From whence also the same fashion, by reason of their affinity, remained a long time in use amongst the ancient Ionians. For whilst the Corinthians studied to be revenged, the Athenians, who had their hatred in jealousy, commanded the citizens of Potidaea, a city seated in the Isthmus of Pallene, a colony of the Corinthians but confederate and tributary to the Athenians, to pull down that part of the wall of their city that stood towards Pallene, and to give them hostages, and also to send away and no more receive the Epidemiurgi (magistrates so called) which were sent unto them year by year from Corinth, fearing lest through the persuasion of Perdiccas and of the Corinthians they should revolt and draw to revolt with them their other confederates in Thrace. was a Greek historian and author of the History of the Peloponnesian War, which recounts the 5th century B.C. And thus was Corcyra delivered of the war of Corinth, and the Athenian galleys went from them. In the meantime after Potidaea was revolted, and whilst the Athenian fleet lay on the coast of Macedonia, the Corinthians, fearing what might become of the city and making the danger their own, sent unto it, both of their own city and of other Peloponnesians which they hired, to the number of sixteen hundred men of arms and four hundred light armed. First, in this respect, that you lend your help to such as have suffered and not to such as have committed the injustice. And sure it were very unreasonable that the Corinthians should have the liberty to man their fleet out of the cities comprised in the league, and out of any other parts of Greece, and not the least out of places in your dominion, and we be denied both the league now propounded and also all other help from whencesoever. which, unknown to the Athenians, they promised to do and also had done it, but by an earthquake that then happened, they were hindered. The Phoceans also making war upon Boeum, Cytinium, and Erineus, towns that belonged to the Dorians of whom the Lacedaemonians are descended, and having taken one of them, the Lacedaemonians, under the conduct of Nicomedes the son of Cleombrotus in the place of Pleistoanactes son of king Pausanias who was yet in his minority, sent unto the aid of the Dorians fifteen hundred men of arms of their own, and of their confederates ten thousand. But making account that a tyrant city set up in Greece is set up alike over all and reigneth over some already and the rest in intention, we shall bring it again into order by the war and not only live for the time to come out of danger ourselves but also deliver the already enthralled Grecians out of servitude. To this Cylon asking counsel at Delphi the God answered that on the greatest festival day he should seize the citadel of Athens. And when we have wasted part of Peloponnesus and they all Attica, yet shall theirs be the greater loss. Now those that were besieged with Cylon were for want of both victual and water in very evil estate, and therefore Cylon and a brother of his fled privily out; but the rest, when they were pressed and some of them dead with famine, sat down as suppliants by the altar that is in the citadel. For he lives most secure that hath fewest benefits bestowed upon him by his enemies to repent of. And if we overcome them but in one battle by sea, in all probability they are totally vanquished. Now not many years after this happened the matters before related, of the Corcyraeans and the Potidaeans and whatsoever other intervenient pretext of this war. And many stood forth and delivered their minds on either side, some for the war and some that this act concerning the Megareans ought not to stand in their way to peace but to be abrogated. and at this time to do thee many other good services, I present myself, persecuted by the Grecians for thy friendship's sake. And the same day it happened likewise that they that besieged Epidamnus had the same rendered unto them, with conditions, that the strangers therein found should be ransomed and the Corinthians kept in bonds till such time as they should be otherwise disposed of. View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document. The ephori, when these letters were by him shown unto them, though they believed the matter much more than they did before, yet desirous to hear somewhat themselves from Pausanias his own mouth, the man being upon design gone to Taenarus into sanctuary and having there built him a little room with a partition in which he hid the ephori, and Pausanias coming to him and asking the cause of his taking sanctuary, they plainly heard the whole matter. no, but into their conspiracy, and to receive them in this name that they are enemies to us. Admetus having heard him bade him arise together with his son whom he held as he sat, which is the most submissive supplication that is. Nor bewail ye the loss of fields or houses but of men's bodies; for men may acquire these, but these cannot acquire men. And likewise he practised with the Chalcideans of Thrace and with the Bottiaeans to revolt with them; for if he could make these confining cities his confederates, with the help of them he thought his war would be the easier. But with Artabazus, a good man whom I have sent unto thee, do boldly both mine and thine own business as shall be most fit for the dignity and honour of us both. Thus the Athenians built their walls, and fitted themselves in other kinds, immediately upon the departure of the Persians. For although of five parts of Peloponnesus it possess two and hath the leading of the rest and also of many confederates without, yet the city being not close built and the temples and other edifices not costly, and because it is but scatteringly inhabited after the ancient manner of Greece, their power would seem inferior to the report. So shall you take the most profitable counsel for yourselves, and the most formidable to the enemy. Let no man tell me that after we have once received the injury we ought to deliberate. Click anywhere in the When the people of Athens understood that Potidaea was unwalled on the part toward Pallene, not long after they sent thither sixteen hundred men of arms under the conduct of Phormio the son of Asopius, who arriving in Pallene left his galleys at Aphytis, and marching easily to Potidaea wasted the territory as he passed through. And first the Lacedaemonians, by their ambassadors to the Athenians, required them to banish such as were under curse of the goddess Minerva for pollution of sanctuary. I feel the writing in more descriptive and more balanced. For no man comes to execute a thing with the same confidence he premeditates it. When he had thus instructed them, adding that he would himself do the rest at Lacedaemon, he took his journey. Nevertheless you must know that of necessity war there will be; and the more willingly we embrace it, the less pressing we shall have our enemies, and that out of the greatest dangers, whether to cities or private men, arise the greatest honours. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War •“My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last forever.” In the Royal Ontario Museum “Thucydides the Athenian wrote the history of the war But Pericles, taking with him sixty galleys out of the road, made haste towards Caunus and Caria upon intelligence of the coming against them of the Phoenician fleet. line to jump to another position: This work is licensed under a (But there was in the same country a certain portion of that nation before, of whom also were they that went to the warfare of Troy.) And Themistocles sendeth privily to the Athenians about the same men to take order for their stay with as little appearance of it as they could and not to dismiss them till their own ambassadors were returned (for by this time were arrived those that were joined with him, namely, Abronychus the son of Lysicles, and Aristides the son of Lysimachus, and brought him word that the wall was of a sufficient height); for he feared lest the Lacedaemonians, when they knew the truth, would refuse to let them go. After they were come as far as Actium, in the territory of Anactorium (which is a temple of Apollo and ground consecrated unto him) in the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, the Corcyraeans sent a herald to them at Actium to forbid their coming on, and in the meantime manned out their fleet, and, having repaired and made fit for service their old galleys and furnished the rest with things necessary, shipped their munition and went aboard. Also Polycrates, who in the time of Cambyses tyrannised in Samos, had a strong navy wherewith he subdued divers of the islands; and amongst the rest having won Rhenea, he consecrated the same to Apollo of Delos. The Corinthians in their way homeward took in Anactorium, a town seated in the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, by deceit (this town was common to them and to the Corcyraeans), and having put into it Corinthians only, departed and went home. There also came to the Athenians certain horsemen out of Thessaly, which in the battle turned to the Lacedaemonians. But when this took no effect, and money was spent to no purpose, Megabazus returned with the money he had left into Asia. But the Athenians would not obey them, neither in the rest of their commands nor in the abrogation of that act, but recriminated the Megareans for having tilled holy ground and unset out with bounds and for receiving of their slaves that revolted. Description. Whereupon they set up two brazen statues and dedicated the same unto her for Pausanias. But the Athenians with their confederates of Ionia and the Hellespont, as many as were already revolted from the king, stayed behind and besieged Sestus, holden then by the Medes; and when they had lain before it all the winter, they took it abandoned by the barbarians. But for height it was raised but to the half, at the most, of what he had intended. "In this manner, or like to this, seems to me to stand the case of the Peloponnesians; whereas ours is both free from what in theirs I have reprehended, and has many great advantages besides. Also Orestes the son of Echecratidas, king of the Thessalians, driven out of Thessaly, persuaded the Athenians to restore him. 1843. dc.date.accessioned: 2015-09-22T15:06:54Z. And if you shall once receive and aid the doers of wrong, it will be seen that they will come over as fast from you to us; and you shall set up a law not so much against us as against yourselves. These were the quarrels between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. By which means their own particular provision was greater in the beginning of this war than when, in their flourishing time the league between them and the rest of Greece remaining whole, it was at the most. For knowledge of naval matters is an art as well as any other and not to be attended at idle times and on the by, but requiring rather that while it is a-learning, nothing else should be done on the by. For certainly you avoid them not by imputing it to that which hath done most men hurt, contempt of the enemy: for contempt, because it hath made too many men miscarry, hath gotten the name of foolishness. But you on the contrary are only apt to save your own, not devise anything new, nor scarce to attain what is necessary. The Grecians then, neither as they had that name in particular by mutual intercourse, nor after, universally so termed, did ever before the Trojan war, for want of strength and correspondence, enter into any action with their forces joined. And Pericles the son of Xantippus, the principal man at that time of all Athens and most sufficient both for speech and action, gave his advice in such manner as followeth: "Men of Athens, I am still not only of the same opinion not to give way to the Peloponnesians (notwithstanding I know that men have not the same passions in the war itself which they have when they are incited to it but change their opinions with the events), but also I see that I must now advise the same things or very near to what I have before delivered. for neither hath the state any, nor will private men readily contribute. Contrariwise, the Athenians required the Lacedaemonians to banish such as were guilty of breach of sanctuary at Taenarus. And thus were they parted, and the battle ended in night. Skip to main content. His narrative of the great war between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century BC is now seen as a highly sophisticated study of the nature of political power itself: its exercise and effects, its agents and victims, and the arguments through which it is defended and deployed. But since we are neither in such error ourselves, nor do find that you are, we advise you, whilst good counsel is in both our elections, not to break the peace nor violate your oaths, but according to the articles, let the controversy be decided by judgment; or else we call the gods you have sworn by to witness that if you begin the war, we will endeavour to revenge ourselves the same way that you shall walk in before us. For it falleth out with the events of actions, no less than with the purposes of man, to proceed with uncertainty, which is also the cause that when anything happeneth contrary to our expectation, we use to lay the fault on fortune. These things against the Potidaeans, the Athenians had precontrived presently after the naval battle fought at Corcyra. For the Athenians exacted strictly and were grievous to them by imposing a necessity of toil which they were neither accustomed nor willing to undergo. Now are we the same we were and mean not (if we be wise) either to connive at the wrongs done to our confederates or defer to repair them, for the harm they suffer is not deferred. For Stesagoras with five galleys was already gone out of Samos and others out of other places to meet the Phoenicians. But Hellen and his sons being strong in Phthiotis and called in for their aid into other cities, these cities, because of their conversing with them, began more particularly to be called Hellenes; and yet could not that name of a long time after prevail upon them all. Now the manner how the Athenians came to the administration of those affairs by which they so raised themselves was this. If, therefore, any of these things do like thee, send some trusty man to the seaside by whose mediation we may confer together. For through this refusal to accompany the army the most of them, to the end they might stay at home, were ordered to excuse their galleys with money, as much as it came to, by which means the navy of the Athenians was increased at the cost of their confederates, and themselves unprovided and without means to make war in case they should revolt. dc.date.digitalpublicationdate: 2014/03/04. Hereupon the Athenians sallying out of Megara with a huge shout both slew those that were setting up the trophy and, charging the rest, got the victory. Insomuch as the battle was in every part not without much tumult and disorder, in which the Athenian galleys being always, where the Corcyraeans were oppressed, at hand, kept the enemies in fear, but yet began no assault because their commanders stood in awe of the prohibition of the Athenian people.