Book 2

Chapter 1

1 Here now begins the war between the Athenians and Peloponnesians and the allies of each, in which they no longer had dealings with one another except through heralds, but, once engaged, fought without interruption. The events are recorded in the order in which they occurred, by summer and winter.

Chapter 2

1 The thirty-year truce concluded after the capture of Euboea had lasted fourteen years. In the fifteenth year, when Chrysis had been priestess at Argos for forty-eight years, Aenesias was ephor at Sparta, and Pythodorus still had two months to serve as archon at Athens, in the sixth month after the battle at Potidaea and just as spring began, a little more than three hundred Thebans entered Plataea in Boeotia, an ally of Athens, under arms, at about the hour of first sleep. Their commanders were the Boeotarchs Pythangelus son of Phyleides and Diemporus son of Onetorides.

2 Some Plataeans, Nauclides and his associates, had invited them in and opened the gates. To secure power for themselves, they wanted to kill their opponents among the citizens and bring the city over to Thebes.

3 They arranged this through Eurymachus son of Leontiades, a man of the greatest influence at Thebes. Foreseeing that war would come, the Thebans wanted to seize Plataea, which had always been at odds with them, while peace still lasted and before war had openly broken out. This also made it easier for them to enter unnoticed, since no guard had been posted.

4 Taking up their position under arms in the marketplace, they refused to follow the advice of those who had brought them in, who urged them to act at once and attack their enemies' houses. Instead, they resolved to make reassuring proclamations and bring the city to an agreement and friendship. The herald announced that anyone who wished to join the alliance according to the ancestral customs of all the Boeotians should take his station under arms beside them. They thought the city would readily come over to them by this means.

Chapter 3

1 When the Plataeans realized that the Thebans were inside and that their city had suddenly been seized, they were terrified. Thinking that far more men had entered than was the case—they could not see them in the darkness—they moved toward an agreement, accepted the proposals, and kept quiet, especially since the Thebans were taking no hostile action against anyone.

2 While these dealings were in progress, however, they discovered that the Thebans were few and thought they could easily overpower them by an attack; for most of the Plataeans had no wish to revolt from Athens.

3 They therefore decided to make the attempt. They gathered by breaking through the shared walls between their houses, so that they would not be seen moving through the streets. They set wagons without their draft animals across the streets to serve as barricades, and made whatever other preparations seemed likely to help in the circumstances.

4 When all was as ready as they could make it, they waited until the last darkness just before dawn and came out of the houses against them. They did not want to engage in daylight, when the Thebans would have greater confidence and meet them on equal terms, but in darkness, when their greater fear would leave them at a disadvantage against the Plataeans' knowledge of the city. They attacked at once and quickly came to close quarters.

Chapter 4

1 When the Thebans realized that they had been deceived, they closed ranks and beat back the attacks wherever they fell.

2 They repulsed them two or three times. But then the Plataeans charged with a great uproar, while the women and household slaves shouted and shrieked from the houses, hurling stones and roof tiles. Heavy rain had also fallen during the night. The Thebans lost their nerve, turned, and fled through the city. Most did not know the ways to safety amid the darkness and mud—it was the end of the month—and their pursuers knew well how to prevent their escape. Thus most of them were killed.

3 One of the Plataeans shut the gates through which they had entered, the only ones that were open, using the butt-spike of a javelin in place of a pin to secure the bar. There was no longer an exit even there.

4 Pursued through the city, some climbed the wall and threw themselves down outside; most of these died. A few escaped unnoticed through an unguarded gate, where a woman gave them an axe and they cut through the bar, but not many got out, for they were soon discovered. Others perished scattered about the city.

5 The largest body, which had kept most closely together, rushed into a large building adjoining the wall whose doors happened to be open, thinking that its doors were city gates and offered a passage straight through to the outside.

6 Seeing them trapped, the Plataeans debated whether to set the building on fire and burn them where they stood, or deal with them in some other way.

7 In the end, these men and all the other Thebans still alive and wandering through the city agreed to surrender themselves and their arms to the Plataeans, to be dealt with as they pleased.

8 Such was the fate of the men inside Plataea.

Chapter 5

1 The rest of the Thebans were to have arrived with their full army while it was still night, in case anything went wrong for those who had entered. When news of what had happened reached them on the road, they hurried to the rescue.

2 Plataea is seventy stades from Thebes, and the rain that had fallen in the night delayed their arrival: the river Asopus was running high and was difficult to cross.

3 Marching in the rain and crossing the river with difficulty, they arrived too late, when some of their men had already been killed and the survivors were held prisoner.

4 When the Thebans learned what had happened, they began planning an attack on the Plataeans outside the city. People and property were still out in the fields, since the disaster had come unexpectedly in peacetime. They wanted any people they captured to serve as an exchange for their men inside, if any had been taken alive. Such was their intention.

5 While they were still deliberating, the Plataeans, suspecting some such move and fearing for those outside, sent a herald to the Thebans. They said that the attempt to seize their city during a truce had been an act of impiety, and warned them not to harm anything outside. Otherwise, they said, they too would kill the men they held alive; but if the Thebans withdrew from their territory, they would return the prisoners.

6 This is the Theban account, and they say that the Plataeans also swore to it. The Plataeans deny having promised to return the men unconditionally: there were first to be discussions, and they would return them if an agreement was reached. They also deny having sworn an oath.

7 In any event, the Thebans withdrew from the territory without doing any harm. The Plataeans hurriedly brought in their people and property from the countryside and immediately killed the prisoners. There were a hundred and eighty captives, among them Eurymachus, with whom the betrayers had made their arrangements.

Chapter 6

1 After doing this, they sent a messenger to Athens, returned the dead to the Thebans under a truce, and arranged matters in the city as they thought the situation required.

2 The Athenians received immediate news of what had happened at Plataea. They at once arrested all the Boeotians in Attica and sent a herald to Plataea with instructions to say that nothing further should be done to the Theban prisoners until they too had considered their fate.

3 For they had not been told that the men were dead. The first messenger had left as the Thebans entered, the second just after they had been defeated and captured; of later events the Athenians knew nothing. They sent their instructions in this ignorance, and the herald arrived to find the men already killed.

4 After this the Athenians marched to Plataea, brought in grain, left a garrison, and evacuated the men least fit for service, together with the women and children.

Chapter 7

1 With the affair at Plataea and the unmistakable breaking of the truce, the Athenians prepared for war, as did the Lacedaemonians and their allies. Both sides intended to send embassies to the King and elsewhere among the barbarians, wherever they hoped to gain some assistance, and sought to make allies of cities outside their own sphere of power.

2 Besides the ships already available locally, the cities in Italy and Sicily that had chosen the Lacedaemonian side were ordered to build ships in proportion to their size, to bring the whole fleet to five hundred, and to prepare a specified sum of money. In other respects they were to remain quiet and admit Athenians coming in a single ship until these preparations were complete.

3 The Athenians reviewed their existing alliance and sent embassies especially to the regions around the Peloponnese—Corcyra, Cephallenia, the Acarnanians, and Zacynthus—seeing that, if these were securely friendly, they could wage war against the Peloponnese on every side.

Chapter 8

1 Neither side conceived anything small; both threw themselves into the war with vigor, as was natural. At the beginning everyone takes hold more eagerly; and there were then many young men both in the Peloponnese and in Athens whose inexperience made them embrace the war willingly. All the rest of Greece hung in suspense as its foremost cities came into collision.

2 Many prophecies were repeated, and the oracle-reciters chanted many predictions, both in the cities about to go to war and elsewhere.

3 Shortly before these events Delos too had been shaken by an earthquake, although it had never been shaken before within Greek memory. This was spoken of and regarded as a sign of what was to come. Any other occurrence of that kind was also eagerly sought out.

4 People's sympathies lay far more with the Lacedaemonians, especially since they had proclaimed that they were liberating Greece. Every person and every city was eager to help them, in word and deed, wherever possible; each believed that success was being hindered wherever he himself did not lend a hand.

5 Such was the anger of most people against the Athenians: some wished to be released from their rule, others feared being brought under it.

Chapter 9

1 With such preparations and in such a spirit they set out, each entering the war with the following cities as allies.

2 The allies of the Lacedaemonians were these: all the Peloponnesians within the Isthmus except the Argives and Achaeans, who were friendly to both sides. Of the Achaeans, only the Pellenians fought alongside them at first, though later all did so. Outside the Peloponnese their allies were the Megarians, Boeotians, Locrians, Phocians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians.

3 Of these, the Corinthians, Megarians, Sicyonians, Pellenians, Eleans, Ambraciots, and Leucadians supplied naval forces; the Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians supplied cavalry; and the other cities supplied infantry. Such was the alliance of the Lacedaemonians.

4 The allies of the Athenians were the Chians, Lesbians, Plataeans, Messenians at Naupactus, most of the Acarnanians, the Corcyraeans, the Zacynthians, and the other tribute-paying cities in the following regions: coastal Caria, the Dorians neighboring the Carians, Ionia, the Hellespont, the Thracian coast, and the islands to the east of the Peloponnese and Crete, including all the Cyclades except Melos and Thera.

5 Of these, the Chians, Lesbians, and Corcyraeans supplied naval forces; the rest supplied infantry and money.

6 Such were the alliances of the two sides and their preparations for war.

Chapter 10

1 Immediately after the events at Plataea, the Lacedaemonians sent word throughout the Peloponnese and to their allies outside it, ordering the cities to prepare troops and the supplies needed for a campaign abroad, with a view to invading Attica.

2 As each city completed its preparations, two-thirds of its forces assembled at the Isthmus at the appointed time.

3 When the whole army had gathered, Archidamus, the king of the Lacedaemonians who commanded this expedition, summoned the generals of all the cities and their chief officers and most distinguished men, and addressed them as follows.

Chapter 11

1 “Peloponnesians and allies, our fathers made many campaigns both within the Peloponnese itself and beyond it, and the older men among us are not without experience of war. Yet never have we taken the field with a greater force than this: we are now advancing against a city of the greatest power, and our own army is the largest and the best.

2 “We must therefore show ourselves neither inferior to our fathers nor unequal to our own reputation. All Greece is stirred by this undertaking and watches it intently, wishing us success in our designs because of its hatred of Athens.

3 “Even if someone thinks that we attack in overwhelming numbers and that there is little danger of the enemy meeting us in battle, that is no reason to advance with any less care in our preparations. Rather, every commander and soldier from every city must always expect that he himself will encounter danger.

4 “For war is uncertain: attacks commonly spring from a slight occasion and are made in anger. Often a smaller force, because it was afraid, has defended itself more successfully against a larger one whose contempt had left it unprepared.

5 “In an enemy's country we must always campaign with confidence in our minds, but with the practical preparations of men who are afraid. In this way we will have the greatest courage to attack the enemy and the greatest security against attack.

6 “The city we are approaching is by no means so incapable of defending itself; it is most thoroughly prepared in every respect. We must therefore fully expect its people to come out to battle, if they have not already resolved to do so before our arrival, then when they see us in their country, laying it waste and destroying their possessions.

7 “For everyone is seized by anger at the immediate sight of an unaccustomed injury inflicted before his eyes; and where calculation has least hold, passion carries men furthest into action.

8 “The Athenians are likely to act in this way even more than others, since they claim the right to rule the rest and to invade and ravage their neighbors' land rather than see their own ravaged.

9 “Since, then, we are campaigning against so great a city, and the outcome will bring the greatest honor or dishonor upon our ancestors and ourselves, follow wherever your commanders lead, making discipline and vigilance your highest concern, and responding promptly to orders. For nothing is finer or safer than a great multitude visibly governed by a single discipline.”

Chapter 12

1 After this address Archidamus dismissed the gathering and first sent to Athens Melesippus son of Diacritus, a Spartan, to see whether the Athenians might be more inclined to yield now that they saw the army already on its way.

2 But they would not admit him into the city or give him a public hearing. A proposal of Pericles had already prevailed, that they should receive no herald or embassy from the Lacedaemonians once these had taken the field. They therefore sent him away unheard, ordering him to be beyond their borders that very day; in future, if the Lacedaemonians wanted anything, they must first withdraw to their own territory and then send an embassy. They sent escorts with Melesippus to prevent him from speaking to anyone.

3 When he reached the border and was about to part from his escorts, he spoke only these words before going on: “This day will mark the beginning of great evils for the Greeks.”

4 When he returned to the camp and Archidamus learned that the Athenians would still make no concessions, he broke camp and advanced with his army into their territory.

5 The Boeotians supplied their contingent and cavalry to join the Peloponnesian campaign, and with their remaining troops marched to Plataea and ravaged its territory.

Chapter 13

1 While the Peloponnesians were still gathering at the Isthmus and on the march, before they invaded Attica, Pericles son of Xanthippus, one of the ten Athenian generals, recognized that the invasion was coming. Since Archidamus was his guest-friend, he suspected that he might pass over his estates and leave them unravaged, either from a personal wish to oblige him or on the orders of the Lacedaemonians, to cast suspicion upon him—as they had also demanded the expulsion of those under the curses on his account. He therefore declared in advance to the Athenians in the assembly that Archidamus was indeed his guest-friend, but that this relationship would bring no harm to the city. If the enemy did not ravage his estates and houses as they did those of everyone else, he gave them up as public property, and no suspicion should attach to him on that score.

2 As for the present situation, he gave the same advice as before: they should prepare for war and bring in their possessions from the countryside; they should not go out to battle but come inside and guard the city, equip the fleet, in which their strength lay, and keep a firm hold on their allies. Their power, he said, came from the money these paid in revenue, and success in war depended chiefly on sound judgment and ample reserves of money.

3 He urged confidence: apart from the other revenue, tribute from the allies brought the city an average of six hundred talents a year, and at that time six thousand talents of coined silver still lay on the Acropolis. At its highest the reserve had reached nine thousand seven hundred talents, from which money had been spent on the gateways of the Acropolis and the other buildings, and on Potidaea.

4 This was apart from uncoined gold and silver in private and public dedications, the sacred vessels used in processions and contests, the spoils taken from the Medes, and other such treasures, whose value [was] no less than five hundred talents.

5 He added the considerable sums held in the other temples, which they could use; and if they were wholly cut off from all other resources, they could even use the gold with which the goddess herself was adorned. The statue, he explained, carried forty talents' weight of refined gold, all of it removable. If they used it for their preservation, however, they must replace it afterward with no less.

6 Such were the financial resources with which he encouraged them. They had thirteen thousand hoplites, apart from the sixteen thousand stationed in the forts and along the battlements.

7 That was the number on guard at first whenever the enemy invaded, drawn from the oldest and youngest citizens and from the resident aliens who served as hoplites. The Phaleric Wall ran thirty-five stades to the circuit wall of the city, and the part of that circuit which was guarded measured forty-three stades; a section between the Long Wall and the Phaleric Wall was left unguarded. The Long Walls to Piraeus were forty stades in length, and the outer one was guarded. The whole circuit of Piraeus, including Munychia, measured sixty stades, of which half was guarded.

8 He also stated that they had twelve hundred cavalry, including mounted archers, sixteen hundred archers, and three hundred seaworthy triremes.

9 Such were the resources of the Athenians, none of these figures being an overstatement, when the first Peloponnesian invasion was imminent and they were entering the war. Pericles also advanced his other customary arguments to demonstrate that they would prevail in the war.

Chapter 14

1 The Athenians listened and were persuaded. They began bringing in their children and wives from the countryside, together with the rest of their household belongings, even dismantling the woodwork of their houses. Their sheep and draft animals they sent across to Euboea and the neighboring islands.

2 The removal was hard upon them, since most had always been accustomed to living in the countryside.

Chapter 15

1 This had been the Athenian way of life more than that of other peoples from the remotest times. Under Cecrops and the earliest kings, down to Theseus, Attica was always inhabited in separate towns, each with its own town hall and magistrates. Unless there was some danger to fear, they did not gather to deliberate with the king, but each community governed itself and held its own councils. Some even made war on the kings, as the Eleusinians under Eumolpus did against Erechtheus.

2 But when Theseus became king, combining intelligence with power, he reorganized the country in other respects and abolished the council chambers and magistracies of the other towns. Establishing a single council chamber and town hall in the present city, he united everyone in it. Although each continued to occupy his own land as before, he compelled them to recognize this one city alone. With everyone now contributing to it, the city grew great, and in this condition Theseus handed it down to those who followed. From that time to this the Athenians have celebrated the Synoecia, a publicly funded festival in honor of the goddess.

3 Before that, the city consisted of what is now the Acropolis, together with the ground below it, chiefly toward the south.

4 Here is the evidence: on the Acropolis itself are sanctuaries of other deities as well, and those outside it lie chiefly toward this part of the city—the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus, the Pythian sanctuary, the sanctuary of Earth, and that of Dionysus in the Marshes. In his honor the more ancient Dionysia are celebrated [on the twelfth] in the month of Anthesterion, a custom still observed by the Ionians descended from Athens. Other ancient sanctuaries also stand in this quarter.

5 The spring now called Enneacrunus, from the form given it by the tyrants, was formerly called Callirrhoe, when its sources were uncovered. Because it was close by, those early inhabitants used it for their most important purposes; and from that ancient practice its water is still customarily used before weddings and for other sacred rites.

6 Because the ancient settlement was here, the Acropolis is still called the City by the Athenians to this day.

Chapter 16

1 The Athenians, then, had long shared in this life of independent settlements across the countryside; and even after their union, most of them, in the earlier generations and those that followed down to this war, continued from habit to be born and live in the country. They did not readily uproot their entire households, especially since they had only lately restored their properties after the Persian Wars.

2 They were grieved and deeply distressed to leave their houses and the sanctuaries that had always been theirs by ancestral inheritance from the old political order. They faced a change in their way of life, and each man felt that he was leaving nothing less than his own city.

Chapter 17

1 When they reached the city, a few had houses of their own, and some found refuge with friends or relatives; but most occupied the empty spaces of the city and all the sanctuaries and shrines of heroes, except the Acropolis, the Eleusinium, and any other precinct firmly closed to them. Even the place called the Pelargic, below the Acropolis, was occupied under the pressure of immediate necessity, although a curse forbade settlement there and the closing words of a Pythian oracle also prohibited it: “The Pelargic is better left idle.”

2 To my mind, the oracle came true in the opposite way to what people expected. The city's misfortunes did not arise from the unlawful occupation; rather, the war created the necessity of occupation. Without naming the war, the oracle foresaw that the place would never be settled for any good.

3 Many also made homes in the towers of the walls and wherever else they could. The city could not hold them all when they gathered inside; later they divided up and occupied the Long Walls and much of Piraeus.

4 At the same time they took up their preparations for war, assembling their allies and fitting out a hundred ships for an attack on the Peloponnese.

5 Such was the stage their preparations had reached.

Chapter 18

1 The Peloponnesian army advanced and came first to Oenoe in Attica, at the point where they intended to invade. Once encamped, they prepared to assault its wall with siege engines and by other means.

2 Oenoe, lying on the frontier between Attica and Boeotia, had been fortified, and the Athenians used it as a stronghold whenever war overtook them. They accordingly made ready their assaults, and otherwise spent some time around the place.

3 This brought Archidamus no small share of blame. Even during the preparations for war he had been thought irresolute and well disposed toward the Athenians, since he had shown no eagerness in urging war. Once the army was assembling, the halt at the Isthmus and the slow pace of the rest of the march discredited him, but above all the delay at Oenoe.

4 For during this time the Athenians were bringing their property into the city, and the Peloponnesians believed that, had they advanced swiftly, they would have found everything still outside, but for his hesitation.

5 Such was the army’s resentment against Archidamus while they lay encamped. But he held back, expecting, it is said, that while their land remained untouched the Athenians would make some concession, and would shrink from watching it ravaged.

Chapter 19

1 When, however, they had assaulted Oenoe and tried every method without being able to take it, and the Athenians sent no herald to negotiate, they at last set out from there and invaded Attica. It was about the eightieth day after the events at Plataea [involving the Thebans who had entered it], in summer, when the grain was ripe. Their commander was Archidamus son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians.

2 They encamped and first ravaged Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, routing a body of Athenian cavalry near the streams called the Rheiti. Then they advanced through Cropia, keeping Mount Aegaleos on their right, until they reached Acharnae, the largest of the districts of Attica called demes. There they settled into camp and remained a long time, ravaging the land.

Chapter 20

1 Archidamus is said to have had the following purpose in remaining near Acharnae with his army drawn up as if for battle, rather than descending into the plain during that invasion.

2 He hoped that the Athenians, strong in their multitude of young men and equipped for war as never before, might come out against him and refuse to look on while their land was ravaged.

3 Since they had not met him at Eleusis or in the Thriasian plain, he stayed near Acharnae to test whether they would march out.

4 The position seemed to him suitable for a camp; and he also thought that the Acharnians, who formed a great part of the citizen body—they furnished three thousand hoplites—would not look on while their own possessions were destroyed, but would impel the whole people to battle. Even if the Athenians did not come out during that invasion, he could thereafter ravage the plain and advance against the city itself with less to fear. For the Acharnians, stripped of their own property, would not be equally eager to risk their lives for that of others, and opinion would be divided.

5 With this intention Archidamus remained near Acharnae.

Chapter 21

1 As long as the army was near Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, the Athenians still had some hope that it would advance no closer. They remembered how Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians, had invaded Attica with a Peloponnesian army fourteen years before this war, reached Eleusis and Thria, and then withdrawn without advancing farther. This was indeed the reason for his exile from Sparta: he was suspected of having been bribed [to withdraw].

2 But when they saw the army near Acharnae, sixty stades from the city, they could bear it no longer. Naturally enough, the ravaging of their land before their eyes—a sight the younger men had never seen, nor the older men except during the Persian Wars—seemed terrible to them. The general feeling, strongest among the young, was that they should march out and not stand by.

3 They gathered in groups and argued fiercely, some urging a sortie, others opposing it. Reciters of oracles chanted predictions of every kind, and each man listened as his own impulse led him. The Acharnians, believing themselves no insignificant part of the Athenian people, pressed hardest for a sortie, since it was their land that was being ravaged. The city was inflamed in every way. They were angry with Pericles and remembered nothing of his earlier advice, but denounced him for not leading them out when he was their general, and held him responsible for all they were suffering.

Chapter 22

1 Pericles saw that they were embittered by the present situation and were not judging what was best. Confident that his decision against a sortie was right, he convened neither an assembly nor any other gathering, lest they meet in anger rather than with judgment and make a disastrous mistake. He guarded the city and kept it as quiet as he could.

2 He did, however, keep sending out cavalry to prevent advance parties from the enemy army from falling upon and damaging the farms near the city. A brief cavalry engagement took place at Phrygia between one squadron of Athenian cavalry, with Thessalians beside them, and the Boeotian cavalry. The Athenians and Thessalians held their own until hoplites came to the Boeotians’ support; then they were routed, and a few Thessalians and Athenians were killed. They nevertheless recovered their dead that same day without a truce.

3 The Peloponnesians set up a trophy the next day. The Thessalians had brought this assistance to the Athenians under their ancient alliance. Those who came were Larisaeans, Pharsalians, [Parasians], Crannonians, Pyrasians, Gyrtonians, and Pheraeans. Their commanders from Larisa were Polymedes and Aristonous, each representing one of the rival factions, and from Pharsalus, Menon. The other cities also had their own commanders.

Chapter 23

1 When the Athenians did not come out to meet them in battle, the Peloponnesians broke camp at Acharnae and laid waste some of the other demes between Mount Parnes and Mount Brilessus.

2 While they were still in the country, the Athenians dispatched the hundred ships they had been preparing to sail around the Peloponnese, carrying a thousand hoplites and four hundred archers. The generals were Carcinus son of Xenotimus, Proteas son of Epicles, and Socrates son of Antigenes.

3 These put to sea with this force and began their voyage around the coast. The Peloponnesians, after remaining in Attica as long as their provisions lasted, withdrew through Boeotia, not by the route of their invasion. As they passed Oropus, they ravaged the land called Graice, occupied by the Oropians, who were subjects of Athens. On reaching the Peloponnese they dispersed, each contingent to its own city.

Chapter 24

1 After their withdrawal, the Athenians established guards on land and at sea, intending to maintain them throughout the war. They also resolved to set aside a thousand talents from the money on the Acropolis as a separate reserve, not to be spent: the war was to be financed from the remaining funds. They imposed the penalty of death on anyone who proposed or put to the vote the use of this money for any other purpose, unless the enemy attacked the city with a naval force and it became necessary to defend it.

2 Along with this money, they reserved each year a hundred of their best triremes, with captains appointed to them. None of these ships was to be used for any other purpose, but only, if necessary, together with the money to meet that same danger.

Chapter 25

1 The Athenians in the hundred ships sailing around the Peloponnese were joined by Corcyraeans who had come to their aid with fifty ships, and by some of their other allies in that region. As they sailed, they damaged various places, and, landing at Methone in Laconia, they assaulted its wall, which was weak and had no men to defend it.

2 Brasidas son of Tellis, a Spartan, happened to be in that district with a guard force. On hearing of the attack, he hastened to the aid of the people in the town with a hundred hoplites. He dashed through the Athenian army, which was scattered over the countryside and facing the wall, and burst into Methone. Losing only a few of his men in the rush, he saved the city, and for this daring deed became the first man in the war to receive public praise at Sparta.

3 The Athenians put to sea and continued along the coast. Landing at Pheia in Elis, they ravaged the land for two days and defeated in battle three hundred picked men from Hollow Elis and Eleans from the surrounding district itself who had come to its defense.

4 A strong wind came down, and they were caught in rough weather on a harborless shore. Most embarked and sailed around the headland called Ichthys to the harbor at Pheia; meanwhile the Messenians and some others who could not get aboard marched overland and captured Pheia.

5 Later the ships came around, took them aboard, and put out to sea, abandoning Pheia; by then the main Elean army had arrived in support. The Athenians sailed on to other places and ravaged them.

Chapter 26

1 About this same time the Athenians sent thirty ships to cruise along Locris and at the same time guard Euboea. Their general was Cleopompus son of Clinias.

2 Making landings, he ravaged parts of the coast, captured Thronium and took hostages from its people, and defeated in battle at Alope the Locrians who had come in support.

Chapter 27

1 That same summer the Athenians also expelled the Aeginetans from Aegina, together with their children and wives, charging them with no small responsibility for the war. Besides, with Aegina lying so close to the Peloponnese, they thought it safer to possess the island themselves by sending settlers there. They dispatched the settlers not long afterward.

2 The Lacedaemonians gave the displaced Aeginetans Thyrea to live in and its land to cultivate, both because of their hostility toward the Athenians and because the Aeginetans had been their benefactors at the time of the earthquake and the revolt of the Helots. The territory of Thyrea lies on the border between Argive and Laconian land and extends down to the sea. Some of the Aeginetans settled there; the rest scattered throughout the other parts of Greece.

Chapter 28

1 That same summer, at the new moon—the only time, it seems, when such a thing can happen—the sun was eclipsed after midday and then became full again, having taken the shape of a crescent while some stars appeared.

Chapter 29

1 In the same summer the Athenians appointed Nymphodorus son of Pythes, a man of Abdera, as their proxenus and summoned him to Athens, though they had previously regarded him as an enemy. Sitalces had married his sister, and he wielded great influence with him; the Athenians wanted Sitalces son of Teres, king of the Thracians, to become their ally.

2 This Teres, the father of Sitalces, was the first to extend the great Odrysian kingdom over much of the rest of Thrace; for a large part of the Thracians are independent.

3 This Teres has no connection with Tereus, who married Procne daughter of Pandion from Athens, nor did they come from the same part of Thrace. The latter [Tereus] lived at Daulia, in the land now called Phocis, which was then inhabited by Thracians. It was in this land that the women committed the deed concerning Itys; indeed, many poets, when speaking of the nightingale, have named the bird Daulian. It is also more likely that Pandion contracted his daughter’s marriage over so short a distance, for mutual advantage, rather than as far away as the Odrysians, a journey of many days. Teres, whose name is not even the same, was the first king to establish the power of the Odrysians.

4 It was his son Sitalces whom the Athenians were making their ally, wanting his help in subduing the places on the Thracian coast and Perdiccas.

5 Nymphodorus came to Athens and secured the alliance with Sitalces and Athenian citizenship for his son Sadocus. He also undertook to bring the war in Thrace to an end: he would persuade Sitalces to send the Athenians a Thracian army of cavalry and peltasts.

6 He also reconciled Perdiccas with the Athenians and persuaded them to restore Therme to him. Perdiccas immediately joined the Athenians and Phormio in a campaign against the Chalcidians.

7 Thus Sitalces son of Teres, king of the Thracians, and Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, became allies of the Athenians.

Chapter 30

1 The Athenians in the hundred ships, still sailing around the Peloponnese, captured Sollium, a Corinthian town, and handed over its land and town for the exclusive possession of the Acarnanians of Palaerus. They also took Astacus by force, drove out its tyrant Euarchus, and brought the place into their alliance.

2 Sailing next to the island of Cephallenia, they brought it over without a battle. Cephallenia lies opposite Acarnania and Leucas and has four cities: Pale, Cranii, Same, and Pronni. Not long afterward the ships returned to Athens.

Chapter 31

1 Toward the autumn of that summer the Athenians invaded the Megarid in full force, citizens and resident foreigners alike, under the command of Pericles son of Xanthippus. The Athenians in the hundred ships that had been sailing around the Peloponnese happened by then to be at Aegina on their way home. When they learned that the entire army from the city was in Megarian territory, they sailed there and joined it.

2 This was the largest Athenian army ever assembled in one body, while the city was still at full strength and had not yet suffered from the plague. The Athenian citizens themselves numbered no fewer than ten thousand hoplites, apart from their three thousand at Potidaea; the resident foreigners who joined the invasion furnished no fewer than three thousand hoplites, besides a considerable mass of light-armed troops. After laying waste most of the land, they withdrew.

3 Later in the war the Athenians made further invasions of the Megarid every year, sometimes with cavalry and sometimes with their whole army, until they captured Nisaea.

Chapter 32

1 At the close of that summer the Athenians also fortified Atalanta as a stronghold. This previously uninhabited island lies off the Opuntian Locrians; the fort was intended to prevent raiders from sailing out of Opus and the rest of Locris to plunder Euboea. These were the events of that summer after the Peloponnesian withdrawal from Attica.

Chapter 33

1 In the following winter Euarchus the Acarnanian, wishing to return to Astacus, persuaded the Corinthians to sail with forty ships and fifteen hundred hoplites to restore him. He also hired some mercenaries himself. The commanders of the force were Euphamidas son of Aristonymus, Timoxenus son of Timocrates, and Eumachus son of Chrysis.

2 They sailed and restored him. They also wished to gain possession of some other places on the Acarnanian coast, but, after trying and failing, they sailed for home.

3 On the way along the coast they put in at Cephallenia and landed in the territory of the Cranii. The Cranii deceived them by some agreement and attacked them unawares, causing losses among their men. They put to sea in some haste and made their way home.

Chapter 34

1 That same winter the Athenians, following their ancestral custom, held a public funeral for the first to die in this war. The ceremony was conducted in this way.

2 Two days before the funeral, they erect a tent and lay out the bones of the dead; each person brings whatever offering he wishes for his own.

3 When the funeral procession takes place, wagons carry coffins of cypress wood, one for each tribe. Within each lie the bones of those who belonged to that tribe. One empty bier, covered with a cloth, is carried for the missing whose bodies could not be found for recovery.

4 Anyone who wishes, citizen or foreigner, joins the procession, and the women related to the dead are present at the tomb to lament.

5 They lay the remains in the public burial ground, in the most beautiful suburb of the city. They always bury the war dead there, except for those who fell at Marathon: judging their valor exceptional, they made their tomb on the battlefield itself.

6 When the remains have been covered with earth, a man chosen by the city, considered a man of intelligence and eminent in standing, delivers a fitting speech in their praise. After this the people depart.

7 Such is their manner of burial, and throughout the war they observed this custom whenever the occasion arose.

8 For these first dead, Pericles son of Xanthippus was chosen to speak. When the moment came, he stepped forward from the tomb onto a high platform built so that his voice might reach as far as possible into the crowd, and spoke as follows.

Chapter 35

1 “Most of those who have spoken here before have praised the man who added this speech to our custom, holding it a fine thing that it should be delivered at the burial of those who die in war. To me it would have seemed enough that men who proved themselves brave in deeds should also have their honors displayed in deeds, as you see in the public arrangements here around this tomb, rather than that the valor of many should depend for its credibility on one man’s speech, whether he speaks well or poorly.

2 “For it is difficult to speak with due measure where it is hard even to establish confidence in the truth. The listener who knows the facts and is well disposed may think that something has been presented less fully than he wishes and knows it to deserve; the listener without such knowledge may, from envy, think some things exaggerated, if he hears of anything beyond his own powers. Praise spoken of others is tolerable only so far as each man thinks himself capable of doing something of what he hears; what surpasses that limit provokes envy and then disbelief.

3 “But since those before us judged this practice right, I too must obey the custom and try, so far as possible, to meet the wishes and expectations of each of you.

Chapter 36

1 “I shall begin with our ancestors. It is both just and fitting that on such an occasion they should receive this tribute of remembrance. For the same people have always inhabited this land, and, through the succession of generations, have handed it down free to this day by their valor.

2 “They deserve praise, and our fathers deserve still more: through no little toil they added to their inheritance the empire we possess and left it to us who live today.

3 “Most of its expansion has been our own work, the work of those here today, most of us now in the settled prime of life. We have also furnished the city with everything, making it fully sufficient for itself in war and in peace.

4 “I shall pass over the deeds of war by which each possession was won, or the occasions when we or our fathers resolutely repelled a barbarian or Greek enemy’s attack; I do not wish to speak at length to those who know these things. But I shall first explain the habits by which we attained our power, the constitution under which it grew, and the character from which our greatness sprang, and then proceed to praise these men. I think such an account will suit this occasion and benefit the whole gathering, citizens and foreigners alike, who hear it.

Chapter 37

1 “Our constitution does not emulate the laws of our neighbors; we are ourselves an example to some rather than imitators of others. It is called a democracy because its administration serves not the few but the many. In private disputes the laws afford equality to all; in public distinction, each man is preferred according to the reputation he has earned in some field, not for belonging to a class so much as for his merit. Nor, if he can render some service to the city, is he hindered by poverty and the obscurity of his standing.

2 “We conduct our public life in freedom, and do not watch one another’s daily pursuits with suspicion: we do not resent our neighbor for doing what pleases him, or burden him with looks of disapproval which, though harmless, are painful to see.

3 “But while we deal with one another without constraint in private, in public affairs reverence above all keeps us from breaking the law. We obey those who hold office at any time and the laws, especially those laid down to protect the injured, and those unwritten laws whose breach brings acknowledged shame.

Chapter 38

1 “We have also provided the mind with abundant relief from toil, observing games and sacrifices throughout the year, and maintaining handsome private homes, whose daily pleasure drives sorrow away.

2 “The greatness of our city brings everything to us from every land, so that we enjoy the good things produced here with no more sense of familiarity than those of other peoples.

Chapter 39

1 “In our preparations for war, too, we differ from our opponents in these ways. We throw our city open to all, and never expel foreigners to prevent anyone from learning or seeing something that an enemy might profit by observing if it were not concealed. We trust less in preparations and stratagems than in the courage that springs from ourselves when action comes. In education, they pursue courage from their earliest youth through laborious training; we live at ease, yet face dangers as great as theirs with no less resolve.

2 “Here is the proof: the Lacedaemonians do not invade our land alone, but with all their allies; we invade our neighbors’ land ourselves and, fighting on foreign soil against men defending their own possessions, generally defeat them without difficulty.

3 “No enemy has yet encountered our whole strength together, since we must at the same time attend to our navy and send our own men on many missions by land. Yet if they engage some part of our force, on defeating a few of us they boast that they have driven us all back, and on being defeated they claim to have lost to us all.

4 “And yet, if we are willing to face danger through ease rather than arduous training, and with courage born of character rather than enforced by law, we gain this advantage: we do not exhaust ourselves in advance over sufferings still to come, and when we meet them we prove no less daring than those who are always laboring. Our city deserves admiration for these things, and for others as well.

Chapter 40

1 “For we cultivate beauty without extravagance and thought without softness. We use wealth as a resource for action rather than a boast in words; and to acknowledge poverty is no disgrace to anyone, but not to escape it through effort is more disgraceful.

2 “The same men can attend at once to their own affairs and to the city's, and those occupied with their trades can still have a sound understanding of public matters. For we alone regard the man who takes no part in these not as one who minds his own business, but as useless; and we ourselves either judge affairs or think them through correctly, believing that words do not impair deeds: the greater harm is to enter upon the necessary action without first being instructed by discussion.

3 “For in this too we are distinctive: the same men are both exceptionally daring and exact in calculating what they will undertake. In others, ignorance brings rashness, calculation hesitation. Yet those may justly be judged strongest in spirit who know most clearly what is terrible and what is pleasant, and are not thereby turned aside from danger.

4 “In generosity too we take the opposite course from most: we acquire friends not by receiving kindness but by doing it. The giver of a favor is the firmer friend, seeking through goodwill toward its recipient to keep the debt alive; the man who owes a favor in return is less eager, knowing that he will repay his generosity not as a kindness but as a debt.

5 “And we alone help others without misgiving, trusting not so much to calculations of advantage as to the confidence born of freedom.

Chapter 41

1 “In sum, I say that our city as a whole is an education for Hellas, and that, individually, the same man among us could, I believe, prove equal in his own person to the widest variety of tasks, with the greatest grace and versatility.

2 “That this is not a boast in words for the occasion, but the truth of deeds, is shown by the very power of the city, which we have acquired through these ways of life.

3 “For she alone among the cities of today proves greater in experience than in report; she alone gives neither an attacking enemy cause to resent the quality of those at whose hands he suffers, nor a subject cause to complain that his rulers are unworthy.

4 “We have displayed our power with great signs and certainly not without witnesses, and shall be admired by those who live now and those who come after. We have no need of Homer to praise us, nor of anyone whose verses will give momentary pleasure only for the truth to damage the impression they convey of our deeds. Rather, we have compelled every sea and land to open to our daring, and everywhere have established enduring memorials of the harm and the good we have done.

5 “For such a city these men died fighting, nobly resolving that she should not be taken from them; and it is only fitting that every survivor should willingly labor for her.

Chapter 42

1 “This is why I have spoken at length about the city: to show that the stakes of our struggle are not the same as those of men who possess none of these advantages in equal measure, and at the same time to establish by clear evidence the praise of those about whom I now speak.

2 “The greatest part of that praise has already been spoken. For the glories for which I celebrated the city were the adornment bestowed by the valor of these men and men like them; and for few of the Greeks would words appear so evenly matched with deeds as for these. Their present end seems to me to reveal a man's worth, both as its first disclosure and as its final confirmation.

3 “For even in men inferior in other respects, it is just to give precedence to their courage in war on behalf of their country. By effacing evil with good, they benefited the community more than they harmed it through their private lives.

4 “Of these men, none grew fainthearted through preferring the wealth he might still enjoy, nor did any, in the hope that he might yet escape poverty and become rich, postpone the danger. They held vengeance upon their opponents more desirable than these things and considered this the noblest of risks; with it they chose to punish their enemies and relinquish those other hopes. They entrusted the unseen prospect of success to hope, but in action, confronting what already lay before their eyes, they thought it right to rely on themselves. Judging it better to suffer while resisting than to yield and survive, they escaped the shame of reproach and bore the deed with their bodies; in the briefest turn of fortune they passed away at the height of glory rather than of fear.

Chapter 43

1 “Such, then, these men proved themselves, as befitted the city. Those who remain must pray for a safer resolve against the enemy, but consider none less daring acceptable. You must not weigh its benefit in words alone—someone might speak at length to you, who know it no less well yourselves, of all the good that lies in resisting the enemy. Rather, behold the city's power daily in its deeds and become her lovers; and whenever she seems great to you, reflect that men acquired this greatness by daring, by knowing what duty required, and by a sense of shame in action. Even when they failed in some attempt, they did not think that the city too should be deprived of their valor, but freely offered her the noblest contribution.

2 “For in giving their bodies to the common cause, each received for himself praise that never ages and the most conspicuous of tombs—not so much the one in which they lie as that in which their glory is left, eternally remembered whenever an occasion for word or deed presents itself.

3 “For the whole earth is the tomb of distinguished men. It is not only an inscription on pillars in their own land that marks them: even in a land not their own, an unwritten memory lives within each person, a memory of their resolve rather than of their deed.

4 “Take them now as your example; judge happiness to be freedom and freedom courage, and do not stand aside from the dangers of war.

5 “For it is not the unfortunate, who have no hope of good, who have the greater reason to be unsparing of their lives, but those who still risk a reversal while they live and stand to lose most if they stumble.

6 “For to a man with pride, the degradation that accompanies [an act of] cowardice is more painful than the unfelt death that comes with vigor and shared hope.

Chapter 44

1 “And so, to those parents of these men who are here, I offer consolation rather than lament. They know that they have grown up amid fortune's many turns. Fortunate are those whose lot is most honorable—death, as it is now for these men, or grief, as for you—and whose allotted span of happiness was also the measure of their lives.

2 “I know, indeed, that it is hard to persuade you of this, when you will so often find reminders in the good fortune of others, in which you too once rejoiced. Grief is not for the good things one loses without ever having known them, but for what is taken away after one has grown accustomed to it.

3 “Those who are still of an age to have children must find endurance also in the hope of others. In private life, children born afterward will help some to forget those who are gone; and the city will benefit in two ways, in not being depopulated and in its security. For men cannot deliberate fairly or justly unless they too expose their children to danger on equal terms.

4 “As for those past that age, count as gain the greater part of your lives in which you were fortunate, and remember that what remains will be brief; find relief in these men's renown. For the love of honor alone does not age, and in life's years of uselessness it is not gain, as some say, that gives the greater pleasure, but being honored.

Chapter 45

1 “For those here who are sons or brothers of these men, I see a great contest ahead. Everyone is accustomed to praise the dead, and even with extraordinary valor you would scarcely be judged a little below them, let alone their equals. The living meet envy from their rivals; those no longer in the way are honored with goodwill free of rivalry.

2 “And if I must also say something of the virtue of women, for those who will now be widows, a brief exhortation will convey it all. Great is your glory if you do not fall below the nature that is yours; and great too is hers whose name is least spoken of among men, whether for virtue or for blame.

Chapter 46

1 “I too have now spoken, as the law requires, what words I had that suited the occasion. In deed, those being buried have already received their honors; for what remains, the city will henceforth rear their children at public expense until they come of age, setting before these men and the survivors a crown of real benefit for such contests. For where the greatest prizes are established for valor, there also the best men live as citizens.

2 “Now, when each of you has mourned his own, depart.”

Chapter 47

1 Such was the funeral held during this winter; and when the winter passed, the first year of this war came to an end.

2 As soon as summer began, the Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica with two-thirds of their forces, as on the first occasion. They were led by Archidamus son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians; they established themselves and ravaged the land.

3 They had not yet been in Attica many days when the disease first began among the Athenians. It was said to have struck before in many places, around Lemnos and elsewhere; but nowhere was there any memory of so great a pestilence or such destruction of human life.

4 At first the doctors, treating it without knowledge, could give no help; indeed, they themselves died most, since they came into closest contact with it. Nor could any other human art avail. All the supplications they made at sanctuaries, their resort to oracles and the like, were useless; and at last, overcome by the calamity, they abandoned these too.

Chapter 48

1 It began, it is said, in Ethiopia beyond Egypt, then descended into Egypt and Libya and into most of the King's territory.

2 It fell suddenly upon the city of the Athenians, first attacking the people in Piraeus, so that they even said the Peloponnesians had thrown poison into the wells: there were as yet no fountains there. Later it reached the upper city too, and deaths now became far more numerous.

3 Let each speak according to his knowledge, physician and layman alike, about its probable origin and whatever causes he thinks could have had the power to bring about so great a change. I shall describe what the disease was like, and set out the signs by which anyone studying them might best recognize it, with some foreknowledge, if it should ever strike again. For I suffered from it myself and myself saw others suffering.

Chapter 49

1 That year, as was generally agreed, happened to be freer of other illnesses than any other; and if anyone was already unwell, it all developed into this.

2 The others, without any apparent cause, were suddenly seized while in full health, first by fierce heat in the head and redness and inflammation of the eyes; the parts within, the throat and tongue, were at once blood-red and gave off breath that was strange and foul-smelling.

3 These symptoms were followed by sneezing and hoarseness, and before long the pain descended to the chest with a violent cough. When it settled in the pit of the stomach, it turned it over, and there followed discharges of bile of every kind named by physicians, accompanied by great distress.

4 Most also suffered dry retching, which brought on violent spasms; in some these abated at this stage, in others only much later.

5 To the touch, the body's surface was neither excessively hot nor pale, but reddish and livid, breaking out in small blisters and sores. Inside, however, it burned so fiercely that the sufferers could not bear even the lightest clothing or linen laid over them, or anything but nakedness; they would most gladly have thrown themselves into cold water. Many of those left untended did indeed throw themselves into wells, driven by an unquenchable thirst; drinking more or less made no difference.

6 The torment of restlessness and sleeplessness pressed on them throughout. Yet while the disease was at its height the body did not waste away, but withstood the suffering beyond expectation. Thus most died on the ninth or seventh day from the inward burning, while they still had some strength; or, if they escaped this, the disease descended into the bowels, producing severe ulceration and uncontrollable diarrhea, through which most of them later died of weakness.

7 For the affliction, first lodged in the head, passed from above through the whole body; and even if someone survived its worst effects, its attack on the extremities left its mark.

8 For it struck the genitals and the ends of the hands and feet, and many escaped with the loss of these parts, some with the loss of their eyes as well. Others, on first recovering, were seized by a complete loss of memory and recognized neither themselves nor their friends and family.

Chapter 50

1 The character of the disease defied description: not only did it attack each sufferer more harshly than human nature could bear, but in this especially it showed itself something different from the familiar illnesses. Though many bodies lay unburied, the birds and four-footed animals that feed on human flesh either would not approach them or died after tasting them.

2 The evidence was this: birds of that kind conspicuously disappeared, and were seen neither near any such bodies nor anywhere else. Dogs, because they live with human beings, made the outcome easier to observe.

Chapter 51

1 Such was the disease in its general character; I pass over many other peculiarities in which one person's experience differed from another's. At that time none of the usual illnesses caused any additional distress; whatever did occur ended in this.

2 Some died from neglect, others despite the most careful treatment. There was not a single remedy, one might say, whose administration could be relied upon to help: what benefited one person harmed another.

3 No constitution, whether strong or weak, proved capable of resisting it; it carried off all alike, even those tended with every care in their regimen.

4 The most terrible features of the whole calamity were the despair that came whenever anyone felt himself falling ill—for their minds turned at once to hopelessness, and they abandoned themselves far more readily instead of resisting—and the way they caught the infection from one another through nursing and died like sheep. This caused the greatest destruction.

5 For if fear made them unwilling to approach one another, they died alone, and many households were emptied for want of anyone to nurse them. If they did approach, they perished, especially those who laid any claim to virtue: shame made them unsparing of themselves in visiting their friends, when even the relatives at last grew too weary to lament the dead, overcome by the weight of calamity.

6 Yet those who had escaped the disease showed greater pity for the dying and the afflicted, both because they already knew the disease and because they were now themselves free of fear. For it did not strike the same person twice, at least not fatally. Others called them fortunate; and in their own overwhelming joy at the moment they entertained an idle hope for the future too, that they would never again be carried off even by another disease.

Chapter 52

1 Besides the suffering already upon them, the influx from the country into the city pressed them still harder, and the newcomers no less than the rest.

2 For there were no houses available, and they lived in huts stifling at that season of the year, so that death came amid utter disorder. As people died, their bodies lay heaped upon one another; the half-dead writhed in the streets and around every fountain in their longing for water.

3 The sanctuaries in which they had lodged were full of corpses, since people died there on the spot. For as the calamity overwhelmed them, people, not knowing where to turn, grew equally heedless of sacred things and religious obligations.

4 All the customs they had previously observed in burial were thrown into confusion, and each buried his dead as he could. Many resorted to shameless ways of burial, lacking the necessary supplies because so many of their own had already died. Some put their own dead on another's pyre and lit it before those who had built it could arrive; others threw the body they were carrying on top of another already burning, and went away.

Chapter 53

1 The disease also first brought a greater lawlessness to the city in other matters. Men more readily dared to pursue pleasures they had previously concealed, seeing the swift reversals both of the prosperous, suddenly dying, and of those who had formerly owned nothing, but at once possessed their property.

2 So they thought they should enjoy what they had quickly and for pleasure, judging their bodies and their wealth alike things of a day.

3 No one was eager to endure further hardship for what was thought noble, considering it uncertain whether he would perish before attaining it. Whatever was pleasant at once, and whatever gain could serve that pleasure from any source, came to be considered both noble and useful.

4 Neither fear of the gods nor human law restrained them. As for the gods, seeing everyone perish alike, they judged that worship and its neglect came to the same thing; as for their offenses, no one expected to live until judgment was passed and pay the penalty. Rather, they felt that a far greater sentence had already been pronounced against them and hung over their heads, and that before it fell it was only reasonable to enjoy something of life.

Chapter 54

1 Such was the affliction that beset and oppressed the Athenians, with people dying within and their land being ravaged outside.

2 In their misery, as was natural, they also recalled this verse, which the older men said had long ago been sung: / “A Dorian war will come, and plague along with it.”

3 There was a dispute among people over whether the ancients had named not plague but famine in the verse; but in the circumstances the view that plague had been spoken naturally prevailed, for people shaped their memory to their sufferings. Yet if another Dorian war should ever follow this one, I think, and a famine happen to occur, they will probably sing it that way.

4 Those who knew it also remembered the oracle given to the Lacedaemonians: when they asked the god whether they should go to war, he answered that if they fought with all their strength, victory would be theirs, and said that he himself would assist them.

5 So they conjectured that events accorded with the oracle. The disease began immediately after the Peloponnesians invaded; it did not enter the Peloponnese to any extent worth mentioning, but spread most widely over Athens, and then over the most populous of the other places. Such were the events connected with the disease.

Chapter 55

1 After ravaging the plain, the Peloponnesians advanced into the district called the Paralus as far as Laurium, where the Athenians have their silver mines. First they ravaged the part facing the Peloponnese, then that turned toward Euboea and Andros.

2 Pericles, who was general then too, held to the same opinion as during the former invasion: the Athenians should not march out against them.

Chapter 56

1 While they were still in the plain, before they reached the coast, he was preparing an expedition of a hundred ships against the Peloponnese; and when all was ready, he put to sea.

2 He carried on the ships four thousand Athenian hoplites, and three hundred cavalry in horse-transports, converted then for the first time from old ships. Chians and Lesbians also joined the expedition with fifty ships.

3 When this Athenian force put to sea, it left the Peloponnesians in the coastal district of Attica.

4 On reaching Epidaurus in the Peloponnese, they ravaged most of its territory; they also attacked the city and came to hope they could capture it, but did not succeed.

5 Putting out from Epidaurus, they ravaged the territories of Troezen, Halieis, and Hermione, all coastal districts of the Peloponnese.

6 Sailing from these, they reached Prasiae, a small coastal town in Laconia, ravaged its territory, and captured and sacked the town itself. After doing this they returned home. They no longer found the Peloponnesians in Attica: they had withdrawn.

Chapter 57

1 For as long as the Peloponnesians were in Athenian territory and the Athenians were campaigning aboard their ships, the disease destroyed Athenians both in the expeditionary force and in the city. It was even said that the Peloponnesians left the land more quickly out of fear of the disease, having learned from deserters that it was in the city and being aware at the same time of the burials.

2 Yet in this invasion they stayed longer than in any other and ravaged the whole country: they spent about forty days in Attica.

Chapter 58

1 During the same summer, Hagnon son of Nicias and Cleopompus son of Clinias, fellow generals of Pericles, took the force he had employed and at once campaigned against the Chalcidians in the Thracian region and against Potidaea, which was still under siege. On arrival they brought siege engines against Potidaea and tried every means of taking it.

2 They made no progress toward capturing the city, nor did their other efforts meet with success commensurate with their preparations. For the disease fell upon them and now pressed the Athenians very hard, destroying the army; even the Athenian troops already there, who had previously been healthy, became infected from Hagnon's force. Phormio and his sixteen hundred men were no longer in the Chalcidian region.

3 Hagnon therefore returned with the ships to Athens, having lost to the disease one thousand and fifty out of four thousand hoplites in about forty days. The troops who had been there before remained in position and continued the siege of Potidaea.

Chapter 59

1 After the Peloponnesians' second invasion, the Athenians began to change their minds, as their land had been ravaged a second time and disease and war pressed upon them together.

2 They blamed Pericles for having persuaded them to go to war, holding him responsible for the disasters into which they had fallen, and were eager to come to terms with the Lacedaemonians. They sent ambassadors to them, but achieved nothing. Finding no way out in any direction, they pressed their attacks on Pericles.

3 He saw them embittered by their present circumstances and doing everything he had expected. Calling an assembly—for he was still general—he wished to hearten them and, by turning their minds from anger, bring them to a calmer and less fearful temper. He came forward and spoke as follows.

Chapter 60

1 “Your anger against me has come as I expected—I understand its causes—and that is why I have called this assembly: to remind you of certain things and to rebuke you if you are either angry with me or yielding to your misfortunes without just cause.

2 “For I believe that a city prospering as a whole brings its individual citizens greater benefit than one in which each citizen prospers but the community falls to ruin.

3 “A man whose private affairs are flourishing is nevertheless destroyed along with his country when it perishes; but a man suffering misfortune in a fortunate city has a far better chance of surviving.

4 “Since, then, a city can bear the misfortunes of individuals, while no individual can bear those of the city, how can it not be everyone's duty to defend it, instead of doing what you are doing now? Stunned by your troubles at home, you abandon the common safety, and blame both me, who advised you to fight, and yourselves, who agreed.

5 “And yet the man with whom you are angry is one who considers himself second to none in discerning what must be done and explaining it, a lover of his city and above the power of money.

6 “For a man who understands but cannot explain clearly is no better placed than if he had never formed the thought. One who possesses both gifts but bears his city ill will cannot speak with the same devotion to its interests; and if he has this devotion too, but yields to money, all the rest will be sold for this one thing.

7 “So if you were persuaded to go to war because you believed that I possessed these qualities even somewhat more than others, it would not be reasonable now to charge me, at least, with wrongdoing.

Chapter 61

1 “For those who have a choice and are otherwise fortunate, going to war is great folly. But if the choice was necessarily between yielding to one's neighbors and submitting at once, or facing danger and prevailing, the man who evades the danger deserves more blame than the man who confronts it.

2 “I remain the same and do not shift my ground; it is you who change. You were persuaded when unharmed, but repent now that you suffer, and my advice appears wrong through the weakness of your judgment. Each of you already feels the pain, while the benefit is not yet apparent to anyone; and with a great reversal falling upon you in so short a time, your minds lack the strength to persevere in what you resolved.

3 “For the sudden, the unexpected, and what happens most contrary to calculation enslave the spirit; and this, besides your other troubles, has happened to you above all in the plague.

4 “Yet as citizens of a great city, brought up in habits worthy of it, you must be willing to face even the greatest misfortunes and not efface your standing. People think it equally just to blame the man who falls short of his established reputation through weakness and to hate the man who reaches boldly for a reputation he has no right to. You must put aside the pain of your private losses and take up the defense of the common safety.

Chapter 62

1 “As for your fear that the labor of war may prove great without bringing us victory, you should be satisfied with the many arguments by which I have shown on other occasions that this suspicion is unfounded. But I shall also make clear something about the extent of your imperial power which, I think, you have never considered for yourselves, nor have I set out in my earlier speeches. I would not have employed it now either, since its claim has a somewhat boastful air, had I not seen you unreasonably cast down.

2 “You think that you rule only your allies; but I declare that, of the two realms open to human use, land and sea, you are absolute masters of the whole of one—not merely as far as you now range, but farther too, if you wish. With your present naval resources, neither the King nor any other people now in existence can prevent you from sailing.

3 “This power plainly bears no comparison with the use of houses and land, whose loss you consider so great. Rather than grieve over them, you should think little of them, regarding them beside this power as a garden plot, an ornament of wealth. Recognize that freedom, if we hold fast and preserve it, will readily recover these things, whereas submission to others commonly diminishes even what was possessed before. Do not prove inferior to your fathers in either respect: they secured these things through labor, not by receiving them from others, and, preserving them as well, handed them down to you. To be stripped of what one holds is more shameful than to fail in acquiring it. Meet your enemies not merely with confidence, but with contempt.

4 “For even a coward may acquire a boastful spirit through ignorance favored by fortune; but contempt belongs to the man who trusts his judgment that he is superior to his opponents—and that is our position.

5 “And when fortune is equal, intelligence makes the daring born of a sense of superiority more secure. It relies less on hope, whose strength lies in helplessness, than on judgment drawn from the resources at hand, whose foresight is more dependable.

Chapter 63

1 “It is right that you should defend the city's honor, which comes from ruling and in which you all glory: you must not shun its labors, unless you also renounce its honors. Nor should you think that the struggle concerns only one thing, slavery instead of freedom; it also concerns the loss of empire and the danger from those whose hatred you have earned in exercising it.

2 “You can no longer withdraw from that empire, even if someone, frightened by the present crisis, would play the virtuous man by remaining inactive. For by now you hold it as a tyranny: taking it may seem unjust, but letting it go is dangerous.

3 “Such men would very quickly destroy a city, whether by persuading others or by settling somewhere independently on their own. For inactivity cannot survive unless it takes its place beside action; nor is it advantageous in a ruling city, but in a subject city, to live safely as a slave.

Chapter 64

1 “Do not let such citizens lead you astray, and do not be angry with me, when you yourselves joined me in deciding on war. Our enemies have invaded and done what was to be expected when you refused to submit; and beyond what we anticipated this plague has come upon us—the one event of all that has surpassed expectation. I know that it accounts for some further share of your hatred of me, but unjustly, unless you will also give me credit whenever you prosper beyond calculation.

2 “What comes from the gods must be borne as necessity, and what comes from our enemies with courage. This has long been the city's practice; do not let it be broken in your time.

3 “Know that the city has the greatest name among all peoples because it does not yield to misfortune, and has expended more lives and labor in war than any other; that it has acquired the greatest power yet known; and that the memory of this power will remain forever among those who come after us, even if we should now at some point give ground—for all things naturally decline. They will remember that we Greeks ruled over more Greeks than any others, withstood the greatest wars against them all together and separately, and inhabited a city richer in every resource and greater than any other.

4 “The inactive man may find fault with these things; but anyone who wishes to achieve something himself will emulate them, while anyone who lacks them will envy them.

5 “To be hated and to cause distress for the moment has been the lot of all who have claimed the right to rule others. But the man who accepts that burden of envy for the greatest ends judges rightly. For hatred does not last long, while present splendor and glory in the time to come remain in everlasting memory.

6 “Look ahead to the honor of the future and to the avoidance of disgrace now, and secure both by an immediate show of resolve. Send no more heralds to the Lacedaemonians, and do not reveal how heavily your present hardships weigh upon you. For those who are least distressed in spirit by misfortune and most steadfast against it in action are the strongest, whether cities or individuals.”

Chapter 65

1 By speaking in this way, Pericles tried to release the Athenians from their anger against him and turn their thoughts away from their present terrors.

2 In public affairs they were persuaded by his words: they no longer sent to the Lacedaemonians and pursued the war with greater determination. In private, however, they grieved over their sufferings: the common people because, having started with little, they had lost even that; the powerful because they had lost fine estates in the countryside, with their buildings and costly fittings; and, most of all, because they had war instead of peace.

3 Nevertheless, the whole body of citizens did not cease to be angry with him until they had imposed a fine upon him.

4 Not long afterward, in the usual manner of a crowd, they elected him general again and entrusted all affairs to him. Each man's pain over his private losses had by then grown less acute, and they considered him the most valuable man for the needs of the city as a whole.

5 For throughout the time when he led the city in peace, he guided it with moderation and kept it safe, and under him it became greatest; and when war broke out, he evidently foresaw its strength in this too.

6 He lived for two years and six months after its outbreak; and after his death the foresight of his judgment about the war became still more apparent.

7 For he said that they would prevail if they remained on the defensive, attended to the fleet, and neither sought to extend their empire during the war nor put the city at risk. They did the opposite in all these respects, and, pursuing private ambitions and private gains, mismanaged even matters seemingly unconnected with the war, to the harm of themselves and their allies. When such policies succeeded, they chiefly brought honor and advantage to individuals; when they failed, the damage fell upon the city in its conduct of the war.

8 The reason was that Pericles, powerful through his standing and judgment, and manifestly incorruptible in matters of money, held the people in check without curtailing their freedom; he led them rather than being led by them. Since he did not seek to acquire power by improper means, he had no need to speak to please them; his standing instead enabled him to contradict them even at the cost of their anger.

9 Whenever he saw them emboldened by arrogance at the wrong moment, his words struck them with fear; and when they were unreasonably afraid, he restored their confidence. What existed was a democracy in word, but in deed the rule of the foremost man.

10 His successors, being more nearly equal to one another and each striving to become foremost, turned to pleasing the people and surrendered even the conduct of affairs to them.

11 From this arose many errors, as was to be expected in a great city possessing an empire, and in particular the expedition to Sicily. This was not so much a misjudgment concerning the people they were attacking as a failure by those who sent it to decide on measures suited to the men abroad. Instead, through private slanders in their contest for leadership of the people, they both blunted the army's effectiveness and, for the first time, brought the city's affairs into turmoil through their quarrels with one another.

12 Though they had lost other forces and the greater part of their fleet in Sicily, and civil strife was already upon the city, they nevertheless held out for three years against their original enemies, the Sicilians who joined them, most of their own allies, who had now revolted, and later Cyrus, the King's son, who joined the opposing side and supplied the Peloponnesians with money for their fleet. They did not give in until they had fallen upon one another in their private quarrels and brought about their own overthrow.

13 So ample was the margin in Pericles' estimate at the time: on the grounds he had foreseen, the city could quite easily have prevailed in the war against the Peloponnesians alone.

Chapter 66

1 In the same summer, the Lacedaemonians and their allies sailed with a hundred ships against the island of Zacynthus, which lies opposite Elis. Its inhabitants are colonists of the Achaeans of the Peloponnese and were allied with Athens.

2 A thousand Lacedaemonian hoplites were aboard, with Cnemus, a Spartan, as admiral. They landed and ravaged most of the country; but when the inhabitants would not come to terms, they sailed home.

Chapter 67

1 At the end of the same summer, Aristeus the Corinthian, the Lacedaemonian envoys Aneristus, Nicolaus, and Pratodamus, Timagoras of Tegea, and Pollis, an Argive traveling in a private capacity, were on their way to Asia to visit the King, hoping to persuade him to provide money and join the war. They first came to Sitalces son of Teres in Thrace. They wished, if possible, to persuade him to abandon his alliance with Athens and march against Potidaea, where an Athenian army was conducting the siege, and also to obtain passage through his territory on their intended journey across the Hellespont to Pharnaces son of Pharnabazus, who was to send them on to the King.

2 The Athenian envoys Learchus son of Callimachus and Ameiniades son of Philemon happened to be with Sitalces. They persuaded his son Sadocus, who had become an Athenian citizen, to hand the men over to them, so that they should not cross over to the King and do their part in harming his adopted city.

3 Won over, Sadocus sent others with Learchus and Ameiniades and had the men arrested as they traveled through Thrace toward the vessel in which they intended to cross the Hellespont, before they embarked. He ordered their captors to hand them over to the Athenian envoys, who took charge of them and brought them to Athens.

4 Upon their arrival, the Athenians feared that Aristeus might escape and do them still greater harm, since he was known to have been responsible already for the whole affair at Potidaea and on the Thracian coast. That very day they put all the men to death without trial, though they wished to make certain statements, and threw them into a ravine. They considered themselves justified in retaliating by the same means that the Lacedaemonians had first employed, when they killed the Athenian and allied merchants they caught sailing in cargo ships around the Peloponnese and threw them into ravines. For at the beginning of the war the Lacedaemonians killed as enemies everyone they captured at sea, both those fighting alongside Athens and those on neither side.

Chapter 68

1 About the same time, at the end of the summer, the Ambraciots, having mobilized many of the barbarians as well as their own forces, marched against Amphilochian Argos and the rest of Amphilochia.

2 Their hostility toward the Argives first arose as follows.

3 After the Trojan War, Amphilochus son of Amphiaraus returned home and, dissatisfied with the state of affairs at Argos, founded Amphilochian Argos and settled the rest of Amphilochia on the Ambracian Gulf, naming Argos after his own native city.

4 (This city was the largest in Amphilochia and had the most powerful inhabitants.)

5 Many generations later, however, under pressure from misfortunes, the Argives invited the Ambraciots, whose territory bordered Amphilochia, to settle with them. It was then, through these Ambraciot settlers, that they first acquired the Greek language they now speak; the other Amphilochians are barbarians.

6 In time, then, the Ambraciots expelled the Argives and occupied the city themselves.

7 After this happened, the Amphilochians entrusted themselves to the Acarnanians. Both peoples then called in the Athenians, who sent them the general Phormio and thirty ships. When Phormio arrived, they took Argos by storm and enslaved the Ambraciots; Amphilochians and Acarnanians settled there together.

8 It was after this that the alliance between the Athenians and the Acarnanians first came into being.

9 The Ambraciots' hostility toward the Argives began with this enslavement of their own people. Later, during the war, they undertook the present expedition with their own forces, the Chaonians, and some of the other neighboring barbarians. When they reached Argos, they gained control of the countryside, but their assault failed to capture the city; they withdrew home and dispersed to their respective peoples. Such were the events of the summer.

Chapter 69

1 In the following winter, the Athenians sent twenty ships around the Peloponnese under the general Phormio. Based at Naupactus, he kept watch to prevent anyone from sailing out of Corinth and the Crisaean Gulf or sailing in. They sent another six ships under the general Melesander toward Caria and Lycia, to collect money in those regions and prevent Peloponnesian pirates from using them as bases to interfere with the passage of cargo ships from Phaselis, Phoenicia, and the mainland in that direction.

2 Melesander marched inland into Lycia with a force of Athenians from the ships and allies; he was defeated in battle and killed, and lost part of his army.

Chapter 70

1 During the same winter, the Potidaeans could no longer hold out under siege. The Peloponnesian invasions of Attica had done nothing to dislodge the Athenians, their food had run out, many other desperate expedients for obtaining nourishment had already been tried there, and some had even tasted one another's flesh. In these circumstances they approached the Athenian generals commanding against them—Xenophon son of Euripides, Hestiodorus son of Aristoclides, and Phanomachus son of Callimachus—to discuss an agreement.

2 The generals accepted the proposal, seeing the army's hardship in a place exposed to winter weather, and knowing that the city had already spent two thousand talents on the siege.

3 They therefore agreed on these terms: the inhabitants, their children and wives, and the mercenaries were to leave with one garment each, the women with two, and a specified sum of money for their journey.

4 They left under the protection of the agreement, going to Chalcidice and wherever each could. The Athenians blamed the generals for reaching an agreement without consulting them, for they believed they could have secured the city on whatever terms they wished. Later they sent settlers of their own to Potidaea and established them there. These were the events of the winter, and the second year of this war, which Thucydides wrote, came to an end.

Chapter 71

1 In the following summer the Peloponnesians and their allies did not invade Attica, but marched against Plataea, led by Archidamus son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. He encamped with his army and was about to ravage the land when the Plataeans immediately sent envoys to him, who spoke as follows:

2 “Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, in marching against the land of Plataea you act unjustly and unworthily both of yourselves and of the fathers from whom you descend. For Pausanias son of Cleombrotus, the Lacedaemonian, freed Hellas from the Medes with those Greeks who were willing to share the danger of the battle fought here. After sacrificing to Zeus the Liberator in the marketplace of Plataea and summoning all the allies, he restored their own land and city to the Plataeans, to inhabit in independence. No one was ever to march against them unjustly or to enslave them; otherwise, the allies then present were to defend them to the best of their ability.

3 “Your fathers granted us this for the courage and zeal we displayed in those dangers; but you do the opposite. You have come with the Thebans, our bitterest enemies, to enslave us.

4 “Calling as witnesses the gods who sanctioned the oaths then, your ancestral gods, and the gods of our own land, we tell you not to wrong the territory of Plataea or violate the oaths, but to let us live in independence, as Pausanias judged right.”

Chapter 72

1 When the Plataeans had said this, Archidamus answered: “Your words are just, men of Plataea, if your actions match them. As Pausanias granted you, live in independence yourselves, and help to free the others who shared in the dangers of that time and swore the oaths with you, but are now under Athenian rule. This great armament has been raised and this war begun to liberate them and the rest. Best of all, join in that liberation and so keep your oaths yourselves. Failing that, as we have already proposed before, remain at peace, enjoying your own possessions, and take neither side. Receive both as friends, but neither for purposes of war. That will satisfy us.”

2 Such was Archidamus' answer. After hearing it, the Plataean envoys went into the city and communicated his words to the people. They replied that they could not do as he proposed without the Athenians' consent, since their children and wives were with them. They also feared for the whole city: once the Lacedaemonians withdrew, the Athenians might come and refuse to allow the arrangement, or the Thebans might again try to seize their city, invoking the oath's requirement that both sides be admitted.

3 To reassure them on these points, he said: “Hand over your city and houses to us Lacedaemonians, mark out the boundaries of your land, and give us a count of your trees and anything else that can be counted. Move away yourselves wherever you wish for the duration of the war. When it is over, we shall return what we have received. Until then we shall hold it in trust, cultivating the land and paying you a return sufficient for your needs.”

Chapter 73

1 On hearing this they went back into the city and, after consulting the people, said that they wished first to communicate his proposal to the Athenians; if they persuaded them, they would do as he asked. In the meantime, they requested a truce and asked him not to ravage their land. He granted a truce for as many days as their journey could reasonably be expected to take, and left the land unharmed.

2 The [Plataean] envoys went to the Athenians and consulted them, then returned and reported to those in the city as follows:

3 “Men of Plataea, the Athenians say that never in the past, from the time we became allies, have they abandoned you when you were wronged, nor will they stand by now: they will help you to the best of their ability. They charge you, by the oaths your fathers swore, to make no change in the alliance.”

Chapter 74

1 When the envoys had delivered this report, the Plataeans resolved not to betray the Athenians, but to endure the sight of their land being ravaged, if necessary, and whatever else might befall them. No one was to go out again; instead they would answer from the wall that they could not do as the Lacedaemonians proposed.

2 After they had given their answer, King Archidamus first appealed to the gods and heroes of the land to bear witness, speaking as follows: “Gods and heroes who possess the land of Plataea, be witnesses that our coming into this land was not unjust in the first place: these men had already abandoned our common oath. This is the land where our fathers prayed to you and defeated the Medes, and you made it favorable to the Greeks in their struggle. Nor shall we act unjustly in anything we may now do; for we have made many reasonable proposals and have not prevailed. Give your assent: let those who first committed injustice suffer punishment, and let those who lawfully bring it upon them obtain redress.”

Chapter 75

1 After this appeal to the gods, he set his army to war. First they enclosed the Plataeans with a palisade made from the trees they had cut down, to prevent anyone from coming out; then they began raising a mound against the city, expecting that with so great an army at work they would capture it very quickly.

2 They cut timber from Cithaeron and built up both sides, laying it crosswise like wickerwork in place of walls, so that the mound would not spread too far. Into it they carried brushwood, stones, earth, and anything else whose addition might advance the work.

3 For seventy days and nights they kept building without interruption, divided into shifts for rest, so that some carried material while others took food and sleep. The Lacedaemonian officers commanding the contingents from each city joined in supervising them and drove them on with the work.

4 When the Plataeans saw the mound rising, they assembled a wooden framework and set it on their own wall where the mound was approaching. Within this they built up bricks, which they took from the neighboring houses as they pulled them down.

5 The timber bound the bricks together, to keep the structure from becoming weak as it rose; and it had screens of hides and leather, so that both the workmen and the timber would be protected against fire-bearing arrows and kept safe.

6 The wall was rising to a great height, and the mound rose to meet it no less quickly. The Plataeans then devised this expedient: they broke through their wall where the mound pressed against it and carried the earth inside.

Chapter 76

1 When the Peloponnesians discovered this, they packed clay into reed frames and threw them into the breach, so that the material could not crumble like earth and be carried away.

2 Blocked in this direction, the Plataeans abandoned that method. Instead they dug a tunnel from the city, calculated its course beneath the mound, and once again drew the soil away into their own lines. For a long time the men outside did not discover them; thus their additions made less progress, as the mound was being undermined from below and continually settling into the space left empty.

3 But fearing that even so they would be unable, with their few men against so many, to hold out, they devised a further measure. They stopped work on the great structure facing the mound and, starting on either side of it from the low wall, built an inward-curving crescent of wall within the city. If the great wall were taken, this would hold out, and the enemy would have to build another mound against it; as they advanced inward, they would face twice the labor and be more exposed to attack from both sides.

4 Along with their work on the mound, the Peloponnesians brought siege engines against the city. One, brought up on the mound against the great structure, shook it severely and frightened the Plataeans; others were brought against other parts of the wall. The Plataeans threw nooses around these and hauled them upward. They also suspended great beams by long iron chains attached at either end to two sloping spars that projected beyond the wall, and drew the beams up crosswise. Whenever an engine was about to strike at any point, they let the beam go, allowing the chains to slacken instead of holding it in hand; falling with force, it snapped off the projecting head of the ram.

Chapter 77

1 After this, since their engines achieved nothing and a counterwall was rising against their mound, the Peloponnesians judged that the means of attack at their disposal offered no way to take the city, and began preparing to enclose it with a wall.

2 First, however, they decided to try fire, to see whether, if a wind arose, they could burn down the city, which was not large. They were devising every possible means of bringing it into their hands without expense and a siege.

3 They carried bundles of brushwood and threw them from the mound, first into the space between the wall and the earthwork. With so many hands at work, this was soon filled; then they piled more over as much of the rest of the city as they could reach from their elevated position. They threw in fire with sulfur and pitch and set the wood alight.

4 A blaze arose greater than any fire made by human hands that anyone had yet seen, at least up to that time; for in the mountains, woodland had before now, through the friction of trees in the wind, spontaneously kindled and sent up flames.

5 This fire was enormous, and came very near to destroying the Plataeans, who had escaped all the other dangers. A large part of the city could not be approached; and if a wind had arisen to drive the fire into it, as the enemy hoped, they would not have escaped.

6 As it was, this too is said to have occurred: heavy rain [from the sky] and thunder came, quenching the flames and so ending the danger.

Chapter 78

1 When the Peloponnesians failed in this attempt as well, they retained part of their army and dismissed the greater part, then built a wall all around the city, dividing the ground among the contingents from each city. There was a ditch both inside and outside, from which they made their bricks.

2 When everything was finished, about the rising of Arcturus, they left guards for half the wall—the Boeotians guarded the other half—and withdrew their army, dispersing to their several cities.

3 The Plataeans had previously sent their children, women, oldest men, and the mass of those unfit for service to Athens. Those left behind to endure the siege were four hundred Plataeans, eighty Athenians, and a hundred and ten women who prepared their food.

4 These were their entire numbers when the siege began; there was no one else within the walls, slave or free. Such were the preparations for the siege of Plataea.

Chapter 79

1 In the same summer, at the time of the expedition against Plataea, the Athenians campaigned against the Chalcidians in Thrace and the Bottiaeans with two thousand of their own hoplites and two hundred cavalry, when the grain was ripe. Xenophon son of Euripides was general, with two colleagues.

2 They came beneath the walls of Spartolus in Bottice and destroyed the grain. It seemed that the city would also come over to them, through the efforts of certain men within. But those who opposed this sent to Olynthus, and hoplites and other troops arrived to guard the city. When this force came out of Spartolus, the Athenians engaged it in battle immediately below the city.

3 The Chalcidian hoplites and some auxiliaries with them were defeated by the Athenians and withdrew into Spartolus, but the Chalcidian cavalry and light troops defeated the Athenian cavalry and light troops.

4 The Chalcidians also had a few peltasts from the country called Crusis. The battle had only just ended when more peltasts came to their aid from Olynthus.

5 When the light troops from Spartolus saw them, encouraged both by these reinforcements and by their own earlier success, they attacked the Athenians again, together with the Chalcidian cavalry and the men who had come to help. The Athenians withdrew toward the two companies they had left beside the baggage.

6 Whenever the Athenians advanced, the enemy gave way; when they withdrew, the enemy pressed them and hurled javelins. The Chalcidian cavalry rode up and attacked wherever they thought best, and by the fear they inspired contributed greatly to routing the Athenians, whom they pursued a long way.

7 The Athenians took refuge in Potidaea. Later they recovered their dead under truce and returned to Athens with the remnant of their army. Four hundred and thirty of their men had died, and all their generals. The Chalcidians and Bottiaeans set up a trophy, recovered their own dead, and dispersed to their several cities.

Chapter 80

1 In the same summer, not long after these events, the Ambraciots and Chaonians, wishing to subdue the whole of Acarnania and detach it from Athens, persuaded the Lacedaemonians to equip a fleet from their allies and send a thousand hoplites against Acarnania. They argued that if the Lacedaemonians joined them with ships and infantry at the same time, the Acarnanians on the coast would be unable to unite in the defense: they would easily secure Acarnania and then master Zacynthus and Cephallenia as well. The Athenians would no longer be able to sail around the Peloponnese as before; there was even hope of taking Naupactus.

2 The Lacedaemonians were persuaded and immediately sent Cnemus, who was still admiral, with the hoplites in a few ships. They instructed the fleet to make ready and sail to Leucas as quickly as possible.

3 The Corinthians were especially eager to support the Ambraciots, who were their colonists. The ships from Corinth, Sicyon, and the places in that region were still being prepared, while those from Leucas, Anactorium, and Ambracia had arrived earlier and were waiting at Leucas.

4 Cnemus and the thousand hoplites with him crossed over undetected by Phormio, who commanded the twenty Athenian ships keeping watch around Naupactus, and at once began preparing the expedition by land.

5 Of the Greeks, he had with him Ambraciots, Leucadians, Anactorians, and the thousand Peloponnesians he had brought himself; of the barbarians, a thousand Chaonians, who had no king and were led by Photius and Nicanor, members of the ruling family who held the chief office for the year. The Thesprotians, who likewise had no king, campaigned with the Chaonians.

6 Sabylinthus led the Molossians and Atintanians, acting as guardian to King Tharyps, who was still a child; Oroedus, their king, led the Parauaeans. A thousand Orestians, whose king was Antiochus, campaigned with the Parauaeans, Antiochus having entrusted their command to Oroedus.

7 Perdiccas also sent a thousand Macedonians without the Athenians' knowledge; these arrived later.

8 With this army Cnemus advanced, without waiting for the fleet from Corinth. Passing through Argeia, they sacked Limnaea, an unwalled village. They came against Stratus, the largest city in Acarnania, believing that if they took this first, the rest would readily come over to them.

Chapter 81

1 When the Acarnanians learned that a large army had invaded by land and that the enemy would arrive by sea with ships at the same time, they did not unite in the defense, but each guarded their own territory. They sent to Phormio, asking him to help; he replied that with a fleet about to sail from Corinth, he could not leave Naupactus unprotected.

2 The Peloponnesians and their allies divided themselves into three bodies and advanced toward the city of the Stratians, intending to camp close by and, if persuasion failed, to attempt the wall by force.

3 The Chaonians and the other barbarians advanced in the center; to their right were the Leucadians, Anactorians, and those with them, and on the left Cnemus, the Peloponnesians, and the Ambraciots. They were widely separated from one another, sometimes even out of sight.

4 The Greeks advanced in formation, maintaining their guard until they encamped in a suitable place. But the Chaonians, confident in themselves and regarded by the mainland peoples of that region as the most warlike, did not wait to establish a camp. They rushed forward with the other barbarians, thinking to take the city at the first shout and make the achievement their own.

5 The Stratians perceived this while they were still approaching. Judging that if they defeated them in isolation, the Greeks would no longer advance against them with the same confidence, they laid ambushes beforehand around the city. When the enemy came close, they charged out from the city and fell upon them from the ambushes.

6 The Chaonians were thrown into panic and many were killed; when the other barbarians saw them giving way, they no longer stood their ground but took to flight.

7 Neither of the Greek divisions knew of the battle, since the barbarians had gone far ahead and were thought to be hurrying to establish a camp.

8 But when the fleeing barbarians came pressing back upon them, they took them in, united their divisions, and stayed quietly where they were for the day. The Stratians did not come to close quarters, since the other Acarnanians had not yet joined them, but slung stones from a distance and reduced them to helplessness: they could not move without their armor. The Acarnanians are considered unsurpassed in the use of the sling.

Chapter 82

1 When night came, Cnemus withdrew his army in haste to the river Anapus, eighty stades from Stratus. The next day he recovered his dead under truce, and, when men from Oeniadae came to him as friends, he withdrew to their city before the Acarnanian reinforcements arrived. From there each contingent returned home. The Stratians set up a trophy for the battle against the barbarians.

Chapter 83

1 The fleet from Corinth and the other allies in the Crisaean Gulf, which was to have joined Cnemus to prevent the Acarnanians on the coast from bringing help inland, did not arrive. Instead, about the same days as the battle at Stratus, it was compelled to fight a sea battle against Phormio and the twenty Athenian ships stationed at Naupactus.

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

3 The Corinthians and their allies were sailing with equipment intended not for a sea battle but rather for a land campaign in Acarnania, and did not think the Athenians would venture to fight their forty-seven ships with only twenty of their own. But they saw the Athenians keeping pace with them as they sailed along the coast; and when they crossed from Patrae in Achaea toward the opposite mainland, making for Acarnania, they observed the Athenians sailing toward them from Chalcis and the river Evenus. Nor had their departure by night escaped notice. Thus they were compelled to fight in the middle of the strait.

4 Each of the cities contributing ships had its own commanders; those of the Corinthians were Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas.

5 The Peloponnesians formed their ships into as wide a circle as they could without allowing the enemy to sail through, with prows outward and sterns inward. They placed inside both the small craft accompanying them and their five fastest ships, so that these could emerge at short notice to support any point the enemy attacked.

Chapter 84

1 The Athenians, ranged in single file, sailed around them, continually passing close alongside and making as if to ram at once, forcing them into an ever narrower space. But Phormio had ordered them not to attack until he himself gave the signal.

2 He expected that their formation would not hold like an infantry formation on land: the ships would collide, and the small craft would cause confusion. If the wind blew out of the gulf—the wind he was awaiting as he circled, which usually arose toward dawn—they would not remain steady for a moment. Since his own ships handled better, he considered that the choice of when to attack lay with him, and that this would be the best moment.

3 The wind came down, and the ships, already confined in a narrow space, were thrown into confusion by the combined pressure of the wind and the small craft. Ship struck ship, and the men pushed them apart with poles; amid their shouting, warnings, and abuse of one another, they could hear neither orders nor the rowing-masters. Inexperienced men, unable to lift their oars clear of the waves, made their ships less responsive to the helmsmen. At precisely this moment Phormio gave the signal. The Athenians fell upon them and first sank one of the commanders' ships, then destroyed the others wherever they went. They brought them to such a state that in their confusion none turned to resist, but all fled toward Patrae and Dyme in Achaea.

4 The Athenians pursued, captured twelve ships, and took aboard most of their crews, then sailed away to Molycreum. They set up a trophy on Rhium, dedicated a ship to Poseidon, and returned to Naupactus.

5 The Peloponnesians too sailed at once with their remaining ships from Dyme and Patrae to Cyllene, the port of the Eleans. After the battle at Stratus, Cnemus and the ships from Leucas, which were to have joined this fleet, also arrived at Cyllene.

Chapter 85

1 The Lacedaemonians also sent Timocrates, Brasidas, and Lycophron to the fleet as advisers to Cnemus, ordering him to prepare for another, more successful sea battle and not to let a few ships bar him from the sea.

2 The outcome seemed to them utterly contrary to expectation, especially since this was their first experience of a sea battle. They did not believe their fleet so inferior, but thought there must have been some failure of nerve; they did not weigh the Athenians' long experience against their own brief training. They therefore sent the advisers in anger.

3 On arriving, these men, together with Cnemus, sent orders to the cities for additional ships and fitted out those already there for a sea battle.

4 Phormio too sent men to Athens to report the enemy's preparations and give an account of the sea battle they had won, requesting that as many ships as possible be sent to him quickly, since he expected from day to day to fight at any moment.

5 The Athenians dispatched twenty ships to him, but gave their commander additional orders to go first to Crete. For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortyn who was their proxenus, persuaded them to sail against Cydonia, saying that he would bring it over to them, though it was hostile. He was bringing them there to oblige the Polichnitans, who were neighbors of the Cydonians.

6 The commander took the ships to Crete and, together with the Polichnitans, ravaged the Cydonians' land. Winds and weather unfit for sailing kept him there a considerable time.

Chapter 86

1 While the Athenians were detained around Crete, the Peloponnesians at Cyllene, now prepared for a sea battle, sailed along to Panormus in Achaea, where the Peloponnesian land army had come to their support.

2 Phormio too sailed along to Molycrian Rhium and anchored outside it with the twenty ships with which he had fought the battle.

3 This Rhium was friendly to the Athenians; the other Rhium lies opposite, in the Peloponnese. About seven stades of sea separate them, and this is the mouth of the Crisaean Gulf.

4 When they saw the Athenians, the Peloponnesians likewise anchored with their seventy-seven ships at Achaean Rhium, not far from Panormus, where their infantry lay.

5 For six or seven days they lay at anchor facing one another, training and preparing for the battle. The Peloponnesians intended not to sail outside the Rhiums into open water, fearing a repetition of their earlier disaster; the Athenians intended not to enter the narrows, believing that a battle in confined water would favor the enemy.

6 Then Cnemus, Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian generals, wishing to bring on the sea battle quickly, before any reinforcements could arrive from Athens, first assembled their troops. Seeing that most were afraid because of their earlier defeat and reluctant to fight, they encouraged them with these words:

Chapter 87

1 “Men of the Peloponnese, if any of you fears the coming sea battle because of the one already fought, that battle gives him no sound ground for his fear.

2 “For our preparations, as you know, were deficient, and we were sailing not so much for a sea battle as for a land campaign. Many accidents of fortune also went against us, and inexperience doubtless contributed to our failure, since this was our first sea battle.

3 “Our defeat, then, did not come from cowardice. Nor should our resolve, which was not overpowered outright and still has an answer to give, be blunted by the outcome of that misfortune. We should recognize that men may be brought down by fortune, yet the same men rightly remain courageous in spirit; and that, when courage is theirs, they cannot reasonably turn coward in anything by making inexperience their excuse.

4 “Your deficiency in experience is not even as great as your superiority in daring. Their skill, which you fear most, will, if it has courage with it, also have the presence of mind in danger to practice what it has learned; but without stoutness of heart no art has power against peril. Fear drives out memory, and art without fighting spirit is of no use.

5 “Against their greater experience, then, set your greater daring; against the fear born of defeat, the fact that you were then unprepared.

6 “You have, besides, superiority in numbers of ships, and will fight close to your own land with hoplites at hand. Victory generally belongs to those who are more numerous and better prepared.

7 “Thus we can find not a single respect in which we should reasonably expect to fail. The very errors we made before, now added to our experience, will teach us.

8 “Take courage, then, helmsmen and sailors alike, and let each perform his own part, without leaving the post assigned to him.

9 “We shall prepare the attack no worse than your former commanders, and shall give no one an excuse to act the coward. If anyone should nevertheless choose to do so, he will receive the punishment he deserves; the brave will be honored with the rewards proper to their valor.”

Chapter 88

1 Such was the encouragement the commanders gave the Peloponnesians. Phormio, himself concerned at his men's apprehension and aware that they were gathering in groups among themselves in fear of the enemy's numbers of ships, wished to assemble them, restore their confidence, and offer the counsel the moment required.

2 For he had always told them before, preparing their minds in advance, that however great the fleet that attacked them, they must stand their ground. The men had long since taken this conviction to heart: as Athenians, they would not give way before any multitude of Peloponnesian ships.

3 But now, seeing them disheartened at the actual sight before them, he wished to remind them to be confident. He assembled the Athenians and spoke as follows:

Chapter 89

1 “Soldiers, I have assembled you because I see you alarmed at the enemy's numbers, and do not think you should be in dread of what is not to be feared.

2 “In the first place, it is because they have already been defeated and do not themselves believe they are our equals that they have equipped so many ships rather than a force equal to ours. Then, as for the chief ground of confidence with which they approach—the belief that courage is their natural due—they are confident for no other reason than that their experience on land generally brings them success, and they think it will do the same for them at sea.

3 “But the advantage should now rightly be ours, if indeed it is theirs on land, since they are in no way superior in courage: each of us is bolder in the field where we have more experience.

4 “The Lacedaemonians who command them, for the sake of their own reputation, are bringing most of them unwillingly into danger; otherwise, after so complete a defeat, they would never have attempted another sea battle.

5 “Do not, then, fear their daring. You inspire in them a far greater and better-founded fear, both because you have defeated them already and because they believe you would not stand against them unless you expected some success to justify facing such unequal odds.

6 “For an enemy superior in numbers, like this one, advances relying more on strength than on judgment; but those who, with far inferior numbers and under no compulsion, dare to oppose him must possess great firmness of purpose. These men reckon with that, and fear us more for conduct beyond their expectations than for the force that reason would lead them to expect.

7 “Many armies have already fallen to smaller forces through inexperience, and some through lack of daring; of neither failing do we now have any share.

8 “I shall not willingly fight the battle in the gulf, nor shall I sail into it. For I see that confined waters do not favor a few ships, well handled and with better sailing qualities, against many unskilled ones. A man cannot advance properly to ram without sight of the enemy from far off, nor withdraw at the right moment when hard pressed. There is no sailing through the enemy's line and no turning back to attack—maneuvers that belong to better-handled ships. Instead the sea battle must become a land battle, and in that the more numerous ships have the advantage.

9 “I shall take thought for these matters as far as I can. You, remaining in good order beside your ships, must receive commands promptly, especially since an attack can come over so short a distance. In action, prize order and silence above all: they are useful in most operations of war, and not least in a sea battle. Resist these men in a manner worthy of your earlier achievements.

10 “Great is the contest before you: either to destroy the Peloponnesians' hope of naval power, or to bring the Athenians closer to fearing for their command of the sea.

11 “Again I remind you that you have defeated most of them already; and men who have been defeated do not readily face the same dangers with the same spirit.”

Chapter 90

1 Such was Phormio’s exhortation also. Since the Athenians would not sail into the gulf and its narrow waters to attack them, the Peloponnesians sought to draw them inside against their will. At dawn they put out, with their ships formed four abreast, and sailed along their own coast into the gulf, their right wing leading, in the same order in which they had lain at anchor.

2 On this wing they had stationed their twenty fastest ships, so that if Phormio supposed they were sailing against Naupactus and himself sailed along the coast to its relief, the Athenians should not escape their attack by passing outside their wing, but should be enclosed by these ships.

3 As they had anticipated, when he saw them putting out, he feared for the undefended town; reluctantly and in haste he embarked his men and sailed along the shore. The Messenian infantry hurried along beside him to give support.

4 When the Peloponnesians saw them sailing past in single file, already inside the gulf and close to land—just where they most wanted them—at a single signal they suddenly wheeled their ships and sailed in line abreast against the Athenians, each as fast as it could. They hoped to cut off the whole fleet.

5 But eleven of the leading ships slipped past the Peloponnesian wing as it wheeled and escaped into open water. The rest the Peloponnesians overtook as they tried to escape, drove ashore, and wrecked; they killed all the Athenians aboard who did not swim clear.

6 They made fast to some of the empty ships and began towing them away; one they had already captured with its crew. But the Messenians came to the rescue, waded into the sea in their armor, climbed aboard, and fought from the decks, recovering some of the ships even as they were being towed off.

Chapter 91

1 Here, then, the Peloponnesians had the advantage and were wrecking the Athenian ships. Their twenty ships from the right wing pursued the eleven Athenian ships that had escaped their wheeling movement into open water. All but one reached Naupactus ahead of their pursuers and, taking up positions with their bows facing outward opposite the temple of Apollo, prepared to defend themselves if the enemy sailed in against them at the shore.

2 The Peloponnesians came on behind, singing the paean as they sailed, as though victory was theirs already. One Leucadian ship, far ahead of the rest, was pursuing the single Athenian ship left behind.

3 A merchant ship happened to be lying at anchor offshore. The Athenian ship reached it first, sailed around it, struck the pursuing Leucadian amidships, and sank it.

4 This unexpected event, so contrary to all calculation, struck fear into the Peloponnesians. Their pursuit was already disordered by their sense of victory: some ships now halted with their oars held in the water, wishing to wait for the main body—a dangerous thing to do with an enemy so close, ready to attack—while others, unfamiliar with the waters, ran aground on shoals.

Chapter 92

1 The sight gave the Athenians courage. At a single command they raised a shout and charged. Encumbered by their earlier mistakes and their present disorder, the Peloponnesians held out a little while, then turned and fled to Panormus, from which they had put out.

2 In pursuit the Athenians captured the six enemy ships nearest them and recovered their own, which the Peloponnesians had first wrecked near the shore and then taken in tow. Some of the men they killed; others they took alive.

3 Timocrates the Lacedaemonian, who was aboard the Leucadian ship that sank beside the merchantman, cut his own throat as the ship was lost. His body washed into the harbor of Naupactus.

4 On their return the Athenians set up a trophy at the place from which they had put out to gain their victory. They recovered the dead and wreckage that lay near their own shore and returned the enemy’s dead under a truce.

5 The Peloponnesians too set up a trophy, claiming victory for the rout in which they had wrecked the ships against the shore. The ship they had captured they dedicated beside the trophy on Achaean Rhium.

6 After this, fearing the reinforcements from Athens, they all, except the Leucadians, sailed under cover of night into the Crisaean Gulf and on to Corinth.

7 Not long after the fleet’s departure, the Athenians from Crete arrived at Naupactus with the twenty ships that should have joined Phormio before the sea battle. And the summer ended.

Chapter 93

1 Before the fleet that had withdrawn to Corinth and the Crisaean Gulf was dispersed, Cnemus, Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian commanders resolved, at the beginning of winter and on the advice of the Megarians, to attempt an attack on Piraeus, the port of Athens. It was unguarded and its entrance unbarred, as was natural given the Athenians’ overwhelming naval superiority.

2 Their plan was for each sailor to take his oar, his rowing cushion, and his oar strap, and march from Corinth to the sea on the Athenian side. They were to reach Megara quickly, launch the forty ships that happened to be in its dockyard at Nisaea, and sail directly against Piraeus.

3 There was no fleet stationed there on guard, nor any expectation that the enemy might ever make so sudden a naval attack. The Athenians thought they would not dare even a deliberate attack in the open, and that, if they planned one, they themselves would learn of it beforehand.

4 Once they had decided, they set out at once. They arrived by night, launched the ships from Nisaea, and sailed—not against Piraeus, as they had intended, for they had taken fright at the danger, and a wind is also said to have hindered them, but against the headland of Salamis facing Megara. On it stood a fort, with a guard of three ships to prevent any shipping from entering or leaving Megara. They attacked the fort, towed away the empty triremes, and, falling upon the people unawares, ravaged the rest of Salamis.

Chapter 94

1 Fire signals warning of the enemy were raised toward Athens, and the alarm was as great as any in the war. Those in the city thought the enemy had already sailed into Piraeus; those in Piraeus thought Salamis had been taken and the enemy were all but sailing in upon them. Indeed, had they chosen not to shrink from it, this could easily have happened, and no wind would have prevented it.

2 At daybreak the Athenians hastened in full force to Piraeus and launched their ships. Embarking in haste and great confusion, they sailed for Salamis, while their land forces took up guard positions in Piraeus.

3 When the Peloponnesians learned that help was coming, they sailed quickly back to Nisaea, having overrun most of Salamis and taken prisoners, plunder, and the three ships from the fort at Budorum. Their own ships also caused them some alarm: they had been launched after a long interval and were anything but watertight. On reaching Megara they withdrew to Corinth again by land.

4 The Athenians, finding them gone from Salamis, sailed back as well. After this they took greater precautions for the security of Piraeus, barring its harbors and attending to its defense in other ways.

Chapter 95

1 At about the same time, as this winter began, Sitalces son of Teres, the Odrysian king of the Thracians, marched against Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and against the Chalcidians in Thrace. Two promises were at issue: he wished to exact fulfillment of one and fulfill the other himself.

2 Perdiccas had made promises to him if he would reconcile him with the Athenians, who were pressing him hard at the beginning of the war, and would not restore his hostile brother Philip to the throne; but he had not performed what he had undertaken. Sitalces himself, when making his alliance with the Athenians, had agreed to bring the Chalcidian war in Thrace to an end.

3 He therefore made the expedition on both accounts, taking with him Philip’s son Amyntas to place him on the Macedonian throne, as well as the Athenian envoys who happened to be there on this business, and Hagnon as commander. The Athenians too were to come against the Chalcidians with ships and as large an army as possible.

Chapter 96

1 Starting from the Odrysian country, he first called out the Thracians under his rule on this side of Mount Haemus and Rhodope, as far as the sea [toward both the Euxine Sea and the Hellespont]; then the Getae beyond Haemus and the other peoples settled on this side of the river Ister, nearer the coast of the Euxine Sea. The Getae and the peoples of this region border on the Scythians and are equipped like them: all are mounted archers.

2 He also summoned many of the independent, sword-bearing mountain Thracians called Dii, most of whom inhabit Rhodope. Some he induced to come for pay; others followed of their own accord.

3 He called out the Agrianians and Laeaeans as well, and all the other Paeonian peoples he ruled; these were the furthest limits of his dominion. For it extended as far as the Laeaean Paeonians and the river Strymon, which flows from Mount Scombrus through the Agrianians and Laeaeans; [there] it bordered on the Paeonians who were independent.

4 Toward the Triballians, who were also independent, the Treres and Tilataeans marked the boundary. They live north of Mount Scombrus and extend westward to the river Oscius. This river rises in the same mountain as the Nestus and Hebrus—a great, uninhabited mountain adjoining Rhodope.

Chapter 97

1 Along the sea, the Odrysian dominion stretched from the city of Abdera into the Euxine Sea as far as the river Ister. By the shortest course, with the wind always astern, the voyage along this coast takes a merchantman four days and as many nights; by land, a lightly equipped man completes the shortest journey from Abdera to the Ister in eleven days.

2 Such was its extent along the coast. Inland, from Byzantium to the Laeaeans and the Strymon—for here it reached furthest up from the sea—the distance was a thirteen-day journey for a lightly equipped man.

3 The tribute from the whole barbarian territory and the Greek cities, at the level it reached under Seuthes, who succeeded Sitalces as king and raised it to its highest point, amounted to about four hundred talents of silver, paid in gold and silver. Gifts of gold and silver were brought in to no less a value, apart from textiles, figured and plain, and other furnishings—not only for the king himself but also for the Odrysian nobles and those who shared his power.

4 For they had established a custom opposite to that of the Persian kingdom: to receive rather than to give. The custom existed among the other Thracians too—it was more shameful to refuse a request than to make one and fail—but the Odrysians, as their power allowed, practiced it on a greater scale. Nothing could be accomplished without giving gifts. Thus the kingdom attained great strength.

5 Of all the kingdoms in Europe between the Ionian Gulf and the Euxine Sea, it became the greatest in revenue and general prosperity, though in fighting strength and the size of its army it stood far below the Scythian kingdom, which ranked first.

6 In this respect no power in Europe can equal the Scythians; indeed, not even in Asia is there a single people that could stand against them, nation against nation, if all the Scythians were of one mind. Yet in other respects—in sound judgment and understanding of the practical needs of life—they do not measure up to others.

Chapter 98

1 Ruling so extensive a country, Sitalces was assembling his army. When his preparations were complete, he set out for Macedonia, first through his own dominion and then across Cercine, an uninhabited mountain on the boundary between the Sinti and the Paeonians. He crossed it by the road he himself had previously cut through the forest when he marched against the Paeonians.

2 As they crossed the mountain from the Odrysian country, they had the Paeonians on their right and the Sinti and Maedi on their left. After crossing it they reached Doberus in Paeonia.

3 On the march his army lost no men except a few to sickness, but it gained more: many independent Thracians followed uninvited in hope of plunder. Thus the whole force is said to have numbered no fewer than a hundred and fifty thousand.

4 The greater part was infantry, and about a third cavalry. Most of the cavalry was furnished by the Odrysians themselves, and next by the Getae. Of the infantry, the most warlike were the independent swordsmen who had come down from Rhodope; the rest followed as a mixed multitude, most formidable in its numbers.

Chapter 99

1 They therefore gathered at Doberus and prepared to descend from the heights into lower Macedonia, which Perdiccas ruled.

2 For the Lyncestians, Elimiotae, and other peoples of the uplands are Macedonians too; they are allies and subjects of these lowland Macedonians, but have kingships of their own.

3 The present coastal Macedonia was first acquired and ruled by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, who were originally Temenids from Argos. They expelled by force of arms the Pierians from Pieria; these later settled at Phagres and other places beneath Mount Pangaeum, beyond the Strymon, and even now the coastal land below Pangaeum is called the Pierian Gulf. From the country called Bottia they expelled the Bottiaeans, who now live beside the Chalcidians.

4 They also acquired a narrow strip of Paeonia along the river Axius, extending down from the interior to Pella and the sea; and beyond the Axius, as far as the Strymon, they occupy the country called Mygdonia, having driven out the Edonians.

5 They also expelled the Eordians from what is now called Eordia. Most of them perished, but a small remnant is settled around Physca. They expelled the Almopians from Almopia as well.

6 These Macedonians also subdued the other peoples whose lands they still hold: Anthemus, Crestonia, Bisaltia, and much of Macedonia proper. The whole is called Macedonia, and Perdiccas son of Alexander was its king when Sitalces invaded.

Chapter 100

1 Unable to resist the great army advancing upon them, these Macedonians took refuge in the strongholds and fortified places that existed in the country.

2 These were not many. Later, when Archelaus son of Perdiccas became king, he built the fortifications now in the country, cut straight roads, and put its other affairs in order. In horses, arms, and the rest of his military provision, he achieved more than all the eight kings before him together.

3 The Thracian army advanced from Doberus first into what had once been Philip’s dominion. It took Idomene by storm; Gortynia, Atalanta, and certain other places surrendered by agreement out of friendship for Philip’s son Amyntas, who was with the army. Europus they besieged, but could not take.

4 Then the army advanced into the rest of Macedonia, to the left of Pella and Cyrrhus. They did not penetrate beyond these places into Bottiaea and Pieria, but ravaged Mygdonia, Crestonia, and Anthemus.

5 The Macedonians had no thought of resisting with infantry. They summoned additional cavalry from their upland allies and, few against many, charged the Thracian army wherever an opportunity seemed to offer. Wherever they struck, no one stood against them: they were good horsemen, protected by breastplates. But when they were surrounded by the multitude, they exposed themselves to danger from a mass many times their own number. In the end they remained inactive, judging themselves unequal to taking risks against such superior numbers.

Chapter 101

1 Sitalces was negotiating with Perdiccas over the objects of his expedition. Since the Athenians had not arrived with their ships, doubting whether he would come, but had sent gifts and envoys instead, he dispatched part of his army against the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans. He confined them within their walls and ravaged their land.

2 While he remained in these regions, the Thessalians to the south, the Magnetes and the other subjects of Thessaly, and the Greeks as far as Thermopylae feared that the army might advance against them too, and made preparations.

3 Fear also seized the Thracians who occupied the plains northward beyond the Strymon: the Panaeans, Odomantians, Droans, and Dersaeans. All these are independent.

4 Among the Greeks hostile to Athens, too, the expedition prompted talk that the Athenians might lead the Thracians against them under the terms of their alliance.

5 Sitalces occupied and ravaged Chalcidice, Bottice, and Macedonia together. But he was accomplishing none of the objects of his invasion, his army was short of food, and it was suffering from the winter weather. Seuthes son of Sparadocus, his nephew and the most powerful man after himself, persuaded him to depart quickly. Perdiccas had secretly won Seuthes over by promising him his sister in marriage with a dowry.

6 Sitalces yielded and, after staying thirty days in all, eight of them among the Chalcidians, withdrew his army homeward in haste. Perdiccas later gave his sister Stratonice to Seuthes, as he had promised. Such were the events of Sitalces’ expedition.

Chapter 102

1 During the same winter, after the Peloponnesian fleet had dispersed, the Athenians at Naupactus made an expedition under Phormio. They sailed along the coast to Astacus, disembarked, and marched into the interior of Acarnania with four hundred Athenian hoplites from the ships and four hundred Messenians. They expelled from Stratus, Coronta, and other places men whose loyalty seemed doubtful, restored Cynes son of Theolytus to Coronta, and returned to their ships.

2 They did not think it possible in winter to march against Oeniadae, the only Acarnanians who had always been their enemies. For the river Achelous flows from Mount Pindus through Dolopia, the country of the Agraeans and Amphilochians, and the Acarnanian plain, passing the city of Stratus in its upper course and entering the sea beside Oeniadae. It forms a lake around their city, and its waters make a winter campaign impossible.

3 Most of the Echinades islands also lie directly opposite Oeniadae, close to the mouths of the Achelous. The river, being large, continually deposits silt, and some of the islands have already become part of the mainland; it is to be expected that all will meet the same fate before very long.

4 For the stream is powerful, voluminous, and muddy, and the islands lie close together, helping to bind the silt between them [by preventing its dispersal]. They lie staggered rather than in a row and leave no straight channels through which the water can pass out to sea.

5 They are uninhabited and small. It is said that when Alcmaeon son of Amphiaraus was wandering after the murder of his mother, Apollo’s oracle told him to settle in this land. The god declared that there would be no release from his terrors until he found and inhabited a country which, when he killed his mother, had not yet been seen by the sun and was not yet land; all the rest of the earth was polluted for him.

6 At a loss, as the story goes, he at last thought of this deposit of the Achelous. It seemed to him that enough land for him to live on might have accumulated during the considerable time he had wandered since killing his mother. He settled in the region around Oeniadae, became its ruler, and left the country named after his son Acarnan. Such is the account of Alcmaeon that has come down to us.

Chapter 103

1 The Athenians and Phormio sailed from Acarnania to Naupactus and, at the beginning of spring, sailed home to Athens. They brought the free men among the prisoners from the sea battles, who were exchanged man for man, and the ships they had captured.

2 And this winter ended, and the third year of this war, which Thucydides wrote, came to an end.

Chapter 1

1 The war between the Athenians and Peloponnesians and the allies on each side now begins at this point. They no longer had dealings with each other without a herald, and once they had entered the war, they fought continuously. The events are recorded in the order in which they happened, by summer and winter.

Chapter 2

1 The thirty-year truce made after the capture of Euboea had lasted fourteen years. In the fifteenth year, Chrysis had been priestess at Argos for forty-eight years, Aenesias was ephor at Sparta, and Pythodorus still had two months to serve as archon at Athens. In the sixth month after the battle at Potidaea, just as spring began, a little more than three hundred armed Thebans entered Plataea in Boeotia, an ally of Athens, at about the time of the first sleep. Their commanders were the Boeotarchs Pythangelus son of Phyleides and Diemporus son of Onetorides.

2 Some Plataeans—Nauclides and his associates—had invited them in and opened the gates. To increase their own power, they wanted to kill their political opponents among the citizens and bring the city over to Thebes.

3 They arranged this through Eurymachus son of Leontiades, a man of very great influence at Thebes. The Thebans saw that war was coming. They wanted to take control of Plataea, which had always been hostile to them, while it was still peacetime and before war had openly begun. This also made it easier for them to enter unnoticed, since no guard had been posted.

4 They took up a position with their weapons in the marketplace. They did not follow the advice of the men who had brought them in, who wanted them to act at once and attack their enemies' houses. Instead, they decided to make friendly announcements and try to bring the city to an agreement and friendship. The herald announced that anyone who wanted to join the alliance of all the Boeotians on their traditional terms should take his place beside them with his weapons. They thought this would easily bring the city over to their side.

Chapter 3

1 When the Plataeans realized that the Thebans were inside and had suddenly taken control of their city, they were terrified. They thought that far more men had come in, since they could not see in the dark. They moved toward an agreement, accepted the terms, and remained quiet, especially since the Thebans were taking no hostile action against anyone.

2 But while these arrangements were being made, they somehow realized that the Thebans were not numerous. They thought they could easily defeat them if they attacked. Most of the Plataeans did not want to break away from Athens.

3 So they decided to try. They gathered in one another's houses by breaking through the shared walls, to avoid being seen going along the streets. They put wagons in the streets without their draft animals, to serve as barricades. They made all the other preparations that seemed useful in the circumstances.

4 When they were as ready as they could be, they waited for the last darkness just before dawn and came out of the houses to attack. They did not want to face the Thebans in daylight, when the invaders would be more confident and on equal terms with them. In the dark, the Thebans would be more frightened and at a disadvantage against the Plataeans' knowledge of the city. They attacked at once and quickly began fighting at close quarters.

Chapter 4

1 When the Thebans realized they had been tricked, they closed ranks and fought off the attacks wherever they came.

2 They beat them back two or three times. Then the Plataeans attacked with a great uproar, while the women and household slaves on the houses shouted and screamed and threw stones and roof tiles. Heavy rain had also fallen during the night. The Thebans panicked, turned, and fled through the city. In the darkness and mud, most of them did not know which routes would take them to safety. It was the end of the month, too. Their pursuers knew the city and how to prevent them from escaping. As a result, most of them were killed.

3 One of the Plataeans closed the gates they had entered through, the only ones that were open. He used the spike at the butt of a javelin as a pin to secure the bar. They could no longer escape that way either.

4 As they were pursued through the city, some climbed onto the wall and jumped down outside; most of these died. A few escaped through an unguarded gate without being noticed, after a woman gave them an ax and they cut through the bar. But they were soon discovered, so not many got out. Others were scattered around the city and killed.

5 The largest group, which had kept together better than the rest, rushed into a large building adjoining the wall. Its doors happened to be open. They thought these were city gates and that there was a way straight through to the outside.

6 Seeing them trapped, the Plataeans debated whether to set the building on fire and burn them where they were, or deal with them in some other way.

7 In the end, these men and all the other Thebans still alive and wandering through the city agreed to hand themselves and their weapons over to the Plataeans, to do with them whatever they wanted.

8 That was what had happened to the men inside Plataea.

Chapter 5

1 The rest of the Theban army was supposed to arrive in full strength while it was still night, in case anything went wrong for the men who had entered. When news of what had happened reached them on the road, they hurried to help.

2 Plataea is seventy stades from Thebes. The rain that fell during the night slowed their journey. The river Asopus was running high and was difficult to cross.

3 They marched through the rain and crossed the river with difficulty. They arrived too late: some of their men had already been killed and the others were being held alive.

4 When the Thebans learned what had happened, they planned an attack on the Plataeans outside the city. People and property were still in the countryside, since this unexpected disaster had happened in peacetime. If they captured anyone, they wanted to have hostages to exchange for the men inside, in case any had been taken alive. That was their plan.

5 While they were still discussing it, the Plataeans suspected that something like this would happen. Afraid for the people outside, they sent a herald to the Thebans. He said they had acted against divine law by trying to seize the city during a truce, and warned them not to harm anyone or anything outside. Otherwise, the Plataeans said, they too would kill the Theban prisoners they held alive. But if the Thebans withdrew from their territory, they would return the men.

6 That is the Thebans' account. They also say the Plataeans swore to this. The Plataeans deny promising to return the men immediately. They say they would do so only if an agreement was reached after negotiations. They also deny having sworn an oath.

7 In any case, the Thebans withdrew from the territory without doing any damage. As soon as the Plataeans had hurriedly brought in what was in the countryside, they immediately killed the prisoners. There were a hundred and eighty captives. One of them was Eurymachus, with whom the traitors had made their arrangements.

Chapter 6

1 After doing this, they sent a messenger to Athens and returned the dead to the Thebans under a truce. They arranged matters inside the city as they thought best for the situation.

2 The Athenians were told at once what had happened at Plataea. They immediately arrested all the Boeotians in Attica and sent a herald to Plataea. His instructions were to tell the Plataeans to take no further action against their Theban prisoners until the Athenians themselves had considered what to do about them.

3 They had not been told that the men were dead. The first messenger had left as the Thebans were entering, and the second just after their defeat and capture. The Athenians knew nothing of what happened afterward. They sent their instructions in this state of ignorance, and when the herald arrived, he found that the men had been killed.

4 After this, the Athenians sent a force to Plataea, brought in grain, and left a garrison. They evacuated the people least useful for defense, along with the women and children.

Chapter 7

1 After the incident at Plataea, the truce had clearly been broken. The Athenians prepared for war, and the Lacedaemonians and their allies did the same. Both sides planned to send embassies to the King and to non-Greeks elsewhere, wherever they hoped to get help. They also brought into their alliances cities outside their own control.

2 The Lacedaemonians ordered their supporters in Italy and Sicily to build ships in proportion to the size of their cities. These would supplement the ships already available in Greece, bringing the total to five hundred. They also ordered them to have a fixed sum of money ready. Until these preparations were complete, they were otherwise to remain quiet and admit the Athenians if they came with a single ship.

3 The Athenians reviewed their existing alliance and sent embassies especially to the regions around the Peloponnese: Corcyra, Cephallenia, the Acarnanians, and Zacynthus. They saw that, if these were firmly friendly to them, they could attack the Peloponnese from all sides and defeat it.

Chapter 8

1 Neither side had small plans. Both eagerly committed themselves to the war, which was natural: people always take up a new effort with greater energy at the start. There were many young men in both the Peloponnese and Athens, and their lack of experience made them willing to take part in the war. All the rest of Hellas was on edge as the leading cities came into conflict.

2 Many prophecies circulated, and interpreters chanted many oracles, both among those about to fight and in the other cities.

3 Shortly before this, Delos had also been shaken by an earthquake. It had never been shaken before within Greek memory. People said and believed that this was a sign of what was to come. They searched out every other event of the same kind that happened to have occurred.

4 Most people's sympathies were much more strongly with the Lacedaemonians, especially since they had announced that they were freeing Hellas. Every individual and city was eager to give them whatever help they could, in words and in action. Everyone felt the effort was being held back wherever he himself was not taking part.

5 That was how angry most people were with the Athenians. Some wanted to be free of their rule; others feared coming under it.

Chapter 9

1 These were their preparations and attitudes as they set out. Each side entered the war with the following cities as allies.

2 The Lacedaemonians' allies were all the Peloponnesians on their side of the Isthmus except the Argives and Achaeans, who were friendly to both sides. Of the Achaeans, only the people of Pellene fought alongside them at first; later all the Achaeans did. Outside the Peloponnese, their allies were the Megarians, Boeotians, Locrians, Phocians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians.

3 Of these, the Corinthians, Megarians, Sicyonians, people of Pellene, Eleans, Ambraciots, and Leucadians provided naval forces. The Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians provided cavalry. The other cities provided infantry. This was the Lacedaemonian alliance.

4 The Athenians' allies were the Chians, Lesbians, Plataeans, Messenians at Naupactus, most of the Acarnanians, the Corcyraeans, and the Zacynthians. They also had the tribute-paying cities in the following regions: coastal Caria, the Dorians neighboring the Carians, Ionia, the Hellespont, the regions along the Thracian coast, the islands eastward of the Peloponnese and Crete, and all the Cyclades except Melos and Thera.

5 Of these, the Chians, Lesbians, and Corcyraeans provided naval forces. The others provided infantry and money.

6 These were the alliances and preparations of the two sides for the war.

Chapter 10

1 Immediately after the events at Plataea, the Lacedaemonians sent instructions around the Peloponnese and to their allies outside it. The cities were to prepare their troops and the supplies needed for a campaign abroad, since they intended to invade Attica.

2 As each city was ready, two-thirds of its forces assembled at the Isthmus at the appointed time.

3 When the whole army had gathered, Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians and commander of this expedition, called together the generals of all the cities, along with their most important officials and most notable men. He gave them the following advice.

Chapter 11

1 “Peloponnesians and allies, our fathers fought many campaigns, both within the Peloponnese and outside it. The older men among us also have experience of war. Even so, we have never marched out with a greater force than this. We are now advancing against a very powerful city, and our own army is larger and better than ever.

2 “So we must show ourselves to be no worse than our fathers, and live up to our own reputation. All Hellas has been stirred by this expedition and is watching closely. Because of its hatred of the Athenians, it wishes us success in what we plan to do.

3 “Some may think that we are advancing in such numbers that there is little risk of the enemy meeting us in battle. But that must not make us march with any less care in our preparations. Every commander and soldier from every city must always expect that he himself will face some danger.

4 “War is unpredictable. Most attacks begin with little warning, and in a burst of anger. Often a smaller force, because it was afraid, has defended itself more successfully against larger numbers whose contempt for their opponents had left them unprepared.

5 “When campaigning in enemy territory, we must always be confident in our thinking but make our practical preparations as carefully as if we were afraid. That way we will have the most courage when attacking the enemy and the best protection when attacked.

6 “The city we are advancing against is certainly not unable to defend itself. It is very well prepared in every way. So we must fully expect its people to come out and fight. They may not have set themselves to do so now, while we are still absent, but they will when they see us on their land, plundering it and destroying their possessions.

7 “Everyone gets angry at the immediate sight of unusual suffering before his own eyes. The less people use their judgment, the more they let anger drive them into action.

8 “The Athenians are likely to do this even more than others. They think they deserve to rule other people and to invade and destroy their neighbors' land, rather than watch their own being destroyed.

9 “So remember that we are campaigning against a city of such power. Depending on the outcome, we will bring the greatest credit or disgrace to our ancestors and ourselves. Follow wherever you are led. Above everything, maintain discipline and vigilance, and respond quickly to orders. Nothing is better or safer than for a large army to be seen acting under a single discipline.”

Chapter 12

1 After this speech, Archidamus dismissed the meeting. Before doing anything else, he sent Melesippus son of Diacritus, a Spartan, to Athens. He wanted to see whether the Athenians might now make some concession, seeing that his army was already on its way.

2 But the Athenians did not admit him to the city or to their public authorities. Pericles had previously carried a motion that they should receive no herald or embassy once the Lacedaemonians had marched out. So they sent him away without hearing him and ordered him to be outside their borders that same day. In future, if the Lacedaemonians wanted to send an embassy, they must first withdraw to their own territory. They sent escorts with Melesippus to prevent him from meeting anyone.

3 When he reached the border and was about to part from his escorts, he said just this before going on: “This day will mark the beginning of great troubles for the Greeks.”

4 When he returned to the camp and Archidamus learned that the Athenians would still make no concessions, the king broke camp and advanced with his army into their territory.

5 The Boeotians provided their share of troops and their cavalry to campaign with the Peloponnesians. With the men who remained, they went to Plataea and laid waste its land.

Chapter 13

1 While the Peloponnesians were still gathering at the Isthmus and marching, before they invaded Attica, Pericles son of Xanthippus was one of the ten Athenian generals. Once he knew the invasion would happen, he became concerned because Archidamus was a personal friend with whom he exchanged hospitality. Archidamus might spare his farms from destruction as a private favor, or the Lacedaemonians might order this to discredit him. They had already demanded the expulsion of those under religious curses with him in mind. So he told the Athenians in the assembly beforehand that Archidamus was indeed his friend, but that this friendship must do the city no harm. If the enemy did not destroy his farms and houses as they did those of others, he would make them public property. There must be no suspicion of him on this account.

2 His advice about the current situation was the same as before. They should prepare for war and bring in their property from the countryside. They should not march out to fight, but come inside and defend the city. They should fit out the fleet, which was their strength, and keep a firm hold on their allies. He said their power depended on the money coming in from the allies. Success in war depended mainly on sound judgment and a reserve of money.

3 He told them to be confident. Apart from its other income, the city received an average of six hundred talents a year in tribute from the allies. There were still six thousand talents of coined silver on the Acropolis at that time. At its highest, the reserve had reached nine thousand seven hundred talents, but money had been spent from it on the gateways of the Acropolis, the other buildings, and Potidaea.

4 This did not include uncoined gold and silver in private and public offerings, all the sacred equipment used in processions and contests, the spoils taken from the Persians, and other such items. Their value [was] at least five hundred talents.

5 He added the considerable sums in the other sanctuaries, which they could use. If they were completely cut off from all other resources, they could even use the gold covering the goddess herself. He pointed out that the statue carried forty talents by weight of refined gold, all of which could be removed. But if they used it to save themselves, he said, they must replace it afterward with at least as much.

6 That was how he encouraged them about their money. As for hoplites, he said there were thirteen thousand, apart from those in the forts and the sixteen thousand on the battlements.

7 That was the number initially assigned to guard duty whenever the enemy invaded. They came from the oldest and youngest age groups and from the resident foreigners who served as hoplites. The Phaleric wall ran for thirty-five stades to the city's outer wall. The guarded section of that outer wall was forty-three stades long. Part of it was unguarded: the section between the Long Wall and the Phaleric wall. The Long Walls to Piraeus were forty stades long, and only the outer one was guarded. The entire circuit of Piraeus, including Munychia, was sixty stades, and half of this was guarded.

8 He stated that they had twelve hundred cavalry, including mounted archers, sixteen hundred archers, and three hundred seaworthy triremes.

9 These were the resources the Athenians had, with no fewer than the stated amount in each category, when the first Peloponnesian invasion was about to happen and they were entering the war. Pericles also made his other usual arguments to show that they would win the war.

Chapter 14

1 The Athenians listened and accepted his advice. They brought their children, wives, and household belongings in from the countryside. They even took down the woodwork of their houses and brought it in. They sent their livestock and draft animals across to Euboea and the nearby islands.

2 This move was painful for them, because most had always been used to living in the countryside.

Chapter 15

1 From very early times, this had been more characteristic of the Athenians than of other peoples. In the time of Cecrops and the first kings, right down to Theseus, the people of Attica lived in separate towns, each with its own civic hall and officials. Unless some danger arose, they did not meet with the king to deliberate. Each town governed itself and held its own councils. Some even went to war with the kings, as the Eleusinians under Eumolpus once did against Erechtheus.

2 When Theseus became king, he combined intelligence with power. Among his other reforms of the country, he abolished the council houses and governments of the other towns. He established one council house and civic hall in the present city and united everyone under it. Each person continued to occupy his own property as before, but Theseus required them all to use this one city as their political center. With everyone now contributing to it, the city grew great, and Theseus handed it down to those who came after him. From that time to the present, the Athenians have celebrated the Synoecia, a publicly funded festival for the goddess.

3 Before this, the city consisted of what is now the Acropolis and the ground below it, mainly on the southern side.

4 Here is evidence for this. There are sanctuaries of other gods, too, on the Acropolis itself, and the sanctuaries outside it are mostly situated toward this part of the city. These include the sanctuary of Olympian Zeus, the Pythian sanctuary, the sanctuary of Earth, and that of Dionysus in the Marshes. The older Dionysia are celebrated for this god [on the twelfth day] of the month Anthesterion, as is still the custom among the Ionians descended from the Athenians. Other ancient sanctuaries also stand in this area.

5 The fountain now called Enneacrunus, because the tyrants fitted it out in its present form, was formerly called Callirrhoe, when its springs lay open. Because it was nearby, the people of that time used it for their most important needs. From this ancient practice comes the custom, still kept today, of using its water before weddings and for other religious ceremonies.

6 Because the earliest settlement was in this area, the Athenians still call the Acropolis the City to this day.

Chapter 16

1 The Athenians had therefore long lived in independent settlements across the countryside. Even after they were united into one city, most people, in both earlier and later generations down to this war, continued by habit to be born and live in the country. Moving away with their entire households was not easy for them, especially since they had only recently restored their homes and property after the Persian Wars.

2 They were upset and found it hard to leave their houses and the sanctuaries that had always belonged to their families since the old form of government. They faced a change in their way of life. Each person felt that he was leaving nothing less than his own city.

Chapter 17

1 When they reached the city, a few had homes there, and some found shelter with friends or relatives. But most settled in the unoccupied parts of the city and in all the sanctuaries and shrines of heroes, except the Acropolis, the Eleusinium, and any other place securely closed off. They even occupied the so-called Pelargic ground below the Acropolis. A curse forbade anyone to live there, and the last words of an oracle from Delphi also prohibited it, saying, “The Pelargic ground is better left unused.” Yet the pressure of their immediate need made them settle there anyway.

2 In my view, the oracle came true in the opposite way from what people expected. The city did not suffer disasters because the occupation was unlawful. Instead, the war forced people to occupy the ground. Without naming the war, the oracle foresaw that the place would only be settled in bad circumstances.

3 Many also made themselves homes in the towers of the walls and wherever each could find room. The city could not hold them all when they gathered there. Later, they divided up and occupied the space along the Long Walls and much of Piraeus.

4 At the same time, they began their preparations for war. They gathered their allies and fitted out a hundred ships for an attack on the Peloponnese.

5 That was the stage their preparations had reached.

Chapter 18

1 The Peloponnesian army advanced and first reached Oenoe in Attica, at the point where they intended to invade. They camped there and prepared to attack its wall with siege engines and by other means.

2 Oenoe stood on the border between Attica and Boeotia. It had been fortified, and the Athenians used it as a stronghold whenever war broke out. The Peloponnesians therefore prepared their attacks, and also spent time there in other ways.

3 This brought considerable blame on Archidamus. Even while the war was being organized, people thought he was weak and friendly toward the Athenians, since he did not urge war enthusiastically. Once the army was assembling, the delay at the Isthmus and the slow pace of the rest of the march brought him under suspicion. Above all, they objected to the delay at Oenoe.

4 During this time the Athenians were bringing their belongings into the city. The Peloponnesians thought that, if they had advanced quickly, they could have caught everything still outside, but for his hesitation.

5 That was how angry the army was with Archidamus while they remained in camp. But he held back because, it is said, he expected the Athenians to make some concession while their land was still undamaged. He thought they would hesitate to stand by and see it devastated.

Chapter 19

1 However, they attacked Oenoe and tried every method, but could not capture it. The Athenians sent no message through a herald either. So the Peloponnesians finally set out from Oenoe and invaded Attica. This was about eighty days after the events at Plataea [involving the Thebans who had entered it], in summer, when the grain was ripe. Their commander was Archidamus son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians.

2 They camped and first devastated Eleusis and the Thriasian plain. They also put some Athenian cavalry to flight near the place called the Rheiti. Then they advanced through Cropia, keeping Mount Aegaleos on their right, until they reached Acharnae, the largest of the districts in Attica called demes. They settled there, established a camp, and stayed a long time devastating the land.

Chapter 20

1 The following is said to have been Archidamus's reason for remaining near Acharnae with his troops drawn up for battle, rather than going down into the plain during this invasion.

2 The Athenians had large numbers of young men in their prime and were better prepared for war than ever before. He hoped that they might come out to fight rather than stand by and see their land devastated.

3 Since they had not come to meet him at Eleusis or in the Thriasian plain, he camped near Acharnae to test whether they would come out.

4 For one thing, the place seemed suitable for a camp. For another, the Acharnians formed a large part of the citizen body: they supplied three thousand hoplites. He thought they would not stand by and see their property destroyed, but would push everyone into battle. Even if the Athenians did not come out during this invasion, he would be able to devastate the plain and advance right up to the city with less fear in the future. Once the Acharnians had lost their own property, they would not be as eager to risk themselves for other people's land. Opinion would be divided.

5 These were Archidamus's calculations as he remained near Acharnae.

Chapter 21

1 As long as the army was near Eleusis and in the Thriasian plain, the Athenians still had some hope that it would come no closer. They remembered Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians. Fourteen years before this war he had invaded Attica with a Peloponnesian army, reaching Eleusis and Thria, but then withdrew without advancing any farther. This was why he was exiled from Sparta: he was thought to have been bribed [to withdraw].

2 But when they saw the army near Acharnae, sixty stades from the city, they could no longer bear it. Naturally, it seemed terrible to see their land being devastated before their eyes. The younger men had never seen this happen, and the older men had seen it only during the Persian Wars. People generally, and especially the young, wanted to go out rather than stand by and watch.

3 They gathered in groups and argued fiercely. Some urged going out, while others opposed it. Reciters of oracles chanted all kinds of predictions, and people listened according to their own inclinations. The Acharnians believed they made up a very substantial part of the Athenian population. Since it was their land that was being devastated, they pressed hardest for an advance. The city was agitated in every way. People were angry with Pericles and forgot all his earlier advice. They called him a coward for being a general who would not lead them out, and blamed him for everything they were suffering.

Chapter 22

1 Pericles saw that they were angry at the immediate situation and were not thinking in their own best interests. He was also sure he was right not to go out. He therefore called neither an assembly nor any other meeting, to prevent them from coming together and making a mistake through anger rather than judgment. He guarded the city and kept it as quiet as he could.

2 He did, however, keep sending out cavalry to stop advance parties from the enemy army from raiding and damaging the farms near the city. A brief cavalry fight took place at Phrygia between one unit of Athenian cavalry, with Thessalians alongside them, and the Boeotian cavalry. The Athenians and Thessalians held their own until hoplites came to help the Boeotians. They were then routed, and a few Thessalians and Athenians were killed. They recovered the bodies that same day without a truce.

3 The next day the Peloponnesians set up a victory trophy. The Thessalians had come to help the Athenians under their old alliance. The contingents were Larisaeans, Pharsalians, [Parasians], Crannonians, Pyrasians, Gyrtonians, and Pheraeans. Their commanders from Larisa were Polymedes and Aristonous, one from each political faction, and from Pharsalus, Menon. The other cities also had their own commanders.

Chapter 23

1 When the Athenians did not come out to fight them, the Peloponnesians moved away from Acharnae and devastated some other demes between Mount Parnes and Mount Brilessus.

2 While the enemy was still in their territory, the Athenians sent the hundred ships they had been preparing on a voyage around the Peloponnese. On board were a thousand hoplites and four hundred archers. The generals were Carcinus son of Xenotimus, Proteas son of Epicles, and Socrates son of Antigenes.

3 They set out with this force and sailed around the coast. Meanwhile, the Peloponnesians stayed in Attica as long as their supplies lasted, then withdrew through Boeotia, not by the route they had taken in. As they passed Oropus, they devastated the land called Graice, which was occupied by the Oropians, subjects of Athens. When they reached the Peloponnese, they broke up and returned to their own cities.

Chapter 24

1 After their withdrawal, the Athenians established guard posts on land and at sea, intending to maintain them throughout the war. They also decided to set aside a special reserve of a thousand talents from the money on the Acropolis. This was not to be spent; they were to finance the war from their other funds. They made it punishable by death to propose or put to a vote any use of this money, unless an enemy fleet attacked the city and they needed it for their defense.

2 Along with this money, they reserved the hundred best triremes each year and appointed trierarchs for them. None of these ships was to be used for any other purpose, but only with the money against that same danger, if the need arose.

Chapter 25

1 The Athenians sailing around the Peloponnese in the hundred ships were joined by Corcyraeans who had come to help with fifty ships, and by some of the other allies in that region. They damaged various places as they sailed along. They also landed at Methone in Laconia and attacked its wall, which was weak and had no defenders on it.

2 Brasidas son of Tellis, a Spartan, happened to be in that area with a garrison. When he learned what was happening, he went to help the people in the town with a hundred hoplites. The Athenian army was scattered across the countryside and facing the wall. He ran through it and got into Methone, losing only a few of his men as he broke through. He saved the city, and for this bold action he became the first man in this war to receive public praise at Sparta.

3 The Athenians sailed on and put in at Pheia in Elis. They devastated the land for two days and defeated in battle three hundred picked men from Hollow Elis and men from the neighboring district of Elis who had come to help.

4 A strong wind came down and caught them in a storm at a place without a harbor. Most boarded the ships and sailed around the headland called Ichthys to the harbor at Pheia. Meanwhile, the Messenians and some others who had been unable to board went overland and captured Pheia.

5 Later, the ships came around, picked them up, and put out to sea, abandoning Pheia. By then the main army of the Eleans had arrived to help. The Athenians sailed along to other places and devastated them.

Chapter 26

1 At about this same time the Athenians sent out thirty ships to operate along the coast of Locris and also to guard Euboea. Their general was Cleopompus son of Clinias.

2 He made landings and devastated parts of the coast. He also captured Thronium and took hostages from its people, and at Alope he defeated in battle the Locrians who came to help.

Chapter 27

1 That same summer the Athenians also expelled the Aeginetans from Aegina, including their children and wives. They accused them of being among those most responsible for the war against Athens. Since Aegina lay close to the Peloponnese, they also thought it safer to hold it by sending settlers of their own. Not long afterward they sent the settlers there.

2 The Lacedaemonians gave the expelled Aeginetans Thyrea as a place to live and farm. They did this both because of their hostility toward the Athenians and because the Aeginetans had helped them at the time of the earthquake and the Helot uprising. The territory of Thyrea lies on the border between Argive territory and Laconia and extends down to the sea. Some of the Aeginetans settled there; others scattered across the rest of Hellas.

Chapter 28

1 In the same summer, at the new moon—which seems to be the only time this can happen—the sun was eclipsed after noon and then became full again. It had turned into a crescent, and some stars had appeared.

Chapter 29

1 Also that summer, the Athenians appointed Nymphodorus son of Pythes, a man from Abdera, as their official local representative and sent for him. They had previously considered him an enemy. His sister was married to Sitalces, and he had great influence with him. The Athenians wanted Sitalces son of Teres, king of the Thracians, to become their ally.

2 This Teres, Sitalces' father, was the first to establish the great Odrysian kingdom over much of the rest of Thrace. A large part of the Thracian population is independent, however.

3 This Teres has no connection with Tereus, who married Procne, daughter of Pandion, from Athens. Nor did they come from the same part of Thrace. He [Tereus] lived at Daulia, in the land now called Phocis, which was then inhabited by Thracians. It was in this land that the women carried out their deed against Itys. Many poets, too, call the nightingale the Daulian bird when they mention it. It is also reasonable to think that Pandion arranged his daughter's marriage over this distance for their mutual benefit, rather than sending her on a journey of many days to the Odrysians. Teres, whose name is not even the same, was the first king to establish power over the Odrysians.

4 It was his son Sitalces whom the Athenians were making their ally. They wanted his help in conquering the places on the Thracian coast and Perdiccas.

5 Nymphodorus came to Athens, arranged the alliance with Sitalces, and had his son Sadocus made an Athenian citizen. He also promised to bring the war on the Thracian coast to an end. He would persuade Sitalces to send the Athenians a Thracian army of cavalry and light infantry carrying small shields.

6 He also reconciled Perdiccas with the Athenians and persuaded them to return Therme to him. Perdiccas immediately joined the Athenians and Phormio in a campaign against the Chalcidians.

7 In this way both Sitalces son of Teres, king of the Thracians, and Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, became allies of the Athenians.

Chapter 30

1 The Athenians in the hundred ships were still operating around the Peloponnese. They captured Sollium, a small Corinthian town, and handed over both the land and the town to the Palaereans alone among the Acarnanians, for them to occupy. They also stormed Astacus, where Euarchus ruled as tyrant, drove him out, and brought the place into their alliance.

2 They sailed to the island of Cephallenia and brought it over to their side without a fight. Cephallenia lies opposite Acarnania and Leucas and has four communities: the Palians, Cranians, Samaeans, and Pronnaeans. Not long afterward the ships returned to Athens.

Chapter 31

1 Toward the autumn of that summer, the Athenians invaded Megarian territory with their entire available force, both citizens and resident foreigners. Pericles son of Xanthippus was in command. The Athenians in the hundred ships that had sailed around the Peloponnese happened to be at Aegina on their way home. When they learned that the entire army from the city was in Megarian territory, they sailed over and joined it.

2 This was the largest Athenian army ever assembled in one place. The city was still at full strength and had not yet suffered from the plague. There were at least ten thousand Athenian citizen hoplites, not counting the three thousand at Potidaea. At least three thousand hoplites who were resident foreigners also joined the invasion, besides a considerable force of other, lightly armed troops. They devastated most of the territory and then withdrew.

3 Later in the war the Athenians invaded Megarian territory every year, sometimes with cavalry and sometimes with their whole army, until they captured Nisaea.

Chapter 32

1 At the end of this summer the Athenians also fortified Atalanta as a stronghold. This previously uninhabited island lies off the coast of the Opuntian Locrians. The fortification was intended to stop raiders sailing from Opus and the rest of Locris to damage Euboea. These were the events of this summer after the Peloponnesians withdrew from Attica.

Chapter 33

1 During the following winter, Euarchus the Acarnanian wanted to return to Astacus. He persuaded the Corinthians to sail there with forty ships and fifteen hundred hoplites to restore him. He also hired some mercenaries himself. The commanders of the force were Euphamidas son of Aristonymus, Timoxenus son of Timocrates, and Eumachus son of Chrysis.

2 They sailed over and restored him. They also wanted to gain control of some other places along the coast of Acarnania and made an attempt. When they failed, they sailed for home.

3 On the way they put in at Cephallenia and landed in the territory of the Cranians. The Cranians tricked them with a kind of agreement, then attacked them when they were not expecting it, killing some of their men. They put out to sea in considerable difficulty and went home.

Chapter 34

1 In the same winter, following their ancestral custom, the Athenians held a public funeral for the first men to die in this war. They did it in the following way.

2 They put up a tent and lay out the bones of the dead two days before the funeral. Anyone who wishes brings an offering for his own relative.

3 At the funeral procession, wagons carry cypress coffins, one for each tribe. Each coffin contains the bones of the men who belonged to that tribe. They also carry one empty bier, covered with a cloth, for the missing whose bodies could not be recovered.

4 Anyone who wishes, whether a citizen or a foreigner, joins the procession. The women related to the dead are also present at the tomb, mourning.

5 They place the dead in the public burial ground, which is in the most beautiful suburb of the city. They always bury the war dead there, except those who died at Marathon. They judged those men's courage to be outstanding and gave them a tomb on the battlefield itself.

6 After they have covered the dead with earth, a man chosen by the city gives a speech praising them as they deserve. He must be considered a man of sound judgment and hold a distinguished position. After this, the people leave.

7 This is how they hold the burial, and throughout the war they followed this custom whenever the occasion arose.

8 For these first dead, Pericles son of Xanthippus was chosen to speak. When the time came, he stepped forward from the tomb onto a high platform built so that as many people in the crowd as possible could hear him. He spoke as follows.

Chapter 35

1 “Most of those who have spoken here before have praised the man who added this speech to the funeral custom. They thought it fitting to give such a speech at the burial of men killed in war. My own view is that men who proved their courage through actions could have been sufficiently honored through actions too. You can see such honors in the public arrangements around this tomb today. The courage of many men should not depend for its credibility on whether one man speaks well or badly.

2 “It is hard to speak with the right balance when it is difficult even to establish the audience's belief that one is telling the truth. A listener who knows the facts and is sympathetic may think the account falls short of what he wants and knows to be true. Someone without that experience may think some things are exaggerated, out of envy, if he hears of an achievement beyond his own abilities. People will tolerate praise of others only so far as each thinks he could do something like what he hears described. Anything beyond their own abilities makes them envious, and then they disbelieve it too.

3 “But since earlier generations decided that this was the right practice, I too must follow the custom and try, as far as possible, to meet each of your wishes and expectations.

Chapter 36

1 “I will begin with our ancestors. It is right and appropriate to honor them by remembering them on an occasion like this. The same people have always lived in this land, generation after generation, and through their courage they have handed it down free to the present day.

2 “They deserve praise, and our fathers deserve even more. Besides what they inherited, they acquired the empire we now hold, at the cost of much effort, and passed it on to us who live today.

3 “Most of its expansion has been our own work—the work of the generation still living, most of us now in our mature years. We have also equipped the city with everything it needs to be fully self-sufficient in both war and peace.

4 “I will leave aside the military actions by which these possessions were acquired, and the occasions when we or our fathers eagerly fought off an attack by an enemy, whether non-Greek or Greek. I do not want to speak at length about things you know. Instead, I will first explain the practices that brought us to this position, and the political system and ways of life that made our power great. Then I will go on to praise these men. I think these subjects are appropriate to the occasion and that the whole gathering, citizens and foreigners alike, will benefit from hearing about them.

Chapter 37

1 “Our political system does not copy our neighbors' laws. We are a model for some others rather than imitators of anyone else. It is called a democracy because government is conducted for the many, not the few. In private disputes, everyone has equality under the law. When people are chosen for public responsibilities, what counts is their personal ability and the reputation they have earned in a particular field, not the group they belong to. Nor does poverty stand in the way: anyone who can do something useful for the city is not barred because his social position is obscure.

2 “We act freely in public life, and in daily life we do not keep a suspicious watch on one another. We do not get angry with a neighbor for doing what he enjoys. Nor do we give him looks of disapproval which do no actual harm but are still unpleasant to see.

3 “We do not make life difficult for one another in private. In public affairs, however, respect above all keeps us from breaking the law. We obey those who hold office at any given time and the laws, especially those laid down to protect people who suffer injustice, and those unwritten rules whose violation brings shame that everyone acknowledges.

Chapter 38

1 “We have also provided our minds with plenty of breaks from work. We hold games and sacrifices throughout the year, as our custom requires, and have attractive homes and furnishings. The pleasure these give us each day drives away distress.

2 “The size of our city brings us goods of every kind from every land. As a result, we are as used to enjoying other peoples' products as we are the good things our own country produces.

Chapter 39

1 “We also differ from our opponents in the following ways in our approach to war. We keep our city open to everyone. We never expel foreigners to prevent anyone from learning or seeing things, even when an enemy might benefit from seeing something we have not kept secret. We rely less on preparations and deception than on our own courage when it comes to action. In education, too, our opponents train painfully from their earliest youth in pursuit of courage. We live in a relaxed way, yet face dangers as great as theirs with no less readiness.

2 “Here is the evidence. The Lacedaemonians do not invade our territory on their own, but with all their allies. Yet when we invade our neighbors' territory ourselves, we usually defeat without difficulty, on foreign soil, the people fighting to defend their own homes.

3 “No enemy has yet faced our whole force together. We have to attend to our navy at the same time as we send our own men on many different land operations. But if our enemies meet some part of our force and defeat some of us, they boast of having driven us all back. If they are beaten, they claim that our entire force defeated them.

4 “Yet if we are willing to face danger with an easy way of life rather than constant hard training, and with courage that comes more from our habits than from legal compulsion, we gain an advantage. We do not wear ourselves out in advance over sufferings still to come. And when we face them, we prove no less brave than those who are always working hard. In these respects our city deserves admiration, and in others as well.

Chapter 40

1 “We appreciate beauty without spending too much, and we value thought without becoming soft. We use wealth as a resource for action rather than a reason to boast. Admitting that you are poor is no disgrace here. It is more shameful not to work to escape poverty.

2 “The same people can look after both their own affairs and public business. Even those occupied with their trades have a sound understanding of politics. We alone regard someone who takes no part in these matters not as someone who minds his own business, but as useless. We ourselves either make decisions or think the issues through properly. We do not think discussion gets in the way of action. The real obstacle is going ahead with what must be done without first learning about it through discussion.

3 “We are also different in this: the same people show the greatest daring and carefully calculate what they are going to attempt. For other people, ignorance brings boldness, while thought brings hesitation. Those who understand most clearly both what is frightening and what is pleasant, but do not let that knowledge turn them away from danger, can rightly be judged the strongest in spirit.

4 “We also differ from most people in doing good. We make friends by helping others, not by being helped. The person who has done a favor is the more reliable friend. He keeps showing goodwill to the person he helped, so that the debt of gratitude stays alive. The person who owes the favor is less eager. He knows that when he returns the kindness, he will be paying a debt, not freely doing a favor.

5 “We alone help others without fear, relying less on calculations of advantage than on the confidence that comes with being free.

Chapter 41

1 “To sum up, I say that our whole city is an education for Hellas. I also think that each individual among us can personally meet the widest range of demands with the greatest adaptability and grace.

2 “This is not just boasting for the occasion, but a statement of fact. The city's power itself proves it, power we have gained through these ways of living.

3 “Of all cities today, ours alone proves greater in experience than its reputation suggests. It alone gives an enemy who attacks it no reason to resent the kind of people he suffers at the hands of. Nor does it give a subject any reason to complain that his rulers are unworthy of their power.

4 “We have displayed our power with great proofs, certainly not without evidence. People now and in the future will admire us. We need no Homer to sing our praises, or anyone else whose verses will please people for the moment, only for the truth to damage the impression they give of what we have done. Instead, our daring has forced every sea and land to open to us. Everywhere we have established lasting reminders of the harm and the good we have done.

5 “It was for a city like this that these men fought and died with courage, convinced that it must not be taken from them. Everyone who survives should be willing to bear hardship for it.

Chapter 42

1 “That is why I have spoken at length about the city. I wanted to show that our struggle does not have the same stakes as the struggle of people who enjoy none of these advantages to the same extent. At the same time, I wanted to give clear evidence for my praise of the men I am speaking about now.

2 “Most of that praise has already been given. The qualities for which I praised the city were made its own by the courage of these men and others like them. For few Greeks would words of praise seem as well matched by their deeds as they do for these men. I think that the end these men have now met reveals a man's worth: it may be the first evidence of it, or its final confirmation.

3 “Even when men have fallen short in other ways, it is right to put their courage in fighting for their country first. They have wiped out the bad with the good. They have done more to help the community than they did to harm it through their private conduct.

4 “None of these men became a coward because he valued the continued enjoyment of his wealth more highly. None put off facing danger because he was poor and hoped he might yet escape poverty and become rich. They thought punishing their enemies more desirable than either prospect, and considered this the finest danger they could face. They chose to face it and punish their enemies, letting those other things go. They left the uncertain outcome to hope. But in acting against the danger already before their eyes, they thought it right to trust themselves. They preferred to resist and suffer rather than give in and survive. They escaped a shameful reputation, but endured the reality with their bodies. In the brief moment that decided their fate, they passed away at the height of their glory rather than their fear.

Chapter 43

1 “These men, then, proved themselves worthy of their city. Those who remain should pray to face the enemy more safely, but should be determined to show no less courage. Do not judge its benefits just by listening to an account of them. Someone could speak at length about the advantages of resisting the enemy, but you know them just as well yourselves. Instead, look at the city's power in practice every day and come to love it. Whenever it seems great to you, remember that men won it by daring, by knowing what needed to be done, and by having a sense of shame in their actions. Even when they failed in an attempt, they did not think that this justified depriving the city of their courage. They gave it the finest contribution they could.

2 “They gave their bodies to the community, and each received praise that does not grow old and the most distinguished tomb. That tomb is not so much where they lie as where their fame lives on, always remembered whenever an occasion for speech or action arises.

3 “For outstanding men, the whole earth is a tomb. An inscription on a monument at home is not the only sign of their memory. Even in foreign countries an unwritten memory lives in each person's mind, a memory of their spirit more than of their actions.

4 “Make these men your example. Recognize that happiness depends on freedom, and freedom on courage, and do not hold back from the dangers of war.

5 “It is not those who live in misery, with no hope of anything good, who have the better reason to risk their lives. It is those who may still suffer a change for the worse while they live, and who have the most to lose if they meet with a setback.

6 “For a man with self-respect, the humiliation that comes from acting like a coward is more painful than a death that comes without being felt, while he is strong and shares in the community's hopes.

Chapter 44

1 “That is why I will offer comfort, rather than pity, to the parents of these men who are here today. They know that they have grown up amid all kinds of changes in fortune. The fortunate are those whose lot is the most honorable death, as these men's is now, or the most honorable grief, as yours is. They are those whose allotted lives end at the same point as their happiness.

2 “I know it is hard to persuade you of this. Other people's happiness will often remind you of the happiness you once took pride in yourselves. Grief does not come from missing good things you have never experienced. It comes from losing something you have grown used to.

3 “But those who are still of an age to have children must take strength from the hope of having others. For some of you, children born later will help you forget those who are gone. The city will benefit in two ways: its population will not be depleted, and it will be safer. People cannot take part in decisions on equal and fair terms unless they too have children to expose to the same risks as others.

4 “Those of you who are past that age should count the greater part of your lives, when you were happy, as a gain. Remember that the time left will be short, and find relief in these men's good name. The desire for honor alone does not grow old. When age makes a person no longer useful, it is not making money that gives the greatest pleasure, as some say, but being honored.

Chapter 45

1 “For those of you here who are sons or brothers of these men, I see a great challenge ahead. Everyone tends to praise the dead. Even if you showed exceptional courage, you would scarcely be judged only a little below them, let alone their equals. People envy the living because they are rivals. Someone who no longer stands in their way is honored with goodwill that has no rival to challenge it.

2 “If I must also say something about the qualities of women, for those of you who will now be widows, I can put it all into a short piece of advice. Your great credit will be not to fall below the nature you were born with. And the woman who is least talked about among men, whether for praise or blame, has the greatest credit.

Chapter 46

1 “I too have now said, as the law requires, what I thought appropriate. In practice, the men we are burying have already received part of their honors. For the rest, the city will bring up their children at public expense from now until adulthood. In this way it offers these men and those who survive a useful reward for struggles like these. Where the greatest rewards are offered for courage, the best men are also found as citizens.

2 “Now, after each of you has mourned the person close to you, go home.”

Chapter 47

1 This was the funeral held during that winter. When winter had passed, the first year of this war came to an end.

2 As soon as summer began, the Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica with two-thirds of their forces, as they had the first time. Archidamus son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, was in command. They set up camp and devastated the land.

3 They had been in Attica only a few days when the disease first began among the Athenians. It was said to have struck in many places before, around Lemnos and elsewhere. But there was no record of a plague this great, or of such a loss of human life, anywhere.

4 At first the doctors could not help, because they were treating it without understanding it. In fact, they died more than anyone else, since they had the most contact with the sick. No other human skill was any use either. All the prayers people offered at sanctuaries, their consultations of oracles, and other such efforts were useless. In the end they gave these up, overwhelmed by the disaster.

Chapter 48

1 It is said to have started in Ethiopia beyond Egypt, then spread down into Egypt and Libya and into much of the King's territory.

2 It struck the Athenians' city suddenly, first affecting people in Piraeus. They even said that the Peloponnesians had put poison in the wells, since there were no fountains there yet. Later it reached the upper city too, and then many more people began to die.

3 Doctors and people without medical training can each give their own opinion about it: what was likely to have caused it, and what causes they think could have been powerful enough to bring about such a great change. I will describe what it was like. I will set out the signs that someone could look for, so that, if it ever strikes again, they would have some advance knowledge and be most likely to recognize it. I had the disease myself and saw other people suffering from it.

Chapter 49

1 Everyone agreed that this particular year was exceptionally free from other illnesses. If anyone already had an illness, it developed into this one.

2 Others were perfectly healthy when, without any apparent cause, they were suddenly struck first by intense heat in the head and redness and inflammation of the eyes. Inside the mouth, the throat and tongue immediately became blood-red, and the breath that came out was abnormal and foul-smelling.

3 Sneezing and hoarseness followed. Before long the pain spread down into the chest, with a severe cough. When it settled in the stomach, it upset it and brought on discharges of bile of every kind named by doctors, all accompanied by great distress.

4 Most people also had dry heaves, which caused violent spasms. For some the spasms eased afterward, but for others only much later.

5 From the outside, the body was neither very hot to the touch nor pale. It was reddish and bruised-looking, covered with an eruption of small blisters and sores. But inside, people burned so fiercely that they could not bear even the lightest clothing or linen coverings. They could bear nothing except being naked, and wanted most of all to throw themselves into cold water. Many who had no one to look after them actually did this, jumping into wells, driven by an unending thirst. Drinking more or less made no difference.

6 They were continually tormented by restlessness and inability to sleep. While the disease was at its height, the body did not waste away, but held out against the suffering surprisingly well. Most died on the ninth or seventh day from the internal burning, while they still had some strength. If they survived this, the disease spread down to the bowels, causing severe ulceration and, at the same time, uncontrollable diarrhea. Most of these died later from the weakness the diarrhea caused.

7 The disease began by settling in the head and then spread from the top through the whole body. Even if someone survived its worst effects, it left its mark by attacking the extremities.

8 It struck the genitals and the ends of the hands and feet. Many survived after losing these parts, and some lost their eyes as well. Others, immediately on recovering, lost all memory. They did not recognize themselves or the people close to them.

Chapter 50

1 The disease was beyond description. In other respects too, it attacked each person with a severity greater than human nature could bear. But this showed most clearly that it was unlike any familiar disease: although many bodies lay unburied, the birds and four-legged animals that feed on human bodies either did not approach them or died after tasting them.

2 There was evidence for this. Such birds visibly disappeared. They were not seen around the bodies or anywhere else. Dogs gave a clearer opportunity to observe what happened, because they lived with people.

Chapter 51

1 That, then, was the general character of the disease. I have left out many other unusual features, since individual cases differed from one another. At that time none of the usual illnesses caused any additional trouble. If one did occur, it ended in this disease.

2 Some died from lack of care, others despite receiving every attention. No single treatment could be identified that was sure to help when given. What helped one person harmed another.

3 No constitution, strong or weak, proved able to resist it. It swept away everyone, even those looked after with every kind of diet and care.

4 The worst features of the whole disaster were the despair people felt when they realized they were ill, and the way they caught the infection from one another while providing care and died like sheep. As soon as their minds turned to hopelessness, they gave up much more readily and made no effort to resist. Infection through caring for others caused the greatest loss of life.

5 If people were afraid and unwilling to visit one another, the sick died alone. Many households were emptied because there was no one to provide care. If people did visit, they died themselves. This happened especially to people who cared about living up to a standard of decency. They felt ashamed not to visit their friends and went in without sparing themselves. In the end even family members grew too exhausted to mourn the dead, overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster.

6 Yet those who had recovered showed more pity for the dying and the suffering. They knew what it was like, and they themselves now felt safe. The disease did not attack the same person twice, at least not fatally. Others called them fortunate. In their immediate joy they themselves even had an unfounded hope that in the future they would never die of any other disease either.

Chapter 52

1 The move from the countryside into the city added to their existing suffering. It bore no less heavily on those who had come in.

2 There were no houses available, and people lived in huts that were stifling in that season of the year. Death came amid complete disorder. As people died, their bodies lay piled on one another. Half-dead people rolled about in the streets and around every fountain, desperate for water.

3 The sanctuaries where they had put up shelters were full of bodies, because people died there. The disaster was too much for them. Not knowing what would become of them, people stopped caring about sacred things or about what was right.

4 All their previous burial customs were thrown into confusion. People buried the dead however they could. Many turned to shameless ways of disposing of bodies, because so many of their own people had already died that they lacked the necessary supplies. Some reached another person's funeral pyre before those who had built it, put their own dead on it, and lit it. Others threw the body they were carrying onto a pyre where another body was already burning, and went away.

Chapter 53

1 The disease also began a greater breakdown of law in other areas of city life. People more readily dared to do openly for pleasure what they had previously kept hidden. They saw how quickly fortunes changed: prosperous people suddenly died, while people who had owned nothing before immediately took over their possessions.

2 So they thought they should enjoy things quickly and for pleasure. They considered their lives and their property equally temporary.

3 No one was willing to put effort into what was thought honorable. They believed it was uncertain whether they would die before reaching their goal. Whatever gave immediate pleasure, and any means of making money to pay for it, came to be considered both honorable and useful.

4 Neither fear of the gods nor human law held them back. They thought worship and the lack of it made no difference, since they saw everyone dying alike. No one expected to live long enough to be brought to trial for his offenses and pay the penalty. They thought a much heavier sentence had already been passed on them and was hanging over them. Before it fell, it seemed reasonable to enjoy something of life.

Chapter 54

1 The Athenians were weighed down by this disaster. People were dying inside the city while their land was being devastated outside it.

2 In their distress, as was natural, they also remembered this verse, which older people said had been sung long before: / “A Dorian war will come, and plague along with it.”

3 People argued that the ancient verse had said “famine,” not “plague.” But at the time the view that it had said “plague” prevailed, as was natural. People shaped their memories to fit what they were suffering. If another Dorian war comes after this one and happens to bring a famine, I think they will probably sing it that way instead.

4 Those who knew of it also remembered the oracle given to the Lacedaemonians. When they asked the god whether they should go to war, he answered that if they fought with all their strength, they would win. He also said that he himself would help them.

5 They thought that what was happening matched the oracle. The disease began as soon as the Peloponnesians invaded. It did not enter the Peloponnese to any extent worth mentioning. It spread above all through Athens, and then through the most heavily populated of the other places. That was what happened with the disease.

Chapter 55

1 After devastating the plain, the Peloponnesians moved into the region called Paralus, as far as Laurium, where the Athenians have their silver mines. First they devastated the part facing the Peloponnese, then the part facing Euboea and Andros.

2 Pericles was still a general. As during the earlier invasion, he held to the view that the Athenians should not go out to fight.

Chapter 56

1 While the enemy were still in the plain, before they reached the coast, he was preparing an expedition of a hundred ships against the Peloponnese. When everything was ready, he put to sea.

2 He took four thousand Athenian hoplites aboard the ships, and three hundred cavalry in horse transports. These had been made for the first time then by converting old ships. Men from Chios and Lesbos also joined the expedition with fifty ships.

3 When this Athenian force sailed, they left the Peloponnesians still in the coastal part of Attica.

4 They reached Epidaurus in the Peloponnese and devastated most of its territory. They attacked the city and had hopes of taking it, but did not succeed.

5 Sailing from Epidaurus, they devastated the territories of Troezen, Halieis, and Hermione. All these places are on the coast of the Peloponnese.

6 They sailed on from there to Prasiae, a small coastal town in Laconia. They devastated its territory and captured and sacked the town itself. After doing this they returned home. By the time they got back, the Peloponnesians had already withdrawn and were no longer in Attica.

Chapter 57

1 Throughout the time when the Peloponnesians were in Athenian territory and the Athenians were campaigning aboard their ships, the disease killed Athenians both in the expeditionary force and in the city. It was even said that the Peloponnesians left the country sooner because they were afraid of the disease. Deserters had told them it was in the city, and they could also see the dead being buried.

2 Yet in this invasion they stayed longer than ever and devastated the whole country. They were in Attica for about forty days.

Chapter 58

1 During the same summer, Hagnon son of Nicias and Cleopompus son of Clinias, who were generals along with Pericles, took the force he had used. They immediately campaigned against the Chalcidians in the Thracian region and against Potidaea, which was still under siege. On arriving, they brought siege engines against Potidaea and tried every way of capturing it.

2 They did not succeed in taking the city, and their other achievements did not match the scale of their preparations either. The disease broke out there and now bore very heavily on the Athenians, destroying their army. Even the Athenian soldiers already there, who had previously been healthy, caught it from the army that came with Hagnon. Phormio and his sixteen hundred men were no longer in the Chalcidian region.

3 Hagnon therefore returned to Athens with the ships. Out of four thousand hoplites, he had lost a thousand and fifty to the disease in about forty days. The soldiers who had been there before stayed in place and continued the siege of Potidaea.

Chapter 59

1 After the second Peloponnesian invasion, the Athenians began to change their minds. Their land had been devastated for a second time, and both the disease and the war were weighing on them at once.

2 They blamed Pericles for persuading them to go to war and held him responsible for the disasters they had suffered. They were eager to reach an agreement with the Lacedaemonians and sent envoys to them, but achieved nothing. With no idea which way to turn, they kept pressing Pericles.

3 He saw that they were angry at their present troubles and were behaving exactly as he had expected. He called a meeting—he was still a general—because he wanted to restore their confidence. He wanted to draw their minds away from anger and make them calmer and less afraid. He came forward and spoke as follows.

Chapter 60

1 “I expected you to turn your anger against me. I understand the reasons for it. That is why I called this assembly: to remind you of certain things and to challenge you if you are wrong either to be angry with me or to give in to your troubles.

2 “I believe that a city doing well as a whole benefits its individual citizens more than a city where each citizen is doing well but the whole community is failing.

3 “A man whose own affairs are going well is still destroyed along with his country if it falls. But a man who is doing badly has a much better chance of coming through safely if his country is successful.

4 “A city can cope with the misfortunes of individuals, but no individual can cope with the city's misfortunes. So surely everyone must defend it, instead of doing what you are doing now. Your troubles at home have overwhelmed you. You are giving up on the safety of the community, and you blame both me, for advising you to go to war, and yourselves, for agreeing to it.

5 “Yet the man you are angry with believes he is as capable as anyone of recognizing what needs to be done and explaining it. I also love my city and cannot be bought.

6 “A man who understands something but cannot explain it clearly is no better off than if he had never thought of it. A man with both abilities, but no loyalty to his city, will not give advice that serves its interests. And even if he is loyal as well, but lets money win him over, he will sell all these qualities for that one thing.

7 “So if you let me persuade you to go to war because you thought I had these qualities even to a moderate degree more than other men, you cannot reasonably blame me now for having done you wrong.

Chapter 61

1 “Of course, it is very foolish to go to war if you have a choice and everything else is going well. But if you have to choose between giving in and immediately submitting to your neighbors, or taking a risk and coming out on top, the man who avoids the risk deserves more blame than the man who faces it.

2 “I am the same man, and I have not changed my position. You are the ones changing. You agreed when you had suffered no harm, but regret it now that you are suffering. My advice looks wrong because your own resolve is weak. Each of you already feels the pain, while the benefits are not yet clear to anyone. A great change has struck you, and struck you suddenly. It has left you too dispirited to stick to your decision.

3 “What is sudden, unexpected, and far beyond anything we could calculate breaks our spirit. That is what has happened to you, above all with the disease, on top of your other troubles.

4 “Still, you live in a great city and have been brought up with habits that match its greatness. You must be willing to face the worst misfortunes and not destroy its standing. People think it equally right to blame someone who is too weak to live up to his established reputation and to hate someone who is bold enough to reach for a reputation he does not deserve. You must put aside the pain of your personal losses and work for the safety of the community.

Chapter 62

1 “You worry that the war will mean a great deal of hardship without bringing us victory. The arguments I have often given before, showing that this fear is mistaken, should be enough. But I will also explain something about the scale of your imperial power that I do not think you have ever considered, and that I have not mentioned in my earlier speeches. I would not bring it up even now, since the claim sounds rather boastful, if I did not see you more frightened than you have reason to be.

2 “You think you rule only your allies. But I say that of the two parts of the world open to human use, land and sea, you are complete masters of one. This holds both for the sea you now use and for any further area you want to reach. With your present naval resources, no one can stop you sailing there—not the King or any other nation that exists today.

3 “So this power cannot be compared with the use you get from your houses and land, whose loss you regard as so great. Instead of taking their loss so hard, you should make little of them. Beside this power, they are only a little garden, an ornament of wealth. Understand that if we hold on to our freedom and keep it safe, it will easily restore these things. But those who submit to others usually find even their previous possessions reduced. Do not fall short of your fathers in either respect. They worked hard to acquire these things, rather than receiving them from others, and kept them safe before handing them on to you. It is more shameful to have something taken away than to fail in an attempt to gain it. Face your enemies not just with confidence, but with a sense that you are better than they are.

4 “Even a coward can become boastful if he is ignorant and has had good luck. But a man looks down on his opponents when his judgment also gives him confidence that he is better than they are. That is our position.

5 “When the chances on each side are equal, an intelligent understanding that we are superior makes our courage more secure. It relies less on hope, which has its strength when there is no other way out, and more on a judgment based on the resources we have. That gives us a more reliable view of what lies ahead.

Chapter 63

1 “You should also defend the honor the city gains from ruling others, which all of you take pride in. You must not avoid the hard work—or else you must stop pursuing the honors too. Nor should you think the struggle concerns just one thing, slavery instead of freedom. It also concerns the loss of your empire and the danger from the hatred you have earned while ruling it.

2 “You can no longer give up that empire, even if someone, frightened by the present situation, wants to play the good citizen by staying out of affairs. By now you hold it like a tyranny. Taking it may seem wrong, but letting it go is dangerous.

3 “People like that would very quickly destroy a city if they persuaded others, or even if they settled somewhere independently on their own. Staying out of affairs is not safe unless active people provide protection. It is not suited to a ruling city, but to a subject city that wants to remain safely enslaved.

Chapter 64

1 “Do not let citizens like these lead you astray. And do not be angry with me: you yourselves joined me in deciding on war. Our enemies invaded and did what we could expect once you refused to submit. On top of what we expected, this disease has come upon us. It is the one thing that has happened entirely beyond our expectations. I know that it has made you hate me somewhat more. That is unfair, unless you also intend to give me the credit when something unexpectedly goes well for you.

2 “We must accept what the gods send as unavoidable and face what our enemies do with courage. This has always been the city's practice. Do not let it end with you.

3 “Understand that our city has the greatest name in all the world because it does not give in to misfortunes. It has spent more lives and effort on war than any other, and has acquired the greatest power known up to now. The memory of that power will remain forever with future generations, even if we should now give way at some point—for everything naturally declines. They will remember that we Greeks ruled over more Greeks than anyone else, that we held out in the greatest wars against them all together and against individual states, and that we lived in a city greater and better supplied with everything than any other.

4 “Someone who stays out of affairs may criticize these achievements. Someone who wants to achieve something himself will try to match them. And anyone who does not possess them will be jealous.

5 “Everyone who has claimed the right to rule others has faced hatred and resentment in their own time. But a man makes the right choice if he accepts that resentment for the greatest goals. Hatred does not last long. The honor gained now, and the fame it brings in the future, leave a memory that lasts forever.

6 “Look ahead to future honor and to avoiding disgrace now. Win both through determined action at once. Do not send heralds to the Lacedaemonians or let them see that your present hardships are weighing you down. Those who let misfortunes distress their judgment least and resist them most firmly in action are the strongest, whether they are cities or individuals.”

Chapter 65

1 With arguments like these, Pericles tried to ease the Athenians' anger against him and turn their thoughts away from their present troubles.

2 In public policy his words persuaded them. They stopped sending envoys to the Lacedaemonians and put more energy into the war. But in their private lives they grieved over their sufferings. Ordinary people had started with less and had lost even that. The wealthy had lost fine country properties, with buildings and costly furnishings. And worst of all, they had war instead of peace.

3 They did not, however, stop being angry with him as a body until they had imposed a fine on him.

4 Not long afterward, as crowds tend to do, they elected him general again and put all their affairs in his hands. By then each man's grief over his private troubles was less intense, and they thought Pericles the most valuable man for meeting the needs of the whole city.

5 For as long as he led the city in peacetime, he guided it with moderation and kept it safe. It was at its greatest under him. And when war broke out, he evidently understood its strength in that situation too.

6 He lived for two years and six months after the war began. After his death, his foresight about the war became still clearer.

7 He had said that they would win if they held back, looked after their navy, did not try to extend their empire during the war, and did not put the city at risk. They did the exact opposite in all these respects. In other matters, apparently unconnected with the war, personal ambition and private gain led them to pursue policies that harmed both themselves and their allies. When these policies succeeded, it was mainly individuals who gained honor and profit. When they failed, they damaged the city's war effort.

8 The reason was that Pericles had power through his standing and intelligence and was clearly beyond being bribed. He could control the people while respecting their freedom. Instead of letting them lead him, he led them. Because he had not gained power by improper means, he did not have to say things to please them. His standing allowed him to speak against them even when this made them angry.

9 Whenever he saw them overconfident and arrogant at the wrong moment, his words brought them down to a state of fear. When they were frightened without reason, he restored their confidence. In name it was a democracy, but in practice it was government by its leading man.

10 His successors were more evenly matched with one another, and each wanted to take first place. So they began handing over the conduct of affairs to the people to please them.

11 This led to many mistakes, as might be expected in a great city with an empire, including the expedition to Sicily. That was not so much a mistake in judging the people they were attacking. The problem was that those who sent the expedition did not go on to make decisions that would help the men abroad. Instead, their personal attacks on one another in the struggle to lead the people weakened the army's efforts. At the same time, their disputes first brought disorder to affairs in the city itself.

12 Even after the disaster in Sicily, where they lost their other military resources and most of their navy, and with civil strife already under way at home, they still held out for three years. They faced their original enemies together with the forces from Sicily, as well as most of their allies, who had now revolted. Later Cyrus, the King's son, also joined the other side and supplied the Peloponnesians with money for their navy. The Athenians did not give in until their private disputes brought them into conflict with one another and caused their downfall.

13 Pericles' assessment at the time allowed such a margin of strength that the city could have won the war against the Peloponnesians alone very easily.

Chapter 66

1 That same summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies sent an expedition of a hundred ships against the island of Zacynthus, which lies opposite Elis. Its inhabitants were colonists from the Achaeans of the Peloponnese and were allies of the Athenians.

2 On board were a thousand Lacedaemonian hoplites and Cnemus, a Spartan, as admiral. They landed and laid waste to most of the country. When the inhabitants refused to come to terms, they sailed home.

Chapter 67

1 As the same summer ended, Aristeus the Corinthian, the Lacedaemonian envoys Aneristus, Nicolaus, and Pratodamus, Timagoras of Tegea, and Pollis, an Argive traveling in a private capacity, were on their way to the King in Asia. They hoped to persuade him to supply money and join the war on their side. First they went to Thrace to visit Sitalces, son of Teres. They wanted, if possible, to persuade him to leave his alliance with Athens and attack Potidaea, where an Athenian army was conducting a siege. They also wanted his help to continue their intended journey across the Hellespont to Pharnaces, son of Pharnabazus, who was to send them on to the King.

2 Two Athenian envoys happened to be with Sitalces: Learchus, son of Callimachus, and Ameiniades, son of Philemon. They persuaded Sitalces' son Sadocus, who had been made an Athenian citizen, to hand the men over to them. They argued that the men must not be allowed to cross over to the King and do what they could to harm his adopted city.

3 Sadocus agreed. As the men were traveling through Thrace to the ship that was to take them across the Hellespont, he had them arrested before they could board. He sent men along with Learchus and Ameiniades and ordered them to hand the prisoners over to those two envoys. The envoys took charge of them and brought them to Athens.

4 When they arrived, the Athenians feared that Aristeus might escape and do them still more harm. He had already clearly been responsible for everything that had happened at Potidaea and in the Thracian region. So that very day they killed all the prisoners without a trial, although they wanted to speak in their own defense, and threw them into a ravine. They claimed the right to retaliate in the same way the Lacedaemonians had acted first. The Lacedaemonians had killed the Athenian and allied merchants they captured sailing in cargo ships around the Peloponnese and had thrown them into ravines. In fact, at the beginning of the war the Lacedaemonians treated everyone they caught at sea as an enemy and killed them, whether they were fighting alongside the Athenians or were on neither side.

Chapter 68

1 At about the same time, as the summer ended, the Ambraciots mobilized many non-Greeks and marched with them against Amphilochian Argos and the rest of Amphilochia.

2 Their hostility toward the Argives first began in the following way.

3 Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus, founded Amphilochian Argos and settled the rest of Amphilochia on the Ambracian Gulf after the Trojan War. He had returned home but was dissatisfied with the situation in Argos. He called the new city Argos after his own homeland.

4 This was the largest city in Amphilochia, and its inhabitants were the most powerful.

5 Many generations later, the Argives were hard pressed by misfortunes. They invited the Ambraciots, whose territory bordered Amphilochia, to live with them. It was from living with the Ambraciots that they first learned the Greek language they now speak. The other Amphilochians are non-Greeks.

6 In time, however, the Ambraciots drove the Argives out and held the city themselves.

7 After this happened, the Amphilochians placed themselves under the protection of the Acarnanians. Both peoples called in the Athenians, who sent them the general Phormio and thirty ships. When Phormio arrived, they took Argos by force and enslaved the Ambraciots. Amphilochians and Acarnanians then settled there together.

8 It was after this that the Athenians and Acarnanians first became allies.

9 The Ambraciots' hostility toward the Argives began with the enslavement of their own people. Later, during the present war, they mounted this expedition with their own forces, the Chaonians, and some other neighboring non-Greek peoples. They reached Argos and controlled the countryside. But when their assault failed to take the city, they went home, and each people dispersed to its own territory. These were the events of the summer.

Chapter 69

1 The following winter the Athenians sent twenty ships around the Peloponnese under the general Phormio. Based at Naupactus, he kept watch to stop anyone sailing into or out of Corinth and the Crisaean Gulf. They sent six other ships to Caria and Lycia under the general Melesander. These were to collect money in those regions and stop Peloponnesian pirates based there from disrupting the passage of cargo ships from Phaselis, Phoenicia, and the mainland in that area.

2 Melesander took a force of Athenians from the ships, together with allies, inland into Lycia. He was defeated in battle and killed, and lost part of his army.

Chapter 70

1 That same winter the Potidaeans could no longer hold out under siege. The Peloponnesian invasions of Attica had still not made the Athenians withdraw, and their food had run out. Desperate need for food had already driven them to many other extremes, and some had even eaten one another. They now approached the Athenian generals commanding the siege to discuss terms of surrender: Xenophon, son of Euripides, Hestiodorus, son of Aristoclides, and Phanomachus, son of Callimachus.

2 The generals accepted their offer of talks. They could see how their army was suffering in a place exposed to winter weather, and the city had already spent two thousand talents on the siege.

3 They agreed on these terms: the Potidaeans, their children and wives, and the hired soldiers were to leave with one cloak each, except for the women, who could take two. They could also take a fixed amount of money for their journey.

4 They left under the protection of the agreement and went to Chalcidice or wherever each could find a place. The Athenians blamed the generals for making the agreement without consulting them. They thought they could have gained control of the city on whatever terms they wanted. Later they sent settlers from among their own people to live in Potidaea. These were the events of the winter, and the second year of this war, whose history Thucydides wrote, came to an end.

Chapter 71

1 The following summer the Peloponnesians and their allies did not invade Attica. Instead, they marched against Plataea under Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. He stationed his army and was about to lay waste to the land when the Plataeans immediately sent envoys to him. They spoke as follows:

2 “Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, by marching against Plataean land you are acting unjustly and in a way unworthy of yourselves and your fathers. Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, a Lacedaemonian, freed Hellas from the Medes together with the Greeks who were willing to share the dangers of the battle fought here in our country. He then offered sacrifices in the Plataean marketplace to Zeus the Liberator and called all the allies together. He restored the Plataeans' land and city to them, to live there independently. No one was ever to march against them unjustly or to enslave them. If anyone did, the allies present were to defend them as far as they could.

3 “Your fathers gave us these guarantees because of the courage and commitment we showed in those dangers. But you are doing the opposite. You have come with the Thebans, our bitterest enemies, to enslave us.

4 “We call as witnesses the gods who witnessed those oaths, the gods of your ancestors, and the gods of our own country. We tell you not to harm the land of Plataea or break the oaths, but to let us live independently, as Pausanias declared was our right.”

Chapter 72

1 When the Plataeans had finished speaking, Archidamus answered: “What you say is just, Plataeans, if your actions match your words. As Pausanias granted you, live independently yourselves, and help free the others who shared those dangers and joined you in swearing the oaths, but are now subject to the Athenians. This great force has been assembled and this war begun to free them and the others. The best way for you to keep your oaths is to join in that effort. Otherwise, do what we have already invited you to do before: live peacefully, enjoying your own possessions, and take neither side. Receive both sides as friends, but neither for purposes of war. That will be enough for us.”

2 That was what Archidamus said. After hearing him, the Plataean envoys went into the city and reported his words to the people. They then answered that they could not do as he asked without the Athenians' consent, since their children and wives were in Athens. They were also afraid for the whole city. Once the Lacedaemonians had left, the Athenians might come and refuse to allow this arrangement. Or the Thebans might again try to seize their city, claiming that the oath's requirement to admit both sides gave them the right.

3 To reassure them on these points, he said: “Then hand over your city and houses to us Lacedaemonians. Show us the boundaries of your land and count your trees and anything else that can be counted. You yourselves can move wherever you like for as long as the war lasts. Once it is over, we will return whatever we have received. Until then we will hold it in trust, farm the land, and pay you enough of its produce to meet your needs.”

Chapter 73

1 After hearing this, they went back into the city. They consulted the people and said that they wanted first to put his proposal to the Athenians. If they could persuade them, they would do as he asked. They requested a truce in the meantime and asked him not to lay waste to their land. He granted a truce for as many days as the return journey could reasonably take, and did not damage the land.

2 The [Plataean] envoys went to the Athenians and consulted with them. They then returned and gave the people in the city the following report:

3 “Plataeans, the Athenians say that at no time since we became allies have they abandoned you when you were being wronged. They will not stand by now either, but will help you as far as they can. They appeal to the oaths our fathers swore and urge you not to make any change in the alliance.”

Chapter 74

1 After the envoys delivered this report, the Plataeans decided not to betray the Athenians. They would endure seeing their land laid waste, if necessary, and whatever else might happen to them. No one was to go outside again. Instead, they would answer from the wall that they could not do what the Lacedaemonians asked.

2 When they gave this answer, King Archidamus first called on the local gods and heroes to witness his actions. He spoke as follows: “Gods and heroes who protect the land of Plataea, be our witnesses. It was not unjustly that we came here in the first place: these people had already abandoned our sworn agreement. In this land our fathers prayed to you and defeated the Medes, and you made it a friendly place for the Greeks to fight their battle. Nor will we be acting unjustly in anything we do now. We have made many reasonable offers, but without success. Give your approval: let those who first did wrong be punished for it, and let those who lawfully punish them obtain their revenge.”

Chapter 75

1 After calling on the gods in this way, he set the army to work on the attack. First they surrounded the Plataeans with a barrier of stakes made from the trees they had cut down. This was to stop anyone from coming out. Then they began building a mound against the city. With such a large army at work, they expected to capture it very quickly.

2 They cut timber from Cithaeron and built it up on both sides of the mound. They laid it in a crisscross pattern to serve as retaining walls, so that the mound would not spread too far outward. They brought up wood, stones, earth, and anything else that would help them build it up.

3 They kept building for seventy days and nights without a break. They worked in shifts, so that some carried materials while others slept and ate. The Lacedaemonian officers assigned to the contingents from the different cities helped supervise and forced the men to work.

4 When the Plataeans saw the mound rising, they put together a wooden framework. They set it on top of their own wall at the point where the mound was approaching. Inside this framework they built with bricks taken from nearby houses that they pulled down.

5 The timber held the structure together, so that it would not become weak as it grew taller. They covered the front with hides and leather. This protected both the workers and the timber from burning arrows and kept them safe.

6 The wall rose to a great height, but the mound grew just as quickly to match it. Then the Plataeans thought of another plan. They opened a gap in their wall where the mound touched it and began carrying the earth inside.

Chapter 76

1 When the Peloponnesians realized this, they packed clay into reed mats and threw these into the gap. This material would not fall apart and be carried away as the earth had been.

2 Blocked in this way, the Plataeans stopped that work. Instead they dug a tunnel out from the city. They calculated where the mound was and tunneled beneath it, then began drawing its earth back into the city. For a long time the men outside did not notice. As a result, they made less progress as they piled on more material. The base of the mound was being removed, and it kept sinking into the space left underneath.

3 Still, they feared that even this would not allow so few men to hold out against so many. So they devised another measure. They stopped work on the high structure facing the mound. Starting from the lower wall on either side of it, they built a crescent-shaped wall inside the city, curving inward. If the high wall was captured, this new one would hold out. The enemy would have to build another mound against it. As they advanced inside, they would have twice as much work and be more exposed to attack from both sides.

4 While building the mound, the Peloponnesians also brought siege engines against the city. One was moved up along the mound against the high structure. It shook a large part of it and frightened the Plataeans. Other engines attacked other parts of the wall. The Plataeans threw ropes with loops around these and pulled them off course. They also hung large beams from long iron chains attached at each end. These were supported by two poles that leaned out and extended over the wall. They raised each beam crosswise. Whenever an engine was about to strike anywhere, they let the beam drop, allowing the chains to go slack instead of holding it back. The force of the falling beam broke off the projecting head of the ram.

Chapter 77

1 After this, the Peloponnesians found that their engines were doing no good and that the mound was being met with a new defensive wall. They decided that the means of attack they had available would not let them take the city. So they prepared to surround it with a siege wall.

2 First, though, they decided to try fire. The city was not large, and they hoped that a wind might let them burn it down. They were thinking of every possible way to bring it under their control without the expense of a siege.

3 They carried bundles of brushwood up the mound. First they threw them into the space between the mound and the wall. With so many hands at work, this was soon full. Then, from their high position, they piled more brushwood as far into the rest of the city as they could reach. They threw in fire with sulfur and pitch and set the wood alight.

4 The flames were greater than any human-made fire anyone had seen up to that time. There had, of course, been fires in mountain forests where the wind rubbed the wood against itself, making it catch fire naturally and send up flames.

5 This fire was huge. It very nearly killed the Plataeans, who had escaped all the other dangers. A large area inside the city could not be approached. If a wind had risen and driven the fire toward the city, as the enemy hoped, they would not have escaped.

6 As it was, another event is also reported: heavy rain [from the sky] fell, with thunder, putting out the flames and so ending the danger.

Chapter 78

1 When this attempt also failed, the Peloponnesians kept part of the army there and sent most of it away. They built a siege wall all around the city, dividing the ground among the different cities' contingents. There was a ditch on both the inside and the outside. They used the earth from these to make bricks.

2 The whole work was finished about the time when Arcturus rises. They left guards for half the wall—the Boeotians guarded the other half—and withdrew their army. The men dispersed to their own cities.

3 The Plataeans had already sent their children, women, oldest men, and the rest of those who could not help to Athens. Four hundred Plataeans remained to face the siege, along with eighty Athenians and a hundred and ten women to prepare food.

4 That was their total number when the siege began. There was no one else inside the walls, either slave or free. These were the arrangements for the siege of Plataea.

Chapter 79

1 In the same summer, at the time of the expedition against Plataea, the Athenians marched against the Chalcidians in Thrace and the Bottiaeans. They sent two thousand of their own hoplites and two hundred cavalry, when the grain was ripe. Xenophon son of Euripides was in command, with two other generals.

2 They arrived outside Spartolus in Bottiaea and destroyed the grain. It also looked as though the city would come over to them, since some people inside were working for this. But those who opposed them sent a message to Olynthus, and hoplites and other troops came to defend the city. This force came out of Spartolus, and the Athenians fought it just outside the city.

3 The Athenians defeated the Chalcidian hoplites and some mercenaries who were with them. These troops withdrew into Spartolus. But the Chalcidian cavalry and light-armed troops defeated the Athenian cavalry and light-armed troops.

4 The Chalcidians had a small number of troops armed with light shields from the region called Crusis. Just after the battle, more troops of this kind came from Olynthus to help.

5 The light-armed troops from Spartolus saw them arrive. Encouraged by these reinforcements and by the fact that they had not been defeated earlier, they attacked the Athenians again. The Chalcidian cavalry and the newly arrived troops joined them. The Athenians fell back toward the two companies they had left with the baggage carriers.

6 Whenever the Athenians advanced, the enemy gave way. But when the Athenians withdrew, they pressed after them and threw javelins at them. The Chalcidian cavalry also rode up and attacked wherever they saw a chance. They did a great deal to frighten the Athenians, and put them to flight. They pursued them for a long distance.

7 The Athenians took refuge in Potidaea. Later they recovered their dead under a truce and returned to Athens with what was left of their army. They had lost four hundred and thirty men and all their generals. The Chalcidians and Bottiaeans set up a trophy, collected their own dead, and dispersed to their cities.

Chapter 80

1 In the same summer, not long after these events, the Ambraciots and Chaonians wanted to conquer all Acarnania and make it break away from Athens. They persuaded the Lacedaemonians to get a fleet ready from their allies and send a thousand hoplites to Acarnania. They argued that, if the Lacedaemonians joined them in an attack by land and sea at once, the Acarnanians on the coast would be unable to come to help. They could then easily take Acarnania and gain control of Zacynthus and Cephallenia too. The Athenians would no longer find it as easy to sail around the Peloponnese. There was even hope of taking Naupactus.

2 The Lacedaemonians agreed. They immediately sent Cnemus, who was still admiral, and the hoplites in a few ships. They sent orders to the fleet to get ready and sail to Leucas as quickly as possible.

3 The Corinthians were particularly eager to help the Ambraciots, who were their colonists. The fleet from Corinth, Sicyon, and the nearby places was still being prepared. The ships from Leucas, Anactorium, and Ambracia had arrived earlier and were waiting at Leucas.

4 Cnemus and the thousand hoplites with him crossed over without being noticed by Phormio. Phormio commanded the twenty Athenian ships that were keeping watch around Naupactus. As soon as they had crossed, Cnemus and his men began preparing the land expedition.

5 The Greeks with him were Ambraciots, Leucadians, Anactorians, and the thousand Peloponnesians he had brought himself. Among the non-Greeks were a thousand Chaonians, who had no king. Their leaders were Photius and Nicanor, members of the ruling family who held office for the year. The Thesprotians, who also had no king, took part in the expedition alongside the Chaonians.

6 Sabylinthus led the Molossians and Atintanians. He was acting as guardian for their king, Tharyps, who was still a child. Oroedus led the Parauaeans as their king. A thousand Orestae, whose king was Antiochus, served with the Parauaeans under Oroedus, with Antiochus's permission.

7 Perdiccas also sent a thousand Macedonians without the Athenians' knowledge. These arrived later.

8 Cnemus marched with this army without waiting for the fleet from Corinth. As they passed through the Argive territory, they destroyed Limnaea, an unwalled village. They then reached Stratus, the largest city in Acarnania. They thought that, if they took this city first, the rest would easily come over to them.

Chapter 81

1 The Acarnanians learned that a large army had invaded by land and that enemy ships would also be arriving by sea. They did not combine their forces to help, but each community guarded its own territory. They sent to Phormio to ask for help. He said he could not leave Naupactus undefended when a fleet was about to sail from Corinth.

2 The Peloponnesians and their allies divided themselves into three groups and advanced toward the city of Stratus. They meant to camp nearby. If they could not persuade the city to submit, they would try an attack on its wall.

3 The Chaonians and the other non-Greeks advanced in the center. On their right were the Leucadians, Anactorians, and the troops with them. On their left were Cnemus, the Peloponnesians, and the Ambraciots. The groups were far apart, and at times could not even see one another.

4 The Greeks advanced in formation and took precautions until they had made camp in a suitable place. But the Chaonians were confident in themselves. The mainland peoples of that region also considered them the best fighters. They did not wait to occupy a camp. Instead they rushed forward with the other non-Greeks, thinking they could take the city at the first attack and have the achievement all to themselves.

5 The people of Stratus noticed them while they were still approaching. They thought that, if they defeated them while they were on their own, the Greeks would be less ready to advance against the city. So they placed men in ambush around the city in advance. When the enemy came close, they charged out to meet them from the city and attacked from the ambushes as well.

6 The Chaonians panicked, and many were killed. When the other non-Greeks saw them giving way, they did not stand their ground any longer, but fled.

7 Neither of the Greek divisions knew about the battle. The non-Greeks had gone far ahead, and the Greeks thought they were hurrying to occupy a campsite.

8 When the fleeing non-Greeks came rushing toward them, the Greeks took them in. They brought their divisions together and stayed where they were for the day. The people of Stratus did not fight them at close quarters, since the other Acarnanians had not yet come to help. But they fired slingstones from a distance and put them in a difficult position: it was impossible to move without armor. The Acarnanians are considered exceptionally good at using slings.

Chapter 82

1 When night fell, Cnemus quickly withdrew his army to the river Anapus, eighty stades from Stratus. The next day he recovered his dead under a truce. The people of Oeniadae came to join him as friends, and he withdrew to their territory before the Acarnanian reinforcements arrived. From there the different contingents went home. The people of Stratus set up a trophy for the battle against the non-Greeks.

Chapter 83

1 The fleet from Corinth and the other allies in the Crisaean Gulf was supposed to join Cnemus. Its job was to prevent the Acarnanians on the coast from going inland to help. But it never arrived. Instead, at about the same time as the battle at Stratus, it was forced to fight a sea battle against Phormio and the twenty Athenian ships stationed at Naupactus.

2 Phormio was watching for them as they sailed out of the gulf. He wanted to attack them in open water.

3 The Corinthians and their allies had sailed with preparations suited more to a land campaign in Acarnania than to fighting a sea battle. They did not think the Athenians would dare fight their forty-seven ships with just twenty of their own. But as they traveled along the shore, they saw the Athenians sailing on a parallel course. Then, as they crossed from Patrae in Achaea toward the opposite mainland, on their way to Acarnania, they saw the Athenians coming toward them from Chalcis and the river Evenus. They had not escaped notice by setting out at night. So they were forced to fight in the middle of the strait.

4 Each of the cities that had provided ships had its own commanders. The Corinthian commanders were Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas.

5 The Peloponnesians arranged their ships in the largest circle they could form without leaving a passage for the enemy to sail through. The bows faced outward and the sterns inward. Inside they placed the small craft that had sailed with them, along with their five best-sailing ships. These could come out over a short distance and be on the spot if the enemy attacked anywhere.

Chapter 84

1 The Athenians sailed around them in a circle, in single file. They kept passing close by and made it look as though they were about to ram. In this way they squeezed the enemy into a smaller space. But Phormio had ordered them not to attack until he gave the signal.

2 He expected that the enemy would not keep their formation as an army on land could. Instead, their ships would collide with one another, and the small craft would add to the confusion. If the wind blew out of the gulf, they would not stay steady for a moment. He was sailing around them waiting for this wind, which usually rose toward dawn. Since his ships sailed better, he also thought he could choose when to attack, and that this would be the best moment.

3 The wind came down, and the ships were already crowded into a small space. The wind and the small craft together threw them into confusion. Ships collided, and their crews pushed them apart with poles. The men shouted warnings and insults at one another. In all the noise they could not hear either the orders or the men setting the rowing rhythm. The inexperienced rowers could not lift their oars in the swell, making the ships harder for the helmsmen to control. At just this moment Phormio gave the signal. The Athenians attacked and first sank one of the commanders' ships. Then they destroyed other ships wherever they went. They brought the enemy to such confusion that no one tried to resist. Instead they fled to Patrae and Dyme in Achaea.

4 The Athenians pursued them, captured twelve ships, and picked up most of the men from them. They sailed away to Molycreum, set up a trophy on Rhium, and dedicated a ship to Poseidon. Then they returned to Naupactus.

5 The Peloponnesians immediately sailed along the coast with their remaining ships from Dyme and Patrae to Cyllene, the port of the Eleans. After the battle at Stratus, Cnemus also came to Cyllene from Leucas with the ships from there, which were supposed to have joined this fleet.

Chapter 85

1 The Lacedaemonians also sent Timocrates, Brasidas, and Lycophron to the fleet as advisers to Cnemus. They ordered him to prepare for another sea battle with better results, and not to let so few ships keep him off the sea.

2 The result seemed completely unexpected to them, especially since this was their first experience of a sea battle. They did not think their fleet was so far inferior. They thought there must have been some cowardice. They did not weigh the Athenians' long experience against their own short training. So they sent the advisers in anger.

3 When the advisers arrived, they joined Cnemus in sending orders to the cities for more ships. They also fitted out the ships already there for a sea battle.

4 Phormio also sent messengers to Athens. They were to report the enemy's preparations and describe the sea battle the Athenians had won. He asked for as many ships as possible to be sent to him quickly, since he expected another sea battle on any day.

5 The Athenians sent him twenty ships, but gave their commander an additional order to go to Crete first. Nicias, a Cretan from Gortyn who acted as Athens' local representative, had persuaded them to sail against Cydonia. He said he would bring this hostile city over to them. In fact, he was bringing in the Athenians as a favor to the Polichnitans, who were neighbors of the Cydonians.

6 The commander took the ships and went to Crete. Together with the Polichnitans, he laid waste the Cydonians' land. Winds and conditions that prevented sailing kept him there for a considerable time.

Chapter 86

1 While the Athenians were held up around Crete, the Peloponnesians at Cyllene finished preparing for a sea battle. They sailed along the coast to Panormus in Achaea. A Peloponnesian land army had come there to support them.

2 Phormio also sailed along to Molycrian Rhium. He anchored outside it with the same twenty ships with which he had fought the battle.

3 This Rhium was friendly to the Athenians. The other Rhium, in the Peloponnese, is directly opposite it. About seven stades of sea separate them. This is the entrance to the Crisaean Gulf.

4 So, when the Peloponnesians saw the Athenians, they too anchored at Rhium, on the Achaean side, with seventy-seven ships. This was not far from Panormus, where their infantry were stationed.

5 For six or seven days the two fleets lay at anchor opposite one another, practicing and preparing for battle. The Peloponnesians intended not to sail beyond the two points of Rhium into open water, because they feared a repeat of their earlier disaster. The Athenians intended not to sail into the narrows, because they thought a battle in a confined space would favor the enemy.

6 Then Cnemus, Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian commanders wanted to fight quickly, before any reinforcements came from Athens. They first called the soldiers together. Seeing that most of them were frightened by the previous defeat and unwilling to fight, they encouraged them with this speech.

Chapter 87

1 “Men of the Peloponnese, if any of you are afraid of the coming sea battle because of the last one, that battle gives you no sound grounds for fear.

2 “As you know, we were inadequately prepared. We were sailing on a military expedition rather than to fight a sea battle. Chance also brought a good many things against us. And perhaps our inexperience contributed to our failure, since it was our first sea battle.

3 “So our defeat was not caused by cowardice on our part. Our determination was not beaten by superior force, and it still has grounds to challenge the result. It should not be weakened by the outcome of that misfortune. We must recognize that people can meet with bad luck, but that the same men should always show courage in their decisions. If they have courage, they have no good reason to act like cowards in any situation and use inexperience as their excuse.

4 “Your lack of experience is not as great as your advantage in boldness. You are most afraid of the enemy's skill. If they have courage, they will also remember how to put what they have learned into practice in danger. Without courage, no skill has strength in the face of danger. Fear drives out memory, and skill without the will to fight is no help at all.

5 “So set your greater boldness against their greater experience. Against the fear caused by your defeat, set the fact that you were unprepared then.

6 “You also have the advantage in numbers of ships. And you will fight close to your own land, with hoplites present. Usually the larger and better-prepared force wins.

7 “So we can find no reason at all why we should expect to fail. The very mistakes we made before will now give us lessons to learn from.

8 “Be confident, then, helmsmen and sailors alike. Each of you must do his own part and follow orders. Do not leave whatever position you are assigned.

9 “We will prepare the attack at least as well as the previous commanders. We will give no one an excuse to act like a coward. If anyone chooses to do so anyway, he will receive the punishment he deserves. Those who fight well will be honored with the rewards their courage deserves.”

Chapter 88

1 This was how the commanders encouraged the Peloponnesians. Phormio, too, was worried about his men's anxiety. He noticed that they were gathering in small groups and showing fear at the number of enemy ships. He wanted to call them together, encourage them, and give them advice for the situation they faced.

2 He had always told them before, and prepared them to believe, that no fleet attacking them could be so large that they must not stand up to it. The men had long accepted this belief among themselves: as Athenians, they would not retreat before any mass of Peloponnesian ships.

3 But now he saw that the sight before them was discouraging them. He wanted to remind them to be confident. So he called the Athenians together and spoke as follows.

Chapter 89

1 “Soldiers, I see that the enemy's numbers have frightened you. That is why I have called you together. I do not think you should be afraid of things that are not dangerous.

2 “First, they have been defeated already. They do not even think they are our equals. That is why they have assembled so many ships instead of meeting us with an equal force. Second, their greatest source of confidence as they approach is their belief that courage is naturally theirs. But their confidence comes only from the fact that their experience in fighting on land usually brings them success. They think it will do the same for them at sea.

3 “But if they have the advantage on land, then by the same reasoning we should have it here. They are no braver than we are. Each side is bolder in the field where it has more experience.

4 “The Lacedaemonians who command them are bringing most of them unwillingly into danger, for the sake of their own reputation. Otherwise, after such a heavy defeat, they would never have tried another sea battle.

5 “So do not be afraid of their boldness. You give them much greater and better-founded reasons to fear you. You have defeated them already. They also believe that you would not stand against them unless you expected to achieve something far out of the ordinary.

6 “When opponents attack with greater numbers, as these men do, they rely more on their strength than on their judgment. But when men with much smaller forces dare to resist, without being forced to do so, they have very firm confidence in their own plans. The enemy understands this. Our unexpected behavior frightens them more than any reasonable estimate of our force would.

7 “Many armies have already fallen to smaller forces through inexperience, and some through lack of courage. We suffer from neither of these weaknesses now.

8 “I will not willingly fight in the gulf or sail into it. I see that a confined space is no help to a few well-handled ships with experienced crews against many ships with inexperienced crews. You cannot approach properly for a ramming attack unless you can see the enemy from a long way off. Nor can you pull back at the right moment if you are hard pressed. There is no room to break through the enemy line or turn back to attack again. These are the maneuvers of ships that handle better. Instead, the sea battle would have to become a battle like one fought on land. In that kind of fighting, the side with more ships has the advantage.

9 “I will take care of these matters as far as I can. You must stay in good order at your ships and respond quickly to commands, especially since the attack will be made from close by. During the fighting, put the greatest value on order and silence. These help in most military operations, and especially in a sea battle. Fight off this enemy in a way worthy of what you have already done.

10 “Much is at stake in this battle for you. You can either end the Peloponnesians' hopes of success at sea, or bring closer the day when the Athenians must fear for their control of the sea.

11 “I remind you again that you have defeated most of these men already. Once men have been beaten, they are not ready to face the same dangers with the same determination.”

Chapter 90

1 Phormio also encouraged his men in this way. The Athenians would not sail into the gulf and its narrow waters, so the Peloponnesians wanted to draw them inside against their will. At dawn they put out to sea and sailed along their own coast into the gulf. Their ships were arranged four abreast, with the right wing leading, just as they had been at anchor.

2 On that wing they placed their twenty fastest ships. Phormio might think they were sailing against Naupactus and sail along the coast himself to defend it. If he did, these ships were to prevent the Athenians from escaping their attack by sailing past the outside of their wing. Instead, they would surround them.

3 Phormio did just what they expected. When he saw them setting out, he was afraid for Naupactus, which was undefended. Reluctantly, he hurried his men aboard and sailed along the coast. The Messenian infantry moved along the shore at the same time to help him.

4 The Peloponnesians saw the Athenian ships sailing in single file, already inside the gulf and close to land. This was exactly what they wanted. At a single signal they suddenly turned their ships and advanced in a line abreast against the Athenians, each ship moving as fast as it could. They hoped to cut off all the Athenian ships.

5 Eleven of the leading Athenian ships slipped past the Peloponnesian wing as it turned and escaped into open water. But the Peloponnesians caught the others as they tried to get away. They drove them against the shore and wrecked them. They killed all the Athenians aboard who did not swim to safety.

6 They attached towlines to some of the empty ships and began pulling them away. They had already captured one with its crew aboard. But the Messenians came to help. They waded into the sea with their weapons, boarded some of the ships already being towed away, and fought from their decks to recover them.

Chapter 91

1 In this part of the battle, then, the Peloponnesians were winning and wrecking the Athenian ships. Meanwhile, their twenty ships from the right wing chased the eleven Athenian ships that had escaped the turn into open water. All but one of these reached Naupactus ahead of their pursuers. They stopped opposite the sanctuary of Apollo, with their bows facing out, and prepared to defend themselves if the enemy sailed in toward them on the shore.

2 The Peloponnesians came up later, singing their battle song as they sailed, as though they had won. One Leucadian ship, far ahead of the rest, was chasing the one Athenian ship left behind.

3 A merchant ship happened to be anchored offshore. The Athenian ship reached it first, sailed around it, and rammed the pursuing Leucadian ship in the middle of its side, sinking it.

4 This unexpected event, so different from what they had counted on, frightened the Peloponnesians. Their success had also led them to pursue without keeping formation. Some ships lowered their oars into the water and stopped, wanting to wait for the larger group. This was a bad move with the enemy so close and able to counterattack. Others ran aground in the shallows because they did not know the waters.

Chapter 92

1 The Athenians took courage when they saw this. At a single command they shouted and charged. Because of their earlier mistakes and their present disorder, the Peloponnesians held out only briefly. Then they turned and fled to Panormus, where they had set out from.

2 The Athenians pursued them and captured the six ships nearest to them. They also recovered their own ships, which the Peloponnesians had wrecked near the shore at the start and attached towlines to. They killed some of the men and took others alive.

3 Timocrates the Lacedaemonian was aboard the Leucadian ship that sank near the merchant ship. As his ship was being destroyed, he killed himself. His body washed into the harbor of Naupactus.

4 The Athenians returned and set up a victory monument at the place they had sailed from to win the battle. They recovered the bodies and wreckage near their own shore. They returned the enemy's dead under a truce.

5 The Peloponnesians also set up a victory monument. They claimed victory for the rout in which they had wrecked the ships near the shore. The ship they had captured they dedicated at Achaean Rhium, beside their monument.

6 After this, they were afraid of the reinforcements coming from Athens. As night fell, all except the Leucadians sailed into the Crisaean Gulf and on to Corinth.

7 Not long after the ships had withdrawn, the Athenians arrived at Naupactus from Crete with the twenty ships that should have joined Phormio before the sea battle. And the summer ended.

Chapter 93

1 At the start of winter, before the fleet that had withdrawn to Corinth and the Crisaean Gulf broke up, Cnemus, Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian commanders wanted to try an attack on Piraeus, the Athenians' harbor. The Megarians had suggested it. The harbor had no guards and its entrances were not closed off. This was understandable, given the Athenians' great superiority at sea.

2 The plan was for each sailor to take his oar, rowing cushion, and oar strap, and walk from Corinth to the sea on the side facing Athens. They would hurry to Megara and launch forty ships that happened to be in its dockyard at Nisaea. Then they would sail straight for Piraeus.

3 There was no fleet stationed there to keep watch. Nor did anyone expect the enemy ever to make such a sudden attack by sea. They thought the enemy would not dare to attack even openly and with time to prepare. And if the enemy did plan an attack, they were sure they would find out beforehand.

4 Once they had agreed on the plan, they set out immediately. They arrived at night and launched the ships from Nisaea. But they no longer sailed against Piraeus as they had intended. They had become afraid of the danger, and a wind is also said to have held them back. Instead, they sailed against the headland of Salamis that faces Megara. On it stood a fort, with three ships on guard to stop any shipping entering or leaving Megara. They attacked the fort and towed away the empty triremes. They also raided the rest of Salamis, catching its people by surprise.

Chapter 94

1 Fire signals warning of an enemy attack were sent to Athens. The panic was as great as any during the war. People in the city thought the enemy had already sailed into Piraeus. Those in Piraeus thought Salamis had been captured and that the enemy was about to sail into their harbor. This could easily have happened if the enemy had decided not to hold back. No wind would have prevented it.

2 At daybreak the Athenians went with their whole force to help Piraeus. They launched ships and boarded them in a great hurry and confusion. With the ships they sailed to Salamis, while with the infantry they set up guards for Piraeus.

3 When the Peloponnesians learned that help was coming, they quickly sailed back to Nisaea. They had overrun most of Salamis and taken prisoners and plunder, along with the three ships from the fort of Budorum. Another reason for their alarm was the state of their ships. These had not been launched for a long time and leaked badly. After reaching Megara, they returned to Corinth on foot.

4 The Athenians no longer found them at Salamis and sailed back themselves. After this they took greater care to guard Piraeus, closing off the entrances to the harbors and taking other precautions.

Chapter 95

1 At about the same time, as this winter began, Sitalces son of Teres, the Odrysian king of the Thracians, marched against Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and against the Chalcidians in Thrace. Two promises were involved: he wanted to make Perdiccas keep one and to keep the other himself.

2 At the start of the war Perdiccas had been under pressure. He had promised Sitalces certain things if Sitalces would reconcile him with the Athenians and not restore his brother Philip, who was his enemy, to the throne. But Perdiccas had not kept his promises. Sitalces himself, when he made his alliance with the Athenians, had agreed to end the war with the Chalcidians in Thrace.

3 He made the expedition for both these reasons. He took Philip's son Amyntas with him, intending to make him king of the Macedonians. He also took the Athenian ambassadors who happened to be there on this business, and Hagnon as commander. The Athenians, too, were supposed to bring ships and as large an army as possible against the Chalcidians.

Chapter 96

1 Starting from the Odrysian country, he first called up the Thracians under his rule on this side of Mount Haemus and Rhodope, as far as the sea [to the Euxine Sea and the Hellespont]. Next he called up the Getae beyond Haemus and the people of all the other inhabited districts on this side of the Ister River, toward the Euxine Sea. The Getae and the people of this region border on the Scythians and are equipped in the same way. They are all mounted archers.

2 He also invited many of the independent Thracian mountain people who carry swords and are called Dii. Most of them live on Rhodope. He persuaded some with pay, while others joined him voluntarily.

3 He also called up the Agrianes, the Laeaeans, and all the other Paeonian peoples under his rule. These were at the edge of his kingdom. His rule extended as far as the Laeaean Paeonians and the Strymon River, which flows from Mount Scombrus through the Agrianes and Laeaeans. [Here] his kingdom bordered on the Paeonians who were independent.

4 On the side facing the Triballians, who were also independent, the Treres and Tilataei marked the border. They live north of Mount Scombrus and extend west as far as the Oscius River. This flows from the same mountain as the Nestus and the Hebrus. The mountain is large and uninhabited, and adjoins Rhodope.

Chapter 97

1 Along the coast, the Odrysian kingdom extended from the city of Abdera into the Euxine Sea as far as the Ister River. By the shortest sea route, with the wind always behind it, a merchant ship takes four days and as many nights to sail along this coast. By the shortest land route, a man traveling light completes the journey from Abdera to the Ister in eleven days.

2 That was its extent along the sea. Inland, the journey from Byzantium to the Laeaeans and the Strymon took a man traveling light thirteen days. In that direction the kingdom reached its greatest distance inland from the sea.

3 The tribute from all the non-Greek territory and the Greek cities reached its highest total under Seuthes, who became king after Sitalces and raised it to its greatest amount. It was worth about four hundred talents of silver and was paid in gold and silver. Gifts of gold and silver worth at least as much were also brought in. This was apart from patterned and plain cloth and other goods. The gifts went not only to the king but also to the powerful men around him and the Odrysian nobles.

4 They had established a custom opposite to that of the Persian kingdom: to receive rather than give. The other Thracians also followed this custom. It was more shameful to refuse a request for a gift than to ask for one and not receive it. But the Odrysians used their power to carry the practice further. Nothing could be done without giving gifts. As a result, the kingdom became very powerful.

5 Of all the kingdoms in Europe between the Ionian Gulf and the Euxine Sea, it was the greatest in revenue and general wealth. But in fighting strength and the size of its army, it ranked second, far behind the Scythian kingdom.

6 No kingdom in Europe can equal that one. In fact, not even in Asia is there any single people that could stand up to the Scythians if they all acted together. But in sound judgment generally, and in understanding the practical needs of life, the Scythians do not measure up to other peoples.

Chapter 98

1 Sitalces, then, ruled a country of this size and was preparing his army. When he was ready, he set out for Macedonia, first through his own kingdom and then through Cercine, an uninhabited mountain on the border between the Sinti and the Paeonians. He crossed it by the road he himself had made earlier by cutting through the forest, when he campaigned against the Paeonians.

2 As they crossed the mountain from the Odrysian country, they had the Paeonians on their right and the Sinti and Maedi on their left. After crossing it, they reached Doberus in Paeonia.

3 On his march he lost no troops except through sickness. Instead, it grew. Many of the independent Thracians joined him without being invited, hoping for plunder. The whole force is said to have reached at least a hundred and fifty thousand.

4 Most of this force was infantry, while about a third was cavalry. The Odrysians themselves supplied the largest part of the cavalry, followed by the Getae. The best fighters among the infantry were the sword-carrying independent people who had come down from Rhodope. The rest followed as a mixed crowd, most frightening because of its size.

Chapter 99

1 They gathered at Doberus and prepared to come down from the high ground into lower Macedonia, which Perdiccas ruled.

2 The Macedonians also include the Lyncestians, Elimiotae, and other peoples living higher up. They are allies and subjects of the Macedonians in the lowlands but have their own kings.

3 Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors were the first to acquire and rule what is now coastal Macedonia. They were originally Temenids from Argos. They drove the Pierians out of Pieria by force. The Pierians later settled at Phagres and other places below Mount Pangaeum, across the Strymon. Even now, the coastal land below Pangaeum is called the Pierian Gulf. They also drove the Bottiaeans out of the country called Bottia. The Bottiaeans now live next to the Chalcidians.

4 They also acquired a narrow strip of Paeonia along the Axius River, running down from the interior as far as Pella and the sea. Across the Axius, they drove out the Edonians and now occupy the land called Mygdonia as far as the Strymon.

5 They also drove the Eordi out of what is now called Eordia. Most of them were destroyed, but a small number have settled around Physca. They drove the Almopes out of Almopia as well.

6 These Macedonians also conquered the other peoples whose lands they still hold: Anthemus, Crestonia, Bisaltia, and a large part of the land of the Macedonians themselves. The whole region is called Macedonia. Perdiccas son of Alexander was its king when Sitalces invaded.

Chapter 100

1 These Macedonians could not resist the great army coming against them. They took refuge in the strong positions and fortified places in their country.

2 There were not many of these. Later, when Archelaus son of Perdiccas became king, he built the forts that now exist in the country. He cut straight roads and made other improvements too. For war he provided horses, weapons, and other resources on a greater scale than all eight kings before him put together.

3 The Thracian army advanced from Doberus, first into the territory that had formerly belonged to Philip. It took Idomene by force. Gortynia, Atalanta, and some other places came over by agreement because of their friendship with Philip's son Amyntas, who was present. The Thracians besieged Europus but could not capture it.

4 Then the army advanced into the rest of Macedonia, to the left of Pella and Cyrrhus. It did not go farther in, beyond these places into Bottiaea and Pieria. Instead, it devastated Mygdonia, Crestonia, and Anthemus.

5 The Macedonians did not even consider defending themselves with infantry. But they sent for more cavalry from their allies in the highlands. Small numbers of them then attacked the much larger Thracian army wherever they thought best. Wherever they charged, no one stood against these skilled, armored horsemen. But they were surrounded by superior numbers and put themselves in danger among a crowd many times their size. In the end they stopped fighting. They did not think they were strong enough to risk attacking a larger force.

Chapter 101

1 Sitalces negotiated with Perdiccas about the matters that had brought him to war. The Athenians had not come with their ships, because they had doubted that he would come. Instead, they had sent gifts and ambassadors to him. So he sent part of his army against the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, forced them to stay behind their walls, and devastated their land.

2 While he remained in this region, the Thessalians and Magnetes to the south, the other subjects of the Thessalians, and the Greeks as far as Thermopylae were afraid that the army might march against them too. They began preparing to defend themselves.

3 The Thracians who held the plains north of the Strymon were also afraid: the Panaeans, Odomanti, Droi, and Dersaeans. They are all independent.

4 The expedition also caused anxious talk among the Greeks who were enemies of Athens. They feared that the Athenians might use their alliance to bring the Thracians against them too.

5 Sitalces continued to occupy and devastate Chalcidice, Bottice, and Macedonia at the same time. But he was achieving none of the aims of his invasion. His army was short of food and suffering from the winter weather. Seuthes son of Sparadocus, his nephew and the most powerful man after him, persuaded him to leave quickly. Perdiccas had secretly won Seuthes over by promising him his sister in marriage, with money as her dowry.

6 Sitalces took his advice. After staying thirty days in all, eight of them among the Chalcidians, he quickly withdrew his army home. Later Perdiccas gave his sister Stratonice to Seuthes, as he had promised. This was how Sitalces' expedition turned out.

Chapter 102

1 During the same winter, after the Peloponnesian fleet had broken up, the Athenians at Naupactus made an expedition under Phormio. They sailed along the coast to Astacus and landed. With four hundred Athenian hoplites from the ships and four hundred Messenians, they marched into the interior of Acarnania. They expelled men thought unreliable from Stratus, Coronta, and other places. After restoring Cynes son of Theolytus to Coronta, they returned to their ships.

2 They did not think it possible to campaign in winter against Oeniadae, the only Acarnanians who had always been their enemies. The Achelous River flows from Mount Pindus through Dolopia, the lands of the Agraeans and Amphilochians, and the Acarnanian plain. In its upper course it passes the city of Stratus, and it enters the sea near Oeniadae. It floods the area around their city, and the water makes a winter campaign impossible.

3 Most of the Echinades islands also lie opposite Oeniadae, very close to the mouths of the Achelous. The river is large and continually deposits silt. Some of the islands have already become part of the mainland, and all of them can be expected to do so before very long.

4 The river is big, carries a great deal of water, and is muddy. The islands are close together and become linked to one another by silt [because they keep it from spreading out]. They lie in staggered positions, not in a straight row, and leave no straight channels for the water to reach the open sea.

5 The islands are uninhabited and small. It is also said that Apollo told Alcmaeon son of Amphiaraus to settle in this land, when he was wandering after killing his mother. Apollo warned him that he would not be free of the things that terrified him until he found and settled in a land that the sun had not yet seen, and that was not yet land, when he killed his mother. All other land was polluted for him.

6 The story says that Alcmaeon was at a loss, but eventually thought of this land deposited by the Achelous. He had been wandering for a long time since killing his mother. It seemed to him that enough land could have built up during that time to give him a place to live. He settled around Oeniadae, became its ruler, and left the country named after his son Acarnan. This is the account of Alcmaeon that has come down to us.

Chapter 103

1 The Athenians and Phormio left Acarnania and returned to Naupactus. At the beginning of spring they sailed back to Athens, bringing the free men among their prisoners from the sea battles and the ships they had captured. The prisoners were exchanged man for man.

2 This winter ended, and the third year of this war, which Thucydides wrote, came to an end.

Chapter 1

1 The war between the Athenians and Peloponnesians and the allies on either side now really begins. For now all intercourse except through the medium of heralds ceased, and hostilities were commenced and prosecuted without intermission. The history follows the chronological order of events by summers and winters.

Chapter 2

1 The thirty years' truce which was entered into after the conquest of Euboea lasted fourteen years. In the fifteenth, in the forty-eighth year of the priestess-ship of Chrysis at Argos, in the Ephorate of Aenesias at Sparta, in the last month but two of the Archonship of Pythodorus at Athens, and six months after the battle of Potidaea, just at the beginning of spring, a Theban force a little over three hundred strong, under the command of their Boeotarchs, Pythangelus, son of Phyleides, and Diemporus, son of Onetorides, about the first watch of the night, made an armed entry into Plataea, a town of Boeotia in alliance with Athens.

2 The gates were opened to them by a Plataean called Naucleides, who, with his party, had invited them in, meaning to put to death the citizens of the opposite party, bring over the city to Thebes, and thus obtain power for themselves.

3 This was arranged through Eurymachus, son of Leontiades, a person of great influence at Thebes. For Plataea had always been at variance with Thebes; and the latter, foreseeing that war was at hand, wished to surprise her old enemy in time of peace, before hostilities had actually broken out. Indeed this was how they got in so easily without being observed, as no guard had been posted.

4 After the soldiers had grounded arms in the marketplace, those who had invited them in wished them to set to work at once and go to their enemies' houses. This, however, the Thebans refused to do, but determined to make a conciliatory proclamation, and if possible to come to a friendly understanding with the citizens. Their herald accordingly invited any who wished to resume their old place in the confederacy of their countrymen to ground arms with them, for they thought that in this way the city would readily join them.

Chapter 3

1 On becoming aware of the presence of the Thebans within their gates, and of the sudden occupation of the town, the Plataeans concluded in their alarm that more had entered than was really the case, the night preventing their seeing them. They accordingly came to terms, and accepting the proposal, made no movement; especially as the Thebans offered none of them any violence.

2 But somehow or other, during the negotiations, they discovered the scanty numbers of the Thebans, and decided that they could easily attack and overpower them; the mass of the Plataeans being averse to revolting from Athens.

3 At all events they resolved to attempt it. Digging through the party walls of the houses, they thus managed to join each other without being seen going through the streets, in which they placed wagons without the beasts in them, to serve as a barricade, and arranged everything else as seemed convenient for the occasion.

4 When everything had been done that circumstances permitted, they watched their opportunity and went out of their houses against the enemy. It was still night, though daybreak was at hand: in daylight it was thought that their attack would be met by men full of courage and on equal terms with their assailants, while in darkness it would fall upon panic-stricken troops, who would also be at a disadvantage from their enemy's knowledge of the locality. So they made their assault at once, and came to close quarters as quickly as they could.

Chapter 4

1 The Thebans, finding themselves outwitted, immediately closed up to repel all attacks made upon them.

2 Twice or thrice they beat back their assailants. But the men shouted and charged them, the women and slaves screamed and yelled from the houses and pelted them with stones and tiles; besides, it had been raining hard all night; and so at last their courage gave way, and they turned and fled through the town. Most of the fugitives were quite ignorant of the right ways out, and this, with the mud, and the darkness caused by the moon being in her last quarter, and the fact that their pursuers knew their way about and could easily stop their escape, proved fatal to many.

3 The only gate open was the one by which they had entered, and this was shut by one of the Plataeans driving the spike of a javelin into the bar instead of the bolt; so that even here there was no longer any means of exit.

4 They were now chased all over the town. Some got on the wall and threw themselves over, in most cases with a fatal result. One party managed to find a deserted gate, and obtaining an axe from a woman, cut through the bar; but as they were soon observed only a few succeeded in getting out. Others were cut off in detail in different parts of the city.

5 The most numerous and compact body rushed into a large building next to the city wall: the doors on the side of the street happened to be open, and the Thebans fancied that they were the gates of the town, and that there was a passage right through to the outside.

6 The Plataeans, seeing their enemies in a trap, now consulted whether they should set fire to the building and burn them just as they were, or whether there was anything else that they could do with them;

7 until at length these and the rest of the Theban survivors found wandering about the town agreed to an unconditional surrender of themselves and their arms to the Plataeans.

8 While such was the fate of the party in Plataea,

Chapter 5

1 the rest of the Thebans who were to have joined them with all their forces before daybreak, in case of anything miscarrying with the body that had entered, received the news of the affair on the road, and pressed forward to their succor.

2 Now Plataea is nearly eight miles from Thebes, and their march was delayed by the rain that had fallen in the night, for the river Asopus had risen and was not easy of passage;

3 and so, having to march in the rain, and being hindered in crossing the river, they arrived too late, and found the whole party either slain or captive.

4 When they learned what had happened, there at once formed a design against the Plataeans outside the city. As the attack had been made in time of peace, and was perfectly unexpected, there were of course men and stock in the fields; and the Thebans wished if possible to have some prisoners to exchange against their countrymen in the town, should any chance to have been taken alive.

5 Such was their plan. But the Plataeans suspected their intention almost before it was formed, and becoming alarmed for their fellow-citizens outside the town, sent a herald to the Thebans, reproaching them for their unscrupulous attempt to seize their city in time of peace, and warning them against any outrage on those outside. Should the warning be disregarded, they threatened to put to death the men they had in their hands, but added that, on the Thebans retiring from their territory, they would surrender the prisoners to their friends.

6 This is the Theban account of the matter, and they say that they had an oath given them. The Plataeans, on the other hand, do not admit any promise of an immediate surrender, but make it contingent upon subsequent negotiation: the oath they deny altogether.

7 Be this as it may, upon the Thebans retiring from their territory without committing any injury, the Plataeans hastily got in whatever they had in the country and immediately put the men to death. The prisoners were a hundred and eighty in number; Eurymachus, the person with whom the traitors had negotiated, being one.

Chapter 6

1 This done, the Plataeans sent a messenger to Athens, gave back the dead to the Thebans under a truce, and arranged things in the city as seemed best to meet the present emergency.

2 The Athenians meanwhile, having had word of the affair sent them immediately after its occurrence, had instantly seized all the Boeotians in Attica, and sent a herald to the Plataeans to forbid their proceeding to extremities with their Theban prisoners without instructions from Athens. The news of the men's death had of course not arrived;

3 the first messenger having left Plataea just when the Thebans entered it, the second just after their defeat and capture; so there was no later news. Thus the Athenians sent their orders in ignorance of the facts; and the herald on his arrival found the men slain.

4 After this the Athenians marched to Plataea and brought in provisions, and left a garrison in the place, also taking away the women and children and such of the men as were least efficient.

Chapter 7

1 After the affair at Plataea the treaty had been broken by an overt act, and Athens at once prepared for war, as did also Lacedaemon and her allies. They resolved to send embassies to the king and to such other of the barbarian powers as either party could look to for assistance, and tried to ally themselves with the independent states at home.

2 Lacedaemon, in addition to the existing marine, gave orders to the states that had declared for her in Italy and Sicily to build vessels up to a grand total of five hundred, the quota of each city being determined by its size, and also to provide a specified sum of money. Till these were ready they were to remain neutral and to admit single Athenian ships into their harbors.

3 Athens on her part reviewed her existing confederacy, and sent embassies to the places more immediately round Peloponnese, Corcyra, Cephallenia, Acarnania, and Zacynthus; perceiving that if these could be relied on she could carry the war all round Peloponnese.

Chapter 8

1 And if both sides nourished the boldest hopes and put forth their utmost strength for the war, this was only natural. Zeal is always at its height at the commencement of an undertaking; and on this particular occasion Peloponnese and Athens were both full of young men whose inexperience made them eager to take up arms, while the rest of Hellas stood straining with excitement at the conflict of its leading cities.

2 Everywhere predictions were being recited and oracles being chanted by such persons as collect them, and this not only in the contending cities.

3 Further, some while before this, there was an earthquake at Delos, for the first time in the memory of the Hellenes. This was said and thought to be ominous of the events impending; indeed, nothing of the kind that happened was allowed to pass without remark.

4 The good wishes of men made greatly for the Lacedaemonians, especially as they proclaimed themselves the liberators of Hellas. No private or public effort that could help them in speech or action was omitted; each thinking that the cause suffered wherever he could not himself see to it.

5 So general was the indignation felt against Athens, whether by those who wished to escape from her empire, or were apprehensive of being absorbed by it.

Chapter 9

1 Such were the preparations and such the feelings with which the contest opened.The allies of the two belligerents were the following.

2 These were the allies of Lacedaemon: all the Peloponnesians within the Isthmus except the Argives and Achaeans, who were neutral; Pellene being the only Achaean city that first joined in the war, though her example was afterwards followed by the rest. Outside Peloponnese the Megarians, Locrians, Boeotians, Phocians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians.

3 Of these, ships were furnished by the Corinthians, Megarians, Sycyonians, Pellenians, Eleans, Ambraciots, and Leucadians; and cavalry by the Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians. The other states sent infantry. This was the Lacedaemonian confederacy.

4 That of Athens comprised the Chians, Lesbians, Plateans, the Messenians in Naupactus, most of the Acarnanians, the Corcyraeans, Zacynthians, and some tributary cities in the following countries, viz., Caria upon the sea with her Dorian neighbors, Ionia, the Hellespont, the Thracian towns, the islands lying between Peloponnese and Crete towards the east, and all the Cyclades except Melos and Thera.

5 Of these, ships were furnished by Chios, Lesbos, and Corcyra, infantry and money by the rest.

6 Such were the allies of either party and their resources for the war.

Chapter 10

1 Immediately after the affair at Plataea, Lacedaemon sent round orders to the cities in Peloponnese and the rest of her confederacy to prepare troops and the provisions requisite for a foreign campaign, in order to invade Attica.

2 The several states were ready at the time appointed and assembled at the Isthmus; the contingent of each city being two-thirds of its whole force.

3 After the whole army had mustered, the Lacedaemonian king, Archidamus, the leader of the expedition, called together the generals of all the states and the principal persons and officers, and exhorted them as follows:—

Chapter 11

1 ‘Peloponnesians and allies, our fathers made many campaigns both within and without Peloponnese, and the elder men among us here are not without experience in war. Yet we have never set out with a larger force than the present; and if our numbers and efficiency are remarkable, so also is the power of the state against which we march.

2 We ought not then to show ourselves inferior to our ancestors, or unequal to our own reputation. For the hopes and attention of all Hellas are bent upon the present effort, and its sympathy is with the enemy of the hated Athens.

3 Therefore, numerous as the invading army may appear to be, and certain as some may think it that our adversary will not meet us in the field, this is no sort of justification for the least negligence upon the march; but the officers and men of each particular city should always be prepared for the advent of danger in their own quarters.

4 The course of war cannot be foreseen, and its attacks are generally dictated by the impulse of the moment; and where overweening self-confidence has despised preparation, a wise apprehension has often been able to make head against superior numbers.

5 Not that confidence is out of place in an army of invasion, but in an enemy's country it should also be accompanied by the precautions of apprehension: troops will by this combination be best inspired for dealing a blow, and best secured against receiving one.

6 In the present instance, the city against which we are going, far from being so impotent for defence, is on the contrary most excellently equipped at all points; so that we have every reason to expect that they will take the field against us, and that if they have not set out already before we are there, they will certainly do so when they see us in their territory wasting and destroying their property.

7 For men are always exasperated at suffering injuries to which they are not accustomed, and on seeing them inflicted before their very eyes; and where least inclined for reflection, rush with the greatest heat to action.

8 The Athenians are the very people of all others to do this, as they aspire to rule the rest of the world, and are more in the habit of invading and ravaging their neighbors' territory, than of seeing their own treated in the like fashion.

9 Considering, therefore, the power of the state against which we are marching, and the greatness of the reputation which, according to the event, we shall win or lose for our ancestors and ourselves, remember as you follow where you may be led to regard discipline and vigilance as of the first importance, and to obey with alacrity the orders transmitted to you; as nothing contributes so much to the credit and safety of an army as the union of large bodies by a single discipline.’

Chapter 12

1 With this brief speech dismissing the assembly, Archidamus first sent off Melesippus, son of Diacritus, a Spartan, to Athens, in case she should be more inclined to submit on seeing the Peloponnesians actually on the march.

2 But the Athenians did not admit him into the city or to their assembly; Pericles having already carried a motion against admitting either herald or embassy from the Lacedaemonians after they had once marched out. The herald was accordingly sent away without an audience, and ordered to be beyond the frontier that same day; in future, if those who sent him had a proposition to make they must retire to their own territory before they dispatched embassies to Athens. An escort was sent with Melesippus to prevent his holding communication with any one.

3 When he reached the frontier and was just going to be dismissed, he departed with these words: ‘This day will be the beginning of great misfortunes to the Hellenes.’

4 As soon as he arrived at the camp, and Archidamus learnt that the Athenians had still no thoughts of submitting, he at length began his march, and advanced with his army into their territory.

5 Meanwhile the Boeotians, sending their contingent and cavalry to join the Peloponnesian expedition, went to Plataea with the remainder and laid waste the country.

Chapter 13

1 While the Peloponnesians were still mustering at the Isthmus, or on the march before they invaded Attica, Pericles, son of 13anthippus, one of the ten generals of the Athenians, finding that the invasion was to take place, conceived the idea that Archidamus, who happened to be his friend, might possibly pass by his estate without ravaging it. This he might do, either from a personal wish to oblige him, or acting under instructions from Lacedaemon for the purpose of creating a prejudice against him, as had been before attempted in the demand for the expulsion of the accursed family. He accordingly took the precaution of announcing to the Athenians in the assembly that, although Archidamus was his friend, yet this friendship should not extend to the detriment of the state, and that in case the enemy should make his houses and lands an exception to the rest and not pillage them, he at once gave them up to be public property, so that they should not bring him into suspicion.

2 He also gave the citizens some advice on their present affairs in the same strain as before. They were to prepare for the war, and to carry in their property from the country. They were not to go out to battle, but to come into the city and guard it, and get ready their fleet, in which their real strength lay. They were also to keep a tight rein on their allies—the strength of Athens being derived from the money brought in by their payments, and success in war depending principally upon conduct and capital.

3 Here they had no reason to despond. Apart from other sources of income, an average revenue of six hundred talents of silver was drawn from the tribute of the allies; and there were still six thousand talents of coined silver in the Acropolis, out of nine thousand seven hundred that had once been there, from which the money had been taken for the porch of the Acropolis, the other public buildings, and for Potidaea.

4 This did not include the uncoined gold and silver in public and private offerings, the sacred vessels for the processions and games, the Median spoils, and similar resources to the amount of five hundred talents.

5 To this he added the treasures of the other temples. These were by no means inconsiderable, and might fairly be used. Nay, if they were ever absolutely driven to it, they might take even the gold ornaments of Athena herself; for the statue contained forty talents of pure gold and it was all removable. This might be used for self-preservation, and must every penny of it be restored.

6 Such was their financial position—surely a satisfactory one. Then they had an army of thirteen thousand heavy infantry, besides sixteen thousand more in the garrisons and on home duty at Athens.

7 This was at first the number of men on guard in the event of an invasion: it was composed of the oldest and youngest levies and the resident aliens who had heavy armor. The Phaleric wall ran for four miles, before it joined that round the city; and of this last nearly five had a guard, although part of it was left without one, viz. that between the Long Wall and the Phaleric. Then there were the Long Walls to Piraeus, a distance of some four miles and a half, the outer of which was manned. Lastly, the circumference of Piraeus with Munychia was nearly seven miles and a half; only half of this, however, was guarded.

8 Pericles also showed them that they had twelve hundred horse including mounted archers, with sixteen hundred archers unmounted, and three hundred galleys fit for service.

9 Such were the resources of Athens in the different departments when the Peloponnesian invasion was impending and hostilities were being commenced. Pericles also urged his usual arguments for expecting a favorable issue to the war.

Chapter 14

1 The Athenians listened to his advice, and began to carry in their wives and children from the country, and all their household furniture, even to the woodwork of their houses which they took down. Their sheep and cattle they sent over to Euboea and the adjacent islands.

2 But they found it hard to move, as most of them had been always used to live in the country.

Chapter 15

1 From very early times this had been more the case with the Athenians than with others. Under Cecrops and the first kings, down to the reign of Theseus, Attica had always consisted of a number of independent townships, each with its own town-hall and magistrates. Except in times of danger the king at Athens was not consulted; in ordinary seasons they carried on their government and settled their affairs without his interference; sometimes even they waged war against him, as in the case of the Eleusinians with Eumolpus against Erechtheus.

2 In Theseus, however, they had a king of equal intelligence and power; and one of the chief features in his organization of the country was to abolish the council chambers and magistrates of the petty cities, and to merge them in the single council-chamber and town-hall of the present capital. Individuals might still enjoy their private property just as before, but they were henceforth compelled to have only one political center, viz. Athens; which thus counted all the inhabitants of Attica among her citizens, so that when Theseus died he left a great state behind him. Indeed, from him dates the Synoecia, or Feast of Union; which is paid for by the state, and which the Athenians still keep in honor of the goddess.

3 Before this the city consisted of the present citadel and the district beneath it looking rather towards the south.

4 This is shown by the fact that the temples the other deities, besides that of Athena, are in the citadel; and even those that are outside it are mostly situated in this quarter of the city, as that of the Olympian Zeus, of the Pythian Apollo, of Earth, and of Dionysus in the Marshes, the same in whose honor the older Dionysia are to this day celebrated in the month of Anthesterion not only by the Athenians but also by their Ionian descendants.

5 There are also other ancient temples in this quarter. The fountain too, which, since the alteration made by the tyrants, has been called Enneacrounos, or Nine Pipes, but which, when the spring was open, went by the name of Callirhoe, or Fairwater, was in those days, from being so near, used for the most important offices. Indeed, the old fashion of using the water before marriage and for other sacred purposes is still kept up.

6 Again, from their old residence in that quarter, the citadel is still known among Athenians as the “city”.

Chapter 16

1 The Athenians thus long lived scattered over Attica in independent townships. Even after the centralization of Theseus, old habit still prevailed; and from the early times down to the present war most Athenians still lived in the country with their families and households, and were consequently not at all inclined to move now, especially as they had only just restored their establishments after the Median invasion.

2 Deep was their trouble and discontent at abandoning their houses and the hereditary temples of the ancient constitution, and at having to change their habits of life and to bid farewell to what each regarded as his native city.

Chapter 17

1 When they arrived at Athens, though a few had houses of their own to go to, or could find an asylum with friends or relatives, by far the greater number had to take up their dwelling in the parts of the city that were not built over and in the temples and chapels of the heroes, except the Acropolis and the temple of the Eleusinian Demeter and such other places as were always kept closed. The occupation of the plot of ground lying below the citadel called the Pelasgian had been forbidden by a curse; and there was also an ominous fragment of a Pythian oracle which said— / Leave the Pelasgian parcel desolate, woe worth the day that men inhabit it!

2 Yet this too was now built over in the necessity of the moment. And in my opinion, if the oracle proved true, it was in the opposite sense to what was expected. For the misfortunes of the state did not arise from the unlawful occupation, but the necessity of the occupation from the war; and though the god did not mention this, he foresaw that it would be an evil day for Athens in which the plot came to be inhabited.

3 Many also took up their quarters in the towers of the walls or wherever else they could. For when they were all come in, the city proved too small to hold them; though afterwards they divided the long walls and a great part of Piraeus into lots and settled there.

4 All this while great attention was being given to the war; the allies were being mustered, and an armament of a hundred ships equipped for Peloponnese.

5 Such was the state of preparation at Athens.

Chapter 18

1 Meanwhile the army of the Peloponnesians was advancing. The first town they came to in Attica was Oenoe, where they were to enter the country. Sitting down before it, they prepared to assault the wall with engines and otherwise.

2 Oenoe, standing upon the Athenian and Boeotian border, was of course a walled town, and was used as a fortress by the Athenians in time of war. So the Peloponnesians prepared for their assault, and wasted some valuable time before the place.

3 This delay brought the gravest censure upon Archidamus. Even during the levying of the war he had gained credit for weakness and Athenian sympathies by the half measures he had advocated; and after the army had assembled he had further injured himself in public estimation by his loitering at the Isthmus and the slowness with which the rest of the march had been conducted. But all this was as nothing to the delay at Oenoe.

4 During this interval the Athenians were carrying in their property; and it was the belief of the Peloponnesians that a quick advance would have found everything still out, had it not been for his procrastination.

5 Such was the feeling of the army towards Archidamus during the siege. But he, it is said, expected that the Athenians would shrink from letting their land be wasted, and would make their submission while it was still uninjured; and this was why he waited.

Chapter 19

1 But after he had assaulted Oenoe, and every possible attempt to take it had failed, as no herald came from Athens, he at last broke up his camp and invaded Attica. This was about eighty days after the Theban attempt upon Plataea, just in the middle of summer, when the corn was ripe, and Archidamus, son of Zeuxis, King of Lacedaemon, was in command.

2 Encamping in Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, they began their ravages, and putting to flight some Athenian horse at a place called Rheiti, or the Brooks, they then advanced, keeping Mount Aegaleus on their right, through Cropia, until they reached Acharnae, the largest of the Athenian demes or townships. Sitting down before it, they formed a camp there, and continued their ravages for a long while.

Chapter 20

1 The reason why Archidamus remained in order of battle at Acharnae during this incursion, instead of descending into the plain, is said to have been this.

2 He hoped that the Athenians might possibly be tempted by the multitude of their youth and the unprecedented efficiency of their service to come out to battle and attempt to stop the devastation of their lands.

3 Accordingly, as they had not met him at Eleusis or the Thriasian plain, he tried if they could be provoked to a sally by the spectacle of a camp at Acharnae.

4 He thought the place itself a good position for encamping; and it seemed likely that such an important part of the state as the three thousand heavy infantry of the Acharnians would refuse to submit to the ruin of their property, and would force a battle on the rest of the citizens. On the other hand, should the Athenians not take the field during this incursion, he could then fearlessly ravage the plain in future invasions, and extend his advance up to the very walls of Athens. After the Acharnians had lost their own property they would be less willing to risk themselves for that of their neighbors; and so there would be division in the Athenian counsels.

5 These were the motives of Archidamus for remaining at Acharnae.

Chapter 21

1 In the meanwhile, as long as the army was at Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, hopes were still entertained of its not advancing any nearer. It was remembered that Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of Lacedaemon, had invaded Attica with a Peloponnesian army fourteen years before, but had retreated without advancing farther than Eleusis and Thria, which indeed proved the cause of his exile from Sparta, as it was thought he had been bribed to retreat.

2 But when they saw the army at Acharnae, barely seven miles from Athens, they lost all patience. The territory of Athens was being ravaged before the very eyes of the Athenians, a sight which the young men had never seen before and the old only in the Median wars; and it was naturally thought a grievous insult, and the determination was universal, especially among the young men, to sally forth and stop it.

3 Knots were formed in the streets and engaged in hot discussion; for if the proposed sally was warmly recommended, it was also in some cases opposed. Oracles of the most various import were recited by the collectors, and found eager listeners in one or other of the disputants. Foremost in pressing for the sally were the Acharnians, as constituting no small part of the army of the state, and as it was their land that was being ravaged. In short, the whole city was in a most excited state; Pericles was the object of general indignation; his previous counsels were totally forgotten; he was abused for not leading out the army which he commanded, and was made responsible for the whole of the public suffering.

Chapter 22

1 He, meanwhile, seeing anger and infatuation just now in the ascendant, and confident of his wisdom in refusing a sally, would not call either assembly or meeting of the people, fearing the fatal results of a debate inspired by passion and not by prudence. Accordingly, he addressed himself to the defence of the city, and kept it as quiet as possible,

2 though he constantly sent out cavalry to prevent raids on the lands near the city from flying parties of the enemy. There was a trifling affair at Phrygia between a squadron of the Athenian horse with the Thessalians and the Boeotian cavalry; in which the former had rather the best of it, until the heavy infantry advanced to the support of the Boeotians, when the Thessalians and Athenians were routed and lost a few men, whose bodies, however, were recovered the same day without a truce. The next day the Peloponnesians set up a trophy.

3 Ancient alliance brought the Thessalians to the aid of Athens; those who came being the Larisaeans, Pharsalians, Cranonians, Pyrasians, Gyrtonians, and Pheraeans. The Larisaean commanders were Polymedes and Aristonus, two party leaders in Larisa; the Pharsalian general was Menon; each of the other cities had also its own commander.

Chapter 23

1 In the meantime the Peloponnesians, as the Athenians did not come out to engage them, broke up from Acharnae and ravaged some of the demes between Mount Parnes and Brilessus.

2 While they were in Attica, the Athenians sent off the hundred ships which they had been preparing round Peloponnese, with a thousand heavy infantry and four hundred archers on board, under the command of Carcinus, son of Xenotimus, Proteas, son of Epicles, and Socrates, son of Antigenes.

3 This armament weighed anchor and started on its cruise, and the Peloponnesians, after remaining in Attica as long as their provisions lasted, retired through Boeotia by a different road to that by which they had entered. As they passed Oropus they ravaged the territory of Graea which is held by the Oropians from Athens, and reaching Peloponnese broke up to their respective cities.

Chapter 24

1 After they had retired the Athenians set guards by land and sea at the points at which they intended to have regular stations during the war. They also resolved to set apart a special fund of a thousand talents from the monies in the Acropolis. This was not to be spent, but the current expenses of the war were to be otherwise provided for. If any one should move or put to the vote a proposition for using the money for any purpose whatever except that of defending the city in the event of the enemy bringing a fleet to make an attack by sea, it should be a capital offence.

2 With this sum of money they also set aside a special fleet of one hundred galleys, the best ships of each year, with their captains. None of these was to be used except with the money and against the same peril, should such peril arise.

Chapter 25

1 Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred ships round Peloponnese, reinforced by a Corcyraean squadron of fifty vessels and some others of the allies in those parts, cruised about the coasts and ravaged the country. Among other places they landed in Laconia and made an assault upon Methone; there being no garrison in the place, and the wall being weak.

2 But it so happened that Brasidas, son of Tellis, a Spartan, was in command of a guard for the defence of the district. Hearing of the attack, he hurried with a hundred heavy infantry to the assistance of the besieged, and dashing through the army of the Athenians, which was scattered over the country and had its attention turned to the wall, threw himself into Methone. He lost a few men in making good his entrance, but saved the place and won the thanks of Sparta by his exploit, being thus the first officer who obtained this notice during the war.

3 The Athenians at once weighed anchor and continued their cruise. Touching at Pheia in Elis, they ravaged the country for two days and defeated a picked force of three hundred men that had come from the vale of Elis and the immediate neighborhood to the rescue.

4 But a stiff squall came down upon them, and not liking to face it in a place where there was no harbor, most of them got on board their ships, and doubling Point Ichthys sailed into the port of Pheia. In the meantime the Messenians, and some others who could not get on board, marched over by land and took Pheia.

5 The fleet afterwards sailed round and picked them up and then put to sea; Pheia being evacuated, as the main army of the Eleans had now come up. The Athenians continued their cruise, and ravaged other places on the coast.

Chapter 26

1 About the same time the Athenians sent thirty ships to cruise round Locris and also to guard Euboea; Cleopompus, son of Clinias, being in command.

2 Making descents from the fleet he ravaged certain places on the sea-coast, and captured Thronium and took hostages from it. He also defeated at Alope the Locrians that had assembled to resist him.

Chapter 27

1 During the summer the Athenians also expelled the Aeginetans with their wives and children from Aegina, on the ground of their having been the chief agents in bringing the war upon them. Besides, Aegina lies so near Peloponnese, that it seemed safer to send colonists of their own to hold it, and shortly afterwards the settlers were sent out.

2 The banished Aeginetans found an asylum in Thyrea, which was given to them by Lacedaemon, not only on account of her quarrel with Athens, but also because the Aeginetans had laid her under obligations at the time of the earthquake and the revolt of the Helots. The territory of Thyrea is on the frontier of Argolis and Laconia, reaching down to the sea. Those of the Aeginetans who did not settle here were scattered over the rest of Hellas.

Chapter 28

1 The same summer, at the beginning of a new lunar month, the only time by the way at which it appears possible, the sun was eclipsed after noon. After it had assumed the form of a crescent and some of the stars had come out, it returned to its natural shape.

Chapter 29

1 During the same summer Nymphodorus, son of Pythes, an Abderite, whose sister Sitalces had married, was made their Proxenus by the Athenians and sent for to Athens. They had hitherto considered him their enemy; but he had great influence with Sitalces, and they wished this prince to become their ally. Sitalces was the son of Teres and king of the Thracians.

2 Teres, the father of Sitalces, was the first to establish the great kingdom of the Odrysians on a scale quite unknown to the rest of Thrace, a large portion of the Thracians being independent.

3 This Teres is in no way related to Tereus who married Pandion's daughter Procne from Athens; nor indeed did they belong to the same part of Thrace. Tereus lived in Daulis, part of what is now called Phocis, but which at that time was inhabited by Thracians. It was in this land that the women perpetrated the outrage upon Itys; and many of the poets when they mention the nightingale call it the Daulian bird. Besides, Pandion in contracting an alliance for his daughter would consider the advantages of mutual assistance, and would naturally prefer a match at the above moderate distance to the journey of many days which separates Athens from the Odrysians. Again the names are different; and this Teres was king of the Odrysians, the first by the way who attained to any power.

4 Sitalces, his son, was now sought as an ally by the Athenians, who desired his aid in the reduction of the Thracian towns and of Perdiccas.

5 Coming to Athens, Nymphodorus concluded the alliance with Sitalces and made his son Sadocus an Athenian citizen, and promised to finish the war in Thrace by persuading Sitalces to send the Athenians a force of Thracian horse and targeteers.

6 He also reconciled them with Perdiccas, and induced them to restore Therme to him; upon which Perdiccas at once joined the Athenians and Phormio in an expedition against the Chalcidians.

7 Thus Sitalces, son of Teres, king of the Thracians, and Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, became allies of Athens.

Chapter 30

1 Meanwhile the Athenians in the hundred vessels were still cruising round Peloponnese. After taking Sollium, a town belonging to Corinth, and presenting the city and territory to the Acarnanians of Palaira, they stormed Astacus, expelled its tyrant Evarchus, and gained the place for their confederacy.

2 Next they sailed to the island of Cephallenia and brought it over without using force. Cephallenia lies off Acarnania and Leucas, and consists of four states, the Paleans, Cranians, Samaeans, and Pronaeans. Not long afterwards the fleet returned to Athens.

Chapter 31

1 Towards the autumn of this year the Athenians invaded the Megarid with their whole levy, resident aliens included, under the command of Pericles, son of Xanthippus. The Athenians in the hundred ships round Peloponnese on their journey home had just reached Aegina, and hearing that the citizens at home were in full force at Megara, now sailed over and joined them.

2 This was without doubt the largest army of Athenians ever assembled, the state being still in the flower of her strength and yet unvisited by the plague. Full ten thousand heavy infantry were in the field, all Athenian citizens, besides the three thousand before Potidaea. Then the resident aliens who joined in the incursion were at least three thousand strong; besides which there was a multitude of light troops. They ravaged the greater part of the territory, and then retired.

3 Other incursions into the Megarid were afterwards made by the Athenians annually during the war, sometimes only with cavalry, sometimes with all their forces. This went on until the capture of Nisaea.

Chapter 32

1 Atalanta also, the desert island off the Opuntian coast, was towards the end of this summer converted into a fortified post by the Athenians, in order to prevent privateers issuing from Opus and the rest of Locris and plundering Euboea. Such were the events of this summer after the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica.

Chapter 33

1 In the ensuing winter the Acarnanian Evarchus wishing to return to Astacus, persuaded the Corinthians to sail over with forty ships and fifteen hundred heavy infantry and restore him; himself also hiring some mercenaries. In command of the force were Euphamidas, son of Aristonymus, Timoxenus, son of Timocrates, and Eumachus, son of Chrysis,

2 who sailed over and restored him, and after failing in an attempt on some places on the Acarnanian coast which they were desirous of gaining, began their voyage home.

3 Coasting along shore they touched at Cephallenia and made a descent on the Cranian territory, and losing some men by the treachery of the Cranians, who fell suddenly upon them, put to sea somewhat hurriedly and returned home.

Chapter 34

1 In the same winter the Athenians gave a funeral at the public cost to those who had first fallen in this war. It was a custom of their ancestors, and the manner of it is as follows.

2 Three days before the ceremony, the bones of the dead are laid out in a tent which has been erected; and their friends bring to their relatives such offerings as they please.

3 In the funeral procession cypress coffins are borne in cars, one for each tribe; the bones of the deceased being placed in the coffin of their tribe. Among these is carried one empty bier decked for the missing, that is, for those whose bodies could not be recovered.

4 Any citizen or stranger who pleases, joins in the procession: and the female relatives are there to wail at the burial.

5 The dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the most beautiful suburb of the city, in which those who fall in war are always buried; with the exception of those slain at Marathon, who for their singular and extraordinary valor were interred on the spot where they fell.

6 After the bodies have been laid in the earth, a man chosen by the state, of approved wisdom and eminent reputation, pronounces over them an appropriate panegyric; after which all retire.

7 Such is the manner of the burying; and throughout the whole of the war, whenever the occasion arose, the established custom was observed.

8 Meanwhile these were the first that had fallen, and Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was chosen to pronounce their eulogium. When the proper time arrived, he advanced from the sepulchre to an elevated platform in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as possible, and spoke as follows:

Chapter 35

1 ‘Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made this speech part of the law, telling us that it is well that it should be delivered at the burial of those who fall in battle. For myself, I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in deeds, would be sufficiently rewarded by honors also shown by deeds; such as you now see in this funeral prepared at the people's cost. And I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth.

2 On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story, may think that some point has not been set forth with that fulness which he wishes and knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.

3 However, since our ancestors have stamped this custom with their approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law and to try to satisfy your several wishes and opinions as best I may.

Chapter 36

1 I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honor of the first mention on an occasion like the present. They dwelt in the country without break in the succession from generation to generation, and handed it down free to the present time by their valor.

2 And if our more remote ancestors deserve praise, much more do our own fathers, who added to their inheritance the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains to be able to leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation.

3 Lastly, there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented by those of us here, who are still more or less in the vigor of life; while the mother country has been furnished by us with everything that can enable her to depend on her own resources whether for war or for peace.

4 That part of our history which tells of the military achievements which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready valor with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by. But what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits out of which it sprang; these are questions which I may try to solve before I proceed to my panegyric upon these men; since I think this to be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may properly dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens or foreigners, may listen with advantage.

Chapter 37

1 Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if to social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition.

2 The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty.

3 But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.

Chapter 38

1 Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself from business. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen;

2 while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbor, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own.

Chapter 39

1 If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger.

2 In proof of this it may be noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone, but bring with them all their confederates; while we Athenians advance unsupported into the territory of a neighbor, and fighting upon a foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their homes.

3 Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy, because we have at once to attend to our marine and to despatch our citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so that, wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength, a success against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of our entire people.

4 And yet if with habits not of labor but of ease, and courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing to encounter danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as fearlessly as those who are never free from them.Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of admiration.

Chapter 40

1 We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it.

2 Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.

3 Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger.

4 In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring not by receiving favors. Yet, of course, the doer of the favor is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be a payment, not a free gift.

5 And it is only the Athenians who, fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.

Chapter 41

1 In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas; while I doubt if the world can produce a man, who where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility as the Athenian.

2 And that this is no mere boast thrown out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state acquired by these habits proves.

3 For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation, and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to question her title by merit to rule.

4 Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us.

5 Such is the Athens for which these men, in the assertion of their resolve not to lose her, nobly fought and died; and well may well every one of their survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.

Chapter 42

1 Indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our country, it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose, and also that the panegyric of the men over whom I am now speaking might be by definite proofs established.

2 That panegyric is now in a great measure complete; for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what the heroism of these and their like have made her, men whose fame, unlike at of most Hellenes, will be found to be only commensurate with their deserts. And if a test of worth be wanted, it is to be found in their closing scene, and this not only in the cases in which it set the final seal upon their merit, but also in those in which it gave the first intimation of their having any.

3 For there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual.

4 But none of these allowed either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to tempt him to shrink from danger. No, holding that vengeance upon their enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings, and reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance and to let their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of final success, in the business before them they thought fit to act boldly and trust in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonor, but met danger face to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but from their glory.

Chapter 43

1 So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must determine to have as unaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue. And not contented with ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up with the defence of your country, though these would furnish a valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your hearts; and then when all her greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honor in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive their country of their valor, but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer.

2 For this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall fall for its commemoration.

3 For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.

4 These take as your model, and judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valor, never decline the dangers of war.

5 For it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in its consequences.

6 And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!

Chapter 44

1 Comfort, therefore, not condolence, is what I have to offer to the parents of the dead who may be here. Numberless are the chances to which, as they know, the life of man is subject; but fortunate indeed are they who draw for their lot a death so glorious as that which has caused your mourning, and to whom life has been so exactly measured as to terminate in the happiness in which it has been passed.

2 Still I know that this is a hard saying, especially when those are in question of whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the homes of others blessings of which once you also boasted: for grief is felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed.

3 Yet you who are still of an age to beget children must bear up in the hope of having others in their stead; not only will they help you to forget those whom you have lost, but will be to the state at once a reinforcement and a security; for never can a fair or just policy be expected of the citizen who does not, like his fellows, bring to the decision the interests and apprehensions of a father.

4 While those of you who have passed your prime must congratulate yourselves with the thought that the best part of your life was fortunate, and that the brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed. For it is only the love of honor that never grows old; and honor it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness.

Chapter 45

1 Turning to the sons or brothers of the dead, I see an arduous struggle before you. When a man is gone, all are wont to praise him, and should your merit be ever so transcendent, you will still find it difficult not merely to overtake, but even to approach their renown. The living have envy to contend with, while those who are no longer in our path are honored with a goodwill into which rivalry does not enter.

2 On the other hand if I must say anything on the subject of female excellence to those of you who will now be in widowhood, it will be all comprised in this brief exhortation. Great will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men whether for good or for bad.

Chapter 46

1 My task is now finished. I have performed it to the best of my ability, and in words, at least, the requirements of the law are now satisfied. If deeds be in question, those who are here interred have received part of their honors already, and I for the rest, their children will be brought up till manhood at the public expense: the state thus offers a valuable prize, as the garland of victory in this race of valor, for the reward both of those who have fallen and their survivors. And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens.

2 And now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your relatives, you may depart.’

Chapter 47

1 Such was the funeral that took place during this winter, with which the first year of the war came to an end.

2 In the first days of summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies, with two-thirds of their forces as before, invaded Attica, under the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of Lacedaemon, and sat down and laid waste the country.

3 Not many days after their arrival in Attica the plague first began to show itself among the Athenians. It was said that it had broken out in many places previously in the neighborhood of Lemnos and elsewhere; but a pestilence of such extent and mortality was nowhere remembered.

4 Neither were the physicians at first of any service, ignorant as they were of the proper way to treat it, but they died themselves the most thickly, as they visited the sick most often; nor did any human art succeed any better. Supplications in the temples, divinations, and so forth were found equally futile, till the overwhelming nature of the disaster at last put a stop to them altogether.

Chapter 48

1 It first began, it is said, in the parts of Ethiopia above Egypt, and thence descended into Egypt and Libya and into most of the king's country.

2 Suddenly falling upon Athens, it first attacked the population in Piraeus,—which was the occasion of their saying that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the reservoirs, there being as yet no wells there—and afterwards appeared in the upper city, when the deaths became much more frequent.

3 All speculation as to its origin and its causes, if causes can be found adequate to produce so great a disturbance, I leave to other writers, whether lay or professional; for myself, I shall simply set down its nature, and explain the symptoms by which perhaps it may be recognized by the student, if it should ever break out again. This I can the better do, as I had the disease myself, and watched its operation in the case of others.

Chapter 49

1 That year then is admitted to have been otherwise unprecedentedly free from sickness; and such few cases as occurred, all determined in this.

2 As a rule, however, there was no ostensible cause; but people in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath.

3 These symptoms were followed by sneezing and hoarseness, after which the pain soon reached the chest, and produced a hard cough. When it fixed in the stomach, it upset it; and discharges of bile of every kind named by physicians ensued, accompanied by very great distress.

4 In most cases also an ineffectual retching followed, producing violent spasms, which in some cases ceased soon after, in others much later.

5 Externally the body was not very hot to the touch, nor pale in its appearance, but reddish, livid, and breaking out into small pustules and ulcers. But internally it burned so that the patient could not bear to have on him clothing or linen even of the very lightest description; or indeed to be otherwise than stark naked. What they would have liked best would have been to throw themselves into cold water; as indeed was done by some of the neglected sick, who plunged into the rain-tanks in their agonies of unquenchable thirst; though it made no difference whether they drank little or much.

6 Besides this, the miserable feeling of not being able to rest or sleep never ceased to torment them. The body meanwhile did not waste away so long as the distemper was at its height, but held out to a marvel against its ravages; so that when they succumbed, as in most cases, on the seventh or eighth day to the internal inflammation, they had still some strength in them. But if they passed this stage, and the disease descended further into the bowels, inducing a violent ulceration there accompanied by severe diarrhea, this brought on a weakness which was generally fatal.

7 For the disorder first settled in the head, ran its course from thence through the whole of the body, and even where it did not prove mortal, it still left its mark on the extremities;

8 for it settled in the privy parts, the fingers and the toes, and many escaped with the loss of these, some too with that of their eyes. Others again were seized with an entire loss of memory on their first recovery, and did not know either themselves or their friends.

Chapter 50

1 But while the nature of the distemper was such as to baffle all description, and its attacks almost too grievous for human nature to endure, it was still in the following circumstance that its difference from all ordinary disorders was most clearly shown. All the birds and beasts that prey upon human bodies, either abstained from touching them (though there were many lying unburied), or died after tasting them.

2 In proof of this, it was noticed that birds of this kind actually disappeared; they were not about the bodies, or indeed to be seen at all. But of course the effects which I have mentioned could best be studied in a domestic animal like the dog.

Chapter 51

1 Such then, if we pass over the varieties of particular cases, which were many and peculiar, were the general features of the distemper. Meanwhile the town enjoyed an immunity from all the ordinary disorders; or if any case occurred, it ended in this.

2 Some died in neglect, others in the midst of every attention. No remedy was found that could be used as a specific; for what did good in one case, did harm in another.

3 Strong and weak constitutions proved equally incapable of resistance, all alike being swept away, although dieted with the utmost precaution.

4 By far the most terrible feature in the malady was the dejection which ensued when anyone felt himself sickening, for the despair into which they instantly fell took away their power of resistance, and left them a much easier prey to the disorder; besides which, there was the awful spectacle of men dying like sheep, through having caught the infection in nursing each other. This caused the greatest mortality.

5 On the one hand, if they were afraid to visit each other, they perished from neglect; indeed many houses were emptied of their inmates for want of a nurse: on the other, if they ventured to do so, death was the consequence. This was especially the case with such as made any pretensions to goodness: honor made them unsparing of themselves in their attendance in their friends' houses, where even the members of the family were at last worn out by the moans of the dying, and succumbed to the force of the disaster.

6 Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what it was from experience, and had now no fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked twice—never at least fatally. And such persons not only received the congratulations of others, but themselves also, in the elation of the moment, half entertained the vain hope that they were for the future safe from any disease whatsoever.

Chapter 52

1 An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new arrivals.

2 As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the mortality raged without restraint. The bodies of dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water.

3 The sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of corpses of persons that had died there, just as they were; for as the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of them, became utterly careless of everything, whether sacred or profane.

4 All the burial rites before in use were entirely upset, and they buried the bodies as best they could. Many from want of the proper appliances, through so many of their friends having died already, had recourse to the most shameless sepultures: sometimes getting the start of those who had raised a pile, they threw their own dead body upon the stranger's pyre and ignited it; sometimes they tossed the corpse which they were carrying on the top of another that was burning, and so went off.

Chapter 53

1 Nor was this the only form of lawless extravagance which owed its origin to the plague. Men now coolly ventured on what they had formerly done in a corner, and not just as they pleased, seeing the rapid transitions produced by persons in prosperity suddenly dying and those who before had nothing succeeding to their property.

2 So they resolved to spend quickly and enjoy themselves, regarding their lives and riches as alike things of a day.

3 Perseverance in what men called honor was popular with none, it was so uncertain whether they would be spared to attain the object; but it was settled that present enjoyment, and all that contributed to it, was both honorable and useful.

4 Fear of gods or law of man there was none to restrain them. As for the first, they judged it to be just the same whether they worshipped them or not, as they saw all alike perishing; and for the last, no one expected to live to be brought to trial for his offences, but each felt that a far severer sentence had been already passed upon them all and hung ever over their heads, and before this fell it was only reasonable to enjoy life a little.

Chapter 54

1 Such was the nature of the calamity, and heavily did it weigh on the Athenians; death raging within the city and devastation without.

2 Among other things which they remembered in their distress was, very naturally, the following verse which the old men said had long ago been uttered: / A Dorian war shall come and with it death.

3 So a dispute arose as to whether dearth and not death had not been the word in the verse; but at the present juncture, it was of course decided in favor of the latter; for the people made their recollection fit in with their sufferings. I fancy, however, that if another Dorian war should ever afterwards come upon us, and a dearth should happen to accompany it, the verse will probably be read accordingly.

4 The oracle also which had been given to the Lacedaemonians was now remembered by those who knew of it. When the God was asked whether they should go to war, he answered that if they put their might into it, victory would be theirs, and that he would himself be with them.

5 With this oracle events were supposed to tally. For the plague broke out so soon as the Peloponnesians invaded Attica, and never entering Peloponnese (not at least to an extent worth noticing), committed its worst ravages at Athens, and next to Athens, at the most populous of the other towns. Such was the history of the plague.

Chapter 55

1 After ravaging the plain the Peloponnesians advanced into the Paralian region as far as Laurium, where the Athenian silver mines are, and first laid waste the side looking towards Peloponnese, next that which faces Euboea and Andros.

2 But Pericles, who was still general, held the same opinion as in the former invasion, and would not let the Athenians march out against them.

Chapter 56

1 However while they were still in the plain, and had not yet entered the Paralian land, he had prepared an armament of a hundred ships for Peloponnese, and when all was ready put out to sea.

2 On board the ships he took four thousand Athenian heavy infantry, and three hundred cavalry in horse transports, then for the first time made out of old galleys; fifty Chian and Lesbian vessels also joining in the expedition.

3 When this Athenian armament put out to sea, they left the Peloponnesians in Attica in the Paralian region.

4 Arriving at Epidaurus in Peloponnese they ravaged most of the territory, and even had hopes of taking the town by an assault: in this however they were not successful.

5 Putting out from Epidaurus, they laid waste the territory of Troezen, Halieis, and Hermione, all towns on the coast of Peloponnese,

6 and thence sailing to Prasiai, a maritime town in Laconia, ravaged part of its territory, and took and sacked the place itself; after which they returned home, but found the Peloponnesians gone and no longer in Attica.

Chapter 57

1 During the whole time that the Peloponnesians were in Attica and the Athenians on the expedition in their ships, men kept dying of the plague both in the armament and in Athens. Indeed it was actually asserted that the departure of the Peloponnesians was hastened by fear of the disorder; as they heard from deserters that it was in the city, and also could see the burials going on.

2 Yet in this invasion they remained longer than in any other, and ravaged the whole country, for they were about forty days in Attica.

Chapter 58

1 The same summer Hagnon, son of Nicias, and Cleopompus, son of Clinias, the colleagues of Pericles, took the armament of which he had lately made use, and went off upon an expedition against the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace and Potidaea, which was still under siege. As soon as they arrived, they brought up their engines against Potidaea and tried every means of taking it,

2 but did not succeed either in capturing the city or in doing anything else worthy of their preparations. For the plague attacked them here also, and committed such havoc as to cripple them completely, even the previously healthy soldiers of the former expedition catching the infection from Hagnon's troops; while Phormio and the sixteen hundred men whom he commanded only escaped by being no longer in the neighborhood of the Chalcidians.

3 The end of it was that Hagnon returned with his ships to Athens, having lost one thousand and fifty out of four thousand heavy infantry in about forty days; though the soldiers stationed there before remained in the country and carried on the siege of Potidaea.

Chapter 59

1 After the second invasion of the Peloponnesians a change came over the spirit of the Athenians. Their land had now been twice laid waste; and war and pestilence at once pressed heavy upon them.

2 They began to find fault with Pericles, as the author of the war and the cause of all their misfortunes, and became eager to come to terms with Lacedaemon, and actually sent ambassadors thither, who did not however succeed in their mission. Their despair was now complete and all vented itself upon Pericles.

3 When he saw them exasperated at the present turn of affairs and acting exactly as he had anticipated, he called an assembly, being (it must be remembered) still general, with the double object of restoring confidence and of leading them from these angry feelings to a calmer and more hopeful state of mind. He accordingly came forward and spoke as follows:

Chapter 60

1 ‘I was not unprepared for the indignation of which I have been the object, as I know its causes; and I have called an assembly for the purpose of reminding you upon certain points, and of protesting against your being unreasonably irritated with me, or cowed by your sufferings.

2 I am of opinion that national greatness is more for the advantage of private citizens, than any individual well-being coupled with public humiliation.

3 A man may be personally ever so well off, and yet if his country be ruined he must be ruined with it; whereas a flourishing commonwealth always affords chances of salvation to unfortunate individuals.

4 Since then a state can support the misfortunes of private citizens, while they cannot support hers, it is surely the duty of everyone to be forward in her defence, and not like you to be so confounded with your domestic afflictions as to give up all thoughts of the common safety, and to blame me for having counselled war and yourselves for having voted it.

5 And yet if you are angry with me, it is with one who, as I believe, is second to no man either in knowledge of the proper policy, or in the ability to expound it, and who is moreover not only a patriot but an honest one.

6 A man possessing that knowledge without that faculty of exposition might as well have no idea at all on the matter: if he had both these gifts, but no love for his country, he would be but a cold advocate for her interests; while were his patriotism not proof against bribery, everything would go for a price.

7 So that if you thought that I was even moderately distinguished for these qualities when you took my advice and went to war, there is certainly no reason now why I should be charged with having done wrong.

Chapter 61

1 For those of course who have a free choice in the matter and whose fortunes are not at stake, war is the greatest of follies. But if the only choice was between submission with loss of independence, and danger with the hope of preserving that independence,—in such a case it is he who will not accept the risk that deserves blame, not he who will.

2 I am the same man and do not alter, it is you who change, since in fact you took my advice while unhurt, and waited for misfortune to repent of it; and the apparent error of my policy lies in the infirmity of your resolution, since the suffering that it entails is being felt by every one among you, while its advantage is still remote and obscure to all, and a great and sudden reverse having befallen you, your mind is too much depressed to persevere in your resolves.

3 For before what is sudden, unexpected, and least within calculation the spirit quails; and putting all else aside, the plague has certainly been an emergency of this kind.

4 Born, however, as you are, citizens of a great state, and brought up, as you have been, with habits equal to your birth, you should be ready to face the greatest disasters and still to keep unimpaired the lustre of your name. For the judgment of mankind is as relentless to the weakness that falls short of a recognized renown, as it is jealous of the arrogance that aspires higher than its due. Cease then to grieve for your private afflictions, and address yourselves instead to the safety of the commonwealth.

Chapter 62

1 If you shrink before the exertions which the war makes necessary, and fear that after all they may not have a happy result, you know the reasons by which I have often demonstrated to you the groundlessness of your apprehension. If those are not enough, I will now reveal an advantage arising from the greatness of your dominion, which I think has never yet suggested itself to you, which I never mentioned in my previous speeches, and which has so bold a sound that I should scarce adventure it now, were it not for the unnatural depression which I see around me.

2 You perhaps think that your empire extends only over your allies; I will declare to you the truth. The visible field of action has two parts, land and sea. In the whole of one of these you are completely supreme, not merely as far as you use it at present, but also to what further extent you may think fit: in fine, your naval resources are such that your vessels may go where they please, without the king or any other nation on earth being able to stop them.

3 So that although you may think it a great privation to lose the use of your land and houses, still you must see that this power is something widely different; and instead of fretting on their account, you should really regard them in the light of the gardens and other accessories that embellish a great fortune, and as, in comparison, of little moment. You should know too that liberty preserved by your efforts will easily recover for us what we have lost, while, the knee once bowed, even what you have will pass from you. Your fathers receiving these possessions not from others, but from themselves, did not let slip what their labor had acquired, but delivered them safe to you; and in this respect at least you must prove yourselves their equals, remembering that to lose what one has got is more disgraceful than to be baulked in getting, and you must confront your enemies not merely with spirit but with disdain.

4 Confidence indeed a blissful ignorance can impart, ay, even to a coward's breast, but disdain is the privilege of those who, like us, have been assured by reflection of their superiority to their adversary.

5 And where the chances are the same, knowledge fortifies courage by the contempt which is its consequence, its trust being placed, not in hope, which is the prop of the desperate, but in a judgment grounded upon existing resources, whose anticipations are more to be depended upon.

Chapter 63

1 Again, your country has a right to your services in sustaining the glories of her position. These are a common source of pride to you all, and you cannot decline the burdens of empire and still expect to share its honors. You should remember also that what you are fighting against is not merely slavery as an exchange for independence, but also loss of empire and danger from the animosities incurred in its exercise.

2 Besides, to recede is no longer possible, if indeed any of you in the alarm of the moment has become enamored of the honesty of such an unambitious part. For what you hold is, to speak somewhat plainly, a tyranny; to take it perhaps was wrong, but to let it go is unsafe.

3 And men of these retiring views, making converts of others, would quickly ruin a state; indeed the result would be the same if they could live independent by themselves; for the retiring and unambitious are never secure without vigorous protectors at their side; in fine, such qualities are useless to an imperial city, though they may help a dependency to an unmolested servitude.

Chapter 64

1 But you must not be seduced by citizens like these nor be angry with me,—who, if I voted for war, only did as you did yourselves,—in spite of the enemy having invaded your country and done what you could be certain that he would do, if you refused to comply with his demands; and although besides what we counted for, the plague has come upon us—the only point indeed at which our calculation has been at fault. It is this, I know, that has had a large share in making me more unpopular than I should otherwise have been,—quite undeservedly, unless you are also prepared to give me the credit of any success with which chance may present you.

2 Besides, the hand of Heaven must be borne with resignation, that of the enemy with fortitude; this was the old way at Athens, and do not you prevent it being so still.

3 Remember, too, that if your country has the greatest name in all the world, it is because she never bent before disaster; because she has expended more life and effort in war than any other city, and has won for herself a power greater than any hitherto known, the memory of which will descend to the latest posterity; even if now, in obedience to the general law of decay, we should ever be forced to yield, still it will be remembered that we held rule over more Hellenes than any other Hellenic state, that we sustained the greatest wars against their united or separate powers, and inhabited a city unrivalled by any other in resources or magnitude.

4 These glories may incur the censure of the slow and unambitious; but in the breast of energy they will awake emulation, and in those who must remain without them an envious regret.

5 Hatred and unpopularity at the moment have fallen to the lot of all who have aspired to rule others; but where odium must be incurred, true wisdom incurs it for the highest objects. Hatred also is shortlived; but that which makes the splendor of the present and the glory of the future remains for ever unforgotten.

6 Make your decision, therefore, for glory then and honor now, and attain both objects by instant and zealous effort: do not send heralds to Lacedaemon, and do not betray any sign of being oppressed by your present sufferings, since they whose minds are least sensitive to calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the greatest men and the greatest communities.’

Chapter 65

1 Such were the arguments by which Pericles tried to cure the Athenians of their anger against him and to divert their thoughts from their immediate afflictions.

2 As a community he succeeded in convincing them; they not only gave up all idea of sending to Lacedaemon, but applied themselves with increased energy to the war; still as private individuals they could not help smarting under their sufferings, the common people having been deprived of the little that they ever possessed, while the higher orders had lost fine properties with costly establishments and buildings in the country, and, worst of all, had war instead of peace.

3 In fact, the public feeling against him did not subside until he had been fined.

4 Not long afterwards, however, according to the way of the multitude, they again elected him general and committed all their affairs to his hands, having now become less sensitive to their private and domestic afflictions, and understanding that he was the best man of all for the public necessities.

5 For as long as he was at the head of the state during the peace, he pursued a moderate and conservative policy; and in his time its greatness was at its height. When the war broke out, here also he seems to have rightly gauged the power of his country.

6 He outlived its commencement two years and six months, and the correctness of his previsions respecting it became better known by his death.

7 He told them to wait quietly, to pay attention to their marine, to attempt no new conquests, and to expose the city to no hazards during the war, and doing this, promised them a favorable result. What they did was the very contrary, allowing private ambitions and private interests, in matters apparently quite foreign to the war, to lead them into projects unjust both to themselves and to their allies—projects whose success would only conduce to the honor and advantage of private persons, and whose failure entailed certain disaster on the country in the war.

8 The causes of this are not far to seek. Pericles indeed, by his rank, ability, and known integrity, was enabled to exercise an independent control over the multitude—in short, to lead them instead of being led by them; for as he never sought power by improper means, he was never compelled to flatter them, but, on the contrary, enjoyed so high an estimation that he could afford to anger them by contradiction.

9 Whenever he saw them unseasonably and insolently elated, he would with a word reduce them to alarm; on the other hand, if they fell victims to a panic, he could at once restore them to confidence. In short, what was nominally a democracy became in his hands government by the first citizen.

10 With his successors it was different. More on a level with one another, and each grasping at supremacy, they ended by committing even the conduct of state affairs to the whims of the multitude.

11 This, as might have been expected in a great and sovereign state, produced a host of blunders, and amongst them the Sicilian expedition; though this failed not so much through a miscalculation of the power of those against whom it was sent, as through a fault in the senders in not taking the best measures afterwards to assist those who had gone out, but choosing rather to occupy themselves with private cabals for the leadership of the commons, by which they not only paralyzed operations in the field, but also first introduced civil discord at home.

12 Yet after losing most of their fleet besides other forces in Sicily, and with faction already dominant in the city, they could still for three years make head against their original adversaries, joined not only by the Sicilians, but also by their own allies nearly all in revolt, and at last by the king's son, Cyrus, who furnished the funds for the Peloponnesian navy. Nor did they finally succumb till they fell the victims of their own intestine disorders.

13 So superfluously abundant were the resources from which the genius of Pericles foresaw an easy triumph in the war over the unaided forces of the Peloponnesians.

Chapter 66

1 During the same summer the Lacedaemonians and their allies made an expedition with a hundred ships against Zacynthus, an island lying off the coast of Elis, peopled by a colony of Achaeans from Peloponnese, and in alliance with Athens.

2 There were a thousand Lacedaemonian heavy infantry on board, and Cnemus, a Spartan, as admiral. They made a descent from their ships, and ravaged most of the country; but as the inhabitants would not submit, they sailed back home.

Chapter 67

1 At the end of the same summer the Corinthian Aristeus, Aneristus, Nicolaus, and Pratodamus, envoys from Lacedaemon, Timagoras, a Tegean, and a private individual named Pollis from Argos, on their way to Asia to persuade the king to supply funds and join in the war, came to Sitalces, son of Teres in Thrace, with the idea of inducing him, if possible, forsake the alliance of Athens and to march on Potidaea then besieged by an Athenian force, and also of getting conveyed by his means to their destination across the Hellespont to Pharnabazus, who was to send them up the country to the king.

2 But there chanced to be with Sitalces some Athenian ambassadors, Learchus, son of Callimachus, and Ameiniades, son of Philemon, who persuaded Sitalces' son, Sadocus, the new Athenian citizen, to put the men into their hands and thus prevent their crossing over to the king and doing their part to injure the country of his choice.

3 He accordingly had them seized, as they were travelling through Thrace to the vessel in which they were to cross the Hellespont, by a party whom he had sent on with Learchus and Ameiniades, and gave orders for their delivery to the Athenian ambassadors, by whom they were brought to Athens.

4 On their arrival, the Athenians, afraid that Aristeus, who had been notably the prime mover in the previous affairs of Potidaea and their Thracian possessions, might live to do them still more mischief if he escaped, slew them all the same day, without giving them a trial or hearing the defence which they wished to offer, and cast their bodies into a pit; thinking themselves justified in using in retaliation the same mode of warfare which the Lacedaemonians had begun, when they slew and cast into pits all the Athenian and allied traders whom they caught on board the merchantmen round Peloponnese. Indeed, at the outset of the war, the Lacedaemonians butchered as enemies all whom they took on the sea, whether allies of Athens or neutrals.

Chapter 68

1 About the same time towards the close of the summer, the Ambraciot forces, with a number of barbarians that they had raised, marched against the Amphilochian Argos and the rest of that country.

2 The origin of their enmity against the Argives was this.

3 This Argos and the rest of Amphilochia were colonized by Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus. Dissatisfied with the state of affairs at home on his return thither after the Trojan war, he built this city in the Ambracian gulf, and named it Argos after his own country.

4 This was the largest town in Amphilochia, and its inhabitants the most powerful.

5 Under the pressure of misfortune many generations afterwards, they called in the Ambraciots, their neighbors on the Amphilochian border, to join their colony; and it was by this union with the Ambraciots that they learnt their present Hellenic speech, the rest of the Amphilochians being barbarians.

6 After a time the Ambraciots expelled the Argives and held the city themselves.

7 Upon this the Amphilochians gave themselves over to the Acarnanians; and the two together called the Athenians, who sent them Phormio as general and thirty ships; upon whose arrival they took Argos by storm, and made slaves of the Ambraciots; and the Amphilochians and Acarnanians inhabited the town in common.

8 After this began the alliance between the Athenians and Acarnanians.

9 The enmity of the Ambraciots against the Argives thus commenced with the enslavement of their citizens; and afterwards during the war they collected this armament among themselves and the Chaonians, and other of the neighboring barbarians. Arrived before Argos, they became masters of the country; but not being successful in their attacks upon the town, returned home and dispersed among their different peoples.

Chapter 69

1 Such were the events of the summer. The ensuing winter the Athenians sent twenty ships round Peloponnese, under the command of Phormio, who stationed himself at Naupactus and kept watch against any one sailing in or out of Corinth and the Crissaean gulf. Six others went to Caria and Lycia under Melesander, to collect tribute in those parts, and also to prevent the Peloponnesian privateers from taking up their station in those waters and molesting the passage of the merchantmen from Phaselis and Phoenicia and the adjoining continent.

2 However, Melesander, going up the country into Lycia with a force of Athenians from the ships and the allies, was defeated and killed in battle, with the loss of a number of his troops.

Chapter 70

1 The same winter the Potidaeans at length found themselves no longer able to hold out against their besiegers. The inroads of the Peloponnesians into Attica had not had the desired effect of making the Athenians raise the siege. Provisions there were none left; and so far had distress for food gone in Potidaea that, besides a number of other horrors, instances had even occurred of the people having eaten one another. So in this extremity they at last made proposals for capitulating to the Athenian generals in command against them, Xenophon, son of Euripides, Hestiodorus, son of Aristocleides, and Phanomachus, son of Callimachus.

2 The generals accepted their proposals, seeing the sufferings of the army in so exposed a position; besides which the state had already spent two thousand talents upon the siege.

3 The terms of the capitulation were as follows: a free passage out for themselves, their children, wives and auxiliaries, with one garment apiece, the women with two, and a fixed sum of money for their journey.

4 Under this treaty they went out to Chalcidice and other places, according as was in their power. The Athenians, however, blamed the generals for granting terms without instructions from home, being of opinion that the place would have had to surrender at discretion. They afterwards sent settlers of their own to Potidae, and colonized it. Such were the events of the winter, and so ended the second year of this war of which Thucydides was the historian.

Chapter 71

1 The next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies, instead of invading Attica, marched against Plataea, under the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. He had encamped his army and was about to lay waste the country, when the Plataeans hastened to send envoys to him, and spoke as follows:

2 ‘Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, in invading the Plataean territory, you do what is wrong in itself, and worthy neither of yourselves nor of the fathers who begot you. Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, your countryman, after freeing Hellas from the Medes with the help of those Hellenes who were willing to undertake the risk of the battle fought near our city, offered sacrifice to Zeus the Liberator in the market-place of Plataea, and calling all the allies together restored to the Plataeans their city and territory, and declared it independent and inviolate against aggression or conquest. Should any such be attempted, the allies present were to help according to their power.

3 Your fathers rewarded us thus for the courage and patriotism that we displayed at that perilous epoch; but you do just the contrary, coming with our bitterest enemies, the Thebans, to enslave us.

4 We appeal, therefore, to the gods to whom the oaths were then made, to the gods of your ancestors, and lastly to those of our country, and call upon you to refrain from violating our territory or transgressing the oaths, and to let us live independent, as Pausanias decreed.’

Chapter 72

1 The Plataeans had got thus far when they were cut short by Archidamus saying, ‘There is justice, Plataeans, in what you say, if you act up to your words. According to the grant of Pausanias, continue to be independent yourselves, and join in freeing those of your fellow-countrymen who, after sharing in the perils of that period, joined in the oaths to you, and are now subject to the Athenians; for it is to free them and the rest that all this provision and war has been made. I could wish that you would share our labors and abide by the oaths yourselves; if this is impossible, do what we have already required of you—remain neutral, enjoying your own; join neither side, but receive both as friends, neither as allies for the war. With this we shall be satisfied.’

2 Such were the words of Archidamus. The Plataeans, after hearing what he had to say, went into the city and acquainted the people with what had passed, and presently returned for answer that it was impossible for them to do what he proposed without consulting the Athenians, with whom their children and wives now were; besides which they had their fears for the town. After his departure, what was to prevent the Athenians from coming and taking it out of their hands, or the Thebans, who would be included in the oaths, from taking advantage of the proposed neutrality to make a second attempt to seize the city?

3 Upon these points he tried to reassure them by saying: ‘You have only to deliver over the city and houses to us Lacedaemonians, to point out the boundaries of your land, the number of your fruit-trees, and whatever else can be numerically stated, and yourselves to withdraw wherever you like as long as the war shall last. When it is over we will restore to you whatever we received, and in the interim hold it in trust and keep it in cultivation, paying you a sufficient allowance.’

Chapter 73

1 When they had heard what he had to say, they re-entered the city, and after consulting with the people said that they wished first to acquaint the Athenians with this proposal, and in the event of their approving to accede to it; in the meantime they asked him to grant them a truce and not to lay waste their territory. He accordingly granted a truce for the number of days requisite for the journey, and meanwhile abstained from ravaging their territory.

2 The Plataean envoys went to Athens, and consulted with the Athenians, and returned with the following message to those in the city:

3 ‘The Athenians say, Plataeans, that they never hitherto, since we became their allies, on any occasion abandoned us to an enemy, nor will they now neglect us, but will help us according to their ability; and they adjure you by the oaths which your fathers swore, to keep the alliance unaltered.’

Chapter 74

1 On the delivery of this message by the envoys, the Plataeans resolved not to be unfaithful to the Athenians but to endure, if it must be, seeing their lands laid waste and any other trials that might come to them, and not to send out again, but to answer from the wall that it was impossible for them to do as the Lacedaemonians proposed.

2 As soon as be had received this answer, King Archidamus proceeded first to make a solemn appeal to the gods and heroes of the country in words following:—‘Ye gods and heroes of the Plataean territory, be my witnesses that not as aggressors originally, nor until these had first departed from the common oath, did we invade this land, in which our fathers offered you their prayers before defeating the Medes, and which you made auspicious to the Hellenic arms; nor shall we be aggressors in the measures to which we may now resort, since we have made many fair proposals but have not been successful. Graciously accord that those who were the first to offend may be punished for it, and that vengeance may be attained by those who would righteously inflict it.’

Chapter 75

1 After this appeal to the gods Archidamus put his army in motion. First he enclosed the town with a palisade formed of the fruit-trees which they cut down, to prevent further egress from Plataea; next day they threw up a mound against the city, hoping that the largeness of the force employed would insure the speedy reduction of the place.

2 They accordingly cut down timber from Cithaeron, and built it up on either side, laying it like lattice-work to serve as a wall to keep the mound from spreading abroad, and carried to it wood and stones and earth and whatever other material might help to complete it.

3 They continued to work at the mound for seventy days and nights without intermission, being divided into relief parties to allow of some being employed in carrying while others took sleep and refreshment; the Lacedaemonian officer attached to each contingent keeping the men to the work.

4 But the Plataeans observing the progress of the mound, constructed a wall of wood and fixed it upon that part of the city wall against which the mound was being erected, and built up bricks inside it which they took from the neighboring houses.

5 The timbers served to bind the building together, and to prevent its becoming weak as it advanced in height; it had also a covering of skins and hides, which protected the wood-work against the attacks of burning missiles and allowed the men to work in safety.

6 Thus the wall was raised to a great height, and the mound opposite made no less rapid progress. The Plataeans also thought of another expedient; they pulled out part of the wall upon which the mound abutted, and carried the earth into the city.

Chapter 76

1 Discovering this the Peloponnesians twisted up clay in wattles of reed and threw it into the breach formed in the mound, in order to give it consistency and prevent its being carried away like the soil.

2 Stopped in this way the Plataeans changed their mode of operation, and digging a mine from the town calculated their way under the mound, and began to carry off its material as before. This went on for a long while without the enemy outside finding it out, so that for all they threw on the top their mound made no progress in proportion, being carried away from beneath and constantly settling down in the vacuum.

3 But the Plataeans fearing that even thus they might not be able to hold out against the superior numbers of the enemy, had yet another invention. They stopped working at the large building in front of the mound, and starting at either end of it inside from the old low wall, built a new one in the form of a crescent running in towards the town in order that in the event of the great wall being taken this might remain, and the enemy have to throw up a fresh mound against it, and as they advanced within might not only have their trouble over again, but also be exposed to missiles on their flanks.

4 While raising the mound the Peloponnesians also brought up engines against the city, one of which was brought up upon the mound against the great building and shook down a good piece of it, to the no small alarm of the Plataeans. Others were advanced against different parts of the wall but were lassoed and broken by the Plataeans; who also hung up great beams by long iron chains from either extremity of two poles laid on the wall and projecting over it, and drew them up at an angle whenever any point was threatened by the engine, and loosing their hold let the beam go with its chains slack, so that it fell with a run and snapped off the nose of the battering ram.

Chapter 77

1 After this the Peloponnesians, finding that their engines effected nothing, and that their mound was met by the counter-work, concluded that their present means of offence were unequal to the taking of the city, and prepared for its circumvallation.

2 First, however, they determined to try the effects of fire and see whether they could not, with the help of a wind, burn the town as it was not a large one; indeed they thought of every possible expedient by which the place might be reduced without the expense of a blockade.

3 They accordingly brought faggots of brushwood and threw them from the mound, first into the space between it and the wall; and this soon becoming full from the number of hands at work, they next heaped the faggots up as far into the town as they could reach from the top, and then lighted the wood by setting fire to it with sulphur and pitch.

4 The consequence was a fire greater than any one had ever yet seen produced by human agency, though it could not of course be compared to the spontaneous conflagrations sometimes known to occur through the wind rubbing the branches of a mountain forest together.

5 And this fire was not only remarkable for its magnitude, but was also, at the end of so many perils, within an ace of proving fatal to the Plataeans; a great part of the town became entirely inaccessible, and had a wind blown upon it, in accordance with the hopes of the enemy, nothing could have saved them.

6 As it was, there is also a story of heavy rain and thunder having come on by which the fire was put out and the danger averted.

Chapter 78

1 Failing in this last attempt the Peloponnesians left a portion of their forces on the spot, dismissing the rest, and built a wall of circumvallation round the town, dividing the ground among the various cities present; a ditch being made within and without the lines, from which they got their bricks.

2 All being finished by about the rising of Arcturus, they left men enough to man half the wall, the rest being manned by the Boeotians, and drawing off their army dispersed to their several cities.

3 The Plataeans had before sent off their wives and children and oldest men and the mass of the noncombatants to Athens; so that the number of the besieged left in the place comprised four hundred of their own citizens, eighty Athenians, and a hundred and ten women to bake their bread.

4 This was the sum total at the commencement of the siege, and there was no one else within the walls, bond or free. Such were the arrangements made for the blockade of Plataea.

Chapter 79

1 The same summer and simultaneously with the expedition against Plataea, the Athenians marched with two thousand heavy infantry and two hundred horse against the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace and the Bottiaeans, just as the corn was getting ripe, under the command of Xenophon, son of Euripides, with two colleagues.

2 Arriving before Spartolus in Bottiaea, they destroyed the corn and had some hopes of the city coming over through the intrigues of a faction within. But those of a different way of thinking had sent to Olynthus; and a garrison of heavy infantry and other troops arrived accordingly. These issuing from Spartolus were engaged by the Athenians in front of the town:

3 the Chalcidian heavy infantry, and some auxiliaries with them, were beaten and retreated into Spartolus; but the Chalcidian horse and light troops defeated the horse and light troops of the Athenians.

4 The Chalcidians had already a few targeteers from Crusis, and presently after the battle were joined by some others from Olynthus;

5 upon seeing whom the light troops from Spartolus, emboldened by this accession and by their previous success, with the help of the Chalcidian horse and the reinforcement just arrived again attacked the Athenians, who retired upon the two divisions which they had left with their baggage.

6 Whenever the Athenians advanced, their adversary gave way, pressing them with missiles the instant they began to retire. The Chalcidian horse also, riding up and charging them just as they pleased, at last caused a panic amongst them and routed and pursued them to a great distance.

7 The Athenians took refuge in Potidaea, and afterwards recovered their dead under truce, and returned to Athens with the remnant of their army; four hundred and thirty men and all the generals having fallen. The Chalcidians and Bottiaeans set up a trophy, took up their dead, and dispersed to their several cities.

Chapter 80

1 The same summer, not long after this, the Ambraciots and Chaonians, being desirous of reducing the whole of Acarnania and detaching it from Athens, persuaded the Lacedaemonians to equip a fleet from their confederacy and send a thousand heavy infantry to Acarnania, representing that if a combined movement were made by land and sea, the coast Acarnanians would be unable to march; and the conquest of Zacynthus and Cephallenia easily following on the possession of Acarnania, the cruise round Peloponnese would be no longer so convenient for the Athenians. Besides which there was a hope of taking Naupactus.

2 The Lacedaemonians accordingly at once sent off a few vessels with Cnemus, who was still high admiral, and the heavy infantry on board; and sent round orders for the fleet to equip as quickly as possible and sail to Leucas.

3 The Corinthians were the most forward in the business; the Ambraciots being a colony of theirs. While the ships from Corinth, Sicyon and the neighborhood were getting ready, and those from Leucas, Anactorium and Ambracia, which had arrived before, were waiting for them at Leucas,

4 Cnemus and his thousand heavy infantry had run into the gulf, giving the slip to Phormio, the commander of the Athenian squadron stationed off Naupactus, and began at once to prepare for the land expedition.

5 The Hellenic troops with him consisted of the Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians, and the thousand Peloponnesians with whom he came; the barbarian of a thousand Chaonians, who, belonging to a nation that has no king, were led by Photius and Nicanor, the two members of the royal family to whom the chieftainship for that year had been confided. With the Chaonians came also some Thesprotians, like them without a king,

6 some Molossians and Atintanians led by Sabylinthus, the guardian of king Tharyps who was still a minor, and some Paravaeans, under their King Oroedus, accompanied by a thousand Orestians, subjects of King Antiochus and placed by him under the command of Oroedus.

7 There were also a thousand Macedonians sent by Perdiccas without the knowledge of the Athenians, but they arrived too late.

8 With this force Cnemus set out, without waiting for the fleet from Corinth. Passing through the territory of Amphilochian Argos, and sacking the open village of Limnaea, they advanced to Stratus the Acarnanian capital; this once taken, the rest of the country, they felt convinced would speedily follow.

Chapter 81

1 The Acarnanians, finding themselves invaded by a large army by land, and from the sea threatened by a hostile fleet, made no combined attempt at resistance, but remained to defend their homes, and sent for help to Phormio, who replied that when a fleet was on the point of sailing from Corinth, it was impossible for him to leave Naupactus unprotected.

2 The Peloponnesians meanwhile and their allies advanced upon Stratus in three divisions, with the intention of encamping near it and attempting the wall by force if they failed to succeed by negotiation.

3 The order of march was as follows: the center was occupied by the Chaonians and the rest of the barbarians, with the Leucadians and Anactorians and their followers on the right, and Cnemus with the Peloponnesians and Ambraciots on the left; each division being a long way off from, and sometimes even out of sight of, the others.

4 The Hellenes advanced in good order, keeping a look-out till they encamped in a good position; but the Chaonians, filled with self-confidence, and having the highest character for courage among the tribes of that part of the continent, without waiting to occupy their camp, rushed on with the rest of the barbarians, in the idea that they should take the town by assault and obtain the sole glory of the enterprise.

5 While they were coming on, the Stratians, becoming aware how things stood, and thinking that the defeat of this division would considerably dishearten the Hellenes behind it, occupied the environs of the town with ambuscades, and as soon as they approached engaged them at close quarters from the city and the ambuscades.

6 A panic seizing the Chaonians, great numbers of them were slain; and as soon as they were seen to give way the rest of the barbarians turned and fled.

7 Owing to the distance by which their allies had preceded them, neither of the Hellenic divisions knew anything of the battle, but fancied they were hastening on to encamp.

8 However, when the flying barbarians broke in upon them, they opened their ranks to receive them, brought their divisions together, and stopped quiet where they were for the day; the Stratians not offering to engage them, as the rest of the Acarnanians had not yet arrived, but contenting themselves with slinging at them from a distance, which distressed them greatly, as there was no stirring without their armor. The Acarnanians would seem to excel in this mode of warfare.

Chapter 82

1 As soon as night fell, Cnemus hastily drew off his army to the river Anapus, about nine miles from Stratus, recovering his dead next day under truce, and being there joined by the friendly Oeniadae, fell back upon their city before the enemy's reinforcements came up. From hence each returned home; and the Stratians set up a trophy for the battle with the barbarians.

Chapter 83

1 Meanwhile the fleet from Corinth and the rest of the confederates in the Crissaean gulf, which was to have co-operated with Cnemus and prevented the coast Acarnanians from joining their countrymen in the interior, was disabled from doing so by being compelled about the same time as the battle at Stratus to fight with Phormio and the twenty Athenian vessels stationed at Naupactus.

2 For they were watched, as they coasted along out of the gulf, by Phormio, who wished to attack in the open sea.

3 But the Corinthians and allies had started for Acarnania without any idea of fighting at sea, and with vessels more like transports for carrying soldiers; besides which, they never dreamed of the twenty Athenian ships venturing to engage their forty-seven. However, while they were coasting along their own shore, there were the Athenians sailing along in line with them; and when they tried to cross over from Patrae in Achaea to the mainland on the other side, on their way to Acarnania, they saw them again coming out from Chalcis and the river Evenus to meet them. They slipped from their moorings in the night, but were observed, and were at length compelled to fight in mid passage.

4 Each state that contributed to the armament had its own general; the Corinthian commanders were Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas.

5 The Peloponnesians ranged their vessels in as large a circle as possible without leaving an opening, with the prows outside and the sterns in; and placed within all the small craft in company, and their five best sailors to issue out at a moment's notice and strengthen any point threatened by the enemy.

Chapter 84

1 The Athenians, formed in line, sailed round and round them, and forced them to contract their circle, by continually brushing past and making as though they would attack at once, having been previously cautioned by Phormio not to do so till he gave the signal.

2 His hope was that the Peloponnesians would not retain their order like a force on shore, but that the ships would fall foul of one another and the small craft cause confusion; and if the wind should blow from the gulf (in expectation of which he kept sailing round them, and which usually rose towards morning), they would not, he felt sure, remain steady an instant. He also thought that it rested with him to attack when he pleased, as his ships were better sailors, and that an attack timed by the coming of the wind would tell best.

3 When the wind came down, the enemy's ships were now in a narrow space, and what with the wind and the small craft dashing against them, at once fell into confusion: ship fell foul of ship, while the crews were pushing them off with poles, and by their shouting, swearing and struggling with one another, made captains' orders and boatswains' cries alike inaudible, and through being unable for want of practice to clear their oars in the rough water, prevented the vessels from obeying their helmsmen properly. At this moment Phormio gave the signal, and the Athenians attacked. Sinking first one of the admirals, they then disabled all they came across, so that no one thought of resistance for the confusion, but fled for Patrae and Dyme in Achaea.

4 The Athenians gave chase and captured twelve ships, and taking most of the men out of them sailed to Molycrium, and after setting up a trophy on the promontory of Rhium and dedicating a ship to Poseidon, returned to Naupactus.

5 As for the Peloponnesians, they at once sailed with their remaining ships along the coast from Dyme and Patrae to Cyllene, the Eleian arsenal; where Cnemus and the ships from Leucas that were to have joined them, also arrived after the battle of Stratus.

Chapter 85

1 The Lacedaemonians now sent to the fleet to Cnemus three commissioners, Timocrates, Brasidas, and Lycophron, with orders to prepare to engage again with better fortune, and not to be driven from the sea by a few vessels;

2 for they could not at all account for their discomfiture, the less so as it was their first attempt at sea; and they fancied that it was not that their marine was so inferior, but that there had been misconduct somewhere, not considering the long experience of the Athenians as compared with the little practice which they had had themselves. The commissioners were accordingly sent in anger.

3 As soon as they arrived they set to work with Cnemus to order ships from the different states, and to put those which they already had in fighting order.

4 Meanwhile Phormio sent word to Athens of their preparations and his own victory, and desired as many ships as possible to be speedily sent to him, as he stood in daily expectation of a battle.

5 Twenty were accordingly sent, but instructions were given to their commander to go first to Crete. For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortys, who was Proxenus of the Athenians, had persuaded them to sail against Cydonia, promising to procure the reduction of that hostile town; his real wish being to oblige the Polichnitans, neighbors of the Cydonians.

6 He accordingly went with the ships to Crete, and, accompanied by the Polichnitans, laid waste the lands of the Cydonians; and, what with adverse winds and stress of weather, wasted no little time there.

Chapter 86

1 While the Athenians were thus detained in Crete, the Peloponnesians in Cyllene got ready for battle, and coasted along to Panormus in Achaea, where their land army had come to support them.

2 Phormio also coasted along to Molycrian Rhium, and anchored outside it with twenty ships, the same as he had fought with before.

3 This Rhium was friendly to the Athenians. The other, in Peloponnese, lies opposite to it; the sea between them is about three-quarters of a mile broad, and forms the mouth of the Crissaean gulf.

4 At this, the Achaean Rhium, not far off Panormus, where their army lay, the Peloponnesians now cast anchor with seventy-seven ships, when they saw the Athenians do so.

5 For six or seven days they remained opposite each other, practising and preparing for the battle; the one resolved not to sail out of the Rhia into the open sea, for fear of the disaster which had already happened to them, the other not to sail into the straits, thinking it advantageous to the enemy to fight in the narrows.

6 At last Cnemus and Brasidas and the rest of the Peloponnesian commanders, being desirous of bringing on a battle as soon as possible, before reinforcements should arrive from Athens, and noticing that the men were most of them cowed by the previous defeat and out of heart for the business, first called them together and encouraged them as follows:—

Chapter 87

1 ‘Peloponnesians, the late engagement which may have made some of you afraid of the one now in prospect, really gives no just ground for apprehension.

2 Preparation for it, as you know, there was little enough; and the object of our voyage was not so much to fight at sea as an expedition by land. Besides this, the chances of war were largely against us; and perhaps also inexperience had something to do with our failure in our first naval action.

3 It was not, therefore, cowardice that produced our defeat, nor ought the determination which force has not quelled, but which still has a word to say with its adversary, to lose its edge from the result of an accident; but admitting the possibility of a chance miscarriage, we should know that brave hearts must be always brave, and while they remain so can never put forward inexperience as an excuse for misconduct.

4 Nor are you so behind the enemy in experience as you are ahead of him in courage; and although the science of your opponents would, if valor accompanied it, have also the presence of mind to carry out at an emergency the lesson it has learnt, yet a faint heart will make all art powerless in the face of danger. For fear takes away presence of mind, and without valor art is useless.

5 Against their superior experience set your superior daring, and against the fear induced by defeat the fact of your having been then unprepared;

6 remember, too, that you have always the advantage of superior numbers, and of engaging off your own coast, supported by your heavy infantry; and as a rule, numbers and equipment give victory.

7 At no point, therefore, is defeat likely; and as for our previous mistakes, the very fact of their occurrence will teach us better for the future.

8 Steersmen and sailors may, therefore, confidently attend to their several duties, none quitting the station assigned to them;

9 as for ourselves, we promise to prepare for the engagement at least as well as your previous commanders, and to give no excuse for any one misconducting himself. Should any insist on doing so, he shall meet with the punishment he deserves, while the brave shall be honored with the appropriate rewards of valor.’

Chapter 88

1 The Peloponnesian commanders encouraged their men after this fashion. Phormio, meanwhile, being himself not without fears for the courage of his men, and noticing that they were forming in groups among themselves and were alarmed at the odds against them, desired to call them together and give them confidence and counsel in the present emergency.

2 He had before continually told them, and had accustomed their minds to the idea, that there was no numerical superiority that they could not face; and the men themselves had long been persuaded that Athenians need never retire before any quantity of Peloponnesian vessels.

3 At the moment, however, he saw that they were dispirited by the sight before them, and wishing to refresh their confidence, called them together and spoke as follows:—

Chapter 89

1 ‘I see, my men, that you are frightened by the number of the enemy, and I have accordingly called you together, not liking you to be afraid of what is not really terrible.

2 In the first place, the Peloponnesians, already defeated, and not even themselves thinking that they are a match for us, have not ventured to meet us on equal terms, but have equipped this multitude of ships against us. Next, as to that upon which they most rely, the courage which they suppose constitutional to them, their confidence here only arises from the success which their experience in land service usually gives them, and which they fancy will do the same for them at sea.

3 But this advantage will in all justice belong to us on this element, if to them on that; as they are not superior to us in courage, but we are each of us more confident, according to our experience in our particular department.

4 Besides, as the Lacedaemonians use their supremacy over the allies to promote their own glory, they are most of them being brought into danger against their will, or they would never, after such a decided defeat, have ventured upon a fresh engagement.

5 You need not, therefore, be afraid of their dash. You, on the contrary, inspire a much greater and better founded alarm, both because of your late victory and also of their belief that we should not face them unless about to do something worthy of a success so signal.

6 An adversary numerically superior, like the one before us, comes into action trusting more to strength than to resolution; while he who voluntarily confronts tremendous odds must have very great internal resources to draw upon. For these reasons the Peloponnesians fear our irrational audacity more than they would ever have done a more commensurate preparation.

7 Besides, many armaments have before now succumbed to an inferior through want of skill or sometimes of courage; neither of which defects certainly are ours.

8 As to the battle, it shall not be, if I can help it, in the strait, nor will I sail in there at all; seeing that in a contest between a number of clumsily managed vessels and a small, fast, well-handled squadron, want of sea room is an undoubted disadvantage. One cannot run down an enemy properly without having a sight of him a good way off, nor can one retire at need when pressed; one can neither break the line nor return upon his rear, the proper tactics for a fast sailor; but the naval action necessarily becomes a land one, in which numbers must decide the matter.

9 For all this I will provide as far as can be. Do you stay at your posts by your ships, and be sharp at catching the word of command, the more so as we are observing one another from so short a distance; and in action think order and silence all important—qualities useful in war generally, and in naval engagements in particular—; and behave before the enemy in a manner worthy of your past exploits.

10 The issues you will fight for are great—to destroy the naval hopes of the Peloponnesians or to bring nearer to the Athenians their fears for the sea.

11 And I may once more remind you that you have defeated most of them already; and beaten men do not face a danger twice with the same determination.’

Chapter 90

1 Such was the exhortation of Phormio. The Peloponnesians finding that the Athenians did not sail into the gulf and the narrows, in order to lead them in whether they wished it or not, put out at dawn, and forming four abreast, sailed inside the gulf in the direction of their own country, the right wing leading as they had lain at anchor.

2 In this wing were placed twenty of their best sailors; so that in the event of Phormio thinking that their object was Naupactus, and coasting along thither to save the place, the Athenians might not be able to escape their onset by getting outside their wing, but might be cut off by the vessels in question.

3 As they expected, Phormio, in alarm for the place at that moment emptied of its garrison, as soon as he saw them put out, reluctantly and hurriedly embarked and sailed along shore; the Messenian land forces moving along also to support him.

4 The Peloponnesians seeing him coasting along with his ships in single file, and by this inside the gulf and close in shore as they so much wished, at one signal tacked suddenly and bore down in line at their best speed on the Athenians, hoping to cut off the whole squadron.

5 The eleven leading vessels, however, escaped the Peloponnesian wing and its sudden movement, and reached the more open water; but the rest were overtaken as they tried to run through, driven ashore and disabled; such of the crews being slain as had not swum out of them.

6 Some of the ships the Peloponnesians lashed to their own, and towed off empty; one they took with the men in it; others were just being towed off, when they were saved by the Messenians dashing into the sea with their armor and fighting from the decks that they had boarded.

Chapter 91

1 Thus far victory was with the Peloponnesians, and the Athenian fleet destroyed; the twenty ships in the right wing being meanwhile in chase of the eleven Athenian vessels that had escaped their sudden movement and reached the more open water. These, with the exception of one ship, all out-sailed them and got safe into Naupactus, and forming close in shore opposite the temple of Apollo, with their prows facing the enemy, prepared to defend themselves in case the Peloponnesians should sail in shore against them.

2 After a while the Peloponnesians came up, chanting the paean for their victory as they sailed on; the single Athenian ship remaining being chased by a Leucadian far ahead of the rest.

3 But there happened to be a merchantman lying at anchor in the roadstead, which the Athenian ship found time to sail round, and struck the Leucadian in chase amidships and sank her.

4 An exploit so sudden and unexpected produced a panic among the Peloponnesians; and having fallen out of order in the excitement of victory, some of them dropped their oars and stopped their way in order to let the main body come up—an unsafe thing to do considering how near they were to the enemy's prows; while others ran aground in the shallows, in their ignorance of the localities.

Chapter 92

1 Elated at this incident, the Athenians at one word gave a cheer, and dashed at the enemy, who, embarrassed by his mistakes and the disorder in which he found himself, only stood for an instant, and then fled for Panormus, whence he had put out.

2 The Athenians following on his heels took the six vessels nearest them, and recovered those of their own which had been disabled close in shore and taken in tow at the beginning of the action; they killed some of the crews and took some prisoners.

3 On board the Leucadian which went down off the merchantman, was the Lacedaemonian Timocrates, who killed himself when the ship was sunk, and was cast up in the harbor of Naupactus.

4 The Athenians on their return set up a trophy on the spot from which they had put out and turned the day, and picking up the wrecks and dead that were on their shore, gave back to the enemy their dead under truce.

5 The Peloponnesians also set up a trophy as victors for the defeat inflicted upon the ships they had disabled in shore, and dedicated the vessel which they had taken at Achaean Rhium, side by side with the trophy.

6 After this, apprehensive of the reinforcement expected from Athens, all except the Leucadians sailed into the Crissaean gulf for Corinth.

7 Not long after their retreat, the twenty Athenian ships, which were to have joined Phormio before the battle, arrived at Naupactus.

Chapter 93

1 Thus the summer ended. Winter was now at hand; but before dispersing the fleet, which had retired to Corinth and the Crissaean gulf, Cnemus, Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian captains allowed themselves to be persuaded by the Megarians to make an attempt upon Piraeus, the port of Athens, which from her decided superiority at sea had been naturally left unguarded and open.

2 Their plan was as follows:—The men were each to take their oar, cushion, and rowlock thong, and going overland from Corinth to the sea on the Athenian side, to get to Megara as quickly as they could, and launching forty vessels, which happened to be in the docks at Nisaea, to sail at once to Piraeus.

3 There was no fleet on the look-out in the harbor, and no one had the least idea of the enemy attempting a surprise; while an open attack would, it was thought, never be deliberately ventured on or if in contemplation, would be speedily known at Athens. Their plan formed, the next step was to put it in execution.

4 Arriving by night and launching the vessels from Nisaea, they sailed, not to Piraes as they had originally intended, being afraid of the risk, besides which there was some talk of a wind having stopped them, but to the point of Salamis that looks towards Megara; where there was a fort and a squadron of three ships to prevent anything sailing in or out of Megara. This fort they assaulted, and towed off the galleys empty, and surprising the inhabitants began to lay waste the rest of the island.

Chapter 94

1 Meanwhile fire signals were raised to alarm Athens, and a panic ensued there as serious as any that occurred during the war. The idea in the city was that the enemy had already sailed into Piraeus; in Piraeus it was thought that they had taken Salamis and might at any moment arrive in the port; as indeed might easily have been done if their hearts had been a little firmer; certainly no wind would have prevented them.

2 As soon as day broke the Athenians assembled in full force, launched their ships, and embarking in haste and uproar went with the fleet to Salamis, while their soldiery mounted guard in Piraeus.

3 The Peloponnesians, on becoming aware of the coming relief, after they had overrun most of Salamis, hastily sailed off with their plunder and captives and the three ships from Fort Budorum to Nisaea; the state of their ships also causing them some anxiety, as it was a long while since they had been launched, and they were not water-tight. Arrived at Megara, they returned back on foot to Corinth.

4 The Athenians finding them no longer at Salamis, sailed back themselves; and after this made arrangements for guarding Piraeus more diligently in future, by closing the harbors, and by other suitable precautions.

Chapter 95

1 About the same time, at the beginning of this winter, Sitalces, son of Teres, the Odrysian king of Thrace, made an expedition against Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and the Chalcidians in the neighborhood of Thrace; his object being to enforce one promise and fulfil another.

2 On the one hand Perdiccas had made him a promise, when hard pressed at the commencement of the war, upon condition that Sitalces should reconcile the Athenians to him and not attempt to restore his brother and enemy, the pretender Philip, but had not offered to fulfil his engagement; on the other he, Sitalces, on entering into alliance with the Athenians, had agreed to put an end to the Chalcidian war in Thrace.

3 These were the two objects of his invasion. With him he brought Amyntas, the son of Philip, whom he destined for the throne of Macedonia, and some Athenian envoys then at his court on this business, and Hagnon as general; for the Athenians were to join him against the Chalcidians with a fleet and as many soldiers as they could get together.

Chapter 96

1 Beginning with the Odrysians, he first called out the Thracian tribes subject to him between Mounts Haemus and Rhodope and the Euxine and Hellespont; next the Getae beyond Haemus, and the other hordes settled south of the Danube in the neighborhood of the Euxine, who, like the Getae, border on the Scythians and are armed in the same manner, being all mounted archers.

2 Besides these he summoned many of the Hill Thracian independent swordsmen, called Dii and mostly inhabiting Mount Rhodope, some of whom came as mercenaries, others as volunteers;

3 also the Agrianes and Laeaeans, and the rest of the Paeonian tribes in his empire, at the confines of which these lay, extending up to the Laeaean Paeonians and the river Strymon, which flows from Mount Scombrus through the country of the Agrianes and Laeaeans; there the empire of Sitalces ends and the territory of the independent Paeonians begins.

4 Bordering on the Triballi, also independent, were the Treres and Tilataeans, who dwell to the north of Mount Scombrus and extend towards the setting sun as far as the river Oskius. This river rises in the same mountains as the Nestus and Hebrus, a wild and extensive range connected with Rhodope.

Chapter 97

1 The empire of the Odrysians extended along the seaboard from Abdera to the mouth of the Danube in the Euxine. The navigation of this coast by the shortest route takes a merchantman four days and four nights with a wind astern the whole way: by land an active man, travelling by the shortest road, can get from Abdera to the Danube in eleven days.

2 Such was the length of its coast line. Inland from Byzantium to the Laeaeans and the Strymon, the farthest limit of its extension into the interior, it is a journey of thirteen days for an active man.

3 The tribute from all the barbarian districts and the Hellenic cities, taking what they brought in under Seuthes, the successor of Sitalces, who raised it to its greatest height, amounted to about four hundred talents in gold and silver. There were also presents in gold and silver to a no less amount, besides stuff, plain and embroidered, and other articles, made not only for the king, but also for the Odrysian lords and nobles.

4 For there was here established a custom opposite to that prevailing in the Persian kingdom, namely, of taking rather than giving; more disgrace being attached to not giving when asked than to asking and being refused; and although this prevailed elsewhere in Thrace, it was practised most extensively among the powerful Odrysians, it being impossible to get anything done without a present.

5 It was thus a very powerful kingdom; in revenue and general prosperity surpassing all in Europe between the Ionian gulf and the Euxine, and in numbers and military resources coming decidedly next to the Scythians,

6 with whom indeed no people in Europe can bear comparison, there not being even in Asia any nation singly a match for them if unanimous, though of course they are not on a level with other races in general intelligence and the arts of civilized life.

Chapter 98

1 It was the master of this empire that now prepared to take the field. When everything was ready, he set out on his march for Macedonia, first through his own dominions, next over the desolate range of Cercine that divides the Sintians and Paeonians, crossing by a road which he had made by felling the timber on a former campaign against the latter people.

2 Passing ever these mountains, with the Paeonians on his right and the Sintians and Maedians on the left, he finally arrived at Doberus, in Paeonia,

3 losing none of his army on the march, except perhaps by sickness, but receiving some augmentations, many of the independent Thracians volunteering to join him in the hope of plunder; so that the whole is said to have formed a grand total of a hundred and fifty thousand.

4 Most of this was infantry, though there was about a third cavalry, furnished principally by the Odrysians themselves and next to them by the Getae. The most warlike of the infantry were the independent swordsmen who came down from Rhodope; the rest of the mixed multitude that followed him being chiefly formidable by their numbers.

Chapter 99

1 Assembling in Doberus, they prepared for descending from the heights upon Lower Macedonia, where the dominions of Perdiccas lay;

2 for the Lyncestae, Elimiots, and other tribes more inland, though Macedonians by blood and allies and, dependents of their kindred, still have their own separate governments.

3 The country on the sea coast, now called Macedonia, was first acquired by Alexander, the father of Perdiccas, and his ancestors, originally Temenids from Argos. This was effected by the expulsion from Pieria of the Pierians, who afterwards inhabited Phagres and other places under Mount Pangaeus, beyond the Strymon (indeed the country between Pangaeus and the sea is still called the Pierian gulf) of the Bottiaeans, at present neighbors of the Chalcidians, from Bottia,

4 and by the acquisition in Paeonia of a narrow strip along the river Axius extending to Pella and the sea; the district of Mygdonia, between the Axius and the Strymon, being also added by the expulsion of the Edonians.

5 From Eordia also were driven the Eordians, most of whom perished, though a few of them still live round Physca, and the Almopians from Almopia.

6 These Macedonians also conquered places belonging to the other tribes, which are still theirs—Anthemus, Crestonia, Bisaltia, and much of Macedonia proper. The whole is now called Macedonia, and at the time of the invasion of Sitalces, Perdiccas, Alexander's son, was the reigning king.

Chapter 100

1 These Macedonians, unable to take the field against so numerous an invader, shut themselves up in such strong places and fortresses as the country possessed.

2 Of these there was no great number, most of those now found in the country having been erected subsequently by Archelaus, the son of Perdiccas, on his accession, who also cut straight roads, and otherwise put the kingdom on a better footing as regards horses, heavy infantry, and other war material than had been done by all the eight kings that preceded him.

3 Advancing from Doberus, the Thracian host first invaded what had been once Philip's government, and took Idomene by assault, Gortynia, Atalanta, and some other places by negotiation, these last coming over for love of Philip's son, Amyntas, then with Sitalces. Laying siege to Europus, and failing to take it,

4 he next advanced into the rest of Macedonia to the left of Pella and Cyrrhus, not proceeding beyond this into Bottia and Pieria, but staying to lay waste Mygdonia, Crestonia, and Anthemus.

5 The Macedonians never even thought of meeting him with infantry; but the Thracian host was, as opportunity offered, attacked by handfuls of their horse, which had been reinforced from their allies in the interior. Armed with cuirasses, and excellent horsemen, wherever these charged they overthrew all before them, but ran considerable risk in entangling themselves in the masses of the enemy, and so finally desisted from these efforts, deciding that they were not strong enough to venture against numbers so superior.

Chapter 101

1 Meanwhile Sitacles opened negotiations with Perdiccas on the objects of his expedition; and finding that the Athenians, not believing that he would come, did not appear with their fleet, though they sent presents and envoys, despatched a large part of his army against the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, and cutting them up inside their walls laid waste their country.

2 While he remained in these parts, the people farther south, such as the Thessalians, and the Hellenes as far as Thermopylae, all feared that the army might advance against them, and prepared accordingly.

3 These fears were shared by the Thracians beyond the Strymon to the north, who inhabited the plains, such as the Panaeans, the Odomanti, the Droi and the Dersaeans, all of whom are independent.

4 It was even matter of conversation among the Hellenes who were enemies of Athens whether he might not be invited by his ally to advance also against them.

5 Meanwhile he held Chalcidice and Bottice and Macedonia, and was ravaging them all; but finding that he was not succeeding in any of the objects of his invasion, and that his army was without provisions and was suffering from the severity of the season, he listened to the advice of Seuthes, son of Sparadocus, his nephew and highest officer, and decided to retreat without delay. This Seuthes had been secretly gained by Perdiccas by the promise of his sister in marriage with a rich dowry.

6 In accordance with this advice, and after a stay of thirty days in all, eight of which were spent in Chalcidice, he retired home as quickly as he could; and Perdiccas afterwards gave his sister Stratonice to Seuthes as he had promised. Such was the history of the expedition of Sitalces.

Chapter 102

1 In the course of this winter, after the dispersion of the Peloponnesian fleet, the Athenians in Naupactus, under Phormio, coasted along to Astacus, and disembarked, and marched into the interior of Acarnania with four hundred Athenian heavy infantry and four hundred Messenians. After expelling some suspected persons from Stratus, Coronta, and other places, and restoring Cynes, son of Theolytus, to Coronta, they returned to their ships,

2 deciding that it was impossible in the winter season to march against Oeniadae, a place which, unlike the rest of Acarnania, had been always hostile to them; for the river Achelous flowing from Mount Pindus through Dolopia and the country of the Agraeans and Amphilochians and the plain of Acarnania, past the town of Stratus in the upper part of its course, forms lakes where it falls into the sea round Oeniadae, and thus makes it impracticable for an army in winter by reason of the water.

3 Opposite to Oeniadae lie most of the islands called Echinades, so close to the mouths of the Achelous that that powerful stream is constantly forming deposits against them, and has already joined some of the islands to the continent, and seems likely in no long while to do the same with the rest.

4 For the current is strong, deep, and turbid, and the islands are so thick together that they serve to imprison the alluvial deposit and prevent its dispersing, lying, as they do, not in one line, but irregularly, so as to leave no direct passage for the water into the open sea.

5 The islands in question are uninhabited and of no great size. There is also a story that Alcmaeon, son of Amphiaraus, during his wanderings after the murder of his mother was bidden by Apollo to inhabit this spot, through an oracle which intimated that he would have no release from his terrors until he should find a country to dwell in which had not been seen by the sun; or existed as land at the time he slew his mother; all else being to him polluted ground.

6 Perplexed at this, the story goes on to say, he at last observed this deposit of the Achelous, and considered that a place sufficient to support life upon, might have been thrown up during the long interval that had elapsed since the death of his mother and the beginning of his wanderings. Settling, therefore, in the district round Oeniadae, he founded a dominion, and left the country its name from his son Acarnan. Such is the story we have received concerning Alcmaeon.

Chapter 103

1 The Athenians and Phormio putting back from Acarnania and arriving at Naupactus, sailed home to Athens in the spring, taking with them the ships that they had captured, and such of the prisoners made in the late actions as were freemen; who were exchanged, man for man.

2 And so ended this winter, and the third year of this war, of which Thucydides was the historian.