CHAPTER XXXIII. THE FOURTH TO THE TENTH YEARS—AND PEACE
The fourth year of the war, 428 B.C., opened with the third invasion of Attica by Archidamus, but the Periclean policy of remaining within the walls was continued. Athens herself remaining impregnable, revolt broke out among her allies.[a]
One of the most remarkable events in the history of the Peloponnesian war is the revolt of Mytilene. The island of Lesbos contained five Æolian towns, which were indeed connected in a certain way, but were yet perfectly independent of one another; Mytilene, however, by the advantages of its position and by its excellent harbour, had risen far above the other four towns. The three smaller ones among them, Pyrrha, Eresus, and Antissa, had absolutely joined Mytilene, and were guided by it; but Methymna had not done so, and the relation in which the Lesbians stood to Athens was still very favourable: their contingent consisted in ships commanded by Lesbians, and they paid no tribute. But the fate of Samos had warned the few places standing in the same relation, Chios and Lesbos, and had rendered them suspicious of the intentions of the Athenians; and they feared lest the Athenians should treat them as they had treated the smaller islands, and should reduce them to the same state of dependence as Samos, by ordering them to deliver up their ships and pay tribute. But the more such places became aware of their importance, and the more they felt that by going over to the other side, they would cast a great weight into the scale, the more they naturally became inclined to revolt. Thus the Mytileneans were prepared for the step they took, and the revolt spread thence over the whole of Lesbos, with the exception of Methymna, which, as is always the case in confederations of states, from jealousy of Mytilene, sided with the Athenians, and directed their attention to the fact that treasonable plots were formed in Lesbos, and that a revolt was near at hand.
THE REVOLT OF MYTILENE
[428-427 B.C.]
At first the Athenians, with incredible carelessness, paid little attention to the information, a neglect which was the consequence of the strange anarchical condition of Athens, where the government had in reality no power. There was no magistracy to take the initiative, or to form a preliminary resolution or probuleuma in such cases. The people might indeed meet, and did meet every day, and any demagogue might propose a measure; but when this was not done, there was no authority on which it was incumbent to introduce such measures, and nothing was done. At Mytilene, on the other hand, although under the supremacy of Athens democracy everywhere gained the upper hand, there seems to have been a powerful aristocratic element, and the government must have been very strong. Everything was carefully and cautiously prepared, and was kept profoundly secret. The revolt was determined upon, and public opinion was in favour of it. But as they wished to proceed safely, and provide themselves sufficiently with arms and provisions, the undertaking was delayed, and the Athenians, who at first had neglected everything, at last fitted out an expedition which was to take Mytilene by surprise.
But on this occasion it became evident how injurious it was to Athens, down to the end of the war, that at such times of urgent necessity the government still continued to be as before, and that there had not been instituted a separate magistrate for war to take such measures in time. As all proceedings were public, and neither the preparations nor their object could be kept secret, all the plans were known to everybody, as they were discussed in the popular assembly. It was indeed resolved there to surprise Mytilene; but this decree was ludicrous, and its consequences might be foreseen.
A Mytilenean, who was staying at Athens, or some one else anxious to do them a service, on hearing of it, went to Eubœa, took a boat, and informed the Mytileneans of the danger that was threatening them. Had this not been done, the revolt would have been prevented, and that for the good of the Mytileneans themselves. The intention of the Athenians was to surprise the city during the celebration of a festival, which the Mytileneans solemnised at a considerable distance from their city, in conjunction with the other Lesbians. Knowing the design of the Athenians, they did not go out to the festival, and determined to raise the standard of revolt at once. They quickly applied to the Peloponnesians, with whom they had, no doubt, been already negotiating, and requested the Spartans to send them succour of some kind or another. The Spartans sent them a commander without a force, which was anything but what they would have liked. He undertook the command in the city, and exhorted them to be courageous and persevering. They were expected to undergo the hardships of famine for the sake of the Spartans, but the general did not bring them any additional strength to repel the Athenians. They had nothing but their own forces.
[427 B.C.]
The Athenian fleet now arrived and blockaded the city; after several little engagements the Mytileneans were reduced to extremities. Their envoys had at length prevailed upon the Peloponnesians to send them a motley fleet to relieve Mytilene. But it set sail with the usual slowness of the Spartans, and did not arrive until Mytilene, compelled by famine, had surrendered. Such was the care shown to save Mytilene! The long endurance of famine, shows how strongly the Mytileneans were bent upon escaping from the dominion of their enemies. How fearful it must have been, may be inferred from the fact, that in the end they preferred surrendering at discretion to an enraged enemy. The courage of the Mytileneans was like that of the Campanians in the Hannibalic War: they allowed themselves to be shut up like sheep in a fold, to be starved, and thus there remained nothing for them in the end, but to surrender. Many of those who had been most conspicuous, were taken prisoners by Paches, the Athenian general. The capitulation contained nothing else but a promise that the Athenian commander would not, on his own authority, order any one to be put to death, and that he would leave the decision to the people of Athens.
The war had already assumed the most fearful character: Alcidas, the Spartan admiral of the Peloponnesian fleet, which went to the relief of the Mytileneans, had, on his voyage, indulged in the most cruel piracy; he had captured all the ships he met with, without any regard as to what place they belonged to, and had thrown into the sea the crews of the allies and subjects of the Athenians, for whose deliverance the Spartans pretended to be anxious, as well as those of Athenian vessels. This barbarous mode of warfare was practised by the Spartans from the very beginning of the war. They not only captured the Athenian ships which sailed round Peloponnesus, but mutilated the crews, chopping off the hands of the sailors, and then drowned them.
This inhuman cruelty of the Spartans excited in the minds of the Athenians a desire to make reprisals; and thus it unfortunately became quite a natural feeling among the Athenians to devise inhuman vengeance upon the Mytileneans. They felt that Athens had given the Mytileneans no cause for revolt, that the alliance with them had been left unaltered as it had been before, and that if the Mytileneans had succeeded in joining the Spartans, they would have brought Athens into great danger, partly by their power, and partly by their example. It was, moreover, thought necessary to terrify Chios by a striking example, in order that the oligarchical party there might not attempt a similar undertaking. Those who did not see the necessity for such a measure, at least imagined that they saw it, for reasons of this kind are never anything else than an evil pretext. With all enticements of this description, the people were induced to despatch orders to the general Paches to avenge on the Mytileneans what the Spartans had done to the Athenians. He was to put to death all the men capable of bearing arms, and to sell women and children into slavery.
But the minds of the Athenians were too humane for such a design to be entertained by them for any length of time; and although it had been possible to carry out such a decree, through the existing confusion of ideas about morality, yet the better voice had not yet died away in their bosoms. The historian need not tell us that thousands could not close their eyes during the night in consequence of the terrible decree; and that through fear lest it should be carried into effect, they assembled early in the morning, even before sunrise. The morning after the day on which the decree had been passed, all the people met earlier than usual, and demanded of the prytanes once more to put the question to the vote, to see whether the decree should be carried into effect or not. This was done, and although the ferocious Cleon struggled with all fury to obtain the sanction of the first decree, yet humanity prevailed at this second voting.[b]
It is in this debate that Cleon first appears in the pages of Thucydides; he was opposed by Diodotus who, by calm logic rather than impassioned appeal, won the Athenians over to mercy. It is thus that Thucydides describes the escape of the Mytileneans:[a]
“And they immediately despatched another trireme with all speed, that they might not find the city destroyed through the previous arrival of the first; which had the start by a day and a night. The Mytilenean ambassadors having provided for the vessel wine and barley-cakes, and promising great rewards if they should arrive first, there was such haste in their course, that at the same time as they rowed they ate cakes kneaded with oil and wine; and some slept in turn while others rowed. And as there happened to be no wind against them, and the former vessel did not sail in any haste on so horrible a business, while this hurried on in the manner described; though the other arrived so much first that Paches had read the decree, and was on the point of executing the sentence, the second came to land after it, and prevented the butchery. Into such imminent peril did Mytilene come.
“The other party, whom Paches had sent off as the chief authors of the revolt, the Athenians put to death, according to the advice of Cleon, amounting to rather more than one thousand. They also dismantled the walls of the Mytileneans, and seized their ships.”[c]
It was resolved that only the leaders of the rebellion should be taken to account and conveyed to Athens, but that no harm should be done to the other Mytileneans. The Mytileneans were, of course, obliged to deliver up all their ships and arms; and their territory, with that of the other towns, except Methymna, made a cleruchia: that is, it was divided into equal lots, and given to Athenian citizens as fiefs. But this was, in point of fact, nothing else than the imposition of a permanent land-tax upon the former owners; for the Athenians let out their lots to the ancient proprietors for a small rent. The number of rebels who were carried to Athens and executed there, was, indeed, very great, sadly great; but they were real rebels, and their blood did not come upon the heads of the Athenians.
In the declamations of the sophists, we hear much of the evils of the Athenian democracy, of the misfortunes of the most distinguished men: and that of Paches is regarded as one of the most conspicuous cases. The people, it is said, were ungrateful towards Paches, the conqueror of Mytilene, who had, even before that conquest, distinguished himself as a general; and they now took him to account for the manner in which he had conducted the war; and he, in order to escape condemnation, made away with himself. This story is believed to have been related by the father of all sophists and declaimers, Isocrates, and is mentioned also by the sophists of later times, and by a Roman writer on military affairs. But the true account may be learnt from a poem of the Greek Anthology, where Paches is said to have abused his power in subduing the island: he dishonoured two noble ladies of Mytilene, who went to Athens to appeal to the sense of justice of the Athenian people.
On that occasion the Athenians showed their true humanity, for they forgot how dangerous enemies the Mytileneans had been to them, and notwithstanding the victory of Paches, they were inexorable towards him, and had he not put an end to his life, he would certainly have been condemned and handed over to the Eleven. Of this deed the friends of Athens need not be ashamed.
The conduct of the commander of the Spartan fleet, which appeared on the coast of Ionia, shows the Spartans in the same light in which they always appear, as immensely awkward and slow in all they undertook. It was in vain that the Corinthians and other enterprising people advised them to attack Mytilene, because the Athenians were in a newly-conquered city, and the appearance of a superior force of Peloponnesians would be sufficient to create a revolt in the city, and to crush the small force of the Athenians. But Alcidas, in torpid Spartan laziness, was immovable, and returned to Peloponnesus without undertaking or having effected anything, except that he received on board the suppliants who threw themselves into the sea, and carried on the most cruel piracy. The Spartans followed the principle of not punishing their generals, which was the very opposite to that of the Athenians, who often made their commanders responsible when fortune had been against them; and when they had neglected an opportunity, or been guilty of any crime, they never escaped unpunished.[b]
It was shortly after the fate of Mytilene was sealed, that Platæa fell into the power of ruthless Sparta, as described previously. The affair of Mytilene was followed by an internal war in the island of Corcyra. In describing this sedition Thucydides is unwontedly vivid and his final moralising upon the bloody event, as Grote says, “will ever remain memorable as the work of an analyst and a philosopher.”[a]
THUCYDIDES’ ACCOUNT OF THE REVOLT OF CORCYRA
Now the forty ships of the Peloponnesians which had gone to the relief of the Lesbians, (and which were flying, at the time we referred to them, across the open sea, and were pursued by the Athenians, and caught in a storm off Crete, and from that point had been dispersed,) on reaching the Peloponnese, found at Cyllene thirteen ships of the Leucadians and Ambracians, with Brasidas, son of Tellis, who had lately arrived as counsellor to Alcidas. For the Lacedæmonians wished, as they had failed in saving Lesbos, to make their fleet more numerous, and to sail to Corcyra, which was in a state of sedition; as the Athenians were stationed at Naupactus with only twelve ships; and in order that they might have the start of them, before any larger fleet reinforced them from Athens. So Brasidas and Alcidas proceeded to make preparations for these measures.
For the Corcyræans began their sedition on the return home of the prisoners taken in the sea-fights off Epidamnus, who had been sent back by the Corinthians, nominally on the security of eight hundred talents given for them by their proxeni, but in reality, because they had consented to bring over Corcyra to the Corinthians. These men then were intriguing, by visits to each of the citizens, to cause the revolt of the city from the Athenians. On the arrival of a ship from Athens and another from Corinth, with envoys on board, and on their meeting for a conference, the Corcyræans voted to continue allies of the Athenians according to their agreement, but to be on friendly terms with the Peloponnesians, as they had formerly been.
Now there was one Pithias, a volunteer proxenus of the Athenians, and the leader of the popular party; him these men brought to trial, on a charge of enslaving Corcyra to the Athenians. Having been acquitted, he brought to trial in return the five richest individuals of their party, charging them with cutting stakes in the ground sacred to Jupiter, and to the hero Alcinous; the penalty affixed being a stater for every stake. When they had been convicted, and, owing to the amount of the penalty, were sitting as suppliants in the temples, that they might be allowed to pay it by instalments, Pithias, who was a member of the council also, persuades that body to enforce the law. So when they were excluded from all hope by the severity of the law, and at the same time heard that Pithias was likely, while he was still in the council, to persuade the populace to hold as friends and foes the same as the Athenians did, they conspired together, and took daggers, and, having suddenly entered the council, assassinated Pithias and others, both counsellors and private persons, to the number of sixty. Some few, however, of the same party as Pithias, took refuge on board the Athenian trireme, which was still there.
Having perpetrated this deed, and summoned the Corcyræans to an assembly, they told them that this was the best thing for them, and that so they would be least in danger of being enslaved by the Athenians; and they moved, that in future they should receive neither party, except coming in a quiet manner with a single ship, but should consider a larger force as hostile. As they moved, so also they compelled them to adopt their motion. They likewise sent immediately ambassadors to Athens, to show, respecting what had been done, that it was for their best interests, and to prevail on the refugees there to adopt no measure prejudicial to them, that there might not be any reaction.
On their arrival, the Athenians arrested as revolutionists both the ambassadors and all who were persuaded by them, and lodged them in custody in Ægina. In the meantime, on the arrival of a Corinthian ship and some Lacedæmonian envoys, the dominant party of the Corcyræans attacked the commonalty, and defeated them in battle. When night came on, the commons took refuge in the citadel, and on the eminences in the city, and there established themselves in a body, having possession also of the Hyllaic harbour; while the other party occupied the market-place, where most of them dwelt, with the harbour adjoining it, looking towards the mainland.
The next day they had a few skirmishes, and both parties sent about into the country, inviting the slaves, and offering them freedom. The greater part of them joined the commons as allies; while the other party was reinforced by eight hundred auxiliaries from the continent.
After the interval of a day, a battle was again fought, and the commons gained the victory, having the advantage both in strength of position and in numbers: the women also boldly assisted them, throwing at the enemy with the tiling from the houses, and standing the brunt of the mêlée beyond what could have been expected from their nature. About twilight the rout of the oligarchical party was effected; and fearing that the commons might carry the arsenal at the first assault, and put them to the sword, they fired the houses round about the market-place, and the lodging-houses, to stop their advance, sparing neither their own nor other people’s; so that much property belonging to the merchants was consumed, and the whole city was in danger of being destroyed, if, in addition to the fire, there had been a wind blowing on it. After ceasing from the engagement, both sides remained quiet, and kept guard during the night. On victory declaring for the commons, the Corinthian ship stole out to sea; while the greater part of the auxiliaries passed over unobserved to the continent.
The day following, Nicostratus son of Diïtrephes, a general of the Athenians, came to their assistance from Naupactus with twelve ships and five hundred heavy-armed, and wished to negotiate a settlement, persuading them to agree with each other to bring to trial the ten chief authors of the sedition (who immediately fled), and for the rest to dwell in peace, having made an arrangement with each other, and with the Athenians, to have the same foes and friends. After effecting this he was going to sail away; but the leaders of the commons urged him to leave them five of his ships, that their adversaries might be less on the move; and they would themselves man and send with him an equal number of theirs. He consented to do so, and they proceeded to enlist their adversaries for the ships. They, fearing that they should be sent off to Athens, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of the Dioscuri; while Nicostratus was trying to persuade them to rise, and to encourage them. When he did not prevail on them, the commons, having armed themselves on this pretext, alleged that they had no good intentions, as was evident from their mistrust in not sailing with them; and removed their arms from their houses, and would have despatched some of them whom they met with, if Nicostratus had not prevented it. The rest, seeing what was going on, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of Juno, their number amounting to not less than four hundred. But the commons, being afraid of their making some new attempt, persuaded them to rise, and transferred them to the island in front of the temple, and provisions were sent over there for them.
When the sedition was at this point, on the fourth or fifth day after the transfer of the men to the island, the ships of the Peloponnesians, three-and-fifty in number, came up from Cyllene, having been stationed there since their return from Ionia. The commander of them, as before, was Alcidas, Brasidas sailing with him as counsellor. After coming to anchor at Sybota, a port on the mainland, as soon as it was morning they sailed towards Corcyra.
The Corcyræans, being in great confusion, and alarmed both at the state of things in the city and at the advance of the enemy, at once proceeded to equip sixty vessels, and to send them out, as they were successively manned, against the enemy; though the Athenians advised them to let them sail out first, and afterwards to follow themselves with all their ships together. On their vessels coming up to the enemy in this scattered manner, two immediately went over to them, while in others the crews were fighting amongst themselves, and there was no order in their measures. The Peloponnesians, seeing their confusion, drew up twenty of their ships against the Corcyræans, and the remainder against the twelve of the Athenians, amongst which were the two celebrated vessels, Salaminia and Paralus.
The Corcyræans, coming to the attack in bad order, and by few ships at a time, were distressed through their own arrangements; while the Athenians, fearing the enemy’s numbers and the chance of their surrounding them, did not attack their whole fleet, or even the centre of the division opposed to themselves, but took it in flank, and sank one ship. After this, when the Peloponnesians had formed in a circle, they began to sail round them, and endeavoured to throw them into confusion. The division which was opposed to the Corcyræans perceiving this, and fearing that the same thing might happen as had at Naupactus, advanced to their support. Thus the whole united fleet simultaneously attacked the Athenians, who now began to retire, rowing astern; at the same time wishing the vessels of the Corcyræans to retreat first, while they themselves drew off as leisurely as possible, and while the enemy were still ranged against them. The sea-fight then, having been of this character, ended at sunset.
The Corcyræans, fearing that the enemy, on the strength of his victory, might sail against the city, and either rescue the men in the island, or proceed to some other violent measures, carried the men over again to the sanctuary of Juno, and kept the city under guard. The Peloponnesians, however, though victorious in the engagement, did not dare to sail against the city, but withdrew with thirteen of the Corcyræan vessels to the continent, whence they had put out. The next day they advanced none the more against the city, though the inhabitants were in great confusion, and though Brasidas, it is said, advised Alcidas to do so, but was not equal to him in authority; but they landed on the promontory of Leucimne, and ravaged the country.
Meanwhile, the commons of the Corcyræans, being very much alarmed lest the fleet should sail against them, entered into negotiation with the suppliants and the rest for the preservation of the city. And some of them they persuaded to go on board the ships; for, notwithstanding the general dismay, they still manned thirty, in expectation of the enemy’s advance against them. But the Peloponnesians, after ravaging the land till mid-day, sailed away; and at nightfall the approach of sixty Athenian ships from Leucas was signalled to them, which the Athenians had sent with Eurymedon son of Thucles, as commander, on hearing of the sedition, and of the fleet about to go to Corcyra with Alcidas.
The Peloponnesians then immediately proceeded homeward by night with all haste, passing along shore; and having hauled their ships over the isthmus of Leucas, that they might not be seen doubling it, they sailed back. The Corcyræans, on learning the approach of the Athenian fleet and the retreat of the enemy, took and brought into the city the Messenians, who before had been without the walls: and having ordered the ships they had manned to sail round into the Hyllaic harbour, while they were going round, they put to death any of their opponents they might have happened to seize; and afterwards despatched, as they landed them from the ships, all that they had persuaded to go on board. They also went to the sanctuary of Juno, and persuaded about fifty men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death. The majority of the suppliants, who had not been prevailed on by them, when they saw what was being done, slew one another there on the sacred ground; while some hanged themselves on the trees, and others destroyed themselves as they severally could. During seven days that Eurymedon stayed after his arrival with his sixty ships, the Corcyræans were butchering those of their countrymen whom they thought hostile to them; bringing their accusations, indeed, against those only who were for putting down the democracy; but some were slain for private enmity also, and others for money owed them by those who had borrowed it. Every mode of death was thus had recourse to; and whatever ordinarily happens in such a state of things, happened then, and still more. For father murdered son, and they were dragged out of the sanctuaries, or slain in them; while in that of Bacchus some were walled up and perished. So savagely did the sedition proceed; while it appeared to do so all the more from its being amongst the earliest.[54]
For afterwards, even the whole of Greece, so to say, was convulsed; struggles being everywhere made by the popular leaders to call in the Athenians, by the oligarchical party, the Lacedæmonians. Now they would have had no pretext for calling them in, nor have been prepared to do so, in time of peace. But when pressed by war, and when an alliance also was maintained by both parties for the injury of their opponents and for their own gain therefrom, occasions of inviting them were easily supplied to such as wished to effect any revolution. And many dreadful things befell the cities through this sedition, which occur, and will always do so, as long as human nature is the same, but in a more violent or milder form, and varying in their phenomena, as the several variations of circumstances may in each case present themselves.
For in peace and prosperity both communities and individuals had better feelings, through not falling into urgent needs; whereas war, by taking away the free supply of daily wants, is a violent master, and assimilates most men’s tempers to their present condition. The states then were thus torn by sedition, and the later instances of it in any part, from having heard what had been done before, exhibited largely an excessive refinement of ideas, both in the eminent cunning of their plans, and the monstrous cruelty of their vengeance. The ordinary meaning of words was changed by them as they thought proper. For reckless daring was regarded as courage that was true to its friends; prudent delay, as specious cowardice; moderation, as a cloak for unmanliness; being intelligent in everything, as being useful for nothing. Frantic violence was assigned to the manly character; cautious plotting was considered a specious excuse for declining the contest.
The advocate for cruel measures was always trusted; while his opponent was suspected. He that plotted against another, if successful, was reckoned clever; he that suspected a plot, still cleverer; but he that forecasted for escaping the necessity of all such things, was regarded as one who broke up his party, and was afraid of his adversaries. In a word, the man was commended who anticipated one going to do an evil deed, or who persuaded to it one who had no thought of it. Moreover, kindred became a tie less close than party, because the latter was more ready for unscrupulous audacity. For such associations have nothing to do with any benefit from established laws, but are formed in opposition to those institutions by a spirit of rapacity. Again, their mutual grounds of confidence they confirmed not so much by any reference to the divine law as by fellowship in some act of lawlessness. The fair professions of their adversaries they received with a cautious eye to their actions, if they were stronger than themselves, and not with a spirit of generosity.
To be avenged on another was deemed of greater consequence than to escape being first injured oneself. As for oaths, if in any case exchanged with a view to a reconciliation, being taken by either party with regard to their immediate necessity, they only held good so long as they had no resources from any other quarter; but he that first, when occasion offered, took courage to break them, if he saw his enemy off his guard, wreaked his vengeance on him with greater pleasure for his confidence, than he would have done in an open manner; taking into account both the safety of the plan, and the fact that by taking a treacherous advantage of him he also won a prize for cleverness. And the majority of men, when dishonest, more easily get the name of talented, than, when simple, that of good; and of the one they are ashamed, while of the other they are proud. Now the cause of all these things was power pursued for the gratification of covetousness and ambition, and the consequent violence of parties when once engaged in contention.
For the leaders in the cities, having a specious profession on each side, put forward, respectively, the political equality of the people, or a moderate aristocracy, while in word they served the common interests, in truth they made them their prizes. And while struggling by every means to obtain an advantage over each other, they dared and carried out the most dreadful deeds; heaping on still greater vengeance, not only so far as was just and expedient for the state, but to the measure of what was pleasing to either party in each successive case: and whether by an unjust sentence of condemnation, or on gaining the ascendency by the strong hand, they were ready to glut the animosity they felt at the moment. Thus piety was in fashion with neither party; but those who had the luck to effect some odious purpose under fair pretences were the more highly spoken of. The neutrals amongst the citizens were destroyed by both parties; either because they did not join them in their quarrel, or for envy that they should so escape.
Thus every kind of villainy arose in Greece from these seditions. Simplicity, which is a very large ingredient in a noble nature, was laughed down and disappeared; and mutual opposition of feeling, with a want of confidence, prevailed to a great extent. For there was neither promise that could be depended on, nor oath that struck them with fear, to put an end to their strife; but all being in their calculations more strongly inclined to despair of anything proving trustworthy, they looked forward to their own escape from suffering more easily than they could place confidence in arrangements with others. And the men of more homely wit, generally speaking, had the advantage; for through fearing their own deficiency and the cleverness of their opponents, lest they might be worsted in words, and be first plotted against by means of the versatility of their enemy’s genius, they proceeded boldly to deeds. Whereas their opponents, arrogantly thinking that they should be aware beforehand, and that there was no need for their securing by action what they could by stratagem, were unguarded and more often ruined.
It was in Corcyra then that most of these things were first ventured on; both the deeds which men who were governed with a spirit of insolence, rather than of moderation, by those who afterwards afforded them an opportunity of vengeance, would do as the retaliating party; or which those who wished to rid themselves of their accustomed poverty, and passionately desired the possession of their neighbours’ goods, might unjustly resolve on; or which those who had begun the struggle, not from covetousness, but on a more equal footing, might savagely and ruthlessly proceed to, chiefly through being carried away by the rudeness of their anger. Thus the course of life being at that time thrown into confusion in the city, human nature, which is wont to do wrong even in spite of the laws, having then got the mastery of the law, gladly showed itself to be unrestrained in passion, above regard for justice, and an enemy to all superiority. They would not else have preferred vengeance to religion, and gain to innocence; in which state envy would have had no power to hurt them. And so men presume in their acts of vengeance to be the first to violate those common laws on such questions, from which all have a hope secured to them of being themselves rescued from misfortune; and they will not allow them to remain, in case of any one’s ever being in danger and in need of some of them.[c]
DEMOSTHENES AND SPHACTERIA
[426-425 B.C.]
These massacres at Corcyra, Mytilene, Platæa, and Melos were doubly disastrous; iniquity always striking back at its perpetrators, thus making two victims. Through such reversions to the barbarity of former days the sense of right, of justice will everywhere become enfeebled until it finally disappears.
As though nature herself had wished to take part in the general disorder, earthquakes visited Attica, Eubœa, and all of Bœotia, particularly Orchomenos. Pestilence had never made its appearance in the Peloponnesus: now for a year it raged among the Athenians with terrible mortality. Since its outbreak it had carried off forty-three hundred hoplites, three hundred horsemen, and innumerable victims among the general population. This was the last blow fate dealt the Athenians. To appease the god to whom all pollution was an offence, they caused the island of Apollo to be thoroughly purified as had already been done by the Pisistratidæ. Birth and death being alike forbidden at Delos, the remains of the dead buried there were exhumed and sent elsewhere, and the sick were transported to Rhenea, a neighbouring island. Finally, there were instituted in honour of Apollo games and horse-races which were to be celebrated every four years, the Greeks as well as the Romans thinking to gain thus the protection of a god, whom they caused to be represented by images at these festivals.
The Ionians, excluded from the Peloponnesian solemnities, flocked to those of Delos, where Nicias, at the first celebration, made himself remarkable for the magnificence of his gifts. In one night he caused to be constructed between Delos and Rhenea a bridge seven hundred metres long, carpeted and decorated with wreaths, across which was to pass the procession of the dead exiled in the name of religion from the holy island (425 B.C.).
It is a proof of the part taken by the people of Athens in the great things accomplished by Pericles, that in the four years passed without his enlightened counsel, they had displayed under the double scourge of plague and war that steadfastness he had particularly enjoined upon them: no disturbances took place in the city and no pettiness of spirit was shown in the choice of military chiefs. In vain Cleon thundered from the tribune. Into the hands of none but tried generals, were they noble, rich, or friends of peace, like Nicias and Demosthenes, was given the command of their armies. At Mytilene and Corcyra those who had placed their trust in Lacedæmon had perished; the destruction of Platæa was the only check received by Athens. She began to turn her gaze toward Sicily; soon she sent there twenty galleys to aid the Leontini against Syracuse. Her pretext was community of origin with the Leontini, but in reality she wished to prevent the exportation of Sicilian grain into the Peloponnesus.
Demosthenes was a true general, able and bold; to him war was a science made up of difficult combinations as well as courage. Leaving to his colleague, Nicias, the seas near Athens he set out for western waters, to destroy the influence of Corinth even in the gulf that bears his name. Aided by the Acarnanians he had the preceding year (426) vanquished in the land-battle of Olpæ, by force of superior tactics, the Peloponnesians, who lost so many men that the general had three hundred panoplies, his share of the plunder, consecrated in the temple at Athens. But this Acarnanian War, related at such length by Thucydides, could not have very serious results. An audacious enterprise by Demosthenes seemed, at one moment, to have brought it to a close. Struck, while navigating around the Peloponnesus, by the advantageous position of Pylos a promontory on the coast of Messene which commands the present harbour of Navarino, the best sea-port of the peninsula, left deserted by the Spartans since the Messenian War, the idea came to him that if he could occupy it with Messenians he would be “attaching a burning torch to the flank of the Peloponnesus.” He obtained from the people permission to act on this idea; but when the fleet which had set out for Corcyra and Italy arrived at Pylos, the generals commanding it shrank from the project and refused to execute it. The winds interposed in Demosthenes’ behalf, by driving the ships on to the coast and forcing the Athenians to land. Once on shore the soldiers, with that industry that characterised the Athenians, set to work to construct walls and fortifications, without either tools for cutting stone or hods for carrying mortar. At the end of six days the rampart was about finished and Demosthenes, with six galleys, took up his position on the point (425).
[425 B.C.]
Sparta was with reason alarmed at this move, the place chosen by Demosthenes at the west of the Peloponnesus, forming an excellent station for hostile fleets, and from Pylos the Athenians would be able to spread agitation through all Messene, perhaps even to incite the helots to fresh revolt. The Peloponnesian army was at once recalled from Attica where it had only arrived two weeks before, and also the fleet from Corcyra with the end in view of blockading Pylos by land and by sea. At the entrance to this harbour was an island fifteen stadia [not quite two miles] long called Sphacteria. The Lacedæmonians landed on this island a force of four hundred and twenty hoplites, and barred the channel on either side with vessels having their prows turned outward. Pylos had no other defence seaward than the difficulty of effecting a landing on her shores, but it was on this side that the attack began. It lasted two days and was unsuccessful. Brasidas, who had displayed great valour, was covered with wounds and lost his shield, which the waters carried over to the Athenians. There was still hope for the Lacedæmonians; but at this point forty Athenian galleys arriving from Zacynthus, assailed their fleet and after a furious combat drove their ships upon the land. Thus Sphacteria was surrounded by an armed circle that kept close guard about her night and day.
Sparta was thrown into consternation by the news of this defeat. Her population that in Lycurgus’ time numbered nine thousand was reduced in the year of the battle of Platæa to five thousand, which in another quarter of a century had dwindled to seven hundred; hence she could not support the loss of the men now held under siege by the Athenians. The ephors went in person to Pylos to examine the condition of affairs and saw no other way to preserve the lives of their fellow-citizens than to conclude an armistice with the Athenian generals. It was agreed that Laconia should send ambassadors to Athens, and that she should immediately surrender all the vessels, sixty galleys, that she had in the port of Pylos; Athens to continue the blockade of Sphacteria but allowing to pass in daily, two Attic phœnices of flour, two cotyles of wine, and a portion of meat per soldier, with half that allowance for the menials.
The Lacedæmonian deputies appeared in the assembly at Athens and, contrary to their usual custom, delivered a long discourse offering peace in exchange for the Spartan prisoners and adding that the treaty once made, all other cities would follow their example and lay down arms. Where now were all the causes of complaint held against Athens at the commencement of the war? The Spartans deserted their allies and the cause they had formerly held so just for the sake of some fellow-citizens in danger. But had they not also the preceding year betrayed the Ambracians after the defeat at Olpæ? Unfortunately Pericles was no longer there to urge upon the people a prudent generosity. Cleon exhorted the assembly to demand the restitution of the towns ceded when the Thirty Years’ Truce was concluded, and the deputies, unable to accept such terms, retired without having accomplished anything.
The armistice ceased with their return; but the Athenians, pretending the violation of certain conditions, refused to give up the Spartan vessels, which was an entirely gratuitous breach of faith since the ships were no longer of any use to the Spartans. Famine was the greatest danger the besieged had to fear; the island, thickly wooded as it was, offering peril to the enemy that would attempt to take it by force. Freedom was promised each helot who would carry provisions through the blockade, and many attempting and succeeding, the four hundred and twenty were enabled to hold out till the approach of winter.
The Athenians at Pylos had also to fear for themselves the difficulty of obtaining provisions through the severe season. The army already suffered, and this fact became known at Athens. Cleon, who had rejected the overtures of the Lacedæmonians, laid the blame on the generals. It was because of their lack of resolution, he said, that hostilities were so prolonged. In this he was right, the Athenians at Pylos numbering ten thousand men as against four hundred and twenty Spartans. Nicias, in a constant state of alarm, believed success even with their superior force impossible, and to silence the demagogue proposed to him to go himself to Sphacteria.
Cleon hesitated, but the impatient people took the general at his word, and Cleon was obliged to go; promising that in twenty days all trouble would be at an end. In truth this was time enough to effect his purpose when he once seriously set to work. He first prudently requested that Demosthenes co-operate with him, and was wise enough to take counsel of this able man at every step. Shortly after his arrival at Pylos a fire lighted on Sphacteria to cook food and imperfectly extinguished, was fanned by a violent wind into a blaze that destroyed the whole forest. This accident removed the principal obstacle in the way of an attack. Demosthenes made the preparations aided by Cleon, and one night they fell upon the island with their entire force. Having among their troops many that were lightly armed, they were able to reach the highest points and from there sorely harass the Lacedæmonians who were unused to the methods of attack of an enemy that uttered wild cries and fled as soon as they had struck. The ashes of the recently consumed forest rose into the air and blinded the besieged men, and unable longer to distinguish objects they stood motionless in one place and received from every side projectiles that their felt cuirasses were ill-fitted to turn aside. To render the combat a little less unequal they retired in a body to an elevated fort at the extremity of the island. This position gave them a decided advantage, and they were beginning to repulse their assailants when there appeared upon the rocks above them a corps of Messenians who had outflanked them.
They saw the necessity of surrendering, but named a condition: that they be allowed to consult with the Lacedæmonians who were stationed on the neighbouring coast. Their compatriots replied: “You are free to act as you think best provided you incur no dishonour.” At this they laid down their arms and surrendered; the course wherein dishonour formerly lay for Sparta apparently containing it no more. One hundred and twenty-eight were killed in the engagement: of the two hundred and ninety-two survivors one hundred and twenty belonged to the noblest families of Sparta. Some one praised in the hearing of one of the prisoners the courage of those of his companions who had been slain: “It would be impossible,” he said, “to esteem the darts too highly if they are capable of distinguishing a brave man from a coward.” This retort was, for a Spartan, very Athenian in spirit. The blockade had lasted fifty-two days.
His victory at Sphacteria raised Cleon high in the estimation of the people. A decree gave him the right to live in the Prytaneum at the cost of the republic, and to perpetuate the memory of his success a statue of Victory was erected on the Acropolis. Aristophanes in revenge presented six months later his comedy of the Knights, in which Cleon as the “Paphlagonian,” the slave who ingratiates himself with Demos for the purpose of robbing him, causes blows to rain upon the faithful servants Nicias and Demosthenes, and finally serves up to his master the cake of Pylos that Demosthenes alone has prepared. We will only say in conclusion that though all the honour of the affair may go to Demosthenes, Cleon manifested in it an energy that was not without effect; that even in the account of Thucydides he does not appear to have borne himself discreditably as captain or soldier; and lastly, that all that he promised he performed.
The balance of power was now disturbed, fortune leaned to the side of the Athenians. Nevertheless, while the Lacedæmonians were taking their land-forces economically over into Attica from Laconia, Athens was ruining herself by maintaining fleets in all the seas of Greece, recruiting at heavy cost the rowers to man them. Her annual expenses amounted to twenty-five hundred talents. In 425 the reserved funds amassed by Pericles being exhausted, it became necessary to increase both the tribute paid her by her allies and the tax laid upon the revenues of her citizens. One of these measures was to cause disaffection later, and the other, that which weighed upon the rich, was to give rise to plots against the popular government, germs of disaster that the future was to bring to fruition.
FURTHER ATHENIAN SUCCESSES
[425-424 B.C.]
The Athenians had as yet no forebodings, but applied rare vigour to the following up of their success. Nicias, at the head of a considerable armament, landed on the isthmus and defeated the Corinthians, then he proceeded to the capture of Methone between Trœzen and Epidaurus on the peninsula, and extending towards Ægina. A garrison was left behind a wall that closed the isthmus, and from this post which communicated by fire signals with Piræus the Athenians made frequent raids into Argolis (425). The following year Nicias took the island of Cythera which, situated near the southern coast of the Peloponnesus, offered great facility for making raids into that district and for waylaying ships bound there. It commanded, moreover, the seas of Crete and Sicily in both of which Athens had stationed fleets for the support of the cities at war with Syracuse.
After having ravaged Laconia for seven days with impunity, Nicias returned to Thyrea in Cynuria, where the Spartans had established the Æginetans. He took the city despite the proximity of a Lacedæmonian army which did not venture to aid it, and his prisoners were sent to Athens and there put to death. This new-born national greatness, if such a return to savagery can merit the name, increased constantly in power: the foe was a criminal meriting punishment and his defeat equivalent to a sentence of death. In just this period occurred a tragedy, the story of which we would refuse to receive were it not for Thucydides’ direct affirmation; the massacre of two thousand of the bravest helots for the sole purpose of weakening the corps and of frightening those of their companions to whom the success of Athens might have given the idea of revolt. Overwhelmed by so many reverses and fearful of seeing war established permanently around Laconia, at Pylos, Cythera, and Cynuria, the Spartans shrank from further action. Whatever step they took might lead them into error and having never learned the lessons of misfortune, they remained irresolute and timid. The Athenians, on the contrary, were full of confidence in their good fortune. The Greeks in Sicily having brought their wars to a close by a general reconciliation, the generals sent to that country by the Athenians allowed themselves to be included in the treaty. On their return the people condemned two of them to exile and one to a heavy fine, on the pretext that they had it in their power to subjugate Sicily but had been bought off by presents. The Athenian people believed themselves to be irresistible, and in the loftiness of their aspirations denied to any enterprise, whether practicable or not, the possibility of defeat. This was the forerunner of the fatal madness that seized them when Alcibiades planned the unfortunate expedition into Sicily.
Athens was thus taking everywhere the offensive, and Sparta, paralysed, had entirely ceased to act; she had recourse again to Darius, begging aid more insistently than ever, thus betraying the cause of all Greece and dimming the glory of their deeds at Thermopylæ. The Athenians intercepted the Persian Artaphernes in Thrace. In the letter this envoy bore, the king set forth that not being able to grasp the meaning of the Spartans—no two of their envoys delivering to him the same message—he had thought best in order to come to a clear understanding, to send them a deputy. Athens at once took steps to neutralise Sparta’s measures; perhaps even to supplant her in the favour of the Great King, and sent Artaphernes back honourably accompanied by ambassadors. From now on Greece was to witness the shameful spectacle offered by the descendants of the victors of Salamis and Platæa bowing down to the successors of Xerxes. At Ephesus the embassy learnt of the death of the Great King and went no further; but Athens had none the less been false, in intent if not in deed, to all the traditions of her past, and was to expiate her sin without delay.
A CHECK TO ATHENS; BRASIDAS BECOMES AGGRESSIVE
[424 B.C.]
Demosthenes’ able plan had succeeded; the Peloponnesus was encircled by hostile posts; there now remained but to shut off the isthmus and imprison the Spartans in their retreat. One way of doing this was to occupy Megara, but a still better method would be to obtain an alliance with Bœotia. The attempt on Megara having failed, Demosthenes turned his attention to Bœotia. He held secret communication with the inhabitants of Chæronea, who promised to deliver over the city to a body of Athenians who were to leave Naupactus unseen, aided by the Phocians, while he himself was to storm Siphæ on the Gulf of Crissa, the Athenian general Hippocrates being charged with the capture of Delium, on the Eubœan side. These three enterprises were to be executed the same day, and if they succeeded, Bœotia, like the Peloponnesus, would be encircled by a hostile ring, and Thebes would be separated from Lacedæmon. But too many were in the secret to allow of its being kept, the enemy was warned and the three Athenian forces, failing to act in concert, lost the advantage that would have lain in a simultaneous attack.
The enterprise against Siphæ and Chæronea failed also and Hippocrates, delayed a few days in his advance, found arrayed against him in one body all the Bœotian forces that he and his colleagues had plotted to divide. He succeeded in occupying Delium and fortified the temple of Apollo found there. To the Bœotians it was profanation to turn a temple into a fortress, and this scruple was shared by many of the Athenians who entered but half-heartedly into the combat. A thousand hoplites with their chief perished in the action; contrary to sacred usage Thebes let the bodies of the dead lie without sepulture seventeen days, until the taking of Delium; holding them to be sacrilegious evil-doers whose wandering souls were to receive punishment in the infernal world.
Socrates had taken part in this battle. In company with his friend Laches and some others equally brave, he had held his ground to the last, retreating step by step before the Theban cavalry. Simultaneously with this display of heroism Aristophanes was writing his comedy, the Clouds.
Sparta possessed but one man of ability, Brasidas, who had saved Megara, menaced Piræus, and almost defeated Demosthenes at Pylos. Clear-sighted and brave to the point of audacity, he possessed an additional weapon, one that was capable of inflicting cruel wounds, and that the Spartans had hitherto known little how to use, eloquence. The sea being closed to him, he decided that it would be possible to injure Athens seriously both in fortune and renown without leaving the land. The very policy she had used against Sparta, Pylos, Cythera, and Methone, could now be turned against her in Chalcidice and Thrace. At the commencement of the war she had forced Perdiccas, king of Macedonia, to enter her alliance and had gained the friendship of Sitalces the powerful king of the Odrysians, whose territory extended from the Ægean Sea to the Danube, and from Byzantium to the source of the Strymon, a distance not to be covered under thirty days’ travel.
At Athens’ instigation Sitalces had in 429 invaded Macedonia, but since then his zeal had cooled. Perdiccas, on his side, had never lost an opportunity of secretly injuring the Athenians. Even at this moment he was urging Sparta to send an expedition to Chalcidice and the coast of Thrace. To deprive Athens of these regions whence she obtained her timber was to attack her in her navy, and to carry at the same time the centre of hostilities towards the north, was to draw her away from the Peloponnesus which had lately suffered so many ills. Brasidas was charged with the enterprise, but Sparta refused to engage in it deeply. He raised a force of seven hundred helots who were armed as hoplites, to which were added a thousand Peloponnesians attracted by Perdiccas’ promises. This was little; but Brasidas held in reserve the treacherous but magical word, Liberty, that was to open for him many gates.
He took possession in this way of Acanthus, Stagira, and Amphipolis itself fell into his power, he having entered one of its suburbs by stealth, and won over all the inhabitants by the generosity of his conditions. Amphipolitans and Athenians alike he permitted to remain with retention of all their rights and property; he also accorded to those who wished to leave, five days in which to carry away all their belongings. Not for an age had war been carried on with such humanity, and it was a Spartan who was setting the example! We must also note the lack of eagerness shown by Athens’ allies to cast off her yoke which, viewed in the light of facts, takes on an aspect much less odious than that in which it is represented by rhetoricians.
THE BANISHMENT OF THUCYDIDES
The approach of so active an enemy as Brasidas, and the blows he had dealt, should have led the Athenian generals in that region to concentrate their forces on the continent not far from Amphipolis, which was Athens’ principal stronghold on that side. One of these commanders had gone with seven galleys to Thasos, where there was no need of his presence, the island being secure from menace. Though too late to save Amphipolis he arrived in time to save the port, Eion. At the suggestion of Cleon the people punished this act of negligence by a twenty years’ sentence of exile. It is to this sentence that posterity owes a masterwork in which vigorous thoughts are expressed in a style of great conciseness, the exiled one being Thucydides, who employed his leisure in writing the history of the Peloponnesian War. The real culprit was Eucles, the commander of Amphipolis, who had allowed himself to be taken by surprise.
In according liberty to the towns he took, Brasidas deprived Athens of many subjects without bestowing any on Lacedæmonia who had no desire for conquest in such distant regions; hence the success of the adventurous general astonished Greece without arousing great enthusiasm in Sparta; neither did it cause much vexation at Athens after the first outburst of anger to which Thucydides fell a victim. Deprived of a few cities of importance, Athens retained her island empire; the loss of Amphipolis being her most serious reverse.
King Plistoanax, exiled in 445 from Sparta for having lent ear to the propositions of Pericles, had taken refuge on Mount Lycæus in Arcadia near the temple of Zeus, and had dwelt there nineteen years. The partisans of peace recalled the exile, who returned to his native land filled with the determination to end the war. Neither was Athens, for the moment, in a bellicose mood.
A TRUCE DECLARED; TWO TREATIES OF PEACE
[423-421 B.C.]
Her desire to reduce expenses and Sparta’s to recover captives that belonged to her most influential families brought about, in fact, a sort of union between the two nations. In March, 423, a truce of one year was declared, the conditions being that each side should retain all its possessions. The population forming the Peloponnesian league were authorised to navigate the waters surrounding their own coasts and those of their allies, but they were forbidden the use of war-galleys. The signers of the treaty must guarantee to all free access to the temple and oracle of Pythian Apollo, must harbour no refugees, free or slave, must protect all heralds and deputies journeying by land or sea, must, in a word, aid by every means in their power the conclusion of permanent peace.
While the treaty was being concluded at Athens, Brasidas entered Scione, on the peninsula of Pallene where he was received with open arms, the inhabitants decreeing him a golden crown, and binding his head with fillets as though he had been a victorious athlete. This victory being achieved two days after the conclusion of peace, the conquered territory ought to have been given back; this Sparta refused to do and hostilities broke out again. Nicias, arriving with a considerable force, took Scione, then Mende, which was delivered over to him by the people, and persuaded Perdiccas to ally himself again with Athens. Brasidas failed in an enterprise against Potidæa. The following year Cleon was named general. He urged Athens and with reason to repeat against Potidæa the vigour of her action at Pylos, it being necessary to check the advance of Brasidas. He first seized Torone and Galepsus, then established himself at Eion to await the auxiliaries that were on their way to him from Thrace and Macedonia. But his soldiers carried him along with them in a rush to Amphipolis, where Brasidas was stationed. This latter took advantage of a false move on the part of the Athenians to attack them by surprise, and won a victory that cost him his life. Cleon also fell in this action. In the account of Thucydides Cleon was one of the first to seek flight, but according to Diodorus he died bravely. Brasidas, mourned by all his allies who took part, fully armed, in his funeral procession, was interred with the ceremonies accorded to one of the ancient heroes. His tomb was enclosed within a consecrated circle and in his honour were instituted annual games and sacrifices (422).
The death of these two men facilitated the conclusion of peace; Brasidas by his activity and success, Cleon by his discourses having been for long the chief sustainers of war. Athens, which had experienced a serious check, lost confidence, as did also Sparta, the victory of Amphipolis having been gained not by her native troops but by a body of mercenaries upon whom no reliance could be placed; the war she had lightly undertaken against Athens had lasted ten years, with the menace of another contest in the near future; the Thirty Years’ Truce concluded with the Argives was on the point of expiring, and lastly her naval ports were still in the hands of the enemy and her citizens were still held captive. In both cities the balance of influence was on the side of the peace partisans, prudent Nicias in Athens, and the easy-going Plistoanax in Lacedæmon. There were two treaties of peace which were finally concluded in 421.
[421 B.C.]
The first treaty guaranteed to the Greeks, according to usage, the right to offer sacrifices at Delphi, to consult its oracle and to attend its festivals. It was agreed that each side should restore the cities taken in war; Thebes alone was to be allowed to retain Platæa, in exchange for which the Athenians would keep Nisæa in the Megarid, and Anactorium and Sollium in Acarnania. It was stipulated that “what was decreed for the majority of the allies should bind them all, unless hindrances should occur on the part of the gods and heroes.” All the allies save Corinth, Megara, and the Eleans, accepted these conditions. It was finally decided that peace should be ratified by an oath renewed each year and inscribed upon the columns of Olympia and Delphi, of the temple of Poseidon on the isthmus, in the citadel at Athens, and the Amyclæum at Sparta.
One of the articles of the treaty read that prisoners should be restored on both sides. When those of Sphacteria arrived, they were degraded from their rights as citizens, that the stain on Spartan courage might be removed by showing that Lacedæmon recognised no compromise with duty, even in the face of death. It is true that shortly after, these same citizens were reinstated in their former position.
The first of these treaties which brought temporary cessation to the ills the people had suffered for the last ten years, bore the name of the honourable man who had been instrumental in having it drawn, Nicias. Who had profited by all the blood that had been shed? Sparta had increased neither in strength nor in glory, while Greece simply retained her original empire, her people not for a moment renouncing the hatred that had armed them against each other. No side had gained, and civilisation had lost what ten years of peace would have added to the brilliancy of the Age of Pericles.[e]
FOOTNOTES
[54] [Over five hundred of the oligarchical party escaped to Mount Istone, and when the Athenian fleet sailed away proceeded to make frequent raids upon the democratic strongholds, till in 425 the Athenian fleet on the way to Sicily paused in Corcyra and aided the people to storm Istone. The prisoners left to the mob were foully butchered and the oligarchical party annihilated.]
