History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

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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

 

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 lookout 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.