Kitap 2
AT this point in my narrative begins the account of the actual warfare between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians and their respective allies. While it continued they ceased having communication with one another except through heralds, and when once they were at war they waged it without intermission. The events of the war have been recorded in the order of their occurrence, summer by summer and winter by winter.The mode of reckoning customary in the time of Thucydides and continued long afterwards. In such a scheme the summer included the spring and the winter the autumn; the summer period was equal to about eight months, the winter to about four.
For fourteen years the thirty years' truce which had been concluded after the capture of Euboea remained unbroken; but in the fifteenth year, when Chrysis was in the forty-eighth year of her priesthoodThe commencement of the war is fixed according to the forms of reckoning customary in the three most important Hellenic states. at Argos, and Aenesias was ephor at Sparta, and Pythodorus had still four months to serve as archon at Athens, in the sixteenth month after the battle of Potidaea, at the opening of431 B.C. spring, some Thebans, a little more than three hundred in number, under the command of the Boeotarchs Pythangelus son of Phyleidas and Diemporus son of Onetoridas, about the first watch of the night entered under arms into Plataea, a They had been invited over by some Plataeans, Naucleides and his partisans, who opened the gates for them, intending, with a view to getting power into their hands, to destroy the citizens who were of the opposite party and make over the city to
the Thebans. And they had conducted their intrigue through Eurymachus son of Leontiades, a man of great influence
at Thebes. For, as Plataea was always at variance with them, the Thebans, foreseeing that the wari.e. the war between Athens and Sparta. was coming, wished to get possession of it while there was still peace and before the war had yet been openly declared. And so they found it easier to make their entry unobserved, because no watch had been set to guard
the city. And when they had grounded their arms in the market-place, instead of following the advice of those who had invited them over, namely to set to work at once and enter the houses of their enemies, they determined rather to try conciliatory proclamations and to bring the city to an amicable agreement. The proclamation made by herald was that, if anyone wished to be an ally according to the hereditary usages of the whole body of the Boeotians, he should take his weapons and join them. For they thought that in this way the city would easily be induced to come over to their side.
And the Plataeans, when they became aware that the Thebans were inside, and that the city had been taken by surprise, took fright, and, as it was night and they could not see, thinking that a far greater number had come in, they concluded to make terms, and, accepting the proposals made to them, raised no disturbance, especially as the Thebans did no violence to anyone.
But, as it happened, while they were negotiating the terms they perceived that the Thebans were few in number, and thought that by an attack they might easily overpower them; for it was not the wish of the majority of the Plataeans to withdraw from the Athenian alliance.
So it was determined to make the attempt, and they began to collect together, reaching each other's houses by digging through the party-walls that they might not be seen going through the streets, and they placed wagons without the draught-animals in the streets to serve as a barricade, and took other measures as each appeared likely to be advantageous in the present emergency.
And when all was ready as far as they could make it so, waiting for the time of night just before dawn, they sallied from their houses against the Thebans, not wishing to attack them by day when they might be more courageous and would be on equal terms with them, but at night when they would be more timid and at a disadvantage, in comparison with their own familiarity with the town. And so they fell upon them at once, and speedily came to close quarters.
The Thebans, when they found they had been deceived, drew themselves up in close ranks and sought to repel the assaults of the enemy wherever they fell upon them.
And twice or three times they repulsed them; then when the Plataeans charged upon them with a great uproar, and at the same time the women and slaves on the house-tops, uttering screams and yells, kept pelting them with stones and tiles—a heavy rain too had come on during the night—they became panic-stricken and turned and fled through the city; and since most of them were unfamiliar with the thoroughfares by which they must save themselves amid the darkness and mud—for these things happened at the end of the monthWhen there would be no moon.--, whereas their pursuers knew full well how to prevent their escape, many of them consequently perished.
One of the Plataeans, moreover, had closed the gates by which they had entered--the only gates which had been opened--using the spike of a javelin instead of a pin to fasten the bar, so that there was no longer a way out in that direction either.
And being pursued up and down the city, some of them mounted the wall and threw themselves over, most of these perishing; others succeeded in getting out by an unguarded gate without being observed, cutting through the bar with an axe which a woman gave them—but not many, for they were soon discovered; and others got isolated in various parts of the city and were put to death.
But the greater number, those who had kept more together than the others, rushed into a large building abutting uponOr, as most MSS. read, a large building . . . whose doors near by happened to be open; with Didot and Haase, a large building near the wall whose doors ... the wall whose doors happened to be open, thinking that the doors of the building were city-gates and that there was a passage right through to the outside.
And the Plataeans, seeing that they were cut off, began to deliberate whether they should set fire to the building and burn them up without more ado or what other disposition they should make of them.
But finally these and the other Thebans who survived and were wandering up and down the city came to an agreement with the Plataeans to surrender themselves and their arms, to be dealt with in any way the Plataeans wished.
The Thebans in Plataea had fared thus;
but the main body of the Thebans, who were to have come in full force while it was still night, on the chance that things might not go well with those who had entered the city, received while on the way news of what had happened and were now hastening to the rescue.
Now Plataea is about seventy stadia distant from Thebes, and the rain that had come on during the night delayed their coming; for the river Asopus was running high and was not easy to cross.
And so, marching in the rain and crossing the river with difficulty, they arrived too late, some of their men having already been slain and others taken captive alive.
And when the Thebans learned what had happened, they began to plot against the Plataeans who were outside the city—there were, of course, men in the fields and household property, as the trouble had come unexpectedly in time of peace—for they desired to have such men as they could lay hands on as hostages for those within, in case any of them had chanced to be taken captive. Such then were their plans;
but the Plataeans, while the Thebans were still deliberating, suspected that something of the sort would be done, and fearing for those outside sent out a herald to the Thebans, saying that they had done an impious thing in trying to seize their city in time of peace, and they ;blde them do no injury outside the walls; if they did, they on their part would put to death the men whom they held captive, but if the Thebans withdrew from their territory they would restore the men to them. Now this is the account which the Thebans give, and they allege that the Plataeans confirmed their promise with an oath;
the Plataeans do not admit that they promised to restore the men at once, but only that they would do so in case they should come to an agreement after preliminary negotiations, and they deny that they swore to it.
At any rate, the Thebans withdrew from their territory without doing any injury; but the Plataeans, as soon as they had hastily fetched in their property from the country, straightway slew the men. And those who had been taken captive were one hundred and eighty in number, one of them being Eurymachus, with whom the traitors had negotiated.
When they had done this, they sent a messenger to Athens, gave back the dead under a truce to the Thebans, and settled the affairs of the city as seemed best to them in the emergency.
The report of what had been done in Plataea was made to the Athenians promptly; and they instantly apprehended all the Thebans who were in Attica and sent a herald to Plataea, bidding him tell them to take no extreme measures regarding the Thebans whom they held captive until they themselves should have taken counsel about them;
for the news had not arrived that the men had been put to death. For the first messenger had set out at the time the Thebans were entering the city, the second immediately after their defeat and capture, and the Athenians knew nothing of later events. Consequently the Athenians sent their orders without knowing the facts; and the herald on his arrival found the men slain.
After this the Athenians, marching to Plataea, brought in food and left a garrison,cf. 78.3. taking away the least efficient of the men along with the women and children.
Now that the affair at Plataea had occurred and the treaty had been glaringly violated, the Athenians began preparing for war, and the Lacedaemonians and their allies also began; both sides were making ready to send embassies to the King and to the barbarians of any other land,Referring in the one case, to the unsuccessful embassy of the Lacedaemonians to the King mentioned in 67; in the other, to the connection of the Athenians with the Odrysian court mentioned in 2.29 and 2.67. where either of them hoped to secure aid, and they were negotiating alliances with such cities as were outside of their own sphere of influence.
The Lacedaemonians, on their part, gave orders to those in Italy and Sicily who had chosen their sideReferring to the Dorian colonies in Italy and Sicily (cf. 3.86.2), which, however, contributed no ships till 412 B.C. (cf. 8.26.1. to build, in proportion to the size of their cities, other ships, in addition to those which were already in Peloponnesian ports, their hope being that their fleet would reach a grand total of five hundred ships, and to provide a stated sum of money; but as to other matters, they were instructed to remain inactive and to refuse their ports to Athenians if they came with more than a single ship, until these preparations had been completed.
The Athenians, on the other hand, began to examine their existing list of allies and also sent embassies more particularly to the countries lying about the Peloponnesus—Corcyra, Cephallenia, Acarnania, and Zacynthus—perceiving that if they were sure of the friendship of these places they would be able to encircle the Peloponnesus and subdue it.
There was nothing paltry in the designs of either side; but both put their whole strength into the war, and not without reason, for men always lay hold with more spirit at the beginning, and at this time, in addition, the young men, who were numerous both in the Peloponnesus and in Athens, were unfamiliar enough with war to welcome it. All the rest of Hellas was in anxious suspense as its foremost cities came into conflict with each other.
And many were the prophecies recited and many those which oracle-mongers chanted, both among the peoples who were about to go to war and in the Hellenic cities at large.
Moreover, only a short time before this, Delos had been shaken, although it had not before been visited by an earthquake within the memory of the Hellenes.Probably an intentional contradiction of Hdt. 6.98., where it is stated that an earthquake occurred shortly before the battle of Marathon, but none later. This was said and believed to be ominous of coming events, and indeed every other incident of the sort which chanced to occur was carefully looked into.
The general good-will, however, inclined decidedly to the side of the Lacedaemonians, especially since they proclaimed that they were liberating Hellas. Every person and every state was strongly purposed to assist them in every possible way, whether by word or by deed, and each man thought that wherever he could not himself be present, there the cause had suffered a check.
To such an extent were the majority of the Hellenes enraged against the Athenians, some wishing to be delivered from their sway, others fearful of falling under it.
Such were the preparations and such the feelings with which the Hellenes went into the conflict. And the states which each side had as its allies when it entered the war were as follows.
These were the allies of the Lacedaemonians: all the Peloponnesians south of the Isthmus with the exception of the Argives and Achaeans (these latter had friendly relations with both sides, and the Pellenians were the only Achaeans who at first took part in the war with the Lacedaemonians, though eventually all of them did), and outside of the Peloponnesus the Megarians, Boeotians, Locrians, Phocians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians.
Of these, the Corinthians, Megarians, Sicyonians, Pellenians, Eleans, Ambraciots, and Leucadians furnished ships, while cavalry was contributed by the Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians, and infantry by the other states.
These were the allies of the Lacedaemonians. Those of the Athenians were: the Chians, Lesbians, Plataeans, the Messenians of Naupactus, most of the Acarnanians, the Corcyraeans, the Zacynthians, and in addition the cities which were tributary in the following countries: the seaboard of Caria, the Dorians adjacent to the Carians, Ionia, the Hellespont, the districts on the coast of Thrace, and the islands which lie between the Peloponnesus and Crete toward the east, with the exception of Melos and Thera.