Diodorus Siculus, Library 8-40

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§ 12.25.3 This they did in their desire to weaken the supremacy of the patricians, for the patricians, by reason both of their noble birth and of the great fame that came down to them from their ancestors, were lords, one might say, of the state. It was furthermore stipulated in the agreement that when tribunes had served their year of office they should see that an equal number of tribunes were appointed in their place, and that if they failed to do this they should be burned alive; also, in case the tribunes could not agree among themselves, the will of the interceding tribune must not be prevented. Such, then, we find, was the conclusion of the civil discord in Rome.
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§ 12.26.1 When Diphilus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Horatius and Lucius Valerius Turpinus [448 BCE]. In Rome during this year, since the legislation remained unfinished because of the civil discord, the consuls brought it to conclusion; that is, of the Twelve Tables, as they are called, ten had been drawn up, and the consuls wrote into law the two remaining. After the legislation they had undertaken had been concluded, the consuls engraved the laws on twelve bronze tablets and affixed them to the Rostra before the Senate-house. And the legislation as it was drawn up, since it is couched in such brief and pithy language, has continued to be admired by men down to our own day.
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§ 12.26.2 While the events we have described were taking place, the greater number of the nations of the inhabited world were quiet, practically all of them being at peace. For the Persians had two treaties with the Greeks, one with the Athenians and their allies according to which the Greek cities of Asia were to live under laws of their own making, and they also concluded one later with the Lacedemonians, in which exactly the opposite terms had been incorporated, whereby the Greek cities of Asia were to be subject to the Persians. Likewise, the Greeks were at peace with one another, the Athenians and Lacedemonians having concluded a truce of thirty years.
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§ 12.26.3 Affairs likewise in Sicily also were in a peaceful state, since the Carthaginians had made a treaty with Gelon, the Greek cities of Sicily had voluntarily conceded the hegemony to the Syracusans, and the Acragantini, after their defeat at the river Himera, had come to terms with the Syracusans.
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§ 12.26.4 There was quiet also among the peoples of Italy and Celtice, as well as over Iberia and almost all the rest of the inhabited world. Consequently no deed of arms worthy of mention was accomplished in this period, a single peace prevailed, and festive gatherings, sacrificial festivals of the gods, and everything else which accompanies a life of felicity prevailed among all mankind.
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§ 12.27.1 When Timocles was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Lar Herminius and Titus Stertinius Structor. In this year the Samians went to war with the Milesians because of a quarrel over Priene, and when they saw that the Athenians were favouring the Milesians, they revolted from the Athenians, who thereupon chose Pericles as general and dispatched him with forty ships against the Samians.
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§ 12.27.2 And sailing forth against Samos, Pericles got into the city and mastered it, and then established a democracy in it. He exacted of the Samians eighty talents and took an equal number of their young men as hostages, whom he put in the keeping of the Lemnians; then, after having finished everything in a few days, he returned to Athens.
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§ 12.27.3 But civil discord arose in Samos, one party preferring the democracy and the other wanting an aristocracy, and the city was in utter tumult. The opponents of the democracy crossed over to Asia, and went on to Sardis to get aid from Pissuthnes, the Persian satrap. Pissuthnes gave them seven hundred soldiers, hoping that in this way he would get the mastery of the island, and the Samians, sailing to Samos by night with the soldiers which had been given them, slipped unnoticed into the city with the aid of the citizens, seized the island without difficulty, and expelled from the city those who opposed them. Then, after they had stolen and carried off the hostages from Lemnos and had made everything secure in Samos, they publicly declared themselves to be enemies of the Athenians.
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§ 12.27.4 The Athenians again chose Pericles as general and dispatched him against the Samians with sixty ships. Thereupon Pericles fought a naval battle against seventy triremes of the Samians and defeated them; and then, summoning twenty-five ships from the Chians and Mytilenaeans, together with them he laid siege to the city of Samos. But a few days later Pericles left a part of his force to continue the siege and set out to sea to meet the Phoenician ships which the Persians had dispatched to the aid of the Samians.
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§ 12.28.1 The Samians, believing that because of the departure of Pericles they had a suitable opportunity to attack the ships that had been left behind, sailed against them, and having won the battle they were puffed up with pride.
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§ 12.28.2 But when Pericles received word of the defeat of his forces, he at once turned back and gathered an imposing fleet, since he desired to destroy once and for all the fleet of the enemy. The Athenians rapidly dispatched sixty triremes and the Chians and Mytilenaeans thirty, and with this great armament Pericles renewed the siege both by land and by sea, making continuous assaults.
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§ 12.28.3 He built also siege machines, being the first of all men to do so, such as those called “rams” and “tortoises,” Artemon of Clazomenae having built them; and by pushing the siege with energy and throwing down the walls by means of the siege machines he gained the mastery of Samos. After punishing the ringleaders of the revolt he exacted of the Samians the expenses incurred in the siege of the city, fixing the penalty at two hundred talents.
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§ 12.28.4 He also took from them their ships and razed their walls; then he restored the democracy and returned to his country. As for the Athenians and Lacedemonians, the thirty-year truce between them remained unshaken to this time. These, then, were the events of this year.
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§ 12.29.1 When Morychides was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Lucius Julius and Marcus Geganius, and the Eleans celebrated the Eighty-fifth Olympiad, that in which Crison of Himera won the “stadion” for the second time. In Sicily, in this year, Ducetius, the former leader of the cities of the Siceli, founded the native city of the Calactians, and when he had established many colonists there, he laid claim to the leadership of the Siceli, but his attempt was cut short by illness and his life was ended.
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§ 12.29.2 The Syracusans had made subject to them all the cities of the Siceli with the exception of Trinacie, as it is called, and against it they decided to send an army; for they were deeply apprehensive lest the Trinacians should make a bid for the leadership of the Siceli, who were their kinsmen. There were many great men in this city, since it had always occupied the chief position among the cities of the Siceli; for it was full of military leaders who took an inestimable pride in their own manly spirit.
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§ 12.29.3 Consequently the Syracusans marched against it after having mustered all their own armaments and those of their allied states. The Trinacians were without allies, since all the other cities were subject to the Syracusans, but they none the less offered a strong resistance. They held out valiantly against the perils they encountered and slew great numbers, and they all ended their lives fighting heroically.
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§ 12.29.4 In like manner even the majority of the older men removed themselves from life, being unwilling to endure the despite they would suffer at the capture of their city. And the Syracusans, after conquering in brilliant fashion men who had never before been subdued, sold the inhabitants into slavery and utterly destroyed the city, and the choicest of the booty they sent to Delphi as a thank-offering to the god.
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§ 12.30.1 When Glaucidos was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Quinctius and Agrippa Furius. During this year the Syracusans, because of the successes we have described, built one hundred triremes and doubled the number of their cavalry; they also developed their infantry forces and made financial preparations by laying heavier tributes upon the Siceli who were now subject to them. This they were doing with the intention of subduing all Sicily little by little.
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§ 12.30.2 While these events were taking place it came about in Greece that the Corinthian War, as it is called, began for the following causes. Civil strife broke out among the Epidamnians who dwell upon the Adriatic Sea and are colonists of the Cercyraeans and Corinthians. The successful group sent into exile large numbers of their opponents, but the exiles gathered into one body, associated the Illyrians with themselves, and sailed together with them against Epidamnus.
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§ 12.30.3 Since the barbarians had taken the field with a large army, had seized the countryside, and were investing the city, the Epidamnians, who of themselves were not equal to them in battle, dispatched ambassadors to Cercyra, asking the Cercyraeans on the grounds of kinship to come to their aid. When the Cercyraeans paid no attention to the request, they sent ambassadors to seek an alliance with the Corinthians and declared Corinth to be their single mother-city; at the same time they asked for colonists.
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§ 12.30.4 And the Corinthians, partly out of pity for the Epidamnians and partly out of hatred for the Cercyraeans, since they alone of the colonists who had gone from Corinth would not send the customary sacrificial animals to the mother-city, decided to go to the aid of the Epidamnians. Consequently they sent to Epidamnus both colonists and soldiers in sufficient numbers to garrison the city.
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§ 12.30.5 At this the Cercyraeans became irritated and sent out a squadron of fifty triremes under the command of a general. He, sailing up to the city, issued orders to receive back the exiles, while they dispatched ambassadors to the guards from Corinth demanding that the question of the origin of the colony be decided by a court of arbiters, not by war. When the Corinthians made no answer to this proposal, both sides decided upon war, and they set about fitting out great naval armaments and gathering allies. And so the Corinthian War, as it has been called, broke out for the reasons we have narrated.
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§ 12.30.6 The Romans were at war with the Volscians and at first they engaged only in skirmishes and unimportant engagements, but later they conquered them in a great pitched battle and slew the larger number of the enemy.
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§ 12.31.1 When Theodorus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Genucius and Agrippa Curtius Chilo. In Italy, during this year, the nation of the Campani was formed, deriving them name from the fertility of the plain about them. In Asia the dynasty of the Cimmerian Bosporus, whose kings were known as the Archeanactidae, ruled for forty-two years; and the successor to the kingship was Spartacus, who reigned seven years.
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§ 12.31.2 In Greece the Corinthians were at war with the Cercyraeans, and after preparing naval armaments they made ready for a battle at sea. Now the Corinthians with seventy excellently equipped ships sailed against their enemy; but the Cercyraeans opposed them with eighty triremes and won the battle, and then they forced the surrender of Epidamnus and put to death all the captives except the Corinthians, whom they cast in chains and imprisoned.
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§ 12.31.3 After the sea battle the Corinthians withdrew in dismay to the Peloponnesus, and the Cercyraeans, who were now masters of the sea in those regions, made frequent descents upon the allies of the Corinthians, ravaging their lands.
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§ 12.32.1 At the end of the year the archon in Athens was Euthymenes, and in Rome instead of consuls three military tribunes were elected, Aulus Sempronius, Lucius Atilius, and Titus Quinctius. During this year, the Corinthians, who had suffered defeat in the sea-battle, decided to build a more imposing fleet.
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§ 12.32.2 Consequently, having procured a great amount of timber and hiring shipbuilders from other cities, they set about with great eagerness building triremes and fabricating arms and missiles of every description; and, speaking generally, they were making ready all the equipment needed for the war and, in particular, triremes, of which they were building some from their keels, repairing others which had been damaged, and requisitioning still others from their allies.
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§ 12.32.3 And since the Cercyraeans were doing the same thing and were not being outdone in eagerness, it was clear that the war was going to increase greatly in intensity. While these events were taking place the Athenians founded the colony of Amphipolis, selecting the colonists in part from their own citizens and in part from garrisons in the neighbourhood.
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§ 12.33.1 When Lysimachus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Quinctius and Marcus Geganius Macerinus, and the Eleians celebrated the Eighty-sixth Olympiad, that in which Theopompus the Thessalian won the “stadion.” In this year the Cercyraeans, learning of the great scale of the armaments which were being prepared against them, dispatched ambassadors to the Athenians asking their aid.
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§ 12.33.2 Since the Corinthians did the same thing, an Assembly was convened, and the Athenian people after listening to the ambassadors voted to form an alliance with the Cercyraeans. Consequently they dispatched at once ten fully equipped triremes and promised that they would send more later if necessary.
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§ 12.33.3 The Corinthians, after their failure to conclude an alliance with the Athenians, manned by themselves ninety triremes and received in addition sixty from their allies. With, therefore, one hundred and fifty fully equipped triremes and after selecting their most accomplished generals, they put to sea against Cercyra, having decided to join battle at once. And when the Cercyraeans learned that the enemy's fleet was not far off,
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§ 12.33.4 they put out to sea against them with one hundred and twenty triremes including the Athenian. A sharp battle took place, and at the outset the Corinthians had the upper hand; but later, when the Athenians came on the scene with twenty additional ships which they had sent in accordance with the second alliance, it turned out that the Cercyraeans were victorious. And on the next day, when the Cercyraeans sailed against them in full force for battle, the Corinthians did not put out.
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§ 12.34.1 When Antiochides was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Fabius and Postumus Aebutius Ulecus [441 BCE]. In this year, since the Athenians had fought at the side of the Cercyraeans and been responsible for their victory in the sea-battle, the Corinthians were incensed at them.
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§ 12.34.2 Being eager, therefore, to retaliate upon the Athenians, they incited the city of Potidaea, which was one of their own colonies, to revolt from the Athenians. And in like manner Perdiccas, the king of the Macedonians, who was also at odds with the Athenians, persuaded the Chalcidians, who had revolted from the Athenians, to abandon their cities on the sea and unite in forming a single city known as Olynthus.
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§ 12.34.3 When the Athenians heard of the revolt of the Potidaeans, they dispatched thirty ships with orders to ravage the territory of the rebels and to sack their city; and the expedition landed in Macedonia, as the Athenian people had ordered them to do, and undertook the siege of Potidaea.
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§ 12.34.4 Thereupon the Corinthians came to the help of the besieged with two thousand soldiers and the Athenian people also sent two thousand. In the battle which took place on the isthmus near Pallene the Athenians were victorious and slew over three hundred of the enemy, and the Potidaeans were entirely beleaguered.
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§ 12.34.5 And while these event were taking place, the Athenians founded in the Propontis a city which was given the name of Astacus. In Italy the Romans sent colonists to Ardea and portioned out the land in allotments.
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§ 12.35.1 When Crates was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Quintus Furius Fusus and Manius Papirius Crassus [441 BCE]. This year in Italy the inhabitants of Thurii, who had been gathered together from many cities, divided into factions over the question from what city the Thurians should say they came as colonists and what man should justly be called the founder of the city.
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§ 12.35.2 The situation was that the Athenians were laying claim to this colony on the grounds, as they alleged, that the majority of its colonists had come from Athens; and, besides, the cities of the Peloponnesus, which had provided from their people not a few to the founding of Thurii, maintained that the colonization of the city should be ascribed to them.
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§ 12.35.3 Likewise, since many able men had shared in the founding of the colony and had rendered many services, there was much discussion on the matter, since each one of them was eager to have this honour fall to him. In the end the Thurians sent a delegation to Delphi to inquire what man they should call the founder of their city, and the god replied that he himself should be considered to be its founder. After the dispute had been settled in this manner, they declared Apollo to have been the founder of Thurii, and the people, being now freed from the civil discord, returned to the state of harmony which they had previously enjoyed.
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§ 12.35.4 In Greece Archidamus, the king of the Lacedemonians, died after a reign of forty-two years, and Agis succeeded to the throne and was king for twenty-five years.
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§ 12.36.1 When Apseudes was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Menenius and Proculus Geganius Macerinus. During this year Spartacus, the king of the Bosporus, died after a reign of seven years, and Seleucus succeeded to the throne and was king for forty years.
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§ 12.36.2 In Athens Meton, the son of Pausanias, who had won fame for his study of the stars, revealed to the public his nineteen-year cycle, as it is called, the beginning of which he fixed on the thirteenth day of the Athenian month of Scirophorion. In this number of years the stars accomplish their return to the same place in the heavens and conclude, as it were, the circuit of what may be called a Great Year; consequently it is called by some the Year of Meton.
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§ 12.36.3 And we find that this man was astonishingly fortunate in this prediction which he published; for the stars complete both their movement and the effects they produce in accordance with his reckoning. Consequently, even down to our own day, the larger number of the Greeks use the nineteen-year cycle and are not cheated of the truth.
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§ 12.36.4 In Italy the Tarantini removed the inhabitants of Siris, as it is called, from their native city, and adding to them colonists from their own citizens, they founded a city which they named Herakleia.
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§ 12.37.1 When Pythodorus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Quinctius and Nittus Menenius [439 BCE], and the Eleians celebrated the Eighty-seventh Olympiad, that in which Sophron of Ambracia won the “stadion.” In Rome in this year Spurius Maelius was put to death while striving for despotic power. And the Athenians, who had won a striking victory around Potidaea, dispatched a second general, Phormion, in the place of their general Callias who had fallen on the field. After taking over the command of the army Phormion settled down to the siege of the city of the Potidaeans, making continuous assaults upon it; but the defenders resisted with vigour and the siege became a long affair.
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§ 12.37.2 Thucydides, the Athenian, commenced his history with this year, giving an account of the war between the Athenians and the Lacedemonians, the war which has been called the Peloponnesian. This war lasted twenty-seven years, but Thucydides described twenty-two years in eight Books or, as others divide it, in nine.
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§ 12.38.1 When Euthydemus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected in place of consuls three military tribunes, Manius Aemilianus Mamercus, Gaius Julius, and Lucius Quinctius. In this year there began the Peloponnesian War, as it has been called, between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians, the longest of all the wars which history records; and it is necessary and appropriate to the plan of our history to set forth at the outset the causes of the war.
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§ 12.38.2 While the Athenians were still striving for the mastery of the sea, the funds which had been collected as a common undertaking and placed at Delos, amounting to some eight thousand talents, they had transferred to Athens and give over to Pericles to guard. This man stood far above his fellow citizens in birth, renown, and ability as an orator. But after some time he had spent a very considerable amount of this money for his own purposes, and when he was called upon for an accounting he fell ill, since he was unable to render the statement of the monies with which he had been entrusted.
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§ 12.38.3 While he was worried over the matter, Alcibiades, his nephew, who was an orphan and was being reared at the home of Pericles, though still a lad showed him a way out of making an explanation of the use of the money. Seeing how his uncle was troubled he asked him the cause of his worry. And when Pericles said, “I am asked for the explanation of the use of the money and I am seeking some means whereby I may be able to render an accounting of it to the citizens,” Alcibiades replied, “You should be seeking some means not how to render but how not to render an accounting.”
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§ 12.38.4 Consequently Pericles, accepting the reply of the boy, kept pondering in what way he could embroil the Athenians in a great war; for that would be the best way, he thought, because of the disturbance and distractions and fears which would the city, for him to escape giving an exact accounting of the money. Bearing upon this expedient an incident happened to him by mere chance for the following causes.
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§ 12.39.1 The statue of Athens was a work of Pheidias, and Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, had been appointed overseer of the undertaking. But sometimes assistants of Pheidias, who had been prevailed upon by Pericles' enemies, took seats as suppliants at the altars of the gods; and when they were called upon to explain their surprising action, they claimed that they would show that Pheidias had possession of a large amount of the sacred funds, with the connivance and assistance of Pericles the overseer.
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§ 12.39.2 Consequently, when the Assembly convened to consider the affair, the enemies of Pericles persuaded the people to arrest Pheidias and lodged a charge against Pericles himself of stealing sacred property. Furthermore, they falsely accused the sophist Anaxagoras, who was Pericles' teacher, of impiety against the gods; and they involved Pericles in their accusations and malicious charges, since jealousy made them eager to discredit the eminence as well as the fame of the man.
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§ 12.39.3 But Pericles, knowing that during the operations of war the populace has respect for noble men because of their urgent need of them, whereas in times of peace they keep bringing false accusations against the very same men because they have nothing to do and are envious, came to the conclusion that it would be to his own advantage to embroil the state in a great war, in order that the city, in its need of the ability and skill in generalship of Pericles, should pay no attention to the accusations being lodged against him and would have neither leisure nor time to scrutinize carefully the accounting he would render of the funds.
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§ 12.39.4 Now when the Athenians voted to exclude the Megarians from both their market and harbours, the Megarians turned to the Spartans for aid. And the Lacedemonians, being won over by the Megarians, in the most open manner dispatched ambassadors in accordance with the decision of the Council of the League, ordering the Athenians to rescind the action against the Megarians and threatening, if they did not accede, to wage war upon them together with the forces of their allies.
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§ 12.39.5 When the Assembly convened to consider the matter, Pericles, who far excelled his fellow citizens in skill of oratory, persuaded the Athenians not to rescind the action, saying that for them to accede to the demands of the Lacedemonians, contrary to their own interests, would be the first step toward slavery. Accordingly he advised that they bring their possessions from the countryside into the city and fight it out with the Spartans by means of their command of the sea.
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§ 12.40.1 Speaking of the war, Pericles, after defending his course in well-considered words, enumerated first the multitude of allies Athens possessed and the superiority of its naval strength, and then the large sum of money which had been removed from Delos to Athens and which had in fact been gathered from the tribute into one fund for the common use of the cities;
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§ 12.40.2 from the ten thousand talents in the common fund four thousand had been expended on the building of the Propylaea and the siege of Potidaea; and each year there was an income from the tribute paid by the allies of four hundred and sixty talents. Beside this he declared that the vessels employed in solemn processions and the booty taken from the Medes were worth five hundred talents,
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§ 12.40.3 and he pointed to the multitude of votive offerings in the various sanctuaries and to the fact that the fifty talents of gold on the statue of Athena for its embellishment was so constructed as to be removable; and he showed that all these, if dire need befell them, they could borrow from the gods and return to them again when peace came, and that also by reason of the long peace the manner of life of the citizens had made great strides toward prosperity.
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§ 12.40.4 In addition to these financial resources Pericles pointed out that, omitting the allies and garrisons, the city had available twelve thousand hoplites, the garrisons and metics amounted to more than seventeen thousand, and the triremes available to three hundred.
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§ 12.40.5 He also pointed out that the Lacedemonians were both lacking in money and far behind the Athenians in naval armaments. After he had recounted these facts and incited the citizens to war, he persuaded the people to pay no attention to the Lacedemonians. This he accomplished readily by reason of his great ability as an orator, which is the reason he has been called “The Olympian.”
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§ 12.40.6 Mention has been made of this even by Aristophanes, the poet of the Old Comedy, who lived in the period of Pericles, in the following tetrameters: O ye farmers, wretched creatures, listen now and understand, If you fain would learn the reason why it was Peace left the land. Pheidias began the mischief, having come to grief and shame, Pericles was next in order, fearing he might share the blame, By his Megara -enactment lighting first a little flame, Such a bitter smoke ascended while the flames of war he blew, That from every eye in Hellas everywhere the tears it drew. And again in another place: The Olympian Pericles Thundered and lightened and confounded Hellas. And Eupolis the poet wrote: One might say Persuasion rested On his lips; such charm he'd bring. And alone of all the speakers In his listeners left his sting.
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§ 12.41.1 Now the causes of the Peloponnesian War were in general what I have described, as Ephorus has recorded them. And when the leading states had become embroiled in war in this fashion, the Lacedemonians, sitting in council with the Peloponnesians, voted to make war upon the Athenians, and dispatching ambassadors to the king of the Persians, urged him to ally himself with them, while they also treated by means of ambassadors with their allies in Sicily and Italy and persuaded them to come to their aid with two hundred triremes;
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§ 12.41.2 and for their own part they, together with the Peloponnesians, got ready their land forces, made all other preparations for the war, and were the first to commence the conflict. For in Boeotia the city of the Plataeans was an independent state and had an alliance with the Athenians.
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§ 12.41.3 But certain of its citizens, wishing to destroy its independence, had engaged in parleys with the Boeotians, promising that they would range that state under the confederacy organized by the Thebans and hand Plataea over to them if they would send soldiers to aid in the undertaking.
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§ 12.41.4 Consequently, when the Boeotians dispatched by night three hundred picked soldiers, the traitors got them inside the walls and made them masters of the city.
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§ 12.41.5 The Plataeans, wishing to maintain their alliance with the Athenians, since at first they assumed that the Thebans were present in full force, began negotiations with the captors of the city and urged them to agree to a truce; but as the night wore on and they perceived that the Thebans were few in number, they rallied en masse and began putting up a vigorous struggle for their freedom.
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§ 12.41.6 The fighting took place in the streets, and at first the Thebans held the upper hand because of their valour and were slaying many of their opponents; but when the slaves and children began pelting the Thebans with tiles from the houses and wounding them, they turned in flight; and some of them escaped from the city to safety, but some who found refuge in a house were forced to give themselves up.
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§ 12.41.7 When the Thebans learned the outcome of the attempt from the survivors of the battle, they at once marched forth in all haste in full force. And since the Plataeans who dwelt in the rural districts were unprepared because they were not expecting the attack, many of them were slain and not a small number were taken captive alive, and the whole land was filled with tumult and plundering.
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§ 12.42.1 The Plataeans dispatched ambassadors to the Thebans demanding that they leave Plataean territory and receive their own captives back. And so, when this had been agreed upon, the Thebans received their captives back, restored the booty they had taken, and returned to Thebes. The Plataeans dispatched ambassadors to the Athenians asking for aid, while they themselves gathered the larger part of their possessions into the city.
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§ 12.42.2 The Athenians, when they learned of what had taken place in Plataea, at once sent a considerable body of soldiers; these arrived in haste, although not before the Thebans, and gathered the rest of the property from the countryside into the city, and then, collecting both the children and women and the rabble, sent them off to Athens.
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§ 12.42.3 The Lacedemonians, deciding that the Athenians had broken the truce, mustered a strong army from both Lacedemon and the rest of the Peloponnesians.
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§ 12.42.4 The allies of the Lacedemonians at this time were all the inhabitants of the Peloponnesus with the exception of the Argives, who remained neutral; and of the peoples outside of the Peloponnesus the Megarians, Ambraciotes, Leucadians, Phocians, Boeotians, and of the Locrians, the majority of those facing Euboea, and the Amphissians of the rest.
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§ 12.42.5 The Athenians had as allies the peoples of the coast of Asia, namely, the Carians, Dorians, Ionians and Hellespontines, also all the islanders except the inhabitants of Melos and Thera, likewise the dwellers in Thrace except the Chalcidians and Potidaeans, furthermore the Messenians who dwelt in Naupactus and the Cercyraeans. Of these, the Chians, Lesbians, and Cercyraeans furnished ships, and all the rest supplied infantry. The allies, then, on both sides were as we have listed them.
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§ 12.42.6 After the Lacedemonians had prepared for service a strong army, they placed the command in the hands of Archidamus their king. He invaded Attica with his army, made repeated assaults upon its fortified places, and ravaged a large part of the countryside. And when the Athenians, being incensed because of the raiding of their countryside, wished to offer battle to the enemy, Pericles, who was a general and held in his hands the entire leadership of the state, urged the young men to make no move, promising that he would expel the Lacedemonians from Attica without the peril of battle.
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§ 12.42.7 Whereupon, fitting out one hundred triremes and putting on them a strong force of men, he appointed Carcinus general over them together with certain others and sent them against the Peloponnesus. This force, by ravaging a large extent of the Peloponnesian territory along the sea and capturing some fortresses, struck terror into the Lacedemonians; consequently they speedily recalled their army from Attica and thus provided a large measure of safety to the Peloponnesians.
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§ 12.42.8 In this manner Athens was delivered from the enemy, and Pericles received approbation among his fellow citizens as having the ability to perform the duties of a general and to fight it out with the Lacedemonians.
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§ 12.43.1 When Apollodorus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Geganius and Lucius Sergius [436 BCE]. During this year the general of the Athenians never ceased plundering and harrying the territory of the Peloponnesians and laying siege to their fortresses; and when there were added to his command fifty triremes from Cercyra, he ravaged all the more the territory of the Peloponnesians, and in particular he laid waste the part of the coast which is called Acte and sent up the farm-buildings in flames.
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§ 12.43.2 After this, sailing to Methone in Laconia, he both ravaged the countryside and made repeated assaults upon the city. There Brasidas the Spartan, who was still a youth in years but already distinguished for his strength and courage, seeing that Methone was in danger of capture by assault, took some Spartans, and boldly breaking through the hostile forces, which were scattered, he slew many of them and got into the stronghold.
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§ 12.43.3 In the siege which followed Brasidas fought so brilliantly that the Athenians found themselves unable to take the stronghold and withdrew to their ships, and Brasidas, who had saved Methone by his individual bravery and valour, received the approbation of the Spartans. And because of this hardihood of his, Brasidas, having become inordinately proud, on many subsequent occasions fought recklessly and won for himself a great reputation for valour.
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§ 12.43.4 And the Athenians, sailing around to Elis, ravaged the countryside and laid siege to Pheia, a stronghold of the Eleians. The Eleians who came out to its defence they defeated in battle, slaying many of their opponents, and took Pheia by storm.
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§ 12.43.5 But after this, when the Eleians en masse offered them battle, the Athenians were driven back to their ships, whereupon they sailed off to Cephallenia, where they brought the inhabitants of that island into their alliance, and then voyaged back to Athens.
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§ 12.44.1 After these events the Athenians chose Cleopompus general and sent him to sea with thirty ships under orders both to keep careful guard over Euboea and to make war upon the Locrians. He, sailing forth, ravaged the coast of Locris and reduced by siege the city of Thronium, and the Locrians who opposed him he met in battle and defeated near the city of Alope. Following this he made the island known as Atalante, which lies off Locris, into a fortress on the border of Locris for his operations against the inhabitants of that country.
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§ 12.44.2 Also the Athenians, accusing the Aeginetans of having collaborated with the Lacedemonians, expelled them from their state, and sending colonists there from their own citizens they portioned out to them in allotments both the city of Aegina and its territory.
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§ 12.44.3 To the Aeginetan refugees the Lacedemonians gave Thyreae, as it is called, to dwell in, because the Athenians had also once given Naupactus as a home for the people whom they had driven out of Messene. The Athenians also dispatched Pericles with an army to make war upon the Megarians. He plundered their territory, laid waste their possessions, and returned to Athens with much booty.
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§ 12.45.1 The Lacedemonians together with the Peloponnesians and their other allies invaded Attica for a second time. In their advance through the country they chopped down orchards and burned the farm-buildings, and they laid waste almost the entire land with the exception of the region known as the Tetrapolis. This area they spared because their ancestors had once dwelt there and had gone forth from it as their base on the occasion when they had defeated Eurystheus; for they considered it only fair that the benefactors of their ancestors should in turn receive from their descendants the corresponding benefactions.
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§ 12.45.2 As for the Athenians, they could not venture to meet them in a pitched battle, and being confined as they were within the walls, found themselves involved in an emergency caused by a plague; for since a vast multitude of people of every description had streamed together into the city, there was good reason for their falling victim to diseases as they did, because of the cramped quarters, breathing air which had become polluted.
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§ 12.45.3 Consequently, since they were unable to expel the enemy from their territory, they again dispatched many ships against the Peloponnesus, appointing Pericles general. He ravaged a large part of the territory bordering on the sea, plundered some cities, and brought it about that the Lacedemonians withdrew from Attica.
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§ 12.45.4 After this the Athenians, now that the trees of their countryside had been cut down and the plague was carrying off great numbers, were plunged into despondency and became angry with Pericles, considering him to have been responsible for their being at war. Consequently they removed him from the generalship, and on the strength of some petty grounds for accusation they imposed a fine upon him of eighty talents.
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§ 12.45.5 After this they dispatched embassies to the Lacedemonians and asked that the war be brought to an end; but when not a man paid any attention to them, they were forced to elect Pericles general again. These, then, were the events of this year.
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§ 12.46.1 When Epameinon was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Lucius Papirius and Aulus Cornelius Macerinus. This year in Athens Pericles the general died, a man who not only in birth and wealth, but also in eloquence and skill as a general, far surpassed his fellow citizens.
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§ 12.46.2 Since the people of Athens desired for the glory of it to take Potidaea by storm, they sent Hagnon there as general with the army which Pericles had formerly commanded. He put in at Potidaea with the whole expedition and made all his preparations for the siege; for he had made ready every kind of engine used in sieges, a multitude of arms and missiles, and an abundance of grain, sufficient for the entire army. Hagnon spent much time making continuous assaults every day, but without the power to take the city.
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§ 12.46.3 For on the one side the besieged, spurred on by their fear of capture, were putting up a sturdy resistance and, confiding in the superior height of the walls, held the advantage over the Athenians attacking from the harbour, whereas the besiegers were dying in large numbers from the plague and despondency prevailed throughout the army.
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§ 12.46.4 Hagnon, knowing that the Athenians had spent more than a thousand talents on the siege and were angry with the Potidaeans because they were the first to go over to the Lacedemonians, was afraid to raise the siege; consequently he felt compelled to continue it and to compel the soldiers, beyond their strength, to force the issue against the city.
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§ 12.46.5 But since many Athens citizens were being slain in the assaults and by the ravages of the plague, he left a part of his army to maintain the siege and sailed back to Athens, having lost more than a thousand of his soldiers.
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§ 12.46.6 After Hagnon had withdrawn, the Potidaeans, since their grain supply was entirely exhausted and the people in the city were disheartened, sent heralds to the besiegers to discuss terms of capitulation. These were received eagerly and an agreement to cessation of hostilities was reached on the following terms: All the Potidaeans should depart from the city, taking nothing with them, with the exception that men could have one garment and women two.
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§ 12.46.7 When this truce had been agreed upon, all the Potidaeans together with their wives and children left their native land in accordance with the terms of the compact and went to the Chalcidians in Thrace among whom they made their home; and the Athenians sent out as many as a thousand of their citizens to Potidaea as colonists and portioned out to them in allotments both the city and its territory.
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§ 12.47.1 The Athenians elected Phormio general and sent him to sea with twenty triremes. He sailed around the Peloponnesus and put in at Naupactus, and by gaining the mastery of the Crisaean Gulf prevented the Lacedemonians from sailing in those parts. And the Lacedemonians sent out a strong army under Archidamus their king, who marched into Boeotia and took up positions before Plataea. Under the threat of ravaging the territory of the Plataeans he called upon them to revolt from the Athenians, and when they paid no attention to him, he plundered their territory and laid waste their possessions everywhere.
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§ 12.47.2 After this he threw a wall about the city, in the hope that he could force the Plataeans to capitulate because of lack of the necessities of life; at the same time the Lacedemonians continued bringing up engines with which they kept shattering the walls and making assaults without interruption. But when they found themselves unable to take the city through their assaults, they left an adequate guard before it and returned to the Peloponnesus.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by George Booth (1635-1719) and J.C. Ferdinand Hoefer (1811-1878). Composed ca. 49 BCE. Licence: public domain. Source.