Historical Parallels, vol. 3 (of 3)

by Arthur Thomas Malkin

Corcyrean sedition—Civil wars of Rome—Jacquerie—Factions of the Circus at Constantinople—Massacre of Sept. 2, 1792.

The year which witnessed the unhappy fate of the brave Platæans was made remarkable by the Corcyrean sedition also: on which, as on the plague of Athens, the pen of Thucydides has conferred a lasting celebrity.

Corcyra, an island situated on the western coast of Greece, by sedulous attention to commerce, had risen, a little before the Peloponnesian war, to the possession of a navy capable of rivalling in strength that of any Grecian state, except Athens. It was a colony of Corinth; but, in consequence of some disputes which arose out of the affairs of Epidamnus, a Corcyrean colony, war broke out between Corcyra and the mother country, the Corcyreans concluded a defensive alliance with the Athenians, and the democratical interest was of course established in power. A naval battle ensued, in which the Corinthians had the advantage, and took upwards of a thousand prisoners. It rarely happened in any of the smaller Grecian states, that either the democratic or the oligarchical party obtained an uncontested and permanent ascendancy; and the Corinthians were not inclined to resign without a struggle that respect and influence which the manners and religion of Greece taught to be due from the colony to the mother country. Of the prisoners above mentioned, eight hundred, who were slaves, were sold by the victors; the rest, to the number of two hundred and fifty, were citizens, most of them men of consequence in Corcyra, who probably looked with no friendly eye on the Athenian alliance, and at all events were ready to break it off, and revert to the connexion of Corinth, as the price of their liberty. They were accordingly suffered to return home. The tumults to which their subsequent attempts to restore the oligarchy gave rise are celebrated in history under the name of the Corcyrean sedition. A more heinous scene of treachery and murder has seldom been exhibited even in civil warfare; or a more deplorable state of morals described than that which is said by Thucydides in the following passage to have prevailed, not only in Corcyra, but throughout Greece.

“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 eight hundred talents, for which they had given security to their hosts,[36] but in fact, because they had persuaded the Corinthians that they would put Corcyra into their power. These persons going round from man to man, solicited 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 Corcyreans, upon audience of them both, decreed to hold the Athenians for their confederates, on articles agreed on: but withal to remain friends to the Peloponnesians, as they had formerly been. There was one Pithias, voluntary host 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 stakes[37] in the ground belonging to the temples both of Jupiter and of Alcinous, upon every one of which there lay a penalty of a stater.[38] And being sentenced to pay the fine, 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 Pithias (for he was also of the senate) obtained that the law should proceed. These five being by the law shut out of hope, and understanding that Pithias, 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 rest, and armed with daggers, suddenly brake into the senate house, and slew both Pithias and others, as well private men as senators, to the number of about sixty persons; only a few of those of Pithias his faction escaped into the Athenian galley that lay yet in the harbour.

“When they had done this, and called the Corcyreans 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 do what they had done, and also to dissuade such Corcyreans as were fled thither of the other faction, from doing anything to their prejudice, lest there should be a counter–revolution.

“When these arrived, the Athenians apprehended both the ambassadors themselves, as seditious persons, and also all those Corcyreans whom they had there prevailed with, and sent them to custody in Ægina. In the mean time, upon the coming in of a galley of Corinth with ambassadors from Lacedæmon, that party that had the rule 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 Hillaic haven. But the others seized on the market–place (where also the most of them dwelt) and on the haven on the side toward the continent.

“The next day they skirmished a little with shot,[39] and both parts sent abroad into the villages 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 800 men from the continent.

“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 twilight, and fearing lest the people should attack, and at the first onset gain possession of the arsenal, and put them to the sword, to stop their passage, set fire to the houses in the market–place, and those adjoining them, sparing neither their own property nor others. Much goods of merchants were 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. Then ceasing from battle, forasmuch as both parties were at rest, they set watch for the night. And the Corinthian galley stole away, because the people had gotten the victory, and most of the auxiliaries got over privily to the continent.

“The next day Nicostratus the son of Diotrephes, an Athenian commander, came in with twelve galleys and five hundred Messenian men of arms from Naupactus, and both negotiated 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 as the Athenians did. When he had done this, he would have been gone, but the 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 Corcyreans, and send with him. To this he agreed, and they made a list of those that should embark, consisting altogether of their enemies. 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 courage: 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.

“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.