Book 1
and if any of them should be caught there, he was to be a slave of his captor.
Moreover, before this time the Lacedaemonians also received a Pythian oracle, which bade them let go the suppliant of Ithomean Zeus. So the Messenians left the Peloponnesus, themselves and their children and wives; and the Athenians received them, in consequence of the enmity to the Lacedaemonians already existing, and settled them at Naupactus, which they happened to have lately taken from its possessors, the Ozolian Locrians.
And the Megarians also entered into alliance with the Athenians, revolting from the Lacedaemonians because the Corinthians were pressing them hard in a war about boundaries; and thus the Athenians secured Megara and Pegae,Pegae was the Megarian harbour on the Corinthian gulf: Nisaea, a nearer one, on the Saronic gulf. and they built for the Megarians the long walls which run from the city to Nisaea and held it with a garrison of their own troops. And it was chiefly because of this act that the vehement hatred of the Corinthians for the Athenians first arose.
Meanwhile Inaros, son of Psammetichus, a Libyan and king of the Libyans who are adjacent to Egypt, setting out from Mareia, the city just north of Pharos, caused the greater part of Egypt to revolt from King Artaxerxes,460 B.C. and then, when he had made himself ruler, he called in the Athenians.
And they left Cyprus,cf. Thuc. 1.94.2. where they happened to be on an expedition with two hundred ships of their own and of their allies, and went to Egypt, and when they had sailed up the Nile from the sea, finding themselves masters of the river and of twothirds of Memphis, they proceeded to attack the third part, which is called the White Fortress. And in this fortress were some Persians and Medes who had taken refuge there, and such Egyptians as had not joined in the revolt.
The Athenians also made a descent with a fleet upon Halieis, where they had a battle with some Corinthians and Epidaurians, in which the Corinthians won. And afterwards the Athenians fought a sea-fight at Cecryphaleia with a Peloponnesian fleet, in which the Athenians won.
After this war broke out between the Athenians and the Aeginetans, and a great sea-fight occurred between the Athenians and the Aeginetans off Aegina, in which the allies of both sides were present. This the Athenians won and having taken seventy Aeginetan ships they descended upon their territory and laid siege to the city, Leocrates son of Stroebus, being in command.
Thereupon the Peloponnesians, wishing to aid the Aeginetans, sent into Aegina three hundred hoplites, who had previously been assisting the Corinthians and Epidaurians. Moreover, the Corinthians occupied the heights of Geraneia, and made a descent upon the territory of M egara in conjunction with their allies, thinking that the Athenians would be unable to aid the Megarians, since many of their troops were away in Aegina and in Egypt, or if they should attempt it that they would have to withdraw from Aegina.
The Athenians, however, did not disturb the army besieging Aegina, but with such forces as were left in the city, consisting of the oldest and the youngest men, marched into Megara, the general in command being Myronides.
An indecisive battle was fought with the Corinthians, whereupon they separated, each side thinking they had not got the worst of it in the action.
And the Athenians, who had in fact got rather the better of it, when the Corinthians withdrew, set up a trophy; but the Corinthians, being reproached by the older men in their city, made their preparations and about twelve days later came back and set up for themselves a rival trophy, as though they had won. Hereupon the Athenians made a sally from Megara, slew those who were setting up the trophy, and joining battle with the rest defeated them.
The vanquished party now retreated, and a not inconsiderable portion of them, being hard pressed, missed their way and rushed into a piece of land belonging to some private person, which was enclosed by a great ditch and had no exit.
And when the Athenians perceived this, they shut them in by barring the entrance with hoplites, and stationing light-armed troops all round stoned all who had entered. And this was a great calamity to the Corinthians; the main body of their army, however, returned home.
About this period457 B.C. the Athenians began to build their long walls to the sea, one to Phalerum, the other to the Peiraeus. And the Phocians made an expedition against the land of the Dorians, the mother-country of the Lacedaemonians, namely the towns of Boeum, Citinium, and Erineum, one of which they captured;
whereupon the Lacedaemonians, under the lead of Nicomedes son of Cleombrotus, acting for King Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, who was still a minor, sent to the aid of the Dorians a force of fifteen hundred hoplites of their own and ten thousand of their allies, and after they had forced the Phocians to make terms and restore the city they began their return homeward.
Now if they wished to take the sea-route and make their passage by way of the Crisaean Gulf, the Athenians were sure to take their fleet round the Peloponnesus and block their way; and to march over the Geranaean pass appeared to them hazardous, since the Athenians held Megara and Pegae. Besides, the Geranaean pass was not easy to traverse and was at all times guarded by the Athenians, and at this present time, as the Lacedaemonians perceived, they intended to block their way. So they decided to wait in Boeotia and consider how they might most safely cross over to the Peloponnesus.
To this course they were partly influenced by some Athenians, who were secretly inviting them into their country, in the hope of putting an end to the democracy and to the building of the long walls.
But the Athenians went out against the Lacedaemonians with their whole force and with one thousand Argives and contingents of the several allies, the whole body amounting to fourteen thousand men.
And they undertook the expedition against them because they believed that they were at a loss how to get through, and partly too on a suspicion of a plot to overthrow the democracy.
The forces of the Athenians were strengthened by some Thessalian cavalry, who came in accordance with the terms of the alliance, but they deserted to the Lacedaemonians in the course of the action.
The battle took place456 B.C. at Tanagra in Boeotia, and in it the Lacedaemonians and their allies were victorious, and there was much slaughter on both sides.
The Lacedaemonians then entered the Megaiian territory, cut down the trees, and went back home by way of Geraneia and the Isthmus.
But on the sixty-second day after the battle, the Athenians, having made an expedition into Boeotia under Myronides, defeated the Boeotians at Oenophyta, got control of Boeotia and Phocis, pulled down the walls of Tanagra, and took one hundred of the wealthiest men of the Opuntian Locrians as hostages.
Meanwhile they completed their own long walls. After this the Aeginetans also capitulated to the Athenians, pulling down their walls, delivering up their ships, and agreeing to pay tribute in future.455 B.C.
And the Athenians, under the command of Tolmides son of Tolmaeus, sailed round the Peloponnesus, bullned the dock-yardGytheum, on the Laconian gulf. of the Lacedaemonians, took Chalcis, a city of the Corinthians, and making a descent upon the territory of the Sicyonians defeated them in battle.
Meanwhile the Athenians and their allies stayed on in Egypt and the war took on many forms.
At first the Athenians had the mastery in Egypt, and the King sent to Lacedaemon Megabazus a Persian with a supply of money, in order that the Lacedaemonians might be induced to invade Attica and the Athenians thus be drawn away from Egypt.
But when he found that matters did not advance and the money was being spent in vain, Megabazus betook himself back to Asia with the money that was left, and Megabyzus son of Zopyrus,Hero of the capture of Babylon, Hdt. 2.115. a Persian, was despatched with a large army.Diodorus gives him with Artabazus 300,000 men (11.75) and 300 ships (11.77).
He marched thither by land, and defeated the Egyptians and their allies in battle, drove the Hellenes out of Memphis, and finally shut them up in the island of Prosopitis, where he besieged them for a year and six months, then finally, by diverting the water into another course, drained the canal and left the ships high and dry, converting the greater part of the island into mainland; then he crossed over dry-shod and took the island.
Thus this undertaking of the Hellenes came to naught after a war of six years;454 B.C. and but few out of many, making their way through Libya into Cyrene, escaped with their lives;
the most of them perished. And all Egypt again came under the King's dominion, except Amyrtaeus, the king of the marshescf. Hdt. 2.140; 3. 15.; for the Persians were unable to capture him, both on account of the extent of the marsh and because the marsh people are the best fighters among the Egyptians.
Inaros, however, the king of the Libyans, who had been the originator of the whole movement in Egypt, was taken by treachery and impaled.
And when fifty triremes, which sailed to Egypt from Athens and the rest of the confederacy to relieve the fleet there, put in at the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, quite unaware of what had happened, the infantry fell upon them from the shore and a Phoenician fleet from the sea and destroyed most of the ships, a small number only escaping. So ended the great expedition against Egypt of the Athenians and their allies.
And now Orestes son of Echecratidas, king of the Thessalians, who was exiled from Thessaly, persuaded the Athenians to restore him. And they, taking along some Boeotians and Phocians who were allies, made an expedition against Pharsalus in Thessaly. And though they made themselves masters of the land, so far as this was possible without going far from their camp—for the Thessalian cavalry hemmed them in—they failed to capture the city and indeed none of the other objects of their expedition was attained, so they went back home again unsuccessful, having Orestes with them.
Not long after this454 B.C. one thousand Athenians, embarking on the ships at Pegae, which was now in their possession,cf. Thuc. 1.103.4. sailed along the coast to Sicyon under the command of Pericles son of Xanthippus, and disembarking defeated in battle the Sicyonians who came out against them.
Immediately thereafter, taking along some Achaeans and sailing across the gulf, they made an expedition against Oeniadae in Acarnania and laid siege to it; but failing to take it they went back home.
Three years afterwards451 B.C. a truce was made between the Peloponnesians and Athenians, to last five years.
And the Athenians did abstain from warfare against Hellenes, but they made an expedition against Cyprus with two hundred ships of their own and of their allies, under the command of Cimon.
Sixty of these ships sailed to Egypt on the summons of Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes, while the others laid siege to Citium.
But Cimon died and a famine arose, and so they withdrew from Citium ;449 B.C. and on their way home, when off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought the Phoenicians, Cyprians and Cilicians by sea and on land. Gaining the victory in both battles they went back home, and with them returned the ships that had been in Egypt.