Book 3
And for seven days together that Eurymedon stayed there with his sixty galleys, the Corcyraeans did nothing but kill such of their city as they took to be their enemies, laying to their charge a practice to have everted the popular government. Amongst whom some were slain upon private hatred and some by their debtors for the money which they had lent them. All forms of death were then seen;
and (as in such cases it usually falls out) whatsoever had happened at any time happened also then, and more. For the father slew his son; men were dragged out of the temples and then slain hard by; and some immured in the temple of Bacchus died within it. So cruel was this sedition and seemed so the more because it was of these the first.
For afterwards all Greece, as a man may say, was in commotion; and quarrels arose everywhere between the patrons of the commons, that sought to bring in the Athenians, and the few, that desired to bring in the Lacedaemonians. Now in time of peace they could have had no pretence nor would have been so forward to call them in; but being war and confederates to be had for either party, both to hurt their enemies and strengthen themselves, such as desired alteration easily got them to come in.
And many and heinous things happened in the cities through this sedition, which though they have been before and shall be ever as long as human nature is the same, yet they are more calm and of different kinds according to the several conjunctures. For in peace and prosperity as well cities as private men are better minded because they be not plunged into necessity of doing anything against their will. But war, taking away the affluence of daily necessaries, is a most violent master and conformeth most men's passions to the present occasion. The cities therefore being now in sedition and those that fell into it later having heard what had been done in the former, they far exceeded the same in newness of conceit, both for the art of assailing and for the strangeness of their revenges.
The received value of names imposed for signification of things was changed into arbitrary. For inconsiderate boldness was counted true-hearted manliness; provident deliberation, a handsome fear; modesty, the cloak of cowardice; to be wise in everything, to be lazy in everything.
A furious suddenness was reputed a point of valour. To re-advise for the better security was held for a fair pretext of tergiversation. He that was fierce was always trusty, and he that contraried such a one was suspected. He that did insidiate, if it took, was a wise man; but he that could smell out a trap laid, a more dangerous man than he.
But he that had been so provident as not to need to do the one or the other was said to be a dissolver of society and one that stood in fear of his adversary. In brief, he that could outstrip another in the doing of an evil act or that could persuade another thereto that never meant it was commended. To be kin to another was not to be so near as to be of his society because these were ready to undertake anything and not to dispute it.
For these societies were not made upon prescribed laws of profit but for rapine, contrary to the laws established. And as for mutual trust amongst them, it was confirmed not so much by divine law as by the communication of guilt. And what was well advised of their adversaries, they received with an eye to their actions to see whether they were too strong for them or not, and not ingenuously.
To be revenged was in more request than never to have received injury. And for oaths (when any were) of reconcilement, being administered in the present for necessity, were of force to such as had otherwise no power; but upon opportunity, he that first durst thought his revenge sweeter by the trust than if he had taken the open way. For they did not only put to account the safeness of that course but, having circumvented their adversary by fraud, assumed to themselves withal a mastery in point of wit. And dishonest men for the most part are sooner called able than simple men honest, and men are ashamed of this title but take a pride in the other. The cause of all this is desire of rule out of avarice and ambition, and the zeal of contention from those two proceeding.
For such as were of authority in the cities, both of the one and the other faction, preferring under decent titles, one, the polit- ical equality of the multitude, the other, the moderate aristoc- racy, though in words they seemed to be servants of the public, they made it in effect but the prize of their contention; and striving by whatsoever means to overcome both ventured on most horrible outrages and prosecuted their revenges still fartheir without any regard of justice or the public good, but limiting them, each faction, by their own appetite, and stood ready, whether by unjust sentence or with their own hands, when they should get power, to satisfy their present spite. So that neither side made account to have anything the sooner done for religion [of an oath], but he was most commended that could pass a business against the hair with a fair oration. The neutrals of the city were destroyed by both factions, partly because they would not side with them and partly for envy that they should so escape.
Thus was wickedness on foot in every kind throughout all Greece by the occasion of their sedition. Sincerity (whereof there is much in a generous nature) was laughed down; and it was far the best course to stand diffidently against each other with their thoughts in battle array, which no speech was so powerful nor oath terrible enough to disband.
And being all of them the more they considered the more desperate of assurance, they rather contrived how to avoid a mischief than were able to rely on any man's faith.
And for the most part, such as had the least wit had the best success; for both their own defect and the subtlety of their adversaries putting them into a great fear to be overcome in words, or at least in preinsidiation, by their enemies' great craft, they therefore went roundly to work with them with deeds.
Whereas the other, not caring though they were perceived and thinking they needed not to take by force what they might do by plot, were thereby unprovided and so the more easily slain.
In Corcyra then were these evils for the most part committed first; and so were all other, which either such men as have been governed with pride rather than modesty by those on whom they take revenge were like to commit in taking it; or which such men as stand upon their delivery from long poverty out of covetousness, chiefly to have their neighbours' goods would contrary to justice give their voices to; or which men, not for covetousness but assailing each other on equal terms, carried away with the unruliness of their anger would cruelly and inexorably execute.
And the common course of life being at that time confounded in the city, the nature of man, which is wont even against law to do evil, gotten now above the law, showed itself with delight to be too weak for passion, too strong for justice, and enemy to all superiority. Else they would never have preferred revenge before innocence nor lucre (whensoever the envy of it was without power to do them hurt) before justice.
And for the laws common to all men in such cases (which, as long as they be in force, give hope to all that suffer injury), men desire not to leave them standing against the need a man in danger may have of them but by their revenges on others to be beforehand in subverting them.
Such were the passions of the Corcyraeans, first of all other Grecians, towards one another in the city; and Eurymedon and the Athenians departed with their galleys.
Afterwards, such of the Corcyraeans 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 Lacedaemon and Corinth concerning their reduction; 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 and were masters of the territory.
In the end of the same summer the Athenians sent twenty galleys into Sicily under the command of Laches the son of Melanopus and Charoeadas the son of Euphiletus, for the Syracusians and the Leontines were now warring against each other.
The confederates of the Syracusians were all the Doric cities except the Camarinaeans, which also in the beginning of this war were reckoned in the league of the Lacedaemonians 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 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.
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 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 Euboea and also amongst the Boeotians, and in Boeotia chiefly at Orchomenus.
The Athenians and Rhegians that were now in Sicily made war the same winter on the islands called the islands of Aeolus with thirty galleys. For in summer it was impossible to war upon them for the shallowness of the water.
These islands are inhabited by the Liparaeans 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 daytime and of smoke in the night. 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.
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 (Euboea being then troubled with earthquakes), the sea came in at Orobiae 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 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 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.
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.
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.
Charoeades the Athenian general being slain by the Syracusians, Laches, who was now sole commander of the fleet, together with the confederates made war on Mylae, a town belonging to Messana. There were in Mylae two companies of Messanians in garrison, the which also laid a certain ambush for those that came up from the fleet.