Book 1
and that if any one were caught doing so, he should be the slave of him who caught him. The Lacedaemonians had also before this a Pythian response made to them, to let go the suppliant of Jupiter at Ithome.
So they went out, themselves, and their children, and their wives; and the Athenians received them, on the strength of the hatred they now felt for the Lacedaemonians, and settled them at Naupactus, which they had lately taken from the Locri Ozolae who held it.
The Megareans also came over into alliance with the Athenians, having revolted from the Lacedaemonians, because the Corinthians were pressing them with war about the boundaries of their territory. And the Athenians received possession of Megara and Pegae, and built for the Messenians the long walls from the city to Nisaea, and themselves manned them. And it was chiefly from this that their excessive hatred of the Athenians first began to be felt by the Corinthians.
Now Inarus, the son of Psammetichus, the Libyan king of the Libyans bordering on Egypt, having his headquarters at Maraea, the city above Pharos, caused the greater part of Egypt to revolt from king Artaxerxes, and being himself made ruler of it, invited the Athenians to his aid.
They, happening to be engaged in an expedition against Cyprus with two hundred ships of their own and of the allies, left Cyprus and came to him; and having sailed up from the sea into the Nile, and being masters of the river and two thirds of Memphis, proceeded to hostilities against the third division, which is called the White-castle, and in which were those of the Persians and Medes who had fled there for refuge, and those of the Egyptians who had not joined in the revolt.
The Athenians, having with their fleet made a descent on Haliae, had a battle with the Corinthians and Epidaurians, and the Corinthians gained the victory. Afterwards this Athenians had a sea-fight with the fleet of the Peloponnesians off Cecryphalea, and the Athenians gained the victory.
After this, war having been commenced by the Athenians on the aeginetans, a great sea-fight took place off aegina, between the Athenians and the aeginetans, and the allies were present on both sides; and the Athenians gained the victory, and having taken seventy of their ships, made a descent on the country, and besieged them, under the command of Leocrates, the son of Straebus.
Then the Peloponnesians, wishing to assist the aeginetans, sent over to aegina three hundred heavy-armed, who were before auxiliaries of the Corinthians and Epidaurians. And the Corinthians with their allies seized the heights of Geranea, and marched down into the Megarid, thinking that the Athenians would be unable to succour the Megareans, while a large force was absent at aegina and in Egypt; but that if they did assist them, they would raise the siege of aegina.
The Athenians, however, did not remove the army that was at aegina, but the oldest and the youngest of those who had been left behind in the city came to Megara under the command of Myronides.
After an indecisive battle had been fought with the Corinthians, they separated, each side thinking that they had not had the worst in the action.
And the Athenians (for they notwithstanding i.e. notwithstanding the claim to it made by the Corinthians. had the advantage rather [than their opponents]) on the departure of the Corinthians erected a trophy; but the Corinthians, being reproached by the elder men in the city, made preparations for about twelve days after, and went out and proceeded to set up a counter-trophy on their side also, as having been victorious. And the Athenians, having sallied out from Megara, cut to pieces those who were erecting the trophy, and engaged and defeated the rest.
The conquered forces commenced a retreat;
and a considerable division of them, being hard pressed and having missed their way, rushed into a field belonging to a private person, which had a deep trench enclosing it, and there was no road out. the Athenians, perceiving this, hemmed them in with heavy-armed in front, and having placed their light armed all round, stoned to death all who had gone in; and this was a severe blow for the Corinthians. The main body of their army returned home.
About this time the Athenians began also to build their long walls down to the sea, both that to Phalerus, and that to Piraeus.
And the Phocians having marched against the Dorians, the mother-country of the Lacedaemonians, [whose towns were] Boeum, and Citinium, and Erineum, and having taken one of these places, the Lacedaemonians under the command of Nicomedes, the son of Cleombrotus, in the stead of Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, who was yet a minor, went to the aid of the Dorians with fifteen hundred heavy-armed of their own, and ten thousand of the allies; and having compelled the Phocians to restore the town on certain conditions, they proceeded to return back.
Now by sea, if they should wish to cross over the Crissaean Gulf, the Athenians were ready to stop them, having sailed round with a fleet: while the march over Geranea did not appear safe for them as the Athenians were in possession of Megara and Pega. For Geranea was both [naturally] difficult to cross, and was continually guarded by the Athenians : and at that time they knew they were going to stop them that way, as well [as by sea].
So they determined to wait in Boeotia, and see in what way they might march across most safely. They were also in some measure urged to this in secret by certain of the Athenians, who hoped to put a stop to the democracy, and to the long walls that were building.
But the Athenians sallied out against them with all their citizens, and a thousand Argives, and the several contingents of the other allies. amounting in all to fourteen thousand.
They marched against them because they thought they were at a loss how to effect a passage, and in some measure also from a suspicion of the democracy being put down.
The Athenians were also joined, in accordance with the treaty, by a thousand horse of the Thessalians, who went over during the action to the Lacedaemonians.
A battle having been fought at Tanagra in Boeotia, the Lacedaemonians and their allies were victorious, and there was much bloodshed on both sides.
And the Lacedaemonians, after going into the Megarid and cutting down the fruit trees, returned back home across Geranea and the isthmus:
while the Athenians, on the sixty-second day after the battle, marched, under the command of Myronides, against the Boeotians, and having defeated them in an engagement at oenophyta, made themselves masters of the country of Boeotia and Phocis, and demolished the wall of the Tanagraeans, and took from the Opuntian Locrians their richest hundred men as hostages, and finished their own long walls.
The aegine tans also after this surrendered on condition to the Athenians, demolishing their walls, and giving up their ships, and agreeing to pay tribute in future.
And the Athenians sailed round the Peloponnese under the command of Tolmides, the son of Tolmaeus, and burnt the arsenal of the Lacedaemonians, and took Chalcis, a city of the Corinthians, and defeated the Sicyonians in a battle during a descent which they made on their land.
The Athenians in Egypt and their allies were still remaining there, and hostilities assumed many different phases with them.
For at first the Athenians were masters of Egypt; and the king sent Megabazus, a Persian, to Lacedaemon with a sum of money, that he might cause the recall of the Athenians from Egypt by the Peloponnesians being persuaded to invade Attica.
But when he did not succeed, and the money was being spent to no purpose, Megabazus with the remainder of it went back to Asia; and he sent Megabyzus, son of Zopyrus, a Persian, with a large force;
who, having arrived by land, defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a battle, and drove the Greeks out of Memphis, and at last shut them up in the island of Prosopis, and besieged them in it a year and six months, till by draining the canal and turning off the water by another course, he left their ships on dry ground, and joined most of the island to the mainland, and crossed over and took it on foot.
Thus the cause of the Greeks was ruined, after a war of six years: and only a few of many marched through Libya and escaped to Cyrene, while most of them perished.
So Egypt again came under the power of the king, excepting Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes, whom they could not take owing to the extent of the fen; and besides, the marsh-men are the most warlike of the Egyptians.
As for Inarus, the king of the Libyans, who had concocted the whole business respecting Egypt, he was taken by treachery and crucified.
Moreover, fifty triremes that were sailing to Egypt from Athens and the rest of the confederacy to relieve their former force, put in to shore at the Mendesian branch, knowing nothing of what had happened: and the land forces falling on them from the shore, and the fleet of the Phoenicians by sea, destroyed the greater part of the ships: the smaller part escaped back. Thus ended the great expedition of the Athenians and their allies to Egypt.
Now Orestes, son of Echecratidas, king of the Thessalians, being banished from Thessaly, persuaded the Athenians to restore him: and taking with them the Boeotians and Phocians, who were their allies, the Athenians marched against Pharsalus in Thessaly. And they were masters of the country, as far as they could be so without advancing far from their camp, Literally, from their arms, i. e. the place where their spears and shields were piled.—Arnold observes that ὅσα μὴ, like ὅτι μὴ, ἅτε, οἷα, etc., has grown by usage into a complete adverb, so as to have lost all the grammatical construction which ὅσα would require as an adjective. (for the cavalry of the Thessalians kept them in check,) but did not take the city, nor succeed in any other of the designs with which they made the expedition; but they returned with Orestes without effecting any thing.
Not long after this, one thousand Athenians having embarked in the ships that were at Pegae, (for they were themselves in possession of that port,) coasted along to Sicyon, under the command of Pericles, son of Xanthippus, and landed, and defeated those of the Sicyonians who met them in battle.
And immediately taking with them the Achaeans, and sailing across, they turned their arms against $Oeniadae in Acarnania, and besieged it: they did not, however, take it, but returned home.
Subsequently, after an interval of three years, a truce for five years was made between the Peloponnesians and Athenians.
So the Athenians ceased from prosecuting the war in Greece, but made an expedition against Cyprus with two hundred ships of their own and of the allies, under the command of Cimon;
sixty of which sailed from them to Egypt, being sent for by Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes;
while the rest besieged Citium. Cimon having died, and there being a dearth of provisions, they retired from Citium; and while sailing off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought both by sea and land at the same time with the Phoenicians and Cilicians; and having conquered in both engagements, returned home, and with them the ships that had come back from Egypt.