Kitap 1
They therefore thought good to send afore unto the Athenians certain men without privilege of heralds for to sound them and to say in this manner:
Men of Athens, you do unjustly to begin the war and violate the articles; for whereas we go about to right us on our enemies, you stand in our way and bear arms against us; if therefore you be resolved to hinder our going against Corcyra or whatsoever place else we please, dissolve the peace, and laying hands first upon us that are here, use us as enemies. Thus said they;
and the Corcyraeans, as many of the army as heard them, cried out immediately to take and kill them.
But the Athenians made answer thus: Men of Peloponnesus, neither do we begin the war nor break the peace; but we bring aid to these our confederates, the Corcyraeans; if you please therefore to go any whither else, we hinder you not, but if against Corcyra, or any place belonging unto it, we will not suffer you.
When the Athenians had given them this answer, the Corinthians made ready to go home and set up a trophy in Sybota of the continent. And the Corcyraeans also both took up the wreck and bodies of the dead which, carried every way by the waves and the winds that arose the night before, came driving to their hands, and, as if they had had the victory, set up a trophy likewise in Sybota the island. The victory was thus challenged on both sides upon these grounds.
The Corinthians did set up a trophy because in the battle they had the better all day, having gotten more of the wreck and dead bodies than the other and taken no less than a thousand prisoners and sunk about seventy of the enemies' galleys. And the Corcyraeans set up a trophy because they had sunk thirty galleys of the Corinthians and had, after the arrival of the Athenians, recovered the wreck and dead bodies that drove to them by reason of the wind; and because the day before, upon sight of the Athenians, the Corinthians had rowed astern and went away from them; and lastly, for that when they went to Sybota, the Corinthians came not out to encounter them. Thus each side claimed victory.
The Corinthians in their way homeward took in Anactorium, a town seated in the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, by deceit (this town was common to them and to the Corcyraeans), and having put into it Corinthians only, departed and went home. Of the Corcyraeans, eight hundred that were servants they sold, and kept prisoners two hundred and fifty, whom they used with very much favour that they might be a means, at their return, to bring Corcyra into the power of the Corinthians, the greatest part of these being principal men of the city.
And thus was Corcyra delivered of the war of Corinth, and the Athenian galleys went from them. This was the first cause that the Corinthians had of war against the Athenians: namely, because they had taken part with the Corcyraeans in a battle by sea against the Corinthians with whom they were comprised in the same articles of peace.
Presently after this, it came to pass that other differences arose between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians to induce the war.
For whilst the Corinthians studied to be revenged, the Athenians, who had their hatred in jealousy, commanded the citizens of Potidaea, a city seated in the Isthmus of Pallene, a colony of the Corinthians but confederate and tributary to the Athenians, to pull down that part of the wall of their city that stood towards Pallene, and to give them hostages, and also to send away and no more receive the Epidemiurgi (magistrates so called) which were sent unto them year by year from Corinth, fearing lest through the persuasion of Perdiccas and of the Corinthians they should revolt and draw to revolt with them their other confederates in Thrace.
These things against the Potidaeans, the Athenians had precontrived presently after the naval battle fought at Corcyra.
For the Corinthians and they were now manifestly at difference; and Perdiccas, who before had been their confederate and friend, now warred upon them.
And the cause why he did so was that when his brother Philip and Derdas joined in arms against him, the Athenians had made a league with them.
And therefore being afraid, he both sent to Lacedaemon to negotiate the Peloponnesian war and also reconciled himself to the Corinthians the better to procure the revolt of Potidaea.
And likewise he practised with the Chalcideans of Thrace and with the Bottiaeans to revolt with them; for if he could make these confining cities his confederates, with the help of them he thought his war would be the easier.
Which the Athenians perceiving and intending to prevent the revolt of these cities, gave order to the commanders of the fleet (for they were now sending thirty galleys with a thousand men of arms under the command of Archestratus the son of Lycomedes, and ten others, into the territories of Perdiccas) both to receive hostages of the Potidaeans and to demolish their walls, and also to have an eye to the neighboring cities that they revolted not.
The Potidaeans having sent ambassadors to Athens to try if they could persuade the people not to make any alteration amongst them, by other ambassadors, whom they sent along with the ambassadors of Corinth to Lacedaemon, dealt with the Lacedaemonians at the same time, if need required, to be ready to revenge their quarrel. When after long solicitation at Athens and no good done, the fleet was sent away against them no less than against Macedonia, and when the magistrates of Lacedaemon had promised them if the Athenians went to Potidaea, to invade Attica, then at last they revolted, and together with them the Chalcideans and Bottiaeans, all mutually sworn in the same conspiracy.
For Perdiccas had also persuaded the Chalcideans to abandon and pull down their maritime towns and to go up and dwell at Olynthus and that one city to make strong, and unto those that removed gave part of his own and part of the territory of Mygdonia, about the lake Bolbe, to live on so long as the war against the Athenians should continue. So when they had demolished their cities and were gone up higher into the country, they prepared themselves to the war.
The Athenian galleys, when they arrived in Thrace, found Potidaea and the other cities already revolted.
And the commanders of the fleet, conceiving it to be impossible, with their present forces, to make war both against Perdiccas and the towns revolted, set sail again for Macedonia, against which they had been at first sent out, and there staying, joined with Philip and the brothers of Derdas that had invaded the country from above.
In the meantime after Potidaea was revolted, and whilst the Athenian fleet lay on the coast of Macedonia, the Corinthians, fearing what might become of the city and making the danger their own, sent unto it, both of their own city and of other Peloponnesians which they hired, to the number of sixteen hundred men of arms and four hundred light armed.
The charge of these was given to Aristeus the son of Adimantus, for whose sake most of the volunteers of Corinth went the voyage: for he had been ever a great favourer of the Potidaeans.
And they arrived in Thrace after the revolt of Potidaea forty days.
The news of the revolt of these cities was likewise quickly brought to the Athenian people, who, hearing withal of the forces sent unto them under Aristeus, sent forth against the places revolted two thousand men of arms and forty galleys under the conduct of Callias, the son of Calliades.
These, coming first into Macedonia, found there the former thousand, who by this time had taken Therme and were now besieging the city of Pydna;
and staying, helped for a while to besiege it with the rest. But shortly after they took composition and, having made a necessary league with Perdiccas (urged thereto by the affairs of Potidaea, and the arrival there of Aristeus), departed from Macedonia.
Thence coming to Berrhoea, they attempted to take it; but when they could not do it, they turned back and marched towards Potidaea by land. They were of their own number three thousand men of arms, besides many of their confederates, and of Macedonians that had served with Philip and Pausanias, six hundred horsemen.
And their galleys, seventy in number, sailing by them along the coast, by moderate journeys came in three days to Gigonus and there encamped.
The Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians under Aristeus, in expectation of the coming of the Athenians, lay now encamped in the isthmus near unto Olynthus and had the market kept for them without the city.
And the leading of the foot the confederates had assigned to Aristeus, and of the horse to Perdiccas; for he fell off again presently from the Athenians and, having left Iolaus governor in his place, took part with the Potidaeans.
The purpose of Aristeus was to have the body of the army with himself within the isthmus and therewith to attend the coming on of the Athenians, and to have the Chalcideans and their confederates without the isthmus, and also the two hundred horse under Perdiccas, to stay in Olynthus, and when the Athenians were passed by, to come on their backs and to inclose the enemy betwixt them.
But Callias the Athenian general, and the rest that were in commission with him, sent out before them their Macedonian horsemen and some few of their confederates to Olynthus to stop those within from making any sally from the town, and then dislodging marched on towards Potidaea.
When they were come on as far as the isthmus and saw the enemy make ready to fight, they also did the like;
and not long after they joined battle. That wing wherein was Aristeus himself with the chosen men of the Corinthians and others put to flight that part of their enemies that stood opposite unto them and followed execution a great way. But the rest of the army of the Potidaeans and Peloponnesians were by the Athenians defeated and fled into the city.
And Aristeus, when he came back from the execution, was in doubt what way to take, to Olynthus or to Potidaea. In the end he resolved of the shortest way, and with his soldiers about him ran as hard as he was able into Potidaea, and with much ado got in at the pier through the sea, cruelly shot at and with the loss of a few but the safety of the greatest part of his company.
As soon as the battle began, they that should have seconded the Potidaeans from Olynthus (for it is at most but sixty furlongs off, and in sight) advanced a little way to have aided them; and the Macedonian horse opposed themselves likewise in order of battle to keep them back. But the Athenians having quickly gotten the victory, and the standards being taken down, they retired again, they of Olynthus into that city, and the Macedonian horsemen into the army of the Athenians. So that neither side had their cavalry at the battle.
After the battle the Athenians erected a trophy and gave truce to the Potidaeans for the taking up of the bodies of their dead. Of the Potidaeans and their friends there died somewhat less than three hundred, and of the Athenians themselves one hundred and fifty, with Callias one of their commanders.
Presently upon this the Athenians raised a wall before the city on the part toward the isthmus which they kept with a garrison, but the part to Pallene-ward they left unwalled. For they thought themselves too small a number both to keep a guard in the isthmus and withal to go over and fortify in Pallene, fearing lest the Potidaeans and their confederates should assault them when divided.
When the people of Athens understood that Potidaea was unwalled on the part toward Pallene, not long after they sent thither sixteen hundred men of arms under the conduct of Phormio the son of Asopius, who arriving in Pallene left his galleys at Aphytis, and marching easily to Potidaea wasted the territory as he passed through. And when none came out to give him battle, he raised a wall before the city on that part also that looketh towards Pallene.
Thus was Potidaea on both sides strongly besieged, and also from the sea by the Athenian galleys that came up and rode before it.