Book 1

Chapter 1

1 Thucydides the Athenian wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, recounting how they fought one another. He began as soon as it broke out, expecting it to be great and more worthy of record than any that had preceded it. His grounds were that both sides entered it at the height of their strength, with their entire resources prepared, and that he saw the rest of the Greek world aligning itself with one side or the other, some at once, others still considering it.

2 For this was the greatest upheaval to befall the Greeks and a part of the barbarian world—indeed, one might say, the greater part of humanity.

3 As for what came before it, and the still more distant past, the length of time made clear discovery impossible. Yet from the evidence I find credible when I carry my inquiry as far back as possible, I judge that neither the wars nor anything else that happened then was on a great scale.

Chapter 2

1 For the country now called Hellas plainly had no settled population in early times. Instead, migrations were frequent, and each people readily abandoned its own land under pressure from others who were always more numerous.

2 There was no commerce, nor could people move freely among one another without fear, either by land or by sea. Each cultivated its own territory only enough to live on, without surplus wealth or planted estates: no one knew when another might come and strip them of everything, especially since they had no walls. Believing they could secure their necessary daily food anywhere, they had little difficulty moving away. For this reason they had neither the strength of great cities nor other resources of power.

3 It was always the best land that underwent the most changes of inhabitants: what is now called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese except Arcadia, and the richest parts of the rest of the country.

4 For the excellence of the soil increased the power of certain men and so bred civil strife, through which the inhabitants ruined themselves; at the same time, they were more exposed to designs by outsiders.

5 Attica, at any rate, whose thin soil kept it for the longest time free of civil strife, was always inhabited by the same people.

6 Here is a particularly strong illustration of the argument that migrations prevented the rest of Hellas from growing to the same extent. The most powerful of those driven out of other parts of Hellas by war or civil strife took refuge among the Athenians, since their country was secure. Becoming citizens, they increased the city's population still further from very early times, until later the Athenians even sent colonies to Ionia because Attica could no longer hold them.

Chapter 3

1 Another especially clear indication, to my mind, of the weakness of early times is this: before the Trojan War, Hellas appears to have undertaken nothing in common.

2 Indeed, I believe it did not yet even bear this name as a whole. Before Hellen son of Deucalion, the designation seems not to have existed at all; the different peoples, and most widely the Pelasgians, gave their own names to their respective territories. But when Hellen and his sons became powerful in Phthiotis, and other cities brought them in for assistance, these communities individually came increasingly to be called Greeks through their association with them. Yet only after a long time [could] the name prevail for them all.

3 Homer supplies the strongest evidence. Though he lived much later even than the Trojan War, nowhere does he use this name for them all, nor for any except the men who came with Achilles from Phthiotis, who were indeed the first Greeks. In his poems he calls them Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. Nor, however, does he speak of barbarians, because, as I see it, the Greeks had not yet been set apart under a single, contrasting name.

4 Those, then, who were called Greeks—first the separate cities whose people understood one another, and later the whole body—accomplished nothing together before the Trojan War, because they were weak and had little intercourse with one another. Even that expedition they undertook jointly only when they had begun to make greater use of the sea.

Chapter 4

1 Minos is the earliest figure known to us by report to have acquired a navy. He gained control over most of what is now the Greek sea, ruled the Cycladic islands, and was the first to colonize most of them, expelling the Carians and installing his own sons as governors. He also, as one would expect, cleared piracy from the sea as far as he could, so that his revenues might reach him more readily.

Chapter 5

1 For in early times the Greeks, and those barbarians who inhabited the mainland coasts or held islands, turned to piracy as they began to cross more often in ships to one another's shores. Their leaders were men of considerable power, seeking both their own profit and food for the weak. They fell upon unwalled towns, whose inhabitants lived in scattered villages, and plundered them, drawing most of their livelihood from this activity. The occupation as yet carried no shame; rather, it even brought some glory.

2 Evidence survives among certain mainland peoples even now, for whom skill in this is an honor, and in the older poets, who everywhere put the same question to those arriving by sea: whether they are pirates. Those questioned evidently disowned no such occupation, and those who wished to know were not reproaching them.

3 They also plundered one another on land. Even to this day much of Hellas lives in the old manner, among the Ozolian Locrians, the Aetolians, the Acarnanians, and the mainland in that region. Among these mainland peoples the custom of carrying weapons has persisted from the piracy of old.

Chapter 6

1 For all Hellas once carried weapons: its settlements were unprotected, and travel between them was unsafe. Living under arms became their habitual way of life, as it is among the barbarians.

2 Those parts of Hellas where life is still conducted in this fashion are evidence of the practices once shared by all.

3 The Athenians were among the first to lay aside their weapons and adopt a more relaxed and luxurious way of life. Indeed, it is not long since the older men among their wealthy citizens gave up the linen tunics and the knots of hair fastened with golden cicadas that they wore in their taste for refinement. Through kinship with them, the older Ionians too long retained this fashion.

4 The Lacedaemonians, by contrast, were the first to wear modest clothing of the present kind; and in other respects too, those who possessed more adopted, to an unusual degree, the same way of life as the multitude.

5 They were also the first to strip naked, taking off their clothes in public and rubbing themselves with oil when they exercised. Formerly, even in the Olympic games, athletes competed wearing loincloths over their genitals, and it is not many years since the practice ceased. Even now some barbarians, especially those in Asia, offer prizes for boxing and wrestling, and compete in loincloths.

6 Many other instances could be adduced to show that the Greeks of old lived in the same manner as the barbarians of today.

Chapter 7

1 The more recently founded cities, established when navigation had become safer and wealth more abundant, were built with walls on the very shores. They occupied the isthmuses both for commerce and to strengthen themselves against their respective neighbors. The older cities, however, both on the islands and on the mainland, were founded farther from the sea because piracy long persisted. For the pirates plundered one another, and also those other people who were not seafarers but lived near the coast. These cities remain inland to this day.

Chapter 8

1 The islanders were no less given to piracy: they were Carians and Phoenicians, for these peoples inhabited most of the islands. There is evidence for this. When the Athenians purified Delos during this war and removed all the tombs of the dead on the island, more than half proved to be those of Carians. They were identified by the weapons buried with them and by the manner of burial, which the Carians still practice today.

2 But once Minos had established his navy, passage between peoples became safer—for he expelled the wrongdoers from the islands at the very time when he was colonizing most of them.

3 The coastal populations now devoted themselves more to acquiring wealth and lived with greater security, and some even built walls around their towns as they grew richer than before. For the desire for gain led the weaker to endure subjection to the stronger, while the more powerful, possessing surplus wealth, brought the smaller cities under their authority.

4 It was when this condition was already further advanced that, at a later date, they made their expedition against Troy.

Chapter 9

1 Agamemnon, too, seems to me to have assembled the expedition because he surpassed his contemporaries in power, rather than because he led Helen's suitors under the constraint of the oaths they had sworn to Tyndareus.

2 Those Peloponnesians who have received the clearest traditions from their predecessors also say that Pelops first won power through the great wealth he brought from Asia to an impoverished people, and, though an immigrant, gave his name to their country. Still greater fortunes later fell to his descendants. Eurystheus was killed in Attica by the descendants of Heracles; Atreus was his mother's brother, and when Eurystheus went on campaign he had entrusted Mycenae and the government to him as a kinsman. Atreus happened at the time to be in flight from his father because of the death of Chrysippus. When Eurystheus did not return, Atreus took over the kingship of Mycenae and all the territories Eurystheus had ruled. The Mycenaeans themselves desired this, both from fear of the descendants of Heracles and because Atreus seemed powerful and had cultivated the people. Thus the descendants of Pelops became greater than those of Perseus.

3 Agamemnon, I believe, inherited these resources and at the same time acquired greater naval strength than the others; he assembled and led the expedition more through fear than goodwill.

4 For he evidently arrived with the largest number of ships himself and also supplied ships to the Arcadians, as Homer has made clear, if his testimony is sufficient for anyone. In his account of the scepter's transmission he also says that Agamemnon / “ruled over many islands and all Argos.” / Now, as a mainland ruler, he could not have controlled islands beyond those close by—which cannot have been many—unless he also possessed some naval force. From this expedition one must also infer the character of the times that preceded it.

Chapter 10

1 That Mycenae was a small place, or that any town of that age now seems insignificant, would not be sound evidence for disbelieving that the expedition was as large as the poets have said and tradition maintains.

2 For if the city of the Lacedaemonians were deserted and only its sanctuaries and the foundations of its buildings remained, I think that, after much time had passed, later generations would find its power hard to credit in comparison with its fame. Yet they occupy two-fifths of the Peloponnese and lead the whole of it, as well as many allies outside it. Nevertheless, because their city is not gathered into a single settlement and has no costly sanctuaries or buildings, but is settled in villages in the old manner of Hellas, it would appear inferior. If the same fate befell the Athenians, their power would be estimated from the city's visible appearance at twice what it is.

3 There is therefore no reason for disbelief, nor should one look to the appearance of cities rather than their power. We should judge that expedition the greatest of those before it, but inferior to those of our own day—if here too we should place any trust in Homer's poetry. Though, as a poet, he probably embellished and magnified it, even on his account it appears inferior.

4 For of the twelve hundred ships in his poem he gives the Boeotian ships a hundred and twenty men each and those of Philoctetes fifty, indicating, as I believe, the largest and the smallest; at any rate, he mentions the size of no others in his catalogue of ships. That all the men rowed as well as fought he makes clear in the case of Philoctetes' ships, for he represents all the oarsmen as archers. It is unlikely that many sailed as passengers apart from the kings and those of highest rank, especially since they were to cross the open sea with military equipment, and their ships were not fully decked but fitted out in the old style, more like pirate vessels.

5 Taking an average, then, between the largest and the smallest ships, one sees that not many men went, considering that they were sent jointly from all Hellas.

Chapter 11

1 The cause was not so much a shortage of men as a shortage of money. Lack of provisions made them bring a smaller army, only as large as they hoped could live off the country while fighting. Once they arrived, they won a battle—this is clear, for otherwise they could not have built the defenses of their camp. Yet even then they evidently did not employ their whole strength, but turned to farming the Chersonese and to piracy because provisions were scarce. Their dispersal enabled the Trojans all the more to hold out in the field throughout the ten years, since they were a match for whatever force remained at any time.

2 Had they come with abundant provisions and kept together, prosecuting the war continuously without piracy or farming, they would easily have taken Troy through victory in battle: even when dispersed, they held their own with whatever portion of their force was present. By settling down to a siege, moreover, they would have captured Troy in less time and with less trouble.

3 But lack of money kept the earlier undertakings weak; and even this one, the most celebrated of all that preceded it, proves in its actual achievements inferior to its fame and to the account of it that has now prevailed through the poets.

Chapter 12

1 Even after the Trojan War, Hellas was still undergoing migrations and resettlement, so that it had no peace in which to grow.

2 For the Greeks' long-delayed return from Ilium brought many changes, and civil strife was widespread in the cities; those expelled in these struggles founded new cities.

3 The present Boeotians, for example, were driven out of Arne by the Thessalians in the sixtieth year after the capture of Ilium, and settled the country now called Boeotia, but formerly the land of Cadmus. A portion of their people had already been in this country earlier, and some of these had joined the expedition to Ilium. In the eightieth year the Dorians, together with the descendants of Heracles, took possession of the Peloponnese.

4 Only after a long time did Hellas at last attain secure peace, free from further displacement, and send out colonies. The Athenians settled the Ionians and most of the islanders; the Peloponnesians settled most of Italy and Sicily, as well as certain places in the rest of Hellas. All these settlements were founded after the Trojan War.

Chapter 13

1 As Hellas grew more powerful and devoted itself still more than before to acquiring wealth, tyrannies were established in most cities as their revenues increased. Earlier there had been hereditary kingships with specified privileges. Hellas also began to equip fleets, and the Greeks applied themselves more closely to the sea.

2 The Corinthians are said to have been the first to bring naval practice close to its present form, and Corinth was the first place in Hellas where triremes were built.

3 The Corinthian shipbuilder Ameinocles is also known to have built four ships for the Samians. It was about three hundred years before the end of this war that Ameinocles went to Samos.

4 The earliest sea battle known to us was fought between the Corinthians and the Corcyraeans; this too was about two hundred and sixty years before the same date.

5 For with their city situated on the Isthmus, the Corinthians had always possessed a trading center. In early times the Greeks, both within and outside the Peloponnese, traveled through Corinthian territory to reach one another, more often by land than by sea. The Corinthians were therefore wealthy and powerful, as even the early poets have shown: they gave the place the epithet “rich.” When the Greeks took more to sailing, the Corinthians acquired their ships and suppressed piracy; by providing a trading center for both routes, they made their city powerful through its revenues.

6 Later the Ionians too acquired a substantial navy, under Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and his son Cambyses. At war with Cyrus, they controlled their own sea for a time. Polycrates also, tyrant of Samos under Cambyses, used his naval strength to subject other islands and, after taking Rhenea, dedicated it to Delian Apollo. The Phocaeans, while founding Massalia, defeated the Carthaginians at sea.

Chapter 14

1 For these were the strongest navies. Yet even these, though they arose many generations after the Trojan War, evidently used few triremes: they were still equipped with fifty-oared ships and long vessels, like the fleets of that earlier age.

2 Shortly before the Persian Wars and the death of Darius, who became king of the Persians after Cambyses, the tyrants of Sicily and the Corcyraeans acquired large numbers of triremes. For these were the last navies of any account to be established in Hellas before Xerxes' expedition.

3 The Aeginetans, the Athenians, and any others possessed few ships, mostly fifty-oared vessels. Only quite recently had Themistocles persuaded the Athenians, who were at war with the Aeginetans and also expecting the barbarian's invasion, to build the ships with which they fought their sea battles; and even these did not yet have continuous decks.

Chapter 15

1 Such, then, were the Greek navies, both the early fleets and those formed later. Those who applied themselves to them nevertheless acquired considerable power, through revenues and rule over others. For they sailed against the islands and subdued them, the peoples with insufficient territory of their own being especially active.

2 On land, however, no war arose that brought any substantial increase in power. All the wars that did occur were fought by each people against its own neighbors; the Greeks did not mount expeditions far from home to conquer others. They had not combined as subjects under the greatest cities, nor, on the other hand, did they make joint expeditions of their own as equals. Rather, each neighboring people fought separately against the others.

3 It was chiefly in the ancient war between the Chalcidians and the Eretrians that the rest of the Greek world divided into alliances with the two sides.

Chapter 16

1 Different obstacles to growth arose in different places. When the Ionians' affairs had advanced far, Cyrus and the Persian kingdom, after overthrowing Croesus and all the territory between the river Halys and the sea, made war upon them and enslaved their mainland cities. Later Darius, commanding the Phoenician navy, enslaved the islands as well.

Chapter 17

1 The tyrants in the Greek cities looked only to their own interests—the safety of their persons and the increase of their private households—and governed their cities with as much caution as possible. They accomplished no deed of consequence, apart from any action each took against its own neighbors; for it was the tyrants in Sicily who advanced furthest in power. Thus Hellas was held back on every side for a long time: it accomplished nothing conspicuous in common, and its separate cities were less venturesome.

Chapter 18

1 The tyrants of Athens and most of the last tyrants elsewhere in Hellas, which had already been under tyrannies for a long time, were overthrown by the Lacedaemonians, with the exception of those in Sicily. For although Lacedaemon, after its settlement by the Dorians who now inhabit it, experienced civil strife for the longest period known to us, it nevertheless secured good government at a very early date and was always free of tyranny. By the end of this war, the Lacedaemonians had lived under the same constitution for a little more than four hundred years; the strength this gave them enabled them to regulate affairs in the other cities as well. Not many years after the overthrow of the tyrants in Hellas, the battle of Marathon was fought between the Medes and the Athenians.

2 In the tenth year after it, the barbarian returned with his great armament to enslave Hellas. With this immense danger hanging over them, the Lacedaemonians, preeminent in power, took command of the Greeks who fought together, while the Athenians, as the Medes approached, resolved to abandon their city, removed their possessions, and embarked on their ships, becoming a naval people. Having jointly driven back the barbarian, not long afterward the Greeks who had revolted from the King and those who had fought against him divided between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians. For these two powers stood out as the greatest: the one was strong on land, the other at sea.

3 Their common military alliance lasted only a short time. Then the Lacedaemonians and Athenians quarreled and fought one another with their allies; and whenever any of the other Greeks fell into dispute, they now joined one side or the other. Thus from the Persian Wars down to this war, sometimes at peace under treaty, sometimes fighting one another or their own rebellious allies, they developed their military resources and became more experienced, practicing their skills amid real dangers.

Chapter 19

1 The Lacedaemonians led their allies without subjecting them to tribute, taking care only that they should be governed by oligarchies favorable to Lacedaemonian interests. The Athenians, by contrast, in time took over the cities' ships, except those of Chios and Lesbos, and fixed payments of money for all. By the time of this war, their own military resources were greater than ever they had been at the height of their strength with their alliance unimpaired.

Chapter 20

1 Such were my findings concerning early times, though it is difficult to trust every successive piece of evidence. For people accept accounts of the past from one another without testing them, even when the events belong to their own country.

2 Most Athenians, for example, believe that Hipparchus was tyrant when Harmodius and Aristogiton killed him. They do not know that Hippias, as the eldest of Pisistratus' sons, held power, while Hipparchus and Thessalus were his brothers. On that very day, at the last moment, Harmodius and Aristogiton suspected that one of their fellow conspirators had informed Hippias. Believing him forewarned, they left him alone; but wanting to strike a blow at whatever risk before they were arrested, they came upon Hipparchus arranging the Panathenaic procession near the place called the Leocorium and killed him.

3 The other Greeks too hold many mistaken beliefs, even about things that still exist and have not been obscured by time: that each of the Lacedaemonian kings casts two votes rather than one, for instance, and that they have a Pitanate company, which never existed at all. So little trouble do most people take in searching for the truth; they turn instead to what lies ready to hand.

Chapter 21

1 Nevertheless, anyone who concludes from the evidence given that events were substantially as I have related them would not be mistaken. He should put no greater trust in the poets, who have celebrated them with magnifying embellishments, or in the prose chroniclers, who have composed their accounts more to attract an audience than to tell the truth. Their subjects cannot be verified, and time has for the most part carried them beyond belief into the realm of fable. Rather, he should consider that my findings, drawn from the clearest indications, are adequate given the antiquity of the events.

2 And although people always judge the war they are fighting to be the greatest while it lasts, but marvel more at ancient wars once it is over, this war will nevertheless prove greater than those earlier wars to anyone who examines the events themselves.

Chapter 22

1 As for what the various speakers said, either before entering the war or when already engaged in it, it was difficult to remember the precise words, both for me in the speeches I heard myself and for those who reported to me from elsewhere. I have therefore presented the speeches as I thought each speaker would have expressed what the circumstances at each moment most demanded, while keeping as close as possible to the overall purport of what was actually said.

2 As for the actions of the war, I did not think it right to write from whatever report came my way, nor according to my own impressions. I investigated each event with the greatest precision possible, both those at which I was present myself and those I learned of from others.

3 The facts were established only with difficulty, because those present at each event did not give the same account of the same things, but spoke according to their sympathy for one side or the other, or according to their memory.

4 The absence of fable in these accounts may perhaps make them less pleasing to hear. But I shall be content if they are judged useful by those who wish to examine clearly what happened, and what, human nature being what it is, will happen again at some future time in the same or a similar form. The work has been composed as an enduring possession, rather than a performance-piece for the moment's hearing.

Chapter 23

1 Of earlier achievements, the greatest was the war against the Medes; yet even that was swiftly decided by two naval battles and two battles on land. This war, by contrast, extended over a great length of time, and in its course sufferings befell Hellas unlike any others within an equal span.

2 Never had so many cities been captured and laid waste, some by barbarians, others by the Greeks themselves as they fought one another; some even changed their inhabitants after capture. Never had so many people been driven into exile, or so much blood been shed, whether in the war itself or through civil strife.

3 And things previously reported by hearsay, but more rarely confirmed in fact, ceased to seem incredible: earthquakes, the same shocks extending at once over the widest tracts of land with the utmost violence; eclipses of the sun, occurring more frequently than those remembered from earlier times; severe droughts in some places, with famines following them; and the pestilential disease, which did no less harm and destroyed part of the population. For all these calamities fell upon Hellas together with this war.

4 The Athenians and Peloponnesians began it by breaking the thirty-year truce they had concluded after the capture of Euboea.

5 As to why they broke it, I have first set out the accusations and disputes, so that no one should ever have to ask how so great a war arose among the Greeks.

6 The truest cause, though least openly expressed, was, I believe, the growing power of Athens and the fear it inspired in the Lacedaemonians, which compelled them to go to war. But the accusations openly voiced on either side, which led them to break the truce and enter upon the war, were as follows.

Chapter 24

1 Epidamnus is a city on the right as one sails into the Ionian Gulf. Its neighbors are the Taulantians, barbarians of Illyrian stock.

2 The Corcyraeans colonized it, but its founder was Phalius son of Eratoclides, a Corinthian of the line of Heracles, summoned from the mother city in accordance with the ancient custom. Some Corinthians and others of Dorian stock also joined in the settlement.

3 As time passed, the power of the Epidamnians grew great and their population numerous.

4 But after many years of civil strife among themselves, they were, it is said, ruined by a war with the neighboring barbarians and stripped of much of their power.

5 Finally, just before this war, their people drove out the powerful men. These returned with the barbarians and plundered those in the city by land and sea.

6 Under this pressure, the Epidamnians in the city sent ambassadors to Corcyra, their mother city, begging the Corcyraeans not to stand by and watch their destruction, but to reconcile them with the exiles and put an end to the war with the barbarians.

7 They made these pleas seated as suppliants in the sanctuary of Hera. The Corcyraeans, however, rejected their supplication and sent them away without accomplishing anything.

Chapter 25

1 When the Epidamnians realized that no help would come from Corcyra, they were at a loss how to settle their present troubles. They sent to Delphi and asked the god whether they should hand their city over to the Corinthians as its founders and try to secure some assistance from them. His response was that they should hand it over and take the Corinthians as their leaders.

2 The Epidamnians accordingly went to Corinth and, in obedience to the oracle, handed over the colony. They demonstrated that their founder came from Corinth, made known the oracle's response, and begged the Corinthians not to stand by and watch their destruction, but to come to their defense.

3 The Corinthians undertook to help, both on grounds of right, since they considered the colony no less theirs than the Corcyraeans', and also out of hatred for the Corcyraeans, who, though their colonists, treated them with neglect.

4 For at common festivals they neither granted the customary honors nor allowed a Corinthian to inaugurate the sacrificial rites, as the other colonies did. Instead, they despised them: in wealth they then matched the richest of the Greeks, and in equipment for war they were stronger than the Corinthians. At times they even prided themselves on their great naval superiority, encouraged also by the fame in seamanship of the Phaeacians, Corcyra's earlier inhabitants. This made them equip their navy all the more zealously, and they were by no means weak: they possessed a hundred and twenty triremes when they began the war.

Chapter 26

1 With all these grievances against them, the Corinthians gladly sent assistance to Epidamnus, inviting anyone who wished to go as a settler, and sending a garrison drawn from the Ambraciots, the Leucadians, and themselves.

2 They traveled overland to Apollonia, a Corinthian colony, for fear that the Corcyraeans would obstruct their passage if they crossed by sea.

3 When the Corcyraeans learned that settlers and a garrison had reached Epidamnus and that the colony had been handed over to Corinth, they were furious. They sailed out at once with twenty-five ships, and later with a further fleet, and insolently ordered the Epidamnians to receive the exiles back and dismiss the garrison and settlers sent by Corinth. For the Epidamnian exiles had come to Corcyra, pointing to ancestral tombs and appealing to their kinship as grounds for their plea to be restored.

4 The Epidamnians obeyed none of these demands. The Corcyraeans therefore advanced against them with forty ships, accompanied by the exiles whom they meant to restore, and with Illyrians whom they had taken as allies.

5 Taking up positions before the city, they proclaimed that any Epidamnian who wished, as well as the foreigners, could leave unharmed; otherwise they would be treated as enemies. When the inhabitants refused to comply, the Corcyraeans laid siege to the city, which stands on an isthmus.

Chapter 27

1 When messengers came from Epidamnus to tell the Corinthians of the siege, they prepared an expedition. At the same time they proclaimed a settlement at Epidamnus, inviting anyone who wished to go on terms of full equality. Anyone unwilling to sail at once, but wishing to have a share in the colony, could remain behind on depositing fifty Corinthian drachmas. Many sailed, and many also paid the money.

2 They also asked the Megarians to escort them with ships, in case the Corcyraeans tried to prevent their passage. The Megarians prepared to accompany them with eight ships, and Pale in Cephallenia with four. They appealed to the Epidaurians too, who supplied five ships; Hermione supplied one, Troezen two, Leucas ten, and Ambracia eight. They asked the Thebans and Phliasians for money, and the Eleans for empty ships as well as money. The Corinthians themselves prepared thirty ships and three thousand hoplites.

Chapter 28

1 When the Corcyraeans learned of these preparations, they went to Corinth, bringing with them Lacedaemonian and Sicyonian ambassadors, and demanded that the Corinthians withdraw the garrison and settlers at Epidamnus, since they had no claim to that city.

2 If the Corinthians asserted a claim, the Corcyraeans were willing to submit to arbitration before such cities in the Peloponnese as both parties could agree upon; whichever side was judged to own the colony should retain it. They were also willing to refer the matter to the oracle at Delphi.

3 They urged the Corinthians not to make war. Otherwise, they said, Corinthian aggression would compel them too, for the sake of assistance, to make friends outside their present circle—a course they did not desire.

4 The Corinthians replied that they would consider the matter if the Corcyraeans withdrew their ships and the barbarians from Epidamnus; before that, it was not proper for the Epidamnians to be under siege while the Corinthians went to arbitration.

5 The Corcyraeans countered that they would do so if the Corinthians also withdrew their men from Epidamnus. They were also ready for both sides to remain where they were and conclude a truce until judgment was given.

Chapter 29

1 The Corinthians accepted none of these proposals. Once their ships were fully manned and their allies had arrived, they first sent a herald to declare war on the Corcyraeans, then put to sea with seventy-five ships and two thousand hoplites, sailing for Epidamnus to fight against the Corcyraeans.

2 The fleet was commanded by Aristeus son of Pellichus, Callicrates son of Callias, and Timanor son of Timanthes; the land force by Archetimus son of Eurytimus and Isarchidas son of Isarchus.

3 When they reached Actium in the territory of Anactorium, where the sanctuary of Apollo stands at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, the Corcyraeans sent a herald ahead in a small boat to forbid their advancing against them. Meanwhile they were manning their ships, bracing the old ones to make them seaworthy and repairing the rest.

4 When the herald returned with no peaceful answer from the Corinthians, and their own eighty ships were fully manned—for forty were besieging Epidamnus—they put out to meet the enemy, formed their line, and fought a naval battle.

5 The Corcyraeans won a decisive victory and destroyed fifteen Corinthian ships. On that same day, as it happened, their force besieging Epidamnus also secured its surrender on terms: the newcomers were to be sold into slavery, while the Corinthians were to be kept in chains until some further decision was reached.

Chapter 30

1 After the naval battle the Corcyraeans set up a trophy on Leucimme, a headland of Corcyra. They killed all the other prisoners they had taken, but kept the Corinthians in chains.

2 Later, when the Corinthians and their allies had returned home after their defeat at sea, the Corcyraeans held command of all the waters in that region. They sailed to Leucas, the Corinthian colony, and ravaged its land; they also burned Cyllene, the port of the Eleans, because the Eleans had supplied Corinth with ships and money.

3 For most of the time after the naval battle they controlled the sea, sailing against Corinth's allies and laying their lands waste. This continued until the Corinthians, as summer advanced, sent ships and an army to relieve their hard-pressed allies and encamped at Actium and around Chimerium in Thesprotis, to protect Leucas and the other cities friendly to them.

4 The Corcyraeans in turn encamped opposite them at Leucimme, with ships and land forces. Neither side sailed against the other. They remained facing one another throughout that summer, and only when winter had arrived did each return home.

Chapter 31

1 Throughout the year after the naval battle and the following year, the Corinthians, pursuing their war against Corcyra in anger, built ships and exerted themselves to equip the strongest possible fleet, recruiting rowers for pay both from the Peloponnese itself and from the rest of Hellas.

2 The Corcyraeans learned of these preparations and became afraid. Since they were bound by treaty to none of the Greeks, and had enrolled themselves neither in the Athenian alliance nor in the Lacedaemonian, they resolved to approach the Athenians, become their allies, and try to obtain some assistance from them.

3 On learning this, the Corinthians also went to Athens on an embassy, lest the Athenian navy should join the Corcyraean and prevent them from bringing the war to the conclusion they desired.

4 An assembly was convened, and the two sides came forward to argue their cases. The Corcyraeans spoke as follows.

Chapter 32

1 “Athenians, those who come to their neighbors to request assistance, as we now do, without a great service to their credit or an existing alliance, ought first to show that what they ask is to the others' advantage—or, failing that, at least does them no harm—and then that their gratitude will be lasting. If they establish none of this clearly, they should not resent a refusal.

2 “The Corcyraeans have sent us to ask for an alliance, confident that we can give you firm assurances on these points as well.

3 “Yet the very policy we have followed has made our present appeal to you inconsistent, and has also proved disadvantageous to our own interests in this crisis.

4 “For though we have never before voluntarily become anyone's allies, we now come to ask this of others; and in our present war with Corinth that same policy has left us isolated. What once seemed our prudence—refusing, through an alliance with others, to share dangers at a neighbor's discretion—has now turned out to be folly and weakness.

5 “In the naval battle already fought, we repelled the Corinthians alone and unaided. But now they have set out against us with a greater force drawn from the Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas. We see that our own strength alone cannot prevail, and the danger is great if we fall under their power. We must therefore ask assistance from you and everyone else; and we deserve indulgence for now venturing upon a course opposed to our former abstention from affairs: our earlier judgment was mistaken, not base.

Chapter 33

1 “If you grant our request, the occasion of our need will bring you many honorable advantages. First, you will be assisting men who suffer injustice, not men who injure others. Then, by receiving us when our greatest interests are in danger, you will lay up gratitude with the most enduring possible witness to your kindness. Moreover, we possess the largest navy apart from your own.

2 “Consider: what good fortune could be rarer, or more painful to your enemies, than for a power whose accession you would have prized above great sums of money and great obligations to come of its own accord and offer itself without danger or expense? It brings you, besides, a reputation for virtue before the world, gratitude from those you defend, and strength for yourselves. In all history few have gained all these things at once; and few who ask for an alliance come offering those they approach as much security and distinction as they themselves will receive.

3 “If any of you thinks that the war in which we could be useful will not come, his judgment is mistaken. He does not perceive that the Lacedaemonians, afraid of you, are eager for war, or that the Corinthians, influential with them and hostile to you, are now seizing the opportunity to subdue us before attacking you. They mean to prevent us from standing together against them in our common enmity, and to forestall us in at least one of two aims: weakening us or strengthening themselves.

4 “Our task, in turn, is to act before them—we by offering the alliance, you by accepting it—and to lay our plans against them first, rather than answer plans already laid against us.

Chapter 34

1 “If they say that you have no right to receive their colonists, let them learn that every colony honors its mother city when well treated, but becomes estranged when wronged. Colonists are sent out not to be slaves, but to be equals of those who remain behind.

2 “That they were in the wrong is clear: when invited to arbitrate over Epidamnus, they chose to pursue their grievances by war rather than on equal terms of justice.

3 “Let their treatment of us, their kinsmen, be a warning to you too, so that you are neither misled by their deceit nor ready to serve them when they ask outright. A man will remain most secure if he gives his adversaries the fewest favors that he later has cause to regret.

Chapter 35

1 “Nor will you break your treaty with the Lacedaemonians by receiving us, since we are allies of neither side.

2 “For it is stated in the treaty that any Greek city allied with neither may join whichever side it pleases.

3 “It would be monstrous if these men were allowed to man their ships from the treaty states, and also from the rest of Hellas—not least from your own subjects—yet barred us from the alliance now offered and from assistance anywhere else, and then charged you with wrongdoing if you granted our request.

4 “We shall have much greater grounds for complaint if we fail to persuade you. For you will be rejecting us, though we are in danger and are not your enemies, while these men, who are your enemies and are attacking us, you will not merely fail to restrain: you will even stand by while they draw additional strength from your empire. That is not just. You should either bar them too from recruiting mercenaries in your dominions, or send us whatever assistance you can be persuaded to give; best of all, you should receive us openly and come to our aid.

5 “As we said at the outset, we can demonstrate many advantages, the greatest being that we have the same enemies—the surest pledge of loyalty—and that these enemies are not weak, but capable of harming those who change sides. Moreover, since the alliance offered is naval, not continental, its rejection has quite a different weight. Your best course, if you can, is to let no one else possess ships; failing that, to have the strongest naval power as your friend.

Chapter 36

1 “If anyone finds these arguments advantageous but fears that accepting them will break the treaty, let him understand that his apprehension, with strength behind it, will frighten his adversaries more, while his confidence, if he rejects us, will have only weakness behind it and leave his powerful enemies less afraid. Let him understand too that his decision now concerns Athens no less than Corcyra, and that he is not taking the best thought for Athens if, with war approaching and all but upon him, he looks only to the immediate moment and hesitates to acquire a place whose friendship or hostility is of the greatest strategic consequence.

2 “For it lies well on the coastal route to Italy and Sicily, enabling you to prevent a navy from coming from there to reinforce the Peloponnesians, and to escort your own fleet from here to those regions; it is also highly advantageous in other respects.

3 “To sum up as briefly as possible, this one consideration should teach you, collectively and individually, not to abandon us. There are three navies of any account among the Greeks: yours, ours, and the Corinthians'. If you allow two of them to combine, and the Corinthians secure us first, you will fight at sea against Corcyraeans and Peloponnesians together. But if you receive us, you will have our ships added to yours when you contend against them.”

4 Such was the speech of the Corcyraeans. After them the Corinthians spoke as follows.

Chapter 37

1 “Since these Corcyraeans have spoken not only about your receiving them, but also claimed that we are unjust and that they are being attacked without good cause, we too must first touch on both these matters before proceeding with the rest of our argument. Thus you will have a firmer understanding of our claim, and will not dismiss their request without due consideration.

2 “They say they have never yet accepted an alliance with anyone out of prudence. But they adopted this practice to serve wrongdoing, not virtue: they wanted no ally to witness their injustices, and no shame to face when they called him in.

3 “At the same time their city's self-sufficient position allows them to judge for themselves the injuries they inflict, rather than submit to agreed procedures. They themselves very seldom sail to their neighbors, while others are constantly compelled to put in at Corcyra.

4 “They have put forward this plausible refusal of treaties not to avoid sharing in the wrongdoing of others, but to do wrong alone: to use force where they are stronger, to gain an advantage where they escape notice, and, if they incur any reproach, to brazen it out.

5 “Yet if they were honorable men, as they claim, the harder it was for their neighbors to reach them, the more clearly they could have displayed their virtue by giving and accepting justice.

Chapter 38

1 “But this is not how they behave, either toward others or toward us. Though our colonists, they have always stood apart from us, and now they make war, saying that they were not sent out to be mistreated.

2 “We too deny that we founded their settlement in order to suffer their insults: we meant to be their leaders and to receive the respect that is our due.

3 “Our other colonies, at any rate, honor us, and no people are more devoted to us than our colonists.

4 “It is plain that, if we satisfy the greater number, these men alone have no just cause for dissatisfaction. Nor would we take the extraordinary step of making war on them if we had not also suffered extraordinary wrong.

5 “Even if we were at fault, it would have been honorable for them to yield to our anger, and shameful for us to override their moderation by force.

6 “But in their arrogance and the license wealth gives them, they have committed many other offenses against us. And Epidamnus, which is ours, they disowned when it was in distress; yet when we came to its assistance, they seized it by force and hold it still.

Chapter 39

1 “They say, indeed, that they were willing first to submit to arbitration. But such an offer should carry weight not when made from a position of advantage and safety, but when the man making it places deeds and words alike on equal terms before resorting to a contest of arms.

2 “These men offered the fair appearance of arbitration not before besieging the place, but only when they believed we would not stand by. And now they have come here, not merely having done wrong there themselves, but asking you to be not their allies but their accomplices in injustice, and to receive them while they are at odds with us.

3 “They should have approached you when they were most secure, not now, when we have been wronged and they are in danger; not now, when you, who had no share in their strength then, would give them a share of your assistance, and, though innocent of their offenses, bear an equal share of our blame. They should long ago have shared their power with you if they were to share its consequences as well.

Chapter 40

1 “We have shown, then, that we come with justified grievances, and that these men are violent and grasping. You must now learn why you could not justly receive them.

2 “For although the treaty states that any city not enrolled in either alliance may join whichever side it wishes, this provision does not cover those who join to injure others. It covers the city that seeks security without depriving another of its allegiance, and that will not bring war instead of peace upon those who receive it, if they are prudent. That is what you would now suffer if you did not listen to us.

3 “For you would become not merely their helpers, but our enemies instead of our treaty partners. If you go with them, we must defend ourselves against them and you together.

4 “Yet justice requires you above all to stand aside from both parties; failing that, you should on the contrary join us against them. You are bound by treaty to Corinth, whereas with Corcyra you have never even entered into a suspension of hostilities. Nor should you establish the precedent of receiving those who revolt from others.

5 “When the Samians revolted, we did not cast our vote against you, though the other Peloponnesians were divided in their voting over whether to help them. Instead, we openly argued that each power should discipline its own allies.

6 “For if you receive and assist those who do wrong, no fewer of your own allies will plainly come over to us, and you will establish a precedent that bears more heavily upon yourselves than upon us.

Chapter 41

1 “These, then, are our claims upon you, sufficient under the customs of the Greeks. We also offer this counsel and ask repayment of a favor, which we say is due to us now: we are neither enemies seeking to harm you nor friends entitled to impose upon you.

2 “For once, when you lacked warships for your war against the Aeginetans before the Persian Wars, you received twenty ships from Corinth. This service, and our service concerning the Samians—when we prevented the Peloponnesians from helping them—enabled you to overcome the Aeginetans and punish the Samians. Both services came at moments when men advancing against their enemies care for nothing beside victory.

3 “For they regard the man who serves them as a friend, even if he was formerly an enemy, and the man who opposes them as an enemy, even if he happens to be a friend. They even put their own interests second to winning the immediate contest.

Chapter 42

1 “Remember these things—and let the younger men learn them from their elders—and resolve to repay us in kind. Do not suppose that what we say is just, but that, if you go to war, your advantage lies elsewhere.

2 “For advantage attends above all the course in which one makes the fewest mistakes. The future war with which the Corcyraeans frighten you, urging you to act unjustly, still lies out of sight; it is not worth being carried away by it into acquiring open enmity with the Corinthians now, not at some future time. Prudence lies rather in dispelling the suspicion that already exists over Megara (for the most recent favor, if timely,

3 “even if smaller, can cancel a greater grievance),

4 “and not in being drawn along by the great naval alliance they offer. To do no wrong to one's equals is a more secure source of strength than to be carried away by the immediate, visible prospect of gain and pursue an advantage through dangers.

Chapter 43

1 “We now find ourselves in the very circumstances for which we ourselves laid down the principle at Lacedaemon: that each power should discipline its own allies. We ask to receive the same treatment from you, and that you, who benefited by our vote, should not injure us by yours.

2 “Repay us on equal terms, recognizing that this is precisely the occasion on which a man who renders service shows himself most truly a friend, and one who opposes us an enemy.

3 “Do not receive these Corcyraeans as allies against our will, or defend them in their wrongdoing.

4 “By acting thus you will both do what is right and take the course best for yourselves.”

Chapter 44

1 Such was the Corinthians' speech in their turn. The Athenians heard both sides, and the assembly met twice. At the first meeting they were no less receptive to the Corinthian arguments; at the second they changed their minds. They decided not to make an alliance with the Corcyraeans binding them to regard the same powers as enemies and friends—for if the Corcyraeans called on them to sail against Corinth, their treaty with the Peloponnesians would be broken. Instead they made a defensive alliance, pledging to help one another if anyone attacked Corcyra or Athens or their allies.

2 For they believed that war with the Peloponnesians would come in any case, and they did not wish to abandon Corcyra, with so great a navy, to the Corinthians. Rather, they wanted the two powers to clash as violently as possible, so that, should the need arise, the Corinthians and the other naval powers would be weaker when the Athenians went to war with them.

3 At the same time, the island seemed to them well placed on the coastal route to Italy and Sicily.

Chapter 45

1 With this purpose the Athenians accepted the Corcyraeans, and not long after the Corinthians had departed they sent ten ships to their aid.

2 Their generals were Lacedaemonius son of Cimon, Diotimus son of Strombichus, and Proteas son of Epicles.

3 They instructed them not to fight the Corinthians at sea unless they sailed against Corcyra and were about to land there or in some other part of its territory; in that event they were to prevent them with all their strength. These instructions were given to avoid breaking the treaty.

Chapter 46

1 The ships duly arrived at Corcyra. The Corinthians, when their preparations were complete, sailed against Corcyra with a hundred and fifty ships: ten from Elis, twelve from Megara, ten from Leucas, twenty-seven from Ambracia, one from Anactorium, and ninety of their own.

2 Each city's contingent had its own generals; the Corinthians were commanded by Xenoclides son of Euthycles and four colleagues.

3 Sailing from Leucas, they approached the mainland opposite Corcyra and anchored at Chimerium in Thesprotia.

4 There is a harbor there, and above it, inland from the sea, lies the city of Ephyra, in the Elaeatis district of Thesprotia. Beside it the Acherusian Lake discharges into the sea; the river Acheron flows through Thesprotia into this lake, which takes its name from the river. The river Thyamis also flows here, forming the boundary between Thesprotia and Cestrine. Between these rivers the promontory of Chimerium projects into the sea.

5 Here, then, on the mainland the Corinthians anchored and made their camp.

Chapter 47

1 When the Corcyraeans learned of their approach, they manned a hundred and ten ships, under Miciades, Aesimides, and Eurybatus, and encamped on one of the islands called Sybota. The ten Athenian ships were also present.

2 Their land force was stationed at Cape Leucimme, together with a thousand hoplites who had come to their aid from Zacynthus.

3 Many barbarians had also come to support the Corinthians on the mainland, for the mainland peoples of this region have always been friendly to them.

Chapter 48

1 When the Corinthians were ready, they took provisions for three days and put out from Chimerium by night to give battle at sea.

2 As dawn broke on their voyage, they sighted the Corcyraean ships out at sea and sailing toward them.

3 When the two sides saw one another, they formed opposing lines. On the Corcyraean right were the Athenian ships; the Corcyraeans themselves held the rest of the line, their ships divided into three squadrons, each commanded by one of the three generals.

4 Such was the Corcyraean formation. On the Corinthian side, the Megarian and Ambraciot ships held the right wing, and the other allies the center, each in their own contingent. The Corinthians themselves held the left wing with their best-sailing ships, facing the Athenians and the Corcyraean right.

Chapter 49

1 When the signals had been raised on both sides, they closed and began the battle. Both carried many hoplites on their decks, as well as many archers and javelin throwers; they were still prepared for battle in the old-fashioned, less skillful manner.

2 The sea battle was fierce, though not distinguished for skill; for the most part it resembled a battle on land.

3 Once they collided, they could not easily draw apart, both because the ships were so numerous and crowded together, and because they relied chiefly for victory on the hoplites on deck, who stood and fought while the ships lay motionless. There were no maneuvers to break through the enemy line; they fought at sea more by courage and strength than by knowledge.

4 Everywhere there was great tumult, and the sea battle was a confusion. In its course the Athenian ships would come up to support the Corcyraeans wherever they were hard pressed, striking fear into their opponents but not beginning an engagement: their generals were afraid to disregard the Athenians' instructions.

5 The Corinthian right wing suffered most. The Corcyraeans routed it with twenty ships, pursued its scattered vessels to the mainland, and sailed as far as the enemy camp. Landing there, they burned the deserted tents and plundered the property.

6 Here, then, the Corinthians and their allies were defeated and the Corcyraeans had the upper hand. But on the left, where the Corinthians themselves were stationed, they were winning decisively: the Corcyraeans, whose fleet was smaller to begin with, were missing the twenty ships engaged in the pursuit.

7 Seeing the Corcyraeans hard pressed, the Athenians now came more openly to their aid, though at first they held back from ramming any ship. But when the rout became unmistakable and the Corinthians pressed on, everyone was soon caught up in the action, and distinctions were no longer observed. Necessity had brought matters to the point where Corinthians and Athenians attacked one another.

Chapter 50

1 After the rout, the Corinthians did not fasten lines to the hulls of the ships they had sunk and take them in tow. Instead they turned on the men, sailing through the wreckage to kill rather than capture them alive. They also killed their own friends without recognizing them, unaware that their right wing had been defeated.

2 With so many ships on either side, spread over so great an expanse of sea, once they had become entangled it was not easy to distinguish who was winning and who was losing. For in number of ships this was the greatest sea battle yet fought by Greeks against Greeks.

3 When the Corinthians had pursued the Corcyraeans to land, they turned to their own wrecks and dead. They secured most of them and brought them to Sybota, where the barbarian land force had come to their support. Sybota is an uninhabited harbor in Thesprotia. Having done this, they gathered their ships again and sailed against the Corcyraeans.

4 The Corcyraeans, with such ships as were still seaworthy and remained to them, together with the Athenian ships, sailed out in their turn to meet them, afraid that they would attempt to land in their territory.

5 It was already late, and the paean had been sung for the attack, when the Corinthians suddenly began backing water. They had sighted twenty Athenian ships approaching, sent out as reinforcements after the first ten. The Athenians had feared that the Corcyraeans might be defeated—as indeed they were—and that their own ten ships would be too few to defend them.

Chapter 51

1 The Corinthians, then, saw these ships first and began to withdraw, suspecting that more ships were coming from Athens than they could see.

2 The Corcyraeans had not seen them, for the direction of their approach kept them more out of sight. They wondered why the Corinthians were backing water, until some men caught sight of the ships and said that ships were sailing up over there. Then they too withdrew: it was already growing dark, and the Corinthians had turned away and broken off the engagement.

3 Thus the two sides parted, and the sea battle ended as night fell.

4 These twenty ships from Athens, commanded by Glaucon son of Leagrus and Andocides son of Leogoras, made their way through the dead and the wrecks to the Corcyraeans' camp at Leucimme, reaching it not long after they had first been sighted.

5 Since it was night, the Corcyraeans feared that they were enemy ships; then they recognized them, and the ships came to anchor.

Chapter 52

1 On the following day the thirty Athenian ships and all the Corcyraean ships that were seaworthy put out and sailed toward the harbor at Sybota where the Corinthians lay, wishing to discover whether they would give battle.

2 The Corinthians took their ships out from shore and formed a line in open water, but remained still. They had no intention of beginning a sea battle of their own accord, seeing that fresh ships had arrived from Athens and that they themselves faced many difficulties: guarding the prisoners they had aboard, and having no means of repairing their ships in an uninhabited place.

3 Rather, they were considering how to make their voyage home, afraid that the Athenians, since they had come to blows, might regard the treaty as broken and refuse to let them sail away.

Chapter 53

1 They therefore decided to put men aboard a small boat and send them to the Athenians without a herald's staff, to test their intentions. They sent them with this message:

2 “You are doing wrong, Athenians, in beginning war and breaking the treaty. As we seek to punish our own enemies, you stand in our way, raising arms against us. If you mean to prevent us from sailing against Corcyra or anywhere else we wish, and are breaking the treaty, take us here first and treat us as enemies.”

3 Such was their message. All those in the Corcyraean force who heard it immediately shouted that they should be seized and put to death. But the Athenians answered as follows:

4 “We are neither beginning war, Peloponnesians, nor breaking the treaty. We have come to aid these Corcyraeans, who are our allies. If you wish to sail anywhere else, we do not prevent you; but if you sail against Corcyra or any part of its territory, we shall not stand aside, so far as it is in our power to act.”

Chapter 54

1 After this answer from the Athenians, the Corinthians prepared for their voyage home and set up a trophy at Sybota on the mainland. The Corcyraeans recovered the wrecks and dead that had been carried toward their side by the current and by a wind which had risen during the night and scattered them in every direction. They too set up a trophy, on the island of Sybota, claiming victory.

2 Each side claimed victory on the following grounds. The Corinthians had prevailed in the sea battle until nightfall, so that they had brought in most of the wrecks and dead; they held no fewer than a thousand prisoners and had sunk about seventy ships. On these grounds they raised a trophy. The Corcyraeans had destroyed some thirty ships and, after the Athenians arrived, had recovered the wrecks and dead that lay on their side. Moreover, on the previous day the Corinthians had backed water and withdrawn before them at the sight of the Athenian ships, and after the Athenians' arrival they had not sailed out from Sybota to meet them. For these reasons the Corcyraeans raised their trophy.

Chapter 55

1 Thus each side claimed the victory. As they sailed home, the Corinthians seized by deceit Anactorium, at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, a place held jointly by themselves and the Corcyraeans. After settling Corinthian inhabitants there, they returned home. Of their Corcyraean prisoners they sold eight hundred who were slaves, but kept two hundred and fifty under guard in chains, treating them with great consideration, so that on their return they might win Corcyra over to Corinth. Most of these men were in fact among the foremost in the city in influence.

2 In this way Corcyra came through its war with the Corinthians, and the Athenian ships departed from the island. This became the Corinthians' first grievance against the Athenians leading to the war: that, while the treaty was in force, they had fought against them at sea alongside the Corcyraeans.

Chapter 56

1 Immediately afterward, the following further dispute arose between the Athenians and Peloponnesians, drawing them toward war.

2 While the Corinthians were seeking means of revenge, the Athenians, suspecting their hostility, issued orders to the Potidaeans, who live on the isthmus of Pallene. Though colonists of Corinth, they were allies of Athens and subject to tribute. They were to demolish their wall facing Pallene, give hostages, and dismiss the magistrates whom the Corinthians sent each year, receiving no more in future. The Athenians feared that, persuaded by Perdiccas and the Corinthians, they might revolt and draw the other allies in the Thracian region into revolt with them.

Chapter 57

1 The Athenians began taking these precautions concerning the Potidaeans immediately after the sea battle at Corcyra.

2 For the Corinthians were now openly hostile, and Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, had become their enemy, though formerly an ally and friend.

3 He had become their enemy because the Athenians had made an alliance with his brother Philip and with Derdas, who were acting together against him.

4 Alarmed, he sent to Lacedaemon and worked to bring about war between Athens and the Peloponnesians; he also sought the Corinthians' support for the revolt of Potidaea.

5 He approached the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans in the Thracian region as well, urging them to join the revolt. He believed that, with these neighboring territories as allies, he could more easily wage war in their company.

6 The Athenians learned of this and wished to forestall the cities' revolt. They happened to be sending thirty ships and a thousand hoplites against his territory, under Archestratus son of Lycomedes and ten other generals. They therefore instructed the commanders of the ships to take hostages from the Potidaeans and demolish their wall, and to keep watch over the neighboring cities to prevent their revolt.

Chapter 58

1 The Potidaeans had sent envoys to Athens to see whether they could persuade the Athenians to make no change in their treatment of them. They had also gone to Lacedaemon with the Corinthians and [sought] to arrange assistance if needed. Their prolonged negotiations at Athens, however, brought them no satisfactory result: the ships were sailing against them no less than against Macedonia. And the Lacedaemonian authorities had promised that, if the Athenians attacked Potidaea, they would invade Attica. At this juncture, then, the Potidaeans revolted, binding themselves by a common oath with the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans.

2 Perdiccas persuaded the Chalcidians to abandon and demolish their coastal cities and move inland to Olynthus, making this single city strong. To those who abandoned their homes he granted the use of land of his own in Mygdonia around Lake Bolbe, for as long as the war with the Athenians should last. So they demolished their cities, moved inland, and prepared for war.

Chapter 59

1 The thirty Athenian ships arrived in the Thracian region and found that Potidaea and the other places had already revolted.

2 Believing it impossible with their present force to fight both Perdiccas and the places that had joined the revolt, the generals turned toward Macedonia, their original destination. They established themselves there and fought alongside Philip and the brothers of Derdas, who had invaded from the interior with an army.

Chapter 60

1 Meanwhile the Corinthians, with Potidaea in revolt and the Athenian ships off Macedonia, feared for the place and regarded its peril as their own. They sent volunteers from among their own people and men from the rest of the Peloponnese whom they induced to serve for pay: sixteen hundred hoplites in all, and four hundred light-armed troops.

2 Their general was Aristeus son of Adeimantus. Personal friendship with him was a principal reason why most of the soldiers from Corinth volunteered to accompany him, for he had always been well disposed toward the Potidaeans.

3 They arrived in the Thracian region on the fortieth day after Potidaea's revolt.

Chapter 61

1 News that the cities had revolted reached the Athenians at once. When they learned that Aristeus and his men were also on their way, they sent two thousand of their own hoplites and forty ships against the rebellious places, with Callias son of Calliades and four other generals.

2 On arriving in Macedonia, they first found that the earlier force of a thousand had just taken Therme and was besieging Pydna.

3 They too took up positions before Pydna and joined the siege. But then, making a settlement and, under pressure of necessity, an alliance with Perdiccas, they withdrew from Macedonia: affairs at Potidaea and the arrival of Aristeus demanded their urgent attention.

4 They went to Beroea and from there to Strepsa, where they first attempted to take the place but failed. They then marched overland toward Potidaea with three thousand hoplites of their own, besides many allies, and six hundred Macedonian cavalry under Philip and Pausanias. At the same time seventy ships sailed along the coast.

5 Advancing by short stages, they reached Gigonus on the third day and encamped.

Chapter 62

1 The Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians with Aristeus, awaiting the Athenians, were encamped on the isthmus on the side toward Olynthus, and had established a market outside the city.

2 The allies had chosen Aristeus as general of the entire infantry force, and Perdiccas to command the cavalry. For he had immediately deserted the Athenians again and was fighting alongside the Potidaeans, having appointed Iolaus to govern in his place.

3 Aristeus' plan was to hold his own force on the isthmus and watch for an Athenian advance, while the Chalcidians, the allies from beyond the isthmus, and the two hundred cavalry furnished by Perdiccas remained at Olynthus. When the Athenians advanced against him, these forces were to come to his support from the rear and catch the enemy between them.

4 Callias, the Athenian general, and his fellow commanders, for their part, sent the Macedonian cavalry and a few of the allies toward Olynthus to prevent the forces there from coming to the enemy's aid. They themselves broke camp and advanced toward Potidaea.

5 When they reached the isthmus and saw the enemy preparing for battle, they too drew up in opposing order, and soon afterward the two sides engaged.

6 The wing of Aristeus himself, with the picked Corinthians and other troops around him, routed the force opposite and pressed far ahead in pursuit. But the rest of the Potidaean and Peloponnesian army was defeated by the Athenians and fled inside the walls.

Chapter 63

1 Returning from the pursuit, Aristeus saw that the rest of the army had been defeated and hesitated over which way to risk going, toward Olynthus or into Potidaea. He decided to gather his men into the most compact body possible and force his way at a run into Potidaea. He made his way through the water beside the harbor mole, under attack and with difficulty, losing a few men but saving most.

2 The forces at Olynthus that were to support the Potidaeans—the place is about sixty stades away and within sight—advanced a short distance to their aid when the battle began and the signals were raised. The Macedonian cavalry drew up opposite to stop them. But the Athenians soon won the victory and the signals were lowered; the men from Olynthus withdrew inside their walls, and the Macedonians returned to the Athenians. Neither side's cavalry took part in the battle.

3 After the battle the Athenians raised a trophy and returned the dead to the Potidaeans under truce. The Potidaeans and their allies lost a little fewer than three hundred men; the Athenians themselves lost a hundred and fifty, and their general Callias fell.

Chapter 64

1 The Athenians immediately enclosed the [wall] on the isthmus side with a siege wall and kept guard there, but the Pallene side remained without a siege wall. They did not think their numbers sufficient both to guard the isthmus and to cross over to Pallene and build fortifications, fearing that the Potidaeans and their allies might attack them once their force was divided.

2 When the Athenians at home learned that the Pallene side had not been enclosed, they later sent sixteen hundred hoplites of their own under the general Phormio son of Asopius. He arrived in Pallene and, using Aphytis as his base, led his army toward Potidaea by short stages, ravaging the land as he went. When no one came out to offer battle, he enclosed the [wall] on the Pallene side with a siege wall.

3 Potidaea was now under close siege from both sides, and from the sea as well, where ships maintained a blockade.

Chapter 65

1 When the city had been walled off, Aristeus saw no hope of deliverance unless something came from the Peloponnese or some other unexpected turn occurred. He advised all but five hundred to wait for a favorable wind and sail away, so that the grain would last longer; he himself was willing to be among those who remained. But he could not persuade them, and, wishing to make the arrangements that the situation required and put affairs outside the city on the best possible footing, he sailed out undetected by the Athenian guard.

2 Remaining among the Chalcidians, he fought alongside them in other actions and ambushed the Sermylians near their city, killing many. He also pursued negotiations in the Peloponnese to obtain some assistance.

3 After Potidaea had been walled off, Phormio, with his sixteen hundred men, ravaged Chalcidice and Bottice and captured some of their smaller towns.

Chapter 66

1 These, then, were the grievances that had arisen between the Athenians and Peloponnesians. The Corinthians complained that the Athenians were besieging Potidaea, their own colony, with Corinthians and Peloponnesians inside it. The Athenians complained that the Peloponnesians had brought about the revolt of a city allied to Athens and subject to tribute, and had come and openly fought against them alongside the Potidaeans. Yet war had not actually broken out; the truce still held, for the Corinthians had acted on their own.

Chapter 67

1 With Potidaea under siege, the Corinthians did not remain inactive: their own men were inside, and they feared for the place as well. They immediately summoned the allies to Lacedaemon and, on arriving, loudly denounced the Athenians for having broken the treaty and wronged the Peloponnese.

2 The Aeginetans, though they sent no embassy openly for fear of the Athenians, secretly joined them in pressing for war as vigorously as any, saying that they were not autonomous as the treaty required.

3 The Lacedaemonians extended the invitation to their allies and to anyone else who claimed to have suffered any wrong at Athenian hands. They convened their own customary assembly and invited them to speak.

4 Various speakers came forward to make their respective complaints, among them the Megarians. They set out numerous other grounds of dispute, but above all protested that they were excluded from the harbors of the Athenian empire and from the market of Attica, contrary to the treaty.

5 The Corinthians came forward last, having let the others first inflame the Lacedaemonians, and spoke as follows.

Chapter 68

1 “The trust that governs your own political life and dealings with one another, Lacedaemonians, makes you less ready to trust what we say about others. From it you gain self-restraint, but you approach affairs abroad with a greater measure of ignorance.

2 “For though we often warned you of the injuries the Athenians were about to inflict on us, you never sought to learn about the matters we explained on each occasion; instead you suspected the speakers of speaking for the sake of their own private differences. That is why you have summoned these allies not before we suffered, but only now that we are in the midst of the trouble. Among them we have as much right as any to speak, since we also have the gravest complaints: the Athenians outrage us, and you neglect us.

3 “If they were wronging Greece somewhere out of sight, you would need instruction, as men who did not know. But as things stand, why speak at length? You see some Greeks already enslaved, and the Athenians plotting against others—not least our own allies—and long since prepared for the possibility of war.

4 “Otherwise they would not have taken Corcyra under their protection and held it against our will, or be besieging Potidaea: the latter is a position of the greatest strategic value for operations along the Thracian coast, while the former would have furnished the Peloponnesians with a very great navy.

Chapter 69

1 “And you are responsible for this. First you allowed them to fortify their city after the Persian Wars, and later to erect the Long Walls; and down to this day you have continually deprived of freedom not only those whom they have enslaved but now your own allies as well. For the truer agent of enslavement is not the man who imposes it, but the man who could stop it and looks on—especially if he also claims the honor of being the liberator of Greece.

2 “Only with difficulty have we assembled even now, and even now with no clear purpose. For we ought no longer to be considering whether we are wronged, but how we shall defend ourselves. Those who act have made their plans and are already advancing, not merely intending to advance, against men who have yet to decide.

3 “We know the course the Athenians follow, and that they advance upon their neighbors little by little. So long as they think your insensibility keeps you from noticing, they act with less confidence; once they know that you see and look on, they will press hard upon us.

4 “For you alone among the Greeks, Lacedaemonians, remain inactive, defending yourselves against an enemy not by force but by delay, and you alone destroy the growth of your enemies' power not at its beginning but when it has doubled.

5 “Yet you were said to be men on whom one could rely: your reputation, it seems, surpassed your deeds. We ourselves know that the Persian reached the Peloponnese from the ends of the earth before any adequate force from you went out to meet him. And now you look on at the Athenians, who are not far away, as he was, but close at hand. Rather than attack them yourselves, you prefer to resist when they attack, and to enter a contest of chance against opponents far stronger than you. Yet you know that the barbarian came to grief chiefly through his own mistakes, and that against the Athenians themselves we have often survived through their errors rather than through assistance from you. Indeed, hopes placed in you have already destroyed some who trusted them and were left unprepared.

6 “Let none of you think that these words spring more from hostility than from reproach. Reproach is for friends who err; accusation is for enemies who do wrong.

Chapter 70

1 “At the same time, we believe that we have as much right as anyone to censure our neighbors, especially when such great interests are at stake. You seem to us unaware of them, and never to have reckoned what sort of men the Athenians are against whom your contest will be fought—how far they differ from you, and how completely.

2 “They are innovators, swift to conceive a plan and to accomplish in deed what they have resolved; you preserve what you possess, conceive nothing new, and in action fall short even of what necessity demands.

3 “Again, they are bold beyond their strength, take risks beyond their judgment, and are hopeful amid dangers; your way is to achieve less than your strength allows, distrust even what your judgment finds secure, and think you will never be delivered from danger.

4 “They are tireless where you delay, travelers abroad where you are the most inveterate stay-at-homes. For they think that absence may bring them some gain, while you think that an advance may damage even what you already have.

5 “When they defeat their enemies, they pursue their advantage to the utmost; when defeated, they fall back as little as possible.

6 “Moreover, they expend their bodies for their city as though these belonged least to themselves, but use their judgment on her behalf as their most intimate possession.

7 “If they conceive a plan and fail to carry it through, they believe they have been deprived of what was their own; what they win by an advance they count a small achievement beside what they will gain next. If an attempt should fail, they make good the loss by turning their hopes elsewhere. They alone possess what they conceive almost as soon as they hope for it, so quickly do they set about whatever they resolve.

8 “At all this they labor throughout their lives amid toil and danger. They enjoy what they have least of all, because they are always acquiring more, regard no occasion as a festival except the performance of what must be done, and consider idle tranquillity no less a misfortune than laborious activity.

9 “In short, if someone said that they were born neither to be at rest themselves nor to let the rest of mankind be so, he would speak the truth.

Chapter 71

1 “Yet with such a city ranged against you, Lacedaemonians, you still delay. You do not think that peace lasts longest for those who, while acting justly, keep themselves prepared and make plain their resolve not to submit to injury; instead, you base your notion of fair dealing on neither harming others nor suffering harm yourselves in defending against them.

2 “You would scarcely attain that even if your neighbor were a city like your own. As things stand, however, as we have just shown, your practices are antiquated beside theirs.

3 “In politics, as in a craft, the latest developments must always prevail. For a city at peace, unchanged customs are best; but those compelled to meet many challenges also need much invention. That is precisely why the Athenians' methods, through their wide experience, have been renewed far beyond yours.

4 “Let this, then, be the limit of your slowness. Now come quickly to the aid of the others and of the Potidaeans, as you promised, by invading Attica. Do not abandon friends and kinsmen to their bitterest enemies, or drive the rest of us in despair to seek some other alliance.

5 “In doing so we would commit no wrong, either before the gods who guard our oaths or before men who understand. For it is not those who turn to others when abandoned who break a treaty, but those who fail to aid the men to whom they have sworn alliance.

6 “If you are willing to act with vigor, we shall remain. For in changing sides we would neither act piously nor find others more closely bound to us by long association.

7 “Consider these things well, and try to lead a Peloponnese no smaller than the one your fathers handed down to you.”

Chapter 72

1 Such were the words of the Corinthians. An Athenian embassy happened already to be at Lacedaemon on other business. When its members learned of the speeches, they decided that they should appear before the Lacedaemonians, not to answer any of the charges brought by the cities, but to make clear, on the question as a whole, that the Lacedaemonians should not decide in haste but examine it at greater length. At the same time they wished to show how great their city's power was, reminding the older men of what they knew and informing the younger of what lay outside their experience. They thought their words would incline the Lacedaemonians toward remaining at peace rather than making war.

2 They therefore approached the Lacedaemonians and said that they too wished to address their assembly, unless there was some objection. The Lacedaemonians invited them to come forward, and the Athenians did so and spoke as follows.

Chapter 73

1 “Our embassy was sent not to dispute with your allies, but on the business for which our city dispatched us. Yet on learning of the great outcry against us, we have come forward—not to answer the cities' charges, for neither our speeches nor theirs would be made before you as our judges, but to prevent you from too readily accepting your allies' persuasion and deciding badly on matters of great importance. At the same time, in response to the whole account now given of us, we wish to make clear that our possessions are not unreasonably held, and that our city deserves consideration.

2 “Why speak of the most distant past, when hearsay rather than the eyewitness of our listeners would bear witness to our words? But we must speak of the Persian Wars and of events you yourselves know, even if our constant mention of them is somewhat wearisome. For when we acted then, the risks we ran were for a benefit in whose actual fruits you shared; let us not be deprived of all credit in words, if that does us any good.

3 “We shall speak not so much to plead our cause as to furnish evidence and show what sort of city you will have to fight if you decide unwisely.

4 “We claim that at Marathon we alone faced the barbarian in the forefront of danger, and that when he came a second time, being unable to defend ourselves on land, we embarked with our whole people and fought beside the others at Salamis. This prevented him from sailing against your cities one by one and ravaging the Peloponnese, since you could not have come to one another's aid against so many ships.

5 “He himself supplied the strongest proof: defeated at sea, he withdrew swiftly with the greater part of his army, since his power was no longer what it had been.

Chapter 74

1 “That being the outcome, and it being plainly shown that the Greeks' fortunes depended on their ships, we furnished the three things most useful to the result: the greatest number of ships, the most intelligent general, and the most unflagging zeal. Of the four hundred ships, ours were a little short of two-thirds; our commander was Themistocles, who was chiefly responsible for fighting the sea battle in the strait, which most clearly saved the cause. For this you yourselves honored him more highly than any foreigner who ever came to you.

2 “And the zeal we displayed was by far the most daring. When no one helped us on land, and the others as far as our borders were already enslaved, we thought it right to abandon our city and sacrifice our possessions, yet even so not to desert the common cause of the allies who remained, or scatter and become useless to them. Instead we embarked and faced the danger, without resenting your failure to come to our defense beforehand.

3 “So we claim to have benefited you no less than you benefited us. For you came to help from cities still inhabited, and in order to continue enjoying them, when you became afraid chiefly for yourselves, not for us—at any rate, while we were still unharmed, you did not appear. We, setting out from a city that no longer existed and risking ourselves for one whose recovery offered little hope, bore our share in saving both you and ourselves.

4 “If earlier we had gone over to the Persian out of fear for our country, as others did, or had not later dared to embark because we were already ruined, there would have been no further need for you to fight at sea with too few ships: his designs would have advanced unopposed, just as he wished.

Chapter 75

1 “Do we not deserve, Lacedaemonians, in view of our zeal then and the intelligence of our judgment, that the Greeks should not regard the empire we hold with such excessive resentment?

2 “For we acquired this very empire not by force, but because you were unwilling to remain and deal with what was left of the barbarian's power, while the allies approached us and themselves asked us to become their leaders.

3 “The course of events itself first compelled us to advance it to its present extent, chiefly through fear, then through honor, and later through advantage as well.

4 “And it no longer seemed safe to relax our hold and run the risk, hated as we were by most, with some already subdued after revolt, and with you no longer as friendly to us as before, but suspicious and at odds with us. For those who revolted would have gone over to you.

5 “No one can be blamed for securing his own interests in the face of the greatest dangers.

Chapter 76

1 “You yourselves, Lacedaemonians, lead the cities of the Peloponnese after arranging their affairs to suit your own advantage. If you had remained in command then and had incurred lasting hatred, as we have, we know well that you would have been no less burdensome to the allies, and would have been compelled either to rule with a firm hand or to endanger yourselves.

2 “So we too have done nothing extraordinary or contrary to human nature in accepting an empire when it was offered and not relinquishing it, overcome by three of the strongest motives—honor, fear, and advantage. Nor were we the first to act in this way: it has always been established that the weaker is held down by the stronger. Besides, we thought ourselves worthy of our position, and you agreed, until now, when calculations of your own advantage have led you to invoke the argument of justice. Yet no one who had the chance to acquire something by strength has ever put that argument first and turned aside from gaining more.

3 “Those deserve praise who, following human nature in ruling others, prove more just than their actual power requires.

4 “We believe that if others took over our position, they would show most clearly whatever moderation we exercise. Yet for us even our fairness has, against all reason, brought disrepute rather than praise.

Chapter 77

1 “For although we accept disadvantages in lawsuits arising from agreements with our allies, and have established hearings before our own courts under equal laws, we are thought litigious.

2 “None of them considers why this reproach is not leveled at those who hold empires elsewhere and are less moderate toward their subjects than we are. Those who are free to use force have no further need of lawsuits.

3 “But our allies, accustomed to dealing with us on equal terms, take it hard if, contrary to their belief that they ought not to be, they are put at any disadvantage by a decision, by the power our empire gives us, or in any way at all. They are not grateful that they are not deprived of more; instead, they resent the deficiency more bitterly than if we had set law aside from the outset and openly sought our own advantage. In that case, not even they would have disputed that the weaker must yield to the stronger.

4 “People, it seems, are angrier at being wronged than at being subjected to force: the first looks like being overreached by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.

5 “At any rate, they endured worse treatment than this under the Persian, yet our rule seems harsh to them. Naturally so: the present always weighs heavily on subjects.

6 “If you were to overthrow us and take power, you would soon transform the goodwill you have won through fear of us, if your judgment now resembled the conduct you showed during your brief command against the Persian. For your own customs are incompatible with those of others; moreover, each of you who goes abroad observes neither those customs nor those followed by the rest of Greece.

Chapter 78

1 “Deliberate slowly, then, for the stakes are not small, and do not let the opinions and complaints of others persuade you to add to your own burdens. Before you enter it, recognize in advance how great is the unpredictable element in war.

2 “For as it lengthens, it tends for the most part to become a matter of chance, over which neither side has an advantage; and the risk is taken in uncertainty as to which way it will turn.

3 “When men go to war, they take to deeds first, though these should come later; only when they are already suffering do they turn to words.

4 “We have not yet made such a mistake ourselves, nor do we see that you have done so. We therefore urge you, while sound judgment is still a free choice for us both, not to break the treaty or violate your oaths, but to settle our differences by arbitration according to the agreement. Otherwise, calling the gods who guard our oaths to witness, we shall try to defend ourselves against your opening of war, following whatever course you lead us into.”

Chapter 79

1 Such were the words of the Athenians. After hearing both their allies' charges against the Athenians and what the Athenians had said, the Lacedaemonians dismissed everyone and deliberated by themselves on the situation.

2 The opinions of the majority converged on the same conclusion: the Athenians were already doing wrong, and war must be made quickly. But their king Archidamus, a man reputed both intelligent and prudent, came forward and spoke as follows.

Chapter 80

1 “I myself, Lacedaemonians, have by now experienced many wars, and I see among you men of my own age with the same experience. Let no one, then, desire the undertaking through inexperience, as many might, or because he thinks it good and safe.

2 “And this war, on which you are now deliberating, you would find no small one, if you reckoned it soberly.

3 “Against Peloponnesians and our neighboring peoples, our strength is comparable, and we can quickly reach each objective. But against men whose country is far away, who are also most experienced at sea and superbly equipped in every other respect—with private and public wealth, ships, horses, arms, and a population such as no other single place in Greece possesses—and who have in addition many tribute-paying allies, how can we lightly take up war? On what should we rely in rushing into it unprepared?

4 “Our ships? There we are inferior; and if we are to train and build a fleet to match theirs, that will take time. Our money, then? There we fall further short still: we have none in the common treasury, and we are not ready to contribute from our private resources.

Chapter 81

1 “Perhaps someone may take confidence from our superiority in arms and numbers, which would enable us to make repeated incursions and ravage their land.

2 “But they have much other land under their rule, and they will import by sea whatever they need.

3 “If, again, we try to make their allies revolt, we shall need ships to help these too, since most of them are islanders.

4 “What sort of war, then, will ours be? Unless we prevail at sea or cut off the revenues from which they maintain their navy, we shall suffer the greater harm.

5 “And in that position it will no longer even be honorable to make peace, especially if we are thought to have been the ones who began the quarrel.

6 “Let us not be carried away by the hope that the war will soon end if we lay waste their land. I fear rather that we may even bequeath it to our children. Such is the Athenians' spirit that they are unlikely either to become slaves to their land or to be terrified by war as though they had never known it.

Chapter 82

1 “Yet I do not urge you to let them injure our allies without taking notice, or to leave their plots undetected. Rather, we should not yet take up arms, but send envoys and make our complaints, neither plainly threatening war nor suggesting that we shall submit. Meanwhile we should put our own affairs in order, securing additional allies, both Greeks and barbarians, wherever we can gain some further strength in ships or money. No blame attaches to those who, like us, are threatened by Athenian designs if they secure their safety by enlisting barbarians as well as Greeks. At the same time, let us develop our own resources.

2 “If they listen to our embassies, that will be best. If not, after two or three years we shall go against them better armed, should we so decide.

3 “Perhaps, seeing both our preparations and the corresponding message conveyed by our words, they would be more inclined to yield, while their land was still unravaged and they were deliberating over good things still theirs and not yet destroyed.

4 “For you must regard their land as nothing other than a hostage in your hands, all the more valuable for being so well cultivated. We must spare it as long as possible, and not drive them to desperation and so make them harder to bring to terms.

5 “For if, hurried on by our allies' complaints, we ravage it unprepared, beware that we do not bring greater shame and difficulty upon the Peloponnese.

6 “Complaints, whether of cities or individuals, can be settled; but once we have all taken up a war for particular interests, when there is no knowing how it will develop, it is not easy to lay it down with honor.

Chapter 83

1 “And let no one think it cowardice that so many should not at once attack a single city.

2 “They too have no fewer allies, who contribute money; and war is a matter not so much of arms as of the expenditure that makes arms effective, especially for a land power against a sea power.

3 “Let us first provide that money, then, and not be stirred into action beforehand by our allies' words. Since it is we who shall bear the greater responsibility for the outcome, whether good or bad, let us also take a calm look ahead at what it may be.

Chapter 84

1 “And do not be ashamed of the slowness and delay for which they reproach us most. If you hurry, you may be slower to finish, because you begin unprepared; moreover, we have always inhabited a city both free and of the highest renown.

2 “This quality may most truly be called intelligent self-restraint. Through it we alone do not grow insolent in prosperity, and yield less than others to misfortune. When men urge us with praise into dangers contrary to our judgment, we are not carried away by pleasure; and if someone provokes us with accusations, our vexation makes us no more likely to be persuaded.

3 “Our discipline makes us both warlike and sound in counsel: warlike because a sense of shame is bound up above all with self-restraint, and courage with shame; sound in counsel because our education leaves us too little learned to despise the laws, and its severity makes us too self-controlled to disobey them. We are not excessively clever in useless matters, brilliantly disparaging our enemies' preparations in words only to fall short when we confront them in deeds. Rather, we are taught to believe that our neighbors' designs are much like our own, and that the accidents of fortune cannot be analyzed by reasoning.

4 “We always prepare in deed on the assumption that our opponents plan well. We must base our hopes not on their making mistakes, but on the soundness of our own foresight. Nor should we think that one man differs greatly from another: the best is the one trained in what is most necessary.

Chapter 85

1 “Let us not abandon these practices, handed down to us by our fathers and preserved by ourselves to our lasting benefit. Nor, hurried on in a brief fraction of a day, should we decide the fate of many lives, much wealth, many cities, and our good name: let us deliberate calmly. Our strength gives us more freedom than others to do so.

2 “Send to the Athenians about Potidaea, and send about the wrongs our allies say they have suffered, especially since the Athenians are ready to submit to arbitration. It is not lawful to attack someone who offers arbitration as a wrongdoer before taking up that offer. At the same time prepare for war. This will be both the wisest course for yourselves and the most alarming to your opponents.”

3 Such were the words of Archidamus. Last of all Sthenelaidas, who was then one of the ephors, came forward and spoke [to the Lacedaemonians] as follows.

Chapter 86

1 “I do not understand the Athenians’ many words. After praising themselves at length, they nowhere denied that they are wronging our allies and the Peloponnese. Yet if they were brave against the Medes then, but are wicked toward us now, they deserve a double punishment, because they have turned from good men into bad.

2 “We are the same now as we were then, and if we are sensible, we shall not stand by while our allies are wronged, nor delay their defense. Their suffering is no longer a thing to come.

3 “Others may have abundant money, ships, and horses; we have good allies, whom we must not surrender to the Athenians. Nor should we settle the matter by lawsuits and words, when their injuries are not merely words: we must defend them swiftly and with all our strength.

4 “Let no one teach us that we, the injured, ought to deliberate. It is rather those who mean to do injury who ought to deliberate long.

5 “Vote, then, Lacedaemonians, for war in a manner worthy of Sparta. Do not allow the Athenians to grow greater, and let us not utterly betray our allies. With the gods beside us, let us advance against the aggressors.”

Chapter 87

1 Having spoken in this manner, he himself, as ephor, put the question to the Lacedaemonian assembly.

2 They decide by acclamation, not by ballot, and he said that he could not distinguish which shout was louder. Wishing, however, to make them declare their judgment openly and so give them a stronger impulse toward war, he said, “Those of you, Lacedaemonians, who judge that the treaty has been broken and the Athenians are in the wrong, stand over there”—pointing out a place to them—“and those who do not, on the other side.” They rose and separated,

3 and those who judged the treaty broken were by far the greater number.

4 They summoned the allies and told them that in their own judgment the Athenians were in the wrong, but that they wished to call in all the allies and put the matter to a vote, so that, after deliberating together, they might make war if that was their decision.

5 Having accomplished this, the allies departed for home; the Athenian envoys left later, after conducting the business for which they had come.

6 This decision of the assembly, that the treaty had been broken, was reached in the fourteenth year of the Thirty Years’ Treaty, concluded after the events in Euboea.

Chapter 88

1 The Lacedaemonians voted that the treaty had been broken and that they must go to war, not so much because the allies’ arguments persuaded them as because they feared that the Athenians might become still more powerful, seeing that most of Hellas was already subject to them.

Chapter 89

1 For it was in the following manner that the Athenians came into the position in which their power grew.

2 After the Medes had withdrawn from Europe, defeated by the Greeks both at sea and on land, and those of them who had taken refuge with their ships at Mycale had been destroyed, Leotychidas, king of the Lacedaemonians, who had commanded the Greeks at Mycale, returned home with the allies from the Peloponnese. The Athenians and the allies from Ionia and the Hellespont, who had already revolted from the King, remained behind and besieged Sestos, which the Medes held. They stayed through the winter and took it when the barbarians abandoned it; afterward they sailed out of the Hellespont, each contingent to its own city.

3 Once the barbarians had left their country, the Athenian people immediately began bringing back their children, wives, and surviving possessions from the places where they had put them for safety, and prepared to rebuild the city and its walls. Only short stretches of the circuit wall remained standing, and most of the houses had fallen; the few that survived were those in which the leading Persians themselves had lodged.

Chapter 90

1 Learning what was intended, the Lacedaemonians sent an embassy. They themselves would have preferred to see neither the Athenians nor anyone else possessing a wall, but still more they were urged on by their allies, who feared both the size of the Athenian fleet, which had not existed before, and the daring they had displayed in the war against the Medes.

2 They asked the Athenians not to fortify their city, but rather to join them in pulling down the circuit walls of all the cities outside the Peloponnese that still had them. They did not reveal to the Athenians the purpose and suspicion behind their proposal, but argued that, if the barbarian invaded again, he would have no fortified base from which to operate, as he had lately operated from Thebes. The Peloponnese, they said, was sufficient for everyone as both a refuge and a base.

3 On Themistocles’ advice, the Athenians answered the Lacedaemonians’ proposals by saying that they would send envoys to discuss them, and immediately dismissed them. Themistocles urged that he himself be sent to Lacedaemon as quickly as possible, but that the other envoys chosen to accompany him should not be sent at once: they should be held back until the wall had been raised to the minimum height needed to fight from it. Everyone in the city was to join in building it [the men themselves, the women, and the children], sparing no private or public building from which anything useful for the work could be taken, but demolishing them all.

4 After giving these instructions, and intimating that he would manage matters at Lacedaemon himself, he departed.

5 When he arrived in Lacedaemon, he did not approach the authorities, but kept delaying and offering excuses. Whenever one of the officials asked why he did not appear before the public body, he said that he was waiting for his fellow envoys: some pressing business had detained them, but he expected them shortly and was surprised that they had not yet arrived.

Chapter 91

1 His listeners believed Themistocles because of their friendship for him; but when others arrived and reported positively that the wall was being built and already gaining height, they could find no reason to disbelieve them.

2 Realizing this, he urged them not to be led astray by reports, but instead to send trustworthy men of their own who would inspect the work and bring back a reliable account.

3 They therefore sent men, and Themistocles secretly sent word to the Athenians about them, ordering that they be detained as unobtrusively as possible and not released until he and his colleagues had returned. For by now his fellow envoys, Habronichus son of Lysicles and Aristides son of Lysimachus, had arrived and reported that the wall was high enough. He feared that the Lacedaemonians, once they learned the truth beyond doubt, would no longer let them go.

4 The Athenians accordingly detained the envoys as instructed, while Themistocles now appeared before the Lacedaemonians and declared openly that their city was already walled sufficiently to protect its inhabitants. If the Lacedaemonians or their allies wished to send an embassy to Athens, they must henceforth approach people capable of judging both their own interests and those of all.

5 When they had thought it best to abandon their city and embark on their ships, the envoys said, they had resolved on that bold course without consulting the Lacedaemonians; and whenever they had taken counsel together with them, their judgment had proved second to none.

6 So now too they judged it better that their own city should have a wall, and believed that this would benefit both its citizens individually and all the allies.

7 For without equivalent means of defense it was impossible to take counsel for the common good on anything like equal or similar terms. Either all must be allies without walls, he said, or they must acknowledge that what had been done was right.

Chapter 92

1 On hearing this, the Lacedaemonians showed no open anger toward the Athenians. Their embassy, after all, had ostensibly been sent not to prohibit the work but to offer advice for the common good; besides, at that time they felt the warmest friendship for the Athenians because of their zeal against the Mede. Nevertheless, thwarted in their wishes, they were secretly resentful. The envoys on both sides returned home without any formal complaint.

Chapter 93

1 In this way the Athenians walled their city in a short time.

2 Even now the construction makes its haste apparent. The foundations are laid with stones of every sort, in places not even fitted together, but just as each was brought up; many gravestones and dressed blocks were incorporated into the work. For the circuit of the city had been extended outward on every side, and in their haste they laid hands on everything indiscriminately.

3 Themistocles also persuaded them to finish building the walls of Piraeus. He had begun the work earlier, during the year in which he held office as the Athenians’ archon. He considered the site excellent, with its three natural harbors, and thought that, now they had become a seafaring people, it gave them a great advantage

4 in acquiring power. He was indeed the first to venture to say that they must hold fast to the sea, and from the outset he was laying the foundations of their empire as well.

5 On his advice they built the wall around Piraeus to the thickness still visible today: two wagons, meeting each other, could bring up stones side by side. There was neither rubble nor clay inside, but large stones laid together, cut square and bound to one another on their outer faces with iron and lead. The height, however, was completed to only about half what he had intended.

6 He wished its size and thickness to discourage enemy designs, and thought that a few men, even the least serviceable, would suffice to guard it, leaving the rest to embark on the ships.

7 For his chief concern was with the ships, having perceived, as I think, that an advance by sea was easier for the King’s army than one by land. He considered Piraeus more useful than the upper city, and often advised the Athenians that, if they were ever overpowered on land, they should go down to it and resist all comers with their ships.

8 Thus the Athenians built their fortifications and made their other preparations immediately after the withdrawal of the Medes.

Chapter 94

1 Pausanias son of Cleombrotus was sent out from Lacedaemon as general of the Greeks with twenty ships from the Peloponnese. The Athenians sailed with him in thirty ships, accompanied by a large force of the other allies.

2 They campaigned in Cyprus and subdued most of it, and afterward went against Byzantium, which the Medes held, and took it by siege while he was still in command.

Chapter 95

1 By now his violent conduct was provoking resentment among the other Greeks, especially the Ionians and all who had lately been liberated from the King. They kept approaching the Athenians and asking them, as their kinsmen, to become their leaders and not to submit to Pausanias if he tried to use force against them.

2 The Athenians accepted their proposals and applied themselves to protecting them from such treatment and arranging everything else as seemed best for their own interests.

3 Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians recalled Pausanias to investigate the reports that were reaching them. Greeks arriving there accused him of many wrongs, and his behavior seemed more an imitation of tyranny than the exercise of military command.

4 His recall coincided with the transfer of the allies to the Athenian side out of hatred for him, except for the troops from the Peloponnese.

5 On his arrival in Lacedaemon, he was convicted of wrongs committed against particular individuals, but acquitted of the gravest charges. The chief accusation against him was collaboration with the Medes, and this seemed most clearly established.

6 They did not send him out again as commander, but sent Dorcis and some others with a small force. The allies, however, would no longer concede the leadership to them.

7 When they realized this, they withdrew; and the Lacedaemonians sent no others out afterward. They feared that men who went abroad might become corrupted, as they had seen happen with Pausanias; they also wanted to be rid of the war against the Medes, and considered the Athenians capable of leading it and, at that time, friendly toward themselves.

Chapter 96

1 Having thus assumed the leadership with the consent of the allies, owing to their hatred of Pausanias, the Athenians determined which cities were to supply money for the war against the barbarian and which were to supply ships. Their declared purpose was to avenge their sufferings by ravaging the King’s country.

2 The Athenians then first established the office of Hellenotamiae, who received the tribute—for this was the name given to the monetary contribution. The first tribute assessed was four hundred and sixty talents. Delos was their treasury, and the meetings were held in the sanctuary.

Chapter 97

1 At first the Athenians led allies who were autonomous and deliberated in common meetings. In the interval between the war against the Medes and this war, they accomplished the following through warfare and the conduct of affairs, in struggles against the barbarian, against their own allies when they revolted, and against whichever Peloponnesians they encountered on each occasion.

2 I have recorded these events and made this digression because all my predecessors left this period untreated, composing either accounts of Greek affairs before the wars against the Medes or accounts of those wars themselves. Hellanicus, the one who did touch on this period in his history of Attica, mentioned it briefly and without chronological precision. At the same time, this account shows how the Athenian empire was established.

Chapter 98

1 First, under the command of Cimon son of Miltiades, they besieged and captured Eion on the Strymon, which the Medes held, and enslaved its inhabitants.

2 Next they enslaved the inhabitants of Scyros, the island in the Aegean occupied by Dolopians, and settled it themselves.

3 They also went to war with the Carystians, without the involvement of the other Euboeans, and in time reached a settlement with them.

4 Afterward they fought the Naxians, who had revolted, and reduced them by siege. This was the first allied city to be enslaved in violation of the established arrangement; later the others suffered the same fate as circumstances befell each of them.

Chapter 99

1 There were various causes of the revolts, but the chief were failures to provide the tribute and ships, and, in some cases, failure to serve on campaign. For the Athenians exacted their dues strictly and made themselves odious by imposing obligations on people neither accustomed nor willing to bear hardship.

2 In other respects too, the Athenians were no longer as welcome as leaders; campaigns were no longer conducted on equal terms, and it was easy for them to subdue those who revolted.

3 The allies themselves were responsible for this. Their reluctance to serve on campaigns led most of them, so that they need not leave home, to agree to contribute the equivalent expense in money instead of ships. Thus the Athenian navy grew from the funds they contributed, while they themselves, whenever they revolted, found themselves unprepared and inexperienced in war.

Chapter 100

1 After this came the battle on land and the battle at sea at the river Eurymedon in Pamphylia, between the Athenians and their allies and the Medes. Under the command of Cimon son of Miltiades, the Athenians won both on the same day, capturing and destroying some two hundred Phoenician triremes in all.

2 Some time later the Thasians revolted from them after a dispute over the trading stations on the opposite coast of Thrace and the mine they worked. The Athenians sailed against Thasos, won a naval battle, and landed on the island.

3 About the same time they sent ten thousand settlers, drawn from their own people and their allies, to the Strymon, intending to settle what was then called Nine Ways and is now Amphipolis. They gained possession of Nine Ways, which the Edonians held, but on advancing into the interior of Thrace they were destroyed at Drabescus in Edonian territory by the united Thracians, who regarded the settlement of the place [Nine Ways] as a hostile act.

Chapter 101

1 Defeated in battle and under siege, the Thasians appealed to the Lacedaemonians, asking them to come to their aid by invading Attica.

2 Without the Athenians’ knowledge, they promised to do so and were preparing to act, but were prevented by the earthquake that occurred. During it, their Helots and, among the perioeci, the Thurians and Aethaeans revolted and withdrew to Ithome. Most of the Helots were descendants of the ancient Messenians who had been enslaved at that time; for this reason all the rebels were called Messenians.

3 Thus the Lacedaemonians became engaged in war with the rebels at Ithome. The Thasians, in the third year of the siege, came to terms with the Athenians: they pulled down their wall, surrendered their ships, agreed on the money they must pay at once and the tribute they must contribute thereafter, and relinquished the mainland and the mine.

Chapter 102

1 As their war against the rebels at Ithome dragged on, the Lacedaemonians called in their allies, including the Athenians, who came in considerable strength under Cimon’s command.

2 They summoned them chiefly because they were thought skilled in attacking fortifications. The prolonged siege showed that the Lacedaemonians were deficient in this skill; otherwise they would have taken the place by assault.

3 This expedition brought the first open breach between the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians. When the place could not be taken by assault, the Lacedaemonians grew afraid of the Athenians’ daring and love of innovation; regarding them also as a people of different stock, they feared that, if they remained, the rebels at Ithome might persuade them to attempt some upheaval. They therefore dismissed the Athenians alone among the allies, not disclosing their suspicion but saying that they no longer needed them.

4 The Athenians understood that they were being dismissed not for the more honorable reason offered, but because some suspicion had arisen. They took deep offense, judging such treatment from the Lacedaemonians undeserved. Immediately on returning, they renounced the alliance they had made with them against the Mede and allied themselves with their enemies, the Argives. At the same time both peoples entered into an alliance with the Thessalians, under the same oaths.

Chapter 103

1 In the tenth year, those in Ithome, unable to hold out any longer, reached an agreement with the Lacedaemonians: they were to leave the Peloponnese under a truce and never set foot there again. Anyone caught doing so would be the slave of his captor.

2 The Lacedaemonians had also previously received a Pythian oracle instructing them to release the suppliant of Zeus of Ithome.

3 They departed with their children and wives, and the Athenians, by now hostile to the Lacedaemonians, received them and settled them at Naupactus, which they had recently captured from the Ozolian Locrians.

4 The Megarians too deserted the Lacedaemonians and joined the Athenian alliance, because the Corinthians were pressing them in a war over their territorial boundaries. The Athenians took possession of Megara and Pegae, built for the Megarians the Long Walls from their city to Nisaea, and garrisoned them themselves. This was a principal source of the Corinthians’ bitter hatred of the Athenians, which now first arose.

Chapter 104

1 Inarus son of Psammetichus, a Libyan and king of the Libyans bordering Egypt, set out from Marea, the city inland from Pharos, and brought most of Egypt into revolt against King Artaxerxes. Having made himself ruler, he called in the Athenians.

2 They happened to be campaigning in Cyprus with two hundred ships of their own and their allies. Leaving Cyprus, they came to him and sailed up the Nile from the sea. They gained command of the river and two-thirds of Memphis, and made war on the remaining third, called the White Wall. There the Persians and Medes who had fled had taken refuge, together with the Egyptians who had not joined the revolt.

Chapter 105

1 The Athenians landed from their ships at Haliae and fought a battle against the Corinthians and Epidaurians, in which the Corinthians were victorious. Later the Athenians fought a naval battle off Cecryphalea against Peloponnesian ships, and the Athenians won.

2 After this, war broke out between the Athenians and the Aeginetans, and a great naval battle was fought off Aegina, with the allies present on either side. The Athenians were victorious, captured seventy of the enemy’s ships, and landed on the island, where they began a siege under the command of Leocrates son of Stroebus.

3 The Peloponnesians then wished to help the Aeginetans. They first ferried three hundred Corinthian and Epidaurian hoplites over to Aegina as reinforcements; the Corinthians and their allies then occupied the heights of Geraneia and descended into Megarian territory. They thought that the Athenians would be unable to help the Megarians with so large a force away in Aegina and Egypt, or that, if they did come to their aid, they would abandon Aegina.

4 The Athenians, however, did not move their army from Aegina. Instead, the oldest and youngest of those left in the city went to Megara under Myronides’ command.

5 They fought an evenly balanced battle against the Corinthians and then separated, each side believing that it had not had the worse of the action.

6 The Athenians, who had after all held something of an advantage, set up a trophy when the Corinthians withdrew. The Corinthians, reproached for cowardice by the older men in their city, made preparations and returned about twelve days later to erect a trophy of their own, claiming victory. The Athenians sallied out from Megara, killed those setting up the trophy, and engaged and defeated the rest.

Chapter 106

1 The defeated troops retreated, and a considerable body of them, hard pressed and missing the road, stumbled into a private enclosure which happened to be surrounded by a large ditch and offered no way out.

2 Seeing this, the Athenians blocked the front with their hoplites and stationed their light-armed troops all around, stoning to death everyone who had entered. This was a grievous disaster for the Corinthians, though the main body of their army returned home.

Chapter 107

1 About this time the Athenians also began building the Long Walls to the sea, one to Phalerum and the other to Piraeus.

2 The Phocians invaded the Dorians’ territory, the motherland of the Lacedaemonians—Boeum, Cytinium, and Erineus—and captured one of these towns. The Lacedaemonians came to the Dorians’ aid with fifteen hundred hoplites of their own and ten thousand allies, commanded by Nicomedes son of Cleombrotus on behalf of King Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, who was still young. They compelled the Phocians by agreement to restore the town and then began their return.

3 If they wished to cross the Crisaean Gulf by sea, the Athenians were ready to sail around and prevent them with their fleet. Nor did a march through Geraneia seem safe, since the Athenians held Megara and Pegae. Geraneia was difficult to traverse and was always guarded by the Athenians, and they now learned that the Athenians intended to block them there as well.

4 They decided to remain in Boeotia and consider the safest way to get through. Certain Athenians were also secretly inviting them in, hoping to put an end both to the democracy and to the construction of the Long Walls.

5 The Athenians marched against them in full force, together with a thousand Argives and contingents from their other allies, numbering fourteen thousand in all.

6 They took the field against them because they believed them at a loss how to get through, and also in part because they suspected a plot to overthrow the democracy.

7 Thessalian cavalry also came to the Athenians in accordance with their alliance, but went over to the Lacedaemonians during the battle.

Chapter 108

1 A battle was fought at Tanagra in Boeotia, and the Lacedaemonians and their allies were victorious, with heavy losses on both sides.

2 The Lacedaemonians entered Megarian territory, cut down its trees, and returned home through Geraneia and the Isthmus. On the sixty-second day after the battle, the Athenians marched against the Boeotians under Myronides’ command,

3 and, defeating them in battle at Oenophyta, gained control of Boeotia and Phocis, demolished the wall of Tanagra, and took the hundred wealthiest Opuntian Locrians as hostages. They also completed their own Long Walls.

4 After this the Aeginetans too came to terms with the Athenians, pulling down their walls, surrendering their ships, and agreeing to pay tribute in the future.

5 The Athenians also sailed around the Peloponnese under the command of Tolmides son of Tolmaeus. They burned the Lacedaemonians’ dockyard, captured Chalcis, a Corinthian town, and landed in Sicyonian territory, where they defeated the Sicyonians in battle.

Chapter 109

1 The Athenians and their allies in Egypt remained there, and their warfare took many forms.

2 At first the Athenians were masters of Egypt, and the King sent Megabazus, a Persian, to Lacedaemon with money, hoping to induce the Peloponnesians to invade Attica and so draw the Athenians away from Egypt.

3 When he made no headway and the money was being spent to no purpose, Megabazus returned to Asia with what remained of it. The King then sent Megabyzus son of Zopyrus, a Persian, with a large army.

4 He arrived by land, defeated the Egyptians and their allies in battle, and drove the Greeks out of Memphis. Finally he shut them up on the island of Prosopitis and besieged them there for a year and six months, until, by draining the canal and diverting its water elsewhere, he left their ships on dry ground and joined most of the island to the mainland. He then crossed over on foot and captured the island.

Chapter 110

1 Thus the Greeks' undertaking came to ruin after six years of war. Only a few out of many survived, making their way through Libya to Cyrene; most perished.

2 Egypt came once more under the king's rule, except for Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes. They could not capture him because of the marsh's vast extent; besides, its inhabitants are the most warlike of the Egyptians.

3 Inarus, the king of the Libyans, who had brought about the whole movement in Egypt, was captured through betrayal and impaled.

4 Fifty triremes from Athens and the rest of the alliance, sailing to Egypt as a relief force, put in at the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, knowing nothing of what had happened. Infantry attacked them from the land and a Phoenician fleet from the sea, destroying most of their ships; the smaller number escaped back home.

5 Such was the end of the great expedition of the Athenians and their allies to Egypt.

Chapter 111

1 Orestes, the son of Echecratidas, king of the Thessalians, was in exile from Thessaly and persuaded the Athenians to restore him. Taking with them their Boeotian and Phocian allies, the Athenians marched against Pharsalus in Thessaly. They controlled the countryside only so far as they could go without straying far from their armed force, for the Thessalian cavalry held them in check. They neither captured the city nor made any progress toward the other objects of their expedition, but withdrew with Orestes, having accomplished nothing.

2 Not long afterward, a thousand Athenians embarked on the ships at Pegae, which they themselves held, and sailed along the coast to Sicyon under the command of Pericles son of Xanthippus. They landed and defeated in battle those Sicyonians who came to meet them.

3 They at once took Achaeans with them, sailed across to Acarnania, and campaigned against Oeniadae, which they besieged. They did not, however, capture it, but withdrew home.

Chapter 112

1 Later, after an interval of three years, the Peloponnesians and Athenians concluded a five-year truce.

2 The Athenians suspended their war against the Greeks, but campaigned against Cyprus with two hundred ships of their own and their allies, under Cimon's command.

3 Sixty of these ships sailed to Egypt at the summons of Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes; the others besieged Citium.

4 But Cimon died, and a shortage of food arose, so they withdrew from Citium. Sailing off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought the Phoenicians, Cypriots, and Cilicians simultaneously at sea and on land. Victorious in both battles, they withdrew home, together with the ships that had returned from Egypt.

5 After this the Lacedaemonians undertook the campaign called the Sacred War; they gained possession of the sanctuary at Delphi and handed it over to the Delphians. Later, after their withdrawal, the Athenians in turn campaigned there, gained possession, and handed it over to the Phocians.

Chapter 113

1 Some time afterward, when Boeotian exiles held Orchomenus, Chaeronea, and certain other places in Boeotia, the Athenians campaigned against these hostile positions with a thousand hoplites of their own and contingents from the several allies, under the command of Tolmides son of Tolmaeus. They captured Chaeronea, enslaved its inhabitants, and withdrew after installing a garrison.

2 As they marched through Coronea, the Boeotian exiles from Orchomenus attacked them, together with Locrians, exiles from Euboea, and all who shared their views. They defeated the Athenians in battle, killing some and taking others alive.

3 The Athenians abandoned all Boeotia, making a truce on condition that their men should be returned.

4 The Boeotian exiles returned, and all the others too became autonomous once more.

Chapter 114

1 Not long afterward, Euboea revolted from the Athenians. Pericles had already crossed there with an Athenian army when news reached him that Megara had revolted, that the Peloponnesians were about to invade Attica, and that the Athenian garrison had been killed by the Megarians, apart from those who had escaped to Nisaea. The Megarians had brought in Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians to support their revolt. Pericles hurriedly brought the army back from Euboea.

2 After this the Peloponnesians invaded Attica as far as Eleusis and Thria and laid waste the land, led by Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians. They advanced no farther, but withdrew home.

3 The Athenians crossed again to Euboea under Pericles' command and subdued the whole island. They settled the rest of it by agreement, but expelled the Hestiaeans and occupied their land themselves.

Chapter 115

1 Not long after their return from Euboea, they concluded a thirty-year truce with the Lacedaemonians and their allies, giving up Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and Achaea; these were the possessions they held belonging to the Peloponnesians.

2 In the sixth year, war broke out between the Samians and Milesians over Priene. The Milesians, getting the worse of the war, came to Athens and loudly accused the Samians. Private individuals from Samos itself, who wanted to change the constitution, joined in supporting them.

3 The Athenians therefore sailed to Samos with forty ships and established a democracy. They took fifty Samian boys and as many men as hostages and placed them on Lemnos, then withdrew, leaving a garrison behind.

4 For some of the Samians had not stayed, but had fled to the mainland. They made an alliance with the most powerful men in the city and with Pissuthnes son of Hystaspes, who then governed Sardis, collected some seven hundred mercenaries, and crossed over to Samos by night.

5 First they rose against the people and overpowered most of them; then they stole their hostages out of Lemnos and revolted. They handed over the Athenian garrison and the officials stationed among them to Pissuthnes, and immediately prepared to march against Miletus. The Byzantines joined them in revolt.

Chapter 116

1 When the Athenians learned of this, they sailed against Samos with sixty ships, though sixteen of these were not available for the engagement: some had gone toward Caria to watch for the Phoenician ships, and others to Chios and Lesbos to call for assistance. With forty-four ships, under Pericles and nine other generals, they fought off the island of Tragia against seventy Samian ships, twenty of them troop transports. The whole Samian fleet was then sailing from Miletus. The Athenians were victorious.

2 Later, forty ships from Athens and twenty-five from Chios and Lesbos came to their aid. They landed, won the upper hand on land, and besieged the city with three walls, blockading it by sea as well.

3 Pericles took sixty ships from the blockading fleet and sailed in haste toward Caunus and Caria, after a report that Phoenician ships were sailing against them. Indeed, Stesagoras and others had also left Samos with five ships to meet the Phoenician fleet.

Chapter 117

1 Meanwhile the Samians made a sudden sortie by sea and fell upon the unfortified camp. They destroyed the ships on advance guard and defeated in battle those that put out to oppose them. For about fourteen days they controlled the sea around their island, bringing in and sending out whatever they wished.

2 When Pericles returned, they were shut in again by his fleet. Later, further reinforcements arrived from Athens: forty ships under Thucydides, Hagnon, and Phormio, and twenty under Tlepolemus and Anticles; thirty also came from Chios and Lesbos.

3 The Samians fought one brief naval engagement, but, unable to hold out, were reduced by siege in the ninth month and surrendered on agreed terms. They dismantled their wall, gave hostages, handed over their ships, and undertook to repay the money spent on the war in scheduled installments. The Byzantines too agreed to be subjects as before.

Chapter 118

1 Not many years after these events came the affairs already recounted—those of Corcyra and Potidaea, and all that furnished the grounds for this war.

2 All these actions of the Greeks against one another and against the barbarian took place in some fifty years between Xerxes' withdrawal and the beginning of this war. In that time the Athenians made their empire more secure and themselves advanced to great power. The Lacedaemonians perceived this but did not check it except briefly, remaining inactive for most of the time: even before this they had been slow to go to war unless compelled, and to some extent wars of their own had kept them occupied. At last the Athenians' power was plainly rising, and they were encroaching on the Lacedaemonians' alliance. Then the Lacedaemonians could endure it no longer; they resolved to undertake this war with all their strength and, if they could, bring that power down.

3 The Lacedaemonians themselves had accordingly decided that the truce had been broken and the Athenians were in the wrong. They sent to Delphi to ask the god whether it would be better for them to go to war. He answered, it is said, that if they fought with all their strength they would win, and declared that he himself would assist them, whether called upon or uninvited.

Chapter 119

1 They summoned the allies again, intending to put to a vote whether they should go to war. When the envoys from the alliance had arrived and the assembly met, the other speakers stated their views, most accusing the Athenians and urging war. The Corinthians had already appealed separately to each city to vote for war, fearing that Potidaea might be lost in the meantime. They were present on this occasion too, and came forward last to speak as follows.

Chapter 120

1 “Men of the alliance, we can no longer reproach the Lacedaemonians: they have themselves voted for war and have now assembled us for that purpose. Leaders must manage their own affairs on an equal footing with the rest, while taking forethought for the common interest, just as in other respects they are honored above all.

2 “Those of us who have already had dealings with the Athenians need no instruction in guarding against them. But those who live farther inland, away from the trade routes, must understand that unless they defend the coastal peoples, they will find it harder to bring their seasonal produce down to the sea and receive in return what the sea supplies to the mainland. They must not prove poor judges of the present arguments, as though these did not concern them; they must expect that, if they abandon the coast, the danger may one day reach them too, and that what they now deliberate concerns themselves no less.

3 “They must therefore not hesitate to exchange peace for war. It is the part of prudent men to remain at peace when they suffer no wrong, but of brave men, when wronged, to turn from peace to war, and, when a good opportunity offers, to make peace again. They must neither be elated by success in war nor, out of delight in the tranquillity of peace, submit to injustice.

4 “For the man who hesitates for the sake of pleasure may, if he stays inactive, soonest lose that delight in ease for which he hesitates; and the man who presses his advantage too far through success in war has failed to see that the audacity carrying him away is untrustworthy.

5 “Many ill-conceived plans have succeeded against adversaries still less wise, and still more plans thought well conceived have ended shamefully in the opposite result. No one conceives a plan and carries it into action with equal confidence: we form our judgments in safety, but in action fear makes us fall short.

Chapter 121

1 “We now stir up war because we are being wronged and have ample grounds for complaint; once we have retaliated against the Athenians, we shall lay it aside at the proper time.

2 “We have many reasons to expect victory: first, our superiority in numbers and experience of war; next, the equal readiness of us all to obey orders.

3 “And a fleet, in which their strength lies, we shall equip from the resources each of us possesses and from the funds at Delphi and Olympia. By taking out a loan we can draw away their foreign sailors with higher pay. For Athenian power is bought rather than native; ours is less exposed to this danger, since its strength lies more in men than in money.

4 “A single victory at sea will in all likelihood bring them down. If they hold out, we too shall practice seamanship over a longer time; and once we have brought our skill to equality with theirs, in courage at least we shall surely prevail. The natural excellence we possess cannot be theirs through teaching; the superiority in knowledge they possess can be overcome by our practice.

5 “We shall contribute money to meet these expenses. It would be monstrous if their allies never wearied of contributing to their own enslavement, while we refused to spend in order to punish our enemies and save ourselves at the same time—and to keep them from taking our money and using those very resources to harm us.

Chapter 122

1 “We have other ways of waging war as well: the revolt of their allies, which would above all deprive them of the revenues that sustain their strength; fortified posts in their country; and other measures no one can now foresee. War least of all proceeds by settled rules: for the most part it devises its own methods to meet each turn of events. In dealing with it, the man who keeps his temper is more secure, while the man who loses it is no less liable to stumble.

2 “Let us also consider that if each of us were disputing a boundary with an equal opponent, that would be bearable. As things stand, the Athenians are a match for us all together, and stronger still against each city separately. Unless, then, we resist them with a single purpose, both collectively and by peoples and individual cities, they will subdue us without effort if we remain divided. And let anyone who finds it terrible even to hear understand that defeat brings nothing less than outright slavery.

3 “For the Peloponnese, even to entertain such a possibility in words is a disgrace: so many cities suffering at the hands of one. In that event we would be thought either to deserve our suffering or to endure it through cowardice, and would appear worse than our fathers. They liberated Hellas; we do not even secure that liberty for ourselves, but allow a tyrant city to be established, though we claim the right to overthrow the sole rulers within individual cities.

4 “We cannot see how such conduct escapes one of three great failings: lack of judgment, weakness, or neglect. Surely you have not avoided these only to fall into contemptuous confidence, which has harmed the greatest number, and which, from bringing so many to grief, has been renamed by its opposite—folly.

Chapter 123

1 “But why prolong our accusations about the past beyond what serves the present? We must instead labor for the future by coming to the aid of our present cause. It is your ancestral way to win distinction through hardship; do not change that habit if you now enjoy some advantage in wealth and freedom of action, for it is not right that abundance should lose what poverty acquired. Rather, go confidently to war for all these reasons: the god has given his answer and himself promised to assist us, and all the rest of Hellas will join our struggle, some from fear, others for advantage.

2 “You will not be the first to break the truce: the god himself, in bidding us go to war, judges it already violated. Rather, you will defend it against injustice. Those who defend themselves do not break a truce; those who attack first do.

Chapter 124

1 “Since, then, every circumstance favors your going to war, and we urge this course in the common interest—if indeed a community of interest is the surest bond for cities and individuals alike—do not delay in bringing aid to the Potidaeans, who are Dorians besieged by Ionians, though formerly the reverse was true, and in recovering freedom for the rest. We can no longer wait while some are already suffering injury and others will suffer the same before long, if it becomes known that we assembled but did not dare defend ourselves.

2 “Recognize, men of the alliance, that necessity is upon you and that this counsel is the best, and vote for war. Do not fear the immediate danger, but desire the longer-lasting peace that will follow it. Peace is made more secure by war; refusing to fight merely to remain at ease is not equally free from danger.

3 “Consider that the tyrant city established in Hellas stands against us all alike, ruling some already and intending to rule the rest. Let us attack and subdue it, so that we ourselves may live in future without danger and may liberate the Greeks now enslaved.” Such was the speech of the Corinthians.

Chapter 125

1 When the Lacedaemonians had heard the opinion of every delegation, they put the question to all the allies present in turn, larger and smaller cities alike. The majority voted for war.

2 Although the decision had been taken, they could not act at once, being unprepared. They resolved that each should procure what was needed, without delay. Nevertheless, they spent less than a year making the necessary preparations before invading Attica and openly beginning the war.

Chapter 126

1 During this time they sent embassies to the Athenians, putting forward grievances, so that, if the Athenians would not listen to their demands, they might have the strongest possible grounds for war.

2 First the Lacedaemonians sent envoys demanding that the Athenians drive out the curse of the goddess. The curse arose as follows.

3 Cylon was an Athenian of earlier times, an Olympic victor, noble and powerful. He had married the daughter of Theagenes, a Megarian who was at that time tyrant of Megara.

4 When Cylon consulted the oracle at Delphi, the god told him to seize the Athenian Acropolis at the greatest festival of Zeus.

5 He obtained a force from Theagenes and won over his friends. When the Olympic festival in the Peloponnese came round, he seized the Acropolis with the aim of becoming tyrant, believing this to be Zeus's greatest festival and to have a particular connection with himself as an Olympic victor.

6 Whether the greatest festival meant was in Attica or somewhere else he had not further considered, nor did the oracle make it clear. For the Athenians too have what is called the Diasia, a very great festival of Zeus Meilichius outside the city, at which the whole people offer sacrifices, many of them not animal victims but the pure offerings customary there. Believing, however, that he understood correctly, he undertook the attempt.

7 When the Athenians learned of it, they came in full force from the countryside against him and his men, settled down before the Acropolis, and besieged them.

8 As time passed, the Athenians grew weary of maintaining the siege, and most went away. They entrusted the watch to the nine archons and gave them full authority to settle the whole affair as they judged best. At that time the nine archons conducted most public business.

9 Cylon's besieged companions were in a desperate state from lack of food and water.

10 Cylon himself and his brother escaped. The rest, hard pressed and with some already dying of hunger, seated themselves as suppliants at the altar on the Acropolis.

11 The Athenians entrusted with the watch saw that they were dying in the sanctuary and made them rise, promising to do them no harm. They led them away and killed them; some who, on the way, seated themselves at the altars of the Venerable Goddesses were also put to death. From this, both the killers and their descendants were called accursed and offenders against the goddess.

12 The Athenians themselves expelled these accursed men, and later Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian expelled them too, with the help of an Athenian faction. They banished the living and dug up and cast out the bones of the dead. Afterward, however, they returned, and their descendants are still in the city.

Chapter 127

1 This, then, was the curse the Lacedaemonians demanded should be driven out. They professed above all to be vindicating the gods, but knew that Pericles son of Xanthippus was implicated through his mother's family, and believed that, if he were expelled, their dealings with the Athenians would go more easily.

2 Yet they hoped less to bring about his expulsion than to discredit him with the city, on the ground that the war would be due in part to his personal misfortune.

3 For he was the most powerful man of his time and led the government; he opposed the Lacedaemonians in everything and would not allow concessions, but urged the Athenians toward war.

Chapter 128

1 The Athenians in turn demanded that the Lacedaemonians drive out the curse arising from Taenarum. For the Lacedaemonians had once made some Helot suppliants rise from Poseidon's sanctuary [at Taenarum], led them away, and killed them. They themselves believe that this was the reason for the great earthquake at Sparta.

2 They also demanded that the Lacedaemonians drive out the curse of the Goddess of the Bronze House. It arose as follows.

3 After Pausanias the Lacedaemonian had first been recalled by the Spartans from his command in the Hellespont, tried by them, and acquitted of wrongdoing, he was no longer sent out in an official capacity. Instead, he took a trireme from Hermione on his own account and, without Lacedaemonian authority, went to the Hellespont. In word he went to serve in the Greeks' war; in deed, to pursue his dealings with the king, as he had attempted the first time too, aspiring to dominion over the Greeks.

4 He first laid the king under an obligation to him in the following way, and so began the whole affair.

5 On his previous arrival, after withdrawing from Cyprus, he had captured Byzantium. Medes held it, and among those captured there were certain connections and relatives of the king. These prisoners he then sent back to the king without the knowledge of the other allies, though his stated account was that they had escaped from him.

6 He acted in concert with Gongylus of Eretria, to whom he had entrusted both Byzantium and the prisoners. He also sent Gongylus to carry a letter to the king. As was later discovered, it contained the following.

7 “Pausanias, commander of Sparta, sends you these men, whom he took by the spear, wishing to do you a favor. I propose, if it also seems good to you, to marry your daughter and make Sparta and the rest of Hellas subject to you. I believe I can accomplish this in consultation with you. If, then, any of these proposals pleases you, send a trustworthy man to the coast through whom we may conduct our further discussions.”

Chapter 129

1 Such was the substance of the letter. Xerxes was delighted with it and sent Artabazus son of Pharnaces to the coast, ordering him to take over the Dascylian satrapy, replacing Megabates, its previous governor. He also entrusted him with a letter in reply, to be sent on to Pausanias at Byzantium as quickly as possible, and told him to show Pausanias the seal and to carry out, as well and faithfully as possible, whatever instructions Pausanias gave him concerning the king's affairs.

2 On arriving, Artabazus carried out the other orders as directed and forwarded the letter.

3 The reply read as follows: “Thus says King Xerxes to Pausanias. For the men you saved for me from Byzantium across the sea, your service shall stand recorded forever in our house; and I approve the proposals you have sent. Let neither night nor day hold you back and make you slacken in accomplishing anything you promise me. Let neither the expense in gold and silver nor the size of an army, if one must be brought anywhere, stand in your way. Rather, with Artabazus, a good man whom I have sent you, act confidently in your interests and mine, in whatever way will be finest and best for us both.”

Chapter 130

1 When Pausanias received this letter, he was already held in great honor by the Greeks for his command at Plataea, but now his pride rose far higher, and he could no longer endure the customary way of life. He would leave Byzantium dressed in Median clothes; Medes and Egyptians served as his bodyguard as he traveled through Thrace; and he had his table laid in the Persian manner. Unable to keep his purpose to himself, he revealed in small actions the greater deeds he intended to carry out in time to come.

2 He made himself difficult to approach, and treated everyone alike with such a harsh temper that no one could come near him. This was among the chief reasons why the alliance passed over to the Athenians.

Chapter 131

1 When the Lacedaemonians learned of this, they recalled him on the first occasion for precisely these reasons. Later, after he had sailed out a second time in the ship from Hermione without their orders, he was found to be behaving in the same way. Though the Athenians had forcibly driven him out of Byzantium by siege, he did not return to Sparta, but settled at Colonae in the Troad; reports reached them that he was negotiating with the barbarians and staying there for no good purpose. Then they delayed no longer: the ephors sent a herald with a coded dispatch and told him not to fall behind the herald on the return journey; otherwise, the Spartans declared war on him.

2 Wishing to arouse as little suspicion as possible, and confident that he could use money to dispose of the accusation, he returned to Sparta a second time. At first the ephors threw him into prison—they have the power to do this even to the king—but later he secured his release and offered to stand trial before anyone who wished to bring these charges against him.

Chapter 132

1 Yet neither his enemies among the Spartans nor the city as a whole had any clear evidence on which they could confidently rely to punish a man of the royal house who also held office at the time: as cousin of Pleistarchus, the son of Leonidas and still a young king, he was acting as his guardian.

2 His lawless conduct and imitation of the barbarians nevertheless gave them many grounds to suspect that he did not wish to remain on an equal footing with his fellow citizens. They examined his other behavior for any departure from established customs, including the occasion when he had presumed to inscribe, on his own authority, the following elegiac couplet on the tripod at Delphi which the Greeks had dedicated as the first fruits of the spoils from the Medes: / After destroying the army of the Medes as leader of the Greeks, / Pausanias dedicated this memorial to Phoebus.

3 The Lacedaemonians had at once had this couplet chiseled off the tripod and inscribed instead the names of the cities that had joined in overthrowing the barbarian and set up the offering. Even then it had been considered an offense on Pausanias' part; now that he had come to this predicament, the act seemed much more plainly in keeping with his present designs.

4 They also learned that he was intriguing with the Helots, and this was indeed the case: he was promising them freedom and citizenship if they would rise with him and help him carry the whole enterprise through.

5 Even so, they would not trust certain Helot informers enough to take drastic action against him. They followed their customary practice toward their own people, never hastily deciding on an irreparable measure against a Spartan without indisputable proof. At last, it is said, the man who was to carry his final letters to the King by way of Artabazus turned informer: a man from Argilus, once his boy lover and most trusted by him. Reflecting that none of the messengers before him had ever returned, he became afraid. He made a copy of the seal, so that if his suspicion proved mistaken, or Pausanias asked to make some alteration to the letter, he would not discover what had happened; then he opened the letters. Suspecting that some such instruction had been added, he found that his own death too was ordered in them.

Chapter 133

1 When he showed them the letter, the ephors were more convinced, but still wished to hear Pausanias himself say something. By arrangement the man went to Taenarum as a suppliant and put up a hut divided into two chambers by a partition, behind which he concealed some of the ephors. Pausanias came to him and asked why he had taken refuge as a suppliant, and they heard everything plainly. The man complained of what had been written about him and set out the rest in detail: he had never once compromised Pausanias in his services to the King, yet the special reward chosen for him was to die like the mass of his servants. Pausanias acknowledged these very charges, urged him not to be angry about the present affair, gave him a pledge of safety if he left the sanctuary, and demanded that he set out as quickly as possible and not obstruct the enterprise.

Chapter 134

1 Having heard the facts clearly, the ephors withdrew for the moment; now certain of the truth, they set about arresting him in the city. It is said that, when he was about to be seized in the street, he saw the face of one of the ephors approaching and understood his purpose; another, out of goodwill, gave him a secret nod to warn him. He ran to the sanctuary of the Goddess of the Bronze House and reached its shelter before they could seize him, for the sacred precinct was close by. He entered a small building belonging to the sanctuary, to avoid the hardship of remaining in the open, and stayed there quietly.

2 For the moment his pursuers were too late. Afterward they removed the roof of the building and, watching until he was inside, shut him in and walled up the doors. They stationed themselves outside and besieged him with starvation.

3 When they realized that he was about to breathe his last there in the building, they brought him out of the sanctuary while he was still alive; immediately after being brought out, he died.

4 They had intended to throw him into the Caeadas [where they threw criminals], but then decided to bury him somewhere nearby. Later the god at Delphi instructed the Lacedaemonians to transfer his tomb to the place where he died—he now lies in the entrance precinct, as inscribed pillars indicate—and, since their deed had brought pollution upon them, to give the Goddess of the Bronze House two bodies in return for one. They therefore made two bronze statues and dedicated them in place of Pausanias.

Chapter 135

1 The Athenians, on the ground that the god too had judged this a pollution, made a counter-demand that the Lacedaemonians expel it.

2 The Lacedaemonians also sent envoys to Athens and implicated Themistocles in Pausanias' dealings with the Medes, on the evidence they had found in the inquiry into Pausanias, demanding that he receive the same punishment.

3 The Athenians were persuaded. Themistocles had by then been ostracized and was living at Argos, though he also visited other parts of the Peloponnese. They sent men with orders to arrest him wherever they found him, together with the Lacedaemonians, who were eager to join the pursuit.

Chapter 136

1 Themistocles learned of this beforehand and fled from the Peloponnese to Corcyra, whose people he had benefited. But the Corcyraeans said they were afraid to keep him and so incur the enmity of the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, and conveyed him to the mainland opposite.

2 Pursued by the men appointed to arrest him, who followed reports of his movements, he was driven by a desperate predicament to seek lodging with Admetus, king of the Molossians, who was no friend of his.

3 Admetus happened to be away from home. Themistocles became a suppliant to his wife, and she instructed him to take their child and sit down at the hearth.

4 When Admetus returned not long afterward, Themistocles told him who he was. If he had opposed some request Admetus had once made to the Athenians, he urged him not to take vengeance now that he was a fugitive: that would mean inflicting harm on a man now far weaker than himself, whereas it was noble to take vengeance on equals from a position of equality. Besides, his own opposition had concerned some request, not the preservation of Admetus' life; but if Admetus surrendered him—and he explained who was pursuing him and on what charge—he would be depriving him of his very life.

Chapter 137

1 On hearing this, Admetus raised him up together with his own son, whom Themistocles was still holding as he sat—this was the most binding form of supplication. When the Lacedaemonians and Athenians arrived not long afterward, he refused to surrender him despite all their arguments. Instead, since Themistocles wished to go to the King, he sent him overland to the other sea, to Pydna in Alexander's dominions.

2 There he found a merchant ship setting sail for Ionia and went aboard, but a storm carried him down to the Athenian force besieging Naxos. Alarmed—for no one aboard knew him—he told the shipmaster who he was and why he was in flight. If the man did not save him, he said, he would declare that he had taken him aboard for a bribe. Their safety lay in allowing no one to leave the ship until they could sail again; if he obeyed, Themistocles would repay the favor worthily. The shipmaster did as he asked and, after riding offshore from the camp for a day and a night, eventually reached Ephesus.

3 Themistocles rewarded him with a gift of money: the funds he had placed in safety at Athens and Argos were afterward brought to him, those from Athens by his friends. He then traveled inland with one of the Persians of the coastal region and sent in a letter to King Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, who had recently come to the throne.

4 The letter said: “I, Themistocles, have come to you. Of all the Greeks, I did your house the greatest harm for as long as necessity compelled me to defend myself against your father's invasion, but afterward I did it far greater good, when I was in safety and his journey home was in danger. You owe me a return for my service”—here he wrote of the advance warning he had sent from Salamis about the retreat, and of his having prevented the destruction of the bridges at that time, a credit he falsely claimed—“and now I am here, able to do you great good, pursued by the Greeks because of my friendship with you. I wish to wait a year and then explain to you in person the purpose of my coming.”

Chapter 138

1 The King, it is said, admired his intent and told him to do so. During the interval he had requested, Themistocles learned as much as he could of the Persian language and the customs of the country.

2 When he appeared after the year, he gained greater influence with the King than any Greek before him, both because of his previous standing and because of the hope he held out of enslaving the Greek world for him, but above all because, when put to the test, he proved himself a man of intelligence.

3 For Themistocles gave the surest demonstration of the strength of natural ability, and in this respect deserved admiration beyond anyone else. By his native intelligence, with no education beforehand to develop it and none acquired later, he was the best judge of an immediate situation after the briefest deliberation, and the most discerning in forecasting what would happen in the most distant future. Whatever he had in hand he could also explain; nor, in matters beyond his experience, was he without the power to judge adequately. Above all, he could foresee the better or worse outcome while it still lay hidden. In short, through the force of his nature and with the least need for preparation, he surpassed all others in devising what the moment required.

4 He fell ill and died. Some say, however, that he deliberately took poison, believing it impossible to fulfill his promises to the King.

5 His monument stands in the marketplace at Magnesia in Asia. He had governed this district: the King had given him Magnesia for his bread, which yielded fifty talents a year; Lampsacus for his wine, since it was considered richer in wine than any other place at the time; and Myus for the other provisions of his table.

6 His relatives say that, at his own command, his bones were brought home and buried in Attica without the Athenians' knowledge: burial there was forbidden him as an exile for treason. Such was the end of Pausanias the Lacedaemonian and Themistocles the Athenian, the most illustrious Greeks of their time.

Chapter 139

1 Such were the demands the Lacedaemonians made on their first embassy, and the counter-demands they received, concerning the expulsion of those under a curse. On subsequent visits to Athens they demanded that the Athenians withdraw from Potidaea and leave Aegina autonomous. Above all, they declared most emphatically that there would be no war if the Athenians repealed the decree concerning the Megarians, which barred them from the harbors within the Athenian empire and from the market in Attica.

2 The Athenians would neither comply with the other demands nor repeal the decree. They accused the Megarians of cultivating sacred land and land whose boundaries were unsettled, and of harboring runaway slaves.

3 At last the final envoys arrived from Lacedaemon—Ramphias, Melesippus, and Agesander. They said nothing of the usual earlier demands, but only this: “The Lacedaemonians wish for peace, and peace is possible if you leave the Greeks autonomous.” The Athenians held an assembly and opened the question to debate among themselves; they decided to deliberate on all the issues once and for all and then give their answer.

4 Many came forward and spoke on either side, some arguing that they must go to war, others that the decree should not stand in the way of peace but should be repealed. Pericles son of Xanthippus also came forward—the foremost Athenian of his time, the ablest in speech and action—and advised them as follows.

Chapter 140

1 “Athenians, I hold to the same judgment as always: we must not yield to the Peloponnesians. I know that men do not carry the same ardor into the actual conduct of war as they do when persuaded to undertake it, but change their judgments with their fortunes. Even now I see that my advice must be the same, or much the same; and I claim that those of you whom it persuades must support our common decisions even if we meet with some reverse, or else claim no share in the wisdom of them when we succeed. For the course of events may be as senseless as the thoughts of men: that is why, when things turn out against calculation, we habitually blame fortune.

2 “The Lacedaemonians have plainly plotted against us before, and do so no less plainly now. Though the agreement requires us to submit our disputes to judgment and accept judgment from one another, each side retaining what it holds, they have neither asked for such judgment themselves nor accepted our offer of it. They prefer to settle their grievances by war rather than discussion, and now come issuing commands, no longer making complaints.

3 “They order us to withdraw from Potidaea, leave Aegina autonomous, and repeal the decree concerning the Megarians; these latest envoys even demand that we leave the Greeks autonomous.

4 “Let none of you think that we would be going to war over a trifle if we refused to repeal the Megarian decree. They put this foremost, saying that if it were repealed there would be no war; but do not leave yourselves grounds for self-reproach, as though you had gone to war over a small thing.

5 “For this small thing contains the whole confirmation and test of your resolve. If you concede it to them, you will immediately be ordered to make some greater concession, on the assumption that here too you obeyed from fear. But by firmly refusing, you would make it clear that they must rather deal with you as equals.

Chapter 141

1 “Decide here and now either to submit before suffering any injury, or, if we are to fight—as I think the better course—to yield on neither a great pretext nor a small one, and not to hold our possessions in fear. For the greatest claim and the least, when imposed as a command by equals on their neighbors before judgment, amount to the same enslavement.

2 “As for the war and the resources of either side, hear the particulars and learn why our position will not be the weaker.

3 “The Peloponnesians work their land themselves and have no money either privately or in their public treasuries. They also lack experience of protracted wars or wars overseas, since poverty allows them only brief campaigns against one another.

4 “Men in such circumstances cannot repeatedly man fleets or send armies into the field: they would be away from their own properties while spending their own resources, and would moreover be shut out from the sea.

5 “Wars are sustained by reserves rather than forced contributions. Those who work their own land are readier to fight with their bodies than with their money: they trust that they may survive the dangers, but have no assurance that their money will not be spent before the end, especially if the war lasts longer than they expect, as it probably will.

6 “In a single battle the Peloponnesians and their allies could stand against all the Greeks, but they cannot wage war against a power equipped differently from themselves. They have no single council to act promptly at need, and, with equal votes but belonging to different peoples, each presses his own interest. From this it generally follows that nothing is accomplished.

7 “Some wish above all to take vengeance on someone, others to suffer as little damage as possible to their own possessions. They assemble only at long intervals, and spend a small part of the time considering common interests, but the greater part pursuing their own. Each thinks that his own neglect will do no harm, and that someone else will take care to foresee what is needed on his behalf; thus, because all separately reason in the same way, the common cause is ruined as a whole without their noticing.

Chapter 142

1 “Most important, lack of money will hamper them, as they delay over the slow business of procuring it; but the opportunities of war will not wait.

2 “Nor, indeed, need we fear either their building a fortified position against us or their fleet.

3 “It would be difficult even in peacetime to establish a rival city, much more so in enemy territory, with us no less firmly fortified against them.

4 “If they build a fort, they might damage part of our land by raids and the desertions it encourages; but it will not be enough to prevent us from sailing to their country and fortifying a position against them, or from using our ships, the source of our strength, to defend ourselves.

5 “For we gain more experience of warfare on land from our naval activity than they gain of naval warfare from their activity on land.

6 “Nor will they readily acquire skill at sea.

7 “Even you, who have practiced it ever since the Median Wars, have not yet perfected it. How, then, could men who are farmers, not seamen, accomplish anything worthwhile, when we shall not even allow them to practice, but shall always lie off their coasts with a large fleet?

8 “With only a few ships blockading them, they might venture a battle, their numbers emboldening their ignorance; but shut in by many, they will keep still, and through lack of practice become less skillful and therefore more timid.

9 “Seamanship is an art like any other. It cannot be practiced casually, as a sideline whenever the occasion offers; rather, it allows no other occupation even as a sideline.

Chapter 143

1 “Even if they were to lay hands on the money at Olympia or Delphi and try, by offering higher pay, to draw away the foreign sailors in our service, that would be alarming only if we, embarking ourselves along with our resident aliens, were not a match for them. As it is, we have this resource, and, most important, our own citizens supply us with more and better helmsmen and other skilled crewmen than all the rest of Hellas together.

2 “In the face of the danger, none of the foreigners would accept exile from his own country and join them in a struggle with the poorer prospect of success, merely for the gift of higher pay for a few days.

3 “Such, or something like it, is my view of the Peloponnesians' position. Our own is free of the weaknesses I have found in theirs, and has other great advantages that they cannot match.

4 “If they march against our country by land, we shall sail against theirs; and the devastation of even a part of the Peloponnese will not be comparable to that of all Attica. They cannot acquire other land in its place without fighting, whereas we have abundant land both on islands and on the mainland.

5 “For command of the sea is a great thing. Consider: if we were islanders, who could be less vulnerable to capture? Even now we must think of ourselves as nearly as possible in that position, abandon our land and houses, and guard the sea and the city. We must not let anger over those losses draw us into battle with the far more numerous Peloponnesians: if we defeat them, we shall fight just as many again, while if we lose, we lose as well our hold on the allies, the source of our strength. They will not remain quiet if we are no longer able to send armies against them. We should mourn not houses and land but human lives; it is not these possessions that acquire men, but men who acquire them. If I thought I could persuade you, I would tell you to go out and devastate them yourselves, and show the Peloponnesians that you will not submit for their sake.

Chapter 144

1 “I have many other reasons to hope that we shall prevail, provided you are willing not to add to our empire while at war, or to incur further dangers of your own choosing. I fear our own mistakes more than our enemies' designs.

2 “But those matters will be explained in another speech, as events unfold. For now, let us dismiss these envoys with this answer: we shall allow the Megarians to use our market and harbors if the Lacedaemonians, for their part, cease expelling us and our allies as foreigners, since neither measure is forbidden by the treaty. We shall leave the cities autonomous if they were autonomous when we made the treaty, and when the Lacedaemonians too restore to their own cities the right to govern themselves, not in ways convenient to them [the Lacedaemonians], but as each city itself desires. We are willing to submit to judgment according to the agreement; we shall not begin a war, but shall defend ourselves against those who do. Such an answer is just and at the same time worthy of this city.

3 “We must recognize that war is inevitable, and that the more willingly we accept it, the less fiercely our enemies will press us; and that the greatest dangers bring the greatest honors, to city and individual alike.

4 “Our fathers, at least, stood against the Medes without starting from resources as great as ours—indeed, abandoning even what they had. By judgment more than fortune, and daring greater than their strength, they drove back the barbarian and raised our power to its present height. We must not fall short of them, but resist our enemies in every way and strive to hand on that power undiminished to those who come after us.”

Chapter 145

1 Such was Pericles' speech. The Athenians judged his advice the best for them and voted as he proposed. Their answer to the Lacedaemonians followed his judgment, both in the particulars he had set out and in its general substance: they would do nothing at another's command, but were ready to have the grievances settled by judgment under the agreement, on equal and reciprocal terms. The envoys returned home, and no further embassies followed.

Chapter 146

1 These were the charges and disputes between the two sides before the war, beginning directly with the affairs of Epidamnus and Corcyra. Even while these continued, they still had dealings with one another and traveled to each other's countries without a herald, though not without suspicion. For what was happening amounted to the dissolution of the treaty and furnished grounds for war.

Chapter 1

1 Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, describing how they fought each other. He began as soon as the war broke out. He expected it to be a major war, more worth recording than any earlier one. His evidence was that both sides entered it at the height of their strength, fully equipped in every way. He also saw the rest of the Greek world taking sides. Some joined one side or the other at once, while others were planning to do so.

2 This was the greatest upheaval that the Greeks had ever experienced. It also affected some of the non-Greeks, and indeed, one might say, most of the human world.

3 So much time has passed that it was impossible to establish clearly what happened before this war, or in still earlier times. But I have investigated as far back as possible and found evidence that I consider reliable. On that basis, I believe those times saw nothing on a large scale, either in warfare or in other activities.

Chapter 2

1 The country now called Hellas clearly did not have a settled population in the distant past. People used to migrate. Each group readily left its own land whenever a larger force put pressure on it.

2 There was no trade, and people could not travel safely to visit one another, either by land or by sea. Each group worked its own land just enough to live on. They had no spare money and planted no permanent crops. Without walls to protect them, they never knew when someone might invade and take everything away. They believed they could find the food they needed for each day anywhere. So they found it easy to leave their homes. As a result, they had neither large, powerful cities nor other substantial resources.

3 The best land was especially subject to repeated changes of population. This included what is now called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese except Arcadia, and the most fertile parts of the rest of the country.

4 Good land allowed some people to become more powerful. This caused civil strife that destroyed them. At the same time, they were more exposed to attacks from people of other groups.

5 Attica, at any rate, had been free of civil strife for a very long time because of its poor soil. The same population therefore always lived there.

6 The following is strong evidence for the argument that migration kept the rest of Hellas from growing as much as Attica. When war or civil strife drove people out of other parts of Hellas, the most powerful among them took refuge with the Athenians because their territory was secure. They became citizens and, from early times, immediately added still further to the city's population. Eventually Attica could not support them all, and the Athenians sent out colonies to Ionia.

Chapter 3

1 Another strong indication, in my view, of the weakness of early times is this: Hellas does not appear to have done anything together before the Trojan War.

2 I also think that the whole country did not yet have this name. Before Hellen, the son of Deucalion, the name probably did not even exist at all. Instead, the different peoples gave their own names to their territories. The Pelasgians did so over the widest area. But Hellen and his sons became powerful in Phthiotis. Other cities called them in for help, and through contact with them individual peoples increasingly came to be called Greeks. Even so, only after a long time [could] that name become established for everyone.

3 Homer provides the strongest evidence. Although he lived long after the Trojan War, he nowhere uses the name Greeks for the whole force. He applies it only to the men who came with Achilles from Phthiotis, who were in fact the first Greeks. In his poems he calls the whole force Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. Nor does he use the term non-Greeks. In my view, this is because the Greeks themselves had not yet been set apart under a single name to form the contrasting group.

4 Those who came to be called Greeks, then, first took the name city by city, among people who understood one another's language, and later all together. Before the Trojan War they did nothing as a united body, because they were weak and had little contact with one another. Even that joint expedition took place only when they were already making greater use of the sea.

Chapter 4

1 Minos is the earliest person known to us by report to have acquired a fleet. He controlled most of what is now the Greek sea. He ruled the Cyclades and was the first to establish colonies on most of those islands. He drove out the Carians and installed his own sons as governors. He also probably did as much as he could to clear pirates from the sea, so that his revenues would reach him more readily.

Chapter 5

1 In early times, as the Greeks began to sail across to one another more often, they turned to piracy. So did the non-Greeks who lived on the mainland coast or occupied islands. Their leaders were men of considerable power, who sought profit for themselves and food for those with less power. They attacked unwalled towns made up of scattered villages and plundered them. This supplied most of their living. The activity was not yet considered shameful. In fact, it brought them some honor.

2 Some mainland peoples still show this today: among them, success at piracy is a source of pride. The early poets provide evidence too. Everywhere, in the same way, they have people ask arriving sailors whether they are pirates. This assumes that those being questioned did not look down on the activity, and that those wanting to know were not reproaching them.

3 People also raided one another on land. Even today, much of Hellas still lives in the old way. This is true of the Ozolian Locrians, the Aetolians, the Acarnanians, and the neighboring mainland. These mainland peoples have kept the habit of carrying weapons from the old days of raiding.

Chapter 6

1 All of Hellas once carried weapons. Their homes were unprotected, and travel between communities was unsafe. They made carrying arms in daily life a regular practice, just as non-Greeks do.

2 The parts of Hellas that still live this way are evidence that everyone once shared these habits.

3 The Athenians were among the first to stop carrying weapons and to adopt an easier, more luxurious way of life. Indeed, until quite recently the older men among their wealthy citizens still wore linen tunics and tied up their hair in a knot held with golden cicada ornaments. This was part of their taste for luxury. Their kinship with the Athenians meant that older Ionian men also continued to wear this style of dress for a long time.

4 The Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, were the first to wear simple clothes in the present style. In other parts of life too, their wealthier citizens came closer than anyone else to living in the same way as ordinary people.

5 They were also the first to exercise naked, taking off their clothes in public and rubbing themselves with oil for their exercises. In earlier times, even at the Olympic games, athletes competed wearing cloths around their genitals. This practice stopped only a few years ago. Even now some non-Greek peoples, especially in Asia, hold boxing and wrestling contests with prizes, and they compete wearing these cloths.

6 Many other examples could also show that the Greeks in early times lived in ways similar to those of non-Greeks today.

Chapter 7

1 The more recently founded cities were built when seafaring was already safer and people had more money to spare. They were built with walls right on the shore. Their people also occupied the isthmuses, both for trade and to strengthen their position against their neighbors. But the older cities, on islands as well as on the mainland, were built farther from the sea because piracy had continued for so long. The raiders plundered one another, as well as people who were not seafarers but lived near the coast. These older cities remain inland to this day.

Chapter 8

1 The islanders were just as active as pirates. They were Carians and Phoenicians, who had settled most of the islands. Here is some evidence. During this war the Athenians purified Delos and removed all the graves of the dead on the island. More than half of the dead proved to be Carians. They were identified by the weapons buried with them and by the burial method, which the Carians still use today.

2 Once Minos had established his fleet, people could sail to one another more safely. He drove the criminals out of the islands at the same time as he settled most of them.

3 The people living along the coast now began to acquire more wealth and to live in greater security. Some also built walls around their communities as they grew richer than before. The desire for profit led weaker people to accept subjection to the stronger. Meanwhile, those with greater power used their spare wealth to bring smaller cities under their control.

4 This way of life was already more fully developed when, at a later date, they made their expedition against Troy.

Chapter 9

1 I think Agamemnon assembled the expedition because he was more powerful than the other rulers of his time. It was not so much because he led Helen's suitors, bound by the oaths they had sworn to Tyndareus.

2 The Peloponnesians who have received the most reliable accounts from earlier generations also say the following. Pelops first gained power through the great wealth that he brought from Asia to people who were poor. Although he was an immigrant, he succeeded in giving his name to the country. Later, his descendants gained still more power. Eurystheus was killed in Attica by the descendants of Heracles. Atreus was his mother's brother. When Eurystheus went on campaign, he entrusted Mycenae and his kingdom to Atreus because of their family connection. Atreus happened to be in exile from his father because of the death of Chrysippus. When Eurystheus did not return, Atreus took over the kingship of Mycenae and all the other lands that Eurystheus had ruled. The Mycenaeans themselves wanted this, both because they feared the descendants of Heracles and because Atreus seemed powerful and had won the favor of the people. In this way the descendants of Pelops became more powerful than the descendants of Perseus.

3 In my view, Agamemnon inherited this power. He also had greater naval strength than the others. So he organized and carried out the expedition by bringing people together through fear more than through goodwill.

4 He clearly arrived with more ships of his own than anyone else, and also supplied ships to the Arcadians. Homer makes this clear, if his evidence is thought sufficient. In his account of how the scepter was handed down, he also says that Agamemnon / “ruled over many islands and all of Argos.” / As a mainland ruler, he could not have controlled islands beyond those close to the coast—and there would not have been many of those—unless he also had a fleet of some size. This expedition should also help us judge what earlier times were like.

Chapter 10

1 Mycenae was small, and some other towns of that time may now seem insignificant. But that would not be reliable evidence for doubting that the expedition was as large as the poets and the accepted tradition say it was.

2 Suppose the city of the Lacedaemonians were abandoned, leaving only its temples and the foundations of its buildings. I think that, after a long time, later generations would find it very hard to believe that its power had matched its reputation. Yet the Lacedaemonians occupy two-fifths of the Peloponnese. They lead the whole of it and many allies outside it. Still, their city would look less powerful than it is. It is not built as one continuous city and has no expensive temples or buildings. Instead, it consists of separate villages, in the old Greek way. If the same thing happened to Athens, people would judge from the city's visible remains that its power had been twice as great as it actually is.

3 So it is not reasonable to disbelieve the account, or to pay more attention to how cities look than to their power. We should consider that expedition the largest of any before it, but smaller than those of our own time. This also follows from Homer's poetry, if we should place any trust in it here. As a poet, he would naturally have made it more impressive by exaggeration. Even so, his account still shows it to have been smaller.

4 He describes a fleet of 1,200 ships. The Boeotian ships carried 120 men each, and those of Philoctetes 50. I think he means these to be the largest and smallest, since he gives no other sizes in his list of ships. In his account of Philoctetes' ships, he makes clear that the men did their own rowing and were all fighters: he describes all the rowers as archers. There were probably not many passengers apart from the kings and the highest-ranking men. This is especially likely because they were going to cross the open sea with their military equipment. Their ships did not have enclosed decks, either, but were fitted out in the old style, more like pirate ships.

5 If we take an average between the largest and smallest ships, the number of men who went does not seem great for an expedition sent jointly by the whole of Hellas.

Chapter 11

1 The main cause was not a shortage of people but a shortage of money. Because they could not provide enough food, they took a smaller army: only as many men as they hoped could live off the land while fighting there. After landing, they won a battle. This is clear, since otherwise they could not have built the wall around their camp. Yet even then they seem not to have used their full force. Shortage of food made them turn to farming in the Chersonese and to raiding. Their forces were scattered, and this made it easier for the Trojans to hold out against them for the ten years. The Trojans were a match for the forces left there at any given time.

2 But suppose they had come with plenty of food and had stayed together, fighting the war continuously without raiding or farming. They would easily have won in battle and taken the city. After all, even when they were not all together, the part of their force present at any time could hold its own. If they had stayed there and laid siege to Troy, they would have taken it in less time and with less effort.

3 So lack of money made earlier events small in scale. Even this expedition, the most famous event of earlier times, proves on examination to have been less impressive than its reputation and the account that the poets have made current today.

Chapter 12

1 Even after the Trojan War, migration and resettlement continued in Hellas. These prevented it from settling down and growing stronger.

2 The Greeks' return from Troy took a long time and caused many changes. Civil strife broke out in most cities, and the people driven out by it founded new cities.

3 In the sixtieth year after the capture of Troy, the Thessalians drove the ancestors of the present Boeotians out of Arne. They settled in the land now called Boeotia, which had previously been called the land of Cadmus. A section of their people had already been living there before this, and some of those had joined the expedition to Troy. In the eightieth year, the Dorians and the descendants of Heracles took possession of the Peloponnese.

4 Only after a long time did Hellas achieve lasting stability, free from further forced migrations, and begin sending out colonies. The Athenians established settlements for the Ionians and most of the island peoples. The Peloponnesians settled most of Italy and Sicily, as well as some places in the rest of Hellas. All these settlements were founded after the Trojan War.

Chapter 13

1 As Hellas became more powerful and acquired even more wealth than before, tyrannies were established in most cities as their revenues increased. Previously, kingships had been hereditary, with fixed privileges. Hellas also began fitting out fleets, and its people took a stronger interest in the sea.

2 The Corinthians are said to have been the first to handle naval matters in a way very close to present practice. Corinth was also reportedly the first place in Hellas where triremes were built.

3 The Corinthian shipbuilder Ameinocles also appears to have built four ships for the Samians. It was about 300 years before the end of this war that Ameinocles came to Samos.

4 The earliest sea battle we know of was fought between the Corinthians and the Corcyraeans. This too was about 260 years before the same date.

5 Because their city stood on the Isthmus, the Corinthians had always had a trading center. In early times the Greeks usually traveled by land rather than by sea. Those inside the Peloponnese and those outside it passed through Corinthian territory to reach one another. This made the Corinthians wealthy and powerful. The early poets make this clear too, since they called the place rich. When the Greeks began sailing more, the Corinthians acquired ships and suppressed piracy. They offered a trading center for both land and sea traffic, and the revenues made their city powerful.

6 Later, the Ionians also acquired a large fleet, when first Cyrus and then his son Cambyses ruled the Persians. While fighting Cyrus, they controlled the sea along their own coast for a time. During the reign of Cambyses, Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, used his naval strength to bring other islands under his rule. He also captured Rhenea and dedicated it to Apollo of Delos. The Phocaeans, while founding Massalia, defeated the Carthaginians in sea battles.

Chapter 14

1 These were the most powerful fleets. Yet even these, though they existed many generations after the Trojan War, seem to have used only a few triremes. Like the fleets of that earlier time, they were still equipped with fifty-oared ships and other long warships.

2 Shortly before the Persian Wars and the death of Darius, who ruled the Persians after Cambyses, the tyrants in Sicily and the Corcyraeans acquired large numbers of triremes. These were the last significant fleets established in Hellas before Xerxes' expedition.

3 The Aeginetans and the Athenians, and any other naval powers, possessed only a few ships, most of them fifty-oared vessels. It was only late in this period that Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to build the ships with which they fought their sea battles. They were then at war with the Aeginetans, and a non-Greek invasion was also expected. Even these ships did not yet have decks running their full length.

Chapter 15

1 Such were the Greek fleets, both in early times and later. Still, those who concentrated on them gained considerable power through the income they brought and through rule over others. They sailed against the islands and conquered them. Those whose own land was insufficient were especially active in this.

2 No land war arose that led to any substantial increase in power. All the wars that did take place were against each city's own neighbors. The Greeks did not go on distant campaigns, far from home, to conquer others. They had not joined the largest cities as subjects, nor did they themselves undertake joint campaigns as equals. Instead, neighboring peoples fought separate wars against one another.

3 It was above all in the war fought long ago between the Chalcidians and the Eretrians that the rest of the Greek world also split into alliances with one side or the other.

Chapter 16

1 Different obstacles to growth arose in different places. The Ionians had made great progress when Cyrus and the Persian kingdom attacked them. After overthrowing Croesus and conquering everything between the Halys River and the sea, the Persians subjected the cities on the mainland. Later Darius, using the Phoenician fleet to gain the upper hand, subjected the islands too.

Chapter 17

1 The tyrants in the Greek cities looked after only their own interests: their personal safety and the growth of their own households. They governed their cities as cautiously as possible. They accomplished nothing significant, except perhaps some action against their immediate neighbors. It was the tyrants in Sicily who developed the greatest power. In these ways Hellas was held back on every side for a long time. It achieved nothing outstanding as a whole, and its individual cities lacked the confidence to act.

Chapter 18

1 Eventually the Lacedaemonians overthrew the tyrants of Athens and most of the last remaining tyrants elsewhere in Hellas, much of which had already been under tyrants for a long time. The exception was Sicily. After the settlement of the Dorians who now inhabit it, Lacedaemon suffered civil strife for longer than any other community we know of. Nevertheless, it established good government very early and was always free of tyrants. By the end of this war, the Lacedaemonians had been living under the same constitution for a little over 400 years. The resulting strength allowed them to arrange affairs in the other cities too. Not many years after the tyrants were overthrown in Hellas, the battle at Marathon took place between the Medes and the Athenians.

2 In the tenth year after that battle, the non-Greek invader returned with his great expedition to enslave Hellas. With this enormous danger hanging over them, the Greeks who joined the fight accepted the leadership of the Lacedaemonians, who were the most powerful. As the Medes advanced, the Athenians decided to abandon their city. They packed up their belongings, boarded their ships, and became a naval people. Together the Greeks drove back the non-Greek invader. Not long afterward, both the Greeks who had rebelled against the king and those who had fought in the war divided between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians. These two powers had clearly emerged as the greatest. The Lacedaemonians were strong on land, and the Athenians at sea.

3 Their military alliance lasted only a short time. Then the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians fell out and, with their allies, fought one another. Whenever any of the other Greeks had a dispute, they now joined one or the other of these two sides. Throughout the period from the Persian Wars to this war, there were times when the two powers made treaties and times when they fought, either against one another or against their own rebellious allies. They built up their military resources and gained experience, training in conditions of real danger.

Chapter 19

1 The Lacedaemonians led their allies without making them pay tribute. They took care only to ensure that the allies had oligarchic governments favorable to themselves. The Athenians, on the other hand, gradually took over the ships of the allied cities, except those of Chios and Lesbos, and required them all to pay money. They entered this war with greater resources of their own than they had ever had at their peak with the alliance intact.

Chapter 20

1 These are my findings about early times, though it is hard to put trust in every piece of evidence as it comes. People accept accounts of the past from one another without testing them, even when the events concern their own country.

2 Most Athenians, for example, believe that Hipparchus was tyrant when Harmodius and Aristogiton killed him. They do not know that Hippias, the oldest of Pisistratus' sons, was the ruler, and that Hipparchus and Thessalus were his brothers. On that very day, just as they were about to act, Harmodius and Aristogiton suspected that one of their fellow conspirators had informed Hippias. They left him alone because they thought he had been warned. But they wanted to do something before they were arrested, even at the risk of their lives. They came across Hipparchus near the place called the Leocorium, where he was arranging the Panathenaic procession, and killed him.

3 The other Greeks also hold many mistaken beliefs, even about things that still exist today and have not faded from memory with time. For example, they think that each Lacedaemonian king has two votes rather than one, and that the Lacedaemonians have a company from Pitana, which in fact never existed at all. Most people make so little effort to find the truth. They prefer to accept the first account available.

Chapter 21

1 Still, on the evidence I have presented, someone would be closest to the truth by accepting the account I have given. They should not put greater trust in the poets, who celebrate these events by exaggerating them. Nor should they trust the prose writers, who arranged their accounts to attract listeners rather than to tell the truth. These stories cannot be checked, and with the passage of time most of them have become implausible tales. Instead, the reader should consider that my findings rest on the clearest available evidence and are sufficiently reliable for events so long ago.

2 People always judge the war they are fighting to be the greatest. Once it is over, they tend to admire the wars of the distant past instead. Even so, anyone who examines the actual events will see that this war was greater than those earlier ones.

Chapter 22

1 As for what people said in speeches, either before the war began or when they were already fighting, it was hard to remember the exact words. This was true both for me, when I had heard them myself, and for those who reported speeches to me from elsewhere. I have made each speaker say what I thought the particular situation most called for. At the same time, I have kept as close as possible to the overall meaning of what was actually said.

2 As for the events of the war, I did not think it right to write down what I learned from just anyone, or what I myself supposed had happened. I investigated each event as accurately as possible, both those I witnessed myself and those I learned about from others.

3 Finding the facts took hard work. The people present at each event gave different accounts of the same things, depending on their sympathies for one side or the other, or on their memories.

4 The lack of mythical stories may make this account less enjoyable to hear. But some readers will want a clear view of what happened, and of events that will someday happen again in the same or similar ways because of human nature. It will be enough if those readers find my work useful. It has been written to remain a resource forever, rather than as a performance to win a moment's hearing.

Chapter 23

1 The greatest event in earlier times was the Persian War. Even that was quickly decided by two battles at sea and two on land. This war, however, lasted a long time. During it, Greece suffered disasters unlike any others in an equal period.

2 Never had so many cities been captured and left deserted. Some were destroyed by non-Greeks, others by the Greeks fighting one another. Some even had their populations replaced after capture. Never had so many people been driven into exile or killed, either in the war itself or through civil strife.

3 Events that people had previously heard about, but that actual experience rarely confirmed, no longer seemed unbelievable. Earthquakes struck the largest areas at once and with the greatest force. Eclipses of the sun occurred more often than those recorded from earlier times. Some places suffered severe droughts and the famines they caused. There was also the epidemic, which was among the most destructive disasters and killed part of the population. All these disasters struck at the same time as this war.

4 The Athenians and Peloponnesians began the war by breaking the thirty-year treaty they had made after the capture of Euboea.

5 To explain why they broke it, I have first set out their complaints and disputes. That way, no one will ever need to ask how so great a war broke out among the Greeks.

6 In my view, the real underlying cause, though the one least openly discussed, was the growth of Athenian power. This frightened the Lacedaemonians and forced them into war. The complaints openly made by each side, which led them to break the treaty and go to war, were as follows.

Chapter 24

1 Epidamnus is a city on the right as you sail into the Ionian Gulf. Its neighbors are the Taulantian non-Greeks, an Illyrian people.

2 The Corcyraeans settled it. Its founder was Phalius, son of Eratoclides, a Corinthian descended from Heracles. In keeping with the ancient custom, he had been invited from the mother city. Some Corinthians and other Dorians also joined the settlement.

3 Over time, Epidamnus became powerful and heavily populated.

4 But its people fought among themselves for many years. According to the account given, a war with their non-Greek neighbors ruined them and stripped them of much of their power.

5 Finally, just before this war, the people drove out the powerful citizens. These returned with the non-Greeks and raided those still in the city, both by land and by sea.

6 Under this pressure, the Epidamnians in the city sent representatives to Corcyra, their mother city. They begged the Corcyraeans not to let them be destroyed. Instead, they asked them to reconcile the exiles with them and end the war with the non-Greeks.

7 They made these requests while sitting as people seeking protection at the temple of Hera. But the Corcyraeans refused their appeal and sent them away without achieving anything.

Chapter 25

1 When the Epidamnians realized that no help would come from Corcyra, they did not know how to deal with their situation. They sent to Delphi and asked the god whether they should hand their city over to the Corinthians as its founders and try to get some help from them. He told them to hand it over and take the Corinthians as their leaders.

2 The Epidamnians went to Corinth and handed over the colony as the oracle directed. They pointed out that their founder had come from Corinth and explained the oracle's answer. They begged the Corinthians not to let them be destroyed but to come to their defense.

3 The Corinthians agreed to help because they thought it right: they considered the colony theirs just as much as the Corcyraeans'. They also acted out of hatred for the Corcyraeans, who treated them with disregard despite being their colonists.

4 At their shared festivals, the Corcyraeans did not give them the customary honors or let a Corinthian begin the sacrifices, as the other colonies did. They looked down on them. At that time their financial resources matched those of the richest Greeks, and their military equipment was more powerful than Corinth's. Sometimes they boasted that their navy was far superior too. They also took pride in the fact that the Phaeacians, who were famous for their ships, had lived on Corcyra before them. This encouraged them to build up their navy still further, and it was a considerable force: they had 120 triremes when they went to war.

Chapter 26

1 With all these grievances against Corcyra, the Corinthians gladly sent help to Epidamnus. They invited anyone who wanted to go there as a settler, and sent a garrison made up of Ambraciots, Leucadians, and their own men.

2 They traveled overland to Apollonia, a Corinthian colony. They feared that the Corcyraeans would stop them if they crossed by sea.

3 The Corcyraeans were angry when they learned that the settlers and garrison had reached Epidamnus and that the colony had been handed over to Corinth. They immediately sailed there with twenty-five ships, followed later by another fleet. They made the insulting demand that the Epidamnians take back the exiles and send away the garrison and settlers the Corinthians had sent. The Epidamnian exiles had come to Corcyra, pointing to their ancestors' graves and their family ties. On the strength of these ties, they had asked the Corcyraeans to restore them.

4 The Epidamnians refused all these demands. The Corcyraeans then attacked them with forty ships, taking the exiles along to restore them. They also brought in the Illyrians to help.

5 They took up positions outside the city and announced that any Epidamnian who wished, and all foreigners, could leave unharmed. Otherwise, they would be treated as enemies. When the inhabitants refused, the Corcyraeans besieged the city, which stands on an isthmus.

Chapter 27

1 When messengers from Epidamnus told the Corinthians that the city was under siege, they prepared an expedition. They also announced a new settlement at Epidamnus. Anyone who wished could go there with full and equal rights. Anyone who did not want to sail immediately, but wanted a share in the colony, could stay behind by paying fifty Corinthian drachmas. Many sailed, and many paid the money.

2 They also asked the Megarians to escort them with ships in case the Corcyraeans tried to stop their voyage. The Megarians prepared eight ships to sail with them, and Pale in Cephallenia prepared four. They asked the Epidaurians as well, who provided five. Hermione provided one, Troezen two, Leucas ten, and Ambracia eight. They asked the Thebans and Phliasians for money, and the Eleans for both uncrewed ships and money. The Corinthians themselves prepared thirty ships and 3,000 hoplites.

Chapter 28

1 When the Corcyraeans learned about these preparations, they went to Corinth. They brought along representatives from Lacedaemon and Sicyon. They told the Corinthians to withdraw their garrison and settlers from Epidamnus, since Corinth had no claim to it.

2 If the Corinthians disputed this, they were willing to submit the case to cities in the Peloponnese that both sides agreed on. Whichever side was judged to own the colony should control it. They were also willing to leave the decision to the oracle at Delphi.

3 They urged the Corinthians not to make war. Otherwise, they said, Corinth's use of force would compel them to find support by making friends they did not want, different from those they already had.

4 The Corinthians answered that they would consider the proposal if the Corcyraeans withdrew their ships and the non-Greeks from Epidamnus. Until then, it was not reasonable for the Epidamnians to remain under siege while the Corinthians submitted to a legal decision.

5 The Corcyraeans replied that they would do this if the Corinthians also withdrew their men from Epidamnus. They were also ready for both sides to stay where they were and agree to a truce until the case was decided.

Chapter 29

1 The Corinthians accepted none of this. When their ships were fully crewed and their allies had arrived, they first sent a herald to declare war on the Corcyraeans. Then they set sail for Epidamnus with seventy-five ships and 2,000 hoplites to fight the Corcyraeans.

2 The commanders of the fleet were Aristeus, son of Pellichus, Callicrates, son of Callias, and Timanor, son of Timanthes. The land forces were commanded by Archetimus, son of Eurytimus, and Isarchidas, son of Isarchus.

3 When they reached Actium in the territory of Anactorium, where Apollo's temple stands at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, the Corcyraeans sent a herald out to them in a small boat. He was to tell them not to sail against Corcyra. At the same time the Corcyraeans were crewing their ships. They had reinforced the old ones to make them seaworthy and repaired the others.

4 The herald returned without any peaceful answer from the Corinthians. The Corcyraeans now had eighty ships fully crewed, since forty more were besieging Epidamnus. They sailed out to meet the Corinthians, formed a battle line, and fought them at sea.

5 The Corcyraeans won a decisive victory and destroyed fifteen Corinthian ships. On the same day, their forces besieging Epidamnus secured its surrender. The terms were that the newcomers would be sold as slaves and the Corinthians kept in chains until a further decision was made.

Chapter 30

1 After the sea battle, the Corcyraeans set up a victory monument on Leucimme, a headland of Corcyra. They killed all the prisoners they had taken except the Corinthians, whom they kept in chains.

2 Later, when the Corinthians and their allies had returned home after their naval defeat, the Corcyraeans controlled the whole sea in that region. They sailed to Leucas, a Corinthian colony, and devastated its countryside. They also burned Cyllene, the Eleans' port, because the Eleans had provided the Corinthians with ships and money.

3 For most of the time after the sea battle, the Corcyraeans controlled the sea and raided and damaged Corinth's allies. This continued until the Corinthians, as summer came around, sent ships and troops because their allies were suffering. They camped at Actium and around Chimerium in Thesprotia to protect Leucas and the other friendly cities.

4 The Corcyraeans also set up a camp opposite them at Leucimme, with ships and land forces. Neither side sailed out against the other. They stayed facing each other that summer, and both went home when winter had already begun.

Chapter 31

1 Throughout the year after the sea battle and the following year, the Corinthians bitterly pursued the war against the Corcyraeans. They built ships and made every effort to prepare a powerful fleet. They recruited rowers from the Peloponnese itself and the rest of Greece, attracting them with pay.

2 The Corcyraeans learned about these preparations and became afraid. They had no treaty with any Greek state and had not joined either the Athenian or the Lacedaemonian alliance. So they decided to approach the Athenians, become their allies, and try to obtain some help from them.

3 When the Corinthians heard this, they too sent representatives to Athens. They wanted to stop the Athenian navy from joining the Corcyraean navy and preventing them from settling the war as they wished.

4 An assembly was held, and the two sides presented their opposing arguments. The Corcyraeans spoke as follows.

Chapter 32

1 “Athenians, when people come to their neighbors asking for help, as we do now, without having done them a great service or already being their allies, they should first make their position clear. Above all, they should show that granting the request will benefit those they ask, or at least will not harm them. Next, they should show that their gratitude will last. If they cannot establish any of this, they must not be angry if their request fails.

2 “The Corcyraeans sent us to ask for an alliance because they believed they could also give you firm assurances on these points.

3 “But the same policy of ours turns out both to make our request to you look unreasonable and to work against our own interests in the present situation.

4 “We have never willingly become anyone's allies before, but now we have come to ask others for an alliance. At the same time, this policy has left us isolated in our present war with Corinth. We used to think it sensible not to share the dangers of an alliance with others at someone else's bidding. Now this policy has come to look like poor judgment and weakness.

5 “In the sea battle that has already taken place, we held off the Corinthians on our own. But now they are coming against us with a larger force drawn from the Peloponnese and the rest of Greece. We see that we cannot win with our own forces alone. The danger of coming under their control is also great. So we have to ask for help from you and from anyone else. We deserve understanding if we now dare to act against our previous policy of staying out of others' affairs. We do this not from bad intentions but because our earlier judgment was mistaken.

Chapter 33

1 “If you agree, our need will give you a good opportunity in several ways. First, you will be helping people who are being wronged, not people harming others. Next, by accepting us when everything important to us is at risk, you will earn our deepest gratitude, with a record of your help that will never be forgotten. We also have the largest navy apart from yours.

2 “Think about it. What good opportunity could be rarer, or more painful to your enemies? You would have paid a great deal of money and felt deeply grateful to have this force join you. Now it comes of its own accord and offers itself to you without risk or expense. It also brings you a good reputation with the public, gratitude from those you defend, and greater strength for yourselves. Very few people in all history have gained all these things at once. And few who come asking for an alliance offer those they approach as much security and honor as they will receive.

3 “If any of you thinks that the war in which we could be useful to you will never happen, he is mistaken. He does not see that the Lacedaemonians want war because they fear you. Nor does he see that the Corinthians, who have influence with them and are your enemies, are now trying to get control of us before attacking you. They want to prevent us from uniting against them out of our shared hostility. They also want to make sure they achieve one of two things before you can act: either to damage us or to strengthen themselves.

4 “Our task, instead, is to act first, with us offering the alliance and you accepting it. We should plan against them in advance rather than wait to answer their plans.

Chapter 34

1 “If they say it is not right for you to accept their colonists, let them understand this: every colony honors its mother city when treated well, but becomes estranged when treated unjustly. Colonists are not sent out to be slaves, but to have equal standing with those who stay behind.

2 “It is clear that they have wronged us. We invited them to have the dispute over Epidamnus judged, but they chose to pursue their complaints through war rather than a fair settlement.

3 “Let their treatment of us, their relatives, be a warning to you too. Do not let them mislead you with deception or give them help when they ask you openly. Whoever has the fewest regrets from doing favors for opponents will remain the safest.

Chapter 35

1 “By accepting us you will not break your treaty with the Lacedaemonians either, since we are allies of neither side.

2 “The treaty says that any Greek city belonging to neither alliance is free to join whichever side it prefers.

3 “It would be outrageous if the Corinthians could recruit crews among the parties to the treaty, and also from the rest of Greece, especially from your own subjects, while shutting us out of the alliance offered to us and any help from elsewhere. And then, if you grant our request, they will count it as wrongdoing!

4 “If we fail to persuade you, we will have far greater reason to blame you. You will be rejecting us, although we are in danger and are not your enemies. As for the Corinthians, who are your enemies and are attacking us, you will not just fail to stop them. You will even allow them to draw additional strength from your own empire. This is not right. You should either stop them from hiring men from your territory or send us whatever help you can be persuaded to give. Best of all, you should accept us openly and help us.

5 “As we said at the start, we can point to many benefits. Most important, we have the same enemies. That is the clearest guarantee of trust. These enemies are not weak but strong enough to harm anyone who changes sides. And the alliance being offered is with a naval power, not a land power. Rejecting a naval ally is not the same as rejecting a land ally. Ideally, if you can, you should not let anyone else have ships. If that is impossible, you should have the strongest naval power as your friend.

Chapter 36

1 “If someone thinks that these proposals are in your interest but fears that accepting them might break the treaty, he should understand this. His caution, backed by strength, will frighten his opponents more. His confidence, if he rejects us and so remains weak, will leave strong enemies with less to fear. He should also realize that this decision concerns Athens no less than Corcyra. He is not planning what is best for Athens if, with war coming and almost already here, he looks only at the immediate situation and hesitates to gain a place whose friendship or hostility matters enormously at critical moments.

2 “Corcyra lies conveniently on the sea route to Italy and Sicily. It can stop naval forces from coming from there to help the Peloponnesians, and escort a fleet from here toward those places. It is also extremely useful in other ways.

3 “To put the whole case, including its separate points, as briefly as possible, this should show you why you must not abandon us. The Greeks have three navies worth mentioning: yours, ours, and Corinth's. If you let two of them come together, and the Corinthians get control of us first, you will have to fight the Corcyraeans and Peloponnesians together at sea. But if you accept us, our ships will add to yours, and you will fight them with a larger fleet.”

4 That was what the Corcyraeans said. The Corinthians spoke after them as follows.

Chapter 37

1 “These Corcyraeans have not just argued that you should accept them. They also say that we are in the wrong and that the war against them is unjustified. We must therefore address both points first, before moving on to the rest of our argument. That way you will have a clearer understanding of our claim on you, and your rejection of their request will rest on reason.

2 “They say that they have never accepted an alliance with anyone because they are sensible and restrained. But they have followed this policy to make wrongdoing easier, not because they are good. They want no ally to share in their wrongdoing and no witness to it. Nor do they want to feel ashamed when calling someone in to help.

3 “Their city's location also makes it self-sufficient. This allows them to judge their own cases when they harm someone, instead of following agreed procedures. They very rarely sail to their neighbors, while other people are constantly forced to put in at Corcyra.

4 “So their respectable-looking refusal of alliances is a screen. Its purpose is not to avoid sharing in other people's wrongdoing, but to do wrong alone: to use force where they have the upper hand, to take advantage where they can escape detection, and to brazen it out if they incur any blame.

5 “Yet if they were good men, as they claim, their neighbors' lack of power over them would have given them an even clearer opportunity to show their goodness, by giving and accepting fair treatment.

Chapter 38

1 “But they behave like this neither toward others nor toward us. Although they are our colonists, they have always kept apart from us, and now they are at war with us. They say they were not sent out to be mistreated.

2 “We too say that we did not settle them there to be insulted by them. We meant to be their leaders and receive the respect we deserve.

3 “Our other colonies, at any rate, honor us, and our colonists are particularly fond of us.

4 “Clearly, if we satisfy most of them, these people alone have no good reason to be dissatisfied. Nor would we be making such an exceptional expedition against them unless we had been exceptionally wronged.

5 “Even if we were in the wrong, it would have been honorable for them to give way to our anger. We, in turn, would have been disgraced if we had used force against such moderation.

6 “Instead, their arrogance and the freedom their wealth gives them have led them to wrong us in many ways. Epidamnus is one example. It belongs to us. When it was in trouble, they claimed no connection with it. But when we came to help it, they seized it and now hold it by force.

Chapter 39

1 “They say, of course, that they were willing to have the case judged before fighting. But an offer like that does not deserve serious consideration when it comes from someone who already has the advantage and makes it from a safe position. It must come from someone who puts his actions on as fair a basis as his words before the fighting begins.

2 “They did not offer the respectable appearance of a legal settlement before they besieged the place. They did so only when they thought we would not stand by and let it happen. And they have come here after doing wrong there themselves, now asking you not merely to be their allies but to share in their wrongdoing. They want you to accept them when they are already in conflict with us.

3 “They should have approached you when they were safest, not now that we have been wronged and they are in danger. You had no share in their power then, but now you are to give them a share of your help. You took no part in their offenses, but you are to share equally in the blame we attach to them. They should have shared their strength with you long ago if they wanted to share the consequences too.

Chapter 40

1 “We have shown that we come with well-founded complaints, and that these people use force and take more than their share. You must now understand why it would not be right for you to accept them.

2 “The treaty does say that any city not listed in either alliance may join whichever side it wants. But this agreement is not for cities that join in order to harm others. It is for a city that seeks security without depriving another power of its allegiance, and that will not bring war instead of peace on those who accept it, if they act sensibly. That is what could happen to you now if you do not listen to us.

3 “You would not just become their helpers. You would also become our enemies instead of our partners in the treaty. If you join them, we will have to defend ourselves against you as well as against them.

4 “The right thing for you to do is, above all, to stay out of the way of both sides. Failing that, you should instead join us against them. You have a treaty with the Corinthians, but you have never even had a truce with the Corcyraeans. And you should not establish a rule that allows you to accept people who break away from others.

5 “When the Samians rebelled, we did not cast our vote against you. The other Peloponnesians were divided over whether to help them. We openly opposed helping them and said that each power should punish its own allies.

6 “If you accept and help people who have done wrong, at least as many of your own allies will clearly come over to us. You will establish a rule that works against yourselves more than against us.

Chapter 41

1 “These, then, are our claims on you, and by the customs of the Greeks they are sufficient. We also offer the following advice and ask you to repay a favor. We are not your enemies, so we are not trying to harm you. Nor are we your friends, so we are not taking advantage of friendship. We say that you should repay us now.

2 “Once, before the Persian War, you lacked warships for your war against the Aeginetans, and you received twenty ships from Corinth. This service, and our service over Samos, when we stopped the Peloponnesians from helping the Samians, allowed you to defeat the Aeginetans and punish the Samians. We did these things at moments when people, as they attack their own enemies, care about nothing else compared with winning.

3 “For they count anyone who helps them as a friend, even if he was their enemy before. They count anyone who stands in their way as an enemy, even if he happens to be a friend. In their desire to win the immediate contest, they even neglect their own interests.

Chapter 42

1 “Remember these things. Those too young to remember should learn them from their elders. Then each of you should agree to repay us in the same way. Do not think that what we say is just, but that something else will serve your interests if war comes.

2 “What serves your interests is generally the course that involves the fewest mistakes. The coming war, which the Corcyraeans use to frighten you into doing wrong, is still uncertain. Do not let it push you into making enemies of the Corinthians here and now, rather than at some future date. It would be wiser instead to remove the distrust that already exists because of the Megarians. A recent favor, if given at the right moment,

3 “can settle a greater grievance, even if the favor itself is small.

4 “Do not let their offer of a powerful naval alliance draw you in either. Not wronging your equals is a stronger source of security than being attracted by an obvious immediate gain and taking risks to get more.

Chapter 43

1 “We now face the situation covered by the principle we ourselves stated at Lacedaemon: each power should be allowed to punish its own allies. We ask you to apply that same principle to us. You benefited from our vote. Do not use yours to harm us.

2 “Give us an equal return. Recognize that this is precisely the moment when someone who helps us proves most clearly a friend, and someone who opposes us an enemy.

3 “Do not accept these Corcyraeans as allies against our will, or defend them when they are doing wrong.

4 “If you follow this advice, you will do what is right and make the best decision for yourselves.”

Chapter 44

1 That was the Corinthians' case. The Athenians heard both sides and held two meetings of the assembly. At the first they were at least as receptive to the Corinthians' arguments as to those of the Corcyraeans. At the second they changed their minds. They decided against an alliance with the Corcyraeans that would require them to have the same enemies and friends. If the Corcyraeans then asked them to sail against Corinth, they would break their treaty with the Peloponnesians. Instead, they made a defensive agreement. They would help each other if anyone attacked Corcyra or Athens or their allies.

2 They thought that war with the Peloponnesians would come in any case. They did not want Corcyra, with its large navy, to fall into Corinthian hands. They wanted the two sides to fight each other as hard as possible. Then, if necessary, they could go to war against the Corinthians and the other naval powers when these were weaker.

3 They also thought the island was well placed on the sea route to Italy and Sicily.

Chapter 45

1 These were the reasons why the Athenians accepted the Corcyraeans. Not long after the Corinthians left, they sent ten ships to help them.

2 Their generals were Lacedaemonius son of Cimon, Diotimus son of Strombichus, and Proteas son of Epicles.

3 They were ordered not to fight the Corinthians at sea unless the Corinthians sailed against Corcyra and were about to land there or anywhere in its territory. In that case they were to stop them as far as they could. These orders were given to avoid breaking the treaty.

Chapter 46

1 The ships reached Corcyra. When the Corinthians had finished their preparations, they sailed against Corcyra with 150 ships. Ten came from Elis, twelve from Megara, ten from Leucas, twenty-seven from Ambracia, and one from Anactorium. The Corinthians themselves supplied ninety.

2 Each city's contingent had its own generals. Xenoclides son of Euthycles was one of the five Corinthian generals.

3 They sailed from Leucas to the mainland opposite Corcyra and anchored at Chimerium in Thesprotian territory.

4 There is a harbor there. Inland above it lies Ephyra, a city in the Elaeatis district of Thesprotia. Near this city the Acherusian lake empties into the sea. The river Acheron flows through Thesprotia into the lake, which takes its name from the river. The river Thyamis also flows here, forming the boundary between Thesprotia and Cestrine. The headland of Chimerium projects between these rivers.

5 The Corinthians anchored at this point on the mainland and made their camp there.

Chapter 47

1 When the Corcyraeans learned that the Corinthians were approaching, they crewed 110 ships under Miciades, Aesimides, and Eurybatus. They camped on one of the islands called Sybota. The ten Athenian ships were there too.

2 Their land army was at Cape Leucimme, along with 1,000 hoplites who had come from Zacynthus to help.

3 Many non-Greeks had also come to help the Corinthians on the mainland. The people of that part of the mainland have always been friendly to them.

Chapter 48

1 When the Corinthians were ready, they took food for three days and sailed out from Chimerium during the night to fight at sea.

2 At dawn, as they sailed, they saw the Corcyraean ships out at sea and coming toward them.

3 When the two sides saw each other, they formed opposing battle lines. The Athenian ships held the Corcyraean right wing. The Corcyraeans themselves held the rest of the line, with their ships divided into three groups, each led by one of their three generals.

4 That was the Corcyraean formation. On the Corinthian side, the Megarian and Ambraciot ships held the right wing. The other allies were in the center, each city's ships together. The Corinthians themselves held the left wing with their best-sailing ships, opposite the Athenians and the Corcyraean right.

Chapter 49

1 When both sides raised their signals, they closed and began fighting. Each side had many hoplites on deck, as well as many archers and javelin throwers. They were still equipped in the old way, which showed their lack of experience.

2 The sea battle was fierce, but showed little skill. It was mostly like a battle on land.

3 Once ships collided, they could not easily pull apart because there were so many ships crowded together. They relied mainly on the hoplites on deck to win. These men stood and fought while the ships remained still. There were no maneuvers to break through the enemy line. They fought at sea more by courage and strength than by skill.

4 There was noise everywhere, and the battle was confused. The Athenian ships came to support the Corcyraeans wherever they were under pressure, frightening their opponents. But they did not start fighting, because their generals were concerned about the orders from Athens.

5 The Corinthian right wing was in the most trouble. The Corcyraeans routed it with twenty ships and chased its scattered ships to the mainland. They sailed up to the Corinthian camp and landed. They burned the empty tents and looted the property there.

6 On this side the Corinthians and their allies were losing, and the Corcyraeans had the upper hand. But on the left, where the Corinthians themselves were stationed, they were winning decisively. The Corcyraean fleet was smaller to begin with, and its twenty ships were away on the chase.

7 When the Athenians saw the Corcyraeans being pressed harder, they began to help openly. At first they still held back from ramming any ship. But when the rout became unmistakable and the Corinthians pressed their attack, everyone joined in. There was no longer any distinction between the fleets. The situation forced the Corinthians and Athenians to attack each other.

Chapter 50

1 After routing their opponents, the Corinthians did not tie lines to the hulls of the ships they had sunk and tow them away. Instead, they sailed through the wreckage, concentrating on killing the men rather than taking them alive. They even killed some of their own friends without recognizing them. They did not know that their right wing had been defeated.

2 Both sides had many ships spread over a wide area of sea. Once they had come together, it was hard to tell which were winning and which were losing. In fact, by the number of ships involved, this was the largest sea battle yet fought between Greeks.

3 After chasing the Corcyraeans to shore, the Corinthians turned to the wrecks and their own dead. They recovered most of them and brought them to Sybota, where the non-Greek land army had come to help them. Sybota is an uninhabited harbor in Thesprotia. After doing this, they gathered again and sailed against the Corcyraeans.

4 The Corcyraeans sailed out to meet them with the ships still left that were fit to sail, along with the Athenian ships. They were afraid the enemy would try to land in their territory.

5 It was already late, and the battle song had been sung for the attack. Suddenly the Corinthians began backing water. They had seen twenty Athenian ships approaching. The Athenians had sent these as reinforcements after the first ten. They feared that the Corcyraeans might be defeated, as in fact they were, and that their own ten ships would be too few to defend them.

Chapter 51

1 The Corinthians saw these ships before their opponents did. Suspecting that more ships were coming from Athens than they could see, they withdrew.

2 The Corcyraeans could not see the newcomers, because the ships were approaching from a direction less visible to them. They wondered why the Corinthians were backing water, until some men spotted the ships and said, “There are ships coming toward us.” Then the Corcyraeans also withdrew. It was already getting dark, and the Corinthians turned away and broke off the action.

3 That was how the two sides separated. The sea battle ended at nightfall.

4 The Corcyraeans were camped at Leucimme. Not long after being sighted, the twenty ships from Athens sailed through the bodies and wreckage and reached the camp. Their commanders were Glaucon son of Leagrus and Andocides son of Leogoras.

5 Since it was night, the Corcyraeans were afraid these were enemy ships. Then they recognized them, and the ships anchored.

Chapter 52

1 The next day, the thirty Athenian ships and all the Corcyraean ships still fit to sail put out to sea. They sailed toward the harbor at Sybota, where the Corinthians lay at anchor, to find out whether they would fight.

2 The Corinthians put out from shore and formed a line in open water, but stayed still. They had no intention of starting a sea battle themselves. They could see that fresh ships had arrived from Athens, and they faced many difficulties. They had to guard the prisoners they were holding on their ships, and there was no way to repair their ships in this uninhabited place.

3 Instead, they were considering how to make the voyage home. They feared that the Athenians might think the treaty had been broken because they had fought each other, and might refuse to let them sail away.

Chapter 53

1 They therefore decided to put some men in a small boat and send them to the Athenians without a herald's staff, to test their intentions. The men they sent said this:

2 “Athenians, you are doing wrong by starting a war and breaking the treaty. We are punishing our own enemies, and you are standing in our way with weapons raised against us. If you intend to stop us from sailing against Corcyra or anywhere else we want to go, and are breaking the treaty, take us here first and treat us as enemies.”

3 That was what they said. All the Corcyraeans in the camp who heard them immediately shouted that they should be seized and killed. But the Athenians gave this reply:

4 “Peloponnesians, we are neither starting a war nor breaking the treaty. We have come to help these Corcyraeans, who are our allies. If you want to sail somewhere else, we will not stop you. But if you sail against Corcyra or any part of its territory, we will not stand by if we can prevent it.”

Chapter 54

1 After the Athenians gave this answer, the Corinthians prepared to sail home. They also set up a victory monument at Sybota on the mainland. The Corcyraeans recovered the wrecks and bodies that had drifted toward them. The current and a wind that rose during the night had scattered them in every direction. They too set up a victory monument, on the island of Sybota, claiming they had won.

2 Each side claimed victory on the following grounds. The Corinthians had held the advantage in the sea battle until night, recovering most of the wrecks and bodies. They held at least 1,000 prisoners and had sunk about seventy ships. That was why they set up their monument. The Corcyraeans had destroyed about thirty ships. After the Athenians arrived, they had recovered the wrecks and bodies that had come toward their side. Also, on the previous day the Corinthians had backed water and withdrawn from them when they saw the Athenian ships. And after the Athenians arrived, the Corinthians had not sailed out from Sybota to meet them. These were their reasons for setting up a monument.

Chapter 55

1 So both sides claimed to have won. Sailing home, the Corinthians captured Anactorium by a trick. It lies at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf and was jointly held by them and the Corcyraeans. They settled Corinthians there and left for home. Of their Corcyraean prisoners, they sold the 800 who were slaves. They kept the other 250 in chains under guard, but treated them very well. They hoped these men would bring Corcyra over to their side when they returned. Most of them were among the most influential men in the city.

2 This was how Corcyra came through its war with the Corinthians, and the Athenian ships left the island. This became the Corinthians' first ground for war against the Athenians: they had fought at sea alongside the Corcyraeans against Corinth while the treaty was still in force.

Chapter 56

1 Immediately afterward, the following events also produced disputes that brought the Athenians and Peloponnesians toward war.

2 The Corinthians were working out how to take revenge on the Athenians. Suspecting their hostility, the Athenians gave orders to the Potidaeans, who lived on the isthmus of Pallene. They were Corinthian colonists but allies of Athens who paid tribute. They were to pull down their wall facing Pallene and give hostages. They were also to send away the magistrates whom Corinth sent each year, and not accept them again. The Athenians feared that Perdiccas and the Corinthians might persuade them to revolt, and that they might bring the other allies in the Thracian region into the revolt too.

Chapter 57

1 The Athenians began taking these precautions over Potidaea immediately after the sea battle at Corcyra.

2 The Corinthians were now openly hostile. Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, had also become an enemy, although he had previously been an ally and friend.

3 He had become an enemy because the Athenians had allied themselves with his brother Philip and with Derdas, who were acting together against him.

4 Alarmed by this, he sent envoys to Lacedaemon and worked to bring about a war between Athens and the Peloponnesians. He also tried to win over the Corinthians to bring about Potidaea's revolt.

5 He approached the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans in the Thracian region too, urging them to join the revolt. He thought that if these neighboring territories were his allies, it would be easier to wage war with their help.

6 The Athenians learned of this and wanted to prevent the cities from revolting. They happened to be sending thirty ships and 1,000 hoplites against his country, commanded by Archestratus son of Lycomedes and ten other generals. They instructed the fleet's commanders to take hostages from the Potidaeans and tear down their wall. They were also to watch the neighboring cities to stop them from revolting.

Chapter 58

1 The Potidaeans had sent envoys to Athens to try to persuade the Athenians not to change their arrangements. They had also gone with the Corinthians to Lacedaemon and [worked] to arrange support if they needed it. Their long negotiations at Athens brought them no satisfactory result. The ships heading for Macedonia were also coming against them. But the Lacedaemonian authorities promised that if Athens attacked Potidaea, they would invade Attica. It was then that the Potidaeans revolted, after swearing a joint oath with the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans.

2 Perdiccas persuaded the Chalcidians to abandon and demolish their coastal cities and move inland to Olynthus, making that one city strong. He gave those who left their homes land to farm in his own territory of Mygdonia, around Lake Bolbe, for as long as the war against Athens lasted. They demolished their cities, moved inland, and prepared for war.

Chapter 59

1 The thirty Athenian ships reached the Thracian region and found that Potidaea and the other places had revolted.

2 The generals thought their present force could not fight both Perdiccas and the places that had joined the revolt. They turned toward Macedonia, their original destination. They established themselves there and fought alongside Philip and the brothers of Derdas, who had invaded from the interior with an army.

Chapter 60

1 Meanwhile, with Potidaea in revolt and the Athenian ships off Macedonia, the Corinthians feared for the city and regarded its danger as their own. They sent volunteers from Corinth and men from the rest of the Peloponnese whom they recruited with offers of pay. In all, there were 1,600 hoplites and 400 lightly armed troops.

2 Their general was Aristeus son of Adeimantus. Most of the soldiers from Corinth had volunteered largely because of their friendship with him. He had always been close to the Potidaeans.

3 They reached the Thracian region on the fortieth day after Potidaea revolted.

Chapter 61

1 The news that the cities had revolted reached Athens immediately. When the Athenians also learned that Aristeus and his men were on their way, they sent 2,000 of their own hoplites and forty ships against the rebels. Callias son of Calliades was one of the five generals in command.

2 They went first to Macedonia. There they found that the first 1,000 men had just captured Therme and were besieging Pydna.

3 They too took up positions and joined the siege of Pydna. But then they made a settlement and an alliance with Perdiccas under the pressure of necessity. Potidaea and Aristeus' arrival there demanded urgent attention, so they left Macedonia.

4 They reached Beroea and then Strepsa. They first tried to take the place but failed. Then they marched overland toward Potidaea with 3,000 of their own hoplites, many allied troops in addition, and 600 Macedonian cavalry under Philip and Pausanias. At the same time, seventy ships sailed along the coast beside them.

5 They advanced by short stages and reached Gigonus on the third day, where they made camp.

Chapter 62

1 The Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians under Aristeus were waiting for the Athenians. They camped on the isthmus on the side toward Olynthus and had set up a market outside the city.

2 The allies had chosen Aristeus as general of all the infantry, and Perdiccas as commander of the cavalry. Perdiccas had immediately deserted the Athenians again and was fighting alongside the Potidaeans. He had left Iolaus to govern in his place.

3 Aristeus planned to keep his own army on the isthmus and wait for the Athenians if they attacked. The Chalcidians, the allies from beyond the isthmus, and the 200 cavalry sent by Perdiccas were to remain in Olynthus. When the Athenians advanced against him, these forces were to attack them from behind, trapping the enemy between the two armies.

4 But Callias, the Athenian general, and his fellow commanders sent the Macedonian cavalry and a few of the allies toward Olynthus to stop the forces there from coming to help. They themselves broke camp and advanced on Potidaea.

5 When they reached the isthmus and saw the enemy preparing for battle, they formed their own line opposite them. Soon afterward the armies met.

6 The wing led by Aristeus, including the picked men from Corinth and elsewhere who were around him, routed the troops facing them and chased them a long way. But the rest of the Potidaean and Peloponnesian army was defeated by the Athenians and fled inside the city walls.

Chapter 63

1 Returning from the chase, Aristeus saw that the rest of the army had been defeated. He did not know which direction to risk taking, toward Olynthus or into Potidaea. Finally, he decided to gather his men into the tightest possible group and force his way at a run into Potidaea. He passed along the harbor breakwater through the sea, under attack and with difficulty. He lost a few men but saved most of them.

2 The troops at Olynthus who were to help Potidaea moved forward a short distance when the battle began and the signals were raised. Olynthus is about sixty stades away and in clear view. The Macedonian cavalry formed up opposite them to stop them. But the Athenians quickly won the battle, and the signals were lowered. The troops returned inside the walls, and the Macedonians returned to the Athenians. Neither side's cavalry took part in the battle.

3 After the battle, the Athenians set up a victory monument and returned the dead to the Potidaeans under a truce. A little under 300 Potidaeans and their allies had died. The Athenians themselves lost 150 men and their general Callias.

Chapter 64

1 The Athenians immediately built a siege wall facing the city's [wall] on the isthmus side and guarded it. But the side toward Pallene was not enclosed. They thought they did not have enough men both to guard the isthmus and to cross over to Pallene and build a wall there. They feared that the Potidaeans and their allies might attack them if they split their forces.

2 When the Athenians at home learned that the Pallene side was not enclosed, they later sent 1,600 of their own hoplites under the general Phormio son of Asopius. He reached Pallene and set out from Aphytis, bringing his army toward Potidaea by short advances and destroying the countryside as he went. No one came out to fight him. He then enclosed the city's [wall] on the Pallene side with a siege wall.

3 Potidaea was now under full siege on both sides, with ships also stationed off it to maintain a blockade by sea.

Chapter 65

1 With Potidaea walled in, Aristeus saw no hope of saving it unless help came from the Peloponnese or something else unexpected happened. He advised everyone except 500 men to wait for a favorable wind and sail out, so that the food would last longer. He was willing to be one of those who stayed. But he could not persuade them. Wanting to make the necessary preparations and put their affairs outside the city in the best possible position, he sailed out without being detected by the Athenian guard.

2 He stayed among the Chalcidians and joined them in their other military operations. He also ambushed the Sermylians near their city and killed many of them. He negotiated with the Peloponnese to find some way of getting help.

3 After Potidaea had been walled in, Phormio took his 1,600 men and devastated Chalcidice and Bottice. He also captured some small towns.

Chapter 66

1 These were the grievances that had already arisen between the Athenians and Peloponnesians. The Corinthians complained that Athens was besieging Potidaea, their colony, with Corinthians and other Peloponnesians inside it. The Athenians complained that the Peloponnesians had caused one of their tribute-paying allied cities to revolt, and had come and openly fought against them alongside the Potidaeans. Even so, war had not yet broken out. The truce was still in place, since the Corinthians had acted on their own.

Chapter 67

1 With Potidaea under siege, the Corinthians did not remain inactive. Their own men were inside, and they feared for the city too. They immediately called on the allies to come to Lacedaemon. They went there themselves and loudly accused the Athenians of breaking the treaty and wronging the Peloponnese.

2 The Aeginetans did not openly send envoys, because they were afraid of the Athenians. In secret, however, they were among the strongest supporters of the Corinthians in pressing for war. They said they were not being allowed the independence guaranteed by the treaty.

3 The Lacedaemonians invited any other allies, and anyone else who said the Athenians had wronged them, to attend as well. They held their own regular assembly and told the visitors to speak.

4 Others came forward and made their separate complaints. The Megarians reported many other points of dispute, but complained above all that they were being shut out of the harbors in the Athenian empire and the market in Attica, contrary to the treaty.

5 The Corinthians came forward last. They had let the others first stir up the Lacedaemonians, and then spoke as follows.

Chapter 68

1 “Lacedaemonians, the trust you have in your own political system and in your dealings with one another makes you less ready to believe what we tell you about other people. This gives you self-control, but it also leaves you less informed about affairs outside your country.

2 “We often warned you about the harm the Athenians were going to do us. But each time, instead of learning about the things we explained, you suspected that the speakers were speaking because of their own private disagreements. That is why you called these allies together only now, when we are already suffering, instead of before the harm was done. Among them, we have as much right as anyone to speak. We have the strongest complaints: the Athenians are mistreating us, and you are neglecting us.

3 “If they were harming Hellas somewhere out of sight, you would need an explanation, since you would not know about it. But as things are, why make a long speech? You can see that they have enslaved some Greeks and are plotting against others, especially our allies. You can also see that they have long been making preparations in case they ever go to war.

4 “Otherwise they would not have taken Corcyra under their protection and kept it against our will, or be besieging Potidaea. Potidaea is a particularly useful base for operations in the Thracian region, while Corcyra would have provided the Peloponnesians with a very large fleet.

Chapter 69

1 “You are responsible for this. First you allowed them to strengthen their city after the Persian Wars, and later to build the Long Walls. Right up to the present, you have kept depriving people of freedom—not just those they have enslaved, but now your own allies too. The real responsibility for enslaving people lies not with the one who enslaves them, but with the one who could stop it and looks on instead. This is especially true if he claims credit for freeing Hellas.

2 “Only now have we finally come together, and even now we have no clear purpose. We should no longer be asking whether we are being wronged, but how we are to defend ourselves. Those who are taking action have already made their plans. They are attacking people who have not made up their minds, not merely threatening to attack later.

3 “We know how the Athenians operate and that they advance against their neighbors little by little. As long as they think your lack of awareness keeps them from being noticed, they act less boldly. Once they know that you see what is happening but do nothing, they will press forward with all their strength.

4 “You remain inactive, Lacedaemonians. Alone among the Greeks, you defend yourselves against an enemy by delay rather than force. Alone among them, you put an end to your enemies' growing power not when it begins, but when it has doubled.

5 “Yet people used to say you could be relied on. Your reputation, it turns out, was better than your performance. We know for ourselves that the Persian came from the ends of the earth and reached the Peloponnese before you had sent out a force strong enough to meet him. Now you look on while the Athenians act, although they are close by, not far away like him. Instead of attacking them yourselves, you prefer to wait until they attack and then defend yourselves. You choose to leave things to chance in a fight against opponents who have become much stronger. You know that the non-Greek invader failed mainly through his own mistakes. You also know that, against the Athenians themselves, we have often survived because of their mistakes rather than your help. Indeed, some people have already been destroyed by the hopes you held out: their trust in you left them unprepared.

6 “None of you should think that we say this more out of hostility than as a complaint. A complaint is directed at friends who make mistakes. An accusation is directed at enemies who have done wrong.

Chapter 70

1 “At the same time, we think we have as much right as anyone to criticize our neighbors, especially when such important disagreements are involved. You seem to us not to understand these matters. You have never worked out what sort of people the Athenians are, whom you will have to fight, or how much they differ from you in every way.

2 “They introduce changes. They are quick to think up plans and to carry out their decisions in practice. You preserve what you have, think of nothing new, and fail to do even what is necessary.

3 “Again, they take bold action beyond their strength, run risks beyond what their judgment recommends, and stay hopeful in danger. You achieve less than your strength allows, distrust even what your judgment tells you is secure, and think you will never escape from danger.

4 “They are active, while you delay. They are always away from home, while you stay at home more than anyone. They think that going abroad can bring them gains. You think that by going out to attack you might damage even what you already have.

5 “When they defeat their enemies, they push their advantage as far as possible. When they are defeated, they give way as little as possible.

6 “In serving their city, they treat their bodies as if they belonged to someone else. But when they use their judgment to do something for it, they treat that as entirely their own.

7 “If they think of a plan but do not carry it through, they believe they have lost something of their own. If they attack and gain something, they think their achievement is small compared with what they will gain next. If an attempt happens to fail, they make up for the loss by putting their hopes in something else. They alone can expect to possess what they plan almost as soon as they hope for it, because they put their decisions into action so quickly.

8 “They work at all this throughout their lives, with effort and danger. They enjoy what they have very little, because they are always acquiring more. They regard doing what needs to be done as their only holiday. They consider a quiet life without activity just as much a misfortune as hard work with no rest.

9 “So if someone summed them up by saying that they were born never to be at rest themselves or to let anyone else be at rest, he would be right.

Chapter 71

1 “Yet with a city like this opposing you, Lacedaemonians, you keep delaying. You do not think that peace lasts longest for people who use their strength fairly but make it clear that they will not accept unfair treatment. Instead, you think fair dealing consists in not harming others and not being harmed yourselves while defending yourselves.

2 “You would hardly achieve that even if the neighboring city were like your own. As things are, as we have just explained, your methods are out of date compared with theirs.

3 “As in any skill, the latest developments are bound to win out. A city at peace is best served by keeping its customs unchanged. But people who have to face many different challenges also need many new methods. That is why the Athenians' greater experience has led them to update their methods much more than you have.

4 “So let this be the end of your slowness. Now help the others and the Potidaeans, as you promised. Invade Attica quickly. Do not abandon friends and relatives to their worst enemies, or drive the rest of us, in despair, to seek some other alliance.

5 “If we did that, we would be doing nothing wrong in the eyes of the gods who guard our oaths, or of people who understand the situation. The ones who break a treaty are not those who turn to others because they have been abandoned. They are those who fail to help the people to whom they have sworn an oath.

6 “But if you are willing to act energetically, we will stay. It would be wrong before the gods for us to change sides, and we could not find other allies with whom we have such close ties.

7 “Think carefully about this. Try to ensure that the Peloponnese you lead is no smaller than the one your fathers handed on to you.”

Chapter 72

1 That was what the Corinthians said. An Athenian delegation happened already to be in Lacedaemon on other business. When its members learned of these speeches, they decided that they should go before the Lacedaemonians. They would not defend themselves against any of the charges the cities were making. Instead, they would make it clear that the whole issue called for more careful thought, not a quick decision. They also wanted to show how powerful their city was. They would remind the older men of things they knew and explain to the younger men things they had not experienced. They thought this speech would be more likely to turn the Lacedaemonians toward peace than toward war.

2 So they approached the Lacedaemonians and said that they too would like to address their assembled citizens, if there was no objection. The Lacedaemonians invited them to come forward. The Athenians did so and spoke as follows.

Chapter 73

1 “Our delegation did not come here to argue against your allies. We came on the business our city sent us to discuss. But when we learned how loudly we were being denounced, we came forward. We are not here to answer the cities' charges. You are not judges before whom either we or they should plead a case. We want to prevent you from following your allies too readily into a bad decision on important matters. At the same time, in response to the whole case that has been made against us, we want to show that there are good reasons why we hold what we have acquired, and that our city deserves to be taken seriously.

2 “Why should we speak of the distant past? Reports handed down by others, rather than our listeners' own experience, would be the evidence for what we said. But we must speak about the Persian Wars and the events you yourselves know about, even if you find it tiresome that we keep bringing them up. When we acted then, we took risks to secure a benefit. You shared in the actual benefit. So do not deprive us of all the credit for it in words, if that is of any use to us.

3 “We will speak not so much to ask for lenient treatment as to give evidence and make clear what sort of city you will have to fight if you make a bad decision.

4 “We say that at Marathon we alone faced the non-Greek invader in the first line of danger. When he came again later, we were not strong enough to defend ourselves on land. So our whole population boarded the ships, and we joined in the sea battle at Salamis. That prevented him from sailing against the cities of the Peloponnese one by one and destroying them. They could not have helped one another against so many ships.

5 “He himself provided the strongest evidence of this. After his defeat at sea, he quickly withdrew with most of his army, because he considered his power no longer what it had been.

Chapter 74

1 “This was what happened. It showed clearly that the Greeks' fate depended on their ships. We contributed the three things that helped most: the largest number of ships, the most intelligent general, and the most tireless commitment. Of the four hundred ships, we provided a little less than two-thirds. Our commander was Themistocles. He was chiefly responsible for the decision to fight in the strait, which clearly saved the situation. For this you yourselves honored him more highly than any other foreigner who has ever visited you.

2 “We also showed by far the boldest commitment. No one was helping us on land, and the other peoples along the invader's route as far as our own territory were already enslaved. Even so, after leaving our city and sacrificing our property, we decided not to abandon the common cause of the allies who remained. Nor would we scatter and become useless to them. Instead, we boarded our ships and faced the danger. We did not give way to anger because you had failed to come to our defense earlier.

3 “So we say that we helped you at least as much as you helped us. You came to help from cities that were still inhabited, aiming to keep enjoying them in the future. You acted when you began to fear mainly for yourselves, not for us. At any rate, when we were still unharmed, you did not come. We, on the other hand, set out from a city that no longer existed and risked ourselves for a city we had little hope of saving. We did our share in saving you as well as ourselves.

4 “If we had earlier joined the Persian out of fear for our land, as others did, or if we had later considered ourselves ruined and not dared to board our ships, there would have been no point in your fighting at sea. You did not have enough ships. Instead, he would have achieved what he wanted without opposition.

Chapter 75

1 “Lacedaemonians, in view of our commitment then and the intelligence of our judgment, do we not deserve rather less resentment from the Greeks for the empire we hold?

2 “We did not obtain this empire by force. You were unwilling to stay and deal with what remained of the non-Greek enemy. The allies themselves came to us and asked us to become their leaders.

3 “At first, the situation itself forced us to expand our empire to its present extent. Fear was the strongest reason, followed by honor, and later by profit as well.

4 “By then, we were hated by most of our subjects. Some had already revolted and been brought back under our control. You were no longer as friendly to us as before, but had become suspicious and hostile. In these circumstances, giving up our empire and exposing ourselves to danger no longer seemed safe. Those who revolted would have gone over to you.

5 “No one can be blamed for looking after their interests when the greatest dangers are involved.

Chapter 76

1 “You yourselves, Lacedaemonians, have arranged affairs in the cities of the Peloponnese to your own advantage, and you lead them. If you had stayed on then and continued as leaders, and had become hated, as we did, we know very well that you would have become just as burdensome to the allies. You would have been forced either to rule firmly or to put yourselves in danger.

2 “So there is nothing surprising or contrary to human nature in what we have done. We accepted an empire when it was offered and did not give it up, overcome as we were by three very powerful motives: honor, fear, and profit. Nor were we the first to act in this way. The weaker have always been held down by the stronger. We also believed we deserved our position, and you thought so too, until now. Now, calculating your own interests, you appeal to justice. But no one who has had the chance to gain something by force has ever put that argument first and turned away from gaining more.

3 “People deserve praise if, following human nature in ruling others, they act more justly than their power would require them to.

4 “We think that if others took over our position, they would show most clearly whether we exercise any restraint. Yet our fairness has brought us more criticism than praise, and that is unreasonable.

Chapter 77

1 “We accept disadvantages in lawsuits arising from agreements with our allies, and we have the cases tried in our own courts under laws that apply equally to both sides. Yet people think we are too fond of lawsuits.

2 “None of them asks why this criticism is not made of those who rule elsewhere and treat their subjects with less restraint than we do. The reason is that people who are free to use force have no need to go to court.

3 “Our subjects, however, are used to dealing with us as equals. If they suffer any loss beyond what they think they should, whether through a legal decision, through the power our empire gives us, or in any other way, they are not grateful that they have not lost more. Instead, they take the loss harder than they would if we had ignored the law from the start and openly taken advantage of them. In that case, even they would not have argued that the weaker should not give way to the stronger.

4 “People apparently become angrier when they are treated unjustly than when force is used against them. In the first case, they think an equal is taking advantage of them. In the second, they think someone stronger is compelling them.

5 “At any rate, they endured worse treatment than this under the Persian. Yet they consider our rule harsh. That is understandable: subjects always find the current ruler burdensome.

6 “If you overthrew us and took over our empire, you would probably soon lose the goodwill you have gained because people fear us. That would be so if you followed the same policies now that you showed during your short time as leaders against the Persian. Your own customs are incompatible with those of others. Moreover, when any one of you goes abroad, he follows neither those customs nor the ones the rest of Hellas observes.

Chapter 78

1 “So take time to consider your decision: the issues are not small. Do not let other people's opinions and complaints persuade you to take on suffering of your own. Before you enter a war, recognize how much of it cannot be predicted.

2 “As a war goes on, most of its course usually comes to depend on chance. Neither of us controls that, and we must take the risk without knowing which way things will go.

3 “When people go to war, they start with action, although that should come later. Only when they are already suffering do they turn to discussion.

4 “We have not yet made that mistake ourselves, nor do we see you making it. So we tell you, while both sides are still free to choose a sensible course: do not break the treaty or violate your oaths. Settle the disputes through arbitration, as the agreement requires. Otherwise, we call on the gods who guard our oaths as witnesses, and we will try to defend ourselves against you when you start the war, meeting you on whatever course you choose.”

Chapter 79

1 That was what the Athenians said. After the Lacedaemonians had heard both their allies' complaints against the Athenians and the Athenians' reply, they asked everyone else to leave. They then discussed the situation among themselves.

2 Most of them reached the same conclusion: the Athenians were already doing wrong, and war should begin quickly. But their king Archidamus came forward. He was regarded as both intelligent and sensible, and he spoke as follows.

Chapter 80

1 “Lacedaemonians, I have already experienced many wars myself, and I see that the same is true of those of you who are my age. So none of us should want war out of inexperience, as many people might, or because he thinks it is something good and safe.

2 “If you work it out sensibly, you will find that the war you are now considering would be far from a small one.

3 “When we fight Peloponnesians or our immediate neighbors, our military strength is much like theirs, and we can quickly reach each place we need to attack. But these people have land far away. Besides that, they are highly experienced at sea and exceptionally well supplied with everything else: private and public wealth, ships, horses, weapons, and a population larger than in any other single place in Hellas. They also have many allies who pay tribute. How can we lightly take up war against people like this? What can we rely on that would justify rushing into it unprepared?

4 “Our ships? But we are weaker at sea. If we are to train and build a fleet to match theirs, that will take time. Our money, then? We are even further behind in that. We have no public funds, and we are not ready to contribute from our private resources.

Chapter 81

1 “Someone might feel confident because we have better and more numerous troops, and so can invade and destroy their land.

2 “But they have plenty of other land under their control, and they will bring in what they need by sea.

3 “If instead we try to make their allies revolt, we will also need ships to help them, since most of them live on islands.

4 “So how will we fight this war? Unless we either defeat them at sea or take away the revenues that support their fleet, we will suffer more harm than they do.

5 “By then it will no longer be honorable even to make peace, especially if we are seen as the ones who started the quarrel.

6 “Let us not be encouraged by the hope that the war will end quickly if we destroy their land. I am more afraid that we may even leave it to our children. The Athenians are too proud, in all likelihood, to let concern for their land make them submit, or to panic at war as people with no experience might.

Chapter 82

1 “I am certainly not telling you to let them harm our allies without taking notice, or to overlook their plots. But do not take up arms yet. Send envoys to make our complaints, without making it too clear either that we will go to war or that we will let them do as they please. Meanwhile, get our own resources ready. Bring in more allies, both Greeks and non-Greeks, wherever we can gain additional strength in ships or money. No one can blame people threatened by the Athenians, as we are, for securing their survival with the help of non-Greeks as well as Greeks. At the same time, let us develop our own resources.

2 “If they pay any attention to our envoys, that will be best. If not, after two or three years we can attack them, if we think it right, with our defenses better prepared.

3 “Perhaps, when they see our preparations and hear words that suggest a purpose to match, they will be more likely to give way. Their land will still be undamaged, and they will be deciding about good things they still possess, not things already destroyed.

4 “Think of their land simply as a hostage in your hands, all the more valuable the better it has been developed. We should spare it as long as possible, rather than drive them to desperation and make them harder to bring under control.

5 “If we let our allies' complaints hurry us into destroying it before we are ready, be careful that we do not bring greater disgrace and difficulty on the Peloponnese.

6 “Complaints between cities or between individuals can be settled. But if all of us take up a war for the sake of particular interests, with no way to know how it will develop, it will not be easy to end it honorably.

Chapter 83

1 “No one should think it cowardly for many cities not to attack one city immediately.

2 “They have at least as many allies as we do, and those allies contribute money. War depends less on weapons than on the money that makes weapons useful, especially when a land power fights a sea power.

3 “So let us first secure that money, and not let our allies' speeches excite us before we do. We are the ones who will bear most of the responsibility for the outcome, whether good or bad. We should also be the ones to take time to consider it in advance.

Chapter 84

1 “Do not be ashamed of the slowness and delay for which they criticize us most. If you rush, you may take longer to finish, because you will have started unprepared. Besides, we have always lived in a free city with an outstanding reputation.

2 “This quality may in fact be sensible self-control. Because of it, we alone do not become arrogant in success, and we give way less than others in misfortune. If people praise us to push us into dangers against our own judgment, we do not let the pleasure turn our heads. If someone tries to provoke us with accusations, our irritation is no more likely to persuade us.

3 “Our discipline makes us both good soldiers and good decision-makers. We are good soldiers because a sense of shame is closely linked to self-control, and courage to the fear of disgrace. We make good decisions because our education does not make us clever enough to look down on the laws. Its strictness makes us too self-controlled to disobey them. Nor do we have the useless cleverness that criticizes the enemy's preparations in fine speeches but fails to act against them as effectively in practice. Instead, we think our neighbors' plans are much like our own, and that the accidents of chance cannot be worked out by reasoning.

4 “We always prepare in practice on the assumption that our opponents are planning well. We should base our hopes not on their making mistakes, but on our own taking reliable precautions. We should not think that one person differs greatly from another. The strongest is the one trained under the hardest conditions.

Chapter 85

1 “So let us not abandon these habits, which our fathers handed down to us and which we ourselves have always kept with good results. Do not let us hurry into a decision in a small part of one day about so many lives, so much money, so many cities, and our reputation. Let us take our time. Our strength gives us more freedom than others to do so.

2 “Send envoys to the Athenians about Potidaea and about the wrongs our allies say they are suffering, especially since the Athenians are ready to submit to arbitration. It is not lawful to attack someone who offers arbitration as though his guilt had already been established. At the same time, prepare for war. By doing this you will make the best decision, and the one most frightening to your opponents.”

3 That was what Archidamus said. Sthenelaidas, who was one of the ephors at that time, came forward last and spoke [to the Lacedaemonians] as follows.

Chapter 86

1 “I do not understand the Athenians' long speeches. They have praised themselves at length, but nowhere have they denied that they are wronging our allies and the Peloponnese. Yet if they behaved well against the Persians then, but badly toward us now, they deserve twice the punishment. They have turned from good behavior to bad.

2 “We are the same now as we were then. If we are sensible, we will not stand by while our allies are wronged, or delay helping them. Their suffering is not being delayed.

3 “Others have plenty of money, ships, and horses. We have good allies, and we must not hand them over to the Athenians. Nor should we settle the matter through lawsuits and speeches, when the harm done to them is not just words. We must help them quickly and with all our strength.

4 “No one should tell us that we ought to deliberate when we are being wronged. It is those who intend to do wrong who ought to deliberate at length.

5 “So vote for war, Lacedaemonians, as Sparta deserves. Do not let the Athenians grow stronger. Let us not betray our allies, but with the gods' help attack those who are doing wrong.”

Chapter 87

1 After speaking in this way, he himself put the question to the Lacedaemonian assembly, since he was an ephor.

2 They decide by shouting, not by ballot. He said he could not tell which side had shouted louder. In fact, he wanted them to show their opinions openly and so become more committed to war. He said, “Lacedaemonians, any of you who think the treaty has been broken and the Athenians are in the wrong should stand up and move to that place.” He pointed out a place to them. “Those who do not should move to the other side.” They stood up and separated.

3 Those who thought the treaty had been broken were far more numerous.

4 They called in the allies and said that in their own judgment the Athenians were in the wrong. But they also wanted to call together all the allies and put the matter to a vote. Then they could deliberate together and go to war if they decided to do so.

5 After achieving this, the allies left for home. The Athenian ambassadors left later, after dealing with the business they had come for.

6 This decision by the assembly, that the treaty had been broken, was made in the fourteenth year of the Thirty Years' Treaty, which had been concluded after the events in Euboea.

Chapter 88

1 The Lacedaemonians voted that the treaty had been broken and that they must go to war. Their main reason was not that the allies' speeches had persuaded them. It was their fear that the Athenians would grow still more powerful, since they saw that most of Hellas was already under Athenian control.

Chapter 89

1 The Athenians had reached the position in which their power grew in the following way.

2 The Persians withdrew from Europe after the Greeks defeated them on land and at sea. Those who escaped in their ships to Mycale were destroyed there. Leotychidas, the Lacedaemonian king who commanded the Greeks at Mycale, returned home with the allies from the Peloponnese. The Athenians stayed behind with the allies from Ionia and the Hellespont, who had already rebelled against the king. They besieged Sestos, which the Persians held. They remained through the winter and took it after the non-Greeks abandoned it. After this they sailed out of the Hellespont, each contingent returning to its own city.

3 Once the non-Greeks had left their territory, the Athenian people immediately began bringing back their children, wives, and remaining belongings from the places where they had taken them for safety. They prepared to rebuild the city and its walls. Only small stretches of the surrounding wall were still standing. Most houses had collapsed, and only a few remained. These were the houses in which the leading Persians themselves had stayed.

Chapter 90

1 When the Lacedaemonians learned what was being planned, they sent ambassadors. They themselves would have preferred to see neither Athens nor any other city protected by a wall. But their main reason was pressure from their allies. These feared the unprecedented size of the Athenian fleet and the daring the Athenians had shown in the Persian War.

2 They asked the Athenians not to build walls. Instead, they should join the Lacedaemonians in tearing down the surrounding walls of any cities outside the Peloponnese that still had them. They did not tell the Athenians their real aim or their suspicions. They said that if the non-Greek enemy invaded again, he would have no fortified base from which to attack, as he had recently attacked from Thebes. The Peloponnese, they said, would provide everyone with an adequate refuge and base of operations.

3 On Themistocles' advice, the Athenians answered the Lacedaemonians' proposals by saying they would send ambassadors to discuss them, and immediately sent them away. Themistocles told them to send him to Lacedaemon as quickly as possible. They should choose other ambassadors to go with him, but not send them immediately. Instead, they should hold them back until they had raised the wall to the minimum height needed to fight from it. Everyone in the city was to work on the wall [the men themselves, the women, and the children]. They were to spare no private or public building that could supply useful material for the work, but tear them all down.

4 After giving these instructions, and indicating that he himself would take care of everything else at Lacedaemon, he left.

5 When he reached Lacedaemon, he did not approach the authorities. Instead, he put things off and made excuses. Whenever an official asked why he was not coming before the government, he said he was waiting for the other ambassadors. Some business had delayed them, but he expected them soon and was surprised that they had not yet arrived.

Chapter 91

1 His listeners believed Themistocles because of their friendship with him. But other people arrived and reported clearly that the wall was being built and was already gaining height. The Lacedaemonians could see no way to disbelieve them.

2 Themistocles realized this and told them not to let reports mislead them. Instead, they should send reliable men of their own to inspect the work and report truthfully.

3 So they sent men. Themistocles secretly sent the Athenians instructions about them. They were to detain these men as discreetly as possible and not release them until he and his fellow ambassadors had returned. By now those ambassadors had joined him: Abronichus son of Lysicles and Aristides son of Lysimachus. They reported that the wall was high enough. He was afraid that once the Lacedaemonians heard the truth, they would not let them leave.

4 The Athenians detained the ambassadors as instructed. Themistocles now came before the Lacedaemonians and said openly that their city had already been walled well enough to protect its inhabitants. If the Lacedaemonians or their allies wanted to send ambassadors to them, they must from now on approach people who could judge both their own interests and the common interest.

5 He said that when the Athenians thought it better to abandon their city and board their ships, they had made that decision and dared to act without consulting the Lacedaemonians. And whenever they had deliberated with them, their judgment had proved second to no one's.

6 So now, too, they thought it better for their city to have a wall. This would be more useful both to their own citizens individually and to the allies as a whole.

7 Without comparable military resources, it was impossible to contribute to joint decisions on anything like equal terms. Either all the allies must be without walls, he said, or the Lacedaemonians must accept that Athens' action was right.

Chapter 92

1 The Lacedaemonians heard this without showing any anger toward the Athenians. Their embassy had supposedly come not to forbid the wall, but to offer advice for the common good. At that time, too, they felt particularly friendly toward the Athenians because of their determination against the Persians. Still, they were secretly annoyed that their wishes had been frustrated. The ambassadors on both sides returned home without any formal complaint.

Chapter 93

1 This was how the Athenians walled their city in a short time.

2 Even now, the construction clearly shows that it was done in a hurry. The foundations contain stones of all kinds, in some places not even fitted together, but laid just as each was brought in. Many gravestones and worked stones were built into the wall. The city's circuit had been extended in every direction. For this reason they hurried to collect everything without distinction.

3 Themistocles also persuaded them to finish the building work at Piraeus. It had been started earlier, during his year in office as archon of Athens. He thought the site was a good one, with three natural harbors. He also thought that becoming seafarers gave the Athenians a great advantage in building up

4 their power. He was the first to dare to say that they must concentrate on the sea. In doing so, he immediately began laying the foundations of their empire.

5 On his advice they built the wall around Piraeus to the thickness still visible today. Two carts bringing stones could pass each other on it. Inside there was neither rubble nor clay, but large stones fitted together and cut square. On the outside, they were fastened to each other with iron and lead. The wall was completed to only about half the height he had intended.

6 He wanted its height and thickness to discourage enemy attacks. He thought a few men, even those least fit for service, would be enough to guard it. The rest could board the ships.

7 He put his greatest trust in the ships. In my view, he saw that the king's army could advance more easily by sea than by land. He thought Piraeus more useful than the upper city. He often advised the Athenians that if they were ever overpowered on land, they should go down to Piraeus and use their ships to resist all their enemies.

8 In this way the Athenians built their walls and made their other preparations immediately after the Persians withdrew.

Chapter 94

1 Pausanias son of Cleombrotus was sent out from Lacedaemon as general of the Greeks, with twenty ships from the Peloponnese. The Athenians sailed with him with thirty ships, along with a large force of the other allies.

2 They campaigned against Cyprus and subdued most of it. Later they went against Byzantium, which the Persians held, and took it by siege while Pausanias was in command.

Chapter 95

1 By now his violent behavior was angering the other Greeks, especially the Ionians and those who had recently been freed from the king. They kept approaching the Athenians, asking them to become their leaders because of their shared ancestry. They also asked them not to let Pausanias use force against them wherever he tried to do so.

2 The Athenians accepted these appeals. They were determined not to stand by and allow this, and to arrange other matters as seemed best to them.

3 Meanwhile, the Lacedaemonians recalled Pausanias to investigate the reports they were hearing. Greeks arriving at Lacedaemon accused him of many abuses. His conduct seemed more like an imitation of a tyranny than a general's command.

4 His recall coincided with the allies' move to the Athenian side because of their hatred of him. Only the soldiers from the Peloponnese did not change sides.

5 When he reached Lacedaemon, he was held accountable for wrongs done to particular individuals, but was acquitted of the most serious charges. One of the main accusations against him was collaboration with the Persians, and this seemed very clearly established.

6 They did not send him out as commander again. Instead they sent Dorcis and some others with a small force. But the allies would no longer grant them the leadership.

7 When these men realized this, they went home. The Lacedaemonians sent no others out afterward. They were afraid that men who went abroad would become corrupted, as they had seen happen with Pausanias. They also wanted to be free of the Persian War. They thought the Athenians capable of leading it, and at that time they were on friendly terms with them.

Chapter 96

1 In this way the Athenians took over the leadership with the consent of the allies, who hated Pausanias. They decided which cities must provide money for the war against the non-Greeks and which must provide ships. The declared aim was to repay the harm they had suffered by laying waste the king's territory.

2 It was then that the Athenians first established the office of Treasurers of the Greeks. These received the tribute, as the monetary contribution was called. The first tribute assessed was 460 talents. Their treasury was on Delos, and their meetings were held in the sanctuary there.

Chapter 97

1 At first the Athenians led allies who governed themselves and made their decisions in joint meetings. Between the Persian War and this present war, the Athenians carried out the following military and political actions. These involved fighting the non-Greeks, their own allies when they rebelled, and whichever Peloponnesians they came up against on each occasion.

2 I have written about these events and made this departure from my main account for the following reason. All earlier writers had left this period out. They wrote either about Greek affairs before the Persian Wars or about the Persian Wars themselves. Hellanicus did touch on these events in his history of Attica, but only briefly and without accurate dates. At the same time, this account shows how the Athenian empire was established.

Chapter 98

1 First, under the command of Cimon son of Miltiades, they besieged and captured Eion on the Strymon, which the Persians held, and enslaved its people.

2 Next they enslaved the people of Scyros, the island in the Aegean inhabited by Dolopians, and settled it themselves.

3 They also fought a war against the Carystians, in which the other Euboeans took no part. Eventually the two sides reached an agreement.

4 After this they fought the Naxians, who had revolted, and forced them to surrender by siege. This was the first allied city to be reduced to subjection in violation of the established arrangement. Later the same happened to the other cities, as circumstances brought it about in each case.

Chapter 99

1 There were various reasons for the revolts. The main ones were failures to provide the required tribute and ships, and, in some cases, failure to serve on campaign. The Athenians were strict in collecting what was due. By forcing people to bear hardships they were neither used to nor willing to endure, they made themselves hated.

2 In other ways, too, Athenian leadership was no longer as welcome as before. They no longer campaigned on equal terms with their allies, and they found it easy to bring rebels into submission.

3 The allies themselves were responsible for this. Because of their reluctance to go on campaign, most of them arranged to pay the money needed to cover the cost instead of supplying ships. This let them stay at home. The Athenians' fleet grew with the money the allies contributed. But when the allies revolted, they found themselves without preparations or experience for war.

Chapter 100

1 After this the Athenians and their allies fought the Persians both on land and at sea at the river Eurymedon in Pamphylia. Under the command of Cimon son of Miltiades, the Athenians won both battles on the same day. They captured or destroyed about two hundred Phoenician triremes in all.

2 Some time later the Thasians revolted from them. They had quarreled over the trading posts and the mine that the Thasians controlled on the opposite coast of Thrace. The Athenians sailed against Thasos, won a naval battle, and landed on the island.

3 At about the same time they sent ten thousand settlers of their own and from the allies to the Strymon. They intended to settle the place then called Nine Ways, now Amphipolis. They took Nine Ways from the Edonians who held it. But when they advanced into the interior of Thrace, they were destroyed at Drabescus in Edonian territory by the combined Thracian forces. The Thracians regarded the settlement of this place [Nine Ways] as a threat.

Chapter 101

1 Defeated in battle and under siege, the Thasians appealed to the Lacedaemonians. They asked them to help by invading Attica.

2 The Lacedaemonians promised to do so without the Athenians' knowledge and were preparing to act. But an earthquake prevented them. At this time their Helots revolted and withdrew to Ithome, along with the Thuriatae and Aethaeans among the perioeci. Most of the Helots were descendants of the old Messenians who had been enslaved long before. For this reason all the rebels were called Messenians.

3 So the Lacedaemonians were now at war with the people in Ithome. In the third year of the siege, the Thasians made terms with the Athenians. They tore down their wall, handed over their ships, and agreed on the money they must pay immediately and the tribute they would pay in the future. They also gave up the mainland territory and the mine.

Chapter 102

1 As their war against the people in Ithome dragged on, the Lacedaemonians called on their allies, including the Athenians, for help. The Athenians came in considerable numbers under Cimon's command.

2 The main reason for calling on them was their reputation for skill in attacking fortifications. The long siege seemed to show that the Lacedaemonians lacked this skill. Otherwise they would have taken the place by force.

3 This expedition caused the first open disagreement between the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians. When the place could not be taken by force, the Lacedaemonians grew afraid of the Athenians' daring and readiness for political change. They also regarded them as people of a different stock. They feared that if the Athenians stayed, the people in Ithome might persuade them to join in some revolutionary action. So they sent them away, alone among the allies. They did not reveal their suspicions, but said they no longer needed their help.

4 The Athenians realized that they were being sent away not for the more favorable reason stated, but because some suspicion had arisen. They were outraged and thought they did not deserve such treatment from the Lacedaemonians. As soon as they returned, they abandoned the alliance they had made with them against the Persians. They allied themselves instead with the Argives, the Lacedaemonians' enemies. Both peoples also entered into the same sworn alliance with the Thessalians.

Chapter 103

1 In the tenth year, the people in Ithome could no longer hold out and made terms with the Lacedaemonians. They were to leave the Peloponnese under a safe-conduct agreement and never set foot in it again. If anyone was caught there, he would become the slave of whoever captured him.

2 The Lacedaemonians had also previously received an oracle from Delphi telling them to release anyone who had sought Zeus of Ithome's protection.

3 The rebels left with their children and wives. The Athenians took them in, by now out of hostility toward the Lacedaemonians, and settled them at Naupactus. They had recently captured it from the Ozolian Locrians who held it.

4 The Megarians also left the Lacedaemonians and joined the Athenian alliance. The Corinthians were pressing them in a war over their territorial boundaries. The Athenians took control of Megara and Pegae. They built the Long Walls for the Megarians from the city to Nisaea and garrisoned them themselves. This was one of the chief causes of the Corinthians' intense hatred of the Athenians, which began at this time.

Chapter 104

1 Inaros son of Psammetichus was a Libyan and king of the Libyans bordering Egypt. Operating from Marea, the city inland from Pharos, he brought most of Egypt into revolt against King Artaxerxes. He became its ruler himself and called in the Athenians.

2 They happened to be campaigning against Cyprus with two hundred ships of their own and their allies'. They left Cyprus and came to Egypt. Sailing from the sea up the Nile, they gained control of the river and two of the three parts of Memphis. They fought against the third part, called the White Wall. Inside it were the Persians and Medes who had taken refuge there, and the Egyptians who had not joined the revolt.

Chapter 105

1 Athenians who had landed from their ships at Halieis fought a battle against Corinthians and Epidaurians. The Corinthians won. Later the Athenians fought a naval battle off Cecryphalea against Peloponnesian ships, and the Athenians won.

2 After this, war broke out between the Athenians and the Aeginetans. A large naval battle took place off Aegina, with allies supporting both sides. The Athenians won and captured seventy enemy ships. They landed on the island and laid siege to the city under the command of Leocrates son of Stroebus.

3 The Peloponnesians wanted to help the Aeginetans. First they brought three hundred Corinthian and Epidaurian hoplites across to Aegina as reinforcements. The Corinthians and their allies then occupied the heights of Geraneia and came down into Megarian territory. They thought the Athenians would be unable to help the Megarians, since so much of their army was away in Aegina and Egypt. If they did come to help, they would have to withdraw from Aegina.

4 But the Athenians did not move their army from Aegina. Instead, the oldest and youngest of the men still in the city went to Megara under Myronides' command.

5 They fought an evenly balanced battle against the Corinthians and then separated. Each side thought it had done no worse than the other in the fighting.

6 Still, the Athenians had had rather the better of it, and after the Corinthians left they put up a victory monument. The older men back in Corinth accused the Corinthians of cowardice. They made preparations and returned about twelve days later to put up a victory monument of their own, also claiming to have won. The Athenians rushed out from Megara, killed the men putting up the monument, and defeated the rest in battle.

Chapter 106

1 The defeated Corinthians retreated. A substantial number of them were hard pressed, missed the road, and went into a private landowner's property. A large ditch happened to surround it, and there was no way out.

2 When the Athenians realized this, they blocked the front with hoplites and placed light-armed soldiers all around. They stoned to death everyone who had gone inside. This was a major disaster for the Corinthians. The main body of their army returned home.

Chapter 107

1 Around this time the Athenians also began building the Long Walls down to the sea, one to Phalerum and the other to Piraeus.

2 The Phocians invaded the territory of the Dorians, the Lacedaemonians' ancestral homeland, comprising Boeum, Cytinium, and Erineum. They captured one of these towns. The Lacedaemonians went to help the Dorians with fifteen hundred hoplites of their own and ten thousand from their allies. Nicomedes son of Cleombrotus commanded them on behalf of King Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, who was still young. They forced the Phocians to agree to return the town, and then set off back home.

3 The Athenians had sailed around with their ships and were ready to stop them if they tried to cross the Crisaean Gulf by sea. Nor did they think it safe to march through Geraneia, since the Athenians held Megara and Pegae. Geraneia was difficult to cross and was always guarded by the Athenians. They also learned that the Athenians were now planning to block this route as well.

4 They decided to stay in Boeotia and consider the safest way to get through. Another factor was that some Athenians were secretly inviting them in. These men hoped to put an end to the democracy and to the building of the Long Walls.

5 The Athenians marched out against them with their full citizen force, together with a thousand Argives and contingents from their other allies. There were fourteen thousand in all.

6 They attacked because they thought the Lacedaemonians could find no way through, and partly because they suspected a plot to overthrow the democracy.

7 Thessalian cavalry also came to help the Athenians under their alliance. During the fighting, they went over to the Lacedaemonians.

Chapter 108

1 A battle took place at Tanagra in Boeotia. The Lacedaemonians and their allies won, and many men were killed on both sides.

2 The Lacedaemonians went into Megarian territory, cut down the trees, and returned home through Geraneia and the Isthmus. On the sixty-second day after the battle, the Athenians campaigned against the Boeotians under Myronides' command.

3 They defeated the Boeotians in battle at Oenophyta and gained control of Boeotia and Phocis. They tore down the wall of Tanagra and took a hundred of the richest men among the Opuntian Locrians as hostages. They also completed their own Long Walls.

4 After this the Aeginetans also came to terms with the Athenians. They tore down their walls, handed over their ships, and agreed to pay tribute from then on.

5 The Athenians sailed around the Peloponnese under the command of Tolmides son of Tolmaeus. They burned the Lacedaemonians' dockyard, captured Chalcis, a Corinthian town, and landed in Sicyonian territory, where they defeated the Sicyonians in battle.

Chapter 109

1 The Athenians and their allies stayed on in Egypt. The fighting there took many different forms.

2 At first the Athenians controlled Egypt. The king sent Megabazus, a Persian, to Lacedaemon with money. He was to persuade the Peloponnesians to invade Attica and so draw the Athenians away from Egypt.

3 But he made no progress, and the money was being spent to no purpose. Megabazus returned to Asia with what remained of it. The king then sent Megabyzus son of Zopyrus, a Persian, with a large army.

4 He arrived overland, defeated the Egyptians and their allies in battle, and drove the Greeks out of Memphis. Finally he confined them on the island of Prosopitis and besieged them there for a year and six months. Then he drained the channel by diverting the water elsewhere. This left their ships on dry ground and turned most of the island into mainland. He crossed over on foot and captured the island.

Chapter 110

1 That was how the Greek expedition ended in disaster after six years of fighting. Of the large force, only a few survived by making their way through Libya to Cyrene. Most died.

2 Egypt came back under the king's rule, except for Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes. They could not capture him because the marshland was so extensive. Besides, the people of the marshes are the most warlike of the Egyptians.

3 Inaros, the king of the Libyans who had organized the whole Egyptian undertaking, was betrayed, captured, and impaled.

4 Fifty triremes from Athens and the rest of the alliance were sailing to Egypt as a relief force. They put in at the Mendesian branch of the Nile, knowing nothing of what had happened. Infantry attacked them from land and a Phoenician fleet from the sea. Most of the ships were destroyed, but a smaller number escaped back home.

5 That was the end of the great expedition to Egypt by the Athenians and their allies.

Chapter 111

1 Orestes, the son of Echecratidas, king of the Thessalians, had been exiled from Thessaly. He persuaded the Athenians to restore him. Taking their Boeotian and Phocian allies with them, the Athenians marched against Pharsalus in Thessaly. They controlled the countryside, but only within a short distance of their main body of troops, since the Thessalian cavalry kept them from going farther. They did not take the city, and none of their other aims in making the expedition came any closer to success. They went back with Orestes, having achieved nothing.

2 Not long afterward, a thousand Athenians boarded the ships at Pegae, which was in their possession. Under the command of Pericles son of Xanthippus, they sailed along the coast to Sicyon. They landed and defeated in battle the Sicyonians who came out against them.

3 They immediately took Achaeans on board and sailed across to Acarnania. They attacked Oeniadae and besieged it, but did not capture it. They then returned home.

Chapter 112

1 After an interval of three years, the Peloponnesians and Athenians made a five-year truce.

2 The Athenians stopped fighting the Greeks. Instead, under Cimon's command, they launched an expedition against Cyprus with two hundred ships of their own and their allies.

3 Sixty of these ships sailed to Egypt at the request of Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes. The others besieged Citium.

4 Cimon died, and food ran short, so they withdrew from Citium. Sailing off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought the Phoenicians, Cyprians, and Cilicians on land and at sea at the same time. They won both battles and returned home, together with the ships that had come back from Egypt.

5 After this the Lacedaemonians undertook the campaign called the Sacred War. They took control of the sanctuary at Delphi and handed it over to the Delphians. Later, after the Lacedaemonians had left, the Athenians in turn marched there, took control of it, and handed it over to the Phocians.

Chapter 113

1 Some time later, Boeotian exiles were holding Orchomenus, Chaeronea, and certain other places in Boeotia. The Athenians marched against these hostile positions under Tolmides son of Tolmaeus. Their force consisted of a thousand of their own hoplites and contingents from the various allies. They captured Chaeronea, enslaved its people, left a garrison, and began their return march.

2 On their way back, at Coronea, they were attacked by the Boeotian exiles from Orchomenus, along with Locrians, Euboean exiles, and others who shared their views. These forces won the battle, killing some of the Athenians and taking the others alive.

3 The Athenians left all of Boeotia after making a truce that provided for the return of their men.

4 The Boeotian exiles returned home, and they and all the other Boeotians became independent again.

Chapter 114

1 Not long afterward, Euboea revolted against the Athenians. Pericles had already crossed there with an Athenian army when he received news that Megara had revolted, that the Peloponnesians were about to invade Attica, and that the Megarians had killed the Athenian garrison, except for those who escaped to Nisaea. The Megarians had brought in Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians to help them revolt. Pericles quickly brought the army back from Euboea.

2 After this, the Peloponnesians invaded Attica as far as Eleusis and Thria and laid waste the land. They were led by Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians. They went no farther, but returned home.

3 The Athenians crossed back to Euboea under Pericles and subdued the whole island. They settled terms with the rest of it, but expelled the Hestiaeans and took their land for themselves.

Chapter 115

1 Not long after returning from Euboea, they made a thirty-year truce with the Lacedaemonians and their allies. They gave up Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and Achaea, the places they held that belonged to the Peloponnesians.

2 In the sixth year, war broke out between the Samians and Milesians over Priene. The Milesians were getting the worse of the war, so they went to Athens and made strong complaints against the Samians. Some private individuals from Samos itself supported them, since they wanted to change its government.

3 The Athenians therefore sailed to Samos with forty ships and set up a democracy. They took fifty Samian boys and an equal number of men as hostages, and placed them on Lemnos. Then they left a garrison behind and sailed away.

4 Some of the Samians, however, had not stayed, but had fled to the mainland. They made an agreement with the most powerful men in the city and an alliance with Pissuthnes son of Hystaspes, who then governed Sardis. After gathering about seven hundred mercenaries, they crossed to Samos at night.

5 First they rose against the people and gained control of most of them. Then they secretly removed their hostages from Lemnos and revolted. They handed over the Athenian garrison and the officials stationed among them to Pissuthnes, and immediately began preparing an expedition against Miletus. The Byzantines joined them in revolting.

Chapter 116

1 When the Athenians heard, they sailed against Samos with sixty ships. Sixteen were not available for the battle: some had gone toward Caria to watch for the Phoenician fleet, and others to Chios and Lesbos to call for help. With the remaining forty-four ships, commanded by Pericles and nine other generals, the Athenians fought off the island of Tragia against seventy Samian ships. Twenty of the Samian ships were troop transports, and the whole fleet was sailing back from Miletus. The Athenians won.

2 Later, forty ships from Athens and twenty-five from Chios and Lesbos came to reinforce them. They landed, defeated the Samians on land, and besieged the city with three walls, while also blockading it from the sea.

3 Pericles took sixty of the blockading ships and hurried toward Caunus and Caria, because news had come that Phoenician ships were sailing against them. Stesagoras and others had also left Samos with five ships to join the Phoenician fleet.

Chapter 117

1 Meanwhile, the Samians suddenly sailed out and attacked the unprotected camp. They destroyed the ships on guard and defeated those that put out to meet them. For about fourteen days they controlled the sea around their island and brought in and sent out whatever they wanted.

2 When Pericles returned, they were blockaded by the fleet again. Later, more reinforcements arrived from Athens: forty ships under Thucydides, Hagnon, and Phormio, and twenty under Tlepolemus and Anticles. Another thirty came from Chios and Lesbos.

3 The Samians fought one short sea battle. Unable to hold out, they were forced to surrender by the siege in its ninth month. They agreed to pull down their wall, give hostages, hand over their ships, and repay the money spent on the war in scheduled installments. The Byzantines also agreed to be subjects as they had been before.

Chapter 118

1 It was not many years after these events that the troubles involving Corcyra and Potidaea, and the other disputes that led to this war, took place, as I have already described.

2 All these actions by the Greeks against one another and against the non-Greeks took place in roughly fifty years, between Xerxes' withdrawal and the beginning of this war. During that time, the Athenians tightened their control over their empire and greatly increased their own power. The Lacedaemonians knew this was happening, but did little to stop it and remained inactive most of the time. They had never been quick to go to war unless forced to, and they were also held back to some extent by wars of their own. At last Athenian power was plainly growing, and the Athenians began interfering with their alliance. Then the Lacedaemonians felt they could no longer tolerate it. They decided they must act with all their energy and, if possible, destroy Athenian strength by starting this war.

3 The Lacedaemonians themselves had decided that the truce had been broken and that the Athenians were in the wrong. They sent to Delphi to ask the god whether it would be better for them to go to war. His answer, it is said, was that they would win if they fought with all their strength. He also said that he would help them, whether they called on him or not.

Chapter 119

1 They summoned the allies again, intending to put to a vote the question of going to war. Envoys arrived from the allied states, and a meeting was held. The other speakers said what they wished; most accused the Athenians and called for war. The Corinthians had already approached each city separately to ask it to vote for war. They feared Potidaea would be destroyed before help came. They were present at this meeting too, and came forward last to speak as follows.

Chapter 120

1 “Fellow allies, we can no longer accuse the Lacedaemonians of failing to vote for war themselves. They have done so and have now brought us together for that purpose. Leaders must deal with their own interests on the same terms as everyone else, but look ahead to protect our common interests, just as in other matters everyone gives them special honors.

2 “Those of us who have already had dealings with the Athenians need no lessons in guarding against them. But those who live farther inland, away from trade routes, should understand this: unless they defend the people on the coast, they will have more difficulty getting their crops down to the sea and obtaining in return the goods the sea supplies to the mainland. They must not misjudge what is being said now as though it did not concern them. They should expect that, if they abandon the coast, the danger may one day reach them too. This discussion concerns their interests no less than ours.

3 “That is why they must not hesitate to exchange peace for war. Sensible men stay at peace when no one wrongs them. Brave men go to war when wronged and make peace again when a good opportunity comes. They must not get carried away by success in war, or put up with injustice because they enjoy a peaceful life.

4 “A man who hesitates because he enjoys his comforts could very soon lose the very pleasures that make him hesitate, if he does nothing. And a man who takes success in war too far has not considered how unreliable the confidence is that carries him away.

5 “Many badly planned actions have succeeded because the enemy's judgment was even worse. Still more plans that seemed well thought out have ended in shameful failure. No one carries out a plan with quite the confidence he felt when thinking it through. We form our opinions in safety, but fear makes us fall short when we act.

Chapter 121

1 “We are now starting a war because we have been wronged and have substantial grounds for complaint. Once we have defended ourselves against the Athenians, we will end it at the right time.

2 “We have many reasons to expect victory. First, we have the advantage in numbers and military experience. Second, we all obey the orders we receive in the same way.

3 “Their strength lies in their fleet, but we will equip one ourselves from the resources each of us already has and from the funds at Delphi and Olympia. By taking out a loan, we can offer higher pay and draw away the foreign sailors in their crews. Athenian power depends more on hired men than on their own people. Ours is less exposed to that danger, since its strength lies more in men than in money.

4 “A single victory at sea will probably defeat them completely. If they hold out, we too will have more time to practice naval warfare. Once we have brought our skill up to their level, our courage will surely give us the advantage. They cannot learn the quality we possess by nature, but we can overcome their advantage in expertise through practice.

5 “We will contribute money to meet these needs. It would be shameful if their allies never tired of paying to maintain their own slavery, while we refused to spend money to punish our enemies and secure our own survival at the same time. We must also keep them from taking that money from us and using it to do us harm.

Chapter 122

1 “We also have other ways to fight this war. We can encourage their allies to revolt, which would above all deprive them of the revenues that support their power. We can establish a fortified position in their country, and do other things no one can foresee now. War very rarely follows a fixed plan. It usually develops its own methods to meet whatever happens. A man who handles it calmly stands more securely. Losing his temper does nothing to make him less likely to fail.

2 “Remember, too, that if each of us were merely disputing a boundary with an equally strong neighbor, we could bear it. But the Athenians are a match for all of us together, and much stronger than any single city. Unless we resist them with one purpose, as a united body, as separate peoples, and as individual cities, our divisions will let them conquer us without trouble. And everyone must understand, however terrible it may sound, that defeat brings nothing less than outright slavery.

3 “Even to consider this as a possibility is disgraceful for the Peloponnese, as is the idea that so many cities should suffer at the hands of one. People would think we deserved our suffering, or that we put up with it through cowardice. We would look worse than our fathers, who freed Greece. We cannot even secure that freedom for ourselves. We let a city establish itself as a tyrant, yet think it right to overthrow individual rulers within a single city.

4 “We cannot see how such conduct escapes one of three very great failings: poor judgment, weakness, or neglect. Surely you have not avoided these only to turn to contempt for your enemy, which has harmed so many people. It has brought so many down that it has acquired the opposite name: stupidity.

Chapter 123

1 “Why spend more time blaming past actions than is useful for the present? We must work hard for the future by dealing with our current troubles. It is your inherited tradition to win distinction through hard work. Do not change your habits just because you may now have a little more wealth and freedom of action. It is not right to lose through plenty what you gained in poverty. Instead, go to war confidently. There are many grounds for confidence. The god has advised it and has himself promised to help. All the rest of Greece will join the struggle too, some out of fear and others for their own benefit.

2 “You will not be the first to break the truce. Even the god considers it broken, since he tells you to go to war. Rather, you will be defending a truce that has been violated. It is not those who defend themselves who break a truce, but those who attack first.

Chapter 124

1 “So you have good grounds for war on every side, and we all join in giving you this advice. Shared interests are the strongest basis for trust, for cities as well as individuals. Do not delay in helping the Potidaeans, who are Dorians under siege by Ionians, although the situation used to be the reverse. Do not delay in winning back freedom for the others. We cannot keep waiting while some are already being harmed and others face the same fate before long, if people learn that we met but did not dare to defend ourselves.

2 “Fellow allies, recognize that necessity has brought you to this point, and that this advice is the best. Vote for war. Do not fear the immediate danger; look instead to the longer-lasting peace that will come from it. War makes peace more secure. Refusing to fight because you want a quiet life does not give you the same safety.

3 “Recognize that the city which has established itself as a tyrant in Greece threatens all of us alike. It already rules some and intends to rule the others. Let us attack it and force it to submit. Then we can live in safety from now on and free the Greeks who are now enslaved.” That was what the Corinthians said.

Chapter 125

1 After hearing everyone's opinion, the Lacedaemonians called on all the allies present to vote in turn, large and small cities alike. The majority voted for war.

2 They had made their decision, but they were not prepared and could not act immediately. They agreed that each state should provide what was needed, without delay. Still, it took them not quite a year to make the necessary preparations before they invaded Attica and openly began the war.

Chapter 126

1 During this time they sent envoys to Athens to present complaints. If the Athenians refused any of their demands, they wanted the strongest possible justification for going to war.

2 First, the Lacedaemonians sent envoys ordering the Athenians to drive out those under the goddess's curse. The curse had arisen in the following way.

3 Long ago there was an Athenian named Cylon, an Olympic victor from a noble family and a man of influence. He had married the daughter of Theagenes, a Megarian who was tyrant of Megara at the time.

4 When Cylon consulted the god at Delphi, the answer told him to seize the Athenian Acropolis during the greatest festival of Zeus.

5 He obtained a force from Theagenes and persuaded his friends to join him. When the Olympic festival in the Peloponnese came around, he seized the Acropolis, intending to become tyrant. He thought this was the greatest festival of Zeus and that it had a particular connection with him because he had won at Olympia.

6 He did not consider further whether the greatest festival meant one in Attica or somewhere else, and the oracle had not made this clear. The Athenians too have a festival called the Diasia, their greatest festival of Zeus the Kindly, held outside the city. The whole population makes sacrifices there, with many offerings that are not animals but pure offerings of the local kind. Cylon thought he understood correctly and went ahead with his attempt.

7 When the Athenians heard, they all came in from the countryside to resist him and his followers. They surrounded them and began a siege.

8 As time passed, the Athenians grew tired of the siege, and most went away. They left the nine archons in charge of the guard, with full authority to settle the whole matter as they thought best. At that time the nine archons handled most public business.

9 Cylon's followers, who were under siege, were in a bad condition because they lacked food and water.

10 Cylon and his brother escaped. The others were in great distress, and some were even dying of hunger. They sat down as suppliants at the altar on the Acropolis.

11 The Athenians assigned to guard them saw that they were dying in the sanctuary. They persuaded them to leave on a promise to do them no harm, then led them away and killed them. They even killed some who sat down at the altars of the Revered Goddesses on the way. From then on, both the killers and their descendants were called men under a curse and offenders against the goddess.

12 The Athenians expelled these cursed men. Later, Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian also expelled them, with the help of an Athenian faction. They drove out the living, dug up the bones of the dead, and threw them out too. The exiles eventually returned, however, and their descendants are still in the city.

Chapter 127

1 This was the curse the Lacedaemonians demanded that the Athenians remove. They claimed that their first concern was to obtain justice for the gods. But they knew that Pericles son of Xanthippus was connected with the curse through his mother. They thought that if he were expelled, they could get what they wanted from the Athenians more easily.

2 They did not really expect him to be expelled. Rather, they expected to discredit him in the eyes of the city, by making it seem that the war would be partly due to the curse upon him.

3 He was the most powerful man of his time and directed public policy. He opposed the Lacedaemonians in everything, would not let the Athenians give way, and urged them toward war.

Chapter 128

1 The Athenians in turn demanded that the Lacedaemonians drive out those responsible for the curse from Taenarum. The Lacedaemonians had once made some Helots who had taken refuge in Poseidon's sanctuary [at Taenarum] leave it, then led them away and killed them. They themselves believe that this was why the great earthquake struck Sparta.

2 The Athenians also demanded that they remove the curse connected with the goddess of the Bronze House. It had arisen as follows.

3 When Pausanias the Lacedaemonian was first recalled by the Spartans from his command in the Hellespont, they put him on trial and acquitted him of wrongdoing. He was not sent out again officially. But he took a trireme from Hermione on his own initiative and returned to the Hellespont without the Lacedaemonians' approval. His stated purpose was to fight in the Greek war. His real purpose was to negotiate with the king, as he had tried to do on the first occasion, because he wanted to rule Greece.

4 He first did the king a favor, and began the whole undertaking, in the following way.

5 On his earlier visit, after leaving Cyprus, he had captured Byzantium. The Medes held it, and some of the king's relatives and other connections were captured there. Pausanias secretly sent these prisoners back to the king without the other allies' knowledge. His official account was that they had escaped from him.

6 He did this with the help of Gongylus of Eretria, to whom he had entrusted both Byzantium and the prisoners. He also sent Gongylus to carry a letter to the king. Its contents, as later discovered, were these:

7 “Pausanias, the commander of Sparta, sends these men back to you, wishing to do you a favor. He captured them in war. I propose, if you agree, to marry your daughter and bring Sparta and the rest of Greece under your control. I believe I can accomplish this if I make my plans together with you. If any of this pleases you, send a trusted man to the coast. Through him we will conduct our discussions from now on.”

Chapter 129

1 That was the letter's message. Xerxes was pleased with it and sent Artabazus son of Pharnaces to the coast. He ordered him to take over the province of Dascylitis, replacing its previous governor, Megabates. He also entrusted him with a reply to Pausanias, telling him to send it on to Byzantium as quickly as possible and show Pausanias the seal. If Pausanias gave him any instructions about the king's affairs, he was to carry them out as effectively and faithfully as possible.

2 Artabazus arrived, carried out the other instructions he had been given, and sent on the letter.

3 The reply said: “King Xerxes says this to Pausanias. The favor you have done me by bringing the men safely across the sea from Byzantium will be recorded forever in our royal house. I am also pleased with your proposals. Let neither night nor day stop you or make you give up carrying out any of your promises to me. Do not be held back by the expense in gold or silver, or by the size of an army you may need anywhere. I have sent you Artabazus, a good man. Work confidently with him on my affairs and yours, in whatever way will give both of us the finest and best results.”

Chapter 130

1 Pausanias received this letter. The Greeks already held him in high regard because of his command at Plataea. Now his pride grew much greater, and he could no longer live in the usual way. He went out from Byzantium wearing Median clothes. Medes and Egyptians served as his bodyguards when he traveled through Thrace. He had his meals served in the Persian style. He could not keep his intentions to himself. Small actions gave advance signs of the much larger things he planned to do later.

2 He made himself hard to approach. He treated everyone alike with such a harsh temper that no one could come near him. This was one of the main reasons why the allies switched to the Athenians.

Chapter 131

1 When the Lacedaemonians learned of this, they recalled him the first time for these very reasons. Later, he sailed out a second time in the ship from Hermione, without their orders, and was clearly behaving in the same way. The Athenians besieged him in Byzantium and forced him out. But he did not return to Sparta. He settled at Colonae in the Troad, and reports reached the Lacedaemonians that he was making deals with the non-Greeks and staying there for no good purpose. At that point they delayed no longer. The ephors sent a herald with an official dispatch. They told him not to fall behind the herald on the journey back. Otherwise, the Spartans declared war on him.

2 He wanted to avoid suspicion as much as possible, and he trusted that money would clear him of the accusation. So he returned to Sparta for the second time. At first the ephors put him in prison. They have the authority to do this even to the king. Later he arranged his release and offered to stand trial before anyone who wished to prove the charges against him.

Chapter 132

1 The Spartans had no clear evidence. Neither his enemies nor the community as a whole had anything they could firmly rely on to punish a man of royal birth who was then holding office. He was acting as regent for his cousin Pleistarchus, the son of Leonidas, who was king but still young.

2 But his disregard for the law and his imitation of the non-Greeks gave them many reasons to suspect that he did not want to be on an equal footing with those around him. They examined the rest of his conduct to see whether he had departed anywhere from established customs. They also looked at the time when he had claimed the right to have this couplet inscribed in his own name on the tripod at Delphi. The Greeks had dedicated it as the first offering from the spoils taken from the Medes: / After destroying the army of the Medes as leader of the Greeks, / Pausanias dedicated this memorial to Phoebus.

3 At the time, the Lacedaemonians immediately chiseled this couplet off the tripod. They replaced it with the names of all the cities that had helped defeat the non-Greeks and had set up the offering. Even then, Pausanias' action was thought wrong. Now that he had reached his present position, it seemed much more clearly to have been an action in keeping with his current intentions.

4 They also learned that he was making some sort of deal with the Helots, and this was true. He promised them freedom and citizenship if they joined him in a revolt and helped him carry out his whole plan.

5 Even so, they would not trust even some of the Helots who informed against him enough to take any drastic action. They followed their usual practice in dealing with their own people: they did not rush to make an irreversible decision about a Spartan without evidence that could not be disputed. At last, as the story goes, an informer came forward. He was a man from Argilus who was about to carry Pausanias' latest letters to Artabazus for the King. He had once been Pausanias' boy lover and was deeply trusted by him. He became afraid when it occurred to him that none of the messengers sent before him had ever returned. He made a copy of the seal so that Pausanias would not notice anything if his suspicion proved wrong or if Pausanias asked to change something in the letter. Then he opened the letters. In them he found what he had suspected: an added order that he too should be killed.

Chapter 133

1 When he showed them the letters, the ephors were more convinced. But they still wanted to hear Pausanias say something with their own ears. By arrangement, the man went to Taenarum to seek sanctuary. He set up a hut with two compartments divided by a partition and hid some of the ephors inside. Pausanias came to him and asked why he had sought sanctuary. The ephors heard everything clearly. The man accused Pausanias over what he had written about him and explained the other details one by one. He said that he had never exposed Pausanias to danger while carrying out his business with the King, yet he had been chosen to die just like most of the messengers. Pausanias admitted these very things. He urged the man not to be angry about what had happened, gave him a pledge that he would be safe if he left the sanctuary, and asked him to set off as quickly as possible and not hold up their plans.

Chapter 134

1 After hearing the facts for themselves, the ephors left for the time being. Now that they knew for certain, they set about arresting him in the city. The story is that they were about to arrest him in the street when he saw the face of one of the ephors coming toward him and understood why he was coming. Another ephor, out of goodwill, gave him a discreet nod as a warning. Pausanias ran to the sanctuary of Athena of the Bronze House and reached it first. The sacred enclosure was nearby. He went into a small building belonging to the sanctuary, so that he would not have to suffer out in the open, and stayed there quietly.

2 At first his pursuers were too late to catch him. Afterward they took the roof off the building. They watched the doors until they had him shut inside, then walled them up. They kept watch outside and starved him out.

3 When they realized that he was about to die where he was, inside the building, they brought him out of the sanctuary while he was still breathing. He died as soon as they had brought him out.

4 They were going to throw him into the Caeadas pit [where they threw criminals]. Then they decided to bury him somewhere nearby. Later the god at Delphi told the Lacedaemonians through an oracle to move his grave to the place where he had died. He now lies in the ground in front of the sacred enclosure, as inscribed pillars show. The god also told them that their action had brought religious pollution on them, and that they must give two bodies in place of one to Athena of the Bronze House. They made two bronze statues of men and dedicated them in place of Pausanias.

Chapter 135

1 Since the god himself had judged the act to have caused religious pollution, the Athenians demanded in return that the Lacedaemonians remove it.

2 The Lacedaemonians sent envoys to the Athenians and accused Themistocles as well of involvement in Pausanias' dealings with the Medes. They based this on what they found in the evidence against Pausanias, and demanded that Themistocles receive the same punishment.

3 The Athenians agreed. Themistocles happened to have been ostracized and was living at Argos, though he also visited other parts of the Peloponnese. The Lacedaemonians were ready to join in the pursuit. The Athenians sent men with them under orders to arrest him wherever they found him.

Chapter 136

1 Themistocles learned of this in advance and fled from the Peloponnese to Corcyra. He had done favors for its people. But the Corcyraeans said that they were afraid to keep him, since this would make enemies of the Lacedaemonians and Athenians. They took him across to the mainland opposite.

2 The men assigned to pursue him followed reports of where he was going. With no way out of his difficulties, he was forced to take shelter with Admetus, the king of the Molossians, who was not friendly toward him.

3 Admetus happened to be away from home. Themistocles appealed to his wife for protection. She instructed him to take their child and sit down at the hearth.

4 Admetus returned not long afterward. Themistocles told him who he was. He asked Admetus not to punish him now that he was a fugitive, even if he had once opposed a request Admetus had made to the Athenians. He was now in a much weaker position and would suffer at Admetus' hands. It was honorable to take revenge on equals when both sides stood on equal terms. Besides, he had only opposed Admetus over some request, not over saving his life. But if Admetus handed him over, he would be taking away his chance to stay alive. He explained who was pursuing him and on what charge.

Chapter 137

1 After hearing him, Admetus raised him from the hearth along with his own son, whom Themistocles had been holding as he sat there. This was the strongest form of appeal for protection. Not long afterward, the Lacedaemonians and Athenians arrived. They argued at length, but Admetus would not hand him over. Themistocles wanted to go to the King, so Admetus sent him overland to the other sea, to Pydna, which belonged to Alexander.

2 There he found a merchant ship about to leave for Ionia and went aboard. A storm drove it toward the Athenian force besieging Naxos. No one on the ship knew who he was. In fear, he told the shipowner his identity and why he was in flight. He said that unless the man saved him, he would say that the shipowner had taken money to bring him on board. The safe course was to let no one leave the ship until they could sail again. If the man obeyed, Themistocles would remember to repay him properly. The shipowner did as he asked. He kept the ship anchored offshore beyond the Athenian camp for a day and a night, and afterward reached Ephesus.

3 Themistocles rewarded him with a gift of money. Later he received money from his friends in Athens and the funds he had left for safekeeping in Argos. He traveled inland with one of the Persians from the coast and sent a letter to King Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, who had recently become king.

4 The letter said: “I, Themistocles, have come to you. I did more harm to your house than any other Greek while I was forced to defend myself against your father's invasion. But I did it much greater good when I was safe and he was again in danger during his retreat. You owe me a favor.” Here he mentioned his advance warning from Salamis about the retreat, and his role in preventing the destruction of the bridges at that time, a role he falsely claimed for himself. “Now I have come with the power to do you great good. The Greeks are pursuing me because of my friendship with you. I want to wait a year and then explain to you in person why I have come.”

Chapter 138

1 The King, it is said, was impressed by his thinking and told him to do this. During the period of waiting, Themistocles learned as much as he could of the Persian language and the customs of the country.

2 When he came to the King after the year was over, he gained greater influence with him than any Greek had ever had. This was partly because of his existing reputation and the hope he held out that he would bring the Greeks under the King's rule. Above all, it was because experience showed the King how intelligent he was.

3 Themistocles gave the clearest possible proof of the power of natural ability. In this respect he deserved more admiration than anyone else. His understanding was his own. He had not developed it through either earlier education or later study. With very little time to think, he was the best judge of what needed to be done at once. He was also the best at predicting what would happen far into the future. He could explain the matters he was handling, and even in unfamiliar matters he could still form an adequate judgment. No one was better at seeing in advance whether things would turn out well or badly, while the outcome was still hidden. In short, through natural ability and with little preparation, he was better than anyone at finding the right response on the spot.

4 He fell ill and died. Some also say that he deliberately poisoned himself because he thought it impossible to fulfill his promises to the King.

5 There is a memorial to him in the marketplace of Magnesia in Asia. He governed that district. The King had given him Magnesia for his bread, which brought him fifty talents a year; Lampsacus for his wine, since it was considered the richest wine-producing place of that time; and Myus for food to go with his bread.

6 His relatives say that, at his request, they brought his bones home and buried them in Attica without the Athenians' knowledge. It was not lawful to bury him there, since he was an exile on a charge of treason. This was how the lives of Pausanias the Lacedaemonian and Themistocles the Athenian ended. They had been the most distinguished Greeks of their time.

Chapter 139

1 Such were the demands that the Lacedaemonians made on their first embassy, and the counterdemands they received, about expelling those under a religious curse. On later visits to Athens they demanded that the Athenians withdraw from Potidaea and let Aegina govern itself. Above all, they stated very clearly that there would be no war if the Athenians repealed the decree about the Megarians. This decree barred the Megarians from using the harbors in the Athenian empire and the marketplace in Attica.

2 The Athenians refused the other demands and would not repeal the decree. They accused the Megarians of farming sacred land and land whose boundaries had not been settled, and of sheltering runaway slaves.

3 Finally the last envoys from Lacedaemon arrived: Ramphias, Melesippus, and Agesander. They said nothing of their usual earlier demands, but only this: “The Lacedaemonians want peace. There can be peace if you let the Greeks govern themselves.” The Athenians held an assembly and invited proposals for debate among themselves. They decided to consider all the issues together and give a single reply.

4 Many speakers came forward and spoke on both sides. Some argued for war. Others said that the decree should not stand in the way of peace and should be repealed. Then Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, came forward. He was the leading Athenian at that time, the most capable in both speech and action. He gave the following advice.

Chapter 140

1 “Athenians, I hold to the same view as always: we must not give in to the Peloponnesians. I know that people do not act in a war with the same enthusiasm they felt when they were persuaded to undertake it. Their views change with events. Even now, though, I can see that I must give much the same advice as before. Those of you who accept it should support our common decisions even if something goes wrong. Otherwise, you should not claim a share in the wisdom of our decisions when we succeed. Events can take a course as unpredictable as people's intentions. That is why we usually blame chance for anything that happens against our expectations.

2 “The Lacedaemonians were clearly plotting against us before, and they are doing so now more than ever. Our agreement says that each side must offer and accept arbitration of its disputes with the other, and that each should keep what it has. Yet they have never asked for arbitration, and they refuse it when we offer it. They want to settle their complaints through war rather than discussion. They now come to us giving orders, not simply making accusations.

3 “They tell us to withdraw from Potidaea, let Aegina govern itself, and repeal the decree about the Megarians. These latest envoys also demand that we let the Greeks govern themselves.

4 “None of you should think that we would be going to war over a small matter if we refused to repeal the Megarian decree. They put this at the front of their demands, saying that there would be no war if it were repealed. Do not leave yourselves with any reason to blame yourselves later for having gone to war over a trivial matter.

5 “This small matter contains the whole test and proof of your determination. If you give way to them on it, they will immediately order you to do something more important, because they will think you obeyed this order out of fear. But if you firmly refuse, you will make it clear that they must deal with you more as equals.

Chapter 141

1 “Make up your minds right now. Either obey before you suffer any harm, or go to war, which I think is the better course. If we do go to war, we must not give way over either a major or a minor demand, or hold on to our possessions in fear. When an equal orders a neighbor to meet a claim before arbitration, the largest claim and the smallest both amount to the same enslavement.

2 “Now listen to the details of the war and the resources on each side. You will see that we will be no weaker than they are.

3 “The Peloponnesians work their own farms. They have no money, either as individuals or as a community. They also have no experience of long wars or wars overseas. Their poverty means that they only make short attacks on one another.

4 “People in that position cannot often send out either fleets with full crews or land armies. They would have to be away from their own property and pay their own expenses at the same time. Besides, they would be cut off from the sea.

5 “Wars are sustained by financial reserves more than by taxes imposed under pressure. People who work their own farms are more ready to fight with their bodies than with their money. They trust that they may survive the dangers, but they cannot be sure that they will not spend all their money before the end. This is especially true if, as is likely, the war lasts longer than they expect.

6 “The Peloponnesians and their allies can stand up to all the Greeks in a single battle. But they cannot fight a war against a power organized differently from their own. They have no single council that can put a decision into effect quickly. All have an equal vote, but they come from different peoples, and each presses its own interests. The usual result is that nothing gets finished.

7 “Some want above all to take revenge on an enemy. Others want to keep damage to their own property to a minimum. They meet only at long intervals, then spend only a small part of their time considering common business. Most of it goes on their own concerns. Each thinks that his own neglect will do no harm, and that someone else will take care to look ahead on his behalf. Because everyone separately thinks the same thing, they fail to notice that their common interests are being ruined as a whole.

Chapter 142

1 “Most importantly, their lack of money will hold them back. They will be slow to find it and will keep delaying. But opportunities in war do not wait.

2 “Nor do we need to fear either their building a fortified position against us or their navy.

3 “It is difficult even in peacetime to build a city that can match another. It is much harder in enemy territory, especially when we would have fortified positions against them that were no less strong.

4 “If they build a fort, raids and people deserting to them might damage part of our land. But it will not be enough to stop us from sailing to their country and building fortified positions against them, or defending ourselves with our ships, where our strength lies.

5 “Our experience at sea has given us more knowledge of warfare on land than their experience on land has given them of warfare at sea.

6 “And they will not find it easy to acquire skill at sea.

7 “Even you, who have practiced it ever since the Persian Wars, have not yet fully mastered it. How could men who farm rather than sail achieve anything worthwhile? On top of that, we will not even let them practice, since we will always be stationed against them with many ships.

8 “If only a few ships were stationed against them, they might risk an attack, letting their greater numbers give them confidence despite their lack of skill. But a large fleet will keep them shut in and inactive. Without practice, they will become less skilled and, for that very reason, more hesitant.

9 “Seamanship is a skill like any other. It cannot be practiced as a sideline whenever there is a spare moment. In fact, it leaves no room for any other sideline.

Chapter 143

1 “Suppose they even used the money at Olympia or Delphi and tried to lure away the foreigners in our crews with higher pay. This would be dangerous if we and our resident foreigners could not go aboard ourselves and match them. But we can do that. Most importantly, our citizens supply more and better helmsmen and other skilled crew members than all the rest of Hellas.

2 “No foreign sailor would accept the risk of exile from his own country and fight on their side with poorer chances of success, just for a few days of high pay.

3 “That, or something close to it, is how I see the Peloponnesians' position. Our own position is free of the weaknesses I have criticized in theirs. We also have other great advantages that they are far from matching.

4 “If they march into our country, we will sail against theirs. Destroying part of the Peloponnese will not have the same effect as destroying all of Attica. They cannot get other land to replace it without fighting. But we have plenty of land, both on islands and on the mainland.

5 “Control of the sea is a great advantage. Think about it: if we were islanders, who would be harder to conquer? Even now, we must think as nearly as possible as if we were. We should give up our land and houses, but keep watch over the sea and the city. We must not get angry over our property and fight a land battle with the Peloponnesians, who far outnumber us. Even if we win, we will have to fight just as many again. If we lose, we will also lose our control over the allies, the source of our strength. They will not stay quiet if we can no longer send armies against them. We should grieve over the loss of people, not houses and land. Property does not acquire people; people acquire property. If I thought I could persuade you, I would tell you to go out and destroy it yourselves. That would show the Peloponnesians that you will not obey them for the sake of this property.

Chapter 144

1 “I have many other reasons to expect that we will win, provided you are willing not to expand our empire while we are at war, or take on additional dangers of our own choosing. I am more afraid of our own mistakes than of our enemies' plans.

2 “But these matters will be explained in another speech, as events unfold. For now, let us send the envoys away with this reply. We will let the Megarians use our marketplace and harbors if the Lacedaemonians also stop expelling us and our allies as foreigners. Neither practice is forbidden by the treaty. We will let the cities govern themselves if they were self-governing when we made the treaty. We will do so when the Lacedaemonians also allow their own cities to govern themselves, not in a way that suits themselves [the Lacedaemonians], but as each city wishes. We are willing to submit to arbitration under the agreement. We will not start a war, but we will defend ourselves against those who do. This reply is both fair and fitting for our city.

3 “We must realize that war is necessary. The more willingly we accept it, the less fiercely our enemies will press us. We must also realize that the greatest dangers bring the greatest honors, both to a city and to an individual.

4 “Our fathers stood up to the Medes. They did not start with resources as great as ours. They even abandoned what they had. They drove back the non-Greeks more through judgment than through luck, and more through courage than through strength. They brought our resources to their present level. We must not fall short of them. We must resist our enemies in every way and try to pass on what we have to those who come after us without any loss.”

Chapter 145

1 This was what Pericles said. The Athenians thought that his advice was best for them and voted as he urged. They answered the Lacedaemonians in line with his proposal, both on each point as he had explained it and on the overall issue. They would do nothing under orders, but they were ready to settle the complaints by arbitration under the treaty, on fair and equal terms. The envoys went home, and no further embassies were sent after that.

Chapter 146

1 These were the accusations and disputes on both sides before the war. They began with the events at Epidamnus and Corcyra. Even while these disputes continued, the two sides still mixed with one another and visited each other without heralds to arrange it, though not without suspicion. What was happening was breaking down the treaty and giving grounds for war.

Chapter 1

1 Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without its grounds. The preparations of both the combatants were in every department in the last state of perfection; and he could see the rest of the Hellenic race taking sides in the quarrel; those who delayed doing so at once having it in contemplation.

2 Indeed this was the greatest movement yet known in history, not only of the Hellenes, but of a large part of the barbarian world—I had almost said of mankind.

3 For though the events of remote antiquity, and even those that more immediately precede the war, could not from lapse of time be clearly ascertained, yet the evidences which an inquiry carried as far back as was practicable leads me to trust, all point to the conclusion that there was nothing on a great scale, either in war or in other matters.

Chapter 2

1 For instance, it is evident that the country now called Hellas had in ancient times no settled population; on the contrary, migrations were of frequent occurrence, the several tribes readily abandoning their homes under the pressure of superior numbers.

2 Without commerce, without freedom of communication either by land or sea, cultivating no more of their territory than the exigencies of life required, destitute of capital, never planting their land (for they could not tell when an invader might not come and take it all away, and when he did come they had no walls to stop him), thinking that the necessities of daily sustenance could be supplied at one place as well as another, they cared little for shifting their habitation, and consequently neither built large cities nor attained to any other form of greatness.

3 The richest soils were always most subject to this change of masters; such as the district now called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted, and the most fertile parts of the rest of Hellas.

4 The goodness of the land favoured the aggrandizement of particular individuals, and thus created faction which proved a fertile source of ruin. It also invited invasion.

5 Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its soil enjoying from a very remote period freedom from faction, never changed its inhabitants.

6 And here is no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion, that the migrations were the cause of there being no correspondent growth in other parts. The most powerful victims of war or faction from the rest of Hellas took refuge with the Athenians as a safe retreat; and at an early period, becoming naturalized, swelled the already large population of the city to such a height that Attica became at last too small to hold them, and they had to send out colonies to Ionia.

Chapter 3

1 There is also another circumstance that contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness of ancient times. Before the Trojan war there is no indication of any common action in Hellas,

2 nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name; on the contrary, before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation existed, but the country went by the names of the different tribes, in particular of the Pelasgian. It was not till Hellen and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis, and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they gradually acquired from the connection the name of Hellenes; though a long time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all.

3 The best proof of this is furnished by Homer. Born long after the Trojan war, he nowhere calls all of them by that name, nor indeed any of them except the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original Hellenes: in his poems they are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He does not even use the term barbarian, probably because the Hellenes had not yet been marked off from the rest of the world by one distinctive appellation.

4 It appears therefore that the several Hellenic communities, comprising not only those who first acquired the name, city by city, as they came to understand each other, but also those who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole people, were before the Trojan war prevented by their want of strength and the absence of mutual intercourse from displaying any collective action. Indeed, they could not unite for this expedition till they had gained increased familiarity with the sea.

Chapter 4

1 And the first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first colonies, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons governors; and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters, a necessary step to secure the revenues for his own use.

Chapter 5

1 For in early times the Hellenes and the barbarians of the coast and islands, as communication by sea became more common, were tempted to turn pirates, under the conduct of their most powerful men; the motives being to serve their own cupidity and to support the needy. They would fall upon a town unprotected by walls, and consisting of a mere collection of villages, and would plunder it; indeed, this came to be the main source of their livelihood, no disgrace being yet attached to such an achievement, but even some glory.

2 An illustration of this is furnished by the honor with which some of the inhabitants of the continent still regard a successful marauder, and by the question we find the old poets everywhere representing the people as asking of voyagers—‘Are they pirates?’—as if those who are asked the question would have no idea of disclaiming the imputation, or their interrogators of reproaching them for it.

3 The same rapine prevailed also by land. And even at the present day many parts of Hellas still follow the old fashion, the Ozolian Locrians, for instance, the Aetolians, the Acarnanians, and that region of the continent; and the custom of carrying arms is still kept up among these continentals, from the old piratical habits.

Chapter 6

1 The whole of Hellas used once to carry arms, their habitations being unprotected, and their communication with each other unsafe; indeed, to wear arms was as much a part of everyday life with them as with the barbarians.

2 And the fact that the people in these parts of Hellas are still living in the old way points to a time when the same mode of life was once equally common to all.

3 The Athenians were the first to lay aside their weapons, and to adopt an easier and more luxurious mode of life; indeed, it is only lately that their rich old men left off the luxury of wearing undergarments of linen, and fastening a knot of their hair with a tie of golden grasshoppers, a fashion which spread to their Ionian kindred, and long prevailed among the old men there.

4 On the contrary a modest style of dressing, more in conformity with modern ideas, was first adopted by the Lacedaemonians, the rich doing their best to assimilate their way of life to that of the common people.

5 They also set the example of contending naked, publicly stripping and anointing themselves with oil in their gymnastic exercises. Formerly, even in the Olympic contests, the athletes who contended wore belts across their middles; and it is but a few years since that the practice ceased. To this day among some of the barbarians, especially in Asia, when prizes for boxing and wrestling are offered, belts are worn by the combatants.

6 And there are many other points in which a likeness might be shown between the life of the Hellenic world of old and the barbarian of to-day.

Chapter 7

1 With respect to their towns, later on, at an era of increased facilities of navigation and a greater supply of capital, we find the shores becoming the site of walled towns, and the isthmuses being occupied for the purposes of commerce, and defence against a neighbor. But the old towns, on account of the great prevalence of piracy, were built away from the sea, whether on the islands or the continent, and still remain in their old sites. For the pirates used to plunder one another, and indeed all coast populations, whether seafaring or not.

Chapter 8

1 The islanders, too, were great pirates. These islanders were Carians and Phoenicians, by whom most of the islands were colonized, as was proved by the following fact. During the purification of Delos by Athens in this war all the graves in the island were taken up, and it was found that above half their inmates were Carians: they were identified by the fashion of the arms buried with them, and by the method of interment, which was the same as the Carians still follow.

2 But as soon as Minos had formed his navy, communication by sea became easier, as he colonized most of the islands, and thus expelled the malefactors.

3 The coast populations now began to apply themselves more closely to the acquisition of wealth, and their life became more settled; some even began to build themselves walls on the strength of their newly-acquired riches. For the love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger, and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller towns to subjection.

4 And it was at a somewhat later stage of this development that they went on the expedition against Troy.

Chapter 9

1 What enabled Agamemnon to raise the armament was more, in my opinion, his superiority in strength, than the oaths of Tyndareus, which bound the Suitors to follow him.

2 Indeed, the account given by those Peloponnesians who have been the recipients of the most credible tradition is this. First of all Pelops, arriving among a needy population from Asia with vast wealth, acquired such power that, stranger though he was, the country was called after him; and this power fortune saw fit materially to increase in the hands of his descendants. Eurystheus had been killed in Attica by the Heraclids. Atreus was his mother's brother; and to the hands of his relation, who had left his father on account of the death of Chrysippus, Eurystheus, when he set out on his expedition, had committed Mycenae and the government. As time went on and Eurystheus did not return, Atreus complied with the wishes of the Mycenaeans, who were influenced by fear of the Heraclids,—besides, his power seemed considerable, and he had not neglected to court the favour of the populace,—and assumed the sceptre of Mycenae and the rest of the dominions of Eurystheus. And so the power of the descendants of Pelops came to be greater than that of the descendants of Perseus.

3 To all this Agamemnon succeeded. He had also a navy far stronger than his contemporaries, so that, in my opinion, fear was quite as strong an element as love in the formation of the confederate expedition.

4 The strength of his navy is shown by the fact that his own was the largest contingent, and that of the Arcadians was furnished by him; this at least is what Homer says, if his testimony is deemed sufficient. Besides, in his account of the transmission of the sceptre, he calls him / Of many an isle, and of all Argos king. / Now Agamemnon's was a continental power; and he could not have been master of any except the adjacent islands (and these would not be many), but through the possession of a fleet. And from this expedition we may infer the character of earlier enterprises.

Chapter 10

1 Now Mycenae may have been a small place, and many of the towns of that age may appear comparatively insignificant, but no exact observer would therefore feel justified in rejecting the estimate given by the poets and by tradition of the magnitude of the armament.

2 For I suppose if Lacedaemon were to become desolate, and the temples and the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as time went on there would be a strong disposition with posterity to refuse to accept her fame as a true exponent of her power. And yet they occupy two-fifths of Peloponnese and lead the whole, not to speak of their numerous allies without. Still, as the city is neither built in a compact form nor adorned with magnificent temples and public edifices, but composed of villages after the old fashion of Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy. Whereas, if Athens were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose that any inference from the appearance presented to the eye would make her power to have been twice as great as it is.

3 We have therefore no right to be skeptical, nor to content ourselves with an inspection of a town to the exclusion of a consideration of its power; but we may safely conclude that the armament in question surpassed all before it, as it fell short of modern efforts; if we can here also accept the testimony of Homer's poems, in which, without allowing for the exaggeration which a poet would feel himself licensed to employ, we can see that it was far from equalling ours.

4 He has represented it as consisting of twelve hundred vessels; the Boeotian complement of each ship being a hundred and twenty men, that of the ships of Philoctetes fifty. By this, I conceive, he meant to convey the maximum and the minimum complement: at any rate he does not specify the amount of any others in his catalogue of the ships. That they were all rowers as well as warriors we see from his account of the ships of Philoctetes, in which all the men at the oar are bowmen. Now it is improbable that many supernumeraries sailed if we except the kings and high officers; especially as they had to cross the open sea with munitions of war, in ships, moreover, that had no decks, but were equipped in the old piratical fashion.

5 So that if we strike the average of the largest and smallest ships, the number of those who sailed will appear inconsiderable, representing, as they did, the whole force of Hellas.

Chapter 11

1 And this was due not so much to scarcity of men as of money. Difficulty of subsistence made the invaders reduce the numbers of the army to a point at which it might live on the country during the prosecution of the war. Even after the victory they obtained on their arrival— and a victory there must have been, or the fortifications of the naval camp could never have been built— there is no indication of their whole force having been employed; on the contrary, they seem to have turned to cultivation of the Chersonese and to piracy from want of supplies. This was what really enabled the Trojans to keep the field for ten years against them; the dispersion of the enemy making them always a match for the detachment left behind.

2 If they had brought plenty of supplies with them, and had persevered in the war without scattering for piracy and agriculture, they would have easily defeated the Trojans in the field; since they could hold their own against them with the division on service. In short, if they had stuck to the siege, the capture of Troy would have cost them less time and less trouble.

3 But as want of money proved the weakness of earlier expeditions, so from the same cause even the one in question, more famous than its predecessors, may be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected to have been inferior to its renown and to the current opinion about it formed under the tuition of the poets.

Chapter 12

1 Even after the Trojan war Hellas was still engaged in removing and settling, and thus could not attain to the quiet which must precede growth.

2 The late return of the Hellenes from Ilium caused many revolutions, and factions ensued almost everywhere; and it was the citizens thus driven into exile who founded the cities.

3 Sixty years after the capture of Ilium the modern Boeotians were driven out of Arne by the Thessalians, and settled in the present Boeotia, the former Cadmeis; though there was a division of them there before, some of whom joined the expedition to Ilium. Twenty years later the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese; so that much had to be done

4 and many years had to elapse before Hellas could attain to a durable tranquillity undisturbed by removals, and could begin to send out colonies, as Athens did to Ionia and most of the islands, and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and Sicily and some places in the rest of Hellas. All these places were founded subsequently to the war with Troy.

Chapter 13

1 But as the power of Hellas grew, and the acquisition of wealth became more an object, the revenues of the states increasing, tyrannies were by their means established almost everywhere,— the old form of government being hereditary monarchy with definite prerogatives,— and Hellas began to fit out fleets and apply herself more closely to the sea.

2 It is said that the Corinthians were the first to approach the modern style of naval architecture, and that Corinth was the first place in Hellas where galleys were built;

3 and we have Ameinocles, a Corinthian shipwright, making four ships for the Samians. Dating from the end of this war, it is nearly three hundred years ago that Ameinocles went to Samos.

4 Again, the earliest sea-fight in history was between the Corinthians and Corcyraeans; this was about two hundred and sixty years ago, dating from the same time.

5 Planted on an isthmus, Corinth had from time out of mind been a commercial emporium; as formerly almost all communication between the Hellenes within and without Peloponnese was carried on overland, and the Corinthian territory was the highway through which it travelled. She had consequently great money resources, as is shown by the epithet ‘wealthy’ bestowed by the old poets on the place, and this enabled her, when traffic by sea became more common, to procure her navy and put down piracy; and as she could offer a mart for both branches of the trade, she acquired for herself all the power which a large revenue affords.

6 Subsequently the Ionians attained to great naval strength in the reign of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and of his son Cambyses, and while they were at war with the former commanded for a while the Ionian sea. Polycrates also, the tyrant of Samos, had a powerful navy in the reign of Cambyses with which he reduced many of the islands, and among them Rhenea, which he consecrated to the Delian Apollo. About this time also the Phocaeans, while they were founding Marseilles, defeated the Carthaginians in a sea-fight.

Chapter 14

1 These were the most powerful navies. And even these, although so many generations had elapsed since the Trojan war, seem to have been principally composed of the old fifty-oars and long-boats, and to have counted few galleys among their ranks.

2 Indeed it was only shortly before the Persian war and the death of Darius the successor of Cambyses, that the Sicilian tyrants and the Corcyraeans acquired any large number of galleys. For after these there were no navies of any account in Hellas till the expedition of Xerxes;

3 Aegina, Athens, and others may have possessed a few vessels, but they were principally fifty-oars. It was quite at the end of this period that the war with Aegina and the prospect of the barbarian invasion enabled Themistocles to persuade the Athenians to build the fleet with which they fought at Salamis; and even these vessels had not complete decks.

Chapter 15

1 The navies, then, of the Hellenes during the period we have traversed were what I have described. All their insignificance did not prevent their being an element of the greatest power to those who cultivated them, alike in revenue and in dominion. They were the means by which the islands were reached and reduced, those of the smallest area falling the easiest prey.

2 Wars by land there were none, none at least by which power was acquired; we have the usual border contests, but of distant expeditions with conquest for object we hear nothing among the Hellenes. There was no union of subject cities round a great state, no spontaneous combination of equals for confederate expeditions; what fighting there was consisted merely of local warfare between rival neighbors.

3 The nearest approach to a coalition took place in the old war between Chalcis and Eretria; this was a quarrel in which the rest of the Hellenic name did to some extent take sides.

Chapter 16

1 Various, too, were the obstacles which the national growth encountered in various localities. The power of the Ionians was advancing with rapid strides, when it came into collision with Persia, under King Cyrus, who, after having dethroned Croesus and overrun everything between the Halys and the sea, stopped not till he had reduced the cities of the coast; the islands being only left to be subdued by Darius and the Phoenician navy.

Chapter 17

1 Again, wherever there were tyrants, their habit of providing simply for themselves, of looking solely to their personal comfort and family aggrandizement, made safety the great aim of their policy, and prevented anything great proceeding from them; though they would each have their affairs with their immediate neighbors. All this is only true of the mother country, for in Sicily they attained to very great power. Thus for a long time everywhere in Hellas do we find causes which make the states alike incapable of combination for great and national ends, or of any vigorous action of their own.

Chapter 18

1 But at last a time came when the tyrants of Athens and the far older tyrannies of the rest of Hellas were, with the exception of those in Sicily, once and for all put down by Lacedaemon; for this city, though after the settlement of the Dorians, its present inhabitants, it suffered from factions for an unparalleled length of time, still at a very early period obtained good laws, and enjoyed a freedom from tyrants which was unbroken; it has possessed the same form of government for more than four hundred years, reckoning to the end of the late war, and has thus been in a position to arrange the affairs of the other states. Not many years after the deposition of the tyrants, the battle of Marathon was fought between the Medes and the Athenians.

2 Ten years afterwards the barbarian returned with the armada for the subjugation of Hellas. In the face of this great danger the command of the confederate Hellenes was assumed by the Lacedaemonians in virtue of their superior power; and the Athenians having made up their minds to abandon their city, broke up their homes, threw themselves into their ships, and became a naval people. This coalition, after repulsing the barbarian, soon afterwards split into two sections, which included the Hellenes who had revolted from the king, as well as those who had aided him in the war. At the head of the one stood Athens, at the head of the other Lacedaemon, one the first naval, the other the first military power in Hellas.

3 For a short time the league held together, till the Lacedaemonians and Athenians quarrelled, and made war upon each other with their allies, a duel into which all the Hellenes sooner or later were drawn, though some might at first remain neutral. So that the whole period from the Median war to this, with some peaceful intervals, was spent by each power in war, either with its rival, or with its own revolted allies, and consequently afforded them constant practice in military matters, and that experience which is learnt in the school of danger.

Chapter 19

1 The policy of Lacedaemon was not to exact tribute from her allies, but merely to secure their subservience to her interests by establishing oligarchies among them; Athens, on the contrary, had by degrees deprived hers of their ships, and imposed instead contributions in money on all except Chios and Lesbos. Both found their resources for this war separately to exceed the sum of their strength when the alliance flourished intact.

Chapter 20

1 Having now given the result of my inquiries into early times, I grant that there will be a difficulty in believing every particular detail. The way that most men deal with traditions, even traditions of their own country, is to receive them all alike as they are delivered, without applying any critical test whatever.

2 The general Athenian public fancy that Hipparchus was tyrant when he fell by the hands of Harmodius and Aristogiton; not knowing that Hippias, the eldest of the sons of Pisistratus, was really supreme, and that Hipparchus and Thessalus were his brothers; and that Harmodius and Aristogiton suspecting, on the very day, nay at the very moment fixed on for the deed, that information had been conveyed to Hippias by their accomplices, concluded that he had been warned, and did not attack him, yet, not liking to be apprehended and risk their lives for nothing, fell upon Hipparchus near the temple of the daughters of Leos, and slew him as he was arranging the Panathenaic procession.

3 There are many other unfounded ideas current among the rest of the Hellenes, even on matters of contemporary history which have not been obscured by time. For instance, there is the notion that the Lacedaemonian kings have two votes each, the fact being that they have only one; and that there is a company of Pitane, there being simply no such thing. So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand.

Chapter 21

1 On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend. Turning from these, we can rest satisfied with having proceeded upon the clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as can be expected in matters of such antiquity.

2 To come to this war; despite the known disposition of the actors in a struggle to overrate its importance, and when it is over to return to their admiration of earlier events, yet an examination of the facts will show that it was much greater than the wars which preceded it.

Chapter 22

1 With reference to the speeches in this history, some were delivered before the war began, others while it was going on; some I heard myself, others I got from various quarters; it was in all cases difficult to carry them word for word in one's memory, so my habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various occasions, of course adhering as closely as possible to the general sense of what they really said.

2 And with reference to the narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me, the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe and detailed tests possible.

3 My conclusions have cost me some labour from the want of coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses, arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue partiality for one side or the other.

4 The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.

Chapter 23

1 The Median war, the greatest achievement of past times, yet found a speedy decision in two actions by sea and two by land. The Peloponnesian war was prolonged to an immense length, and long as it was it was short without parallel for the misfortunes that it brought upon Hellas.

2 Never had so many cities been taken and laid desolate, here by the barbarians, here by the parties contending (the old inhabitants being sometimes removed to make room for others); never was there so much banishing and blood-shedding, now on the field of battle, now in the strife of action.

3 Old stories of occurrences handed down by tradition, but scantily confirmed by experience, suddenly ceased to be incredible; there were earthquakes of unparalleled extent and violence; eclipses of the sun occurred with a frequency unrecorded in previous history; there were great droughts in sundry places and consequent famines, and that most calamitous and awfully fatal visitation, the plague. All this came upon them with the late war,

4 which was begun by the Athenians and Peloponnesians by the dissolution of the thirty years' truce made after the conquest of Euboea.

5 To the question why they broke the treaty, I answer by placing first an account of their grounds of complaint and points of difference, that no one may ever have to ask the immediate cause which plunged the Hellenes into a war of such magnitude.

6 The real cause I consider to be the one which was formally most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable. Still it is well to give the grounds alleged by either side, which led to the dissolution of the treaty and the breaking out of the war.

Chapter 24

1 The city of Epidamnus stands on the right of the entrance of the Ionic gulf. Its vicinity is inhabited by the Taulantians, an Illyrian people.

2 The place is a colony from Corcyra, founded by Phalius, son of Eratocleides, of the family of the Heraclids, who had according to ancient usage been summoned for the purpose from Corinth, the mother country. The colonists were joined by some Corinthians, and others of the Dorian race.

3 Now, as time went on, the city of Epidamnus became great and populous;

4 but falling a prey to factions arising, it is said, from a war with her neighbors the barbarians, she became much enfeebled, and lost a considerable amount of her power.

5 The last act before the war was the expulsion of the nobles by the people. The exiled party joined the barbarians, and proceeded to plunder those in the city by sea and land;

6 and the Epidamnians finding themselves hard pressed, sent ambassadors to Corcyra beseeching their mother country not to allow them to perish, but to make up matters between them and the exiles, and to rid them of the war with the barbarians.

7 The ambassadors seated themselves in the temple of Hera as suppliants, and made the above requests to the Corcyraeans. But the Corcyraeans refused to accept their supplication, and they were dismissed without having effected anything.

Chapter 25

1 When the Epidamnians found that no help could be expected from Corcyra, they were in a strait what to do next. So they sent to Delphi and inquired of the god, whether they should deliver their city to the Corinthians, and endeavor to obtain some assistance from their founders. The answer he gave them was to deliver the city, and place themselves under Corinthian protection.

2 So the Epidamnians went to Corinth, and delivered over the colony in obedience to the commands of the oracle. They showed that their founder came from Corinth, and revealed the answer of the god; and they begged them not to allow them to perish, but to assist them.

3 This the Corinthians consented to do. Believing the colony to belong as much to themselves as to the Corcyraeans, they felt it to be a kind of duty to undertake their protection. Besides, they hated the Corcyraeans for their contempt of the mother country.

4 Instead of meeting with the usual honors accorded to the parent city by every other colony at public assemblies, such as precedence at sacrifices, Corinth found herself treated with contempt by a power, which in point of wealth could stand comparison with any even of the richest communities in Hellas, which possessed great military strength, and which sometimes could not repress a pride in the high naval position of an island whose nautical renown dated from the days of its old inhabitants, the Phaeacians. This was one reason of the care that they lavished on their fleet, which became very efficient; indeed they began the war with a force of a hundred and twenty galleys.

Chapter 26

1 All these grievances made Corinth eager to send the promised aid to Epidamnus. Advertisement was made for volunteer settlers, and a force of Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Corinthians was despatched.

2 They marched by land to Apollonia, a Corinthian colony, the route by sea being avoided from fear of Corcyraean interruption.

3 When the Corcyraeans heard of the arrival of the settlers and troops in Epidamnus, and the surrender of the colony to Corinth, they took fire. Instantly putting to sea with five-and-twenty ships, which were quickly followed by others, they insolently commanded the Epidamnians to receive back the banished nobles— (it must be premised that the Epidamnian exiles had come to Corcyra, and pointing to the sepulchres of their ancestors, had appealed to their kindred to restore them)— and to dismiss the Corinthian garrison and settlers.

4 But to all this the Epidamnians turned a deaf ear. Upon this the Corcyraeans commenced operations against them with a fleet of forty sail. They took with them the exiles, with a view to their restoration, and also secured the services of the Illyrians.

5 Sitting down before the city, they issued a proclamation to the effect that any of the natives that chose, and the foreigners, might depart unharmed, with the alternative of being treated as enemies. On their refusal the Corcyraeans proceeded to besiege the city, which stands on an isthmus;

Chapter 27

1 and the Corinthians, receiving intelligence of the investment of Epidamnus, got together an armament and proclaimed a colony to Epidamnus, perfect political equality being guaranteed to all who chose to go. Any who were not prepared to sail at once, might by paying down the sum of fifty Corinthian drachmae have a share in the colony without leaving Corinth. Great numbers took advantage of this proclamation, some being ready to start directly, others paying the requisite forfeit.

2 In case of their passage being disputed by the Corcyraeans, several cities were asked to lend them a convoy. Megara prepared to accompany them with eight ships, Pale in Cephallonia with four; Epidaurus furnished five, Hermione one, Troezen two, Leucas ten, and Ambracia eight. The Thebans and Phliasians were asked for money, the Eleans for hulls as well; while Corinth herself furnished thirty ships and three thousand heavy infantry.

Chapter 28

1 When the Corcyraeans heard of their preparations they came to Corinth with envoys from Lacedaemon and Sicyon, whom they persuaded to accompany them, and bade her recall the garrison and settlers, as she had nothing to do with Epidamnus.

2 If, however, she had any claims to make, they were willing to submit the matter to the arbitration of such of the cities in Peloponnese as should be chosen by mutual agreement, and that the colony should remain with the city to whom the arbitrators might assign it. They were also willing to refer the matter to the oracle at Delphi.

3 If, in defiance of their protestations, war was appealed to, they should be themselves compelled by this violence to seek friends in quarters where they had no desire to seek them, and to make even old ties give way to the necessity of assistance.

4 The answer they got from Corinth was, that if they would withdraw their fleet and the barbarians from Epidamnus negotiation might be possible; but, while the town was still being besieged, going before arbitrators was out of the question.

5 The Corcyraeans retorted that if Corinth would withdraw her troops from Epidamnus they would withdraw theirs, or they were ready to let both parties remain in status quo, an armistice being concluded till judgment could be given.

Chapter 29

1 Turning a deaf ear to all these proposals, when their ships were manned and their allies had come in, the Corinthians sent a herald before them to declare war, and getting under weigh with seventy-five ships and two thousand heavy infantry, sailed for Epidamnus to give battle to the Corcyraeans.

2 The fleet was under the command of Aristeus, son of Pellichas Callicrates, son of Callias, and Timanor, son of Timanthes; the troops under that of Archetimus, son of Eurytimus, and Isarchidas, son of Isarchus.

3 When they had reached Actium in the territory of Anactorium, at the mouth of the gulf of Ambracia, where the temple of Apollo stands, the Corcyraeans sent on a herald in a light boat to warn them not to sail against them. Meanwhile they proceeded to man their ships, all of which had been equipped for action, the old vessels being undergirded to make them seaworthy.

4 On the return of the herald without any peaceful answer from the Corinthians, their ships being now manned, they put out to sea to meet the enemy with a fleet of eighty sail>(forty were engaged in the siege of Epidamnus), formed line and went into action,,

5 and gained a decisive victory and destroyed fifteen of the Corinthian vessels. The same day had seen Epidamnus compelled by its besiegers to capitulate; the conditions being that the foreigners should be sold, and the Corinthians kept as prisoners of war, till their fate should be otherwise decided.

Chapter 30

1 After the engagement the Corcyraeans set up a trophy on Leukimme, a headland of Corcyra, and slew all their captives except the Corinthians, whom they kept as prisoners of war.

2 Defeated at sea, the Corinthians and their allies repaired home, and left the Corcyraeans masters of all the sea about those parts. Sailing to Leucas, a Corinthian colony, they ravaged their territory, and burnt Cyllene, the harbor of the Eleans, because they had furnished ships and money to Corinth.

3 For almost the whole of the period that followed the battle they remained masters of the sea, and the allies of Corinth were harassed by Corcyraean cruisers. At last Corinth, roused by the sufferings of her allies, sent out ships and troops in the fall of the summer, who formed an encampment at Actium and about Chimerium, in Thesprotis, for the protection of Leucas and the rest of the friendly cities.

4 The Corcyraeans on their part formed a similar station on Leukimme. Neither party made any movement, but they remained confronting each other till the end of the summer, and winter was at hand before either of them returned home.

Chapter 31

1 Corinth, exasperated by the war with the Corcyraeans, spent the whole of the year after the engagement and that succeeding it in building ships, and in straining every nerve to form an efficient fleet; rowers being drawn from Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas by the inducement of large bounties.

2 The Corcyraeans, alarmed at the news of their preparations, being without a single ally in Hellas (for they had not enrolled themselves either in the Athenian or in the Lacedaemonian confederacy), decided to repair to Athens in order to enter into alliance, and to endeavor to procure support from her.

3 Corinth also, hearing of their intentions, sent an embassy to Athens to prevent the Corcyraean navy being joined by the Athenian, and her prospect of ordering the war according to her wishes being thus impeded.

4 An assembly was convoked, and the rival advocates appeared: the Corcyraeans spoke as follows:—

Chapter 32

1 Athenians! when a people that have not rendered any important service or support to their neighbors in times past, for which they might claim to be repaid, appear before them as we now appear before you to solicit their assistance, they may fairly be required to satisfy certain preliminary conditions. They should show, first, that it is expedient or at least safe to grant their request; next, that they will retain a lasting sense of the kindness. But if they cannot clearly establish any of these points, they must not be annoyed if they meet with a rebuff.

2 Now the Corcyraeans believe that with their petition for assistance they can also give you a satisfactory answer on these points, and they have therefore despatched us hither.

3 It has so happened that our policy as regards you, with respect to this request, turns out to be inconsistent, and as regards our interests, to be at the present crisis inexpedient.

4 We say inconsistent, because a power which has never in the whole of her past history been willing to ally herself with any of her neighbors, is now found asking them to ally themselves with her. And we say inexpedient, because in our present war with Corinth it has left us in a position of entire isolation, and what once seemed the wise precaution of refusing to involve ourselves in alliances with other powers, lest we should also involve ourselves in risks of their choosing, has now proved to be folly and weakness.

5 It is true that in the late naval engagement we drove back the Corinthians from our shores single-handed. But they have now got together a still larger armament from Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas; and we, seeing our utter inability to cope with them without foreign aid, and the magnitude of the danger which subjection to them implies, find it necessary to ask help from you and from every other power. And we hope to be excused if we forswear our old principle of complete political isolation, a principle which was not adopted with any sinister intention, but was rather the consequence of an error in judgment.

Chapter 33

1 Now there are many reasons why in the event of your compliance you will congratulate yourselves on this request having been made to you. First, because your assistance will be rendered to a power which, herself inoffensive, is a victim to the injustice of others. Secondly, because all that we most value is at stake in the present contest, and your welcome of us under these circumstances will be a proof of good will which will ever keep alive the gratitude you will lay up in our hearts. Thirdly, yourselves excepted, we are the greatest naval power in Hellas.

2 Moreover, can you conceive a stroke of good fortune more rare in itself, or more disheartening to your enemies, than that the power whose adhesion you would have valued above much material and moral strength, should present herself self-invited, should deliver herself into your hands without danger and without expense, and should lastly put you in the way of gaining a high character in the eyes of the world, the gratitude of those whom you shall assist, and a great accession of strength for yourselves? You may search all history without finding many instances of a people gaining all these advantages at once, or many instances of a power that comes in quest of assistance being in a position to give to the people whose alliance she solicits as much safety and honor as she will receive.

3 But it will be urged that it is only in the case of a war that we shall be found useful. To this we answer that if any of you imagine that the war is far off, he is grievously mistaken, and is blind to the fact that Lacedaemon regards you with jealousy and desires war, and that Corinth is powerful there,—the same, remember, that is your enemy, and is even now trying to subdue us as a preliminary to attacking you. And this she does to prevent our becoming united by a common enmity, and her having us both on her hands, and also to insure getting the start of you in one of two ways, either by crippling our power or by making its strength her own.

4 Now it is our policy to be beforehand with her—that is, for Corcyra to make an offer of alliance and for you to accept it; in fact, we ought to form plans against her instead of waiting to defeat the plans she forms against us.

Chapter 34

1 If she asserts that for you to receive a colony of hers into alliance is not right, let her know that every colony that is well treated honors its parent state, but becomes estranged from it by injustice. For colonists are not sent forth on the understanding that they are to be the slaves of those that remain behind, but that they are to be their equals.

2 And that Corinth was injuring us is clear. Invited to refer the dispute about Epidamnus to arbitration, they chose to prosecute their complaints by war rather than by a fair trial.

3 And let their conduct towards us who are their kindred be a warning to you not to be misled by their deceit, nor to yield to their direct requests; concessions to adversaries only end in self-reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security.

Chapter 35

1 If it be urged that your reception of us will be a breach of the treaty existing between you and Lacedaemon, the answer is that we are a neutral state,

2 and that one of the express provisions of that treaty is that it shall be competent for any Hellenic state that is neutral to join whichever side it pleases.

3 And it is intolerable for Corinth to be allowed to obtain men for her navy not only from her allies, but also from the rest of Hellas, no small number being furnished by your own subjects; while we are to be excluded both from the alliance left open to us by treaty, and from any assistance that we might get from other quarters, and you are to be accused of political immorality if you comply with our request.

4 On the other hand, we shall have much greater cause to complain of you, if you do not comply with it; if we, who are in peril, and are no enemies of yours, meet with a repulse at your hands, while Corinth, who is the aggressor and your enemy, not only meets with no hindrance from you, but is even allowed to draw material for war from your dependencies. This ought not to be, but you should either forbid her enlisting men in your dominions, or you should lend us too what help you may think advisable.

5 But your real policy is to afford us avowed countenance and support. The advantages of this course, as we premised in the beginning of our speech, are many. We mention one that is perhaps the chief. Could there be a clearer guarantee of our good faith than is offered by the fact that the power which is at enmity with you, is also at enmity with us, and that that power is fully able to punish defection. And there is a wide difference between declining the alliance of an inland and of a maritime power. For your first endeavor should be to prevent, if possible, the existence of any naval power except your own; failing this, to secure the friendship of the strongest that does exist.

Chapter 36

1 And if any of you believe that what we urge is expedient, but fear to act upon this belief, lest it should lead to a breach of the treaty, you must remember that on the one hand, whatever your fears, your strength will be formidable to your antagonists; on the other, whatever the confidence you derive from refusing to receive us, your weakness will have no terrors for a strong enemy. You must also remember that your decision is for Athens no less than for Corcyra, and that you are not making the best provision for her interests, if at a time when you are anxiously scanning the horizon that you may be in readiness for the breaking out of the war which is all but upon you, you hesitate to attach to your side a place whose adhesion or estrangement is alike pregnant with the most vital consequences.

2 For it lies conveniently for the coast-navigation in the direction of Italy and Sicily, being able to bar the passage of naval reinforcements from thence to Peloponnese, and from Peloponnese thither; and it is in other respects a most desirable station.

3 To sum up as shortly as possible, embracing both general and particular considerations, let this show you the folly of sacrificing us. Remember that there are but three considerable naval powers in Hellas, Athens, Corcyra, and Corinth, and that if you allow two of these three to become one, and Corinth to secure us for herself, you will have to hold the sea against the united fleets of Corcyra and Peloponnese. But if you receive us, you will have our ships to reinforce you in the struggle.

4 Such were the words of the Corcyraeans. After they had finished, the Corinthians spoke as follows:—

Chapter 37

1 ‘These Corcyraeans in the speech we have just heard do not confine themselves to the question of their reception into your alliance. They also talk of our being guilty of injustice, and their being the victims of an unjustifiable war. It becomes necessary for us to touch upon both these points before we proceed to the rest of what we have to say, that you may have a more correct idea of the grounds of our claim, and have good cause to reject their petition.

2 According to them, their old policy of refusing all offers of alliance was a policy of moderation. It was in fact adopted for bad ends, not for good; indeed their conduct is such as to make them by no means desirous of having allies present to witness it, or of having the shame of asking their concurrence.

3 Besides, their geographical situation makes them independent of others, and consequently the decision in cases where they injure any lies not with judges appointed by mutual agreement, but with themselves, because while they seldom make voyages to their neighbors, they are constantly being visited by foreign vessels which are compelled to put in to Corcyra.

4 In short, the object that they propose to themselves in their specious policy of complete isolation, is not to avoid sharing in the crimes of others, but to secure a monopoly of crime to themselves,—the license of outrage wherever they can compel, of fraud wherever they can elude, and the enjoyment of their gains without shame.

5 And yet if they were the honest men they pretend to be, the less hold that others had upon them, the stronger would be the light in which they might have put their honesty by giving and taking what was just.

Chapter 38

1 But such has not been their conduct either towards others or towards us. The attitude of our colony towards us has always been one of estrangement, and is now one of hostility; for, say they, We were not sent out to be ill-treated.

2 We rejoin that we did not found the colony to be insulted by them, but to be their head, and to be regarded with a proper respect.

3 At any rate, our other colonies honor us, and we are very much beloved by our colonists;

4 and clearly, if the majority are satisfied with us, these can have no good reason for a dissatisfaction in which they stand alone, and we are not acting improperly in making war against them, nor are we making war against them without having received signal provocation.

5 Besides, if we were in the wrong, it would be honorable in them to give way to our wishes, and disgraceful for us to trample on their moderation;

6 but in the pride and license of wealth they have sinned again and again against us, and never more deeply than when Epidamnus, our dependency, which they took no steps to claim in its distress, upon our coming to relieve it, was by them seized, and is now held by force of arms.

Chapter 39

1 As to their allegation that they wished the question to be first submitted to arbitration, it is obvious that a challenge coming from the party who is safe in a commanding position, cannot gain the credit due only to him who, before appealing to arms, in deeds as well as words, places himself on a level with his adversary.

2 In their case, it was not before they laid siege to the place, but after they at length understood that we should not tamely suffer it, that they thought of the specious word arbitration. And not satisfied with their own misconduct there, they appear here now requiring you to join with them not in alliance, but in crime, and to receive them in spite of their being at enmity with us.

3 But it was when they stood firmest, that they should have made overtures to you, and not at a time when we have been wronged, and they are in peril; nor yet at a time when you will be admitting to a share in your protection those who never admitted you to a share in their power, and will be incurring an equal amount of blame from us with those in whose offences you had no hand. No, they should have shared their power with you before they asked you to share your fortunes with them.

Chapter 40

1 So then the reality of the grievances we come to complain of and the violence and rapacity of our opponents have both been proved. But that you cannot equitably receive them, this you have still to learn.

2 It may be true that one of the provisions of the treaty is that it shall be competent for any state, whose name was not down on the list, to join whichever side it pleases. But this agreement is not meant for those whose object in joining is the injury of other powers, but for those whose need of support does not arise from the fact of defection, and whose adhesion will not bring to the power that is mad enough to receive them war instead of peace; which will be the case with you, if you refuse to listen to us.

3 For you cannot become their auxiliary and remain our friend; if you join in their attack, you must share the punishment which the defenders inflict on them.

4 And yet you have the best possible right to be neutral, or failing this, you should on the contrary join us against them. Corinth is at least in treaty with you; with Corcyra you were never even in truce. But do not lay down the principle that defection is to be patronized.

5 Did we on the defection of the Samians record our vote against you, when the rest of the Peloponnesian powers were equally divided on the question whether they should assist them? No, we told them to their face that every power has a right to punish its own allies.

6 Why, if you make it your policy to receive and assist all offenders, you will find that just as many of your dependencies will come over to us, and the principle that you establish will press less heavily on us than on yourselves.

Chapter 41

1 This then is what Hellenic law entitles us to demand as a right. But we have also advice to offer and claims on your gratitude, which, since there is no danger of our injuring you, as we are not enemies, and since our friendship does not amount to very frequent intercourse, we say ought to be liquidated at the present juncture.

2 When you were in want of ships of war for the war against the Aeginetans, before the Persian invasion, Corinth supplied you with twenty vessels. That good turn, and the line we took on the Samian question, when we were the cause of the Peloponnesians refusing to assist them, enabled you to conquer Aegina, and to punish Samos. And we acted thus at crises when, if ever, men are wont in their efforts against their enemies to forget everything for the sake of victory,

3 regarding him who assists them then as a friend, even if thus far he has been a foe, and him who opposes them then as a foe, even if he has thus far been a friend; indeed they allow their real interests to suffer from their absorbing preoccupation in the struggle.

Chapter 42

1 Weigh well these considerations, and let your youth learn what they are from their elders, and let them determine to do unto us as we have done unto you. And let them not acknowledge the justice of what we say, but dispute its wisdom in the contingency of war.

2 Not only is the straightest path generally speaking the wisest; but the coming of the war which the Corcyraeans have used as a bugbear to persuade you to do wrong, is still uncertain, and it is not worth while to be carried away by it into gaining the instant and declared enmity of Corinth. It were, rather, wise to try and counteract the unfavorable impression which your conduct to Megara has created.

3 For kindness opportunely shown has a greater power of removing old grievances than the facts of the case may warrant.

4 And do not be seduced by the prospect of a great naval alliance. Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower of strength, than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage.

Chapter 43

1 It is now our turn to benefit by the principle that we laid down at Lacedaemon, that every power has a right to punish her own allies. We now claim to receive the same from you, and protest against your rewarding us for benefiting you by our vote by injuring us by yours.

2 On the contrary, return us like for like, remembering that this is that very crisis in which he who lends aid is most a friend, and he who opposes is most a foe.

3 And for these Corcyraeans—neither receive them into alliance in our despite, nor be their abettors in crime.

4 So do, and you will act as we have a right to expect of you, and at the same time best consult your own interest.

Chapter 44

1 Such were the words of the Corinthians.When the Athenians had heard both out, two assemblies were held. In the first there was a manifest disposition to listen to the representations of Corinth; in the second, public feeling had changed, and an alliance with Corcyra was decided on, with certain reservations. It was to be a defensive, not an offensive alliance. It did not involve a breach of the treaty with Peloponnese: Athens could not be required to join Corcyra in any attack upon Corinth. But each of the contracting parties had a right to the other's assistance against invasion, whether of his own territory, or that of an ally.

2 For it began now to be felt that the coming of the Peloponnesian war was only a question of time, and no one was willing to see a naval power of such magnitude as Corcyra sacrificed to Corinth; though if they could let them weaken each other by mutual conflict, it would be no bad preparation for the struggle which Athens might one day have to wage with Corinth and the other naval powers.

3 At the same time the island seemed to lie conveniently on the coasting passage to Italy and Sicily.

Chapter 45

1 With these views, Athens received Corcyra into alliance, and on the departure of the Corinthians not long afterwards, sent ten ships to their assistance.

2 They were commanded by Lacedaemonius, the son of Cimon, Diotimus, the son of Strombichus, and Porteas, the son of Epicles.

3 Their instructions were to avoid collision with the Corinthian fleet except under certain circumstances. If it sailed to Corcyra and threatened a landing on her coast, or in any of her possessions, they were to do their utmost to prevent it. These instructions were prompted by an anxiety to avoid a breach of the treaty.

Chapter 46

1 Meanwhile the Corinthians completed their preparations, and sailed for Corcyra with a hundred and fifty ships. Of these Elis furnished ten, Megara twelve, Leucas ten, Ambracia twenty-seven, Anactorium one, and Corinth herself ninety.

2 Each of these contingents had its own admiral, the Corinthian being under the command of Xenoclides, son of Euthycles, with four colleagues.

3 Sailing from Leucas, they made land at the part of the continent opposite Corcyra.

4 They anchored in the harbor of Chimerium, in the territory of Thesprotis, above which, at some distance from the sea, lies the city of Ephyre, in the Elean district. By this city the Acherusian lake pours its waters into the sea. It gets its name from the river Acheron, which flows through Thesprotis, and falls into the lake. There also the river Thyamis flows, forming the boundary between Thesprotis and Kestrine; and between these rivers rises the point of Chimerium.

5 In this part of the continent the Corinthians now came to anchor, and formed an encampment.

Chapter 47

1 When the Corcyraeans saw them coming, they manned a hundred and ten ships, commanded by Meikiades, Aisimides, and Eurybatus, and stationed themselves at one of the Sybota isles; the ten Athenian ships being present.

2 On point Leukimme they posted their land forces, and a thousand heavy infantry who had come from Zacynthus to their assistance.

3 Nor were the Corinthians on the mainland without their allies. The barbarians flocked in large numbers to their assistance, the inhabitants of this part of the continent being old allies of theirs.

Chapter 48

1 When the Corinthian preparations were completed they took three days' provisions, and put out from Chimerium by night, ready for action.

2 Sailing with the dawn, they sighted the Corcyraean fleet out at sea, and coming towards them.

3 When they perceived each other, both sides formed in order of battle. On the Corcyraean right wing lay the Athenian ships, the rest of the line being occupied by their own vessels formed in three squadrons, each of which was commanded by one of the three admirals.

4 Such was the Corcyraean formation. The Corinthian was as follows: on the right wing lay the Megarian and Ambraciot ships, in the center the rest of the allies in order. But the left was composed of the best sailors in the Corinthian navy, to encounter the Athenians and the right wing of the Corcyraeans.

Chapter 49

1 As soon as the signals were raised on either side, they joined battle. Both sides had a large number of heavy infantry on their decks, and a large number of archers and darters, the old imperfect armament still prevailing.

2 The sea-fight was an obstinate one, though not remarkable for its science; indeed it was more like a battle by land.

3 Whenever they charged each other, the multitude and crush of the vessels made it by no means easy to get loose; besides, their hopes of victory lay principally in the heavy infantry on the decks, who stood and fought in order, the ships remaining stationary. The manoeuvre of breaking the line was not tried: in short, strength and pluck had more share in the fight than science.

4 Everywhere tumult reigned, the battle being one scene of confusion; meanwhile the Athenian ships, by coming up to the Corcyraeans whenever they were pressed, served to alarm the enemy, though their commanders could not join in the battle from fear of their instructions.

5 The right wing of the Corinthians suffered most. The Corcyraeans routed it, and chased them in disorder to the continent with twenty ships, sailed up to their camp, and burnt the tents which they found empty, and plundered the stuff.

6 So in this quarter the Corinthians and their allies were defeated, and the Corcyraeans were victorious. But where the Corinthians themselves were, on the left, they gained a decided success; the scanty forces of the Corcyraeans being further weakened by the want of the twenty ships absent on the pursuit.

7 Seeing the Corcyraeans hard pressed, the Athenians began at length to assist them more unequivocally. At first, it is true, they refrained from charging any ships; but when the rout was becoming patent, and the Corinthians were pressing on, the time at last came when every one set to, and all distinction was laid aside, and it came to this point, that the Corinthians and Athenians raised their hands against each other.

Chapter 50

1 After the rout, the Corinthians, instead of employing themselves in lashing fast and hauling after them the hulls of the vessels which they had disabled, turned their attention to the men, whom they butchered as they sailed through, not caring so much to make prisoners. Some even of their own friends were slain by them, by mistake, in their ignorance of the defeat of the right wing.

2 For the number of the ships on both sides, and the distance to which they covered the sea, made it difficult after they had once joined, to distinguish between the conquering and the conquered; this battle proving far greater than any before it, any at least between Hellenes, for the number of vessels engaged.

3 After the Corinthians had chased the Corcyraeans to the land, they turned to the wrecks and their dead, most of whom they succeeded in getting hold of and conveying to Sybota, the rendezvous of the land forces furnished by their barbarian allies. Sybota, it must be known, is a desert harbor of Thesprotis. This task over, they mustered anew, and sailed against the Corcyraeans,

4 who on their part advanced to meet them with all their ships that were fit for service and remaining to them, accompanied by the Athenian vessels, fearing that they might attempt a landing in their territory.

5 It was by this time getting late, and the paean had been sung for the attack, when the Corinthians suddenly began to back water. They had observed twenty Athenian ships sailing up, which had been sent out afterwards to reinforce the ten vessels by the Athenians, who feared, as it turned out justly, the defeat of the Corcyraeans and the inability of their handful of ships to protect them.

Chapter 51

1 These ships were thus seen by the Corinthians first. They suspected that they were from Athens, and that those which they saw were not all, but that there were more behind; they accordingly began to retire.

2 The Corcyraeans meanwhile had not sighted them, as they were advancing from a point which they could not so well see, and were wondering why the Corinthians were backing water, when some caught sight of them, and cried out that there were ships in sight ahead. Upon this they also retired; for it was now getting dark, and the retreat of the Corinthians had suspended hostilities.

3 Thus they parted from each other, and the battle ceased with night.

4 The Corcyraeans were in their camp at Leukimme, when these twenty ships from Athens, under the command of Glaucon, the son of Leagrus, and Andocides, son of Leogoras, bore on through the corpses and the wrecks, and sailed up to the camp, not long after they were sighted.

5 It was now night, and the Corcyraeans feared that they might be hostile vessels; but they soon knew them, and the ships came to anchor.

Chapter 52

1 The next day the thirty Athenian vessels put out to sea, accompanied by all the Corcyraean ships that were seaworthy, and sailed to the harbor at Sybota, where the Corinthians lay, to see if they would engage.

2 The Corinthians put out from the land, and formed a line in the open sea, but beyond this made no further movement, having no intention of assuming the offensive. For they saw reinforcements arrived fresh from Athens, and themselves confronted by numerous difficulties, such as the necessity of guarding the prisoners whom they had on board, and the want of all means of refitting their ships in a desert place.

3 What they were thinking more about was how their voyage home was to be effected; they feared that the Athenians might consider that the treaty was dissolved by the collision which had occurred, and forbid their departure.

Chapter 53

1 Accordingly they resolved to put some men on board a boat, and send them without a herald's wand to the Athenians, as an experiment. Having done so, they spoke as follows:

2 You do wrong, Athenians, to begin war and break the treaty. Engaged in chastising our enemies, we find you placing yourselves in our path in arms against us. Now if your intentions are to prevent us sailing to Corcyra, or anywhere else that we may wish, and if you are for breaking the treaty, first take us that are here, and treat us as enemies.

3 Such was what they said, and all the Corcyraean armament that were within hearing immediately called out to take them and kill them. But the Athenians answered as follows:

4 Neither are we beginning war, Peloponnesians, nor are we breaking the treaty; but these Corcyraeans are our allies, and we are come to help them. So if you want to sail anywhere else, we place no obstacle in your way; but if you are going to sail against Corcyra, or any of her possessions, we shall do our best to stop you.’

Chapter 54

1 Receiving this answer from the Athenians, the Corinthians commenced preparations for their voyage home, and set up a trophy in Sybota, on the continent; while the Corcyraeans took up the wrecks and dead that had been carried out to them by the current, and by a wind which rose in the night and scattered them in all directions, and set up their trophy in Sybota, on the island, as victors.

2 The reasons each side had for claiming the victory were these. The Corinthians had been victorious in the sea-fight until night; and having thus been enabled to carry off most wrecks and dead, they were in possession of no fewer than a thousand prisoners of war, and had sunk close upon seventy vessels. The Corcyraeans had destroyed about thirty ships, and after the arrival of the Athenians had taken up the wrecks and dead on their side; they had besides seen the Corinthians retire before them, backing water on sight of the Athenian vessels, and upon the arrival of the Athenians refuse to sail out against them from Sybota.

Chapter 55

1 Thus both sides claimed the victory. The Corinthians on the voyage home took Anactorium, which stands at the mouth of the Ambracian gulf. The place was taken by treachery, being common ground to the Corcyraeans and Corinthians. After establishing Corinthian settlers there, they retired home. Eight hundred of the Corcyraeans were slaves; these they sold; two hundred and fifty they retained in captivity, and treated with great attention, in the hope that they might bring over their country to Corinth on their return; most of them being, as it happened, men of very high position in Corcyra.

2 In this way Corcyra maintained her political existence in the war with Corinth, and the Athenian vessels left the island. This was the first cause of the war that Corinth had against the Athenians, viz. that they had fought against them with the Corcyraeans in time of treaty.

Chapter 56

1 Almost immediately after this, fresh differences arose between the Athenians and Peloponnesians, and contributed their share to the war.

2 Corinth was forming schemes for retaliation, and Athens suspected her hostility. The Potidaeans, who inhabit the isthmus of Pallene, being a Corinthian colony, but tributary allies of Athens, were ordered to raze the wall looking towards Pallene, to give hostages, to dismiss the Corinthian magistrates, and in future not to receive the persons sent from Corinth annually to succeed them. It was feared that they might be persuaded by Perdiccas and the Corinthians to revolt, and might draw the rest of the allies in the direction of Thrace to revolt with them.

Chapter 57

1 These precautions against the Potidaeans were taken by the Athenians immediately after the battle at Corcyra.

2 Not only was Corinth at length openly hostile, but Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, had from an old friend and ally been made an enemy.

3 He had been made an enemy by the Athenians entering into alliance with his brother Philip and Derdas, who were in league against him.

4 In his alarm he had sent to Lacedaemon to try and involve the Athenians in a war with the Peloponnesians, and was endeavoring to win over Corinth in order to bring about the revolt of Potidaea.

5 He also made overtures to the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace, and to the Bottiaeans, to persuade them to join in the revolt; for he thought that if these places on the border could be made his allies, it would be easier to carry on the war with their co-operation.

6 Alive to all this, and wishing to anticipate the revolt of the cities, the Athenians acted as follows. They were just then sending off thirty ships and a thousand heavy infantry for his country under the command of Archestratus, son of Lycomedes, with four colleagues. They instructed the captains to take hostages of the Potidaeans, to raze the wall, and to be on their guard against the revolt of the neighboring cities.

Chapter 58

1 Meanwhile the Potidaeans sent envoys to Athens on the chance of persuading them to take no new steps in their matters; they also went to Lacedaemon with the Corinthians to secure support in case of need. Failing after prolonged negotiation to obtain anything satisfactory from the Athenians; being unable, for all they could say, to prevent the vessels that were destined for Macedonia from also sailing against them; and receiving from the Lacedaemonian government a promise to invade Attica, if the Athenians should attack Potidaea, the Potidaeans, thus favoured by the moment, at last entered into league with the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, and revolted.

2 And Perdiccas induced the Chalcidians to abandon and demolish their towns on the seaboard, and settling inland at Olynthus, to make that one city a strong place: meanwhile to those who followed his advice he gave a part of his territory in Mygdonia round Lake Bolbe as a place of abode while the war against the Athenians should last. They accordingly demolished their towns, removed inland, and prepared for war.

Chapter 59

1 The thirty ships of the Athenians, arriving before the Thracian places, found Potidaea and the rest in revolt.

2 Their commanders considering it to be quite impossible with their present force to carry on war with Perdiccas, and with the confederate towns as well, turned to Macedonia, their original destination, and having established themselves there, carried on war in co-operation with Philip, and the brothers of Derdas, who had invaded the country from the interior.

Chapter 60

1 Meanwhile the Corinthians, with Potidaea in revolt, and the Athenian ships on the coast of Macedonia, alarmed for the safety of the place, and thinking its danger theirs, sent volunteers from Corinth, and mercenaries from the rest of Peloponnese, to the number of sixteen hundred heavy infantry in all, and four hundred light troops.

2 Aristeus, son of Adimantus, who was always a steady friend to the Potidaeans, took command of the expedition, and it was principally for love of him that most of the men from Corinth volunteered.

3 They arrived in Thrace forty days after the revolt of Potidaea.

Chapter 61

1 The Athenians also immediately received the news of the revolt of the cities. On being informed that Aristeus and his reinforcements were on their way, they sent two thousand heavy infantry of their own citizens and forty ships against the places in revolt, under the command of Callias, son of Calliades, and four colleagues.

2 They arrived in Macedonia first, and found the force of a thousand men that had been first sent out, just become masters of Therme and besieging Pydna.

3 Accordingly they also joined in the investment, and besieged Pydna for a while. Subsequently they came to terms and concluded a forced alliance with Perdiccas, hastened by the calls of Potidaea, and by the arrival of Aristeus at that place. They withdrew from Macedonia,

4 going to Beroea and thence to Strepsa, and, after a futile attempt on the latter place, they pursued by land their march to Potidaea with three thousand heavy infantry of their own citizens, besides a number of their allies, and six hundred Macedonian horsemen, the followers of Philip and Pausanias. With these sailed seventy ships along the coast.

5 Advancing by short marches, on the third day they arrived at Gigonus, where they encamped.

Chapter 62

1 Meanwhile the Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians with Aristeus were encamped on the side looking towards Olynthus on the isthmus, in expectation of the Athenians, and had established their market outside the city.

2 The allies had chosen Aristeus general of all the infantry; while the command of the cavalry was given to Perdiccas, who had at once left the alliance of the Athenians and gone back to that of the Potidaeans, having deputed Iolaus as his general.

3 The plan of Aristeus was to keep his own force on the isthmus, and await the attack of the Athenians; leaving the Chalcidians and the allies outside the isthmus, and the two hundred cavalry from Perdiccas in Olynthus to act upon the Athenian rear, on the occasion of their advancing against him; and thus to place the enemy between two fires.

4 While Callias the Athenian general and his colleagues despatched the Macedonian horse and a few of the allies to Olynthus, to prevent any movement being made from that quarter, the Athenians themselves broke up their camp and marched against Potidaea.

5 After they had arrived at the isthmus, and saw the enemy preparing for battle, they formed against him, and soon afterwards engaged.

6 The wing of Aristeus, with the Corinthians and other picked troops round him, routed the wing opposed to it, and followed for a considerable distance in pursuit. But the rest of the army of the Potidaeans and of the Peloponnesians was defeated by the Athenians, and took refuge within the fortifications.

Chapter 63

1 Returning from the pursuit, Aristeus perceived the defeat of the rest of the army. Being at a loss which of the two risks to choose, whether to go to Olynthus or to Potidaea, he at last determined to draw his men into as small a space as possible, and force his way with a run into Potidaea. Not without difficulty, through a storm of missiles, he passed along by the breakwater through the sea, and brought off most of his men safe, though a few were lost.

2 Meanwhile the auxiliaries of the Potidaeans from Olynthus, which is about seven miles off, and in sight of Potidaea, when the battle began and the signals were raised, advanced a little way to render assistance; and the Macedonian horse formed against them to prevent it. But on victory speedily declaring for the Athenians and the signals being taken down, they retired back within the wall; and the Macedonians returned to the Athenians. Thus there were no cavalry present on either side.

3 After the battle the Athenians set up a trophy, and gave back their dead to the Potidaeans under truce. The Potidaeans and their allies had close upon three hundred killed; the Athenians a hundred and fifty of their own citizens, and Callias their general.

Chapter 64

1 The wall on the side of the isthmus had now works at once raised against it, and manned by the Athenians. That on the side of Pallene had no works raised against it. They did not think themselves strong enough at once to keep a garrison in the isthmus, and to cross over to Pallene and raise works there; they were afraid that the Potidaeans and their allies might take advantage of their division to attack them.

2 Meanwhile the Athenians at home learning that there were no works at Pallene, sometime afterwards sent off sixteen hundred heavy infantry of their own citizens under the command of Phormio, son of Asopius. Arrived at Pallene, he fixed his headquarters at Aphytis, and led his army against Potidaea by short marches, ravaging the country as he advanced. No one venturing to meet him in the field, he raised works against the wall on the side of Pallene.

3 So at length Potidaea was strongly invested on either side, and from the sea by the ships cooperating in the blockade.

Chapter 65

1 Aristeus, seeing its investment complete, and having no hope of its salvation, except in the event of some movement from the Peloponnese, or of some other improbable contingency, advised all except five hundred to watch for a wind, and sail out of the place, in order that their provisions might last the longer. He was willing to be himself one of those who remained. Unable to persuade them, and desirous of acting on the next alternative, and of having things outside in the best posture possible, he eluded the guardships of the Athenians and sailed out.

2 Remaining among the Chalcidians, he continued to carry on the war; in particular he laid an ambuscade near the city of the Sermylians, and cut off many of them; he also communicated with Peloponnese, and tried to contrive some method by which help might be brought.

3 Meanwhile, after the completion of the investment of Potidaea, Phormio next employed his sixteen hundred men in ravaging Chalcidice and Bottica: some of the towns also were taken by him.

Chapter 66

1 The Athenians and Peloponnesians had these antecedent grounds of complaint against each other: the complaint of Corinth was that her colony of Potidaea, and Corinthian and Peloponnesian citizens within it, were being besieged; that of Athens against the Peloponnesians that they had incited a town of hers, a member of her alliance and a contributor to her revenue, to revolt, and had come and were openly fighting against her on the side of the Potidaeans. For all this, war had not yet broken out: there was still truce for a while; for this was a private enterprise on the part of Corinth.

Chapter 67

1 But the siege of Potidaea put an end to her inaction; she had men inside it: besides, she feared for the place. Immediately summoning the allies to Lacedaemon, she came and loudly accused Athens of breach of the treaty and aggression on the rights of Peloponnese.

2 With her, the Aeginetans, formally unrepresented from fear of Athens, in secret proved not the least urgent of the advocates for war, asserting that they had not the independence guaranteed to them by the treaty.

3 After extending the summons to any of their allies and others who might have complaints to make of Athenian aggression, the Lacedaemonians held their ordinary assembly, and invited them to speak.

4 There were many who came forward and made their several accusations; among them the Megarians, in a long list of grievances, called special attention to the fact of their exclusion from the ports of the Athenian empire and the market of Athens, in defiance of the treaty.

5 Last of all the Corinthians came forward, and having let those who preceded them inflame the Lacedaemonians, now followed with a speech to this effect:—

Chapter 68

1 ‘Lacedaemonians! the confidence which you feel in your constitution and social order, inclines you to receive any reflections of ours on other powers with a certain skepticism. Hence springs your moderation, but hence also the rather limited knowledge which you betray in dealing with foreign politics.

2 Time after time was our voice raised to warn you of the blows about to be dealt us by Athens, and time after time, instead of taking the trouble to ascertain the worth of our communications, you contented yourselves with suspecting the speakers of being inspired by private interest. And so, instead of calling these allies together before the blow fell, you have delayed to do so till we are smarting under it; allies among whom we have not the worst title to speak, as having the greatest complaints to make, complaints of Athenian outrage and Lacedaemonian neglect.

3 Now if these assaults on the rights of Hellas had been made in the dark you might be unacquainted with the facts, and it would be our duty to enlighten you. As it is, long speeches are not needed where you see servitude accomplished for some of us, meditated for others—in particular for our allies—and prolonged preparations in the aggressor against the hour of war.

4 Or what, pray, is the meaning of their reception of Corcyra by fraud, and their holding it against us by force? what of the siege of Potidaea?—places one of which lies most conveniently for any action against the Thracian towns; while the other would have contributed a very large navy to the Peloponnesians?

Chapter 69

1 For all this you are responsible. You it was who first allowed them to fortify their city after the Median war, and afterwards to erect the long walls,—you who, then and now, are always depriving of freedom not only those whom they have enslaved, but also those who have as yet been your allies. For the true author of the subjugation of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as the power which permits it having the means to prevent it; particularly if that power aspires to the glory of being the liberator of Hellas. We are at last assembled.

2 It has not been easy to assemble, nor even now are our objects defined. We ought not to be still inquiring into the fact of our wrongs, but into the means of our defence. For the aggressors with matured plans to oppose to our indecision have cast threats aside and betaken themselves to action.

3 And we know what are the paths by which Athenian aggression travels, and how insidious is its progress. A degree of confidence she may feel from the idea that your bluntness of perception prevents your noticing her; but it is nothing to the impulse which her advance will receive from the knowledge that you see, but do not care to interfere.

4 You, Lacedaemonians, of all the Hellenes are alone inactive, and defend yourselves not by doing anything but by looking as if you would do something; you alone wait till the power of an enemy is becoming twice its original size, instead of crushing it in its infancy.

5 And yet the world used to say that you were to be depended upon; but in your case, we fear, it said more than the truth. The Mede, we ourselves know, had time to come from the ends of the earth to Peloponnese, without any force of yours worthy of the name advancing to meet him. But this was a distant enemy. Well, Athens at all events is a near neighbor, and yet Athens you utterly disregard; against Athens you prefer to act on the defensive instead of on the offensive, and to make it an affair of chances by deferring the struggle till she has grown far stronger than at first. And yet you know that on the whole the rock on which the barbarian was wrecked was himself, and that if our present enemy Athens has not again and again annihilated us, we owe it more to her blunders than to your protection.

6 Indeed, expectations from you have before now been the ruin of some, whose faith induced them to omit preparation.We hope that none of you will consider these words of remonstrance to be rather words of hostility; men remonstrate with friends who are in error, accusations they reserve for enemies who have wronged them.

Chapter 70

1 Besides, we consider that we have as good a right as any one to point out a neighbor's faults, particularly when we contemplate the great contrast between the two national characters; a contrast of which, as far as we can see, you have little perception, having never yet considered what sort of antagonists you will encounter in the Athenians, how widely, how absolutely different from yourselves.

2 The Athenians are addicted to innovation, and their designs are characterized by swiftness alike in conception and execution; you have a genius for keeping what you have got, accompanied by a total want of invention, and when forced to act you never go far enough.

3 Again, they are adventurous beyond their power, and daring beyond their judgment, and in danger they are sanguine; your wont is to attempt less than is justified by your power, to mistrust even what is sanctioned by your judgment, and to fancy that from danger there is no release.

4 Further, there is promptitude on their side against procrastination on yours; they are never at home, you are never from it: for they hope by their absence to extend their acquisitions, you fear by your advance to endanger what you have left behind.

5 They are swift to follow up a success, and slow to recoil from a reverse.

6 Their bodies they spend ungrudgingly in their country's cause; their intellect they jealously husband to be employed in her service.

7 A scheme unexecuted is with them a positive loss, a successful enterprise a comparative failure. The deficiency created by the miscarriage of an undertaking is soon filled up by fresh hopes; for they alone are enabled to call a thing hoped for a thing got, by the speed with which they act upon their resolutions.

8 Thus they toil on in trouble and danger all the days of their life, with little opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting: their only idea of a holiday is to do what the occasion demands, and to them laborious occupation is less of a misfortune than the peace of a quiet life.

9 To describe their character in a word, one might truly say that they were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to give none to others.

Chapter 71

1 Such is Athens, your antagonist. And yet, Lacedaemonians, you still delay, and fail to see that peace stays longest with those, who are not more careful to use their power justly than to show their determination not to submit to injustice. On the contrary, your ideal of fair dealing is based on the principle that if you do not injure others, you need not risk your own fortunes in preventing others from injuring you.

2 Now you could scarcely have succeeded in such a policy even with a neighbor like yourselves; but in the present instance, as we have just shown, your habits are old-fashioned as compared with theirs.

3 It is the law as in art, so in politics, that improvements ever prevail; and though fixed usages may be best for undisturbed communities, constant necessities of action must be accompanied by the constant improvement of methods. Thus it happens that the vast experience of Athens has carried her further than you on the path of innovation.

4 Here, at least, let your procrastination end. For the present, assist your allies and Potidaea in particular, as you promised, by a speedy invasion of Attica, and do not sacrifice friends and kindred to their bitterest enemies, and drive the rest of us in despair to some other alliance.

5 Such a step would not be condemned either by the gods who received our oaths, or by the men who witnessed them. The breach of a treaty cannot be laid to the people whom desertion compels to seek new relations, but to the power that fails to assist its confederate.

6 But if you will only act, we will stand by you; it would be unnatural for us to change, and never should we meet with such a congenial ally.

7 For these reasons choose the right course, and endeavor not to let Peloponnese under your supremacy degenerate from the prestige that it enjoyed under that of your ancestors.’

Chapter 72

1 Such were the words of the Corinthians. There happened to be Athenian envoys present at Lacedaemon on other business. On hearing the speeches they thought themselves called upon to come before the Lacedaemonians. Their intention was not to offer a defence on any of the charges which the cities brought against them, but to show on a comprehensive view that it was not a matter to be hastily decided on, but one that demanded further consideration. There was also a wish to call attention to the great power of Athens, and to refresh the memory of the old and enlighten the ignorance of the young, from a notion that their words might have the effect of inducing them to prefer tranquillity to war.

2 So they came to the Lacedaemonians and said that they too, if there was no objection, wished to speak to their assembly. They replied by inviting them to come forward. The Athenians advanced, and spoke as follows:—

Chapter 73

1 The object of our mission here was not to argue with your allies, but to attend to the matters on which our State despatched us. However, the vehemence of the outcry that we hear against us has prevailed on us to come forward. It is not to combat the accusations of the cities (indeed you are not the judges before whom either we or they can plead), but to prevent your taking the wrong course on matters of great importance by yielding too readily to the persuasions of your allies. We also wish to show on a review of the whole indictment that we have a fair title to our possessions, and that our country has claims to consideration.

2 We need not refer to remote antiquity: there we could appeal to the voice of tradition, but not to the experience of our audience. But to the Median war and contemporary history we must refer, although we are rather tired of continually bringing this subject forward. In our action during that war we ran great risk to obtain certain advantages: you had your share in the solid results, do not try to rob us of all share in the good that the glory may do us.

3 However, the story shall be told not so much to deprecate hostility as to testify against it, and to show, if you are so ill-advised as to enter into a struggle with Athens, what sort of an antagonist she is likely to prove.

4 We assert that at Marathon we were at the front, and faced the barbarian single-handed. That when he came the second time, unable to cope with him by land we went on board our ships with all our people, and joined in the action at Salamis. This prevented his taking the Peloponnesian states in detail, and ravaging them with his fleet; when the multitude of his vessels would have made any combination for self-defence impossible.

5 The best proof of this was furnished by the invader himself. Defeated at sea, he considered his power to be no longer what it had been, and retired as speedily as possible with the greater part of his army.

Chapter 74

1 Such, then, was the result of the matter, and it was clearly proved that it was on the fleet of Hellas that her cause depended. Well, to this result we contributed three very useful elements, viz. the largest number of ships, the ablest commander, and the most unhesitating patriotism. Our contingent of ships was little less than two-thirds of the whole four hundred; the commander was Themistocles, through whom chiefly it was that the battle took place in the straits, the acknowledged salvation of our cause. Indeed, this was the reason of your receiving him with honors such as had never been accorded to any foreign visitor.

2 While for daring patriotism we had no competitors. Receiving no reinforcements from behind, seeing everything in front of us already subjugated, we had the spirit, after abandoning our city, after sacrificing our property (instead of deserting the remainder of the league or depriving them of our services by dispersing), to throw ourselves into our ships and meet the danger, without a thought of resenting your neglect to assist us.

3 We assert, therefore, that we conferred on you quite as much as we received. For you had a stake to fight for; the cities which you had left were still filled with your homes, and you had the prospect of enjoying them again; and your coming was prompted quite as much by fear for yourselves as for us; at all events, you never appeared till we had nothing left to lose. But we left behind us a city that was a city no longer, and staked our lives for a city that had an existence only in desperate hope, and so bore our full share in your deliverance and in ours.

4 But if we had copied others, and allowed fears for our territory to make us give in our adhesion to the Mede before you came, or if we had suffered our ruin to break our spirit and prevent us embarking in our ships, your naval inferiority would have made a sea-fight unnecessary, and his objects would have been peaceably attained.

Chapter 75

1 Surely, Lacedaemonians, neither by the patriotism that we displayed at that crisis, nor by the wisdom of our counsels, do we merit our extreme unpopularity with the Hellenes, not at least unpopularity for our empire.

2 That empire we acquired by no violent means, but because you were unwilling to prosecute to its conclusion the war against the barbarian, and because the allies attached themselves to us and spontaneously asked us to assume the command.

3 And the nature of the case first compelled us to advance our empire to its present height; fear being our principal motive, though honor and interest afterwards came in.

4 And at last, when almost all hated us, when some had already revolted and had been subdued, when you had ceased to be the friends that you once were, and had become objects of suspicion and dislike, it appeared no longer safe to give up our empire; especially as all who left us would fall to you.

5 And no one can quarrel with a people for making, in matters of tremendous risk, the best provision that it can for its interest.

Chapter 76

1 You, at all events, Lacedaemonians, have used your supremacy to settle the states in Peloponnese as is agreeable to you. And if at the period of which we were speaking you had persevered to the end of the matter, and had incurred hatred in your command, we are sure that you would have made yourselves just as galling to the allies, and would have been forced to choose between a strong government and danger to yourselves.

2 It follows that it was not a very wonderful action, or contrary to the common practice of mankind, if we did accept an empire that was offered to us, and refused to give it up under the pressure of three of the strongest motives, fear, honor, and interest. And it was not we who set the example, for it has always been the law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger. Besides, we believed ourselves to be worthy of our position, and so you thought us till now, when calculations of interest have made you take up the cry of justice—a consideration which no one ever yet brought forward to hinder his ambition when he had a chance of gaining anything by might.

3 And praise is due to all who, if not so superior to human nature as to refuse dominion, yet respect justice more than their position compels them to do.

4 We imagine that our moderation would be best demonstrated by the conduct of others who should be placed in our position; but even our equity has very unreasonably subjected us to condemnation instead of approval.

Chapter 77

1 Our abatement of our rights in the contract trials with our allies, and our causing them to be decided by impartial laws at Athens, have gained us the character of being litigious.

2 And none care to inquire why this reproach is not brought against other imperial powers, who treat their subjects with less moderation than we do; the secret being that where force can be used, law is not needed.

3 But our subjects are so habituated to associate with us as equals, that any defeat whatever that clashes with their notions of justice, whether it proceeds from a legal judgment or from the power which our empire gives us, makes them forget to be grateful for being allowed to retain most of their possessions, and more vexed at a part being taken, than if we had from the first cast law aside and openly gratified our covetousness. If we had done so, not even would they have disputed that the weaker must give way to the stronger.

4 Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.

5 At all events they contrived to put up with much worse treatment than this from the Mede, yet they think our rule severe, and this is to be expected, for the present always weighs heavy on the conquered. This at least is certain.

6 If you were to succeed in overthrowing us and in taking our place, you would speedily lose the popularity with which fear of us has invested you, if your policy of to-day is at all to tally with the sample that you gave of it during the brief period of your command against the Mede. Not only is your life at home regulated by rules and institutions incompatible with those of others, but your citizens abroad act neither on these rules nor on those which are recognized by the rest of Hellas.

Chapter 78

1 Take time then in forming your resolution, as the matter is of great importance; and do not be persuaded by the opinions and complaints of others to bring trouble on yourselves, but consider the vast influence of accident in war, before you are engaged in it.

2 As it continues, it generally becomes an affair of chances, chances from which neither of us is exempt, and whose event we must risk in the dark.

3 It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act first, and wait for disaster to discuss the matter.

4 But we are not yet by any means so misguided, nor, so far as we can see, are you; accordingly, while it is still open to us both to choose aright, we bid you not to dissolve the treaty, or to break your oaths, but to have our differences settled by arbitration according to our agreement. Or else we take the gods who heard the oaths to witness, and if you begin hostilities, whatever line of action you choose, we will try not to be behindhand in repelling you.’

Chapter 79

1 Such were the words of the Athenians. After the Lacedaemonians had heard the complaints of the allies against the Athenians, and the observations of the latter, they made all withdraw, and consulted by themselves on the question before them.

2 The opinions of the majority all led to the same conclusion; the Athenians were open aggressors, and war must be declared at once. But Archidamus, the Lacedaemonian king, came forward, who had the reputation of being at once a wise and a moderate man, and made the following speech:—

Chapter 80

1 ‘I have not lived so long, Lacedaemonians, without having had the experience of many wars, and I see those among you of the same age as myself, who will not fall into the common misfortune of longing for war from inexperience or from a belief in its advantage and its safety.

2 This, the war on which you are now debating, would be one of the greatest magnitude, on a sober consideration of the matter.

3 In a struggle with Peloponnesians and neighbors our strength is of the same character, and it is possible to move swiftly on the different points. But a struggle with a people who live in a distant land, who have also an extraordinary familiarity with the sea, and who are in the highest state of preparation in every other department; with wealth private and public, with ships, and horses, and heavy infantry, and a population such as no one other Hellenic place can equal, and lastly a number of tributary allies—what can justify us in rashly beginning such a struggle? wherein is our trust that we should rush on it unprepared?

4 Is it in our ships? There we are inferior; while if we are to practise and become a match for them, time must intervene. Is it in our money? There we have a far greater deficiency. We neither have it in our treasury, nor are we ready to contribute it from our private funds.

Chapter 81

1 Confidence might possibly be felt in our superiority in heavy infantry and population, which will enable us to invade and devastate their lands.

2 But the Athenians have plenty of other land in their empire, and can import what they want by sea.

3 Again, if we are to attempt an insurrection of their allies, these will have to be supported with a fleet, most of them being islanders.

4 What then is to be our war? For unless we can either beat them at sea, or deprive them of the revenues which feed their navy, we shall meet with little but disaster.

5 Meanwhile our honor will be pledged to keeping on, particularly if it be the opinion that we began the quarrel.

6 For let us never be elated by the fatal hope of the war being quickly ended by the devastation of their lands. I fear rather that we may leave it as a legacy to our children; so improbable is it that the Athenian spirit will be the slave of their land, or Athenian experience be cowed by war.

Chapter 82

1 Not that I would bid you be so unfeeling as to suffer them to injure your allies, and to refrain from unmasking their intrigues; but I do bid you not to take up arms at once, but to send and remonstrate with them in a tone not too suggestive of war, nor again too suggestive of submission, and to employ the interval in perfecting our own preparations. The means will be, first, the acquisition of allies, Hellenic or barbarian it matters not, so long as they are an accession to our strength naval or pecuniary—I say Hellenic or barbarian, because the odium of such an accession to all who like us are the objects of the designs of the Athenians is taken away by the law of self-preservation—and secondly the development of our home resources.

2 If they listen to our embassy, so much the better; but if not, after the lapse of two or three years our position will have become materially strengthened, and we can then attack them if we think proper.

3 Perhaps by that time the sight of our preparations, backed by language equally significant, will have disposed them to submission, while their land is still untouched, and while their counsels may be directed to the retention of advantages as yet undestroyed.

4 For the only light in which you can view their land is that of a hostage in your hands, a hostage the more valuable the better it is cultivated. This you ought to spare as long as possible, and not make them desperate, and so increase the difficulty of dealing with them.

5 For if while still unprepared, hurried away by the complaints of our allies, we are induced to lay it waste, have a care that we do not bring deep disgrace and deep perplexity upon Peloponnese.

6 Complaints, whether of communities or individuals, it is possible to adjust; but war undertaken by a coalition for sectional interests, whose progress there is no means of foreseeing, does not easily admit of creditable settlement.

Chapter 83

1 And none need think it cowardice for a number of confederates to pause before they attack a single city.

2 The Athenians have allies as numerous as our own, and allies that pay tribute, and war is a matter not so much of arms as of money, which makes arms of use. And this is more than ever true in a struggle between a continental and a maritime power.

3 First, then, let us provide money, and not allow ourselves to be carried away by the talk of our allies before we have done so: as we shall have the largest share of responsibility for the consequences be they good or bad, we have also a right to a tranquil inquiry respecting them.

Chapter 84

1 And the slowness and procrastination, the parts of our character that are most assailed by their criticism, need not make you blush. If we undertake the war without preparation, we should by hastening its commencement only delay its conclusion: further, a free and a famous city has through all time been ours.

2 The quality which they condemn is really nothing but a wise moderation; thanks to its possession, we alone do not become insolent in success and give way less than others in misfortune; we are not carried away by the pleasure of hearing ourselves cheered on to risks which our judgment condemns; nor, if annoyed, are we any the more convinced by attempts to exasperate us by accusation.

3 We are both warlike and wise, and it is our sense of order that makes us so. We are warlike, because self-control contains honor as a chief constituent, and honor bravery. And we are wise, because we are educated with too little learning to despise the laws, and with too severe a self-control to disobey them, and are brought up not to be too knowing in useless matters,—such as the knowledge which can give a specious criticism of an enemy's plans in theory, but fails to assail them with equal success in practice,—but are taught to consider that the schemes of our enemies are not dissimilar to our own, and that the freaks of chance are not determinable by calculation.

4 In practice we always base our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest school.

Chapter 85

1 These practices, then, which our ancestors have delivered to us, and by whose maintenance we have always profited, must not be given up. And we must not be hurried into deciding in a day's brief space a question which concerns many lives and fortunes and many cities, and in which honor is deeply involved,—but we must decide calmly. This our strength peculiarly enables us to do.

2 As for the Athenians, send to them on the matter of Potidaea, send on the matter of the alleged wrongs of the allies, particularly as they are prepared with legal satisfaction; and to proceed against one who offers arbitration as against a wrongdoer, law forbids. Meanwhile do not omit preparation for war. This decision will be the best for yourselves, the most terrible to your opponents.’

3 Such were the words of Archidamus. Last came forward Sthenelaidas, one of the Ephors for that year, and spoke to the Lacedaemonians as follows:—

Chapter 86

1 ‘The long speech of the Athenians I do not pretend to understand. They said a good deal in praise of themselves, but nowhere denied that they are injuring our allies and Peloponnese. And yet if they behaved well against the Mede then, but ill towards us now, they deserve double punishment for having ceased to be good and for having become bad.

2 We meanwhile are the same then and now, and shall not, if we are wise, disregard the wrongs of our allies, or put off till to-morrow the duty of assisting those who must suffer to-day.

3 Others have much money and ships and horses, but we have good allies whom we must not give up to the Athenians, nor by lawsuits and words decide the matter, as it is anything but in word that we are harmed, but render instant and powerful help.

4 And let us not be told that it is fitting for us to deliberate under injustice; long deliberation is rather fitting for those who have injustice in contemplation.

5 Vote therefore, Lacedaemonians, for war, as the honor of Sparta demands, and neither allow the further aggrandizement of Athens, nor betray our allies to ruin, but with the gods let us advance against the aggressors.’

Chapter 87

1 With these words he, as Ephor, himself put the question to the assembly of the Lacedaemonians.

2 He said that he could not determine which was the loudest acclamation (their mode of decision is by acclamation not by voting); the fact being that he wished to make them declare their opinion openly and thus to increase their ardor for war. Accordingly he said, ‘All Lacedaemonians who are of opinion that the treaty has been broken, and that Athens is guilty, leave your seats and go there,’ pointing out a certain place; ‘all who are of the opposite opinion, there.’

3 They accordingly stood up and divided; and those who held that the treaty had been broken were in a decided majority.

4 Summoning the allies, they told them that their opinion was that Athens had been guilty of injustice, but that they wished to convoke all the allies and put it to the vote; in order that they might make war, if they decided to do so, on a common resolution.

5 Having thus gained their point, the delegates returned home at once; the Athenian envoys a little later, when they had despatched the objects of their mission.

6 This decision of the assembly judging that the treaty had been broken, was made in the fourteenth year of the thirty years' truce, which was entered into after the affair of Euboea.

Chapter 88

1 The Lacedaemonians voted that the treaty had been broken, and that war must be declared, not so much because they were persuaded by the arguments of the allies, as because they feared the growth of the power of the Athenians, seeing most of Hellas already subject to them.

Chapter 89

1 The way in which Athens came to be placed in the circumstances under which her power grew was this.

2 After the Medes had returned from Europe, defeated by sea and land by the Hellenes, and after those of them who had fled with their ships to Mycale had been destroyed, Leotychides, King of the Lacedaemonians, the commander of the Hellenes at Mycale, departed home with the allies from Peloponnese. But the Athenians and the allies from Ionia and Hellespont, who had now revolted from the king, remained and laid siege to Sestos, which was still held by the Medes. After wintering before it, they became masters of the place on its evacuation by the barbarians; and after this they sailed away from Hellespont to their respective cities.

3 Meanwhile the Athenian people, after the departure of the barbarian from their country, at once proceeded to carry over their children and wives, and such property as they had left, from the places where they had deposited them, and prepared to rebuild their city and their walls. For only isolated portions of the circumference had been left standing, and most of the houses were in ruins; though a few remained, in which the Persian grandees had taken up their quarters.

Chapter 90

1 Perceiving what they were going to do, the Lacedaemonians sent an embassy to Athens. They would have themselves preferred to see neither her nor any other city in possession of a wall; though here they acted principally at the instigation of their allies, who were alarmed at the strength of her newly acquired navy, and the valor which she had displayed in the war with the Medes.

2 They begged her not only to abstain from building walls for herself, but also to join them in throwing down the walls that still held together of the ultra-Peloponnesian cities. The real meaning of their advice, the suspicion that it contained against the Athenians, was not proclaimed; it was urged that so the barbarian, in the event of a third invasion, would not have any strong place, such as he now had in Thebes, for his base of operations; and that Peloponnese would suffice for all as a base both for retreat and offence.

3 After the Lacedaemonians had thus spoken, they were, on the advice of Themistocles, immediately dismissed by the Athenians, with the answer that ambassadors should be sent to Sparta to discuss the question. Themistocles told the Athenians to send him off with all speed to Lacedaemon, but not to despatch his colleagues as soon as they had selected them, but to wait until they had raised their wall to the height from which defence was possible. Meanwhile the whole population in the city was to labour at the wall, the Athenians, their wives and their children, sparing no edifice, private or public, which might be of any use to the work, but throwing all down.

4 After giving these instructions, and adding that he would be responsible for all other matters there, he departed.

5 Arrived at Lacedaemon he did not seek an audience with the authorities, but tried to gain time and made excuses. When any of the government asked him why he did not appear in the assembly, he would say that he was waiting for his colleagues, who had been detained in Athens by some engagement; however, that he expected their speedy arrival, and wondered that they were not yet there.

Chapter 91

1 At first the Lacedaemonians trusted the words of Themistocles, through their friendship for him; but when others arrived, all distinctly declaring that the work was going on and already attaining some elevation, they did not know how to disbelieve it.

2 Aware of this, he told them that rumors are deceptive, and should not be trusted; they should send some reputable persons from Sparta to inspect, whose report might be trusted.

3 They despatched them accordingly. Concerning these Themistocles secretly sent word to the Athenians to detain them as far as possible without putting them under open constraint, and not to let them go until they had themselves returned. For his colleagues had now joined him, Abronichus, son of Lysicles, and Aristides, son of Lysimachus, with the news that the wall was sufficiently advanced; and he feared that when the Lacedaemonians heard the facts, they might refuse to let them go.

4 So the Athenians detained the envoys according to his message, and Themistocles had an audience with the Lacedaemonians, and at last openly told them that Athens was now fortified sufficiently to protect its inhabitants; that any embassy which the Lacedaemonians or their allies might wish to send to them, should in future proceed on the assumption that the people to whom they were going was able to distinguish both its own and the general interests.

5 That when the Athenians thought fit to abandon their city and to embark in their ships, they ventured on that perilous step without consulting them; and that on the other hand, wherever they had deliberated with the Lacedaemonians, they had proved themselves to be in judgment second to none.

6 That they now thought it fit that their city should have a wall, and that this would be more for the advantage of both the citizens of Athens and the Hellenic confederacy;

7 for without equal military strength it was impossible to contribute equal or fair counsel to the common interest. It followed, he observed, either that all the members of the confederacy should be without walls, or that the present step should be considered a right one.

Chapter 92

1 The Lacedaemonians did not betray any open signs of anger against the Athenians at what they heard. The embassy, it seems, was prompted not by a desire to obstruct, but to guide the counsels of their government: besides, Spartan feeling was at that time very friendly towards Athens on account of the patriotism which she had displayed in the struggle with the Mede. Still the defeat of their wishes could not but cause them secret annoyance. The envoys of each state departed home without complaint.

Chapter 93

1 In this way the Athenians walled their city in a little while.

2 To this day the building shows signs of the haste of its execution; the foundations are laid of stones of all kinds, and in some places not wrought or fitted, but placed just in the order in which they were brought by the different hands; and many columns, too, from tombs and sculptured stones were put in with the rest. For the bounds of the city were extended at every point of the circumference; and so they laid hands on everything without exception in their haste.

3 Themistocles also persuaded them to finish the walls of Piraeus, which had been begun before, in his year of office as archon; being influenced alike by the fineness of a locality that has three natural harbors, and by the great start which the Athenians would gain in the acquisition of power by becoming a naval people.

4 For he first ventured to tell them to stick to the sea and forthwith began to lay the foundations of the empire.

5 It was by his advice, too, that they built the walls of that thickness which can still be discerned round Piraeus, the stones being brought up by two wagons meeting each other. Between the walls thus formed there was neither rubble nor mortar, but great stones hewn square and fitted together, cramped to each other on the outside with iron and lead. About half the height that he intended was finished.

6 His idea was by their size and thickness to keep off the attacks of an enemy; he thought that they might be adequately defended by a small garrison of invalids, and the rest be freed for service in the fleet.

7 For the fleet claimed most of his attention. He saw, as I think, that the approach by sea was easier for the king's army than that by land: he also thought Piraeus more valuable than the upper city; indeed, he was always advising the Athenians, if a day should come when they were hard pressed by land, to go down into Piraeus, and defy the world with their fleet.

8 Thus, therefore, the Athenians completed their wall, and commenced their other buildings immediately after the retreat of the Mede.

Chapter 94

1 Meanwhile Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, was sent out from Lacedaemon as commander-in-chief of the Hellenes, with twenty ships from Peloponnese. With him sailed the Athenians with thirty ships, and a number of the other allies.

2 They made an expedition against Cyprus and subdued most of the island, and afterwards against Byzantium, which was in the hands of the Medes, and compelled it to surrender. This event took place while the Spartans were still supreme.

Chapter 95

1 But the violence of Pausanias had already begun to be disagreeable to the Hellenes, particularly to the Ionians and the newly liberated populations. These resorted to the Athenians and requested them as their kinsmen to become their leaders, and to stop any attempt at violence on the part of Pausanias.

2 The Athenians accepted their overtures, and determined to put down any attempt of the kind and to settle everything else as their interests might seem to demand.

3 In the meantime the Lacedaemonians recalled Pausanias for an investigation of the reports which had reached them. Manifold and grave accusations had been brought against him by Hellenes arriving in Sparta; and, to all appearance, there had been in him more of the mimicry of a despot than of the attitude of a general.

4 As it happened, his recall came just at the time when the hatred which he had inspired had induced the allies to desert him, the soldiers from Peloponnese excepted, and to range themselves by the side of the Athenians.

5 On his arrival at Lacedaemon, he was censured for his private acts of oppression, but was acquitted on the heaviest counts and pronounced not guilty; it must be known that the charge of Medism formed one of the principal, and to all appearance one of the best-founded articles against him.

6 The Lacedaemonians did not, however, restore him to his command, but sent out Dorkis and certain others with a small force; who found the allies no longer inclined to concede to them the supremacy.

7 Perceiving this they departed, and the Lacedaemonians did not send out any to succeed them. They feared for those who went out a deterioration similar to that observable in Pausanias; besides, they desired to be rid of the Median war, and were satisfied of the competency of the Athenians for the position, and of their friendship at the time towards themselves.

Chapter 96

1 The Athenians having thus succeeded to the supremacy by the voluntary act of the allies through their hatred of Pausanias, fixed which cities were to contribute money against the barbarian, which ships; their professed object being to retaliate for their sufferings by ravaging the king's country.

2 Now was the time that the office of ‘Treasurers for Hellas’ was first instituted by the Athenians. These officers received the tribute, as the money contributed was called. The tribute was first fixed at four hundred and sixty talents. The common treasury was at Delos, and the congresses were held in the temple.

Chapter 97

1 Their supremacy commenced with independent allies who acted on the resolutions of a common congress. It was marked by the following undertakings in war and in administration during the interval between the Median and the present war, against the barbarian, against their own rebel allies, and against the Peloponnesian powers which would come in contact with them on various occasions.

2 My excuse for relating these events, and for venturing on this digression, is that this passage of history has been omitted by all my predecessors, who have confined themselves either to Hellenic history before the Median war, or to the Median war itself. Hellanicus, it is true, did touch on these events in his Athenian history; but he is somewhat concise and not accurate in his dates. Besides, the history of these events contains an explanation of the growth of the Athenian empire.

Chapter 98

1 First the Athenians besieged and captured Eion on the Strymon from the Medes, and made slaves of the inhabitants, being under the command of Cimon, son of Miltiades.

2 Next they enslaved Scyros the island in the Aegean, containing a Dolopian population, and colonized it themselves.

3 This was followed by a war against Carystus, in which the rest of Euboea remained neutral, and which was ended by surrender on conditions.

4 After this Naxos left the confederacy, and a war ensued, and she had to return after a siege; this was the first instance of the engagement being broken by the subjugation of an allied city, a precedent which was followed by that of the rest in the order which circumstances prescribed.

Chapter 99

1 Of all the causes of defection, that connected with arrears of tribute and vessels, and with failure of service, was the chief; for the Athenians were very severe and exacting, and made themselves offensive by applying the screw of necessity to men who were not used to and in fact not disposed for any continuous labour.

2 In some other respects the Athenians were not the old popular rulers they had been at first; and if they had more than their fair share of service, it was correspondingly easy for them to reduce any that tried to leave the confederacy.

3 For this the allies had themselves to blame; the wish to get off service making most of them arrange to pay their share of the expense in money instead of in ships, and so to avoid having to leave their homes. Thus while Athens was increasing her navy with the funds which they contributed, a revolt always found them without resources or experience for war.

Chapter 100

1 Next we come to the actions by land and by sea at the river Eurymedon in Pamphylia, between the Athenians with their allies, and the Medes, when the Athenians won both battles on the same day under the conduct of Cimon, son of Miltiades, and captured and destroyed the whole Phoenician fleet, consisting of two hundred vessels.

2 Some time afterwards occurred the defection of the Thasians, caused by disagreements about the marts on the opposite coast of Thrace, and about the mine in their possession. Sailing with a fleet to Thasos, the Athenians defeated them at sea and effected a landing on the island.

3 About the same time they sent ten thousand settlers of their own citizens and the allies to settle the place then called Ennea Hodoi or Nine Ways, now Amphipolis. They succeeded in gaining possession of Ennea Hodoi from the Edonians, but on advancing into the interior of Thrace were cut off in Drabescus, a town of the Edonians, by the assembled Thracians, who regarded the settlement of the place Ennea Hodoi as an act of hostility.

Chapter 101

1 Meanwhile the Thasians being defeated in the field and suffering siege, appealed to Lacedaemon, and desired her to assist them by an invasion of Attica.

2 Without informing Athens she promised and intended to do so, but was prevented by the occurrence of the earthquake, accompanied by the secession of the Helots and the Thuriats and Aethaeans of the Perioeci to Ithome. Most of the Helots were the descendants of the old Messenians that were enslaved in the famous war; and so all of them came to be called Messenians.

3 So the Lacedaemonians being engaged in a war with the rebels in Ithome, the Thasians in the third year of the siege obtained terms from the Athenians by razing their walls, delivering up their ships, and arranging to pay the monies demanded at once, and tribute in future; giving up their possessions on the continent together with the mine.

Chapter 102

1 The Lacedaemonians meanwhile finding the war against the rebels in Ithome likely to last, invoked the aid of their allies, and especially of the Athenians, who came in some force under the command of Cimon.

2 The reason for this pressing summons lay in their reputed skill in siege operations; a long siege had taught the Lacedaemonians their own deficiency in this art, else they would have taken the place by assault.

3 The first open quarrel between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians arose out of this expedition. The Lacedaemonians, when assault failed to take the place, apprehensive of the enterprising and revolutionary character of the Athenians, and further looking upon them as of alien extraction, began to fear that if they remained, they might be tempted by the besieged in Ithome to attempt some political changes. They accordingly dismissed them alone of the allies, without declaring their suspicions, but merely saying that they had now no need of them.

4 But the Athenians, aware that their dismissal did not proceed from the more honorable reason of the two, but from suspicions which had been conceived, went away deeply offended, and conscious of having done nothing to merit such treatment from the Lacedaemonians; and the instant that they returned home they broke off the alliance which had been made against the Mede, and allied themselves with Sparta's enemy Argos; each of the contracting parties taking the same oaths and making the same alliance with the Thessalians.

Chapter 103

1 Meanwhile the rebels in Ithome, unable to prolong further a ten years' resistance, surrendered to Lacedaemon; the conditions being that they should depart from Peloponnese under safe conduct, and should never set foot in it again:

2 any one who might hereafter be found there was to be the slave of his captor. It must be known that the Lacedaemonians had an old oracle from Delphi, to the effect that they should let go the suppliant of Zeus at Ithome.

3 So they went forth with their children and their wives, and being received by Athens from the hatred that she now felt for the Lacedaemonians, were located at Naupactus, which she had lately taken from the Ozolian Locrians.

4 The Athenians received another addition to their confederacy in the Megarians; who left the Lacedaemonian alliance, annoyed by a war about boundaries forced on them by Corinth. The Athenians occupied Megara and Pegae, and built the Megarians their long walls from the city to Nisaea, in which they placed an Athenian garrison. This was the principal cause of the Corinthians conceiving such a deadly hatred against Athens.

Chapter 104

1 Meanwhile Inaros, son of Psammetichus, a Libyan king of the Libyans on the Egyptian border, having his head-quarters at Marea, the town above Pharos, caused a revolt of almost the whole of Egypt from King Artaxerxes, and placing himself at its head, invited the Athenians to his assistance.

2 Abandoning a Cyprian expedition upon which they happened to be engaged with two hundred ships of their own and their allies, they arrived in Egypt and sailed from the sea into the Nile, and making themselves masters of the river and two-thirds of Memphis, addressed themselves to the attack of the remaining third, which is called White Castle. Within it were Persians and Medes who had taken refuge there, and Egyptians who had not joined the rebellion.

Chapter 105

1 Meanwhile the Athenians, making a descent from their fleet upon Haliae, were engaged by a force of Corinthians and Epidaurians; and the Corinthians were victorious. Afterwards the Athenians engaged the Peloponnesian fleet off Cecruphalia; and the Athenians were victorious.

2 Subsequently war broke out between Aegina and Athens, and there was a great battle at sea off Aegina between the Athenians and Aeginetans, each being aided by their allies; in which victory remained with the Athenians, who took seventy of the enemy's ships, and landed in the country and commenced a siege under the command of Leocrates, son of Stroebus.

3 Upon this the Peloponnesians, desirous of aiding the Aeginetans, threw into Aegina a force of three hundred heavy infantry, who had before been serving with the Corinthians and Epidaurians. Meanwhile the Corinthians and their allies occupied the heights of Geraneia, and marched down into the Megarid, in the belief that with a large force absent in Aegina and Egypt, Athens would be unable to help the Megarians without raising the siege of Aegina.

4 But the Athenians, instead of moving the army of Aegina, raised a force of the old and young men that had been left in the city, and marched into the Megarid under the command of Myronides.

5 After a drawn battle with the Corinthians, the rival hosts parted, each with the impression that they had gained the victory.

6 The Athenians, however, if anything, had rather the advantage, and on the departure of the Corinthians set up a trophy. Urged by the taunts of the elders in their city, the Corinthians made their preparations, and about twelve days afterwards came and set up their trophy as victors. Sallying out from Megara, the Athenians cut off the party that was employed in erecting the trophy, and engaged and defeated the rest.

Chapter 106

1 In the retreat of the vanquished army, a considerable division, pressed by the pursuers and mistaking the road, dashed into a field on some private property, with a deep trench all round it, and no way out.

2 Being acquainted with the place, the Athenians hemmed their front with heavy infantry, and placing the light troops round in a circle, stoned all who had gone in. Corinth here suffered a severe blow. The bulk of her army continued its retreat home.

Chapter 107

1 About this time the Athenians began to build the long walls to the sea, that towards Phalerum and that towards Piraeus.

2 Meanwhile the Phocians made an expedition against Doris, the old home of the Lacedaemonians, containing the towns of Boeum, Kitinium, and Erineum. They had taken one of these towns, when the Lacedaemonians under Nicomedes, son of Cleombrotus, commanding for King Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, who was still a minor, came to the aid of the Dorians with fifteen hundred heavy infantry of their own, and ten thousand of their allies. After compelling the Phocians to restore the town on conditions, they began their retreat.

3 The route by sea, across the Crissaean gulf, exposed them to the risk of being stopped by the Athenian fleet; that across Geraneia seemed scarcely safe, the Athenians holding Megara and Pegae. For the pass was a difficult one, and was always guarded by the Athenians; and, in the present instance, the Lacedaemonians had information that they meant to dispute their passage.

4 So they resolved to remain in Boeotia, and to consider which would be the safest line of march. They had also another reason for this resolve. Secret encouragement had been given them by a party in Athens, who hoped to put an end to the reign of democracy and the building of the long walls.

5 Meanwhile the Athenians marched against them with their whole levy and a thousand Argives and the respective contingents of the rest of their allies. Altogether they were fourteen thousand strong.

6 The march was prompted by the notion that the Lacedaemonians were at a loss how to effect their passage, and also by suspicions of an attempt to overthrow the democracy.

7 Some cavalry also joined the Athenians from their Thessalian allies; but these went over to the Lacedaemonians during the battle.

Chapter 108

1 The battle was fought at Tanagra in Boeotia. After heavy loss on both sides victory declared for the Lacedaemonians and their allies.

2 After entering the Megarid and cutting down the fruit trees, the Lacedaemonians returned home across Geraneia and the isthmus. Sixty-two days after the battle the Athenians marched into Boeotia under the command of Myronides,

3 defeated the Boeotians in battle at Oenophyta, and became masters of Boeotia and Phocis. They dismantled the walls of the Tanagraeans, took a hundred of the richest men of the Opuntian Locrians as hostages, and finished their own long walls.

4 This was followed by the surrender of the Aeginetans to Athens on conditions; they pulled down their walls, gave up their ships, and agreed to pay tribute in future.

5 The Athenians sailed round Peloponnese under Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus, burnt the arsenal of Lacedaemon, took Chalcis, a town of the Corinthians, and in a descent upon Sicyon defeated the Sicyonians in battle.

Chapter 109

1 Meanwhile the Athenians in Egypt and their allies were still there, and encountered all the vicissitudes of war.

2 First the Athenians were masters of Egypt, and the king sent Megabyzus, a Persian, to Lacedaemon with money to bribe the Peloponnesians to invade Attica and so draw off the Athenians from Egypt.

3 Finding that the matter made no progress, and that the money was only being wasted, he recalled Megabazus with the remainder of the money, and sent Megabuzus, son of Zopyrus, a Persian, with a large army to Egypt.

4 Arriving by land he defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a battle, and drove the Hellenes out of Memphis, and at length shut them up in the island of Prosopitis, where he besieged them for a year and six months. At last, draining the canal of its waters, which he diverted into another channel, he left their ships high and dry and joined most of the island to the mainland, and then marched over on foot and captured it.

Chapter 110

1 Thus the enterprise of the Hellenes came to ruin after six years of war. Of all that large host a few travelling through Libya reached Cyrene in safety, but most of them perished.

2 And thus Egypt returned to its subjection to the king, except Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes, whom they were unable to capture from the extent of the marsh; the marshmen being also the most warlike of the Egyptians.

3 Inaros, the Libyan king, the sole author of the Egyptian revolt, was betrayed, taken, and crucified.

4 Meanwhile a relieving squadron of fifty vessels had sailed from Athens and the rest of the confederacy for Egypt. They put in to shore at the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, in total ignorance of what had occurred. Attacked on the land side by the troops, and from the sea by the Phoenician navy, most of the ships were destroyed; the few remaining being saved by retreat.

5 Such was the end of the great expedition of the Athenians and their allies to Egypt.

Chapter 111

1 Meanwhile Orestes, son of Echecratidas, the Thessalian king, being an exile from Thessaly, persuaded the Athenians to restore him. Taking with them the Boeotians and Phocians their allies, the Athenians marched to Pharsalus in Thessaly. They became masters of the country, though only in the immediate vicinity of the camp; beyond which they could not go for fear of the Thessalian cavalry. But they failed to take the city or to attain any of the other objects of their expedition, and returned home with Orestes without having effected anything.

2 Not long after this a thousand of the Athenians embarked in the vessels that were at Pegae (Pegae, it must be remembered, was now theirs), and sailed along the coast to Sicyon under the command of Pericles, son of Xanthippus. Landing in Sicyon and defeating the Sicyonians who engaged them,

3 they immediately took with them the Achaeans, and sailing across, marched against and laid siege to Oeniadae in Acarnania. Failing however to take it, they returned home.

Chapter 112

1 Three years afterwards a truce was made between the Peloponnesians and Athenians for five years.

2 Released from Hellenic war, the Athenians made an expedition to Cyprus with two hundred vessels of their own and their allies, under the command of Cimon.

3 Sixty of these were detached to Egypt at the instance of Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes; the rest laid siege to Kitium, from which, however,

4 they were compelled to retire by the death of Cimon and by scarcity of provisions. Sailing off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought with the Phoenicians, Cyprians, and Cilicians by land and sea, and being victorious on both elements departed home, and with them the returned squadron from Egypt.

5 After this the Lacedaemonians marched out on a sacred war, and becoming masters of the temple at Delphi, placed it in the hands of the Delphians. Immediately after their retreat, the Athenians marched out, became masters of the temple, and placed it in the hands of the Phocians.

Chapter 113

1 Some time after this, Orchomenus, Chaeronea, and some other places in Boeotia, being in the hands of the Boeotian exiles, the Athenians marched against the above-mentioned hostile places with a thousand Athenian heavy infantry and the allied contingents, under the command of Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus. They took Chaeronea, and made slaves of the inhabitants, and leaving a garrison, commenced their return.

2 On their road they were attacked at Coronaea, by the Boeotian exiles from Orchomenus, with some Locrians and Euboean exiles, and others who were of the same way of thinking, were defeated in battle, and some killed, others taken captive.

3 The Athenians evacuated all Boeotia by a treaty providing for the recovery of the men;

4 and the exiled Boeotians returned, and with all the rest regained their independence.

Chapter 114

1 This was soon afterwards followed by the revolt of Euboea from Athens. Pericles had already crossed over with an army of Athenians to the island, when news was brought to him that Megara had revolted, that the Peloponnesians were on the point of invading Attica, and that the Athenian garrison had been cut off by the Megarians, with the exception of a few who had taken refuge in Nisaea. The Megarians had introduced the Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians into the town before they revolted. Meanwhile Pericles brought his army back in all haste from Euboea.

2 After this the Peloponnesians marched into Attica as far as Eleusis and Thrius, ravaging the country under the conduct of King Pleistoanax, the son of Pausanias, and without advancing further returned home.

3 The Athenians then crossed over again to Euboea under the command of Pericles, and subdued the whole of the island: all but Histiaea was settled by convention; the Histiaeans they expelled from their homes, and occupied their territory themselves.

Chapter 115

1 Not long after their return from Euboea, they made a truce with the Lacedaemonians and their allies for thirty years, giving up the posts which they occupied in Peloponnese, Nisaea Pegae, Troezen, and Achaia.

2 In the sixth year of the truce, war broke out between the Samians and Milesians about Priene. Worsted in the war, the Milesians came to Athens with loud complaints against the Samians. In this they were joined by certain private persons from Samos itself, who wished to revolutionize the government.

3 Accordingly the Athenians sailed to Samos with forty ships and set up a democracy; took hostages from the Samians, fifty boys and as many men, lodged them in Lemnos, and after leaving a garrison in the island returned home.

4 But some of the Samians had not remained in the island, but had fled to the continent. Making an agreement with the most powerful of those in the city, and an alliance with Pissuthnes, son of Hystaspes, the then satrap of Sardis, they got together a force of seven hundred mercenaries, and under cover of night crossed over to Samos.

5 Their first step was to rise on the commons, most of whom they secured, their next to steal their hostages from Lemnos; after which they revolted, gave up the Athenian garrison left with them and its commanders to Pissuthnes, and instantly prepared for an expedition against Miletus. The Byzantines also revolted with them.

Chapter 116

1 As soon as the Athenians heard the news, they sailed with sixty ships against Samos. Sixteen of these went to Caria to look out for the Phoenician fleet, and to Chios and Lesbos carrying round orders for reinforcements, and so never engaged; but forty-four ships under the command of Pericles with nine colleagues gave battle, off the island of Tragia, to seventy Samian vessels, of which twenty were transports, as they were sailing from Miletus. Victory remained with the Athenians.

2 Reinforced afterwards by forty ships from Athens, and twenty-five Chian and Lesbian vessels, the Athenians landed, and having the superiority by land invested the city with three walls; it was also invested from the sea.

3 Meanwhile Pericles took sixty ships from the blockading squadron, and departed in haste for Caunus and Caria, intelligence having been brought in of the approach of the Phoenician fleet to the aid of the Samians; indeed Stesagoras and others had left the island with five ships to bring them.

Chapter 117

1 But in the meantime the Samians made a sudden sally, and fell on the camp, which they found unfortified. Destroying the look-out vessels, and engaging and defeating such as were being launched to meet them, they remained masters of their own seas for fourteen days, and carried in and carried out what they pleased.

2 But on the arrival of Pericles, they were once more shut up. Fresh reinforcements afterwards arrived—forty ships from Athens with Thucydides, Hagnon, and Phormio; twenty with Tlepolemus and Anticles, and thirty vessels from Chios and Lesbos.

3 After a brief attempt at fighting, the Samians, unable to hold out, were reduced after a nine months' siege, and surrendered on conditions; they razed their walls, gave hostages, delivered up their ships, and arranged to pay the expenses of the war by instalments. The Byzantines also agreed to be subject as before.

Chapter 118

1 After this, though not many years later, we at length come to what has been already related, the affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea, and the events that served as a pretext for the present war.

2 All these actions of the Hellenes against each other and the barbarian occurred in the fifty years' interval between the retreat of Xerxes and the beginning of the present war. During this interval the Athenians succeeded in placing their empire on a firmer basis, and advanced their own home power to a very great height. The Lacedaemonians, though fully aware of it, opposed it only for a little while, but remained inactive during most of the period, being of old slow to go to war except under the pressure of necessity, and in the present instance being hampered by wars at home; until the growth of the Athenian power could be no longer ignored, and their own confederacy became the object of its encroachments. They then felt that they could endure it no longer, but that the time had come for them to throw themselves heart and soul upon the hostile power, and break it, if they could, by commencing the present war.

3 And though the Lacedaemonians had made up their own minds on the fact of the breach of the treaty and the guilt of the Athenians, yet they sent to Delphi and inquired of the god whether it would be well with them if they went to war; and, as it is reported, received from him the answer that if they put their whole strength into the war, victory would be theirs, and the promise that he himself would be with them, whether invoked or uninvoked.

Chapter 119

1 Still they wished to summon their allies again, and to take their vote on the propriety of making war. After the ambassadors from the confederates had arrived and a congress had been convened, they all spoke their minds, most of them denouncing the Athenians and demanding that the war should begin. In particular the Corinthians. They had before on their own account canvassed the cities in detail to induce them to vote for the war, in the fear that it might come too late to save Potidaea; they were present also on this occasion, and came forward the last, and made the following speech:—

Chapter 120

1 ‘Fellow allies, we can no longer accuse the Lacedaemonians of having failed in their duty: they have not only voted for war themselves, but have assembled us here for that purpose. We say their duty, for supremacy has its duties. Besides equitably administering private interests, leaders are required to show a special care for the common welfare in return for the special honors accorded to them by all in other ways.

2 For ourselves, all who have already had dealings with the Athenians require no warning to be on their guard against them. The states more inland and out of the highway of communication should understand that if they omit to support the coast powers, the result will be to injure the transit of their produce for exportation and the reception in exchange of their imports from the sea; and they must not be careless judges of what is now said, as if it had nothing to do with them, but must expect that the sacrifice of the powers on the coast will one day be followed by the extension of the danger to the interior, and must recognize that their own interests are deeply involved in this discussion.

3 For these reasons they should not hesitate to exchange peace for war. If wise men remain quiet, while they are not injured, brave men abandon peace for war when they are injured, returning to an understanding on a favorable opportunity: in fact, they are neither intoxicated by their success in war, nor disposed to take an injury for the sake of the delightful tranquillity of peace.

4 Indeed, to falter for the sake of such delights is, if you remain inactive, the quickest way of losing the sweets of repose to which you cling; while to conceive extravagant pretensions from success in war is to forget how hollow is the confidence by which you are elated.

5 For if many ill-conceived plans have succeeded through the still greater fatuity of an opponent, many more, apparently well laid, have on the contrary ended in disgrace. The confidence with which we form our schemes is never completely justified in their execution; speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes to action, fear causes failure.

Chapter 121

1 To apply these rules to ourselves, if we are now kindling war it is under the pressure of injury, and with adequate grounds of complaint; and after we have chastised the Athenians we will in season desist.

2 We have many reasons to expect success,—first, superiority in numbers and in military experience, and secondly our general and unvarying obedience in the execution of orders. The naval strength

3 which they possess shall be raised by us from our respective antecedent resources, and from the monies at Olympia and Delphi. A loan from these enables us to seduce their foreign sailors by the offer of higher pay. For the power of Athens is more mercenary than national; while ours will not be exposed to the same risk, as its strength lies more in men than in money.

4 A single defeat at sea is in all likelihood their ruin: should they hold out, in that case there will be the more time for us to exercise ourselves in naval matters; and as soon as we have arrived at an equality in science, we need scarcely ask whether we shall be their superiors in courage. For the advantages that we have by nature they cannot acquire by education; while their superiority in science must be removed by our practice.

5 The money required for these objects shall be provided by our contributions: nothing indeed could be more monstrous than the suggestion that, while their allies never tire of contributing for their own servitude, we should refuse to spend for vengeance and self-preservation the treasure which by such refusal we shall forfeit to Athenian rapacity, and see employed for our own ruin.

Chapter 122

1 We have also other ways of carrying on the war, such as revolt of their allies, the surest method of depriving them of their revenues, which are the source of their strength, and establishment of fortified positions in their country, and various operations which cannot be foreseen at present. For war of all things proceeds least upon definite rules, but draws principally upon itself for contrivances to meet an emergency; and in such cases the party who faces the struggle and keeps his temper best meets with most security, and he who loses his temper about it with correspondent disaster.

2 Let us also reflect that if it was merely a number of disputes of territory between rival neighbors, it might be borne; but here we have an enemy in Athens, that is a match for our whole coalition, and more than a match for any of its members; so that unless as a body and as individual nationalities and individual cities we make an unanimous stand against her, she will easily conquer us divided and in detail. That conquest, terrible as it may sound, would, it must be known, have no other end than slavery pure and simple;

3 a word which Peloponnese cannot even hear whispered without disgrace, or without disgrace see so many states abused by one. Meanwhile the opinion would be either that we were justly so used, or that we put up with it from cowardice, and were proving degenerate sons in not even securing for ourselves the freedom which our fathers gave to Hellas; and in allowing the establishment in Hellas of a tyrant state, though in individual states we think it our duty to put down sole rulers.

4 And we do not know how this conduct can be held free from three of the gravest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance. For we do not suppose that you have taken refuge in that contempt of an enemy which has proved so fatal in so many instances,—a feeling which from the numbers that it has ruined has come to be called, not contemptuous but contemptible.

Chapter 123

1 There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that what was won in want should be lost in plenty. No, we must boldly advance to the war for many reasons; the god has commanded it and promised to be with us, and the rest of Hellas will all join in the struggle, part from fear, part from interest.

2 You will not be the first to break a treaty which the god, in advising us to go to war, judges to be violated already, but rather to support a treaty that has been outraged: indeed, treaties are broken not by resistance but by aggression.

Chapter 124

1 Your position, therefore, from whatever quarter you may view it, will amply justify you in going to war; and this step we recommend in the interests of all, bearing in mind that identity of interests is the surest of bonds whether between states or individuals. Delay not, therefore, to assist Potidaea, a Dorian city besieged by Ionians, which is quite a reversal of the order of things; nor to assert the freedom of the rest. It is impossible for us to wait any longer when waiting can only mean immediate disaster for some of us, and, if it comes to be known that we have conferred but do not venture to protect ourselves, like disaster in the near future for the rest.

2 Delay not, fellow allies, but convinced of the necessity of the crisis and the wisdom of this counsel, vote for the war, undeterred by its immediate terrors, but looking beyond to the lasting peace by which it will be succeeded. Out of war peace gains fresh stability, but to refuse to abandon repose for war is not so sure a method of avoiding danger.

3 We must believe that the tyrant city that has been established in Hellas has been established against all alike, with a programme of universal empire, part fulfilled, part in contemplation; let us then attack and reduce it, and win future security for ourselves and freedom for the Hellenes who are now enslaved.’Such were the words of the Corinthians.

Chapter 125

1 The Lacedaemonians having now heard all give their opinion, took the vote of all the allied states present in order, great and small alike; and the majority voted for war.

2 This decided, it was still impossible for them to commence at once, from their want of preparation; but it was resolved that the means requisite were to be procured by the different states, and that there was to be no delay. And indeed, in spite of the time occupied with the necessary arrangements, less than a year elapsed before Attica was invaded, and the war openly begun.

Chapter 126

1 This interval was spent in sending embassies to Athens charged with complaints, in order to obtain as good a pretext for war as possible, in the event of her paying no attention to them.

2 The first Lacedaemonian embassy was to order the Athenians to drive out the curse of the goddess; the history of which is as follows.

3 In former generations there was an Athenian of the name of Cylon, a victor at the Olympic games, of good birth and powerful position, who had married a daughter of Theagenes, a Megarian, at that time tyrant of Megara.

4 Now this Cylon was inquiring at Delphi; when he was told by the god to seize the Acropolis of Athens on the grand festival of Zeus.

5 Accordingly, procuring a force from Theagenes and persuading his friends to join him, when the Olympic festival in Peloponnese came, he seized the Acropolis, with the intention of making himself tyrant, thinking that this was the grand festival of Zeus, and also an occasion appropriate for a victor at the Olympic games.

6 Whether the grand festival that was meant was in Attica or elsewhere was a question which he never thought of, and which the oracle did not offer to solve. For the Athenians also have a festival which is called the grand festival of Zeus Meilichios or Gracious, viz. the Diasia. It is celebrated outside the city, and the whole people sacrifice not real victims but a number of bloodless offerings peculiar to the country. However, fancying he had chosen the right time, he made the attempt.

7 As soon as the Athenians perceived it, they flocked in, one and all, from the country, and sat down, and laid siege to the citadel.

8 But as time went on, weary of the labour of blockade, most of them departed; the responsibility of keeping guard being left to the nine archons, with plenary powers to arrange everything according to their good judgment. It must be known that at that time most political functions were discharged by the nine archons.

9 Meanwhile Cylon and his besieged companions were distressed for want of food and water.

10 Accordingly Cylon and his brother made their escape; but the rest being hard pressed, and some even dying of famine, seated themselves as suppliants at the altar in the Acropolis.

11 The Athenians who were charged with the duty of keeping guard, when they saw them at the point of death in the temple, raised them up on the understanding that no harm should be done to them, led them out and slew them. Some who as they passed by took refuge at the altars of the awful goddesses were despatched on the spot. From this deed the men who killed them were called accursed and guilty against the goddess, they and their descendants.

12 Accordingly these cursed ones were driven out by the Athenians, driven out again by Cleomenes of Lacedaemon and an Athenian faction; the living were driven out, and the bones of the dead were taken up; thus they were cast out. For all that, they came back afterwards, and their descendants are still in the city.

Chapter 127

1 This, then, was the curse that the Lacedaemonians ordered them to drive out. They were actuated primarily, as they pretended, by a care for the honor of the gods; but they also knew that Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was connected with the curse on his mother's side, and they thought that his banishment would materially advance their designs on Athens

2 Not that they really hoped to succeed in procuring this; they rather thought to create a prejudice against him in the eyes of his countrymen from the feeling that the war would be partly caused by his misfortune.

3 For being the most powerful man of his time, and the leading Athenian statesman, he opposed the Lacedaemonians in everything, and would have no concessions, but ever urged the Athenians on to war.

Chapter 128

1 The Athenians retorted by ordering the Lacedaemonians to drive out the curse of Taenarus. The Lacedaemonians had once raised up some Helot suppliants from the temple of Poseidon at Taenarus, led them away and slain them; for which they believe the great earthquake at Sparta to have been a retribution.

2 The Athenians also ordered them to drive out the curse of the goddess of the Brazen House; the history of which is as follows.

3 After Pausanias the Lacedaemonian had been recalled by the Spartans from his command in the Hellespont (this is his first recall), and had been tried by them and acquitted, not being again sent out in a public capacity, he took a galley of Hermione on his own responsibility, without the authority of the Lacedaemonians, and arrived as a private person in the Hellespont. He came ostensibly for the Hellenic war, really to carry on his intrigues with the king, which he had begun before his recall, being ambitious of reigning over Hellas.

4 The circumstance which first enabled him to lay the king under an obligation, and to make a beginning of the whole design was this.

5 Some connections and kinsmen of the king had been taken in Byzantium, on its capture from the Medes, when he was first there, after the return from Cyprus. These captives he sent off to the king without the knowledge of the rest of the allies, the account being that they had escaped from him.

6 He managed this with the help of Gongylus, an Eretrian, whom he had placed in charge of Byzantium and the prisoners. He also gave Gongylus a letter for the king, the contents of which were as follows, as was afterwards discovered:

7 ‘Pausanias, the general of Sparta, anxious to do you a favour, sends you these his prisoners of war. I propose also, with your approval, to marry your daughter, and to make Sparta and the rest of Hellas subject to you. I may say that I think I am able to do this, with your co-operation. Accordingly if any of this please you, send a safe man to the sea through whom we may in future conduct our correspondence.’

Chapter 129

1 This was all that was revealed in the writing, and Xerxes was pleased with the letter. He sent off Artabazus, son of Pharnaces, to the sea with orders to supersede Megabates, the previous governor in the satrapy of Daskylion, and to send over as quickly as possible to Pausanias at Byzantium a letter which he entrusted to him; to show him the royal signet, and to execute any commission which he might receive from Pausanias on the king's matters, with all care and fidelity.

2 Artabazus on his arrival carried the king's orders into effect, and sent over the letter,

3 which contained the following answer:—‘Thus saith King Xerxes to Pausanias. For the men whom you have saved for me across sea from Byzantium, an obligation is laid up for you in our house, recorded forever; and with your proposals I am well pleased. Let neither night nor day stop you from diligently performing any of your promises to me, neither for cost of gold nor of silver let them be hindered, nor yet for number of troops, wherever it may be that their presence is needed; but with Artabazus, an honorable man whom I send you, boldly advance my objects and yours, as may be most for the honor and interest of us both.’

Chapter 130

1 Before held in high honor by the Hellenes as the hero of Plataea, Pausanias, after the receipt of this letter, became prouder than ever, and could no longer live in the usual style, but went out of Byzantium in a Median dress, was attended on his march through Thrace by a bodyguard of Medes and Egyptians, kept a Persian table, and was quite unable to contain his intentions, but betrayed by his conduct in trifles what his ambition looked one day to enact on a grander scale.

2 He also made himself difficult of access, and displayed so violent a temper to every one without exception that no one could come near him. Indeed, this was the principal reason why the confederacy went over to the Athenians.

Chapter 131

1 The above-mentioned conduct, coming to the ears of the Lacedaemonians, occasioned his first recall. And after his second voyage out in the ship of Hermione, without their orders, he gave proofs of similar behavior. Besieged and expelled from Byzantium by the Athenians, he did not return to Sparta; but news came that he had settled at Colonae in the Troad, and was intriguing with the barbarians, and that his stay there was for no good purpose; and the Ephors, now no longer hesitating, sent him a herald and a scytale with orders to accompany the herald or be declared a public enemy.

2 Anxious above everything to avoid suspicion, and confident that he could quash the charge by means of money, he returned a second time to Sparta. At first thrown into prison by the Ephors (whose powers enable them to do this to the king), he soon compromised the matter and came out again, and offered himself for trial to any who wished to institute an inquiry concerning him.

Chapter 132

1 Now the Spartans had no tangible proof against him—neither his enemies nor the nation—of that indubitable kind required for the punishment of a member of the royal family, and at that moment in high office; he being regent for his first cousin King Pleistarchus, Leonidas' son, who was still a minor. But by his contempt of the laws and imitation of the barbarians,

2 he gave grounds for much suspicion of his being discontented with things established; all the occasions on which he had in any way departed from the regular customs were passed in review, and it was remembered that he had taken upon himself to have inscribed on the tripod at Delphi, which was dedicated by the Hellenes as the first-fruits of the spoil of the Medes, the following couplet:— / The Mede defeated, great Pausanias raised / This monument, that Phoebus might be praised.

3 At the time the Lacedaemonians had at once erased the couplet, and inscribed the names of the cities that had aided in the overthrow of the barbarian and dedicated the offering. Yet it was considered that Pausanias had here been guilty of a grave offence, which, interpreted by the light of the attitude which he had since assumed, gained a new significance, and seemed to be quite in keeping with his present schemes.

4 Besides, they were informed that he was even intriguing with the Helots; and such indeed was the fact, for he promised them freedom and citizenship if they would join him in insurrection, and would help him to carry out his plans to the end.

5 Even now, mistrusting the evidence even of the Helots themselves, the Ephors would not consent to take any decided step against him; in accordance with their regular custom towards themselves, namely, to be slow in taking any irrevocable resolve in the matter of a Spartan citizen, without indisputable proof. At last, it is said, the person who was going to carry to Artabazus the last letter for the king, a man of Argilus, once the favorite and most trusty servant of Pausanias, turned informer. Alarmed by the reflection that none of the previous messengers had ever returned, having counterfeited the seal, in order that, if he found himself mistaken in his surmises, or if Pausanias should ask to make some correction, he might not be discovered, he undid the letter, and found the postscript that he had suspected, viz., an order to put him to death.

Chapter 133

1 On being shown the letter the Ephors now felt more certain. Still, they wished to hear Pausanias commit himself with their own ears. Accordingly the man went by appointment to Taenarus as a suppliant, and there built himself a hut divided into two by a partition; within which he concealed some of the Ephors and let them hear the whole matter plainly. For Pausanias came to him and asked him the reason of his suppliant position; and the man reproached him with the order that he had written concerning him, and one by one declared all the rest of the circumstances, how he who had never yet brought him into any danger, while employed as agent between him and the king, was yet just like the mass of his servants, to be rewarded with death. Admitting all this, and telling him not to be angry about the matter, Pausanias gave him the pledge of raising him up from the temple, and begged him to set off as quickly as possible, and not to hinder the business in hand.

Chapter 134

1 The Ephors listened carefully, and then departed, taking no action for the moment, but, having at last attained to certainty, were preparing to arrest him in the city. It is reported that, as he was about to be arrested in the street, he saw from the face of one of the Ephors what he was coming for; another, too, made him a secret signal, and betrayed it to him from kindness. Setting off with a run for the temple of the goddess of the Brazen House, the enclosure of which was near at hand, he succeeded in taking sanctuary before they took him, and entering into a small chamber, which formed part of the temple, to avoid being exposed to the weather, lay still there.

2 The Ephors, for the moment distanced in the pursuit, afterwards took off the roof of the chamber, and having made sure that he was inside, shut him in, barricaded the doors, and staying before the place, reduced him by starvation.

3 When they found that he was on the point of expiring, just as he was, in the chamber, they brought him out of the temple, while the breath was still in him, and as soon as he was brought out he died.

4 They were going to throw him into the Kaiadas, where they cast criminals, but finally decided to inter him somewhere near. But the god at Delphi afterwards ordered the Lacedaemonians to remove the tomb to the place of his death—where he now lies in the consecrated ground, as an inscription on a monument declares—and, as what had been done was a curse to them, to give back two bodies instead of one to the goddess of the Brazen House. So they had two brazen statues made, and dedicated them as a substitute for Pausanias.

Chapter 135

1 Accordingly the Athenians retorted by telling the Lacedaemonians to drive out what the god himself had pronounced to be a curse.

2 To return to the Medism of Pausanias. Matter was found in the course of the inquiry to implicate Themistocles; and the Lacedaemonians accordingly sent envoys to the Athenians, and required them to punish him as they had punished Pausanias. The Athenians consented to do so.

3 But he had, as it happened, been ostracized, and, with a residence at Argos, was in the habit of visiting other parts of Peloponnese. So they sent with the Lacedaemonians, who were ready to join in the pursuit, persons with instructions to take him wherever they found him.

Chapter 136

1 But Themistocles got scent of their intentions, and fled from Peloponnese to Corcyra, which was under obligations towards him. But the Corcyraeans alleged that they could not venture to shelter him at the cost of offending Athens and Lacedaemon, and they conveyed him over to the continent opposite.

2 Pursued by the officers who hung on the report of his movements, at a loss where to turn, he was compelled to stop at the house of Admetus, the Molossian king, though they were not on friendly terms.

3 Admetus happened not to be indoors, but his wife, to whom he made himself a suppliant, instructed him to take their child in his arms and sit down by the hearth.

4 Soon afterwards Admetus came in, and Themistocles told him who he was, and begged him not to revenge on Themistocles in exile any opposition which his requests might have experienced from Themistocles at Athens. Indeed, he was now far too low for his revenge; retaliation was only honorable between equals. Besides, his opposition to the king had only affected the success of a request, not the safety of his person; if the king were to give him up to the pursuers that he mentioned, and the fate which they intended for him, he would just be consigning him to certain death.

Chapter 137

1 The king listened to him and raised him up with his son, as he was sitting with him in his arms after the most effectual method of supplication, and on the arrival of the Lacedaemonians not long afterwards, refused to give him up for anything they could say, but sent him off by land to the other sea to Pydna in Alexander's dominions, as he wished to go to the Persian king.

2 There he met with a merchantman on the point of starting for Ionia. Going on board, he was carried by a storm to the Athenian squadron which was blockading Naxos. In his alarm—he was luckily unknown to the people in the vessel—he told the master who he was and what he was flying for, and said that, if he refused to save him, he would declare that he was taking him for a bribe. Meanwhile their safety consisted in letting no one leave the ship until a favorable time for sailing should arise. If he complied with his wishes, he promised him a proper recompense. The master acted as he desired, and, after lying to for a day a night out of the reach of the squadron, at length arrived at Ephesus.

3 After having rewarded him with a present of money, as soon as he received some from his friends at Athens and from his secret hoards at Argos, Themistocles started inland with one of the Coast-Persians, and sent a letter to King Artaxerxes, Xerxes' son, who had just come to the throne.

4 Its contents were as follows: ‘I, Themistocles, am come to you, who did your house more harm than any of the Hellenes, when I was compelled to defend myself against your father's invasion,—harm, however, far surpassed by the good that I did him during his retreat, which brought no danger for me but much for him. For the past, you are a good turn in my debt,’—here he mentioned the warning sent to Xerxes from Salamis to retreat, as well as his finding the bridges unbroken, which, as he falsely pretended, was due to him,—‘for the present, able to do you great service, I am here, pursued by the Hellenes for my friendship for you. However, I desire a year's grace, when I shall be able to declare in person the objects of my coming.’

Chapter 138

1 It is said that the king approved his intention, and told him to do as he said. He employed the interval in making what progress he could in the study of the Persian tongue, and of the customs of the country.

2 Arrived at Court at the end of the year, he attained to very high consideration there, such as no Hellene has ever possessed before or since; partly from his splendid antecedents, partly from the hopes which he held out of effecting for him the subjugation of Hellas, but principally by the proof which experience daily gave of his capacity.

3 For Themistocles was a man who exhibited the most indubitable signs of genius; indeed, in this particular he has a claim on our admiration quite extraordinary and unparalleled. By his own native capacity, alike unformed and unsupplemented by study, he was at once the best judge in those sudden crises which admit of little or of no deliberation, and the best prophet of the future, even to its most distant possibilities. An able theoretical expositor of all that came within the sphere of his practice, he was not without the power of passing an adequate judgment in matters in which he had no experience. He could also excellently divine the good and evil which lay hid in the unseen future. In fine, whether we consider the extent of his natural powers, or the slightness of his application, this extraordinary man must be allowed to have surpassed all others in the faculty of intuitively meeting an emergency.

4 Disease was the real cause of his death; though there is a story of his having ended his life by poison, on finding himself unable to fulfil his promises to the king.

5 However this may be, there is a monument to him in the market-place of Asiatic Magnesia. He was governor of the district, the king having given him Magnesia, which brought in fifty talents a year, for bread, Lampsacus, which was considered to be the richest wine country, for wine, and Myus for other provisions.

6 His bones, it is said, were conveyed home by his relatives in accordance with his wishes, and interred in Attic ground. This was done without the knowledge of the Athenians; as it is against the law to bury in Attica an outlaw for treason. So ends the history of Pausanias and Themistocles, the Lacedaemonian and the Athenian, the most famous men of their time in Hellas.

Chapter 139

1 To return to the Lacedaemonians. The history of their first embassy, the injunctions which it conveyed, and the rejoinder which it provoked, concerning the expulsion of the accursed persons, have been related already. It was followed by a second, which ordered Athens to raise the siege of Potidaea, and to respect the independence of Aegina. Above all, it gave her most distinctly to understand that war might be prevented by the revocation of the Megara decree, excluding the Megarians from the use of Athenian harbors and of the market of Athens.

2 But Athens was not inclined either to revoke the decree, or to entertain their other proposals; she accused the Megarians of pushing their cultivation into the consecrated ground and the unenclosed land on the border, and of harboring her runaway slaves.

3 At last an embassy arrived with the Lacedaemonian ultimatum. The ambassadors were Rhamphias, Melesippus, and Agesander. Not a word was said on any of the old subjects; there was simply this:— ‘Lacedaemon wishes the peace to continue, and there is no reason why it should not, if you would leave the Hellenes independent. Upon this the Athenians held an assembly, and laid the matter before their consideration. It was resolved to deliberate once for all on all their demands, and to give them an answer.

4 There were many speakers who came forward and gave their support to one side or the other, urging the necessity of war, or the revocation of the decree and the folly of allowing it to stand in the way of peace. Among them came forward Pericles, son of Xanthippus, the first man of his time at Athens, ablest alike in counsel and in action, and gave the following advice:—

Chapter 140

1 ‘There is one principle, Athenians, which I hold to through everything, and that is the principle of no concession to the Peloponnesians. I know that the spirit which inspires men while they are being persuaded to make war, is not always retained in action; that as circumstances change, resolutions change. Yet I see that now as before the same, almost literally the same, counsel is demanded of me; and I put it to those of you, who are allowing yourselves to be persuaded, to support the national resolves even in the case of reverses, or to forfeit all credit for their wisdom in the event of success. For sometimes the course of things is as arbitrary as the plans of man; indeed this is why we usually blame chance for whatever does not happen as we expected.

2 Now it was clear before, that Lacedaemon entertained designs against us; it is still more clear now. The treaty provides that we shall mutually submit our differences to legal settlement, and that we shall meanwhile each keep what we have. Yet the Lacedaemonians never yet made us any such offer, never yet would accept from us any such offer; on the contrary, they wish complaints to be settled by war instead of by negotiation; and in the end we find them here dropping the tone of expostulation and adopting that of command.

3 They order us to raise the siege of Potidaea, to let Aegina be independent, to revoke the Megara decree; and they conclude with an ultimatum warning us to leave the Hellenes independent.

4 I hope that you will none of you think that we shall be going to war for a trifle if we refuse to revoke the Megara decree, which appears in front of their complaints, and the revocation of which is to save us from war, or let any feeling of self-reproach linger in your minds, as if you went to war for slight cause.

5 Why, this trifle contains the whole seal and trial of your resolution. If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into obedience in the first instance; while a firm refusal will make them clearly understand that they must treat you more as equals.

Chapter 141

1 Make your decision therefore at once, either to submit before you are harmed, or if we are to go to war, as I for one think we ought, to do so without caring whether the ostensible cause be great or small, resolved against making concessions or consenting to a precarious tenure of our possessions. For all claims from an equal, urged upon a neighbor as commands, before any attempt at legal settlement, be they great or be they small, have only one meaning, and that is slavery.

2 As to the war and the resources of either party, a detailed comparison will not show you the inferiority of Athens.

3 Personally engaged in the cultivation of their land, without funds either private or public, the Peloponnesians are also without experience in long wars across sea, from the strict limit which poverty imposes on their attacks upon each other.

4 Powers of this description are quite incapable of often manning a fleet or often sending out an army: they cannot afford the absence from their homes, the expenditure from their own funds; and besides, they have not command of the sea.

5 Capital, it must be remembered, maintains a war more than forced contributions. Farmers are a class of men that are always more ready to serve in person than in purse. Confident that the former will survive the dangers, they are by no means so sure that the latter will not be prematurely exhausted, especially if the war last longer than they expect, which it very likely will.

6 In a single battle the Peloponnesians and their allies may be able to defy all Hellas, but they are incapacitated from carrying on a war against a power different in character from their own, by the want of the single council-chamber requisite to prompt and vigorous action, and the substitution of a diet composed of various races, in which every state possesses an equal vote, and each presses its own ends, a condition of things which generally results in no action at all.

7 The great wish of some is to avenge themselves on some particular enemy, the great wish of others to save their own pocket. Slow in assembling, they devote a very small fraction of the time to the consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come of his neglect, that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the common cause imperceptibly decays.

Chapter 142

1 But the principal point is the hindrance that they will experience from want of money. The slowness with which it comes in will cause delay; but the opportunities of war wait for no man.

2 Again, we need not be alarmed either at the possibility of their raising fortifications in Attica, or at their navy.

3 It would be difficult for any system of fortifications to establish a rival city, even in time of peace, much more, surely, in an enemy's country, with Athens just as much fortified against it, as it against Athens;

4 while a mere post might be able to do some harm to the country by incursions and by the facilities which it would afford for desertion, but can never prevent our sailing into their country and raising fortifications there, and making reprisals with our powerful fleet.

5 For our naval skill is of more use to us for service on land, than their military skill for service at sea.

6 Familiarity with the sea they will not find an easy acquisition.

7 If you who have been practising at it ever since the Median invasion have not yet brought it to perfection, is there any chance of anything considerable being effected by an agricultural, unseafaring population, who will besides be prevented from practising by the constant presence of strong squadrons of observation from Athens?

8 With a small squadron they might hazard an engagement, encouraging their ignorance by numbers; but the restraint of a strong force will prevent their moving, and through want of practice they will grow more clumsy, and consequently more timid.

9 It must be kept in mind that seamanship, just like anything else, is a matter of art, and will not admit of being taken up occasionally as an occupation for times of leisure; on the contrary, it is so exacting as to leave leisure for nothing else.

Chapter 143

1 Even if they were to touch the moneys at Olympia or Delphi, and try to seduce our foreign sailors by the temptation of higher pay, that would only be a serious danger if we could not still be a match for them, by embarking our own citizens and the aliens resident among us. But in fact by this means we are always a match for them; and, best of all, we have a larger and higher class of native coxswains and sailors among our own citizens than all the rest of Hellas.

2 And to say nothing of the danger of such a step, none of our foreign sailors would consent to become an outlaw from his country, and to take service with them and their hopes, for the sake of a few days' high pay.

3 This, I think, is a tolerably fair account of the position of the Peloponnesians; that of Athens is free from the defects that I have criticized in them, and has other advantages of its own, which they can show nothing to equal.

4 If they march against our country we will sail against theirs, and it will then be found that the desolation of the whole of Attica is not the same as that of even a fraction of Peloponnese; for they will not be able to supply the deficiency except by a battle, while we have plenty of land both on the islands and the continent.

5 The rule of the sea is indeed a great matter. Consider for a moment. Suppose that we were islanders: can you conceive a more impregnable position? Well, this in future should, as far as possible, be our conception of our position. Dismissing all thought of our land and houses, we must vigilantly guard the sea and the city. No irritation that we may feel for the former must provoke us to a battle with the numerical superiority of the Peloponnesians. A victory would only be succeeded by another battle against the same superiority: a reverse involves the loss of our allies, the source of our strength, who will not remain quiet a day after we become unable to march against them. We must cry not over the loss of houses and land but of men's lives; since houses and land do not gain men, but men them. And if I had thought that I could persuade you, I would have bid you go out and lay them waste with your own hands, and show the Peloponnesians that this at any rate will not make you submit.

Chapter 144

1 I have many other reasons to hope for a favorable issue, if you can consent not to combine schemes of fresh conquest with the conduct of the war, and will abstain from willfully involving yourselves in other dangers; indeed, I am more afraid of our own blunders than of the enemy's devices.

2 But these matters shall be explained in another speech, as events require; for the present dismiss these men with the answer that we allow Megara the use of our market and harbours, when the Lacedaemonians suspend their alien acts in favour of us and our allies, there being nothing in the treaty to prevent either one or the other: that we will leave the cities independent, if independent we found them when we made the treaty, and when the Lacedaemonians grant to their cities an independence not involving subservience to Lacedaemonian interest, but such as each severally may desire: that we are willing to give the legal satisfaction which our agreements specify, and that we shall not commence hostilities, but shall resist those who do commence them. This is an answer agreeable at once to the rights and the dignity of Athens.

3 It must be thoroughly understood that war is a necessity; but that the more readily we accept it, the less will be the ardour of our opponents, and that out of the greatest dangers communities and individuals acquire the greatest glory.

4 Did not our fathers resist the Medes not only with resources far different from ours, but even when those resources had been abandoned; and more by wisdom than by fortune, more by daring than by strength, did not they beat off the barbarian and advance their affairs to their present height? We must not fall behind them, but must resist our enemies in any way and in every way, and attempt to hand down our power to our posterity unimpaired.’

Chapter 145

1 Such were the words of Pericles. The Athenians, persuaded of the wisdom of his advice, voted as he desired, and answered the Lacedaemonians as he recommended, both on the separate points and in the general; they would do nothing on dictation, but were ready to have the complaints settled in a fair and impartial manner by the legal method, which the terms of the truce prescribed. So the envoys departed home, and did not return again.

Chapter 146

1 These were the changes and differences existing between the rival powers before the war, arising immediately from the affair at Epidamnus and Corcyra. Still intercourse continued in spite of them, and mutual communication. It was carried on without heralds, but not without suspicion, as events were occurring which were equivalent to a breach of the treaty and matter for war.