History of the Peloponnesian War

And it was no equal return of favour that you made them, nor one free from disgrace. For you introduced them, as you say, when you were being injured; but you became co-operators with them in injuring others. And yet not to return equal favours is more disgraceful than to fail in those which, though justly due, will be returned in furtherance of injustice.

"You showed then plainly, that not even at that time was it for the sake of the Greeks that you alone did not Medize, but because the Athenians did not either, and because you wished to side with them, and against the rest.

And now you claim to derive assistance from the circumstances in which you acted well through the influence of others. That however is not reasonable; but as you chose the Athenians, stand the brunt of the struggle with them, and do not bring forward the league that was then made, as though you ought to be spared from regard to that.

For you deserted it, and in violation of it joined in enslaving the Aeginetans, and some others who had entered into it, rather than prevented their being enslaved; and that too not against your will, but while enjoying the same laws as you have to the present time, and without any one's compelling you, as they did us.

Besides, the last proposal made to you before you were blockaded, that you should remain unmolested on condition of your aiding neither side, you did not accept. Who, then, could be more justly hated by the Greeks than you, who assumed an honourable bearing for their injury? And the goodness which you say you once exhibited, you have now shown to be not your proper character; but what your nature always wished, has been truly proved against you; for you accompanied the Athenians when they were walking in the path of injustice.

With regard then to our involuntary Medizing, and your voluntary Atticizing, such are the proofs we have to offer.

"As for the last injuries which you say that you received, namely, that we came against your city in time of peace and at a holy time of the month, we are of opinion that neither in this point did we act more wrongly than you.

If, indeed, we came against your city by our own design, and fought, and ravaged the land as enemies, we are guilty. But if men who were the first among you, both in property and family, wishing to stop you from your foreign connexion, and restore you to your hereditary principles common to all the Boeotians, voluntarily called us to their aid, how are we guilty? For it is those who lead that are the transgressors, rather than those who follow.

But neither did they do wrong, in our judgment, nor did we; but being citizens, like yourselves, and having more at stake, by opening their walls to us and introducing us into their city in a friendly, not in a hostile, manner, they wished the bad among you no longer to become worse, and the good to have their deserts; being reformers of your principles, and not depriving the state of your persons, but restoring you to your kinsmen; making you foes to no one, but friends alike to all.

"And we gave you a proof of our not having acted in a hostile manner; for we injured no one, but made proclamation, that whoever wished to be governed according to the hereditary principles of all the Boeotians, should come over to us.

And you gladly came, and made an agreement with us, and remained quiet at first; but afterwards, when you perceived that we were few in number, even supposing that we might be thought to have acted somewhat unfairly in entering your city without the consent of your populace, you did not requite us in the same manner—by not proceeding to extreme measures in action, but persuading us by words to retire—but you attacked us in violation of your agreement. And as for those whom you slew in battle, we do not grieve for them so much (for they suffered according to law—of a certain kind); but in the case of those whom you lawlessly butchered while holding forth their hands, and when you had given them quarter, and had subsequently promised us not to kill them, how can you deny that you acted atrociously?

And now, after having perpetrated in a short time these three crimes—the breach of your agreement, the subsequent murder of the men, and the falsification of your promise not to kill them, in case we did no injury to your property in the country—you still assert that it is we who are the transgressors; and yourselves claim to escape paying the penalty for your crimes. No, not if these your judges come to a right decision; but for all of them shall you be punished.

And now, Lacedaemonians, it is with this view that we have gone so far into these subjects—both with reference to you and to ourselves—that you may know that you will justly pass sentence on them, and we, that we have still more righteously been avenged on them;

and that you may not relent on hearing of their virtues in times long gone by (if, indeed, they ever had any); for though these ought to be of service to the injured, to such as are doing any thing base they should be a reason for double punishment, because they do amiss in opposition to their proper character. Nor let them derive benefit from their lamentations and pitiful wailing, while they appeal to the tombs of your fathers and their own destitution.

For we show you, on the other hand, that our youth who were butchered by them received far more dreadful treatment; some of whose fathers fell at Coronea, in bringing Boeotia into connexion with you; while others, left lonely in their old age, and their houses desolate, prefer to you a far more just request for vengeance on these men.

And with regard to pity, it is those men who suffer undeservedly that better deserve to receive it; but those who suffer justly, as these do, deserve, on the contrary, to be rejoiced over.

Their present destitution, then, they have incurred by their own conduct; for they wilfully rejected the better alliance. Nor did they thus outrage all law in consequence of having first suffered at our hands, but from deciding under the influence of hatred, rather than of justice. And they have not now given us proportionate satisfaction for their crimes; for they will suffer by a legal sentence, and not while holding forth their hands after battle, as they say, but after surrendering to you on definite terms to take their trial.

Avenge therefore, Lacedaemonians, the law of the Greeks which has been violated by these men. And to us who have been treated in contempt of all law return a due gratitude for the zeal we have shown; and let us not lose our place in your favour through their words, but give the Greeks a proof that you will not institute contests of words, but of deeds; for which a short statement is sufficient when they are good; but when they are done amiss, harangues dressed out with imposing language serve as veils for them.

But if ruling states should, like you in the present instance, summarily pronounce their decisions on all offenders, men would be less disposed to seek for fine words as a screen for unjust actions.

To this effect then spoke the Thebans. The Lacedaemonian judges, thinking that the question, Whether they had received any service from them during the war, would be a fair one for them to put, because they had all along requested them, as they said, to remain quiet according to the original covenant of Pausanias, after the [retreat of the] Mede; and when afterwards they made to them the proposal which they did before they were besieged—to be neutral, according to the terms of that compact—in consequence of their not receiving it, they considered that on the strength of their own just wish they were now released from covenant with them, and had received evil at their hands. Accordingly, bringing each of them forward, and asking the same question, Whether they had done the Lacedaemonians and allies any service in the war, when they said they had not, they led them away and killed them, not excepting one.

Of the Plataeans themselves they slew not less than two hundred, and of the Athenians twenty-five, who were besieged with them;

the women they sold as slaves. As for the city, the Thebans gave it for about a year to some of the Megareans to inhabit, who had been banished by party influence, and to such of the Plataeans on their own side as still survived. Afterwards they razed the whole of it to the ground, from the very foundations, and built to the sacred precinct of Juno an inn two hundred feet square, with rooms all round, above and below, making use of the roofs and doors of the Plataeans; and with the rest of the furniture, in brass and iron, that was within the wall, they made couches and dedicated them to Juno, building also in her honour a stone chapel of one hundred feet square. The land they confiscated, and let out for ten years, its occupiers being Thebans.

And nearly throughout the whole business it was on account of the Thebans that the Lacedaemonians were so averse to the Plataeans; for they considered them to be of service for the war which had then but recently broken out.

Such then was the end of Plataea, in the ninety-third year after they became allies of the Athenians.

Now the forty ships of the Peloponnesians which had gone to the relief of the Lesbians, (and which were flying, at the time we referred to them, across the open sea, and were pursued by the Athenians, and caught in a storm off Crete, and from that point had been dispersed,) on reaching the Peloponnese, found at Cyllene thirteen ships of the Leucadians and Ambraciots, with Brasidas son of Tellis, who had lately arrived as counsellor to Alcidas.

For the Lacedaemonians wished, as they had failed in saving Lesbos, to make their fleet more numerous, and to sail to Corcyra, which was in a state of sedition; as the Athenians were stationed at Naupactus with only twelve ships; and in order that they might have the start of them, before any larger fleet reinforced them from Athens. So Brasidas and Alcidas proceeded to make preparations for these measures.

For the Corcyraeans began their sedition on the return home of the prisoners taken in the sea-fights off Epidamnus, who had been sent back by the Corinthians, nominally on the security of eight hundred talents given for them by their proxeni, but in reality, because they had consented to bring over Corcyra to the Corinthians. These men then were intriguing, by visits to each of the citizens, to cause the revolt of the city from the Athenians.

On the arrival of a ship from Athens and another from Corinth, with envoys on board, and on their meeting for a conference, the Corcyraeans voted to continue allies of the Athenians according to their agreement, but to be on friendly terms with the Peloponnesians, as they had formerly been.

Now there was one Pithias, a volunteer proxenus of the Athenians, and the leader of the popular party;

him these men brought to trial, on a charge of enslaving Corcyra to the Athenians. Having been acquitted, he brought to trial in return the five richest individuals of their party, charging them with cutting stakes in the ground sacred to Jupiter and to [the hero] Alcinous;

the penalty affixed being a stater for every stake. When they had been convicted, and, owing to the amount of the penalty, were sitting as suppliants in the temples, that they might be allowed to pay it by instalments, Pithias, who was a member of the council also, persuades that body to enforce the law.

So when they were excluded from all hope by the severity of the law, and at the same time heard that Pithias was likely, while he was still in the council, to persuade the populace to hold as friends and foes the same as the Athenians did, they conspired together, and took daggers, and, having suddenly entered the council, assassinated Pithias and others, both counsellors and private persons, to the number of sixty. Some few, however, of the same party as Pithias, took refuge on board the Athenian trireme, which was still there.

Having perpetrated this deed, and summoned the Corcyraeans to an assembly, they told them that this was the best thing for them, and that so they would be least in danger of being enslaved by the Athenians; and they moved, that in future they should receive neither party, except coming in a quiet manner with a single ship, but should consider a larger force as hostile. As they moved, so also they compelled them to adopt their motion.

They likewise sent immediately ambassadors to Athens, to show, respecting what had been done, that it was for their best interests, and to prevail on the refugees there to adopt no measure prejudicial to them that there might not be any reaction.

On their arrival, the Athenians arrested as revolutionists both the ambassadors and all who were persuaded by them, and lodged them in custody in Aegina.

In the mean time, on the arrival of a Corinthian ship and some Lacedaemonian envoys, the dominant party of the Corcyraeans attacked the commonalty, and defeated them in battle.

When night came on, the commons took refuge in the citadel, and on the eminences in the city, and there established themselves in a body, having possession also of the Hyllaic harbour; while the other party occupied the market-place, where most of them dwelt, with the harbour adjoining it, looking towards the mainland.

The next day they had a few skirmishes, and both parties sent about into the country, inviting the slaves, and offering them freedom. The greater part of them joined the commons as allies; while the other party was reinforced by eight hundred auxiliaries from the continent.

After the interval of a day, a battle was again fought, and the commons gained the victory, having the advantage both in strength of position and in numbers: the women also boldly assisted them, throwing at the enemy with the filing from the houses, and standing the brunt of the mêlée beyond what could have been expected from their nature.

About twllight the rout of the oligarchical party as effected; and fearing that the commons might carry the arsenal at the first assault, and put them to the sword, they fired the houses round about the market-place, and the lodging-houses, to stop their advance, sparing neither their own nor other people's; so that much property belonging to the merchants was consumed, and the whole city was in danger of being destroyed, if, in addition to the fire, there had been a wind blowing on it.

After ceasing from the engagement, both sides remained quiet, and kept guard during the night. On victory declaring for the commons, the Corinthian ship stole out to sea; while the greater part of the auxiliaries passed over unobserved to the continent.

The day following, Nicostratus son of Diitrephes, a general of the Athenians, came to their assistance from Naupactus with twelve ships and five hundred heavy-armed, and wished to negotiate a settlement, persuading them to agree with each other to bring to trial the ten chief authors of the sedition, (who immediately fled,) and for the rest to dwell in peace, having made an arrangement with each other, and with the Athenians, to have the same foes and friends.

After effecting this he was going to sail away; but the leaders of the commons urged him to leave them five of his ships, that their adversaries might be less on the move; and they would themselves man and send with him an equal number of theirs He consented to do so, and they proceeded to enlist their adversaries for the ships.

They, fearing that they should be sent off to Athens, seated themselves [as suppliants] in the temple of the Dioscuri;

while Nicostratus was trying to persuade them to rise, and to encourage them. When he did not prevail on them, the commons, having armed themselves on this pretext, alleged that they had no good intentions, [as was evident] from their mistrust in not sailing with them; and removed their arms from their houses, and would have despatched some of them whom they met with, if Nicostratus had not prevented it.

The rest, seeing what was going on, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of Juno, their number amounting to not less than four hundred. But the commons, being afraid of their making some new attempt, persuaded them to rise, and transferred them to the island in front of the temple, and provisions were sent over there for them.

When the sedition was at this point, on the fourth or fifth day after the transfer of the men to the island, the ships of the Peleponnesians, three-and-fifty in number, came up from Cyllene, having been stationed there since their return from Ionia. The commander of them, as before, was Alcidas, Brasidas sailing with him as counsellor. After coming to anchor at Sybota, a port on the mainland, as soon as it was morning they sailed towards Corcyra.

The Corcyraeans, being in great confusion, and alarmed both at the state of things in the city and at the advance of the enemy, at once proceeded to equip sixty vessels, and to send them out, as they were successively manned, against the enemy; though the Athenians advised them to let them sail out first, and afterwards to follow themselves with all their ships together.

On their vessels coming up to the enemy in this scattered manner, two immediately went over to them, while in others the crews were fighting amongst themselves, and there was no order in their measures.

The Peloponnesians, seeing their confusion, drew up twenty of their ships against the Corcyraeans, and the remainder against the twelve of the Athenians, amongst which were the two celebrated vessels, Salaminia and Paralus.

The Corcyraeans, coming to the attack in bad order, and by few ships at a time, were distressed through their own arrangements; while the Athenians, fearing the enemy's numbers and the chance of their surrounding them, did not attack their whole fleet, or even the centre of the division opposed to themselves, but took it in flank, and sunk one ship. After this, when the Peloponnesians had formed in a circle, they began to sail round them, and endeavoured to throw them into confusion.

The division which was opposed to the Corcyraeans perceiving this, and fearing that the same thing might happen as had at Naupactus, advanced to their support.

Thus the whole united fleet simultaneously attacked the Athenians, who now began to retire, rowing astern; at the same time wishing the vessels of the Corcyraeans to retreat first, while they themselves drew off as leisurely as possible, and while the enemy were still ranged against them.

The sea-fight then, having been of this character, ended at sun-set.

The Corcyraeans, fearing that the enemy, on the strength of his victory, might sail against the city, and either rescue the men in the island, or proceed to some other violent measures, carried the men over again to the sanctuary of Juno, and kept the city under guard.

The Peloponnesians, however, though victorious in the engagement, did not dare to sail against the city, but withdrew with thirteen of the Corcyraean vessels to the continent, whence they had put out.

The next day they advanced none the more against the city, though the inhabitants were in great confusion, and though Brasidas, it is said, advised Alcidas to do so, but was not equal to him in authority; but they landed on the promontory of Leucimne, and ravaged the country.

Meanwhile, the commons of the Corcyraeans, being very much alarmed lest the fleet should sail against them, entered into negotiation with the suppliants and the rest for the preservation of the city. And some of them they persuaded to go on board the ships; for [notwithstanding the general dismay] they still manned thirty, in expectation of the enemy's advance against them.

But the Peloponnesians, after ravaging the land till mid-day, sailed away: and at night-fall the approach of sixty Athenian ships from Leucas was signaled to them, which the Athenians had sent with Eurymedon son of Thucles, as commander, on hearing of the sedition, and of the fleet about to go to Corcyra with Alcidas.

The Peloponnesians then immediately proceeded homeward by night with all haste, passing along shore; and having hauled their ships over the isthmus of Leucas, that they might not be seen doubling it, they sailed back.

The Corcyraeans, on learning the approach of the Athenian fleet and the retreat of the enemy, took and brought into the city the Messenians, who before had been without the walls: and having ordered the ships they had manned to sail round into the Hyllaic harbour, while they were going round, they put to death any of their opponents they might have happened to seize; and afterwards despatched, as they landed them from the ships, all that they had persuaded to go on board. They also went to the sanctuary of Juno, and persuaded about fifty men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death.

The majority of the suppliants, who had not been prevailed on by them, when they saw what was being done, slew one another there on the sacred ground; while some hanged themselves on the trees, and others destroyed themselves as they severally could.

During seven days that Eurymedon stayed after his arrival with his sixty ships, the Corcyraeans were butchering those of their countrymen whom they thought hostile to them; bringing their accusations, indeed, against those only who were for putting down the democracy; but some were slain for private enmity also, and others for money owed 'them by those who had borrowed it. Every mode of death was thus had recourse to;

and whatever ordinarily happens in such a state of things, all happened then, and still more For father murdered son, and they were dragged out of the sanctuaries, or slain in them; while in that of Bacchus some were walled up and perished. So savagely did the sedition proceed; while it appeared to do so all the more from its being amongst the earliest.