1.
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,
[2]
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.
[3]
After staying the time for which they had taken provisions, the invaders
retired and dispersed to their several cities.
2.
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.
[2]
While they were waiting until the moles for their harbors 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,
[3]
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.
3.
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.
[2]
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;
[3]
word having been brought them of a festival in honor 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.
[4]
The ships accordingly set out; the ten triremes, 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.
[5]
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 harbors.
4.
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.
[2]
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 harbor; 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.
[3]
The Athenian commanders accepted their offers, being themselves fearful
that they might not be able to cope with the whole of Lesbos;
[4]
and an armistice having been concluded, the 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.
[5]
In the meantime, having no great hope of a favorable answer from Athens,
they also sent off a trireme with envoys to Lacedaemon, unobserved by the
Athenian fleet which was anchored at Malea to the north of the town.
[6]
While these envoys, reaching Lacedaemon after
a difficult journey across the open sea, were negotiating for succors being
sent them,
5.
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.
[2]
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 trireme after the
battle, and advised them to send another trireme and envoys back with them,
which the Mitylenians accordingly did.
6.
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 vigor 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 harbors.
[2]
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.
7.
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.
[2]
As the ships coasted along shore they ravaged the seaboard of Laconia;
[3]
after which Asopius sent most of the fleet home, and himself went on with
twelve vessels to Naupactus, and after-wards raising the whole Acarnanian
population made an expedition against Oeniadae, the fleet sailing along the
Achelous, while the army laid waste the country.
[4]
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 coast-guards;
[5]
after which the Athenians sailed away, recovering their dead from the
Leucadians under truce.
8.
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,
[2]
and the envoys having been introduced to make their speech after the
festival, spoke as follows.
9.
‘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 favorably
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.
[2]
Nor is this an unfair way of judging, where the rebels and the power from
whom they secede are at one in policy and sympathy, and a match for each
other in resources and power, and where no reasonable ground exists for the
rebellion.
But with us and the Athenians this was not the case;
[3]
and no one need think the worse of us for revolting from them in danger,
after having been honored by them in time of peace.
10.
Justice and honesty will be the first topics
of our speech, especially as we are asking for alliance; because we know that there can never be any solid friendship between
individuals, or union between communities that is worth the name, unless the
parties be persuaded of each other's honesty, and be generally congenial the
one to the other; since from difference in feeling springs also difference in conduct.
[2]
Between ourselves and the Athenians alliance began, when you withdrew from
the Median war and they remained to finish the business.
[3]
But we did not become allies of the Athenians for the subjugation of the
Hellenes, but allies of the Hellenes for their liberation from the Mede;
[4]
and as long as the Athenians led us fairly we followed them loyally; but when we saw them relax their hostility to the Mede, to try to compass
the subjection of the allies, then our apprehensions began.
[5]
Unable, however, to unite and defend themselves, on account of the number
of confederates that had votes, all the allies were enslaved, except
ourselves and the Chians, who continued to send our contingents as
independent and nominally free.
[6]
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.
11.
Had we all been still independent, we could
have had more faith in their not attempting any change; but the greater number being their subjects, while they were treating us as
equals, they would naturally chafe under this solitary instance of
independence as contrasted with the submission of the majority; particularly as they daily grew more powerful, and we more destitute.
[2]
Now the only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally
afraid of the other: he who would like to encroach is then deterred by the
reflection that he will not have odds in his favour.
[3]
Again, if we were left independent, it was only because they thought they
saw their way to empire more clearly by specious language and by the paths
of policy than by those of force.
[4]
Not only were we useful as evidence that powers who had votes, like
themselves, would not, surely, join them in their expeditions, against their
will, without the party attacked being in the wrong; but the same system also enabled them to lead the stronger states against
the weaker first, and so to leave the former to the last, stripped of their
natural allies, and less capable of resistance.
[5]
But if they had begun with us, while all the states still had their
resources under their own control, and there was a center to rally round,
the work of subjugation would have been found less easy.
[6]
Besides this, our navy gave them some apprehension: it was always possible
that it might unite with you or with some other power, and become dangerous
to Athens.
[7]
The court which we paid to their commons and its leaders for the time
being, also helped us to maintain our independence.
[8]
However, we did not expect to be able to do so much longer, if this war had
not broken out, from the examples that we had had of their conduct to the
rest.
12.
How then could we put our trust in such
friendship or freedom as we had here?
We accepted each other against our inclination; fear made them court us in war, and us them in peace; sympathy, the ordinary basis of confidence, had its place supplied by
terror, fear having more share than friendship in detaining us in the
alliance; and the first party that should be encouraged by the hope of impunity was
certain to break faith with the other.
[2]
So 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.
[3]
For if we were equally able with them to meet their plots and imitate their
delay, we should be their equals and should be under no necessity of being
their subjects; but the liberty of offence being always theirs, that of defence ought
clearly to be ours.
13.
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 baulked by your refusing to receive us; and now, upon the Boeotians inviting us, we at once responded to the call,
and decided upon a twofold revolt, from the Hellenes and from the Athenians,
not to aid the latter in harming the former, but to join in their
liberation, and not to allow the Athenians in the end to destroy us, but to
act in time against them.
[2]
Our revolt, however has taken place prematurely and without
preparation—a fact which makes it all the more incumbent on you to
receive us into alliance and to send us speedy relief, in order to show that
you support your friends, and at the same time do harm to your enemies.
[3]
You have an opportunity such as you never had before.
Disease and expenditure have wasted the Athenians: their ships are either
cruising round your coasts, or engaged in blockading us;
[4]
and it is not probable that they will have any to spare, if you invade them
a second time this summer by sea and land; but they will either offer no resistance to your vessels, or withdraw from
both our shores.
[5]
Nor must it be thought that this is a case of putting yourselves into
danger for a country which is not yours.
Lesbos may appear far off, but when help is wanted she will be found near
enough.
It is not in Attica that the war will be decided, as some imagine, but in
the countries by which Attica is supported;
[6]
and the Athenian revenue is drawn from the allies, and will become still
larger if they reduce us; as not only will no other state revolt, but our resources will be added to
theirs, and we shall be treated worse than those that were enslaved before.
[7]
But if you will frankly support us, you will add to your side a state that
has a large navy, which is your great want; you will smooth the way to the overthrow of the Athenians by depriving them
of their allies, who will be greatly encouraged to come over; and you will free yourselves from the 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.
14.
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;
[2]
but be the men that the Hellenes think you, and our fears
desire.’
15.
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.
[2]
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.
16.
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 Pentecosiomedimni, and the resident
aliens; and putting out to the Isthmus, displayed their power, and made descents
upon Peloponnese wherever they pleased.
[2]
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.
[3]
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.
[4]
Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred ships, upon seeing the
Lacedaemonians go home, went home likewise.
17.
If at the time that this fleet was at sea,
Athens had almost the largest number of first-rate ships in commission that
she ever possessed at any one moment, she had as many or even more when the
war began.
[2]
At that time one hundred guarded Attica, Euboea, and Salamis; a hundred more were cruising round 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.
[3]
It was this, with Potidaea, that most exhausted her revenues—
[4]
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.
18.
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.
[2]
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.
[3]
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;
[4]
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.
[5]
Mitylene was thus blockaded strictly on both sides, by land and by sea, and
winter now drew near.
19.
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.
[2]
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.
20.
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:
[2]
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.
[3]
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.
[4]
The length required for the ladders was thus obtained, being calculated
from the breadth of the brick.
21.
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.
[2]
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.
[3]
At intervals of every ten battlements were towers of considerable size, and
the same breadth as the wall, reaching right across from its inner to its
outer face, with no means of passing except through the middle.
[4]
Accordingly on stormy and wet nights the battlements were deserted, and
guard 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,
22.
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;
[2]
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.
[3]
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.
[4]
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.
[5]
The alarm was instantly given, and the troops rushed to the wall, not
knowing the nature of the danger, owing to the dark night and stormy
weather; the Plataeans in the 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.
[6]
Accordingly they remained distracted at their several posts, without any
venturing to stir to give help from his own station, and at a loss to guess
what was going on.
[7]
Meanwhile the three hundred set aside for service on emergencies went
outside the wall in the direction of the alarm.
Fire-signals of an attack were also raised towards Thebes;
[8]
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.
23.
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;
[2]
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.
[3]
When all were over, the party on the towers came down, the last of them not
without difficulty, and proceeded to the ditch, just as the three hundred
came up carrying torches.
[4]
The Plataeans, standing on the edge of the ditch in the dark, had a good
view of their opponents, and discharged their arrows and darts upon the
unarmed parts of their bodies, while they themselves could not be so well
seen in the obscurity for the torches; and thus even the last of them got over the ditch, though not without
effort and difficulty;
[5]
as ice had formed in it, not strong enough to walk upon, but of that watery
kind which generally comes with a wind more east than north, and the snow
which this wind had caused to fall during the night, had made the water in
the ditch rise, so that they could scarcely breast it as they crossed.
However, it was mainly the violence of the storm that enabled them to
effect their escape at all.
24.
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.
[2]
After going for rather more than half a mile upon the road to Thebes, the
Plataeans turned off and took that leading to the mountain, to Erythrae and
Hysiae, and reaching the hills, made good their escape to Athens, two
hundred and twelve men in all; some of their number having turned back into the town before getting over
the wall, and one archer having been taken prisoner at the outer ditch.
[3]
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.
25.
Towards the close of the same winter,
Salaethus, a Lacedaemonian, was sent out in a trireme 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.
[2]
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.
26.
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.
[2]
The commander in this invasion was Cleomenes, in the place of King
Pausanias, son of Pleistoanax, his nephew, who was still a minor.
[3]
Not content with laying waste whatever had 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;
[4]
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.
27.
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.
[2]
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.
[3]
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.
28.
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.
[2]
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 .
[3]
Paches also sent some triremes and seized Antissa, and took such other
military measures as he thought advisable.
29.
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.
[2]
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:—
30.
‘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.
[2]
We may expect to find the Athenians as much on their guard as men generally
are who have just taken a city: this will certainly be so by sea, where they
have no idea of any enemy attacking them, and where our strength, as it
happens, mainly lies; while even their land forces are probably scattered about the houses in the
carelessness of victory.
[3]
If therefore we were to fall upon them suddenly and in the night, I have
hopes, with the help of the well-wishers that we may have left inside the
town, that we shall become masters of the place.
[4]
Let us not shrink from the risk, but let us remember that this is just the
occasion for one of the baseless panics common in war; and that to be able to guard against these in one's own case, and to detect
the moment when an attack will find an enemy at this disadvantage, is what
makes a successful general.’
31.
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.
[2]
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.
32.
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.
[2]
Upon his coming to anchor at Ephesus, envoys came to him from the Samians
at Anaia, and told him that he was not going the right way to free Hellas in
massacring men who had never raised a hand against him, and who were not
enemies of his, but allies of Athens against their will, and that if he did
not stop he would turn many more friends into enemies than enemies into
friends.
[3]
Alcidas agreed to this, and let go all the Chians still in his hands and
some of the others that he had taken; 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.
33.
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.
[2]
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.
[3]
Paches accordingly gave hot chase, and continued the pursuit as far as the
isle of Patmos, and then finding that Alcidas had got on too far to be
overtaken, came back again.
Meanwhile he thought it fortunate that, as he had not fallen in with them
out at sea, he had not overtaken them anywhere where they would have been
forced to encamp, and so give him the trouble of blockading them.
34.
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.
[2]
However, the refugees, after settling at Notium, again split up into
factions, one of which called in Arcadian and barbarian mercenaries from
Pissuthnes, and entrenching these in a quarter apart, formed a new community
with the Median party of the Colophonians who joined them from the upper
town.
Their opponents had retired into exile, and now called in Paches,
[3]
who invited Hippias, the commander of the Arcadians in the fortified
quarter, to a parley, upon condition that, if they could not agree, he was
to be put back safe and sound in the fortification.
However, upon his coming out to him, 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.
[4]
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.
35.
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.
[2]
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.
36.
Upon the arrival of the prisoners with
Salaethus, the Athenians at once put the latter to death, although he
offered, among other things, to procure the withdrawal of the Peloponnesians
from Plataea, which was still under siege;
[2]
and after deliberating as to what they should do with the former, in the
fury of the moment determined to put to death not only the prisoners at
Athens, but the whole adult male population of 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.
[3]
They accordingly sent a trireme to communicate the decree to Paches,
commanding him to lose no time in despatching the Mitylenians.
[4]
The morrow brought repentance with it and reflection on the horrid cruelty
of a decree, which condemned a whole city to the fate merited only by the
guilty.
[5]
This was no sooner perceived by the 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.
[6]
An assembly was therefore at once called, and after much expression of
opinion upon both sides, Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, the same who had carried
the former motion of putting the 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:—
37.
‘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.
[2]
Fears or plots being unknown to you in your daily relations with each
other, you feel just the same with regard to your allies, and never reflect
that the mistakes into which you may be led by listening to their appeals,
or by giving way to your own compassion, are full of danger to yourselves,
and bring you no thanks for your weakness from your allies; entirely forgetting that your empire is a despotism and your subjects
disaffected conspirators, whose obedience is insured not by your suicidal
concessions, but by the superiority given you by your own strength and not
their loyalty.
[3]
The most alarming feature in the case is the constant change of measures
with which we appear to be threatened, and our seeming ignorance of the fact
that bad laws which are never changed are better for a city than good ones
that have no authority; that unlearned loyalty is more serviceable than quick-witted
insubordination; and that ordinary men usually manage public affairs better than their more
gifted fellows.
[4]
The latter are always wanting to appear wiser than the laws, and to
overrule every proposition brought forward, thinking that they cannot show
their wit in more important matters, and by such behavior too often ruin
their country; while those who mistrust their own cleverness are content to be less
learned than the laws, and less able to pick holes in the speech of a good
speaker; and being fair judges rather than rival athletes, generally conduct affairs
successfully.
[5]
These we ought to imitate, instead of being led on by cleverness and
intellectual rivalry to advise your people against our real opinions.
38.
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.
[2]
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.
[3]
In such contests the state gives the rewards to others, and takes the
dangers for herself.
[4]
The persons to blame are you who are so foolish as to institute these
contests; who go to see an oration as you would to see a sight, take your facts on
hearsay, judge of the practicability of a project by the wit of its
advocates, and trust for the truth as to past events not to the fact which
you saw more than to the clever strictures which you heard;
[5]
the easy victims of newfangled arguments, unwilling to follow received
conclusions; slaves to every new paradox, despisers of the commonplace;
[6]
the first wish of every man being that he could speak himself, the next to
rival those who can speak by seeming to 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;
[7]
asking, if I may so say, for something different from the conditions under
which we live, and yet comprehending inadequately those very conditions; very slaves to the pleasure of the ear, and more like the audience of a
rhetorician than the council of a city.
39.
In order to keep you from this, I proceed to
show that no one state has ever injured you as much as Mitylene.
[2]
I can make allowance for those who revolt because they cannot bear our
empire, or who have been forced to do so by the enemy.
But for those who possessed an island with fortifications; who could fear our enemies only by sea, and there had their own force of
triremes to protect them; who were independent and held in the highest honor by you—to act
as these have done, this is not revolt—revolt implies oppression; it is deliberate and wanton aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our bitterest enemies; a worse offence than a war undertaken on their own account in the
acquisition of power.
[3]
The fate of those of their neighbors who had already rebelled and had been
subdued, was no lesson to them; their own prosperity could not dissuade them from affronting danger; but blindly confident in the future, and full of hopes beyond their power
though not beyond their ambition, they declared war and made their decision
to prefer might to right, their attack being determined not by provocation
but by the moment which seemed propitious.
[4]
The truth is that great good fortune coming suddenly and unexpectedly tends
to make a people insolent: in most cases it is safer for mankind to have
success in reason than out of reason; and it is easier for them, one may say, to stave off adversity than to
preserve prosperity.
[5]
Our mistake has been to distinguish the 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.
[6]
Let them now therefore be punished as their crime requires, and do not,
while you condemn the aristocracy, absolve the people.
This is certain, that all attacked you without distinction, although they
might have come over to us, and been now again in possession of their city.
But no, they thought it safer to throw in their lot with the aristocracy
and so joined their rebellion!
[7]
Consider therefore! if you subject to the same punishment the ally who is
forced to rebel by the enemy, and him who does so by his own free choice,
which of them, think you, is there that will not rebel upon the slightest
pretext; when the reward of success is freedom, and the penalty of failure nothing
so very terrible?
[8]
We meanwhile shall have to risk our money and our lives against one state
after another; and if successful, shall receive a ruined 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.
40.
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.
[2]
I therefore now as before persist against your reversing your first
decision, or giving way to the three failings most fatal to
empire—pity, sentiment, and indulgence.
[3]
Compassion is due to those who can reciprocate the feeling, not to those
who will never pity us in return, but are our natural and necessary foes:
the orators who charm us with sentiment may find other less important arenas
for their talents, in the place of one where the city pays a heavy penalty
for a momentary pleasure, themselves receiving fine acknowledgments for
their fine phrases; while indulgence should be shown 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.
[4]
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.
[5]
Make up your minds, therefore, to give them like for like; and do not let the victims who escaped the plot be more insensible than the
conspirators who hatched it; but reflect what they would have done if victorious over you, especially as
they were the aggressors.
[6]
It is they who wrong their neighbor without a cause, that pursue their
victim to the death, on account of the danger which they foresee in letting
their enemy survive; since the object of a wanton wrong is more dangerous, if he escape, than an
enemy who has not this to complain of.
[7]
Do not, therefore, be traitors to yourselves, but recall as nearly as
possible the moment of suffering and the supreme importance which you then
attached to their reduction; and now pay them back in their turn, without yielding to present weakness
or forgetting the peril that once hung over you.
Punish them as they deserve, and teach your other allies by a striking
example that the penalty of rebellion is death.
Let them once understand this and you will not have so often to neglect
your enemies while you are fighting with your own
confederates.’
41.
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:—
42.
‘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.
[2]
As for the argument that speech ought not to be the exponent of action, the
man who uses it must be either senseless or 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.
[3]
What is still more intolerable is to accuse a speaker of making a display
in order to be paid for it.
If ignorance only were imputed, an unsuccessful speaker might retire with a
reputation for honesty, if not for wisdom; while the charge of dishonesty makes him suspected, if successful, and
thought, if defeated, not only a fool but a rogue.
[4]
The city is no gainer by such a system, since fear deprives it of its
advisers; although in truth, if our speakers are to make such assertions, it would be
better for the country if they could not speak at all, as we should then
make fewer blunders.
[5]
The good citizen ought to triumph not by frightening his opponents but by
beating them fairly in argument; and a wise city without 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.
[6]
In this way successful orators would be least tempted to sacrifice their
convictions for popularity, in the hope of still higher honors, and
unsuccessful speakers to resort to the same popular arts in order to win
over the multitude.
43.
This is not our way; and, besides, the moment that a man is suspected of giving advice, however
good, from corrupt motives, we feel such a grudge against him for the gain
which after all we are not certain he will receive, that we deprive the city
of its certain benefit.
[2]
Plain good advice has thus come to be no less suspected than bad; and the advocate of the most monstrous measures is not more obliged to use
deceit to gain the people, than the best counsellor is to lie in order to be
believed.
[3]
The city and the city only, owing to these refinements, can never be served
openly and without disguise; he who does serve it openly being always suspected of serving himself in
some secret way in return.
[4]
Still, considering the magnitude of the interests involved, and the
position of affairs, we orators must make it our business to look a little
further than you who judge offhand; especially as we, your advisers, are responsible, while you, our audience,
are not so.
[5]
For if those who gave the advice, and those who took it, suffered equally,
you would judge more calmly; as it is, you visit the disasters into which the whim of the moment may
have led you, upon the single person of your adviser, not upon yourselves,
his numerous companions in error.
44.
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.
[2]
Though I prove them ever so guilty, I shall not, therefore, advise their
death, unless it be expedient; nor though they should have claims to indulgence, shall I recommend it,
unless it be clearly for the good of the country.
[3]
I consider that we are deliberating for the future more than for the
present; and where Cleon is so positive as to the useful deterrent effects that will
follow from making rebellion capital, I who consider the interests of the
future quite as much as he, as positively maintain the contrary.
[4]
And I require you not to reject my useful considerations for his specious
ones: his speech may have the attraction of seeming the more just in your
present temper against 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.
45.
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.
[2]
Again, was there ever city rebelling that did not believe that it possessed
either in itself or in its alliances resources adequate to the enterprise?
[3]
All, states and individuals, are alike prone to err, and there is no law
that will prevent them; or why should men have exhausted the list of punishments in search of
enactments to protect them from evil-doers?
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.
[4]
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.
[5]
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.
[6]
Fortune, too, powerfully helps the delusion, and by the unexpected aid that
she sometimes lends, tempts men to venture with inferior means; and this is especially the case with communities, because the stakes played
for are the highest, freedom or empire, and, when all are acting together,
each man irrationally magnifies his own capacity.
[7]
In 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.
46.
We must not, therefore, commit ourselves to a
false policy through a belief in the efficacy of the punishment of death, or
exclude rebels from the hope of repentance and an early atonement of their
error.
[2]
Consider a moment!
At present, if a city that has already revolted perceive that it cannot
succeed, it will come to terms while it is still able to refund expenses,
and pay tribute afterwards.
In the other case, what city think you would not prepare better than is now
done, and hold out to the last against its besiegers, if it is all one
whether it surrender late or soon?
[3]
And how can it be otherwise than hurtful to us to be put to the expense of
a siege, because surrender is out of the question; and if we take the city, to receive a ruined town from which we can no
longer draw the revenue which forms our real strength against the enemy?
[4]
We must not, therefore, sit as strict judges of the offenders to our own
prejudice, but rather see how by moderate chastisements we may be enabled to
benefit in future by the revenue-producing powers of our dependencies; and we must make up our minds to look for our protection not to legal
terrors but to careful administration.
[5]
At present we do exactly the opposite.
When a free community, held in subjection by force, rises, as is only
natural, and asserts its independence, it is no sooner reduced than we fancy
ourselves obliged to punish it severely;
[6]
although the right course with freemen is not to chastise them rigorously
when they do rise, but rigorously to watch them before they rise, and to
prevent their ever entertaining the idea, and, the insurrection suppressed,
to make as few responsible for it as possible.
47.
Only consider what a blunder you would commit
in doing as Cleon recommends.
[2]
As things are at present, in all the cities the people is your friend, and
either does not revolt with the oligarchy, or, if forced to do so, becomes
at once the enemy of the insurgents; so that in the war with the hostile city you have the masses on your side.
[3]
But if you butcher the people of 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.
[4]
On the contrary, even if they were guilty, you ought to seem not to notice
it, in order to avoid alienating the only class still friendly to us.
[5]
In short, I consider it far more useful for the preservation of our empire
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.
48.
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.
[2]
This is at once best for the future, and most terrible to your enemies at
the present moment; inasmuch as good policy against an adversary is superior to the blind
attacks of brute force.’
49.
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.
[2]
Another trireme was at once sent off in haste, for fear that the first
might reach Lesbos in the interval, and the city be found destroyed; the first ship having about a day and a night's start.
[3]
Wine and barley-cakes were provided for the vessel by the 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.
[4]
Luckily they met with no contrary wind, and the first ship making no haste
upon so horrid an errand, while the second pressed on in the manner
described, the first arrived so little before them, that Paches had only
just had time to read the decree, and to prepare to execute the sentence,
when the second put into port and prevented the massacre.
The danger of Mitylene had indeed been great.
50.
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.
[2]
Afterwards tribute was not imposed upon the Lesbians; but all their land, except that of the Methymnians, was divided into three
thousand allotments, three hundred of which were reserved as sacred for the
gods, and the rest assigned by lot to Athenian shareholders, who were sent
out to the island.
With these the Lesbians agreed to pay a rent of two minae a year for each
allotment, and cultivated the land themselves.
[3]
The Athenians also took possession of the 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.
51.
During the same summer, after the reduction
of Lesbos, the Athenians under Nicias, son of Niceratus, made an expedition
against the island of Minos, which lies off Megara and was used as a
fortified post by the Megarians, who had built a tower upon it.
[2]
Nicias wished to enable the Athenians to maintain their blockade from this
nearer station instead of from Budorum and Salamis; to stop the Peloponnesian triremes and privateers sailing out unobserved
from the island, as they had been in the habit of doing; and at the same time prevent anything from coming into Megara.
[3]
Accordingly, after taking two towers projecting on the side of Nisaea, by
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 succors to be thrown into the island, which was not far off from the
continent.
[4]
A few days sufficing to accomplish this, he afterwards raised some works in
the island also, and leaving a garrison there, departed with his forces.
52.
About the same time in this summer, the
Plataean being now without provisions, and unable to support the siege,
surrendered to the Peloponnesians in the following manner.
[2]
An assault had been made upon the wall, which the Plataeans were unable to
repel.
The 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.
[3]
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.
[4]
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.
[5]
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:—
53.
‘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.
[2]
As matters stand, we are afraid that we have been doubly deceived.
We have good reason to suspect, not only that the issue to be tried is the
most terrible of all, but that you will not prove impartial; if we may argue from the fact that no accusation was first brought forward
for us to answer, but we had ourselves to ask leave to speak, and from the
question being put so shortly, that a true answer to it tells against us,
while a false one can be contradicted.
[3]
In this dilemma, our safest, and indeed our only course, seems to be to say
something at all risks: placed as we are, we could scarcely be silent
without being tormented by the damning thought that speaking might have
saved us.
[4]
Another difficulty that we have to encounter is the difficulty of
convincing you.
Were we unknown to each other we might profit by bringing forward new
matter with which you were unacquainted: as it is, we can tell you nothing
that you do not know already, and we fear, not that you have condemned us in
your own minds of having failed in our duty 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.
54.
Nevertheless, we will place before you what we can justly urge, not only on
the question of the quarrel which the Thebans have against us, but also as
addressing you and the rest of the Hellenes; and we will remind you of our good services, and endeavor to prevail with
you.
[2]
To your short question, whether we have done
the 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.
[3]
During the peace, and against the Mede, we acted well: we have not now been
the first to break the peace, and we were the only Boeotians who then joined
in defending against the Mede the liberty of Hellas.
[4]
Although an inland people, we were present at the action at Artemisium; in the battle that took place in our territory we fought by the side of
yourselves and Pausanias; and in all the other Hellenic exploits of the time we took a part quite out
of proportion to our strength.
[5]
Besides, you, as 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.
55.
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 neighbors, as
you lived too far off.
[2]
In the war we never have done to you, and never should have done to you,
anything unreasonable.
[3]
If we refused to desert the Athenians when you asked us, we did no wrong; they had helped us against the Thebans when you drew back, and we could no
longer give them up with honor; especially as we had obtained their alliance and had been admitted to their
citizenship at our own request, and after receiving benefits at their hands; but it was plainly our duty loyally to obey their orders.
[4]
Besides, the faults that either of you may commit in your supremacy must be
laid, not upon the followers, but on the chiefs that lead them astray.
56.
With regard to the Thebans, they have wronged
us repeatedly, and their last aggression, which has been the means of
bringing us into our present position, is within your own knowledge.
[2]
In seizing our city in time of peace, and what is more at a holy time in
the month, they justly encountered our vengeance, in accordance with the
universal law which sanctions resistance to an invader; and it cannot now be right that we should suffer on their account.
[3]
By taking your own immediate interest and their animosity as the test of
justice, you will prove yourselves to be rather waiters on expediency than
judges of right;
[4]
although if they seem useful to you now, we and the rest of the Hellenes
gave you much more valuable help at a time of greater need.
Now you are the assailants, and others fear you; but at the crisis to which we allude, when the barbarian threatened all
with slavery, the Thebans were on his side.
[5]
It is just, therefore, to put our patriotism then against our error now, if
error there has been; and you will find the merit outweighing the fault, and displayed at a
juncture when there were few Hellenes who would set their valor against the
strength of Xerxes, and when greater praise was theirs who preferred the
dangerous path of honor to the safe source of consulting their own interest
with respect to the invasion.
[6]
To these few we belonged, and highly were we honored for it; and yet we now fear to perish by having again acted on the same principles,
and chosen to act well with Athens sooner than wisely with Sparta.
[7]
Yet in justice the same cases should be decided in the same way, and policy
should not mean anything else than lasting gratitude for the service of a
good ally combined with a proper attention to one's own immediate interest.
57.
Consider also that at present the Hellenes
generally regard you as a pattern of worth and honor; and if you pass an unjust sentence upon us in this which is no obscure
cause, but one in which you the judges, are as illustrious as we, the
prisoners, are blameless, take care that displeasure be not felt at an
unworthy decision in the matter of honorable men made by men yet more
honorable than they, and at the consecration in the national temples of
spoils taken from the Plataeans, the benefactors of Hellas.
[2]
Shocking indeed will it seem for 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.
[3]
To such a depth of misfortune have we fallen, that while the Medes' success
had been our ruin, Thebans now supplant us in your once fond regards; and we have been subjected to two dangers, the greatest of
any—that of dying of starvation then, if we had not surrendered
our town, and now of being tried for our lives.
[4]
So that we Plataeans, after exertions beyond our power in the cause of the
Hellenes, are rejected by all, forsaken and unassisted; helped by none of our allies, and reduced to doubt the stability of our
only hope, yourselves.
58.
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.
[2]
Our lives may be quickly taken, but it will be a heavy task to wipe away
the infamy of the deed; as we are no enemies whom you might justly punish, but friends forced into
taking arms against you.
[3]
To grant us our lives would be, therefore, a righteous judgment; if you consider also that we are prisoners who surrendered of their own
accord, stretching out our hands for quarter, whose slaughter Hellenic law
forbids, and who besides were always your benefactors.
[4]
Look at the sepulchres of your fathers, slain by the Medes and buried in
our country, whom year by year we honored with garments and all other dues,
and the first fruits of all that our land produced in their season, as
friends from a friendly country and allies to our old companions in arms!
Should you not decide aright, your conduct would be the very opposite to
ours.
Consider only:
[5]
Pausanias buried them thinking that he was laying them in friendly ground
and among men as friendly; but you, if you kill us and make the Plataean territory Theban, will leave
your fathers and kinsmen in, a hostile soil and among their murderers,
deprived of the honors which they now enjoy.
What is more, you will enslave the land in which the freedom of the
Hellenes was won, make desolate the temples of the gods to whom they prayed
before they overcame the Medes, and take away your ancestral sacrifices from
those who founded and instituted them.
59.
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.
[2]
We, as we have a right to do and as our need impels us, entreat you,
calling aloud upon the gods at whose common altar all the Hellenes worship,
to hear our request, to be not unmindful of the oaths which your fathers
swore, and which we now plead—we supplicate you by the tombs of
your fathers, and appeal to those that are gone to save us from falling into
the hands of the Thebans and 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.
[3]
Finally, to do what is necessary and yet most difficult for men in our
situation—that is, to make an end of speaking, since with that
ending the peril of our lives draws near—
[4]
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.’
60.
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:—
61.
‘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.
[2]
The origin of our quarrel was this.
We settled Plataea some time after the rest of Boeotia, together with other
places out of which we had driven the mixed population.
The Plataeans not choosing to recognize our supremacy, as had been first
arranged, but separating themselves from the rest of the Boeotians, and
proving traitors to their nationality, we used compulsion; upon which they went over to the Athenians, and with them did us much harm,
for which we retaliated.
62.
Next, when the barbarian invaded Hellas, they
say that they were the only Boeotians who did not Medise; and this is where they most glorify themselves and abuse us.
[2]
We say that if they did not Medise, 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.
[3]
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.
[4]
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.
[5]
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 endeavored 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?
63.
Let this suffice to excuse us for our Medism.
We will now endeavor to show that you have injured the Hellenes more than
we, and are more deserving of condign punishment.
[2]
It was in 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.
[3]
And you say that it had been base for you to betray your benefactors; but it was surely far baser and more iniquitous to sacrifice the whole body
of the Hellenes, your fellow-confederates, who were liberating Hellas, than
the Athenians only, who were enslaving it.
[4]
The return that you made them was therefore neither equal nor honorable,
since you called them in, as you say, because you were being oppressed
yourselves, and then became their accomplices in oppressing others; although baseness rather consists in not returning like for like than in
not returning what is justly due but must be unjustly paid.
64.
Meanwhile, after thus plainly showing that it
was not for the sake of the Hellenes that you alone then did not Medise, but
because the Athenians did not do so either, and you wished to side with them
and to be against the rest;
[2]
you now claim the benefit of good deeds done to please your neighbors.
This cannot be admitted: you chose the Athenians, and with them you must
stand or fall.
Nor can you plead the league then made and claim that it should now protect
you.
[3]
You abandoned that league, and offended against it by helping instead of
hindering the subjugation of the Aeginetans and others of its members, and
that not under compulsion, but while in enjoyment of the same institutions
that you enjoy to the present hour, and no one forcing you as in our case.
Lastly, an invitation was addressed to you before you were blockaded to be
neutral and join neither party: this you did not accept.
[4]
Who then merit the detestation of the Hellenes more justly than you, you
who sought their ruin under the mask of honor?
The former virtues that you allege you now show not to be proper to your
character; the real bent of your nature has been at length damningly proved: when the
Athenians took the path of injustice you followed them.
[5]
Of our unwilling Medism and your willful
Atticizing this then is our explanation.
65.
The last 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.
[2]
If of our own proper motion we made an armed attack upon your city and
ravaged your territory, we are guilty; but if the first men among you in estate and family, wishing to put an end
to the foreign connection and to restore you to the common Boeotian country,
of their own free will invited us, wherein is our crime?
Where wrong is done, those who lead, as you say, are more to blame than
those who follow.
[3]
Not that, in our judgment, wrong was done either by them or by us.
Citizens like yourselves, and with more at stake than you, they opened
their own walls and introduced us into their own city, not as foes but as
friends, to prevent the bad among you from becoming worse; to give honest men their due; to reform principles without attacking persons, since you were not to be
banished from your city, but brought home to your kindred, nor to be made
enemies to any, but friends alike to all.
66.
That our intention was not hostile is proved
by our behavior.
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;
[2]
which at first you gladly did, and made an agreement with us and remained
tranquil, until you became aware of the smallness of our numbers.
Now it is possible that there may have been something not quite fair in our
entering without the consent of your 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?
[3]
And after these three crimes committed one after the other—the
violation of your agreement, the murder of the men afterwards, and the lying
breach of your promise not to kill them, if we refrained from injuring your
property in the country—you still affirm that we are the criminals
and yourselves pretend to escape justice.
Not so, if these your judges decide aright, but you will be punished for
all together.
67.
Such, Lacedaemonians, are the facts.
We have gone into them at some length both on your account and on our own,
that you may feel that you will justly condemn the prisoners, and we, that
we have given an additional sanction to our vengeance.
[2]
We would also prevent you from being melted by hearing of their past
virtues, if any such they had: these may be fairly appealed to by the
victims of injustice, but only aggravate the guilt of criminals, since they
offend against their better nature.
Nor let them gain anything by crying and wailing, by calling upon your
fathers' tombs and their own desolate condition.
[3]
Against this we point to the far more dreadful fate of our youth, butchered
at their hands; the fathers of whom either fell at Coronea, bringing Boeotia over to you,
or seated, forlorn old men by desolate hearths, who with far more reason
implore your justice upon the prisoners.
[4]
The pity which they appeal to is rather due to men who suffer unworthily; those who suffer justly as they do, are on the contrary subjects for
triumph.
[5]
For their present desolate condition they have themselves to blame, since
they willfully rejected the better alliance.
Their lawless act was not provoked by any action of ours; hate, not justice, inspired their decision; and even now the satisfaction which they afford us is not adequate; they will suffer by a legal sentence, not as they pretend as suppliants
asking for quarter in battle, but as prisoners who have surrendered upon
agreement to take their trial.
[6]
Vindicate, therefore, 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.
[7]
However, if leading powers were to do what you are now doing, and putting
one short question all alike were to decide accordingly, men would be less
tempted to seek fine phrases to cover bad actions.’
68.
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.
[2]
The number of Plataeans thus massacred was not less than two hundred, with
twenty-five Athenians who had shared in the siege.
The women were taken as slaves.
[3]
The city the Thebans gave for about a year to some political emigrants from
Megara, and to the surviving Plataeans of their own party to inhabit, and
afterwards razed it to the ground from the very foundations, and built on to
the precinct of Hera an inn two hundred feet square, with rooms all round
above and below, making use for this purpose of the roofs and doors of the
Plataeans: of the rest of the materials in the wall, the brass and the iron,
they made couches which they dedicated to Hera, for whom they also built a
stone chapel of a hundred feet square.
The land they confiscated and let out on a ten-years' lease to Theban
occupiers.
[4]
The adverse attitude of the 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.
[5]
Such was the end of Plataea in the ninety-third year after she became the
ally of Athens.
69.
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 triremes, with
Brasidas, son of Tellis, lately arrived as counsellor to Alcidas;
[2]
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.
70.
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.
[2]
Upon the arrival of an Athenian and a Corinthian vessel, with envoys on
board, a conference was held in which the Corcyraeans voted to remain allies
of the Athenians according to their agreement, but to be friends of the
Peloponnesians as they had been formerly.
[3]
Meanwhile, the returned prisoners brought Peithias, a volunteer Proxenus of
the Athenians and leader of the commons, to trial, upon the charge of
enslaving Corcyra to Athens.
[4]
He, being acquitted, retorted by accusing five of the richest of their
number of cutting stakes in the ground sacred to Zeus and Alcinous; the legal penalty being a stater for each stake.
[5]
Upon their conviction, the amount of the penalty being very large, they
seated themselves as suppliants in the temples, to be allowed to pay it by
instalments; but Peithias, who was one of the senate, prevailed upon that body to
enforce the law;
[6]
upon which the accused, rendered desperate by the law, and also learning
that Peithias had the intention, while still a member of the 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
trireme , which had not yet departed.
71.
After this outrage, the conspirators summoned
the Corcyraeans to an assembly, and said that this would turn out for the
best, and would save them from being enslaved by Athens: for the future,
they moved to receive neither party unless they came peacefully in a single
ship, treating any larger number as enemies.
This motion made, they compelled it to be adopted,
[2]
and instantly sent off envoys to Athens to justify what had been done and
to dissuade the refugees there from any hostile proceedings which might lead
to a reaction.
72.
Upon the arrival of the embassy the Athenians
arrested the envoys and all who listened to them, as revolutionists, and
lodged them in Aegina.
[2]
Meanwhile a Corinthian trireme arriving in the island with Lacedaemonian
envoys, the dominant Corcyraean party attacked the commons and defeated them
in battle.
[3]
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 harbor, their adversaries occupying the market-place, where
most of them lived, and the harbor adjoining, looking towards the mainland.
73.
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.
74.
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.
[2]
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 market-place and the lodging-houses, in order to bar
their advance; sparing neither their own, nor those of their neighbors; by which much stuff of the merchants was consumed and the city risked total
destruction, if a wind had come to help the flame by blowing on it.
[3]
Hostilities now 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.
75.
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 endeavored 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.
[2]
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.
[3]
He had no sooner consented, than they began to enroll their enemies for the
ships; and these fearing that they might be sent off to Athens, seated themselves
as suppliants in the temple of the Dioscuri.
[4]
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.
[5]
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.
76.
At this stage in the revolution, on the
fourth or fifth day after the removal of the men to the island, the
Peloponnesian ships arrived from Cyllene where they had been stationed since
their return from Ionia, fifty-three in number, still under the command of
Alcidas, but with Brasidas also on board as his adviser; and dropping anchor at Sybota, a harbor on the mainland, at daybreak made
sail for Corcyra.
77.
The Corcyraeans in great confusion and alarm
at the state of things in the city and at the approach of the invader, at
once proceeded to equip sixty vessels, which they sent out, as fast as they
were manned, against the enemy, in spite of the Athenians recommending them
to let them sail out first, and to follow themselves afterwards with all
their ships together.
[2]
Upon their vessels coming up to the enemy in this straggling fashion, two
immediately deserted: in others the crews were fighting among themselves,
and there was no order in anything that was done;
[3]
so that the Peloponnesians seeing their confusion, placed twenty ships to
oppose the Corcyraeans, and ranged the rest against the twelve Athenian
ships, amongst which were the two vessels Salaminia and Paralus.
78.
While the Corcyraeans, attacking without
judgment and in small detachments, were already crippled by their own
misconduct, the Athenians, afraid of the numbers of the enemy and of being
surrounded, did not venture to attack the main body or even the center of
the division opposed to them, but fell upon its wing and sank one vessel; after which the Peloponnesians formed in a circle, and the Athenians rowed
round them and tried to throw them into disorder.
[2]
Perceiving this, the 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,
[3]
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.
[4]
Such was the character of this sea-fight, which lasted until sunset.
79.
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.
[2]
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.
[3]
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.
80.
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.
[2]
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.
81.
The Peloponnesians accordingly at once set
off in haste by night for home, coasting along shore; and hauling their ships across the Isthmus of Leucas, in order not to be
seen doubling it, so departed.
[2]
The Corcyraeans, made aware of the approach of the Athenian fleet and of
the departure of the enemy, brought the Messenians from outside the walls
into the town, and ordered the fleet which they had manned to sail round
into the Hyllaic harbor; and while it was so doing, slew such of their enemies as they laid hands
on, 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.
[3]
The mass of the suppliants who had refused to do so, on seeing what was
taking place, slew each other there in the consecrated ground; while some hanged themselves upon the trees, and others destroyed
themselves as they were severally able.
[4]
During seven days that Eurymedon stayed with his sixty ships, the
Corcyraeans were engaged in butchering those of their fellow-citizens whom
they regarded as their enemies: and although the crime imputed was that of
attempting to put down the democracy, some were slain also for private
hatred, others by their debtors because of the monies owed to them.
[5]
Death thus raged in every shape; and, as usually happens at such times, there was no length to which
violence did not go; sons were killed by their fathers, and suppliants dragged from the altar or
slain upon it; while some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and died there.
82.
So bloody was the march of the revolution,
and the impression which it made was the greater as it was one of the first
to occur.
Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed; struggles being everywhere made by the popular 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.
[2]
The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and
terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as the nature
of mankind remains the same; though in a severer or milder form, and varying in their symptoms,
according to the variety of the particular cases.
In peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments,
because they do not find themselves suddenly confronted with imperious
necessities; but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and so proves a rough
master, that brings most men's characters to a level with their fortunes.
[3]
Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it
arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before carried to a
still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in
the cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals.
[4]
Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now
given them.
Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal 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.
[5]
The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected.
To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still
shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your
party and to be afraid of your adversaries.
In fine, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of a
crime where it was wanting, was equally commended,
[6]
until even blood became a weaker tie than party, from the superior
readiness of those united by the latter to dare everything without reserve; for such associations 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.
[7]
The fair proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the
stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence.
Revenge also was held of more account than self-preservation.
Oaths of reconciliation, being only 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.
[8]
The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and
ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in
contention.
The leaders in the cities, 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 direct 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 honor with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high
reputation.
Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two,
either for not joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them
to escape.
83.
Thus every form of iniquity took root in the
Hellenic countries by reason of the troubles.
The ancient simplicity into which honor so largely entered was laughed down
and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow.
[2]
To put an end to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor
oath that could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their calculation upon the hopelessness
of a permanent state of things, were more intent upon self-defence than
capable of confidence.
[3]
In this contest the blunter wits were most successful.
Apprehensive of their own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their
antagonists, they feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the
combinations of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had
recourse to action:
[4]
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.
84.
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 neighbors' goods; and lastly, of the savage and pitiless excesses into which men who had
begun the struggle not in a class but in a party spirit, were hurried by
their ungovernable passions.
[2]
In the confusion into which life was now thrown in the cities, human
nature, always rebelling against the law and now its master, gladly showed
itself ungoverned in passion, above respect for justice, and the enemy of
all superiority; since revenge would not have been set above religion, and gain above
justice, had it not been for the fatal power of envy.
[3]
Indeed men too often take upon themselves in the prosecution of their
revenge to set the example of doing away with those general laws to which
all alike can look for salvation in adversity, instead of allowing them to
subsist against the day of danger when their aid may be required.
85.
While the revolutionary passions thus for the
first time displayed themselves in the factions of Corcyra, Eurymedon and
the Athenian fleet sailed away;
[2]
after which some five hundred Corcyrean exiles who had succeeded in
escaping, took some forts on the mainland, and becoming masters of the
Corcyrean 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.
[3]
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.
86.
At the close of the same summer the Athenians
sent twenty ships under the command of Laches, son of Melanopus, and
Charceades, son of Euphiletus, to Sicily,
[2]
where the Syracusans and Leontines were at war.
The Syracusans had for allies all the Dorian cities except
Camarina—these had been included in the Lacedaemonian confederacy
from the commencement of the war, though they had not taken any active part
in it—the Leontines had Camarina and the Chalcidian cities.
In Italy the Locrians were for the Syracusans, the Rhegians for their
Leontine kinsmen.
[3]
The allies of the Leontines now sent to Athens and appealed to their
ancient alliance and to their Ionian origin, to persuade the Athenians to
send them a fleet, as the Syracusans were blockading them by land and sea.
[4]
The Athenians sent it upon the plea of their common descent, but in reality
to prevent the exportation of Sicilian corn to Peloponnese and to test the
possibility of bringing Sicily into subjection.
[5]
Accordingly they established themselves at Rhegium in Italy, and from
thence carried on the war in concert with their allies.
87.
Summer was now over.
The winter following, the plague a second time attacked the Athenians; for although it had never entirely left them, still there had been a
notable abatement in its ravages.
[2]
The second visit lasted no less than a year, the first having lasted two; and nothing distressed the Athenians and reduced their power more than
this.
[3]
No less than four thousand four hundred heavy infantry in the ranks died of
it and three hundred cavalry, besides a number of the multitude that was
never ascertained.
[4]
At the same time took place the numerous earthquakes in Athens, Euboea, and
Boeotia, particularly at Orchomenus in the last-named country.
88.
The same winter the Athenians in Sicily and
the Rhegians, with thirty ships, made an expedition against the islands of
Aeolus; it being impossible to invade them in summer, owing to the want of water.
[2]
These islands are occupied by the Liparians, a Cnidian colony, who live in
one of them of no great size called Lipara; and from this as their headquarters cultivate the rest, Didyme, Strongyle,
and Hiera.
[3]
In Hiera the people in those parts believe that Hephaestus has his forge,
from the quantity of flame which they see it send out by night, and of smoke
by day.
These islands lie off the coast of the Sicels and Messinese, and were
allies of the Syracusans.
[4]
The Athenians laid waste their land, and as the inhabitants did not submit,
sailed back to Rhegium.
Thus the winter ended, and with it ended the fifth year of this war, of
which Thucydides was the historian.
89.
The next summer the Peloponnesians and their
allies set out to invade Attica under the command of Agis, son of
Archidamus, and went as far as the Isthmus, but numerous earthquakes
occurring, turned back again without the invasion taking place.
[2]
About the same time that these earthquakes were so common, the sea at
Orobiae, in Euboea, retiring from the then line of coast, returned in a huge
wave and invaded a great part of the 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.
[3]
A similar inundation also occurred at Atalanta, the island off the
Opuntian-Locrian coast, carrying away part of the Athenian fort and wrecking
one of two ships which were drawn up on the beach.
[4]
At Peparethus also the sea retreated a little, without however any
inundation following; and an earthquake threw down part of the wall, the town hall, and a few
other buildings.
[5]
The cause, in my opinion, of this phenomenon must be sought in the
earthquake.
At the point where its shock has been the most violent the sea is driven
back, and suddenly recoiling with redoubled force, causes the inundation.
Without an earthquake I do not see how such an accident could happen.
90.
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.
[2]
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,
[3]
but were routed with great slaughter by the Athenians and their allies, who
thereupon assaulted the fortification and compelled them to surrender the
Acropolis and to march with them upon Messina.
[4]
This town afterwards also submitted upon the approach of the Athenians and
their allies, and gave hostages and all other securities required.
91.
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;
[2]
wishing to reduce the Melians, who, although islanders refused to be
subjects of Athens or even to join her confederacy.
[3]
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,
[4]
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.
[5]
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 sallied 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.
[6]
Nicias with his sixty ships coasted along shore and ravaged the Locrian
seaboard, and so returned home.
92.
About this time the Lacedaemonians founded
their colony of Heraclea in Trachis, their object being the following.
[2]
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 neighbors
the Oetaeans, at first intended to give themselves up to Athens; but afterwards fearing not to find in her the security that they sought,
sent to Lacedaemon, having chosen Tisamenus for their ambassador.
[3]
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.
[4]
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.
[5]
After first consulting the god at Delphi and receiving a favorable 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.
[6]
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.
93.
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.
[2]
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
neighbor, 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 neighbors to prevail against them.
94.
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 Cephallenans and fifteen ships from
Corcyra.
[2]
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.
[3]
Demosthenes however had in the meanwhile been
persuaded by the Messenians that it was a fine opportunity for him, having
so large an army assembled, to attack the Aetolians, who were not only the
enemies of Naupactus, but whose reduction would further make it easy to gain
the rest of that part of the continent for the Athenians.
[4]
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
succors could arrive.
[5]
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.
95.
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.
[2]
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.
[3]
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 neighbors of the Aetolians and armed in the same way, it was thought
that they would be of great service upon the expedition, from their
acquaintance with the localities and the warfare of the inhabitants.
96.
After bivouacking with the army in the
precinct of Nemean Zeus, in which the poet Hesiod is said to have been
killed by the people of the country, according to an oracle which had
foretold that he should die in Nemea, Demosthenes set out at daybreak to
invade Aetolia.
[2]
The first day he took Potidania, the next Krokyle, and the third Tichium,
where he halted and sent back the booty to Eupalium in Locris, having
determined to pursue his conquests as far as the Ophionians, and in the
event of their refusing to submit, to return to Naupactus and make them the
objects of a second expedition.
[3]
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.
97.
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.
[2]
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.
[3]
Meanwhile the Aetolians had gathered to the rescue, and now attacked the
Athenians and their allies, running down from the hills on every side and
darting their javelins, falling back when the Athenian army advanced, and
coming on as it retired; and for a long while the battle was of this character, alternate advance
and retreat, in both which operations the Athenians had the worst.
98.
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
[2]
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.
[3]
Indeed the Athenian army fell victims to death in every form, and suffered
all the vicissitudes of flight; the survivors escaped with difficulty to the sea and Oeneon in Locris,
whence they had set out.
[4]
Many of the allies were killed, and about one hundred and twenty Athenian
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.
[5]
Meanwhile the Athenians took up their dead under truce from the Aetolians,
and retired to Naupactus, and from thence went in their ships to Athens; Demosthenes staying behind in Naupactus and in the neighborhood, being
afraid to face the Athenians after the disaster.
99.
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.
100.
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.
[2]
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.
101.
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.
[2]
His chief abettors in Locris were the Amphissians, who were alarmed at the
hostility of the Phocians.
These first gave hostages themselves, and induced the rest to do the same
for fear of the invading army; first, their neighbors the Myonians, who held the most difficult of the
passes, and after them the Ipnians, Messapians, Tritaeans, Chalaeans,
Tolophonians, Hessians, and Oeanthians, all of whom joined in the
expedition; the Olpaeans contenting themselves with giving hostages, without
accompanying the invasion; and the Hyaeans refusing to do either, until the capture of Polis, one of
their villages.
102.
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.
[2]
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.
[3]
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.
[4]
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.
[5]
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 neighborhood and Proschium in Aetolia;
[6]
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.
[7]
To this Eurylochus consented, and dismissing the Aetolians, now remained
quiet with his army in those parts, until the time should come for the
Ambraciots to take the field, and for him to join them before
Argos.Summer was now over.
103.
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.
[2]
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.
[3]
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 Cacinus, took some arms and departed.
104.
The same winter the Athenians purified Delos,
in compliance, it appears, with a certain oracle.
It had been purified before by Pisistratus the tyrant; not indeed the whole island, but as much of it as could be seen from the
temple.
All of it was, however, now purified in the following way.
[2]
All the 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.
[3]
Once upon a time, indeed, there was a great assemblage of the Ionians and
the neighboring islanders at Delos, who used to come to the festival, as the
Ionians now do to that of Ephesus, and athletic and poetical contests took
place there, and the cities brought choirs of dancers.
[4]
Nothing can be clearer on this point than the following verses of Homer,
taken from a hymn to Apollo:—
“
Phoebus, where'er thou strayest, far or near,
Delos was still of all thy haunts most dear.
Thither the robed Ionians take their way
With wife and child to keep thy holiday,—
Invoke thy favour on each manly game,
And dance and sing in honor of thy name.
”
1
[5]
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 Chios' rocky isle.
”
”
2
[6]
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.
105.
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.
[2]
Meanwhile the Acarnanians went with a part of their forces to the relief of
Argos, and with the rest encamped in Amphilochia at the place called Krenae,
or the Wells, to watch for Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians, and to prevent
their passing through and effecting their junction with the Ambraciots;
[3]
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.
[4]
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.
106.
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.
[2]
Traversing the territory of the Stratians, they advanced through Phytia,
next, skirting Medeon, through Limnaea; after which they left Acarnania behind them and entered a friendly country,
that of the Agraeans.
[3]
From thence they reached and crossed Mount Thyamus, which belongs to the
Agraeans, and descended into the Argive territory after nightfall, and
passing between the city of Argos and the Acarnanian posts at Krenae, joined
the Ambraciots at Olpae.
107.
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.
[2]
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.
[3]
Demosthenes led them near to Olpae and encamped, a great ravine separating
the two armies.
During five days they remained inactive; on the sixth both sides formed in order of battle.
The army of the Peloponnesians was the largest and outflanked their
opponents; and Demosthenes fearing that his right might be surrounded, placed 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.
[4]
When both sides were ready they joined battle; Demosthenes being on the right wing with the Messenians and a few
Athenians, while the rest of the line was made up of the different divisions
of the Acarnanians, and of the Amphilochian darters.
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.
108.
The Peloponnesians were now well engaged and
with their outflanking wing were upon the point of turning their enemy's
right; when the Acarnanians from the ambuscade set upon them from behind, and
broke them at the first attack, without their staying to resist; while the panic into which they fell caused the flight of most of their
army, terrified beyond measure at seeing the division of Eurylochus and
their best troops cut to pieces.
Most of the work was done by Demosthenes and his Messenians, who were
posted in this part of the field.
[2]
Meanwhile the Ambraciots (who are the best soldiers in those
countries) and the troops upon the right wing, defeated the division opposed to them
and pursued it to Argos.
[3]
Returning from the pursuit, they found their main body defeated; and hard pressed by the Acarnanians, 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.
109.
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.
[2]
The dead they gave back to him, and setting up a trophy took up their own
also to the number of about three hundred.
The 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 selfseekers.
[3]
While the enemy was taking up his dead and
hastily burying them as he could, and those who obtained permission were
secretly planning their retreat,
110.
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,
[2]
and meanwhile sent on at once a strong division to beset the roads and
occupy the strong positions.
111.
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.
[2]
The Ambraciots and such of the rest as had accompanied them in larger
parties, seeing them going on, pushed on in their turn, and began running in
order to catch them up.
[3]
The Acarnanians at first thought that all alike were departing without
permission, and began to pursue the Peloponnesians; and believing that they were being betrayed, even threw a dart or two at
some of their generals who tried to stop them and told them that leave had
been given.
Eventually, however, they let pass the Mantineans and Peloponnesians, and
slew only the Ambraciots,
[4]
there being much dispute and difficulty in distinguishing whether a man was
an Ambraciot or a Peloponnesian.
The number thus slain was about two hundred; the rest escaped into the bordering territory of , and found refuge with
Salynthius, the friendly king of the Agraeans.
112.
Meanwhile the Ambraciots from the city
arrived at Idomene.
Idomene consists of two lofty hills, the highest of which the troops sent
on by Demosthenes succeeded in occupying after nightfall, unobserved by the
Ambraciots, who had meanwhile ascended the smaller and bivouacked upon it.
[2]
After supper Demosthenes set out with the rest of the army, as soon as it
was evening; himself with half his force making for the pass, and the remainder going by
the Amphilochian hills.
[3]
At dawn he fell upon the Ambraciots while they were still abed, ignorant of
what had passed, and fully thinking that it was their own
countrymen,—
[4]
Demosthenes having purposely put the Messenians in front with orders to
address them in the Doric dialect, and thus to inspire confidence in the
sentinels, who would not be able to see them, as it was still night.
[5]
In this way he routed their army as soon as he attacked it, slaying most of
them where they were, the rest breaking away in flight over the hills.
[6]
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.
[7]
In their manifold efforts to escape some even turned to the sea, which was
not far off, and seeing the Athenian ships coasting along shore just while
the action was going on, swam off to them, thinking it better in the panic
they were in, to perish, if perish they must, by the hands of the Athenians,
than by those of the barbarous and detested Amphilochians.
[8]
Of the large Ambraciot force destroyed in this manner, a few only reached
the city in safety; while the Acarnanians, after stripping the dead and setting up a trophy,
returned to Argos.
113.
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.
[2]
At the sight of the arms of the Ambraciots from the city, the herald was
astonished at their number, knowing nothing of the disaster and fancying
that they were those of their own party.
[3]
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,
[4]
‘Why, the arms you see here are of more than a
thousand.’ The herald replied, ‘Then they are not the arms of those who
fought with us?’ The other answered, ‘Yes, they are, if at least you fought at
Idomene yesterday.’ ‘But we fought with no one yesterday; but the day before in the retreat.’ ‘However that may be, we fought yesterday with those who came to
reinforce you from the city of the Ambraciots.’
[5]
When the herald heard this and knew that the reinforcement from the city
had been destroyed, he broke into wailing, and stunned at the magnitude of
the present evils, went away at once without having performed his errand, or
again asking for the dead bodies.
[6]
Indeed, this was by far the greatest disaster that befell any one Hellenic
city in an equal number of days during this war; and I have not set down the number of the dead, because the amount stated
seems so out of proportion to the size of the city as to be incredible.
In any case I know that if the Acarnanians and Amphilochians had wished to
take Ambracia as the Athenians and Demosthenes advised, they would have done
so without striking a blow; as it was, they feared that if the Athenians had it they would be worse
neighbors to them than the present.
114.
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.
[2]
The Athenians in the twenty ships also went off to Naupactus.
The Acarnanians and Amphilochians, after the departure of Demosthenes and
the Athenians, granted the Ambraciots and Peloponnesians who had taken
refuge with Salynthius and the Agraeans a free retreat from Oeniadae, to
which place they had removed from the country of Salynthius,
[3]
and for the future concluded with the Ambraciots a treaty and alliance for
one hundred years, upon the terms following.
It was to be a defensive, not an offensive alliance; the Ambraciots could not be required to march with the Acarnanians against
the Peloponnesians, nor the Acarnanians with the Ambraciots against the
Athenians; for the rest the Ambraciots were to give up the places and hostages that
they held of the Amphilochians, and not to give help to Anactorium, which
was at enmity with the Acarnanians.
[4]
With this arrangement they put an end to the war.
After this the Corinthians sent a garrison of their own citizens to
Ambracia, composed of three hundred 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.
115.
The same winter the Athenians in Sicily made
a descent from their ships upon the territory of Himera, in concert with the
Sicels, who had invaded its borders from the interior, and also sailed to
the islands of Aeolus.
[2]
Upon their return to Rhegium they found the Athenian general, Pythodorus,
son of Isolochus, come to supersede Laches in the command of the fleet.
[3]
The allies in Sicily had sailed to Athens and induced the Athenians to send
out more vessels to their assistance, pointing out that the Syracusans who
already commanded their land were making efforts to get together a navy, to
avoid being any longer excluded from the sea by a few vessels.
[4]
The Athenians proceeded to man forty ships to send to them, thinking that
the war in Sicily would thus be the sooner ended, and also wishing to
exercise their navy.
[5]
One of the generals, Pythodorus, was accordingly sent out with a few ships; Sophocles, son of Sostratides, and Eurymedon, son of Thucles, being
destined to follow with the main body.
[6]
Meanwhile Pythodorus had taken the command of Laches' ships, and 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.
116.
In the first days of this spring, the stream
of fire issued from Etna, as on former occasions, and destroyed some land of
the Catanians, who live upon Mount Etna, which is the largest mountain in
Sicily.
[2]
Fifty years, it is said, had elapsed since the last eruption, there having
been three in all since the Hellenes have inhabited Sicily.
[3]
Such were the events of this winter; and with it ended the sixth year of this war, of which Thucydides was the
historian.
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