History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides (thucydides) · History 4 · 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

4.1.1

The next summer, about the time of the earing

4.1.1

1

4.1.1

of the grain, ten Syracusan and as many Locrian ships sailed to Messene in Sicily and occupied it, going thither on the invitation of the inhabitants; and Messene revolted

4.1.2

from Athens. The chief reason for this act, on the part of the Syracusans, was that they saw that the place offered a point of attack upon Sicily and were afraid that the Athenians might some time make it a base from which to move against Syracuse with a larger force; the motive of the Locrians was their hostility to the Rhegians, whom they desired to subdue by both land

4.1.3

and sea. And, indeed, the Locrians had at this same time invaded the territory of the Rhegians with all their forces in order to prevent them from giving any aid to the Messenians; and, besides, some Rhegians who were living in exile among the Locrians also urged them to make the invasion; for Rhegium had for a long time been in a state of revolution, and it was impossible at the moment to make any defence against the Locrians, who were consequently the more eager

4.1.4

to attack. The Locrians first ravaged the country and then withdrew their land forces, but their ships continued guarding Messene; and still other ships were now being manned to be stationed at Messene and to carry on war from there.

4.2.1

About the same time that spring, before the grain was ripe, the Peloponnesians and their allies made an invasion of Attica, under the command of Agis son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians; and encamping there they ravaged the land.

4.2.2

But the Athenians despatched the forty ships

4.2.2

1

4.2.2

to Sicily, as they had previously planned, together with the two remaining generals, Eurymedon and Sophocles, who were still at home; for Pythodorus, the third general, had already arrived in Sicily.

4.2.3

These had instructions, as they sailed past Corcyra, to have a care for the inhabitants of the city, who were being plundered by the exiles on the mountain,

4.2.3

1

4.2.3

and the Peloponnesians with sixty ships had already sailed thither, with the purpose of aiding the party on the mountain and also in the belief that, since a great famine prevailed in the city, they would easily get control of affairs.

4.2.4

Demosthenes also, who had retired into private life after his return from Acarnania,

4.2.4

1

4.2.4

now, at his own request, received permission from the Athenians to use the forty ships at his discretion in operations about the Peloponnesus.

4.3.1

Now when the Athenians arrived off the coast of Laconia and learned that the Peloponnesian fleet was already at Corcyra, Eurymedon and Sophocles were for pressing on to Corcyra, but Demosthenes urged them to put in at Pylos first, do there what was to be done, and then continue their voyage. They objected; but a storm came on, as it happened, and carried the fleet to Pylos. And Demosthenes at once urged them to fortify the place, as it was for this purpose that he had sailed with them;

4.3.2

and he showed them that there was at hand an abundance of wood and stone, that the position was naturally a strong one, and that not only the place itself but also the neighbouring country for a considerable distance was unoccupied; for Pylos is about four hundred stadia distant from Sparta and lies in the land that was once Messenia; but the Lacedaemonians call the place Coryphasium.

4.3.3

The other generals said there were many unoccupied headlands in the Peloponnesus, which he could seize if he wished to put the city to expense. Demosthenes, however, thought that this place had advantages over any other; not only was there a harbour close by, but also the Messenians, who originally owned this land and spoke the same dialect as the Lacedaemonians, would do them the greatest injury if they made this place their base of operations, and would at the same time be a trustworthy garrison of it.

4.4.1

But Demosthenes could not win either the generals or the soldiers to his view, nor yet the commanders of divisions to whom he later communicated his plan; the army, therefore, since the weather was unfavourable for sailing, did nothing. But at length the soldiers themselves, having nothing to do, were seized with the impulse to station themselves around the place and fortify it.

4.4.2

So they set their hands to this task and went to work; they had no iron tools for working stone, but picked up stones and put them together just as they happened to fit; and where mortar was needed, for want of hods, they carried it on their backs, bending over in such a way as would make it stay on best, and clasping both hands behind them to prevent it from falling off.

4.4.3

And in every way they made haste that they might complete the fortification of the most vulnerable points before the Lacedaemonians came out against them; for the greater part of the place was so strong by nature that it had no need of a wall.

4.5.1

As for the Lacedaemonians, they happened to be celebrating a festival when they got word of the undertaking, and made light of it, thinking that the Athenians would not await their attack when they got ready to take the field, or, if they should, that they could easily take the place by force;

4.5.2

and the fact also that their army was still in Attica had something to do with their delay. The Athenians in six days completed the wall on the side toward the land and at such other points as most needed it, and left Demosthenes there with five ships to defend it; they then took the main body of the fleet and hastened on their voyage to Corcyra and Sicily.

4.6.1

But the Peloponnesians who were in Attica, when they heard that Pylos had been occupied, returned home in haste; for King Agis and the Lacedaemonians thought that the Athenian operations at Pylos were a matter of deep concern to them. And at the same time, since they had made their invasion early in the season when the grain was still green, most of them

4.6.1

1

4.6.1

were short of food, and bad weather, which came on with storms of greater violence than was to be expected so late in the spring, distressed the army.

4.6.2

Consequently there were many reasons why they hastened their retirement from Attica and made this the shortest of their invasions; for they remained there only fifteen days.

4.7.1

About the same time Simonides, an Athenian general, getting together a few Athenians from the garrisons in Thrace and a large force from the allies in that neighbourhood, got, by the treachery of its inhabitants, possession of Eion in Thrace, a colony of the Mendaeans and hostile to Athens. But succour came promptly from the Chalcidians and the Bottiaeans and he was driven out with the loss of many of his soldiers.

4.8.1

On the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica, the Spartans themselves and the Perioeci who were in the neighbourhood of Pylos at once came to its relief; but the other Lacedaemonians were slower in coming, since they had just got back from another campaign.

4.8.2

Word was also sent round to the states of the Peloponnesus, summoning them to come to the relief of Pylos as quickly as possible, and also to the sixty ships that were at Corcyra.

4.8.2

1

4.8.2

These were hauled across the Leucadian isthmus, and without being discovered by the Attic ships, which were now at Zacynthus, reached Pylos, where their land forces had already arrived.

4.8.3

But before the Peloponnesian fleet had yet reached Pylos, Demosthenes managed to send out secretly ahead of them two ships which were to notify Eurymedon and the Athenian fleet at Zacynthus to come at once to his aid, as the place was in danger. And so the fleet proceeded in haste in compliance with Demosthenes' summons;

4.8.4

meanwhile, however, the Lacedaemonians were busy with their preparations to attack the fortification both by land and by sea, and they thought that they would have no difficulty in capturing a structure which had been built hastily and was occupied by only a few men.

4.8.5

But since they expected the Athenian fleet to arrive soon from Zacynthus, it was their intention, in case they should fail to take the place before these came, to block up the entrances to the harbour and thus make it impossible for the Athenians to anchor inside and blockade them. Now the island called Sphacteria stretches along the mainland, lying quite close to it, and thus makes the harbour safe and the entrances to it narrow;

4.8.6

on one side, opposite the Athenian fortifications and Pylos, there is only room for two ships to pass through, on the other side, next to the other part of the mainland, there is room for eight or nine.

4.8.6

1

4.8.6

The whole island was covered with timber and, since it was uninhabited, had no roads, its length being somewhere near fifteen stadia. Now it was the intention of the Lacedaemonians to close up the entrances tight by means of ships placed with their prows outward;

4.8.7

and as for the island, since they were afraid that the Athenians would use it as a base for carrying on the war against them, they conveyed some hoplites across, at the same time posting others along the mainland.

4.8.8

By these measures, they thought, the Athenians would find not only the island hostile to them, but also the mainland, since this afforded no landing-place; for there were no harbours along the shore of Pylos itself outside the entrance,

4.8.8

1

4.8.8

on the side toward the sea, and therefore the Athenians would have no base from which they could aid their countrymen. Consequently the Lacedaemonians believed that, without running the risk of a battle at sea, they could probably reduce the place by siege, since it had been occupied on short notice and was not supplied with provisions.

4.8.9

As soon as they reached this conclusion they proceeded to convey the hoplites over to the island, drafting them by lot from all the companies. Several detachments had before this time crossed over, one group relieving another; the last to do so—and this is the force that was captured—numbering four hundred and twenty, besides the Helots who accompanied them, and they were under the command of Epitadas son of Molobrus.

4.9.1

Meanwhile Demosthenes also, seeing that the Lacedaemonians intended to attack him by sea and by land at the same time, set about making his preparations. He drew ashore, close up under the fortification, the triremes

4.9.1

1

4.9.1

remaining to him out of those which had been left in his charge and enclosed them in a stockade; he then armed their crews with shields—poor ones. indeed, most of which were made of plaited willow; for it was not possible to procure arms in an uninhabited country, and such as they had they took from a thirty-oared privateer and a light boat belonging to some Messenians who chanced to come along, and included among them about forty hoplites, whom Demosthenes used along with the rest.

4.9.2

He then posted the greater part of his troops, the unarmed as well as the armed, at the best fortified and strongest points of the place, on the side toward the mainland, giving them orders to ward off the enemy's infantry if it should attack. But he himself selected from the whole body of his troops sixty hoplites and a few archers, and with them sallied forth from the fort to the point on the seashore where he thought that the enemy would be most likely to attempt a landing. The ground, indeed, was difficult of access and rocky where it faced the sea, yet since the Athenian wall was weakest at this place the enemy would, he thought, be only too eager to make an assault there;

4.9.3

in fact the Athenians themselves had left their fortification weak at this spot merely because they never expected to be defeated at sea, and Demosthenes knew that if the enemy could force a landing there the place could be taken.

4.9.4

Accordingly he posted his hoplites at this point, taking them to the very brink of the sea, determined to keep the enemy off if he could; and then he exhorted them as follows:

4.10.1

“Soldiers, my comrades in this present hazard, let no one of you at such a time of necessity seek to prove his keenness of wit by calculating the full extent of the danger that encompasses us; let him rather come to grips with the enemy in a spirit of unreflecting confidence that he will survive even these perils. For whenever it has come, as now with us, to a case of necessity, where there is no room for reflection, what is needed is to accept the hazard with the least possible delay.

4.10.2

However, as I see the matter, the odds are on our side, if we are resolved to stand our ground and are not so terrified by their numbers as to sacrifice the advantages we possess.

4.10.3

As regards the position, the difficulty of approach I regard as in our favour, since if we stand firm that becomes a support, but once we give way, even though the ground be rugged it will be easy of access when there is none to resist; and we shall then find the enemy more formidable, since it will be no easy matter for them to turn and retreat, if they should be hard-pressed by us; for though very easily repelled while on board their ships, when once they have landed they are on an equal footing with us.

4.10.4

And, as regards their numbers, we need have no very great fear; for however numerous they are, they will have to fight in small detachments on account of the difficulty of bringing their ships to shore. And we have not to deal with an army, which, though superior in numbers, is fighting on land under like conditions with ourselves, but fighting on ships, and these require many favouring circumstances on the sea.

4.10.4

1

4.10.5

I therefore consider that their disadvantages counterbalance our inferiority in point of numbers. At the same time I call now upon you, who are Athenians and know by experience that it is impossible to force a landing from ships against an enemy on shore, if the latter but stand their ground and do not give way through fear of the splashing oars and of the awe-inspiring sight of ships bearing down upon them—I call upon you, in your turn to stand your ground, and, warding off the foe at the very water's edge, to save both yourselves and the stronghold.”

4.11.1

Thus encouraged by Demosthenes, the Athenians became yet more confident and going still nearer the water took up their position at the very brink of the sea.

4.11.2

The Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, moved forward, and attacked the fortification at the same time with their land-army and with their ships, of which there were forty-three, the admiral in command of them being Thrasymelidas son of Cratesicles, a Spartan. And he attacked just where Demosthenes expected.

4.11.3

The Athenians, on their part, proceeded to defend themselves in both directions, by land and by sea; but the enemy, dividing their ships into small detachments, because it was impossible for a larger number to approach the shore, and resting by turns, kept charging upon the Athenians, showing no lack of zeal and cheering each other on, in the hope that they might force the enemy back and take the fortification.

4.11.4

Brasidas showed himself most conspicuous of all. Being captain of a galley, he noticed that the captains and pilots, because the shore was rocky, were inclined to hesitate and be careful of their ships, even when it seemed to be practicable to make a landing, for fear of dashing them to pieces. He would therefore shout that it ill became them through being thrifty of timber to allow their enemy to have built a fort in their country; nay, he urged, they must break their own ships so as to force a landing; and the allies he bade, in return for great benefits received from the Lacedaemonians, not to shrink from making them a free gift of their ships in the present emergency, but to run them aground, get ashore in any way they could, and master both the men and the place.

4.12.1

And he not only urged on the rest in this way, but, compelling his own pilot to beach his ship, he made for the gangway; and in trying to land he was knocked back by the Athenians, and after receiving many wounds fainted away. As he fell into the forward part of the ship his shield slipped off into the sea, and, being carried ashore, was picked up by the Athenians, who afterward used it for the trophy which they set up in commemoration of this attack.

4.12.2

The crews of the other Peloponnesian ships showed no lack of zeal, but were unable to land, both by reason of the difficulty of the ground and because the Athenians stood firm and would not give way at all.

4.12.3

In such fashion had fortune swung round that the Athenians, fighting on land, and Laconian land at that, were trying to ward off a Lacedaemonian attack from the sea, while the Lacedaemonians, fighting in ships, were trying to effect a landing upon their own territory, now hostile, in the face of the Athenians. For at this time it was the special renown ot the Lacedaemonians that they were a land power and invincible with their army, and of the Athenians that they were seamen and vastly superior with their fleet.

4.13.1

After making attacks that day and part of the next the Peloponnesians desisted. On the third day they sent some of the ships to Asine for wood with which to make engines, hoping that by means of engines they should be able to take the wall opposite the harbour in spite of its height, since here it was quite practicable to make a landing.

4.13.2

Meanwhile, the Athenian fleet from Zacynthus arrived, now numbering fifty ships, for it had been reinforced by some of the ships on guard at Naupactus and by four Chian vessels.

4.13.3

But they saw that both the mainland and the island were full of hoplites, and that the Lacedaemonian ships were in the harbour and not intending to come out; they therefore, being at a loss where to anchor, sailed for the present to Prote, an uninhabited island not far from Pylos, and bivouacked there. The next day they set sail, having first made preparations to give battle in case the enemy should be inclined to come out into the open water to meet them;

4.13.4

if not, they intended to sail into the harbour themselves. Now the Lacedaemonians did not put out to meet the Athenians, and somehow they had neglected to block up the entrances as they had purposed; on the contrary, they remained inactive on the shore, engaged in manning their ships and making ready, in case any one sailed into the harbour, to fight there, since there was plenty of room.

4.14.1

As for the Athenians, when they saw the situation, they rushed in upon them by both entrances and falling upon their ships, most of which were by now afloat and facing forward, put them to flight, and since there was only a short distance for the pursuit,

4.14.1

1

4.14.1

not only damaged many of them but also captured five, one of them with all her crew; the rest they kept on ramming even after they had fled to the shore. Yet other ships were being cut to pieces while still being manned, before they could put to sea; and some they took in tow empty, their crews having taken to flight, and began to haul them away.

4.14.2

At this sight the Lacedaemonian soldiers on the shore, beside themselves with grief at the impending calamity, in that their comrades were being cut off on the island, rushed to the rescue, and going down into the sea in full armour took hold of the ships and tried to drag them back.

4.14.3

Indeed, each man felt that no progress was being made where he himself was not at hand to help. The tumult that arose was great, especially since in this battle for the ships each side adopted the other's manner of fighting; for the Lacedaemonians in their eagerness and excitement were virtually waging a sea-fight from the land, while the Athenians, who were winning and wanted to follow up their success to the utmost while their good fortune lasted, were fighting a land-battle from their ships.

4.14.4

Finally, after causing each other great distress and inflicting much damage, they separated, the Lacedaemonians saving all their empty ships except those which had been taken at first.

4.14.5

Both sides then returned to their camps. The Athenians thereupon set up a trophy, gave back the dead, secured possession of the wrecks, and immediately began to sail round the island and keep it under guard, considering that the men on it were now cut off; on the other hand, the Peloponnesians on the mainland, and the reinforcements that had now arrived from all directions, remained in position at Pylos.

4.15.1

At Sparta, when they received the news of what had happened at Pylos, regarding it as a great calamity they decided that the magistrates should go down to the camp, see the situation for themselves, and then determine on the spot what should be done.

4.15.2

Now when these saw that no help could be given to the men on the island, and at the same time were unwilling to run the risk of their being starved to death or forced to succumb to superior numbers, they decided, so far as Pylos was concerned, to conclude a truce with the Athenian generals, if they should consent, and to send envoys to Athens to propose an agreement, and thus try to recover their men as quickly as possible.

4.16.1

The generals accepted the proposal and a truce was concluded upon the following terms: The Lacedaemonians were to surrender to the Athenians the ships in which they had fought the battle, and were to bring to Pylos and deliver to them all the other ships of war which were in Laconia, and they were not to attack the fortification either by land or by sea. The Athenians were to permit the Lacedaemonians on the mainland to send flour to the men on the island, a fixed amount and already-kneaded, for each soldier two quarts

4.16.1

1

4.16.1

of barley-meal and a pint of wine and a ration of meat, and for each servant half as much; and they were to send these things to the island under the supervision of the Athenians, and no boat was to sail thither secretly. The Athenians were to go on guarding the island as before, but without landing on it, and were not to attack the army of the Peloponnesians either by land or sea.

4.16.2

If either party should violate this agreement in any particular whatsoever, the truce should forthwith be at an end. The truce was to hold good until the Lacedaemonian envoys should get back from Athens; and the Athenians were to conduct them thither in a trireme and bring them back. On their return this truce was to be at an end, and the Athenians were then to restore the ships in as good condition as when they received them.

4.16.3

The truce was concluded on these terms, the ships, sixty in number, were delivered up, and the envoys dispatched. When they arrived at Athens they spoke as follows:

4.17.1

"The Lacedaemonians, men of Athens, have sent us to arrange, in behalf of our men on the island, such terms as we may show to be at once advantageous to you and also most likely under present circumstances, in view of our misfortune, to bring credit to ourselves. If we speak at some length we shall not be departing from our custom;

4.17.2

on the contrary, though it is the fashion of our country not to use many words where few suffice, yet, whenever occasion arises to expound an important matter and thereby to accomplish by speech the end we have in view, we use words more freely.

4.17.3

And do not receive what we say in a hostile spirit, nor feel that you are being instructed as though you were without understanding, but regard our words as merely a reminder to men who know how to come to a good decision.

4.17.4

For it is in your power to turn your present favourable fortune to good account, not only keeping what you have got, but acquiring honour and reputation besides. You may thus avoid the experience of those who achieve some unwonted success; for these are always led on by hope to grasp at more because of their unexpected good fortune in the present.

4.17.5

And yet those who have most often undergone a change of fortune for better or for worse have best reason to be distrustful of prosperity; and this would naturally hold true of both your state and ours in an exceptional degree, in view of our past experience.

4.18.1

"To be convinced of this, you need only look at our present misfortunes. We who of all the Hellenes formerly were held in the highest consideration have come before you, although we have been wont to regard ourselves as better entitled to confer such favours as we have now come to beg of you.

4.18.2

And yet it was neither through lack of power that we met with this misfortune, nor because our power became too great and we waxed insolent; nay, our resources were what they always were and we merely erred in judgment—a thing to which all are alike liable.

4.18.3

Accordingly there is no reason why you, because of the strength both of your city and of its new acquisitions at the present moment, should expect that the favour of fortune will always be with you.

4.18.4

Prudent men take the safe course of accounting prosperity mutable

4.18.4

1

4.18.4

—the same men, too, would deal more sagaciously with misfortunes—and consider that when anyone is at war he may not limit his participation to whatever portion of it he may choose to carry on,

4.18.4

2

4.18.4

but that he must follow where his fortune leads. Such men are least likely to come to grief, since they do not allow themselves to become elated by overconfidence in military success, and are therefore most likely to seize the moment of good fortune for concluding peace.

4.18.5

And this, Athenians, is the policy which it is good for you to adopt towards us to-day, and not at some future time, should you perchance through rejecting our overtures incur disaster—and of this there are many possibilities—be credited with having won even your present successes through good fortune, when it is possible to leave to posterity an unhazarded reputation at once for strength and sagacity.

4.19.1

"The Lacedaemonians therefore invite you to accept terms and bring the war to an end, offering you peace and alliance, and apart from this the maintenance of hearty friendship and intimacy one with the other; and asking on their side merely the return of the men on the island. They think it better for both parties not to take the risk either of the besieged making their escape in spite of you, should some chance of safety present itself, or of their being reduced by siege to a still harder lot.

4.19.2

We believe, too, that a permanent reconciliation of bitter enmities is more likely to be secured, not when one party seeks revenge and, because he has gained a decided mastery in the war, tries to bind his opponent by compulsory oaths and thus makes peace with him on unequal terms, but when, having it in his power to secure the same result by clemency, he vanquishes his foe by generosity also, offering him terms of reconciliation which are moderate beyond all his expectations.

4.19.3

For the adversary, finding himself now under obligation to repay the generosity in kind, instead of striving for vengeance for having had terms forced upon him, is moved by a sense of honour and is more ready to abide by his agreements.

4.19.4

Furthermore, men are more inclined to act thus toward their more serious enemies than toward those with whom they have had but trifling differences. And, finally, it is natural for men cheerfully to accept defeat at the hands of those who first make willing concessions, but to fight to the bitter end, even contrary to their better judgment, against an overbearing foe.

4.20.1

"Now, if ever, reconciliation is desirable for us both, before some irreparable disaster has come upon either of us and prevented it; should that befall, we shall inevitably cherish toward each other an undying personal hatred, over and above that which we now feel as public enemies, and you

4.20.1

1

4.20.1

will be deprived of the advantages

4.20.1

2

4.20.1

we now offer.

4.20.2

While, therefore, the issue of the war is still in doubt, while your reputation is enhanced and you may have our friendship also, and while our disaster admits of a reasonable settlement and no disgrace as yet has befallen us, let us be reconciled; and let us for ourselves choose peace instead of war, and give a respite from evils to all the other Hellenes. And they will count you especially the authors of the peace; for although they were drawn into the war without knowing which of us began it, yet if a settlement is effected, the decision of which at this time rests chiefly with you, it is to you they will ascribe their gratitude.

4.20.3

And so, if you decide for peace, it is in your power to win the steadfast friendship of the Lacedaemonians, which they freely offer and you may secure by acting, not with violence, but with generosity.

4.20.4

Pray consider all the advantages which may well be involved in such a course; for if you and we agree be assured that the rest of the Hellenic world, since it will be inferior to us in power, will pay us the greatest deference."

4.21.1

Such were the words of the Lacedaemonians. They thought that, since the Athenians had at an earlier period

4.21.1

1

4.21.1

been eager to end the war and had been prevented by the opposition of Sparta, they would, if peace were offered to them, gladly accept it and give up the men.

4.21.2

But the Athenians believed that, since they held the men on the island, peace could be theirs the moment they cared to make it, and meanwhile they were greedy for more.

4.21.3

They were urged to this course chiefly by Cleon son of Cleaenetus, a popular leader at that time who had very great influence with the multitude. He persuaded them to reply that the men on the island must first give up themselves and their arms and be brought to Athens; on their arrival, the Lacedaemonians must give back Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and Achaea, which had not been taken in war but had been ceded by the Athenians

4.21.3

1

4.21.3

in an agreement made some time before as a result of misfortunes, when they were somewhat more eager for peace than now. They could then recover the men and make a treaty which should be binding for as long a time as both parties should agree.

4.22.1

To this reply the envoys said nothing, but they requested the appointment of commissioners who should confer with them, and after a full discussion of all the details should at their leisure agree upon such terms as they could mutually approve.

4.22.2

Thereupon Cleon attacked them violently, saying that he had known before this that they had no honourable intention, and now it was clear, since they were unwilling to speak out before the people, but wished to meet a few men in conference; he bade them, on the contrary, if their purpose was honest, to declare it there before them all.

4.22.3

But the Lacedaemonians, seeing that it was impossible to announce in full assembly such concessions as they might think it best to make in view of their misfortune, lest they might be discredited with their allies if they proposed them and were rebuffed, and seeing also that the Athenians would not grant their proposals on tolerable conditions, withdrew from Athens, their mission a failure.

4.23.1

When they returned, the truce at Pylos was terminated at once, and the Lacedaemonians demanded the return of their ships according to the agreement; but the Athenians accused them of having made a raid against the fort in violation of the truce, and of other acts that do not seem worth mentioning, and refused to give up the ships, stoutly maintaining that it had been stipulated that, if there should be any violation of the truce whatsoever, it should be at an endforthwith. The Lacedaemonians contradicted this, and after protesting that the detention of the ships was an act of injustice went away and renewed the war.

4.23.2

And so the warfare at Pylos was carried on vigorously by both sides. The Athenians kept sailing round the island by day with two ships going in opposite directions, and at night their whole fleet lay at anchor on all sides of it, except to seaward when there was a wind; while to assist them in the blockade twenty additional ships came from Athens, so that they now had seventy in all. As for the Peloponnesians, they were encamped on the mainland, and kept making assaults upon the fort, watching for any opportunity which might offer of rescuing their men.

4.24.1

Meanwhile in Sicily the Syracusans and their allies, having reinforced the ships which were keeping guard at Messene by bringing up the other naval force which they had been equipping,

4.24.1

1

4.24.1

were carrying on the war from Messene.

4.24.2

To this they were instigated chiefly by the Locrians on account of their hatred of the Rhegians, whose territory they had themselves invaded in full force.

4.24.3

The Syracusans wanted also to try their fortune in a sea-fight, seeing that the Athenians had only a few ships at hand, and hearing that the most of their fleet, the ships that were on the way to Sicily, were employed in blockading the island of Sphacteria.

4.24.4

For, in case they won a victory with the fleet, they could then invest Rhegium both by land and by sea and, as they believed, capture it without difficulty; and from that moment their situation would be a strong one, since Rhegium, the extreme point of Italy, and Messene in Sicily are only a short distance apart, and so the Athenians would not be able to keep a fleet there

4.24.4

1

4.24.4

and command the strait.

4.24.5

Now the strait is that arm of the sea between Rhegium and Messene, at the point where Sicily is nearest the mainland; and it is the Charybdis, so called, through which Odysseus is said to have sailed. On account of its narrowness and because the water falls into it from two great seas, the Etruscan and the Sicilian, and is full of currents, it has naturally been considered dangerous.

4.25.1

Now it was in this strait that the Syracusans and their allieswere compelled one day toward evening to fight for a vessel which was making the passage; and with thirty odd ships they put out against sixteen Athenian and eight Rhegian ships.

4.25.2

They were defeated by the Athenians, and hastily sailed back, each contingent as best it could, to their own camps, having lost one ship; and night came on while they were in action. After this the Locrians left the territory of the Rhegians;

4.25.3

and the ships of the Syracusans and their allies assembled at Peloris in Messene, where they anchored and were joined by their land-forces. The Athenians and the Rhegians sailed up, and seeing that the Syracusan ships were unmanned attacked them;

4.25.4

but they themselves lost one ship, which was caught by a grappling-iron cast upon it, the crew having leaped overboard.

4.25.5

After this the Syracusans embarked and their ships were being towed along the shore by ropes toward Messene when the Athenians attacked again, but lost another ship, since the Syracusans made a sudden turn outwards and charged them first.

4.25.6

In the passage along the shore, then, and in the sea-fight that followed in this unusual fashion, the Syracusans had the best of it, and at length gained the harbour at Messene. But the Athenians, on the report that Camarina was to be betrayed to the Syracusans by Archias and his faction, sailed thither.

4.25.7

The Messenians meanwhile took all their land-forces and also the allied fleet and made an expedition against Naxos, the Chalcidian settlement on their borders.

4.25.8

On the first day they confined the Naxians within their walls and ravaged their lands; on the next day, while their fleet sailed round to the river Acesines and ravaged the land there, their army assaulted the city of Naxos.

4.25.9

Meanwhile the Sicels came down over the heights in large numbers to help in resisting the Messenians. When the Naxians saw them coming, they took heart, and calling to each other that the Leontines and their other Hellenic allies were approaching to defend them rushed suddenly out of the city and fell upon the Messenians, putting them to flight and killing over a thousand of them. The rest got back home with difficulty; for the barbarians attacked them in the roads and killed most of them. And the allied fleet, after putting in at Messene, dispersed to their several homes.

4.25.10

Thereupon the Leontines and their allies, in company with the Athenians, immediately made an expedition against Messene, believing it to be weakened, and attempted an assault upon it, the Athenians attacking with their ships on the side of the harbour, while the land forces moved against the town.

4.25.11

But the Messenians and some of the Locrians, who, under the command of Demoteles, had been left there as a garrison after the disaster at Naxos, made a sortie, and falling suddenly upon them routed the larger part of the army of the Leontines and killed many of them. Seeing this the Athenians disembarked and came to their aid, and attacking the Messenians while they were in disorder pursued them back into the city; they then set up a trophy and withdrew to Rhegium.

4.25.12

After this the Hellenes in Sicily, without the cooperation of the Athenians, continued to make expeditions against one another by land.

4.26.1

At Pylos, meanwhile, the Athenians were still besieging the Lacedaemonians on the island, and the army of the Peloponnesians on the mainland remained in its former position. The blockade, however, was harassing to the Athenians on account of the lack of both food and water;

4.26.2

for there was only one spring, high up on the acropolis of Pylos, and a small one at that, and the soldiers for the most part scraped away the shingle upon the beach and drank water such as one might expect to find there.

4.26.3

And there was scant room for them, encamping as they did in a small space, and since there was no anchorage for the ships,

4.26.3

1

4.26.3

the crews would take their food on land by turns, while the rest of the fleet lay at anchor out at sea.

4.26.4

Very great discouragement, too, was caused by the surprisingly long duration of the siege, whereas they had expected to reduce the enemy in a few days, since they were on a desert island and had only brackish water to drink.

4.26.5

But the cause of their holding out was that the Lacedaemonians had called for volunteers to convey to the island ground corn and wine and cheese and other food such as might be serviceable in a siege, fixing a high price and also promising freedom to any Helot who should get food in. Many took the risk, especially the Helots, and actually brought it in, putting out from any and every point in the Peloponnesus and coming to shore during the night on the side of the island facing the sea.

4.26.6

If possible they waited for a wind to bear them to the shore;

4.26.7

for they found it easier to elude the guard of triremes when the breeze was from the sea, since then it was impossible for the ships to lie at their moorings off the island, whereas they themselves ran ashore regardless of consequences, as a value had been set upon the boats which they drove upon the beach, and the hoplites would be on watch for them at the landing-places on the island. All, on the other hand, who made the venture in calm weather were captured.

4.26.8

At the harbour, too, there were divers who swam to the island under water, towing after them by a cord skins filled with poppy-seed mixed with honey and bruised linseed; at first they were not discovered, but afterwards watches were set for them.

4.26.9

And so both sides kept resorting to every device, the one to get food in, the other to catch them doing it.

4.27.1

At Athens, meanwhile, when they heard that their army was in distress and that food was being brought in to the men on the island, they were perplexed and became apprehensive that the winter would overtake them while still engaged in the blockade. They saw that conveyance of supplies round the Peloponnesus would be impossible—Pylos being a desolate place at best, to which they were unable even in summer to send round adequate supplies—and that, since there were no harbours in the neighbourhood, the blockade would be a failure. Either their own troops would relax their watch and the men on the island would escape, or else, waiting for bad weather, they would sail away in the boats which brought them food.

4.27.2

Above all they were alarmed about the attitude of the Lacedaemonians, thinking that it was because they had some ground for confidence that they were no longer making overtures to them; and they repented having rejected their proposals for peace.

4.27.3

But Cleon, knowing that their suspicions were directed against him because he had prevented the agreement, said that the messengers who had come from Pylos were not telling the truth. Whereupon these messengers advised, if their own reports were not believed, that commissioners be sent to see for themselves, and Cleon himself was chosen by the Athenians, with Theagenes as his colleague.

4.27.4

Realizing now that he would either be obliged to bring the same report as the messengers whose word he was impugning, or, if he contradicted them, be convicted of falsehood, and also seeing that the Athenians were now somewhat more inclined to send an expedition, he told them that they ought not to send commissioners, or by dallying to let slip a favourable opportunity, but urged them, if they themselves thought the reports to be true, to send a fleet and fetch the men.

4.27.5

And pointing at Nicias son of Niceratus, who was one of the generals and an enemy of his, and taunting him, he said that it was an easy matter, if the generals were men, to sail there with a proper force and take the men on the island, declaring that this was what he himself would have done had he been in command.

4.28.1

The Athenians thereupon began to clamour against Cleon, asking him why he did not sail even now, if it seemed to him so easy a thing; and Nicias, noticing this and Cleon's taunt, told him that as far as the generals were concerned he might take whatever force he wished and make the attempt.

4.28.2

As for Cleon, he was at first ready to go, thinking it was only in pretence that Nicias offered to relinquish the command; but when he realized that Nicias really desired to yield the command to him, he tried to back out, saying that not he but Nicias was general; for by now he was alarmed, and never thought that Nicias would go so far as to retire in his favour.

4.28.3

But again Nicias urged him to go and offered to resign his command of the expedition against Pylos, calling the Athenians to witness that he did so. And the more Cleon tried to evade the expedition and to back out of his own proposal, the more insistently the Athenians, as is the way with a crowd, urged Nicias to give up the command and shouted to Cleon to sail.

4.28.4

And so, not knowing how he could any longer escape from his own proposal, he undertook the expedition, and, coming forward, said that he was not afraid of the Lacedaemonians, and that he would sail without taking a single Athenian soldier, but only the Lemnian and Imbrian troops which were in Athens and a body of targeteers which had come from Aenos, and four hundred archers from other places. With these, in addition to the troops now at Pylos, he said that within twenty days he would either bring back the Lacedaemonians alive or slay them on the spot.

4.28.5

At this vain talk of his there was a burst of laughter on the part of the Athenians, but nevertheless the sensible men among them were glad, for they reflected that they were bound to obtain one of two good things—either they would get rid of Cleon, which they preferred, or if they were disappointed in this, he would subdue the Lacedaemonians for them.

4.29.1

When he had arranged everything in the assembly and the Athenians had voted in favour of his expedition, he chose as his colleague Demosthenes, one of the generals at Pylos, and made haste to set sail.

4.29.2

He selected Demosthenes because he had heard that he was planning to make his landing on the island. For his soldiers, who were suffering because of the discomforts of their position, where they were rather besieged than besiegers, were eager to run all risks. And Demosthenes himself had also been emboldened by a conflagration which had swept the island.

4.29.3

For hitherto, since the island was for the most part covered with woods and had no roads, having never been inhabited, he had been afraid to land, thinking that the terrain was rather in the enemy's favour; for they could attack from an unseen position and inflict damage upon a large army after it had landed. To his own troops, indeed, the mistakes and the preparations of the enemy would not be equally clear by reason of the woods, whereas all their own mistakes would be manifest to their opponents, and so they could fall upon them unexpectedly wherever they wished, since the power of attack would rest with them.

4.29.4

If, on the other hand, he should force his way into the thicket and there close with the enemy, the smaller force which was acquainted with the ground would, he thought, be stronger than the larger number who were unacquainted with it; and his own army, though large, would be destroyed piece-meal before he knew it, because there was no possible way of seeing the points at which the detachments should assist one another.

4.30.1

It was especially owing to his experience in Aetolia,

4.30.1

1

4.30.1

when his reverse was in some measure due to the forest, that these thoughts occurred to Demosthenes.

4.30.2

But the soldiers were so cramped in their quarters that they were obliged to land on the edge of the island and take their meals under cover of a picket, and one of their number accidentally set fire to a small portion of the forest, and from this, when a breeze had sprung up, most of the forest was burned before they knew it.

4.30.3

Thus it happened that Demosthenes, who could now get a better view of the Lacedaemonians, found that they were more numerous than he had thought; for he had previously suspected that the number for which they were sending provisions was smaller than they stated.

4.30.3

1

4.30.3

He also found that the island was less difficult to make a landing upon than he had supposed.

4.30.4

He now, therefore, believing that the object in view was well worth a more serious effort on the part of the Athenians, began preparations for the attempt, summoning troops from the allies in the neighbourhood and getting everything else ready.

4.30.4

Cleon, meanwhile, having first sent word to Demosthenes that he would soon be there, arrived at Pylos, bringing the army for which he had asked. As soon as they had joined forces, they sent a herald to the enemy's camp on the mainland, giving them the option, if they wished to avoid a conflict, of ordering the men on the island to surrender themselves and their arms, on condition that they should be held in mild custody until some agreement should be reached about the main question.

4.30.4

1

4.31.1

This offer being rejected, the Athenians waited for one day, but on the next day while it was still dark they embarked all their hoplites on a few vessels and put off, landing a little before dawn on both sides of the island, on the side toward the open sea and on that facing the harbour, their number being about eight hundred, all hoplites. They then advanced at a run against the first guard-post on the island.

4.31.2

For the forces of the enemy were disposed as follows: in this, the first post, there were about thirty hoplites; the central and most level part of the island, near their water supply,

4.31.2

1

4.31.2

was held by the main body of troops, under the command of Epitadas; and a small detachment guarded the very extremity of the island where it looks toward Pylos. This point was precipitous on the side toward the sea and least assailable toward the land; there was also here an old fortification, built of stones picked up,

4.31.2

2

4.31.2

which the Lacedaemonians thought would be useful to them in case they should have to retreat under strong pressure. Such, then, was the disposition of the enemy's forces.

4.32.1

As for the Athenians, they immediately destroyed the men of the first post, upon whom they charged at full speed, finding them still in their beds or endeavouring to snatch up their arms; for they had not noticed the Athenians' landing, supposing that the ships were merely sailing as usual to their watch-station for the night.

4.32.1

1

4.32.2

Then as soon as day dawned the rest of the army began to disembark. These were the crews of somewhat more than seventy ships (with the single exception of the rowers of the lowest benches

4.32.2

1

4.32.2

), equipped each in his own way, besides eight hundred archers and as many targeteers, and also the Messenians who had come to reinforce them, and all the others who were on duty about Pylos except the men left to guard the fort.

4.32.3

Under Demosthenes' direction they were divided into companies of two hundred more or less, which occupied the highest points of the island, in order that the enemy, being surrounded on all sides, might be in the greatest possible perplexity and not know which attack to face, but be exposed to missiles on every side from the host of their opponents—if they attacked those in front, from those behind; if those on either flank, from those arrayed on the other.

4.32.4

And they would always find in their rear, whichever way they moved, the light-armed troops of the enemy, which were the most difficult to deal with, since they fought at long range with arrows, javelins, stones, and slings. Nay, they could not even get at them, for they were victorious even as they fled, and as soon as their pursuers turned they were hard upon them again. Such was the idea which Demosthenes had in mind when he devised the plan of landing, and such were his tactics when he put this into effect.

4.33.1

Now when the troops under Epitadas, constituting the main body of the Lacedaemonians on the island, saw that the first outpost was destroyed and that an army was advancing against them, they drew up in line and set out to attack the Athenian hoplites, wishing to come to close quarters with them; for these were stationed directly in front of them, while the light-armed troops were on their flank and rear. They were not able, however, to engage with the hoplites or to avail themselves of their own peculiar skill in fighting;

4.33.2

for the light-armed troops kept attacking them with missiles from either side and thus held them in check, and at the same time the hoplites did not advance against them, but remained quiet. They did, however, put the light-armed troops to flight wherever they pressed most closely upon them in their charges; and then these latter would wheel about and keep fighting, being lightly equipped and therefore finding it easy to take to flight in good time, since the ground was difficult and, because it had never been inhabited, was naturally rough. Over such a terrain the Lacedaemonians, who were in heavy armour, were unable to pursue them.

4.34.1

For some little time they skirmished thus with one another; but when the Lacedaemonians were no longer able to dash out promptly at the point where they were attacked, the light-armed troops noticed that they were slackening in their defence, and also conceived the greatest confidence in themselves, now that they could see that they were undoubtedly many times more numerous than the enemy, and, since their losses had from the outset been less heavy than they had expected, they had gradually become accustomed to regarding their opponents as less formidable than they had seemed at their first landing when their own spirits were oppressed by the thought that they were going to fight against Lacedaemonians. Conceiving, therefore, a contempt for them, with a shout they charged upon them in a body, hurling at them stones, arrows or javelins, whichever each man had at hand.

4.34.2

The shouting with which the Athenians accompanied their charge caused consternation among the Lacedaemonians, who were unaccustomed to this manner of fighting; and the dust from the newly-burned forest rose in clouds to the sky, so that a man could not see what was in front of him by reason of the arrows and stones, hurled, in the midst of the dust, by many hands.

4.34.3

And so the battle began to go hard with the Lacedaemonians; for their felt cuirasses afforded them no protection against the arrows, and the points of the javelins broke off and clung there when the men were struck. They were, therefore, quite at their wits' end, since the dust shut off their view ahead and they could not hear the word of command on their own side because the enemy's shouts were louder. Danger encompassed them on every side and they despaired of any means of defence availing to save them.

4.35.1

At last when they saw that their men were being wounded in large numbers because they had to move backwards and forwards always on the same ground, they closed ranks and fell back to the farthermost fortification on the island, which was not far distant, and to their own garrison stationed there.

4.35.2

But the moment they began to give way, the lightarmed troops, now emboldened, fell upon them with a louder outcry than ever. Those of the Lacedaemonians who were intercepted in their retreat were slain, but the majority of them escaped to the fortification, where they ranged themselves with the garrison there, resolved to defend it at every point where it was assailable.

4.35.3

The Athenians followed, but the position was so strong that they could not outflank and surround the defenders. They, therefore, tried to dislodge them by a frontal attack.

4.35.4

Now for a long time, and indeed during the greater part of the day, in spite of the distress from the battle, from thirst, and from the heat of the sun, both sides held out, the one trying to drive the enemy from the heights, the other merely to hold their ground; the Lacedaemonians, however, now found it easier than before to defend themselves, since they could not be taken in flank.

4.36.1

But when the business seemed interminable, the general

4.36.1

1

4.36.1

of the Messenians came to Cleon and Demosthenes and said that their side was wasting its pains; but if they were willing to give him a portion of their bowmen and light-armed troops, so that he could get round in the enemy's rear by some path or other which he might himself discover, he thought that he could force the approach.

4.36.2

Obtaining what he asked for, he started from a point out of the enemy's sight, so as not to be observed by them, and advanced along the precipitous shore of the island, wherever it offered a foothold, to a point where the Lacedaemonians, trusting to the strength of the position, maintained no guard. Thus with great difficulty he barely succeeded in getting round unobserved and suddenly appeared on the high ground in the enemy's rear, striking them with consternation by this unexpected move, but far more encouraging his friends, who now saw what they were expecting.

4.36.3

The Lacedaemonians were now assailed on both sides, and—to compare a small affair with a great one—were in the same evil case as they had been at Thermopylae; for there they had perished when the Persians got in their rear by the path,

4.36.3

1

4.36.3

and here they were caught in the same way. Since, then, they were now assailed on both sides they no longer held out, but, fighting few against many and withal weak in body from lack of food, they began to give way. And the Athenians by this time were in possession of the approaches.

4.37.1

But Cleon and Demosthenes, realizing that if the enemy should give back ever so little more they would be destroyed by the Athenian army, put a stop to the battle and held back their own men, wishing to deliver them alive to the Athenians and in hopes that possibly, when they heard the herald's proclamation, they would be broken in spirit and submit to the present danger.

4.37.2

Accordingly, they caused the herald to proclaim that they might, if they wished, surrender themselves and their arms to the Athenians, these to decide their fate as should seem good to them.

4.38.1

When the Lacedaemonians heard this, most of them lowered their shields and waved their hands, indicating that they accepted the terms proposed. An armistice was then arranged and a conference was held, Cleon and Demosthenes representing the Athenians and Styphon son of Pharax the Lacedaemonians. Of the earlier Lacedaemonian commanders the first, Epitadas, had been slain and Hippagretas, who had been chosen as next in succession, now lay among the fallen and was accounted dead, though he was still alive;

4.38.2

and Styphon was third in succession, having been originally chosen, as the law prescribed, to be in command in case anything should happen to the other two. He then, and those with him, said that they wished to send a herald over to the Lacedaemonians on the mainland to ask what they must do.

4.38.3

The Athenians, however, would not let any of them go, but themselves summoned heralds from the mainland; then, after interrogatories had been exchanged two or three times, the last man who came over to them from the Lacedaemonians on the mainland brought this message: “The Lacedaemonians bid you decide your case for yourselves, but do nothing dishonourable.” So they took counsel with one another and then surrendered themselves and their arms.

4.38.4

During that day and the following night the Athenians kept them under guard; but on the next day, after setting up a trophy on the island, they made all their preparations to sail, distributing the prisoners among the trierarchs for safe-keeping; and the Lacedaemonians sent a herald and brought their dead to the mainland.

4.38.5

The number of those who had been killed or taken alive on the island was as follows: four hundred and twenty hoplites had crossed over in all; of these two hundred and ninety two were brought to Athens alive; all the rest had been slain. Of those who survived one hundred and twenty were Spartans.

4.38.5

1

4.38.5

Of the Athenians, however, not many perished; for it was not a pitched battle.

4.39.1

The time during which the men on the island were under blockade, from the sea fight up to the battle on the island, amounted all told to seventy-two days.

4.39.2

For about twenty of these days, the period during which the envoys were absent negotiating the truce, they were regularly provisioned, but the rest of the time they lived on what was smuggled in. And indeed some grain was found on the island at the time of the capture, as well as other articles of food;

4.39.3

for the commander Epitadas was accustomed to give each man a scantier ration than his supplies would have allowed. The Athenians and Peloponnesians now withdrew from Pylos and returned home with their respective forces, and Cleon's promise, mad as it was, had been fulfilled; for within twenty days he brought the men as he had undertaken to do.

4.40.1

Of all the events of this war this came as the greatest surprise to the Hellenic world; for men could not conceive that the Lacedaemonians would ever be induced by hunger or any other compulsion to give up their arms, but thought that they would keep them till they died, fighting as long as they were able;

4.40.2

and they could not believe that those who had surrendered were as brave as those who had fallen. And when one of the Athenian allies sometime afterwards sneeringly asked one of the captives taken on the island, whether the Lacedaemonians who had been slain were brave men and true,

4.40.2

1

4.40.2

the answer was, that the shaft, meaning the arrow, would be worth a great deal if it could distinguish the brave, intimating that it was a mere matter of chance who was hit and killed by stones and bow-shots.

4.41.1

When the captives were brought to Athens, the Athenians determined to keep them in prison until some agreement should be reached, but if before that the Peloponnesians should invade their territory, to bring them out and put them to death.

4.41.2

They also placed a garrison in Pylos, and the Messenians at Naupactus, regarding this territory as their fatherland—for Pylos belongs to the country that was once Messenia—sent thither such of their own number as were best fitted for the task and proceeded to ravage the Laconian territory, and they did a great deal of damage, since they were men of the same speech as the inhabitants.

4.41.3

As for the Lacedaemonians, they had never before experienced predatory warfare of this kind, and therefore, when the Helots began to desert and there was reason to fear that the revolutionary movement might gain still further headway in their territory, they were uneasy, and, in spite of their desire not to betray their alarm to the Athenians, kept sending envoys to them in the endeavour to recover Pylos and the prisoners.

4.41.4

But the Athenians constantly made greater demands and the envoys, although they came again and again, were always sent home unsuccessful. Such were the events at Pylos.

4.42.1

During the same summer and directly after these events the Athenians made an expedition into Corinthian territory with eighty ships and two thousand Athenian hoplites, together with two hundred cavalry on board horse-transports; allied forces also went with them, namely Milesian, Andrian, and Carystian troops, the whole being under the command of Nicias son of Niceratus and two others.

4.42.2

These sailed and at day-break landed midway between the peninsula Chersonesus and the stream Rheitus, at a point on the beach over which rises the Solygeian hill-the hill where the Dorians in olden times

4.42.2

1

4.42.2

established themselves when they made war upon the Corinthians in the city, who were Aeolians; and there is still on the hill a village called Solygeia. From this point on the beach where the ships put in to shore this village is twelve stadia distant, the city of Corinth sixty, and the Isthmus twenty.

4.42.3

But the Corinthians, having previous information from Argos that the Athenian army would come, had long before occupied the Isthmus with all their forces, except those who dwelt north of the Isthmus and five hundred Corinthians who were away doing garrison duty in Ambracia

4.42.3

1

4.42.3

and Leucas; all the rest to a man were now there, watching to see where the Athenians would land.

4.42.4

But when the Athenians eluded them by making their landing by night and the Corinthians were notified by the raising of fire-signals, these left half of their troops at Cenchraeae,

4.42.4

1

4.42.4

in case the Athenians should after all go against Crommyon,

4.42.4

2

4.42.4

and in haste rushed to the defence.

4.43.1

Thereupon Battus, one of the two Corinthian generals present at the battle, took a company and went to the village of Solygeia, which was unwalled, to guard it, while Lycophron attacked with the remainder of their troops.

4.43.2

Now at first the Corinthians assailed the right wing of the Athenians, which had just disembarked in front of Chersonesus, and afterwards engaged the rest of the army also. The battle was stubbornly contested throughout and fought at close quarters.

4.43.3

The Athenian right wing, at whose extremity were stationed the Carystians, received the charge of the Corinthians and drove them back, though with difficulty; but the latter retreated to a stone fence and, since the ground was everywhere a steep slope, pelted the Athenians with stones, being on higher ground, and then, raising the paean, charged a second time. The Athenians received the charge and the battle was again waged at close quarters.

4.43.4

Then a company of the Corinthians, reinforcing their own left wing, routed the right wing of the Athenians and pursued it to the sea; but again upon reaching the ships the Athenians and Carystians rallied.

4.43.5

The other divisions of the two armies were continuously engaged, especially the right wing of the Corinthians, where Lycophron was in command against the Athenian left and kept it in check; for they expected the Athenians to make an attempt against the village of Solygeia.

4.44.1

For a long time they held out, neither side yielding to the other. Then as the Athenians had an advantage in the support of their cavalry, whereas the other side had no horses, the Corinthians turned and retired to the hill, where they halted, and did not come down again but remained quiet.

4.44.2

In this repulse it was on their right wing that most of the Corinthians that were lost were killed, among them Lycophron the general. But the rest of the Corinthian army retired in this manner—there was no long pursuit nor hasty flight, but when it was forced back, it withdrew to the higher ground and there established itself.

4.44.3

As for the Athenians, when the enemy no longer came against them and offered battle, they stripped the corpses, took up their own dead, and straightway set up a trophy.

4.44.4

Meanwhile the other half of the Corinthian forces, which was stationed at Cenchraeae as a garrison to prevent the Athenians from making a descent upon Crommyon, were unable to see the battle because Mt. Oneium intervened; but when they saw the cloud of dust and realized what was going on, they rushed thither at once, as did also the older men in the city of Corinth when they perceived what had happened.

4.44.5

But the Athenians, seeing the whole throng advancing and thinking it to be a detachment of the neighbouring Peloponnesians coming to assist the Corinthians, withdrew in haste to their ships, having their spoils and the bodies of their own dead, except two, which they left behind because they were not able to find them.

4.44.6

So they embarked and crossed over to the adjacent islands, and sending thence a herald recovered under truce the bodies which they had left behind. There were slain in this battle two hundred and twelve of the Corinthians, and of the Athenians somewhat fewer than fifty.

4.45.1

Setting out from the islands, the Athenians sailed the same day to Crommyon in Corinthian territory, which is distant a hundred and twenty stadia from the city, and coming to anchor ravaged the land and bivouacked during the night.

4.45.2

The next day sailing along the coast they came first to the territory of Epidaurus, where they made a landing, and then to Methana, between Epidaurus and Troezen, where they walled off the neck of the peninsula on which Methana lies. Here they left a garrison, which afterward occupied itself with marauding excursions into the territory of Troezen, Halieis, and Epidaurus. But the fleet sailed back to Athens as soon as the fortifications at Methana had been completed.

4.46.1

It was at this time, while these events were occurring, that Eurymedon and Sophocles,

4.46.1

1

4.46.1

setting sail from Pylos for Sicily with an Athenian fleet, arrived at Corcyra. There they took part with the men from the city

4.46.1

2

4.46.1

in an expedition against the Corcyraeans who had established themselves on Mt. Istone, and who at this time, after crossing over thither subsequently to the revolution, were dominating the country and doing a great deal of damage.

4.46.2

The stronghold was taken by assault, but the men in it fled in a body to some high ground and there capitulated, on condition that they should surrender their mercenary troops and give up their arms, leaving it to the Athenian people to decide upon their own fate.

4.46.3

The generals accordingly conveyed the men under truce to the island of Ptychia

4.46.3

1

4.46.3

to be kept under custody there until they should be sent to Athens, and the understanding was that if anyone should be caught trying to run away the truce should be regarded as broken for them all.

4.46.4

But the leaders of the popular party at Corcyra were afraid that the Athenians would not put them to death on their arrival at Athens, and therefore resorted to the following stratagem.

4.46.5

They first tried to persuade a few of the men on the island to run away, by secretly sending thither friends who were instructed to say, with a show of good will, that the best course for them was to do this with no loss of time, and promising to have a boat ready; for the Athenian generals, they explained, were intending to deliver them up to the Corcyraean populace.

4.47.1

And when the men had been persuaded, and were caught sailing away in the boat which the others had provided. the truce was broken and the whole party was delivered up to the Corcyraeans.

4.47.2

But what chiefly contributed to such a result, so that the pretext seemed quite plausible and that those who devised the scheme felt little fear about putting it into effect, was the fact that the Athenian generals showed that they would not be willing, as they were bound for Sicily themselves, to have the men conveyed to Athens by others, who would thus get the credit for conducting them.

4.47.3

Now the Corcyraeans took over the prisoners and shut them up in a large building; afterwards they led them out in groups of twenty and marched them down between two lines of hoplites stationed on either side, the prisoners being bound to one another and receiving blows and stabs from the men who stood in the lines, if any of these perchance saw among them a personal enemy; and men with scourges walked by their sides to quicken the steps of such as proceeded too slowly on the way.

4.48.1

In this manner about sixty men were led out and killed without the knowledge of the men who remained in the house, who supposed that their companions were being led out in order to be transferred to some other place. But when they perceived what was going on, or were told by somebody, they appealed to the Athenians and urged them, if they wished to kill them, to do so with their own hands; and they refused thenceforth to leave the house, and declared that they would not allow anyone to enter if they could prevent it.

4.48.2

Nor had the Corcyraeans themselves any intention of trying to force their way in by the doors, but climbing on to the top of the building and breaking through the roof they hurled tiles and shot arrows upon them from above.

4.48.3

The men inside tried to defend themselves as best as they could, and at the same time most of them set to work to destroy themselves by thrusting into their throats the arrows which the enemy had shot or by strangling themselves with the cords from some beds that happened to be in the place or with strips made from their own garments. Thus for the greater part of the night—for night fell upon their misery—dispatching themselves in every fashion and struck by the missiles of the men on the roof, they perished.

4.48.4

When day came the Corcyraeans loaded the bodies on wagons, laying them lengthwise and crosswise, and hauled them out of the city; but the women who had been captured in the fort were sold into captivity.

4.48.5

In such fashion the Corcyraeans from the mountain were destroyed by the popular party, and the revolution, which had lasted long, ended thus, so far at least as this war was concerned; for there were no longer enough of the oligarchs left to be of any account.

4.48.6

But the Athenians sailed for Sicily, whither they had set out in the first place, and proceeded to carry on the war in conjunction with their allies in the island.

4.49.1

At the end of the same summer the Athenians at Naupactus and the Acarnanians made a campaign, and took by the treachery of its inhabitants Anactorium, a city belonging to the Corinthians which is situated at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf; and the Acarnanians, expelling the Corinthians, occupied the place with colonists drawn from all their tribes. And the summer ended.

4.50.1

During the following winter Aristides

4.50.1

1

4.50.1

son of Archippus, one of the commanders of the Athenian ships which had been sent to the allies to collect the revenues, arrested at Eion on the Strymon Artaphernes, a Persian, who was on his way from the King to Lacedaemon.

4.50.2

He was conveyed to Athens, and the Athenians caused his letters to be transcribed from the Assyrian characters and read them. Many other matters were touched upon therein, but the most important, with reference to the Lacedaemonians, was that the King did not know what they wanted; for though many envoys had come to him, no two told the same tale; if therefore they had any definite proposal to make, they should send men to him in company with the Persian.

4.50.3

As for Artaphernes, the Athenians afterwards sent him to Ephesus in a trireme, together with some envoys; these, however, hearing there of the recent death of King Artaxerxes son of Xerxes—for he died about that time

4.50.3

1

4.50.3

—returned to Athens.

4.51.1

The same winter the Chians demolished their new wall at the bidding of the Athenians, who suspected them of planning an insurrection against themselves; they, however, obtained from the Athenians pledges and such security as they could that they would adopt no harsh measures against them. And the winter ended, and with it the seventh year of this war of which Thucydides composed the history.

4.52.1

At the very beginning of the next summer a

4.52.1

1

4.52.1

partial eclipse of the sun took place at new moon, and in the early part of the same month

4.52.2

an earthquake. Also the citizens of Mytilene and of the other cities of Lesbos who were in exile, the majority of them setting out from the mainland, hired some mercenaries from the Peloponnesus, gathered still others on the spot, and took Rhoeteum; but they restored it again without having done any damage, on receiving two thousand

4.52.3

Phocaean staters.

4.52.3

1

4.52.3

After this they made an expedition against Antandros and took the city through treachery on the part of the inhabitants. It was, in fact, their plan to free the rest of the cities known as the Actaean cities,

4.52.3

2

4.52.3

which had hitherto been in the possession of the Athenians, though inhabited by Mytilenaeans, and above all Antandros. Having strengthened this place, where there was every facility for building ships—timber being available on the spot and Ida being near at hand —as well as for providing other equipments of war, they could easily, making it the base of their operations, not only ravage Lesbos, which was near, but also master the Aeolic towns on the mainland. Such were the plans upon which they were preparing to embark.

4.53.1

During the same summer the Athenians with sixty ships, two thousand hoplites, and a small detachment of cavalry, taking with them also some Milesians and others of their allies, made an expedition against Cythera. In command of the expedition were Nicias son of Niceratus, Nicostratus son of Dieitrephes, and Autocles son of Tolmaeus.

4.53.2

Now Cythera is an island adjacent to Laconia, lying off Malea; its inhabitants are Lacedaemonians of the class of the Perioeci, and an official called the Bailiff of Cythera used to cross over thither once a year from Sparta; they also used regularly to send over a garrison of hoplites and paid much attention to the place.

4.53.3

For it served them as a port of call for merchant ships from Egypt and Libya, and, moreover, pirates would be less likely to annoy Laconia from the sea,

4.53.3

1

4.53.3

on which side alone it could be harmed; for the whole coast runs out towards the Sicilian and the Cretan seas.

4.53.3

2

4.54.1

So then the Athenians, putting in at Cythera with their armament, consisting of ten ships and two thousand Milesian hoplites,

4.54.1

1

4.54.1

took the city by the sea called Scandeia

4.54.1

2

4.54.1

; then, with the rest of their forces landing on the part of the island which looks toward Malea, they advanced against the city of Cythera which is away from the sea,

4.54.1

3

4.54.1

where they found that all the inhabitants had immediately established themselves in camp.

4.54.2

A fight ensued, in which the Cytherians stood their ground for some little time, then turned and fled to the upper town, but afterwards capitulated to Nicias and his colleagues, agreeing to leave the question of their own fate, except as to a penalty of death, to the arbitration of the Athenians.

4.54.3

Some negotiations between Nicias and certain of the Cytherians had already taken place, and for this reason the settlement of the terms, both for the present and the future, was arranged more speedily and with better advantage to them;

4.54.4

for otherwise the Athenians would have expelled the inhabitants, since they were Lacedaemonians and the island lay in that position on the coast of Laconia. After the capitulation the Athenians took possession of Scandeia, the town at the harbour, and having taken precautions for guarding Cythera, then sailed to Asine, Helus, and most of the other towns on the seacoast; here they made raids or bivouacked at whatever place they found convenient, and ravaged the land for about seven days.

4.55.1

The Lacedaemonians, though they saw the Athenians in possession of Cythera and expected them to make such descents upon their own territory, nowhere massed their forces to oppose them, but sent garrisons here and there throughout the country, determining the number of hoplites by the strength needed at each point, and otherwise were very watchful, fearing lest some revolution should take place which would affect their constitution; for the calamity which had befallen them at the island of Sphacteria had been great and unexpected, Pylos and Cythera were occupied, and on all sides they were encompassed by a war which moved with a swiftness which defied precaution.

4.55.2

Consequently they organized, contrary to their custom, a force of four hundred cavalry and bowmen, and in military matters they now became more timid than at any time before they were involved in a naval struggle which was outside their own existing scheme of military organisation, and that too against Athenians, with whom an attempt foregone was always so much lost of what they had reckoned on accomplishing.

4.55.2

1

4.55.3

Besides, the reverses of fortune, which had befallen them unexpectedly in such numbers and in so short a time, caused very great consternation, and they were afraid that some time a calamity might again come upon them like that which had happened on the island;

4.55.4

and on this account they showed less spirit in their fighting, and whatever move they might make they thought would be a failure, because they had lost all self-confidence in consequence of having been hitherto unused to adversity.

4.56.1

Accordingly, while the Athenians were at that time ravaging their seaboard, they generally kept quiet when any descent was made upon any particular garrison, each thinking itself inferior in number and there being such depression. One garrison, however, which offered resistance in the region of Cotyrta and Aphrodisia, frightened the scattered crowd of light-armed troops by a charge, but when it encountered hoplites retreated again, a few of their men being killed and some of their arms taken; and the Athenians, after setting up a trophy, sailed back to Cythera.

4.56.2

From there they sailed to Epidaurus Limera, and after ravaging some part of the land came to Thyrea, which belongs to the district called Cynuria, on the border between the Argive and Laconian territories. This district the Lacedaemonians who occupied it had given to the expelled Aeginetans to dwell in, on account of the kind services shown themselves at the time of the earthquake and the uprising of the Helots, and because they had always sided with their policy, in spite of being subject to the Athenians.

4.57.1

While, then, the Athenians were still sailing up, the Aeginetans left the fort by the sea which they happened to be building and withdrew to the upper town, where they dwelt, at a distance of about ten stadia from the sea.

4.57.2

Now a detachment of the Lacedaemonian troops which were distributed in garrisons about the country was assisting the Aeginetans to build this fort. But they refused to enter the fort with them, as they requested, since it seemed to them dangerous to be cooped up in it; but retreating to high ground they kept quiet, thinking themselves no match for the enemy.

4.57.3

Meanwhile the Athenians landed, and advancing straightway with their whole force took Thyrea. They burned the city and pillaged what was in it; but they carried to Athens all the Aeginetans who did not perish in the action, together with their Lacedaemonian commander who was present, Tantalus son of Patrocles, who was wounded and taken prisoner.

4.57.4

They brought also a few men from Cythera, whom they thought best to remove for the sake of safety. These the Athenians determined to place for safekeeping on the islands, and to permit the rest of the Cytherians to occupy their own territory on payment of a tribute of four talents,

4.57.4

1

4.57.4

but to put to death all the Aeginetans who had been captured, because of their former inveterate enmity, and to imprison Tantalus along with the other Lacedaemonians captured on the island of Sphacteria.

4.58.1

During the same summer, in Sicily, an armistice was first concluded between the Camarinaeans and Geloans; then representatives from all the other Sicilian cities came together in Gela and held a conference, to see whether they might not become reconciled. Many opinions were expressed for and against, the several envoys disputing and making demands according as they believed that their own rights were being prejudiced; and among the rest Hermocrates son of Hermon, the Syracusan, whose word proved to have the greatest weight with the others, spoke in the general interest

4.58.1

1

4.58.1

words to this effect:

4.59.1

"The city which I represent, Siceliots, is not the weakest, nor is it suffering most in the war; but I propose to speak in the general interest, declaring the opinion which seems to me the best for Sicily as a whole.

4.59.2

As for the miseries which war entails, why should one by expressly stating all that can be said make a long harangue in the presence of those who know? For no one is either forced to make war through ignorance of what it is, or deterred from making it by fear, if he thinks he will get some advantage from it. What really happens is this, that to one side the gains appear greater than the terrors, while the other deliberately prefers to undergo the dangers rather than submit to a temporary disadvantage;

4.59.3

but if it should turn out that these two lines of action are both inopportune, each for the side which adopts it, then some profit may come from exhortations which advise a compromise.

4.59.4

And so with us at the present time, if we could be persuaded of the wisdom of this course it would be to our great advantage; for each of us began the war in the first place because we desired to promote our private interests. So now let us endeavour by setting forth our conflicting claims to become reconciled with each other; and then, if we do not after all succeed in securing, each of us, what is fair and just before we part, we shall go to war again.

4.60.1

"And yet we should recognise the fact that the subject of our conference will not, if we are wise, be our private interests merely, but rather the question whether we shall still be able to save Sicily as a whole, for it is against it, in my judgment, that the Athenians are plotting; and we must consider that we have an argument far more cogent to bring us together on these matters than my words, namely, the Athenians, who possess a military power greater than that of any other Hellenic state and are now at hand with a few ships watching for our mistakes, and under the lawful name of alliance are speciously trying to turn to their own advantage our natural hostility to them.

4.60.2

For if we begin war and call them in—men who of their own accord are ready enough to intrude their forces even on those who do not ask for their intervention—and if we spend our own revenues in doing hurt to ourselves, and at the same time pave the way for their supremacy, we may well expect them, when they see that we are worn out, to come sometime with a larger armament and try to bring everything here under their sway.

4.61.1

"And yet, if we are prudent, we ought, each of us in behalf of his own state, to call in allies and incur dangers only when we are seeking to win what does not belong to us and not when we imperil what is already ours; and we should remember that faction is the chief cause of ruin to states and indeed to Sicily, seeing that we her inhabitants, although we are all being plotted against, are disunited, each city by itself.

4.61.2

Recognizing these facts, we must be reconciled with each other, citizen with citizen and state with state, and join in a common effort to save all Sicily. And let no one imagine that only the Dorians among us are enemies of the Athenians, while the Chalcidians, because of their kinship with the lonians, are safe.

4.61.3

For it is not through hatred of one of the two races into which we are divided that they will attack us, but because they covet the good things of Sicily which we possess in common. They have just made this clear by their response to the appeal which the people of Chalcidic stock made to them;

4.61.3

1

4.61.4

for to those who have never given them aid according to the terms of their alliance they of their own accord have fulfilled an ally's obligations with a zeal exceeding their compact. That the Athenians entertain these designs of aggrandisement is quite pardonable;

4.61.5

and I have no word of blame for those who wish to rule, but only for those who are too ready to submit; for it is an instinct of man's nature always to rule those who yield, but to guard against those who are ready to attack.

4.61.6

If any of us, knowing how matters really stand, fails to take proper precautions, or if anyone has come here not accounting it of paramount importance that we must all together deal wisely with the common peril, we are making a mistake. The speediest relief from this peril would be gained by our entering into an understanding with one another;

4.61.7

for the base from which the Athenians propose to move is not their own territory, but that of the people who asked them to intervene. And if we follow this course, war will not end in another war, but without trouble quarrels will end quietly in peace, and those who have been invited to intervene, having come with a fair pretext for injustice, will depart home with a fair plea for failure.

4.62.1

"So far, then, as the Athenians are concerned, this is the great advantage we win if we are well advised;

4.62.2

but as to the question of peace, which all men agree is a most desirable thing, why should we not make it here among ourselves? Or, think you, if one person now enjoys a blessing and another labours under adversity, it is not tranquillity far more than war that will put an end to the latter and perpetuate the former? And has not peace its honours and less hazardous splendours, and all the other advantages on which one might dilate as easily as on the horrors of war? Considering these things, you should not overlook my advice, but should rather look forward each to his own salvation thereby. And if any of you cherishes the confident belief that he can gain anything either by insisting on his rights or by an appeal to force, let him not, through the baffling of his hopes, suffer a grievous disappointment;

4.62.3

for he knows that many men ere now, whether pursuing with vengeance those who have wronged them, or in other cases, hoping to gain some advantage by the exercise of power, have, on the one hand, not only not avenged themselves but have not even come out whole, and, on the other hand, instead of gaining more, have sacrificed what was their own.

4.62.4

For revenge has no right to expect success just because a wrong has been done; nor is strength sure just because it is confident. But as regards the future, it is uncertainty that for the most part prevails,

4.62.4

1

4.62.4

and this uncertainty, utterly treacherous as it is, proves nevertheless to be also most salutary; for since both sides alike fear it, we proceed with a greater caution in attacking one another.

4.63.1

"So let us now, taking alarm on account of both these things—the vague fear of this hidden future and the immediate fear of the dread Athenian presence—and charging to these obstacles, as effectually blocking our way, any failure in the plans which any one of us had hoped to realize, let us dismiss from the country the enemy who is at our gates, and if possible let us make peace among ourselves for evermore; but if that may not be, let us conclude a truce for the longest practicable period, and put off our private differences to some other day.

4.63.2

In fine, let us feel assured that if my advice is followed we shall each keep our city free, and from it, since we shall be arbiters of our own destiny, we shall with equal valour ward off both him who comes to benefit and him who comes to harm. But if, on the other hand, my advice is rejected and we give heed to others, it will not be a question of our taking vengeance on anybody, but, even if we should be never so successful, we should perforce become friends to our bitterest foes and at variance with those with whom we should not be.

4.64.1

“As for me, as I said in the beginning, although I represent a most powerful city and am more ready for attacking another than for selfdefence, I deem it my duty, with these dangers in view, to make concessions, and not to harm my enemies in such a way as to receive more injury myself, or in foolish obstinacy to think that I am as absolutely master of Fortune, which I do not control, as of my own judgment; nay, so far as is reasonable I will give way.

4.64.2

And I require of the rest of you to follow my example and submit to this, not at the hands of the enemy, but of yourselves.

4.64.3

For there is no disgrace in kinsmen giving way to kinsmen, a Dorian to a Dorian or a Chalcidian to men of the same race, since we are, in a word, neighbours and together are dwellers in a single land encircled by the sea and are called by a single name, Siceliots. We shall go to war, no doubt, whenever occasion arises—yes, and we shall make peace again by taking common counsel among ourselves;

4.64.4

but when alien peoples invade us, we shall always act in concert, if we are prudent, and repel them, seeing that any injury suffered by one of us brings danger to us all; but never henceforth shall we ask outsiders to intervene, either as allies or as mediators.

4.64.5

If we follow this policy, we shall at the present time not rob Sicily of two desirable things—getting rid of the Athenians and escaping from civil war—and for the future we shall dwell here by ourselves in a land that is free and less exposed to the plotting of others.”

4.65.1

After Hermocrates had spoken to this effect the Siceliots, accepting his advice, came to an understanding among themselves. They agreed to end the war, each city keeping what it had, except that the Camarinaeans were to have Morgantina on payment of a stated sum of money to the Syracusans.

4.65.2

The Sicilian allies of the Athenians then summoned the Athenian generals and said that they proposed to make peace and that the treaty would also include them. And when the generals assented, they proceeded to make the agreement, whereupon the Athenian fleet sailed away from Sicily.

4.65.3

But when it arrived at Athens, the Athenians sentenced to exile two of the generals, Pythodorus and Sophocles, and fined Eurymedon, the third, on the charge that when it had been in their power to subdue Sicily they had been bribed to withdraw from it.

4.65.4

To such an extent, because of their present good fortune, did they expect to be thwarted in nothing, and believed that, no matter whether their forces were powerful or deficient, they could equally achieve what was easy and what was difficult. The cause of this was the amazing success which attended most of their undertakings and inspired them with strong confidence.

4.66.1

The same summer the people of the city of Megara, being harassed in the war by the Athenians, who regularly invaded their country in full force twice every year, and also by their own exiles in Pegae, who had been expelled in a revolution by the popular party and kept annoying them by raiding the country, began to say to one another that they ought to receive the fugitives back, so that the city should not be exposed to ruin from both directions at once.

4.66.2

And the friends of the exiles, noticing the murmuring of the people, all began more openly than before to urge that this proposal be adopted.

4.66.3

But the leaders of the popular party, realizing that the populace under the pressure of their distress would not be able to hold out with them, became frightened and made overtures to the Athenian generals, Hippocrates son of Ariphron and Demosthenes son of Alcisthenes, proposing to surrender the city to them; for they thought that this course would be less dangerous to themselves than the restoration of the citizens whom they had banished. They agreed, in the first place, that the Athenians should take possession of the long walls (the distance between the city and the harbour at Nisaea was about eight stadia), in order to prevent the Peloponnesians from sending reinforcements from Nisaea, where they formed the sole garrison to keep their hold on Megara, and, in the second place, that they would do their best to hand over to them the upper-town as well, believing that, as soon as this was done, their fellow-citizens would more readily go over to the Athenian side.

4.67.1

So, then, as soon as due preparations, both in word and act, had been made by both parties, the Athenians sailed under cover of night to Minoa, the island which lies off Megara, taking six hundred hoplites under the command of Hippocrates, and took cover in a ditch, not far from the town, where bricks had been made for the walls.

4.67.2

A second company consisting of light-armed Plataeans and frontier-patrols under the command of the other general, Demosthenes, set an ambuscade at Enyalius, which is somewhat nearer. And all that night no one perceived what was going on except the men whose business it was to know.

4.67.3

Then, at the approach of dawn, these would-be Megarian traitors began their work as follows. For a long time before this they had been carefully preparing for the opening of the gates by regularly assuming the guise of pirates and taking a sculling boat, drawn on a cart, through the ditch and down to the sea, where they would put out. This they did every night, first securing the consent of the commander.

4.67.3

1

4.67.3

Then before daybreak they would cart the boat back into the fortifications, taking it in by way of the gates, their object being, as they pretended, to keep the Athenian garrison, which was stationed at Minoa, in the dark, as no boat would be visible in the harbour.

4.67.4

On the night in question the cart was already at the gates, and when these were opened as usual as if to let the boat pass through, the Athenians, who were acting throughout in accordance with an agreement, seeing it, ran at top speed from their ambush, wishing to get there before the gates were closed again and while the cart was still in the passage, thus forming an obstacle to the shutting of the gates; and at the same time their Megarian accomplices killed the guards at the gates.

4.67.5

And first the Plataeans and the patrols under Demosthenes' command rushed into the place where the trophy now stands, and as soon as they were inside the gates the Plataeans engaged with the reinforcements which came up—for the nearest Peloponnesians had become aware of what was going on—and defeated them, thus securing the gates for the onrushing Athenian hoplites.

4.68.1

After that every Athenian who got inside immediately made for the wall.

4.68.2

A few of the Peloponnesian garrison at first stood their ground and defended themselves, some of them being killed, but most of them took to flight, being seized with panic, both because the enemy had attacked them at night, and also because they thought the Megarian traitors were fighting against them; and they supposed that all the Megarians had betrayed them.

4.68.3

For it so happened also that the Athenian herald, acting on his own responsibility, made a proclamation that any Megarian who so desired might espouse the cause of the Athenians. When the garrison heard this proclamation it no longer held out, but, verily believing that a concerted attack was being made upon them, fled to Nisaea.

4.68.4

And at daybreak, when the walls had already been taken and the Megarians in the city were in a tumult, those who had negotiated with the Athenians, and a large number besides who were privy to the plot, expressed the opinion that they ought to open the gates and go out to battle.

4.68.5

It had, in fact, been agreed between them and the Athenians, that as soon as the gates were opened the Athenians should rush in, and, in order that they might themselves escape injury, they were to be distinguished from the rest by being anointed with oil. They were also to have additional security in thus opening the gates, since the men. who according to the compact were to march by night from Eleusis, four thousand Athenian hoplites and six hundred cavalry, were now at hand.

4.68.5

1

4.68.6

But after they had anointed themselves and were already near the gates, an accomplice divulged the plot to the other party. And they, gathering in a body, came and declared that they ought neither to march out to fight—for they had never ventured to do such a thing before, even when they were stronger —nor to bring the city into manifest danger; and, they added, should anyone refuse to obey, the fight would take place on the spot. But they gave no signs whatever that they were aware of the plot which was going on, but stoutly maintained that their advice was for the best, and at the same time stayed about the gates keeping watch, so that the plotters had no opportunity to carry out their intentions.

4.69.1

The Athenian generals, however, saw that some obstacle had arisen and that they would not be able to take the city by force, and therefore at once began to invest Nisaea with a wall, thinking that, if they could take this town before any succour came, Megara also would soon capitulate.

4.69.2

A supply of iron quickly arrived from Athens, as well as stonemasons and whatever else was needed. Beginning then at the part of the fortification which they already held and building a cross-wall on the side of it facing Megara, from that point they built out on either side of Nisaea as far as the sea, the army apportioning among them the ditch and the walls and using stones and bricks from the suburbs. Moreover, they cut down fruit-trees and forest-wood and built stockades wherever they were needed; and the houses of the suburbs with the addition of battlements of themselves furnished a rampart.

4.69.3

They worked the whole of this first day, but on the next day toward evening when the wall was all but finished the garrison of Nisaea, becoming alarmed by the shortage of food, seeing that they received provisions from the upper-city for only a day at a time, and not anticipating any speedy relief from the Peloponnesians, and believing the Megarians to be hostile, capitulated to the Athenians on condition that they should give up their arms and pay a ransom of a stipulated amount for each man; as for the Lacedaemonians in the garrison, the commander or anyone else, they were to be disposed of as the Athenians might wish. On these terms they came to an agreement and marched out.

4.69.4

The Athenians then made a breach in the long walls in order to separate them from the wall of the city of Megara, took possession of Nisaea, and proceeded with their other preparations.

4.70.1

At this time Brasidas son of Tellis, a Lacedaemonian, happened to be in the neighbourhood of Sicyon and Corinth, preparing a force for use in the region of Thrace. And when he heard of the capture of the walls, fearing for the safety of the Peloponnesians in Nisaea and apprehensive lest Megara should be taken, he sent to the Boeotians requesting them to come in haste with an army and to meet him at Tripodiscus, which is the name of a village in the district of Megara at the foot of Mount Geraneia. He himself set out with two thousand seven hundred Corinthian hoplites, four hundred from Phlius, seven hundred from Sicyon, and such troops of his own as had already been levied, thinking that he would arrive before Nisaea had been taken.

4.70.2

But when he learned the truth—for he happened to have gone out by night to Tripodiscus—he selected three hundred of his own army, and before his approach was known reached the city of Megara unobserved by the Athenians, who were down by the sea. His plan was, ostensibly—and really, too, if it should prove possible—to make an attempt upon Nisaea, but most of all to get into the city of Megara and secure it. And he demanded that they should receive him, saying that he was in hopes of recovering Nisaea.

4.71.1

But the rival factions of Megara were afraid, the one that he might bring in the exiles and drive them out, the other that the populace, fearing this very thing, might attack them, and that the city, being at war with itself, while the Athenians were lying in wait near at hand, might be ruined. They, therefore, did not admit Brasidas, both parties thinking it best to wait and see what would happen.

4.71.2

For each party expected that there would be a battle between the Athenians and the relieving army, and so it was safer for them not to join the side which anyone favoured until it was victorious. So then Brasidas, when he could not persuade them, withdrew once more to his own army.

4.72.1

At daybreak the Boeotians arrived. They had intended, even before Brasidas summoned them, to go to the aid of Megara, feeling that the danger was not alien to them, and were already at Plataea with all their forces; but when the summons actually came, they were greatly strengthened in their purpose, and sent on two thousand two hundred hoplites and six hundred cavalry, returning home with the larger part of their army.

4.72.2

Then, finally, when their whole army was at hand, consisting of not less than six thousand hoplites, and the Athenian hoplites were in line about Nisaea and the sea, while the lightarmed troops were scattered up and down the plain, the Boeotian cavalry fell upon the latter and drove them to the sea. The attack was unexpected, for hitherto no reinforcements had ever come to the Megarians from any quarter.

4.72.3

But the Athenian horsemen charged upon them in turn and a prolonged cavalry action ensued, in which both sides claimed to have held their own.

4.72.4

The Athenians did succeed in killing the commander of the Boeotian cavalry and a few others who had charged to the very walls of Nisaea and despoiled them, and having got possession of their bodies they gave them back under a truce and set up a trophy; in the action as a whole, however, neither side finally gained a decisive advantage, and so they separated, the Boeotians going to their own army, the Athenians to Nisaea.

4.73.1

After this Brasidas and his army advanced nearer to the sea and the city of Megara, and there, taking up an advantageous position, they drew up their lines and kept quiet, thinking that the Athenians would come against them, and feeling assured that the Megarians would wait to see which side would be victorious.

4.73.2

And they thought that matters stood well with them in both of two respects: in the first place, they were not forcing an engagement and had not deliberately courted the risk of a battle, although they had at least plainly shown that they were ready to defend themselves, so that the victory would justly be accredited to them almost without a blow; and at the same time they thought that things were turning out right as regards the Megarians also.

4.73.3

For if they had failed to put in an appearance there would have been no chance for them, but they would clearly have lost the city at once just as though they had been defeated; but by this move there was the possible chance that the Athenians themselves would not care to fight, with the result that they would have gained what they came for without a battle. And this is just what happened.

4.73.4

For the Megarians did what was expected of them.

4.73.4

1

4.73.4

When the Athenians came out and drew up their lines before the long walls, they too kept quiet, since the Peloponnesians did not attack, and their generals also reckoned that they were running an unequal risk, now that almost all their plans had turned out well, to begin a battle against larger numbers, and either be victorious and take Megara, or, if defeated, have the flower of their hoplite force damaged; whereas the Peloponnesians would naturally be willing to risk an engagement which would involve, for each contingent, only a portion of the entire army or of the troops there at hand.

4.73.4

2

4.73.4

Both armies therefore waited for some time, and when no attack was made from either side, the Athenians were the first to withdraw, retiring to Nisaea, and next the Peloponnesians, returning to the place from which they had set out. So then, finally, the Megarians who were friends of the exiles plucked up courage, and opened the gates to Brasidas and the commanders from the various cities, in the feeling that he had won the victory and that the Athenians had finally declined battle.

4.73.4

3

4.73.4

And receiving them into the town they entered into a conference with them, the party which had been intriguing with the Athenians being now quite cowed.

4.74.1

Afterwards, when the Peloponnesian allies had been dismissed to their several cities, Brasidas went back to Corinth and began preparations for the expedition to Thrace, whither he had originally been bound.

4.74.2

But when the Athenians also returned home, all the Megarians who had been most implicated in the negotiations with the Athenians, knowing that they had been detected, immediately withdrew secretly from the city, while the rest, communicating with the friends of the exiles, brought them back from Pegae, after first binding them on their oath by strong pledges not to harbour ill-will, but to consult for the best interests of the city.

4.74.3

But as soon as these men attained office and had made an inspection of arms, separating the companies they selected about one hundred of their personal enemies and of those who seemed to have had the largest part in the negotiations with the Athenians, and compelling the popular assembly to take an open vote concerning these, when they had been condemned, slew them, and established an extreme oligarchy in the city.

4.74.4

And there was never a change of government, effected by so small a number of men through the triumph of a faction, that lasted so long.

4.75.1

During the same summer, when Antandros was about to be strengthened

4.75.1

1

4.75.1

by the Mytilenaeans as they had planned, the generals in command of the Athenian ships which were collecting the tribute, namely, Demodocus and Aristides, who were in the neighbourhood of the Hellespont—for Lamachus, their colleague, had sailed into the Pontus with ten ships—heard of the fortification of the place and thought that there was danger of its becoming a menace to Lesbos, just as Anaea was to Samos

4.75.1

2

4.75.1

; for the Samian exiles, establishing themselves at Anaea, kept aiding the Peloponnesians by sending them pilots for their fleet, and also brought the Samians who lived in the city into a state of turmoil and continually offered a refuge to those who were sent into exile. The Athenian generals, therefore, collected an army from among the allies, sailed thither, defeated in battle those who came out against them from Antandros, and recovered the city.

4.75.2

And not long afterwards Lamachus, who had sailed into the Pontus and anchored in the river Cales in Heraclean territory, lost his ships in consequence of a rain which fell in the uplands and brought down a sudden flood. He and his army, however, going by land through the Bithynian Thracians, who were on the other side, in Asia, arrived at Chalcedon, the Megarian colony at the mouth of the Pontus.

4.76.1

During the same summer, immediately after the Athenians retired from Megara, Demosthenes, the Athenian general, arrived with forty ships at Naupactus.

4.76.2

For he and Hippocrates were engaged in negotiations about affairs in Boeotia, at the instance of certain men in several cities who wished to bring about a change in their form of government and to transform it into a democracy, such as the Athenians had. The leading spirit in these transactions was Ptoeodorus, an exile from Thebes, through whom Demosthenes and Hippocrates had brought about the following state of affairs.

4.76.3

Siphae, a town on the shore of the Crisaean Gulf in the territory of Thespiae, was to be betrayed by certain men; and Chaeronea, a city which is tributary to Orchomenus—the city which was formerly called Minyan, but is now called Boeotian—was to be put into the hands of the Athenians by others, the fugitives from Orchomenus, who also took into their pay some Peloponnesians, being especially active in the conspiracy. Some Phocians also had a share in the plot, Chaeronea being on the borders of Boeotia, and adjacent to Phanotis, which is in Phocis.

4.76.4

The Athenians were to occupy Delium, the sanctuary of Apollo which is in the territory of Tanagra and opposite Euboea; and all these events were to take place simultaneously on an appointed day, in order that the Boeotians might not concentrate their forces at Delium, but that the several states might be occupied with their own disaffected districts.

4.76.5

And if the attempt should succeed and Delium should be fortified, they confidently expected, even if no immediate change occurred in the constitutions of the Boeotian states, nevertheless, so long as these places were in their possession, from which Boeotian territory could be ravaged and where everyone might find a convenient place of refuge, the situation would not remain as it was, but in time, when the Athenians should come to the support of the rebels and the forces of the oligarchs were scattered, they could settle matters to their own advantage.

4.77.1

Such was the plot which was then under way. It was the purpose of Hippocrates, when the proper moment should arrive, to take troops from Athens and in person make an expedition into Boeotia; meanwhile he was sending Demosthenes in advance with a fleet of forty ships to Naupactus, in order that he should first collect in this region an army of Acarnanians and of other allies of Athens and then sail to Siphae, in expectation of its being betrayed; and a day was agreed upon between the two generals for doing these two things simultaneously.

4.77.2

Upon his arrival at Naupactus, Demosthenes found that Oeniadae had already been forced by all the rest of the Acarnanians to join the Athenian alliance; he himself then raised all the allied forces in that district, and after first making an expedition against Salynthius and the Agraeans

4.77.2

1

4.77.2

and securing these, proceeded with his other preparations so as to be present at Siphae when needed.

4.78.1

About the same time in the course of this summer, Brasidas, who was on his way to Thrace with one thousand seven hundred hoplites, reached Heracleia in Trachis and sent forward a messenger to his friends at Pharsalus requesting them to conduct him and his army through. Accordingly he was met at Meliteia in Achaia by Panaerus, Dorus, Hippolochidas, Torylaüs, and Strophacus, who was proxenus of the Chalcidians, and then proceeded on his march. He was conducted by several Thessalians also, among whom were Niconidas of Larisa, a friend of Perdiccas.

4.78.2

Indeed, Thessaly was not in any case an easy country to traverse without an escort, and especially with an armed force; and among all the Hellenes alike to traverse the territory of neighbours without their consent was looked on with suspicion. Besides, the common people of Thessaly had always been well disposed to the Athenians. If, therefore, the Thessalians had not been under the sway of a few powerful men, as is usual in that country, rather than under a free democracy, Brasidas would not have made headway;

4.78.3

even as it was, he was confronted on his march, when he reached the river Enipeus, by other Thessalians belonging to the opposite party. These tried to stop him, warning him that he was doing wrong in proceeding without the consent of the whole people.

4.78.4

But his conductors reassured them, saying that, it they were unwilling, they would not conduct him further, and that they were merely playing the part of hosts in escorting an unexpected visitor. Brasidas himself explained that he came as a friend to Thessaly and its inhabitants and was bearing arms against the Athenians, who were enemies, and not against them; moreover, he was not aware of any such hostility between the Thessalians and the Lacedaemonians as to debar them from access to each other's territory, but if in this instance they were unwilling, he would go no further, nor indeed could he do so;

4.78.5

he hoped, however, that they would not bar his progress. On hearing this the Thessalians departed; but Brasidas, taking the advice of his escort, before a larger force could be collected to hinder him, set out at full speed and without making any halt. In fact, he finished the journey to Pharsalus on the same day on which he had set out from Meliteia, and encamped on the river Apidanus;

4.78.6

thence he proceeded to Phacium, and from there to Perrhaebia. Here his Thessalian escort at length turned back, and the Perrhaebians, who are subjects of the Thessalians, brought him safely to Dium in the dominions of Perdiccas, a small town in Macedonia at the foot of Mt. Olympus, facing Thessaly.

4.79.1

It was in this manner that Brasidas succeeded in rushing through Thessaly before anyone could get ready to hinder him and reached Perdiccas and the Chalcidic peninsula.

4.79.2

The reason why the peoples in Thrace who had revolted from Athens had, in conjunction with Perdiccas, brought this army all the way from the Peloponnesus was that they were filled with alarm at the success of the Athenians. The Chalcidians thought that the Athenians would take the field against them first, and the cities in this neighbourhood which had not yet revolted nevertheless took part secretly in inviting the Peloponnesians to intervene. As for Perdiccas, although he was not yet openly hostile to Athens, he also was afraid of the long-standing differences between himself and the Athenians, and above all he was anxious to reduce Arrhabaeus, the king of the Lyncestians.

4.79.3

A further circumstance which rendered it easier for them to procure an army from the Peloponnesus was the evil fortune which at the present time attended the Lacedaemonians.

4.80.1

For since the Athenians kept harassing the Peloponnesians, and especially the territory of the Lacedaemonians, the latter thought that the best way of diverting them would be to retaliate by sending an army against their allies, especially since these allies were ready to maintain an army and were calling upon the Lacedaemonians for help in order that they might revolt.

4.80.2

Furthermore, the Lacedaemonians were glad to have an excuse for sending out some of the Helots, in order to forestall their attempting a revolt at the present juncture when Pylos was in the possession of the enemy.

4.80.3

Indeed, through fear of their youth

4.80.3

1

4.80.3

and numbers —for in fact most of their measures have always been adopted by the Lacedaemonians with a view to guarding against the Helots—they had once even resorted to the following device. They made proclamation that all Helots who claimed to have rendered the Lacedaemonians the best service in war should be set apart, ostensibly to be set free. They were, in fact, merely testing them, thinking that those who claimed, each for himself, the first right to be set free would be precisely the men of high spirit who would be the most likely to attack their masters.

4.80.4

About two thousand of them were selected and these put crowns on their heads and made the rounds of the temples, as though they were already free, but the Spartans not long afterwards made away with them, and nobody ever knew in what way each one perished.

4.80.5

So, on the present occasion, the Spartans gladly sent with Brasidas seven hundred Helots as hoplites, the rest of his forces being drawn from the Peloponnesus by the inducement of pay.

4.81.1

As for Brasidas himself, the Lacedaemonians sent him chiefly at his own desire, though the Chalcidians also were eager to have him. He was a man esteemed at Sparta as being energetic in everything he did, and indeed, after he had gone abroad, he proved invaluable to the Lacedaemonians.

4.81.2

For, at the present crisis, by showing himself just and moderate in his dealings with the cities he caused most of the places to revolt, and secured possession of others by the treachery of their inhabitants, so that when the Lacedaemonians wished to make terms with Athens, as they did ultimately,

4.81.2

1

4.81.2

they had places to offer in exchange for places they wished to recover and were able to secure for the Peloponnesus a respite from the war; and in the later part of the war, after the events in Sicily, it was the virtue and tact which Brasidas had displayed at this time—qualities of which some had had experience, while others knew of them by report—that did most to inspire in the allies of the Athenians a sentiment favourable to the Lacedaemonians.

4.81.3

For since he was the first Lacedaemonian abroad who gained a reputation for being in all respects a good man, he left behind him a confident belief that the other Lacedaemonians also were of the same stamp.

4.82.1

On the arrival of Brasidas in Thrace at the time referred to,

4.82.1

1

4.82.1

the Athenians, on hearing of it, declared Perdiccas an enemy, regarding him as responsible for his coming, and they established a stricter watch over their allies in that region.

4.83.1

But Perdiccas immediately took Brasidas and his army, together with his own forces, and made an expedition against his neighbour Arrhabaeus, son of Bromerus, king of the Lyncestian Macedonians; for he had a quarrel with him and wished to subdue him.

4.83.2

But when he and Brasidas arrived with their combined armies at the pass leading to Lyncus, Brasidas said that he wished, before appealing to arms, to have a conference with Arrhabaeus and make him an ally of the Lacedaemonians, if he could.

4.83.3

For it seemed that Arrhabaeus had made some overtures and was ready to submit the question at issue to Brasidas' arbitration; the Chalcidian envoys who were present also kept urging him not to remove the difficulties from the path of Perdiccas, since they wished to have in him a more zealous helper in their own affairs.

4.83.4

Furthermore, the envoys of Perdiccas, when they were at Lacedaemon, had given a hint to the effect that he would bring many of the places in his neighbourhood into alliance with the Lacedaemonians; consequently Brasidas was inclined to insist upon having a freer hand in dealing with Arrhabaeus.

4.83.5

But Perdiccas said that he had not brought Brasidas to be a judge of their quarrels, but rather to be a destroyer of any enemies whom he himself might designate, and that Brasidas would do wrong if, when he himself maintained half the army, he should parley with Arrhabaeus.

4.83.6

But Brasidas, in spite of Perdiccas and after a quarrel with him, held the conference, and finding the king's arguments convincing, withdrew his army without invading his country. After this Perdiccas contributed only a third instead of one-half of the maintenance, considering himself to be aggrieved.

4.84.1

Immediately afterwards during the same summer and a short time before the vintage season, Brasidas took some Chalcidians in addition to his own force and made an expedition against Acanthus, the colony of the Andrians.

4.84.2

But on the question of admitting him the Acanthians were divided among themselves, on the one side being those who, in concert with the Chalcidians, asked him to intervene, and on the other side the popular party. However, when Brasidas urged them to admit him unattended and then, after hearing what he had to say, to deliberate on the matter, the populace consented, for they had fears concerning the grapes, which had not yet been gathered. So he came before the people—and indeed, for a Lacedaemonian, he was not wanting in ability as a speaker—and addressed them as follows:

4.85.1

"Citizens of Acanthus, the Lacedaemonians have sent me and my army to prove the truth of what we proclaimed at the beginning to be the cause of the war, when we said that we were going to war with the Athenians for the liberation of Hellas.

4.85.2

But if we have arrived late, disappointed as we have been with regard to the war at home, where we had hoped to destroy the Athenians quite speedily, by our own efforts and without involving you in the danger, do not blame us;

4.85.3

for we are here now, having come as soon as opportunity offered, and together with you we shall try to subdue them.

4.85.4

But I am amazed at the closing of your gates against me, and that my coming has been unwelcome to you. For we Lacedaemonians, thinking, even before we actually came, that we should find ourselves among men who were allies in spirit at least and that we should be welcomed, have hazarded the great danger of travelling a journey of many days through an alien territory and have shown all possible zeal.

4.85.5

But if you have aught else in mind, or intend to stand in the way of your own freedom and that of the rest of the Hellenes, that would be monstrous.

4.85.6

For it is not merely that you yourselves oppose me, but that all to whom I may apply will be less inclined to join me, raising the objection that you to whom I first came, representing as you do an important city and reputed to be men of sense, did not receive me. And it will seem

4.85.6

1

4.85.6

that the reason which I give for your refusal is not to be believed, but that either the freedom I offered you is not honourable, or that when I came to you I was powerless and unable to defend you against the Athenians if they should attack you.

4.85.7

And yet when I brought aid to Nisaea with the very army which I now have, the Athenians were unwilling, though superior in numbers, to engage us, so that they are not likely to send against you by sea a number equal to the armament they had at Nisaea.

4.86.1

"As for myself, I have come here not to harm but to liberate the Hellenes, having bound the government of the Lacedaemonians by the most solemn oaths that in very truth those whom I should win as allies should enjoy their own laws; and further, we are come, not that we may have you as allies, winning you over either by force or fraud, but to offer our alliance to you who have been enslaved by the Athenians.

4.86.2

I claim, therefore, that I ought not either myself to be suspected, offering as I do the most solemn pledges, or to be accounted an impotent champion, but that you should boldly come over to me.

4.86.3

"And if anyone, possibly, being privately afraid of somebody is half-hearted through fear that I may put the city into the hands of some party or other,

4.86.3

1

4.86.3

let him most of all have confidence.

4.86.4

For I am not come to join a faction, nor do I think that the freedom I am offering would be a real one if, regardless of your ancestral institutions, I should enslave the majority to the few or the minority to the multitude.

4.86.5

That would be more galling than foreign rule, and for us Lacedaemonians the result would be, not thanks for our pains, but, instead of honour and glory, only reproach; and the very charges on which we are waging war to the death against the Athenians we should be found to be bringing home to ourselves in a more odious form than the power which has made no display of virtue.

4.86.6

For it is more shameful, at least to men of reputation, to gain advantage by specious deceit than by open force; for the one makes assault by the assertion of power, which is the gift of fortune, the other by the intrigues of deliberate injustice.

4.87.1

Consequently we Lacedaemonians use great circumspection as regards matters that concern us in the highest degree

4.87.1

1

4.87.1

;

4.87.2

and you could not get better security, in addition to our oaths, than where you have men whose actions scrutinized in the light of their professions furnish the irresistible conviction that their interests are indeed exactly as they have said. “But if you meet these offers of mine with the plea that you cannot join us, but, because you are welldisposed to us, claim that you should not suffer by your refusal, and maintain that the liberty I offer seems to you to be not without its dangers, and that it is right to offer it to those who can receive it but not to force it on anyone against his will, I shall make the gods and heroes of your country my witnesses that, though I come for your good, I cannot persuade you, and I shall try, by ravaging your territory, to compel you;

4.87.3

and in that case I shall not consider that I am doing wrong, but that I have some justification, for two compelling reasons: first, in the interest of the Lacedaemonians, that with all your professed goodwill toward them they may not, in case you shall not be brought over, be injured by the money you pay as tribute to the Athenians; secondly, that the Hellenes may not be prevented by you from escaping bondage.

4.87.4

For otherwise we should not be justified in acting thus, nor are we Lacedaemonians bound, except on the plea of some common good, to confer liberty on those who do not wish it.

4.87.5

Nor, again, are we seeking after empire, but rather we are eager to stop others from acquiring it; and we should do wrong to the majority, if, when we are bringing independence to all, we permitted you to stand in the way.

4.87.6

In view of these things, deliberate wisely, and strive to be the first to inaugurate freedom for the Hellenes and to lay up for yourselves undying fame; thus you will save your own property from injury and confer upon your whole state the fairest name.”

4.88.1

Such was the speech of Brasidas. But the Acanthians, after much had been said on both sides of the question, took a secret vote, and, on account of Brasidas' impassioned words and their fears about the harvest, the majority decided to revolt from the Athenians; then having bound him with the oaths which the authorities of the Lacedaemonians swore when they sent him out, namely, that those whom he might win over should be autonomous allies, they finally received the army.

4.88.2

And not long afterwards Stagirus,

4.88.2

1

4.88.2

a colony of the Andrians, joined in the revolt. Such then, were the events of that summer.

4.89.1

At the very beginning of the following winter,

4.89.1

1

4.89.1

when the places in Boeotia were to be delivered to Hippocrates and Demosthenes, the Athenian generals, Demosthenes was to have been present with his ships at Siphae, the other general at Delium. But a mistake was made as to the days when both were to start, and Demosthenes sailed too soon to Siphae, having Acarnanians and many allies from that region on board, and so proved unsuccessful; for the plot had been betrayed by Nicomachus, a Phocian from Phanotis, who told the Lacedaemonians, and they the Boeotians.

4.89.2

Accordingly succour came from all the Boeotians-for Hippocrates was not yet in their country to annoy Them—and both Siphae and Chaeroneia were occupied in advance; and the conspirators, learning of the mistake, attempted no disturbance in the towns.

4.90.1

Meanwhile Hippocrates levied all the forces of Athens, both citizens and resident aliens, and such foreigners as were in the city. But he arrived at Delium too late, after the Boeotians had already withdrawn from Siphae. Then, after settling his army in camp, he proceeded to fortify Delium in the following manner.

4.90.2

They dug a ditch round the temple and the sacred precinct and threw up the earth from the ditch to serve for a wall, fixing stakes along it; and cutting down the grape-vines round the sanctuary, they threw them in, as well as stones and bricks from the neighboring homesteads which they pulled down, and in every way strove to increase the height of the fortification. Wooden towers, too, were erected wherever there was occasion for them and no temple-structure was ready to hand;

4.90.3

for the cloister that once existed had fallen down. Beginning on the third day after they started from home, they worked that day and the fourth and until dinner-time on the fifth.

4.90.4

Then, when most of it had been finished, the main body withdrew from Delium about ten stadia on their way home; and most of the light-armed troops went straight on, while the hoplites grounded arms and halted there. Hippocrates, however, remained behind and was busy posting pickets and arranging to complete whatever was unfinished about the outwork.

4.91.1

But during these days the Boeotians were gathering at Tanagra; and when they had come in from all the cities and perceived that the Athenians were going home, the rest of the eleven Boeotarchs disapproved of fighting, as the enemy were no longer in Boeotia—for the Athenians were just about on the borders of Oropia when they halted. But Pagondas son of Aeolidas, who, with Arianthidas son of Lysimachidas, was Boeotarch from Thebes and then in chief command, wishing to bring on the battle and thinking it was better to take the risk, called the men by companies one after another, that they might not leave their arms all at once, and tried to persuade the Boeotians to go against the Athenians and bring on the contest, speaking as follows:

4.92.1

“It should never, men of Boeotia, have even entered the mind of any of us who are in command that we ought not to come to battle with the Athenians unless we should overtake them while still on Boeotian soil. For it was to ravage Boeotia that they came from across the frontier and built a fort in our territory, and they are assuredly equally our enemies wherever they may be caught, and especially on that soil from which they advanced to do the work of enemies.

4.92.2

But as matters stand, if anyone did indeed think that course safer, let him change his mind. For where men are attacked prudence does not admit of such nice calculation regarding their own land as is permitted to those who, secure in their own possessions, in their greed for more wantonly attack others.

4.92.3

Furthermore, it is hereditary with you when an alien army comes against you to ward it off, alike in your own land and in that of your neighbours; and most of all when the invaders are Athenians and moreover upon your borders.

4.92.4

For in dealing with neighbours, it is always equality of force that guarantees liberty; and when the contest is against men like these, who are trying to enslave not only those near by but those far away, is it not necessary to fight to the very last? We have as a warning example their policy toward the Euboeans across the strait as well as toward the greater part of Hellas, and must realize that, whereas others make war with their neighbours about territorial boundaries, for us, if we are conquered, one boundary beyond dispute will be fixed for our whole land; for they will come and take by force all that we have.

4.92.5

So much more dangerous is the neighbourhood of the Athenians than that of others. Besides, people who in the confidence of strength attack their neighbours, as the Athenians now do, are wont to march more fearlessly against one who keeps quiet and defends himself only in his own land, but are less ready to grapple with him who meets them outside of his own boundaries and, if opportunity offers, makes the first attack.

4.92.6

We have a proof of this in these Athenians; for at Coronea,

4.92.6

1

4.92.6

when owing to our internal dissensions they had occupied our land, we defeated them and won for Boeotia great security which has lasted to this day.

4.92.7

Remembering these things, let the older men among us emulate their former deeds, and the younger, sons of fathers who then were brave, try not to disgrace the virtues which are their heritage. Trusting that the god whose sanctuary they have impiously fortified and now occupy will be on our side, and relying on the sacrifices, which appear to be propitious to us, who have offered then, let us advance to meet them and show that if they would get what they covet they must attack those who will not defend themselves, but that men whose noble spirit impels them always to fight for the liberty of their own land and not to enslave that of others unjustly will never let them depart without a battle.”

4.93.1

With such exhortations Pagondas persuaded the Boeotians to attack the Athenians, then quickly broke camp and led on his army, for it was already late in the day. When he drew near their army he halted at a place from which, because of an intervening hill, the two armies could not see each other, and there drew up and prepared for battle.

4.93.2

Meanwhile Hippocrates, who was at Delium, on being informed that the Boeotians were coming on, sent orders to the army to fall in line, and himself not long afterwards joined them, leaving about three hundred cavalry at Delium, to guard it in case of attack and also to watch for an opportunity to fall upon the Boeotians in the course of the battle.

4.93.3

But the Boeotians set a detachment to ward these off. Then when everything was ready they appeared over the hill and halted, drawn up in the order in which they were to fight, about seven thousand hoplites, over ten thousand light-armed troops, one thousand cavalry, and five hundred peltasts.

4.93.4

On the right were the Thebans and their allies; in the centre the Haliartians, Coronaeans, Copaeans, and the other people around the lake;

4.93.4

1

4.93.4

on the left the Thespians, Tanagraeans and Orchomenians. On either wing were the cavalry and the light-armed troops. The Thebans were marshalled in ranks twenty-five shields deep, the rest as chance directed in each case.

4.93.5

Such were the preparations of the Boeotians and their order of battle.

4.94.1

On the Athenian side the whole body of hoplites, who were equal in number to those of the enemy, were marshalled eight deep, and the cavalry on either wing. But light-armed troops, regularly armed, were neither then present, nor did the city possess any; but such lighter forces as had joined in the invasion, while they were many times more numerous than the enemy, followed in large part without arms, as there had been a levy in mass of strangers that were in Athens as well as of citizens;

4.94.2

and, having once started homewards, they were not present at the action, except a few. When they were arranged in line and were about to engage, Hippocrates the general, passing along the Athenian line, exhorted them and spoke as follows:

4.95.1

“Men of Athens, my exhortation will not be long, but to brave men it will mean as much, and will be a reminder rather than an appeal.

4.95.2

Let none of you think that because we are on foreign soil it is without cause that we are hazarding this great danger. For though the contest is on Boeotian soil, it will be in defence of our own; and, if we win, the Peloponnesians, deprived of the Boeotian cavalry, will never again invade your territory, and in one battle you not only win this land but make more sure the freedom of your own.

4.95.3

Advance to meet them, therefore, in a spirit worthy both of that state, the foremost in Hellas, which every one of you is proud to claim as his fatherland, and of the fathers who under Myronides vanquished these men at Oenophyta,

4.95.3

1

4.95.3

and became at one time masters of Boeotia.”

4.96.1

Hippocrates was thus exhorting his men and had got as far as the centre of the army, but no further, when the Boeotians, after they too had again been briefly harangued by Pagondas, raised the paean and came on from the hill. And the Athenians also advanced against them and met them on a run.

4.96.2

The extremities of the line on either side never came to close quarters, for both had the same difficulty-they were hindered by swollen torrents. The rest were engaged in stubborn conflict, with shield pressed against shield.

4.96.3

And the Boeotian left, as far as the centre, was worsted by the Athenians, who pressed hard upon all the rest in that quarter, and especially upon the Thespians. For when they saw that the ranks on either side had given way and that they were surrounded, those of the Thespians who perished were cut down fighting hand to hand.

4.96.4

And some also of the Athenians, getting into confusion owing to their surrounding the enemy, mistook and killed one another. Here, then, the Boeotians were defeated and fled to the part of their army which was still fighting;

4.96.5

but the right wing, where the Thebans were, had the better of the Athenians, and pushing them back step by step at first followed after them. It happened also that Pagondas, when their left was in distress, sent two squadrons of cavalry round the hill from a point out of sight, and when these suddenly appeared, the victorious wing of the Athenians, thinking that another army was coming on, was thrown into a panic.

4.96.6

At this time, consequently, owing both to this manoeuvre

4.96.6

1

4.96.6

and to the Thebans following them up and breaking their line, a rout of the whole Athenian army ensued.

4.96.7

Some hastened to Delium and the sea, others toward Oropus, others to Mt. Parnes, others wherever each had any hope of safety.

4.96.8

And the Boeotians, especially their cavalry and that of the Locrians who had come up just as the rout began, followed after and slew them; but when night closed down upon the action the mass of the fugitives escaped more easily.

4.96.9

On the next day the troops from Oropus and those from Delium, leaving a garrison at the latter place, which they still held, were conveyed home by sea.

4.96.9

1

4.97.1

The Boeotians set up a trophy and took up their own dead; then, having stripped the dead of the enemy and left a guard over them, they retired to Tanagra, and there planned an assault upon Delium.

4.97.2

Meanwhile a herald from Athens, coming to ask for their dead, met a Boeotian herald, who turned him back, telling him he would accomplish nothing until he himself returned.

4.97.2

1

4.97.2

The latter then came before the Athenians and gave them the message from the Boeotians: that they had not done right in transgressing the usages of the Hellenes;

4.97.3

for it was an established custom of them all, when invading one another's country to abstain from the sanctuaries therein, whereas the Athenians had fortified Delium and now dwelt in it, doing there whatsoever men do in a profane place, even drawing for common use the water which was untouched by themselves except for use in lustrations connected with the sacrifices.

4.97.4

Wherefore the Boeotians, in behalf of the god and of themselves, invoking the deities worshipped at the common altars and also Apollo, gave them notice to come out themselves from the temple and carry off what belonged to them.

4.97.4

1

4.98.1

When the herald had spoken, the Athenians sent a herald of their own to the Boeotians, saying that they had done no injury to the temple, and would not damage it wilfully in the future; for they had not entered it at the outset with any such intent, but rather that from it they might defend themselves against those who were wronging them.

4.98.2

And the law of the Hellenes was, they said, that whosoever had dominion over any country, be it larger or smaller, to them tile sanctuaries also always belonged, to be tended, so far as might be possible, with whatsoever rites had hitherto been customary.

4.98.2

1

4.98.3

Indeed the Boeotians, and most others who had driven out any people and taken forcible possession of their country, had at first attacked the temples as alien but now possessed them as their own.

4.98.4

And they themselves, if they had been able to conquer more of the Boeotian territory, would have held it; but as it was, they would not depart from that portion in which they were, at least of their free will, considering it their own.

4.98.5

The water, moreover, they had disturbed in their sore need, which they had not wantonly brought upon themselves; they had been forced to use the water while defending themselves against the Boeotians who had first invaded their land.

4.98.6

And anything done under the constraint of war and danger might reasonably meet with some indulgence, even from the god. For altars were a refuge in cases of involuntary misdeeds, and transgression was a term applied to those who do evil without compulsion and not to those who are driven by misfortunes to some act of daring.

4.98.7

Moreover, the Boeotians in presuming to give up the bodies of the dead in return for temples were impious in a much higher degree than they who refused by the exchange of temples to procure that which they had a right to recover.

4.98.8

And they bade the Boeotians plainly tell them they might take up their dead, not “on condition of quitting Boeotia”—for they were no longer in Boeotian territory, but in land which they had won by the spear,—but “on making a truce according to ancestral custom.”

4.99.1

The Boeotians made answer, if they were in Boeotia, they might carry off their dead on quitting their land; but if they were in their own territory, they could determine themselves what to do. For they thought that though Oropia, in which the bodies happened to be lying—for the battle occurred on the boundaries—belonged to the Athenians by right of its subjection, yet that they could not get possession of the bodies without their leave (nor indeed were they going to make a truce, forsooth, about territory belonging to the Athenians); but they thought it was fair to answer, “when they had quitted Boeotian territory they could get back what they asked for.” And the herald of the Athenians, on hearing this, went away without accomplishing his object.

4.100.1

The Boeotians sent off at once for darters and slingers from the Maliac Gulf, and with two thousand Corinthian hoplites, who reinforced them after the battle, as well as the Peloponnesian garrison which had evacuated Nisaea, and some Megarians also, made an expedition against Delium and attacked the fortification. After trying other forms of assault they took it by bringing up an engine made in the following manner.

4.100.2

Having sawed in two a great beam they hollowed it throughout, and fitted it together again nicely like a pipe; then they hung a cauldron at one end of it with chains, and into the cauldron an iron bellows-pipe was let down in a curve

4.100.2

1

4.100.2

from the beam, which was itself in great part plated with iron.

4.100.3

This engine theybrought up from a distance on carts to the part of the wall where it was built chiefly of vines and wood; and when it was near, they inserted a large bellows into the end of the beam next to them and blew through it.

4.100.4

And the blast passing through the air-tight tube into the cauldron, which contained lighted coals, sulphur, and pitch, made a great blaze and set fire to the wall, so that no one could stay on it longer, but all left it and took to flight;

4.100.5

and in this way the fortification was taken. Of the garrison some were slain, and two hundred were captured; but most of the rest got on board their ships and were conveyed home.

4.101.1

So Delium was taken seventeen days after the battle, and when the Athenian herald, who knew nothing of what had happened, came back not long after to ask for the dead, the Boeotians did not again make the same answer but gave them up.

4.101.2

And there were slain in the battle, of the Boeotians a little more than five hundred, of the Athenians a little less than one thousand, including Hippocrates their general, besides a great number of light-armed troops and baggage-carriers.

4.101.3

Not long after this battle Demosthenes, since he had failed in his negotiations about the betrayal of Siphae, when he sailed thither at the time mentioned above,

4.101.3

1

4.101.3

took on his ships his force of Acarnanians and Agraeans and four hundred Athenian hoplites and made a descent upon the territory of Sicyon.

4.101.4

But before all his ships had come to shore the Sicyonians came to the rescue, and routing those who had disembarked pursued them to their ships, killing some and taking others alive.

4.101.5

Then setting up a trophy they gave up the dead under truce.

4.101.5

Sitalces,

4.101.5

1

4.101.5

too, king of the Odrysians, was killed about the same time as the events at Delium, having made an expedition against the Triballi,

4.101.5

2

4.101.5

who defeated him in battle. Seuthes

4.101.5

3

4.101.5

son of Sparadocus, his nephew, now became king of the Odrysians and of the rest of Thrace over which Sitalces had reigned.

4.102.1

During the same winter, Brasidas, with his allies in Thrace, made an expedition against Amphipolis, the Athenian colony on the river Strymon.

4.102.2

This place, where the city now stands, Aristagoras

4.102.2

1

4.102.2

the Milesian had tried to colonize before,

4.102.2

2

4.102.2

when fleeing from the Persian king, but he had been beaten back by the Edonians. Thirty-two years afterwards the Athenians also made another attempt, sending out ten thousand settlers of their own citizens and any others who wished to go; but these were destroyed by the Thracians at Drabescus.

4.102.3

Again, twenty-nine years later, the Athenians, sending out Hagnon son of Nicias as leader of the colony, drove out the Edonians and settled the place, which was previously called Ennea-Hodoi or Nine-Ways. Their base of operations was Eion, a commercial seaport which they already held, at the mouth of the river, twenty-five stadia distant from the present city of Amphipolis,

4.102.3

1

4.102.3

to which Hagnon gave that name, because, as the Strymon flows round it on both sides, he cut off the site by a long wall running from one point of the river to another, and so established a city which was conspicuous both seaward and landward.

4.103.1

Against this place Brasidas marched with his army, setting out from Arnae in Chalcidice. Arriving about dusk at Aulon and Bromiscus,

4.103.1

1

4.103.1

where the lake Bolbe has its outlet into the sea, he took supper and then proceeded by night.

4.103.2

The weather was bad and somewhat snowy, and for this reason he made the more haste, wishing to escape the notice of the people in Amphipolis, except those who were to betray it.

4.103.3

For there were in the place some settlers from Argilus, an Andrian colony; these and some others were his accomplices in this intrigue, some instigated by Perdiccas, others by the Chalcidians.

4.103.4

But the chief plotters were the Argilians, who dwelt near by, were always suspected by the Athenians, and were secret enemies of the place; now that opportunity offered and Brasidas had come, they had some time before negotiated with their countrymen who resided in Amphipolis with a view to the surrender of the place. So at this time they received Brasidas into their town, revolted from the Athenians that same night, and before dawn brought his army down to the bridge over the river, which is some distance from the town and not connected with it by walls as now.

4.103.5

Brasidas easily forced the small guard stationed at the bridge, partly because there was treachery, partly because he had fallen upon them in stormy weather and unexpectedly; and as soon as he had crossed the bridge he was at once master of the property of the Amphipolitans outside the walls; for they had houses all over the neighbourhood.

4.104.1

His crossing had surprised the people inside the city, and of those outside many were captured, while others took refuge within the walls; hence the Amphipolitans were thrown into great confusion, especially as they were suspicious of each other.

4.104.2

Indeed the general impression was, it is said, that if Brasidas, instead of turning to pillage with his army, had decided to march straight against the city, he could have taken it.

4.104.3

But as it was, when he had overrun the country outside and found that none of his plans were being carried out by his friends within the city, he merely settled his army in camp and kept quiet.

4.104.4

Meanwhile the opponents of the traitors, being numerous enough to prevent the gates being opened to him at once, acting in concert with Eucles the general, who had come from Athens as warden of the place, sent to the other commander of the Thracian district, Thucydides son of Olorus, the author of this history, who was at Thasos, a Parian colony, about a half-day's sail from Amphipolis, and urged him to come to their aid.

4.104.5

And he, on hearing this, sailed in haste with seven ships which happened to be at hand, wishing above all to secure Amphipolis before it yielded, or, failing in that, to seize Eion.

4.105.1

Meanwhile, Brasidas, fearing the arrival of the ships from Thasos, and hearing that Thucydides possessed the right of working the gold-mines in that part of Thrace and in consequence had influence among the first men of the mainland, made haste to seize the city if possible before he should come; for he was afraid that, if Thucydides should arrive, the popular party in Amphipolis, in the expectation that he would collect an allied force from the islands and from Thrace and relieve them, would refuse to yield.

4.105.2

Accordingly, he offered moderate terms, making proclamation to this effect, that any citizen of Amphipolis or any resident Athenian, if he chose, might remain there, retaining possession of his own property and enjoying full equality; but that anyone who was not inclined to stay might go away within five days and take his property with him.

4.106.1

On hearing this the majority became irresolute, especially as few of the citizens were Athenians, the greater number being a mixed multitude, and a considerable number of those who had been captured outside had relatives inside the city. As compared with their fears they conceived the proclamation to be fair—the Athenians, because they were only too glad to be able to leave, since they realized that their share of the dangers was greater, and besides, did not expect any speedy relief; the general multitude, because they were not to lose their civil rights but to retain them as before and also, contrary to their expectation, were to be released from peril.

4.106.2

And so, as the partisans of Brasidas were already quite openly justifying his proposals, since these saw that the populace had changed its attitude and no longer hearkened to the Athenian general who was in the city, the capitulation was made, and Brasidas was received on the terms of his proclamation.

4.106.3

In this way they gave up the city, and on the evening of the same day Thucydides and his ships sailed into Eion.

4.106.4

Brasidas had just got possession of Amphipolis, and he missed taking Eion only by a night; for if the ships had not come to the rescue with all speed, it would have been taken at dawn.

4.107.1

After this Thucydides proceeded to arrange matters at Eion, in order to insure its safety for the present, if Brasidas should attack, and also for the future, receiving those who chose to come thither from the upper town according to the terms of the truce.

4.107.1

1

4.107.2

And Brasidas suddenly sailed down the river to Eion with many boats, in the hope that by taking the point which juts out from the wall he might gain command of the entrance, and at the same time he made an attempt by land; but he was beaten back at both points, and then proceeded to put matters in order at Amphipolis.

4.107.3

Myrcinus also, an Edonian town, came over to him, Pittacus, the king of the Edonians, having been killed by the sons of Goaxis and his own wife Brauro; and not long afterwards Galepsus and Oesyme, colonies of the Thasians, also came over. Perdiccas,

4.107.3

1

4.107.3

too, came to Amphipolis directly after its capture and joined in arranging these matters.

4.108.1

The Athenians were greatly alarmed by the capture of Amphipolis. The chief reason was that the city was useful to them for the importation of timber for ship-building and for the revenue it produced, and also that, whereas hitherto the Lacedaemonians had possessed, under the guidance of the Thessalians, access to the Athenian allies as far as the Strymon, yet as long as they did not control the bridge—the river for a long way above the town being a great lake and triremes being on guard in the direction of Eion—they could not have advanced further; but now at last the matter had become easy.

4.108.1

1

4.108.1

And they feared, too, the revolt of their allies.

4.108.2

For Brasidas in other things showed himself moderate, and in his declarations everywhere made plain that he had been sent out for the liberation of Hellas.

4.108.3

And the cities that were subject to Athens, hearing of the capture of Amphipolis and the assurances that were offered, and of the gentleness of Brasidas, were more than ever incited to revolution, and sent secret messengers to him, urging him to come on to them, and wishing each for itself to be the first to revolt.

4.108.4

For it seemed to them that there was little ground for fear, since they estimated the Athenian power to be far less great than it afterwards proved to be, and in their judgment were moved more by illusive wishing than by cautious foresight; for men are wont, when they desire a thing, to trust to unreflecting hope, but to reject by arbitrary judgment whatever they do not care for.

4.108.5

Furthermore, because of the recent defeat of the Athenians in Boeotia and the enticing but untrue statements of Brasidas,

4.108.5

1

4.108.5

that the Athenians had been unwilling to engage him when he came to the relief of Nisaea with only his own army, they grew bold, and believed that nobody would come against them.

4.108.6

Above all, they were so moved by the pleasurable anticipations of the moment, and by the fact that they were now for the first time going to have a proof of what the Lacedaemonians would do when on their mettle, that they were ready to take any risk. Being aware of these things, the Athenians, so far as was possible at short notice and in the winter season, sent out garrisons among the cities; while Brasidas sent to Lacedaemon and urgently begged them to send him reinforcements, and was himself making preparations for building ships in the Strymon.

4.108.7

The Lacedaemonians, however, did not comply with his request, partly on account of the jealousy of the foremost men, partly also because they wished rather to recover the men taken on the island and to bring the war to an end.

4.109.1

The same winter the Megarians took and razed to the ground their long walls

4.109.1

1

4.109.1

which the Athenians had held; and Brasidas, after the capture of Amphipolis, made an expedition with his allies against the district called Acte.

4.109.2

It is a promontory projecting from the King's canal

4.109.2

1

4.109.2

on the inner side of the isthmus, and its terminus at the Aegean Sea is the lofty Mt.

4.109.3

Athos. Of the cities it contains, one is Sane, an Andrian colony close to the canal, facing the sea which is toward Euboea; the others are Thyssus, Cleonae, Acrothoi, Olophyxus and Dium, which are inhabited by mixed barbarian tribes speaking two languages.

4.109.4

There is in it also a small Chalcidic element; but the greatest part is Pelasgic—belonging to those Etruscans that once inhabited Lemnos and Athens

4.109.4

1

4.109.4

—Bisaltic, Crestonic, and Edonian; and they live in small towns.

4.109.5

Most of these yielded to Brasidas, but Sane and Dium held out against him; so he waited there with his army and laid waste their territory.

4.110.1

Since, however, they would not yield he marched at once against Torone,

4.110.1

1

4.110.1

in Chalcidice, which was held by the Athenians; for a few men, who were ready to betray the town, had invited him over. Arriving with his army toward dawn, but while it was still dark, he encamped near the temple of the Dioscuri, which is about three stadia distant from the city.

4.110.2

The rest of the town of Torone and the Athenians of the garrison were unaware of his approach, but his partisans, knowing that he would come, and some few of them having secretly gone forward to meet him, were watching for his approach; and when they perceived that he was there, they introduced into the town seven light-armed men with daggers, under the command of Lysistratus an Olynthian, these men alone of the twenty first assigned to the task not being afraid to enter. These slipped through the seaward wall and escaping the notice of the guard at the uppermost watch-post of the town, which is on the slope of a hill, went up and slew these sentinels, and broke open the postern on the side towards the promontory of Canastraeum.

4.111.1

Meanwhile Brasidas, having gone forward a little, kept quiet with the rest of his army, but sent forward one hundred targeteers, in order that as soon as any gates were opened and the signal agreed upon was raised they might rush in first.

4.111.2

These now, as time elapsed, were wondering at the delay and had come up little by little close to the town. Meanwhile the Toronaeans inside who were co-operating with the party which had entered, when the postern had been broken down and the gates near the market-place had been opened by cutting the bar, first brought some men around to the postern and let them in, in order that they might take the townsmen unawares by a sudden attack in their rear and on both sides and throw them into a panic; after that they raised the fire-signal agreed upon and received the rest of the targeteers through the gates near the market-place.

4.112.1

Brasidas, on seeing the signal, set off at a run, calling up his force, and they with one voice raised a shout and caused great dismay to the townsmen.

4.112.2

Some burst in immediately by the gates, others over some square beams which chanced to have been placed, for the purpose of drawing up stones, against the wall that had fallen in and was now being rebuilt.

4.112.3

Brasidas, then, and the main body made at once for the high points of the town, wishing to make its capture complete and decisive; but the rest of the multitude

4.112.3

1

4.112.3

scattered in all directions.

4.113.1

While the capture was being effected, most of the Toronaeans, who knew nothing of the plot, were in a tumult, but the conspirators and such as were in sympathy with the movement at once joined those who had entered.

4.113.2

When the Athenians became aware of it—for about fifty of their hoplites happened to be sleeping in the market-place—though some few of them were slain in hand-to-hand conflict, the rest fled, some by land, others to the two ships which were on guard, and got safely into the fort of Lecythus, which had been occupied and was held by their own men. It is the citadel of the city, projecting into the sea—a separate section

4.113.2

1

4.113.2

on a narrow isthmus.

4.113.3

And such of the Toronaeans as were friendly to the Athenians took refuge there also.

4.114.1

When day had come and the town was securely in his possession, Brasidas made proclamation to the Toronaeans who had taken refuge with the Athenians, that whoever wished might return to his property and exercise citizenship without fear; but to the Athenians he sent a herald, ordering them to come out of Lecythus under truce, bringing all their property, as the place belonged to the Chalcidians.

4.114.2

They, however, refused to leave, but requested him to make a truce with them for a day, that they might take up their dead. He granted a truce for two days, during which he himself fortified the houses near by and the Athenians strengthened their defences. Then calling a meeting of the Toronaeans, Brasidas spoke to them much as he had done to the people at Acanthus.

4.114.2

1

4.114.3

He said that it was not just either to regard as villains or as traitors those who had negotiated with him for the capture of the town—for they had done this, not to enslave it, nor because they were bribed, but for the welfare and freedom of the city—or to think that those who had not taken part would not get the same treatment as the others; for he had not come to destroy either the city or any private citizen.

4.114.4

He explained that he made his proclamation to those who had taken refuge with the Athenians for the reason that he thought none the worse of them for their friendship with these; and when they had proved his countrymen, the Lacedaemonians, they would not, he thought, be less but rather far more kindly disposed toward them than toward the Athenians, inasmuch as their conduct was more just; whereas now they had been afraid of them through inexperience.

4.114.5

Moreover, he told them all to prepare to show themselves staunch allies and to be held responsible for whatever mistakes they might make from this time on; as to their former actions, it was not the Lacedaemonians who had been wronged by them, but the Toronaeans rather by others

4.114.5

1

4.114.5

who were stronger, and it was pardonable if the Toronaeans had made any opposition to him.

4.115.1

Having said such things and encouraged them, when the truce expired he proceeded to make assaults upon Lecythus; but the Athenians defended themselves from a paltry fort and from such houses as had battlements, and beat them back for one day.

4.115.2

On the next day, however, when the enemy were about to bring against them an engine from which it was intended to throw fire upon the wooden defences, and the army was already coming up, they set up a wooden tower on a house at the point where they thought the enemy most likely to bring up his engine and where the wall was most assailable, and carried up many jars and casks of water and big stones, and many men also ascended.

4.115.3

But the house, being over-weighted, collapsed suddenly and with a great noise, annoying rather than frightening the Athenians who were near and saw it; but those who were at a distance, and especially those furthest off, thinking that in that quarter the place had already been taken, set off in flight for the sea and their ships.

4.116.1

When Brasidas perceived that they were leaving the battlements and saw what was going on, he bore down at once with the army and took the fort, destroying all that he found in it.

4.116.2

And so the Athenians left the place in their small boats and ships and were thus conveyed to Pallene. Now there is a temple of Athena in Lecythus, and it chanced that Brasidas, when he was on the point of making the assault, had proclaimed that he would give thirty minas

4.116.2

1

4.116.2

in silver to him who first mounted the wall; but thinking now that the capture had been effected by some other means than human, he paid the thirty minas to the goddess for the temple, and after razing Lecythus and clearing the ground consecrated the whole place as a sacred precinct.

4.116.3

Then for the rest of the winter he proceeded to set in order the affairs of the places that he held and to plot against the other towns; and with the conclusion of this winter ended the eighth year of the war.

4.117.1

But at the opening of spring in the fol-

4.117.1

1

4.117.1

lowing summer season, the Lacedaemonians and Athenians at once concluded an armistice for a year. The Athenians believed that Brasidas would thus not be able to cause any more of their allies to revolt and they meanwhile could make preparations at their leisure, and at the same time that, should it be to their advantage, they might make further agreements; the Lacedaemonians, on their part, thought that the Athenians were moved by precisely the fears which actuated them,

4.117.1

2

4.117.1

and that, when once they had enjoyed a respite from troubles and hardships, they would, after such an experience, be more anxious to be reconciled, restore their men and make a truce for

4.117.2

a longer time. For it was their men they made a special point of recovering, while Brasidas was still in good luck. If he were still further successful and established the contending forces on an even footing, the likelihood was that they would still be deprived of these men, and it would be doubtful whether, fighting on equal terms, they could prevail

4.117.3

with the remainder. Accordingly an armistice was concluded for them and their allies on the following terms:

4.118.1

"Concerning the temple and oracle of the Pythian Apollo, we agree that whosoever will shall consult it without fraud and without fear, according to the usages of our forefathers.

4.118.2

These things seem good to the Lacedaemonians and the allies that are present;

4.118.3

and they promise to send heralds to the Boeotians and Phocians and persuade them so far as they can. "Concerning the treasure of the god we agree to take care to find out all wrong-doers, rightly and justly following the usages of our forefathers, you and we and all others that wish to do so, all following the usages of our forefathers.

4.118.4

Concerning these things, then, it is so agreed by the Lacedaemonians and the rest of the confederates on such terms.

4.118.4

"The following agreements also are made by the Lacedaemonians and the rest of the confederates, that in case the Athenians make a treaty, we shall each of us remain on our own territory, keeping what we now have: the Athenian garrison in Coryphasium

4.118.4

1

4.118.4

shall keep within Buphras and Tomeus; that in Cythera

4.118.4

2

4.118.4

shall have no communication with the territory of the Iacedaemonian allies, neither we with them nor they with us; that in Nisaea

4.118.4

3

4.118.4

and Minoa

4.118.4

4

4.118.4

shall not cross the road leading from the gates of the shrine of Nisus

4.118.4

5

4.118.4

to the Poseidonium, and from the Poseidonium straight to the bridge

4.118.4

6

4.118.4

at Minoa (nor shall the Megarians or their allies cross this road); as to the island

4.118.4

7

4.118.4

which the Athenians took, they shall retain it, and neither party shall communicate with the other; and finally, in the territory of Troezen,

4.118.4

8

4.118.4

the Athenians shall retain whatever they now have in accordance with the agreements which the Troezenians have made with the Athenians.

4.118.5

"As to the use of the sea, in so far as they use it along their own coast and along that of their confederacy, the Lacedaemonians and their allies may sail, not with a ship of war, but with any rowing-vessel up to five hundred talents burden.

4.118.5

1

4.118.6

"There shall be safe conduct for herald and envoys and their attendants, as many as shall seem proper, on their way to the Peloponnesus and to Athens for the purpose of bringing the war to an end and for the arbitration of disputes, both going and coming, by land and by sea.

4.118.7

"Deserters shall not be received during this time, whether freemen or slaves, either by you or by us.

4.118.8

"You shall give satisfaction to us and we to you according to our ancestral customs, settling disputed points by arbitration without war.

4.118.9

“To the Lacedaemonians and their allies these things seem good; but if anything seems to you fairer or juster than these things, come to Lacedaemon and set forth your view; for neither the Lacedaemonians nor their allies will reject any just proposal you may make.

4.118.10

And let those who come come with full powers, as you also desired of us. And the truce shall be for a year.”

4.118.10

1

4.118.11

Decreed by the people. The tribe Acamantis held the prytany, Phaenippus was clerk, Niciades was president.

4.118.12

Laches, invoking good fortune for the people of Athens, moved to conclude the armistice according to the terms to which the Lacedaemonians and their allies had consented; and it was agreed in the popular assembly that the armistice should be for a year, and should begin on that day, the fourteenth of the month Elaphebolion.

4.118.13

During this time envoys and heralds were to go from one state to the other and discuss proposals looking to the termination of the war.

4.118.14

And the generals and prytanes were to call an assembly in which the Athenians should deliberate first of all about peace, on what terms the Lacedaemonian embassy for ending the war should be admitted. And the embassies now present should pledge themselves at once, in the presence of the people, to abide by the truce for the year.

4.119.1

These agreements the Lacedaemonians and their allies made with the Athenians and their allies and ratified them by oath at Lacedaemon on the twelfth day of the Spartan month Gerastius.

4.119.1

1

4.119.2

And those who concluded and ratified the truce on behalf of the Lacedaemonians were the following: Taurus son of Echetimidas, Athenaeus son of Pericleidas, Philocharidas son of Eryxilaidas; on behalf of the Corinthians, Aeneas son of Ocytus, Euphamidas son of Aristonymus; on behalf of the Sicyonians, Damotimus son of Naucrates, Onasimus son of Megacles; on behalf of the Megarians, Nicasus son of Cecalus, Menecrates son of Amphidorus; on behalf of the Epidaurians, Amphias son of Eupalidas;

4.119.3

on behalf of the Athenians, the generals Nicostratus son of Dieitrephes, Nicias son of Niceratus, Autocles son of Tolmaeus. Such, then, were the terms on which the armistice was concluded, and during its continuance they were constantly conferring about a truce of longer duration.

4.120.1

About the very time when they were performing the rites of confirmation,

4.120.1

1

4.120.1

Scione, a city in Pallene, revolted from the Athenians and went over to Brasidas. The Scionaeans assert that they came originally from Pellene

4.120.1

2

4.120.1

in the Peloponnesus, and that the first settlers in Scione were driven to this place on their way back from Troy by the storm

4.120.1

3

4.120.1

which the Achaeans encountered, and settled here.

4.120.2

On their revolt, Brasidas crossed over

4.120.2

1

4.120.2

by night to Scione, a friendly trireme sailing ahead and he himself following in a skiff at some distance behind. His idea was that, if he should meet with any boat larger than a skiff, the trireme would protect him, but if another trireme of equal strength should come along it would turn, not against the smaller boat, but against the ship, and in the meantime he could get safely across.

4.120.3

He succeeded in crossing, and having called a meeting of the Scionaeans repeated what he had said at Acanthus and Torone, adding that their own conduct had been most praiseworthy of all because, when Pallene was cut off at the isthmus by the Athenians who held Potidaea and when they were nothing but islanders, they had not supinely awaited the compulsion of necessity in a matter that was manifestly for their own good, but had of their own free will taken the side of freedom; and that, he said, was a proof that they would endure like men any other peril however great; and if things should be settled according to his wish, he would consider them in very truth most loyal friends of the Lacedaemonians and would honour them in other respects.

4.121.1

The Scionaeans were elated at his words, and all alike, even those who before were not satisfied with what was being done, took courage and determined to carry on the war with spirit. Brasidas they not only welcomed with other honours but publicly crowned him with a golden crown as liberator of Hellas, and privately decked him with garlands and made offerings as for a victor in the games.

4.121.2

And he, leaving them a guard for the present, crossed back, but not long afterwards he led over a larger army, wishing in concert with them to make an attempt upon Mende and Potidaea; for he thought the Athenians would bring succour to Pallene as though it were an island, and he wished to anticipate them; besides, he was negotiating with these towns with a view to their betrayal.

4.122.1

So he was about to attack these towns; but in the meantime those who were carrying round the news of the armistice arrived at his headquarters in a trireme, Aristonymus from Athens and Athenaeus from Lacedaemon.

4.122.2

Whereupon his army crossed back to Torone; and the messengers formally announced the agreement to Brasidas, and all the Thracian allies of the Lacedaemonians acquiesced in what had been done.

4.122.3

Aristonymus assented for the other places, but, finding on a calculation of the days that the Scionaeans had revolted after the agreement, he said that they would not be included in the truce. Brasidas, however, earnestly maintained that they had revolted before, and would not give up the city.

4.122.4

Whereupon Aristonymus sent word to Athens about these matters, and the Athenians were ready at once to make an expedition against Scione. But the Lacedaemonians sent envoys, saying that the Athenians would be violating the truce, and trusting the word of Brasidas they laid claim to the town and were ready to arbitrate about it.

4.122.5

The Athenians, however, were inclined, not to risk arbitration, but to make an expedition as quickly as possible, being enraged to think that even the inhabitants of the islands now presumed to revolt, relying on the strength which the Lacedaemonians had on land, useless though it was to them.

4.122.5

1

4.122.6

Moreover, the truth about the revolt was rather as the Athenians claimed; for the Scionaeans revolted two days after the agreement. The Athenians, then, immediately passed a vote, on the motion of Cleon, to destroy Scione and put the citizens to death. And so, keeping quiet in other matters, they made preparations for this.

4.123.1

Meanwhile Mende revolted from them, a city in Pallene, and an Eretrian colony. And Brasidas received them, thinking they were not doing wrong in coming over to him, though clearly it was in the time of the armistice; for there were some points in which he himself charged the Athenians with breaking the truce.

4.123.2

Wherefore the Mendaeans also became more bold, for they saw the resolute attitude of Brasidas, and also inferred it from the fact that he did not give up Scione. Moreover, the conspirators among them were few in number, and, once they had formed the design, from that moment showed no slackness, but were in fear of their lives in case of detection and coerced the multitude even against their will.

4.123.3

But the Athenians, when they heard the news, were far more enraged, and straightway made preparations against both cities.

4.123.4

And Brasidas, expecting their coming, conveyed away to Olynthus in Chalcidice the women and children of the Scionaeans and Mendaeans, and sent over to protect them five hundred Peloponnesian hoplites and three hundred Chalcidian targeteers, with Polydamidas as commander of the whole. And the two cities together made preparations for their defence, in the belief that the Athenians would soon be at hand.

4.124.1

Brasidas and Perdiccas meanwhile marched together a second time

4.124.1

1

4.124.1

to Lyncus against Arrhabaeus. The latter led the force of the Macedonians, over whom he held sway, and a body of Hellenic hoplites resident among them; the former led not only the Peloponnesian troops which were left in the country, but also such forces from Chalcidice, Acanthus and the other towns as they could each furnish. The total Hellenic force was about three thousand; the cavalry that went with them, Macedonians and Chalcidians, were all told a little less than one thousand, and there was besides a great multitude of barbarians.

4.124.2

Invading the country of Arrhabaeus and finding the Lyncestians encamped against them, they also took up a position facing them.

4.124.3

The infantry occupied a hill on either side, with a plain between, while the cavalry of both armies at first galloped down into the plain and engaged in battle; then Brasidas and Perdiccas, after the Lyncestian hoplites had come forward from the hill in conjunction with their own cavalry and were ready to fight, advanced also in their turn and joined battle, routing the Lyncestians and destroying many, while the rest escaped to the high places and kept quiet.

4.124.4

After this they set up a trophy and halted for two or three days, awaiting the Illyrians, who had been hired by Perdiccas and were momentarily expected. Then Perdiccas wished, on their arrival, to go forward against the villages of Arrhabaeus instead of sitting idle; but Brasidas was solicitous about Mende, fearing that it might suffer some harm if the Athenians should sail there before his return; and, besides, the Illyrians had not appeared, so that he was not eager to go on, but rather to retreat.

4.125.1

Meanwhile, as they were disputing, it was announced that the Illyrians had betrayed Perdiccas and taken sides with Arrhabaeus; consequently, because of their fear of these people, who were warlike, both generals now agreed that it was best to retreat. But in consequence of their dispute nothing had been determined as to when they should set out; and when night came on the Macedonians and the mass of the barbarians immediately took fright, as large armies are wont to be smitten with unaccountable panic, and thinking that the advancing enemy were many times more numerous than they really were and were all but on them, betook themselves to sudden flight and hastened homewards. Perdiccas, who at first was not aware of their movement, was compelled, when he did learn of it, to go away without seeing Brasidas; for they were encamped far away from each other.

4.125.2

But at daybreak, when Brasidas saw that the Macedonians had already decamped and that the Illyrians and Arrhabaeus were about to come against him, he formed his hoplites into a square, put the crowd of light-armed troops in the centre, and was himself intending to retreat.

4.125.3

He so stationed the youngest of his troops that they might dash out against the enemy, in case they attacked at any point, and proposed to take himself three hundred picked men and, bringing up the rear, to make a stand and beat off the foremost of the enemy whenever they pressed him hard.

4.125.4

And before the enemy were near he exhorted his soldiers, so far as haste allowed, in the following words:

4.126.1

“Did I not suspect, men of Peloponnesus, that you are in a state of panic because you have been left alone, and because your assailants are barbarous and numerous, I should not offer you instruction combined with encouragement. But as it is, in view of our abandonment by our allies and of the multitude of our opponents, I shall try by a brief reminder and by advice to impress upon you the most important considerations.

4.126.2

For it is proper that vou should be brave in war, not because of the presence of allies each and every time, but because of innate valour; nor should you be afraid of any number of aliens, you who do not come from states like theirs, but states in which, not the many rule the few, but rather the minority rule the majority, having acquired their power by no other means but superiority in fighting.

4.126.3

And as for the barbarians, whom now in your inexperience you fear, you ought to know, both from the contest you have already had with the Macedonians among them,

4.126.3

1

4.126.3

and may gather from the knowledge I gain by inference and from reports of others, that they will not be formidable.

4.126.4

For whenever the enemy's power conveys an impression of strength, but is in reality weak, correct information about them, when once it has been gained, tends rather to embolden their opponents; whereas, when the enemy possesses some solid advantage, if one has no previous knowledge of it, one would be only too bold in attacking them.

4.126.5

Now as for these Illyrians, for those who have had no experience of them, the menace of their attack has terror; for their number is indeed dreadful to behold and the loudness of their battle-cry is intolerable, and the idle brandishing of their arms has a threatening effect. But for hand to hand fighting, if their opponents but endure such threats, they are not the men they seem; for having no regular order, they would not be ashamed to abandon any position when hard pressed; and since flight and attack are considered equally honourable with them, their courage cannot be put to the test. Besides, a mode of fighting in which everyone is his own master will provide a man the best excuse for saving himself becomingly. They think, too, that it is a less risky game to try to frighten you from a safe distance than to meet you hand to hand;

4.126.6

otherwise they would not have taken this course in preference to that. And so you clearly see that all that was at first formidable about them is but little in reality, startling merely to eye and ear. If you withstand all this in the first onrush, and then, whenever opportunity offers, withdraw again in orderly array, you will the sooner reach safety, and will hereafter know that mobs like these, if an adversary but sustain their first onset, merely make a flourish of valour with threats from afar in menace

4.126.6

1

4.126.6

of attack, but if one yields to them, they are right upon his heels, quick enough to display their courage when all is safe.”

4.127.1

After such words of admonition, Brasidas began to withdraw his army. On seeing this the barbarians came on with a mighty shouting and uproar, thinking that he was fleeing and that they could overtake and destroy his army.

4.127.2

But the troops who had been selected to dash out met them wherever they charged, and Brasidas himself with his picked men sustained their attack; and so the Peloponnesians to their surprise withstood their first onset and continued to receive their attacks and repulse them, but when they ceased, themselves retired. Thereupon most of the barbarians refrained from attacking the Hellenes under Brasidas in the open country, and leaving a portion of their force to follow and harass them, the rest, advancing on the run after the fleeing Macedonians, slew them as they came upon them, and getting ahead of them occupied the narrow pass between two hills which led into the country of Arrhabaeus, knowing that there was no other way of retreat for Brasidas. And just as he was coming to the most difficult part of the road, they began to encircle him with a view to cutting him off.

4.128.1

But he perceived their intention and told his three hundred to break ranks and go at a run, each as fast as he could, to that one of the hills which he thought could be taken more easily and try to dislodge the barbarians already there before the larger outflanking body could come up.

4.128.2

They accordingly attacked and overcame the men on the hill, and so the main body of the Hellenes now more easily made their way to it; for the barbarians, finding that their own men had been dislodged from the high ground, became alarmed and followed no further, thinking that the enemy were already on the frontier and had made good their escape.

4.128.3

Brasidas, however, when he had gained the heights, proceeded in more security and arrived the same day at Arnisa, the first town in the dominions of Perdiccas.

4.128.4

As for his soldiers, they were enraged at the Macedonians for having gone ahead in retreat, and whenever they came upon any ox-teams of theirs in the road or upon any baggage that had been dropped, as was likely to happen in a retreat made by night and in a panic, of their own accord they loosed the oxen and slaughtered them, but appropriated the baggage.

4.128.5

And from this time Perdiccas began to regard Brasidas as an enemy, and thenceforth he cherished a hatred of the Peloponnesians, which was indeed not consistent with his feeling against the Athenians. However, disregarding his own urgent interests, he was devising how he might in the quickest way come to terms with the latter and get rid of the former.

4.129.1

Returning from Macedonia to Torone, Brasidas found the Athenians already in possession of Mende; and thinking it now impossible to cross over to Pallene and give aid, he remained quiet where he was, but kept watch over Torone.

4.129.2

For about the same time as the events in Lyncus the Athenians had sailed against Mende and Scione, as they had been preparing to do,

4.129.2

1

4.129.2

with fifty ships, of which ten were Chian, and with one thousand hoplites of their own, six hundred bowmen, a thousand Thracian mercenaries, and in addition targeteers from their allies in that neighbourhood. They were under the command of Nicias son of Niceratus and Nicostratus son of Diitrephes.

4.129.3

Setting out with the fleet from Potidaea and putting in at the temple of Poseidon, they advanced into the country of the Mendaeans. Now these and three hundred Scionaeans who had come to their support, and the Peloponnesian auxiliaries, seven hundred hoplites in all, with Polydamidas as their commander, had just encamped outside the city in a strong position on a hill.

4.129.4

Nicias tried to reach them by a path up the hill, having with him one hundred and twenty light-armed Methonaeans, sixty picked men of the Athenian hoplites, and all the bowmen, but his troops suffered in the attempt and he was unable to carry this position. Nicostratus, however, with all the rest of the army, advancing against the hill, which was difficult of access, by another and longer route, was thrown into utter confusion, and the whole Athenian army narrowly escaped defeat.

4.129.5

So on this day, as the Mendaeans and their allies did not yield, the Athenians withdrew and encamped, and the Mendaeans, when night came on, returned to the city.

4.130.1

On the next day the Athenians sailed round to the side of the town facing Scione and took the suburb, and all that day they ravaged the land. No one came out against them, as there was some sort of uprising in the town; and during the following night the three hundred Scionaeans returned home.

4.130.2

On the next day Nicias with half of the army advanced as far as the boundary of the Scionaeans and ravaged the land, while Nicostratus with the rest sat down before the city at the upper gates, on the road leading to Potidaea.

4.130.3

But it chanced that in that quarter of the town, inside the walls, the arms of the Mendaeans and their auxiliaries were deposited, and Polydamidas was there drawing his troops up for battle and exhorting the Mendaeans to make a sortie.

4.130.4

Some one of the popular party mutinously answered him that he would not go out and had no use for war, but no sooner had he answered than Polydamidas seized him with violence and roughly handled him; whereupon the populace in great anger at once caught up their arms and advanced upon the Peloponnesians and the opposite party who were in league with them.

4.130.5

Falling upon them they put them to rout, partly by the suddenness of their onslaught, partly because the others were terrified when the gates were opened to the Athenians; for they thought that the attack had been made upon them by a preconcerted agreement.

4.130.6

Those of the Peloponnesians who were not killed on the spot took refuge on the acropolis, which they already had possession of; but the Athenians—for Nicias had already turned back and was near the city— burst into the city with their whole force, and, as the gates had been opened without an agreement, plundered the city as though they had taken it by storm; and the generals with difficulty kept them from destroying the inhabitants also.

4.130.7

They then directed the Mendaeans henceforth to retain their former constitution, and bring to trial among themselves any whom they thought guilty of the revolt; but the men on the acropolis they fenced off with a wall extending on either side down to the sea, and set a guard over them. And when they had thus secured Mende, they proceeded against Scione.

4.131.1

The Scionaeans and the Peloponnesians had come out against them and taken position on a strong hill before the city, which had to be taken by the enemy before the city could be invested with a wall.

4.131.2

So the Athenians made a furious assault upon the hill and dislodged those that were upon it; they then encamped and, after raising a trophy, prepared for the circumvallation.

4.131.3

But not long afterwards, when they were already at work, the auxiliaries who were besieged on the acropolis of Mende forced their way by night along the shore through the guard and reached Scione; and most of them escaped through the besieging army and got into the city.

4.132.1

While the circumvallation of Scione was in progress, Perdiccas sent a herald to the Athenian generals and made an agreement with them; he was moved to this by the hatred he bore Brasidas for his retreat from Lyncus, at which time indeed he had begun his negotiations.

4.132.1

1

4.132.2

Now it happened at that time that Ischagoras, the Lacedaemonian, was on the point of taking an army by land to join Brasidas, but Perdiccas, partly because Nicias urged him, since he had made terms with the Athenians, to give them some token of his sincerity, partly also because he himself no longer wished the Peloponnesians to enter his territory, now worked upon his friends in Thessaly, with the foremost of whom he was always on good terms, and effectually stopped the army and the expedition, to such a degree that they did not even try to obtain permission from the Thessalians.

4.132.3

Ischagoras, however, with Ameinias and Aristeus, came by themselves to Brasidas, having been commissioned by the Lacedaemonians to look into the situation. And they brought from Sparta, contrary to custom, some of their young men, intending to place them as governors over the cities instead of entrusting these to anybody that might chance to offer. Accordingly, they placed at Amphipolis Clearidas son of Cleonymus and at Torone Pasitelidas son of Hegesander.

4.133.1

In the same summer the Thebans dismantled the wall of the Thespians, accusing them of favouring the Athenians. Indeed they had always wished to do this, but now found it easier, since the flower of the Thespians had perished in the battle with the Athenians.

4.133.1

1

4.133.2

In this same summer, too, the temple of Hera at Argos was burned down, Chrysis

4.133.2

1

4.133.2

the priestess having placed a lighted torch near the garlands and then gone to sleep, so that the whole place took fire and was ablaze before she was aware.

4.133.3

And Chrysis that very night, in fear of the Argives, fled to Phlius; but they appointed another priestess according to the custom prescribed, Phaeinis by name. Chrysis had been priestess during eight years of this war and half of the ninth when she fled.

4.133.4

Toward the close of the summer Scione was at length completely invested, and the Athenians, leaving a guard there, withdrew with the rest of their army.

4.134.1

In the following winter, on account of the armistice, matters were quiet with the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians; but the Mantineans and the Tegeans with their respective allies fought a battle at Laodoceum in the district of Oresthis. The victory was disputed; for each side routed the wing opposed to themselves, and both set up trophies

4.134.1

1

4.134.1

and sent spoils to Delphi.

4.134.2

Certain it is at any rate that after many had fallen on both sides and night had cut short the action, the issue of battle being still undecided, the Tegeans bivouacked on the field and set up a trophy at once, while the Mantineans retreated to Bucolion, and afterwards set up a rival trophy.

4.135.1

Toward the close of the same winter, when spring was near at hand, Brasidas made an attempt on Potidaea. He came up by night and placed a ladder against the wall, up to this point escaping detection; for the ladder was planted precisely at the interval of time after the bell had been carried by and before the patrol who passed it on had come back.

4.135.1

1

4.135.1

The guards, however, discovered it immediately, before an ascent could be made, and Brasidas made haste to lead his army back again, not waiting for day to come.

4.135.2

So ended the winter and with it the ninth year of this war of which Thucydides wrote the history.

Reader

Word analysis

Intertext edge

Note