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• To the Right Honourable Sir William Cavendish, Knight of the Bath, Baron of Hardwick, and Earl of Devonshire.
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• Of the Life and History of Thucydides.
• The First Book of the History of Thucydides.
• The Second Book of the History of Thucydides.
• The Third Book of the History of Thucydides.
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THE THIRD BOOK of the HISTORY OF THUCYDIDES.

THE PRINCIPAL CONTENTS.

Attica invaded by the Peloponnesians.—The Mytilenæans revolt, and are received by the Peloponnesians at Olympia into their league.—The Athenians send Paches to Mytilene, to besiege it.—Part of the besieged Platæans escape through the fortifications of the enemy.—The commons of Mytilene armed by the nobility for a sally on the enemy, deliver the town to the Athenians.—The residue of the Platæans yield to the besiegers, and are put to the sword.—The proceedings upon the Mytilenæans, and their punishment.—The sedition in Corcyra.—Laches is sent by the Athens into Sicily: and Nicias into Melos.—Demosthenes fighteth against the Ætolians unfortunately; and afterwards against the Ambraciotes fortuately.—Pythadorus is sent into Sicily, to receive the fleet from Laches.—This in other three years of this war.

year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1. The Peloponnesians invade Attica.year iv. A C. 428. Ol. 88. 1.

1. The summer following, the Peloponnesians and their confederates, at the time when corn was at the highest, entered with their army into Attica under the conduct of Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedæmonians; and there set them down and wasted the territory about. And the Athenian horsemen, as they were wont, fell upon the enemy where they thought fit1 , and kept back the multitude of light–armed soldiers from going out before the men of arms1 , and infesting the places near the city. And when they had stayed as long as their victual lasted, they returned; and were dissolved according to their cities.

The revolt of Lesbos.The intention of the Lesbians to revolt discovered to the Athenians.year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1.

2. After the Peloponnesians were entered Attica, Lesbos immediately, all but Methymne, revolted from the Athenians; which though they would have done before the war, and2 the Lacedæmonians would not then receive them, yet even now they were forced to revolt sooner than they had intended to do. For they stayed to have first straitened the mouth of their haven with dams of earth, to have finished their walls and their galleys then in building, and to have gotten in all that was to come out of Pontus, as archers, and victual, and whatsoever else they had sent for. But the Tenedians, with whom they were at odds, and the Methymnæans, and of the Mytilenæans themselves certain particular men upon faction, being hosts to the Athenians, made known unto them that the Lesbians were forced to go all into Mytilene3 ; that by the help of the Lacedæmonians and their kindred4 the Bœotians, they hastened all manner of provision necessary for a revolt; and that unless it were presently prevented, all Lesbos would be lost.

The Athenians send forty galleys to Lesbos.year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1. The Athenians imprison such of Mytilene as were at Athens, and stay their galleys

3. The Athenians, afflicted with the disease, and with the war now on foot and at the hottest, thought it a dangerous matter that Lesbos, which had a navy and was of strength entire, should thus be added to the rest of their enemies; and at first received not the accusations, holding them therefore the rather feigned because they would not have them true. But after, when they had sent ambassadors to Mytilene, and could not persuade them to dissolve themselves and undo their preparation, they then feared the worst, and would have prevented them: and to that purpose suddenly sent out the forty1 galleys made ready for Peloponnesus, with Cleïppedes and two other commanders. For they had been advertised that there was a holiday of Apollo Maloeis to be kept without the city, and that to the celebration thereof the Mytilenæans were accustomed to come all out of the town; and they hoped, making haste, to take them there unawares. And if the attempt succeeded, it was well; if not, they might2 command the Mytilenæans to deliver up their galleys, and to demolish their walls; or they might make war against them, if they refused. So these galleys went their way. And ten galleys of Mytilene which then chanced to be at Athens, by virtue of their league, to aid them, the Athenians stayed; and cast into prison the men that were in them. In the meantime a certain man went from Athens into Eubœa by sea, and then by land to Geræstus; and finding there a ship ready to put off, having the wind favourable, arrived in Mytilene three days after he set forth from Athens, and gave them notice of the coming of the fleet. Hereupon they not only went not out to Maloeis1 , as was expected, but also stopped the gaps of their walls and ports, where they were left unfinished, and placed guards to defend them.

The Athenians give the Mytilenæans time to purge themselves at Athens.

4. When the Athenians not long after arrived and saw this, the commanders of the fleet delivered to the Mytilenæans what they had in charge: which not hearkened unto, they presently fell to the war. The Mytilenæans, unprovided and compelled to a war on such a sudden, put out some few galleys before the haven to fight: but being driven in again by the galleys of Athens, they called to the Athenian commanders to parley; desiring, if they could upon reasonable conditions, to get the galleys for the present sent away. And the Athenian commander allowed the conditions2 , he also fearing they should be too weak to make war against the whole island.

year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1. The Mytilenæans sent to Lacedæmon for aid.The Mytilenæan ambassadors speed not at Athens.They sally out upon the Athenians, but without success.They lie still, expecting help from Peloponnesus.year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1. The Athenians send for the aids of their confederates.

When a cessation of arms was granted, the Mytilenæans amongst others sent to Athens one of those that had given intelligence there of their design, and had repented him after of the same, to try if they could persuade them to withdraw their fleet from them, as not intending any innovation. Withal they sent ambassadors at the same time to Lacedæmon, undiscovered of the fleet of the Athenians, which was riding at anchor in Malea1 to the north of the city; being without any confidence of their success at Athens. And these men, after an ill voyage through the wide sea, arriving at Lacedæmon, negotiated the sending of aid from thence. 5. But when their ambassadors were come back from Athens without effect, the Mytilenæans and the rest of Lesbos, save only Methymne, (for these together with the Imbrians, Lemnians, and some few other their confederates, aided the Athenians), prepared themselves for the war. And the Mytilenæans with the whole strength of the city made a sally upon the Athenian camp, and came to a battle: wherein though the Mytilenæans had not the worse, yet they lay not that night without the walls, nor durst trust to their strength; but retiring into the town, lay quiet there, expecting to try their fortune with the accession of such forces, as (if any came) they were to have from Peloponnesus. For there were now come into the city one Meleas a Laconian and Hermiondas a Theban, who having been sent out before the revolt, but unable to arrive before the coming of the Athenian fleet, secretly after the end of the battle entered the haven in a galley, and persuaded them to send another galley along with them, with other ambassadors to Sparta; which they did. 6. But the Athenians much confirmed by this the Mytilenæans’ cessation, called in their confederates: (who, because they saw no assurance on the part of the Lesbians, came much sooner in than was thought they would have done1 ): and riding at anchor to the south of the city, fortified two camps, on either side one, and brought their galleys before both the ports, and so quite excluded the Mytilenæans from the use of the sea2 . As for the land, the Athenians held so much only as lay near their camps, which was not much; and the Mytilenæans and other Lesbians, that were now come to aid them, were masters of the rest. For Malea served the Athenians for a station only for their galleys, and to keep their market in. And thus proceeded the war before Mytilene.

The Athenians send Asopius the son of Phormio, with twenty galleys about Peloponnesus.year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1.Asopius slain.

7. About the same time of the same summer, the Athenians sent likewise thirty galleys into Peloponnesus, under the conduct of Asopius the son of Phormio. For the Acarnanians had desired them to send some son or kinsman of Phormio, for general, into those parts. These, as they sailed by, wasted the maritime country of Laconia; and then sending back the greatest part of his fleet to Athens, Asopius himself with twelve galleys went on to Naupactus. And afterwards having raised the whole power of Acarnania, he made war upon the Œniades, and both entered with his galleys into1 the river of Achelöus, and with his land forces wasted the territory. But when the Œniades would not yield, he disbanded his land forces, and sailed with his galleys to Leucas, and landed his soldiers of the territory of Neritum2 ; but in going off was by those of the country that came out to defend it, and by some few of the garrison soldiers there, both himself and part of his company slain. And having upon truce received from the Leucadians their dead bodies, they went their ways3 .

The Mytilenæan ambassadors sent to Lacedæmon, are appointed to attend the general assembly of the Grecians at Olympia.year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1.

8. Now the ambassadors of the Mytilenæans, that went out in the first galley, having been referred by the Lacedæmonians to the general meeting of the Grecians at Olympia, to the end they might determine of them together with the rest of the confederates4 , went to Olympia accordingly. It was that Olympiad wherein Dorieus of Rhodes was the second time victor. And when after the solemnity they were set in council, the ambassadors spake unto them in this manner:

oration of the ambassadors of mytilene.

9. “Men of Lacedæmon and confederates, we know the received custom of the Grecians. For they that take into league such as revolt in the wars and relinquish a former league, though they like them as long as they have profit by them, yet accounting them but traitors to their former friends, they esteem the worse of them in their judgment. And to say the truth, this judgment is not without good reason, when they that revolt, and they from whom the revolt is made, are mutually like–minded and affected, and equal in provision and strength, and no just cause of their revolt given. But now between us and the Athenians it is not so. Nor let any man think the worse of us, for that having been honoured by them in time of peace, we have now revolted in time of danger. 10. For the first point of our speech, especially now we seek to come into league with you, shall be to make good the justice and honesty of our revolt1 . For we know there can be neither firm friendship between man and man, nor any communion between city and city to any purpose whatsoever, without a mutual opinion of each other’s honesty, and also a similitude of customs otherwise: for in the difference of minds is grounded the diversity of actions.

year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1. Oration of the Mytilenæans.year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1. Oration of the Mytilenæans.year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1. Oration of the Mytilenæans.

“As for our league with the Athenians, it was first made when you gave over the Medan war, and they remained to prosecute the relics of that business. Yet we entered not such a league, as to be their helpers in bringing the Grecians into the servitude of the Athenians, but to set free the Grecians from the servitude of the Medes1 . And as long as they led us as equals, we followed them with much zeal: but when we saw they remitted their enmity against the Medes, and led us2 to the subjugation of the confederates, we could not then but be afraid. And the confederates, through the multitude of distinct counsels unable to unite themselves for resistance, fell all but ourselves and the Chians into their subjection. And we having still our own laws, and being in name a free state, followed them to the wars; but so, as by the examples of their former actions, we held them not any longer for faithful leaders. For it was not probable, when they had subdued those whom together with us they took into league, but that, when they should be able, they would do the like also by the rest. 11. It is true that if we were now in liberty all, we might be the better assured that they would forbear to innovate; but since they have under them the greatest part already, in all likelihood they will take it ill, to deal on equal terms with us alone, and the rest yielding, to let us only stand up as their equals. Especially when by how much they are become stronger by the subjection of their confederates, by so much the more are we become desolate. But the equality of mutual fear is the only band of faith in leagues. For he that hath the will to transgress, yet when he hath not the odds of strength, will abstain from coming on. Now the reason why they have left us yet free, is no other, but that1 they may have a fair colour to lay upon their domination over the rest; and because it hath seemed unto them more expedient to take us in by policy, than by force. For therein they made use of us for an argument, that having equal vote with them we would never have followed them to the wars, if those against whom they led us, had not done the injury: and thereby also they brought the stronger against the weaker, and reserving the strongest to the last, made them the weaker by removing the rest. Whereas if they had begun with us, when the confederates had had both their own strength and a side to adhere to, they had never subdued them so easily. Likewise our navy kept them in some fear; lest united and added to yours or to any other, it might have created them some danger. Partly also we escaped by our observance toward their commons, and most eminent men from time to time. But yet we still1 thought we could not do so long, considering the examples they have showed us in the rest, if this war should not have fallen out. 12. What friendship then or assurance of liberty was this, when we received each other with alienated affections: when whilst they had wars, they for fear courted us; and when they had peace, we for fear courted them: and whereas in others good will assureth loyalty, in us it was the effect of fear? So2 it was more for fear than love, that we remained their confederates; and whomsoever security should first embolden, he was first likely by one means or other to break the league. Now if any man think we did unjustly, to revolt upon the expectation of evil intended without staying to be certain whether they would do it or not, he weigheth not the matter aright. For if we were as able to contrive evil against them, and again to defer it, as they can against us, being thus equal, what needed us to be at their discretion? But seeing it is in their hands to invade at pleasure, it ought to be in ours to anticipate.

year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1. Oration of the Mytilenæans.year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1. Oration of the Mytilenæans.

13. Upon these pretensions therefore and causes, Men of Lacedæmon and confederates, we have revolted; the which are both clear enough for the hearers to judge upon, that we had reason for it, and weighty enough to affright, and compel us to take some course for our own safety: which we would have done before, when before the war we sent ambassadors to you about our revolt, but could not, because you would not then admit us into your league. And now when the Bœotians1 invited us to it, we presently obeyed. Wherein we thought we made a double revolt2 one from the Grecians, in ceasing to do them mischief with the Athenians, and helping to set them free; and another from the Athenians, in breaking first, and not staying to be destroyed by them hereafter. But this revolt of ours hath been sooner than was fit, and before we were provided for it. For which cause also the confederates ought so much the sooner to admit us into the league, and send us the speedier aid; thereby the better3 , at once both to defend those you ought to defend, and to annoy your enemies. Whereof there was never better opportunity than at present. For the Athenians being both with the sickness and their great expenses consumed, and their navy divided, part upon your own coasts and part upon ours; it is not likely they should have many galleys spare, in case you again4 this summer invade them both by sea and land; but that they should either be unable to resist the invasion of your fleet, or be forced to come off from both our coasts. And let not any man conceive, that you shall herein at your own danger defend the territory of another. For though Lesbos seem remote, the profit of it will be near you. For the war will not be, as a man would think, in Attica; but there, from whence cometh the profit to Attica. This profit is the revenue they have from the confederates; which if they subdue us, will still be greater. For neither will any other revolt; and all that is ours will accrue unto them; and we shall be worse handled besides, than those that were under them before. But aiding us with diligence, you shall both add to your league a city that hath a great navy, the thing you most stand in need of; and also easily1 overthrow the Athenians by subduction of their confederates, because every one will then be more confident to come in, and you shall avoid the imputation2 of not assisting such as revolt unto you. And if it appear that your endeavour is to make them free, your strength in this war will be much the more confirmed. In reverence therefore of the hopes which the Grecians have reposed in you, and of the presence of Jupiter Olympius, in whose temple here we are in a manner suppliants to you, receive the Mytilenæans into league, and aid us. And do not cast us off, who (though, as to the exposing of our persons, the danger be our own) shall bring a common profit to all Greece, if we prosper, and a more common detriment to all the Grecians, if through your inflexibleness we miscarry. Be you therefore men such as the Grecians esteem you, and our fears require you to be.”

year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1. The Mytilenæans taken into the Lacedæmonian league.The Lacedæmonians prepare for the invasion of Attica, both by sea and land.

15. In this manner spake the Mytilenæans. And the Lacedæmonians and their confederates, when they had heard and allowed their reasons, decreed not only a league with the Lesbians, but also again to make an invasion into Attica. And to that purpose, the Lacedæmonians appointed their confederates there present, to make as much speed as they could with two parts of their forces into the isthmus; and they themselves being first there, prepared engines in the isthmus for the drawing up of galleys, with intention to carry the navy from Corinth to the other sea that lieth towards Athens, and to set upon them both by sea and land. And these things diligently did they. But the rest of the confederates assembled but slowly, being busied in the gathering in of their fruits, and weary of warfare.

The Athenians to make show of their power, and to deter the enemy from their enterprize, send 100 galleys, not so much to waste Peloponnesus, as to confute the opinion which the Lesbian ambassadors had put into the Lacedæmonians of their weakness.year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1.year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1.

16. The Athenians perceiving all this preparation to be made upon an opinion of their weakness, and desirous to let them see they were deceived, as being able, without stirring the fleet at Lesbos, easily to master the fleet that should come against them out of Peloponnesus, manned out a hundred galleys, and embarked therein generally, both citizens (except those of the degree of Pentacosiomedimni and Horsemen1 ) and also strangers that dwelt amongst them: and sailing to the isthmus, made a show of their strength, and landed their soldiers in such parts of Peloponnesus as they thought fit. When the Lacedæmonians saw things so contrary to their expectation, they thought it false which was spoken by the Lesbian ambassadors; and esteeming the action difficult, seeing their confederates were not arrived, and that news was brought of the wasting of the territory near their city1 by the thirty galleys formerly sent about Peloponnesus by the Athenians, went home again; and afterwards prepared to send a fleet to Lesbos, and intimated to the cities rateably to furnish forty galleys, and appointed Alcidas, who was to go thither with them, for admiral. And the Athenians, when they saw the Peloponnesians gone, went likewise home with their hundred galleys.

The greatness of the Athenian navy, and occasion of their great expense of money

17. About1 the time that this fleet was out, they had surely the most galleys (besides the beauty of them) together in action in these employments; yet in the beginning of the war, they had both as good, and more in number. For a hundred attended the guard of Attica, Eubœa, and Salamis; and another hundred were about Peloponnesus; besides those that were at Potidæa and other places: so that in one summer, they had in all two hundred and fifty sail. And this, together with Potidæa, was it that most exhausted their treasure. For the men of arms that besieged the city, had each of them two drachmes a day, one for himself and another for his man: and were three thousand in number that were sent thither at first and remained to the end of the siege; besides sixteen hundred more, that went with Phormio and came away before the town was won. And the galleys had all the same pay. In this manner was their money consumed2 , and so many galleys employed, the most indeed that ever they had manned at once.

year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1. The Mytilenæans go with a power to Methymne, hoping to have it betrayed.The Athenians send Paches with 1000 men of arms to Mytilene.year iv. A. C. 428. Ol. 88. 1.

18. About the same time that the Lacedæmonians were in the isthmus, the Mytilenæans marched by land, both they and their auxiliaries, against Methymne, in hope to have had it betrayed unto them: and having assaulted the city, when it succeeded not the way they looked for, they went thence to Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eressus: and after they had settled1 the affairs of those places, and made strong their walls, returned speedily home. When these were gone, the Methymnæans likewise made war upon Antissa; but beaten2 by the Antisæans and some auxiliaries that were with them, they made haste again to Methymne, with the loss of many of their soldiers. But the Athenians being advertised hereof, and understanding that the Mytilenæans were masters of the land, and that their own soldiers there were not enough to keep them in, sent thither, about the beginning of autumn, Paches, the son of Epicurus, with a thousand men of arms of their own city: who, supplying the place of rowers themselves, arrived at Mytilene, and ingirt it with a single wall: save3 that in some places, stronger by nature than the rest, they only built turrets, and placed guards in them. So that the city was every way strongly besieged, both by sea and land; and the winter began.

The end of the fourth summer.

19. The Athenians standing in need of money for the siege, both contributed themselves, and sent thither1 two hundred talents of this their first contribution, and also dispatched Lysicles and four others with twelve galleys, to levy money amongst the confederates. But Lysicles, after he had been to and fro and gathered money in divers places, as he was going up from Myus through the plains of Mæander in Caria as far as to the hill Sandius, was set upon there by the Carians and Anæitans2 ; and himself with a great part of his soldiers slain.

A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. The escape of 212 men out of Platæa, through the works of the enemy.year iv. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. They make the length of their ladders by conjecture upon counting the lays of brick.The description of the fortification of the Peloponnesians about Platæa.year iv. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. The description of the Platæans going over the enemy’s walls.year iv. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1.year iv. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1.

20. The same winter the Platæans, (for they were besieged by the Peloponnesians and Bœotians), pressed now with want of victual and hopeless of relief from Athens, and no other means of safety appearing, took counsel, both they and the Athenians that were besieged with them, at first all to go out, and if they could, to pass over the wall of the enemy by force. The authors of this attempt, were Theænetus the son of Tolmidas, a soothsayer, and Eupompidas the son of Daïmachus, one of their commanders. But half of them afterwards, by one means or other, for the greatness of the danger shrunk from it again: but two hundred and twenty or thereabouts voluntarily persisted to go out in this manner. They made them ladders, fit for the height of the enemy’s wall; the wall they measured by the lays of brick, on the part toward the town where it was not plastered over; and divers men at once numbered the lays of bricks, whereof though some missed, yet the greatest part took the reckoning just; especially, numbering them so often, and at no great distance, but where they might easily see the part to which their ladders were to be applied; and so by guess1 of the thickness of one brick, took the measure of their ladders. 21. As for the wall of the Peloponnesians, it was thus built. It consisted of a double circle, one towards Platæa, and another outward, in case of an assault from Athens. These two walls were distant one from the other about sixteen foot: and that sixteen foot of space which was betwixt them, was disposed and built into cabins for the watchmen, which were so joined and continued one to another, that the whole appeared to be one thick wall with battlements on either side. At every ten battlements stood a great tower, of a just breadth to comprehend both walls, and reach from the outmost to the inmost front of the whole; so that there was no passage by the side of a tower, but through the midst of it. And such nights as there happened any storm2 of rain, they used to quit the battlements of the wall, and to watch under the towers: as being not far asunder, and covered beside overhead. Such was the form of the wall wherein1 the Peloponnesians kept their watch. 22. The Platæans, after they were ready, and had attended a tempestuous2 night, and withal moonless, went out of the city; and were conducted by the same men that were the authors of the attempt. And first they passed the ditch that was about the town, and then came up close to the wall of the enemy3 , who, because it was dark, could not see them coming; and the noise they made as they went4 could not be heard for the blustering of the wind. And they came on besides at a good distance one from the other, that they might not be betrayed by the clashing of their arms; and were but lightly armed, and not shod but on the left foot, for the more steadiness in the wet5 . They came thus to the battlements in one of the spaces between tower and tower, knowing that there was now no watch kept there. And first came they that carried the ladders, and placed them to the wall: then twelve lightly armed, only with a dagger and a breastplate, went up, led by Ammeas the son of Corœbus, who was the first that mounted; and they that followed him, went up into either tower six. To these succeeded others lightly armed, that carried the6 darts, for whom they that came after carried targets at their backs, that they might be the more expedite to get up; which targets they were to deliver to them, when they came to the enemy. At length, when most7 of them were ascended, they were heard by the watchmen that were in the towers. For one of the Platæans taking hold of the battlements, threw down a tile, which made a noise in the fall. And presently there was an alarm; and the army ran to the wall. For in the dark and stormy night, they knew not what the danger was; and the Platæans that were left in the city, came forth withal, and assaulted the wall of the Peloponnesians on the opposite side to that where their men went over1 . So that though they were all in a tumult in their several places, yet not any of them that watched durst stir to the aid of the rest, nor were able to conjecture what had happened. But those three hundred that were appointed to assist the watch upon all occasions of need, went without the wall and made towards the place of the clamour. They also held up the fires by which they used to make known the approach of enemies, towards Thebes. But then the Platæans likewise held out many other fires from the wall of the city, which for that purpose they had before prepared, to render the fires of the enemy insignificant; and that the Thebans apprehending the matter otherwise than it was, might forbear to send help till their men were over and had recovered some place of safety. 23. In the meantime those Platæans, which having scaled the wall first and slain the watch were now masters of both the towers, not only guarded the passages by standing themselves in the entries, but also applying ladders from the wall to the towers, and conveying many men to the top, kept the enemies off with shot both from above and below. In the mean space, the greatest number of them having reared to the wall many ladders at once, and beaten down the battlements, passed quite over between the towers. And ever as any of them got to the other side, they stood still upon the brink of the ditch without, and with arrows and darts kept off those that came by the outside1 of the wall to hinder their passage. And when the rest were over, then last of all2 , and with much ado, came they also down to the ditch which were in the two towers. And by this time, the three hundred that were to assist the watch, came and set upon them, and had lights with them; by which means the Platæans that were on the further brink of the ditch, discerned them the better from out of the dark, and aimed their arrows and darts at their most disarmed parts: for3 standing in the dark, the lights of the enemy made the Platæans the less discernible; insomuch as these last passed the ditch, though with difficulty and force. For the water in it was frozen over, though not so hard as to bear, but watery, and such as when the wind is at east rather than at north. And the snow which fell that night, together with so great a wind as that was, had very much increased the water; which they waded through with scarce their heads above. But yet the greatness of the storm was the principal means of their escape.

year iv. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1.

24. From the ditch the Platæans in troop took the way towards Thebes, leaving on the left hand the temple of Juno1 built by Androcrates, both for that they supposed they would least suspect the way that led to their enemies, and also because they saw the Peloponnesians with their lights pursue that way, which by Mount Cithæron and the Oak–heads2 led to Athens, The Platæans, when they had gone six or seven furlongs, forsook the Theban way, and turned into that which led towards the mountain to Erythræ and Hysiæ; and having gotten the hills, escaped through to Athens, being two hundred and twelve persons of a greater number. For some of them returned into the city before the rest went over; and one of their archers was taken upon the ditch without. And so the Peloponnesians gave over the pursuit, and returned to their places. But the Platæans that were within the city, knowing nothing of the event, and those that turned back having told them that not a man escaped, as soon as it was day sent a herald to entreat a truce for the taking up of their dead bodies; but when they knew the truth, they gave it over. And thus these men of Platæa passed through the fortification of their enemies, and were saved.

Salæthus a Lacedæmonian, entereth secretly into Mytilene, and confirmeth them with hope of speedy aid.year iv. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1.

25. About the end of the same winter Salæthus, a Lacedæmonian, was sent in a galley to Mytilene; and coming first to Pyrrha, and thence going to Mytilene by land, entered the city by the dry channel of a certain torrent which had a passage through the wall of the Athenians, undiscovered. And he told the magistrates that Attica should again be invaded, and that the forty galleys which were to aid them were coming; and that himself was sent afore, both to let them know it, and withal to give order in the rest of their affairs. Hereupon the Mytilenæans grew confident, and hearkened less to composition with the Athenians. And the winter ended, and the fourth year of this war written by Thucydides.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Attica the fourth time invaded.Pausanias king of Lacedæmon.

26. In the beginning of the summer, after they had sent Alcidas away with the forty–two1 galleys, whereof he was admiral, unto Mytilene, both they and their confederates invaded Attica; to the end that the Athenians, troubled on both sides, might the less send supply against the fleet now gone to Mytilene. In this expedition Cleomenes was general instead of Pausanias, the son of Pleistoanax, who being king was yet in minority2 , and Cleomenes was his uncle by the father. And they now cut down both what they had before wasted and began to grow again, and also whatsoever else they had before pretermitted: and this was the sharpest invasion of all but the second. For whilst they stayed to hear news from their fleet at Lesbos, which by this time they supposed to have been arrived, they went abroad and destroyed most part of the country. But when nothing succeeded according to their hopes, and seeing their corn failed, they retired again, and were dissolved according to their cities.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Salæthus arms the commons for a sally. They mutiny, and give up the town.Some of the Mytilenæans fearing the worst take sanctuary:whom Paches persuadeth to rise:year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. and sendeth them to be in custody at Tenedos.

27. The Mytilenæans in the meantime, seeing the fleet came not from Peloponnesus, but delayed the time, and their victuals failed, were constrained to make their composition with the Athenians upon this occasion. Salæthus, when he also expected these galleys no longer, armed the commons of the city, who were before unarmed1 , with intention to have made a sally upon the Athenians. But they, as soon as they had gotten arms, no longer obeyed the magistrates; but holding assemblies by themselves, required the rich men2 either to bring their corn to light and divide it amongst them all, or else, they said, they would make their composition by delivering up the city to the Athenians. 28. Those that managed the state perceiving this and unable to hinder it, knowing also their own danger in case they were excluded out of the composition, they all jointly agreed to yield the city to Paches and his army with these conditions: “to be proceeded withal at the pleasure of the people of Athens, and to receive the army into the city; and that the Mytilenæans should send ambassadors to Athens about their own business: and that Paches, till their return, should neither put in bonds, nor make slave of, nor slay any Mytilenæan”. This was the effect of that composition. But such of the Mytilenæans as had principally practised with the Lacedæmonians, being3 afraid of themselves, when the army was entered the city durst not trust to the conditions agreed on, but took sanctuary at the altars. But Paches having raised them upon promise to do them no injury, sent them to Tenedos, to be in custody there till the people of Athens should have resolved what to do. After this he sent some galleys to Antissa, and took in that town; and ordered the affairs of his army as he thought convenient.

The voyage of Alcidas with forty galleys into Ionia.Alcidas with his fleet, at Embatus is assured of the loss of Mytilene.The advice of Teutiaplus in the council of war.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.The advice of certain outlaws of Ionia and Lesbos.The cowardly resolution of Alcidas.He killeth his prisoners.The Samians sharply reprehend him.III. year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.Alcidas maketh haste from Ephesus homeward.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Paches pursueth the Peloponnesians, and is glad he overtaketh them not.

29. In the meantime those forty galleys of Peloponnesus, which should have made all possible haste, trifled away the time about Peloponnesus; and making small speed in the rest of their navigation, arrived at Delos unknown to the Athenians at Athens. From thence sailing to Icarus and Myconus, they got first intelligence of the loss of Mytilene. But to know the truth more certainly, they went thence to Embatus1 in Erythræa. It was about the seventh day after the taking of Mytilene, that they arrived at Embatus; where understanding the certainty, they went to council about what they were to do upon the present occasion; and Teutiaplus, an Eleian, delivered his opinion to this effect: 30. “Alcidas, and the rest that have command of the Peloponnesians in this army, it were not amiss, in my opinion, to go to Mytilene as we are, before advice be given of our arrival. For in all probability we shall find the city, in respect they have but lately won it, very weakly guarded, and to the sea (where they expect no enemy, and we are chiefly strong) not guarded at all. It is also likely that their land soldiers are dispersed, some in one house and some in another, carelessly as victors. Therefore if we fall upon them suddenly and by night, I think, with the help of those within, if any be left there that will take our part, we may be able to possess ourselves of the city. And we shall never fear the danger, if we but think this: that all stratagems1 of war whatsoever are no more but such occasions as this, which if a commander avoid in himself, and take the advantage of them in the enemy, he shall for the most part have good success.” 31. Thus said he; but prevailed not with Alcidas. And some others, fugitives of Ionia and those Lesbians that were with him in the fleet, gave him counsel, that seeing he feared the danger of this, he should seize some city of Ionia, or Cume in Æolia; that having some town for the seat of the war, they might from thence force Ionia to revolt; whereof there was hope, because the Ionians would not be unwilling to see him there: and if2 they could withdraw from the Athenians this their great revenue, and withal put them to maintain a fleet against them, it would be a great exhausting of their treasure. They said besides, that they thought they should be able to get Pissuthnes to join with them in the war. But Alcidas rejected this advice likewise, inclining rather to this opinion, that since they were come too late to Mytilene, they were best to return speedily into Peloponnesus. 32. Whereupon putting off from Embatus, he sailed by the shore to Myonnesus of the Teians, and there slew most of the prisoners he had taken by the way. After this he put in at Ephesus: and thither came ambassadors to him from the Samians of Anæa3 , and told him that it was but an ill manner of setting the Grecians at liberty, to kill such as had not lift up their hands against him, nor were indeed enemies to the Peloponnesians, but confederates to the Athenians by constraint; and that unless he gave over that course, he would make few of the enemies his friends, but many now friends to become his enemies. Wherefore upon these words of the ambassadors he set the Chians and some others, all that he had left alive, at liberty1 . For when men saw their fleet, they never fled from it, but came unto them as to Athenians; little imagining that the Athenians being masters of the sea, the Peloponnesians durst have put over to Ionia. 33. From Ephesus Alcidas went away in haste, indeed fled; for he had been descried by the Salaminia and the Paralus2 , (which by chance were then in their course for Athens), whilst he lay at anchor about Claros; and fearing to be chased, kept the wide sea; meaning by his good will to touch no land till he came into Peloponnesus. But the news of them came to Paches from divers places3 , especially from Erythræa. For the cities of Ionia being unwalled, were afraid extremely lest the Peloponnesians sailing by, without intention to stay, should have pillaged them as they passed. But the Salaminia and the Paralus having seen him at Claros, brought the news themselves1 . And Paches thereupon made great haste after, and followed him as far as Latmos2 the island. But when he saw he could not reach him, he came back again; and thought he had a good turn, seeing he could not overtake those galleys upon the wide sea, that the same were not compelled, by being taken in some place near land, to fortify themselves, and so to give him occasion with guards and galleys to attend them.

Paches restoreth Notium to the Colophonians, driven out by sedition.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Paches parleyeth with Hippias:his equivocation with Hippias, whom he put to death contrary to promise.

34. As he came by in his return, he put in at Notium, a city of the Colophonians, into which the Colophonians came and inhabited, after the town above, through their own3 sedition, was taken by Itamanes and the barbarians. (This town was taken at the time when Attica was the second time invaded by the Peloponnesians). They then that came down and dwelt in Notium, falling again into sedition, the one part having procured some forces, Arcadians4 and barbarians, of Pissuthnes, kept them in a part of the town which they had severed from the rest with a wall; and there, with such of the Colophonians of the high town as being of the Medan faction entered with them, they governed the city at their pleasure1 : and the other part, which went out from these and were the fugitives, brought in Paches. He, when he had called out Hippias, captain of the Arcadians that were within the said wall, with promise, if they should not agree, to set him safe and sound within the wall again; and Hippias was thereupon come to him: committed him to custody, but without bonds; and withal assaulting the wall on a sudden, when they expected not, took it, and slew as many of the Arcadians and barbarians as were within: and when he had done, brought Hippias in again, according as he had promised; but after he had him there, laid hold on him and caused him to be shot to death: and restored Notium to the Colophonians, excluding only such as had medized. Afterwards the Athenians sent governors2 to Notium of their own; and having gathered together the Colophonians out of all cities whatsoever, seated them there under the law of the Athenians.

Paches taketh Pyrrha, and Eressus: he apprehendeth Salæthus in Mytilene.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. The Athenians slay Salæthus, though he offer to withdraw the Peloponnesians from the siege of Platæa.The cruel decree of the Athenians in their passion against the Mytilenæans.The Athenians repent of their decree, and consult anew.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Cleon most popular and most violent.

35. Paches, when he came back to Mytilene, took in Pyrrha and Eressus: and having found Salæthus the Lacedæmonian hidden in Mytilene, apprehended him, and sent him, together with those men he had put in custody at Tenedos, and whomsoever else he thought author of the revolt, to Athens. He likewise sent away the greatest part of his army; and with the rest stayed and settled the state of Mytilene and the rest of Lesbos, as he thought convenient. 36. These men, and Salæthus with them, being arrived at Athens, the Athenians slew Salæthus presently; though he made them many offers, and amongst other, to get the army of the Peloponnesians to rise from before Platæa; for it was yet besieged. But upon the rest they went to council; and in their passion decreed to put them to death, not only those men there present, but also all the men of Mytilene that were of age; and to make slaves of the women and children: laying to their charge the revolt itself, in that they revolted not being in subjection as others were: and withal the Peloponnesian fleet, which durst enter into Ionia to their aid, had not a little aggravated that commotion1 . For by that it seemed that the revolt was not made without much premeditation. They therefore sent a galley to inform Paches of their decree, with command to put the Mytilenæans presently to death. But the next day they felt a kind of repentance in themselves; and began to consider what a great and cruel decree it was, that not the authors only, but the whole city should be destroyed. Which when the ambassadors of the Mytilenæans that were there present, and such Athenians as favoured them, understood, they wrought with those that bare office2 , to bring the matter again into debate; wherein they easily prevailed, forasmuch as to them also it was well known, that the most of the city were desirous to have means to consult of the same anew. The assembly being presently met, amongst the opinions of divers others Cleon also, the son of Cleænetus, who in the former assembly had won to have them killed, being of all the citizens most violent and with the people at that time far the most powerful, stood forth and said in this manner:

the oration of cleon.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Cleon.

37. “I have often on other occasions thought a democracy uncapable of dominion over others; but most of all now for this your repentance concerning the Mytilenæans. For through your own mutual security and openness, you imagine the same also in your confederates; and consider not, that when at their persuasion you commit an error or relent upon compassion, you are softened thus to the danger of the commonwealth, not to the winning of the affections of your confederates: nor do you consider, that your government is a tyranny, and those that be subject to it are against their wills so, and are plotting continually against you; and obey you not for any good turn, which to your own detriment you shall do them, but only for that you exceed them in strength, and for no good will. But the worst mischief of all is this1 , that nothing we decree shall stand firm, and that we will not know, that a city with the worse laws, if immoveable, is better than one with good laws, when they be not binding; and that a plain wit accompanied with modesty, is more profitable to the state than dexterity with arrogance; and that the more ignorant2 sort of men do, for the most part, better regulate a commonwealth than they that are wiser. For these love to appear wiser than the laws, and1 in all public debatings to carry the victory, as the worthiest things wherein to show their wisdom; from whence most commonly proceedeth the ruin of the states they live in. Whereas the other sort, mistrusting their own wits, are content to be esteemed not so wise as the laws, and not able to carp at what is well spoken by another: and so making themselves equal judges rather than contenders for mastery, govern a state for the most part well. We therefore should do the like; and not be carried away with combats of eloquence and wit, to give such counsel to your multitude as in our own judgments we think not good.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Cleon.The nature of the multitude in council, lively set forth.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of of Cleon. Aggravation of the revolt of the Mytilenæans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Cleon.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Cleon.

38. “For my own part, I am of the opinion I was before; and I wonder at these men that have brought this matter of the Mytilenæans in question again, and thereby caused delay, which is the advantage only of them that do the injury. For the sufferer by this means comes upon the doer with his anger dulled; whereas revenge2 , the opposite of injury, is then greatest when it follows presently. I do wonder also, what he is that shall stand up now to contradict me, and shall think to prove that the injuries done us by the Mytilenæans are good for us, or that our calamities are any damage to our confederates. For certainly he must either trust in his eloquence, to make you believe that that which was decreed, was not decreed; or moved with lucre, must with some elaborate speech endeavour to seduce you. Now of such matches [of eloquence] as these, the city giveth the prizes to others; but the danger that hence proceedeth, she herself sustaineth. And of all this you yourselves are the cause, by the evil institution of these matches, in that you use to be spectators of words, and hearers of actions; beholding future actions in the words of them that speak well, as possible to come to pass; and actions already past in the orations of such as make the most of them, and that with such assurance, as if what you saw with your eyes were not more certain than what you hear related1 . You are excellent men for one to deceive with a speech of a new strain, but backward to follow any tried advice; slaves to strange things, contemners of things usual. You2 would every one chiefly give the best advice, but if you cannot, then you will contradict those that do. You would not be thought to come after with your opinion; but rather if any thing be acutely spoken, to applaud it first, and to appear ready apprehenders of what is spoken, even before it be out; but slow to preconceive the sequel of the same. You would hear, as one may say, somewhat else than what our life is conversant in; and yet you sufficiently understand not that that is before your eyes. And to speak plainly, overcome with the delight of the ear, you are rather like unto spectators sitting to hear the contentions of sophisters, than to men that deliberate of the state of a commonwealth. 39. To put you out of this humour, I say unto you, that the Mytilenæans have done us more injury than ever did any one city. For those that have revolted through the over–hard pressure of our government, or that have been compelled to it by the enemy, I pardon them. But they that were islanders and had their city walled, so as they needed not fear our enemies but only by sea; in which case also they were armed for them with sufficient provision of galleys; and they that were permitted to have their own laws and whom we principally honoured, and yet have done thus; what have they done but conspired against us, and rather warred upon us than revolted from us, (for a revolt is only of such as suffer violence), and joined with our bitterest enemies to destroy us? This is far worse than if they had warred against us for increasing of their own power1 . But these men would neither take example by their neighbour’s calamity, who are, all that revolted, already subdued by us; nor could their own present felicity make them afraid of changing it into misery: but being bold against future events, and aiming at matters above their strength, though below their desires, have taken arms against us, and preferred force before justice. For no sooner they thought they might get the victory, but immediately, though without injury done them, they rose against us. But with cities that come to great and unexpected prosperity, it is usual to turn insolent: whereas most commonly that prosperity which is attained according to the course of reason, is more firm than that which cometh unhoped for; and such cities1 , as one may say, do more easily keep off an adverse, than maintain a happy fortune. Indeed we should not formerly have done any honour more to the Mytilenæans than to the rest of our confederates; for then they had never come to this degree of insolence. For it is natural to men to contemn those that observe them, and to have in admiration such as will not give them way. Now therefore let them be punished according to their wicked dealing; and let not the fault be laid upon a few, and the people be absolved. For2 they have all alike taken arms against us: and the commons, if they had been constrained to it, might have fled hither, and have recovered their city afterwards again. But they, esteeming it the safer adventure to join with the few, are alike with them culpable of the revolt. Have also in consideration your confederates: and if you inflict the same punishment on them that revolt upon compulsion of the enemy, that you do on them that revolt of their own accord, who, think you, will not revolt, though on light pretence; seeing that speeding they win their liberty, and failing their case is not incurable? Besides, that against every city we must be at a new hazard, both of our persons and fortunes. Wherein with the best success, we recover but an exhausted city, and lose that wherein our strength lieth, the revenue of it; but miscarrying, we add these enemies to our former, and must spend that time in warring against our own confederates, which we needed to employ against the enemies we have already.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Cleon.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Cleon.

40. “We must not therefore give our confederates hope of pardon, either impetrable by words or purchaseable by money, as if1 their errors were but such as are commonly incident to humanity. For these did us not an injury unwillingly, but wittingly conspired against us; whereas it ought to be involuntary whatsoever is pardonable. Therefore both then at first, and now again I maintain, that you ought not to alter your former decree, nor to offend in any of these three most disadvantageous things to empire, pity, delight in plausible speeches, and lenity. As for pity, it is just to show it on them that are like us, and will have pity again; but not upon such as not only would not have had pity upon us, but must also of necessity have been2 our enemies for ever hereafter. And for the rhetoricians that delight you with their orations, let them play their prizes in matters of less weight, and not in such wherein the city for a little pleasure must suffer a great damage, but they for their well speaking must well have3 . Lastly for lenity, it is to be used towards those that will be our friends hereafter, rather than towards such, as4 being suffered to live, will still be as they are, not a jot the less our enemies. In sum I say only this, that if you follow my advice, you shall do that which is both just in respect of the Mytilenæans, and profitable for yourselves: whereas if you decree otherwise, you do not gratify them, but condemn yourselves. For if these have justly revolted, you must unjustly have had dominion over them. Nay1 though your dominion be against reason, yet if you resolve to hold it, you must also, as a matter conducing thereunto, against reason punish them; or else you must give your dominion over, that you may be good without danger. But if you consider what was likely they would have done to you, if they had prevailed, you cannot but think them worthy the same punishment; nor be less sensible, you that have escaped, than they that have conspired; especially they having done the injury first. For such as do an injury without precedent cause, persecute most, and even to the death, him they have done it to; as jealous of the danger his remaining enemy may create him: for he that is wronged without cause, and escapeth, will commonly be more cruel than if it were against any enemy on equal quarrel. Let us not therefore betray ourselves, but in contemplation2 of what you were near suffering, and how you once prized above all things else to have them in your power, requite them now accordingly. Be not softened at the sight of their present estate, nor forget the danger that hung over our own heads so lately. Give not only unto these their deserved punishment, but also unto the rest of our confederates a clear example, that death is their sentence whensoever they shall rebel. Which when they know, you shall the less often have occasion to neglect your enemies, and fight against your own confederates.”

41. To this purpose spake Cleon. After him Diodotus the son of Eucrates, who also in the former assembly opposed most the putting of the Mytilenæans to death, stood forth and spake as followeth.

the oration of diodotus.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Diodotus.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1 2. Oration of Diodotus.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Diodotus.

42. “I will neither blame those who have propounded the business of the Mytilenæans to be again debated, nor commend those that find fault with often consulting in affairs of great importance. But I am of opinion that nothing is so contrary to good counsel as these two, haste and anger: whereof the one is ever accompanied with madness, and the other with want of judgment1 . And whosoever maintaineth that words are not instructors to deeds, either he is not wise, or doth it upon some private interest of his own. Not wise, if he think that future, and not apparent things, may be demonstrated otherwise than by words: interested, if desiring to carry an ill matter, and knowing that a bad cause will not bear a good speech, he go about to deter his opposers and hearers by a good calumniation. But they of all others are most intolerable, that2 when men give public advice, will accuse them also of bribery. For if they charged a man with no more but ignorance, when he had spoken in vain, he might yet depart with the opinion of1 a fool. But when they impute corruption also, if his counsel take place he is still suspected; and if it do not take place, he shall be held not only a fool, but also void of honesty. The commonwealth gets no good by such courses: for through fear hereof it will want counsellors. And the state would do their business for the most part well, if this kind of citizens were they that had least ability in speaking; for they should then persuade the city to the fewer errors. For a good statesman should not go about to terrify those that contradict him, but2 rather to make good his counsel upon liberty of speech. And a wise state ought not either to add unto, or on the other side, to derogate from the honour of him that giveth good advice; nor3 yet punish, nay nor disgrace the man whose counsel they receive not. And then, neither would he that lighteth on good advice4 , deliver anything against his own conscience, out of ambition of further honour and to please the auditory; nor he that doth not, covet thereupon, by gratifying the people some way or other, that he also may endear them5 . 43. But we do here the contrary: and besides, if any man be suspected of corruption, though he give the best counsel that can be given, yet through envy, for this uncertain opinion of his gain, we lose a certain benefit to the commonwealth. And our custom is to hold good counsel, given1 suddenly, no less suspect then bad: by which means, as he that gives the most dangerous counsel, must get the same received by fraud; so also he that gives the most sound advice, is forced by lying to get himself believed. So that the commonwealth is it alone, which by reason of these suspicious2 imaginations, no man can possibly benefit by the plain and open way without artifice. For if any man shall do a manifest good unto the commonwealth, he shall presently be suspected of some secret gain unto himself in particular. We therefore, that in the most important affairs and amidst3 these jealousies do give our advice, have need to foresee further than you, that look not far; and the rather, because we stand accountable for our counsel4 , and you are to render no account of your hearing it. For if the persuader and the persuaded had equal harm, you would be the more moderate judges. But now, according to the passion that takes you, when at any time your affairs miscarry, you punish the sentence of that one only that gave the counsel, not the many sentences of your own that were in fault as well as his.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Diodotus.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Diodotus

44. “For my own part, I stood not forth with any purpose of contradiction in the business of the Mytilenæans, nor to accuse any man. For we contend not now, if we be wise, about the injury done by them, but about the wisest counsel for ourselves. For how great soever be their fault, yet I would never advise to have them put to death, unless it be for our profit; [nor yet would I pardon them1 ,] though they were pardonable, unless it be good for the commonwealth. And in my opinion, our deliberation now is of the future, rather than of the present. And whereas Cleon2 contendeth, that it will be profitable for the future, to put them to death, in that it will keep the rest from rebelling: I contending likewise for the future3 , affirm the contrary. And I desire you not to reject the profit of my advice for the fair pretexts of his; which4 agreeing more with your present anger against the Mytilenæans, may quickly perhaps win your consent. We plead not judicially with the Mytilenæans so as to need arguments of equity, but we consult of them, which way we may serve ourselves of them to our most advantage hereafter. 45. I say therefore, that death hath been in states ordained for a punishment of many offences, and those not so great, but far less than this. Yet encouraged by hope, men hazard themselves: nor did any man ever yet enter into a practice, which he knew he could not go through with. And a city when it revolteth, supposeth itself to be better furnished, either of themselves or by their confederates, than it is, or else it would never take the enterprise in hand. They have it by nature, both men and cities, to commit offences; nor is there any law that can prevent it. For men have gone over all degrees of punishment, augmenting1 them still, in hope to be less annoyed by malefactors. And it is likely that gentler punishments were inflicted of old, even upon the most heinous crimes; but that in tract of time, men continuing to transgress, they were extended afterwards to the taking away of life; and yet they still transgress. And therefore either some greater terror than death must be devised, or death will not be enough for coercion. For poverty will always add boldness to necessity; and wealth, covetousness to pride and contempt. And the other [middle] fortunes, they also through human passion, according as they are severally subject to some insuperable one or other, impel men to danger. But hope and desire2 work this effect in all estates. And this as the leader, that as the companion; this contriving the enterprize, that suggesting the success, are the cause of most crimes that are committed: and being least discerned, are more mischievous than evils seen. Besides these two, fortune also puts men forward as much as anything else1 . For presenting herself sometimes unlooked for, she provoketh some to adventure, though not provided as they ought for the purpose; and specially cities, because they venture for the greatest matters, as liberty and dominion over others; and amongst a generality, every one, though without reason, somewhat the more magnifies himself in particular2 . In a word, it is a thing impossible, and of great simplicity to believe, when human nature is earnestly bent to do a thing, that by force of law or any other danger it can be diverted.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Diodotus.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of Diodotus.

46. “We must not therefore, relying on the security of capital punishment, decree the worst3 against them, nor make them desperate, as if there were no place to repent, and as soon as they can, to cancel their offence. For observe: if a city revolted should know it could not hold out, it would now compound, whilst it were able both to pay us our charges for the present and our tribute for the time to come. But the way that Cleon prescribeth, what city, think you, would not provide itself better than this did; and endure the siege to the very last, if to compound late and soon be all one? And how can it be but detriment to us, to be at charge of long sieges through their obstinacy, and when we have taken a city, to find it exhausted, and to lose the revenue of it for the future? And this revenue is the only strength we have against our enemies. We are not then to be1 exact judges in the punition of offenders, but to look rather how by their moderate punishment we may have our confederate cities, such as they may be able to pay us tribute; and not think to keep them in awe by the rigour of laws, but by the providence of our own actions. But we to the contrary, when we recover a city, which having been free and held under our obedience by force hath revolted justly2 , think now that we ought to inflict some cruel punishment upon them. Whereas we ought rather, not mightily to punish a free city revolted, but mightily to look to it before it revolt, and to prevent the intention of it; but3 when we have overcome them, to lay the fault upon as few as we can. 47. Consider also, if you follow the advice of Cleon, how much you shall offend likewise in this other point. For in all your4 cities the commonalty are now your friends, and either revolt not with the few, or if they be compelled to it by force, they presently turn enemies to them that caused the revolt: whereby when you go to war, you have the commons of the adverse city on your side. But if you shall destroy the commonalty of the Mytilenæans, which did neither partake of the revolt, and as soon as they were armed presently delivered the city into your hands: you shall first do unjustly, to kill such as have done you service; and you shall effect a work besides, which the great men do everywhere most desire. For when they have made a city to revolt, they shall have the people presently on their side; you having foreshewn them by the example, that both the guilty and not guilty must undergo the same punishment. Whereas indeed though they were guilty, yet we ought to dissemble it; to the end that the only party now our friend, may not become our enemy. And for the assuring of our dominion, I think it far more profitable voluntarily to put up an injury, than justly to destroy such as we should not. And that same both justice and profit of revenge, alleged by Cleon, can never possibly be found together in the1 same thing.

48. “You therefore, upon knowledge that this is the best course, not upon compassion or lenity, (for neither would I have you won by that), but upon consideration of what hath been advised, be ruled by me, and proceed to judgment at your own leisure against those whom Paches hath sent hither as guilty, and suffer the rest to enjoy their city. For that will be both good for the future, and also of present terror to the enemy. For he that consulteth wisely, is a sorer enemy than he that assaulteth with the strength of action unadvisedly.”

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. The sentence of Diodotus taketh place.A galley sent out after the former, with a sentence of mercy.The speed of this latter galley to overtake the former that carried the decree of death.The commons of Mytilene very near destruction

49. Thus spake Diodotus. After these two opinions were delivered, the one most opposite to the other, the Athenians were2 at contention which they should decree; and at the holding up of hands they were both sides almost equal: but yet the sentence of Diodotus prevailed. Whereupon they presently in haste sent away another galley, lest not arriving before the former1 they should find the city already destroyed. The first galley set forth before the second a day and a night. But the Mytilenæan ambassadors having furnished this latter with wine and barley cakes, and promised them great rewards if they overtook the other galley, they rowed diligently, at one and the same time both plying their oars, and taking their refection of the said barley cakes steeped in wine and oil; and by turns part of them slept2 , and the other part rowed. It happened also that there blew no wind against them; and the former galley making no great haste, as going on so sad an errand, whereas the former proceeded3 in the manner before mentioned, arrived indeed first, but only so much as Paches had read the sentence, and prepared4 to execute what they had decreed. But presently after came in the other galley, and saved the city from being destroyed. So near were the Mytilenæans to the danger.

About a thousand principal authors of the revolt executed.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.

50. But those whom Paches had sent home as most culpable of the revolt, the Athenians, as Cleon had advised, put to death; being in number somewhat above a thousand. They also razed the walls of Mytilene, and took from them all their galleys. After which they imposed on the Lesbians no more tribute, but having divided their land (all but that of the Methymnæans) into three thousand parts, three hundred of those parts [of the choicest land] they consecrated to the gods1 . And for the rest, they sent men by lot out of their own city to possess it; of whom the Lesbians at the rent of two minæ of silver yearly upon a lot, had the land again to be husbanded by themselves. The Athenians took in all such towns2 also, as the Mytilenæans were masters of in the continent; which were afterwards made subjects to the people of Athens. Thus ended the business touching Lesbos.

Nicias taketh Minoa, an island adjacent to Megara.III. year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.

51. The same summer, after the recovery of Lesbos, the Athenians, under the conduct of Nicias the son of Niceratus, made war on Minoa, an island adjacent to Megara. For the Megareans had built a tower in it, and served themselves of the island for a place of garrison. But Nicias desired that the Athenians might keep their watch upon Megara in that island, as being nearer, and no more at Budorum and Salamis; to the end that the Peloponnesians might not go out thence with their galleys undescried, nor send out pirates, as they had formerly done, and to prohibit the importation of all things to the Megareans by sea. Wherefore when he had first taken two towers that stood out from Nisæa1 , with engines applied from the sea, and so made a free entrance for his galleys between the island and the firm land, he took it in with a wall also from the continent, in that part where it might receive aid by a bridge over the marshes; for it was not far distant from the main land. And, that being in few days finished, he built a fort in the island itself, and leaving there a garrison, carried the rest of his army back.

The Platæans yield the city.The Lacedæmonians refuse to take Platæa by force, but will have it by voluntary surrender.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.Unjust proceedings of the Lacedæmonians.

52. It happened also about the same time of this summer, that the Platæans, having spent their victual and being unable longer to hold out, yielded their city in this manner to the Peloponnesians. The Peloponnesians assaulted the walls, but they within were unable to fight. Whereupon the Lacedæmonian commander, perceiving their weakness, would not take the place by force; (for he had command to that purpose from Lacedæmon, to the end that if they should ever make peace with the Athenians, with conditions of mutual restitution of such cities as on either side had been taken by war, Platæa, as having come in of its own accord, might not be thereby recoverable); but sent a herald to them, who demanded1 whether or no they would give up their city voluntarily into the hands of the Lacedæmonians, and take them for their judges, with power to punish the offenders, but none without form of justice. So said the herald: and they (for they were now at the weakest) delivered up the city accordingly. So the Peloponnesians gave the Platæans food for certain days, till the judges, which were five, should arrive2 from Lacedæmon. And when they were come, no accusation was exhibited; but calling them man by man, they asked of every one only this question: whether they had done to the Lacedæmonians and their confederates in this war any good service. But the Platæans having sued to make their answer more at large, and having appointed Astymachus the son of Asopolaus, and Lacon3 the son of Aeimnestus (who had been heretofore the host of the Lacedæmonians) for their speakers, said as followeth:

the oration of the platæans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Platæans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Platæans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Platæans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Platæans.

53. “Men of Lacedæmon, relying upon you we yielded up our city, not expecting to undergo this, but some more legal manner of proceeding; and we agreed not to stand to the judgment of others, (as now we do1 ), but of yourselves only; conceiving we should so obtain the better justice. But now we fear we have been deceived in both. For we have reason to suspect, both that the trial is capital, and you the judges partial: gathering so much both from that, that there hath not been presented any accusation to which we might answer2 ; and also from this, that the interrogatory is short, and such, as if we answer to it with truth, we shall speak against ourselves, and be easily convinced, if we lie. But since we are on all hands in a strait, we are forced (and it seems our safest way) to try3 what we can obtain by pleading. For, for men in our case, the speech not spoken may give occasion to some to think, that spoken it had preserved us. But besides other inconveniences, the means also of persuasion go ill on our side. For if we had not known one another, we might have helped ourselves by producing testimony in things you knew not. Whereas now, all that we shall say, will be before men that know already what it is. And we fear, not that you mean, because you know us inferior in virtue to yourselves4 , to make that a crime; but lest you bring us to a judgment already judged, to gratify somebody else. 54. Nevertheless, we will produce our reasons of equity against the quarrel of the Thebans, and withal make mention of our services done both to you and to the rest of Greece; and make trial, if by any means we can persuade you. As to that short interrogatory, whether we have any way done good in this present war to the Lacedæmonians aud their confederates, or not: if you ask us as enemies, we say, that if we have done them no good, we have also done them no wrong: if you ask us as friends, then we say, that they rather have done us the injury, in that they made war upon us1 . But in the time of the peace, and in the war against the Medes, we behaved ourselves well: for the one we brake2 not first, and in the other, we were the only Bœotians that joined with you for the delivery of Greece. For though we dwell up in the land, yet we fought by sea at Artemisium; and in the battle fought in this our own territory, we were with you3 ; and whatsoever dangers the Grecians in those times underwent, we were partakers of all, even beyond our strength. And unto you, Lacedæmonians, in particular, when Sparta was in greatest affright after the earthquake, upon the rebellion of the Helotes and seizing of Ithome1 , we sent the third part of our power to assist you; which you have no reason to forget. 55. Such then we showed ourselves in those ancient and most important affairs. It is true, we have been your enemies since; but for that, you are to blame yourselves. For when oppressed by the Thebans we sought league of you, you rejected us; and bade us go to the Athenians that were nearer hand, yourselves being far off2 . Nevertheless, you neither have in this war, nor were to have suffered at our hands any thing that misbecame us. And if we denied to revolt from the Athenians when you bade us, we did you no injury in it. For they both aided us against the Thebans, when you shrunk from us; and it was now no more any honesty to betray them; especially having been well used by them, and we ourselves having sought their league, and being made denizens3 also of their city. Nay, we ought rather to have followed them in all their commands with alacrity. When you or the Athenians have the leading of the confederates, if evil be done, not they that follow are culpable, but you that lead to the evil.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Platæans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Platæans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Platæans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88 1. 2. Oration of the Platæans.

56. “The Thebans have done us many other injuries; but this last, which is the cause of what we now suffer, you yourselves know what it was. For we avenged us but justly of those that in time of peace, and upon the day of our novilunial sacrifice, had surprised our city; and by the law of all nations it is lawful to repel an assailing enemy; and therefore there is no reason you should punish us now for them. For if you shall measure justice by your and their present benefit in the war1 , it will manifestly appear, that you are not judges of the truth, but respecters only of your profit. And yet if the Thebans seem profitable to you now, we and the rest of the Grecians were more1 profitable to you then, when you were in greater danger. For though the Thebans are now on your side, when you invade others; yet at that time when the barbarian came in to impose servitude on all, they were on his. It is but justice, that with our present offence (if we have committed any) you compare our forwardness then; which you will find both greater than our fault, and augmented also by the circumstance of such a season, when it was rare to find any Grecian that durst oppose his valour to Xerxes’ power; and when they were most commended, not that with safety helped to further his invasion2 , but that adventured to do what was most honest, though with danger. But we being of that number, and honoured for it amongst the first, are afraid lest the same shall be now a cause of our destruction; as having chosen rather to follow the Athenians justly, than you profitably. But you should ever have the same opinion in the same case; and think this only to be profitable, that doing what is useful for the present occasion, you reserve withal a constant acknowledgment of the virtue of your good confederates. 57. Consider also, that you are an example of honest dealing to the most of the Grecians. Now if you shall decree otherwise than is just, (for3 this judgment of yours is conspicuous, you that be praised, against us that be not blamed), take heed that they do not dislike that good men should undergo an unjust sentence, though at the hands of better men; or that the spoil of us that have done the Grecians service, should be dedicated in their temples. For it will be thought a horrible matter, that Platæa should be destroyed by Lacedæmonians; and that you, whereas your fathers in honour of our valour inscribed the name of our city on the tripod at Delphi, should now blot it out1 of all Greece, to gratify the Thebans. For we have proceeded to such a degree of calamity, that if the Medes had prevailed, we must have2 perished then; and now the Thebans have overcome us again in you, who were before our greatest friends; and have put us to two great hazards, one before, of famishing if we yielded not, and another now, of a capital sentence. And we Platæans, who even beyond our strength have been zealous in the defence of the Grecians, are now abandoned and left unrelieved by them all. 58. But3 we beseech you for those gods’ sakes, in whose names once we made mutual league, and for our valour’s sake shown in the behalf of the Grecians, to be moved towards us; and, if at the persuasion of the Thebans you have determined aught against us, to change your minds, and reciprocally to require at the hands of the Thebans this courtesy, that whom you ought to spare, they would be contented not to kill, and so receive an honest benefit in recompense of a wicked one; and not to bestow pleasure upon others, and receive wickedness1 upon yourselves in exchange. For though to take away our lives be a matter quickly done, yet to make the infamy of it cease will be work enough. For being none of your enemies, but well–willers, and such as have entered into the war upon constraint, you cannot put us to death with justice. Therefore if you will judge uncorruptly, you ought to secure our persons; and to remember that you received us by our own voluntary submission, and with hands upheld, (and it is the law among Grecians, not to put such to death), besides that we have from time to time2 been beneficial to you. For look upon the sepulchres of your fathers, whom, slain by the Medes and buried in this territory of ours, we have yearly honoured at the public charge both with vestments3 and other rites, and of such things as our land hath produced, we have offered unto them the first fruits of it all, as friends in an amicable land, and confederates, use to do to those that have formerly been their fellows in arms. But now by a wrong sentence, you shall do the contrary of this. For consider this. Pausanias, as he thought, interred these men in amicable ground, and amongst their friends. But you, if you slay us, and of Platæis make Thebais, what do you but leave your fathers and kindred, deprived of the honours they now have, in an hostile territory and amongst the very men that slew them? And moreover, put into servitude that soil whereon the Grecians were put into liberty? And make desolate the temples wherein they prayed when they prevailed against the Medes? And destroy the patrial sacrifices which were instituted by the builders and founders of the same?

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Platæans.

59. “These things are not for your glory, men of Lacedæmon; nor to violate the common institutions of Greece and wrong your progenitors, nor to destroy us that have done you service for the hatred of another, when you have received no injury from us yourselves: but to spare our lives, to relent, to have a moderate compassion, in contemplation not only of the greatness of the punishment, but also of who we are that must suffer, and of the uncertainty where calamity may light, and that undeservedly. Which we1 , as becometh us and our need compelleth us to do, cry aloud unto the common gods of Greece to persuade you unto; producing the oath sworn by your fathers, to put you in mind; and also we become here sanctuary men at the sepulchres of your fathers, crying out upon the dead, not to suffer themselves to be in the power of the Thebans, nor to let their greatest friends be betrayed into the hands of their greatest enemies; remembering them of that day, upon which though we have done glorious acts in their company, yet we are in danger at this day of most miserable suffering. But to make an end of speaking, (which is, as necessary, so most bitter to men in our case, because the hazard of our lives cometh so soon after), for a conclusion we say, that it was not to the Thebans that we rendered our city, (for we would rather have died of famine, the most base perdition of all other), but we came out on trust in you. And it is but justice, that if we cannot persuade you, you should set us again in the estate we were in, and let us undergo the danger at our own election. Also we require1 you, men of Lacedæmon, not only not to deliver us Platæans, who have been most zealous in the service of the Grecians, especially being sanctuary men, out of your own hands and your own trust into the hands of our most mortal enemies the Thebans, but also to be our saviours, and not to destroy us utterly, you that set at liberty all other Grecians.”

60. Thus spake the Platæans. But the Thebans, fearing lest the Lacedæmonians might relent at their oration, stood forth and said, that since the Platæans had had the liberty of a longer speech, (which they thought they should not), than for answer to the question was necessary, they also desired to speak; and being commanded to say on, spake to this effect:

the oration of the thebans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Thebans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Thebans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Thebans.

61. “If these men had answered briefly to the question, and not both turned against us with an accusation, and also out of the purpose, and wherein they were not charged, made much apology and commendation of themselves in things unquestioned, we had never asked leave to speak. But as it is, we are to the one point to answer, and to confute the other, that neither the fault of us, nor their own reputation may do them good; but your sentence may be guided by hearing of the truth of both. The quarrel between us and them arose at first from this; that when we had built Platæa last1 of all the cities of Bœotia, together with some other places which, having driven out the promiscuous nations, we had then in our dominion, they would not (as was ordained at first) allow us to be their leaders, but being the only men of all the Bœotians that transgressed the common ordinance of the country2 , when they should have been compelled to their duty they turned unto the Athenians, and together with them did us many evils; for which they likewise suffered as many from us. 62. But when the barbarian invaded Greece, then, say they, that they of all the Bœotians only also medized not. And this is the thing wherein they both glory most themselves, and most detract from us. Now we confess they medized not; because also the Athenians did not. Nevertheless, when the Athenians afterwards invaded the rest of the Grecians, in the same kind then of all the Bœotians they only Atticized. But take now into your consideration withal, what form of government we were in both the one and the other, when we did this. For then had we our city governed, neither by an oligarchy with laws common to all, nor by a democracy; but the state was managed by a few with authority absolute, than which there is nothing more contrary to laws and moderation, nor more approaching unto tyranny. And these few, hoping yet further, if the Medes prevailed, to increase their own power, kept the people under and furthered the coming in of the barbarian. And so did the whole city, but it was not then master of itself; nor doth it deserve to be upbraided with what it did when they had no laws [but were at the will of others]. But when the Medes were gone and our city had laws1 , consider now, when the Athenians attempted to subdue all Greece, and this territory of ours with the rest, wherein through sedition they had gotten many places already, whether by giving them battle at Coroneia and defeating them, we delivered not Bœotia from servitude then, and do not also now with much zeal assist you in the asserting of the rest, and find not more horses and more provision of war than any of the confederates besides. And so much be spoken by way of apology to our medizing.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Thebans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Thebans.

63. “And we will endeavour to prove now, that the Grecians have been rather wronged by you, and that you are more worthy of all manner of punishment. You became, you say, confederates and denizens of Athens, for to be righted against us. Against1 us then only the Athenians should have come with you, and not you with them have gone to the invasion of the rest; especially when if the Athenians would have led you whither you would not, you had the league of the Lacedæmonians made with you against the Medes, which you so often object, to have resorted unto; which was sufficient not only to have protected you from us, but, which is the main matter, to have secured you to take what course you had pleased. But voluntarily, and without constraint, you rather chose to follow the Athenians. And you say, it had been a dishonest thing to have betrayed your benefactors. But it is more dishonest, and more unjust by far, to betray the Grecians universally, to2 whom you have sworn, than to betray the Athenians alone; especially when these go about to deliver Greece from subjection, and the other to subdue it. Besides, the requital you make the Athenians is not proportionable, nor free from dishonesty. For you, as you say yourselves, brought in the Athenians to right you against injuries; and you cooperate with them in injuring others. And howsoever, it is not so dishonest to leave a benefit unrequited, as to make such a requital, as though justly due cannot be justly done1 . 64. But you have made it apparent, that even then it was not for the Grecians’ sake that you alone of all the Bœotians medized not, but because the Athenians did not; yet now you that would do as the Athenians did, and contrary to what the Grecians did, claim favour of these, for what you did for the others’ sake2 . But there is no reason for that: but as you have chosen the Athenians, so let them help you in this trial. And produce not the oath3 of the former league, as if that should save you now. For you have relinquished it: and contrary to the same, have rather helped the Athenians to subdue the Æginetæ and others4 , than hindered them from it. And this you not only did voluntarily, and having laws the same you have now, and none forcing you to it, as there did us; but also rejected our last invitation, a little before the shutting up of your city, to quietness and neutrality. Who can therefore more deservedly be hated of the Grecians in general, than you, that pretend honesty1 to their ruin? And those acts wherein formerly, as you say, you have been beneficial to the Grecians, you have now made apparent to be none of yours, and made true proof of what your own nature inclines you to. For with Athenians you have walked in the way of injustice. And thus much we have laid open touching our involuntary medizing, and your voluntary atticizing.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Thebans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Thebans.

65. “And for this last injury you charge us with, namely, the unlawful invading of your city in time of peace and of your new–moon2 sacrifice, we do not think, no not in this action, that we have offended so much as you yourselves. For though we had done unjustly, if we had assaulted your city or wasted your territory as enemies, of our own accord; yet when the prime men of your own city, both for wealth and nobility, willing to discharge you of foreign league, and conform you to the common institutions3 of all Bœotia, did of their own accord call us in, wherein lieth the injury then? For they that lead transgress, rather than they that follow. But as we conceive, neither they nor we have transgressed at all. But being citizens as well as you, and having more to hazard, they opened their own gates and took us into the city as friends, not as enemies, with intention to keep the ill–affected from being worse, and to do right to the good: taking upon them to be moderators of your councils; and not to deprive the city of your persons, but to reduce you into one body with the rest of your kindred; and not to engage you in hostility with any, but to settle you in peace with all. 66. And for an argument that we did not this as enemies; we did harm to no man, but proclaimed, that if any man were willing to have the city governed after the1 common form of all Bœotia, he should come to us. And you came willingly at first, and were quiet2 . But afterwards, when you knew we were but few, though we might seem to have done somewhat more than was fit to do without the consent of your multitude, you did not by us as we did by you, first innovate nothing in fact, and then with words persuade us to go forth again; but contrary to the composition, assaulted us. And for those men you slew in the affray, we grieve not so much; for they suffered by a kind of law. But to kill those that held up their hands for mercy, whom taken alive you afterwards had promised to spare, was not this a horrible cruelty3 ? You committed in this business three crimes, one in the neck of another; first the breach of the composition, then the death that followed of our men, and thirdly the falsifying of your promise to save them, if we did no hurt to any thing of yours in the fields. And yet you say that we are the transgressors; and that you for your parts deserve not to undergo a judgment. But it is otherwise. And if these men judge aright, you shall be punished now for all your1 crimes at once.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Oration of the Thebans.

67. “We have herein, men of Lacedæmon, been thus large both for your sakes and ours: for yours, to let you see, that if you condemn them, it will be no injustice; for ours, that the equity of our revenge may the better appear. Be2 not moved with the recital of their virtues of old, if any they had; which though they ought to help the wronged, should double the punishment of such as commit wickedness, because their offence doth not become them. Nor let them fare ever the better for their lamentation or your compassion, when they cry out upon your fathers’ sepulchres and their own want of friends. For we on the other side affirm, that the youth of our city suffered harder measure from them: and their fathers, partly slain at Coroneia in bringing Bœotia to your confederation, and partly alive and now old and deprived of their children, make far juster supplication to you for revenge. And pity belongeth to such as suffer undeservedly; but on the contrary, when men are worthily punished, as these are, it is to be rejoiced at. And for their present want of friends, they may thank themselves. For of their own accord they rejected the better confederates. And the law hath been broken by them, without precedent wrong from us, in that they condemned our men spitefully rather than judicially; in which point we shall now come short of requiting them: for they shall suffer legally, and not, as they say they do, with hands upheld from battle, but as men that have put themselves upon trial by consent. Maintain therefore, ye Lacedæmonians, the law of the Grecians against these men that have transgressed it; and give unto us, that have suffered contrary to the law, the just recompense of our alacrity in your service. And let not the words of these give us a repulse from you; but set up an example to the Grecians, by1 presenting [unto these men] a trial, not of words, but of facts; which, if they be good, a short narration of them will serve the turn; if ill, compt orations do but veil them. But if such as have the authority, as you have now, would collect the matter to a head, and according as any man should make answer thereunto, so proceed to sentence2 , men would be less in the search of fair speeches, wherewith to excuse the foulness of their actions.”

The Lacedæmonians proceed with their question.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.The Platæans are put to death: twenty–five Athenians slain with them.Platæa pulled down.The Lacedæmonians in their sentence upon the Platæans have more respect to their own profit, than to the merit of the cause.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.

68. Thus spake the Thebans. And the Lacedæmonian judges, conceiving their interrogatory to stand well, namely, whether they had received any benefit by them or not, in this present war: for they had indeed3 intreated them both at other times, according to the ancient league of Pausanias after the Medan war, to stand neutral; and also a little before the siege the Platæans had rejected their proposition, of being common friends to both sides according to the same league: taking themselves4 , in respect of these their just offers, to be now discharged of the league, and to have received evil at their hands, caused them one by one to be brought forth, and having asked them again the same question, whether they had any way benefited the Lacedæmonians and their confederates in this present war or not; as they answered Not, led them aside and slew them, not exempting any. Of the Platæans themselves they slew no less than two hundred; of the Athenians who were besieged with them, twenty–five. The women they made slaves; and the Thebans assigned the city for a year, or thereabouts, for a habitation to such Megareans as in sedition had been driven from their own, and to all those Platæans which, living, were of the Theban faction. But afterwards, pulling it all down to the very foundation, they built a hospital1 in the place, near the temple of Juno, of two hundred foot diameter, with chambers on every side in circle both above and below; using therein the roofs and doors of the Platæans’ buildings. And of the rest of the stuff that was in the city–wall, as brass and iron, they made bedsteads, and dedicated them to Juno; to whom also they built a stone chapel of a hundred foot over. The land they confiscated, and set it to farm afterwards for ten years to the Thebans. So far were the Lacedæmonians alienated from the Platæans, especially, or rather altogether for the Thebans’ sake2 , whom they thought useful to them in the war now on foot. So ended the business at Platæa, in the fourscore and thirteenth year after their league made with the Athenians.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. The 40 galleys, with Alcidas, come weather–beaten home.

69. The forty galleys of Peloponnesus, which having been sent to aid the Lesbians fled, as hath been related, through the wide sea, chased by the Athenians and tossed by storms on the coast of Crete, came thence dispersed into Peloponnesus: and found thirteen galleys, Leucadians and Ambraciotes, in the haven of Cyllene, with Brasidas the son of Tellis, come hither to be of council with Alcidas. For the Lacedæmonians, seeing they failed of Lesbos, determined with their fleet augmented to sail to Corcyra, which was in sedition; (there being but twelve Athenian galleys about Naupactus); to the end they might be there before the supply of a greater fleet should come from Athens. So Brasidas and Alcidas employed themselves in that.

The sedition of Corcyra occasioned by the captives that come from Corinth:who persuade the renouncing of their league with Athens.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.Peithias, one of the Athenian faction, accused and absolved, accuseth some of the other faction.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.Peithias and others slain in the senate.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.

70. The sedition in Corcyra began upon the coming home of those captives, which were taken in the battles by sea at Epidamnus, and released afterwards by the Corinthians, at the ransom, as was voiced, of eighty talents1 , for which they had given security to their hosts; but in fact, for that they had persuaded the Corinthians, that they would put Corcyra into their power. These men going from man to man, solicited1 the city to revolt from the Athenians. And two galleys being now come in, one of Athens, another of Corinth, with ambassadors from both those states, the Corcyræans upon audience of them both, decreed to hold the Athenians for their confederates on2 articles agreed on; but withal to remain friends to the Peloponnesians, as they had formerly been. There was one Peithias, voluntary host3 of the Athenians, and that had been principal magistrate of the people. Him these men called into judgment, and laid to his charge a practice to bring the city into the servitude of the Athenians. He again, being acquit, called in question five of the wealthiest of the same men, saying, they had cut certain stakes4 in the ground belonging to the temples both of Jupiter and of Alcinus; upon every of which there lay a penalty of a stater1 . And the cause going against them, they took sanctuary in the temples, to the end, the sum being great, they might pay it by portions [as they should be taxed]. But Peithias (for he was also of the senate) obtained that the law should proceed. These five being by the law excluded the senate2 , and understanding that Peithias, as long as he was a senator, would cause the people to hold for friends and foes the same that were so to the Athenians, conspired with the rest3 , and armed with daggers suddenly brake into the senate–house, and slew both Peithias and others, as well private men as senators, to the number of about sixty persons; only a few of those of Peithias his faction, escaped in the Athenian galley that lay yet in the harbour. 71. When they had done this, and called the Corcyræans to an assembly, they told them, that what they had done was for the best, and that they should not be now in bondage to the Athenians: and for the future they advised them to be in quiet, and to receive neither party with more than one galley at once, and to take them for enemies if they were more. And when they had spoken, forced them to decree it accordingly. They also presently sent ambassadors to Athens, both to show that it was fit for them to do4 what they had done, and also to dissuade such Corcyræans as were fled thither of the other faction, from doing any thing to their prejudice, for fear the matter should fall into a relapse.

The Lacedæmonian faction assail the commonsThe commons overcome the oligarchicals.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.

72. When these arrived, the Athenians apprehended both the ambassadors themselves, as seditious persons, and also all those Corcyræans whom they had there prevailed with; and sent them to custody in Ægina. In the meantime, upon the coming in of a galley of Corinth with ambassadors from Lacedæmon, those that managed the state assailed the commons, and overcame them in fight. And night coming on, the commons fled into the citadel and the higher parts of the city; where they rallied themselves and encamped, and made themselves masters of the haven called the Hillaique haven. But the nobility seized on the marketplace, (where also the most of them dwelt), and on the haven on the side toward the continent1 . 73. The next day they skirmished a little with shot; and both parts sent abroad into the villages2 to solicit the slaves with promise of liberty, to take their parts. And the greatest part of the slaves took part with the commons; and the other side had an aid of eight hundred men from the continent. 74. The next day but one they fought again, and the people had the victory, having the odds both in strength of places and in number of men. And the women also manfully assisted them, throwing tiles from the houses, and enduring the tumult even beyond the condition of their sex. The few began to fly about twilight3 , and fearing lest the people should even with their shout1 take the arsenal, and so come on and put them to the sword, to stop their passage set fire on the houses in circle about the market–place and upon others near it. Much goods of merchants was hereby burnt, and the whole city, if the wind had risen and carried the flame that way, had been in danger to have been destroyed. When the people had gotten the victory, the Corinthian galley stole away; and most of the auxiliaries gat over privily into the continent.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.

75. The next day Nicostratus, the son of Diitrephes, an Athenian commander, came in with twelve galleys and five hundred Messenian men of arms from Naupactus; and both negociated a reconciliation, and induced them (to the end they might agree) to condemn ten of the principal authors of the sedition, (who presently fled), and to let the rest alone, with articles both between themselves and with the Athenians, to esteem friends and enemies the same the Athenians did. When he had done this, he would have been gone; but the2 people persuaded him before he went, to leave behind him five of his galleys, the better to keep their adversaries from stirring, and to take as many of theirs, which they would man with Corcyræans and send with him. To this he agreed; and they made a list of those that should embark, consisting altogether of their enemies1 . But these, fearing to be sent to Athens, took sanctuary in the temple of Castor and Pollux. But Nicostratus endeavoured to raise them, and spake to them to put them into courage2 . But when he could not prevail, the people, arming themselves, on pretence that their diffidence to go along with Nicostratus proceeded from some evil intention, took away their arms out of their houses; and would also have killed some of them such as they chanced on, if Nicostratus had not hindered them. Others also when they saw this, took sanctuary in the temple of Juno; and they were in all above four hundred. But the people fearing some innovation, got them by persuasion to rise: and conveying them into the island that lieth over against the temple of Juno, sent them their necessaries thither.

Alcidas and the Peloponnesians arrive and fight at sea against the Corcyræans.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.

76. The sedition standing in these terms, the fourth or fifth day after the putting over of these men into the island arrived the Peloponnesian fleet from Cyllene, where since their voyage of Ionia they had lain at anchor, to the number of three and fifty sail. Alcidas had the command of these, as before; and Brasidas came with him as a counsellor. And having first put in at Sybota, a haven of the continent, they came on the next morning by break of day toward Corcyra. 77. The Corcyræans, being in great tumult and fear both of the seditious within and of the invasion without, made ready threescore galleys; and still as any of them were manned, sent them out against the enemy: whereas the Athenians had advised them to give leave to them to go forth first, and then the Corcyræans to follow after with the whole fleet together. When their galleys came forth thus thin, two of them presently turned to the enemy; and in others, they that were aboard were together by the ears amongst themselves: and nothing was done in due order. The Peloponnesians seeing their confusion, opposed themselves to the Corcyræans with twenty galleys only; the rest they set in array against the twelve galleys of Athens, whereof the Salaminia and the Paralus were two. 78. The Corcyræans having come disorderly up, and by few at once, were on their1 part in much distress; but the Athenians, fearing the enemy’s number, and doubting to be environed, would never come up to charge the enemy where they stood thick, nor would set upon the galleys that were placed in the midst, but charged one end of them, and drowned one of their galleys. And when the Peloponnesians afterwards had put their fleet into a circular figure, they then went about and about it, endeavouring to put them into disorder. Which they that were fighting against the Corcyræans perceiving, and fearing such another chance as befel them formerly at Naupactus, went to their aid; and uniting themselves, came upon the Athenians all together. But they retiring rowed astern, intending that the Corcyræans should take that time to escape in; they themselves in the meantime going as leisurely back as was possible, and keeping the enemy still a–head. Such was this battle, and it ended about sunset.

Alcidas a coward

79. The Corcyræans, fearing lest the enemy in pursuit of their victory should have come directly against the city, or take aboard the men which they had put over into the island, or do them some other mischief, fetched back the men into the temple of Juno again, and guarded the city. But the Peloponnesians, though they had won the battle, yet durst not invade the city; but having taken thirteen of the Corcyræan galleys, went back into the continent from whence they had set forth. The next day they came not unto the city, no more than before, although it was in great tumult and affright, and though also Brasidas (as it is reported) advised Alcidas to it, but had not equal authority; but only landed soldiers at the promontory of Leucimna, and wasted their territory.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2. Threescore sail of Athenians come to aid the Corcyræan commons.The Peloponnesians depart with their fleet.The people, upon the coming in of the Athenians, most cruelly put to death whomsoever they can of the contrary faction.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.Description of the behaviour of the people in this sedition.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.The manners of the seditious.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.

80. In the meantime the people of Corcyra, fearing extremely lest those galleys should come against the city, not only conferred with those in sanctuary and with the rest, about how the city might be preserved, but also induced some of them to go aboard. For notwithstanding the sedition they manned thirty galleys, in expectation that the fleet of the enemy should have entered1 . But the Peloponnesians, having been wasting of their fields till it was about noon, went their ways again. Within2 night the Corcyræans had notice by fires of threescore Athenian galleys coming toward them from Leucas; which the Athenians, upon intelligence of the sedition and of the fleet to go to Corcyra under Alcidas, had sent to aid them, under the conduct of Eurymedon the son of Thucles. 81. The Peloponnesians therefore, as soon as night came, sailed speedily home, keeping still the shore, and causing their galleys to be carried over at the isthmus of Leucas1 , that they might not come in sight as they went about. But the people of Corcyra hearing of the Attic galleys coming in, and the going off of the Peloponnesians, brought into the city those Messenians2 which before were without, and appointing the galleys which they had furnished, to come about into the Hillaique haven, whilst accordingly they went about, slew all the contrary faction they could lay hands on; and also afterwards threw overboard, out of the same galleys, all those they had before persuaded to embark, and so went thence3 . And coming to the temple of Juno, they persuaded fifty of those that had taken sanctuary, to refer themselves to a legal trial; all which they condemned to die. But the most of the sanctuary men, that is, all those that were not induced to stand to trial by law, when they saw what was done, killed one another there–right in the temple; some hanged themselves on trees, every one as he had means made himself away1 . And for seven days together that Eurymedon stayed there with his sixty galleys, the Corcyræans did nothing but kill such of their city as they took to be their enemies; laying2 to their charge a practice to have everted the popular government. Amongst whom, some were slain upon private hatred, and some by their debtors, for the money which they had lent them. All forms of death were then seen; and (as in such cases it usually falls out) whatsoever had happened at any time, happened also then, and more3 . For the father slew his son; men were dragged out of the temples, and then slain hard by; and some immured in the temple of Bacchus, died within it. So cruel was this sedition; and seemed so the more, because it was of these the first. 82. For afterwards all Greece, as a man may say, was in commotion; and quarrels arose everywhere between the patrons of the commons, that sought to bring in the Athenians, and the few, that desired to bring in the Lacedæmonians. Now in time of peace, they could have had no pretence, nor would have been so forward to call them in; but being war, and confederates to be had for either party, both to hurt their enemies and strengthen themselves, such as desired alteration easily got them to come in1 . And many and heinous things happened in the cities through this sedition, which though they have been before, and shall be ever as long as human nature is the same, yet2 they are more calm, and of different kinds, according to the several conjunctures. For in peace and prosperity, as well cities as private men are better minded, because they be not plunged into necessity of doing any thing against their will. But war, taking away the affluence of daily necessaries, is a most violent master, and conformeth most men’s passions to the present occasion. The cities therefore being3 now in sedition, and those that fell into it later having heard what had been done in the former, they far exceeded the same in newness of conceit, both for the art of assailing and for the strangeness of their revenges. The received value of names imposed for signification of things, was changed into arbitrary4 . For inconsiderate boldness, was counted true–hearted5 manliness: provident deliberation, a handsome fear: modesty, the cloak of cowardice: to be wise in every thing, to be lazy in every thing. A furious suddenness was reputed a point of valour. To re–advise for the better security, was held for a fair pretext of tergiversation. He that was1 fierce, was always trusty; and he that contraried such a one, was suspected. He that did insidiate, if it took, was a wise man; but he that could smell out a trap laid, a more dangerous2 man than he. But he that had been so provident as not to need to do the one or the other, was said to be a dissolver of society3 , and one that stood in fear of his adversary. In brief, he that could outstrip another in the doing of an evil act, or that could persuade another thereto that never meant it, was commended. To be kin to another, was not to be so near as to be of his society: because these were ready to undertake any thing, and not to dispute it. For these societies were not made upon prescribed laws of profit, but for rapine4 , contrary to the laws established. And as for mutual trust amongst them, it was confirmed not so much by divine law, as by the communication of guilt. And what was well advised of their adversaries, they received with an eye to their actions, to see whether they were too strong for them or not, and not ingenuously5 . To be revenged was in more request than never to have received injury. And for oaths (when any were) of reconcilement, being administered in the present for necessity, were of force to such as had otherwise no power; but upon opportunity, he that first durst6 thought his revenge sweeter by the trust, than if he had taken the open way. For they did not only put to account the safeness of that course, but having circumvented their adversary by fraud, assumed to themselves withal a mastery in point of wit. And dishonest men for the most part are sooner called able, than simple men honest1 : and men are ashamed of this title, but take a pride in the other.

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.

The cause of all this is2desire of rule, out of avarice and ambition; and the zeal of contention from those two proceeding. For such as were of authority in the cities, both of the one and the other faction, preferring under decent titles, one the political equality of the multitude, the other the moderate aristocracy; though in words they seemed to be servants of the public, they made it in effect but the prize of their contention: and striving by whatsoever means to overcome, both ventured on most horrible outrages, and3 prosecuted their revenges still farther, without any regard of justice or the public good, but limiting them, each faction, by their own appetite: and stood ready, whether by unjust sentence, or with their own hands, when they should get power, to satisfy their present spite. So that neither side made account to have any thing the sooner done for religion [of an oath], but he was most commended, that could pass a business against the hair with a fair oration4 . The neutrals of the city were destroyed by both factions; partly because they would not side with them, and partly for envy that they should so escape.

In seditions and confusion, they that distrust their wits, suddenly use their hands, and defeat the stratagems of the more subtle sort.

83. Thus was wickedness on foot in every kind throughout all Greece by the occasion of their sedition. Sincerity1 (whereof there is much in a generous nature) was laughed down: and it was far the best course, to stand diffidently against each other, with their thoughts in battle array, which no speech was so powerful, nor oath terrible enough to disband. And being all of them, the more they considered, the more desperate of assurance, they rather contrived how to avoid a mischief than were able to rely on any man’s faith. And for the most part, such as had the least wit had the best success: for2 both their own defect, and the subtlety of their adversaries, putting them into a great fear to be overcome in words, or at least in pre–insidiation, by their enemies’ great craft, they therefore went roundly to work with them with deeds. Whereas the other, not caring though they were perceived, and thinking they needed not to take by force what they might do by plot, were thereby unprovided, and so the more easily slain3 .

year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.

84. In1 Corcyra then were these evils for the most part committed first; and so were all other, which either such men as have been governed with pride rather than modesty by those on whom they take revenge, were like to commit in taking it; or which such men as stand upon their delivery from long poverty, out of covetousness, chiefly to have their neighbours’ goods, would contrary to justice give their voices to: or which men, not for covetousness, but assailing each other on equal terms, carried away with the unruliness of their anger would cruelly and inexorably execute. And the common course of life being at that time confounded in the city, the nature of man, which is wont even against law to do evil, gotten now above the law, showed itself with delight to be too weak for passion, too strong for justice, and enemy to all superiority. Else they would never have preferred revenge before innocence, nor lucre (whensoever the envy of it was without power to do them hurt) before justice. And for the laws common to all men in such cases, (which, as long as they be in force, give hope to all that suffer injury), men desire not to leave them standing against the need a man in danger may have of them, but by their revenges on others to be beforehand in subverting them.

The Athenian fleet goes away. Five hundred of the nobility that escaped, seize on such places as belonged to the Corcyræans in the continent.They come over and fortify themselves in Istone.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 1. 2.

85. Such were the passions of the Corcyræans, first of all other Grecians, towards one another in the city: and Eurymedon and the Athenians departed with their galleys. Afterwards, such of the Corcyræans as had fled, (for there escaped about five hundred of them), having seized on the forts in the continent, impatronized themselves of their own territory on the other side, and from thence came over and robbed the islanders and did them much hurt; and there grew a great famine in the city. They likewise sent ambassadors to Lacedæmon and Corinth, concerning their reduction1 ; and when they could get nothing done, having gotten boats and some auxiliary soldiers, they passed, awhile after, to the number of about six hundred into the island. Where when they had set fire on their boats, that they might trust to nothing but to make themselves masters of the field, they went up into the hill Istone; and having there fortified themselves with a wall, infested those within1 , and were masters of the territory.

A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 2. The Athenians send twenty galleys into Sicily, in pretence to aid the Leontines, but with intention to hinder the coming of corn from thence into Peloponnesus, and to spy out the possibility of subduing that island.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 2.The end of the fifth summer.

86. In the end of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty galleys into Sicily, under the command of Laches the son of Melanopus, and Charœadas the son of Euphiletus: for the Syracusians and the Leontines were now warring against each other. The2 confederates of the Syracusians were all the Doric cities, except the Camarinæans; which also in the beginning of this war were reckoned in the league of the Lacedæmonians, but had not yet aided them in the war. The confederates of the Leontines, were the Chalcidique cities together with Camarina. And in Italy, the Locrians were with the Syracusians; but the Rhegians, according to their consanguinity, took part with the Leontines. Now the confederates3 of the Leontines, in respect of their ancient alliance with the Athenians, as also for that they were Ionians, obtained of the Athenians to send them galleys; for that the Leontines were deprived by the Syracusians of the use both of the land and sea. And so the people of Athens sent aid unto them, pretending propinquity, but intending both to hinder the transportation of corn from thence into Peloponnesus, and also to test the possibility of taking the states of Sicily into their own hands. These arriving at Rhegium in Italy, joined with the confederates and began the war. And so ended this summer.

The plague again at Athens.

88. The next winter, the sickness fell upon the Athenians again, (having indeed never totally left the city, though there was some intermission); and continued above a year after; but the former lasted two years: insomuch as nothing afflicted the Athenians, or impaired their strength more than it. For the number that died of it, of men of arms enrolled1 were no less than four thousand four hundred; and horsemen, three hundred; of the other multitude, innumerable. There happened also at the same time many earthquakes, both in Athens and Eubœa, and also amongst the Bœotians; and in Bœotia2 , chiefly at Orchomenus.

The Athenians invade the Liparæans, and islands called the isles of Æolus.year v. A. C. 427. Ol. 88. 2.

88. The Athenians and Rhegians that were now in Sicily, made war the same winter on the islands called the islands of Æolus, with thirty galleys. For in summer, it was impossible to war upon them for the shallowness3 of the water. These islands are inhabited by the Liparæans, who are a colony of the Cnidians, and dwell in one of the same islands, no great one, called Lipara; and thence they go forth and husband the rest, which are Didyme, Strongyle, and Hiera. The inhabitants of those places have an opinion, that in Hiera Vulcan exerciseth the craft of a smith. For it is seen to send forth abundance of fire in the day time, and of smoke in the night1 . These islands are adjacent to the territory of the Siculi and Messanians, but were confederates of the Syracusians. When the Athenians had wasted their fields, and saw they would not come in, they put off again and went to Rhegium. And so ended this winter, and the fifth year of this war written by Thucydides.

year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88.2. 3.Earthquakes about Eubœa, and inundations.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3.The natural cause of inundations given by the author.

89. The next summer the Peloponnesians and their confederates came as far as the isthmus, under the conduct of Agis the son of Archidamus, intending to have invaded Attica; but by reason of the many earthquakes that then happened they turned back, and the invasion proceeded not. About the same time, (Eubœa being then troubled with earthquakes), the sea came in at Orobiæ on the part which then was land, and being impetuous withal, overflowed most part of the city, whereof part it covered, and part it washed down, and made lower in the return2 ; so that it is now sea which before was land. And the people, as many as could not prevent it by running up into the higher ground, perished. Another inundation like unto this happened in the isle of Atalanta, on the coast of Locris of the Opuntians, and carried away part of the Athenians’ fort there; and of two galleys that lay on dry land, it brake one in pieces. Also there happened at Peparethus a certain rising1 of the water, but it brake not in: and a part of the wall, the town–house, and some few houses besides, were overthrown by the earthquakes2 . The cause of such inundation, for my part, I take to be this: that the earthquake, where it was very great, did there send off the sea; and the sea returning on a sudden, caused the water to come on with greater violence. And it seemeth unto me, that without an earthquake such an accident could never happen.

90. The same summer divers others, as they had several occasions, made war in Sicily: so also did the Sicilians amongst themselves, and the Athenians with their confederates. But I will make mention only of such most memorable things, as were done either by the confederates there with the Athenians, or against the Athenians by the enemy.

year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3. The Athenians win Mylæ.and Messana.

Charœades the Athenian general being slain by the Syracusians, Laches, who was now sole commander of the fleet, together with the confederates made war on Mylæ, a town belonging to Messana. There were in Mylæ two companies3 of Messanians in garrison, the which also laid a certain ambush for those that came up from the fleet. But the Athenians and their confederates both put to flight those that were in ambush, with the slaughter of the most of them; and also assaulting their fortification, forced them on composition both to render the citadel, and to go along with them against Messana. After this, upon the approach of the Athenians and their confederates, the Messanians compounded likewise; and gave them hostages, and such other security as was requisite.

The Athenians send Demosthenes with thirty galleys about Peloponnesus:and Nicias with sixty galleys into the island of Melos.The army of Nicias, and another army from the city of Athens, meet upon a sign given at Tanagra in Bœotia.They overcome the Tanagrians in battle.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3.

91. The same summer the Athenians sent thirty galleys about Peloponnesus, under the command of Demosthenes the son of Alkisthenes, and Proclus the son of Theodorus; and sixty galleys more with two thousand men of arms, commanded by Nicias the son of Niceratus, into Melos. For the Athenians, in respect that the Melians were islanders, and yet would neither be their subjects nor of their league, intended to subdue them. But when upon the wasting of their fields they still stood out, they departed from Melos, and sailed to Oropus in the opposite continent1 . Being there arrived within night, the men of arms left the galleys, and marched presently by land to Tanagra in Bœotia. To which place, upon a sign given, the Athenians that were in the city of Athens came also forth with their whole forces, led by Hipponnicus the son of Callias, and Eurymedon the son of Thucles, and joined with them; and pitching their camp, spent the day in wasting the territory of Tanagra, and lay there the night following. The next day, they defeated in battle such of the Tanagrians as came out against them, and also certain succours sent them from Thebes; and when they had taken up the arms of those that were slain and erected a trophy, they returned back; the one part to Athens, the other to their fleet. And Nicias with his sixty galleys, having first sailed along the coast of Locris and wasted it, came home likewise.

The Lacedæmonians build the city Heracleia.The commodious seat of this new city for the war.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3.

92. About the same time, the Peloponnesians erected the colony of Heracleia in Trachinia, with this intention. The Melians in the whole contain these three parts: Paralians, Hierans, and Trachinians1 . Of these the Trachinians being afflicted with war from the Œtæans their borderers, thought at first to have joined themselves to the Athenians; but fearing that they would not be faithful unto them, they sent to Lacedæmon; choosing for their ambassador Tisamenus. And the Dorians, who are the mother nation to the Lacedæmonians, sent their ambassadors likewise with him with the same requests: for they also were infested with war from the same Œtæans. Upon audience of these ambassadors the Lacedæmonians concluded to send out a colony, both intending the reparation of the injuries done to the Trachinians and to the Dorians; and conceiving withal, that the town would stand very commodiously for their war with the Athenians; inasmuch as they might thereby have a navy ready, where the passage was but short, against Eubœa; and it would much further their conveyance of soldiers into Thrace. And they had their mind wholly bent to the building of the place.

First therefore they asked counsel of the oracle in Delphi1 . And the oracle having bidden them do it, they sent inhabitants thither, both of their own people and of the neighbours about them2 ; and gave leave also to any that would, to go thither, out of the rest of Greece, save only to the Ionians, Achæans, and some few other nations. The conductors of the colony were three Lacedæmonians; Leon, Alcidas, and Damagon. Who taking it in hand, built the city which is now called Heracleia, from the very foundation3 ; being distant from Thermopylæ forty furlongs, and from the sea twenty. Also they made houses for galleys to lie under4 , beginning close to Thermopylæ against the very strait, to the end to have them the more defensible.

The Thessalians infest the new city with continual war, for fear they should be too great.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3.The severity of of the Lacedæmonian government dispeopled the city of Heracleia, and frightened men from it. The Lacedæmonians always severe, not always just.

93. The Athenians, when5 this city was peopled, were at first afraid, and thought it to be set up especially against Eubœa; because from thence to Cenæum, a promontory of Eubœa, the passage is but short. But it fell out afterwards otherwise than they imagined; for they had no great harm by it: the reason whereof was this. That the Thessalians who had the towns of those parts in their power, and upon whose ground it was built6 , afflicted these new planters with a continual war, till they had worn them out: though they were many indeed in the beginning. For being the foundation of the Lacedæmonians, every one went thither boldly, conceiving the city to be an assured one. And1 chiefly the governors themselves sent hither from Lacedæmon, undid the business, and dispeopled the city by frighting most men away; for that they governed severely, and sometimes also unjustly: by which means their neighbours more easily prevailed against them.

Demosthenes warreth on Leucas.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3. Demosthenes invadeth Ætolia at the persuasion of the Messenians.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3. The ambition of Demosthenes the chief cause of his unfortunate enterprise in Ætolia.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3.

94. The same summer, and about the same time that the Athenians stayed in Melos, those other Athenians that were in the thirty galleys about Peloponnesus, slew first certain garrison–soldiers in Ellomenus, a place of Leucadia, by ambushment. But afterwards with a greater fleet, and with the whole power of the Acarnanians; who followed the army, all (but the Œniades) that could bear arms; and with the Zacynthians, and Cephalonians, and fifteen galleys of the Corcyræans, made war against the city itself of Leucas. The Leucadians, though they saw their territory wasted by them, both without the isthmus and within, where the city of Leucas standeth and the temple of Apollo; yet they durst not stir, because the number of the enemy was so great. And the Acarnanians entreated Demosthenes, the Athenian general, to wall them up, conceiving that they might easily be expugned by a siege, and desiring to be rid of a city their continual enemy. But Demosthenes was persuaded at the same time by the Messenians, that seeing so great an army was together, it would be honourable for him to invade the Ætolians; principally, as being enemies to Naupactus: and that if these were subdued, the rest of the continent thereabouts would easily be added to the Athenian dominion. For they alleged, that though the nation of the Ætolians were great and warlike, yet their habitation was in villages unwalled, and those at great distances; and were but light–armed, and might therefore, with no great difficulty, be all subdued before they could unite themselves for defence. And they advised him to take in hand first the Apodotians, next the Ophionians, and after them the Eurytanians; (which are the greatest part of Ætolia, of a most strange language, and that are reported to eat raw flesh1 ); for these being subdued, the rest would easily follow. 95. But he, induced by the Messenians, whom he favoured, but especially because he thought, without the forces of the people of Athens, with the confederates1 only of the continent and with the Ætolians to invade Bœotia by land, going first through the Locri Ozolæ, and so to Cytinium of Doris, having Parnassus on the right hand till the descent thereof into the territory of the Phoceans; which people, for the friendship they ever bore to the Athenians, would, he thought, be willing to follow his army, and if not, might be forced; and upon the Phoceans bordereth Bœotia: putting off therefore with his whole army, against the minds of the Acarnanians, from Leucas, he sailed unto Solium by the shore. And there having communicated his conceit with the Acarnanians, when they would not approve of it because of his refusal to besiege Leucas, he himself with the rest of his army, Cephalonians2 , Zacynthians, and three hundred Athenians the soldiers3 of his own fleet, (for the fifteen galleys of Corcyra were now gone away) warred on the Ætolians; having Œneon, a city of Locris, for the seat of his war. Now these Locrians called Ozolæ, were confederates of the Athenians; and were to meet them with their whole power in the heart of the country. For being confiners on the Ætolians, and using the same manner of arming, it was thought it would be a matter of great utility in the war to have them in their army; for that they knew their manner of fight, and were acquainted with the country.

Hesiod the poet said to have died in this temple of Jupiter Nemeius.The Ætolians unite against the invasion of Demosthenes.

96. Having lain the night with his whole army in the temple of Jupiter Nemeius, (wherein the poet Hesiodus is reported by them that dwell thereabout to have died, foretold by an oracle, that he should die in Nemea), in the morning betimes he dislodged, and marched into Ætolia. The first day he took Potidania; the second day, Crocyleium; the third, Teichium. There he stayed, and sent the booty he had gotten to Eupalium in Locris. For he purposed, when he had subdued the rest, to invade the Ophionians afterwards (if they submitted not) in his return to Naupactus. But the Ætolians knew of this preparation when it was first resolved on. And afterwards, when the army was entered, they were1 united into a mighty army to make head: insomuch as that the farthest off of the Ophionians, that reach out to the Melian Gulf, the Bomians and Callians, came in with their aids.

year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3.The Ætolians give Demosthenes a great overthrow.

97. The Messenians gave the same advice to Demosthenes that they had done before; and alleging that the conquest of the Ætolians would be but easy, willed him to march with all speed against them, village after village, and not to stay till they were all united and in order of battle against him, but to attempt always the place which was next to hand. He, persuaded by them and confident of his fortune, because nothing had crossed him hitherto, without tarrying for the Locrians that should have come in with their aids, (for his greatest want was of darters light–armed), marched to Ægitium: which approaching1 he won by force, the men having fled secretly out, and encamped themselves on the hills above it: for it stood in a mountainous place, and about eighty furlongs from the sea. But the Ætolians (for by this time they were come with their forces to Ægitium) charged the Athenians and their confederates; and running down upon them, some one way and some another, from the hills, plied them with their darts. And when the army of the Athenians assaulted them, they retired; and when it retired, they assaulted. So that the fight, for a good while, was nothing but alternate chase and retreat; and the Athenians had the worst in both.

year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3.Demosthenes afraid to come home.

98. Nevertheless, as long as their archers had arrows, and were able to use them, (for the Ætolians, by reason they were not armed2 , were put back still with the shot), they held out. But when upon the death of their captain the archers were dispersed, and the3 rest were also wearied, having a long time continued the said labour of pursuing and retiring, and the Ætolians continually afflicting them with their darts, they were forced at length to fly; and lighting into hollows without issue, and into places they were not acquainted withal, were destroyed. For Chromon a Messenian, who was their guide for the ways, was slain. And the Ætolians pursuing them still with darts, slew many of them quickly whilst they fled, being swift of foot and without armour. But the most of them missing their way and entering into a wood which had no passage through, the Ætolians set it on fire and burnt it about them. All kinds of shifts to fly, and all kinds of destruction were that day in the army of the Athenians. Such as remained, with much ado got to the sea and to Œneon, a city of Locris, from whence they first set forth. There died very many of the confederates, and a hundred and twenty men of arms of the Athenians; that was their number, and all of them able men1 : these men of the very best died in this war. Procles also was there slain, one of the generals. When they had received the bodies of their dead from the Ætolians under truce, and were gotten again to Naupactus, they returned with the fleet to Athens. But they left Demosthenes about Naupactus and those parts; because he was afraid of the Athenian people for the loss that had happened.

The Athenian fleet in Sicily sail to Locris and take Peripolium.

99. About the same time, the Athenians that were on the coast of Sicily, sailed unto Locris, and landing overcame such as made head; and took in Peripolium2 , situate on the river Halex.

year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3. The Ætolians and Peloponnesians make a journey against Naupactus.

100. The same summer, the Ætolians having3 sent their ambassadors, Tolophus an Ophionian, Boryades an Eurytanian, and Tisander an Apodotian, to Corinth and Lacedæmon, persuaded them to send an army against Naupactus: for that it harboured the Athenians against them. And the Lacedæmonians, towards the end of autumn, sent them three thousand men of arms of their confederates; of which five hundred were of Heracleia, the new–built city of Trachinia. The general of the army was Eurylochus a Spartan; with whom Macarius and Menedæus went also along, Spartans likewise. 101. When the army was assembled at Delphi, Eurylochus sent a herald to the Locrians of Ozolæ, both because their way lay through them to Naupactus, and also because he desired to make them revolt from the Athenians. Of all the Locrians, the Amphissians co–operated with him most, as standing most in fear for the enmity of the Phoceans. And they first giving hostages, induced others who likewise were afraid of the coming in of the army, to do the like: the Myoneans first, being their neighbours; for this way is Locris of most difficult access: then the Ipneans, Messapians, Tritæans, Chalæans, Tolophonians, Hessians, and the Œantheans. All these went with them to the war. The Olpæans gave them hostages, but followed not the army. But the Hyæans would give them no hostages, till they had taken a village of theirs called Polis.

year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3.Demosthenes relieveth Naupactus.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 2. 3.The end of the sixth summer.

102. When every thing was ready, and he had sent the hostages away to Cytinium in Doris, he marched with his army towards Naupactus, through the territory of the Locrians. And as he marched, he took Œneon, a town of theirs, and Eupalium; because they refused to yield unto him. When they were come into the territory of Naupactus, the Ætolians being there already to join with them, they wasted the fields about; and took the suburbs of the city, being unfortified. Then they went to Molycreium, a colony of the Corinthians, but subject to the people of Athens, and took that. Now Demosthenes the Athenian, (for ever since the Ætolian business he abode about Naupactus), having been pre–advertised of this army and being afraid to lose the city, went amongst the Acarnanians, and with much ado, because of his departure from before Leucas, persuaded them to relieve Naupactus; and they sent along with him in his galleys a thousand men of arms. Which entering, were the preservation of the city; for there was danger, the walls being of a great compass and the defendants few, that else they should not have been able to make them good1 . Eurylochus and those that were with him, when they perceived that those forces were entered and that it was impossible to take the city by assault, departed thence, not into Peloponnesus, but to Æolis, now called Calydon, and to Pleuron2 and other places thereabouts, and also to Proschion in Ætolia. For the Ambraciotes coming to them, persuaded them to undertake, together with themselves, the enterprise against Argos and the rest of Amphilochia, and Acarnania; saying withal, that if they could overcome these, the rest of that continent would enter into the league of the Lacedæmonians. Whereunto Eurylochus assented; and dismissing the Ætolians lay quiet in those parts with his army, till such time as the Ambraciotes being come with their forces before Argos he should have need to aid them. And so this summer ended.

A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3. The Athenians in Sicily assault Nessa.

103. The Athenians that were in Sicily, in the beginning of winter, together with the Grecians of their league, and as many of the Siculi, as having obeyed the Syracusans by force, or1 being their confederates before, had now revolted, warred jointly against Nessa, a town of Sicily, the citadel whereof was in the hands of the Syracusans. And they assaulted the same; but when they could not win it, they retired. In the retreat, the Syracusans that were in the citadel, sallied out upon the confederates that retired later than the Athenians; and charging, put a part of the army to flight, and killed not a few. After this, Laches and the Athenians landed2 some time at Locris; and overcame in battle by the river Caicinus about three hundred Locrians, who with Proxenus the son of Capaton came out to make resistance; and when they had stripped them of their arms, departed.

Delos hallowed.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3. An edict, that none should be suffered to be born or die in Delos.Rheneia an island, tied to Delos with a chain, and dedicated to Apollo of Delos.The Athenians institute the quinquennial games at Delos.

104. The same winter also the Athenians hallowed the isle of Delos, by the admonition indeed of a certain oracle. For Pisistratus also, the tyrant, hallowed the same before; not all, but only so much as was within the prospect of the temple. But now they hallowed it all over in this manner. They took away all sepulchres whatsoever of such as had died there before; and for the future, made an edict that none should be suffered to die, nor any woman to bring forth child in the island; but [when they were near the time, either of the one or the other] they should be carried over into Rheneia. This Rheneia is so little a way distant from Delos, that Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, who was once of great power by sea and had the dominion of the other islands, when he won Rheneia dedicated the same to Apollo of Delos, tying it unto Delos with a chain1 . And now after the hallowing of it, the Athenians instituted the keeping, every fifth year, of the Delian games.

There had also in old time been great concourse in Delos, both of Ionians and of the islanders round about2 . For they then came to see the games, with their wives and children, as the Ionians do now the games at Ephesus. There were likewise matches set of bodily exercise and of music; and the cities did severally set forth dances. Which things to have been so, is principally declared by Homer in these verses of his hymn to Apollo:

• But thou, Apollo, takest most delight
• In Delos. There assemble in thy sight
• The long–coat Ions, with their children dear
• And venerable bedfellows; and there
• In matches set of buffets, song, and dance,
• Both show thee pastime and thy name advance3 .

year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3.

That there were also matches of music, and that men resorted thither to contend therein, he again maketh manifest in these verses of the same hymn. For after he hath spoken of the Delian dance of the women, he endeth their praise with these verses, wherein also he maketh mention of himself:

• But well: let Phœbus and Diana be
• Propitious; and farewell you, each one.
• But yet remember me when I am gone:
• And if of earthly men you chance to see
• Any toil’d pilgrim, that shall ask you, Who,
• O damsels, is the man that living here
• Was sweet’st in song, and that most had your ear?
• Then all, with a joint murmur, thereunto
• Make answer thus: A man deprived of seeing;
• In the isle of sandy Chios is his being1 .

year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3.

So much hath Homer witnessed touching the great meeting and solemnity celebrated of old in the isle of Delos. And the islanders and the Athenians, since that time, have continued still to send dancers along with their sacrificers2 ; but the games and things of that kind were worn out, as is likely, by adversity: till now that the Athenians restored the games, and added the horse race, which was not before.

The Ambraciotes and Peloponnesians make war against the Acarnanians and Amphilochians unfortunately. They take Olpæ.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3. The Acarnanians make Demosthenes their general.The Ambraciotes at Olpæ send to the Ambraciotes at home, to come to their aid.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3.Demosthenes chosen general.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3.The battle between the Ambraciotes and Acarnanians.The Ambraciotes and Peloponnesians fly.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3.

105. The same winter the Ambraciotes, according to their promise made to Eurylochus when they retained his army, made war upon Argos in Amphilochia with three thousand men of arms: and invading Argeia they took Olpæ, a strong fort on a hill by the sea–side, which the Acarnanians had fortified and used for the place of their common meetings for matters of justice, and is distant from the city of Argos, which stands also on the sea–side, about twenty–five furlongs. The Acarnanians, with part of their forces, came to relieve Argos; and with the rest they encamped in that part of Amphilochia which is called Crenæ, to watch the Peloponnesians that were with Eurylochus, that they might not pass through to the Ambraciotes without their knowledge; and sent to Demosthenes, who had been leader of the Athenians in the expedition against the Ætolians, to come to them and be their general. They sent also to the twenty Athenian galleys, that chanced to be then on the coast of Peloponnesus, under the conduct of Aristoteles the son of Timocrates, and Hierophon the son of Antimnestus. In like manner the Ambraciotes that were at Olpæ sent a messenger to the city of Ambracia, willing them to come to their aid with their whole power; as fearing that those with Eurylochus would not be able to pass by the Acarnanians, and so they should be either forced to fight alone, or else have an unsafe retreat. 106. But the Peloponnesians that were with Eurylochus, as soon as they understood that the Ambraciotes were come to Olpæ, dislodging from Proschion went with all speed to assist them: and passing over the river Achelöus, marched through Acarnania, which, by reason of the aids sent to Argos, was now disfurnished. On their right hand they had the city of Stratus, and that garrison; on the left, the rest of Acarnania. Having passed the territory of the Stratians, they marched through Phytia, and again by the utmost limits of Medeon; then through Limnæa; then they went into the territory of the Agræans, which are out of Acarnania, and their friends: and getting to the hill Thiamus, which is a desert hill, they marched over it, and came down into Argeia when it was now night; and passing between the city of the Argives and the Arcarnanians that kept watch at [the] Wells, came unseen and joined with the Ambraciotes at Olpæ. 107. When they were altogether, they sat down about break of day at a place called Metropolis, and there encamped. And the Athenians not long after with their twenty galleys arrived in the Ambracian gulf, to the aid of the Argives: to whom also came Demosthenes, with two hundred Messenian men of arms and threescore Athenian archers. The galleys lay at sea, before the hill upon which the fort of Olpæ standeth. But the Acarnanians, and those few Amphilochians (for the greatest part of them the Ambraciotes kept back by force) that were come already together at Argos1 , prepared themselves to give the enemy battle; and chose Demosthenes, with their own commanders, for general of the whole league. He, when he had brought them up near unto Olpæ, there encamped. There was between them a great hollow. And for five days together they stirred not; but the sixth day both sides put themselves into array for the battle. The army of the Peloponnesians reached a great way beyond the other, for indeed it was much greater2 ; but Demosthenes, fearing to be encompassed, placed an ambush in a certain hollow way and3 fit for such a purpose, of armed and unarmed soldiers, in all to the number of four hundred; which, in that part where the number of the enemies overreached, should in the heat of the battle rise out of ambush and charge them on their backs. When the battles were in order on either side, they came to blows. Demosthenes, with the Messenians and those few Athenians that were there, stood in the right wing; and the Acarnanians (as they could one after another be put in order) and those Amphilochian darters which were present, made up the other1 . The Peloponnesians and Ambraciotes were ranged promiscuously, except only the Mantineans, who stood together most of them2 in the left wing, but not in the utmost part of it; for Eurylochus and those that were with him made the extremity of the left wing, against Demosthenes and the Messenians. 108. When they were in fight, and that the Peloponnesians with that wing overreached and had encircled the right wing of their enemies, those Acarnanians that lay in ambush coming in at their backs, charged them and put them to flight: in such sort as they endured not the first brunt; and besides, caused the greatest part of the army through affright to run away3 . For when they saw that part of it defeated which was with Eurylochus, which was the best of their army, they were a great deal the more afraid. And the Messenians that were in that part of the army with Demosthenes, pursuing them, dispatched the greatest part of the execution. But the Ambraciotes4 that were in the right wing, on that part had the victory, and chased the enemy unto the city of Argos. But in their retreat, when they saw that the greatest part of the army was vanquished, the rest of the Acarnanians setting upon them, they had much ado to recover Olpæ in safety. And many of them were slain, whilst they ran into it out of array and in disorder; save only the Mantineans: for these made a more orderly retreat than any part of the army. And so this battle ended, having lasted till the evening.

Demosthenes suffereth the principal Peloponnesians to retire from Olpæ secretly; to disguard the Ambraciotes of their aid, and procure the Peloponnesians the hatred of the nations thereabouts.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3.

109. The next day, Menedaius (Eurylochus and Macarius being now slain) taking the command upon him, and1 not finding how, if he stayed, he should be able to sustain a siege, wherein he should both be shut up by land and also with those Attic galleys by sea, or if he should depart, how he might do it safely, had speech with Demosthenes and the Acarnanian captains, both about a truce for his departure and for the receiving of the bodies of the slain. And they delivered unto them their dead; and having erected a trophy took up their own dead, which were about three hundred. But for their departure they would make no truce openly [nor] to all: but secretly Demosthenes with his Acarnanian fellow–commanders made a truce with the Mantineans, and with Menedaius and the rest of the Peloponnesian captains and men of most worth, to be gone as speedily as they could; with purpose to disguard the Ambraciotes and multitude of mercenary strangers, and withal to use this as a means to bring the Peloponnesians into hatred with the Grecians of those parts, as men that had treacherously advanced their particular interest. Accordingly they took up their dead, and buried them as fast as they could1 ; and such as had leave, consulted secretly touching how to be gone.

Demosthenes sendeth part of his army to lie in ambush by the ways by which the Ambraciote supplies were to come from the city.

110. Demosthenes and the Acarnanians had now intelligence that the Ambraciotes from the city of Ambracia, according to the message sent to them before from Olpæ [which was that they should bring their whole power through Amphilochia to their aid], were already on their march2 (ignorant of what had passed here) to join with those at Olpæ. And hereupon he sent a part of his army presently forth, to beset the ways with ambushment, and to pre–occupate all places of strength; and prepared withal to encounter3 with the rest of his army.

The Mantineans retire from Olpæ.The Ambraciotes go after them, and are slain to the number of two hundred.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3.The rest escape to Salynthius, king of the Agræans.

111. In the meantime, the Mantineans and such as had part in the truce, going out on pretence to gather potherbs and firewood, stole away by small numbers: and as they went, did indeed gather such things as they pretended to go forth for; but when they were gotten far from Olpæ, they went faster away. But the Ambraciotes and others that came forth in the same manner, but in greater troops4 , seeing the others go quite away, were eager to be gone likewise, and ran outright, as desiring to overtake those that were gone before. The Acarnanians at first thought they had gone all without a truce alike, and pursued the Peloponnesians: and threw darts at their own captains for forbidding them and for saying that they went away under truce, as thinking themselves betrayed. But at last they let go the Mantineans and Peloponnesians, and slew the Ambraciotes only. And there was much contention and ignorance, of which was an Ambraciote and which a Peloponnesian. So they slew about two hundred of them; and the rest escaped into Agraïs, a bordering territory, where Salynthius, king of the Agræans and their friend, received them.

Demosthenes goeth out to meet the supply of Ambraciotes that came from the city.The Ambraciotes surprised in their lodgings.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3. The Ambraciotes put to flight.

112. The Ambraciotes out of the city of Ambracia were come as far as Idomene. Idomene are two high hills; to the greater whereof, came first undiscovered that night they whom Demosthenes had sent afore from the camp, and seized it: but the Ambraciotes got first to the lesser, and there encamped the same night. Demosthenes after supper, in the twilight, marched forward with the rest of the army, one half whereof himself took with him for the assault of the camp, and the other half he sent about through the mountains of Amphilochia1 . And the next morning before day, he invaded the Ambraciotes whilst they were yet in their lodgings and knew not what was the matter, but thought rather that they had been some of their own company. For Demosthenes had placed the Messenians on purpose in the foremost ranks, and commanded them to speak unto them as they went in the Doric dialect, and to make the sentinels secure; especially, seeing their faces could not be discerned, for it was yet night. Wherefore they put the army of the Ambraciotes to flight at the first onset, and slew many upon the place: the rest fled as fast as they could towards the mountains. But the ways being beset, and the Amphilochians being well acquainted with their own territory and armed but lightly, against men in armour unacquainted and utterly ignorant which way to take; they lit into hollow ways and to the places forelaid with ambushes, and perished. And having been put to all manner of shifts for their lives, some fled towards the sea1 ; and when they saw the galleys of Athens sailing by the shore, (this accident concurring with their defeat), swam to them, and chose rather in their present fear, to be killed2 of those in the galleys, than by the barbarians and their most mortal enemies the Amphilochians. The Ambraciotes with this loss came home, a few of many, in safety to their city. And the Acarnanians, having taken the spoil of the dead and erected their trophies, returned unto Argos.

year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3. The conference of the herald from the Ambraciotes in Agraïs, with one of Demosthenes his army, about the number of the slain.The Acarnanians will not let the Athenians subdue the Ambraciotes utterly, because they thought the Ambraciotes better neighbours than the Athenians.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3.

113. The next day there came a herald from those Ambraciotes which fled from Olpæ into Agraïs, to demand leave to carry away the bodies of those dead which were slain after the first battle, when without truce they went away together with the Mantineans, and with those that had truce. But when the herald saw the armours of those Ambraciotes that came from the city, he wondered at the number: for he knew nothing of this last blow, but thought they had been armours of those with them. Then one asked him, what he wondered at, and how many he thought were slain: for he that asked him the question, thought, on the other side, that he had been a herald sent from those at Idomene. And he answered, about two hundred. Then he that asked, replied and said: “then these are not the armours of them1 ; but of above a thousand”.—“Then,” said he again, “they belong not to them that were in battle with us”. The other answered: “yes, if you fought yesterday in Idomene.”—“But we fought not yesterday at all, but the other day in our retreat.”—“But we yet fought yesterday with those Ambraciotes that came from the city to aid the rest.” When the herald heard that, and knew that the aid from the city was defeated, he burst out into Aimees: and astonished with the greatness of the present loss, forthwith went his way without his errand, and required the dead bodies no farther. For this loss was greater than, in the like number of days, happened to any one city of Greece in all this war. I have not written the number of the slain; because it was said to be such as is incredible for the quantity of the city. But this I know: that if the Acarnanians and Amphilochians, as Demosthenes and the Athenians would have had them, would have subdued Ambracia, they might have done it even with the shout of their voices. But they feared now, that if the Athenians possessed it, they would prove more troublesome neighbours unto them than the other.

114. After this, having bestowed the third part of the spoils upon the Athenians, they distributed the other two parts according to the cities. The Athenians’ part was lost by sea. For those three hundred complete armours which are dedicated in the temples in Attica, were picked out for Demosthenes [himself]; and he brought them away with him. His return was withal the safer for this action, after his defeat in Ætolia. And the Athenians that were in the twenty galleys returned to Naupactus.

League for a hundred years between the Ambraciotes and Acarnanians.year vi. A. C. 426. Ol. 88. 3.

The Acarnanians and Amphilochians, when the Athenians and Demosthenes were gone, granted truce at the city of the Œniades to those Ambraciotes and Peloponnesians that were fled to Salynthius and the Agræans, to retire; the Œniades being gone over to Salynthius, and the Agræans likewise1 . And for the future, the Acarnanians and Amphilochians made a league with the Ambraciotes for a hundred years, upon these conditions: “That neither the Ambraciotes with the Acarnanians should make war against the Peloponnesians; nor the Acarnanians with the Ambraciotes against the Athenians: that they should give mutual aid to one another’s country: that the Ambraciotes should restore whatsoever towns or bordering fields2 they held of the Amphilochians: and that they should at no time aid Anactorium, which was in hostility with the Acarnanians”. And upon this composition, the war ended. After this, the Corinthians sent a garrison of about three hundred men of arms of their own city to Ambracia, under the conduct of Xenocleides the son of Euthycles; who with much difficulty passing through Epirus, at length arrived. Thus passed the business in Ambracia.

A. C. 425. Ol. 88. 3. The Athenian fleet in Sicily invade Himeræa.Pythodorus sent to take the fleet from Laches.year vi. A. C. 425. Ol. 88. 3.

115. The same winter the Athenians that were in Sicily, invaded Himeræa by sea, aided by the Sicilians1 that invaded the skirts of the same by2 land. They sailed also to the islands of Æolus. Returning afterwards to Rhegium, they found there Pythodorus, the son of Isolochus, [with certain galleys], come to receive charge of the fleet commanded by Laches. For the Sicilian confederates had sent to Athens, and persuaded the people to assist them with a greater fleet. For though the Syracusans were masters by land, yet seeing they hindered them but with few galleys from the liberty of the sea, they3 made preparation, and were gathering together a fleet with intention to resist them. And the Athenians furnished out forty galleys to send into Sicily, conceiving that the war there would the sooner be at an end, and desiring withal to train their men in naval exercise. Therefore Pythodorus, one of the commanders, they sent presently away with a few of those galleys, and intended to send Sophocles the son of Sostratides, and Eurymedon the son of Thucles, with the greatest number afterwards. But Pythodorus having now the command of Laches his fleet, sailed in the end of winter unto a certain1 garrison of the Locrians which Laches had formerly taken; and overthrown in a battle there by the Locrians, retired.

The fire breaketh out of Ætna, and burneth the fields of Catana.

116. The same spring, there issued a great stream of fire out of the mountain Ætna, as it had also done in former times; and burned part of the territory of the Catanæans, that dwell at the foot of Ætna, which is the highest mountain of all Sicily. From the last time that the fire brake out before, to this time, it is said to be fifty years. And2 it hath now broken out thrice in all, since Sicily was inhabited by the Grecians. These were the things that came to pass this winter. And so ended the sixth year of this war written by Thucydides.

[1 ][Fell upon the enemy “wherever an opportunity offered”. Arnold.]

[1 ][τῶν ὅπλων; properly the space where the arms were piled; here, the camp of the heavy–armed soldiers. Arnold.]

[2 ][αλλὰ. But &c.]

[3 ][“That they were forcing the Lesbians to submit to the government of Mytilene”: that is, as the people of Attica submitted to that of Athens: ii. 15. Arn. It is hardly possible to suppose with Goeller, that they were attempting to bring all the Lesbians actually to Mytilene. This revolt is one of the instances cited by Aristotle, of seditions attended with fatal consequences, arising out of insignificant causes. Timophanes, a rich man, left two daughters: and Doxandros, the proxenos or host of the Athenians, being rejected by the sons as the suitor of their sisters, brought about the sedition. Pol. v. 4.]

[4 ][The Bœotians, an Æolian branch from Arne in Thessaly, migrated from Arne in Thessaly sixty years after the Trojan war (i. 12) to Cadmeis, since called Bœotia. After the expulsion of the family of Orestes from Peloponnesus, Penthilus and other of his descendants fled to Bœotia, and thence colonized Mysia in Asia Minor, Tenedos, Lesbos, and other islands: which colonies therefore, as well as Bœotia, were all Æolian. Homer (Il. ii. 494.) makes Bœotians sail to Troy from all the cities in Bœotia, except Thebes and a few others: notwithstanding which, and Thucydides’ expression (i. 12), no Bœotians, according to Mueller and Hermann, were settled there till after the war.]

[1 ][“Forty galleys which chanced to have been made ready” &c.]

[2 ][“They were to command &c.: and to make war upon them, if” &c.]

[1 ][Maloeis, the temple of Apollo in the suburbs of Mytilene.]

[2 ][Allowed “the parley”. Nothing was granted but an armistice.]

[1 ][Malea, the site of the temple of Apollo Maloeis, in the northern part of the city, and at the northern port, hence also called “portus Maloeis”. Malea nomen erat appellativum linguæ Græcæ antiquissimæ, significans prominentiam aliquam montis vel litoris, neque reperitur nomen esse nisi locorum Doricorum Æoliorumque, velut Lesbi, Cretæ, Laconiæ. Goeller. The Athenians besieging Mytilene, have their market at Malea: see ch. 6.]

[1 ][Who came in “much the sooner, for seeing no security in the Lesbians”.]

[2 ][“And bringing their ships round to the station to the south of the city, they fortified two camps &c., and established their blockades at both the harbours, and so quite excluded &c.” Arn. “They fortified two camps to the south &c.” Göll.]

[1 ][“Sailed along the Achelous”.]

[2 ][“At Nericus”.]

[3 ][“And having put off a little from the land (ἀποπλεύσαντες), they afterwards received their dead” &c. Goeller.]

[4 ][The successful ending of the second Messenian war, and the reduction of Tegea, the stronghold of Arcadia commanding the entrance of Laconia, placed Sparta at the head of Peloponnesus: and from about A.C.580 her ἡγεμονὶα was recognized, not only by Peloponnesus, but by Greece in general; a rank confirmed to her by the expulsion of the tyrants (which, along with the setting up of oligarchical government, was ever the steady aim of the Spartan policy) and the overthrow of Argos. Thus it was at Sparta, that Athens accused Ægina of giving earth and water to Darius: and Sparta summoned Themistocles to answer to the charge of medizing. We see here however, as before in i. 87, that this supremacy extended to no control over the confederacy. It was formed of Peloponnesian states: and governed by fixed laws, with a certain order of precedence. By this constitution, no common action, such as declaring war or concluding peace or treaties, could be undertaken without a congress, wherein all the states had equal voices (i. 125): and instances are not wanting of Sparta being outvoted (i. 40, 41; Herod. v. 93). Sparta was the place of assembly for the deliberations of the allies: she took upon herself the control and execution of all measures there resolved on. But on the internal affairs of the allied states, neither had Sparta nor the confederacy any influence. By a fundamental law, each state was independent and enjoyed its ancient customs: and even disputes between individual states, were beyond the jurisdiction of the confederacy (v. 31). In Herod. v. 94, we see the allies protest against Sparta’s “meddling with a Grecian state”.]

[1 ][“Of our intent”. Goeller.]

[1 ][“Yet we became allies, not with the Athenians for enslaving the Grecians; but with the Grecians for deliverance from the Medes”. Arnold, Goeller.]

[2 ][ἐπαγομένους: “and proposing to themselves the subjugation” &c.; Poppo: “and bringing about” &c.; Goeller. ἐπειγομένους, “eagerly pursuing”, is suggested by Bekker. “But when we saw &c. we were no longer without alarm: (but unable, disunited as we were through difference of councils, to defend ourselves, the allies, all but ourselves and the Chians, were subdued; and we, nominally indeed of our own free will, helped to subdue them): and no longer held we them, by the foregone example, for faithful leaders. For &c.: and if we were all still independent, we should be more secure of their leaving us alone. But having got most of them under, and we being still on an equality, it was not likely (with our single equality too by the side of the already general giving in of the rest) that they would bear it very patiently: especially” &c.]

[1 ][No other “than that domination appeared attainable by fair words and craft rather than by force. For they both made use &c., that having equal voice we should not against our will have warred with them (upon our confederates), had these not done the injury: and by the same act, they not only brought first &c., but also reserving” &c.]

[1 ][“Were not likely” to do &c.]

[2 ][“And it was more” &c. The sentence should run on to “break the league?”: and the next sentence should begin with “So that”, (ὥστε), and not with “Now”; being the manifest consequence of the preceding sentence.]

[1 ][By Hermæondas: see ch. 5.]

[2 ][Arnold and Goeller take ἀποϛασιν here in its original sense of “standing aloof from”; so that it suits both the cases, one of simply standing aloof from the Grecians and doing them no mischief, the other of revolt from the Athenians.]

[3 ][“That you may be seen ready”, at once &c.]

[4 ][“In case you the second time this summer” &c.]

[1 ][“More easily”.]

[2 ][“Which you bear”, of not &c.]

[1 ][This relates to the constitution of Solon. The people of Attica are said to have been divided, in early times, into the four tribes Kekropis, Autocthon, Cranais, Atthis; corresponding to the territorial division, Actæa, Paralia, Mesogæa, Diacris: the same tribes being afterwards called, after their gods, Dias, Atthenais, Posidonias, Hephæstias. The Ionians (a separate class of the aboriginal inhabitants, if not a distinct race) introduced the caste–division called the Ionic tribes, viz. warriors, artificers, herdsmen, and husbandmen (or as some read, priests): these, for some purposes, remained in being till the time of Cleisthenes (iv. 118, note), though early modified by Theseus (as it is said), the father of the democracy, by the less strongly marked distinction of Eupatridæ, Geomori, and Demiurgi, or in other words, of nobles and plebeians. The usurpations of the Eupatridæ have been already noticed (i. 126, note). The insurrection of Cylon (one of those popular risings upon the aristocracy, which in other states raised to the throne so many of the so–called tyrants; who were therefore so eagerly hunted down by Sparta) was the forerunner of Solon’s changes. He replaced (A.C. 594) the aristocracy of birth by a timocracy, or one of property: of the citizens with incomes exceeding, respectively, 500, 300, and 150 medimni of corn, and as many measures of wine and oil, he formed the three classes, pentacosiomedimni, hippeis, and zeugitæ, to whom he committed all the executive power of the state. All with incomes below that of the zeugitæ, formed the class of thetes, contributing nothing to the state, and therefore excluded from all offices: but admitted to the public assembly; and having, with the other classes, cognizance of all judicial appeals, a power attended in after times with important consequences. In the eyes however of the people, of this as of other states, these changes were matter of minor importance, and valued only as the means for attaining other objects. What lay next their hearts, was the famous σεισάχθεια: the liberation of the land from its mortgage, of the debtor from his debt. This effected, they relapsed into their usual apathy: whence they were roused by the efforts of the aristocracy to regain their lost power, which ended (A.C. 560) in the tyranny of Peisistratus.]

[1 ][“Wasting the Periœcis”. The Spartans living only in the capital, the whole of Laconia was properly the περιοικὶς, “the land inhabited by the periœci”: though here is meant only the part by the sea. Laconia was divided into six districts; Sparta, Amyclæ, Las, Pharæ, Ægys, and Epidaurus Limera or Gytheium: and Messenia into four; Pylos, Rhium, Mesola, and Hyamia. The whole was called Λακεδαίμων ἑκατόμπολις: but it must have been after the reduction by Sparta of the whole of Messenia, as well as of Cynuria (to which Anthana, one of the towns belonged), that is, after A. C. 548, that the number of towns inhabited by the periœci were fixed at a hundred. Müll. Dor. iii. 2. See iv. 126.]

[1 ][“At the time when the ships sailed, the Athenians had one of the largest fleets they ever had at one time, of ships in a state of effectiveness from their good condition. And they had as many and still more at the beginning of the war”. Arnold.]

[2 ][Consumed “at first”. At this time the pay of the hoplites varied from two oboli to a drachme: officers received twice, the cavalry thrice, and field officers four times as much, with the like for their provisions. The regular pay of the seamen (formed, besides foreigners, of Thetes and slaves, as at Sparta of the Helots) was three oboli, that of the Paralitæ four. The value of the medimnus of corn (about an English bushel and a half), estimated by Boeckh at two drachmes, will give some idea of the value of this pay: apparently, not high.]

[1 ][Settled “more securely”.]

[2 ][But beaten “in a sally”.]

[3 ][With a single wall, “building in it turrets here and there on the strong points: so that” &c. A single wall was enough, no attack being feared from without. About Platæa, the Lacedæmonians (ch. 21) build a double wall; one for the blockade, the other for their own protection.]

[1 ][“The Athenians &c. themselves, then for the first time, contributed a tribute of two hundred talents; and dispatched also Lysicles” &c. This being an extraordinary imposition, the ἀργυρόλογοι are sent to collect it. The ordinary tributes were brought in by the allies themselves at the great Dionysia; or collected, if necessary, by ships called ἐκλογεῖς.]

[2 ][See iv. 75.]

[1 ][“Guessing the length from the thickness of a brick, took” &c.]

[2 ]“To be more storm than usual”: of wind, that is, as well as rain.]

[1 ][“Whereby the Platæans were blockaded”.]

[2 ][“A stormy and rainy night”.]

[3 ][“Unperceived by the guards”, who &c.]

[4 ][The noise “of their approach” could not &c.]

[5 ][“In the mud”.]

[6 ][“That carried darts”.]

[7 ][“More of them”.]

[1 ][“To the end that they might be least intent upon them”.]

[1 ][“Along (on the top of) the wall”. Goeller.]

[2 ][“Then came down (the last of them with much ado) they in the towers, and were going to the ditch”.]

[3 ][“But standing themselves in the dark” &c.]

[1 ][“The fane of the hero Androcrates”. See Herod. ix. 25.]

[2 ][Δρυὸς κέϕαλαι: the Athenian name of a town in the valley of Cithæron: called by the Bœotians τρεῖς κέϕαλαι, the Three Heads (Herod. ix. 39); probably from three oaks growing there.]

[1 ][In chapters 16, 25, 29, 69, they are said to be forty.]

[2 ][“Was still too young to command”. Goeller.]

[1 ][ψιλὸν: “before light–armed”: having no ὅπλα, armour.]

[2 ][The men in power—the corn.]

[3 ][Being in “exceeding fear”.]

[1 ][Embatum.]

[1 ][Surprises of war. Goeller, Arnold.]

[2 ][This is a corrupt passage.]

[3 ][See iv. 75.]

[1 ][He set at liberty “all the Chians he had left, and certain he had of other nations. For” &c.]

[2 ][His temporibus Atheniensibus duæ, quas sacras dicebant, triremes erant; Paralus, quam qui agebant Paralitæ sive Parali dicebantur; et Salaminia sive Delia, etiam Theoria appellata, qua Salaminii vehebantur. Atque hac quidem, ad theoros Delum mittendos; utraque, quippe volociter navigantibus, ad alias theorias emittendas, ferendos nuntios, tributa colligenda, homines pecuniasque trajiciendas, item in prœliis vehendis belli ducibus utebantur. Goeller.]

[3 ][“From all sides”. The cities of Ionia remained unwalled, after they were burnt by Darius on their defection (A.C.497). Herod. vi. 32. Goeller.]

[1 ][“Brought news of having themselves seen him” &c. Poppo and Bekker, on conjecture, here and above read Icarus for Clarus.]

[2 ][Vulgo, Λάτμου: Bekker and the rest, Πάτμου.]

[3 ][Bekk.: ἰδίαν. Göll. et Arn.: ἰδίᾳ. Itamanes and the barbarians, “introduced through some party quarrel”. Colophon was one of the twelve Ionian states: see ch. 104. Aristotle (v. iii.) attributes the discord between the Colophonians and the Notians to a dissimilarity of habits, pursuits, &c.: which made them, like the inhabitants of Peiræus and Athens (the former more democratic than the latter), unsuitable members of the same state.]

[4 ][See vii. 57: where the Mantineans, Arcadians, Cretans, and Ætolians are described as mercenaries, ready to march anywhere for pay.]

[1 ][“And the Colophonians of the high town of the Medan faction, came and joined their state”.]

[2 ][οἰκιστὰς: leaders of the colony:—seated them there “under the Athenian colonial laws”. Goeller.]

[1 ][“And the Peloponnesian ships having dared to venture across to Ionia to help them, contributed not a little to the vehemence of the Athenians”. Goeller.]

[2 ][“Those in office”, are the Prytanes, in whose power it was to call extraordinary assemblies: which was done, by exposing publicly in a tablet the time and subject of debate, γνώμας προθεῖναι: see Lucian, Necyomantia, 19. The Proedri presided in the assembly: and the cryer summoned the speakers by the form, τίς ἀγορεύειν βούλεται; See Dem. pro Cor.]

[1 ][“But it will be worst, if” &c.]

[2 ][The more simple sort &c.]

[1 ][“And to find fault with whatever is spoken &c., as unable to show their wit in graver matters”. Goeller.]

[2 ][“Whereas the vengeance that follows close upon the injury, equals the malice of the wrong doer, and so takes the best satisfaction”. Göll.]

[1 ][And actions already past, “in such sort, that you take not the evidence of your own eyes as more trustworthy, than what you hear from those who find fault in a fine speech”.]

[2 ][“And each desirous, above all to be able himself to speak, but if not, then to contradict those that can, rather than seem to follow their advice, and to approve beforehand any thing smartly said; eager to be the first to see the truth of what is spoken, but slow to preconceive &c.: seeking, as one may say, somewhat else” &c. Goeller.]

[1 ][“Than if they had power to war upon us by themselves”.]

[1 ][“And men, as one may say”.]

[2 ][“For against us they have all alike taken arms; since, if overawed by their oligarchy, they might have called us in, and so have been now in their city again”. Goeller.]

[1 ][“We must hold out no hope that they will, either by persuasion or corruption, gain any thing from our being conscious that they err through human infirmity”. Göll.]

[2 ][“Must be” &c.: that is, from having made themselves suspected.]

[3 ]Meaning that the orators are bribed.

[4 ][Rather than towards such “as remain, after all, just what they were, and not a jot less” &c. Arn. Göll.]

[1 ][“And then, if even though not your right you still resolve to hold it,” &c.]

[2 ][“Representing to yourselves in as lively a manner as may be what” &c. Goeller.]

[1 ][The one “with folly”: the other “with a rude and narrow mind”. Arnold.]

[2 ][“That will accuse them of making a sort of display for the sake of a bribe”. Arnold, Goeller.]

[1 ][“Of a want of wisdom, rather than of honesty”.]

[2 ][“But without appealing to party feeling, to make it appear that his is the best counsel”.]

[3 ][“And so far from punishing, not even to disgrace the man” &c.]

[4 ][“He that succeedeth”.]

[5 ][“Nor would he that doth not, strive in the same way, by himself too gratifying the people, to draw them to him”.]

[1 ][“Spoken straightforward”.]

[2 ][“By this needless degree of thought”. Goeller.]

[3 ][“And liable to such a mode of construing it, give” &c. Goeller.]

[4 ][At Athens, it was open to any citizen to impeach any law or decree, on the ground of its being either contrary to some existing law, or unjust, or inexpedient. Upon the oath to that effect of the complainant, the validity of the law, or, if not already passed into a law, all further proceedings upon it were suspended till the question of its legality or illegality was decided. This was done by a proceeding called a γραϕὴ παρανόμων; which took place before the ordinary courts, the judges whereof were the six thousand chosen by lot from the citizens at large. The success of the proceeding subjected the proposer of the law to an arbitrary fine: and a third conviction rendered him incapable of proposing any law thereafter. On the other hand, the complainant, if he failed in obtaining a fifth part of the voices of the judges, was himself subjected to a fine. The time for originating this proceeding, was limited to a year from the passing of the law impeached.]

[1 ][These words, though evidently required by the sense, are wanting in the Greek.]

[2 ][“Especially” contendeth.]

[3 ][“The well–being of” the future.]

[4 ][“For his council, grounded more upon what is just, may perhaps, according to your present anger against the Mytilenæans, soon win your consent: but we are not pleading judicially against them, so as to need arguments” &c. Goeller.]

[1 ][“Men, in imposing punishment, have gone through all” &c. Goeller. Capital punishments were not, it seems, in use amongst the Greeks in early times.]

[2 ][“Hope and desire in every way; this as the leader, &c.; are the cause of most mischief: and being undiscerned, have greater power than dangers seen”.]

[1 ][“Contributes no less to urge men on”.]

[2 ][“Every man, without reason, conceives greater ideas of those things (liberty and dominion) than the reality”. Goeller, Arnold.]

[3 ][“Too severely: nor make desperate those that revolt” &c.]

[1 ][“To prejudice ourselves by becoming exact judges” &c.]

[2 ][“Hath, as was likely, revolted to recover its independence”.]

[3 ][And when.]

[4 ][“For in all cities”, &c.]

[1 ][“In it”: that is, in revenge.]

[2 ][“Were nevertheless”: that is, notwithstanding the change of opinion in ch. 36.]

[1 ][“Lest the former vessel arriving first”. Bekker, Arnold.]

[2 ][It was unusual to continue the voyage by night in any but sailing vessels.]

[3 ][“Drove on”.]

[4 ][“And was about executing the decree, when the second vessel reached land and arrested the destruction of the city. So near” &c.]

[1 ][The lands thus assigned to the gods in Greece and Rome, became the property of the state, and were usually let to individuals subject to certain duties to the temple, priests, &c. Land was also sometimes consecrated by individuals to some god, for the sake of the security of the religious sanction: the τέμενος, or land set apart, remaining in the possession of themselves and their posterity, subject to the charges of keeping up the temple, maintaining the priests, &c. See the case of Xenophon, Anab. v. 3: and of Mæandrius, Herod. iii. 142. As to the Athenian κληροῦχοι, here said to be sent out to Lesbos, they might be sent out to view the lots and arrange with the tenants, but it is manifest they did not remain there: as in the subsequent revolts in Lesbos (viii. 22, 23), there was evidently no Athenian population in the island then. Arn. Since A.C. 506 the Athenians had been in the habit of sending cleruchi instead of colonies to the countries conquered by them. Herm. Gr. Antiq. § 117.]

[2 ][In iv. 52, called τὰς Ἀκταίας.]

[1 ][“And having first on the side of Nisæa taken two projecting towers with engines &c., he also took in with a wall the part over against the continent, where there was access to the island, which lay not far from the continent, by a bridge over a ford”. Goeller and Arnold understand the towers to have stood, one on a mole from Minoa, and the other on a mole from Nisæa. “Minoa has long ceased to be an island; but the mole on which, according to custom, stood one of the towers defending the entrance of the port, is still traceable.” Arnold.]

[1 ][“With a demand”.]

[2 ][And they “fed the Platæans, till the judges arrived” &c.]

[3 ][Mueller (Dor. i. 9, n.) observes that Platæa had after the time of Pausanias been on friendly terms with Sparta: to which circumstance, and to this προξένια, Lacon owed his name. Aeimnestus is a name famous, as being that of the slayer of Mardonius at the battle of Platæa: himself with a body of three hundred men being afterwards all slain to a man, in the plain of Stenyclerus in the third Messenian war. Mueller, referring to Herod. ix. 64, calls him a Spartan: but Herodotus calls him, not a Spartan, but “a man famous in Sparta”: and as the Platæans assisted the Spartans in that war, there appears in the account of Herodotus nothing inconsistent with its being the person here mentioned.]

[1 ][“In confidence, to you we yielded up &c.: and upon condition not to be at the discretion (as therefore we are not) of any but yourselves; conceiving” &c. Göll.]

[2 ][“For the liberty of this speech has been granted at our request”: and also &c.]

[3 ][“To say somewhat before running the hazard of judgment” Steph. Arn.]

[4 ][And we fear not, “lest condemning us beforehand on the ground of our merits towards you being less than yours towards us”, you make that a crime. Göll. Arn.]

[1 ][“But if you consider us as friends, then that you yourselves rather do the wrong in making war upon us”. Goeller.]

[2 ][“We have been now not the first to break”.]

[3 ][“With you and Pausanias”. This is an answer to the doubts started, (Herodotus expressly mentioning the Lacedæmonians, Tegeatans, and Athenians only), whether the Platæans were present at the first of this battle. He makes, however, the number of the Lacedæmonians engaged, 50,000 (ix. 61): whereas previously (ch. 28) he reckons them, Lacedæmonians 10,000 (of whom, Spartans 5,000), and Helots (seven to each Spartan) 35,000; in all, 45,000: leaving 5,000 to be accounted for, which might include the Platæans.]

[1 ][Ithome, a stronghold on a hill commanding the plains of Stenyclerus and the Pamisus, must have been a place of considerable strength. The first Messenian war seems to have been confined chiefly to its vicinity, and its reduction entailed the subjugation of the whole country. In the third war, the siege of Ithome lasted ten years, though the Spartans were assisted not only by the Platæans and 4,000 Athenian hoplitæ, but by the Æginetans and Mantineans also. The earthquake is said to have left not more than five houses standing in Sparta, and to have destroyed 20,000 persons; and amongst them, the flower of the Spartan youth, by the fall of the building wherein they were exercising. But for the presence of mind of Archidamus, in gathering round him the Spartans in arms by giving a false alarm of an enemy’s approach, the Helots, already assembled, would have fallen upon them and completed the work of destruction.]

[2 ][See ii. 73, note.]

[3 ][The Platæans were already in the enjoyment of certain rights of citizens of Athens, called “the rights of Platæans”: extending, it is supposed, to no political rights, but limited to those of marriage, commerce, capacity to hold lands, &c. Under that title they were sometimes conferred on others than Platæans. Thus, Arnold says, the slaves that fought at Salamis, were made Platæans: and a similar class of rights existed at Rome, called the “jus Cæritum”; whence also “in Cærites referri”. The Platæans, however, that survived the destruction of their city and settled at Athens, were distributed amongst the ten tribes, and admitted to all the rights, sacred and profane, of natural–born citizens, excepting (for the following reason) eligibility to the office of archon and priest. The Athenians had three divisions of society: the πάτρα or γένος, the descendants of a common ancestor; the ϕρατρία, patræ, connected by intermarriage; and the ϕυλὴ, a union of phratriæ. Thus, they were divided into tribes (the four Ionic): and again, into the twelve phratriæ: each phratria into thirty patræ, of which each again contained thirty heads of families. Every phratria had absolute and exclusive control over the admission of members: and to that purpose was yearly devoted the last of the three days of the feast of the Apaturia (a name derived by Mueller from πατὴρ̧), when the people were assembled according to phratriæ. On that day, the newly married female citizen was admited into the phratria of her husband: the child into that of its father: and the child of the naturalized citizen into that of its maternal grandfather. But the phratriæ recognized no title to admission but birth: and the naturalized citizen, thus excluded from the phratriæ, was also excluded from the worship of Apollo πατρῷος: and so (by the oath required of the candidate, that he worshipped Ἀπόλλων πατρῷος and Ζεὺς ἑρκεῖος) from the office of priest and archon.]

[1 ][“By your present benefit, and their feelings of hostility”.]

[1 ][Far more profitable.]

[2 ][“Not that practised for their own safety against the invasion”.]

[3 ][“Take heed (for this judgment of yours is not given in obscurity, but by you, highly esteemed, against us, not ill thought of) that they do not” &c.]

[1 ][Blot it out, “with the entire race of Platæans” &c.]

[2 ][“That when the Medes had possession of our land, we were ruined then”. Goeller.]

[3 ][“And of our then allies none aid us; and you, Lacedæmonians, our only hope, we fear that you too are not firm to us. But we beseech &c”. The “mutual league” here appealed to, is mentioned ii. 71 and i. 67. No more is known of it, than that the allies, by the persuasion of Pausanias, mutually guaranteed the independence of all states, and of the Platæans in particular.]

[1 ][“The fame of wickedness”.]

[2 ][We have “through all” been beneficial &c.]

[3 ][This yearly ceremony is described at large by Plutarch. Aristid. ch. 21. See Tacit. Annal. iii. 2: vestem, odores, aliaque funerum solennia cremabant.]

[1 ][“And we entreat you, calling aloud upon the gods &c., to yield this, and not to forget the oaths we produce, sworn by your fathers; and we become suppliants at their tombs and invoke the dead, that we be not in the power of the Thebans, nor your dearest friends betrayed to their bitterest enemies”. ὁμοβωμίους καὶ κοινοὺς: Gods common to Greece, and worshipped at altars also common to Greece, as at Olympia, Delphi: Göll. Gods worshipped at the same altar, as Jupiter, Minerva, Apollo, and the other greater gods, all of the same race. Arnold.]

[1 ][“We adjure you.”]

[1 ][The subjugation of Cadmeis by the Bœotians seems to have been effected slowly and not without a hard struggle. It was the fall of Thebes and of Orchomenus (in early times one of the richest and most powerful cities in Greece, reigning over a great part of Bœotia, and making a tributary of Thebes itself) that decided the fate of the whole country: and thereupon followed the Æolian migration (ch. 2, note). Amongst the nations driven out, were the Minyans (apparently, another name for Æolians) from Orchomenus; the Cadmeians from Thebes; the Gephyræans from Tanagra, who fled to Athens; the Thracians (see ii. 29, note), who retired to the neighbourhood of Parnassus, and there disappear from history; the Pelasgians, who retired to Athens (ii. 16, note) and afterwards occupied Lemnos. The opinion that Platæa was founded by the Thebans after expelling from it “the promiscuous nations,” was perhaps current at Thebes as favoring their claim of supremacy: but it is probable that Platæa did not change its inhabitants. The Platæans considered themselves an aboriginal people, as appears from the names of their kings, Asopus and Cithæron: Platæa too, their heroine, was the daughter of the Asopus: and their indomitable hostility to Thebes may have arisen from a difference of origin.]

[2 ][“The laws of our ancestors”.]

[1 ][τοὺς νόμους: “the (its former) laws”. That this excuse of the Thebans is a mere subterfuge, is manifest from the fact of their standing a twenty days’ siege by the allies after the battle of Platæa, before they would give up their leaders, as well as from the address of Timegenides to them on that occasion, σὺν γὰρ τῷ κοινῷ ἐμηδίσαμεν (Herod. ix. 87: and see viii. 34, Βοιωτῶν δὲ πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος ἐμήδιζε.)].

[1 ][“Against us then only should you have called in the Athenians, and not &c.: it being at least in your power (not to invade others), since if the Athenians” &c.]

[2 ][With whom.]

[1 ][“It is the not repaying a benefit, when it may be done with justice, which is base: and not the omitting the repayment of such, as are justly due, but cannot be repaid without injustice”. Goeller, Arnold.]

[2 ][Because the Athenians did not; “and because you desired to do as they did, and the contrary to what the Grecians did: and now you claim the benefit of that, wherein for others’ sake you behaved well”.]

[3 ][τὴν τότε: “the mutual oath made at that time”: see ch. 57, n.]

[4 ][“And others included in the oath”. The Samians, Byzantians, Thasians and others. Ducas. See i. 101, 117: and Herod. ix. 106.]

[1 ][“That exhibited your good deeds” to their ruin. Göll. Arn.]

[2 ][ἱερομηνίαις means, as in ch. 56, any monthly festival, the plural indicating only the sacred character of the day. The surprise of Platæa seems to have taken place at the change of the moon (ii. 4.): and the first of every month was sacred to Apollo. Goeller.]

[3 ][“To the customs of our ancestors, common to all Bœotia”.]

[1 ][“The paternal customs”.]

[2 ][And you readily coming and making agreement, at first indeed were quiet.]

[3 ][“But contrary to law to kill &c., what excuse is there for that?”]

[1 ][“All those crimes”: the three just mentioned.]

[2 ][To let you see &c.: “and that you may not be moved” &c.]

[1 ][“That the trials you will present, will be not of words, but” &c.]

[2 ][But if those in authority “would, as you will now do, give judgment by making one case an example for all cases to all the allies together”, men would be less &c. Goeller.]

[3 ][For they had, “as they said”.]

[4 ][“Taking the Platæans by their own choice to have justly lost the benefit of the treaty”. Goeller. Arnold and Goeller consider this to be an unsound passage.]

[1 ][A house for the reception of such as might come to worship at the temple of Juno: the city no longer affording lodging. Arnold.]

[2 ][“It was, throughout even the whole of this affair of the Platæans, almost wholly for the Thebans’ sake that the Lacedæmonians were thus alienated from them”. Arn.—Xerxesrewarded the Thebans’ tardy desertion to him at Thermopylæ, by branding them and their leader Leontiades (see ii. 2, note) with the royal mark (Herod. vii. 233): but they were still the most ardent in his service of all the medizing Greeks. They were the chief advisers of Mardonius at Platæa: where they fought with great courage, losing no fewer than 300 of their chief men. Against them probably was aimed the oath of the Greek congress: “whatsoever Greeks, uncoerced and in estate whole, shall join the barbarian, them to decimate and send as slaves to the god at Delphi”: to fulfil which, the Greeks after the battle marched to Thebes; but were satisfied with the death of the chief criminals, Timegenides and Attaginus. By these events the supremacy of Thebes in Bœotia was for the time annihilated: but Sparta’s interest soon called for its revival. In consigning the Platæans to Athens (ii. 73, note), Sparta had not miscalculated: Thebes and Athens were thenceforth enemies. Her hands full of the third Messenian war and the settlement of Arcadia, she had quietly regarded the aggressions of Athens upon the maritime towns of Argolis, and the subjugation of Ægina. But returning from the liberation of Doris (i. 107), an expedition not unconnected with intrigues with Cimon and the aristocratical or Laconian party at Athens, the Spartans, barred in their passage by the Athenians, bartered Platæa, the independence of Bœotia, and their solemn oaths (ii. 71), for the aid of Thebes at Tanagra and the promise of future active hostility against Athens. The Athenian democracy, brought to the brink of destruction by the defeat at Tanagra, quickly recovered itself by the victory of Œnophyta; subdued all Bœotia, except Thebes, and established the democracy in Thebes itself. Eight years, however, of democratic rule sufficed to revive the Theban oligarchy (Aristot. v. 3); the battle of Coroneia rid Bœotia of the Athenians, and was followed by the revolt of Eubœa and Megara: and Athens, now open to invasion from Peloponnesus, was glad, by the thirty years’ treaty, to secure Eubœa at the expense of all her possessions in Peloponnesus. The true bond of union, however, between Sparta and Thebes, lay in the constitution of the latter, at this time a timocracy, confined to such as had not for ten years appeared on the market–place (ibid. iii. 3): a union which remained unshaken till the surrender of Athens, when Sparta’s resistance to the demands of Corinth and Thebes for its destruction, unmasked her design of retaining it as an instrument for her ambitious projects.—Platæa, first of all burnt to the ground by Xerxes, was after this second destruction a second time rebuilt at the peace of Antalcidas, A.C.388: and a third time destroyed, 373, by the Thebans before the battle of Leuctra; and again restored by Philip, 337.]

[1 ][“At the ransom, as was voiced, of 800 talents guaranteed by their proxeni: but in truth, having engaged to bring over Corcyra to the Corinthians”. Some doubt the correctness of the word ὀκτακοσίων; considering it an incredible ransom for two hundred and fifty men, when that of a heavy–armed soldier was only two minæ (Herod. vi. 79). But at a time when the ransom of a hoplite did not exceed from three to five minæ, Æschines (de fals. leg.) speaks of a talent as that of a not wealthy individual; and an ambassador of Philip is said to have paid nine talents for his ransom: and these wealthy merchants of Corcyra, the richest in Greece, might well pay one of three talents each. Arn. The ransom, which was merely nominal, would naturally be high, the better to mislead as to the real object of their return.]

[1 ][ἔπρασσον: “they practised to make the city revolt”. Hac voce πράσσειν infinitis locis utitur Thucydides de his, qui quocunque dolo, arte, ac fraude aliquid moliuntur ac machinantur. Duker.]

[2 ][On the articles. See i. 44.]

[3 ][ἐθελοπρόξενος. Proxeni homines dicebantur privati, quibus in patria urbe degentibus honorificum jus cum alia civitate publicitus intercedebat: his id muneris erat præcipue injunctum, ut sedulo prospicerent ne quid publica istius civitatis res a civibus suis caperet detrimenti, legatos illius venientes hospitio exciperent, ad populum deducerent, utque iis bene esset procurarent. Valck. The ἐθελοπρόξενος, voluntary proxenus, was one that discharged the functions of proxenus to some state without the public authority of that state, or of the state in which he resided: it is disputed which. It appears that cities sometimes appropriated certain lands to the office of proxenus: and that the office sometimes descended as an inheritance from father to son.]

[4 ][χάρακας: “vine–poles”: that is, that they had cut in the sacred woods poles for making vine–poles. Göll. Arn. These five men were probably, like the Roman aristocracy with respect to the public lands, the tenants of the sacred grounds whence the poles were cut; and from long possession derived from their ancestors, had come to consider the lands as their own property. The Agrarian law at Rome, concerned the right of property in the public lands only. Arnold.]

[1 ]Of our money about 15s. 7½d. [Hobbes has probably taken the golden stater, which was twenty drachmæ: but Goeller and Arnold conceive the silver stater or tetradrachm to be here meant, which is not quite 2s. 2d.]

[2 ][“Being shut out by the law (from their hope of paying by instalments)”. Goeller.]

[3 ][“Conspired together”.]

[4 ][“That it was for the advantage of Athens, what they had done”. Goeller.]

[1 ][“And the haven adjacent to it and opposite to the continent”.]

[2 ][“Into the country”. A district lying to the west of the city, between it and mount Istone: called also τὸ πεδίον, the plain; and by Xenophon, ἡ χώρα.] Goeller.]

[3 ][“Late in the afternoon”.]

[1 ][αὐτοβοεὶ: see ii. 81, n. “And fearing lest the people should attack and instantly make themselves masters of the arsenal, and put them to the sword, to stop their passage set fire to their own houses (οἰκίας) and the houses of the lower orders (ξυνοικἰας), round about the agora, sparing neither the one nor the other. So that not only was much merchandise entirely consumed, but the whole city was in danger of being destroyed, if a wind arose and carried the flames that way. And they gave over fighting; and each side kept quiet, but upon the watch, during the night. And when” &c.—οἰκία is a house belonging to or hired by a single, and therefore a rich person: ξυνοικία one hired or inhabited by several persons or families, and therefore belonging to the lower orders. Arnold.]

[2 ][“The leaders of the people”.]

[1 ][“And they picked out their enemies for these ships”.]

[2 ][“And endeavoured to encourage them (to go)”.

[1 ][The Corcyræans &c. “were through their own means in much distress: and the Athenians, fearing &c., did not charge those opposed to them either in a body or in the centre, but charged” &c.]

[1 ][“In expectation &c.”, is considered by Bekker and the rest to be an interpolation.]

[2 ][“At nightfall they (the Peloponnesians) had notice by fires from Leucas &c.” If the Athenian ships had as yet reached Leucas, the Peloponnesian fleet could not (as they afterwards did) have crossed the isthmus. Goeller.]

[1 ][See iv. 8, note.]

[2 ][See ch. 75.]

[3 ][“And bringing out of the thirty ships (ἐκβιβάζοντες) all they had persuaded to go aboard, (ἀπεχρῶντο or ἀνεχρήσαντο) they slew them”. Goeller, Arnold. Bekker and all the MSS. have ἀπεχώρησαν, “they went their way”. But then, what became of the men disembarked? Those slain as the ships “went about”, were part of those who had embarked to escape to the continent: of whom five hundred escaped thither (see ch. 85). Goeller.]

[1 ][“And of the sanctuary men, that were not persuaded to stand their theirtrial, the greater part, when they saw what was done, slew each other thereright in the temple: and some hanged themselves on the trees, and others made away with themselves each man as he could”.]

[2 ][“Affecting to accuse the enemies of the people: but under that pretext died some also from private enmity; and others that had money owing to them, by the procurement of their debtors”. Goeller.]

[3 ][“And there is nothing that usually falls out in such a case, which did not come to pass, and even more”.]

[1 ][“But when they were at war, to those of both sides desirous of innovating, the occasion of bringing in allies soon presented itself, both for weakening the alliance of their adversaries, and at the same time acquiring alliances for themselves”. Goeller.]

[2 ][“Yet are they aggravated or more mild, and varying in form, according” &c. Goeller.]

[3 ][“Fell into sedition”.]

[4 ][“Arbitrarily”.]

[5 ][Manliness devoted to one’s party—disguised fear—wisdom, the cloak &c.—furious passion.]

[1 ][“For violent measures”]

[2 ][“A still cleverer man”.]

[3 ][τῆς ἑταιρίας: of his party.]

[4 ][“For such associations are for no lawful purpose, but for the purposes of private ambition, contrary to the laws” &c. Goeller, Arnold.]

[5 ][“The fair proposals of their adversary, they received, if they were the stronger, with measures of precaution, and not ingenuously”. Goeller.]

[6 ][Of force, “so long as they had no power from other sources”: and he that first took courage, “if he saw his enemy unarmed”, thought &c.]

[1 ][“Men in general, when dishonest, more easily gain credit for cleverness, than when simple, for honesty”. Arnold.]

[2 ][The cause, was &c.]

[3 ][“And revenged them, inflicting punishment still greater than the injury”, without &c.]

[4 ][“So that neither side made any use of piety; but they were in highest esteem, that could perpetrate and hateful thing by fair words”.]

[1 ][“Simplicity, whereof, &c. was laughed down and disappeared; and it became better to stand &c.: for there was neither vehement promise nor terrible oath that could cure the distrust of enmity”. The next sentence is corrupt or untranslateable. Arnold.]

[2 ][“For through fear both of their own inferiority and their adversaries’ subtlety, lest they should be worsted by words and circumvented and outstripped by their crafty designs, they went &c.: whereas the others, in their arrogance trusting to being aware in time and thinking they needed not &c., were” &c.]

[3 ][Corcyra departed early from the moderate constitution of Corinth: and the separation from the motherstate, relaxing the connexion with the Peloponnesian league and bringing her in closer contact with Athens, accelerated her democratic tendency, and the popular assembly soon absorbed the supreme power. The licentiousness that sprang from this sedition, is coarsely expressed by the proverb: ἐλεύθερα κέρκυρα· χέζ’ ὅπου θέλεις. The scenes here described, hitherto rare, yet being the result of causes that continued to operate throughout Greece with increasing malignity, soon became common and familiar. The old aristocracies had sunk, and made way either for tyrannies or more or less exclusive oligarchies, often ending in democracies. In every state existed, either a commonalty containing a germ of democracy, needing only favourable circumstances to unfold it: or a democracy tyrannising over the old aristocracy and the wealthy class, who on their side, united in clubs (ἐταίριαι, ξυνωμόσιαι), ostensibly for the object of mutual support in elections and law–suits, but in reality for the overthrow of the democracy, and secretly connected with similar societies in other states, awaited the time to strike the blow. So long as either party was decidedly predominant, the seeds of discord lay dominant but the rupture between Sparta and Athens, insuring foreign aid to both parties, rendered their inequality a matter of little moment, and conflicts became more frequent and men’s passions more inflamed. The butcheries described here, and in iv. 46, were surpassed in Argos, when the battle of Leuctra having broken the power of Sparta and prostrated the party of the aristocracy in Peloponnesus, the popular leaders, after dispatching above twelve hundred of the chief citizens, themselves fell a sacrifice to their dread of farther bloodshed. A state of things arose, called σκυταλισμὸς, bludgeon–law: and Athens, as if all Greece were polluted, purified her market–place. The height to which party animosity was carried, appears in the oath of the clubs (Aristot. v. 9): “I will be ever the enemy of the people, and contrive for them all the mischief I can.”]

[1 ][This chapter, by Bekker included in brackets, is pronounced by the scholiasts, Goeller, and Arnold, to be spurious.]

[1 ][That is, bringing back, or restoration.]

[1 ][“Those in the city”.]

[2 ][“The Doric cities were all except &c., confederates” &c.]

[3 ][That is, the Rhegians, between whom and the Athenians existed an ancient alliance which was renewed (A. C. 433) by a decree preserved in the Elgin marbles. Goeller.—“For that they were deprived” &c. Rhegium is said to have been founded, under the immediate direction of the Delphic oracle, by a band of Chalcidians, (that is, of Ionians), who had been consecrated, like an Italian ver sacrum, to Apollo to avert a famine, and were joined by Messenian exiles flying their country on the fall of Ithome (A.C.724) in the first Messenian war. Thirl. The ver sacrum, was the immolation of all animals born in that spring. Instances are not wanting of other colonies (Magnesia in Crete) founded in like manner. For an account of the Doric and Chalcidic states in Sicily, see vi. 3–5.]

[1 ][ἐκ τῶν τάξεων: see vi. 43, note. The equestrian order contained a thousand horsemen.]

[2 ][“At Orchomenus in Bœotia”. There was another in Arcadia.]

[3 ][“For want of water”. These islands have but few springs; and the nature of the soil appears to be such, as rapidly to absorb the moisture: so that the inhabitants have none but rain water, preserved in large tanks. Cnidus was a Lacedæmonian colony, founded by Hippotes, whose descendants (A.C.580) led a colony of Cnidians to Lipara, with whom and five hundred of the original Liparæans they founded a state: whence it is probable that Æolus, the god of the winds, who was supposed to live in these islands, came to be called the son of Hippotes. This, if true, shows the name ἱπποτάδης in Od. κ, 2,37, to be later than the Homeric age. Muell. i.2.]

[1 ][“Of fire in the night, and smoke in the day”.]

[2 ][“About the same time, earthquakes being then prevalent, the sea first retiring from what was then land (that is, from the coast) at Orobiæ in Eubœa, and then rising to a head, invaded a part of the city; and partly permanently inundated the land, but partly subsided: and what was formerly land is now sea.” Goeller, Arnold.]

[1 ][“A certain retiring”.]

[2 ][“By an earthquake”.]

[3 ][δύο ϕυλαὶ: “two Messanian tribes”. See vi. 98, note.]

[1 ][Goeller considers ἡ πέραν γῆ to have become the proper name of Oropus: as Terra Firma, that of the isthmus of Darien.]

[1 ][The Malians dwelt in the valley of the Spercheus, enclosed on all sides by mountains, except on the side by the sea, where lived, as their name implies, the Paralians: the Hieres, or sacerdotal class, dwelt probably near the Amphictyonic temple at Thermopylæ: the Trachinians, on the declivities of Mount Œta. These people were in such close alliance with the Dorians, that Diodorus speaks of Trachis as the mother–town of Lacedæmon. They were a warlike race, no person being admitted to a share in the government that had not served as a hoplites. Mueller i. 2. See viii. 3, note.]

[1 ][See vi. 3, note.]

[2 ][Both of their own people and “of the periœci”.]

[3 ][“They built anew”. The old city, called Trachis, is mentioned by Herodotus vii. 199. Haack.]

[4 ][“Naval arsenals”.]

[5 ][Whilst it was founding.]

[6 ][That the Thessalians, “who were masters of the country thereabouts, and upon whose territory it encroached, fearing lest they should come and settle amongst themselves in considerable numbers”, afflicted &c.]

[1 ][“Not least however”.]

[1 ][The Hellenic or Æolian settlements in Ætolia, originally the land of the Curetes, seem never to have extended beyond the maritime parts; the interior apparently continuing to be occupied by tribes of a different origin, which by continual accessions from the north gained rather than lost ground. The character of the country, mountainous and woody and severed from the rest of Greece, whilst it kept it a stranger to Hellenic manners and civilization, was at the same time the cause of its retaining its independence, and finding itself in later times at the head of the Ætolian league. The Locrians, who are connected by their traditions both with Ætolia and Elis (there being in the latter an Opuntian colony), claimed a higher antiquity than any other branch of the Greek nation; those of Opus boasting that Cynus, their port–town, was the dwelling of Deucalion on descending with his new people from Parnassus, and showing there the tomb of Pyrrha. The Locrian mythology seems to lead to the conclusion that the earliest population of eastern Locris were Leleges: and to them perhaps the name of Locrians originally belonged, though chiefs of a Hellenic, and most probably Æolian race, settled among them. Thirl. Muell.]

[1 ][That is, the Acarnanians, the Amphilochians, the Locri Ozolæ, &c. “With the Ætolians”: that is, “with the allies only, if the Ætolians would join them”. Goeller.]

[2 ][“Messenians”, omitted.]

[3 ][ἐπιβάταις: Anglice, marines. The trireme seems to have ordinarily carried ten epibatæ or marines. “The number of forty epibatæ to a ship, mentioned by Herodotus vi. 15, belongs to the earliest stage of Greek naval tactics, when victory depended more on the soldiers than on the manœuvres of the seamen. It was in this very point that the Athenians improved the system, by decreasing the number of epibatæ, and relying on the skilful management of their vessels”. Arn. See i. 49. But Arnold seems to err in supposing that they were chosen from the Thetes: the character given in ch. 98 of these epibatæ, “the very best of the Athenians that fell in this war”, hardly belonging to men from the Thetes. Neither however were they chosen from the army, though sometimes reinforced thence. Goeller, Boeckh.]

[1 ]“They were all united”. It is not to be understood that any Ætolian tribe extended to the Malian gulf; but probably, that the Bomienses and Callienses occupied the heads of the valleys on the Ætolian side of Œta, and extended over the ridge and some way down the valleys of the streams running into the Ægean. Arnold.]

[1 ][“Which attacking”.]

[2 ][ψιλοὶ: without armour.]

[3 ][“But when &c., and the hoplitæ were also wearied &c., and the Ætolians still afflicted them &c., they were at last forced” &c.]

[1 ][ἡλικία: “and the very flower of the Athenians”. The word is used in the same sense in ch. 67.]

[2 ][“And took in a station or fort of the περίπολοι”: in ch. 115, called ϕρούριον.]

[3 ][“Having heretofore sent”: that is, before the Ætolian expedition.]

[1 ][“To hold out”.]

[2 ]“To Æolis, now called Calydon and Pleuron, and to the places there”. Goeller, Arnold. The country about Calydon, and perhaps all the south of Ætolia, once bore the name of Æolis. The earlier inhabitants were Æolians. Thirlwall.]

[1 ][“And being their (the Athenians’) allies (having revolted to them from the Syracusians), had joined their standard, went and attacked Inessa, the town of the Sikeli &c.: and when they could not” &c. ἐπ’ Ἴνησσαν. Bekker.]

[2 ][“Made several descents from their ships upon Locris at the river Cæcinus”.]

[1 ][The distance was four stadia, about 760 yards. Goeller.]

[2 ][That is, the inhabitants of the Cyclades.]

[3 ]Homer, Hym. ad Apoll. vers. 146.

[1 ]Hym. ad Apoll. vers. 165.

[2 ][“Witnessed, that there was of old too a great meeting and solemnity in Delos. And the islanders and the Athenians used afterwards to send the chorus with sacrifices: but the games and most of the solemnities fell into disuse” &c.—The irruptions of the Æolians into Bœotia, and the Dorians into Peloponnesus, caused great stir amongst the population of those countries: resulting in three great movements, called the Æolian, Dorian, and Ionian migrations. Of the Achæans, expelled from Argolis and Laconia, some migrated: others in turn expelled the Ionians from Ionia, the district since called Achaia. The migrating Achæans, passing through Bœotia to embark in search of new seats in the east, were joined, as is believed, by part of the antient Cadmean population and of their Æolian conquerors: and this, the Æolian migration, may perhaps be regarded, in its origin, as a continuation of the former Achæan enterprise against the territory of Priam. Headed by descendants of Agamemnon, and embarking from the same port, Aulis, whence he had led the Greeks to Troy, they took the same direction: and some settling in Lesbos, and there founding six cities, others occupied the coast of Asia from the foot of Ida to the mouth of the Hermus. Here they found their old enemies, the allies of Troy, the Pelasgians, still in possession of the coast, but reduced to great weakness by the Trojan war. Taking their chief town, Larissa, the invaders founded Cume Phriconis; the chief of the eleven cities of Æolis. About the same time, another body of Achæans and Dorians were led by Dorian chiefs to the south–west corner of the Asiatic peninsula. In Rhodes were founded Lindus, Ialysas, and Camirus: forming with Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Cos, an exclusive association, which, after Halicarnassus was excluded for the reason given by Herodotus (i. 144), was called the Doric Pentapolis, and jointly worshipped the Dorian god, Apollo, at Triopium. The Ionian fugitives from Achaia sought refuge with their kindred in Attica: whence, with swarms of Phocean and other adventurers, they followed the sons of Codrus to the part of Asia lying between the Hermus and the Mæander: blessed with a climate extolled by Herodotus as the most delicious in the known world. In their passage across the Ægean, many formed settlements in the Cyclades, and in time Delos became a common sanctuary of the Ionians. Samos, Chios, and the Asiatic coast were at this time inhabited by various tribes, as Carians and Leleges, and by others recently driven from Greece by the same causes as these Ionian settlers. With all these they readily united, except the Carians and Leleges, whom they expelled or exterminated. Gradually arose twelve independent states: Samos, Chios, Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Erythræ, Clazomenæ, and Phocæa. Though formed of such widely differing elements, they all assumed the Ionian name, and were regarded as parts of one nation: and all, except Ephesus and Colophon, kept the feast of the Apaturia (see chap. 55, note). Their meetings were held at a spot at the foot of mount Mycale, called Panionium, and consecrated to the Ionian god, Poseidon. The periodical meetings, however, for the sole object of honouring the tutelary god, but affording also an opportunity for political deliberation when called for, formed the nearest approach of these colonies to a political union of the cities even of the same race. As to the Æolians, it is not certain they possessed even such a centre of union: though they may, by analogy, be supposed to have held similar assemblies near the temple of Apollo at Gryneia. The difference of race, which kept asunder the Greeks in Europe, was not forgotten by passing across the Ægean: and there existed, at the time of migrating, no power in Asia formidable enough to terrify the three races into a union, which might have changed the history of the European Greeks as well as their own. The increase of wealth and refinement was far more rapid in the colonies than in the mother–country: and in the seventh and sixth centuries A.C. the progress of mercantile industry and maritime discovery was coupled by the Asiatic Greeks, especially the Ionians, with intellectual pursuits and the cultivation of the nobler arts, in a degree unequalled in history before the opening of the latest period of European civilization. Miletus, regarded as the common protectress of the Greek settlers, by her eighty colonies in the Propontis and the Euxine caused the latter sea to change its name (ii. 96, note): whilst Phocæa was exploring, in the west, the shores of Spain, Italy, and the Adriatic. But luxurious and disunited, they successively became the prey of the Lydians and Persians. With the aid of Athens (the proximate cause of the war that ensued between Asia and Greece) they revolted from Darius, and were subdued: and in retaliation for the burning of Sardis and the temple of Cybebe, every revolted city (Samos only excepted) was with its temples committed to the flames. The fate of Miletus was so taken to heart by the Athenians, that Phrynichus by his tragedy, the Fall of Miletus, moved the whole audience to tears, and was fined a thousand drachmæ for reminding them of national calamities. These events may perhaps be “the adversity” which caused the disuse of the games. It is remarkable that in this general conflagration of cities and temples, Delos, as “the birth–place of the twin–gods”, or the temple at any rate, was held inviolate by the generals of Darius (Herod. vi. 97): perhaps from some conceived analogy between Apollo and Artemis, and the Persian deities, the sun and moon.]

[1 ][“And the Acarnanians and a few Amphilochians (for the greater part the Ambraciotes forcibly kept back) were already assembled at Argos, and prepared” &c.]

[2 ][“And the Peloponnesian army being superior in numbers and outflanking him, Demosthenes therefore fearing” &c.]

[3 ][“Overgrown with brushwood”.]

[1 ][“And the rest of the ground was occupied by the Acarnanians, posted each in their own place, and by the Amphilochian darters that were there.”]

[2 ][Stood “towards the left”.]

[3 ][“But panic–struck themselves, caused the flight of the greater part of the army besides”.]

[4 ][“The Ambraciotes and those in the right wing, chased &c.: for they are the most warlike of any in those parts. But on their return, seeing the greatest part” &c.]

[1 ][And “after the great defeat sustained” not finding &c.]

[1 ][“And buried them in haste, as they best might”.]

[2 ][“With their whole power”.]

[3 ][“To support them”.]

[4 ][“But the Ambraciotes and the others, (the mercenaries, ch. 109), that happened thus (on pretext of gathering herbs) to be come out together in great numbers, seeing the others go off, were eager” &c.]

[1 ][“Demosthenes as soon as he had supped, and the rest of the army as soon as it was evening, set out on the march; he with one–half of the army towards the pass, and the other half through the hills of Amphilochia”. ἐσβολὴ seems to mean a pass through hills; but what pass is here meant, is not clear. Goeller understands that of Idomene.]

[1 ][“Which was not far off”.]

[2 ][“If needs must”.]

[1 ][“The arms here then agree not (with those of 200), but” &c. Göll.]

[1 ][“The Acarnanians &c., granted to those Ambraciotes &c., a truce to retire from Œniadæ, whither they had indeed removed from Salynthius”. This is Hermann’s reading, adopted by Goeller, Arnold, &c.]

[2 ][Vulgo, ὁμόρους. Bekker and the rest, ὁμήρους: hostages.]

[1 ][“By the Sikeli”. Goeller, Arnold.]

[2 ][“From the high country”.]

[3 ][They, the Syracusans.]

[1 ][“The fort”. See ch. 99, note.]

[2 ][“And (it is said) that” &c.]