
+in trying to encourage his countrymen to attack the Athenians at
+sea, saying that the latter had not inherited their naval prowess
+nor would they retain it for ever; they had been landsmen even to a
+greater degree than the Syracusans, and had only become a maritime
+power when obliged by the Mede.  Besides, to daring spirits like the
+Athenians, a daring adversary would seem the most formidable; and
+the Athenian plan of paralysing by the boldness of their attack a
+neighbour often not their inferior in strength could now be used
+against them with as good effect by the Syracusans.  He was convinced
+also that the unlooked-for spectacle of Syracusans daring to face
+the Athenian navy would cause a terror to the enemy, the advantages of
+which would far outweigh any loss that Athenian science might
+inflict upon their inexperience.  He accordingly urged them to throw
+aside their fears and to try their fortune at sea; and the Syracusans,
+under the influence of Gylippus and Hermocrates, and perhaps some
+others, made up their minds for the sea-fight and began to man their
+vessels.
+
+When the fleet was ready, Gylippus led out the whole army by
+night; his plan being to assault in person the forts on Plemmyrium
+by land, while thirty-five Syracusan galleys sailed according to
+appointment against the enemy from the great harbour, and the
+forty-five remaining came round from the lesser harbour, where they
+had their arsenal, in order to effect a junction with those inside and
+simultaneously to attack Plemmyrium, and thus to distract the
+Athenians by assaulting them on two sides at once.  The Athenians
+quickly manned sixty ships, and with twenty-five of these engaged
+the thirty-five of the Syracusans in the great harbour, sending the
+rest to meet those sailing round from the arsenal; and an action now
+ensued directly in front of the mouth of the great harbour, maintained
+with equal tenacity on both sides; the one wishing to force the
+passage, the other to prevent them.
+
+In the meantime, while the Athenians in Plemmyrium were down at
+the sea, attending to the engagement, Gylippus made a sudden attack on
+the forts in the early morning and took the largest first, and
+afterwards the two smaller, whose garrisons did not wait for him,
+seeing the largest so easily taken.  At the fall of the first fort, the
+men from it who succeeded in taking refuge in their boats and
+merchantmen, found great difficulty in reaching the camp, as the
+Syracusans were having the best of it in the engagement in the great
+harbour, and sent a fast-sailing galley to pursue them.  But when the
+two others fell, the Syracusans were now being defeated; and the
+fugitives from these sailed alongshore with more ease.  The Syracusan
+ships fighting off the mouth of the harbour forced their way through
+the Athenian vessels and sailing in without any order fell foul of one
+another, and transferred the victory to the Athenians; who not only
+routed the squadron in question, but also that by which they were at
+first being defeated in the harbour, sinking eleven of the Syracusan
+vessels and killing most of the men, except the crews of three ships
+whom they made prisoners.  Their own loss was confined to three
+vessels; and after hauling ashore the Syracusan wrecks and setting
+up a trophy upon the islet in front of Plemmyrium, they retired to
+their own camp.
+
+Unsuccessful at sea, the Syracusans had nevertheless the forts in
+Plemmyrium, for which they set up three trophies.  One of the two
+last taken they razed, but put in order and garrisoned the two others.
+In the capture of the forts a great many men were killed and made
+prisoners, and a great quantity of property was taken in all.  As the
+Athenians had used them as a magazine, there was a large stock of
+goods and corn of the merchants inside, and also a large stock
+belonging to the captains; the masts and other furniture of forty
+galleys being taken, besides three galleys which had been drawn up
+on shore.  Indeed the first and chiefest cause of the ruin of the
+Athenian army was the capture of Plemmyrium; even the entrance of
+the harbour being now no longer safe for carrying in provisions, as
+the Syracusan vessels were stationed there to prevent it, and
+nothing could be brought in without fighting; besides the general
+impression of dismay and discouragement produced upon the army.
+
+After this the Syracusans sent out twelve ships under the command of
+Agatharchus, a Syracusan.  One of these went to Peloponnese with
+ambassadors to describe the hopeful state of their affairs, and to
+incite the Peloponnesians to prosecute the war there even more
+actively than they were now doing, while the eleven others sailed to
+Italy, hearing that vessels laden with stores were on their way to the
+Athenians.  After falling in with and destroying most of the vessels in
+question, and burning in the Caulonian territory a quantity of
+timber for shipbuilding, which had been got ready for the Athenians,
+the Syracusan squadron went to Locri, and one of the merchantmen
+from Peloponnese coming in, while they were at anchor there,
+carrying Thespian heavy infantry, took these on board and sailed
+alongshore towards home.  The Athenians were on the look-out for them
+with twenty ships at Megara, but were only able to take one vessel
+with its crew; the rest getting clear off to Syracuse.  There was
+also some skirmishing in the harbour about the piles which the
+Syracusans had driven in the sea in front of the old docks, to allow
+their ships to lie at anchor inside, without being hurt by the
+Athenians sailing up and running them down.  The Athenians brought up
+to them a ship of ten thousand talents burden furnished with wooden
+turrets and screens, and fastened ropes round the piles from their
+boats, wrenched them up and broke them, or dived down and sawed them
+in two.  Meanwhile the Syracusans plied them with missiles from the
+docks, to which they replied from their large vessel; until at last
+most of the piles were removed by the Athenians.  But the most
+awkward part of the stockade was the part out of sight: some of the
+piles which had been driven in did not appear above water, so that
+it was dangerous to sail up, for fear of running the ships upon
+them, just as upon a reef, through not seeing them.  However divers
+went down and sawed off even these for reward; although the Syracusans
+drove in others.  Indeed there was no end to the contrivances to
+which they resorted against each other, as might be expected between
+two hostile armies confronting each other at such a short distance:
+and skirmishes and all kinds of other attempts were of constant
+occurrence.  Meanwhile the Syracusans sent embassies to the cities,
+composed of Corinthians, Ambraciots, and Lacedaemonians, to tell
+them of the capture of Plemmyrium, and that their defeat in the
+sea-fight was due less to the strength of the enemy than to their
+own disorder; and generally, to let them know that they were full of
+hope, and to desire them to come to their help with ships and
+troops, as the Athenians were expected with a fresh army, and if the
+one already there could be destroyed before the other arrived, the war
+would be at an end.
+
+While the contending parties in Sicily were thus engaged,
+Demosthenes, having now got together the armament with which he was to
+go to the island, put out from Aegina, and making sail for
+Peloponnese, joined Charicles and the thirty ships of the Athenians.
+Taking on board the heavy infantry from Argos they sailed to
+Laconia, and, after first plundering part of Epidaurus Limera,
+landed on the coast of Laconia, opposite Cythera, where the temple
+of Apollo stands, and, laying waste part of the country, fortified a
+sort of isthmus, to which the Helots of the Lacedaemonians might
+desert, and from whence plundering incursions might be made as from
+Pylos.  Demosthenes helped to occupy this place, and then immediately
+sailed on to Corcyra to take up some of the allies in that island, and
+so to proceed without delay to Sicily; while Charicles waited until he
+had completed the fortification of the place and, leaving a garrison
+there, returned home subsequently with his thirty ships and the
+Argives also.
+
+This same summer arrived at Athens thirteen hundred targeteers,
+Thracian swordsmen of the tribe of the Dii, who were to have sailed to
+Sicily with Demosthenes.  Since they had come too late, the Athenians
+determined to send them back to Thrace, whence they had come; to
+keep them for the Decelean war appearing too expensive, as the pay
+of each man was a drachma a day.  Indeed since Decelea had been first
+fortified by the whole Peloponnesian army during this summer, and then
+occupied for the annoyance of the country by the garrisons from the
+cities relieving each other at stated intervals, it had been doing
+great mischief to the Athenians; in fact this occupation, by the
+destruction of property and loss of men which resulted from it, was
+one of the principal causes of their ruin.  Previously the invasions
+were short, and did not prevent their enjoying their land during the
+rest of the time: the enemy was now permanently fixed in Attica; at
+one time it was an attack in force, at another it was the regular
+garrison overrunning the country and making forays for its
+subsistence, and the Lacedaemonian king, Agis, was in the field and
+diligently prosecuting the war; great mischief was therefore done to
+the Athenians.  They were deprived of their whole country: more than
+twenty thousand slaves had deserted, a great part of them artisans,
+and all their sheep and beasts of burden were lost; and as the cavalry
+rode out daily upon excursions to Decelea and to guard the country,
+their horses were either lamed by being constantly worked upon rocky
+ground, or wounded by the enemy.
+
+Besides, the transport of provisions from Euboea, which had before
+been carried on so much more quickly overland by Decelea from
+Oropus, was now effected at great cost by sea round Sunium; everything
+the city required had to be imported from abroad, and instead of a
+city it became a fortress.  Summer and winter the Athenians were worn
+out by having to keep guard on the fortifications, during the day by
+turns, by night all together, the cavalry excepted, at the different
+military posts or upon the wall.  But what most oppressed them was that
+they had two wars at once, and had thus reached a pitch of frenzy
+which no one would have believed possible if he had heard of it before
+it had come to pass.  For could any one have imagined that even when
+besieged by the Peloponnesians entrenched in Attica, they would still,
+instead of withdrawing from Sicily, stay on there besieging in like
+manner Syracuse, a town (taken as a town) in no way inferior to
+Athens, or would so thoroughly upset the Hellenic estimate of their
+strength and audacity, as to give the spectacle of a people which,
+at the beginning of the war, some thought might hold out one year,
+some two, none more than three, if the Peloponnesians invaded their
+country, now seventeen years after the first invasion, after having
+already suffered from all the evils of war, going to Sicily and
+undertaking a new war nothing inferior to that which they already
+had with the Peloponnesians? These causes, the great losses from
+Decelea, and the other heavy charges that fell upon them, produced
+their financial embarrassment; and it was at this time that they
+imposed upon their subjects, instead of the tribute, the tax of a
+twentieth upon all imports and exports by sea, which they thought
+would bring them in more money; their expenditure being now not the
+same as at first, but having grown with the war while their revenues
+decayed.
+
+Accordingly, not wishing to incur expense in their present want of
+money, they sent back at once the Thracians who came too late for
+Demosthenes, under the conduct of Diitrephes, who was instructed, as
+they were to pass through the Euripus, to make use of them if possible
+in the voyage alongshore to injure the enemy.  Diitrephes first
+landed them at Tanagra and hastily snatched some booty; he then sailed
+across the Euripus in the evening from Chalcis in Euboea and
+disembarking in Boeotia led them against Mycalessus.  The night he
+passed unobserved near the temple of Hermes, not quite two miles
+from Mycalessus, and at daybreak assaulted and took the town, which is
+not a large one; the inhabitants being off their guard and not
+expecting that any one would ever come up so far from the sea to
+molest them, the wall too being weak, and in some places having
+tumbled down, while in others it had not been built to any height, and
+the gates also being left open through their feeling of security.
+The Thracians bursting into Mycalessus sacked the houses and
+temples, and butchered the inhabitants, sparing neither youth nor age,
+but killing all they fell in with, one after the other, children and
+women, and even beasts of burden, and whatever other living
+creatures they saw; the Thracian race, like the bloodiest of the
+barbarians, being even more so when it has nothing to fear.  Everywhere
+confusion reigned and death in all its shapes; and in particular
+they attacked a boys' school, the largest that there was in the place,
+into which the children had just gone, and massacred them all.  In
+short, the disaster falling upon the whole town was unsurpassed in
+magnitude, and unapproached by any in suddenness and in horror.
+
+Meanwhile the Thebans heard of it and marched to the rescue, and
+overtaking the Thracians before they had gone far, recovered the
+plunder and drove them in panic to the Euripus and the sea, where
+the vessels which brought them were lying.  The greatest slaughter took
+place while they were embarking, as they did not know how to swim, and
+those in the vessels on seeing what was going on on on shore moored
+them out of bowshot: in the rest of the retreat the Thracians made a
+very respectable defence against the Theban horse, by which they
+were first attacked, dashing out and closing their ranks according
+to the tactics of their country, and lost only a few men in that
+part of the affair.  A good number who were after plunder were actually
+caught in the town and put to death.  Altogether the Thracians had
+two hundred and fifty killed out of thirteen hundred, the Thebans
+and the rest who came to the rescue about twenty, troopers and heavy
+infantry, with Scirphondas, one of the Boeotarchs.  The Mycalessians
+lost a large proportion of their population.
+
+While Mycalessus thus experienced a calamity for its extent as
+lamentable as any that happened in the war, Demosthenes, whom we
+left sailing to Corcyra, after the building of the fort in Laconia,
+found a merchantman lying at Phea in Elis, in which the Corinthian
+heavy infantry were to cross to Sicily.  The ship he destroyed, but the
+men escaped, and subsequently got another in which they pursued
+their voyage.  After this, arriving at Zacynthus and Cephallenia, he
+took a body of heavy infantry on board, and sending for some of the
+Messenians from Naupactus, crossed over to the opposite coast of
+Acarnania, to Alyzia, and to Anactorium which was held by the
+Athenians.  While he was in these parts he was met by Eurymedon
+returning from Sicily, where he had been sent, as has been
+mentioned, during the winter, with the money for the army, who told
+him the news, and also that he had heard, while at sea, that the
+Syracusans had taken Plemmyrium.  Here, also, Conon came to them, the
+commander at Naupactus, with news that the twenty-five Corinthian
+ships stationed opposite to him, far from giving over the war, were
+meditating an engagement; and he therefore begged them to send him
+some ships, as his own eighteen were not a match for the enemy's
+twenty-five.  Demosthenes and Eurymedon, accordingly, sent ten of their
+best sailers with Conon to reinforce the squadron at Naupactus, and
+meanwhile prepared for the muster of their forces; Eurymedon, who
+was now the colleague of Demosthenes, and had turned back in
+consequence of his appointment, sailing to Corcyra to tell them to man
+fifteen ships and to enlist heavy infantry; while Demosthenes raised
+slingers and darters from the parts about Acarnania.
+
+Meanwhile the envoys, already mentioned, who had gone from
+Syracuse to the cities after the capture of Plemmyrium, had
+succeeded in their mission, and were about to bring the army that they
+had collected, when Nicias got scent of it, and sent to the Centoripae
+and Alicyaeans and other of the friendly Sicels, who held the
+passes, not to let the enemy through, but to combine to prevent
+their passing, there being no other way by which they could even
+attempt it, as the Agrigentines would not give them a passage
+through their country.  Agreeably to this request the Sicels laid a
+triple ambuscade for the Siceliots upon their march, and attacking
+them suddenly, while off their guard, killed about eight hundred of
+them and all the envoys, the Corinthian only excepted, by whom fifteen
+hundred who escaped were conducted to Syracuse.
+
+About the same time the Camarinaeans also came to the assistance
+of Syracuse with five hundred heavy infantry, three hundred darters,
+and as many archers, while the Geloans sent crews for five ships, four
+hundred darters, and two hundred horse.  Indeed almost the whole of
+Sicily, except the Agrigentines, who were neutral, now ceased merely
+to watch events as it had hitherto done, and actively joined
+Syracuse against the Athenians.
+
+While the Syracusans after the Sicel disaster put off any
+immediate attack upon the Athenians, Demosthenes and Eurymedon,
+whose forces from Corcyra and the continent were now ready, crossed
+the Ionian Gulf with all their armament to the Iapygian promontory,
+and starting from thence touched at the Choerades Isles lying off
+Iapygia, where they took on board a hundred and fifty Iapygian darters
+of the Messapian tribe, and after renewing an old friendship with
+Artas the chief, who had furnished them with the darters, arrived at
+Metapontium in Italy.  Here they persuaded their allies the
+Metapontines to send with them three hundred darters and two
+galleys, and with this reinforcement coasted on to Thurii, where
+they found the party hostile to Athens recently expelled by a
+revolution, and accordingly remained there to muster and review the
+whole army, to see if any had been left behind, and to prevail upon
+the Thurians resolutely to join them in their expedition, and in the
+circumstances in which they found themselves to conclude a defensive
+and offensive alliance with the Athenians.
+
+About the same time the Peloponnesians in the twenty-five ships
+stationed opposite to the squadron at Naupactus to protect the passage
+of the transports to Sicily had got ready for engaging, and manning
+some additional vessels, so as to be numerically little inferior to
+the Athenians, anchored off Erineus in Achaia in the Rhypic country.
+The place off which they lay being in the form of a crescent, the land
+forces furnished by the Corinthians and their allies on the spot
+came up and ranged themselves upon the projecting headlands on
+either side, while the fleet, under the command of Polyanthes, a
+Corinthian, held the intervening space and blocked up the entrance.
+The Athenians under Diphilus now sailed out against them with
+thirty-three ships from Naupactus, and the Corinthians, at first not
+moving, at length thought they saw their opportunity, raised the
+signal, and advanced and engaged the Athenians.  After an obstinate
+struggle, the Corinthians lost three ships, and without sinking any
+altogether, disabled seven of the enemy, which were struck prow to
+prow and had their foreships stove in by the Corinthian vessels, whose
+cheeks had been strengthened for this very purpose.  After an action of
+this even character, in which either party could claim the victory
+(although the Athenians became masters of the wrecks through the
+wind driving them out to sea, the Corinthians not putting out again to
+meet them), the two combatants parted.  No pursuit took place, and no
+prisoners were made on either side; the Corinthians and Peloponnesians
+who were fighting near the shore escaping with ease, and none of the
+Athenian vessels having been sunk.  The Athenians now sailed back to
+Naupactus, and the Corinthians immediately set up a trophy as victors,
+because they had disabled a greater number of the enemy's ships.
+Moreover they held that they had not been worsted, for the very same
+reason that their opponent held that he had not been victorious; the
+Corinthians considering that they were conquerors, if not decidedly
+conquered, and the Athenians thinking themselves vanquished, because
+not decidedly victorious.  However, when the Peloponnesians sailed
+off and their land forces had dispersed, the Athenians also set up a
+trophy as victors in Achaia, about two miles and a quarter from
+Erineus, the Corinthian station.
+
+This was the termination of the action at Naupactus.  To return to
+Demosthenes and Eurymedon: the Thurians having now got ready to join
+in the expedition with seven hundred heavy infantry and three
+hundred darters, the two generals ordered the ships to sail along
+the coast to the Crotonian territory, and meanwhile held a review of
+all the land forces upon the river Sybaris, and then led them
+through the Thurian country.  Arrived at the river Hylias, they here
+received a message from the Crotonians, saying that they would not
+allow the army to pass through their country; upon which the Athenians
+descended towards the shore, and bivouacked near the sea and the mouth
+of the Hylias, where the fleet also met them, and the next day
+embarked and sailed along the coast touching at all the cities
+except Locri, until they came to Petra in the Rhegian territory.
+
+Meanwhile the Syracusans hearing of their approach resolved to
+make a second attempt with their fleet and their other forces on
+shore, which they had been collecting for this very purpose in order
+to do something before their arrival.  In addition to other
+improvements suggested by the former sea-fight which they now
+adopted in the equipment of their navy, they cut down their prows to a
+smaller compass to make them more solid and made their cheeks stouter,
+and from these let stays into the vessels' sides for a length of six
+cubits within and without, in the same way as the Corinthians had
+altered their prows before engaging the squadron at Naupactus.  The
+Syracusans thought that they would thus have an advantage over the
+Athenian vessels, which were not constructed with equal strength,
+but were slight in the bows, from their being more used to sail
+round and charge the enemy's side than to meet him prow to prow, and
+that the battle being in the great harbour, with a great many ships in
+not much room, was also a fact in their favour.  Charging prow to prow,
+they would stave in the enemy's bows, by striking with solid and stout
+beaks against hollow and weak ones; and secondly, the Athenians for
+want of room would be unable to use their favourite manoeuvre of
+breaking the line or of sailing round, as the Syracusans would do
+their best not to let them do the one, and want of room would
+prevent their doing the other.  This charging prow to prow, which had
+hitherto been thought want of skill in a helmsman, would be the
+Syracusans' chief manoeuvre, as being that which they should find most
+useful, since the Athenians, if repulsed, would not be able to back
+water in any direction except towards the shore, and that only for a
+little way, and in the little space in front of their own camp.  The
+rest of the harbour would be commanded by the Syracusans; and the
+Athenians, if hard pressed, by crowding together in a small space
+and all to the same point, would run foul of one another and fall into
+disorder, which was, in fact, the thing that did the Athenians most
+harm in all the sea-fights, they not having, like the Syracusans,
+the whole harbour to retreat over.  As to their sailing round into
+the open sea, this would be impossible, with the Syracusans in
+possession of the way out and in, especially as Plemmyrium would be
+hostile to them, and the mouth of the harbour was not large.
+
+With these contrivances to suit their skill and ability, and now
+more confident after the previous sea-fight, the Syracusans attacked
+by land and sea at once.  The town force Gylippus led out a little
+the first and brought them up to the wall of the Athenians, where it
+looked towards the city, while the force from the Olympieum, that is
+to say, the heavy infantry that were there with the horse and the
+light troops of the Syracusans, advanced against the wall from the
+opposite side; the ships of the Syracusans and allies sailing out
+immediately afterwards.  The Athenians at first fancied that they
+were to be attacked by land only, and it was not without alarm that
+they saw the fleet suddenly approaching as well; and while some were
+forming upon the walls and in front of them against the advancing
+enemy, and some marching out in haste against the numbers of horse and
+darters coming from the Olympieum and from outside, others manned
+the ships or rushed down to the beach to oppose the enemy, and when
+the ships were manned put out with seventy-five sail against about
+eighty of the Syracusans.
+
+After spending a great part of the day in advancing and retreating
+and skirmishing with each other, without either being able to gain any
+advantage worth speaking of, except that the Syracusans sank one or
+two of the Athenian vessels, they parted, the land force at the same
+time retiring from the lines.  The next day the Syracusans remained
+quiet, and gave no signs of what they were going to do; but Nicias,
+seeing that the battle had been a drawn one, and expecting that they
+would attack again, compelled the captains to refit any of the ships
+that had suffered, and moored merchant vessels before the stockade
+which they had driven into the sea in front of their ships, to serve
+instead of an enclosed harbour, at about two hundred feet from each
+other, in order that any ship that was hard pressed might be able to
+retreat in safety and sail out again at leisure.  These preparations
+occupied the Athenians all day until nightfall.
+
+The next day the Syracusans began operations at an earlier hour, but
+with the same plan of attack by land and sea.  A great part of the
+day the rivals spent as before, confronting and skirmishing with
+each other; until at last Ariston, son of Pyrrhicus, a Corinthian, the
+ablest helmsman in the Syracusan service, persuaded their naval
+commanders to send to the officials in the city, and tell them to move
+the sale market as quickly as they could down to the sea, and oblige
+every one to bring whatever eatables he had and sell them there,
+thus enabling the commanders to land the crews and dine at once
+close to the ships, and shortly afterwards, the selfsame day, to
+attack the Athenians again when they were not expecting it.
+
+In compliance with this advice a messenger was sent and the market
+got ready, upon which the Syracusans suddenly backed water and
+withdrew to the town, and at once landed and took their dinner upon
+the spot; while the Athenians, supposing that they had returned to the
+town because they felt they were beaten, disembarked at their
+leisure and set about getting their dinners and about their other
+occupations, under the idea that they done with fighting for that day.
+Suddenly the Syracusans had manned their ships and again sailed
+against them; and the Athenians, in great confusion and most of them
+fasting, got on board, and with great difficulty put out to meet them.
+For some time both parties remained on the defensive without engaging,
+until the Athenians at last resolved not to let themselves be worn out
+by waiting where they were, but to attack without delay, and giving
+a cheer, went into action.  The Syracusans received them, and
+charging prow to prow as they had intended, stove in a great part of
+the Athenian foreships by the strength of their beaks; the darters
+on the decks also did great damage to the Athenians, but still greater
+damage was done by the Syracusans who went about in small boats, ran
+in upon the oars of the Athenian galleys, and sailed against their
+sides, and discharged from thence their darts upon the sailors.
+
+At last, fighting hard in this fashion, the Syracusans gained the
+victory, and the Athenians turned and fled between the merchantmen
+to their own station.  The Syracusan ships pursued them as far as the
+merchantmen, where they were stopped by the beams armed with
+dolphins suspended from those vessels over the passage.  Two of the
+Syracusan vessels went too near in the excitement of victory and
+were destroyed, one of them being taken with its crew.  After sinking
+seven of the Athenian vessels and disabling many, and taking most of
+the men prisoners and killing others, the Syracusans retired and set
+up trophies for both the engagements, being now confident of having
+a decided superiority by sea, and by no means despairing of equal
+success by land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+_Nineteenth Year of the War - Arrival of Demosthenes - Defeat of
+the Athenians at Epipolae - Folly and Obstinancy of Nicias_
+
+In the meantime, while the Syracusans were preparing for a second
+attack upon both elements, Demosthenes and Eurymedon arrived with
+the succours from Athens, consisting of about seventy-three ships,
+including the foreigners; nearly five thousand heavy infantry,
+Athenian and allied; a large number of darters, Hellenic and
+barbarian, and slingers and archers and everything else upon a
+corresponding scale.  The Syracusans and their allies were for the
+moment not a little dismayed at the idea that there was to be no
+term or ending to their dangers, seeing, in spite of the fortification
+of Decelea, a new army arrive nearly equal to the former, and the
+power of Athens proving so great in every quarter.  On the other
+hand, the first Athenian armament regained a certain confidence in the
+midst of its misfortunes.  Demosthenes, seeing how matters stood,
+felt that he could not drag on and fare as Nicias had done, who by
+wintering in Catana instead of at once attacking Syracuse had
+allowed the terror of his first arrival to evaporate in contempt,
+and had given time to Gylippus to arrive with a force from
+Peloponnese, which the Syracusans would never have sent for if he
+had attacked immediately; for they fancied that they were a match
+for him by themselves, and would not have discovered their inferiority
+until they were already invested, and even if they then sent for
+succours, they would no longer have been equally able to profit by
+their arrival.  Recollecting this, and well aware that it was now on
+the first day after his arrival that he like Nicias was most
+formidable to the enemy, Demosthenes determined to lose no time in
+drawing the utmost profit from the consternation at the moment
+inspired by his army; and seeing that the counterwall of the
+Syracusans, which hindered the Athenians from investing them, was a
+single one, and that he who should become master of the way up to
+Epipolae, and afterwards of the camp there, would find no difficulty
+in taking it, as no one would even wait for his attack, made all haste
+to attempt the enterprise.  This he took to be the shortest way of
+ending the war, as he would either succeed and take Syracuse, or would
+lead back the armament instead of frittering away the lives of the
+Athenians engaged in the expedition and the resources of the country
+at large.
+
+First therefore the Athenians went out and laid waste the lands of
+the Syracusans about the Anapus and carried all before them as at
+first by land and by sea, the Syracusans not offering to oppose them
+upon either element, unless it were with their cavalry and darters
+from the Olympieum.  Next Demosthenes resolved to attempt the
+counterwall first by means of engines.  As however the engines that
+he brought up were burnt by the enemy fighting from the wall, and
+the rest of the forces repulsed after attacking at many different
+points, he determined to delay no longer, and having obtained the
+consent of Nicias and his fellow commanders, proceeded to put in
+execution his plan of attacking Epipolae.  As by day it seemed
+impossible to approach and get up without being observed, he ordered
+provisions for five days, took all the masons and carpenters, and
+other things, such as arrows, and everything else that they could want
+for the work of fortification if successful, and, after the first
+watch, set out with Eurymedon and Menander and the whole army for
+Epipolae, Nicias being left behind in the lines.  Having come up by the
+hill of Euryelus (where the former army had ascended at first)
+unobserved by the enemy's guards, they went up to the fort which the
+Syracusans had there, and took it, and put to the sword part of the
+garrison.  The greater number, however, escaped at once and gave the
+alarm to the camps, of which there were three upon Epipolae,
+defended by outworks, one of the Syracusans, one of the other
+Siceliots, and one of the allies; and also to the six hundred
+Syracusans forming the original garrison for this part of Epipolae.
+These at once advanced against the assailants and, falling in with
+Demosthenes and the Athenians, were routed by them after a sharp
+resistance, the victors immediately pushing on, eager to achieve the
+objects of the attack without giving time for their ardour to cool;
+meanwhile others from the very beginning were taking the counterwall
+of the Syracusans, which was abandoned by its garrison, and pulling
+down the battlements.  The Syracusans and the allies, and Gylippus with
+the troops under his command, advanced to the rescue from the
+outworks, but engaged in some consternation (a night attack being a
+piece of audacity which they had never expected), and were at first
+compelled to retreat.  But while the Athenians, flushed with their
+victory, now advanced with less order, wishing to make their way as
+quickly as possible through the whole force of the enemy not yet
+engaged, without relaxing their attack or giving them time to rally,
+the Boeotians made the first stand against them, attacked them, routed
+them, and put them to flight.
+
+The Athenians now fell into great disorder and perplexity, so that
+it was not easy to get from one side or the other any detailed account
+of the affair.  By day certainly the combatants have a clearer
+notion, though even then by no means of all that takes place, no one
+knowing much of anything that does not go on in his own immediate
+neighbourhood; but in a night engagement (and this was the only one
+that occurred between great armies during the war) how could any one
+know anything for certain? Although there was a bright moon they saw
+each other only as men do by moonlight, that is to say, they could
+distinguish the form of the body, but could not tell for certain
+whether it was a friend or an enemy.  Both had great numbers of heavy
+infantry moving about in a small space.  Some of the Athenians were
+already defeated, while others were coming up yet unconquered for
+their first attack.  A large part also of the rest of their forces
+either had only just got up, or were still ascending, so that they did
+not know which way to march.  Owing to the rout that had taken place
+all in front was now in confusion, and the noise made it difficult
+to distinguish anything.  The victorious Syracusans and allies were
+cheering each other on with loud cries, by night the only possible
+means of communication, and meanwhile receiving all who came against
+them; while the Athenians were seeking for one another, taking all
+in front of them for enemies, even although they might be some of
+their now flying friends; and by constantly asking for the
+watchword, which was their only means of recognition, not only
+caused great confusion among themselves by asking all at once, but
+also made it known to the enemy, whose own they did not so readily
+discover, as the Syracusans were victorious and not scattered, and
+thus less easily mistaken.  The result was that if the Athenians fell
+in with a party of the enemy that was weaker than they, it escaped
+them through knowing their watchword; while if they themselves
+failed to answer they were put to the sword.  But what hurt them as
+much, or indeed more than anything else, was the singing of the paean,
+from the perplexity which it caused by being nearly the same on either
+side; the Argives and Corcyraeans and any other Dorian peoples in
+the army, struck terror into the Athenians whenever they raised
+their paean, no less than did the enemy.  Thus, after being once thrown
+into disorder, they ended by coming into collision with each other
+in many parts of the field, friends with friends, and citizens with
+citizens, and not only terrified one another, but even came to blows
+and could only be parted with difficulty.  In the pursuit many perished
+by throwing themselves down the cliffs, the way down from Epipolae
+being narrow; and of those who got down safely into the plain,
+although many, especially those who belonged to the first armament,
+escaped through their better acquaintance with the locality, some of
+the newcomers lost their way and wandered over the country, and were
+cut off in the morning by the Syracusan cavalry and killed.
+
+The next day the Syracusans set up two trophies, one upon Epipolae
+where the ascent had been made, and the other on the spot where the
+first check was given by the Boeotians; and the Athenians took back
+their dead under truce.  A great many of the Athenians and allies
+were killed, although still more arms were taken than could be
+accounted for by the number of the dead, as some of those who were
+obliged to leap down from the cliffs without their shields escaped
+with their lives and did not perish like the rest.
+
+After this the Syracusans, recovering their old confidence at such
+an unexpected stroke of good fortune, dispatched Sicanus with
+fifteen ships to Agrigentum where there was a revolution, to induce if
+possible the city to join them; while Gylippus again went by land into
+the rest of Sicily to bring up reinforcements, being now in hope of
+taking the Athenian lines by storm, after the result of the affair
+on Epipolae.
+
+In the meantime the Athenian generals consulted upon the disaster
+which had happened, and upon the general weakness of the army.  They
+saw themselves unsuccessful in their enterprises, and the soldiers
+disgusted with their stay; disease being rife among them owing to
+its being the sickly season of the year, and to the marshy and
+unhealthy nature of the spot in which they were encamped; and the
+state of their affairs generally being thought desperate.  Accordingly,
+Demosthenes was of opinion that they ought not to stay any longer; but
+agreeably to his original idea in risking the attempt upon Epipolae,
+now that this had failed, he gave his vote for going away without
+further loss of time, while the sea might yet be crossed, and their
+late reinforcement might give them the superiority at all events on
+that element.  He also said that it would be more profitable for the
+state to carry on the war against those who were building
+fortifications in Attica, than against the Syracusans whom it was no
+longer easy to subdue; besides which it was not right to squander
+large sums of money to no purpose by going on with the siege.
+
+This was the opinion of Demosthenes.  Nicias, without denying the bad
+state of their affairs, was unwilling to avow their weakness, or to
+have it reported to the enemy that the Athenians in full council
+were openly voting for retreat; for in that case they would be much
+less likely to effect it when they wanted without discovery.  Moreover,
+his own particular information still gave him reason to hope that
+the affairs of the enemy would soon be in a worse state than their
+own, if the Athenians persevered in the siege; as they would wear
+out the Syracusans by want of money, especially with the more
+extensive command of the sea now given them by their present navy.
+Besides this, there was a party in Syracuse who wished to betray the
+city to the Athenians, and kept sending him messages and telling him
+not to raise the siege.  Accordingly, knowing this and really waiting
+because he hesitated between the two courses and wished to see his way
+more clearly, in his public speech on this occasion he refused to lead
+off the army, saying he was sure the Athenians would never approve
+of their returning without a vote of theirs.  Those who would vote upon
+their conduct, instead of judging the facts as eye-witnesses like
+themselves and not from what they might hear from hostile critics,
+would simply be guided by the calumnies of the first clever speaker;
+while many, indeed most, of the soldiers on the spot, who now so
+loudly proclaimed the danger of their position, when they reached
+Athens would proclaim just as loudly the opposite, and would say
+that their generals had been bribed to betray them and return.  For
+himself, therefore, who knew the Athenian temper, sooner than perish
+under a dishonourable charge and by an unjust sentence at the hands of
+the Athenians, he would rather take his chance and die, if die he
+must, a soldier's death at the hand of the enemy.  Besides, after
+all, the Syracusans were in a worse case than themselves.  What with
+paying mercenaries, spending upon fortified posts, and now for a
+full year maintaining a large navy, they were already at a loss and
+would soon be at a standstill: they had already spent two thousand
+talents and incurred heavy debts besides, and could not lose even ever
+so small a fraction of their present force through not paying it,
+without ruin to their cause; depending as they did more upon
+mercenaries than upon soldiers obliged to serve, like their own.  He
+therefore said that they ought to stay and carry on the siege, and not
+depart defeated in point of money, in which they were much superior.
+
+Nicias spoke positively because he had exact information of the
+financial distress at Syracuse, and also because of the strength of
+the Athenian party there which kept sending him messages not to
+raise the siege; besides which he had more confidence than before in
+his fleet, and felt sure at least of its success.  Demosthenes,
+however, would not hear for a moment of continuing the siege, but said
+that if they could not lead off the army without a decree from Athens,
+and if they were obliged to stay on, they ought to remove to Thapsus
+or Catana; where their land forces would have a wide extent of country
+to overrun, and could live by plundering the enemy, and would thus
+do them damage; while the fleet would have the open sea to fight in,
+that is to say, instead of a narrow space which was all in the enemy's
+favour, a wide sea-room where their science would be of use, and where
+they could retreat or advance without being confined or
+circumscribed either when they put out or put in.  In any case he was
+altogether opposed to their staying on where they were, and insisted
+on removing at once, as quickly and with as little delay as
+possible; and in this judgment Eurymedon agreed.  Nicias however
+still objecting, a certain diffidence and hesitation came over them,
+with a suspicion that Nicias might have some further information to
+make him so positive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+_Nineteenth Year of the War - Battles in the Great Harbour -
+Retreat and Annihilation of the Athenian Army_
+
+While the Athenians lingered on in this way without moving from
+where they were, Gylippus and Sicanus now arrived at Syracuse.  Sicanus
+had failed to gain Agrigentum, the party friendly to the Syracusans
+having been driven out while he was still at Gela; but Gylippus was
+accompanied not only by a large number of troops raised in Sicily, but
+by the heavy infantry sent off in the spring from Peloponnese in the
+merchantmen, who had arrived at Selinus from Libya.  They had been
+carried to Libya by a storm, and having obtained two galleys and
+pilots from the Cyrenians, on their voyage alongshore had taken
+sides with the Euesperitae and had defeated the Libyans who were
+besieging them, and from thence coasting on to Neapolis, a
+Carthaginian mart, and the nearest point to Sicily, from which it is
+only two days' and a night's voyage, there crossed over and came to
+Selinus.  Immediately upon their arrival the Syracusans prepared to
+attack the Athenians again by land and sea at once.  The Athenian
+generals seeing a fresh army come to the aid of the enemy, and that
+their own circumstances, far from improving, were becoming daily
+worse, and above all distressed by the sickness of the soldiers, now
+began to repent of not having removed before; and Nicias no longer
+offering the same opposition, except by urging that there should be no
+open voting, they gave orders as secretly as possible for all to be
+prepared to sail out from the camp at a given signal.  All was at
+last ready, and they were on the point of sailing away, when an
+eclipse of the moon, which was then at the full, took place.  Most of
+the Athenians, deeply impressed by this occurrence, now urged the
+generals to wait; and Nicias, who was somewhat over-addicted to
+divination and practices of that kind, refused from that moment even
+to take the question of departure into consideration, until they had
+waited the thrice nine days prescribed by the soothsayers.
+
+The besiegers were thus condemned to stay in the country; and the
+Syracusans, getting wind of what had happened, became more eager
+than ever to press the Athenians, who had now themselves
+acknowledged that they were no longer their superiors either by sea or
+by land, as otherwise they would never have planned to sail away.
+Besides which the Syracusans did not wish them to settle in any
+other part of Sicily, where they would be more difficult to deal with,
+but desired to force them to fight at sea as quickly as possible, in a
+position favourable to themselves.  Accordingly they manned their ships
+and practised for as many days as they thought sufficient.  When the
+moment arrived they assaulted on the first day the Athenian lines, and
+upon a small force of heavy infantry and horse sallying out against
+them by certain gates, cut off some of the former and routed and
+pursued them to the lines, where, as the entrance was narrow, the
+Athenians lost seventy horses and some few of the heavy infantry.
+
+Drawing off their troops for this day, on the next the Syracusans
+went out with a fleet of seventy-six sail, and at the same time
+advanced with their land forces against the lines.  The Athenians put
+out to meet them with eighty-six ships, came to close quarters, and
+engaged.  The Syracusans and their allies first defeated the Athenian
+centre, and then caught Eurymedon, the commander of the right wing,
+who was sailing out from the line more towards the land in order to
+surround the enemy, in the hollow and recess of the harbour, and
+killed him and destroyed the ships accompanying him; after which
+they now chased the whole Athenian fleet before them and drove them
+ashore.
+
+Gylippus seeing the enemy's fleet defeated and carried ashore beyond
+their stockades and camp, ran down to the breakwater with some of
+his troops, in order to cut off the men as they landed and make it
+easier for the Syracusans to tow off the vessels by the shore being
+friendly ground.  The Tyrrhenians who guarded this point for the
+Athenians, seeing them come on in disorder, advanced out against
+them and attacked and routed their van, hurling it into the marsh of
+Lysimeleia.  Afterwards the Syracusan and allied troops arrived in
+greater numbers, and the Athenians fearing for their ships came up
+also to the rescue and engaged them, and defeated and pursued them
+to some distance and killed a few of their heavy infantry.  They
+succeeded in rescuing most of their ships and brought them down by
+their camp; eighteen however were taken by the Syracusans and their
+allies, and all the men killed.  The rest the enemy tried to burn by
+means of an old merchantman which they filled with faggots and
+pine-wood, set on fire, and let drift down the wind which blew full on
+the Athenians.  The Athenians, however, alarmed for their ships,
+contrived means for stopping it and putting it out, and checking the
+flames and the nearer approach of the merchantman, thus escaped the
+danger.
+
+After this the Syracusans set up a trophy for the sea-fight and
+for the heavy infantry whom they had cut off up at the lines, where
+they took the horses; and the Athenians for the rout of the foot
+driven by the Tyrrhenians into the marsh, and for their own victory
+with the rest of the army.
+
+The Syracusans had now gained a decisive victory at sea, where until
+now they had feared the reinforcement brought by Demosthenes, and
+deep, in consequence, was the despondency of the Athenians, and
+great their disappointment, and greater still their regret for
+having come on the expedition.  These were the only cities that they
+had yet encountered, similar to their own in character, under
+democracies like themselves, which had ships and horses, and were of
+considerable magnitude.  They had been unable to divide and bring
+them over by holding out the prospect of changes in their governments,
+or to crush them by their great superiority in force, but had failed
+in most of their attempts, and being already in perplexity, had now
+been defeated at sea, where defeat could never have been expected, and
+were thus plunged deeper in embarrassment than ever.
+
+Meanwhile the Syracusans immediately began to sail freely along
+the harbour, and determined to close up its mouth, so that the
+Athenians might not be able to steal out in future, even if they
+wished.  Indeed, the Syracusans no longer thought only of saving
+themselves, but also how to hinder the escape of the enemy;
+thinking, and thinking rightly, that they were now much the
+stronger, and that to conquer the Athenians and their allies by land
+and sea would win them great glory in Hellas.  The rest of the Hellenes
+would thus immediately be either freed or released from
+apprehension, as the remaining forces of Athens would be henceforth
+unable to sustain the war that would be waged against her; while they,
+the Syracusans, would be regarded as the authors of this
+deliverance, and would be held in high admiration, not only with all
+men now living but also with posterity.  Nor were these the only
+considerations that gave dignity to the struggle.  They would thus
+conquer not only the Athenians but also their numerous allies, and
+conquer not alone, but with their companions in arms, commanding
+side by side with the Corinthians and Lacedaemonians, having offered
+their city to stand in the van of danger, and having been in a great
+measure the pioneers of naval success.
+
+Indeed, there were never so many peoples assembled before a single
+city, if we except the grand total gathered together in this war under
+Athens and Lacedaemon.  The following were the states on either side
+who came to Syracuse to fight for or against Sicily, to help to
+conquer or defend the island.  Right or community of blood was not
+the bond of union between them, so much as interest or compulsion as
+the case might be.  The Athenians themselves being Ionians went against
+the Dorians of Syracuse of their own free will; and the peoples
+still speaking Attic and using the Athenian laws, the Lemnians,
+Imbrians, and Aeginetans, that is to say the then occupants of Aegina,
+being their colonists, went with them.  To these must be also added the
+Hestiaeans dwelling at Hestiaea in Euboea.  Of the rest some joined
+in the expedition as subjects of the Athenians, others as
+independent allies, others as mercenaries.  To the number of the
+subjects paying tribute belonged the Eretrians, Chalcidians, Styrians,
+and Carystians from Euboea; the Ceans, Andrians, and Tenians from
+the islands; and the Milesians, Samians, and Chians from Ionia.  The
+Chians, however, joined as independent allies, paying no tribute,
+but furnishing ships.  Most of these were Ionians and descended from
+the Athenians, except the Carystians, who are Dryopes, and although
+subjects and obliged to serve, were still Ionians fighting against
+Dorians.  Besides these there were men of Aeolic race, the Methymnians,
+subjects who provided ships, not tribute, and the Tenedians and
+Aenians who paid tribute.  These Aeolians fought against their
+Aeolian founders, the Boeotians in the Syracusan army, because they
+were obliged, while the Plataeans, the only native Boeotians opposed
+to Boeotians, did so upon a just quarrel.  Of the Rhodians and
+Cytherians, both Dorians, the latter, Lacedaemonian colonists,
+fought in the Athenian ranks against their Lacedaemonian countrymen
+with Gylippus; while the Rhodians, Argives by race, were compelled
+to bear arms against the Dorian Syracusans and their own colonists,
+the Geloans, serving with the Syracusans.  Of the islanders round
+Peloponnese, the Cephallenians and Zacynthians accompanied the
+Athenians as independent allies, although their insular position
+really left them little choice in the matter, owing to the maritime
+supremacy of Athens, while the Corcyraeans, who were not only
+Dorians but Corinthians, were openly serving against Corinthians and
+Syracusans, although colonists of the former and of the same race as
+the latter, under colour of compulsion, but really out of free will
+through hatred of Corinth.  The Messenians, as they are now called in
+Naupactus and from Pylos, then held by the Athenians, were taken
+with them to the war.  There were also a few Megarian exiles, whose
+fate it was to be now fighting against the Megarian Selinuntines.
+
+The engagement of the rest was more of a voluntary nature.  It was
+less the league than hatred of the Lacedaemonians and the immediate
+private advantage of each individual that persuaded the Dorian Argives
+to join the Ionian Athenians in a war against Dorians; while the
+Mantineans and other Arcadian mercenaries, accustomed to go against
+the enemy pointed out to them at the moment, were led by interest to
+regard the Arcadians serving with the Corinthians as just as much
+their enemies as any others.  The Cretans and Aetolians also served for
+hire, and the Cretans who had joined the Rhodians in founding Gela,
+thus came to consent to fight for pay against, instead of for, their
+colonists.  There were also some Acarnanians paid to serve, although
+they came chiefly for love of Demosthenes and out of goodwill to the
+Athenians whose allies they were.  These all lived on the Hellenic side
+of the Ionian Gulf.  Of the Italiots, there were the Thurians and
+Metapontines, dragged into the quarrel by the stern necessities of a
+time of revolution; of the Siceliots, the Naxians and the Catanians;
+and of the barbarians, the Egestaeans, who called in the Athenians,
+most of the Sicels, and outside Sicily some Tyrrhenian enemies of
+Syracuse and Iapygian mercenaries.
+
+Such were the peoples serving with the Athenians.  Against these
+the Syracusans had the Camarinaeans their neighbours, the Geloans
+who live next to them; then passing over the neutral Agrigentines, the
+Selinuntines settled on the farther side of the island.  These
+inhabit the part of Sicily looking towards Libya; the Himeraeans
+came from the side towards the Tyrrhenian Sea, being the only Hellenic
+inhabitants in that quarter, and the only people that came from thence
+to the aid of the Syracusans.  Of the Hellenes in Sicily the above
+peoples joined in the war, all Dorians and independent, and of the
+barbarians the Sicels only, that is to say, such as did not go over to
+the Athenians.  Of the Hellenes outside Sicily there were the
+Lacedaemonians, who provided a Spartan to take the command, and a
+force of Neodamodes or Freedmen, and of Helots; the Corinthians, who
+alone joined with naval and land forces, with their Leucadian and
+Ambraciot kinsmen; some mercenaries sent by Corinth from Arcadia; some
+Sicyonians forced to serve, and from outside Peloponnese the
+Boeotians.  In comparison, however, with these foreign auxiliaries, the
+great Siceliot cities furnished more in every department--numbers of
+heavy infantry, ships, and horses, and an immense multitude besides
+having been brought together; while in comparison, again, one may say,
+with all the rest put together, more was provided by the Syracusans
+themselves, both from the greatness of the city and from the fact that
+they were in the greatest danger.
+
+Such were the auxiliaries brought together on either side, all of
+which had by this time joined, neither party experiencing any
+subsequent accession.  It was no wonder, therefore, if the Syracusans
+and their allies thought that it would win them great glory if they
+could follow up their recent victory in the sea-fight by the capture
+of the whole Athenian armada, without letting it escape either by
+sea or by land.  They began at once to close up the Great Harbour by
+means of boats, merchant vessels, and galleys moored broadside
+across its mouth, which is nearly a mile wide, and made all their
+other arrangements for the event of the Athenians again venturing to
+fight at sea.  There was, in fact, nothing little either in their plans
+or their ideas.
+
+The Athenians, seeing them closing up the harbour and informed of
+their further designs, called a council of war.  The generals and
+colonels assembled and discussed the difficulties of the situation;
+the point which pressed most being that they no longer had
+provisions for immediate use (having sent on to Catana to tell them
+not to send any, in the belief that they were going away), and that
+they would not have any in future unless they could command the sea.
+They therefore determined to evacuate their upper lines, to enclose
+with a cross wall and garrison a small space close to the ships,
+only just sufficient to hold their stores and sick, and manning all
+the ships, seaworthy or not, with every man that could be spared
+from the rest of their land forces, to fight it out at sea, and, if
+victorious, to go to Catana, if not, to burn their vessels, form in
+close order, and retreat by land for the nearest friendly place they
+could reach, Hellenic or barbarian.  This was no sooner settled than
+carried into effect; they descended gradually from the upper lines and
+manned all their vessels, compelling all to go on board who were of
+age to be in any way of use.  They thus succeeded in manning about
+one hundred and ten ships in all, on board of which they embarked a
+number of archers and darters taken from the Acarnanians and from
+the other foreigners, making all other provisions allowed by the
+nature of their plan and by the necessities which imposed it.  All
+was now nearly ready, and Nicias, seeing the soldiery disheartened
+by their unprecedented and decided defeat at sea, and by reason of the
+scarcity of provisions eager to fight it out as soon as possible,
+called them all together, and first addressed them, speaking as
+follows:
+
+"Soldiers of the Athenians and of the allies, we have all an equal
+interest in the coming struggle, in which life and country are at
+stake for us quite as much as they can be for the enemy; since if
+our fleet wins the day, each can see his native city again, wherever
+that city may be.  You must not lose heart, or be like men without
+any experience, who fail in a first essay and ever afterwards
+fearfully forebode a future as disastrous.  But let the Athenians among
+you who have already had experience of many wars, and the allies who
+have joined us in so many expeditions, remember the surprises of
+war, and with the hope that fortune will not be always against us,
+prepare to fight again in a manner worthy of the number which you
+see yourselves to be.
+
+"Now, whatever we thought would be of service against the crush of
+vessels in such a narrow harbour, and against the force upon the decks
+of the enemy, from which we suffered before, has all been considered
+with the helmsmen, and, as far as our means allowed, provided.  A
+number of archers and darters will go on board, and a multitude that
+we should not have employed in an action in the open sea, where our
+science would be crippled by the weight of the vessels; but in the
+present land-fight that we are forced to make from shipboard all
+this will be useful.  We have also discovered the changes in
+construction that we must make to meet theirs; and against the
+thickness of their cheeks, which did us the greatest mischief, we have
+provided grappling-irons, which will prevent an assailant backing
+water after charging, if the soldiers on deck here do their duty;
+since we are absolutely compelled to fight a land battle from the
+fleet, and it seems to be our interest neither to back water
+ourselves, nor to let the enemy do so, especially as the shore, except
+so much of it as may be held by our troops, is hostile ground.
+
+"You must remember this and fight on as long as you can, and must
+not let yourselves be driven ashore, but once alongside must make up
+your minds not to part company until you have swept the heavy infantry
+from the enemy's deck.  I say this more for the heavy infantry than for
+the seamen, as it is more the business of the men on deck; and our
+land forces are even now on the whole the strongest.  The sailors I
+advise, and at the same time implore, not to be too much daunted by
+their misfortunes, now that we have our decks better armed and greater
+number of vessels.  Bear in mind how well worth preserving is the
+pleasure felt by those of you who through your knowledge of our
+language and imitation of our manners were always considered
+Athenians, even though not so in reality, and as such were honoured
+throughout Hellas, and had your full share of the advantages of our
+empire, and more than your share in the respect of our subjects and in
+protection from ill treatment.  You, therefore, with whom alone we
+freely share our empire, we now justly require not to betray that
+empire in its extremity, and in scorn of Corinthians, whom you have
+often conquered, and of Siceliots, none of whom so much as presumed to
+stand against us when our navy was in its prime, we ask you to repel
+them, and to show that even in sickness and disaster your skill is
+more than a match for the fortune and vigour of any other.
+
+"For the Athenians among you I add once more this reflection: You
+left behind you no more such ships in your docks as these, no more
+heavy infantry in their flower; if you do aught but conquer, our
+enemies here will immediately sail thither, and those that are left of
+us at Athens will become unable to repel their home assailants,
+reinforced by these new allies.  Here you will fall at once into the
+hands of the Syracusans--I need not remind you of the intentions with
+which you attacked them--and your countrymen at home will fall into
+those of the Lacedaemonians.  Since the fate of both thus hangs upon
+this single battle, now, if ever, stand firm, and remember, each and
+all, that you who are now going on board are the army and navy of
+the Athenians, and all that is left of the state and the great name of
+Athens, in whose defence if any man has any advantage in skill or
+courage, now is the time for him to show it, and thus serve himself
+and save all."
+
+After this address Nicias at once gave orders to man the ships.
+Meanwhile Gylippus and the Syracusans could perceive by the
+preparations which they saw going on that the Athenians meant to fight
+at sea.  They had also notice of the grappling-irons, against which
+they specially provided by stretching hides over the prows and much of
+the upper part of their vessels, in order that the irons when thrown
+might slip off without taking hold.  All being now ready, the
+generals and Gylippus addressed them in the following terms:
+
+"Syracusans and allies, the glorious character of our past
+achievements and the no less glorious results at issue in the coming
+battle are, we think, understood by most of you, or you would never
+have thrown yourselves with such ardour into the struggle; and if
+there be any one not as fully aware of the facts as he ought to be, we
+will declare them to him.  The Athenians came to this country first
+to effect the conquest of Sicily, and after that, if successful, of
+Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas, possessing already the greatest
+empire yet known, of present or former times, among the Hellenes.  Here
+for the first time they found in you men who faced their navy which
+made them masters everywhere; you have already defeated them in the
+previous sea-fights, and will in all likelihood defeat them again now.
+When men are once checked in what they consider their special
+excellence, their whole opinion of themselves suffers more than if
+they had not at first believed in their superiority, the unexpected
+shock to their pride causing them to give way more than their real
+strength warrants; and this is probably now the case with the
+Athenians.
+
+"With us it is different.  The original estimate of ourselves which
+gave us courage in the days of our unskilfulness has been
+strengthened, while the conviction superadded to it that we must be
+the best seamen of the time, if we have conquered the best, has
+given a double measure of hope to every man among us; and, for the
+most part, where there is the greatest hope, there is also the
+greatest ardour for action.  The means to combat us which they have
+tried to find in copying our armament are familiar to our warfare, and
+will be met by proper provisions; while they will never be able to
+have a number of heavy infantry on their decks, contrary to their
+custom, and a number of darters (born landsmen, one may say,
+Acarnanians and others, embarked afloat, who will not know how to
+discharge their weapons when they have to keep still), without
+hampering their vessels and falling all into confusion among
+themselves through fighting not according to their own tactics.  For
+they will gain nothing by the number of their ships--I say this to
+those of you who may be alarmed by having to fight against odds--as a
+quantity of ships in a confined space will only be slower in executing
+the movements required, and most exposed to injury from our means of
+offence.  Indeed, if you would know the plain truth, as we are credibly
+informed, the excess of their sufferings and the necessities of
+their present distress have made them desperate; they have no
+confidence in their force, but wish to try their fortune in the only
+way they can, and either to force their passage and sail out, or after
+this to retreat by land, it being impossible for them to be worse
+off than they are.
+
+"The fortune of our greatest enemies having thus betrayed itself,
+and their disorder being what I have described, let us engage in
+anger, convinced that, as between adversaries, nothing is more
+legitimate than to claim to sate the whole wrath of one's soul in
+punishing the aggressor, and nothing more sweet, as the proverb has
+it, than the vengeance upon an enemy, which it will now be ours to
+take.  That enemies they are and mortal enemies you all know, since
+they came here to enslave our country, and if successful had in
+reserve for our men all that is most dreadful, and for our children
+and wives all that is most dishonourable, and for the whole city the
+name which conveys the greatest reproach.  None should therefore relent
+or think it gain if they go away without further danger to us.  This
+they will do just the same, even if they get the victory; while if
+we succeed, as we may expect, in chastising them, and in handing
+down to all Sicily her ancient freedom strengthened and confirmed,
+we shall have achieved no mean triumph.  And the rarest dangers are
+those in which failure brings little loss and success the greatest
+advantage."
+
+After the above address to the soldiers on their side, the Syracusan
+generals and Gylippus now perceived that the Athenians were manning
+their ships, and immediately proceeded to man their own also.
+Meanwhile Nicias, appalled by the position of affairs, realizing the
+greatness and the nearness of the danger now that they were on the
+point of putting out from shore, and thinking, as men are apt to think
+in great crises, that when all has been done they have still something
+left to do, and when all has been said that they have not yet said
+enough, again called on the captains one by one, addressing each by
+his father's name and by his own, and by that of his tribe, and
+adjured them not to belie their own personal renown, or to obscure the
+hereditary virtues for which their ancestors were illustrious: he
+reminded them of their country, the freest of the free, and of the
+unfettered discretion allowed in it to all to live as they pleased;
+and added other arguments such as men would use at such a crisis,
+and which, with little alteration, are made to serve on all
+occasions alike--appeals to wives, children, and national
+gods--without caring whether they are thought commonplace, but loudly
+invoking them in the belief that they will be of use in the
+consternation of the moment.  Having thus admonished them, not, he
+felt, as he would, but as he could, Nicias withdrew and led the troops
+to the sea, and ranged them in as long a line as he was able, in order
+to aid as far as possible in sustaining the courage of the men afloat;
+while Demosthenes, Menander, and Euthydemus, who took the command on
+board, put out from their own camp and sailed straight to the
+barrier across the mouth of the harbour and to the passage left
+open, to try to force their way out.
+
+The Syracusans and their allies had already put out with about the
+same number of ships as before, a part of which kept guard at the
+outlet, and the remainder all round the rest of the harbour, in
+order to attack the Athenians on all sides at once; while the land
+forces held themselves in readiness at the points at which the vessels
+might put into the shore.  The Syracusan fleet was commanded by Sicanus
+and Agatharchus, who had each a wing of the whole force, with Pythen
+and the Corinthians in the centre.  When the rest of the Athenians came
+up to the barrier, with the first shock of their charge they
+overpowered the ships stationed there, and tried to undo the
+fastenings; after this, as the Syracusans and allies bore down upon
+them from all quarters, the action spread from the barrier over the
+whole harbour, and was more obstinately disputed than any of the
+preceding ones.  On either side the rowers showed great zeal in
+bringing up their vessels at the boatswains' orders, and the
+helmsmen great skill in manoeuvring, and great emulation one with
+another; while the ships once alongside, the soldiers on board did
+their best not to let the service on deck be outdone by the others; in
+short, every man strove to prove himself the first in his particular
+department.  And as many ships were engaged in a small compass (for
+these were the largest fleets fighting in the narrowest space ever
+known, being together little short of two hundred), the regular
+attacks with the beak were few, there being no opportunity of
+backing water or of breaking the line; while the collisions caused
+by one ship chancing to run foul of another, either in flying from
+or attacking a third, were more frequent.  So long as a vessel was
+coming up to the charge the men on the decks rained darts and arrows
+and stones upon her; but once alongside, the heavy infantry tried to
+board each other's vessel, fighting hand to hand.  In many quarters
+it happened, by reason of the narrow room, that a vessel was
+charging an enemy on one side and being charged herself on another,
+and that two or sometimes more ships had perforce got entangled
+round one, obliging the helmsmen to attend to defence here, offence
+there, not to one thing at once, but to many on all sides; while the
+huge din caused by the number of ships crashing together not only
+spread terror, but made the orders of the boatswains inaudible.  The
+boatswains on either side in the discharge of their duty and in the
+heat of the conflict shouted incessantly orders and appeals to their
+men; the Athenians they urged to force the passage out, and now if
+ever to show their mettle and lay hold of a safe return to their
+country; to the Syracusans and their allies they cried that it would
+be glorious to prevent the escape of the enemy, and, conquering, to
+exalt the countries that were theirs.  The generals, moreover, on
+either side, if they saw any in any part of the battle backing
+ashore without being forced to do so, called out to the captain by
+name and asked him--the Athenians, whether they were retreating
+because they thought the thrice hostile shore more their own than
+that sea which had cost them so much labour to win; the Syracusans,
+whether they were flying from the flying Athenians, whom they well
+knew to be eager to escape in whatever way they could.
+
+Meanwhile the two armies on shore, while victory hung in the
+balance, were a prey to the most agonizing and conflicting emotions;
+the natives thirsting for more glory than they had already won,
+while the invaders feared to find themselves in even worse plight than
+before.  The all of the Athenians being set upon their fleet, their
+fear for the event was like nothing they had ever felt; while their
+view of the struggle was necessarily as chequered as the battle
+itself.  Close to the scene of action and not all looking at the same
+point at once, some saw their friends victorious and took courage
+and fell to calling upon heaven not to deprive them of salvation,
+while others who had their eyes turned upon the losers, wailed and
+cried aloud, and, although spectators, were more overcome than the
+actual combatants.  Others, again, were gazing at some spot where the
+battle was evenly disputed; as the strife was protracted without
+decision, their swaying bodies reflected the agitation of their minds,
+and they suffered the worst agony of all, ever just within reach of
+safety or just on the point of destruction.  In short, in that one
+Athenian army as long as the sea-fight remained doubtful there was
+every sound to be heard at once, shrieks, cheers, "We win," "We lose,"
+and all the other manifold exclamations that a great host would
+necessarily utter in great peril; and with the men in the fleet it was
+nearly the same; until at last the Syracusans and their allies,
+after the battle had lasted a long while, put the Athenians to flight,
+and with much shouting and cheering chased them in open rout to the
+shore.  The naval force, one one way, one another, as many as were
+not taken afloat now ran ashore and rushed from on board their ships
+to their camp; while the army, no more divided, but carried away by
+one impulse, all with shrieks and groans deplored the event, and ran
+down, some to help the ships, others to guard what was left of their
+wall, while the remaining and most numerous part already began to
+consider how they should save themselves.  Indeed, the panic of the
+present moment had never been surpassed.  They now suffered very nearly
+what they had inflicted at Pylos; as then the Lacedaemonians with
+the loss of their fleet lost also the men who had crossed over to
+the island, so now the Athenians had no hope of escaping by land,
+without the help of some extraordinary accident.
+
+The sea-fight having been a severe one, and many ships and lives
+having been lost on both sides, the victorious Syracusans and their
+allies now picked up their wrecks and dead, and sailed off to the city
+and set up a trophy.  The Athenians, overwhelmed by their misfortune,
+never even thought of asking leave to take up their dead or wrecks,
+but wished to retreat that very night.  Demosthenes, however, went to
+Nicias and gave it as his opinion that they should man the ships
+they had left and make another effort to force their passage out
+next morning; saying that they had still left more ships fit for
+service than the enemy, the Athenians having about sixty remaining
+as against less than fifty of their opponents.  Nicias was quite of his
+mind; but when they wished to man the vessels, the sailors refused
+to go on board, being so utterly overcome by their defeat as no longer
+to believe in the possibility of success.
+
+Accordingly they all now made up their minds to retreat by land.
+Meanwhile the Syracusan Hermocrates--suspecting their intention, and
+impressed by the danger of allowing a force of that magnitude to
+retire by land, establish itself in some other part of Sicily, and
+from thence renew the war--went and stated his views to the
+authorities, and pointed out to them that they ought not to let the
+enemy get away by night, but that all the Syracusans and their
+allies should at once march out and block up the roads and seize and
+guard the passes.  The authorities were entirely of his opinion, and
+thought that it ought to be done, but on the other hand felt sure that
+the people, who had given themselves over to rejoicing, and were
+taking their ease after a great battle at sea, would not be easily
+brought to obey; besides, they were celebrating a festival, having
+on that day a sacrifice to Heracles, and most of them in their rapture
+at the victory had fallen to drinking at the festival, and would
+probably consent to anything sooner than to take up their arms and
+march out at that moment.  For these reasons the thing appeared
+impracticable to the magistrates; and Hermocrates, finding himself
+unable to do anything further with them, had now recourse to the
+following stratagem of his own.  What he feared was that the
+Athenians might quietly get the start of them by passing the most
+difficult places during the night; and he therefore sent, as soon as
+it was dusk, some friends of his own to the camp with some horsemen
+who rode up within earshot and called out to some of the men, as
+though they were well-wishers of the Athenians, and told them to
+tell Nicias (who had in fact some correspondents who informed him of
+what went on inside the town) not to lead off the army by night as the
+Syracusans were guarding the roads, but to make his preparations at
+his leisure and to retreat by day.  After saying this they departed;
+and their hearers informed the Athenian generals, who put off going
+for that night on the strength of this message, not doubting its
+sincerity.
+
+Since after all they had not set out at once, they now determined to
+stay also the following day to give time to the soldiers to pack up as
+well as they could the most useful articles, and, leaving everything
+else behind, to start only with what was strictly necessary for
+their personal subsistence.  Meanwhile the Syracusans and Gylippus
+marched out and blocked up the roads through the country by which
+the Athenians were likely to pass, and kept guard at the fords of
+the streams and rivers, posting themselves so as to receive them and
+stop the army where they thought best; while their fleet sailed up
+to the beach and towed off the ships of the Athenians.  Some few were
+burned by the Athenians themselves as they had intended; the rest
+the Syracusans lashed on to their own at their leisure as they had
+been thrown up on shore, without any one trying to stop them, and
+conveyed to the town.
+
+After this, Nicias and Demosthenes now thinking that enough had been
+done in the way of preparation, the removal of the army took place
+upon the second day after the sea-fight.  It was a lamentable scene,
+not merely from the single circumstance that they were retreating
+after having lost all their ships, their great hopes gone, and
+themselves and the state in peril; but also in leaving the camp
+there were things most grievous for every eye and heart to
+contemplate.  The dead lay unburied, and each man as he recognized a
+friend among them shuddered with grief and horror; while the living
+whom they were leaving behind, wounded or sick, were to the living far
+more shocking than the dead, and more to be pitied than those who
+had perished.  These fell to entreating and bewailing until their
+friends knew not what to do, begging them to take them and loudly
+calling to each individual comrade or relative whom they could see,
+hanging upon the necks of their tent-fellows in the act of
+departure, and following as far as they could, and, when their
+bodily strength failed them, calling again and again upon heaven and
+shrieking aloud as they were left behind.  So that the whole army being
+filled with tears and distracted after this fashion found it not
+easy to go, even from an enemy's land, where they had already suffered
+evils too great for tears and in the unknown future before them feared
+to suffer more.  Dejection and self-condemnation were also rife among
+them.  Indeed they could only be compared to a starved-out town, and
+that no small one, escaping; the whole multitude upon the march
+being not less than forty thousand men.  All carried anything they
+could which might be of use, and the heavy infantry and troopers,
+contrary to their wont, while under arms carried their own victuals,
+in some cases for want of servants, in others through not trusting
+them; as they had long been deserting and now did so in greater
+numbers than ever.  Yet even thus they did not carry enough, as there
+was no longer food in the camp.  Moreover their disgrace generally, and
+the universality of their sufferings, however to a certain extent
+alleviated by being borne in company, were still felt at the moment
+a heavy burden, especially when they contrasted the splendour and
+glory of their setting out with the humiliation in which it had ended.
+For this was by far the greatest reverse that ever befell an
+Hellenic army.  They had come to enslave others, and were departing
+in fear of being enslaved themselves: they had sailed out with
+prayer and paeans, and now started to go back with omens directly
+contrary; travelling by land instead of by sea, and trusting not in
+their fleet but in their heavy infantry.  Nevertheless the greatness of
+the danger still impending made all this appear tolerable.
+
+Nicias seeing the army dejected and greatly altered, passed along
+the ranks and encouraged and comforted them as far as was possible
+under the circumstances, raising his voice still higher and higher
+as he went from one company to another in his earnestness, and in
+his anxiety that the benefit of his words might reach as many as
+possible:
+
+"Athenians and allies, even in our present position we must still
+hope on, since men have ere now been saved from worse straits than
+this; and you must not condemn yourselves too severely either
+because of your disasters or because of your present unmerited
+sufferings.  I myself who am not superior to any of you in
+strength--indeed you see how I am in my sickness--and who in the gifts
+of fortune am, I think, whether in private life or otherwise, the
+equal of any, am now exposed to the same danger as the meanest among
+you; and yet my life has been one of much devotion toward the gods,
+and of much justice and without offence toward men.  I have, therefore,
+still a strong hope for the future, and our misfortunes do not terrify
+me as much as they might.  Indeed we may hope that they will be
+lightened: our enemies have had good fortune enough; and if any of the
+gods was offended at our expedition, we have been already amply
+punished.  Others before us have attacked their neighbours and have
+done what men will do without suffering more than they could bear; and
+we may now justly expect to find the gods more kind, for we have
+become fitter objects for their pity than their jealousy.  And then
+look at yourselves, mark the numbers and efficiency of the heavy
+infantry marching in your ranks, and do not give way too much to
+despondency, but reflect that you are yourselves at once a city
+wherever you sit down, and that there is no other in Sicily that could
+easily resist your attack, or expel you when once established.  The
+safety and order of the march is for yourselves to look to; the one
+thought of each man being that the spot on which he may be forced to
+fight must be conquered and held as his country and stronghold.
+Meanwhile we shall hasten on our way night and day alike, as our
+provisions are scanty; and if we can reach some friendly place of
+the Sicels, whom fear of the Syracusans still keeps true to us, you
+may forthwith consider yourselves safe.  A message has been sent on
+to them with directions to meet us with supplies of food.  To sum up,
+be convinced, soldiers, that you must be brave, as there is no place
+near for your cowardice to take refuge in, and that if you now
+escape from the enemy, you may all see again what your hearts
+desire, while those of you who are Athenians will raise up again the
+great power of the state, fallen though it be.  Men make the city and
+not walls or ships without men in them."
+
+As he made this address, Nicias went along the ranks, and brought
+back to their place any of the troops that he saw straggling out of
+the line; while Demosthenes did as much for his part of the army,
+addressing them in words very similar.  The army marched in a hollow
+square, the division under Nicias leading, and that of Demosthenes
+following, the heavy infantry being outside and the baggage-carriers
+and the bulk of the army in the middle.  When they arrived at the
+ford of the river Anapus there they found drawn up a body of the
+Syracusans and allies, and routing these, made good their passage
+and pushed on, harassed by the charges of the Syracusan horse and by
+the missiles of their light troops.  On that day they advanced about
+four miles and a half, halting for the night upon a certain hill.  On
+the next they started early and got on about two miles further, and
+descended into a place in the plain and there encamped, in order to
+procure some eatables from the houses, as the place was inhabited, and
+to carry on with them water from thence, as for many furlongs in
+front, in the direction in which they were going, it was not
+plentiful.  The Syracusans meanwhile went on and fortified the pass
+in front, where there was a steep hill with a rocky ravine on each
+side of it, called the Acraean cliff.  The next day the Athenians
+advancing found themselves impeded by the missiles and charges of
+the horse and darters, both very numerous, of the Syracusans and
+allies; and after fighting for a long while, at length retired to
+the same camp, where they had no longer provisions as before, it being
+impossible to leave their position by reason of the cavalry.
+
+Early next morning they started afresh and forced their way to the
+hill, which had been fortified, where they found before them the
+enemy's infantry drawn up many shields deep to defend the
+fortification, the pass being narrow.  The Athenians assaulted the
+work, but were greeted by a storm of missiles from the hill, which
+told with the greater effect through its being a steep one, and unable
+to force the passage, retreated again and rested.  Meanwhile occurred
+some claps of thunder and rain, as often happens towards autumn, which
+still further disheartened the Athenians, who thought all these things
+to be omens of their approaching ruin.  While they were resting,
+Gylippus and the Syracusans sent a part of their army to throw up
+works in their rear on the way by which they had advanced; however,
+the Athenians immediately sent some of their men and prevented them;
+after which they retreated more towards the plain and halted for the
+night.  When they advanced the next day the Syracusans surrounded and
+attacked them on every side, and disabled many of them, falling back
+if the Athenians advanced and coming on if they retired, and in
+particular assaulting their rear, in the hope of routing them in
+detail, and thus striking a panic into the whole army.  For a long
+while the Athenians persevered in this fashion, but after advancing
+for four or five furlongs halted to rest in the plain, the
+Syracusans also withdrawing to their own camp.
+
+During the night Nicias and Demosthenes, seeing the wretched
+condition of their troops, now in want of every kind of necessary, and
+numbers of them disabled in the numerous attacks of the enemy,
+determined to light as many fires as possible, and to lead off the
+army, no longer by the same route as they had intended, but towards
+the sea in the opposite direction to that guarded by the Syracusans.
+The whole of this route was leading the army not to Catana but to
+the other side of Sicily, towards Camarina, Gela, and the other
+Hellenic and barbarian towns in that quarter.  They accordingly lit a
+number of fires and set out by night.  Now all armies, and the greatest
+most of all, are liable to fears and alarms, especially when they
+are marching by night through an enemy's country and with the enemy
+near; and the Athenians falling into one of these panics, the
+leading division, that of Nicias, kept together and got on a good
+way in front, while that of Demosthenes, comprising rather more than
+half the army, got separated and marched on in some disorder.  By
+morning, however, they reached the sea, and getting into the
+Helorine road, pushed on in order to reach the river Cacyparis, and to
+follow the stream up through the interior, where they hoped to be
+met by the Sicels whom they had sent for.  Arrived at the river, they
+found there also a Syracusan party engaged in barring the passage of
+the ford with a wall and a palisade, and forcing this guard, crossed
+the river and went on to another called the Erineus, according to
+the advice of their guides.
+
+Meanwhile, when day came and the Syracusans and allies found that
+the Athenians were gone, most of them accused Gylippus of having let
+them escape on purpose, and hastily pursuing by the road which they
+had no difficulty in finding that they had taken, overtook them
+about dinner-time.  They first came up with the troops under
+Demosthenes, who were behind and marching somewhat slowly and in
+disorder, owing to the night panic above referred to, and at once
+attacked and engaged them, the Syracusan horse surrounding them with
+more ease now that they were separated from the rest and hemming
+them in on one spot.  The division of Nicias was five or six miles on
+in front, as he led them more rapidly, thinking that under the
+circumstances their safety lay not in staying and fighting, unless
+obliged, but in retreating as fast as possible, and only fighting when
+forced to do so.  On the other hand, Demosthenes was, generally
+speaking, harassed more incessantly, as his post in the rear left
+him the first exposed to the attacks of the enemy; and now, finding
+that the Syracusans were in pursuit, he omitted to push on, in order
+to form his men for battle, and so lingered until he was surrounded by
+his pursuers and himself and the Athenians with him placed in the most
+distressing position, being huddled into an enclosure with a wall
+all round it, a road on this side and on that, and olive-trees in
+great number, where missiles were showered in upon them from every
+quarter.  This mode of attack the Syracusans had with good reason
+adopted in preference to fighting at close quarters, as to risk a
+struggle with desperate men was now more for the advantage of the
+Athenians than for their own; besides, their success had now become so
+certain that they began to spare themselves a little in order not to
+be cut off in the moment of victory, thinking too that, as it was,
+they would be able in this way to subdue and capture the enemy.
+
+In fact, after plying the Athenians and allies all day long from
+every side with missiles, they at length saw that they were worn out
+with their wounds and other sufferings; and Gylippus and the
+Syracusans and their allies made a proclamation, offering their
+liberty to any of the islanders who chose to come over to them; and
+some few cities went over.  Afterwards a capitulation was agreed upon
+for all the rest with Demosthenes, to lay down their arms on condition
+that no one was to be put to death either by violence or
+imprisonment or want of the necessaries of life.  Upon this they
+surrendered to the number of six thousand in all, laying down all
+the money in their possession, which filled the hollows of four
+shields, and were immediately conveyed by the Syracusans to the town.
+
+Meanwhile Nicias with his division arrived that day at the river
+Erineus, crossed over, and posted his army upon some high ground
+upon the other side.  The next day the Syracusans overtook him and told
+him that the troops under Demosthenes had surrendered, and invited him
+to follow their example.  Incredulous of the fact, Nicias asked for a
+truce to send a horseman to see, and upon the return of the
+messenger with the tidings that they had surrendered, sent a herald to
+Gylippus and the Syracusans, saying that he was ready to agree with
+them on behalf of the Athenians to repay whatever money the Syracusans
+had spent upon the war if they would let his army go; and offered
+until the money was paid to give Athenians as hostages, one for
+every talent.  The Syracusans and Gylippus rejected this proposition,
+and attacked this division as they had the other, standing all round
+and plying them with missiles until the evening.  Food and
+necessaries were as miserably wanting to the troops of Nicias as
+they had been to their comrades; nevertheless they watched for the
+quiet of the night to resume their march.  But as they were taking up
+their arms the Syracusans perceived it and raised their paean, upon
+which the Athenians, finding that they were discovered, laid them down
+again, except about three hundred men who forced their way through the
+guards and went on during the night as they were able.
+
+As soon as it was day Nicias put his army in motion, pressed, as
+before, by the Syracusans and their allies, pelted from every side
+by their missiles, and struck down by their javelins.  The Athenians
+pushed on for the Assinarus, impelled by the attacks made upon them
+from every side by a numerous cavalry and the swarm of other arms,
+fancying that they should breathe more freely if once across the
+river, and driven on also by their exhaustion and craving for water.
+Once there they rushed in, and all order was at an end, each man
+wanting to cross first, and the attacks of the enemy making it
+difficult to cross at all; forced to huddle together, they fell
+against and trod down one another, some dying immediately upon the
+javelins, others getting entangled together and stumbling over the
+articles of baggage, without being able to rise again.  Meanwhile the
+opposite bank, which was steep, was lined by the Syracusans, who
+showered missiles down upon the Athenians, most of them drinking
+greedily and heaped together in disorder in the hollow bed of the
+river.  The Peloponnesians also came down and butchered them,
+especially those in the water, which was thus immediately spoiled, but
+which they went on drinking just the same, mud and all, bloody as it
+was, most even fighting to have it.
+
+At last, when many dead now lay piled one upon another in the
+stream, and part of the army had been destroyed at the river, and
+the few that escaped from thence cut off by the cavalry, Nicias
+surrendered himself to Gylippus, whom he trusted more than he did
+the Syracusans, and told him and the Lacedaemonians to do what they
+liked with him, but to stop the slaughter of the soldiers.  Gylippus,
+after this, immediately gave orders to make prisoners; upon which
+the rest were brought together alive, except a large number secreted
+by the soldiery, and a party was sent in pursuit of the three
+hundred who had got through the guard during the night, and who were
+now taken with the rest.  The number of the enemy collected as public
+property was not considerable; but that secreted was very large, and
+all Sicily was filled with them, no convention having been made in
+their case as for those taken with Demosthenes.  Besides this, a
+large portion were killed outright, the carnage being very great,
+and not exceeded by any in this Sicilian war.  In the numerous other
+encounters upon the march, not a few also had fallen.  Nevertheless
+many escaped, some at the moment, others served as slaves, and then
+ran away subsequently.  These found refuge at Catana.
+
+The Syracusans and their allies now mustered and took up the
+spoils and as many prisoners as they could, and went back to the city.
+The rest of their Athenian and allied captives were deposited in the
+quarries, this seeming the safest way of keeping them; but Nicias
+and Demosthenes were butchered, against the will of Gylippus, who
+thought that it would be the crown of his triumph if he could take the
+enemy's generals to Lacedaemon.  One of them, as it happened,
+Demosthenes, was one of her greatest enemies, on account of the affair
+of the island and of Pylos; while the other, Nicias, was for the
+same reasons one of her greatest friends, owing to his exertions to
+procure the release of the prisoners by persuading the Athenians to
+make peace.  For these reasons the Lacedaemonians felt kindly towards
+him; and it was in this that Nicias himself mainly confided when he
+surrendered to Gylippus.  But some of the Syracusans who had been in
+correspondence with him were afraid, it was said, of his being put
+to the torture and troubling their success by his revelations; others,
+especially the Corinthians, of his escaping, as he was wealthy, by
+means of bribes, and living to do them further mischief; and these
+persuaded the allies and put him to death.  This or the like was the
+cause of the death of a man who, of all the Hellenes in my time, least
+deserved such a fate, seeing that the whole course of his life had
+been regulated with strict attention to virtue.
+
+The prisoners in the quarries were at first hardly treated by the
+Syracusans.  Crowded in a narrow hole, without any roof to cover
+them, the heat of the sun and the stifling closeness of the air
+tormented them during the day, and then the nights, which came on
+autumnal and chilly, made them ill by the violence of the change;
+besides, as they had to do everything in the same place for want of
+room, and the bodies of those who died of their wounds or from the
+variation in the temperature, or from similar causes, were left heaped
+together one upon another, intolerable stenches arose; while hunger
+and thirst never ceased to afflict them, each man during eight
+months having only half a pint of water and a pint of corn given him
+daily.  In short, no single suffering to be apprehended by men thrust
+into such a place was spared them.  For some seventy days they thus
+lived all together, after which all, except the Athenians and any
+Siceliots or Italiots who had joined in the expedition, were sold.  The
+total number of prisoners taken it would be difficult to state
+exactly, but it could not have been less than seven thousand.
+
+This was the greatest Hellenic achievement of any in thig war, or,
+in my opinion, in Hellenic history; at once most glorious to the
+victors, and most calamitous to the conquered.  They were beaten at all
+points and altogether; all that they suffered was great; they were
+destroyed, as the saying is, with a total destruction, their fleet,
+their army, everything was destroyed, and few out of many returned
+home.  Such were the events in Sicily.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VIII
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+_Nineteenth and Twentieth Years of the War - Revolt of Ionia -
+Intervention of Persia - The War in Ionia_
+
+When the news was brought to Athens, for a long while they
+disbelieved even the most respectable of the soldiers who had
+themselves escaped from the scene of action and clearly reported the
+matter, a destruction so complete not being thought credible.  When the
+conviction was forced upon them, they were angry with the orators
+who had joined in promoting the expedition, just as if they had not
+themselves voted it, and were enraged also with the reciters of
+oracles and soothsayers, and all other omen-mongers of the time who
+had encouraged them to hope that they should conquer Sicily.  Already
+distressed at all points and in all quarters, after what had now
+happened, they were seized by a fear and consternation quite without
+example.  It was grievous enough for the state and for every man in his
+proper person to lose so many heavy infantry, cavalry, and able-bodied
+troops, and to see none left to replace them; but when they saw, also,
+that they had not sufficient ships in their docks, or money in the
+treasury, or crews for the ships, they began to despair of
+salvation.  They thought that their enemies in Sicily would immediately
+sail with their fleet against Piraeus, inflamed by so signal a
+victory; while their adversaries at home, redoubling all their
+preparations, would vigorously attack them by sea and land at once,
+aided by their own revolted confederates.  Nevertheless, with such
+means as they had, it was determined to resist to the last, and to
+provide timber and money, and to equip a fleet as they best could,
+to take steps to secure their confederates and above all Euboea, to
+reform things in the city upon a more economical footing, and to elect
+a board of elders to advise upon the state of affairs as occasion
+should arise.  In short, as is the way of a democracy, in the panic
+of the moment they were ready to be as prudent as possible.
+
+These resolves were at once carried into effect.  Summer was now
+over.  The winter ensuing saw all Hellas stirring under the
+impression of the great Athenian disaster in Sicily.  Neutrals now felt
+that even if uninvited they ought no longer to stand aloof from the
+war, but should volunteer to march against the Athenians, who, as they
+severally reflected, would probably have come against them if the
+Sicilian campaign had succeeded.  Besides, they considered that the war
+would now be short, and that it would be creditable for them to take
+part in it.  Meanwhile the allies of the Lacedaemonians felt all more
+anxious than ever to see a speedy end to their heavy labours.  But
+above all, the subjects of the Athenians showed a readiness to
+revolt even beyond their ability, judging the circumstances with
+passion, and refusing even to hear of the Athenians being able to last
+out the coming summer.  Beyond all this, Lacedaemon was encouraged by
+the near prospect of being joined in great force in the spring by
+her allies in Sicily, lately forced by events to acquire their navy.
+With these reasons for confidence in every quarter, the Lacedaemonians
+now resolved to throw themselves without reserve into the war,
+considering that, once it was happily terminated, they would be
+finally delivered from such dangers as that which would have
+threatened them from Athens, if she had become mistress of Sicily, and
+that the overthrow of the Athenians would leave them in quiet
+enjoyment of the supremacy over all Hellas.
+
+Their king, Agis, accordingly set out at once during this winter
+with some troops from Decelea, and levied from the allies
+contributions for the fleet, and turning towards the Malian Gulf
+exacted a sum of money from the Oetaeans by carrying off most of their
+cattle in reprisal for their old hostility, and, in spite of the
+protests and opposition of the Thessalians, forced the Achaeans of
+Phthiotis and the other subjects of the Thessalians in those parts
+to give him money and hostages, and deposited the hostages at Corinth,
+and tried to bring their countrymen into the confederacy.  The
+Lacedaemonians now issued a requisition to the cities for building a
+hundred ships, fixing their own quota and that of the Boeotians at
+twenty-five each; that of the Phocians and Locrians together at
+fifteen; that of the Corinthians at fifteen; that of the Arcadians,
+Pellenians, and Sicyonians together at ten; and that of the Megarians,
+Troezenians, Epidaurians, and Hermionians together at ten also; and
+meanwhile made every other preparation for commencing hostilities by
+the spring.
+
+In the meantime the Athenians were not idle.  During this same
+winter, as they had determined, they contributed timber and pushed
+on their ship-building, and fortified Sunium to enable their
+corn-ships to round it in safety, and evacuated the fort in Laconia
+which they had built on their way to Sicily; while they also, for
+economy, cut down any other expenses that seemed unnecessary, and
+above all kept a careful look-out against the revolt of their
+confederates.
+
+While both parties were thus engaged, and were as intent upon
+preparing for the war as they had been at the outset, the Euboeans
+first of all sent envoys during this winter to Agis to treat of
+their revolting from Athens.  Agis accepted their proposals, and sent
+for Alcamenes, son of Sthenelaidas, and Melanthus from Lacedaemon,
+to take the command in Euboea.  These accordingly arrived with some
+three hundred Neodamodes, and Agis began to arrange for their crossing
+over.  But in the meanwhile arrived some Lesbians, who also wished to
+revolt; and these being supported by the Boeotians, Agis was persuaded
+to defer acting in the matter of Euboea, and made arrangements for the
+revolt of the Lesbians, giving them Alcamenes, who was to have
+sailed to Euboea, as governor, and himself promising them ten ships,
+and the Boeotians the same number.  All this was done without
+instructions from home, as Agis while at Decelea with the army that he
+commanded had power to send troops to whatever quarter he pleased, and
+to levy men and money.  During this period, one might say, the allies
+obeyed him much more than they did the Lacedaemonians in the city,
+as the force he had with him made him feared at once wherever he went.
+While Agis was engaged with the Lesbians, the Chians and
+Erythraeans, who were also ready to revolt, applied, not to him but at
+Lacedaemon; where they arrived accompanied by an ambassador from
+Tissaphernes, the commander of King Darius, son of Artaxerxes, in
+the maritime districts, who invited the Peloponnesians to come over,
+and promised to maintain their army.  The King had lately called upon
+him for the tribute from his government, for which he was in
+arrears, being unable to raise it from the Hellenic towns by reason of
+the Athenians; and he therefore calculated that by weakening the
+Athenians he should get the tribute better paid, and should also
+draw the Lacedaemonians into alliance with the King; and by this
+means, as the King had commanded him, take alive or dead Amorges,
+the bastard son of Pissuthnes, who was in rebellion on the coast of
+Caria.
+
+While the Chians and Tissaphernes thus joined to effect the same
+object, about the same time Calligeitus, son of Laophon, a Megarian,
+and Timagoras, son of Athenagoras, a Cyzicene, both of them exiles
+from their country and living at the court of Pharnabazus, son of
+Pharnaces, arrived at Lacedaemon upon a mission from Pharnabazus, to
+procure a fleet for the Hellespont; by means of which, if possible, he
+might himself effect the object of Tissaphernes' ambition and cause
+the cities in his government to revolt from the Athenians, and so
+get the tribute, and by his own agency obtain for the King the
+alliance of the Lacedaemonians.
+
+The emissaries of Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes treating apart, a
+keen competition now ensued at Lacedaemon as to whether a fleet and
+army should be sent first to Ionia and Chios, or to the Hellespont.
+The Lacedaemonians, however, decidedly favoured the Chians and
+Tissaphernes, who were seconded by Alcibiades, the family friend of
+Endius, one of the ephors for that year.  Indeed, this is how their
+house got its Laconic name, Alcibiades being the family name of
+Endius.  Nevertheless the Lacedaemonians first sent to Chios Phrynis,
+one of the Perioeci, to see whether they had as many ships as they
+said, and whether their city generally was as great as was reported;
+and upon his bringing word that they had been told the truth,
+immediately entered into alliance with the Chians and Erythraeans, and
+voted to send them forty ships, there being already, according to
+the statement of the Chians, not less than sixty in the island.  At
+first the Lacedaemonians meant to send ten of these forty
+themselves, with Melanchridas their admiral; but afterwards, an
+earthquake having occurred, they sent Chalcideus instead of
+Melanchridas, and instead of the ten ships equipped only five in
+Laconia.  And the winter ended, and with it ended also the nineteenth
+year of this war of which Thucydides is the historian.
+
+At the beginning of the next summer the Chians were urging that
+the fleet should be sent off, being afraid that the Athenians, from
+whom all these embassies were kept a secret, might find out what was
+going on, and the Lacedaemonians at once sent three Spartans to
+Corinth to haul the ships as quickly as possible across the Isthmus
+from the other sea to that on the side of Athens, and to order them
+all to sail to Chios, those which Agis was equipping for Lesbos not
+excepted.  The number of ships from the allied states was thirty-nine
+in all.
+
+Meanwhile Calligeitus and Timagoras did not join on behalf of Pharnabazus
+in the expedition to Chios or give the money--twenty-five talents--which
+they had brought with them to help in dispatching a force, but
+determined to sail afterwards with another force by themselves.
+Agis, on the other hand, seeing the Lacedaemonians bent upon
+going to Chios first, himself came in to their views; and
+the allies assembled at Corinth and held a council, in which
+they decided to sail first to Chios under the command of Chalcideus,
+who was equipping the five vessels in Laconia, then to Lesbos,
+under the command of Alcamenes, the same whom Agis had fixed
+upon, and lastly to go to the Hellespont, where the command was
+given to Clearchus, son of Ramphias.  Meanwhile they would take only
+half the ships across the Isthmus first, and let those sail off at
+once, in order that the Athenians might attend less to the departing
+squadron than to those to be taken across afterwards, as no care had
+been taken to keep this voyage secret through contempt of the
+impotence of the Athenians, who had as yet no fleet of any account
+upon the sea.  Agreeably to this determination, twenty-one vessels were
+at once conveyed across the Isthmus.
+
+They were now impatient to set sail, but the Corinthians were not
+willing to accompany them until they had celebrated the Isthmian
+festival, which fell at that time.  Upon this Agis proposed to them
+to save their scruples about breaking the Isthmian truce by taking the
+expedition upon himself.  The Corinthians not consenting to this, a
+delay ensued, during which the Athenians conceived suspicions of
+what was preparing at Chios, and sent Aristocrates, one of their
+generals, and charged them with the fact, and, upon the denial of
+the Chians, ordered them to send with them a contingent of ships, as
+faithful confederates.  Seven were sent accordingly.  The reason of
+the dispatch of the ships lay in the fact that the mass of the
+Chians were not privy to the negotiations, while the few who were in
+the secret did not wish to break with the multitude until they had
+something positive to lean upon, and no longer expected the
+Peloponnesians to arrive by reason of their delay.
+
+In the meantime the Isthmian games took place, and the Athenians,
+who had been also invited, went to attend them, and now seeing more
+clearly into the designs of the Chians, as soon as they returned to
+Athens took measures to prevent the fleet putting out from Cenchreae
+without their knowledge.  After the festival the Peloponnesians set
+sail with twenty-one ships for Chios, under the command of
+Alcamenes.  The Athenians first sailed against them with an equal
+number, drawing off towards the open sea.  The enemy, however,
+turning back before he had followed them far, the Athenians returned
+also, not trusting the seven Chian ships which formed part of their
+number, and afterwards manned thirty-seven vessels in all and chased
+him on his passage alongshore into Spiraeum, a desert Corinthian
+port on the edge of the Epidaurian frontier.  After losing one ship out
+at sea, the Peloponnesians got the rest together and brought them to
+anchor.  The Athenians now attacked not only from the sea with their
+fleet, but also disembarked upon the coast; and a melee ensued of
+the most confused and violent kind, in which the Athenians disabled
+most of the enemy's vessels and killed Alcamenes their commander,
+losing also a few of their own men.
+
+After this they separated, and the Athenians, detaching a sufficient
+number of ships to blockade those of the enemy, anchored with the rest
+at the islet adjacent, upon which they proceeded to encamp, and sent to
+Athens for reinforcements; the Peloponnesians having been joined on
+the day after the battle by the Corinthians, who came to help the
+ships, and by the other inhabitants in the vicinity not long
+afterwards.  These saw the difficulty of keeping guard in a desert
+place, and in their perplexity at first thought of burning the
+ships, but finally resolved to haul them up on shore and sit down
+and guard them with their land forces until a convenient opportunity
+for escaping should present itself.  Agis also, on being informed of
+the disaster, sent them a Spartan of the name of Thermon.  The
+Lacedaemonians first received the news of the fleet having put out
+from the Isthmus, Alcamenes having been ordered by the ephors to
+send off a horseman when this took place, and immediately resolved
+to dispatch their own five vessels under Chalcideus, and Alcibiades
+with him.  But while they were full of this resolution came the
+second news of the fleet having taken refuge in Spiraeum; and
+disheartened at their first step in the Ionian war proving a
+failure, they laid aside the idea of sending the ships from their
+own country, and even wished to recall some that had already sailed.
+
+Perceiving this, Alcibiades again persuaded Endius and the other
+ephors to persevere in the expedition, saying that the voyage would be
+made before the Chians heard of the fleet's misfortune, and that as
+soon as he set foot in Ionia, he should, by assuring them of the
+weakness of the Athenians and the zeal of Lacedaemon, have no
+difficulty in persuading the cities to revolt, as they would readily
+believe his testimony.  He also represented to Endius himself in
+private that it would be glorious for him to be the means of making
+Ionia revolt and the King become the ally of Lacedaemon, instead of
+that honour being left to Agis (Agis, it must be remembered, was the
+enemy of Alcibiades); and Endius and his colleagues thus persuaded, he
+put to sea with the five ships and the Lacedaemonian Chalcideus, and
+made all haste upon the voyage.
+
+About this time the sixteen Peloponnesian ships from Sicily, which
+had served through the war with Gylippus, were caught on their
+return off Leucadia and roughly handled by the twenty-seven Athenian
+vessels under Hippocles, son of Menippus, on the lookout for the ships
+from Sicily.  After losing one of their number, the rest escaped from
+the Athenians and sailed into Corinth.
+
+Meanwhile Chalcideus and Alcibiades seized all they met with on
+their voyage, to prevent news of their coming, and let them go at
+Corycus, the first point which they touched at in the continent.
+Here they were visited by some of their Chian correspondents and,
+being urged by them to sail up to the town without announcing their
+coming, arrived suddenly before Chios.  The many were amazed and
+confounded, while the few had so arranged that the council should be
+sitting at the time; and after speeches from Chalcideus and Alcibiades
+stating that many more ships were sailing up, but saying nothing of
+the fleet being blockaded in Spiraeum, the Chians revolted from the
+Athenians, and the Erythraeans immediately afterwards.  After this
+three vessels sailed over to Clazomenae, and made that city revolt
+also; and the Clazomenians immediately crossed over to the mainland
+and began to fortify Polichna, in order to retreat there, in case of
+necessity, from the island where they dwelt.
+
+While the revolted places were all engaged in fortifying and
+preparing for the war, news of Chios speedily reached Athens.  The
+Athenians thought the danger by which they were now menaced great
+and unmistakable, and that the rest of their allies would not
+consent to keep quiet after the secession of the greatest of their
+number.  In the consternation of the moment they at once took off the
+penalty attaching to whoever proposed or put to the vote a proposal
+for using the thousand talents which they had jealously avoided
+touching throughout the whole war, and voted to employ them to man a
+large number of ships, and to send off at once under Strombichides,
+son of Diotimus, the eight vessels, forming part of the blockading
+fleet at Spiraeum, which had left the blockade and had returned
+after pursuing and failing to overtake the vessels with Chalcideus.
+These were to be followed shortly afterwards by twelve more under
+Thrasycles, also taken from the blockade.  They also recalled the seven
+Chian vessels, forming part of their squadron blockading the fleet
+in Spiraeum, and giving the slaves on board their liberty, put the
+freemen in confinement, and speedily manned and sent out ten fresh
+ships to blockade the Peloponnesians in the place of all those that
+had departed, and decided to man thirty more.  Zeal was not wanting,
+and no effort was spared to send relief to Chios.
+
+In the meantime Strombichides with his eight ships arrived at Samos,
+and, taking one Samian vessel, sailed to Teos and required them to
+remain quiet.  Chalcideus also set sail with twenty-three ships for
+Teos from Chios, the land forces of the Clazomenians and Erythraeans
+moving alongshore to support him.  Informed of this in time,
+Strombichides put out from Teos before their arrival, and while out at
+sea, seeing the number of the ships from Chios, fled towards Samos,
+chased by the enemy.  The Teians at first would not receive the land
+forces, but upon the flight of the Athenians took them into the
+town.  There they waited for some time for Chalcideus to return from
+the pursuit, and as time went on without his appearing, began
+themselves to demolish the wall which the Athenians had built on the
+land side of the city of the Teians, being assisted by a few of the
+barbarians who had come up under the command of Stages, the lieutenant
+of Tissaphernes.
+
+Meanwhile Chalcideus and Alcibiades, after chasing Strombichides
+into Samos, armed the crews of the ships from Peloponnese and left
+them at Chios, and filling their places with substitutes from Chios
+and manning twenty others, sailed off to effect the revolt of Miletus.
+The wish of Alcibiades, who had friends among the leading men of the
+Milesians, was to bring over the town before the arrival of the
+ships from Peloponnese, and thus, by causing the revolt of as many
+cities as possible with the help of the Chian power and of Chalcideus,
+to secure the honour for the Chians and himself and Chalcideus, and,
+as he had promised, for Endius who had sent them out.  Not discovered
+until their voyage was nearly completed, they arrived a little
+before Strombichides and Thrasycles (who had just come with twelve
+ships from Athens, and had joined Strombichides in pursuing them), and
+occasioned the revolt of Miletus.  The Athenians sailing up close on
+their heels with nineteen ships found Miletus closed against them, and
+took up their station at the adjacent island of Lade.  The first
+alliance between the King and the Lacedaemonians was now concluded
+immediately upon the revolt of the Milesians, by Tissaphernes and
+Chalcideus, and was as follows:
+
+The Lacedaemonians and their allies made a treaty with the King
+and Tissaphernes upon the terms following:
+
+1.  Whatever country or cities the King has, or the King's
+ancestors had, shall be the king's: and whatever came in to the
+Athenians from these cities, either money or any other thing, the King
+and the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall jointly hinder the
+Athenians from receiving either money or any other thing.
+
+2.  The war with the Athenians shall be carried on jointly by the
+King and by the Lacedaemonians and their allies: and it shall not be
+lawful to make peace with the Athenians except both agree, the King on
+his side and the Lacedaemonians and their allies on theirs.
+
+3.  If any revolt from the King, they shall be the enemies of the
+Lacedaemonians and their allies.  And if any revolt from the
+Lacedaemonians and their allies, they shall be the enemies of the King
+in like manner.
+
+This was the alliance.  After this the Chians immediately manned
+ten more vessels and sailed for Anaia, in order to gain intelligence
+of those in Miletus, and also to make the cities revolt.  A message,
+however, reaching them from Chalcideus to tell them to go back
+again, and that Amorges was at hand with an army by land, they
+sailed to the temple of Zeus, and there sighting ten more ships
+sailing up with which Diomedon had started from Athens after
+Thrasycles, fled, one ship to Ephesus, the rest to Teos.  The Athenians
+took four of their ships empty, the men finding time to escape ashore;
+the rest took refuge in the city of the Teians; after which the
+Athenians sailed off to Samos, while the Chians put to sea with
+their remaining vessels, accompanied by the land forces, and caused
+Lebedos to revolt, and after it Erae.  After this they both returned
+home, the fleet and the army.
+
+About the same time the twenty ships of the Peloponnesians in
+Spiraeum, which we left chased to land and blockaded by an equal
+number of Athenians, suddenly sallied out and defeated the
+blockading squadron, took four of their ships, and, sailing back to
+Cenchreae, prepared again for the voyage to Chios and Ionia.  Here they
+were joined by Astyochus as high admiral from Lacedaemon, henceforth
+invested with the supreme command at sea.  The land forces now
+withdrawing from Teos, Tissaphernes repaired thither in person with an
+army and completed the demolition of anything that was left of the
+wall, and so departed.  Not long after his departure Diomedon arrived
+with ten Athenian ships, and, having made a convention by which the
+Teians admitted him as they had the enemy, coasted along to Erae, and,
+failing in an attempt upon the town, sailed back again.
+
+About this time took place the rising of the commons at Samos
+against the upper classes, in concert with some Athenians, who were
+there in three vessels.  The Samian commons put to death some two
+hundred in all of the upper classes, and banished four hundred more,
+and themselves took their land and houses; after which the Athenians
+decreed their independence, being now sure of their fidelity, and
+the commons henceforth governed the city, excluding the landholders
+from all share in affairs, and forbidding any of the commons to give
+his daughter in marriage to them or to take a wife from them in
+future.
+
+After this, during the same summer, the Chians, whose zeal continued
+as active as ever, and who even without the Peloponnesians found
+themselves in sufficient force to effect the revolt of the cities
+and also wished to have as many companions in peril as possible,
+made an expedition with thirteen ships of their own to Lesbos; the
+instructions from Lacedaemon being to go to that island next, and from
+thence to the Hellespont.  Meanwhile the land forces of the
+Peloponnesians who were with the Chians and of the allies on the spot,
+moved alongshore for Clazomenae and Cuma, under the command of Eualas,
+a Spartan; while the fleet under Diniadas, one of the Perioeci,
+first sailed up to Methymna and caused it to revolt, and, leaving four
+ships there, with the rest procured the revolt of Mitylene.
+
+In the meantime Astyochus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, set sail
+from Cenchreae with four ships, as he had intended, and arrived at
+Chios.  On the third day after his arrival, the Athenian ships,
+twenty-five in number, sailed to Lesbos under Diomedon and Leon, who
+had lately arrived with a reinforcement of ten ships from Athens.  Late
+in the same day Astyochus put to sea, and taking one Chian vessel with
+him sailed to Lesbos to render what assistance he could.  Arrived at
+Pyrrha, and from thence the next day at Eresus, he there learned
+that Mitylene had been taken, almost without a blow, by the Athenians,
+who had sailed up and unexpectedly put into the harbour, had beaten
+the Chian ships, and landing and defeating the troops opposed to
+them had become masters of the city.  Informed of this by the
+Eresians and the Chian ships, which had been left with Eubulus at
+Methymna, and had fled upon the capture of Mitylene, and three of
+which he now fell in with, one having been taken by the Athenians,
+Astyochus did not go on to Mitylene, but raised and armed Eresus, and,
+sending the heavy infantry from his own ships by land under
+Eteonicus to Antissa and Methymna, himself proceeded alongshore
+thither with the ships which he had with him and with the three
+Chians, in the hope that the Methymnians upon seeing them would be
+encouraged to persevere in their revolt.  As, however, everything
+went against him in Lesbos, he took up his own force and sailed back
+to Chios; the land forces on board, which were to have gone to the
+Hellespont, being also conveyed back to their different cities.
+After this six of the allied Peloponnesian ships at Cenchreae joined
+the forces at Chios.  The Athenians, after restoring matters to their
+old state in Lesbos, set sail from thence and took Polichna, the place
+that the Clazomenians were fortifying on the continent, and carried
+the inhabitants back to their town upon the island, except the authors
+of the revolt, who withdrew to Daphnus; and thus Clazomenae became
+once more Athenian.
+
+The same summer the Athenians in the twenty ships at Lade,
+blockading Miletus, made a descent at Panormus in the Milesian
+territory, and killed Chalcideus the Lacedaemonian commander, who
+had come with a few men against them, and the third day after sailed
+over and set up a trophy, which, as they were not masters of the
+country, was however pulled down by the Milesians.  Meanwhile Leon
+and Diomedon with the Athenian fleet from Lesbos issuing from the
+Oenussae, the isles off Chios, and from their forts of Sidussa and
+Pteleum in the Erythraeid, and from Lesbos, carried on the war against
+the Chians from the ships, having on board heavy infantry from the
+rolls pressed to serve as marines.  Landing in Cardamyle and in
+Bolissus they defeated with heavy loss the Chians that took the
+field against them and, laying desolate the places in that
+neighbourhood, defeated the Chians again in another battle at
+Phanae, and in a third at Leuconium.  After this the Chians ceased to
+meet them in the field, while the Athenians devastated the country,
+which was beautifully stocked and had remained uninjured ever since
+the Median wars.  Indeed, after the Lacedaemonians, the Chians are
+the only people that I have known who knew how to be wise in
+prosperity, and who ordered their city the more securely the greater
+it grew.  Nor was this revolt, in which they might seem to have erred
+on the side of rashness, ventured upon until they had numerous and
+gallant allies to share the danger with them, and until they perceived
+the Athenians after the Sicilian disaster themselves no longer denying
+the thoroughly desperate state of their affairs.  And if they were
+thrown out by one of the surprises which upset human calculations,
+they found out their mistake in company with many others who believed,
+like them, in the speedy collapse of the Athenian power.  While they
+were thus blockaded from the sea and plundered by land, some of the
+citizens undertook to bring the city over to the Athenians.  Apprised
+of this the authorities took no action themselves, but brought
+Astyochus, the admiral, from Erythrae, with four ships that he had
+with him, and considered how they could most quietly, either by taking
+hostages or by some other means, put an end to the conspiracy.
+
+While the Chians were thus engaged, a thousand Athenian heavy
+infantry and fifteen hundred Argives (five hundred of whom were
+light troops furnished with armour by the Athenians), and one thousand
+of the allies, towards the close of the same summer sailed from Athens
+in forty-eight ships, some of which were transports, under the command
+of Phrynichus, Onomacles, and Scironides, and putting into Samos
+crossed over and encamped at Miletus.  Upon this the Milesians came out
+to the number of eight hundred heavy infantry, with the Peloponnesians
+who had come with Chalcideus, and some foreign mercenaries of
+Tissaphernes, Tissaphernes himself and his cavalry, and engaged the
+Athenians and their allies.  While the Argives rushed forward on
+their own wing with the careless disdain of men advancing against
+Ionians who would never stand their charge, and were defeated by the
+Milesians with a loss little short of three hundred men, the Athenians
+first defeated the Peloponnesians, and driving before them the
+barbarians and the ruck of the army, without engaging the Milesians,
+who after the rout of the Argives retreated into the town upon
+seeing their comrades worsted, crowned their victory by grounding
+their arms under the very walls of Miletus.  Thus, in this battle,
+the Ionians on both sides overcame the Dorians, the Athenians
+defeating the Peloponnesians opposed to them, and the Milesians the
+Argives.  After setting up a trophy, the Athenians prepared to draw a
+wall round the place, which stood upon an isthmus; thinking that, if
+they could gain Miletus, the other towns also would easily come over
+to them.
+
+Meanwhile about dusk tidings reached them that the fifty-five
+ships from Peloponnese and Sicily might be instantly expected.  Of
+these the Siceliots, urged principally by the Syracusan Hermocrates to
+join in giving the finishing blow to the power of Athens, furnished
+twenty-two--twenty from Syracuse, and two from Silenus; and the
+ships that we left preparing in Peloponnese being now ready, both
+squadrons had been entrusted to Therimenes, a Lacedaemonian, to take
+to Astyochus, the admiral.  They now put in first at Leros the island
+off Miletus, and from thence, discovering that the Athenians were
+before the town, sailed into the Iasic Gulf, in order to learn how
+matters stood at Miletus.  Meanwhile Alcibiades came on horseback to
+Teichiussa in the Milesian territory, the point of the gulf at which
+they had put in for the night, and told them of the battle in which he
+had fought in person by the side of the Milesians and Tissaphernes,
+and advised them, if they did not wish to sacrifice Ionia and their
+cause, to fly to the relief of Miletus and hinder its investment.
+
+Accordingly they resolved to relieve it the next morning.
+Meanwhile Phrynichus, the Athenian commander, had received precise
+intelligence of the fleet from Leros, and when his colleagues
+expressed a wish to keep the sea and fight it out, flatly refused
+either to stay himself or to let them or any one else do so if he
+could help it.  Where they could hereafter contend, after full and
+undisturbed preparation, with an exact knowledge of the number of
+the enemy's fleet and of the force which they could oppose to him,
+he would never allow the reproach of disgrace to drive him into a risk
+that was unreasonable.  It was no disgrace for an Athenian fleet to
+retreat when it suited them: put it as they would, it would be more
+disgraceful to be beaten, and to expose the city not only to disgrace,
+but to the most serious danger.  After its late misfortunes it could
+hardly be justified in voluntarily taking the offensive even with
+the strongest force, except in a case of absolute necessity: much less
+then without compulsion could it rush upon peril of its own seeking.
+He told them to take up their wounded as quickly as they could and the
+troops and stores which they had brought with them, and leaving behind
+what they had taken from the enemy's country, in order to lighten
+the ships, to sail off to Samos, and there concentrating all their
+ships to attack as opportunity served.  As he spoke so he acted; and
+thus not now more than afterwards, nor in this alone but in all that
+he had to do with, did Phrynichus show himself a man of sense.  In this
+way that very evening the Athenians broke up from before Miletus,
+leaving their victory unfinished, and the Argives, mortified at
+their disaster, promptly sailed off home from Samos.
+
+As soon as it was morning the Peloponnesians weighed from Teichiussa
+and put into Miletus after the departure of the Athenians; they stayed
+one day, and on the next took with them the Chian vessels originally
+chased into port with Chalcideus, and resolved to sail back for the
+tackle which they had put on shore at Teichiussa.  Upon their arrival
+Tissaphernes came to them with his land forces and induced them to
+sail to Iasus, which was held by his enemy Amorges.  Accordingly they
+suddenly attacked and took Iasus, whose inhabitants never imagined
+that the ships could be other than Athenian.  The Syracusans
+distinguished themselves most in the action.  Amorges, a bastard of
+Pissuthnes and a rebel from the King, was taken alive and handed
+over to Tissaphernes, to carry to the King, if he chose, according
+to his orders: Iasus was sacked by the army, who found a very great
+booty there, the place being wealthy from ancient date.  The
+mercenaries serving with Amorges the Peloponnesians received and
+enrolled in their army without doing them any harm, since most of them
+came from Peloponnese, and handed over the town to Tissaphernes with
+all the captives, bond or free, at the stipulated price of one Doric
+stater a head; after which they returned to Miletus.  Pedaritus, son of
+Leon, who had been sent by the Lacedaemonians to take the command at
+Chios, they dispatched by land as far as Erythrae with the mercenaries
+taken from Amorges; appointing Philip to remain as governor of
+Miletus.
+
+Summer was now over.  The winter following, Tissaphernes put Iasus in
+a state of defence, and passing on to Miletus distributed a month's
+pay to all the ships as he had promised at Lacedaemon, at the rate
+of an Attic drachma a day for each man.  In future, however, he was
+resolved not to give more than three obols, until he had consulted the
+King; when if the King should so order he would give, he said, the
+full drachma.  However, upon the protest of the Syracusan general
+Hermocrates (for as Therimenes was not admiral, but only accompanied
+them in order to hand over the ships to Astyochus, he made little
+difficulty about the pay), it was agreed that the amount of five
+ships' pay should be given over and above the three obols a day for
+each man; Tissaphernes paying thirty talents a month for fifty-five
+ships, and to the rest, for as many ships as they had beyond that
+number, at the same rate.
+
+The same winter the Athenians in Samos, having been joined by
+thirty-five more vessels from home under Charminus, Strombichides, and
+Euctemon, called in their squadron at Chios and all the rest,
+intending to blockade Miletus with their navy, and to send a fleet and
+an army against Chios; drawing lots for the respective services.
+This intention they carried into effect; Strombichides, Onamacles, and
+Euctemon sailing against Chios, which fell to their lot, with thirty
+ships and a part of the thousand heavy infantry, who had been to
+Miletus, in transports; while the rest remained masters of the sea
+with seventy-four ships at Samos, and advanced upon Miletus.
+
+Meanwhile Astyochus, whom we left at Chios collecting the hostages
+required in consequence of the conspiracy, stopped upon learning
+that the fleet with Therimenes had arrived, and that the affairs of
+the league were in a more flourishing condition, and putting out to
+sea with ten Peloponnesian and as many Chian vessels, after a futile
+attack upon Pteleum, coasted on to Clazomenae, and ordered the
+Athenian party to remove inland to Daphnus, and to join the
+Peloponnesians, an order in which also joined Tamos the king's
+lieutenant in Ionia.  This order being disregarded, Astyochus made an
+attack upon the town, which was unwalled, and having failed to take it
+was himself carried off by a strong gale to Phocaea and Cuma, while
+the rest of the ships put in at the islands adjacent to
+Clazomenae--Marathussa, Pele, and Drymussa.  Here they were detained
+eight days by the winds, and, plundering and consuming all the
+property of the Clazomenians there deposited, put the rest on
+shipboard and sailed off to Phocaea and Cuma to join Astyochus.
+
+While he was there, envoys arrived from the Lesbians who wished to
+revolt again.  With Astyochus they were successful; but the Corinthians
+and the other allies being averse to it by reason of their former
+failure, he weighed anchor and set sail for Chios, where they
+eventually arrived from different quarters, the fleet having been
+scattered by a storm.  After this Pedaritus, whom we left marching
+along the coast from Miletus, arrived at Erythrae, and thence
+crossed over with his army to Chios, where he found also about five
+hundred soldiers who had been left there by Chalcideus from the five
+ships with their arms.  Meanwhile some Lesbians making offers to
+revolt, Astyochus urged upon Pedaritus and the Chians that they
+ought to go with their ships and effect the revolt of Lesbos, and so
+increase the number of their allies, or, if not successful, at all
+events harm the Athenians.  The Chians, however, turned a deaf ear to
+this, and Pedaritus flatly refused to give up to him the Chian
+vessels.
+
+Upon this Astyochus took five Corinthian and one Megarian vessel,
+with another from Hermione, and the ships which had come with him from
+Laconia, and set sail for Miletus to assume his command as admiral;
+after telling the Chians with many threats that he would certainly not
+come and help them if they should be in need.  At Corycus in the
+Erythraeid he brought to for the night; the Athenian armament
+sailing from Samos against Chios being only separated from him by a
+hill, upon the other side of which it brought to; so that neither
+perceived the other.  But a letter arriving in the night from Pedaritus
+to say that some liberated Erythraean prisoners had come from Samos to
+betray Erythrae, Astyochus at once put back to Erythrae, and so just
+escaped falling in with the Athenians.  Here Pedaritus sailed over to
+join him; and after inquiry into the pretended treachery, finding that
+the whole story had been made up to procure the escape of the men from
+Samos, they acquitted them of the charge, and sailed away, Pedaritus
+to Chios and Astyochus to Miletus as he had intended.
+
+Meanwhile the Athenian armament sailing round Corycus fell in with
+three Chian men-of-war off Arginus, and gave immediate chase.  A
+great storm coming on, the Chians with difficulty took refuge in the
+harbour; the three Athenian vessels most forward in the pursuit
+being wrecked and thrown up near the city of Chios, and the crews
+slain or taken prisoners.  The rest of the Athenian fleet took refuge
+in the harbour called Phoenicus, under Mount Mimas, and from thence
+afterwards put into Lesbos and prepared for the work of fortification.
+
+The same winter the Lacedaemonian Hippocrates sailed out from
+Peloponnese with ten Thurian ships under the command of Dorieus, son
+of Diagoras, and two colleagues, one Laconian and one Syracusan
+vessel, and arrived at Cnidus, which had already revolted at the
+instigation of Tissaphernes.  When their arrival was known at
+Miletus, orders came to them to leave half their squadron to guard
+Cnidus, and with the rest to cruise round Triopium and seize all the
+merchantmen arriving from Egypt.  Triopium is a promontory of Cnidus
+and sacred to Apollo.  This coming to the knowledge of the Athenians,
+they sailed from Samos and captured the six ships on the watch at
+Triopium, the crews escaping out of them.  After this the Athenians
+sailed into Cnidus and made an assault upon the town, which was
+unfortified, and all but took it; and the next day assaulted it again,
+but with less effect, as the inhabitants had improved their defences
+during the night, and had been reinforced by the crews escaped from
+the ships at Triopium.  The Athenians now withdrew, and after
+plundering the Cnidian territory sailed back to Samos.
+
+About the same time Astyochus came to the fleet at Miletus.  The
+Peloponnesian camp was still plentifully supplied, being in receipt of
+sufficient pay, and the soldiers having still in hand the large
+booty taken at Iasus.  The Milesians also showed great ardour for the
+war.  Nevertheless the Peloponnesians thought the first convention with
+Tissaphernes, made with Chalcideus, defective, and more advantageous
+to him than to them, and consequently while Therimenes was still there
+concluded another, which was as follows:
+
+The convention of the Lacedaemonians and the allies with King
+Darius and the sons of the King, and with Tissaphernes for a treaty
+and friendship, as follows:
+
+1.  Neither the Lacedaemonians nor the allies of the Lacedaemonians
+shall make war against or otherwise injure any country or cities
+that belong to King Darius or did belong to his father or to his
+ancestors; neither shall the Lacedaemonians nor the allies of the
+Lacedaemonians exact tribute from such cities.  Neither shall King
+Darius nor any of the subjects of the King make war against or
+otherwise injure the Lacedaemonians or their allies.
+
+2.  If the Lacedaemonians or their allies should require any
+assistance from the King, or the King from the Lacedaemonians or their
+allies, whatever they both agree upon they shall be right in doing.
+
+3.  Both shall carry on jointly the war against the Athenians and
+their allies: and if they make peace, both shall do so jointly.
+
+4.  The expense of all troops in the King's country, sent for by
+the King, shall be borne by the King.
+
+5.  If any of the states comprised in this convention with the King
+attack the King's country, the rest shall stop them and aid the King
+to the best of their power.  And if any in the King's country or in the
+countries under the King's rule attack the country of the
+Lacedaemonians or their allies, the King shall stop it and help them
+to the best of his power.
+
+After this convention Therimenes handed over the fleet to Astyochus,
+sailed off in a small boat, and was lost.  The Athenian armament had
+now crossed over from Lesbos to Chios, and being master by sea and
+land began to fortify Delphinium, a place naturally strong on the land
+side, provided with more than one harbour, and also not far from the
+city of Chios.  Meanwhile the Chians remained inactive.  Already
+defeated in so many battles, they were now also at discord among
+themselves; the execution of the party of Tydeus, son of Ion, by
+Pedaritus upon the charge of Atticism, followed by the forcible
+imposition of an oligarchy upon the rest of the city, having made them
+suspicious of one another; and they therefore thought neither
+themselves not the mercenaries under Pedaritus a match for the
+enemy.  They sent, however, to Miletus to beg Astyochus to assist them,
+which he refused to do, and was accordingly denounced at Lacedaemon by
+Pedaritus as a traitor.  Such was the state of the Athenian affairs
+at Chios; while their fleet at Samos kept sailing out against the
+enemy in Miletus, until they found that he would not accept their
+challenge, and then retired again to Samos and remained quiet.
+
+In the same winter the twenty-seven ships equipped by the
+Lacedaemonians for Pharnabazus through the agency of the Megarian
+Calligeitus, and the Cyzicene Timagoras, put out from Peloponnese
+and sailed for Ionia about the time of the solstice, under the command
+of Antisthenes, a Spartan.  With them the Lacedaemonians also sent
+eleven Spartans as advisers to Astyochus; Lichas, son of Arcesilaus,
+being among the number.  Arrived at Miletus, their orders were to aid
+in generally superintending the good conduct of the war; to send off
+the above ships or a greater or less number to the Hellespont to
+Pharnabazus, if they thought proper, appointing Clearchus, son of
+Ramphias, who sailed with them, to the command; and further, if they
+thought proper, to make Antisthenes admiral, dismissing Astyochus,
+whom the letters of Pedaritus had caused to be regarded with
+suspicion.  Sailing accordingly from Malea across the open sea, the
+squadron touched at Melos and there fell in with ten Athenian ships,
+three of which they took empty and burned.  After this, being afraid
+that the Athenian vessels escaped from Melos might, as they in fact
+did, give information of their approach to the Athenians at Samos,
+they sailed to Crete, and having lengthened their voyage by way of
+precaution made land at Caunus in Asia, from whence considering
+themselves in safety they sent a message to the fleet at Miletus for a
+convoy along the coast.
+
+Meanwhile the Chians and Pedaritus, undeterred by the backwardness
+of Astyochus, went on sending messengers pressing him to come with all
+the fleet to assist them against their besiegers, and not to leave the
+greatest of the allied states in Ionia to be shut up by sea and
+overrun and pillaged by land.  There were more slaves at Chios than
+in any one other city except Lacedaemon, and being also by reason of
+their numbers punished more rigorously when they offended, most of
+them, when they saw the Athenian armament firmly established in the
+island with a fortified position, immediately deserted to the enemy,
+and through their knowledge of the country did the greatest
+mischief.  The Chians therefore urged upon Astyochus that it was his
+duty to assist them, while there was still a hope and a possibility of
+stopping the enemy's progress, while Delphinium was still in process
+of fortification and unfinished, and before the completion of a higher
+rampart which was being added to protect the camp and fleet of their
+besiegers.  Astyochus now saw that the allies also wished it and
+prepared to go, in spite of his intention to the contrary owing to the
+threat already referred to.
+
+In the meantime news came from Caunus of the arrival of the
+twenty-seven ships with the Lacedaemonian commissioners; and
+Astyochus, postponing everything to the duty of convoying a fleet of
+that importance, in order to be more able to command the sea, and to
+the safe conduct of the Lacedaemonians sent as spies over his
+behaviour, at once gave up going to Chios and set sail for Caunus.
+As he coasted along he landed at the Meropid Cos and sacked the
+city, which was unfortified and had been lately laid in ruins by an
+earthquake, by far the greatest in living memory, and, as the
+inhabitants had fled to the mountains, overran the country and made
+booty of all it contained, letting go, however, the free men.  From Cos
+arriving in the night at Cnidus he was constrained by the
+representations of the Cnidians not to disembark the sailors, but to
+sail as he was straight against the twenty Athenian vessels, which
+with Charminus, one of the commanders at Samos, were on the watch
+for the very twenty-seven ships from Peloponnese which Astyochus was
+himself sailing to join; the Athenians in Samos having heard from
+Melos of their approach, and Charminus being on the look-out off Syme,
+Chalce, Rhodes, and Lycia, as he now heard that they were at Caunus.
+
+Astyochus accordingly sailed as he was to Syme, before he was
+heard of, in the hope of catching the enemy somewhere out at sea.
+Rain, however, and foggy weather encountered him, and caused his ships
+to straggle and get into disorder in the dark.  In the morning his
+fleet had parted company and was most of it still straggling round the
+island, and the left wing only in sight of Charminus and the
+Athenians, who took it for the squadron which they were watching for
+from Caunus, and hastily put out against it with part only of their
+twenty vessels, and attacking immediately sank three ships and
+disabled others, and had the advantage in the action until the main
+body of the fleet unexpectedly hove in sight, when they were
+surrounded on every side.  Upon this they took to flight, and after
+losing six ships with the rest escaped to Teutlussa or Beet Island,
+and from thence to Halicarnassus.  After this the Peloponnesians put
+into Cnidus and, being joined by the twenty-seven ships from Caunus,
+sailed all together and set up a trophy in Syme, and then returned
+to anchor at Cnidus.
+
+As soon as the Athenians knew of the sea-fight, they sailed with all
+the ships at Samos to Syme, and, without attacking or being attacked
+by the fleet at Cnidus, took the ships' tackle left at Syme, and
+touching at Lorymi on the mainland sailed back to Samos.  Meanwhile the
+Peloponnesian ships, being now all at Cnidus, underwent such repairs
+as were needed; while the eleven Lacedaemonian commissioners conferred
+with Tissaphernes, who had come to meet them, upon the points which
+did not satisfy them in the past transactions, and upon the best and
+mutually most advantageous manner of conducting the war in future.  The
+severest critic of the present proceedings was Lichas, who said that
+neither of the treaties could stand, neither that of Chalcideus, nor
+that of Therimenes; it being monstrous that the King should at this
+date pretend to the possession of all the country formerly ruled by
+himself or by his ancestors--a pretension which implicitly put back
+under the yoke all the islands--Thessaly, Locris, and everything as
+far as Boeotia--and made the Lacedaemonians give to the Hellenes
+instead of liberty a Median master.  He therefore invited Tissaphernes
+to conclude another and a better treaty, as they certainly would not
+recognize those existing and did not want any of his pay upon such
+conditions.  This offended Tissaphernes so much that he went away in
+a rage without settling anything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+_Twentieth and Twenty-first Years of the War - Intrigues of
+Alcibiades - Withdrawal of the Persian Subsidies - Oligarchical
+Coup d'Etat at Athens - Patriotism of the Army at Samos_
+
+The Peloponnesians now determined to sail to Rhodes, upon the
+invitation of some of the principal men there, hoping to gain an
+island powerful by the number of its seamen and by its land forces,
+and also thinking that they would be able to maintain their fleet from
+their own confederacy, without having to ask for money from
+Tissaphernes.  They accordingly at once set sail that same winter
+from Cnidus, and first put in with ninety-four ships at Camirus in the
+Rhodian country, to the great alarm of the mass of the inhabitants,
+who were not privy to the intrigue, and who consequently fled,
+especially as the town was unfortified.  They were afterwards, however,
+assembled by the Lacedaemonians together with the inhabitants of the
+two other towns of Lindus and Ialysus; and the Rhodians were persuaded
+to revolt from the Athenians and the island went over to the
+Peloponnesians.  Meanwhile the Athenians had received the alarm and set
+sail with the fleet from Samos to forestall them, and came within
+sight of the island, but being a little too late sailed off for the
+moment to Chalce, and from thence to Samos, and subsequently waged war
+against Rhodes, issuing from Chalce, Cos, and Samos.
+
+The Peloponnesians now levied a contribution of thirty-two talents
+from the Rhodians, after which they hauled their ships ashore and
+for eighty days remained inactive.  During this time, and even earlier,
+before they removed to Rhodes, the following intrigues took place.
+After the death of Chalcideus and the battle at Miletus, Alcibiades
+began to be suspected by the Peloponnesians; and Astyochus received
+from Lacedaemon an order from them to put him to death, he being the
+personal enemy of Agis, and in other respects thought unworthy of
+confidence.  Alcibiades in his alarm first withdrew to Tissaphernes,
+and immediately began to do all he could with him to injure the
+Peloponnesian cause.  Henceforth becoming his adviser in everything, he
+cut down the pay from an Attic drachma to three obols a day, and
+even this not paid too regularly; and told Tissaphernes to say to
+the Peloponnesians that the Athenians, whose maritime experience was
+of an older date than their own, only gave their men three obols,
+not so much from poverty as to prevent their seamen being corrupted by
+being too well off, and injuring their condition by spending money
+upon enervating indulgences, and also paid their crews irregularly
+in order to have a security against their deserting in the arrears
+which they would leave behind them.  He also told Tissaphernes to bribe
+the captains and generals of the cities, and so to obtain their
+connivance--an expedient which succeeded with all except the
+Syracusans, Hermocrates alone opposing him on behalf of the whole
+confederacy.  Meanwhile the cities asking for money Alcibiades sent
+off, by roundly telling them in the name of Tissaphernes that it was
+great impudence in the Chians, the richest people in Hellas, not
+content with being defended by a foreign force, to expect others to
+risk not only their lives but their money as well in behalf of their
+freedom; while the other cities, he said, had had to pay largely to
+Athens before their rebellion, and could not justly refuse to
+contribute as much or even more now for their own selves.  He also
+pointed out that Tissaphernes was at present carrying on the war at
+his own charges, and had good cause for economy, but that as soon as
+he received remittances from the king he would give them their pay
+in full and do what was reasonable for the cities.
+
+Alcibiades further advised Tissaphernes not to be in too great a
+hurry to end the war, or to let himself be persuaded to bring up the
+Phoenician fleet which he was equipping, or to provide pay for more
+Hellenes, and thus put the power by land and sea into the same
+hands; but to leave each of the contending parties in possession of
+one element, thus enabling the king when he found one troublesome to
+call in the other.  For if the command of the sea and land were
+united in one hand, he would not know where to turn for help to
+overthrow the dominant power; unless he at last chose to stand up
+himself, and go through with the struggle at great expense and hazard.
+The cheapest plan was to let the Hellenes wear each other out, at a
+small share of the expense and without risk to himself.  Besides, he
+would find the Athenians the most convenient partners in empire as
+they did not aim at conquests on shore, and carried on the war upon
+principles and with a practice most advantageous to the King; being
+prepared to combine to conquer the sea for Athens, and for the King
+all the Hellenes inhabiting his country, whom the Peloponnesians, on
+the contrary, had come to liberate.  Now it was not likely that the
+Lacedaemonians would free the Hellenes from the Hellenic Athenians,
+without freeing them also from the barbarian Mede, unless overthrown
+by him in the meanwhile.  Alcibiades therefore urged him to wear them
+both out at first, and, after docking the Athenian power as much as he
+could, forthwith to rid the country of the Peloponnesians.  In the main
+Tissaphernes approved of this policy, so far at least as could be
+conjectured from his behaviour; since he now gave his confidence to
+Alcibiades in recognition of his good advice, and kept the
+Peloponnesians short of money, and would not let them fight at sea,
+but ruined their cause by pretending that the Phoenician fleet would
+arrive, and that they would thus be enabled to contend with the odds
+in their favour, and so made their navy lose its efficiency, which had
+been very remarkable, and generally betrayed a coolness in the war
+that was too plain to be mistaken.
+
+Alcibiades gave this advice to Tissaphernes and the King, with
+whom he then was, not merely because he thought it really the best,
+but because he was studying means to effect his restoration to his
+country, well knowing that if he did not destroy it he might one day
+hope to persuade the Athenians to recall him, and thinking that his
+best chance of persuading them lay in letting them see that he
+possessed the favour of Tissaphernes.  The event proved him to be
+right.  When the Athenians at Samos found that he had influence with
+Tissaphernes, principally of their own motion (though partly also
+through Alcibiades himself sending word to their chief men to tell the
+best men in the army that, if there were only an oligarchy in the
+place of the rascally democracy that had banished him, he would be
+glad to return to his country and to make Tissaphernes their
+friend), the captains and chief men in the armament at once embraced
+the idea of subverting the democracy.
+
+The design was first mooted in the camp, and afterwards from
+thence reached the city.  Some persons crossed over from Samos and
+had an interview with Alcibiades, who immediately offered to make
+first Tissaphernes, and afterwards the King, their friend, if they
+would give up the democracy and make it possible for the King to trust
+them.  The higher class, who also suffered most severely from the
+war, now conceived great hopes of getting the government into their
+own hands, and of triumphing over the enemy.  Upon their return to
+Samos the emissaries formed their partisans into a club, and openly
+told the mass of the armament that the King would be their friend, and
+would provide them with money, if Alcibiades were restored and the
+democracy abolished.  The multitude, if at first irritated by these
+intrigues, were nevertheless kept quiet by the advantageous prospect
+of the pay from the King; and the oligarchical conspirators, after
+making this communication to the people, now re-examined the proposals
+of Alcibiades among themselves, with most of their associates.
+Unlike the rest, who thought them advantageous and trustworthy,
+Phrynichus, who was still general, by no means approved of the
+proposals.  Alcibiades, he rightly thought, cared no more for an
+oligarchy than for a democracy, and only sought to change the
+institutions of his country in order to get himself recalled by his
+associates; while for themselves their one object should be to avoid
+civil discord.  It was not the King's interest, when the Peloponnesians
+were now their equals at sea, and in possession of some of the chief
+cities in his empire, to go out of his way to side with the
+Athenians whom he did not trust, when he might make friends of the
+Peloponnesians who had never injured him.  And as for the allied states
+to whom oligarchy was now offered, because the democracy was to be put
+down at Athens, he well knew that this would not make the rebels
+come in any the sooner, or confirm the loyal in their allegiance; as
+the allies would never prefer servitude with an oligarchy or democracy
+to freedom with the constitution which they actually enjoyed, to
+whichever type it belonged.  Besides, the cities thought that the
+so-called better classes would prove just as oppressive as the
+commons, as being those who originated, proposed, and for the most
+part benefited from the acts of the commons injurious to the
+confederates.  Indeed, if it depended on the better classes, the
+confederates would be put to death without trial and with violence;
+while the commons were their refuge and the chastiser of these men.
+This he positively knew that the cities had learned by experience, and
+that such was their opinion.  The propositions of Alcibiades, and the
+intrigues now in progress, could therefore never meet with his
+approval.
+
+However, the members of the club assembled, agreeably to their
+original determination, accepted what was proposed, and prepared to
+send Pisander and others on an embassy to Athens to treat for the
+restoration of Alcibiades and the abolition of the democracy in the
+city, and thus to make Tissaphernes the friend of the Athenians.
+
+Phrynichus now saw that there would be a proposal to restore
+Alcibiades, and that the Athenians would consent to it; and fearing
+after what he had said against it that Alcibiades, if restored,
+would revenge himself upon him for his opposition, had recourse to the
+following expedient.  He sent a secret letter to the Lacedaemonian
+admiral Astyochus, who was still in the neighbourhood of Miletus, to
+tell him that Alcibiades was ruining their cause by making
+Tissaphernes the friend of the Athenians, and containing an express
+revelation of the rest of the intrigue, desiring to be excused if he
+sought to harm his enemy even at the expense of the interests of his
+country.  However, Astyochus, instead of thinking of punishing
+Alcibiades, who, besides, no longer ventured within his reach as
+formerly, went up to him and Tissaphernes at Magnesia, communicated to
+them the letter from Samos, and turned informer, and, if report may be
+trusted, became the paid creature of Tissaphernes, undertaking to
+inform him as to this and all other matters; which was also the reason
+why he did not remonstrate more strongly against the pay not being
+given in full.  Upon this Alcibiades instantly sent to the
+authorities at Samos a letter against Phrynichus, stating what he
+had done, and requiring that he should be put to death.  Phrynichus
+distracted, and placed in the utmost peril by the denunciation, sent
+again to Astyochus, reproaching him with having so ill kept the secret
+of his previous letter, and saying that he was now prepared to give
+them an opportunity of destroying the whole Athenian armament at
+Samos; giving a detailed account of the means which he should
+employ, Samos being unfortified, and pleading that, being in danger of
+his life on their account, he could not now be blamed for doing this
+or anything else to escape being destroyed by his mortal enemies.  This
+also Astyochus revealed to Alcibiades.
+
+Meanwhile Phrynichus having had timely notice that he was playing
+him false, and that a letter on the subject was on the point of
+arriving from Alcibiades, himself anticipated the news, and told the
+army that the enemy, seeing that Samos was unfortified and the fleet
+not all stationed within the harbour, meant to attack the camp, that
+he could be certain of this intelligence, and that they must fortify
+Samos as quickly as possible, and generally look to their defences.  It
+will be remembered that he was general, and had himself authority to
+carry out these measures.  Accordingly they addressed themselves to the
+work of fortification, and Samos was thus fortified sooner than it
+would otherwise have been.  Not long afterwards came the letter from
+Alcibiades, saying that the army was betrayed by Phrynichus, and the
+enemy about to attack it.  Alcibiades, however, gained no credit, it
+being thought that he was in the secret of the enemy's designs, and
+had tried to fasten them upon Phrynichus, and to make out that he
+was their accomplice, out of hatred; and consequently far from hurting
+him he rather bore witness to what he had said by this intelligence.
+
+After this Alcibiades set to work to persuade Tissaphernes to become
+the friend of the Athenians.  Tissaphernes, although afraid of the
+Peloponnesians because they had more ships in Asia than the Athenians,
+was yet disposed to be persuaded if he could, especially after his
+quarrel with the Peloponnesians at Cnidus about the treaty of
+Therimenes.  The quarrel had already taken place, as the Peloponnesians
+were by this time actually at Rhodes; and in it the original
+argument of Alcibiades touching the liberation of all the towns by the
+Lacedaemonians had been verified by the declaration of Lichas that
+it was impossible to submit to a convention which made the King master
+of all the states at any former time ruled by himself or by his
+fathers.
+
+While Alcibiades was besieging the favour of Tissaphernes with an
+earnestness proportioned to the greatness of the issue, the Athenian
+envoys who had been dispatched from Samos with Pisander arrived at
+Athens, and made a speech before the people, giving a brief summary of
+their views, and particularly insisting that, if Alcibiades were
+recalled and the democratic constitution changed, they could have
+the King as their ally, and would be able to overcome the
+Peloponnesians.  A number of speakers opposed them on the question of
+the democracy, the enemies of Alcibiades cried out against the scandal
+of a restoration to be effected by a violation of the constitution,
+and the Eumolpidae and Ceryces protested in behalf of the mysteries,
+the cause of his banishment, and called upon the gods to avert his
+recall; when Pisander, in the midst of much opposition and abuse, came
+forward, and taking each of his opponents aside asked him the
+following question: In the face of the fact that the Peloponnesians
+had as many ships as their own confronting them at sea, more cities in
+alliance with them, and the King and Tissaphernes to supply them
+with money, of which the Athenians had none left, had he any hope of
+saving the state, unless someone could induce the King to come over to
+their side? Upon their replying that they had not, he then plainly
+said to them: "This we cannot have unless we have a more moderate form
+of government, and put the offices into fewer hands, and so gain the
+King's confidence, and forthwith restore Alcibiades, who is the only
+man living that can bring this about.  The safety of the state, not the
+form of its government, is for the moment the most pressing
+question, as we can always change afterwards whatever we do not like."
+
+The people were at first highly irritated at the mention of an
+oligarchy, but upon understanding clearly from Pisander that this
+was the only resource left, they took counsel of their fears, and
+promised themselves some day to change the government again, and
+gave way.  They accordingly voted that Pisander should sail with ten
+others and make the best arrangement that they could with Tissaphernes
+and Alcibiades.  At the same time the people, upon a false accusation
+of Pisander, dismissed Phrynichus from his post together with his
+colleague Scironides, sending Diomedon and Leon to replace them in the
+command of the fleet.  The accusation was that Phrynichus had
+betrayed Iasus and Amorges; and Pisander brought it because he thought
+him a man unfit for the business now in hand with Alcibiades.  Pisander
+also went the round of all the clubs already existing in the city
+for help in lawsuits and elections, and urged them to draw together
+and to unite their efforts for the overthrow of the democracy; and
+after taking all other measures required by the circumstances, so that
+no time might be lost, set off with his ten companions on his voyage
+to Tissaphernes.
+
+In the same winter Leon and Diomedon, who had by this time joined
+the fleet, made an attack upon Rhodes.  The ships of the Peloponnesians
+they found hauled up on shore, and, after making a descent upon the
+coast and defeating the Rhodians who appeared in the field against
+them, withdrew to Chalce and made that place their base of
+operations instead of Cos, as they could better observe from thence if
+the Peloponnesian fleet put out to sea.  Meanwhile Xenophantes, a
+Laconian, came to Rhodes from Pedaritus at Chios, with the news that
+the fortification of the Athenians was now finished, and that,
+unless the whole Peloponnesian fleet came to the rescue, the cause
+in Chios must be lost.  Upon this they resolved to go to his relief.  In
+the meantime Pedaritus, with the mercenaries that he had with him
+and the whole force of the Chians, made an assault upon the work round
+the Athenian ships and took a portion of it, and got possession of
+some vessels that were hauled up on shore, when the Athenians
+sallied out to the rescue, and first routing the Chians, next defeated
+the remainder of the force round Pedaritus, who was himself killed,
+with many of the Chians, a great number of arms being also taken.
+
+After this the Chians were besieged even more straitly than before
+by land and sea, and the famine in the place was great.  Meanwhile
+the Athenian envoys with Pisander arrived at the court of
+Tissaphernes, and conferred with him about the proposed agreement.
+However, Alcibiades, not being altogether sure of Tissaphernes (who
+feared the Peloponnesians more than the Athenians, and besides
+wished to wear out both parties, as Alcibiades himself had
+recommended), had recourse to the following stratagem to make the
+treaty between the Athenians and Tissaphernes miscarry by reason of
+the magnitude of his demands.  In my opinion Tissaphernes desired
+this result, fear being his motive; while Alcibiades, who now saw that
+Tissaphernes was determined not to treat on any terms, wished the
+Athenians to think, not that he was unable to persuade Tissaphernes,
+but that after the latter had been persuaded and was willing to join
+them, they had not conceded enough to him.  For the demands of
+Alcibiades, speaking for Tissaphernes, who was present, were so
+extravagant that the Athenians, although for a long while they
+agreed to whatever he asked, yet had to bear the blame of failure:
+he required the cession of the whole of Ionia, next of the islands
+adjacent, besides other concessions, and these passed without
+opposition; at last, in the third interview, Alcibiades, who now
+feared a complete discovery of his inability, required them to allow
+the King to build ships and sail along his own coast wherever and with
+as many as he pleased.  Upon this the Athenians would yield no further,
+and concluding that there was nothing to be done, but that they had
+been deceived by Alcibiades, went away in a passion and proceeded to
+Samos.
+
+Tissaphernes immediately after this, in the same winter, proceeded
+along shore to Caunus, desiring to bring the Peloponnesian fleet
+back to Miletus, and to supply them with pay, making a fresh
+convention upon such terms as he could get, in order not to bring
+matters to an absolute breach between them.  He was afraid that if many
+of their ships were left without pay they would be compelled to engage
+and be defeated, or that their vessels being left without hands the
+Athenians would attain their objects without his assistance.  Still
+more he feared that the Peloponnesians might ravage the continent in
+search of supplies.  Having calculated and considered all this,
+agreeably to his plan of keeping the two sides equal, he now sent
+for the Peloponnesians and gave them pay, and concluded with them a
+third treaty in words following:
+
+In the thirteenth year of the reign of Darius, while Alexippidas
+was ephor at Lacedaemon, a convention was concluded in the plain of
+the Maeander by the Lacedaemonians and their allies with Tissaphernes,
+Hieramenes, and the sons of Pharnaces, concerning the affairs of the
+King and of the Lacedaemonians and their allies.
+
+1.  The country of the King in Asia shall be the King's, and the
+King shall treat his own country as he pleases.
+
+2.  The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall not invade or
+injure the King's country: neither shall the King invade or injure
+that of the Lacedaemonians or of their allies.  If any of the
+Lacedaemonians or of their allies invade or injure the King's country,
+the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall prevent it: and if any
+from the King's country invade or injure the country of the
+Lacedaemonians or of their allies, the King shall prevent it.
+
+3.  Tissaphernes shall provide pay for the ships now present,
+according to the agreement, until the arrival of the King's vessels:
+but after the arrival of the King's vessels the Lacedaemonians and
+their allies may pay their own ships if they wish it.  If, however,
+they choose to receive the pay from Tissaphernes, Tissaphernes shall
+furnish it: and the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall repay him at
+the end of the war such moneys as they shall have received.
+
+4.  After the vessels have arrived, the ships of the Lacedaemonians
+and of their allies and those of the King shall carry on the war
+jointly, according as Tissaphernes and the Lacedaemonians and their
+allies shall think best.  If they wish to make peace with the
+Athenians, they shall make peace also jointly.
+
+This was the treaty.  After this Tissaphernes prepared to bring up
+the Phoenician fleet according to agreement, and to make good his
+other promises, or at all events wished to make it appear that he
+was so preparing.
+
+Winter was now drawing towards its close, when the Boeotians took
+Oropus by treachery, though held by an Athenian garrison.  Their
+accomplices in this were some of the Eretrians and of the Oropians
+themselves, who were plotting the revolt of Euboea, as the place was
+exactly opposite Eretria, and while in Athenian hands was
+necessarily a source of great annoyance to Eretria and the rest of
+Euboea.  Oropus being in their hands, the Eretrians now came to
+Rhodes to invite the Peloponnesians into Euboea.  The latter,
+however, were rather bent on the relief of the distressed Chians,
+and accordingly put out to sea and sailed with all their ships from
+Rhodes.  Off Triopium they sighted the Athenian fleet out at sea
+sailing from Chalce, and, neither attacking the other, arrived, the
+latter at Samos, the Peloponnesians at Miletus, seeing that it was
+no longer possible to relieve Chios without a battle.  And this
+winter ended, and with it ended the twentieth year of this war of
+which Thucydides is the historian.
+
+Early in the spring of the summer following, Dercyllidas, a Spartan,
+was sent with a small force by land to the Hellespont to effect the
+revolt of Abydos, which is a Milesian colony; and the Chians, while
+Astyochus was at a loss how to help them, were compelled to fight at
+sea by the pressure of the siege.  While Astyochus was still at
+Rhodes they had received from Miletus, as their commander after the
+death of Pedaritus, a Spartan named Leon, who had come out with
+Antisthenes, and twelve vessels which had been on guard at Miletus,
+five of which were Thurian, four Syracusans, one from Anaia, one
+Milesian, and one Leon's own.  Accordingly the Chians marched out in
+mass and took up a strong position, while thirty-six of their ships
+put out and engaged thirty-two of the Athenians; and after a tough
+fight, in which the Chians and their allies had rather the best of it,
+as it was now late, retired to their city.
+
+Immediately after this Dercyllidas arrived by land from Miletus; and
+Abydos in the Hellespont revolted to him and Pharnabazus, and
+Lampsacus two days later.  Upon receipt of this news Strombichides
+hastily sailed from Chios with twenty-four Athenian ships, some
+transports carrying heavy infantry being of the number, and
+defeating the Lampsacenes who came out against him, took Lampsacus,
+which was unfortified, at the first assault, and making prize of the
+slaves and goods restored the freemen to their homes, and went on to
+Abydos.  The inhabitants, however, refusing to capitulate, and his
+assaults failing to take the place, he sailed over to the coast
+opposite, and appointed Sestos, the town in the Chersonese held by the
+Medes at a former period in this history, as the centre for the
+defence of the whole Hellespont.
+
+In the meantime the Chians commanded the sea more than before; and
+the Peloponnesians at Miletus and Astyochus, hearing of the
+sea-fight and of the departure of the squadron with Strombichides,
+took fresh courage.  Coasting along with two vessels to Chios,
+Astyochus took the ships from that place, and now moved with the whole
+fleet upon Samos, from whence, however, he sailed back to Miletus,
+as the Athenians did not put out against him, owing to their
+suspicions of one another.  For it was about this time, or even before,
+that the democracy was put down at Athens.  When Pisander and the
+envoys returned from Tissaphernes to Samos they at once strengthened
+still further their interest in the army itself, and instigated the
+upper class in Samos to join them in establishing an oligarchy, the
+very form of government which a party of them had lately risen to
+avoid.  At the same time the Athenians at Samos, after a consultation
+among themselves, determined to let Alcibiades alone, since he refused
+to join them, and besides was not the man for an oligarchy; and now
+that they were once embarked, to see for themselves how they could
+best prevent the ruin of their cause, and meanwhile to sustain the
+war, and to contribute without stint money and all else that might
+be required from their own private estates, as they would henceforth
+labour for themselves alone.
+
+After encouraging each other in these resolutions, they now at
+once sent off half the envoys and Pisander to do what was necessary at
+Athens (with instructions to establish oligarchies on their way in all
+the subject cities which they might touch at), and dispatched the
+other half in different directions to the other dependencies.
+Diitrephes also, who was in the neighbourhood of Chios, and had been
+elected to the command of the Thracian towns, was sent off to his
+government, and arriving at Thasos abolished the democracy there.
+Two months, however, had not elapsed after his departure before the
+Thasians began to fortify their town, being already tired of an
+aristocracy with Athens, and in daily expectation of freedom from
+Lacedaemon.  Indeed there was a party of them (whom the Athenians had
+banished), with the Peloponnesians, who with their friends in the town
+were already making every exertion to bring a squadron, and to
+effect the revolt of Thasos; and this party thus saw exactly what they
+most wanted done, that is to say, the reformation of the government
+without risk, and the abolition of the democracy which would have
+opposed them.  Things at Thasos thus turned out just the contrary to
+what the oligarchical conspirators at Athens expected; and the same in
+my opinion was the case in many of the other dependencies; as the
+cities no sooner got a moderate government and liberty of action, than
+they went on to absolute freedom without being at all seduced by the
+show of reform offered by the Athenians.
+
+Pisander and his colleagues on their voyage alongshore abolished, as
+had been determined, the democracies in the cities, and also took some
+heavy infantry from certain places as their allies, and so came to
+Athens.  Here they found most of the work already done by their
+associates.  Some of the younger men had banded together, and
+secretly assassinated one Androcles, the chief leader of the
+commons, and mainly responsible for the banishment of Alcibiades;
+Androcles being singled out both because he was a popular leader and
+because they sought by his death to recommend themselves to
+Alcibiades, who was, as they supposed, to be recalled, and to make
+Tissaphernes their friend.  There were also some other obnoxious
+persons whom they secretly did away with in the same manner.  Meanwhile
+their cry in public was that no pay should be given except to
+persons serving in the war, and that not more than five thousand
+should share in the government, and those such as were most able to
+serve the state in person and in purse.
+
+But this was a mere catchword for the multitude, as the authors of
+the revolution were really to govern.  However, the Assembly and the
+Council of the Bean still met notwithstanding, although they discussed
+nothing that was not approved of by the conspirators, who both
+supplied the speakers and reviewed in advance what they were to say.
+Fear, and the sight of the numbers of the conspirators, closed the
+mouths of the rest; or if any ventured to rise in opposition, he was
+presently put to death in some convenient way, and there was neither
+search for the murderers nor justice to be had against them if
+suspected; but the people remained motionless, being so thoroughly
+cowed that men thought themselves lucky to escape violence, even
+when they held their tongues.  An exaggerated belief in the numbers
+of the conspirators also demoralized the people, rendered helpless
+by the magnitude of the city, and by their want of intelligence with
+each other, and being without means of finding out what those
+numbers really were.  For the same reason it was impossible for any one
+to open his grief to a neighbour and to concert measures to defend
+himself, as he would have had to speak either to one whom he did not
+know, or whom he knew but did not trust.  Indeed all the popular
+party approached each other with suspicion, each thinking his
+neighbour concerned in what was going on, the conspirators having in
+their ranks persons whom no one could ever have believed capable of
+joining an oligarchy; and these it was who made the many so
+suspicious, and so helped to procure impunity for the few, by
+confirming the commons in their mistrust of one another.
+
+At this juncture arrived Pisander and his colleagues, who lost no
+time in doing the rest.  First they assembled the people, and moved
+to elect ten commissioners with full powers to frame a constitution,
+and that when this was done they should on an appointed day lay before
+the people their opinion as to the best mode of governing the city.
+Afterwards, when the day arrived, the conspirators enclosed the
+assembly in Colonus, a temple of Poseidon, a little more than a mile
+outside the city; when the commissioners simply brought forward this
+single motion, that any Athenian might propose with impunity
+whatever measure he pleased, heavy penalties being imposed upon any
+who should indict for illegality, or otherwise molest him for so
+doing.  The way thus cleared, it was now plainly declared that all
+tenure of office and receipt of pay under the existing institutions
+were at an end, and that five men must be elected as presidents, who
+should in their turn elect one hundred, and each of the hundred
+three apiece; and that this body thus made up to four hundred should
+enter the council chamber with full powers and govern as they judged
+best, and should convene the five thousand whenever they pleased.
+
+The man who moved this resolution was Pisander, who was throughout
+the chief ostensible agent in putting down the democracy.  But he who
+concerted the whole affair, and prepared the way for the
+catastrophe, and who had given the greatest thought to the matter, was
+Antiphon, one of the best men of his day in Athens; who, with a head
+to contrive measures and a tongue to recommend them, did not willingly
+come forward in the assembly or upon any public scene, being ill
+looked upon by the multitude owing to his reputation for talent; and
+who yet was the one man best able to aid in the courts, or before
+the assembly, the suitors who required his opinion.  Indeed, when he
+was afterwards himself tried for his life on the charge of having been
+concerned in setting up this very government, when the Four Hundred
+were overthrown and hardly dealt with by the commons, he made what
+would seem to be the best defence of any known up to my time.
+Phrynichus also went beyond all others in his zeal for the
+oligarchy.  Afraid of Alcibiades, and assured that he was no stranger
+to his intrigues with Astyochus at Samos, he held that no oligarchy
+was ever likely to restore him, and once embarked in the enterprise,
+proved, where danger was to be faced, by far the staunchest of them
+all.  Theramenes, son of Hagnon, was also one of the foremost of the
+subverters of the democracy--a man as able in council as in debate.
+Conducted by so many and by such sagacious heads, the enterprise,
+great as it was, not unnaturally went forward; although it was no
+light matter to deprive the Athenian people of its freedom, almost a
+hundred years after the deposition of the tyrants, when it had been
+not only not subject to any during the whole of that period, but
+accustomed during more than half of it to rule over subjects of its
+own.
+
+The assembly ratified the proposed constitution, without a single
+opposing voice, and was then dissolved; after which the Four Hundred
+were brought into the council chamber in the following way.  On account
+of the enemy at Decelea, all the Athenians were constantly on the wall
+or in the ranks at the various military posts.  On that day the persons
+not in the secret were allowed to go home as usual, while orders
+were given to the accomplices of the conspirators to hang about,
+without making any demonstration, at some little distance from the
+posts, and in case of any opposition to what was being done, to
+seize the arms and put it down.  There were also some Andrians and
+Tenians, three hundred Carystians, and some of the settlers in
+Aegina come with their own arms for this very purpose, who had
+received similar instructions.  These dispositions completed, the
+Four Hundred went, each with a dagger concealed about his person,
+accompanied by one hundred and twenty Hellenic youths, whom they
+employed wherever violence was needed, and appeared before the
+Councillors of the Bean in the council chamber, and told them to
+take their pay and be gone; themselves bringing it for the whole of
+the residue of their term of office, and giving it to them as they
+went out.
+
+Upon the Council withdrawing in this way without venturing any
+objection, and the rest of the citizens making no movement, the Four
+Hundred entered the council chamber, and for the present contented
+themselves with drawing lots for their Prytanes, and making their
+prayers and sacrifices to the gods upon entering office, but
+afterwards departed widely from the democratic system of government,
+and except that on account of Alcibiades they did not recall the
+exiles, ruled the city by force; putting to death some men, though not
+many, whom they thought it convenient to remove, and imprisoning and
+banishing others.  They also sent to Agis, the Lacedaemonian king, at
+Decelea, to say that they desired to make peace, and that he might
+reasonably be more disposed to treat now that he had them to deal with
+instead of the inconstant commons.
+
+Agis, however, did not believe in the tranquillity of the city, or
+that the commons would thus in a moment give up their ancient liberty,
+but thought that the sight of a large Lacedaemonian force would be
+sufficient to excite them if they were not already in commotion, of
+which he was by no means certain.  He accordingly gave to the envoys of
+the Four Hundred an answer which held out no hopes of an
+accommodation, and sending for large reinforcements from
+Peloponnese, not long afterwards, with these and his garrison from
+Decelea, descended to the very walls of Athens; hoping either that
+civil disturbances might help to subdue them to his terms, or that, in
+the confusion to be expected within and without the city, they might
+even surrender without a blow being struck; at all events he thought
+he would succeed in seizing the Long Walls, bared of their
+defenders.  However, the Athenians saw him come close up, without
+making the least disturbance within the city; and sending out their
+cavalry, and a number of their heavy infantry, light troops, and
+archers, shot down some of his soldiers who approached too near, and
+got possession of some arms and dead.  Upon this Agis, at last
+convinced, led his army back again and, remaining with his own
+troops in the old position at Decelea, sent the reinforcement back
+home, after a few days' stay in Attica.  After this the Four Hundred
+persevering sent another embassy to Agis, and now meeting with a
+better reception, at his suggestion dispatched envoys to Lacedaemon to
+negotiate a treaty, being desirous of making peace.
+
+They also sent ten men to Samos to reassure the army, and to explain
+that the oligarchy was not established for the hurt of the city or the
+citizens, but for the salvation of the country at large; and that
+there were five thousand, not four hundred only, concerned;
+although, what with their expeditions and employments abroad, the
+Athenians had never yet assembled to discuss a question important
+enough to bring five thousand of them together.  The emissaries were
+also told what to say upon all other points, and were so sent off
+immediately after the establishment of the new government, which
+feared, as it turned out justly, that the mass of seamen would not
+be willing to remain under the oligarchical constitution, and, the
+evil beginning there, might be the means of their overthrow.
+
+Indeed at Samos the question of the oligarchy had already entered
+upon a new phase, the following events having taken place just at
+the time that the Four Hundred were conspiring.  That part of the
+Samian population which has been mentioned as rising against the upper
+class, and as being the democratic party, had now turned round, and
+yielding to the solicitations of Pisander during his visit, and of the
+Athenians in the conspiracy at Samos, had bound themselves by oaths to
+the number of three hundred, and were about to fall upon the rest of
+their fellow citizens, whom they now in their turn regarded as the
+democratic party.  Meanwhile they put to death one Hyperbolus, an
+Athenian, a pestilent fellow that had been ostracized, not from fear
+of his influence or position, but because he was a rascal and a
+disgrace to the city; being aided in this by Charminus, one of the
+generals, and by some of the Athenians with them, to whom they had
+sworn friendship, and with whom they perpetrated other acts of the
+kind, and now determined to attack the people.  The latter got wind
+of what was coming, and told two of the generals, Leon and Diomedon,
+who, on account of the credit which they enjoyed with the commons,
+were unwilling supporters of the oligarchy; and also Thrasybulus and
+Thrasyllus, the former a captain of a galley, the latter serving
+with the heavy infantry, besides certain others who had ever been
+thought most opposed to the conspirators, entreating them not to
+look on and see them destroyed, and Samos, the sole remaining stay
+of their empire, lost to the Athenians.  Upon hearing this, the persons
+whom they addressed now went round the soldiers one by one, and
+urged them to resist, especially the crew of the Paralus, which was
+made up entirely of Athenians and freemen, and had from time out of
+mind been enemies of oligarchy, even when there was no such thing
+existing; and Leon and Diomedon left behind some ships for their
+protection in case of their sailing away anywhere themselves.
+Accordingly, when the Three Hundred attacked the people, all these
+came to the rescue, and foremost of all the crew of the Paralus; and
+the Samian commons gained the victory, and putting to death some
+thirty of the Three Hundred, and banishing three others of the
+ringleaders, accorded an amnesty to the rest, and lived together under
+a democratic government for the future.
+
+The ship Paralus, with Chaereas, son of Archestratus, on board, an
+Athenian who had taken an active part in the revolution, was now
+without loss of time sent off by the Samians and the army to Athens to
+report what had occurred; the fact that the Four Hundred were in power
+not being yet known.  When they sailed into harbour the Four Hundred
+immediately arrested two or three of the Parali and, taking the vessel
+from the rest, shifted them into a troopship and set them to keep
+guard round Euboea.  Chaereas, however, managed to secrete himself as
+soon as he saw how things stood, and returning to Samos, drew a
+picture to the soldiers of the horrors enacting at Athens, in which
+everything was exaggerated; saying that all were punished with
+stripes, that no one could say a word against the holders of power,
+that the soldiers' wives and children were outraged, and that it was
+intended to seize and shut up the relatives of all in the army at
+Samos who were not of the government's way of thinking, to be put to
+death in case of their disobedience; besides a host of other injurious
+inventions.
+
+On hearing this the first thought of the army was to fall upon the
+chief authors of the oligarchy and upon all the rest concerned.
+Eventually, however, they desisted from this idea upon the men of
+moderate views opposing it and warning them against ruining their
+cause, with the enemy close at hand and ready for battle.  After
+this, Thrasybulus, son of Lycus, and Thrasyllus, the chief leaders
+in the revolution, now wishing in the most public manner to change the
+government at Samos to a democracy, bound all the soldiers by the most
+tremendous oaths, and those of the oligarchical party more than any,
+to accept a democratic government, to be united, to prosecute actively
+the war with the Peloponnesians, and to be enemies of the Four
+Hundred, and to hold no communication with them.  The same oath was
+also taken by all the Samians of full age; and the soldiers associated
+the Samians in all their affairs and in the fruits of their dangers,
+having the conviction that there was no way of escape for themselves
+or for them, but that the success of the Four Hundred or of the
+enemy at Miletus must be their ruin.
+
+The struggle now was between the army trying to force a democracy
+upon the city, and the Four Hundred an oligarchy upon the camp.
+Meanwhile the soldiers forthwith held an assembly, in which they
+deposed the former generals and any of the captains whom they
+suspected, and chose new captains and generals to replace them,
+besides Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, whom they had already.  They also
+stood up and encouraged one another, and among other things urged that
+they ought not to lose heart because the city had revolted from
+them, as the party seceding was smaller and in every way poorer in
+resources than themselves.  They had the whole fleet with which to
+compel the other cities in their empire to give them money just as
+if they had their base in the capital, having a city in Samos which,
+so far from wanting strength, had when at war been within an ace of
+depriving the Athenians of the command of the sea, while as far as the
+enemy was concerned they had the same base of operations as before.
+Indeed, with the fleet in their hands, they were better able to
+provide themselves with supplies than the government at home.  It was
+their advanced position at Samos which had throughout enabled the home
+authorities to command the entrance into Piraeus; and if they
+refused to give them back the constitution, they would now find that
+the army was more in a position to exclude them from the sea than they
+were to exclude the army.  Besides, the city was of little or no use
+towards enabling them to overcome the enemy; and they had lost nothing
+in losing those who had no longer either money to send them (the
+soldiers having to find this for themselves), or good counsel, which
+entitles cities to direct armies.  On the contrary, even in this the
+home government had done wrong in abolishing the institutions of their
+ancestors, while the army maintained the said institutions, and
+would try to force the home government to do so likewise.  So that even
+in point of good counsel the camp had as good counsellors as the city.
+Moreover, they had but to grant him security for his person and his
+recall, and Alcibiades would be only too glad to procure them the
+alliance of the King.  And above all if they failed altogether, with
+the navy which they possessed, they had numbers of places to retire to
+in which they would find cities and lands.
+
+Debating together and comforting themselves after this manner,
+they pushed on their war measures as actively as ever; and the ten
+envoys sent to Samos by the Four Hundred, learning how matters stood
+while they were still at Delos, stayed quiet there.
+  About this time a cry arose among the soldiers in the
+Peloponnesian fleet at Miletus that Astyochus and Tissaphernes were
+ruining their cause.  Astyochus had not been willing to fight at
+sea--either before, while they were still in full vigour and the
+fleet of the Athenians small, or now, when the enemy was, as they were
+informed, in a state of sedition and his ships not yet united--but
+kept them waiting for the Phoenician fleet from Tissaphernes, which
+had only a nominal existence, at the risk of wasting away in
+inactivity.  While Tissaphernes not only did not bring up the fleet in
+question, but was ruining their navy by payments made irregularly, and
+even then not made in full.  They must therefore, they insisted, delay
+no longer, but fight a decisive naval engagement.  The Syracusans were
+the most urgent of any.
+
+The confederates and Astyochus, aware of these murmurs, had
+already decided in council to fight a decisive battle; and when the
+news reached them of the disturbance at Samos, they put to sea with
+all their ships, one hundred and ten in number, and, ordering the
+Milesians to move by land upon Mycale, set sail thither.  The Athenians
+with the eighty-two ships from Samos were at the moment lying at
+Glauce in Mycale, a point where Samos approaches near to the
+continent; and, seeing the Peloponnesian fleet sailing against them,
+retired into Samos, not thinking themselves numerically strong
+enough to stake their all upon a battle.  Besides, they had notice from
+Miletus of the wish of the enemy to engage, and were expecting to be
+joined from the Hellespont by Strombichides, to whom a messenger had
+been already dispatched, with the ships that had gone from Chios to
+Abydos.  The Athenians accordingly withdrew to Samos, and the
+Peloponnesians put in at Mycale, and encamped with the land forces
+of the Milesians and the people of the neighbourhood.  The next day
+they were about to sail against Samos, when tidings reached them of
+the arrival of Strombichides with the squadron from the Hellespont,
+upon which they immediately sailed back to Miletus.  The Athenians,
+thus reinforced, now in their turn sailed against Miletus with a
+hundred and eight ships, wishing to fight a decisive battle, but, as
+no one put out to meet them, sailed back to Samos.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+_Twenty-first Year of the War - Recall of Alcibiades to Samos -
+Revolt of Euboea and Downfall of the Four Hundred -
+Battle of Cynossema_
+
+In the same summer, immediately after this, the Peloponnesians
+having refused to fight with their fleet united, through not
+thinking themselves a match for the enemy, and being at a loss where
+to look for money for such a number of ships, especially as
+Tissaphernes proved so bad a paymaster, sent off Clearchus, son of
+Ramphias, with forty ships to Pharnabazus, agreeably to the original
+instructions from Peloponnese; Pharnabazus inviting them and being
+prepared to furnish pay, and Byzantium besides sending offers to
+revolt to them.  These Peloponnesian ships accordingly put out into the
+open sea, in order to escape the observation of the Athenians, and
+being overtaken by a storm, the majority with Clearchus got into
+Delos, and afterwards returned to Miletus, whence Clearchus
+proceeded by land to the Hellespont to take the command: ten, however,
+of their number, under the Megarian Helixus, made good their passage
+to the Hellespont, and effected the revolt of Byzantium.  After this,
+the commanders at Samos were informed of it, and sent a squadron
+against them to guard the Hellespont; and an encounter took place
+before Byzantium between eight vessels on either side.
+
+Meanwhile the chiefs at Samos, and especially Thrasybulus, who
+from the moment that he had changed the government had remained firmly
+resolved to recall Alcibiades, at last in an assembly brought over the
+mass of the soldiery, and upon their voting for his recall and
+amnesty, sailed over to Tissaphernes and brought Alcibiades to
+Samos, being convinced that their only chance of salvation lay in
+his bringing over Tissaphernes from the Peloponnesians to
+themselves.  An assembly was then held in which Alcibiades complained
+of and deplored his private misfortune in having been banished, and
+speaking at great length upon public affairs, highly incited their
+hopes for the future, and extravagantly magnified his own influence
+with Tissaphernes.  His object in this was to make the oligarchical
+government at Athens afraid of him, to hasten the dissolution of the
+clubs, to increase his credit with the army at Samos and heighten
+their own confidence, and lastly to prejudice the enemy as strongly as
+possible against Tissaphernes, and blast the hopes which they
+entertained.  Alcibiades accordingly held out to the army such
+extravagant promises as the following: that Tissaphernes had
+solemnly assured him that if he could only trust the Athenians they
+should never want for supplies while he had anything left, no, not
+even if he should have to coin his own silver couch, and that he would
+bring the Phoenician fleet now at Aspendus to the Athenians instead of
+to the Peloponnesians; but that he could only trust the Athenians if
+Alcibiades were recalled to be his security for them.
+
+Upon hearing this and much more besides, the Athenians at once
+elected him general together with the former ones, and put all their
+affairs into his hands.  There was now not a man in the army who
+would have exchanged his present hopes of safety and vengeance upon
+the Four Hundred for any consideration whatever; and after what they
+had been told they were now inclined to disdain the enemy before them,
+and to sail at once for Piraeus.  To the plan of sailing for Piraeus,
+leaving their more immediate enemies behind them, Alcibiades opposed
+the most positive refusal, in spite of the numbers that insisted
+upon it, saying that now that he had been elected general he would
+first sail to Tissaphernes and concert with him measures for
+carrying on the war.  Accordingly, upon leaving this assembly, he
+immediately took his departure in order to have it thought that
+there was an entire confidence between them, and also wishing to
+increase his consideration with Tissaphernes, and to show that he
+had now been elected general and was in a position to do him good or
+evil as he chose; thus managing to frighten the Athenians with
+Tissaphernes and Tissaphernes with the Athenians.
+
+Meanwhile the Peloponnesians at Miletus heard of the recall of
+Alcibiades and, already distrustful of Tissaphernes, now became far
+more disgusted with him than ever.  Indeed after their refusal to go
+out and give battle to the Athenians when they appeared before
+Miletus, Tissaphernes had grown slacker than ever in his payments; and
+even before this, on account of Alcibiades, his unpopularity had
+been on the increase.  Gathering together, just as before, the soldiers
+and some persons of consideration besides the soldiery began to reckon
+up how they had never yet received their pay in full; that what they
+did receive was small in quantity, and even that paid irregularly, and
+that unless they fought a decisive battle or removed to some station
+where they could get supplies, the ships' crews would desert; and that
+it was all the fault of Astyochus, who humoured Tissaphernes for his
+own private advantage.
+
+The army was engaged in these reflections, when the following
+disturbance took place about the person of Astyochus.  Most of the
+Syracusan and Thurian sailors were freemen, and these the freest crews
+in the armament were likewise the boldest in setting upon Astyochus
+and demanding their pay.  The latter answered somewhat stiffly and
+threatened them, and when Dorieus spoke up for his own sailors even
+went so far as to lift his baton against him; upon seeing which the
+mass of men, in sailor fashion, rushed in a fury to strike
+Astyochus.  He, however, saw them in time and fled for refuge to an
+altar; and they were thus parted without his being struck.  Meanwhile
+the fort built by Tissaphernes in Miletus was surprised and taken by
+the Milesians, and the garrison in it turned out--an act which met
+with the approval of the rest of the allies, and in particular of the
+Syracusans, but which found no favour with Lichas, who said moreover
+that the Milesians and the rest in the King's country ought to show
+a reasonable submission to Tissaphernes and to pay him court, until
+the war should be happily settled.  The Milesians were angry with him
+for this and for other things of the kind, and upon his afterwards
+dying of sickness, would not allow him to be buried where the
+Lacedaemonians with the army desired.
+
+The discontent of the army with Astyochus and Tissaphernes had
+reached this pitch, when Mindarus arrived from Lacedaemon to succeed
+Astyochus as admiral, and assumed the command.  Astyochus now set
+sail for home; and Tissaphernes sent with him one of his confidants,
+Gaulites, a Carian, who spoke the two languages, to complain of the
+Milesians for the affair of the fort, and at the same time to defend
+himself against the Milesians, who were, as he was aware, on their way
+to Sparta chiefly to denounce his conduct, and had with them
+Hermocrates, who was to accuse Tissaphernes of joining with Alcibiades
+to ruin the Peloponnesian cause and of playing a double game.  Indeed
+Hermocrates had always been at enmity with him about the pay not being
+restored in full; and eventually when he was banished from Syracuse,
+and new commanders--Potamis, Myscon, and Demarchus--had come out to
+Miletus to the ships of the Syracusans, Tissaphernes, pressed harder
+than ever upon him in his exile, and among other charges against him
+accused him of having once asked him for money, and then given himself
+out as his enemy because he failed to obtain it.
+
+While Astyochus and the Milesians and Hermocrates made sail for
+Lacedaemon, Alcibiades had now crossed back from Tissaphernes to
+Samos.  After his return the envoys of the Four Hundred sent, as has
+been mentioned above, to pacify and explain matters to the forces at
+Samos, arrived from Delos; and an assembly was held in which they
+attempted to speak.  The soldiers at first would not hear them, and
+cried out to put to death the subverters of the democracy, but at
+last, after some difficulty, calmed down and gave them a hearing.  Upon
+this the envoys proceeded to inform them that the recent change had
+been made to save the city, and not to ruin it or to deliver it over
+to the enemy, for they had already had an opportunity of doing this
+when he invaded the country during their government; that all the Five
+Thousand would have their proper share in the government; and that
+their hearers' relatives had neither outrage, as Chaereas had
+slanderously reported, nor other ill treatment to complain of, but
+were all in undisturbed enjoyment of their property just as they had
+left them.  Besides these they made a number of other statements
+which had no better success with their angry auditors; and amid a host
+of different opinions the one which found most favour was that of
+sailing to Piraeus.  Now it was that Alcibiades for the first time
+did the state a service, and one of the most signal kind.  For when the
+Athenians at Samos were bent upon sailing against their countrymen, in
+which case Ionia and the Hellespont would most certainly at once
+have passed into possession of the enemy, Alcibiades it was who
+prevented them.  At that moment, when no other man would have been able
+to hold back the multitude, he put a stop to the intended
+expedition, and rebuked and turned aside the resentment felt, on
+personal grounds, against the envoys; he dismissed them with an answer
+from himself, to the effect that he did not object to the government
+of the Five Thousand, but insisted that the Four Hundred should be
+deposed and the Council of Five Hundred reinstated in power: meanwhile
+any retrenchments for economy, by which pay might be better found
+for the armament, met with his entire approval.  Generally, he bade
+them hold out and show a bold face to the enemy, since if the city
+were saved there was good hope that the two parties might some day
+be reconciled, whereas if either were once destroyed, that at Samos,
+or that at Athens, there would no longer be any one to be reconciled
+to.  Meanwhile arrived envoys from the Argives, with offers of
+support to the Athenian commons at Samos: these were thanked by
+Alcibiades, and dismissed with a request to come when called upon.  The
+Argives were accompanied by the crew of the Paralus, whom we left
+placed in a troopship by the Four Hundred with orders to cruise
+round Euboea, and who being employed to carry to Lacedaemon some
+Athenian envoys sent by the Four Hundred--Laespodias, Aristophon, and
+Melesias--as they sailed by Argos laid hands upon the envoys, and
+delivering them over to the Argives as the chief subverters of the
+democracy, themselves, instead of returning to Athens, took the Argive
+envoys on board, and came to Samos in the galley which had been
+confided to them.
+
+The same summer at the time that the return of Alcibiades coupled
+with the general conduct of Tissaphernes had carried to its height the
+discontent of the Peloponnesians, who no longer entertained any
+doubt of his having joined the Athenians, Tissaphernes wishing, it
+would seem, to clear himself to them of these charges, prepared to
+go after the Phoenician fleet to Aspendus, and invited Lichas to go
+with him; saying that he would appoint Tamos as his lieutenant to
+provide pay for the armament during his own absence.  Accounts
+differ, and it is not easy to ascertain with what intention he went to
+Aspendus, and did not bring the fleet after all.  That one hundred
+and forty-seven Phoenician ships came as far as Aspendus is certain;
+but why they did not come on has been variously accounted for.  Some
+think that he went away in pursuance of his plan of wasting the
+Peloponnesian resources, since at any rate Tamos, his lieutenant,
+far from being any better, proved a worse paymaster than himself:
+others that he brought the Phoenicians to Aspendus to exact money from
+them for their discharge, having never intended to employ them: others
+again that it was in view of the outcry against him at Lacedaemon,
+in order that it might be said that he was not in fault, but that
+the ships were really manned and that he had certainly gone to fetch
+them.  To myself it seems only too evident that he did not bring up the
+fleet because he wished to wear out and paralyse the Hellenic
+forces, that is, to waste their strength by the time lost during his
+journey to Aspendus, and to keep them evenly balanced by not
+throwing his weight into either scale.  Had he wished to finish the
+war, he could have done so, assuming of course that he made his
+appearance in a way which left no room for doubt; as by bringing up
+the fleet he would in all probability have given the victory to the
+Lacedaemonians, whose navy, even as it was, faced the Athenian more as
+an equal than as an inferior.  But what convicts him most clearly, is
+the excuse which he put forward for not bringing the ships.  He said
+that the number assembled was less than the King had ordered; but
+surely it would only have enhanced his credit if he spent little of
+the King's money and effected the same end at less cost.  In any
+case, whatever was his intention, Tissaphernes went to Aspendus and
+saw the Phoenicians; and the Peloponnesians at his desire sent a
+Lacedaemonian called Philip with two galleys to fetch the fleet.
+
+Alcibiades finding that Tissaphernes had gone to Aspendus, himself
+sailed thither with thirteen ships, promising to do a great and
+certain service to the Athenians at Samos, as he would either bring
+the Phoenician fleet to the Athenians, or at all events prevent its
+joining the Peloponnesians.  In all probability he had long known
+that Tissaphernes never meant to bring the fleet at all, and wished to
+compromise him as much as possible in the eyes of the Peloponnesians
+through his apparent friendship for himself and the Athenians, and
+thus in a manner to oblige him to join their side.
+
+While Alcibiades weighed anchor and sailed eastward straight for
+Phaselis and Caunus, the envoys sent by the Four Hundred to Samos
+arrived at Athens.  Upon their delivering the message from
+Alcibiades, telling them to hold out and to show a firm front to the
+enemy, and saying that he had great hopes of reconciling them with the
+army and of overcoming the Peloponnesians, the majority of the members
+of the oligarchy, who were already discontented and only too much
+inclined to be quit of the business in any safe way that they could,
+were at once greatly strengthened in their resolve.  These now banded
+together and strongly criticized the administration, their leaders
+being some of the principal generals and men in office under the
+oligarchy, such as Theramenes, son of Hagnon, Aristocrates, son of
+Scellias, and others; who, although among the most prominent members
+of the government (being afraid, as they said, of the army at Samos,
+and most especially of Alcibiades, and also lest the envoys whom
+they had sent to Lacedaemon might do the state some harm without the
+authority of the people), without insisting on objections to the
+excessive concentration of power in a few hands, yet urged that the
+Five Thousand must be shown to exist not merely in name but in
+reality, and the constitution placed upon a fairer basis.  But this was
+merely their political cry; most of them being driven by private
+ambition into the line of conduct so surely fatal to oligarchies
+that arise out of democracies.  For all at once pretend to be not
+only equals but each the chief and master of his fellows; while
+under a democracy a disappointed candidate accepts his defeat more
+easily, because he has not the humiliation of being beaten by his
+equals.  But what most clearly encouraged the malcontents was the power
+of Alcibiades at Samos, and their own disbelief in the stability of
+the oligarchy; and it was now a race between them as to which should
+first become the leader of the commons.
+
+Meanwhile the leaders and members of the Four Hundred most opposed
+to a democratic form of government--Phrynichus who had had the
+quarrel with Alcibiades during his command at Samos, Aristarchus the
+bitter and inveterate enemy of the commons, and Pisander and
+Antiphon and others of the chiefs who already as soon as they
+entered upon power, and again when the army at Samos seceded from them
+and declared for a democracy, had sent envoys from their own body to
+Lacedaemon and made every effort for peace, and had built the wall
+in Eetionia--now redoubled their exertions when their envoys returned
+from Samos, and they saw not only the people but their own most
+trusted associates turning against them.  Alarmed at the state of
+things at Athens as at Samos, they now sent off in haste Antiphon
+and Phrynichus and ten others with injunctions to make peace with
+Lacedaemon upon any terms, no matter what, that should be at all
+tolerable.  Meanwhile they pushed on more actively than ever with the
+wall in Eetionia.  Now the meaning of this wall, according to
+Theramenes and his supporters, was not so much to keep out the army of
+Samos, in case of its trying to force its way into Piraeus, as to be
+able to let in, at pleasure, the fleet and army of the enemy.  For
+Eetionia is a mole of Piraeus, close alongside of the entrance of
+the harbour, and was now fortified in connection with the wall already
+existing on the land side, so that a few men placed in it might be
+able to command the entrance; the old wall on the land side and the
+new one now being built within on the side of the sea, both ending
+in one of the two towers standing at the narrow mouth of the
+harbour.  They also walled off the largest porch in Piraeus which was
+in immediate connection with this wall, and kept it in their own
+hands, compelling all to unload there the corn that came into the
+harbour, and what they had in stock, and to take it out from thence
+when they sold it.
+
+These measures had long provoked the murmurs of Theramenes, and when
+the envoys returned from Lacedaemon without having effected any
+general pacification, he affirmed that this wall was like to prove the
+ruin of the state.  At this moment forty-two ships from Peloponnese,
+including some Siceliot and Italiot vessels from Locri and Tarentum,
+had been invited over by the Euboeans and were already riding off
+Las in Laconia preparing for the voyage to Euboea, under the command
+of Agesandridas, son of Agesander, a Spartan.  Theramenes now
+affirmed that this squadron was destined not so much to aid Euboea
+as the party fortifying Eetionia, and that unless precautions were
+speedily taken the city would be surprised and lost.  This was no
+mere calumny, there being really some such plan entertained by the
+accused.  Their first wish was to have the oligarchy without giving
+up the empire; failing this to keep their ships and walls and be
+independent; while, if this also were denied them, sooner than be
+the first victims of the restored democracy, they were resolved to
+call in the enemy and make peace, give up their walls and ships, and
+at all costs retain possession of the government, if their lives
+were only assured to them.
+
+For this reason they pushed forward the construction of their work
+with posterns and entrances and means of introducing the enemy,
+being eager to have it finished in time.  Meanwhile the murmurs against
+them were at first confined to a few persons and went on in secret,
+until Phrynichus, after his return from the embassy to Lacedaemon, was
+laid wait for and stabbed in full market by one of the Peripoli,
+falling down dead before he had gone far from the council chamber.  The
+assassin escaped; but his accomplice, an Argive, was taken and put
+to the torture by the Four Hundred, without their being able to
+extract from him the name of his employer, or anything further than
+that he knew of many men who used to assemble at the house of the
+commander of the Peripoli and at other houses.  Here the matter was
+allowed to drop.  This so emboldened Theramenes and Aristocrates and
+the rest of their partisans in the Four Hundred and out of doors, that
+they now resolved to act.  For by this time the ships had sailed
+round from Las, and anchoring at Epidaurus had overrun Aegina; and
+Theramenes asserted that, being bound for Euboea, they would never
+have sailed in to Aegina and come back to anchor at Epidaurus,
+unless they had been invited to come to aid in the designs of which he
+had always accused the government.  Further inaction had therefore
+now become impossible.  In the end, after a great many seditious
+harangues and suspicions, they set to work in real earnest.  The
+heavy infantry in Piraeus building the wall in Eetionia, among whom
+was Aristocrates, a colonel, with his own tribe, laid hands upon
+Alexicles, a general under the oligarchy and the devoted adherent of
+the cabal, and took him into a house and confined him there.  In this
+they were assisted by one Hermon, commander of the Peripoli in
+Munychia, and others, and above all had with them the great bulk of
+the heavy infantry.  As soon as the news reached the Four Hundred,
+who happened to be sitting in the council chamber, all except the
+disaffected wished at once to go to the posts where the arms were, and
+menaced Theramenes and his party.  Theramenes defended himself, and
+said that he was ready immediately to go and help to rescue Alexicles;
+and taking with him one of the generals belonging to his party, went
+down to Piraeus, followed by Aristarchus and some young men of the
+cavalry.  All was now panic and confusion.  Those in the city imagined
+that Piraeus was already taken and the prisoner put to death, while
+those in Piraeus expected every moment to be attacked by the party
+in the city.  The older men, however, stopped the persons running up
+and down the town and making for the stands of arms; and Thucydides
+the Pharsalian, proxenus of the city, came forward and threw himself
+in the way of the rival factions, and appealed to them not to ruin the
+state, while the enemy was still at hand waiting for his
+opportunity, and so at length succeeded in quieting them and in
+keeping their hands off each other.  Meanwhile Theramenes came down
+to Piraeus, being himself one of the generals, and raged and stormed
+against the heavy infantry, while Aristarchus and the adversaries of
+the people were angry in right earnest.  Most of the heavy infantry,
+however, went on with the business without faltering, and asked
+Theramenes if he thought the wall had been constructed for any good
+purpose, and whether it would not be better that it should be pulled
+down.  To this he answered that if they thought it best to pull it
+down, he for his part agreed with them.  Upon this the heavy infantry
+and a number of the people in Piraeus immediately got up on the
+fortification and began to demolish it.  Now their cry to the multitude
+was that all should join in the work who wished the Five Thousand to
+govern instead of the Four Hundred.  For instead of saying in so many
+words "all who wished the commons to govern," they still disguised
+themselves under the name of the Five Thousand; being afraid that
+these might really exist, and that they might be speaking to one of
+their number and get into trouble through ignorance.  Indeed this was
+why the Four Hundred neither wished the Five Thousand to exist, nor to
+have it known that they did not exist; being of opinion that to give
+themselves so many partners in empire would be downright democracy,
+while the mystery in question would make the people afraid of one
+another.
+
+The next day the Four Hundred, although alarmed, nevertheless
+assembled in the council chamber, while the heavy infantry in Piraeus,
+after having released their prisoner Alexicles and pulled down the
+fortification, went with their arms to the theatre of Dionysus,
+close to Munychia, and there held an assembly in which they decided to
+march into the city, and setting forth accordingly halted in the
+Anaceum.  Here they were joined by some delegates from the Four
+Hundred, who reasoned with them one by one, and persuaded those whom
+they saw to be the most moderate to remain quiet themselves, and to
+keep in the rest; saying that they would make known the Five Thousand,
+and have the Four Hundred chosen from them in rotation, as should be
+decided by the Five Thousand, and meanwhile entreated them not to ruin
+the state or drive it into the arms of the enemy.  After a great many
+had spoken and had been spoken to, the whole body of heavy infantry
+became calmer than before, absorbed by their fears for the country
+at large, and now agreed to hold upon an appointed day an assembly
+in the theatre of Dionysus for the restoration of concord.
+
+When the day came for the assembly in the theatre, and they were
+upon the point of assembling, news arrived that the forty-two ships
+under Agesandridas were sailing from Megara along the coast of
+Salamis.  The people to a man now thought that it was just what
+Theramenes and his party had so often said, that the ships were
+sailing to the fortification, and concluded that they had done well to
+demolish it.  But though it may possibly have been by appointment
+that Agesandridas hovered about Epidaurus and the neighbourhood, he
+would also naturally be kept there by the hope of an opportunity
+arising out of the troubles in the town.  In any case the Athenians, on
+receipt of the news immediately ran down in mass to Piraeus, seeing
+themselves threatened by the enemy with a worse war than their war
+among themselves, not at a distance, but close to the harbour of
+Athens.  Some went on board the ships already afloat, while others
+launched fresh vessels, or ran to defend the walls and the mouth of
+the harbour.
+
+Meanwhile the Peloponnesian vessels sailed by, and rounding Sunium
+anchored between Thoricus and Prasiae, and afterwards arrived at
+Oropus.  The Athenians, with revolution in the city, and unwilling to
+lose a moment in going to the relief of their most important
+possession (for Euboea was everything to them now that they were
+shut out from Attica), were compelled to put to sea in haste and
+with untrained crews, and sent Thymochares with some vessels to
+Eretria.  These upon their arrival, with the ships already in Euboea,
+made up a total of thirty-six vessels, and were immediately forced
+to engage.  For Agesandridas, after his crews had dined, put out from
+Oropus, which is about seven miles from Eretria by sea; and the
+Athenians, seeing him sailing up, immediately began to man their
+vessels.  The sailors, however, instead of being by their ships, as
+they supposed, were gone away to purchase provisions for their
+dinner in the houses in the outskirts of the town; the Eretrians
+having so arranged that there should be nothing on sale in the
+marketplace, in order that the Athenians might be a long time in
+manning their ships, and, the enemy's attack taking them by
+surprise, might be compelled to put to sea just as they were.  A signal
+also was raised in Eretria to give them notice in Oropus when to put
+to sea.  The Athenians, forced to put out so poorly prepared, engaged
+off the harbour of Eretria, and after holding their own for some
+little while notwithstanding, were at length put to flight and
+chased to the shore.  Such of their number as took refuge in Eretria,
+which they presumed to be friendly to them, found their fate in that
+city, being butchered by the inhabitants; while those who fled to
+the Athenian fort in the Eretrian territory, and the vessels which got
+to Chalcis, were saved.  The Peloponnesians, after taking twenty-two
+Athenian ships, and killing or making prisoners of the crews, set up a
+trophy, and not long afterwards effected the revolt of the whole of
+Euboea (except Oreus, which was held by the Athenians themselves), and
+made a general settlement of the affairs of the island.
+
+When the news of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens, a panic
+ensued such as they had never before known.  Neither the disaster in
+Sicily, great as it seemed at the time, nor any other had ever so much
+alarmed them.  The camp at Samos was in revolt; they had no more
+ships or men to man them; they were at discord among themselves and
+might at any moment come to blows; and a disaster of this magnitude
+coming on the top of all, by which they lost their fleet, and worst of
+all Euboea, which was of more value to them than Attica, could not
+occur without throwing them into the deepest despondency.  Meanwhile
+their greatest and most immediate trouble was the possibility that the
+enemy, emboldened by his victory, might make straight for them and
+sail against Piraeus, which they had no longer ships to defend; and
+every moment they expected him to arrive.  This, with a little more
+courage, he might easily have done, in which case he would either have
+increased the dissensions of the city by his presence, or, if he had
+stayed to besiege it, have compelled the fleet from Ionia, although
+the enemy of the oligarchy, to come to the rescue of their country and
+of their relatives, and in the meantime would have become master of
+the Hellespont, Ionia, the islands, and of everything as far as
+Euboea, or, to speak roundly, of the whole Athenian empire.  But
+here, as on so many other occasions, the Lacedaemonians proved the
+most convenient people in the world for the Athenians to be at war
+with.  The wide difference between the two characters, the slowness and
+want of energy of the Lacedaemonians as contrasted with the dash and
+enterprise of their opponents, proved of the greatest service,
+especially to a maritime empire like Athens.  Indeed this was shown
+by the Syracusans, who were most like the Athenians in character,
+and also most successful in combating them.
+
+Nevertheless, upon receipt of the news, the Athenians manned
+twenty ships and called immediately a first assembly in the Pnyx,
+where they had been used to meet formerly, and deposed the Four
+Hundred and voted to hand over the government to the Five Thousand, of
+which body all who furnished a suit of armour were to be members,
+decreeing also that no one should receive pay for the discharge of any
+office, or if he did should be held accursed.  Many other assemblies
+were held afterwards, in which law-makers were elected and all other
+measures taken to form a constitution.  It was during the first
+period of this constitution that the Athenians appear to have
+enjoyed the best government that they ever did, at least in my time.
+For the fusion of the high and the low was effected with judgment, and
+this was what first enabled the state to raise up her head after her
+manifold disasters.  They also voted for the recall of Alcibiades and
+of other exiles, and sent to him and to the camp at Samos, and urged
+them to devote themselves vigorously to the war.
+
+Upon this revolution taking place, the party of Pisander and
+Alexicles and the chiefs of the oligarchs immediately withdrew to
+Decelea, with the single exception of Aristarchus, one of the
+generals, who hastily took some of the most barbarian of the archers
+and marched to Oenoe.  This was a fort of the Athenians upon the
+Boeotian border, at that moment besieged by the Corinthians, irritated
+by the loss of a party returning from Decelea, who had been cut off by
+the garrison.  The Corinthians had volunteered for this service, and
+had called upon the Boeotians to assist them.  After communicating with
+them, Aristarchus deceived the garrison in Oenoe by telling them
+that their countrymen in the city had compounded with the
+Lacedaemonians, and that one of the terms of the capitulation was that
+they must surrender the place to the Boeotians.  The garrison
+believed him as he was general, and besides knew nothing of what had
+occurred owing to the siege, and so evacuated the fort under truce.  In
+this way the Boeotians gained possession of Oenoe, and the oligarchy
+and the troubles at Athens ended.
+
+To return to the Peloponnesians in Miletus.  No pay was forthcoming
+from any of the agents deputed by Tissaphernes for that purpose upon
+his departure for Aspendus; neither the Phoenician fleet nor
+Tissaphernes showed any signs of appearing, and Philip, who had been
+sent with him, and another Spartan, Hippocrates, who was at
+Phaselis, wrote word to Mindarus, the admiral, that the ships were not
+coming at all, and that they were being grossly abused by
+Tissaphernes.  Meanwhile Pharnabazus was inviting them to come, and
+making every effort to get the fleet and, like Tissaphernes, to
+cause the revolt of the cities in his government still subject to
+Athens, founding great hopes on his success; until at length, at about
+the period of the summer which we have now reached, Mindarus yielded
+to his importunities, and, with great order and at a moment's
+notice, in order to elude the enemy at Samos, weighed anchor with
+seventy-three ships from Miletus and set sail for the Hellespont.
+Thither sixteen vessels had already preceded him in the same summer,
+and had overrun part of the Chersonese.  Being caught in a storm,
+Mindarus was compelled to run in to Icarus and, after being detained
+five or six days there by stress of weather, arrived at Chios.
+
+Meanwhile Thrasyllus had heard of his having put out from Miletus,
+and immediately set sail with fifty-five ships from Samos, in haste to
+arrive before him in the Hellespont.  But learning that he was at
+Chios, and expecting that he would stay there, he posted scouts in
+Lesbos and on the continent opposite to prevent the fleet moving
+without his knowing it, and himself coasted along to Methymna, and
+gave orders to prepare meal and other necessaries, in order to
+attack them from Lesbos in the event of their remaining for any length
+of time at Chios.  Meanwhile he resolved to sail against Eresus, a town
+in Lesbos which had revolted, and, if he could, to take it.  For some
+of the principal Methymnian exiles had carried over about fifty
+heavy infantry, their sworn associates, from Cuma, and hiring others
+from the continent, so as to make up three hundred in all, chose
+Anaxander, a Theban, to command them, on account of the community of
+blood existing between the Thebans and the Lesbians, and first
+attacked Methymna.  Balked in this attempt by the advance of the
+Athenian guards from Mitylene, and repulsed a second time in a
+battle outside the city, they then crossed the mountain and effected
+the revolt of Eresus.  Thrasyllus accordingly determined to go there
+with all his ships and to attack the place.  Meanwhile Thrasybulus
+had preceded him thither with five ships from Samos, as soon as he
+heard that the exiles had crossed over, and coming too late to save
+Eresus, went on and anchored before the town.  Here they were joined
+also by two vessels on their way home from the Hellespont, and by
+the ships of the Methymnians, making a grand total of sixty-seven
+vessels; and the forces on board now made ready with engines and every
+other means available to do their utmost to storm Eresus.
+
+In the meantime Mindarus and the Peloponnesian fleet at Chios, after
+taking provisions for two days and receiving three Chian pieces of
+money for each man from the Chians, on the third day put out in
+haste from the island; in order to avoid falling in with the ships
+at Eresus, they did not make for the open sea, but keeping Lesbos on
+their left, sailed for the continent.  After touching at the port of
+Carteria, in the Phocaeid, and dining, they went on along the
+Cumaean coast and supped at Arginusae, on the continent over against
+Mitylene.  From thence they continued their voyage along the coast,
+although it was late in the night, and arriving at Harmatus on the
+continent opposite Methymna, dined there; and swiftly passing
+Lectum, Larisa, Hamaxitus, and the neighbouring towns, arrived a
+little before midnight at Rhoeteum.  Here they were now in the
+Hellespont.  Some of the ships also put in at Sigeum and at other
+places in the neighbourhood.
+
+Meanwhile the warnings of the fire signals and the sudden increase
+in the number of fires on the enemy's shore informed the eighteen
+Athenian ships at Sestos of the approach of the Peloponnesian fleet.
+That very night they set sail in haste just as they were, and, hugging
+the shore of the Chersonese, coasted along to Elaeus, in order to sail
+out into the open sea away from the fleet of the enemy.
+
+After passing unobserved the sixteen ships at Abydos, which had
+nevertheless been warned by their approaching friends to be on the
+alert to prevent their sailing out, at dawn they sighted the fleet
+of Mindarus, which immediately gave chase.  All had not time to get
+away; the greater number however escaped to Imbros and Lemnos, while
+four of the hindmost were overtaken off Elaeus.  One of these was
+stranded opposite to the temple of Protesilaus and taken with its
+crew, two others without their crews; the fourth was abandoned on
+the shore of Imbros and burned by the enemy.
+
+After this the Peloponnesians were joined by the squadron from
+Abydos, which made up their fleet to a grand total of eighty-six
+vessels; they spent the day in unsuccessfully besieging Elaeus, and
+then sailed back to Abydos.  Meanwhile the Athenians, deceived by their
+scouts, and never dreaming of the enemy's fleet getting by undetected,
+were tranquilly besieging Eresus.  As soon as they heard the news
+they instantly abandoned Eresus, and made with all speed for the
+Hellespont, and after taking two of the Peloponnesian ships which
+had been carried out too far into the open sea in the ardour of the
+pursuit and now fell in their way, the next day dropped anchor at
+Elaeus, and, bringing back the ships that had taken refuge at
+Imbros, during five days prepared for the coming engagement.
+
+After this they engaged in the following way.  The Athenians formed in
+column and sailed close alongshore to Sestos; upon perceiving which
+the Peloponnesians put out from Abydos to meet them.  Realizing that
+a battle was now imminent, both combatants extended their flank; the
+Athenians along the Chersonese from Idacus to Arrhiani with
+seventy-six ships; the Peloponnesians from Abydos to Dardanus with
+eighty-six.  The Peloponnesian right wing was occupied by the
+Syracusans, their left by Mindarus in person with the best sailers
+in the navy; the Athenian left by Thrasyllus, their right by
+Thrasybulus, the other commanders being in different parts of the
+fleet.  The Peloponnesians hastened to engage first, and outflanking
+with their left the Athenian right sought to cut them off, if
+possible, from sailing out of the straits, and to drive their centre
+upon the shore, which was not far off.  The Athenians perceiving
+their intention extended their own wing and outsailed them, while
+their left had by this time passed the point of Cynossema.  This,
+however, obliged them to thin and weaken their centre, especially as
+they had fewer ships than the enemy, and as the coast round Point
+Cynossema formed a sharp angle which prevented their seeing what was
+going on on the other side of it.
+
+The Peloponnesians now attacked their centre and drove ashore the
+ships of the Athenians, and disembarked to follow up their victory.  No
+help could be given to the centre either by the squadron of
+Thrasybulus on the right, on account of the number of ships
+attacking him, or by that of Thrasyllus on the left, from whom the
+point of Cynossema hid what was going on, and who was also hindered by
+his Syracusan and other opponents, whose numbers were fully equal to
+his own.  At length, however, the Peloponnesians in the confidence of
+victory began to scatter in pursuit of the ships of the enemy, and
+allowed a considerable part of their fleet to get into disorder.  On
+seeing this the squadron of Thrasybulus discontinued their lateral
+movement and, facing about, attacked and routed the ships opposed to
+them, and next fell roughly upon the scattered vessels of the
+victorious Peloponnesian division, and put most of them to flight
+without a blow.  The Syracusans also had by this time given way
+before the squadron of Thrasyllus, and now openly took to flight
+upon seeing the flight of their comrades.
+
+The rout was now complete.  Most of the Peloponnesians fled for
+refuge first to the river Midius, and afterwards to Abydos.  Only a few
+ships were taken by the Athenians; as owing to the narrowness of the
+Hellespont the enemy had not far to go to be in safety.  Nevertheless
+nothing could have been more opportune for them than this victory.
+Up to this time they had feared the Peloponnesian fleet, owing to a
+number of petty losses and to the disaster in Sicily; but they now
+ceased to mistrust themselves or any longer to think their enemies
+good for anything at sea.  Meanwhile they took from the enemy eight
+Chian vessels, five Corinthian, two Ambraciot, two Boeotian, one
+Leucadian, Lacedaemonian, Syracusan, and Pellenian, losing fifteen
+of their own.  After setting up a trophy upon Point Cynossema, securing
+the wrecks, and restoring to the enemy his dead under truce, they sent
+off a galley to Athens with the news of their victory.  The arrival
+of this vessel with its unhoped-for good news, after the recent
+disasters of Euboea, and in the revolution at Athens, gave fresh
+courage to the Athenians, and caused them to believe that if they
+put their shoulders to the wheel their cause might yet prevail.
+
+On the fourth day after the sea-fight the Athenians in Sestos having
+hastily refitted their ships sailed against Cyzicus, which had
+revolted.  Off Harpagium and Priapus they sighted at anchor the eight
+vessels from Byzantium, and, sailing up and routing the troops on
+shore, took the ships, and then went on and recovered the town of
+Cyzicus, which was unfortified, and levied money from the citizens.  In
+the meantime the Peloponnesians sailed from Abydos to Elaeus, and
+recovered such of their captured galleys as were still uninjured,
+the rest having been burned by the Elaeusians, and sent Hippocrates
+and Epicles to Euboea to fetch the squadron from that island.
+
+About the same time Alcibiades returned with his thirteen ships from
+Caunus and Phaselis to Samos, bringing word that he had prevented
+the Phoenician fleet from joining the Peloponnesians, and had made
+Tissaphernes more friendly to the Athenians than before.  Alcibiades
+now manned nine more ships, and levied large sums of money from the
+Halicarnassians, and fortified Cos.  After doing this and placing a
+governor in Cos, he sailed back to Samos, autumn being now at hand.
+Meanwhile Tissaphernes, upon hearing that the Peloponnesian fleet
+had sailed from Miletus to the Hellespont, set off again back from
+Aspendus, and made all sail for Ionia.  While the Peloponnesians were
+in the Hellespont, the Antandrians, a people of Aeolic extraction,
+conveyed by land across Mount Ida some heavy infantry from Abydos, and
+introduced them into the town; having been ill-treated by Arsaces, the
+Persian lieutenant of Tissaphernes.  This same Arsaces had, upon
+pretence of a secret quarrel, invited the chief men of the Delians
+to undertake military service (these were Delians who had settled at
+Atramyttium after having been driven from their homes by the Athenians
+for the sake of purifying Delos); and after drawing them out from
+their town as his friends and allies, had laid wait for them at
+dinner, and surrounded them and caused them to be shot down by his
+soldiers.  This deed made the Antandrians fear that he might some day
+do them some mischief; and as he also laid upon them burdens too heavy
+for them to bear, they expelled his garrison from their citadel.
+
+Tissaphernes, upon hearing of this act of the Peloponnesians in
+addition to what had occurred at Miletus and Cnidus, where his
+garrisons had been also expelled, now saw that the breach between them
+was serious; and fearing further injury from them, and being also
+vexed to think that Pharnabazus should receive them, and in less
+time and at less cost perhaps succeed better against Athens than he
+had done, determined to rejoin them in the Hellespont, in order to
+complain of the events at Antandros and excuse himself as best he
+could in the matter of the Phoenician fleet and of the other charges
+against him.  Accordingly he went first to Ephesus and offered
+sacrifice to Artemis. . . .
+
+[When the winter after this summer is over the twenty-first year
+of this war will be completed. ]
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR ***
+
+This file should be named plpwr10.txt or plpwr10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, plpwr11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, plpwr10a.txt
+
+This etext was prepared by Albert Imrie, Colorado, USA
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+