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

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 marketplace, 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