The History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume I (36 page)

85.
Such were the passions of the Corcyræans, first of all other Grecians, towards one another in the city: and Eurymedon and the Athenians departed with their galleys. Afterwards, such of the Corcyræans as had fled, (for there escaped about five hundred of them), having seized on the forts in the continent, impatronized themselves of their own territory on the other side, and from thence came over and robbed the islanders and did them much hurt; and there grew a great famine in the city. They likewise sent ambassadors to Lacedæmon and Corinth, concerning their reduction
1
; and when they could get nothing done, having gotten boats and some auxiliary soldiers, they passed, awhile after, to the number of about six hundred into the island. Where when they had set fire on their boats, that they might trust to nothing but to make themselves masters of the field, they went up into the hill Istone; and having there fortified themselves with a wall, infested those within
1
, and were masters of the territory.

86.
In the end of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty galleys into Sicily, under the command of Laches the son of Melanopus, and Charœadas the son of Euphiletus: for the Syracusians and the Leontines were now warring against each other. The
2
confederates of the Syracusians were all the Doric cities, except the Camarinæans; which also in the beginning of this war were reckoned in the league of the Lacedæmonians, but had not yet aided them in the war. The confederates of the Leontines, were the Chalcidique cities together with Camarina. And in Italy, the Locrians were with the Syracusians; but the Rhegians, according to their consanguinity, took part with the Leontines. Now the confederates
3
of the Leontines, in respect of their ancient alliance with the Athenians, as also for that they were Ionians, obtained of the Athenians to send them galleys; for that the Leontines were deprived by the Syracusians of the use both of the land and sea. And so the people of Athens sent aid unto them, pretending propinquity, but intending both to hinder the transportation of corn from thence into Peloponnesus, and also to test the possibility of taking the states of Sicily into their own hands. These arriving at Rhegium in Italy, joined with the confederates and began the war. And so ended this summer.

88.
The next winter, the sickness fell upon the Athenians again, (having indeed never totally left the city, though there was some intermission); and continued above a year after; but the former lasted two years: insomuch as nothing afflicted the Athenians, or impaired their strength more than it. For the number that died of it, of men of arms enrolled
1
were no less than four thousand four hundred; and horsemen, three hundred; of the other multitude, innumerable. There happened also at the same time many earthquakes, both in Athens and Eubœa, and also amongst the Bœotians; and in Bœotia
2
, chiefly at Orchomenus.

88.
The Athenians and Rhegians that were now in Sicily, made war the same winter on the islands called the islands of Æolus, with thirty galleys. For in summer, it was impossible to war upon them for the shallowness
3
of the water. These islands are inhabited by the Liparæans, who are a colony of the Cnidians, and dwell in one of the same islands, no great one, called Lipara; and thence they go forth and husband the rest, which are Didyme, Strongyle, and Hiera. The inhabitants of those places have an opinion, that in Hiera Vulcan exerciseth the craft of a smith. For it is seen to send forth abundance of fire in the day time, and of smoke in the night
1
. These islands are adjacent to the territory of the Siculi and Messanians, but were confederates of the Syracusians. When the Athenians had wasted their fields, and saw they would not come in, they put off again and went to Rhegium. And so ended this winter, and the fifth year of this war written by Thucydides.

89.
The next summer the Peloponnesians and their confederates came as far as the isthmus, under the conduct of Agis the son of Archidamus, intending to have invaded Attica; but by reason of the many earthquakes that then happened they turned back, and the invasion proceeded not. About the same time, (Eubœa being then troubled with earthquakes), the sea came in at Orobiæ on the part which then was land, and being impetuous withal, overflowed most part of the city, whereof part it covered, and part it washed down, and made lower in the return
2
; so that it is now sea which before was land. And the people, as many as could not prevent it by running up into the higher ground, perished. Another inundation like unto this happened in the isle of Atalanta, on the coast of Locris of the Opuntians, and carried away part of the Athenians’ fort there; and of two galleys that lay on dry land, it brake one in pieces. Also there happened at Peparethus a certain rising
1
of the water, but it brake not in: and a part of the wall, the town–house, and some few houses besides, were overthrown by the earthquakes
2
. The cause of such inundation, for my part, I take to be this: that the earthquake, where it was very great, did there send off the sea; and the sea returning on a sudden, caused the water to come on with greater violence. And it seemeth unto me, that without an earthquake such an accident could never happen.

90.
The same summer divers others, as they had several occasions, made war in Sicily: so also did the Sicilians amongst themselves, and the Athenians with their confederates. But I will make mention only of such most memorable things, as were done either by the confederates there with the Athenians, or against the Athenians by the enemy.

Charœades the Athenian general being slain by the Syracusians, Laches, who was now sole commander of the fleet, together with the confederates made war on Mylæ, a town belonging to Messana. There were in Mylæ two companies
3
of Messanians in garrison, the which also laid a certain ambush for those that came up from the fleet. But the Athenians and their confederates both put to flight those that were in ambush, with the slaughter of the most of them; and also assaulting their fortification, forced them on composition both to render the citadel, and to go along with them against Messana. After this, upon the approach of the Athenians and their confederates, the Messanians compounded likewise; and gave them hostages, and such other security as was requisite.

91.
The same summer the Athenians sent thirty galleys about Peloponnesus, under the command of Demosthenes the son of Alkisthenes, and Proclus the son of Theodorus; and sixty galleys more with two thousand men of arms, commanded by Nicias the son of Niceratus, into Melos. For the Athenians, in respect that the Melians were islanders, and yet would neither be their subjects nor of their league, intended to subdue them. But when upon the wasting of their fields they still stood out, they departed from Melos, and sailed to Oropus in the opposite continent
1
. Being there arrived within night, the men of arms left the galleys, and marched presently by land to Tanagra in Bœotia. To which place, upon a sign given, the Athenians that were in the city of Athens came also forth with their whole forces, led by Hipponnicus the son of Callias, and Eurymedon the son of Thucles, and joined with them; and pitching their camp, spent the day in wasting the territory of Tanagra, and lay there the night following. The next day, they defeated in battle such of the Tanagrians as came out against them, and also certain succours sent them from Thebes; and when they had taken up the arms of those that were slain and erected a trophy, they returned back; the one part to Athens, the other to their fleet. And Nicias with his sixty galleys, having first sailed along the coast of Locris and wasted it, came home likewise.

92.
About the same time, the Peloponnesians erected the colony of Heracleia in Trachinia, with this intention. The Melians in the whole contain these three parts: Paralians, Hierans, and Trachinians
1
. Of these the Trachinians being afflicted with war from the Œtæans their borderers, thought at first to have joined themselves to the Athenians; but fearing that they would not be faithful unto them, they sent to Lacedæmon; choosing for their ambassador Tisamenus. And the Dorians, who are the mother nation to the Lacedæmonians, sent their ambassadors likewise with him with the same requests: for they also were infested with war from the same Œtæans. Upon audience of these ambassadors the Lacedæmonians concluded to send out a colony, both intending the reparation of the injuries done to the Trachinians and to the Dorians; and conceiving withal, that the town would stand very commodiously for their war with the Athenians; inasmuch as they might thereby have a navy ready, where the passage was but short, against Eubœa; and it would much further their conveyance of soldiers into Thrace. And they had their mind wholly bent to the building of the place.

First therefore they asked counsel of the oracle in Delphi
1
. And the oracle having bidden them do it, they sent inhabitants thither, both of their own people and of the neighbours about them
2
; and gave leave also to any that would, to go thither, out of the rest of Greece, save only to the Ionians, Achæans, and some few other nations. The conductors of the colony were three Lacedæmonians; Leon, Alcidas, and Damagon. Who taking it in hand, built the city which is now called Heracleia, from the very foundation
3
; being distant from Thermopylæ forty furlongs, and from the sea twenty. Also they made houses for galleys to lie under
4
, beginning close to Thermopylæ against the very strait, to the end to have them the more defensible.

93.
The Athenians, when
5
this city was peopled, were at first afraid, and thought it to be set up especially against Eubœa; because from thence to Cenæum, a promontory of Eubœa, the passage is but short. But it fell out afterwards otherwise than they imagined; for they had no great harm by it: the reason whereof was this. That the Thessalians who had the towns of those parts in their power, and upon whose ground it was built
6
, afflicted these new planters with a continual war, till they had worn them out: though they were many indeed in the beginning. For being the foundation of the Lacedæmonians, every one went thither boldly, conceiving the city to be an assured one. And
1
chiefly the governors themselves sent hither from Lacedæmon, undid the business, and dispeopled the city by frighting most men away; for that they governed severely, and sometimes also unjustly: by which means their neighbours more easily prevailed against them.

94.
The same summer, and about the same time that the Athenians stayed in Melos, those other Athenians that were in the thirty galleys about Peloponnesus, slew first certain garrison–soldiers in Ellomenus, a place of Leucadia, by ambushment. But afterwards with a greater fleet, and with the whole power of the Acarnanians; who followed the army, all (but the Œniades) that could bear arms; and with the Zacynthians, and Cephalonians, and fifteen galleys of the Corcyræans, made war against the city itself of Leucas. The Leucadians, though they saw their territory wasted by them, both without the isthmus and within, where the city of Leucas standeth and the temple of Apollo; yet they durst not stir, because the number of the enemy was so great. And the Acarnanians entreated Demosthenes, the Athenian general, to wall them up, conceiving that they might easily be expugned by a siege, and desiring to be rid of a city their continual enemy. But Demosthenes was persuaded at the same time by the Messenians, that seeing so great an army was together, it would be honourable for him to invade the Ætolians; principally, as being enemies to Naupactus: and that if these were subdued, the rest of the continent thereabouts would easily be added to the Athenian dominion. For they alleged, that though the nation of the Ætolians were great and warlike, yet their habitation was in villages unwalled, and those at great distances; and were but light–armed, and might therefore, with no great difficulty, be all subdued before they could unite themselves for defence. And they advised him to take in hand first the Apodotians, next the Ophionians, and after them the Eurytanians; (which are the greatest part of Ætolia, of a most strange language, and that are reported to eat raw flesh
1
); for these being subdued, the rest would easily follow. 95. But he, induced by the Messenians, whom he favoured, but especially because he thought, without the forces of the people of Athens, with the confederates
1
only of the continent and with the Ætolians to invade Bœotia by land, going first through the Locri Ozolæ, and so to Cytinium of Doris, having Parnassus on the right hand till the descent thereof into the territory of the Phoceans; which people, for the friendship they ever bore to the Athenians, would, he thought, be willing to follow his army, and if not, might be forced; and upon the Phoceans bordereth Bœotia: putting off therefore with his whole army, against the minds of the Acarnanians, from Leucas, he sailed unto Solium by the shore. And there having communicated his conceit with the Acarnanians, when they would not approve of it because of his refusal to besiege Leucas, he himself with the rest of his army, Cephalonians
2
, Zacynthians, and three hundred Athenians the soldiers
3
of his own fleet, (for the fifteen galleys of Corcyra were now gone away) warred on the Ætolians; having Œneon, a city of Locris, for the seat of his war. Now these Locrians called Ozolæ, were confederates of the Athenians; and were to meet them with their whole power in the heart of the country. For being confiners on the Ætolians, and using the same manner of arming, it was thought it would be a matter of great utility in the war to have them in their army; for that they knew their manner of fight, and were acquainted with the country.