It was one of the earliest proceedings of Nikias, immediately after the inglorious exhibition which he had made in reference to Sphakteria, to conduct an expedition, in conjunction with two colleagues, against the Corinthian territory: he took with him eighty triremes, two thousand Athenian hoplites, two hundred horsemen aboard of some horse transports, and some additional hoplites from Milêtus, Andros, and Karystus.[570] Starting from Peiræus in the evening, he arrived a little before daybreak on a beach at the foot of the hill and village of Solygeia,[571] about seven miles from Corinth, and two or three miles south of the isthmus. The Corinthian troops, from all the territory of Corinth, within the isthmus, were already assembled at the isthmus itself to repel him; for intelligence of the intended expedition had reached Corinth some time before from Argos, with which latter place the scheme of the expedition may have been in some way connected. The Athenians having touched the coast during the darkness, the Corinthians were only apprized of the fact by fire-signals from Solygeia. Not being able to hinder the landing, they despatched forthwith half their forces, under Battus and Lykophron, to repel the invader, while the remaining half were left at the harbor of Kenchreæ, on the northern side of Mount Oneion, to guard the port of Krommyon, outside of the isthmus, in case it should be attacked by sea. Battus with one lochus of hoplites threw himself into the village of Solygeia, which was unfortified, while Lykophron conducted the remaining troops to attack the Athenians. The battle was first engaged on the Athenian right, almost immediately after its landing, on the point called Chersonesus. Here the Athenian hoplites, together with their Karystian allies, repelled the Corinthian attack, after a stout and warmly disputed hand-combat of spear and shield: but the Corinthians, retreating up to a higher point of ground, returned to the charge, and with the aid of a fresh lochus, drove the Athenians back to the shore and to their ships: from hence the latter again turned, and again recovered a partial advantage.[572] The battle was no less severe on the left wing of the Athenians: but here, after a contest of some length, the latter gained a more decided victory, greatly by the aid of their cavalry,—pursuing the Corinthians, who fled in some disorder to a neighboring hill and there took up a position.[573] The Athenians were thus victorious throughout the whole line, with the loss of about forty-seven men, while the Corinthians had lost two hundred and twelve, together with the general Lykophron. The victors erected their trophy, stripped the dead bodies, and buried their own dead.
The Corinthian detachment left at Kenchreæ could not see the battle, in consequence of the interposing ridge of Mount Oneium: but it was at last made known to them by the dust of the fugitives, and they forthwith hastened to help. Reinforcements also came both from Corinth and from Kenchreæ, and as it seemed, too, from the neighboring Peloponnesian cities, so that Nikias thought it prudent to retire aboard his ships, and halt upon some neighboring islands. It was here first discovered that two of the Athenians slain had not been picked up for burial; upon which he immediately sent a herald to solicit a truce, in order to procure these two missing bodies. We have here a remarkable proof of the sanctity attached to that duty; for the mere sending of the herald was tantamount to confession of defeat.[574]
From hence Nikias sailed to Krommyon, where he ravaged the neighborhood for a few hours and rested for the night. On the next day he reëmbarked, sailed along the coast of Epidaurus, upon which he inflicted some damage in passing, and stopped at last on the peninsula of Methana, between Epidaurus and Trœzen.[575] On this peninsula he established a permanent garrison, drawing a fortification across the narrow neck of land which joined it to the Epidaurian peninsula. This was his last exploit, and he then sailed home: but the post at Methana long remained as a centre for pillaging the neighboring regions of Epidaurus, Trœzen, and Halieis.
While Nikias was engaged in this expedition, Eurymedon and Sophoklês had sailed forward from Pylus with a considerable portion of that fleet which had been engaged in the capture of Sphakteria, to the island of Korkyra. It has been already stated that the democratical government at Korkyra had been suffering severe pressure and privation from the oligarchical fugitives, who had come back into the island with a body of barbaric auxiliaries, and established themselves upon Mount Istônê, not far from the city.[576] Eurymedon and the Athenians joining the Korkyræans in the city, attacked and stormed the post on Mount Istônê; while the vanquished, retiring first to a lofty and inaccessible peak, were forced to surrender themselves on terms to the Athenians. They abandoned their mercenary auxiliaries altogether, and only stipulated that they should themselves be sent to Athens, and left to the discretion of the Athenian people. Eurymedon, assenting to these terms, deposited the disarmed prisoners in the neighboring islet of Ptychia, under the distinct condition that, if a single man tried to escape, the whole capitulation should be null and void.[577]
Unfortunately for these prisoners, the orders given to Eurymedon carried him onward straight to Sicily. It was irksome, therefore, to him to send away a detachment of his squadron to convey these men to Athens,—while the honors of delivering them there would be reaped, not by himself, but by the officer to whom they might be confided: and the Korkyræans in the city, on their part, were equally anxious that the prisoners should not be sent to Athens; for their animosity against them was bitter in the extreme, and they were afraid that the Athenians might spare their lives, so that their hostility against the island might be again resumed. And thus a mean jealousy on the part of Eurymedon, combined with revenge and insecurity on the part of the victorious Korkyræans, brought about a cruel catastrophe, paralleled nowhere else in Greece, though too well in keeping with the previous acts of the bloody drama enacted in this island.
The Korkyræan leaders, seemingly not without the privity of Eurymedon, sent across to Ptychia fraudulent emissaries under the guise of friends to the prisoners. These emissaries—assuring the prisoners that the Athenian commanders, in spite of the convention signed, were about to hand them over to the Korkyræan people for destruction—induced some of them to attempt escape in a boat prepared for the purpose. By concert, the boat was seized in the act of escaping, so that the terms of the capitulation were really violated: upon which Eurymedon handed over the prisoners to their enemies in the island, who imprisoned them all together in one vast building, under guard of hoplites. From this building they were drawn out in companies of twenty men each, chained together in couples, and compelled to march between two lines of hoplites marshalled on each side of the road. Those who loitered in the march were hurried on by whips from behind: as they advanced, their private enemies on both sides singled them out, striking and piercing them until at length they miserably perished. Three successive companies were thus destroyed, ere the remaining prisoners in the interior, who thought merely that their place of detention was about to be changed, suspected what was passing: at length they found it out, and one and all then refused either to quit the building or to permit any one else to enter. They at the same time piteously implored the intervention of the Athenians, if it were only to kill them, and thus preserve them from the cruelties of their merciless countrymen. The latter abstained from attempts to force the door of the building, but made an aperture in the roof, from whence they shot down arrows, and poured showers of tiles, upon the prisoners within; who sought at first to protect themselves, but at length abandoned themselves to despair, and assisted with their own hands in the work of destruction. Some of them pierced their throats with the arrows shot down from the roof: others hung themselves, either with cords from some bedding which happened to be in the building, or with strips torn and twisted from their own garments. Night came on, but the work of destruction, both from above and within, was continued without intermission, so that before morning all these wretched men perished, either by the hands of their enemies or by their own. At daybreak, the Korkyræans entered the building, piled up the dead bodies on carts, and transported them out of the city: the exact number we are not told, but seemingly it cannot have been less than three hundred. The women who had been taken at Istônê along with these prisoners, were all sold as slaves.[578]
Thus finished the bloody dissensions in this ill-fated island: for the oligarchical party were completely annihilated, the democracy was victorious, and there were no farther violences throughout the whole war.[579] It will be recollected that these deadly feuds began with the return of the oligarchical prisoners from Corinth, bringing along with them projects both of treason and of revolution: they ended with the annihilation of that party, in the manner above described; the interval being filled by mutual atrocities and retaliation, wherein of course the victors had most opportunity of gratifying their vindictive passions. Eurymedon, after the termination of these events, proceeded onward with the Athenian squadron to Sicily: what he did there will be described in a future chapter devoted to Sicilian affairs exclusively.
The complete prostration of Ambrakia during the campaign of the preceding year had left Anaktorium without any defence against the Akarnanians and Athenian squadron from Naupaktus. They besieged and took it during the course of the present summer;[580] expelling the Corinthian proprietors, and repeopling the town and its territory with Akarnanian settlers from all the townships in the country.
Throughout the maritime empire of Athens matters continued perfectly tranquil, except that the inhabitants of Chios, during the course of the autumn, incurred the suspicion of the Athenians from having recently built a new wall to their city, as if it were done with the intention of taking the first opportunity to revolt.[581] They solemnly protested their innocence of any such designs, but the Athenians were not satisfied without exacting the destruction of the obnoxious wall. The presence on the opposite continent of an active band of Mitylenæan exiles, who captured both Rhœteium and Antandrus during the ensuing spring, probably made the Athenians more anxious and vigilant on the subject of Chios.[582]
The Athenian regular tribute-gathering squadron circulated among the maritime subjects, and captured, during the course of the present autumn, a prisoner of some importance and singularity. It was a Persian ambassador, Artaphernes, seized at Eion on the Strymon, in his way to Sparta with despatches from the Great King. He was brought to Athens, and his despatches, which were at some length, and written in the Assyrian character, were translated and made public. The Great King told the Lacedæmonians, in substance, that he could not comprehend what they meant; for that among the numerous envoys whom they had sent, no two told the same story. Accordingly he desired them, if they wished to make themselves understood, to send some envoys with fresh and plain instructions to accompany Artaphernes.[583] Such was the substance of the despatch, conveying a remarkable testimony as to the march of the Lacedæmonian government in its foreign policy. Had any similar testimony existed respecting Athens, demonstrating that her foreign policy was conducted with half as much unsteadiness and stupidity, ample inferences would have been drawn from it to the discredit of democracy. But there has been no motive generally to discredit Lacedæmonian institutions, which included kingship in double measure,—two parallel lines of hereditary kings: together with an entire exemption from everything like popular discussion. The extreme defects in the foreign management of Sparta, revealed by the despatch of Artaphernes, seem traceable partly to an habitual faithlessness often noted in the Lacedæmonian character, partly to the annual change of ephors, so frequently bringing into power men who strove to undo what had been done by their predecessors, and still more to the absence of everything like discussion or canvass of public measures among the citizens. We shall find more than one example, in the history about to follow, of this disposition on the part of ephors, not merely to change the policy of their predecessors, but even to subvert treaties sworn and concluded by them: and such was the habitual secrecy of Spartan public business, that in doing this they had neither criticism nor discussion to fear. Brasidas, when he started from Sparta on the expedition which will be described in the coming chapter, could not trust the assurances of the Lacedæmonian executive without binding them by the most solemn oaths.[584]