History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides (thucydides) · History 2 · 1st1K-eng1 · More by Thucydides (thucydides)

Choose a text id="mobileReaderAuthor" class="mobile-reader-author" href="/authors/thucydides" aria-label="More works by Thucydides (thucydides)"> â€”

â‹¯

Primary version Secondary version

Original / primary: 1st1k Eng1

2.1.1

AT this point in my narrative begins the account of the actual warfare between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians and their respective allies.

2.1.1

While it continued they ceased having communication with one another except through heralds, and when once they were at war they waged it without intermission.

2.1.1

The events of the war have been recorded in the order of their occurrence, summer by summer and winter by winter.

2.1.1

1

2.2.1

For fourteen years the thirty years' truce which had been concluded after the capture of Euboea remained unbroken;

2.2.1

but in the fifteenth year, when Chrysis was in the forty-eighth year of her priesthood

2.2.1

1

2.2.1

at Argos, and Aenesias was ephor at Sparta, and Pythodorus had still four months to serve as archon at Athens, in the sixteenth month after the battle of Potidaea, at the opening of

2.2.1

2

2.2.1

spring, some Thebans, a little more than three hundred in number, under the command of the Boeotarchs Pythangelus son of Phyleidas and Diemporus son of Onetoridas, about the first watch of the night entered under arms into Plataea, a They had been invited over by some Plataeans, Naucleides and his partisans, who opened the gates for them, intending, with a view to getting power into their hands, to destroy the citizens who were of the opposite party and make over the city to

2.2.2

the Thebans. And they had conducted their intrigue through Eurymachus son of Leontiades, a man of great influence

2.2.3

at Thebes.

2.2.3

For, as Plataea was always at variance with them, the Thebans, foreseeing that the war

2.2.3

1

2.2.3

was coming, wished to get possession of it while there was still peace and before the war had yet been openly declared.

2.2.3

And so they found it easier to make their entry unobserved, because no watch had been set to guard

2.2.4

the city. And when they had grounded their arms in the market-place, instead of following the advice of those who had invited them over, namely to set to work at once and enter the houses of their enemies, they determined rather to try conciliatory proclamations and to bring the city to an amicable agreement. The proclamation made by herald was that, if anyone wished to be an ally according to the hereditary usages of the whole body of the Boeotians, he should take his weapons and join them. For they thought that in this way the city would easily be induced to come over to their side.

2.3.1

And the Plataeans, when they became aware that the Thebans were inside, and that the city had been taken by surprise, took fright, and, as it was night and they could not see, thinking that a far greater number had come in, they concluded to make terms, and, accepting the proposals made to them, raised no disturbance, especially as the Thebans did no violence to anyone.

2.3.2

But, as it happened, while they were negotiating the terms they perceived that the Thebans were few in number, and thought that by an attack they might easily overpower them; for it was not the wish of the majority of the Plataeans to withdraw from the Athenian alliance.

2.3.3

So it was determined to make the attempt, and they began to collect together, reaching each other's houses by digging through the party-walls that they might not be seen going through the streets, and they placed wagons without the draught-animals in the streets to serve as a barricade, and took other measures as each appeared likely to be advantageous in the present emergency.

2.3.4

And when all was ready as far as they could make it so, waiting for the time of night just before dawn, they sallied from their houses against the Thebans, not wishing to attack them by day when they might be more courageous and would be on equal terms with them, but at night when they would be more timid and at a disadvantage, in comparison with their own familiarity with the town. And so they fell upon them at once, and speedily came to close quarters.

2.4.1

The Thebans, when they found they had been deceived, drew themselves up in close ranks and sought to repel the assaults of the enemy wherever they fell upon them.

2.4.2

And twice or three times they repulsed them;

2.4.2

then when the Plataeans charged upon them with a great uproar, and at the same time the women and slaves on the house-tops, uttering screams and yells, kept pelting them with stones and tiles—a heavy rain too had come on during the night—they became panic-stricken and turned and fled through the city;

2.4.2

and since most of them were unfamiliar with the thoroughfares by which they must save themselves amid the darkness and mud—for these things happened at the end of the month

2.4.2

1

2.4.2

--, whereas their pursuers knew full well how to prevent their escape, many of them consequently perished.

2.4.3

One of the Plataeans, moreover, had closed the gates by which they had entered--the only gates which had been opened--using the spike of a javelin instead of a pin to fasten the bar, so that there was no longer a way out in that direction either.

2.4.4

And being pursued up and down the city, some of them mounted the wall and threw themselves over, most of these perishing; others succeeded in getting out by an unguarded gate without being observed, cutting through the bar with an axe which a woman gave them—but not many, for they were soon discovered; and others got isolated in various parts of the city and were put to death.

2.4.5

But the greater number, those who had kept more together than the others, rushed into a large building abutting upon

2.4.5

1

2.4.5

the wall whose doors happened to be open, thinking that the doors of the building were city-gates and that there was a passage right through to the outside.

2.4.6

And the Plataeans, seeing that they were cut off, began to deliberate whether they should set fire to the building and burn them up without more ado or what other disposition they should make of them.

2.4.7

But finally these and the other Thebans who survived and were wandering up and down the city came to an agreement with the Plataeans to surrender themselves and their arms, to be dealt with in any way the Plataeans wished.

2.4.8

The Thebans in Plataea had fared thus;

2.5.1

but the main body of the Thebans, who were to have come in full force while it was still night, on the chance that things might not go well with those who had entered the city, received while on the way news of what had happened and were now hastening to the rescue.

2.5.2

Now Plataea is about seventy stadia distant from Thebes, and the rain that had come on during the night delayed their coming; for the river Asopus was running high and was not easy to cross.

2.5.3

And so, marching in the rain and crossing the river with difficulty, they arrived too late, some of their men having already been slain and others taken captive alive.

2.5.4

And when the Thebans learned what had happened, they began to plot against the Plataeans who were outside the city—there were, of course, men in the fields and household property, as the trouble had come unexpectedly in time of peace—for they desired to have such men as they could lay hands on as hostages for those within, in case any of them had chanced to be taken captive. Such then were their plans;

2.5.5

but the Plataeans, while the Thebans were still deliberating, suspected that something of the sort would be done, and fearing for those outside sent out a herald to the Thebans, saying that they had done an impious thing in trying to seize their city in time of peace, and they ;blde them do no injury outside the walls; if they did, they on their part would put to death the men whom they held captive, but if the Thebans withdrew from their territory they would restore the men to them. Now this is the account which the Thebans give, and they allege that the Plataeans confirmed their promise with an oath;

2.5.6

the Plataeans do not admit that they promised to restore the men at once, but only that they would do so in case they should come to an agreement after preliminary negotiations, and they deny that they swore to it.

2.5.7

At any rate, the Thebans withdrew from their territory without doing any injury; but the Plataeans, as soon as they had hastily fetched in their property from the country, straightway slew the men. And those who had been taken captive were one hundred and eighty in number, one of them being Eurymachus, with whom the traitors had negotiated.

2.6.1

When they had done this, they sent a messenger to Athens, gave back the dead under a truce to the Thebans, and settled the affairs of the city as seemed best to them in the emergency.

2.6.2

The report of what had been done in Plataea was made to the Athenians promptly; and they instantly apprehended all the Thebans who were in Attica and sent a herald to Plataea, bidding him tell them to take no extreme measures regarding the Thebans whom they held captive until they themselves should have taken counsel about them;

2.6.3

for the news had not arrived that the men had been put to death. For the first messenger had set out at the time the Thebans were entering the city, the second immediately after their defeat and capture, and the Athenians knew nothing of later events. Consequently the Athenians sent their orders without knowing the facts; and the herald on his arrival found the men slain.

2.6.4

After this the Athenians, marching to Plataea, brought in food and left a garrison,

2.6.4

1

2.6.4

taking away the least efficient of the men along with the women and children.

2.7.1

Now that the affair at Plataea had occurred and the treaty had been glaringly violated, the Athenians began preparing for war, and the Lacedaemonians and their allies also began;

2.7.1

both sides were making ready to send embassies to the King and to the barbarians of any other land,

2.7.1

1

2.7.1

where either of them hoped to secure aid, and they were negotiating alliances with such cities as were outside of their own sphere of influence.

2.7.2

The Lacedaemonians, on their part, gave orders to those in Italy and Sicily who had chosen their side

2.7.2

1

2.7.2

to build, in proportion to the size of their cities, other ships, in addition to those which were already in Peloponnesian ports, their hope being that their fleet would reach a grand total of five hundred ships, and to provide a stated sum of money;

2.7.2

but as to other matters, they were instructed to remain inactive and to refuse their ports to Athenians if they came with more than a single ship, until these preparations had been completed.

2.7.3

The Athenians, on the other hand, began to examine their existing list of allies and also sent embassies more particularly to the countries lying about the Peloponnesus—Corcyra, Cephallenia, Acarnania, and Zacynthus—perceiving that if they were sure of the friendship of these places they would be able to encircle the Peloponnesus and subdue it.

2.8.1

There was nothing paltry in the designs of either side; but both put their whole strength into the war, and not without reason, for men always lay hold with more spirit at the beginning, and at this time, in addition, the young men, who were numerous both in the Peloponnesus and in Athens, were unfamiliar enough with war to welcome it. All the rest of Hellas was in anxious suspense as its foremost cities came into conflict with each other.

2.8.2

And many were the prophecies recited and many those which oracle-mongers chanted, both among the peoples who were about to go to war and in the Hellenic cities at large.

2.8.3

Moreover, only a short time before this, Delos had been shaken, although it had not before been visited by an earthquake within the memory of the Hellenes.

2.8.3

1

2.8.3

This was said and believed to be ominous of coming events, and indeed every other incident of the sort which chanced to occur was carefully looked into.

2.8.4

The general good-will, however, inclined decidedly to the side of the Lacedaemonians, especially since they proclaimed that they were liberating Hellas. Every person and every state was strongly purposed to assist them in every possible way, whether by word or by deed, and each man thought that wherever he could not himself be present, there the cause had suffered a check.

2.8.5

To such an extent were the majority of the Hellenes enraged against the Athenians, some wishing to be delivered from their sway, others fearful of falling under it.

2.9.1

Such were the preparations and such the feelings with which the Hellenes went into the conflict. And the states which each side had as its allies when it entered the war were as follows.

2.9.2

These were the allies of the Lacedaemonians: all the Peloponnesians south of the Isthmus with the exception of the Argives and Achaeans (these latter had friendly relations with both sides, and the Pellenians were the only Achaeans who at first took part in the war with the Lacedaemonians, though eventually all of them did), and outside of the Peloponnesus the Megarians, Boeotians, Locrians, Phocians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians.

2.9.3

Of these, the Corinthians, Megarians, Sicyonians, Pellenians, Eleans, Ambraciots, and Leucadians furnished ships, while cavalry was contributed by the Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians, and infantry by the other states.

2.9.4

These were the allies of the Lacedaemonians. Those of the Athenians were: the Chians, Lesbians, Plataeans, the Messenians of Naupactus, most of the Acarnanians, the Corcyraeans, the Zacynthians, and in addition the cities which were tributary in the following countries: the seaboard of Caria, the Dorians adjacent to the Carians, Ionia, the Hellespont, the districts on the coast of Thrace, and the islands which lie between the Peloponnesus and Crete toward the east, with the exception of Melos and Thera.

2.9.5

Of these, the Chians, Lesbians, and Corcyraeans furnished ships, the rest infantry and money.

2.9.6

Such were the allies of each side and the preparations they made for the war.

2.10.1

Immediately after the affair at Plataea the Lacedaemonians sent word around to the various states in the Peloponnesus and their confederacy outside the Peloponnesus to make ready such troops and supplies as it was appropriate they should have for a foreign expedition, their intention being to invade Attica.

2.10.2

When everything was ready in the several states, two-thirds of the contingent of each state assembled at the appointed time at the Isthmus.

2.10.3

And when the whole army was assembled, Archidamus, the king of the Lacedaemonians, who was to be the leader of this expedition, called together the generals of all the states as well as the chief officials and the most notable men, and exhorted them as follows:

2.11.1

" Peloponnesians and allies, our fathers made many campaigns both in the Peloponnesus and beyond it, and the elder men also amongst us do not lack experience in warfare, yet never before have we taken the field with a greater armament than this; but though we were never more numerous and puissant, it is also a very powerful state we now go against.

2.11.2

It is but right, therefore, that we neither should show ourselves worse men than our fathers nor wanting to our own fame. For all Hellas is stirred by this enterprise of ours, and fixes her gaze upon it, and being friendly to us on account of their hatred of the Athenians hopes that we shall succeed in carrying out our designs.

2.11.3

Therefore, even if some of us may think that we are going against them with superior numbers and that in all likelihood the enemy will not risk a pitched battle with us, we must not on that account be a whit less carefully prepared when we advance, but rather must officer and soldier of every state for his own part be always expecting to encounter some danger.

2.11.4

For the events of war cannot be foreseen, and attacks are generally sudden and furious; and oftentimes a smaller force, made cautious by fear, overmatches a larger number that is caught unprepared because it despises the foe.

2.11.5

One should, however, when campaigning in an enemy's country always be bold in spirit, but in action cautious and therefore prepared. For thus men will be most valorous in attacking their opponents and most secure against assault. "And we are going against a city which is not so powerless to defend itself as some may think, but is perfectly prepared in all respects;

2.11.6

we have therefore every reason to expect them to risk a battle, if they have not already set out before we are yet there, at any rate when they see us in their territory laying it waste and destroying their property.

2.11.7

For with all men, when they suffer an unwonted calamity, it is the sight set then and there before their eyes which makes them angry, and when they are angry they do not pause to think but rush into action.

2.11.8

And the Athenians are even more likely than most men to act in this way, since they are more disposed to claim the right to rule over others and to attack and ravage their neighbours' land than to see their own ravaged.

2.11.9

Realising, then, how powerful is the city against which you are taking the field, and how great is the fame, for better or for worse, which you are about to win for your ancestors and for yourselves fiom the outcome, follow wherever your officers lead you, regarding good order and vigilance as all-important, and sharply giving heed to the word of command; for this is the fairest as well as the safest thing—for a great host to show itself subject to a single discipline."

2.12.1

With these words Archidamus dismissed the assembly. He then first sent Melesippus son of Diocritus, a Spartan, to Athens, in the hope that the Athenians, when they saw that the Lacedaemonians were already on the march, might be somewhat more inclined to yield.

2.12.2

But they did not allow him to enter the city, much less to appear before the assembly; for a motion of Pericles had already been carried not to admit herald or embassy after the Lacedaemonians had once taken the field. They accordingly dismissed him without hearing him, and ordered him to be beyond their borders that same day; and in future, they added, the Lacedaemonians must first withdraw to their own territory before sending an embassy, if they had any communication to make.

2.12.3

They also sent an escort along with Melesippus, in order to prevent his having communication with anyone. And when he arrived at the frontier and was about to leave his escort, he uttered these words before he went his way, "

2.12.4

This day will be the beginning of great evils for the Hellenes." When he came to the army, and Archidamus had learned that the Athenians would not as yet make any concession, then at length they broke camp and advanced into Athenian territory.

2.12.5

And the Boeotians not only supplied their contingent

2.12.5

1

2.12.5

and the cavalry to serve with the Peloponnesians, but also went to Plataea with their remaining troops and proceeded to ravage the country.

2.13.1

While the Peloponnesian forces were still collecting at the Isthmus and while they were on the march but had not yet invaded Attica, Pericles son of Xanthippus, who was one of the ten Athenian generals, when he realised that the invasion would be made, conceived a suspicion that perhaps Archidamus, who happened to be a guest-friend of his, might pass by his fields and not lay them waste, doing this either on his own initiative, in the desire to do him a personal favour, or at the bidding of the Lacedaemonians with a view to creating a prejudice against him, just as it was on his account that they had called upon the Athenians to drive out the pollution.

2.13.1

1

2.13.1

So he announced to the Athenians in their assembly that while Archidamus was indeed a guest-friend of his, this relationship had certainly not been entered upon for the detriment of the state;

2.13.1

and that in case the enemy might not lay waste his fields and houses like the rest, he now gave them up to be public property, and asked that no suspicion should arise against himself on that account.

2.13.2

And he gave them the same advice as before

2.13.2

1

2.13.2

about the present situation: that they should prepare for the war, should bring in their property from the fields, and should not go out to meet the enemy in battle, but should come into the city and there act on the defensive;

2.13.2

that they should equip their fleet, in which their strength lay, and keep a firm hand upon their allies, explaining that the Athenian power depended on revenue of money received from the allies, and that, as a general rule, victories in war were won by abundance of money as well as by wise policy.

2.13.3

And he bade them be of good courage, as on an average six hundred talents

2.13.3

1

2.13.3

of tribute were coming in yearly from the allies to the city, not counting the other sources

2.13.3

2

2.13.3

of revenue, and there were at this time still on hand in the Acropolis six thousand talents

2.13.3

3

2.13.3

of coined silver (the maximum amount had been nine thousand seven hundred talents, from which expenditures had been made for the construction of the Propylaea

2.13.3

4

2.13.3

of the Acropolis and other buildings,

2.13.3

5

2.13.3

as well as for the operations at Potidaea).

2.13.4

Besides, there was uncoined gold and silver in public and private dedications, and all the sacred vessels used in the processions and games, and the Persian spoils and other treasures of like nature, worth not less than five hundred talents.

2.13.4

1

2.13.5

And he estimated, besides, the large amount of treasure to be found in the other temples.

2.13.5

All this would be available for their use, and, if they should be absolutely cut off from all other resources, they might use even the gold plates with which the statue of the goddess herself was overlaid.

2.13.5

1

2.13.5

The statue, as he pointed out to them, contained forty talents' weight of pure gold, and it was all removable.

2.13.5

2

2.13.6

This treasure they might use for selfpreservation, but they must replace as much as they took. As to their resources in money, then, he thus sought to encourage them;

2.13.7

and as to heavv-armed infantry, he told them that there were thirteen thousand, not counting the sixteen thousand men who garrisoned the forts and manned the city walls.

2.13.7

For this was the number engaged in garrison duty at first, when the enemy were invading Attica, and they were composed of the oldest and the youngest

2.13.7

1

2.13.7

citizens and of such metics as were heavily armed.

2.13.7

For the length of the Phalerian wall was thirty-five stadia to the circuit-wall of the city, and the portion of the circuit-wall itself which was guarded was fortythree stadia (a portion being left unguarded, that between the Long Wall and the Phalerian);

2.13.7

and the Long Walls to the Peiraeus were forty stadia in extent, of which only the outside one was guarded;

2.13.7

and the whole circuit of the Peiraeus including Munichia was sixty stadia, half of it being under guard.

2.13.8

The cavalry, Pericles pointed out, numbered twelve hundred, including mounted archers, the bow-men sixteen hundred, and the triremes that were seaworthy three hundred.

2.13.9

For these were the forces, and not less than these in each branch, which the Athenians had on hand when the first invasion of the Peloponnesians was impending and they found themselves involved in the war. And Pericles used still other arguments, as was his wont, to prove that they would be victorious in the war.

2.14.1

After the Athenians had heard his words they were won to his view, and they began to bring in from the fields their children and wives, and also their household furniture, pulling down even the woodwork of the houses themselves; but sheep and draught-animals they sent over to Euboea and the adjacent islands.

2.14.2

And the removal was a hard thing for them to accept, because most of them had always been used to live in the country.

2.15.1

And this kind of life had been the characteristic of the Athenians, more than of any other Hellenes, from the very earliest times. For in the time of Cecrops and the earliest kings down to Theseus, Attica had been divided into separate towns, each with its town hall and magistrates, and so long as they had nothing to fear they did not come together to consult with the king, but separately administered their own affairs and took counsel for themselves. Sometimes they even made war upon the king, as, for example, the Eleusinians with Eumolpus did upon Erechtheus.

2.15.2

But when Theseus became king and proved himself a powerful as well as a prudent ruler, he not only re-organized the country in other respects, but abolished the councils and magistracies of the minor towns and brought all their inhabitants into union with what is now the city, establishing a single council and town hall, and compelled them, while continuing to occupy each his own lands as before, to use Athens as the sole capital.

2.15.2

This became a great city, since all were now paying their taxes to it,

2.15.2

1

2.15.2

and was such when Theseus handed it down to his successors.

2.15.3

And from his time even to this day the Athenians have celebrated at the public expense a festival called the Synoecia,

2.15.3

1

2.15.3

in honour of the goddess.

2.15.3

Before this

2.15.3

2

2.15.3

what is now the Acropolis was the city, together with the region at the foot of the Acropolis toward the south.

2.15.4

And the proof of this is as follows: On the Acropolis itself are the sanctuaries

2.15.4

1

2.15.4

of the other gods as well as of Athena,

2.15.4

2

2.15.4

and the sanctuaries which are outside the Acropolis are situated more in that quarter of the city, namely those of Olympian Zeus, of Pythian Apollo, of Earth, and of Dionysus in Limnae, in whose honour are celebrated the more ancient Dionysia

2.15.4

3

2.15.4

the twelfth of the month Anthesterion, just as the Ionian descendants of the Athenians also are wont even now to celebrate it.

2.15.4

In that quarter are also situated still other ancient sanctuaries.

2.15.5

And the fountain now called Enneacrunus,

2.15.5

1

2.15.5

from the fashion given it by the tyrants, but which anciently, when the springs were uncovered, was named Callirrhoe, was used by people of those days, because it was close by, for the most important ceremonials;

2.15.5

and even now, in accordance with the ancient practice, it is still customary to use its waters in the rites preliminary to marriages and other sacred ceremonies.

2.15.6

And, finally, the Acropolis, because the Athenians had there in early times a place of habitation, is still to this day called by them Polis or city.

2.16.1

Because, then, of their long-continued life of independence in the country districts, most of the Athenians of early times and of their descendants down to the time of this war, from force of habit, even after their political union with the city, continued to reside, with their households, in the country where they had been born; and so they did not find it easy to move away, especially since they had only recently finished restoring their establishments after the Persian war.

2.16.2

They were dejected and aggrieved at having to leave their homes and the temples which had always been theirs,—relics, inherited from their fathers, of their original form of government—and at the prospect of changing their mode of life, and facing what was nothing less for each of them than forsaking his own town.

2.17.1

And when they came to the capital, only a few of them were provided with dwellings or places of refuge with friends or relatives, and most of them took up their abode in the vacant places of the city and the sanctuaries and the shrines of heroes, all except the Acropolis and the Eleusinium and any other precinct that could be securely closed.

2.17.1

And the Pelargicum,

2.17.1

1

2.17.1

as it was called, at the foot of the Acropolis, although it was under a curse that forbade its use for residence, and this was also prohibited by a verse-end of a Pythian oracle to the following effect:

2.17.1

The Pelargicum unoccupied is better,

2.17.1

nevertheless under stress of the emergency was completely filled with buildings.

2.17.1

And the oracle, as it seems to me, came true, but in a sense quite the opposite of what was expected;

2.17.2

for it was not on account of the unlawful occupation of the place that the city was visited by the calamities, but it was on account of the war that there was the necessity of its occupation, and the oracle, although it did not mention the war, yet foresaw that the place would never be occupied for any good.

2.17.3

Many also established themselves in the towers of the city walls, and whereever each one could find a place; for the city did not have room for them when they were all there together. But afterwards they distributed into lots and occupied the space between the Long Walls and the greater part of the Peiraeus.

2.17.4

And while all this was going on, the Athenians applied themselves to the war, bringing together allies and fitting out an expedition of one hundred ships against the Peloponnesus.

2.17.5

The Athenians then, were in this stage of their preparations.

2.18.1

Meanwhile the army of the Peloponnesians was advancing and the first point it reached in Attica was Oenoe, where they intended to begin the invasion. And while they were establishing their camp there, they prepared to assault the wall with engines and otherwise;

2.18.2

for Oenoe, which was on the border between Attica and Boeotia, was a walled town, and was used as a fortress by the Athenians whenever war broke out. So the Lacedaemonians went on with their preparations to assault the place, and in this and other ways wasted time.

2.18.3

And it was for his conduct here that Archidamus was most severely censured, though it was thought that in the levying of the war, too, he had been slack and had played into the hands of the Athenians when he did not advise the Peloponnesians to make war with vigour. Again, when the army was being collected, he was criticized for the delay which occurred at the Isthmus, and afterwards for the leisurely way in which the march was made, but most of all for the halt at Oenoe.

2.18.4

For in the interval the Athenians continued to bring their property into the city and the Peloponnesians believed that but for his procrastination they could have advanced quickly and found everything still outside.

2.18.5

Such was the resentment felt by the army toward Archidamus while they were sitting still. But the reason, it is said, whiy he kept holding back was that he expected the Athenians would make some concession while their territory was still unravaged and would be loath to see it laid waste.

2.19.1

When, however, after assaulting Oenoe and trying in every way to take it they were not able to do so, the Athenians meanwhile making no overtures, then at length they set off from there, about eighty days after the events at Plataea, when it was midsummer

2.19.1

1

2.19.1

and the corn was ripe, and invaded Attica, under the command of Arehidamus son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians.

2.19.2

Making a halt they proceeded to ravage, first of all, the territory of Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, and they routed the Athenian cavalry near the streams called Rheiti;

2.19.2

then they advanced, keeping Mount Aegaleos on their right through Cropia,

2.19.2

1

2.19.2

until they came to Acharnae, the largest of the demes of Attica, as they are called.

2.19.2

Halting in the town they made a camp, where they remained for a long time ravaging the country.

2.20.1

And it is said that the motive of Archidamus in waiting about Acharnae with his troops ready for battle, instead of descending into the plain during this invasion, was as follows:

2.20.2

He cherished the hope that the Athenians, who were at their very best as regards the multitude of their youth and prepared for war as never before, would perhaps come out against him and not look on and see their land ravaged.

2.20.3

So when they did not come to meet him at Eleusis and in the Thriasian plain, he settled down in the neighbourhood of Acharnae, to make a test whether they would come out;

2.20.4

for not only did that seem to him a suitable place for his camp, but also the Acharnians were an important part of the state, their hoplites numbering three thousand, and he thought that they would not look on and see their fields ravaged, but would urge the whole people also to fight. And even if the Athenians should not come out against him during this invasion, he would thenceforward proceed with less apprehension to ravage the plain and even advance to the very walls of the city; for the Acharnians, once stripped of their own possessions, would not be as eager to incur danger as before in behalf of the lands of the rest, and so a division would arise in the counsels of the Athenians.

2.20.5

It was with this design that Archidamus stayed at Acharnae.

2.21.1

Now so long as the Peloponnesian army remained in the neighbourhood of Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, the Athenians retained hope that they would not advance nearer; for they remembered that Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians, when fourteen years before this war he had invaded Attica with an army of Peloponnesians and proceeded as far as Eleusis and Thria, had advanced no farther but had gone back again. (And indeed this was the cause of his banishment from Sparta, since he was thought to have been bribed to retreat.)

2.21.2

But when they saw the army in the neighbourhood of Acharnae, only sixty stadia from the city, they thought the situation no longer tolerable; on the contrary, it naturally appeared to them a terrible thing when their land was being ravaged before their eyes, a sight which the younger men had never seen, or even the older men except in the Persian war; and the general opinion, especially on the part of the younger men, was that they ought to go forth and put a stop to it.

2.21.3

They gathered in knots and engaged in hot disputes, some urging that they should go out, others opposing this course. Oracle-mongers were chanting oracles of every import, according as each man was disposed to hear them. And the Acharnians, thinking that no insignificant portion of the Athenian people lived at Acharnae, insisted most of all upon going out, as it was their land that was being devastated. Thus in every way the city was in a state of irritation; and they were indignant against Pericles, and remembering none of his earlier warnings they abused him because, though their general, he would not lead them out, and considered him responsible for all their sufferings.

2.22.1

Pericles, however, seeing them exasperated at the present moment and that their intentions were not for the best, and convinced that his judgment was right about refusing to go out, would not convoke a meeting of the assembly or any gathering whatever, for fear that if they got together there would be an outbreak of passion without judgment that would end in some serious mistake;

2.22.2

moreover he guarded the city, and as far as he could kept it free from disturbances. He did, however, constantly send out detachments of cavalry to prevent flying parties from the main army from raiding the fields near the city and ravaging them; and there was a cavalry skirmish at Phrygia between a company of Athenian horsemen, assisted by some Thessalians, and the Boeotian cavalry, in which the Athenians and Thessalians fully held their own, until their heavy infantry came to the support of the Boeotians, when they were routed. A few of the Thessalians and the Athenians were killed, but their bodies were recovered the same day without a truce;

2.22.3

and on the next day the Peloponnesians set up a trophy.

2.22.3

This auxiliary force of the Thessalians was sent to the Athenians in accordance with an ancient alliance,

2.22.3

1

2.22.3

and those who came were Larisaeans, Pharsalians, Crannonians, Pyrasians, Gyrtonians, and Pheraeans.

2.22.3

And their leaders were, from Larissa, Polymedes and Aristonous, each representing his own faction, and from Pharsalus Menon;

2.22.3

and the others had their own commander city by city.

2.23.1

The Peloponesians, on the other hand, when the Athenians did not come out to do battle with them broke up their camp at Acharnae and ravaged some of the demes which lie between Mt.

2.23.1

Parnes and Mt.

2.23.1

Brilessus.

2.23.1

1

2.23.2

But while they were still in their territory the Athenians sent out on an expedition round the Peloponnesus the hundred ships

2.23.2

1

2.23.2

which they had been equipping, and on them a thousand hoplites and four hundred archers;

2.23.2

and the generals in command were Carcinus son of Xenotimus, Proteas son of Epicles, and Socrates son of Antigenes.

2.23.3

So they set sail with this force and began their cruise;

2.23.3

the Peloponnesians, on the other hand, remained in Attica for as long a time as they were provisioned and then withdrew through Boeotia, taking a different route from that by which they had entered Attica.

2.23.3

They passed by Oropus and laid waste the district called Graice,

2.23.3

1

2.23.3

which the Oropians occupy as subjects of the Athenians.

2.23.3

2

2.23.3

Then on their return to the Peloponnesus they were dismissed to their several cities.

2.24.1

After the retreat of the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians set guards to keep watch both by land and sea, their purpose being to maintain a like guard throughout the war.

2.24.1

They decided also to set apart one thousand talents

2.24.1

1

2.24.1

of the money stored on the Acropolis as a special reserve fund, and not to spend it, but to use the rest to carry on the war;

2.24.1

and if anyone should make or put to vote a proposal to touch this money except in the one case that the enemy should attack the city with a fleet and they should have to defend it, death was to be the penalty.

2.24.2

And along with this sum of money they set apart for special service each year one hundred of the very best triremes, appointing trierarchs to command them, and no one of these ships was to be used in any other way than in connection with this particular fund in dealing with the same danger should the emergency arise.

2.25.1

Meanwhile the Athenians who had been despatched in the hundred ships around the Peloponnesus, together with the Corcyraeans, who had reinforced them with fifty ships, and some of their other allies in that quarter, were pillaging various places as they cruised about, and in particular disembarked at Methone in Laconia and assaulted its walls, which were weak and without adequate defenders.

2.25.2

But Brasidas, son of Tellis, a Spartan, happened to be in that neighbourhood with a guarding party, and seeing the situation he set out with one hundred hoplites to relieve the garrison. Dashing through the army of the Athenians, which was scattered over the country and was occupied solely with the fortress, he threw his force into Methone, losing a few of his men in the rush, and thus saved the city. This daring exploit, the first of the kind in the war, was acknowledged at Sparta by a vote of thanks.

2.25.3

The Athenians then weighed anchor and continued their cruise along the coast, and putting in at Pheia in Elis ravaged the land for two days, defeating in battle a rescue-party of three hundred picked men gathered from the lowlands of Elis and from the immediate neighbourhood of Pheia.

2.25.4

But a heavy gale of wind arose, and since they were exposed to the storm in a harbourless region, most of them embarked on their ships and sailed round the promontory called Ichthys into the harbour at Pheia. Meanwhile the Messenians and some others, who could not get on board, marched overland and took Pheia.

2.25.5

Afterwards, when the fleet had rounded the promontory, it took up these men, abandoned Pheia, and put out to sea, for meanwhile the main body of the Eleans had come to the rescue. The Athenians now resumed their voyage along the coast, and visiting other places made depredations.

2.26.1

About this same time the Athenians sent out thirty ships to operate around Locris and at the same time to serve as a guard for Euboea.

2.26.2

These were under the command of Cleopompus son of Clinias, who made descents upon various places along the seaboard and ravaged them, captured Thronium, some of whose inhabitants he took as hostages, and at Alope defeated in battle the Locrians who came to the defence of the town.

2.27.1

In the course of this summer the Athenians also expelled the Aeginetans from Aegina, together with their wives and children, making it their main charge against them that they were responsible for the war in which they were involved; besides Aegina lay close to the Peloponnesus, and it was clearly a safer policy to send colonists of their own to occupy it. And indeed they soon afterwards sent thither the settlers.

2.27.2

As for the Aeginetan refugees, the Lacedaemonians gave them Thyrea to dwell in and its territory to cultivate, moved to do this not only by the hostility of the Aeginetans towards the Athenians but also because the Aeginetans had done them a service at the time of the earthquake and the revolt of the Helots.

2.27.2

1

2.27.2

Now the district of Thyrea is the border country between Argolis and Laconia, extending down to the sea.

2.27.2

There some of the Aeginetans settled, while some were scattered over the rest of Hellas.

2.28.1

During the same summer at the beginning of a lunar month

2.28.1

1

2.28.1

(the only time, it seems, when such an occurrence is possible) the sun was eclipsed after midday;

2.28.1

it assumed the shape of a crescent and became full again, and during the eclipse some stars became visible.

2.29.1

In this summer, too, Nymphodorus son of Pythes, a man of Abdera, whose sister Sitalces had to wife, and possessing great influence with Sitalces, the Athenians made their proxenus

2.29.1

1

2.29.1

with that king, although they had hitherto regarded him as an enemy;

2.29.1

and they summoned him to Athens, wishing to gain Sitalces, son of Teres and king of the Thracians, as their ally.

2.29.2

Now this Teres, the father of Sitalces, was the first to found the great kingdom of the Odrysians, which extended over the larger part of Thrace;

2.29.3

for a considerable portion of the Thracians are independent.

2.29.3

This Teres is not in any way connected with Tereus who took from Athens to be his wife Procne the daughter of Pandion, nor indeed did they come from the same Thrace.

2.29.3

Tereus dwelt at Daulia in the land now called Phocis, which was then occupied by Thracians, and it was in that land that the women

2.29.3

1

2.29.3

perpetrated their deed upon Itys.

2.29.3

In fact many of the poets, when they refer to the nightingale, call it the bird of Daulia.

2.29.3

Besides it was natural for Pandion to contract the marriage alliance for his daughter at so short a distance as Daulia with a view to mutual protection, rather than among the Odrysians, who are many days' journey distant.

2.29.3

Teres, however, whose name was not the same as the other's, was the first king to attain great power among the Odrysians.

2.29.4

And it was his son, Sitalces, whom the Athenians wanted to make their ally, wishing him to help in subduing the places on the coast of Thrace and Perdiccas.

2.29.5

So Nymphodorus came to Athens, brought about the alliance with Sitalces, and got Sadocus son of Sitalces made an Athenian citizen; and he promised also to bring the war in Thrace to an end, saying that he would persuade Sitalces to send the Athenians a Thracian force of cavalry and targeteers.

2.29.6

Moreover, he brought about a reconciliation between Perdiccas and the Athenians, whom he persuaded to restore Therme

2.29.6

1

2.29.6

to him.

2.29.6

Perdiccas immediately joined forces with the Athenians under Phormio

2.29.6

2

2.29.6

and took the field against the Chalcidians.

2.29.7

It was in this way that Sitalces son of Teres, king of the Thracians, became an ally of the Athenians, and also Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians.

2.30.1

Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred ships, who were still operating on the Peloponnesian coast, took Sollium, a town belonging to the Corinthians, which they then handed over, the territory as well as the city, to the people of Palaerus in Acarnania, for their exclusive occupation. They also stormed Astacus, which Euarchus ruled as tyrant, drove him out, and incorporated the place in their confederacy.

2.30.2

Sailing then to the island of Cephallenia, they brought it over to their side without a battle. Now Cephallenia lies over against Acarnania and Leucas and is a union of four communities, the Palians, Cranians, Samaeans, and Pronnians. And not long afterwards the ships withdrew to Athens.

2.31.1

Toward the autumn of this year the Athenians with all their military forces, drawn both from the citizens and the resident aliens, invaded Megaris under the command of Pericles son of Xanthippus, who was general.

2.31.1

1

2.31.1

The Athenians of the fleet of one hundred ships operating around Peloponnesus, who happened to be at Aegina on their way home, when they heard that the whole military force of the city was at Megara, sailed over and joined them.

2.31.2

This was the largest army of Athenians that had ever been assembled in one body, for the city was still at the height of its strength and not as yet stricken by the plague;

2.31.2

the Athenians themselves numbered not less than ten thousand heavy infantry, not including the three thousand at Potidaea

2.31.2

1

2.31.2

and there were three thousand heavy-armed aliens who took part in the invasion, and, besides, a considerable body of light-armed troops.

2.31.2

After they had ravaged most of the Megarian country they retired.

2.31.3

Later on in the course of the war still other invasions were made by the Athenians into Megaris every year, both with the cavalry and with the whole army, until Nisaea was captured.

2.31.3

1

2.32.1

Towards the end of this summer the

2.32.1

1

2.32.1

Athenians also fortified and garrisoned Atalante, the island which lies off Opuntian Locris and had hitherto been unoccupied.

2.32.1

Their object was to prevent pirates sailing from Opus and the other ports of Locris and ravaging Euboea.

2.32.1

These were the events which took place during this summer after the withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from Attica.

2.33.1

But in the ensuing winter, Euarchus the Acarnanian, wishing to return to Astacus, persuaded the Corinthians to sail with forty ships and fifteen hundred heavy infantry and restore him to power, and for this purpose he himself hired some mercenaries. The commanders of the expedition were Euphamidas son of Aristonymus, Timoxenus son of Timocrates, and Eumachus son of Chrysis. They did in fact sail over and restore him;

2.33.2

and wishing to acquire some other places along the seaboard of Acarnania they made the attempt but failed, and thereupon sailed for home.

2.33.3

As they skirted the coast they touched at Cephallenia, where they made a descent upon the territory of the Cranians; here deceived by the inhabitants through some sort of agreement they lost a few of their men by an unexpected attack of the Cranians, and finally, after they had got out to sea with considerable difficulty, managed to get back home.

2.34.1

In the course of the same winter the Athenians, following the custom of their fathers, celebrated at the public expense the funeral rites of the first who had fallen in this war.

2.34.2

The ceremony is as follows. The bones of the departed lie in state for the space of three days in a tent erected for that purpose, and each one brings to his own dead any offering he desires.

2.34.3

On the day of the funeral coffins of cypress wood are borne on wagons, one for each tribe, and the bones of each are in the coffin of his tribe. One empty bier, covered with a pall, is carried in the procession for the missing whose bodies could not be found for burial.

2.34.4

Any one who wishes, whether citizen or stranger, may take part in the funeral procession, and the women who are related to the deceased are present at the burial and make lamentation.

2.34.5

The coffins are laid in the public sepulchre, which is situated in the most beautiful suburb' of the city; there they always bury those fallen in war, except indeed those who fell at Marathon; for their valour the Athenians judged to be preeminent and they buried them on the spot where they fell.

2.34.6

But when the remains have been laid away in the earth, a man chosen by the state, who is regarded as best endowed with wisdom and is foremost in public esteem, delivers over them an appropriate eulogy. After this the people depart.

2.34.7

In this manner they bury; and throughout the war, whenever occasion arose, they observed this custom.

2.34.8

Now over these, the first victims of the war, Pericles son of Xanthippus was chosen to speak. And when the proper time came, he advanced from the sepulchre and took his stand upon a platform which had been built high in order that his voice might reach as far as possible in the throng, and spoke as follows:

2.35.1

Most of those who have spoken here in the past have commended the law-giver who added this oration to our ceremony, feeling that it is meet and right that it should be spoken at their burial over those who have fallen in war. To me, however, it would have seemed sufficient, when men have proved themselves brave by valiant acts, by act only to make manifest the honours we render them—such honours as to-day you have witnessed in connection with these funeral ceremonies sole nr ized by the state—and not that the valour of many men should be hazarded on one man to be believed or not according as he spoke well or ill.

2.35.2

For it is a hard matter to speak in just measure on an occasion where it is with difficulty that belief in the speaker's accuracy is established. For the hearer who is cognizant of the facts and partial to the dead will perhaps think that scant justice has been done in comparison with his own wishes and his own knowledge, while he who is not so informed, whenever he hears of an exploit which goes beyond his own capacity, will be led by envy to think there is some exaggeration. And indeed eulogies of other men are tolerable only in so far as each hearer thinks that he too has the ability to perform any of the exploits of which he hears;

2.35.3

but whatever goes beyond that at once excites envy and unbelief. However, since our forefathers approved of this practice as right and proper, I also, rendering obedience to the law, must endeavour to the best of my ability to satisfy the wishes and beliefs of each of you.

2.36.1

"I shall speak first of our ancestors, for it is right and at the same time fitting, on an occasion like this, to give them this place of honour in recalling what they did. For this land of ours, in which the same people have never ceased to dwell in an unbroken line of successive generations, they by their valour transmitted to our times a free state.

2.36.2

And not only are they worthy of our praise, but our fathers still more; for they, adding to the inheritance which they received, acquired the empire we now possess and bequeathed it, not without toil, to us who are alive to-day.

2.36.3

And we ourselves here assembled, who are now for the most part still in the prime of life, have further strengthened the empire in most respects, and have provided our city with all resources,

2.36.3

1

2.36.3

so that it is sufficient for itself both in peace and in war.

2.36.4

The military exploits whereby our several possessions were acquired, whether in any case it were we ourselves or our fathers that valiantly repelled the onset of war, Barbarian or Hellenic, I will not recall, for I have no desire to speak at length among those who know. But I shall first set forth by what sort of training we have come to our present position, and with what political institutions and as the result of what manner of life our empire became great, and afterwards proceed to the praise of these men; for I think that on the present occasion such a recital will be not inappropriate and that the whole throng, both of citizens and of strangers, may with advantage listen to it.

2.37.1

"We live under a form of government which does not emulate the institutions of our neighbours

2.37.1

1

2.37.1

;

2.37.1

on the contrary, we are ourselves a model which some

2.37.1

2

2.37.1

follow, rather than the imitators of other peoples.

2.37.1

It is true that our government is called a democracy, because its administration is in the hands, not of the few, but of the many;

2.37.1

yet while as regards the law all men are on an equality for the settlement of their private disputes, as regards the value set on them it is as each man is in any way distinguished that he is preferred to public honours, not because he belongs to a particular class, but because of personal merits;

2.37.1

nor, again, on the ground of poverty is a man barred from a public career by obscurity of rank if he but has it in him to do the state a service.

2.37.2

And not only in our public life are we liberal, but also as regards our freedom from suspicion of one another in the pursuits of every-day life; for we do not feel resentment at our neighbour if he does as he likes, nor yet do we put on sour looks which, though harmless, are painful to behold.

2.37.3

But while we thus avoid giving offence in our private intercourse, in our public life we are restrained from lawlessness chiefly through reverent fear, for we render obedience to those in authority and to the laws, and especially to those laws which are ordained for the succour of the oppressed and those which, though unwritten, bring upon the transgressor a disgrace which all men recognize.

2.38.1

"Moreover, we have provided for the spirit many relaxations from toil: we have games

2.38.1

1

2.38.1

and sacrifices regularly throughout the year and homes fitted out with good taste and elegance;

2.38.1

and the delight we each day find in these things drives away sadness.

2.38.2

And our city is so great that all the products of all the earth flow in upon us, and ours is the happy lot to gather in the good fruits of our own soil with no more home-felt security of enjoyment than we do those of other lands.

2.38.2

1

2.39.1

"We are also superior to our opponents in our system of training for warfare, and this in the following respects.

2.39.1

In the first place, we throw our city open to all the world and we never by exclusion acts debar any one from learning or seeing anything which an enemy might profit by observing if it were not kept from his sight;

2.39.1

for we place our dependence, not so much upon prearranged devices to deceive, as upon the courage which springs from our own souls when we are called to action.

2.39.1

And again, in the matter of education, whereas they from early childhood by a laborious discipline make pursuit of manly courage, we with our unrestricted mode of life are none the less ready to meet any equality of hazard.

2.39.1

1

2.39.1

And here is the proof:

2.39.2

When the Lacedaemonians invade our territory they do not come alone but bring all their confederates with them, whereas we, going by ourselves against our neighbours' territory, generally have no difficulty, though fighting on foreign soil against men who are defending their own homes, in overcoming them in battle.

2.39.3

And in fact our united forces no enemy has ever yet met, not only because we are constantly attending to the needs of our navy, but also because on land we send our troops on many enterprises; but if they by chance engage with a division of our forces and defeat a few of us, they boast that they have repulsed us all, and if the victory is ours, they claim that they have been beaten by us all.

2.39.4

If, then, by taking our ease rather than by laborious training and depending on a courage which springs more from manner of life than compulsion of laws, we are ready to meet dangers, the gain is all ours, in that we do not borrow trouble by anticipating miseries which are not yet at hand, and when we come to the test we show ourselves fully as brave as those who are always toiling; and so our city is worthy of admiration in these respects, as well as in others.

2.40.1

"For we are lovers of beauty yet with no extravagance and lovers of wisdom yet without weakness. Wealth we employ rather as an opportunity for action than as a subject for boasting; and with us it is not a shame for a man to acknowledge poverty, but the greater shame is for him not to do his best to avoid it.

2.40.2

And you will find united in the same persons an interest at once in private and in public affairs, and in others of us who give attention chiefly to business, you will find no lack of insight into political matters.

2.40.2

For we alone regard the man who takes no part in public affairs, not as one who minds his own business, but as good for nothing;

2.40.2

and we Athenians decide public questions for ourselves

2.40.2

1

2.40.2

or at least endeavour to arrive at a sound understanding of them, in the belief that it is not debate that is a hindrance to action but rather not to be instructed by debate before the time comes for action.

2.40.3

For in truth we have this point also of superiority over other men, to be most daring in action and yet at the same time most given to reflection upon the ventures we mean to undertake; with other men, on the contrary, boldness means ignorance and reflection brings hesitation. And they would rightly be adjudged most courageous who, realizing most clearly the pains no less than the pleasures involved, do not on that account turn away from danger. Again, in nobility of spirit, we stand in sharp contrast to most men;

2.40.4

for it is not by receiving kindness, but by conferring it, that we acquire our friends.

2.40.4

Now he who confers the favour is a firmer friend, in that he is disposed, by continued goodwill toward the recipient, to keep the feeling of obligation alive in him

2.40.4

1

2.40.4

;

2.40.4

but he who owes it is more listless in his friendship, knowing that when he repays the kindness it will count, not as a favour bestowed, but as a debt repaid.

2.40.5

And, finally, we alone confer our benefits without fear of consequences, not upon a calculation of the advantage we shall gain, but with confidence in the spirit of liberality which actuates us.

2.41.1

"In a word, then, I say that our city as a whole is the school of Hellas, and that, as it seems to me, each individual amongst us could in his own person, with the utmost grace and versatility, prove himself self-sufficient in the most varied forms of activity.

2.41.2

And that this is no mere boast inspired by the occasion, but actual truth, is attested by the very power of our city, a power which we have acquired in consequence of these qualities.

2.41.3

For Athens alone among her contemporaries, when put to the test, is superior to the report of her, and she alone neither affords to the enemy who comes against her cause for irritation at the character of the foe by whom he is defeated, nor to her subject cause for complaint that his masters are unworthy.

2.41.4

Many are the proofs which we have given of our power and assuredly it does not lack witnesses, and therefore we shall be the wonder not only of the men of to-day but of after times; we shall need no Homer to sing our praise nor any other poet whose verses may perhaps delight for the moment but whose presentation of the facts will be discredited by the truth. Nay, we have compelled every sea and every land to grant access to our daring, and have everywhere planted everlasting memorials both of evil to foes and of good to friends.

2.41.5

Such, then, is the city for which these men nobly fought and died, deeming it their duty not to let her be taken from them; and it is fitting that every man who is left behind should suffer willingly for her sake.

2.42.1

"It is for this reason that I have dwelt upon the greatness of our city; for I have desired to show you that we are contending for a higher prize than those who do not enjoy such privileges in like degree, and at the same time to let the praise of these men in whose honour I am now speaking be made manifest by proofs.

2.42.2

Indeed, the greatest part of their praise has already been spoken; for when I lauded the city, that was but the praise wherewith the brave deeds of these men and men like them have already adorned her; and there are not many Hellenes whose fame would be found, like theirs, evenly balanced with their deeds. And it seems to me that such a death as these men died gives proof enough of manly courage, whether as first revealing it or as affording its final confirmation.

2.42.3

Aye, even in the case of those who in other ways fell short of goodness, it is but right that the valour with which they fought for their country should be set before all else; for they have blotted out evil with good and have bestowed a greater benefit by their service to the state than they have done harm by their private lives.

2.42.4

And no one of these men either so set his heart upon the continued enjoyment of wealth as to become a coward, or put off the dreadful day, yielding to the hope which poverty inspires, that if he could but escape it he might yet become rich; but, deeming the punishment of the foe to be more desirable than these things, and at the same time regarding such a hazard as the most glorious of all, they chose, accepting the hazard, to be avenged upon the enemy and to relinquish these other things, trusting to hope the still obscure possibilities of success, but in action, as to the issue that was before their eyes, confidently relying upon themselves. And then when the moment of combat came, thinking it better to defend themselves and suffer death rather than to yield and save their lives, they fled, indeed, from the shameful word of dishonour, but with life and limb stood stoutly to their task, and in the brief instant ordained by fate, at the crowning moment not of fear but of glory, they passed away.

2.43.1

"And so these men then bore themselves after a manner that befits our city;

2.43.1

but you who survive, though you may pray that it be with less hazard, should resolve that you will have a spirit to meet the foe which is no whit less courageous;

2.43.1

and you must estimate the advantage of such a spirit not alone by a speaker's words, for he could make a long story in telling you—what you yourselves know as well as he—all the advantages that are to be gained by warding off the foe.

2.43.1

Nay rather you must daily fix your gaze upon the power of Athens and become lovers of her, and when the vision of her greatness has inspired you, reflect that all this has been acquired by men of courage who knew their duty and in the hour of conflict were moved by a high sense of honour, who, if ever they failed in any enterprise, were resolved that at least their country should not find herself deserted by their valour, but freely sacrificed to her the fairest offering

2.43.1

1

2.43.1

it was in their power to give.

2.43.2

For they gave their lives for the common weal, and in so doing won for themselves the praise which grows not old and the most distinguished of all sepulchres—not that in which they lie buried, but that in which their glory survives in everlasting remembrance, celebrated on every occasion which gives rise to word of eulogy or deed of emulation.

2.43.3

For the whole world is the sepulchre of famous men, and it is not the epitaph upon monuments set up in their own land that alone commemorates them, but also in lands not their own there abides in each breast an unwritten memorial of them, planted in the heart rather than graven on stone.

2.43.4

Do you, therefore, now make these men your examples, and judging freedom to be happiness and courage to be freedom, be not too anxious about the dangers of war.

2.43.5

For it is not those that are in evil plight who have the best excuse for being unsparing of their lives, for they have no hope of better davs, but rather those who run the risk, if they continue to live, of the opposite reversal of fortune, and those to whom it makes the greatest difference if they suffer a disaster.

2.43.6

For to a manly spirit more bitter is humiliation associated with cowardice than death when it comes unperceived in close company with stalwart deeds and public hopes.

2.44.1

'"Wherefore, I do not commiserate the parents of these men, as many of you as are present here, but will rather try to comfort them. For they know that their lives have been passed amid manifold vicissitudes; and it is to be accounted good fortune when men win, even as these now, a most glorious death—and you a like grief—and when life has been meted out to them to be happy in no less than to die in.

2.44.2

It will be difficult, I know, to persuade you of the truth of this, when you will constantly be reminded of your loss by seeing others in the enjoyment of blessings in which you too once took delight; and grief, I know, is felt, not for the want of the good things which a man has never known, but for what is taken away from him after he has once become accustomed to it.

2.44.3

But those of you who are still of an age to have offspring should bear up in the hope of other children;

2.44.3

for not only to many of you individually will the children that are born hereafter be a cause of forgetfulness of those who are gone, but the state also will reap a double advantage—it will not be left desolate and it will be secure.

2.44.3

For they cannot possibly offer fair and impartial counsel who, having no children to hazard,

2.44.3

1

2.44.3

do not have an equal part in the risk.

2.44.4

But as for you who have passed your prime, count as gain the greater portion of your life during which you were fortunate and remember that the remainder will be short;

2.44.4

and be comforted by the fair fame of these your sons.

2.44.4

For the love of honour alone is untouched by age, and when one comes to the ineffectual period of life it is not 'gain' as some say,

2.44.4

1

2.44.4

that gives the greater satisfaction, but honour.

2.45.1

"But for such of you here present as are sons and brothers of these men, I see the greatness of the conflict that awaits you—for the dead are always praised—and even were you to attain to surpassing virtue, hardly would you be judged, I will not say their equals, but even a little inferior. For there is envy of the living on account of rivalry, but that which has been removed from our path is honoured with a good-will that knows no antagonism.

2.45.2

"If I am to speak also of womanly virtues, referring to those of you who will henceforth be in widowhood, I will sum up all in a brief admonition: Great is your glory if you fall not below the standard which nature has set for your sex, and great also is hers of whom there is least talk among men whether in praise or in blame.

2.46.1

"I have now spoken, in obedience to the law, such words as I had that were fitting, and those whom we are burying have already in part also received their tribute in our deeds;

2.46.1

1

2.46.1

besides, the state will henceforth maintain their children at the public expense until they grow to manhood, thus offering both to the dead and to their survivors a crown of substantial worth as their prize in such contests.

2.46.1

For where the prizes offered for virtue are greatest, there are found the best citizens.

2.46.2

And now, when you have made due lament, each for his own dead, depart."

2.47.1

Such were the funeral ceremonies that took place during this winter, the close of which brought the first year of this war to an end.

2.47.2

At the very beginning of summer the Peloponnesians and their

2.47.2

1

2.47.2

allies, with two-thirds of their forces as before

2.47.2

2

2.47.2

invaded Attica, under the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and establishing themselves proceeded to ravage

2.47.3

the country.

2.47.3

And before they had been many days in Attica the plague

2.47.3

1

2.47.3

began for the first time to show itself among the Athenians.

2.47.3

It is said, indeed, to have broken out before in many places, both in Lemnos and elsewhere, though no pestilence of such extent nor any scourge so destructive of human lives is on

2.47.4

record anywhere. For neither were physicians able to cope with the disease, since they at first had to treat it without knowing its nature, the mortality among them being greatest because they were most exposed to it, nor did any other human art avail. And the supplications made at sanctuaries, or appeals to oracles and the like, were all futile, and at last men desisted from them, overcome by the calamity.

2.48.1

The disease began, it is said, in Ethiopia beyond Egypt, and then descended into Egypt and Libya and spread over the greater part of the King's territory.

2.48.2

Then it suddenly fell upon the city of Athens, and attacked first the inhabitants of the Peiraeus, so that the people there even said that the Peloponnesians had put poison in their cisterns; for there were as yet no public fountains there. But afterwards it reached the upper city also, and from that time the mortality became much greater.

2.48.3

Now any one, whether physician or layman, may, each according to his personal opinion, speak about its probable origin and state the causes which, in his view, were sufficient to have produced so great a departure from normal conditions: but I shall describe its actual course, explaining the symptoms, from the study of which a person should be best able, having knowledge of it beforehand, to recognize it if it should ever break out again. For I had the disease myself and saw others sick of it.

2.49.1

That year, as was agreed by all, happened to be unusually free from disease so far as regards the other maladies; but if anyone was already ill of any disease all terminated in this.

2.49.2

In other cases from no obvious cause, but suddenly and while in good health, men were seized first with intense heat of the head, and redness and inflammation of the eyes, and the parts inside the mouth, both the throat and the tongue, immediately became blood-red and exhaled an unnatural and fetid breath.

2.49.3

In the next stage sneezing and hoarseness came on, and in a short time the disorder descended to the chest, attended by severe coughing. And when it settled in the stomach, that was upset, and vomits of bile of every kind named by physicians ensued, these also attended by great distress; and in most cases ineffectual retching followed producing violent convulsions, which sometimes abated directly, sometimes not until long afterwards.

2.49.4

Externally, the body was not so very warm to the touch;

2.49.5

it was not pale, but reddish, livid, and breaking out in small blisters and ulcers. But internally it was consumed by such a heat that the patients could not bear to have on them the lightest coverings or linen sheets, but wanted to be quite uncovered and would have liked best to throw themselves into cold water—indeed many of those who were not looked after did throw themselves into cisterns—so tormented were they by thirst which could not be quenched; and it was all the same whether they drank much or little. They were also beset by restlessness and sleeplessness which never abated.

2.49.6

And the body was not wasted while the disease was at its height, but resisted surprisingly the ravages of the disease, so that when the patients died, as most of them did on the seventh or ninth day from the internal heat, they still had some strength left; or, if they passed the crisis, the disease went down into the bowels, producing there a violent ulceration, and at the same time an acute diarrhoea set in, so that in this later stage most of them perished through weakness caused by it.

2.49.7

For the malady, starting from the head where it was first seated, passed down until it spread through the whole body, and if one got over the worst, it seized upon the extremities at least and left its marks there;

2.49.8

for it attacked the privates and fingers and toes, and many escaped with the loss of these, though some lost their eyes also. In some cases the sufferer was attacked immediately after recovery by loss of memory, which extended to every object alike, so that they failed to recognize either themselves or their friends.

2.50.1

Indeed the character of the disease proved such that it baffles description, the violence of the attack being in each case too great for human nature to endure, while in one way in particular it showed plainly that it was different from any of the familiar diseases: the birds, namely, and the fourfooted animals, which usually feed upon human bodies either would not now come near them, though many lay unburied, or died if they tasted of them.

2.50.2

The evidence for this is that birds of this kind became noticeably scarce, and they were no longer to be seen either about the bodies or anywhere else; while the dogs gave a still better opportunity to observe what happened, because they live with man.

2.51.1

Such, then, was the general nature of the disease; for I pass over many of the unusual symptoms, since it chanced to affect one man differently as compared with another. And while the plague lasted there were none of the usual complaints, though if any did occur it ended in this. Sometimes death was due to neglect, but sometimes it occurred in spite of careful nursing.

2.51.2

And no one remedy was found, I may say, which was sure to bring relief to those applying it—for what helped one man hurt another—

2.51.3

and no constitution, as it proved, was of itself sufficient against it, whether as regards physical strength or weakness,

2.51.3

1

2.51.3

but it carried off all without distinction, even those tended with all medical care.

2.51.4

And the most dreadful thing about the whole malady was not only the despondency of the victims, when they once became aware that they were sick, for their minds straightway yielded to despair and they gave themselves up for lost instead of resisting, but also the fact that they became infected by nursing one another and died like sheep. And this caused the heaviest mortality; for if, on the one hand, they were restrained by fear from visiting one another, the sick perished uncared for, so that many houses were left empty through lack of anyone to do the nursing;

2.51.5

or if, on the other hand, they visited the sick, they perished, especially those who made any pretensions to goodness. For these made it a point of honour to visit their friends without sparing themselves at a time when the very relatives of the dying, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the calamity, were growing weary even of making their lamentations.

2.51.6

But still it was more often those who had recovered who had pity for the dying and the sick, because they had learnt what it meant and were themselves by this time confident of immunity; for the disease never attacked the same man a second time, at least not with fatal results. And they were not only congratulated by everybody else, but themselves, in the excess of their joy at the moment, cherished also a fond fancy with regard to the rest of their lives that they would never be carried off by any other disease.

2.52.1

But in addition to the trouble under which they already laboured, the Athenians suffered further hardship owing to the crowding into the city of the people from the country districts; and this affected the new arrivals especially.

2.52.2

For since no houses were available for them and they had to live in huts that were stifling in the hot season, they perished in wild disorder. Bodies of dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead people rolled about in the streets and, in their longing for water, near all the fountains.

2.52.3

The temples, too, in which they had quartered themselves were full of the corpses of those who had died in them; for the calamity which weighed upon them was so overpowering that men, not knowing what was to become of them, became careless of all law, sacred as well as profane.

2.52.4

And the customs which they had hitherto observed regarding burial were all thrown into confusion, and they buried their dead each one as he could. And many resorted to shameless modes of burial because so many members of their households had already died that they lacked the proper funeral materials. Resorting to other people's pyres, some, anticipating those who had raised them, would put on their own dead and kindle the fire; others would throw the body they were carrying upon one which was already burning and go away.

2.53.1

In other respects also the plague first introduced into the city a greater lawlessness.

2.53.1

For where men hitherto practised concealment, that they were not acting purely after their pleasure,

2.53.1

1

2.53.1

they now showed a more careless daring.

2.53.1

They saw how sudden was the change of fortune in the case both of those who were prosperous and suddenly died, and of those who before had nothing but in a moment were in possession of the property of the others.

2.53.2

And so they resolved to get out of life the pleasures which could be had speedily and would satisfy their lusts, regarding their bodies and their wealth alike as transitory.

2.53.3

And no one was eager to practise self-denial in prospect of what was esteemed honour,

2.53.3

1

2.53.3

because everyone thought that it was doubtful whether he would live to attain it, but the pleasure of the moment and whatever was in any way conducive to it came to be regarded as at once honourable and expedient.

2.53.4

No fear of gods or law of men restrained; for, on the one hand, seeing that all men were perishing alike, they judged that piety and impiety came to the same thing, and, on the other, no one expected that he would live to be called to account and pay the penalty of his misdeeds. On the contrary, they believed that the penalty already decreed against them, and now hanging over their heads, was a far heavier one, and that before this fell it was only reasonable to get some enjoyment out of life.

2.54.1

Such then was the calamity that had befallen them by which the Athenians were sore pressed, their people dying within the walls and their land being ravaged without.

2.54.2

And in their distress they recalled, as was natural, the following verse which their older men said had long ago been uttered:

2.54.3

A Dorian war shall come and pestilence with it.

2.54.3

A dispute arose, however, among the people, some contending that the word used in the verse by the ancients was not Xot/os, "pestilence," but At/uos, "famine," and the view prevailed at the time that "pestilence" was the original word;

2.54.3

and quite naturally, for men's recollections conformed to their sufferings.

2.54.3

But if ever another Dorian war should visit them after the present war and a famine happen to come with it, they would probably, I fancy, recite the verse in that way.

2.54.4

Those, too, who were familiar with it, recalled that other oracle given to the Lacedaemonians, when, in answer to their inquiry whether they should go to war, the god responded that if they "warred with all their might victory would be theirs," adding that he himself would assist them.i Now so far as the oracle is concerned, they surmised that what was then happening was its fulfilment, for the plague broke out immediately after the Peloponnesians had invaded Attica;

2.54.5

and though it did not enter the Peloponnesus to any extent, it devastated Athens most of all, and next to Athens the places which had the densest population. So much for the history of the plague.

2.55.1

The Peloponnesians, after ravaging the plain, advanced into the district called Paralusl as far as Laurium, where are the silver mines of the Athenians. And first they ravaged that part of this district which looked towards the Peloponnesus, and afterwards the part facing Euboea and Andros.

2.55.2

But Pericles, who was general, still held to the same policy as during the earlier invasion, insisting that the Athenians should not take the field against them.

2.56.1

But before they had left the plain and entered the Paralus, Pericles had begun to equip a fleet of a hundred ships to sail against the Peloponnesus, and when all was ready he put to sea.

2.56.2

He took with him on the ships four thousand Athenian hoplites and three hundred cavalry in horse-transports, then employed for the first time, which had been made out of the old galleys.

2.56.3

The Chians and Lesbians also took part in the expedition with fifty ships. And when this armament of the Athenians put to sea, the Peloponnesians whom they left in Attica were already in the Paralian district.

2.56.4

On reaching Epidaurus in the Peloponnesus the Athenians ravaged most of that land; they also attacked the city, but, though they at first had hopes of taking it, they did not succeed.

2.56.5

Then, leaving Epidaurus, they went to sea again, and ravaged the territory of Troezen, Halieis, and Hermione, which are all on the Peloponnesian coast.

2.56.6

Sailing next from this region they came to Prasiae, a town on the coast of Laconia, where they not only ravaged parts of the country, but also captured the town itself and pillaged it. After they had completed these operations they went back home, where they found that the Peloponnesians were no longer in Attica but had retired.

2.57.1

During this entire period, while the Peloponnesians were in Attica and the fleet of the Athenians was on the expedition, the plague was making havoc among the Athenians, both in their fleet and in the city. The statement was therefore made that the Peloponnesians left Attica in haste because they were afraid of the disease, since they not only heard from deserters that it was in the city, but also could see them burning their dead.

2.57.2

In this invasion, however, they remained in Attica longer than at any other time, and also ravaged the entire country; indeed they were in Attica almost forty days.

2.58.1

In the same summer Hagnon son of Nicias and Cleopompus son of Clinias, colleagues of Pericles, taking the armament which he had employed,

2.58.1

1

2.58.1

at once set out on an expedition against the Chalcidians in Thrace and against Potidaea, which was still under siege,

2.58.1

2

2.58.1

and on their arrival they brought siege-engines to bear upon Potidaea, and tried in every way to take it.

2.58.2

But no success commensurate with the appointments of the expedition attended their efforts, either in their attempt to capture the city or otherwise;

2.58.2

for the plague broke out and sorely distressed the Athenians there, playing such havoc in the army that even the Athenian soldiers of the first expedition,

2.58.2

1

2.58.2

who had hitherto been in good health, caught the infection from Hagnon's troops.

2.58.2

Phormio, however, and his sixteen hundred men, were no longer in Chalcidice.

2.58.3

Accordingly Hagnon took his fleet back to Athens, having lost by the plague in about forty days one thousand and fifty out of a total of four thousand hoplites; but the soldiers of the former expedition remained where they were and continued the siege of Potidaea.

2.59.1

After the second invasion of the Peloponnesians the Athenians underwent a change of feeling, now that their land had been ravaged a second time while the plague and the war combined lay heavily upon them.

2.59.2

They blamed Pericles for having persuaded them to go to war and held him responsible for the misfortunes which had befallen them, and were eager to come to an agreement with the Lacedaemonians. They even sent envoys to them, but accomplished nothing. And now, being altogether at their wits' end, they assailed Pericles.

2.59.3

And when he saw that they were exasperated by the present situation and were acting exactly as he had himself expected, he called a meeting of the assembly—for he was still general—wishing to reassure them, and by ridding their minds of resentment to bring them to a milder and less timorous mood. So he came forward and spoke as follows:

2.60.1

" I have been expecting these manifestations of your wrath against me, knowing as I do the causes of your anger, and my purpose in calling an assembly was that I might address to you certain reminders, and remonstrate if in any case you are either angry with me or are giving way to your misfortunes without reason.

2.60.2

For in my judgment a state confers a greater benefit upon its private citizens when as a whole commonwealth it is successful, than when it prospers as regards the individual but fails as a community.

2.60.3

For even though a man flourishes in his own private affairs, yet if his country goes to ruin he perishes with her all the same;

2.60.4

but if he is in evil fortune and his country in good fortune, he is far more likely to come through safely. Since, then, the state may bear the misfortunes of her private citizens but the individual cannot bear hers, surely all men ought to defend her, and not to do as you are now doing—proposing to sacrifice the safety of the commonwealth because you are dismayed by the hardships you suffer at home, and are blaming both me who advised you to make war and yourselves who voted with me for it.

2.60.5

And yet I, with whom you are angry, am as competent as any man, I think, both to determine upon the right measures and to expound them, and as good a patriot and superior to the influence of money.

2.60.6

For he who determines upon a policy, and fails to lay it clearly before others, is in the same case as if he never had a conception of it; and he who has both gifts, but is disloyal to his country, cannot speak with the same unselfish devotion; and if he have loyalty also, but a loyalty that cannot resist money, then for that alone everything will be on sale.

2.60.7

If, therefore, when you allowed me to persuade you to go to war, you believed that I possessed these qualities even in a moderate degree more than other men, it is unreasonable that I should now bear the blame, at any rate, of wrongdoing.

2.61.1

"For though I admit that going to war is always sheer folly for men who are free to choose, and in general are enjoying good fortune, yet if the necessary choice was either to yield and forthwith submit to their neighbours' dictation, or by accepting the hazard of war to preserve their independence, then those who shrink from the hazard are more blameworthy than those who face it.

2.61.2

For my part, I stand where I stood before, and do not recede from my position; but it is you who have changed. For it has happened, now that you are suffering, that you repent of the consent you gave me when you were still unscathed, and in your infirmity of purpose my advice now appears to you wrong. The reason is that each one of you is already sensible of his hardships, whereas the proof of the advantages is still lacking to all, and now that a great reverse has come upon you without any warning, you are too dejected in mind to persevere in your former resolutions.

2.61.3

For the spirit is cowed by that which is sudden and unexpected and happens contrary to all calculation; and this is precisely the experience you have had, not only in other matters, but especially as regards the plague.

2.61.4

Nevertheless, seeing that you are citizens of a great city and have been reared amid customs which correspond to her greatness,

2.61.4

1

2.61.4

you should willingly endure even the greatest calamities and not mar your good fame.

2.61.4

For as all men claim the right to detest him who through presumption tries to grasp a reputation to which he has no title, so they equally claim a right to censure him who through faintheartedness fails to live up to the reputation he already enjoys.

2.61.4

You should, rather, put away your grief for private ills and devote yourselves to the safety of the commonwealth.

2.62.1

"As to the hardships involved in this war, and your misgivings lest they prove very great and we succumb after all, let those arguments suffice which I have advanced on many other occasions

2.62.1

1

2.62.1

in order to convince you that your fears are groundless.

2.62.1

But there is one point I propose to lay before you on which, I think, you have never yourselves as yet reflected, in spite of the advantage it gives you as regards your empire and its greatness, and which I have never previously dealt with in my speeches, and should not have done so now—for it makes a somewhat boastful claim—had I not seen that you are unreasonably dejected.

2.62.2

You think that it is only over your allies that your empire extends, but I declare that of two divisions of the world which lie open to man's use, the land and the sea, you hold the absolute mastery over the whole of one, not only to the extent to which you now exercise it, but also to whatever fuller extent you may choose; and there is no one, either the Great King or any nation of those now on the earth, who will block your path as you sail the seas with such a naval armament as you now possess.

2.62.3

This power, therefore, is clearly not to be compared with the mere use of your houses and fields, things which you value highly because you have been dispossessed of them;

2.62.3

nor is it reasonable that you should fret about them, but you should make light of them, regarding them in comparison with this power as a mere flowergarden or ornament of a wealthy estate, and should recognize that freedom, if we hold fast to it and preserve it, will easily restore these losses, but let men once submit to others and even what has been won in the past

2.62.3

1

2.62.3

has a way of being lessened.

2.62.3

You must therefore show yourselves not inferior in either of these two respects to your fathers, who by their own labours, and not by inheritance, not only acquired but also preserved this empire and bequeathed it to you (and it is a greater disgrace to let a possession you have be taken away than it is to attempt to gain one and fail);

2.62.4

and you must go to meet your enemies not only with confidence in yourselves, but with contempt for them. For even a coward, if his folly is attended with good luck, may boast, but contempt belongs only to the man who is convinced by his reason that he is superior to his opponents, as is the case with us.

2.62.5

And, where fortune is impartial, the result of this feeling of contempt is to render courage more effective through intelligence, that puts its trust not so much in hope, which is strongest in perplexity, as in reason supported by the facts, which gives a surer insight into the future.

2.63.1

" You may reasonably be expected, moreover, to support the dignity which the state has attained through empire—a dignity in which you all take pride—and not to avoid its burdens, unless you resign its honours also. Nor must you think that you are fighting for the simple issue of slavery or freedom; on the contrary, loss of empire is also involved and danger from the hatred incurred in your sway.

2.63.2

From this empire, however, it is too late for you even to withdraw, if any one at the present crisis, through fear and shrinking from action does indeed seek thus to play the honest man; for by this time the empire you hold is a tyranny, which it may seem wrong to have assumed, but which certainly it is dangerous to let go.

2.63.3

Men like these would soon ruin a state, either here, if they should win others to their views, or if they should settle in some other land and have an independent state all to themselves; for men of peace are not safe unless flanked by men of action; nor is it expedient in an imperial state, but only in a vassal state, to seek safety by submission.

2.64.1

"Do not be led astray by such citizens as these, nor persist in your anger with me,—for you yourselves voted for the war the same as I—just because the enemy has come and done exactly what he was certain to do the moment you refused to hearken to his demands, even though, beyond all our expectations, this plague has fallen upon us—the only thing which has happened that has transcended our foresight. I am well aware that your displeasure with me has been aggravated by the plague; but there is no justice in that, unless you mean to give me also the credit whenever any unexpected good fortune falls to your lot.

2.64.2

But the right course is to bear with resignation the afflictions sent by heaven and with fortitude the hardships that come from the enemy; for such has been the practice of this city in the past, and let it find no impediment in yourselves.

2.64.3

And realize that Athens has a mighty name among all mankind because she has never yielded to mis fortunes, but more freely than any other city has lavished lives and labours upon war, and that she possesses to-day a power which is the greatest that ever existed down to our time. The memory of this greatness, even should we now at last give way a little—for it is the nature of all things to decay as well as to grow—will be left to posterity forever, how that we of all Hellenes held sway over the greatest number of Hellenes, in the greatest wars held out against our foes whether united or single, and inhabited a city that was the richest in all things and the greatest.

2.64.4

These things the man who shrinks from action may indeed disparage, but he who, like ourselves, wishes to accomplish something will make them the goal of his endeavour, while every man who does not possess them will be envious.

2.64.5

To be hated and obnoxious for the moment has always been the lot of those who have aspired to rule over others; but he who, aiming at the highest ends, accepts the odium, is well advised. For hatred does not last long, but the splendour of the moment and the after-glory are left in everlasting remembrance.

2.64.6

Do you, then, providently resolving that yours shall be honour in ages to come and no dishonour in the present, achieve both by prompt and zealous effort. Make no overtures to the Lacedaemonians and do not let them know that you are burdened by your present afflictions ; for those who in the face of calamities show least distress of spirit and in action make most vigorous resistance, these are the strongest, whether they be states or individuals."

2.65.1

By such words Pericles endeavoured to cure the Athenians of their anger toward him, and to divert their minds from their present ills.

2.65.2

And as regards public affairs they were won over by his arguments, sending no further envoys to the Lacedaemonians, and were more zealous for the war; but in private they were distressed by their sufferings; for the commons, having less to start with, had been deprived even of this, while the upper classes had lost their beautiful estates in the country, both buildings and costly furniture, and above all they had war instead of peace. Indeed one and all they did not give over their resentment against him until they had imposed a fine upon him.

2.65.3

But not long afterwards, as is the way with the multitude, they chose him again as general and entrusted him with the whole conduct of affairs;

2.65.4

for they were now becoming individually less keenly sensible of their private griefs, and as to the needs of the state as a whole they esteemed him invaluable.

2.65.5

For so long as he presided over the affairs of the state in time of peace he pursued a moderate policy and kept the city in safety, and it was under him that Athens reached the height of her greatness; and, after the war began, here too he appears to have made a farsighted estimate of her strength. Pericles lived two years and six months beyond the beginning of the war;

2.65.6

and after his death his foresight as to the war was still more fully recognized.

2.65.7

For he had told the Athenians that if they would maintain a defensive policy, attend to their navy, and not seek to extend their sway during the war, or do anything to imperil the existence of the state, they would prove superior.

2.65.7

But they not only acted contrary to his advice in all these things, but also in matters that apparently had no connection with the war they were led by private ambition and private greed to adopt policies which proved injurious both as to themselves and their allies;

2.65.7

for these policies, so long as they were successful, merely brought honour or profit to individual citizens, but when they failed proved detrimental to the state in the conduct of the war.

2.65.7

1

2.65.8

And the reason for this was that Pericles, who owed his influence to his recognized standing and ability, and had proved himself clearly incorruptible in the highest degree, restrained the multitude while respecting their liberties, and led them rather than was led by them, because he did not resort to flattery, seeking power by dishonest means, but was able on the strength of his high reputation to oppose them and even provoke their wrath. At any rate, whenever he saw them unwarrantably confident and arrogant, his words would cow them into fear;

2.65.9

and, on the other hand, when he saw them unreasonably afraid, he would restore them to confidence again. And so Athens, though in name a democracy, gradually became in fact a government ruled by its foremost citizen.

2.65.10

But the successors of Pericles, being more on an equality with one another and yet striving each to be first, were ready to surrender to the people even the conduct of public affairs to suit their whims.

2.65.11

And from this, since it happened in a great and imperial state, there resulted many blunders, especially the Sicilian expedition,

2.65.11

1

2.65.11

which was not so much an error of judgment, when we consider the enemy they went against, as of management;

2.65.11

for those who were responsible for it, instead of taking additional measures for the proper support of the first troops which were sent out, gave themselves over to personal intrigues for the sake of gaining the popular leadership and consequently not only conducted the military operations with less rigour, but also brought about, for the first time, civil discord at home.

2.65.12

And yet, after they had met with disaster in Sicily, where they lost not only their army but also the greater part of their fleet, and by this time had come to be in a state of sedition at home, they neverthless held out ten years not only against the enemies they had before, but also against the Sicilians, who were now combined with them, and, besides, against most of their allies, who were now in revolt, and later on, against Cyrus son of the King, who joined the Peloponnesians and furnished them with money for their fleet; and they did not finally succumb until they had in their private quarrels fallen upon one another and been brought to ruin.

2.65.13

Such abundant grounds had Pericles at that time for his own forecast that Athens might quite easily have triumphed in this war over the Peloponnesians alone.

2.66.1

During the same summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies made an expedition with a hundred ships to the island of Zacynthus, which lies over against Elis. The Zacynthians are colonists of the Achaeans in the Peloponnesus and were in alliance with the Athenians.

2.66.2

On board the ships were one thousand Lacedaemonian hoplites, and Cnemus a Spartan was admiral. And making a descent upon the land they ravaged most of it; but as the inhabitants would not come to terms they sailed back home.

2.67.1

And at the end of the same summer

2.67.1

1

2.67.1

Aristeus a Corinthian, three Lacedaemonian envoys, Aneristus, Nicolaus, and Pratodamus, also Timagoras of Tegea and Pollis of Argos, the last acting in a private capacity,

2.67.1

2

2.67.1

set out for Asia to the King's court to see if they might persuade him to furnish money and join in the war.

2.67.1

On their way they came first to Sitalces son of Teres in Thrace, their desire being to persuade him, if possible, to forsake the Athenian alliance and send a force to relieve Potidaea, where an Athenian army was conducting the siege;

2.67.1

and also, in pursuance of their object, with his help to cross the Hellespont to Pharnaces

2.67.1

3

2.67.1

son of Pharnabazus, who was to escort them up the country to

2.67.2

the King.

2.67.2

But two Athenian envoys, Learchus son of Callimachus and Ameiniades son of Philemon, who chanced to be visiting Sitalces, urged Sadocus son of Sitalces, who had been made an Athenian citizen,

2.67.2

1

2.67.2

to deliver the men into their hands, that they might not cross over to the King and do such injury as might be to his

2.67.3

adopted city.

2.67.3

1

2.67.3

To this Sadocus agreed, and sending some troops to accompany Learchus and Ameiniades, seized them as they journeyed through Thrace before they embarked on the boat by which they were to cross the Hellespont.

2.67.3

They were then, in accordance with his orders, delivered to the Athenian envoys, who took them and brought them

2.67.4

to Athens. When they arrived, the Athenians, in fear that Aristeus might escape and do them still more harm, because he had evidently been the prime mover in all the earlier intrigues at Potidaea and along the coast of Thrace, put them all to death on that very day without a trial, though they wished to say something in their own defence, and threw their bodies into a pit, thinking it justifiable to employ for their own protection the same measures as had in the first instance been used by the Lacedaemonians when they killed and cast into pits the traders of the Athenians and their allies whom they caught on board merchantmen on the coast of the Peloponnesus. For at the beginning of the war all persons whom the Lacedaemonians captured at sea they destroyed as enemies, whether they were fighting on the side of the Athenians or not even taking part on either side.

2.68.1

About the same time, as the summer was ending, the Ambraciots themselves, with many of the barbarians whom they had summoned to their standard, made an expedition against the Amphilochian Argos and the rest of Amphilochia.

2.68.2

And enmity between them and the Argives first began from the following circumstance.

2.68.3

Amphilochus son of Amphiaraus, when he returned home after the Trojan war, was dissatisfied with the state of affairs at Argos,

2.68.3

1

2.68.3

and therefore founded Amphilochian Argos on the Ambracian gulf, and occupied the country of Amphilochia, calling the town Argos after the name of his own fatherland.

2.68.4

And this city was the largest in Amphilochia and had the wealthiest inhabitants.

2.68.5

But many generations later the Amphilochians, under the stress of misfortunes, invited in the Ambraciots, who bordered on Amphilochia, to share the place with them, and these first became Hellenes and adopted their present dialect in consequence of their union with the Ambraciots;

2.68.6

but the rest of the Amphilochians are still barbarians. Now in course of time the Ambraciots expelled the Argives and themselves seized the city.

2.68.7

But the Amphilochians, when this happened, placed themselves under the protection of the Acarnanians, and together they called in the Athenians, who sent to them Phormio as general with thirty ships. On the arrival of Phormio they took Argos by storm and reduced the Ambraciots to slavery, and Amphilochians and Acarnanians settled there together.

2.68.8

It was after this that the alliance between the Athenians and the Acarnanians was first established.

2.68.9

The Ambraciots first conceived their enmity toward the Argives from this enslavement of their own countrymen; and afterwards in the course of the war they made this expedition, which consisted, besides themselves, of Chaonians and some of the other barbarian tribes of the neighbourhood. And when they came to Argos, although they dominated the country, they were unable to take the city by assault; they therefore went home and the several tribes disbanded. Such were the events of the summer.

2.69.1

During the ensuing winter the Athenians sent twenty ships round the Peloponnesus under the command of Phormio, who, making Naupactus his base, kept watch there, so that no one might sail either out of Corinth and the Crisaean Gulf or in; and six other ships were sent to Caria and Lycia, under Melesander as general, to collect arrears of tribute in these places and to prevent the Peloponnesian privateers from establishing a base in these regions and molesting the merchantmen sailing from Phaselis and Phoenicia and the mainland in that quarter.

2.69.2

But Melesander, going inland into Lycia with a force of Athenians from the ships and of allied troops, was defeated in battle and slain, losing a number of his troops.

2.70.1

During the same winter the Potidaeans found themselves no longer able to endure the siege;

2.70.1

and the raids which the Peloponnesians made into Attica did not cause the Athenians to raise the siege any more than before.

2.70.1

1

2.70.1

Their grain had given out, and in addition to many other things which by this time had befallen them in their efforts to get bare subsistence some had even eaten their fellows.

2.70.1

In this extremity they made proposals for a capitulation to the Athenian generals who were in charge of the operations against them, namely Xenophon son of Euripides, Hestiodorus son of Aristocleides, and Phanomachus son of Callimachus.

2.70.2

And the generals accepted their proposals, seeing the distress which the army was suffering in an exposed place, and taking into consideration that Athens had already spent two thousand talents

2.70.2

1

2.70.2

on the siege.

2.70.3

So a capitulation was made on the following terms, that the Potidaeans, with their children and wives and the mercenary troops,

2.70.3

1

2.70.3

were to leave the city with one garment apiece—the women, however, with two—retaining a fixed sum of money for the journey.

2.70.4

So they left Potidaea under a truce and went into Chalcidice or wherever each was able to go.

2.70.4

The Athenians, however, blamed the generals for granting terms without consulting them—for they thought they could have become masters of the place on their own terms;

2.70.4

and afterwards sent settlers of their own into Potidaea and colonized it.

2.70.4

These things happened in the winter, and so ended the second

2.70.4

1

2.70.4

year of this war of which Thucydides wrote the history.

2.71.1

In the ensuing summer the Peloponnesians and their allies did not invade Attica, but made an expedition against Plataea. Their leader was Archidamus son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and when he had encamped his army he was about to ravage the land; but the Plataeans straightway sent envoys to him, who spoke as follows: "

2.71.2

Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, you are acting unjustly, and in a manner unworthy either of yourselves or of the fathers from whom you are sprung, when you invade the territory of the Plataeans. For Pausanias son of Cleombrotus, the Lacedaemonian, when he had freed Hellas from the Persians, together with such of the Hellenes as chose to share the danger of the battle that took place in our territory, offered sacrifice in the market-place of the Plataeans to Zeus Eleutherius, and calling together all the allies restored to the Plataeans their land and city to hold and inhabit in independence, and no one was ever to march against them unjustly or for their enslavement; but in that case the allies then present were to defend them with all their might.

2.71.3

These privileges your fathers granted to us on account of the valour and zeal we displayed amid those dangers, but you do the very contrary; for with the Thebans, our bitterest enemies, you are come to enslave us.

2.71.4

But calling to witness the gods in whose names we then swore and the gods of your fathers and of our country, we say to you, wrong not the land of Plataea nor violate your oaths, but suffer us to live independent, according as Pausanias granted that to us as our right."

2.72.1

When the Plataeans had so spoken, Archidamus answered and said: "What you say is just, men of Plataea, if what you do is consistent with your words. For according as Pausanias bestowed that privilege upon you, so do you assert your own independence and help us to set free the others also who, having shared in the dangers of that time, swore the same oaths with you, and are now in subjection to the Athenians; for it is to recover their freedom and that of the rest that these great preparations for war have been made. Therein you should take part, if possible, and yourselves abide by the oaths; otherwise keep quiet, as we have already proposed, continuing to enjoy your own possessions; take part with neither side, receive both sides as friends but for hostile purposes neither.

2.72.2

And this will be satisfactory to us." Thus spoke Archidamus; and the Plataean envoys, on hearing him, went into the city, and after reporting to the people what had been said, answered him, that it was impossible for them to do what he proposed without the consent of the Athenians--for their children and wives were in Athens '-adding that they feared for the very existence of the state; for after the departure of the Lacedaemonians the Athenians would come and veto the plan, or else the Thebans, claiming that they were included in the stipulations about receiving both sides, would try again to seize their city.

2.72.3

But he, endeavouring to reassure them with regard to these matters, said: "You need only consign the city and your houses to us, the Lacedaemonians, pointing out to us the boundaries of your land and telling us the number of your trees and whatever else can be numbered; then as for yourselves migrate to whatever place you please, remaining there while the war lasts; but as soon as the war is over we will give back to you whatever we have received; until then we will hold it all in trust, working the land and paying you whatever rent will satisfy you."

2.73.1

With this answer the Plataean envoys went again into the city, and after they had conferred with the people replied that they wished first to communicate his proposals to the Athenians, and if they could gain their consent would do what he proposed; but meanwhile they requested him to grant them a truce and not to ravage the land. And so he made a truce for the number of days within which their representatives could be expected to go and return, and did not lay waste their land.

2.73.2

But the Plataean envoys went to the Athenians and after consulting with them returned with the following message to the people at home: "

2.73.3

The Athenians assure you, Plataeans, that as in times past, since you became their allies,

2.73.3

1

2.73.3

they have never on any occasion deserted you when you were being wronged, so now they will not suffer you to be wronged, but will assist you with all their might.

2.73.3

They therefore adjure you, by the oaths which your fathers swore, not to break off the alliance."

2.74.1

When the envoys reported this answer, the Plataeans determined not to betray the Athenians, but to endure even to see their lands laid waste, if need be, and to suffer whatever else might happen; further, that no one should thereafter leave the city, but that the answer should be given from the walls that they found it impossible to do what the Lacedaemonians proposed.

2.74.2

And when they had made answer, thereupon king Archidamus first stood forth calling the gods and heroes of the country to witness in the following words: "Ye gods and heroes who protect the land of Plataea, be our witnesses that we did no wrong in the beginning, but only after the Plataeans first abandoned the oath we all swore did we come against this land, where our fathers, invoking you in their prayers, conquered the Persians, and which you made auspicious for the Hellenes to fight in, and that now also, if we take any measures, we shall be guilty of no wrong; for though we have made them many reasonable proposals we have failed. Grant therefore your consent, that those be punished for the wrong who first began it, and that those obtain their revenge who are seeking to exact it lawfully."

2.75.1

After this appeal to the gods he began hostilities. In the first place the Lacedaemonians, using the trees which they had cut down, built a stockade round Plataea, that in future no one might leave the place; then they began raising a mound against the town, hoping that with so large an army at work this would be the speediest way of taking it.

2.75.2

So they cut timber on Cithaeron and built a structure alongside the mound on either side of it, laying the logs like lattice-work I to form a sort of wall, that the mound might not spread too much.

2.75.3

Then they brought and threw into the space wood and stones and earth and anything else which when thrown on would serve to build up the mound. And for seventy days and nights continuously they kept on raising the mound, divided into relays, so that while some were carrying others might take sleep and food; and the Lacedaemonian commanders of auxiliaries together with the officers in charge of the contingents from the several cities kept them at their task.

2.75.4

But the Plataeans, seeing the mound rising, put together a framework of wood which they set on top of their own wall at the point where the mound was being constructed, and inside this frame they put bricks which they took from the neighbouring houses.

2.75.5

The timbers served to hold the bricks together, preventing the structure from becoming weak as it attained height, and they were protected by coverings of skins and hides, so that the workmen and woodwork might be safe and shielded from incendiary arrows.

2.75.6

The wall was mounting to a great height, and the opposing mound was rising with equal speed, when the Plataeans thought of a new expedient. They made an opening in that part of the city wall where the mound came into contact with it, and began to draw the earth in.

2.76.1

But the Peloponnesians became aware of this, and threw into the breach clay packed in reedmats that it might not filter through like the loose earth and be carried away.

2.76.2

But the besieged, thwarted in this direction, gave up that plan and dug a mine from the town, and, guessing when they had got beneath the mound, once more began to draw away the earth to their side, this time from underneath; and for a long time they worked unnoticed by those outside, so that in spite of what they heaped on these made less progress, because their mound, as it was sapped from below, constantly kept settling down into the hollow space.

2.76.3

But fearing that even so they would not be able to hold out, few as they were against a multitude, they devised this further expedient: they stopped working on the high structure opposite the mound, and starting at the low part of the wall on either side of it they began building a crescent-shaped rampart on the inward or city side of it, in order that, if the high wall should be taken, this might offer resistance; the enemy would thus have to raise a second mound to oppose the new rampart, and as they advanced and came inside the crescent they would not only have their labour twice over, but would also be more exposed to attack on both sides.

2.76.4

But the Peloponnesians, while going on with their mound, also brought up engines against the city: one was moved forward over the mound, and shook down a great part of the high structure, terrifying the Plataeans, while others were brought to bear at different parts of the wall.

2.76.4

But the Plataeans threw nooses over these and pulled them up.

2.76.4

They also suspended great beams by long iron chains attached at either end to two poles which rested on the wall and extended over it;

2.76.4

then they hauled up the beams at right angles

2.76.4

1

2.76.4

to the battering-ram and when it was about to strike anywhere let go the beam by allowing the chains to run slack and not keeping hold of them;

2.76.4

whereupon the beam would fall with a rush and break off the head of the battering-ram.

2.77.1

After this, the Peloponnesians, seeing that their engines were doing no good and that the counter-wall was keeping pace with the mound, and concluding that it was impracticable without more formidable means of attack to take the city, began to make preparations for throwing a wall about it.

2.77.2

But before doing that they decided to try fire, in the hope that, if a wind should spring up, they might be able to set the city on fire, as it was not large; indeed, there was no expedient they did not consider, that they might if possible reduce the city without the expense of a siege.

2.77.3

Accordingly they brought faggots of brushwood and threw them down from the mound, first into the space between the wall and the mound; and then, since the space was soon filled up by the multitude of workers, they heaped faggots also as far into the city as they could reach from the height, and finally threw fire together with sulphur and pitch upon the wood and set it afire.

2.77.4

And a conflagration arose greater than any one had ever seen up to that time, kindled, I mean, by the hand of man; for in times past in the mountains when dry branches have been rubbed against each other a forest has caught fire spontaneously therefrom and produced a conflagration.

2.77.5

And this fire was not only a great one, but also very nearly destroyed the Plataeans after they had escaped all earlier perils; for in a large part of the city it was not possible to get near the fire, and if on top of that a breeze had sprung up blowing toward the city, which was precisely what the enemy were hoping for. the Plataeans would not have escaped.

2.77.6

But as it was, this also is said to have happened—a heavy thunder-shower came on and quenched the flames, and so the danger was checked.

2.78.1

When the Peloponnesians had failed in this attempt also, they dismissed the larger part of their army, leaving only a portion of it, and proceeded to throw a wall around the city, apportioning the space to the several cities; and there were ditches both inside and outside the wall, out of which they had taken the clay for the bricks.

2.78.2

And when the wall was entirely finished about the time of the rising of Arcturus,

2.78.2

1

2.78.2

they left a guard to watch one half of the wall (the Thebans guarded the other half), and withdrew the main army, the troops dispersing to their several cities.

2.78.3

But the Plataeans had previously had their children and wives, as well as the oldest men and the unserviceable part of the population, removed to Athens, and the men left behind to undergo the siege were only four hundred of their own number and eighty Athenians, besides one hundred and ten women to prepare the food.

2.78.4

This was the number all told when the siege began, and there was no one else within the walls, slave or freeman. Such were the conditions under which the siege of the Plataeans was established.

2.79.1

During the same summer, when the corn was in full ear,

2.79.1

1

2.79.1

while the expedition against Plataea was in progress, the Athenians with two thousand hoplites of their own and two hundred cavalry marched against the Chalcidians in Thrace and the Bottiaeans, under the command of Xenophon son of Euripides and two others.

2.79.2

And coming to Spartolus in Bottice they destroyed the grain. It was believed, moreover, that the city would be delivered over to them by a party inside the town which was negotiating with them; but the opposite faction forestalled this by sending word to Olynthus, and some hoplites and other troops arrived to garrison the place.

2.79.3

Now when these made a sally from Spartolus, the Athenians were drawn into a battle with them under the very walls of the city, and although the hoplites of the Chalcidians and some mercenaries with them were defeated by the Athenians and retreated into Spartolus, the cavalry of the Chalcidians and the light-armed troops defeated the Athenian cavalry and light-troops;

2.79.4

for the Athenians had a few targeteers from the land called Crousis,l and just after the battle was over another force of targeteers came from Olynthus to the help of the garrison.

2.79.5

And when the light-armed troops in Spartolus saw them, emboldened by these accessions and because they had not been worsted before, they again, assisted by the Chalcidian cavalry and those who had newly come to their support, attacked the Athenians, who now fell back upon the two companies which they had left with their baggage.

2.79.6

And whenever the Athenians advanced, they gave way, but when the Athenians retreated they kept close at their heels, hurling javelins at them. Then the Chalcidian cavalry, riding up, kept charging the Athenians wherever opportunity offered, and throwing them into utter panic routed them and pursued them to a great distance.

2.79.7

The Athenians took refuge in Potidaea, and afterwards, having recovered their dead under a truce, returned to Athens with what remained of their army; and they had lost three hundred and thirty men and all their generals. The Chalcidians and Bottiaeans set up a trophy, and then, after they had taken up their own dead, dispersed to their several cities.

2.80.1

During the same summer, not long after these events, the Ambraciots and Chaonians, wishing to subdue the whole of Acarnania and detach it from Athens, persuaded the Lacedaemonians to fit out a fleet from the countries of the Doric alliance and to send a thousand hoplites against Acarnania, saying that, if they joined forces with them, bringing ships and infantry, it would be an easy matter first to occupy Acarnania since the Acarnanians on

2.80.1

1

2.80.1

the seacoast would be unable to aid those inland, and then to make themselves masters of Zacynthus and Cephallenia also: after that the Athenians would no longer be able to sail round the Peloponnesus in the same way as before;

2.80.2

and there was a chance of taking Naupactus also.

2.80.2

The Lacedaemonians agreed and at once despatched Cnemus, who was still admiral,

2.80.2

1

2.80.2

and the hoplites on a few ships, and sent round orders to the allied fleet to make their preparations and sail as soon as possible to Leucas.

2.80.3

And the Corinthians were especially eager to support the enterprise of the Ambraciots, who were colonists of theirs. The contingent of the fleet to come from Corinth and Sicyon and the places in that quarter was still under preparation, but that from Leucas and Anactorium and Ambracia, arriving first, waited at Leucas.

2.80.4

As for Cnemus and the thousand hoplites, as soon as they had succeeded in crossing over without being detected by Phormio, who was in command of the twenty Athenian ships that were on guard off Naupactus,

2.80.4

1

2.80.4

they began at once to prepare for the expedition by land.

2.80.5

He had with him, of Hellenic troops, some Ambraciots, Anactorians and Leucadians, and the thousand Peloponnesians whom he himself brought; of barbarians, a thousand Chaonians, who, having no king, were led by Photius and Nicanor of the ruling clan who had the annual presidency. With the Chaonian contingent were also some Thesprotians, who likewise have no king.

2.80.6

A force of Molossians and Atintanians were led by Sabylinthus, the guardian of king Tharyps, who was still a boy, and of Paravaeans by their king, Oroedus. With the Paravaeans were a thousand Orestians whose king, Antiochus, had entrusted them to Oroedus.

2.80.7

And Perdiccas also sent, without the knowledge of the Athenians, a thousand Macedonians, who arrived too late.

2.80.8

With this army Cnemus set out, not waiting for the fleet from Corinth;

2.80.8

and as they passed through the territory of Argos

2.80.8

1

2.80.8

they sacked Limnaea, an unwalled village.

2.80.8

Finally they arrived at Stratus, the largest city of Acarnania, thinking that if they could take this first, the other places would readily come over to them.

2.81.1

Now when the Acarnanians perceived that a large army had invaded them by land and that the enemy would soon be at hand with a fleet by sea as well, they did not attempt combined resistance, but guarding severally their own possessions they sent to Phornnio urging him to aid them. But he said that he could not leave Naupactus unprotected, as a hostile fleet was about to sail from Corinth.

2.81.2

Meanwhile the Peloponnesians and their allies, dividing their troops into three divisions, advanced towards the city of the Stratians, their purpose being to encamp near by, and then, if they could not prevail upon them by parleying, to assault the wall.

2.81.3

As they advanced, the centre was held by the Chaonians and the other barbarians, while on their right were the Leucadians and Anactorians and those who accompanied them, and on the left Cnemus with his Peloponnesians and the Ambraciots; and the divisions were far apart from each other, sometimes, not even in sight.

2.81.4

And the Hellenic troops as they advanced maintained their ranks and were on their guard until they encamped in a suitable place; but the Chaonians, who were not only confident of themselves but were also recognised as very excellent fighting men by the inhabitants of that part of the mainland, did not halt to make camp, but advanced with a rush along with the other barbarians, thinking that they could take the town at the first assault, and thus gain the glory for themselves.

2.81.5

But the Stratians noticed that they were still advancing, and thinking that, if they could overcome them while isolated, the Hellenes would no longer be as ready to attack them, set ambushes in the outskirts of the town, and as soon as the barbarians were close at hand, closed in upon them from the city and from the ambushes and fell upon them.

2.81.6

Thrown into a panic, many of the Chaonians were slain, and the other barbarians, seeing them give way, no longer held their ground, but took to flight.

2.81.7

But neither of the Hellenic divisions was aware of the battle, because their allies had gone far ahead of them, and they thought that they were pressing on in order to find a camp.

2.81.8

But when the barbarians in their flight broke in upon them, they took them in and uniting their two divisions kept quiet there during the day, the Stratians not coming to close quarters with them, because the rest of the Acarnanians had not yet come to their support, but using their slings against them from a distance and distressing them; for it was not possible for them to stir without armour; and indeed the Acarnanians are famous for their excellence in the use of the sling.

2.82.1

But when night came on, Cnemus hastily retreated with his army to the river Anapus, which is eighty stadia distant from Stratus, and on the following day took up his dead under a truce; and since the Oeniadae had joined his expedition in token of their friendly feelings, he withdrew to their country before the combined forces of the Acarnanians had arrived, and from there they returned severally to their homes. As for the Stratians, they set up a trophy of their battle with the barbarians.

2.83.1

Meanwhile the fleet from Corinth and from the other allies on the Crisaean Gulf, which was to have joined Cnemus in order to prevent the Acarnanians on the sea-coast from aiding those in the interior, did not arrive, Iut was obliged, about the day of the battle at Stratus, to fight with Phormio and the twenty Athenian ships which were on guard at Naupactus.

2.83.2

For Phormio was watching them as they sailed along the coast out of the gulf, preferring to attack them in the open water.

2.83.3

Now the Corinthians and their allies on their way to Acarnania were not equipped for fighting at sea, but rather for operations on land, and they had no idea that the Athenians with their twenty ships would dare to bring on an engagement with their own forty-seven.

2.83.3

When, however, they saw that the Athenians kept sailing along the opposite coast as long as they themselves continued to skirt the southern shore, and when, as they attempted to cross from Patrae in Achaia to the mainland opposite, making for Acarnania, they observed that the Athenians were bearing down upon them from Chalcis and the river Evenus, and finally when, during the night, they had tried to slip their moorings

2.83.3

1

2.83.3

and get away but had been detected, under these circumstances they were forced to fight in the middle of the channel.

2.83.3

2

2.83.4

Their fleet was commanded by generals from the several states which contributed contingents, the Corinthian squadron by Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas.

2.83.5

The Peloponnesians drew up their ships in as large a circle as they could without allowing the enemy an opportunity to break through,

2.83.5

1

2.83.5

prows outward, sterns inward;

2.83.5

and inside the circle they placed the light boats which accompanied them, and also five of their swiftest ships, in order that they might have only a short distance to sail out and bring support at any point where the enemy attacked.

2.84.1

As for the Athenians, drawn up in single column they kept sailing round the Peloponnesian fleet in a circle, hemming it into a narrower and narrower space, always just grazing by and giving the impression that they would charge at any moment. But orders had been given by Phormio not to attack until he should give the signal;

2.84.2

for he hoped that the enemy's ships would not keep in line, like infantry on land, but would fall foul of one another, and also be thrown into confusion by the small boats, and then if the breeze for which he was waiting while he sailed round, which usually blew from the gulf towards dawn, should spring up, they would not remain steady for any length of time. As for the attack, he thought that was in his power whenever he chose, since his ships were better sailers, and that then was the most favourable moment for it.

2.84.3

So when the wind began to come up, and the ships, already hemmed in a narrow space, were being thrown into confusion both by the violence of the wind and the pressure of the small boats, when ship was dashing against ship and the crews were trying to push them apart with poles, all the while keeping up such shouts and warning cries and abuse of one another that they could not hear either the word of command or the coxswains' calls, and, finally, when the inexperienced rowers, unable to get their oars clear of the water in a heavy sea, were rendering the ships less obedient to the helmsmen, then at this critical moment Phormio gave the signal. Thereupon the Athenians fell upon them; first they sank one of the admirals' ships, and then destroyed the rest as well wherever they came upon them, reducing them to such straits that in their confusion no one turned for defence, but all fled to Patrae and Dyme in Achaia.

2.84.4

But the Athenians gave chase, and after they had captured twelve ships and had taken on board most of their crews sailed away to Molycreum; then they set up a trophy on Rhium, dedicated a ship to Poseidon, and returned to Naupactus.

2.84.5

The Peloponnesians also sailed away immediately with the ships that were left, proceeding from Dyme and Patrae along the coast to Cyllene, the shipyard of the Eleans;

2.84.5

and Cnemus likewise, coming from Leucas together with the ships from that quarter

2.84.5

1

2.84.5

which were to have joined the Corinthian fleet, came to Cyllene after the battle at Stratus.

2.85.1

The Lacedaemonians now sent to the fleet Timocrates, Brasidas, and Lycophron as advisers to Cnemus, directing them to make better preparation for another sea-fight, and not to be driven off the sea by a few ships.

2.85.2

For the issue of the recent battle seemed to them utterly incomprehensible, especially since this was their first attempt at a sea-fight, and they could not believe that their fleet was so greatly inferior, but thought that there had been cowardice somewhere, failing to take into account the long experience of the Athenians as compared with their own brief practice. In a rage, then, they dispatched the advisers.

2.85.3

And these on their arrival, acting in conjunction with Cnemus, sent round a call to the allied cities for additional ships, and set about equipping those already at hand, with a view to a sea-fight.

2.85.4

And Phormio on his part sent messengers to Athens to give information of the enemy's preparations and to tell about the battle which they had won, urging them also to send to him speedily as many ships as possible, since there was always a prospect that a battle might be fought any day.

2.85.5

So they sent him twenty ships, but gave the commander in charge of them special orders to sail first to Crete.

2.85.5

For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortys, who was a proxenus

2.85.5

1

2.85.5

of theirs, persuaded them to sail against Cydonia, a hostile town, promising to bring it over to the Athenians;

2.85.5

but he was really asking them to intervene to gratify the people of Polichne, who are neighbours of the Cydonians.

2.85.6

So the officer in charge took the ships, went to Crete, and helped the Polichnitans to ravage the lands of the Cydonians, and by reason of winds and stress of weather wasted not a little time.

2.86.1

Meantime, while the Athenians were detained in Crete, the Peloponnesians at Cyllene, equipped and ready for a battle, sailed along the coast to Panormus in Achaia, where the land-forces of the Peloponnesians had come to their support.

2.86.2

And Phormio also sailed along the coast to the Molycrian Rhium and anchored outside with the twenty ships with which he had fought before.

2.86.3

This Rhium was friendly to the Athenians, and opposite is the other Rhium, that in the Peloponnesus; and the distance between them is about seven stadia by sea, constituting the mouth of the Crisaean Gulf.

2.86.4

Accordingly the Peloponnesians, when they saw the Athenians come to anchor, likewise anchored with seventy-seven ships at the Achaian Rhium, which is not far from Panormus, where their land-forces were.

2.86.5

And for six or seven days they lay at anchor opposite one another, practising and preparing for battle, the one side resolved not to sail outside the two Rhia into the open water, fearing a recurrence of their disaster, the other not to sail into the straits, thinking that fighting in a narrow space was in the enemy's favour.

2.86.6

At last Cnemus and Brasidas and the other Peloponnesian commanders, wishing to bring on the engagement soon, before reinforcements came from Athens, first called their soldiers together, and seeing that most of them were frightened on account of their previous defeat and not eager for battle, encouraged them and spoke as follows:

2.87.1

"The recent sea-fight, Peloponnesians, if possibly it has caused any man among you to be afraid of the one before us, affords no just grounds for your alarm.

2.87.2

For our preparation was deficient, as you know, and the object of our voyage was not so much to fight at sea as operations on land; and it happened, furthermore, that not a few of the chances of war were against us, and doubtless also our inexperience had something to do with our failure in the first sea-fight.

2.87.3

It was not then our cowardice that brought about defeat, nor is it right that the spirit, which force cannot conquer, but which has in it something defiant, should be dulled and blunted by the outcome of mere chance; rather you ought to reflect that although men may suffer reverse in their fortunes, yet in their spirit brave men are rightly considered always brave, and when courage is present no inexperience can properly be urged as an excuse for being cowards under any circumstances. And, after all, your inexperience is more than counterbalanced by your superiority in daring;

2.87.4

and though the enemy's skill, which you particularly dread, will indeed, so long as bravery goes with it, have the presence of mind in the moment of danger to put into effect the lessons it has learned, yet without valour no amount of proficiency avails against such dangers. For fear drives presence of mind away, and skill without intrepidity is of no avail.

2.87.5

Therefore, against their greater experience set your greater daring, and against the fear caused by your defeat set the accident of your being at the moment unprepared.

2.87.6

You have the advantage, both in number of ships and in fighting close to the land, which is friendly to us, and you are supported by hoplites; and victory is generally on the side of those who are the more numerous and better prepared.

2.87.7

There is accordingly not a single reason that we can find why we should fail; and as to our earlier mistakes, the very fact that they were made will teach us a lesson.

2.87.8

Be of good courage, then, and let each man, both helmsman and sailor, follow our lead as best he can, not leaving the post to which he may be assigned.

2.87.9

We shall prepare for the attack at least as well as your former commanders, and shall give no one an excuse to act like a coward; but if anyone should be inclined that way, he shall be punished with the penalty he deserves, while the brave shall be honoured with rewards such as befit their valour."

2.88.1

With such words the Peloponnesian commanders encouraged their men. But Phormio, being himself also uneasy about the apprehension felt by his troops, and observing that they were gathering in knots amongst themselves in alarm at the superior number of the enemy's ships, wished to call them together in order to hearten them and make an exhortation to suit the present emergency.

2.88.2

For in the past he had always told them, by way of bracing their minds, that there was no number of ships, however great, whose attack men such as they could not withstand; and his sailors had long since held among themselves the conviction that they, being Athenians, must never give ground before any number of Peloponnesian ships.

2.88.3

But at this time, seeing that they were dispirited by what they saw before their eyes, and wishing to remind them of their old-time confidence, he called them together and spoke as follows:

2.89.1

"Observing that you have become alarmed, soldiers, at the numbers of the enemy, I have called you together, because I do not want you to be in dread of imaginary dangers.

2.89.2

For, in the first place, it is just because these men have been beaten before, and do not even themselves believe that they are a match for us, that they have provided themselves with this large and disproportionate number of ships; then, too, as regards their courage,— the thing on which they chiefly rely when they come against us, as if it were their peculiar province to be brave,—the only reasonable ground they have for confidence is that their experience in fighting on land has generally brought them success, and so they think this will achieve the same result for them at sea as well.

2.89.3

But in all reason the advantage to-day will rather be ours, if they on their side have it on land: for in valour assuredly they are nowise superior, but we are both more confident just as in any way we have more experience.

2.89.4

Besides, since the Lacedaemonians lead their allies for their own glory, the majority of them have to be dragged into battle against their will, for otherwise they would never, after their decisive defeat, have attempted to fight a second time at sea.

2.89.5

Hence you need not fear their daring. On the contrary, you inspire in them a dread far greater and better justified, both because you have already defeated them and because they think that you would not be facing them at all unless you expected to achieve a result commensurate with the very great odds.

2.89.6

For most men, when, like our present opponents, they are equal to their foes, rely more upon their strength when they advance to the attack thLn upon their resolution; whereas those who dare oppose them with greatly inferior numbers, and at the same time without being compelled to do so. must possess in a high degree the quality of unwavering resolution. Taking all these things into consideration, our enemies have come to fear us more on account of what is amazing in our conduct than they would if our preparations were less out of proportion to their own.

2.89.7

Furthermore many an army has before now been overthrown by smaller numbers through its own want of experience, and sone too through a deficiency of daring, and at this moment we can be charged with neither.

2.89.8

As for the contest, I will not risk it in the gulf if I can help it, nor will I sail into the gulf. For I am aware that a confined space is not an advantage to a fleet of a few ships which are better sailers and have experienced crews, when it is opposed to a large nulnber of ships which are badly managed. For one cannot charge properly upon an enemy ship to ram her side, through not having a clear view of her a long way off, nor can one retire at need when hard pressed; and there is no chance for such manoeuvres as breaking through the line or whirling around to rain, though these are precisely the proper tactics of fast sailing ships, but the sea-fight would have to be turned into a land-battle, and in that case it is the larger fleet that wins.

2.89.9

For these matters, however, I shall make provision to the best of my ability. As for you, keep good order, stay near your ships, give heed sharply to the word of command, especially since the two fleets are at watch so near one another; and when it comes to action, regard discipline and silence, which are generally advantageous in warfare, but especially so at sea, as all important, and ward off the enemy yonder in a manner worthy of your past exploits.

2.89.10

The contest is a momentous one for you—whether you are to shatter the hopes which the Peloponnesians have in their fleet, or to bring closer home to the Athenians their fear about the sea.

2.89.11

Once more I remind you that you have beaten most of them

2.89.11

1

2.89.11

already;

2.89.11

and when men have once suffered defeat, their spirit is never the same as before if they are called upon to face the same dangers."

2.90.1

Such were the words with which Phormio also encouraged his men.

2.90.1

And the Peloponnesians, when the Athenians did not sail into the gulf and the narrows to meet them, wished to draw them in against their will;

2.90.1

so they put out to sea at dawn, and, after lining up their ships four deep,

2.90.1

1

2.90.1

sailed along their own shore towards the inner part of the gulf, in the same order as they had lain at anchor,

2.90.1

2

2.90.1

their right wing leading the way.

2.90.1

3

2.90.2

Upon their right wing they had placed their twenty best sailing ships, in order that, if Phormio got the impression that their objective was Naupactus and should, following the coast, sail in that direction to its aid, the Athenians might not be able to escape their attack by sailing outside their wing, but might be enveloped by these ships.

2.90.3

Now he did just what they expected him to do; when he saw them put to sea, fearing for the safety of the place, which was unprotected, he reluctantly and in haste embarked his crews and sailed along the coast, the Messenian army moving along the shore to support him.

2.90.4

And when the Peloponnesians saw that they were skirting the coast in single file and were already inside the gulf and close. to shore, which was just what they most desired, at one signal they suddenly veered about, bore down with ships in line as fast as each could upon the Athenians, hoping to cut off all their ships.

2.90.5

But eleven of these, which were in the lead, got past the Peloponnesian wing, as it swung round, and escaped into the open water; but the rest were overtaken, driven ashore as they attempted to escape, and disabled, and all the Athenians on them who did not succeed in swimming ashore were slain.

2.90.6

Some of the ships they made fast to their own and proceeded to tow away empty—though they had already captured one with its crew—but some others, which were already in tow, were taken from them by the Messenians, who came to the rescue, rushed armed as they were into the sea, boarded the ships, and fought from their decks.

2.91.1

In this quarter, then, the Peloponnesians were victorious and had disabled the Athenian ships; but the twenty ships covering their right wing were pursuing the eleven Athenian ships which had got past them as they swung round and had escaped into the open water. And all the eleven except one reached Naupactus ahead of them, and riding at anchor off the Temple of Apollo, prows outward, made ready to defend themselves if the enemy put in toward the shore to attack them.

2.91.2

When the Peloponnesians came up they were singing the paean as they rowed as if they were victorious already, and one Leucadian ship, far ahead of the rest, was chasing the single Athenian ship which lagged behind.

2.91.3

But, as it chanced, a merchantman was lying at anchor in deep water and this the Athenian ship succeeded in reaching first and, sailing round it, rammed the pursuing Leucadian vessel amidships and sank her.

2.91.4

At this unexpected and amazing feat consternation fell upon the Peloponnesians, who were, moreover, pursuing in disorder because they had the upper hand; on some of their ships the rowers sank their oars into the water and checked the headway of their vessels, intending to await the main body of their fleet- a serious mistake to make in the face of an enemy lying near and ready for the chargewhile others, unfamiliar with the waters there, ran aground in the shallows.

2.92.1

As for the Athenians, when they saw what was happening, they took courage, and at a single word of command gave a shout and dashed at them. But the Peloponnesians had made so many mistakes and were at present in such disorder, that, although they resisted a little while, they soon turned and fled to Panormus, whence they had put to sea.

2.92.2

The Athenians gave chase, and not only captured the six ships that were nearest, but also recovered their own ships which the enemy had disabled in the beginning of the fight near the shore and taken in tow; and of the men they killed some and took others alive.

2.92.3

But Timocrates the Lacedaemonian, who was on board the Leucadian ship which was sunk near the merchantmen, slew himself when he saw that his ship was lost, and his body was washed up in the harbour of Naupactus.

2.92.4

The Athenians now withdrew and set up a trophy at the place

2.92.4

1

2.92.4

from which they had set out and won the victory;

2.92.5

and they took up their dead and such of the wrecked ships as were close to their own shore, giving back to the enemy under a truce those which belonged to them. But the Peloponnesians also set up, in token of victory, a trophy for the defeat of the ships which had been disabled near the shore.

2.92.6

And the ships which they had taken they dedicated on the Achaean Rhium by the side of the trophy.

2.92.7

And after this, fearing the reinforcements expected from Athens,

2.92.7

1

2.92.7

they sailed under cover of night into the Crisaean Gulf and to Corinth, all except the Leucadians.

2.92.7

And not long after their retreat the twenty Athenian ships from Crete,

2.92.7

2

2.92.7

which were to have joined Phormio in time for the battle, arrived at Naupactus.

2.92.7

And so the summer ended.

2.93.1

However, before dispersing the fleet which had retired to Corinth and the Crisaean Gulf, at the beginning of the winter Cnemus and Brasidas and the other Peloponnesian commanders, instigated by the Megarians, wished to make an attempt upon the Peiraeus, the port of Athens; for it was unguarded and unclosed, and quite naturally, since the Athenians were decidedly superior at sea.

2.93.2

And it was determined that each sailor, taking his oar and cushion and oar-loop, should go on foot from Corinth to the sea on the Athenian side and hastening to Megara should launch from the docks at Nisaea forty slips of theirs which chanced to be there, and then sail straight for the Peiraeus.

2.93.3

For there was no fleet on guard in the harbour, nor was there any expectation that the enemy would ever suddenly attack it in this way, since they would not dare such a thing openly, and if they should plan it secretly they would not fail to be detected in time.

2.93.4

But once they had determined upon the scheme they set to work immediately. Reaching Nisaea at night they launched the ships and sailed, not now to the Peiraeus as they had intended, since they were appalled by the risk—and a wind, too, is said to have prevented them—but to the promontory of Salamis that looks towards Megara. There was a fort here and a guard of three ships to prevent anything from entering or leaving the harbour of the Megarians. This fort they assaulted, towed away the triremes without their crews, and ravaged the rest of Salamis, falling on the inhabitants unawares.

2.94.1

Meanwhile fire-signals indicating a hostile attack were flashed to Athens, where a panic was caused as great as any in this war.

2.94.1

1

2.94.1

For the inhabitants of the city thought that the enemy had already entered the Peiraeus, and those of the Peiraeus that they had taken Salamis and were all but sailing into their own harbour-as indeed might easily have happened if the enemy had resolved that there should be no flinching;

2.94.2

and no mere wind would have prevented them. But at dawn the Athenians hastened down to the Peiraeus with all their forces, launched ships, and embarking in haste and with much confusion sailed with the fleet to Salamis, setting their landforces to guard the Peiraeus.

2.94.3

The Peloponnesians had already overrun most of Salamis and had taken prisoners and booty and the three ships at the fort of Budorum, when they saw the relief expedition coming, whereupon they sailed in haste toward Nisaea; to some extent too there was apprehension about their own ships, which had not been drawn down into the sea for a long time and were anything but water-tight.

2.94.4

On reaching Megara they withdrew on foot to Corinth, and the Athenians, finding them no longer at Salamis, likewise sailed back.

2.94.4

After this they kept stricter guard over the Peiraeus, closing up the harbour

2.94.4

1

2.94.4

as well as taking other precautions.

2.95.1

About the same time, at the beginning of this winter, Sitalces the Odrysian, a son of Teres, king of the Thracians, made an expedition against Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and against the Chalcidians of Thrace, wishing to exact fulfilment of one promise and to make good another.

2.95.2

For when Perdiccas was being hard pressed at the beginning of the war he had made Sitalces a promise on condition that he should reconcile him to the Athenians and should not bring back his brother Philip, who was hostile, to make him king;

2.95.2

but Perdiccas would not fulfil his promise.

2.95.2

On the other hand, Sitalces had made an agreement with the Athenians,

2.95.2

1

2.95.2

at the time he entered into the alliance with them, to bring to an end their war with the Chalcidians in Thrace.

2.95.3

For both these reasons, then, he now began the invasion, and he took with him Philip's son, Amyntas,

2.95.3

1

2.95.3

with a view to making him king of the Macedonians, as well as some Athenian envoys who had come to see him on this business, and Hagnon as commander

2.95.3

2

2.95.3

;

2.95.3

for the Athenians were to furnish a fleet and as large an army as possible

2.95.3

3

2.95.3

for the war against the Chalcidians.

2.96.1

Sitalces, accordingly, beginning with the Odrysians, summoned to his standard, first the Thracians under his sway between the mountains Haemus

2.96.1

1

2.96.1

and Rhodope

2.96.1

2

2.96.1

and the sea,—as far as the shores of the Euxine and the Hellespont,—

2.96.1

then, beyond Haemus, the Getae, and all the other tribes that are settled south of the river Ister

2.96.1

3

2.96.1

in the general direction of the seaboard of the Euxine sea;

2.96.1

and the Getae and the people of that region are not only neighbours of the Scythians but are also equipped like them, all of them being mounted archers.

2.96.2

And he summoned also many of the mountain Thracians who are independent and wear short swords, who are called Dii, most of them inhabiting Rhodope; and some of these were won to his service by pay, while others came along as volunteers.

2.96.3

He called out, further, the Agrianians and Laeaeans, and all the other Paeonian tribes which were under his sway.

2.96.3

1

2.96.3

These peoples were at the outer limits of his empire ;

2.96.3

for the bounds of his empire extended, on the side towards the Paeonians, who are independent, as far as the Laeaean Paeonians and the river Strymon,

2.96.3

2

2.96.3

which flows from mount Scombrus through the country of the Agrianians and the Laeaeans.

2.96.4

On the side toward the Triballi, who also are independent, the boundary is formed by the Treres and Tilataeans;

2.96.4

and these dwell to the north of Mount Scombrus and extend toward the west as far as the river Oscius.

2.96.4

1

2.96.4

This river has its source in the same mountains as the Nestus

2.96.4

2

2.96.4

and the Hebrus

2.96.4

3

2.96.4

-a mountain range of great extent and uninhabited that is adjacent to Rhodope.

2.97.1

Now the empire of the Odrysians

2.97.1

1

2.97.1

in respect to its size extended along the sea-coast from the city of Abdera to the Euxine Sea as far as the river Ister.

2.97.1

This stretch of coast constitutes a voyage for a merchant-vessel, if the shortest course is taken and the wind keeps steady astern, of four days and as many nights;

2.97.1

but the journey by land from Abdera to the Ister can be accomplished by an active man, taking the shortest route, in eleven days.

2.97.2

Such was its extent on its seaboard; but inland the distance from Byzantium to the Laeaeans and the river Strymon-for this was its inland point farthest distant from the sea—it is possible for an active man to cover in thirteen days.

2.97.3

As for the tribute which came in from the barbarian territory and from all the Hellenic cities over which the Odrysians acquired sway in the time of Seuthes

2.97.3

1

2.97.3

—who, succeeding Sitalces on the throne, brought the revenues to their maximum—its value was about four hundred talents

2.97.3

2

2.97.3

in coin, and was paid in gold and silver;

2.97.3

and gifts equal in value to the tribute, not only of gold and silver, but besides these all manner of stuffs, both embroidered and plain, and other articles for household use, were brought as offerings to the king, and not for him only, but also for the subordinate princes and nobles of the Odrysians.

2.97.4

For these kings had established a custom which was just the opposite of that prevailing in the kingdom of the Persians,

2.97.4

1

2.97.4

namely, to take rather than to give;

2.97.4

indeed it was more disgraceful for a man not to give when asked than to ask and be refused.

2.97.4

This custom was observed among the other Thracians also;

2.97.4

but the Odrysian kings, as they were more powerful, followed it more extensively;

2.97.4

indeed it was not possible to accomplish anything without giving gifts.

2.97.5

Consequently the kingdom attained to a great degree of power.

2.97.5

For of all the kingdoms in Europe between the Ionian Gulf and the Euxine Sea it was the greatest in revenue of money and in general prosperity;

2.97.5

but as regards the strength and size of its army, it was distinctly inferior to the Scythian kingdom.

2.97.5

1

2.97.6

With that not only are the nations of Europe unable to compete, but even in Asia, nation against nation, there is none which can make a stand against the Scythians if they all act in concert. However, with reference to wise counsel and intelligence about the things that belong to the enrichment of life the Scythians are not to be compared with other nations.

2.98.1

Such then was the extent of the country over which Sitalces ruled at the time when he was preparing his army. But when everything was ready, he set out for Macedonia, proceeding first through his own territory, then through the desolate range of Cercine, which lies between the Sinti and Paeonians. And he passed over this mountain by the road which he himself had constructed before, when he made an expedition against the Paeonians, cutting a path through the forest.

2.98.2

As his army crossed the mountain, leaving the country of the Odrysians, they had the Paeonians on the right and on the left the Sinti and Maedi;

2.98.3

and when they came out on the other side they arrived at Doberus in Paeonia. On the march his army suffered no loss, except from sickness, but rather was augmented; for many of the independent Thracians joined the expedition unsummoned, in the hope of plunder, so that the whole number is said to have been not less than a hundred and fifty thousand, the greater part being infantry, about onethird cavalry.

2.98.4

Of the cavalry the Odrysians themselves furnished the largest contingent, and next to them the Getae; while of the infantry the swordwearers, independent tribes that came down from Mount Rhodope, were the best fighters, the rest of the army that followed, a miscellaneous horde, being formidable chiefly on account of its numbers.

2.99.1

So Sitalces' army was being mustered at Doberus and preparing to pass over the mountain crest and descend upon lower Macedonia, of which Perdiccas was ruler.

2.99.2

For the Macedonian race includes also the Lyncestians, Elimiotes, and other tribes of the upper country, which, though in alliance with the nearer Macedonians and subject to them, have kings of their own;

2.99.3

but the country by the sea which is now called Macedonia, was first acquired and made their kingdom by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his forefathers, who were originally Temenidae from Argos. They defeated and expelled from Pieria the Pierians, who afterwards took up their abode in Phagres and other places at the foot of Mount Pangaeus beyond the Strymon (and even to this day the district at the foot of Mount Pangaeus toward the sea is called the Pierian Valley), and also, from the country called Bottia, the Bottiaeans, who now dwell on the borders of the Chalcidians;

2.99.4

they acquired, further, a narrow strip of Paeonia extending along the river Axius

2.99.4

1

2.99.4

from the interior to Pella and the sea;

2.99.4

and beyond the Axius they possess the district as far as the Strymon which is called Mygdonia, having driven out the Edonians.

2.99.5

Moreover, they expelled from the district now called Eordia the Eordians, most of whom were destroyed, but a small portion is settled in the neighbourhood of Physca;

2.99.6

and also from Almopia the Almopians. These Macedonians also made themselves masters of certain places, which they still hold, belonging to the other tribes, namely, of Anthemus, Grestonia, Bisaltia, as well as of a large part of Macedonia proper. But the whole is now called Macedonia, and Perdiccas son of Alexander was king when Sitalces made his invasion.

2.100.1

The Macedonians of this region, unable to defend themselves against so great an invading army, betook themselves to the strong places and fortresses that were in the country. These were not many;

2.100.2

but subsequently Archelaus son of Perdiccas, when he became king,

2.100.2

1

2.100.2

built those that are now in the country, and cut straight roads, and in general organized his country for war by providing cavalry, arms and other equipment beyond anything achieved by all the eight kings who preceded him.

2.100.2

But the Thracian army, advancing from Doberus, invaded first the province which before had belonged to Philip, and took Idomene by storm;

2.100.3

but Gortynia, Atalanta, and some other places capitulated voluntarily out of friendship for Amyntas son of Philip, who accompanied Sitalces; moreover they laid siege to Europus, but were unable to take it. Next they advanced into the other part of Macedonia, which is to the west of Pella and Cyrrhus.

2.100.4

Beyond these places, however, into Bottiaea and Pieria, they did not penetrate, but ravaged Mygdonia, Grestonia, and Anthemus. The Macedonians, on the other hand, did not even think of defending themselves with infantry, but calling upon their allies in the interior for additional cavalry, though few against many, they dashed in among the Thracian army wherever they chose.

2.100.5

And wherever they charged no one could withstand them, for they were good horsemen and protected by cuirasses; but since they were constantly being hemmed in by superior numbers and found themselves imperilled by the horde that was many times their own number, they finally desisted, thinking that they were not strong enough to fight with the larger force.

2.101.1

Sitalces now began to hold parleys with Perdiccas about the matters for which he had undertaken the expedition; and since the Athenians (who did not believe that Sitalces would come, though they sent gifts and envoys to him) had not arrived with their promised fleet, he despatched part of his army into the territory of the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, and shutting them up within their walls ravaged their lands.

2.101.2

But while he was staying in the neighbourhood of these places, the peoples which dwell to the south—the Thessalians, the Magnesians and other subjects of the Thessalians, and the Hellenes as far south as Thermopylaebecame frightened lest the host should come against them also, and so were making preparations.

2.101.3

The same alarm was felt also by the Thracians who inhabit the plain beyond the Strymon to the north, that is, the Panaeans, Odomantians, Droans, and Dersaeans, independent tribes.

2.101.4

He gave occasion also to a rumour which spread even to the Hellenes hostile to Athens, that the Thracians might be led on by the Athenians in accordance with the terms of their alliance and come against them too.

2.101.5

But meanwhile Sitalces kept on ravaging at one and the same time Chalcidice, Bottice, and Macedonia;

2.101.5

and then, since none of the original objects of his invasion was being accomplished, and his army was without food and was suffering from the winter, he was persuaded by Seuthes son of Sparadocus, a nephew and next to him in power,

2.101.5

1

2.101.5

to go back home at once.

2.101.5

Now Seuthes had been secretly won over by Perdiccas, who had promised to give him his sister in marriage and a dowry with her.

2.101.6

So Sitalces yielded, and after a stay of only thirty days in all, eight of which had been spent among the Chalcidians, returned home with his army with all speed. And Perdiccas afterwards gave his sister Stratonice to Seuthes as he had promised. Such, then, is the history of the expedition of Sitalces.

2.102.1

During the same winter the Athenians in Naupactus, after the Peloponnesian fleet had been disbanded, made an expedition under the command of Phormio. They first skirted the coast in the direction of Astacus, and then, disembarking, invaded the interior of Acarnania with four hundred Athenian hoplites from the ships and four hundred Messenian. And after they had expelled from Stratus, Coronta, and other places such men as were regarded as disloyal, and had restored Cynes son of Theolytus to Coronta, they returned again to their ships.

2.102.2

For it seemed impracticable in winter to make a campaign against Oeniadae, whose inhabitants alone of the Acarnanians were always hostile; for the river Achelous, which rises in Mount Pindus and flows through the country of the Dolopians, Agraeans, and Amphilochians and then through the Acarnanian plain, passes by the city of Stratus high up the stream, but by Oeniadae empties into the sea, where it surrounds the city with marshes, thus rendering military operations there impossible in winter by reason of the water.

2.102.3

Besides, most of the Echinades islands lie opposite to Oeniadae at no great distance from the mouths of the Achelous, so that the river, which is large, keeps making fresh deposits of silt, and some of the islands have already become part of the mainland, and probably this will happen to all of them in no great while.

2.102.4

For the stream is wide and deep and turbid, and the islands are close together and serve to bind to one another the bars as they are formed, preventing them from being broken up, since the islands lie, not in line, but irregularly, and do not allow straight channels for the water into the open sea. These islands are uninhabited and not large.

2.102.5

There is a story that when Alemaeon son of Amphiaraus was a wanderer after the murder of his mother,

2.102.5

1

2.102.5

Apollo directed him by oracle to inhabit this land, intimating that he would have no release from his fears until he should find and settle in a country which at the time he killed his mother had not yet been seen by the sun, and was not even land then, for all the rest of the earth had been polluted by him.

2.102.6

And he, in his perplexity, at last, as the story goes, observed this sand-bar formed by the Achelous, and he surmised that during the long time he had been wandering since he had slain his mother enough land would have been silted up to support life in. So he settled there in the region of Oeniadae, founded a principality, and left to the country its name Acarnania, after that of his son Acarnan. Such is the tradition which we have received concerning Alcmaeon.

2.103.1

The Athenians and Phormio set out from Acarnania and arrived at Naupactus, and later, at the beginning of spring, sailed back to Athens, bringing with them the captured ships and also the prisoners of free birth whom they had taken in the sea-fights. These were exchanged man for man.

2.103.2

And this winter ended, concluding the third year of this war of which Thucydides wrote the history.

Reader

Word analysis

Intertext edge

Note