Book 1
What they were more concerned about was the voyage home, how they should get back, for they were afraid that the Athenians would consider that the treaty had been broken, since they had come to blows, and would not let them sail away.
Accordingly they determined to put some men, without a herald's wand,To bear a herald's wand would have been a recognition of a state of war, whereas the Corinthians were anxious not to be regarded as enemies by the Athenians. into a boat and send them to the Athenians, to test their intentions.
And these men bore the following message: " You do wrong, men of Athens, to begin war and break a treaty; for by taking up arms against us you interfere with us when we are but punishing our enemies. But if it is your intention to hinder us from sailing against Corcyra or anywhere else we may wish, and you thus break the treaty, first take us who are here and treat us as enemies."
Thus they spoke; and all the host of the Corcyraeans that was within hearing shouted: "Take them and kill them !" But the Athenians made answer as follows: "
We are not beginning war, men of the Peloponnesus, nor are we breaking the treaty, but we have come to aid the Corcyraeans here, who are our allies. If, then, you wish to sail anywhere else, we do not hinder you; but if you ever sail against Corcyra or any place of theirs, we shall not permit it, if we are able to prevent it."
When the Athenians had given this answer the Corinthians began preparations for the voyage homeward and set up a trophy at Sybota on the mainland; and the Corcyraeans took up the wrecks and dead bodiesTaking up the dead bodies without asking permission of the enemy indicated that the field was maintained, and was therefore a claim of victory. that had been carried in their direction by the current and by the wind, which had arisen in the night and scattered them in every direction, and set up, as being the victors, a rival trophy at Sybota on the island. Each side claimed the victory on the following grounds:
The Corinthians set up a trophy because they had prevailed in the sea-fight up to nightfall, and had thus been able to carry off a greater number of wrecks and dead bodies, and because they held as prisoners not less than a thousand men and had disabled about seventy ships; and the Corcyraeans, because they had destroyed about thirty ships, and, after the Athenians came, had taken up the wrecks that came their way and the dead bodies, whereas the Corinthians on the day before had backed water and retreated at sight of the Attic ships, and after the Athenians came would not sail out from Sybota and give battlefor these reasons set up a trophy. So each side claimed the victory.
The Corinthians, as they sailed homeward, took by stratagem Anactorium, which is at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, a place held by the Corcyraeans and themselves in common, and establishing there some Corinthian colonists returned home. Of their Corcyraean prisoners they sold eight hundred who were slaves, but two hundred and fifty they kept in custody and treated them with much consideration, their motive being that when they returned to Corcyra they might win it over to their side;1 and it so happened that most of these were among the most influential men of the city.
In this way, then, Corcyra had the advantage in the war with the Corinthians, and the ships of the Athenians withdrew from it. And this was the first ground which the Corinthians had for the war against the Athenians, because they had fought with the Corcyraeans against them in time of truce.
Immediately after this the following events also occurred, which caused differences between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians and led to the war.
While the Corinthians were devising how they should take vengeance on the Athenians, the latter, suspecting their enmity, required of the Potidaeans (who dwell on the isthmus of Pallene and are colonists of the Corinthians but tributary allies of the Athenians), to pull down their wall on the side of Pallene and give hostages, and, furthermore, to send away and not receive in the future the magistrates whom the Corinthians were accustomed to send every year. For they were afraid that the Potidaeans, persuaded by Perdiccas' and the Corinthians, would revolt and cause the rest of the allies in Thrace to revolt with them.
These precautions the Athenians took with regard to the Potidaeans immediately after the seafight at Corcyra;
for the Corinthians were now openly at variance with them, and Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, who had before been an ally and friend, had now become hostile.
And he had become hostile because the Athenians had made an alliance with his brother Philip and with Derdas, who were making common cause against himself.
Alarmed at this he kept sending envoys to Lacedaemon, trying to bring about a war between Athens and the Peloponnesians. He sought also to win over the Corinthians, with a view to the revolt of Potidaea;
and, furthermore, he made overtures to the Chalcidians of Thrace and the Bottiaeans to join in the revolt, thinking that if he had as allies these countries, which bordered on his own, it would be easier, in conjunction with them, to carry on the war.
But the Athenians became aware of these designs, and wishing to forestall the revolt of the cities, ordered the commanders of their fleet (since they happened to be sending against the country of Perdiccas thirty ships and a thousand hoplites under the command of Archestratus son of Lycomedes and four others) to take hostages of the Potidaeans and pull down their wall, and also to keep a watch upon the neighbouring towns and prevent them from revolting.
The Potidaeans, on the other hand, sent envoys to Atlens, to see if they could persuade them not to take any harsh measures with reference to themselves; but envoys of theirs went also to Lacedaemon in the company of the Corinthians, with the object of having assistance ready to hand in case of need. From the Athenians, with whom they carried on protracted negotiation, they obtained no satisfactory result, but on the contrary the ships destined to attack Macedonia proceeded to sail against themselves as well, whereas the magistrates of the Lacedaemonians promised them to invade Attica if the Athenians went against Potidaea; so they seized this opportunity and revolted. entering into a formal alliance with the Chalcidiansi.e. the Chalcidians of Thrace. and Bottiaeans.
Perdiccas at the same time per suaded the Chalcidians to abandon and pull dowr their cities on the sea-coast and settle inland at Olynthus, making there a single strong city; and he gave them, when they abandoned their cities, a part of his own territory of Mygdonia around Lake Bolbe to cultivate as long as they should be at war with the Athenians. And so they proceeded to dismantle their cities, move inland, and prepare for war.
But when the thirty ships of the Athenians reached the coast of Thrace, they found Potidaea and the other places already in revolt.
Whereupon the generals, thinking it impossible with their present force to wage war with both Perdiccas and the places which had revolted, turned their attention to Macedonia, which was their destination at the start, and when they had got a foothold carried on war in concert with Philip and the brothers of Derdas, who had already invaded Macedonia from the interior with an army.
Thereupon the Corinthians, seeing that Potidaea had revolted and the Attic ships were in the neighbourhood of Macedonia, were alarmed about the place and thinking that the danger came home to them, dispatched volunteers of their own and such other Peloponnesians as they induced by pay, in all sixteen hundred hoplites and four hundred light-armed troops. The general in command was Aristeus son of Adimantus;
and it was chiefly because of friendship for him that most of the soldiers from Corinth went along as volunteers; for he had always been on friendly terms with the Potidaeans.
And they arrived on the coast of Thrace on the fortieth day after the revolt of Potidaea.
The news of the revolt of the cities quickly reached the Athenians also; and when they learned that troops under Aristeus were also on the way to support the rebels, they sent against the places in revolt two thousand of their own hoplites and forty ships, under Callias son of Calliades with four other generals.
These first came to Macedonia and found that the former thousand had just taken Therme and were besieging Pydna;
so they also took part in the siege of Pydna. But afterwards they concluded an agreement and an alliance with Perdiccas, being forced thereto by the situation of Potidaea and tie arrival of Aristeus, which compelled them to hasten, and then they withdrew from Macedonia.
On their way they came to Beroea and thence to Strepsa,In Mygdonia, north of Therme. and after an unsuccessful attempt upon this place proceeded overland to Potidaea with three thousand hoplites of their own and with many of their allies besides, and with six hundred Macedonian cavalry, who were under the command of Philip and Pausanias; and at the same time their ships, seventy in number, sailed along the coast.
And marching leisurely they arrived on the third day at Gigonus, and went into camp.
The Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians under Aristeus were awaiting the Athenians, encamped on the Olynthian side of the isthmus; and they had established a market outside of the city.
The allies had chosen Aristeus general of all the infantry, and Perdiccas of the cavalry; for Perdiccas had immediately deserted the Athenians againFor his first desertion of the Athenians, see Thuc. 1.57. and was now in alliance with the Potidaeans, having appointed Iolaus as his administrator at home.
The plan of Aristeus was as follows: he was to hold his own army on the isthmus and watch for the approach of the Athenians, while the Chalcidians and the other allies from outside of the isthmusi.e. the Bottiaeans, who, like the Chalcidians, lived outside the isthmus. and the two hundred horse furnished by Perdiccas were to remain at Olynthus; then when the Athenians should move against the forces of Aristeus, the others were to come up and attack them in the rear, and thus place the enemy between their two divisions.
But Callias, the commander of the Athenians, and his colleagues sent the Macedonian cavalry and a few of the allies toward Olynthus, to shut off aid from that quarter, while they themselves broke camp and advanced against Potidaea.
And when they arrived at the isthmus and saw the enemy preparing for battle, they took up their position facing them and soon the two sides joined battle.
And the wing led by Aristeus himself, which included the picked Corinthian and other troops, routed the forces opposed to them and pressed on a long distance in pursuit; but the rest of the army of the Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians was worsted by the Athenians and took refuge within the walls of Potidaea.
When Aristeus returned from the pursuit and saw that the rest of the army was defeated, he was at a loss whether he should try to fight his way through towards Olynthus or into Potidaea. He determined, however, to bring his own troops together into as compact a body as possible and to force his way into Potidaea on a run. And he succeeded in getting in by way of the breakwater through the sea, with difficulty, indeed, and harassed by missiles; but though he lost a few men, he saved the greater number of them.
Now when the battle began and the standards had been raised,l the auxiliaries of the Potidaeans in Olynthus—which is only about sixty stadia distant and can be seen from Potidaeaadvanced a short distance to give aid, and the Macedonian cavalry drew up in line against them to prevent it. But since the Athenians were soon proving the victors and the standards were pulled down, the auxiliaries retired again within the walls of Olynthus and the Macedonians rejoined the Athenians. And so no cavalry got into action on either side.On the Athenian side were 600 Macedonian cavalry (Thuc. 1.61.4), on the Potidean side 200 Macedonian cavalry under Perdiccas (Thuc. 1.62.3).
After the battle the Athenians set up a trophy and gave up their dead under a truce to the Potidaeans. There were slain, of the Potidaeans and their allies a little less than three hundred, and of the Athenians aloneThucydides omits the loss of the allies of the Athenians. about a hundred and fifty, and also their general Callias.
The city wall on the isthmus sideThe wall on the Isthmus side of the Potideans is the τεῖχος of Thuc. 1.62.6; the wall to Pallene is that mentioned in Thuc. 1.56.2 as τὸ ἐς παλλήνων τεῖχος. the Athenians immediately cut off by a transverse wall and set a guard there, but the wall toward Pallene was not shut off.The investment of Potidaea was effected by walling off first the northern and then also the southern city wall by a blockading wall; on the west and east, where the city extended to the sea, the blockade was made with ships. For they thought their numbers were insufficient to maintain a garrison on the isthmus and also to cross over to Pallene and build a wall there too, fearing that, if they divided their forces, the Potidaeans and their allies would attack them.
Afterwards, when the Athenians at home learned that Pallene was not blockaded, they sent sixteen hundred of their own hoplites under the command of Phormio son of Asopius; and he, when he arrived at Pallene, making Aphytis his base, brought his army to Potidaea, marching leisurely and ravaging the country at the same time. And as no one came out against him to give battle he built a wall to blockade the Pallene wall.