Kitap 3
The land they confiscated and set it to farm afterwards for ten years to the Thebans. So far were the Lacedaemonians alienated from the Plataeans, especially, or rather altogether, for the Thebans' sake, whom they thought useful to them in the war now on foot.
So ended the business at Plataea in the fourscore and thirteenth year after their league made with the Athenians.
The forty galleys of Peloponnesus, which having been sent to aid the Lesbians fled, as hath been related, through the wide sea chased by the Athenians and tossed by storms on the coast of Crete, came thence dispersed into Peloponnesus and found thirteen galleys, Leucadians and Ambraciotes, in the haven of Cyllene with Brasidas the son of Tellis come hither to be of council with Alcidas.
For the Lacedaemonians, seeing they failed of Lesbos, determined with their fleet augmented to sail to Corcyra, which was in sedition (there being but twelve Athenian galleys about Naupactus), to the end they might be there before the supply of a greater fleet should come from Athens. So Brasidas and Alcidas employed themselves in that.
The sedition in Corcyra began upon the coming home of those captives which were taken in the battles by sea at Epidamnus and released afterwards by the Corinthians at the ransom, as was voiced, of eighty talents for which they had given security to their hosts, but in fact for that they had persuaded the Corinthians that they would put Corcyra into their power.
These men going from man to man solicited the city to revolt from the Athenians. And two galleys being now come in, one of Athens, another of Corinth, with ambassadors from both those states, the Corcyraeans upon audience of them both decreed to hold the Athenians for their confederates on articles agreed on but withal to remain friends to the Peloponnesians as they had formerly been.
There was one Peithias, voluntary host of the Athenians and that had been principal magistrate of the people.
Him these men called into judgment and laid to his charge a practice to bring the city into the servitude of the Athenians. He again, being acquit, called in question five of the wealthiest of the same men saying they had cut certain stakes in the ground belonging to the temples both of Jupiter and of Alcinus, upon every of which there lay a penalty of a state.
And the cause going against them, they took sanctuary in the temples to the end, the sum being great, they might pay it by portions [as they should be taxed].
But Peithias (for he was also of the senate) obtained that the law should proceed. These five being by the law excluded the senate and understanding that Peithias, as long as he was a senator, would cause the people to hold for friends and foes the same that were so to the Athenians, conspired with the rest and, armed with daggers, suddenly brake into the senate-house and slew both Peithias and others, as well private men as senators, to the number of about sixty persons; only a few of those of Peithias his faction escaped in the Athenian galley that lay yet in the harbour.
When they had done this and called the Corcyraeans to an assembly, they told them that what they had done was for the best and that they should not be now in bondage to the Athenians; and for the future they advised them to be in quiet and to receive neither party with more than one galley at once and to take them for enemies if they were more. And when they had spoken, forced them to decree it accordingly.
They also presently sent ambassadors to Athens both to show that it was fit for them to do what they had done and also to dissuade such Corcyraeans as were fled thither of the other faction from doing anything to their prejudice for fear the matter should fall into a relapse.
When these arrived, the Athenians apprehended both the ambassadors themselves as seditious persons and also all those Corcyraeans whom they had there prevailed with and sent them to custody in Aegina.
In the meantime, upon the coming in of a galley of Corinth with ambassadors from Lacedaemon, those that managed the state assailed the commons, and overcame them in fight.
And night coming on, the commons fled into the citadel and the higher parts of the city where they rallied themselves and encamped and made themselves masters of the haven called the Hillaique haven. But the nobility seized on the market place (where also the most of them dwelt) and on the haven on the side toward the continent.
The next day they skirmished a little with shot, and both parts sent abroad into the villages to solicit the slaves with promise of liberty to take their parts. And the greatest part of the slaves took part with the commons, and the other side had an aid of eight hundred men from the continent.
The next day but one they fought again; and the people had the victory, having the odds both in strength of places and in number of men. And the women also manfully assisted them, throwing tiles from the houses and enduring the tumult even beyond the condition of their sex.
The few began to fly about twilight and fearing lest the people should even with their shout take the arsenal and so come on and put them to the sword, to stop their passage set fire on the houses in circle about the market place and upon others near it. Much goods of merchants was hereby burnt, and the whole city, if the wind had risen and carried the flame that way, had been in danger to have been destroyed.
When the people had gotten the victory, the Corinthian galley stole away; and most of the auxiliaries got over privily into the continent.
The next day Nicostratus, the son of Diitrephes, an Athenian commander, came in with twelve galleys and five hundred Messenian men of arms from Naupactus; and both negotiated a reconciliation and induced them (to the end they might agree) to condemn ten of the principal authors of the sedition (who presently fled) and to let the rest alone, with articles both between themselves and with the Athenians to esteem friends and enemies the same the Athenians did.
When he had done this, he would have been gone; but the people persuaded him before he went to leave behind him five of his galleys, the better to keep their adversaries from stirring, and to take as many of theirs, which they would man with Corcyraeans and send with him.
To this he agreed; and they made a list of those that should embark, consisting altogether of their enemies. But these, fearing to be sent to Athens, took sanctuary in the temple of Castor and Pollux.
But Nicostratus endeavoured to raise them and spake to them to put them into courage. But when he could not prevail, the people, arming themselves on pretence that their diffidence to go along with Nicostratus proceeded from some evil intention, took away their arms out of their houses and would also have killed some of them such as they chanced on if Nicostratus had not hindered them.
Others also when they saw this took sanctuary in the temple of Juno, and they were in all above four hundred. But the people fearing some innovation got them by persuasion to rise and, conveying them into the island that lieth over against the temple of Juno, sent them their necessaries thither.
The sedition standing in these terms, the fourth or fifth day after the putting over of these men into the island arrived the Peloponnesian fleet from Cyllene, where since their voyage of Ionia they had lain at anchor, to the number of three and fifty sail. Alcidas had the command of these as before, and Brasidas came with him as a counsellor. And having first put in at Sybota, a haven of the continent, they came on the next morning by break of day toward Corcyra.
The Corcyraeans, being in great tumult and fear both of the seditious within and of the invasion without, made ready threescore galleys, and still as any of them were manned sent them out against the enemy; whereas the Athenians had advised them to give leave to them to go forth first and then the Corcyraeans to follow after with the whole fleet together.
When their galleys came forth thus thin, two of them presently turned to the enemy; and in others they that were aboard were together by the ears amongst themselves, and nothing was done in due order.
The Peloponnesians, seeing their confusion, opposed themselves to the Corcyraeans with twenty galleys only; the rest they set in array against the twelve galleys of Athens, whereof the Salaminia and the Paralus were two.
The Corcyraeans having come disorderly up, and by few at once, were on their part in much distress; but the Athenians, fearing the enemy's number and doubting to be environed, would never come up to charge the enemy where they stood thick nor would set upon the galleys that were placed in the midst but charged one end of them and drowned one of their galleys.
And when the Peloponnesians afterwards had put their fleet into a circular figure, they then went about and about it endeavouring to put them into disorder. Which they that were fighting against the Corcyraeans perceiving and fearing such another chance as befell them formerly at Naupactus, went to their aid and, uniting themselves, came upon the Athenians all together.
But they retiring rowed astern, intending that the Corcyraeans should take that time to escape in, they themselves in the meantime going as leisurely back as was possible and keeping the enemy still ahead.
Such was this battle, and it ended about sunset.
The Corcyraeans, fearing lest the enemy in pursuit of their victory should have come directly against the city or take aboard the men which they had put over into the island or do them some other mischief, fetched back the men into the temple of Juno again and guarded the city.
But the Peloponnesians, though they had won the battle, yet durst not invade the city but, having taken thirteen of the Corcyraean galleys, went back into the continent from whence they had set forth.
The next day they came not unto the city no more than before, although it was in great tumult and affright and though also Brasidas (as it is reported) advised Alcidas to it but had not equal authority, but only landed soldiers at the promontory of Leucimna and wasted their territory.
In the meantime the people of Corcyra, fearing extremely lest those galleys should come against the city, not only conferred with those in sanctuary and with the rest about how the city might be preserved but also induced some of them to go aboard. For notwithstanding the sedition they manned thirty galleys in expectation that the fleet of the enemy should have entered.
But the Peloponnesians, having been wasting of their fields till it was about noon, went their ways again. Within night the Corcyraeans had notice by fires of threescore Athenian galleys coming toward them from Leucas, which the Athenians, upon intelligence of the sedition and of the fleet to go to Corcyra under Alcidas, had sent to aid them under the conduct of Eurymedon the son of Thucles.
The Peloponnesians therefore, as soon as night came, sailed speedily home, keeping still the shore and causing their galleys to be carried over at the isthmus of Leucas that they might not come in sight as they went about.
But the people of Corcyra, hearing of the Attic galleys coming in and the going off of the Peloponnesians, brought into the city those Messenians which before were without and appointing the galleys which they had furnished to come about into the Hillaique haven, whilst accordingly they went about, slew all the contrary faction they could lay hands on, and also afterwards threw overboard out of the same galleys all those they had before persuaded to embark, and so went thence. And coming to the temple of Juno, they persuaded fifty of those that had taken sanctuary to refer themselves to a legal trial, all which they condemned to die.
But the most of the sanctuary men, that is, all those that were not induced to stand to trial by law, when they saw what was done, killed one another there right in the temple; some hanged themselves on trees; everyone as he had means made himself away.