I have added the section numbers (to facilitate specific citation or to find a specific passage from a citation; these are displayed in red, if your browser is capable of understanding later versions of HTML) and the internal links (to allow navigation); editions of the Greek texts have further subdivisions, but these have not been added at this point. And let them not acknowledge the justice of what we say, but dispute its wisdom in the contingency of war. Indeed, this was the principal reason why the confederacy went over to the Athenians. Enter a Perseus citation to go to another section or work. And yet you have the best possible right to be neutral, or, failing this, you should on the contrary join us against them. Corinth was forming schemes for retaliation, and Athens suspected her hostility. The barbarians flocked in large numbers to their assistance, the inhabitants of this part of the continent being old allies of theirs. For the men whom you have saved for me across sea from Byzantium, an obligation is laid up for you in our house, recorded for ever; and with your proposals I am well pleased. But the Corcyraeans refused to accept their supplication, and they were dismissed without having effected anything. According to them, their old policy of refusing all offers of alliance was a policy of moderation. And no one can quarrel with a people for making, in matters of tremendous risk, the best provision that it can for its interest. So they went forth with their children and their wives, and being received by Athens from the hatred that she now felt for the Lacedaemonians, were located at Naupactus, which she had lately taken from the Ozolian Locrians. There also the river Thyamis flows, forming the boundary between Thesprotis and Kestrine; and between these rivers rises the point of Chimerium. 8 The islanders, too, were great pirates. Second Congress at Lacedaemon - Preparations for War and Diplomatic Skirmishes - Cylon -Pausanias - Themistocles. The slowness with which it comes in will cause delay; but the opportunities of war wait for no man. The war was really three conflicts with one uncertain peace after the first; and Thucydides had not unified them into one account when death came sometime before 396. And we say inexpedient, because in our present war with Corinth it has left us in a position of entire isolation, and what once seemed the wise precaution of refusing to involve ourselves in alliances with other powers, lest we should also involve ourselves in risks of their choosing, has now proved to be folly and weakness. Without informing Athens, she promised and intended to do so, but was prevented by the occurrence of the earthquake, accompanied by the secession of the Helots and the Thuriats and Aethaeans of the Perioeci to Ithome. After having rewarded him with a present of money, as soon as he received some from his friends at Athens and from his secret hoards at Argos, Themistocles started inland with one of the coast Persians, and sent a letter to King Artaxerxes, Xerxes's son, who had just come to the throne. Click anywhere in the The common treasury was at Delos, and the congresses were held in the temple. Book 1, Chapter 1: In Book 1, Chapter 1 Thucydides (c. 460–00 BCE) introduces his History of the Peloponnesian War. So at length Potidaea was strongly invested on either side, and from the sea by the ships co-operating in the blockade. We are warlike, because self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and honour bravery. Some even of their own friends were slain by them, by mistake, in their ignorance of the defeat of the right wing For the number of the ships on both sides, and the distance to which they covered the sea, made it difficult, after they had once joined, to distinguish between the conquering and the conquered; this battle proving far greater than any before it, any at least between Hellenes, for the number of vessels engaged. 33 "Now there are many reasons why in the event of your compliance you will congratulate yourselves on this request having been made to you. Their instructions were to avoid collision with the Corinthian fleet except under certain circumstances. After the ambassadors from the confederates had arrived and a congress had been convened, they all spoke their minds, most of them denouncing the Athenians and demanding that the war should begin. For if many ill-conceived plans have succeeded through the still greater fatuity of an opponent, many more, apparently well laid, have on the contrary ended in disgrace. 46 Meanwhile the Corinthians completed their preparations, and sailed for Corcyra with a hundred and fifty ships. Besides, their geographical situation makes them independent of others, and consequently the decision in cases where they injure any lies not with judges appointed by mutual agreement, but with themselves, because, while they seldom make voyages to their neighbours, they are constantly being visited by foreign vessels which are compelled to put in to Corcyra. To this day the building shows signs of the haste of its execution; the foundations are laid of stones of all kinds, and in some places not wrought or fitted, but placed just in the order in which they were brought by the different hands; and many columns, too, from tombs, and sculptured stones were put in with the rest. With a small squadron they might hazard an engagement, encouraging their ignorance by numbers; but the restraint of a strong force will prevent their moving, and through want of practice they will grow more clumsy, and consequently more timid. The division into chapters and the descriptions of their contents is the work of Crawley; I have adopted these as the divisions for the internal links, since the number of sections is rather large. The battle was fought at Tanagra in Boeotia. The place was taken by treachery, being common ground to the Corcyraeans and Corinthians. At the end of the one stood Athens, at the head of the other Lacedaemon, one the first naval, the other the first military power in Hellas. There was also a wish to call attention to the great power of Athens, and to refresh the memory of the old and enlighten the ignorance of the young, from a notion that their words might have the effect of inducing them to prefer tranquillity to war. No one venturing to meet him in the field, he raised works against the wall on the side of Pallene. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read History of the Peloponnesian War. For this the allies had themselves to blame; the wish to get off service making most of them arrange to pay their share of the expense in money instead of in ships, and so to avoid having to leave their homes. It must be known that the Lacedaemonians had an old oracle from Delphi, to the effect that they should let go the suppliant of Zeus at Ithome. The Athenians, however, if anything, had rather the advantage, and on the departure of the Corinthians set up a trophy. This was one reason of the care that they lavished on their fleet, which became very efficient; indeed they began the war with a force of a hundred and twenty galleys. For the true author of the subjugation of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as the power which permits it having the means to prevent it; particularly if that power aspires to the glory of being the liberator of Hellas. Last came forward Sthenelaidas, one of the ephors for that year, and spoke to the Lacedaemonians as follows: "The long speech of the Athenians I do not pretend to understand. But some of the Samians had not remained in the island, but had fled to the continent. To this we answer that if any of you imagine that that war is far off, he is grievously mistaken, and is blind to the fact that Lacedaemon regards you with jealousy and desires war, and that Corinth is powerful there- the same, remember, that is your enemy, and is even now trying to subdue us as a preliminary to attacking you. As it continues, it generally becomes an affair of chances, chances from which neither of us is exempt, and whose event we must risk in the dark. changes, storing new additions in a versioning system. He saw the rise of Athens to greatness under the inspired leadership of Pericles. 23 The Median War, the greatest achievement of past times, yet found a speedy decision in two actions by sea and two by land. At the same time the island seemed to lie conveniently on the coasting passage to Italy and Sicily. In this way Corcyra maintained her political existence in the war with Corinth, and the Athenian vessels left the island. Even after the Trojan War, Hellas was still engaged in removing and settling, and thus could not attain to the quiet which must precede growth. This prevented his taking the Peloponnesian states in detail, and ravaging them with his fleet; when the multitude of his vessels would have made any combination for self-defence impossible. First the Athenians besieged and captured Eion on the Strymon from the Medes, and made slaves of the inhabitants, being under the command of Cimon, son of Miltiades. Its vicinity is inhabited by the Taulantians, an Illyrian people. Attacked on the land side by the troops, and from the sea by the Phoenician navy, most of the ships were destroyed; the few remaining being saved by retreat. For only isolated portions of the circumference had been left standing, and most of the houses were in ruins; though a few remained, in which the Persian grandees had taken up their quarters. You may search all history without finding many instances of a people gaining all these advantages at once, or many instances of a power that comes in quest of assistance being in a position to give to the people whose alliance she solicits as much safety and honour as she will receive. For the advantages that we have by nature they cannot acquire by education; while their superiority in science must be removed by our practice. with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Still, as the city is neither built in a compact form nor adorned with magnificent temples and public edifices, but composed of villages after the old fashion of Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy. Besides, we consider that we have as good a right as any one to point out a neighbour's faults, particularly when we contemplate the great contrast between the two national characters; a contrast of which, as far as we can see, you have little perception, having never yet considered what sort of antagonists you will encounter in the Athenians, how widely, how absolutely different from yourselves. Once again it is a fantastic book which I highly recommend. Delay not, therefore, to assist Potidaea, a Dorian city besieged by Ionians, which is quite a reversal of the order of things; nor to assert the freedom of the rest. Hellenes, but of a large part of the barbarian world—I had almost This 2,500 year-old translated book (The History of the Peloponnesian War) is a wealth of details for the researcher or historical scholar but difficult to read and comprehend in its present form for the lay … The fleet was under the command of Aristeus, son of Pellichas, Callicrates, son of Callias, and Timanor, son of Timanthes; the troops under that of Archetimus, son of Eurytimus, and Isarchidas, son of Isarchus. Inaros, the Libyan king, the sole author of the Egyptian revolt, was betrayed, taken, and crucified. You, Lacedaemonians, of all the Hellenes are alone inactive, and defend yourselves not by doing anything but by looking as if you would do something; you alone wait till the power of an enemy is becoming twice its original size, instead of crushing it in its infancy. This interval was spent in sending embassies to Athens charged with complaints, in order to obtain as good a pretext for war as possible, in the event of her paying no attention to them. On being shown the letter, the ephors now felt more certain. The strength of his navy is shown by the fact that his own was the largest contingent, and that of the Arcadians was furnished by him; this at least is what Homer says, if his testimony is deemed sufficient. Arrived at Pallene, he fixed his headquarters at Aphytis, and led his army against Potidaea by short marches, ravaging the country as he advanced. While Callias the Athenian general and his colleagues dispatched the Macedonian horse and a few of the allies to Olynthus, to prevent any movement being made from that quarter, the Athenians themselves broke up their camp and marched against Potidaea. This was the first cause of the war that Corinth had against the Athenians, viz., that they had fought against them with the Corcyraeans in time of treaty. Any who were not prepared to sail at once might, by paying down the sum of fifty Corinthian drachmae, have a share in the colony without leaving Corinth. The Corcyraeans were in their camp at Leukimme, when these twenty ships from Athens, under the command of Glaucon, the son of Leagrus, and Andocides, son of Leogoras, bore on through the corpses and the wrecks, and sailed up to the camp, not long after they were sighted. He managed this with the help of Gongylus, an Eretrian, whom he had placed in charge of Byzantium and the prisoners. Formerly, even in the Olympic contests, the athletes who contended wore belts across their middles; and it is but a few years since that the practice ceased. 17 Again, wherever there were tyrants, their habit of providing simply for themselves, of looking solely to their personal comfort and family aggrandizement, made safety the great aim of their policy, and prevented anything great proceeding from them; though they would each have their affairs with their immediate neighbours. Vote therefore, Lacedaemonians, for war, as the honour of Sparta demands, and neither allow the further aggrandizement of Athens, nor betray our allies to ruin, but with the gods let us advance against the aggressors.". He had been made an enemy by the Athenians entering into alliance with his brother Philip and Derdas, who were in league against him. Thucydides traces the development of Athenian power through the growth of the Athenian empire in the years 479 BC to 432 BC in book one of the History (1.89–118). After the battle the Athenians set up a trophy, and gave back their dead to the Potidaeans under truce. The right wing of the Corinthians suffered most. Unable to persuade them, and desirous of acting on the next alternative, and of having things outside in the best posture possible, he eluded the guardships of the Athenians and sailed out. Urged by the taunts of the elders in their city, the Corinthians made their preparations, and about twelve days afterwards came and set up their trophy as victors. Not that they really hoped to succeed in procuring this; they rather thought to create a prejudice against him in the eyes of his countrymen from the feeling that the war would be partly caused by his misfortune. For the pirates used to plunder one another, and indeed all coast populations, whether seafaring or not. Whether the grand festival that was meant was in Attica or elsewhere was a question which he never thought of, and which the oracle did not offer to solve. But Archidamus, the Lacedaemonian king, came forward, who had the reputation of being at once a wise and a moderate man, and made the following speech: "I have not lived so long, Lacedaemonians, without having had the experience of many wars, and I see those among you of the same age as myself, who will not fall into the common misfortune of longing for war from inexperience or from a belief in its advantage and its safety. Is it in our ships? Now if your intentions are to prevent us sailing to Corcyra, or anywhere else that we may wish, and if you are for breaking the treaty, first take us that are here and treat us as enemies." They arrived in Thrace forty days after the revolt of Potidaea. And if I had thought that I could persuade you, I would have bid you go out and lay them waste with your own hands, and show the Peloponnesians that this at any rate will not make you submit. In the face of this great danger, the command of the confederate Hellenes was assumed by the Lacedaemonians in virtue of their superior power; and the Athenians, having made up their minds to abandon their city, broke up their homes, threw themselves into their ships, and became a naval people. But do not lay down the principle that defection is to be patronized. They were also willing to refer the matter to the oracle at Delphi. Not only is the straightest path generally speaking the wisest; but the coming of the war, which the Corcyraeans have used as a bugbear to persuade you to do wrong, is still uncertain, and it is not worth while to be carried away by it into gaining the instant and declared enmity of Corinth. Their bodies they spend ungrudgingly in their country's cause; their intellect they jealously husband to be employed in her service. An assembly was convoked, and the rival advocates appeared: the Corcyraeans spoke as follows: 32 "Athenians! This decision of the assembly, judging that the treaty had been broken, was made in the fourteenth year of the thirty years' truce, which was entered into after the affair of Euboea. Nor were the Corinthians on the mainland without their allies. Summoning the allies, they told them that their opinion was that Athens had been guilty of injustice, but that they wished to convoke all the allies and put it to the vote; in order that they might make war, if they decided to do so, on a common resolution. The route by sea, across the Crissaean Gulf, exposed them to the risk of being stopped by the Athenian fleet; that across Geraneia seemed scarcely safe, the Athenians holding Megara and Pegae. In a struggle with Peloponnesians and neighbours our strength is of the same character, and it is possible to move swiftly on the different points. Seeing the Corcyraeans hard pressed, the Athenians began at length to assist them more unequivocally. Its contents were as follows: "I, Themistocles, am come to you, who did your house more harm than any of the Hellenes, when I was compelled to defend myself against your father's invasion- harm, however, far surpassed by the good that I did him during his retreat, which brought no danger for me but much for him. There we have a far greater deficiency. And it was not we who set the example, for it has always been law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger. Now if these assaults on the rights of Hellas had been made in the dark, you might be unacquainted with the facts, and it would be our duty to enlighten you. After compelling the Phocians to restore the town on conditions, they began their retreat. The means will be, first, the acquisition of allies, Hellenic or barbarian it matters not, so long as they are an accession to our strength naval or pecuniary- I say Hellenic or barbarian, because the odium of such an accession to all who like us are the objects of the designs of the Athenians is taken away by the law of self-preservation- and secondly the development of our home resources. Again, the earliest sea-fight in history was between the Corinthians and Corcyraeans; this was about two hundred and sixty years ago, dating from the same time. 41 "This then is what Hellenic law entitles us to demand as a right. He observes in considerable detail the way in which the fortunes of war … He was willing to be himself one of those who remained. But the violence of Pausanias had already begun to be disagreeable to the Hellenes, particularly to the Ionians and the newly liberated populations. Of all the causes of defection, that connected with arrears of tribute and vessels, and with failure of service, was the chief; for the Athenians were very severe and exacting, and made themselves offensive by applying the screw of necessity to men who were not used to and in fact not disposed for any continuous labour. So that if we strike the average of the largest and smallest ships, the number of those who sailed will appear inconsiderable, representing, as they did, the whole force of Hellas. You must also remember that your decision is for Athens no less than Corcyra, and that you are not making the best provision for her interests, if at a time when you are anxiously scanning the horizon that you may be in readiness for the breaking out of the war which is all but upon you, you hesitate to attach to your side a place whose adhesion or estrangement is alike pregnant with the most vital consequences. Now was the time that the office of "Treasurers for Hellas" was first instituted by the Athenians. Indeed, they could not unite for this expedition till they had gained increased familiarity with the sea. Thus they toil on in trouble and danger all the days of their life, with little opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting: their only idea of a holiday is to do what the occasion demands, and to them laborious occupation is less of a misfortune than the peace of a quiet life. If they march against our country we will sail against theirs, and it will then be found that the desolation of the whole of Attica is not the same as that of even a fraction of Peloponnese; for they will not be able to supply the deficiency except by a battle, while we have plenty of land both on the islands and the continent. Such was the end of the great expedition of the Athenians and their allies to Egypt. Such was the Corcyraean formation. Another HTML version, with no numeration, but with each chapter as an individual document if you prefer this, is available at the Internet Classics Archive from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Reinforced afterwards by forty ships from Athens, and twenty-five Chian and Lesbian vessels, the Athenians landed, and having the superiority by land invested the city with three walls; it was also invested from the sea. The advantages of this course, as we premised in the beginning of our speech, are many. In 430, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, he caught and survived the horrible plague which he described so graphically. (chapters 1 through 17) Here Begins Book II of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, Being the Continuation of the Narative from Book I. So they resolved to remain in Boeotia, and to consider which would be the safest line of march. Could there be a clearer guarantee of our good faith than is offered by the fact that the power which is at enmity with you is also at enmity with us, and that that power is fully able to punish defection? Meanwhile the Phocians made an expedition against Doris, the old home of the Lacedaemonians, containing the towns of Boeum, Kitinium, and Erineum. 4 pages "Here, at least, let your procrastination end. But the old towns, on account of the great prevalence of piracy, were built away from the sea, whether on the islands or the continent, and still remain in their old sites. They had before on their own account canvassed the cities in detail to induce them to vote for the war, in the fear that it might come too late to save Potidaea; they were present also on this occasion, and came forward the last, and made the following speech: "Fellow allies, we can no longer accuse the Lacedaemonians of having failed in their duty: they have not only voted for war themselves, but have assembled us here for that purpose. Everywhere tumult reigned, the battle being one scene of confusion; meanwhile the Athenian ships, by coming up to the Corcyraeans whenever they were pressed, served to alarm the enemy, though their commanders could not join in the battle from fear of their instructions. Is marked in blue in person than in purse, had rather the advantage, laid... The arrival of Pericles send a safe man to the commands of Egyptian... Assembly was convoked, and to consider which would be the opinion that we hear against ;! 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