But the oligarchical leaders at Korkyra knew better than to rely on the chances of this mission to Athens, and proceeded in the execution of their conspiracy with that rapidity which was best calculated to insure its success. On the arrival of a Corinthian trireme, which brought ambassadors from Sparta, and probably also brought news that the fleet of Alkidas would shortly appear,—they organized their force, and attacked the people and the democratical authorities. The Korkyræan Demos were at first vanquished and dispersed; but during the night they collected together and fortified themselves in the upper parts of the town near the acropolis, and from thence down to the Hyllaic harbor, one of the two harbors which the town possessed; while the other harbor and the chief arsenal, facing the mainland of Epirus, was held by the oligarchical party, together with the market-place near to it, in and around which the wealthier Korkyræans chiefly resided. In this divided state the town remained throughout the ensuing day, during which the Demos sent emissaries round the territory soliciting aid from the working slaves, and promising to them emancipation as a reward; while the oligarchy also hired and procured eight hundred Epirotic mercenaries from the mainland. Reinforced by the slaves, who flocked in at the call received, the Demos renewed the struggle on the morrow, more furiously than before. Both in position and numbers they had the advantage over the oligarchy, and the intense resolution with which they fought communicated itself even to the women, who, braving danger and tumult, took active part in the combat, especially by flinging tiles from the housetops. Towards the afternoon, the people became decidedly victorious, and were even on the point of carrying by assault the lower town, together with the neighboring arsenal, both held by the oligarchy,—nor had the latter any other chance of safety except the desperate resource of setting fire to that part of the town, with the market-place, houses, and buildings all around it, their own among the rest. This proceeding drove back the assailants, but destroyed much property belonging to merchants in the warehouses, together with a large part of the town: indeed, had the wind been favorable the entire town would have been consumed. The people being thus victorious, the Corinthian trireme, together with most of the Epirotic mercenaries, thought it safer to leave the island; while the victors were still farther strengthened on the ensuing morning by the arrival of the Athenian admiral Nikostratus, with twelve triremes from Naupaktus,[455] and five hundred Messenian hoplites.
Nikostratus did his best to allay the furious excitement prevailing, and to persuade the people to use their victory with moderation. Under his auspices, a convention of amnesty and peace was concluded between the contending parties, save only ten proclaimed individuals of the most violent oligarchs, who were to be tried as ringleaders: these men of course soon disappeared, so that there would have been no trial at all, which seems to have been what Nikostratus desired. At the same time an alliance offensive and defensive was established between Korkyra and Athens, and the Athenian admiral was then on the point of departing, when the Korkyræan leaders entreated him to leave with them, for greater safety, five ships out of his little fleet of twelve,—offering him five of their own triremes instead. Notwithstanding the peril of this proposition to himself, Nikostratus acceded to it, and the Korkyræans, preparing the five ships to be sent along with him, began to enroll among the crews the names of their principal enemies. To the latter this presented the appearance of sending them to Athens, which they accounted a sentence of death. Under this impression they took refuge as suppliants in the temple of the Dioskuri, where Nikostratus went to visit them and tried to reassure them by the promise that nothing was intended against their personal safety. But he found it impossible to satisfy them, and as they persisted in refusing to serve, the Korkyræan Demos began to suspect treachery. They took arms again, searched the houses of the recusants for arms, and were bent on putting some of them to death, if Nikostratus had not taken them under his protection. The principal men of the defeated party, to the number of about four hundred, now took sanctuary in the temple and sacred ground of Hêrê; and the leaders of the people, afraid that in this inviolable position they might still cause further insurrection in the city, opened a negotiation and prevailed upon them to be ferried across to the little island immediately opposite to the Heræum; where they were kept under watch, with provisions regularly transmitted across to them, for four days.[456]
At the end of these four days, while the uneasiness of the popular leaders still continued, and Nikostratus still adjourned his departure, a new phase opened in this melancholy drama. The Peloponnesian fleet under Alkidas arrived at the road of Sybota on the opposite mainland,—fifty-three triremes in number, for the forty triremes brought back from Ionia had been reinforced by thirteen more from Leukas and Ambrakia, and the Lacedæmonians had sent down Brasidas as advising companion,—himself worth more than the new thirteen triremes, if he had been sent to supersede Alkidas, instead of bringing nothing but authority to advise.[457] Despising the small squadron of Nikostratus, then at Naupaktus, they were only anxious to deal with Korkyra before reinforcements should arrive from Athens: but the repairs necessary for the ships of Alkidas, after their disastrous voyage home, occasioned an unfortunate delay. When the Peloponnesian fleet was seen approaching from Sybota at break of day, the confusion in Korkyra was unspeakable: the Demos and the newly-emancipated slaves were agitated alike by the late terrible combat and by fear of the invaders,—the oligarchical party, though defeated, was still present and forming a considerable minority, and the town was half burnt. Amidst such elements of trouble, there was little authority to command, and still less confidence or willingness to obey. Plenty of triremes were indeed at hand, and orders were given to man sixty of them forthwith,—while Nikostratus, the only man who preserved the cool courage necessary for effective resistance, entreated the Korkyræan leaders to proceed with regularity, and to wait till all were manned, so as to sail forth from the harbor in a body. He offered himself with his twelve Athenian triremes to go forth first alone, and occupy the Peloponnesian fleet, until the Korkyræan sixty triremes could all come out in full array to support him. He accordingly went forth with his squadron; but the Korkyræans, instead of following his advice, sent their ships out one by one and without any selection of crews. Two of them deserted forthwith to the enemy, while others presented the spectacle of crews fighting among themselves; even those which actually joined battle came up by single ships, without the least order or concert.
The Peloponnesians, soon seeing that they had little to fear from such enemies, thought it sufficient to set twenty of their ships against the Korkyræans, while with the remaining thirty-three they moved forward to contend with the twelve Athenians. Nikostratus, having plenty of sea-room, was not afraid of this numerical superiority,—the more so, as two of his twelve triremes were the picked vessels of the Athenian navy,—the Salaminia and the Paralus.[458] He took care to avoid entangling himself with the centre of the enemy, and to keep rowing about their flanks; and as he presently contrived to disable one of their ships, by a fortunate blow with the beak of one of his vessels, the Peloponnesians, instead of attacking him with their superior numbers, formed themselves into a circle and stood on the defensive, as they had done in the first combat with Phormio in the middle of the strait at Rhium. Nikostratus (like Phormio) rowed round this circle, trying to cause confusion by feigned approach, and waiting to see some of the ships lose their places or run foul of each other, so as to afford him an opening for attack. And he might perhaps have succeeded, if the remaining twenty Peloponnesian ships, seeing the proceeding, and recollecting with dismay the success of a similar manœuvre in the former battle, had not quitted the Korkyræan ships, whose disorderly condition they despised, and hastened to join their comrades. The whole fleet of fifty-three triremes now again took the aggressive, and advanced to attack Nikostratus, who retreated before them, but backing astern and keeping the head of his ships towards the enemy. In this manner he succeeded in drawing them away from the town, so as to leave to most of the Korkyræan ships opportunity for getting back to the harbor; while such was the superior manœuvring of the Athenian triremes, that the Peloponnesians were never able to come up with him or force him to action. They returned back in the evening to Sybota, with no greater triumph than their success against the Korkyræans, thirteen of whose triremes they carried away as prizes.[459]
It was the expectation in Korkyra, that they would on the morrow make a direct attack—which could hardly have failed of success—on the town and harbor; and we may easily believe (what report afterwards stated), that Brasidas advised Alkidas to this decisive proceeding. And the Korkyræan leaders, more terrified than ever, first removed their prisoners from the little island to the Heræum, and then tried to come to a compromise with the oligarchical party generally, for the purpose of organizing some effective and united defence. Thirty triremes were made ready and manned, wherein some even of the oligarchical Korkyræans were persuaded to form part of the crews. But the slackness of Alkidas proved their best defence: instead of coming straight to the town, he contented himself with landing in the island at some distance from it, on the promontory of Leukimnê: after ravaging the neighboring lands for some hours, he returned to his station at Sybota. He had lost an opportunity which never again returned: for on the very same night the fire-signals of Leukas telegraphed to him the approach of the fleet under Eurymedon from Athens,—sixty triremes. His only thought was now for the escape of the Peloponnesian fleet, which was in fact saved by this telegraphic notice. Advantage was taken of the darkness to retire close along the land as far as the isthmus which separates Leukas from the mainland,—across which isthmus the ships were dragged by hand or machinery, so that they might not fall in with or be descried by the Athenian fleet in sailing round the Leukadian promontory. From hence Alkidas made the best of his way home to Peloponnesus, leaving the Korkyræan oligarchs to their fate.[460]
That fate was deplorable in the extreme. The arrival of Eurymedon opens a third unexpected transition in this checkered narrative,—the Korkyræan Demos passing, abruptly and unexpectedly, from intense alarm and helplessness to elate and irresistible mastery. In the bosom of Greeks, and in a population seemingly amongst the least refined of all Greeks,—including too a great many slaves just emancipated against the will of their masters, and of course the fiercest and most discontented of all the slaves in the island,—such a change was but too sure to kindle a thirst for revenge almost ungovernable, as the only compensation for foregone terror and suffering. As soon as the Peloponnesian fleet was known to have fled, and that of Eurymedon was seen approaching, the Korkyræan leaders brought into the town the five hundred Messenian hoplites who had hitherto been encamped without; thus providing a resource against any last effort of despair on the part of their interior enemies. Next, the thirty ships recently manned,—and held ready, in the harbor facing the continent, to go out against the Peloponnesian fleet, but now no longer needed, were ordered to sail round to the other or Hyllaic harbor. Even while they were thus sailing round, some obnoxious men of the defeated party, being seen in public, were slain: but when the ships arrived at the Hyllaic harbor, and the crews were disembarked, a more wholesale massacre was perpetrated, by singling out those individuals of the oligarchical faction who had been persuaded on the day before to go aboard as part of the crews, and putting them to death.[461] Then came the fate of those suppliants, about four hundred in number, who had been brought back from the islet opposite, and were yet under sanctuary in the sacred precinct of the Heræum. It was proposed to them to quit sanctuary and stand their trial; and fifty of them having accepted the proposition, were put on their trial,—all condemned, and all executed. Their execution took place, as it seems, immediately on the spot, and within actual view of the unhappy men still remaining in the sacred ground;[462] who, seeing that their lot was desperate, preferred dying by their own hands to starvation or the sword of their enemies. Some hung themselves on branches of the trees surrounding the temple, others helped their friends in the work of suicide, and, in one way or another, the entire band thus perished: it was probably a consolation to them to believe, that this desecration of the precinct would bring down the anger of the gods upon their surviving enemies.
Eurymedon remained with his fleet for seven days, during all which time the victorious Korkyræans carried on a sanguinary persecution against the party who had been concerned in the late oligarchical revolution. Five hundred of this party contrived to escape by flight to the mainland; while those who did not, or could not flee, were slain wherever they could be found. Some received their death-wounds even on the altar itself,—others shared the same fate, after having been dragged away from it by violence. In one case, a party of murderers having pursued their victims to the temple of Dionysius, refrained from shedding their blood, but built up the doorway and left them to starve; as the Lacedæmonians had done on a former occasion respecting Pausanias. Such was the ferocity of the time, that in one case a father slew his own son. Nor was it merely the oligarchical party who thus suffered: the floodgates of private feud were also opened, and various individuals, under false charges of having been concerned in the oligarchical movements, were slain by personal enemies or debtors. This deplorable suspension of legal, as well as moral restraints, continued during the week of Eurymedon’s stay,—a period long enough to satiate the fierce sentiment out of which it arose;[463] yet without any apparent effort on his part to soften the victors or protect the vanquished. We shall see farther reason hereafter to appreciate the baseness and want of humanity in his character: but had Nikostratus remained in command, we may fairly presume, judging by what he had done in the earlier part of the sedition, with very inferior force, that he would have set much earlier limits to the Korkyræan butchery: unfortunately, Thucydidês tells us nothing at all about Nikostratus, after the naval battle of the preceding day.[464]
We should have been glad to hear something about the steps taken in the way of restoration or healing, after this burst of murderous fury, in which doubtless the newly-emancipated slaves were not the most backward, and after the departure of Eurymedon. But here again Thucydidês disappoints our curiosity. We only hear from him, that the oligarchical exiles who had escaped to the mainland were strong enough to get possession of the forts and most part of the territory there belonging to Korkyra; just as the exiles from Samos and Mitylênê became more or less completely masters of the Peræa or mainland possessions belonging to those islands. They even sent envoys to Corinth and Sparta, in hopes of procuring aid to accomplish their restoration by force, but their request found no favor, and they were reduced to their own resources. After harassing for some time the Korkyræans in the island by predatory incursions, so as to produce considerable dearth and distress, they at length collected a band of Epirotic mercenaries, passed over to the island, and there established a fortified position on the mountain called Istônê, not far from the city. They burned their vessels in order to cut off all hopes of retreat, and maintained themselves for near two years on a system of ravage and plunder which inflicted great misery on the island.[465] This was a frequent way whereby, of old, invaders wore out and mastered a city, the walls of which they found impregnable. The ultimate fate of these occupants of Istônê, which belongs to a [future chapter], will be found to constitute a close suitable to the bloody drama yet unfinished in Korkyra.
Such a drama could not be acted, in an important city belonging to the Greek name, without producing a deep and extensive impression throughout all the other cities. And Thucydidês has taken advantage of it to give a sort of general sketch of Grecian politics during the Peloponnesian war; violence of civil discord in each city, aggravated by foreign war, and by the contending efforts of Athens and Sparta,—the former espousing the democratical party everywhere; the latter, the oligarchical. The Korkyræan sedition was the first case in which these two causes of political antipathy and exasperation were seen acting with full united force, and where the malignity of sentiment and demoralization flowing from such an union was seen without disguise. The picture drawn by Thucydidês, of moral and political feeling under these influences, will ever remain memorable as the work of an analyst and a philosopher: he has conceived and described the perverting causes with a spirit of generalization which renders these two chapters hardly less applicable to other political societies, far distant both in time and place,—especially, under many points of view, to France between 1789 and 1799,—than to Greece in the fifth century before the Christian era. The deadly bitterness infused into intestine party contests by the accompanying dangers of foreign war and intervention of foreign enemies,—the mutual fears between political rivals, where each thinks that the other will forestall him in striking a mortal blow, and where constitutional maxims have ceased to carry authority either as restraint or as protection,—the superior popularity of the man who is most forward with the sword, or who runs down his enemies in the most unmeasured language, coupled with the disposition to treat both prudence in action and candor in speech as if it were nothing but treachery or cowardice,—the exclusive regard to party ends, with the reckless adoption, and even admiring preference, of fraud or violence as the most effectual means,—the loss of respect for legal authority, as well as of confidence in private agreement, and the surrender even of blood and friendship to the overruling ascendency of party-ties,—the perversion of ordinary morality, bringing with it altered signification of all the common words importing blame or approbation,—the unnatural predominance of the ambitious and contentious passions, overpowering in men’s minds all real public objects, and equalizing for the time the better and the worse cause, by taking hold of democracy on one side and aristocracy on the other as mere pretences to sanctify personal triumph,—all these gloomy social phenomena, here indicated by the historian, have their causes deeply seated in the human mind, and are likely, unless the bases of constitutional morality shall come to be laid more surely and firmly than they have hitherto been, to recur from time to time, under diverse modifications, “so long as human nature shall be the same as it is now,” to use the language of Thucydidês himself.[466] He has described, with fidelity not inferior to his sketch of the pestilence at Athens, the symptoms of a certain morbid political condition, wherein the vehemence of intestine conflict, instead of being kept within such limits as consists with the maintenance of one society among the contending parties, becomes for the time inflamed and poisoned with all the unscrupulous hostility of foreign war, chiefly from actual alliance between parties within the state and foreigners without. In following the impressive description of the historian, we have to keep in mind the general state of manners in his time, especially the cruelties tolerated by the laws of war, as compared with that greater humanity and respect for life which has grown up during the last two centuries in modern Europe. And we have farther to recollect that if he had been describing the effects of political fury among Carthaginians and Jews, instead of among his contemporary Greeks, he would have added to his list of horrors mutilation, crucifixion, and other refinements on simple murder.
The language of Thucydidês is to be taken rather as a generalization and concentration of phenomena which he had observed among different communities, rather than as belonging altogether to any one of them. Nor are we to believe—what a superficial reading of his opening words might at first suggest—that the bloodshed in Korkyra was only the earliest, but by no means the worst, of a series of similar horrors spread over the Grecian world. The facts stated in his own history suffice to show that though the same causes which worked upon this unfortunate island became disseminated, and produced analogous mischiefs throughout many other communities, yet the case of Korkyra, as it was the first, so it was also the worst and most aggravated in point of intensity. Fortunately, the account of Thucydidês enables us to understand it from beginning to end, and to appreciate the degree of guilt of the various parties implicated, which we can seldom do with certainty; because when once the interchange of violence has begun, the feelings arising out of the contest itself presently overpower in the minds of both parties the original cause of dispute, as well as all scruples as to fitness of means. Unjustifiable acts in abundance are committed by both, and in comparing the two, we are often obliged to employ the emphatic language which Tacitus uses respecting Otho and Vitellius: “Deteriorem fore, quisquis vicisset;” of two bad men, all that the Roman world could foresee was, that the victor, whichsoever he was, would prove the worst.