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Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989. 

====== Diodorus Siculus: Library of History Volume 12 ======


===== Book XII =====
==== Contents of the Twelfth Book of Diodorus ====

—On the campaign of the Athenians against Cyprus (chaps. 1-4). —On the revolt of the Megarians from the Athenians (chap. 5). —On the battle at Coroneia between the Athenians and Boeotians (chap. 6). —On the campaign of the Athenians against Euboea (chap. 7). —The war in Sicily between the Syracusans and the Acragantini (chap. 8). —The founding in Italy of Thurii and its civil strife (chaps. 9-11). —How Charondas, who was chosen lawgiver of Thurii, was responsible for many benefits to his native city (chaps. 12-19). —How Zaleucus, the lawgiver in Locri, won for himself great fame (chaps. 20-21). —How the Athenians expelled the Hestiaeans and sent there their own colonists (chap. 22). —On the war between the Thurians and the Tarantini (chap. 23). —On the civil strife in Rome (chaps. 24-26). —On the war between the Samians and the Milesians (chaps. 27-28). —How the Syracusans campaigned against the Picenians and razed their city (chap. 29). —How the Corinthian War, as it is called, broke out in Greece (chap. 30). —How the nation of the Campani was formed in Italy (chap. 31). —The naval battle between the Corinthians and the Cercyraeans (chaps. 31-33). —The revolt of Potidaea and the Chalcidians from the Athenians (chap. 34). —On the campaign of the Athenians against the Potidaeans (chap. 34). —On the civil strife which arose in Thurii (chap. 35). —How Meton of Athens was the first to expound the nineteen-year cycle (chap. 36). —How the Tarantini founded the city of Heracleia in Italy (chap. 36). —How in Rome Spurius Maelius attempted to seize the supreme power and was put to death (chap. 37). —On the Peloponnesian War, as it is called (chaps. 38-41). —On the battle between the Boeotians and the Plataeans (chap. 42). —How, when Methone was being besieged by the Athenians, Brasidas the Spartan won distinction and fame (chap. 43). —How the Athenians campaigned against the Locrians and pillaged the city of Thronium (chap. 44). —How the Aeginetans, who had been expelled by the Athenians, colonized Thyreae, as it is called (chap. 44). —How the Lacedaemonians sent an army into Attica and destroyed the properties (chap. 45). —The second campaign of the Athenians against the Potidaeans (chap. 46). —The campaign of the Lacedaemonians against Acarnania and the naval battle with the Athenians (chaps. 47-48). —The campaign of Sitalces against Macedonia, and of the Lacedaemonians against Attica (chaps. 50-51). —On the embassy from Leontini to Athens and the powerful oratory of Gorgias their ambassador (chap. 53). —On the war between the Leontines and the Syracusans (chap. 54). —The revolt of the Lesbians from the Athenians and the seizure and destruction of Plataea by the Lacedaemonians (chaps. 55-56). —The civil strife among the Cercyraeans (chap. 57). —How the Athenians were seized by a pestilential disease and lost many of their citizens (chap. 58). —How the Lacedaemonians founded Heracleia, a city in Trachis (chap. 59). —How the Athenians slew many of the Ambraciotes and laid waste their city (chap. 60). —On the Lacedaemonians who were made prisoners on the island of Sphacteria (chaps. 61-63). —On the punishment inflicted by Postumius on his son because he left his place in the ranks (chap. 64). —On the war between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians over the Megarians (chap. 66). —The war between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians over the Chalcidians (chaps. 67-68). —The battle in Boeotia between the Athenians and the Boeotians (chaps. 69-70). —The campaign of the Athenians against the Lesbian exiles (chap. 72). —The expulsion of the Delians by the Athenians (chap. 73). —The capture and destruction of Torone by the Athenians (chap. 73). —How, after the Athenians and Lacedaemonians had concluded an alliance between them, the rest of the cities were alienated from them (chaps. 74-76). —How the Delians were restored by the Athenians to their native state (chap. 77). —How the Lacedaemonians waged war upon the Mantineans and Argives (chaps. 78-79). —The campaign of the Byzantians and Calchedonians against Bithynia (chap. 82). —On the reasons why the Athenians launched a campaign against Syracuse (chaps. 83-84).

A man may justly feel perplexed when he stops to consider the inconsistency that is to be found in the life of mankind; for no thing which we consider to be good is ever found to have been given to human beings unadulterated, nor is there any evil in an absolute form without some admixture of advantage. Proofs of this will be obtained if we give thought to the events of the past, especially to those of outstanding importance. [2] For instance, the campaign of Xerxes, the king of the Persians, against Greece aroused the greatest fear among the Greeks by reason of the immensity of his armaments, since the war they were entering might well decide their slavery, and since the Greek cities of Asia had already been enslaved, all men assumed that those of Greece would also suffer a similar fate. [3] But the war, contrary to expectation, came to an amazing end, and not only were the peoples of Greece freed of the dangers threatening them, but they also won for themselves great glory, and every city of Hellas enjoyed such an abundant prosperity that all men were filled with wonder at the complete reversal of their fortune. [4] For from this time over the next fifty years Greece made great advance in prosperity. In these years, for example, plenty brought increase to the arts, and the greatest artists of whom we have record, including the sculptor Pheidias, flourished at that time; and there was likewise great advance in education, and philosophy and oratory had a high place of honour among all Greeks, and especially the Athenians. [5] For the philosophers were Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, and the orators were Pericles1 and Isocrates and his pupils; and there were likewise men who have become renowned for generalship, Miltiades, Themistocles, Aristeides, Cimon, Myronides, and others more than these, regarding whom it would be a long task to write.

First place belonged to the Athenians, who had advanced so far in both fame and prowess that their name was known throughout practically the entire inhabited world; for they increased their leadership to such a degree that, by their own resources and without the aid of Lacedaemonians or Peloponnesians, they overcame great Persian armaments both on land and on sea, and humbled the famed leadership of the Persians to such an extent that they forced them by the terms of a treaty to liberate all the cities of Asia. [2] But of these matters we have given a detailed and fairly precise account in two Books, this and the preceding, and we shall turn now to the events next in order, after we have first set the time-limits of this section. [3] Now in the preceding Book we began with the campaign of Xerxes and presented a universal history down to the year before the campaign of the Athenians against Cyprus under the command of Cimon2; and in this Book we shall commence with the campaign of the Athenians against Cyprus and continue as far as the war which the Athenians voted to undertake against the Syracusans.3 4

When Euthydemus5 was archon at Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus and Marcus Fabius Vibulanus. In this year the Athenians, who had been at war with the Persians on behalf of the Egyptians and had lost all their ships at the island which is known as Prosopitis,6 after a short time resolved to make war again upon the Persians on behalf of the Greeks in Asia Minor. And fitting out a fleet of two hundred triremes, they chose Cimon, the son of Miltiades, to be general and commanded him to sail to Cyprus to make war on the Persians. [2] And Cimon, taking the fleet which had been furnished with excellent crews and abundant supplies, sailed to Cyprus. At that time the generals of the Persian armaments were Artabazus and Megabyzus. Artabazus held the supreme command7 and was tarrying in Cyprus with three hundred triremes, and Megabyzus was encamped in Cilicia with the land forces, which numbered three hundred thousand men. [3] Cimon, when he arrived in Cyprus and was master of the sea, reduced by siege Citium and Marium, treating the conquered in humane fashion. But after this, when triremes from Cilicia and Phoenicia bore down upon the island, Cimon, putting out to sea against them and forcing battle upon them, sank many of the ships, captured one hundred together with their crews, and pursued the remainder as far as Phoenicia. [4] Now the Persians with the ships that were left sought refuge on the land in the region where Megabyzus lay encamped with the land force. And the Athenians, sailing up and disembarking the soldiers, joined battle, in the course of which Anaxicrates, the other general, who had fought brilliantly, ended his life heroically; but the rest were victorious in the battle and after slaying many returned to the ships. After this the Athenians sailed back again to Cyprus.

Such, then, were the events of the first year of the war. 8

When Pedieus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Valerius Lactuca and Spurius Verginius Tricostus. In this year Cimon, the general of the Athenians, being master of the sea, subdued the cities of Cyprus. And since a large Persian garrison was there in Salamis and the city was filled with missiles and arms of every description, and of grain and supplies of every other kind, he decided that it would be to his advantage to reduce it by siege. [2] For Cimon reasoned that this would be the easiest way for him not only to become master of all Cyprus but also to confound the Persians, since their being unable to come to the aid of the Salaminians, because the Athenians were masters of the sea, and their having left their allies in the lurch would cause them to be despised, and that, in a word, the entire war would be decided if all Cyprus were reduced by arms. And that is what actually happened. [3] The Athenians began the siege of Salamis and were making daily assaults, but the soldiers in the city, supplied as they were with missiles and matériel, were with ease warding off the besiegers from the walls. [4] Artaxerxes the king, however, when he learned of the reverses his forces had suffered at Cyprus, took counsel on the war with his friends and decided that it was to his advantage to conclude a peace with the Greeks. Accordingly he dispatched to the generals in Cyprus and to the satraps the written terms on which they were permitted to come to a settlement with the Greeks. [5] Consequently Artabazus and Megabyzus sent ambassadors to Athens to discuss a settlement. The Athenians were favourable and dispatched ambassadors plenipotentiary, the leader of whom was Callias the son of Hipponicus; and so the Athenians and their allies concluded with the Persians a treaty of peace, the principal terms of which run as follows: All the Greeks cities of Asia are to live under laws of their own making; the satraps of the Persians are not to come nearer to the sea than a three days' journey and no Persian warship is to sail inside of Phaselis9 or the Cyanean Rocks10; and if these terms are observed by the king and his generals, the Athenians are not to send troops into the territory over which the king is ruler.11 [6] After the treaty had been solemnly concluded, the Athenians withdrew their armaments from Cyprus, having won a brilliant victory and concluded most noteworthy terms of peace. And it so happened that Cimon died of an illness during his stay in Cyprus. 12

When Philiscus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Romilius Vaticanus and Gaius Veturius Cichorius; and the Eleians celebrated the Eighty-third Olympiad, that in which Crison of Himera won the "stadion." [2] In this year the Megarians revolted from the Athenians, and dispatching ambassadors to the Lacedaemonians they concluded an alliance with them. Irritated at this the Athenians sent soldiers into the territory of the Megarians, plundering their properties and seizing much booty. And when the Megarians issued from their city to defend their territory, a battle ensued in which the Athenians were victorious and chased them back within their walls. 13

When Timarchides was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Asterius Fontinius.14 In this year the Lacedaemonians invaded Attica and ravaged a large part of the countryside, and after laying siege to some of the Athenian fortresses they withdrew to the Peloponnesus; and Tolmides, the Athenian general, seized Chaeroneia. [2] And when the Boeotians gathered their forces and caught Tolmides' troops in an ambush, a violent battle took place at Coroneia, in the course of which Tolmides fell fighting and of the remaining Athenians some were massacred and others were taken alive. The result of a disaster of such magnitude was that the Athenians were compelled to allow all the cities throughout Boeotia to live under laws of their own making,15 in order to get back their captured citizens. 16

When Callimachus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Sextus Quinctius . . . Trigeminus. In this year, since the Athenians had been weakened in Greece because of their defeat in Boeotia at Coroneia, many cities revolted from them. Since the inhabitants of Euboea were taking the lead in the revolution, Pericles, who had been chosen general, made a campaign against Euboea with a strong force, and taking the city of Hestiaea by storm he removed the inhabitants from their native city; and the other cities he terrified and forced back into obedience to the Athenians.

A truce17 was made for thirty years, Callias and Chares negotiating and confirming the peace.

In Sicily a war broke out between the Syracusans and Acragantini for the following reasons. The Syracusans had overcome Ducetius, the ruler of the Siceli, cleared him of all charges when he became a suppliant, and specified that he should make his home in the city of the Corinthians.18 [2] But after Ducetius had spent a short time in Corinth he broke the agreement, and on the plea that the gods had given him an oracular reply that he should found a city on the Fair Shore19 (Cale Acte) of Sicily, he sailed to the island with a number of colonists; some Siceli were also included, among whom was Archonides, the ruler of Herbita. He, then, was busied with the colonization of Cale Acte.20 [3] But the Acragantini, partly because they were envious of the Syracusans and partly because they were accusing them of letting Ducetius, who was their common enemy, go free without consulting them, declared war upon the Syracusans. [4] The cities of Sicily were divided, some of them taking the field with the Acragantini and others with the Syracusans, and so large armaments were mustered on both sides. Great emulation was shown by the cities as they pitched opposing camps at the Himera River, and in the conflict which followed the Syracusans were victorious and slew more than a thousand Acragantini. After the battle the Acragantini sent ambassadors to discuss terms and the Syracusans concluded a peace.

These, then, were the events in Sicily. And in Italy the city of Thurii came to be founded,21 for the following reasons. When in former times the Greeks had founded Sybaris in Italy, the city had enjoyed a rapid growth because of the fertility of the land. [2] For lying as the city did between two rivers, the Crathis and the Sybaris, from which it derived its name, its inhabitants, who tilled an extensive and fruitful countryside, came to possess great riches. And since they kept granting citizenship to many aliens, they increased to such an extent that they were considered to be far the first among the inhabitants of Italy; indeed they so excelled in population that the city possessed three hundred thousand citizens.

Now there arose among the Sybarites a leader of the people named Telys,22 who brought charges against the most influential men and persuaded the Sybarites to exile the five hundred wealthiest citizens and confiscate their estates. [3] And when these exiles went to Croton and took refuge at the altars in the marketplace, Telys dispatched ambassadors to the Crotoniates, commanding them either to deliver up the exiles or to expect war. [4] An assembly of the people was convened and deliberation proposed on the question whether they should surrender the suppliants to the Sybarites or face a war with a superior foe, and the Council and people were at a loss what to do. At first the sentiments of the masses, from fear of the war, leaned toward handing over the suppliants, but after this, when Pythagoras the philosopher advised that they grant safety to the suppliants, they changed their opinions and accepted the war on behalf of the safety of the suppliants. [5] When the Sybarites advanced against them with three hundred thousand men, the Crotoniates opposed them with one hundred thousand under the command of Milo the athlete, who by reason of his great physical strength was the first to put to flight his adversaries. [6] For we are told that this man, who had won the prize in Olympia six times and whose courage was of the measure of his physical body, came to battle wearing his Olympic crowns and equipped with the gear of Heracles, lion's skin and club; and he won the admiration of his fellow citizens as responsible for their victory.

Since the Crotoniates in their anger would take no prisoners but slew all who fell into their hands in the flight, the larger number of the Sybarites perished; and they plundered the city of Sybaris and laid it entirely waste. [2] Fifty-eight years later23 Thessalians joined in settling the city, but after a little while they were driven out by the Crotoniates, in the period we are now discussing. [3] And shortly thereafter the city was moved to another site and received another name, its founders being Lampon and Xenocritus; the circumstances of its refounding were as follows.

The Sybarites who were driven a second time from their native city dispatched ambassadors to Greece, to the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, requesting that they assist their repatriation and take part in the settlement. [4] Now the Lacedaemonians paid no attention to them, but the Athenians promised to join in the enterprise, and they manned ten ships and sent them to the Sybarites under the leadership of Lampon and Xenocritus; they further sent word to the several cities of the Peloponnesus, offering a share in the colony to anyone who wished to take part in it. [5] Many accepted the offer and received an oracular response from Apollo that they should found a city in the place where there would be“ Water to drink in due measure, but bread to eat without measure.
”They put in at Italy and arriving at Sybaris they set about hunting the place which the god had ordered them to colonize. [6] Having found not far from Sybaris a spring called Thuria, which had a bronze pipe which the natives of the region called medimnos,24 and believing this to be the place which the god had pointed out, they threw a wall about it, and founding a city there they named it Thurium after the spring. [7] They divided the city lengthwise by four streets, the first of which they named Heracleia, the second Aphrodisia, the third Olympias, and the fourth Dionysias, and breadthwise they divided it by three streets, of which the first was named Heroa, the second Thuria, and the last Thurina. And since the quarters formed by these streets were filled with dwellings, the construction of the city appeared to be good.

For a short time only did the Thurians live together in peace, and then they fell into serious civil strife, not without reason. The former Sybarites, it appears, were assigning the most important offices to themselves and the lower ones to the citizens who had been enrolled later; their wives they also thought should enjoy precedence among the citizenesses in the offering of sacrifices to the gods, and the wives of the later citizens should take second place to them; furthermore, the land lying near the city they were portioning out in allotments among themselves, and the more distant land to the newcomers. [2] And when a division arose for the causes we have mentioned, the citizens who had been added to the rolls after the others, being more numerous and more powerful, put to death practically all of the original Sybarites and took upon themselves the colonization of the city. Since the countryside was extensive and rich, they sent for colonists in large numbers from Greece, and to these they assigned parts of the city and gave them equal shares of the land. [3] Those who continued to live in the city quickly came to possess great wealth, and concluding friendship with the Crotoniates they administered their state in admirable fashion. Establishing a democratic form of government, they divided the citizens into ten tribes, to each of which they assigned a name based on the nationality of those who constituted it: three tribes composed of peoples gathered from the Peloponnesus they named the Arcadian, the Achaean, and the Eleian; the same number, gathered from related peoples living outside the Peloponnesus, they named the Boeotian, Amphictyonian, and Dorian; and the remaining four, constituted from other peoples, the Ionian, the Athenian, the Euboean, and the Islander. They also chose for their lawgiver the best man among such of their citizens as were admired for their learning, this being Charondas.25 [4] He, after examining the legislations of all peoples, singled out the best principles and incorporated them in his laws; and he also worked out many principles which were his own discovery, and these it is not foreign to our purpose to mention for the edification of our readers.

First of all, in the case of men who brought home a stepmother over their children he ordained as their punishment that they should have no part in counselling their fatherland, since he believed that men who planned so badly with respect to their own children would likewise be bad counsellors for their fatherland. For, he said, whoever had been fortunate in their first marriages should rest satisfied with their good lot, whereas whoever had been unfortunate in marriage and then made the same mistake a second time should be regarded as men without sense. [2] Men who had been found guilty of false accusation should, he decreed, wear wherever they went a wreath of tamarisk, in order that they might show to all their fellow citizens that they had won the highest prize for wickedness. As a consequence certain men who had been judged guilty of this charge, being unable to bear their great disgrace, voluntarily removed themselves from life. When this took place, every man who had made a practice of false accusation was banished from the city, and the government enjoyed a blessed life of freedom from this evil. [3]

Charondas also wrote a unique law on evil association, which had been overlooked by all other lawgivers. He took it for granted that the characters of good men are in some cases perverted to evil by reason of their friendship and intimacy with bad persons,26 and that badness, like a pestilent disease, sweeps over the life of mankind and infects the souls of the most upright; for the road to the worse slopes downward and so provides an easier way to take; and this is the reason why many men of fairly good character, ensnared by deceptive pleasures, get stranded upon very bad habits. Wishing, therefore, to remove this source of corruption, the lawgiver forbade the indulgence in friendship and intimacy with unprincipled persons, provided actions at law against evil association, and by means of severe penalties diverted from their course those who were about to err in this manner. [4]

Charondas also wrote another law which is far superior to the one just mentioned and had also been overlooked by lawgivers before his time. He framed the law that all the sons of citizens should learn to read and write, the city providing the salaries of the teachers; for he assumed that men of no means and unable to provide the fees from their own resources would be cut off from the noblest pursuits.

In fact the lawgiver rated reading and writing above every other kind of learning, and with right good reason; for it is by means of them that most of the affairs of life and such as are most useful are concluded, like votes, letters, covenants, laws, and all other things which make the greatest contribution to orderly life. [2] What man, indeed, could compose a worthy laudation of the knowledge of letters? For it is by such knowledge alone that the dead are carried in the memory of the living and that men widely separated in space hold converse through written communication with those who are at the furthest distance from them, as they were at their side; and in the case of covenants in time of war between states or kings the firmest guarantee that such agreements will abide is provided by the unmistakable character of writing. Indeed, speaking generally, it is writing alone which preserves the cleverest sayings of men of wisdom and the oracles of the gods, as well as philosophy and all knowledge, and is constantly handing them down to succeeding generations for the ages to come. [3] Consequently, while it is true that nature is the cause of life, the cause of good life is the education which is based upon reading and writing. And so Charondas, believing as he did that the illiterate were being deprived of certain great advantages, by his legislation corrected this wrong and judged them to be deserving of concern and expense on the part of the state; [4] and he so far excelled former lawgivers who had required that private citizens when ill should enjoy the service of physicians at state expense that, whereas those legislators judged men's bodies to be worthy of healing, he gave healing to the souls which were in distress through want of education,27 and whereas it is our prayer that we may never have need of those physicians, it is our heart's desire that all our time may be spent in the company of teachers of knowledge.

To both the matters we have mentioned above many poets have borne witness in verse; to the law on evil association as follows28:“ The man who takes delight in converse with\\
The base, I never ask his kind, aware\\\
He's just like those with whom he likes to be;\\
”to the law he proclaimed on a stepmother as follows29:“ Charondas, giver of laws, so men relate,
In legal code says many things, but this\\
Above all else: Let him who on his offspring\\
A second mother foists be held without\\
Esteem nor count among his countrymen\\
For aught, since it's a bane that he hath brought\\
From alien source upon his own affairs.\\
For if, he says to him, you fortunate were\\
When wedded first, forbear when you're well off,\\
And if your luck was bad, a madman's act\\
It surely is to try a second wife.\\
”For in truth the man who errs twice in the same matter may justly be considered a fool. [2] And Philemon, the writer of comedy, when introducing men who repeatedly sail the seas, after commending the law, says:“ Amazement holds me, no longer if a man\\
Has gone to sea, but if he's done it twice.\\
”Philemon fr. 183 （Kock）Similarly one may say that one is not amazed if a man has married, but if he has married a second time; for it is better to expose oneself twice to the sea than to a woman. [3] Indeed the greatest and most grievous quarrels in homes between children and fathers are caused by stepmothers, and this fact is the cause of many lawless acts which are portrayed in tragic scenes upon the stage.

Charondas also wrote another law which merits approbation—that which deals with the protection of orphans. On the surface this law appears to contain nothing unusual or worthy of approbation, but when it is scrutinized more closely and examined with care, it indicates not only earnest study but also a high claim to regard. [2] For his law provided that the property of orphans should be managed by the next of kin on the father's side, but that the orphans should be reared by their relatives on the mother's side. Now at first glance a man sees nothing wise or outstanding in this law, but when it is explored deeply it is found to be justly worthy of praise. For if the reason is sought out why he entrusted the property of orphans to one group and the rearing of them to another, the lawgiver is seen to have shown an unusual kind of ingenuity. [3] That is, the relatives on the mother's side will not plot to take the lives of the orphans, since they have no share in their inheritance, and the kin on the father's side do not have the opportunity to plot against their lives, since they are not entrusted with the care of their persons; furthermore, since they inherit the property if the orphans die of disease or some other circumstance, they will administer the estate with greater care, believing that they hold as their own what are hopes based upon an act of Fortune.

Charondas also wrote a law against men who had left their post in war or had refused to take up arms at all in defence of their fatherland. Other lawmakers had made death the punishment of such men, but Charondas ordered that they should sit for three days in the market-place dressed in women's clothes. [2] And this law is not only more humane than those of other peoples but it also imperceptibly, by the severity of the disgrace it inflicts, diverts others of like mind from cowardice; for it is better to die than to experience such a gross indignity in one's fatherland. Moreover, he did not do away with the guilty men but preserved them for the state against the needs of wartime, believing that they would make amends, by reason of the punishment caused by that disgrace, and would be eager to wipe out their former shame by bolder deeds of bravery. [3]

The lawgiver also preserved the laws he made by means of their severity. That is, he commanded that under every circumstance obedience should be rendered to the law even if it had been altogether wrongly conceived; but he allowed any law to be corrected, if it needed correction. [4] For he took the position that although it was right enough that a man should be overruled by a lawgiver, to be overruled by one in private station was quite preposterous, even if that serves the general interest. And it was especially by this means that he prevented men who present in jury-courts the pretences and cunning devices of those who have violated the laws in place of the literal terms of the laws from destroying by inventive sophistries their supremacy. [5] As a consequence, we are told, to certain men who had offered such arguments before the jurors who were passing on the punishment of men who had violated the law, he said, "You must save either the law or the man."

But the most amazing legislation of Charondas, we are told, was that which related to the revision of the laws. Observing that in most states the multitude of men who kept endeavouring to revise the laws led continually to the vitiation of the previously existing body of the laws and incited the masses to civil strife, he wrote a law which was peculiar and altogether unique. [2] He commanded, namely, that the man who proposed to revise any law should put his neck in a noose at the time he made his proposal of a revision, and remain in that position until the people had reached a decision on the revision of the law, and if the Assembly approved the revised law, the introducer was to be freed of the noose, but if the proposal of revision did not carry, the noose was to be drawn and the man die on the spot.30 [3] Such being the legislation relating to revision, fear restrained subsequent lawmakers and not a man dared to utter a word about revising laws; and in all subsequent time history records but three men who proposed revision among the Thurians, and these appeared because circumstances arose which rendered proposals of revision imperative. [4]

Thus, there was a law that if a man put out the eye of another, he should have his own eye put out, and a man with but one eye, having had that eye put out and thus lost his entire sight, claimed that the offender, by the loss in requital of but one eye, had paid a less penalty; for, he maintained, if a man who had blinded a fellow citizen paid only the penalty fixed by the law, he would not have suffered the same loss; it would be just, therefore, that the man who had destroyed the entire sight of a man with but one eye should have both his eyes put out, if he were to receive a like punishment. [5] Consequently the man with one eye, taking the matter strongly to heart, made bold to raise in the Assembly the case of the loss he had suffered, at the same time both lamenting bitterly over his personal misfortune to his fellow citizens and suggesting to the commons that they revise the law; and in the end, putting his neck in a noose, he won his proposal, set at naught the existing law, and had the revision approved, and he escaped the death by the noose as well.

A second law, which gave a wife the right to divorce her husband and marry whomever she chose, was also revised. A certain man, who was well advanced in years and had a wife who was younger than he and had left him, proposed to the Thurians that they revise the law by the added provision that the wife who leaves a husband may marry whomever she chooses, provided the man is not younger than her former husband; and that likewise, if a man sends his wife away he may not marry a woman younger than the wife whom he had sent away. [2] The elderly man won his proposal and set at naught the former law, also escaping the peril of the noose which threatened him; and his wife, who had thus been prevented from living with a younger husband, married again the man she had left. [3]

A third law to be revised had to do with heiresses and is also found in the legislation of Solon.31 Charondas ordered that the next of kin be assigned in marriage to an heiress and that likewise an heiress be assigned in marriage to her nearest relative, who was required to marry her or, if she were poor, to contribute five hundred drachmas as a dowry of the penniless heiress. [4] And a certain orphan who was an heiress, of good birth but altogether without means of support and so unable by reason of her poverty to find a husband, turned to the people for aid, explaining to them with tears how helpless and scorned she was; and she went on to outline the revision of the law whereby, in place of the payment of five hundred drachmas, it should specify that the next of kin be required to marry the heiress who had been assigned to him. The people took pity on her and voted for the revision of the law, and thus the orphan escaped the peril which threatened her from the noose, while the nearest of kin, who was wealthy, was compelled to take to wife a penniless heiress without a dowry.

It remains for us to speak of the death of Charondas, in connection with which a peculiar and unexpected thing happened to him. He had set out to the country carrying a dagger because of the robbers, and on his return the Assembly was in session and the commons in an uproar, whereupon he approached it because he was curious about the matter in dispute. [2] But he had made a law that no man should enter the Assembly carrying a weapon, and since he had forgotten he was carrying the dagger at his side, he provided certain of his enemies with an occasion to bring an accusation against him. And when one of them said, "You have annulled your own law," he replied, "Not so, by Zeus, I will uphold it," and drawing the dagger he slew himself. Some historians, however, attribute this act to Diocles, the lawgiver of the Syracusans.32 [3]

But now that we have discoursed at sufficient length upon Charondas the lawmaker, we wish to speak briefly also of the lawmaker Zaleucus, since the two men not only followed similar principles of life but were also natives of neighbouring cities.

Now Zaleucus was by birth a Locrian of Italy,33 a man of noble family, admired for his education, and a pupil of the philosopher Pythagoras. Having been accorded high favour in his native city, he was chosen lawmaker and committed to writing a thoroughly novel system of law, making his beginning, first of all, with the gods of the heavens. [2] For at the outset in the introduction to his legislation as a whole he declared it to be necessary that the inhabitants of the city should first of all assume as an article of their creed that gods exist, and that, as their minds survey the heavens and its orderly scheme and arrangement, they should judge that these creations are not the result of Chance or the work of men's hands; that they should revere the gods as the cause of all that is noble and good in the life of mankind; and that they should keep the soul pure from every kind of evil, in the belief that the gods take no pleasure in either the sacrifices or costly gifts of the wicked but in the just and honourable practices of good men. [3] And after inviting the citizens in this introduction to reverence and justice, he appended the further command that they should consider no one of their fellow citizens as an enemy with whom there can be no reconciliation, but that the quarrel be entered into with the thought that they will again come to agreement and friendship; and that the one who acts otherwise should be considered by his fellow citizens to be savage and untamed of soul. Also the magistrates were urged by him not to be wilful or arrogant, and not to render judgement out of enmity or friendship. And among his several ordinances a number were added of his own devising, which showed exceptionally great wisdom.

To cite examples, whereas everywhere else wayward wives were required to pay fines, Zaleucus stopped their licentious behaviour by a cunningly devised punishment. That is, he made the following laws: a free-born woman may not be accompanied by more than one female slave, unless she is drunk; she may not leave the city during the night, unless she is planning to commit adultery; she may not wear gold jewelry or a garment with a purple border, unless she is a courtesan; and a husband may not wear a gold-studded ring or a cloak of Milesian34 fashion unless he is bent upon prostitution or adultery. [2] Consequently, by the elimination, with its shameful implications,35 of the penalties he easily turned men aside from harmful luxury and wanton living; for no man wished to incur the sneers of his fellow citizens by acknowledging the disgraceful licentiousness. [3] He wrote many other excellent laws, such as those on contracts and other relations of life which are the cause of strife. But it would be a long task for us to recount them and foreign to the plan of our history, and so we shall resume our account at the point where we digressed from the course of our narrative. 36

When Lysimachides was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Menenius and Publius Sestius Capitolinus. In this year the Sybarites who were fleeing from the danger threatening them in the civil strife made their home on the Trais River. Here they remained for a time, but later they were driven out by the Brettii and destroyed. [2] And in Greece the Athenians, regaining control of Euboea and driving the Hestiaeans from their city, dispatched, under Pericles as commander, a colony of their own citizens to it and sending forth a thousand colonists they portioned out both the city and countryside in allotments. 37

When Praxiteles was archon in Athens, the Eighty-fourth Olympiad was celebrated, that in which Crison of Himera won the "stadion," and in Rome the following ten men38 were elected to draft laws: Publius Clodius Regillanus, Titus Minucius, Spurius Veturius, Gaius Julius, Gaius Sulpicius, Publius Sestius, Romulus (Romilius), Spurius Postumius Calvinius.39 [2] These men drew up the laws.40 This year the Thurians and the Tarantini kept up continuous warfare and ravaged each other's territory both by land and by sea. They engaged in many light battles and skirmishes, but accomplished no deed worthy of mention. 41

When Lysanias was archon in Athens, the Romans again chose ten men as lawmakers: Appius Clodius, Marcus Cornelius, Lucius Minucius, Gaius Sergius, Quintus Publius, Manius Rabuleius, and Spurius Veturius.42 [2] These men, however, were not able to complete the codification of the laws. One43 of them had conceived a passion for a maiden who was penniless but of good family, and at first he tried to seduce the girl44 by means of money; and when she would have nothing to do with him, he sent an agent to her home with orders to lead her into slavery. [3] The agent, claiming that she was his own slave, brought her, serving in that capacity, before the magistrate, in whose court Appius charged her with being his slave. And when the magistrates had listened to the charge and handed the girl over to him, the agent led her off as his own slave. [4]

The maiden's father, who had been present at the scene and had complained bitterly of the injustice he had suffered, since no attention had been paid to him, passed, as it happened, a butcher's shop, and snatching up the cleaver lying on the block, he struck his daughter with it and killed her, to prevent her experiencing the violation which awaited her; then he rushed out of the city and made his way to the army which was encamped at the time on Mount Algidus, as it is called. [5] There he laid his case before the common soldiers, denounced with tears the misfortune that had befallen him, and won their complete pity and great sympathy. The entire body sallied forth to bring help to the unfortunates and burst into Rome during the night fully armed. There they seized the hill known as the Aventine.

When with the day the hatred of the soldiers toward the evil which had been done became known, the ten lawmakers, rallying to the aid of their fellow magistrate,45 collected a body of young men, with the intention of settling the issue by a test of arms. Since a great spirit of contention now threatened the state, the most respectable citizens, foreseeing the greatness of the danger, acted as ambassadors between both parties to reach an agreement and begged them with great earnestness to cease from the civil discord and not plunge their fatherland into such serious distress. [2] In the end all were won over and a mutual agreement was reached as follows: that ten tribunes should be elected who should wield the highest authority among the magistrates of the state and should act as guardians of the freedom of the citizens46; and that of the annual consuls one should be chosen from the patricians and one, without exception, should be taken from the plebeians, the people having the power to choose even both consuls from the plebeians. [3] This they did in their desire to weaken the supremacy of the patricians; for the patricians, by reason both of their noble birth and of the great fame that came down to them from their ancestors, were lords, one might say, of the state. It was furthermore stipulated in the agreement that when tribunes had served their year of office they should see that an equal number of tribunes were appointed in their place, and that if they failed to do this they should be burned alive47; also, in case the tribunes could not agree among themselves, the will of the interceding tribune must not be prevented.48 Such then, we find, was the conclusion of the civil discord in Rome. 49

When Diphilus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Horatius and Lucius Valerius Turpinus. In Rome during this year, since the legislation remained unfinished because of the civil discord, the consuls brought it to conclusion; that is, of the Twelve Tables, as they are called, ten had been drawn up, and the consuls wrote into law the two remaining. After the legislation they had undertaken had been concluded, the consuls engraved the laws on twelve bronze tablets and affixed them to the Rostra before the Senate-house. And the legislation as it was drawn up, since it is couched in such brief and pithy language, has continued to be admired by men down to our own day. [2]

While the events we have described were taking place, the greater number of the nations of the inhabited world were quiet, practically all of them being at peace. For the Persians had two treaties with the Greeks, one with the Athenians and their allies according to which the Greek cities of Asia were to live under laws of their own making,50 and they also concluded one later with the Lacedaemonians, in which exactly the opposite terms had been incorporated, whereby the Greek cities of Asia were to be subject to the Persians. Likewise, the Greeks were at peace with one another, the Athenians and Lacedaemonians having concluded a truce of thirty years. [3] Affairs likewise in Sicily also were in a peaceful state, since the Carthaginians had made a treaty with Gelon, the Greek cities of Sicily had voluntarily conceded the hegemony to the Syracusans, and the Acragantini, after their defeat at the river Himera, had come to terms with the Syracusans. [4] There was quiet also among the peoples of Italy and Celtice, as well as over Iberia and almost all the rest of the inhabited world. Consequently no deed of arms worthy of mention was accomplished in this period, a single peace prevailed, and festive gatherings, games, sacrificial festivals of the gods, and everything else which accompanies a life of felicity prevailed among all mankind. 51

When Timocles was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Lar Herminius and Titus Stertinius Structor. In this year the Samians went to war with the Milesians because of a quarrel over Priene, and when they saw that the Athenians were favouring the Milesians, they revolted from the Athenians, who thereupon chose Pericles as general and dispatched him with forty ships against the Samians. [2] And sailing forth against Samos, Pericles got into the city and mastered it, and then established a democracy in it. He exacted of the Samians eighty talents and took an equal number52 of their young men as hostages, whom he put in the keeping of the Lemnians; then, after having finished everything in a few days, he returned to Athens. [3]

But civil discord arose in Samos, one party preferring the democracy and the other wanting an aristocracy, and the city was in utter tumult. The opponents of the democracy crossed over to Asia, and went on to Sardis to get aid from Pissuthnes, the Persian satrap. Pissuthnes gave them seven hundred soldiers, hoping that in this way he would get the mastery of the island, and the Samians, sailing to Samos by night with the soldiers which had been given them, slipped unnoticed into the city with the aid of the citizens, seized the island without difficulty, and expelled from the city those who opposed them. Then, after they had stolen and carried off the hostages from Lemnos and had made everything secure in Samos, they publicly declared themselves to be enemies of the Athenians. [4] The Athenians again chose Pericles as general and dispatched him against the Samians with sixty ships. Thereupon Pericles fought a naval battle against seventy triremes of the Samians and defeated them; and then, summoning twenty-five ships from the Chians and Mytilenaeans, together with them he laid siege to the city of Samos. [5] But a few days later Pericles left a part of his force to continue the siege and set out to sea to meet the Phoenician ships which the Persians had dispatched to the aid of the Samians.

The Samians, believing that because of the departure of Pericles they had a suitable opportunity to attack the ships that had been left behind, sailed against them, and having won the battle they were puffed up with pride. [2] But when Pericles received word of the defeat of his forces, he at once turned back and gathered an imposing fleet, since he desired to destroy once and for all the fleet of the enemy. The Athenians rapidly dispatched sixty triremes and the Chians and Mytilenaeans thirty, and with this great armament Pericles renewed the siege both by land and by sea, making continuous assaults. [3] He built also siege machines, being the first of all men to do so,53 such as those called "rams" and "tortoises," Artemon of Clazomenae having built them; and by pushing the siege with energy and throwing down the walls by means of the siege machines he gained the mastery of Samos. After punishing the ringleaders of the revolt he exacted of the Samians the expenses incurred in the siege of the city, fixing the penalty at two hundred talents. [4] He also took from them their ships and razed their walls; then he restored the democracy and returned to his country.

As for the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, the thirty-year truce between them remained unshaken to this time.

These, then, were the events of this year. 54

When Myrichides was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Lucius Julius and Marcus Geganius, and the Eleians celebrated the Eighty-fifth Olympiad, that in which Crison of Himera won the "stadion" for the second time.55 In Sicily, in this year, Ducetius, the former leader of the cities of the Siceli, founded the native city of the Calactians,56 and when he had established many colonists there, he laid claim to the leadership of the Siceli, but his attempt was cut short by illness and his life was ended. [2] The Syracusans had made subject to them all the cities of the Siceli with the exception of Trinacie, as it is called, and against it they decided to send an army; for they were deeply apprehensive lest the Trinacians should make a bid for the leadership of the Siceli, who were their kinsmen. There were many great men in this city, since it had always occupied the chief position among the cities of the Siceli; for it was full of military leaders who took an immense pride in their own manly spirit. [3] Consequently the Syracusans marched against it after having mustered all their own armaments and those of their allied states. The Trinacians were without allies, since all the other cities were subject to the Syracusans, but they none the less offered a strong resistance. They held out valiantly against the perils they encountered and slew great numbers, and they all ended their lives fighting heroically. [4] In like manner even the majority of the older men removed themselves from life, being unwilling to endure the despite they would suffer at the capture of their city. And the Syracusans, after conquering in brilliant fashion men who had never before been subdued, sold the inhabitants into slavery and utterly destroyed the city, and the choicest of the booty they sent to Delphi as a thank-offering to the god. 57

When Glaucides was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Quinctius and Agrippa Furius. During this year the Syracusans, because of the successes we have described, built one hundred triremes and doubled the number of their cavalry; they also developed their infantry forces and made financial preparations by laying heavier tributes upon the Siceli who were now subject to them. This they were doing with the intention of subduing all Sicily little by little. [2]

While these events were taking place it came about in Greece that the Corinthian War,58 as it is called, began for the following causes. Civil strife broke out among the Epidamnians who dwell upon the Adriatic Sea and are colonists of the Cercyraeans and Corinthians.59 The successful group sent into exile large numbers of their opponents, but the exiles gathered into one body, associated the Illyrians with themselves, and sailed together with them against Epidamnus. [3] Since the barbarians60 had taken the field with a large army, had seized the countryside, and were investing the city, the Epidamnians, who of themselves were not equal to them in battle, dispatched ambassadors to Cercyra, asking the Cercyraeans on the grounds of kinship to come to their aid. When the Cercyraeans paid no attention to the request, they sent ambassadors to seek an alliance with the Corinthians and declared Corinth to be their single mother-city; at the same time they asked for colonists. [4] And the Corinthians, partly out of pity for the Epidamnians and partly out of hatred for the Cercyraeans, since they alone of the colonists who had gone from Corinth would not send the customary sacrificial animals to the mother-city, decided to go to the aid of the Epidamnians. Consequently they sent to Epidamnus both colonists and soldiers in sufficient numbers to garrison the city. [5] At this the Cercyraeans became irritated and sent out a squadron of fifty triremes under the command of a general. He, sailing up to the city, issued orders to receive back the exiles, while they dispatched ambassadors to the guards from Corinth demanding that the question of the origin of the colony be decided by a court of arbiters, not by war. When the Corinthians made no answer to this proposal, both sides decided upon war, and they set about fitting out great naval armaments and gathering allies. And so the Corinthian War, as it has been called, broke out for the reasons we have narrated. [6]

The Romans were at war with the Volscians61 and at first they engaged only in skirmishes and unimportant engagements, but later they conquered them in a great pitched battle and slew the larger number of the enemy. 62

When Theodorus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Genucius and Agrippa Curtius Chilo. In Italy, during this year, the nation of the Campani was formed, deriving their name from the fertility of the plain about them.63

In Asia the dynasty of the Cimmerian Bosporus, whose kings were known as the Archaeanactidae, ruled for forty-two years; and the successor to the kingship was Spartacus, who reigned seven years.64 [2]

In Greece the Corinthians were at war with the Cercyraeans, and after preparing naval armaments they made ready for a battle at sea. Now the Corinthians with seventy excellently equipped ships sailed against their enemy; but the Cercyraeans opposed them with eighty triremes and won the battle, and then they forced the surrender of Epidamnus and put to death all the captives except the Corinthians, whom they cast in chains and imprisoned. [3] After the sea battle the Corinthians withdrew in dismay to the Peloponnesus, and the Cercyraeans, who were now masters of the sea in those regions, made frequent descents upon the allies of the Corinthians, ravaging their lands. 65

At the end of the year the archon in Athens was Euthymenes, and in Rome instead of consuls three military tribunes were elected, Aulus Sempronius, Lucius Atilius, and Titus Quinctius. During this year the Corinthians, who had suffered defeat in the sea-battle, decided to build a more imposing fleet. [2] Consequently, having procured a great amount of timber and hiring shipbuilders from other cities, they set about with great eagerness building triremes and fabricating arms and missiles of every description; and, speaking generally, they were making ready all the equipment needed for the war and, in particular, triremes, of which they were building some from their keels, repairing others which had been damaged, and requisitioning still others from their allies. [3] And since the Cercyraeans were doing the same thing and were not being outdone in eagerness, it was clear that the war was going to increase greatly in intensity.

While these events were taking place the Athenians founded the colony of Amphipolis, selecting the colonists in part from their own citizens and in part from garrisons in the neighbourhood. 66

When Lysimachus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Quinctius and Marcus Geganius Macerinus, and the Eleians celebrated the Eighty-sixth Olympiad, that in which Theopompus the Thessalian won the "stadion." In this year the Cercyraeans, learning of the great scale of the armaments which were being prepared against them, dispatched ambassadors to the Athenians asking their aid. [2] Since the Corinthians did the same thing, an Assembly was convened, and the Athenian people after listening to the ambassadors voted to form an alliance with the Cercyraeans. Consequently they dispatched at once ten fully equipped triremes and promised that they would send more later if necessary. [3] The Corinthians, after their failure to conclude an alliance with the Athenians, manned by themselves ninety triremes and received in addition sixty from their allies. With, therefore, one hundred and fifty fully equipped triremes and after selecting their most accomplished generals, they put to sea against Cercyra, having decided to join battle at once. [4] And when the Cercyraeans learned that the enemy's fleet was not far off, they put out to sea against them with one hundred and twenty triremes including the Athenian. A sharp battle took place, and at the outset the Corinthians had the upper hand; but later, when the Athenians came on the scene with twenty additional ships which they had sent in accordance with the second alliance,67 it turned out that the Cercyraeans were victorious. And on the next day, when the Cercyraeans sailed against them in full force for battle, the Corinthians did not put out. 68

When Antiochides was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Fabius and Postumus Aebutius Ulecus.69 In this year, since the Athenians had fought at the side of the Cercyraeans and been responsible for their victory in the sea-battle, the Corinthians were incensed at them. [2] Being eager, therefore, to retaliate upon the Athenians, they incited the city of Potidaea, which was one of their own colonies, to revolt from the Athenians. And in like manner Peridiccas, the king of the Macedonians, who was also at odds with the Athenians, persuaded the Chalcidians, who had revolted from the Athenians, to abandon their cities on the sea and unite in forming a single city known as Olynthus. [3] When the Athenians heard of the revolt of the Potidaeans, they dispatched thirty ships with orders to ravage the territory of the rebels and to sack their city; and the expedition landed in Macedonia, as the Athenian people had ordered them to do, and undertook the siege of Potidaea. [4] Thereupon the Corinthians came to the help of the besieged with two thousand soldiers and the Athenian people also sent two thousand. In the battle which took place on the isthmus near Pallene the Athenians were victorious and slew over three hundred of the enemy, and the Potidaeans were entirely beleaguered. [5] And while these events were taking place, the Athenians founded in the Propontis a city which was given the name of Astacus.

In Italy the Romans sent colonists to Ardea and portioned out the land in allotments. 70

When Crates was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Quintus Furius Fusus and Manius Papirius Crassus. This year in Italy the inhabitants of Thurii, who had been gathered together from many cities,71 divided into factions over the question from what city the Thurians should say they came as colonists and what man should justly be called the founder of the city. [2] The situation was that the Athenians were laying claim to this colony on the grounds, as they alleged, that the majority of its colonists had come from Athens; and, besides, the cities of the Peloponnesus, which had provided from their people not a few to the founding of Thurii, maintained that the colonization of the city should be ascribed to them. [3] Likewise, since many able men had shared in the founding of the colony and had rendered many services, there was much discussion on the matter, since each one of them was eager to have this honour fall to him. In the end the Thurians sent a delegation to Delphi to inquire what man they should call the founder of their city, and the god replied that he himself should be considered to be its founder. After the dispute had been settled in this manner, they declared Apollo to have been the founder of Thurii, and the people, being now freed from the civil discord, returned to the state of harmony which they had previously enjoyed. [4]

In Greece Archidamus, the king of the Lacedaemonians, died after a reign of forty-two years, and Agis succeeded to the throne and was king for twenty-five years.72 73

When Apseudes was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Menenius and Proculus Geganius Macerinus. During this year Spartacus, the king of the Bosporus,74 died after a reign of seven years, and Seleucus succeeded to the throne and was king for forty years. [2]

In Athens Meton, the son of Pausanias, who had won fame for his study of the stars, revealed to the public his nineteen-year cycle,75 as it is called, the beginning of which he fixed on the thirteenth day of the Athenian month of Scirophorion. In this number of years the stars accomplish their return to the same place in the heavens and conclude, as it were, the circuit of what may be called a Great Year; consequently it is called by some the Year of Meton. [3] And we find that this man was astonishingly fortunate in this prediction which he published; for the stars complete both their movement and the effects they produce in accordance with his reckoning. Consequently, even down to our own day, the larger number of the Greeks use the nineteen-year cycle and are not cheated of the truth.76 [4]

In Italy the Tarantini removed the inhabitants of Siris,77 as it is called, from their native city, and adding to them colonists from their own citizens, they founded a city which they named Heracleia. 78

When Pythodorus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Quinctius and Nittus Menenius, and the Eleians celebrated the Eighty-seventh Olympiad, that in which Sophron of Ambracia won the "stadion." In Rome in this year Spurius Maelius was put to death while striving for despotic power. And the Athenians, who had won a striking victory around Potidaea, dispatched a second general, Phormion, in the place of their general Callias who had fallen on the field. After taking over the command of the army Phormion settled down to the siege of the city of the Potidaeans, making continuous assaults upon it; but the defenders resisted with vigour and the siege became a long affair. [2]

Thucydides, the Athenian, commenced his history with this year, giving an account of the war between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, the war which has been called the Peloponnesian. This war lasted twenty-seven years, but Thucydides described twenty-two years in eight Books or, as others divide it, in nine.79 80

When Euthydemus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected in place of consuls three military tribunes, Manius Aemilianus Mamercus, Gaius Julius, and Lucius Quinctius. In this year there began the Peloponnesian War, as it has been called, between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians, the longest of all the wars which history records; and it is necessary and appropriate to the plan of our history to set forth at the outset the causes81 of the war. [2]

While the Athenians were still striving for the mastery of the sea, the funds which had been collected as a common undertaking and placed at Delos, amounting to some eight thousand talents,82 they had transferred to Athens83 and given over to Pericles to guard. This man stood far above his fellow citizens in birth, renown, and ability as an orator. But after some time he had spent a very considerable amount of this money for his own purposes, and when he was called upon for an accounting he fell ill, since he was unable to render the statement of the monies with which he had been entrusted. [3] While he was worried over the matter, Alcibiades, his nephew, who was an orphan and was being reared at the home of Pericles, though still a lad showed him a way out of making an explanation of the use of the money. Seeing how his uncle was troubled he asked him the cause of his worry. And when Pericles said, "I am asked for the explanation of the use of the money and I am seeking some means whereby I may be able to render an accounting of it to the citizens," Alcibiades replied, "You should be seeking some means not how to render but how not to render an accounting." [4] Consequently Pericles, accepting the reply of the boy, kept pondering in what way he could embroil the Athenians in a great war; for that would be the best way, he thought, because of the disturbance and distractions and fears which would beset the city, for him to escape giving an exact accounting of the money. Bearing upon this expedient an incident happened to him by mere chance for the following causes.

The statue84 of Athena was a work of Pheidias, and Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, had been appointed overseer of the undertaking. But some of the assistants of Pheidias, who had been prevailed upon by Pericles' enemies, took seats as suppliants at the altars of the gods; and when they were called upon to explain their surprising action, they claimed that they would show that Pheidias had possession of a large amount of the sacred funds, with the connivance and assistance of Pericles the overseer. [2] Consequently, when the Assembly convened to consider the affair, the enemies of Pericles persuaded the people to arrest Pheidias and lodged a charge against Pericles himself of stealing sacred property. Furthermore, they falsely accused the sophist85 Anaxagoras, who was Pericles' teacher, of impiety against the gods86; and they involved Pericles in their accusations and malicious charges, since jealousy made them eager to discredit the eminence as well as the fame of the man.87 [3]

But Pericles, knowing that during the operations of war the populace has respect for noble men because of their urgent need of them, whereas in times of peace they keep bringing false accusations against the very same men because they have nothing to do and are envious, came to the conclusion that it would be to his own advantage to embroil the state in a great war, in order that the city, in its need of the ability and skill in generalship of Pericles, should pay no attention to the accusations being lodged against him and would have neither leisure nor time to scrutinize carefully the accounting he would render of the funds. [4]

Now when the Athenians voted to exclude the Megarians from both their market and harbours, the Megarians turned to the Spartans for aid. And the Lacedaemonians, being won over by the Megarians, in the most open manner dispatched ambassadors in accordance with the decision of the Council of the League,88 ordering the Athenians to rescind the action against the Megarians and threatening, if they did not accede, to wage war upon them together with the forces of their allies. [5] When the Assembly convened to consider the matter, Pericles, who far excelled all his fellow citizens in skill of oratory, persuaded the Athenians not to rescind the action, saying that for them to accede to the demands of the Lacedaemonians, contrary to their own interests, would be the first step toward slavery. Accordingly he advised that they bring their possessions from the countryside into the city and fight it out with the Spartans by means of their command of the sea.

Speaking of the war, Pericles, after defending his course in well-considered words, enumerated first the multitude of allies Athens possessed and the superiority of its naval strength, and then the large sum of money which had been removed from Delos to Athens and which had in fact been gathered from the tribute into one fund for the common use of the cities; [2] from the ten thousand talents in the common fund four thousand had been expended on the building of the Propylaea89and the siege of Potidaea; and each year there was an income from the tribute paid by the allies of four hundred and sixty talents. Beside this he declared that the vessels employed in solemn processions and the booty taken from the Medes were worth five hundred talents, [3] and he pointed to the multitude of votive offerings in the various sanctuaries and to the fact that the fifty talents of gold on the statue of Athena for its embellishment was so constructed as to be removable; and he showed that all these, if dire need befell them, they could borrow from the gods and return to them again when peace came, and that also by reason of the long peace the manner of life of the citizens had made great strides toward prosperity. [4]

In addition to these financial resources Pericles pointed out that, omitting the allies and garrisons, the city had available twelve thousand hoplites, the garrisons and metics amounted to more than seventeen thousand, and the triremes available to three hundred. [5] He also pointed out that the Lacedaemonians were both lacking in money and far behind the Athenians in naval armaments. After he had recounted these facts and incited the citizens to war, he persuaded the people to pay no attention to the Lacedaemonians. This he accomplished readily by reason of his great ability as an orator, which is the reason he has been called "The Olympian." [6] Mention has been made of this even by Aristophanes, the poet of the Old Comedy, who lived in the period of Pericles, in the following tetrameters90:“ O ye farmers, wretched creatures,
listen now and understand,\\
If you fain would learn the reason\\
why it was Peace left the land.\\
Pheidias began the mischief,\\
having come to grief and shame,\\
Pericles was next in order,\\
fearing he might share the blame,\\
By his Megara-enactment\\
lighting first a little flame,\\
Such a bitter smoke ascended\\
while the flames of war he blew,\\
That from every eye in Hellas\\
everywhere the tears it drew.\\
”And again in another place:“ The Olympian Pericles\\
Thundered and lightened and confounded Hellas.\\
”Aristoph. Ach. 531-532And Eupolis the poet wrote91:“ One might say Persuasion rested\\
On his lips; such charm he'd bring,\\
And alone of all the speakers\\
In his list'ners left his sting.\\
” 92\\

Now the causes of the Peloponnesian War were in general what I have described, as Ephorus has recorded them. And when the leading states had become embroiled in war in this fashion, the Lacedaemonians, sitting in council with the Peloponnesians, voted to make war upon the Athenians, and dispatching ambassadors to the king of the Persians, urged him to ally himself with them, while they also treated by means of ambassadors with their allies in Sicily and Italy and persuaded them to come to their aid with two hundred triremes; [2] and for their own part they, together with the Peloponnesians, got ready their land forces, made all other preparations for the war, and were the first to commence the conflict. For in Boeotia the city of the Plataeans was an independent state and had an alliance with the Athenians.93 [3] But certain of its citizens, wishing to destroy its independence, had engaged in parleys with the Boeotians, promising that they would range that state under the confederacy94 organized by the Thebans and hand Plataea over to them if they would send soldiers to aid in the undertaking. [4] Consequently, when the Boeotians dispatched by night three hundred picked soldiers, the traitors got them inside the walls and made them masters of the city. [5] The Plataeans, wishing to maintain their alliance with the Athenians, since at first they assumed that the Thebans were present in full force, began negotiations with the captors of the city and urged them to agree to a truce; but as the night wore on and they perceived that the Thebans were few in number, they rallied en masse and began putting up a vigorous struggle for their freedom. [6] The fighting took place in the streets, and at first the Thebans held the upper hand because of their valour and were slaying many of their opponents; but when the slaves and children began pelting the Thebans with tiles from the houses and wounding them, they turned in flight; and some of them escaped from the city to safety, but some who found refuge in a house were forced to give themselves up. [7] When the Thebans learned the outcome of the attempt from the survivors of the battle, they at once marched forth in all haste in full force. And since the Plataeans who dwelt in the rural districts were unprepared because they were not expecting the attack, many of them were slain and not a small number were taken captive alive, and the whole land was filled with tumult and plundering.

The Plataeans dispatched ambassadors to the Thebans demanding that they leave Plataean territory and receive their own captives back. And so, when this had been agreed upon, the Thebans received their captives back,95 restored the booty they had taken, and returned to Thebes. The Plataeans dispatched ambassadors to the Athenians asking for aid, while they themselves gathered the larger part of their possessions into the city. [2] The Athenians, when they learned of what had taken place in Plataea, at once sent a considerable body of soldiers; these arrived in haste, although not before the Thebans, and gathered the rest of the property from the countryside into the city, and then, collecting both the children and women and the rabble,96 sent them off to Athens. [3]

The Lacedaemonians, deciding that the Athenians had broken the truce,97 mustered a strong army from both Lacedaemon and the rest of the Peloponnesians. [4] The allies of the Lacedaemonians at this time were all the inhabitants of the Peloponnesus with the exception of the Argives, who remained neutral; and of the peoples outside of the Peloponnesus the Megarians, Ambraciotes, Leucadians, Phocians, Boeotians, and of the Locrians,98 the majority of those facing Euboea, and the Amphissians of the rest. [5] The Athenians had as allies the peoples of the coast of Asia, namely, the Carians, Dorians, Ionians, and Hellespontines, also all the islanders except the inhabitants of Melos and Thera, likewise the dwellers in Thrace except the Chalcidians and Potidaeans, furthermore the Messenians who dwelt in Naupactus and the Cercyraeans. Of these, the Chians, Lesbians, and Cercyraeans furnished ships,99 and all the rest supplied infantry. The allies, then, on both sides were as we have listed them. [6]

After the Lacedaemonians had prepared for service a strong army, they placed the command in the hands of Archidamus their king. He invaded Attica with his army, made repeated assaults upon its fortified places, and ravaged a large part of the countryside. And when the Athenians, being incensed because of the raiding of their countryside, wished to offer battle to the enemy, Pericles, who was a general100 and held in his hands the entire leadership of the state, urged the young men to make no move, promising that he would expel the Lacedaemonians from Attica without the peril of battle. [7] Whereupon, fitting out one hundred triremes and putting on them a strong force of men, he appointed Carcinus general over them together with certain others and sent them against the Peloponnesus. This force, by ravaging a large extent of the Peloponnesian territory along the sea and capturing some fortresses, struck terror into the Lacedaemonians; consequently they speedily recalled their army from Attica and thus provided a large measure of safety to the Peloponnesians.101 [8] In this manner Athens was delivered from the enemy, and Pericles received approbation among his fellow citizens as having the ability to perform the duties of a general and to fight it out with the Lacedaemonians. 102

When Apollodorus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Marcus Geganius and Lucius Sergius. During this year the general of the Athenians never ceased plundering and harrying the territory of the Peloponnesians and laying siege to their fortresses; and when there were added to his command fifty triremes from Cercyra, he ravaged all the more the territory of the Peloponnesians, and in particular he laid waste the part of the coast which is called Acte103 and sent up the farm-buildings in flames. [2] After this, sailing to Methone in Laconia, he both ravaged the countryside and made repeated assaults upon the city. There Brasidas104 the Spartan, who was still a youth in years but already distinguished for his strength and courage, seeing that Methone was in danger of capture by assault, took some Spartans, and boldly breaking through the hostile forces, which were scattered, he slew many of them and got into the stronghold. [3] In the siege which followed Brasidas fought so brilliantly that the Athenians found themselves unable to take the stronghold and withdrew to their ships, and Brasidas, who had saved Methone by his individual bravery and valour, received the approbation of the Spartans. And because of this hardihood of his, Brasidas, having become inordinately proud, on many subsequent occasions fought recklessly and won for himself a great reputation for valour. [4] And the Athenians, sailing around to Elis, ravaged the countryside and laid siege to Pheia, a stronghold of the Eleians. The Eleians who came out to its defence they defeated in battle, slaying many of their opponents, and took Pheia by storm. [5] But after this, when the Eleians en masse offered them battle, the Athenians were driven back to their ships, whereupon they sailed off to Cephallenia, where they brought the inhabitants of that island into their alliance, and then voyaged back to Athens.

After these events the Athenians chose Cleopompus general and sent him to sea with thirty ships under orders both to keep careful guard over Euboea and to make war upon the Locrians. He, sailing forth, ravaged the coast of Locris and reduced by siege the city of Thronium, and the Locrians who opposed him he met in battle and defeated near the city of Alope.105 Following this he made the island known as Atalante, which lies off Locris, into a fortress on the border of Locris for his operations against the inhabitants of that country. [2] Also the Athenians, accusing the Aeginetans of having collaborated with the Lacedaemonians, expelled them from their state, and sending colonists there from their own citizens they portioned out to them in allotments both the city of Aegina and its territory. [3] To the Aeginetan refugees the Lacedaemonians gave Thyreae,106 as it is called, to dwell in, because the Athenians had also once given Naupactus as a home for the people whom they had driven out of Messene.107 The Athenians also dispatched Pericles with an army to make war upon the Megarians. He plundered their territory, laid waste their possessions, and returned to Athens with much booty.

The Lacedaemonians together with the Peloponnesians and their other allies invaded Attica for a second time. In their advance through the country they chopped down orchards and burned the farm-buildings, and they laid waste almost the entire land with the exception of the region known as the Tetrapolis.108 This area they spared because their ancestors had once dwelt there and had gone forth from it as their base on the occasion when they had defeated Eurystheus; for they considered it only fair that the benefactors of their ancestors should in turn receive from their descendants the corresponding benefactions.109 [2] As for the Athenians, they could not venture to meet them in a pitched battle, and being confined as they were within the walls, found themselves involved in an emergency caused by a plague; for since a vast multitude of people of every description had streamed together into the city, there was good reason for their falling victim to diseases as they did, because of the cramped quarters, breathing air which had become polluted.110 [3] Consequently, since they were unable to expel the enemy from their territory, they again dispatched many ships against the Peloponnesus, appointing Pericles general. He ravaged a large part of the territory bordering on the sea, plundered some cities, and brought it about that the Lacedaemonians withdrew from Attica. [4] After this the Athenians, now that the trees of their countryside had been cut down and the plague was carrying off great numbers, were plunged into despondency and became angry with Pericles, considering him to have been responsible for their being at war. Consequently they removed him from the generalship, and on the strength of some petty grounds for accusation they imposed a fine upon him of eighty talents.111 [5] After this they dispatched embassies to the Lacedaemonians and asked that the war be brought to an end; but when not a man paid any attention to them, they were forced to elect Pericles general again.

These, then, were the events of this year. 112

When Epameinon was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Lucius Papirius and Aulus Cornelius Macerinus. This year in Athens Pericles the general died, a man who not only in birth and wealth, but also in eloquence and skill as a general, far surpassed his fellow citizens. [2]

Since the people of Athens desired for the glory of it to take Potidaea by storm,113 they sent Hagnon there as general with the army which Pericles had formerly commanded. He put in at Potidaea with the whole expedition and made all his preparations for the siege; for he had made ready every kind of engine used in sieges, a multitude of arms and missiles, and an abundance of grain, sufficient for the entire army. Hagnon spent much time making continuous assaults every day, but without the power to take the city. [3] For on the one side the besieged, spurred on by their fear of capture, were putting up a sturdy resistance and, confiding in the superior height of the walls, held the advantage over the Athenians attacking from the harbour, whereas the besiegers were dying in large numbers from the plague and despondency prevailed throughout the army. [4] Hagnon, knowing that the Athenians had spent more than a thousand talents on the siege and were angry with the Potidaeans because they were the first to go over to the Lacedaemonians, was afraid to raise the siege; consequently he felt compelled to continue it and to compel the soldiers, beyond their strength, to force the issue against the city. [5] But since many Athenian citizens were being slain in the assaults and by the ravages of the plague, he left a part of his army to maintain the siege and sailed back to Athens, having lost more than a thousand of his soldiers. [6] After Hagnon had withdrawn, the Potidaeans, since their grain supply was entirely exhausted and the people in the city were disheartened, sent heralds to the besiegers to discuss terms of capitulation. These were received eagerly and an agreement to cessation of hostilities was reached on the following terms: All the Potidaeans should depart from the city, taking nothing with them, with the exception that men could have one garment and women two. [7] When this truce had been agreed upon, all the Potidaeans together with their wives and children left their native land in accordance with the terms of the compact and went to the Chalcidians in Thrace among whom they made their home; and the Athenians sent out as many as a thousand of their citizens to Potidaea as colonists and portioned out to them in allotments both the city and its territory.

The Athenians elected Phormio general and sent him to sea with twenty triremes. He sailed around the Peloponnesus and put in at Naupactus, and by gaining the mastery of the Crisaean Gulf114 prevented the Lacedaemonians115 from sailing in those parts. And the Lacedaemonians sent out a strong army under Archidamus their king, who marched into Boeotia and took up positions before Plataea. Under the threat of ravaging the territory of the Plataeans he called upon them to revolt from the Athenians, and when they paid no attention to him, he plundered their territory and laid waste their possessions everywhere. [2] After this he threw a wall about the city, in the hope that he could force the Plataeans to capitulate because of lack of the necessities of life; at the same time the Lacedaemonians continued bringing up engines with which they kept shattering the walls and making assaults without interruption. But when they found themselves unable to take the city through their assaults, they left an adequate guard before it and returned to the Peloponnesus. [3]

The Athenians appointed Xenophon and Phanomachus generals and sent them to Thrace with a thousand soldiers. When this force arrived at Spartolus116 in the territory of Bottice, it laid waste the land and cut the grain in the first growth. But the Olynthians came to the aid of the Bottiaeans and defeated them in battle; and there were slain of the Athenians both the generals and the larger part of the soldiers. [4] And while this was taking place, the Lacedaemonians, yielding to the request of the Ambraciotes, made a campaign against Acarnania. Their leader was Cnemus and he had a thousand foot-soldiers and a few ships. To these he added a considerable number of soldiers from their allies and entered Acarnania, pitching his camp near the city known as Stratus. [5] But the Acarnanians gathered their forces and, laying an ambush, slew many of the enemy, and they forced Cnemus to withdraw his army to the city called Oeniadae.117

During the same time Phormio, the Athenian general, with twenty triremes fell in with forty-seven Lacedaemonian warships. And engaging them in battle he sank the flag-ship of the enemy and put many of the rest of the ships out of action, capturing twelve together with their crews and pursuing the remaining as far as the land.118 The Lacedaemonians, after having suffered defeat contrary to their expectations, fled for safety with the ships which were left them to Patrae in Achaea. This sea battle took place off Rhium,119 as it is called. The Athenians set up a trophy, dedicated a ship to Poseidon at the strait,120 and then sailed off to the city of Naupactus, which was in their alliance. [2] The Lacedaemonians sent other ships to Patrae. These ships joined to themselves the triremes which had survived the battle and assembled at Rhium, and also the land force of the Peloponnesians met them at the same place and pitched camp near the fleet. [3] And Phormio, having become puffed up with pride over the victory he had just won, had the daring to attack the ships of the enemy, although they far outnumbered his121; and some of them he sank, though losing ships of his own, so that the victory he won was equivocal. After this, when the Athenians had dispatched twenty triremes,122 the Lacedaemonians sailed off in fear to Corinth, not daring to offer battle.

These, then, were the events of this year. 123

When Diotimus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Gaius Julius and Proculus Verginius Tricostus, and the Eleians celebrated the Eighty-eighth Olympiad, that in which Symmachus of Messene in Sicily won the "stadion." [2] In this year Cnemus, the Lacedaemonian admiral, who was inactive in Corinth, decided to seize the Peiraeus. He had received information that no ships in the harbour had been put into the water for duty and no soldiers had been detailed to guard the port; for the Athenians, as he learned, had become negligent about guarding it because they by no means expected any enemy would have the audacity to seize the place. [3] Consequently Cnemus, launching forty triremes which had been hauled up on the beach at Megara, sailed by night to Salamis, and falling unexpectedly on the fortress on Salamis called Boudorium, he towed away three ships and overran the entire island. [4] When the Salaminians signalled by beacon-fires to the inhabitants of Attica, the Athenians, thinking that the Peiraeus had been seized, quickly rushed forth in great confusion to its succour; but when they learned what had taken place, they quickly manned a considerable number of warships and sailed to Salamis. [5] The Peloponnesians, having been disappointed in their main design, sailed away from Salamis and returned home. And the Athenians, after the retreat of the enemy, in the case of Salamis gave it a more vigilant guard and left on it a considerable garrison, and the Peiraeus they strengthened here and there with booms124 and adequate guards.

In the same period Sitalces, the king of the Thracians, had succeeded to the kingship of a small land indeed but nonetheless by his personal courage and wisdom he greatly increased his dominion, equitably governing his subjects, playing the part of a brave soldier in battle and of a skilful general, and furthermore giving close attention to his revenues. In the end he attained to such power that he ruled over more extensive territory than had any who had preceded him on the throne of Thrace. [2] For the coastline of his kingdom began at the territory of the Abderites and stretched as far as the Ister125 River, and for a man going from the sea to the interior the distance was so great that a man on foot travelling light required thirteen days for the journey. Ruling as he did over a territory so extensive he enjoyed annual revenues of more than a thousand talents; [3] and when he was waging war in the period we are discussing he mustered from Thrace more than one hundred and twenty thousand infantry and fifty thousand cavalry. But with respect to this war we must set forth its causes, in order that the discussion of it may be clear to our readers.

Now Sitalces, since he had entered into a treaty of friendship with the Athenians,126 agreed to support them in their war in Thrace; and consequently, since he desired, with the help of the Athenians, to subdue the Chalcidians, he made ready a very considerable army. [4] And since he was at the same time on bad terms with Perdiccas, the king of the Macedonians, he decided to bring back Amyntas, the son of Philip, and place him upon the Macedonian throne.127 It was for these two reasons, therefore, as we have described them, that he was forced to raise an imposing army. When all his preparations for the campaign had been made, he led forth the whole army, marched through Thrace, and invaded Macedonia. [5] The Macedonians, dismayed at the great size of the army, did not dare face him in battle, but they removed both the grain and all the property they could into their most powerful strongholds, in which they remained inactive. [6] The Thracians, after placing Amyntas upon the throne, at the outset made an effort to win over the cities by means of parleys and embassies, but when no one paid any attention to them, they forthwith made an assault on the first stronghold and took it by storm. [7] After this some of the cities and strongholds submitted to them of their own accord through fear. And after plundering all Macedonia and appropriating much booty the Thracians turned against the Greek cities in Chalcidice.

While Sitalces was engaged in these operations, the Thessalians, Achaeans, Magnesians, and all the other Greeks dwelling between Macedonia and Thermopylae took counsel together and united in raising a considerable army; for they were apprehensive lest the Thracians with all their myriads of soldiers should invade their territory and they themselves should be in peril of losing their native lands. [2] Since the Chalcidians made the same preparations, Sitalces, having learned that the Greeks had mustered strong armies and realizing that his soldiers were suffering from the hardships of the winter, came to terms with Perdiccas, concluded a connection by marriage with him,128 and then led his forces back to Thrace.

While these events were taking place, the Lacedaemonians, accompanied by their allies of the Peloponnesus, invaded Attica under the command of Archidamus their king, destroyed the grain, which was in its first growth, ravaged the countryside, and then returned home. [2] The Athenians, since they did not dare meet the invaders in the field and were distressed because of the plague and the lack of provisions, had only bleak hopes for the future.

These, then, were the events of this year. 129

When Eucleides was archon in Athens, the Romans elected in place of consuls three military tribunes, Marcus Manius, Quintus Sulpicius Praetextatus, and Servius Cornelius Cossus. This year in Sicily the Leontines, who were colonists from Chalcis but also kinsmen of the Athenians, were attacked, as it happened, by the Syracusans. And being hardpressed in the war and in danger of having their city taken by storm because of the superior power of the Syracusans, they dispatched ambassadors to Athens asking the Athenian people to send them immediate aid and save their city from the perils threatening it. [2] The leader of the embassy was Gorgias the rhetorician, who in eloquence far surpassed all his contemporaries. He was the first man to devise rules of rhetoric and so far excelled all other men in the instruction offered by the sophists that he received from his pupils a fee of one hundred minas.130 [3] Now when Gorgias had arrived in Athens and been introduced to the people in assembly, he discoursed to them upon the subject of the alliance, and by the novelty of his speech he filled the Athenians, who are by nature clever and fond of dialectic, with wonder. [4] For he was the first to use the rather unusual and carefully devised structures of speech, such as antithesis, sentences with equal members or balanced clauses or similar endings, and the like, all of which at that time was enthusiastically received because the device was exotic, but is now looked upon as laboured and to be ridiculed when employed too frequently and tediously. [5] In the end he won the Athenians over to an alliance with the Leontines, and after having been admired in Athens for his rhetorical skill he made his return to Leontini.

For some time past the Athenians had been covetous of Sicily because of the fertility of its land, and so at the moment, gladly accepting the proposals of Gorgias, they voted to send an allied force to the Leontines, offering as their excuse the need and request of their kinsmen, whereas in fact they were eager to get possession of the island. [2] And indeed not many years previously, when the Corinthians and Cercyraeans were at war with one another and both were bent upon getting the Athenians as allies,131 the popular Assembly chose the alliance with the Cercyraeans for the reason that Cercyra was advantageously situated on the sea route to Sicily. [3] For, speaking generally, the Athenians, having won the supremacy of the sea and accomplished great deeds, not only enjoyed the aid of many allies and possessed powerful armaments, but also had taken over a great sum of ready money, since they had transferred from Delos to Athens the funds of the confederacy of the Greeks,132 which amounted to more than ten thousand talents; they also enjoyed the services of great commanders who had stood the test of actual leadership; and by means of all these assets it was their hope not only to defeat the Lacedaemonians but also, after they had won the supremacy over all Greece, to lay hands on Sicily. [4]

These, then, were the reasons why the Athenians voted to give aid to the Leontines, and they sent twenty ships to Sicily and as generals Laches and Charoeades. These sailed to Rhegium, where they added to their force twenty ships from the Rhegians and the other Chalcidian colonists. Making Rhegium their base they first of all overran the islands of the Liparaeans133 because they were allies of the Syracusans, and after this they sailed to Locri,134 where they captured five ships of the Locrians, and then laid siege to the stronghold of Mylae.135 [5] When the neighbouring Sicilian Greeks came to the aid of the Mylaeans, a battle developed in which the Athenians were victorious, slaying more than a thousand men and taking prisoner not less than six hundred; and at once they captured and occupied the stronghold. [6]

While these events were taking place there arrived forty ships which the Athenian people had sent, deciding to push the war more vigorously; the commanders were Eurymedon and Sophocles. When all the triremes were gathered into one place, a fleet of considerable strength had been fitted out, consisting as it did of eighty triremes. [7] But since the war was dragging on, the Leontines entered into negotiations with the Syracusans and came to terms with them. Consequently the Athenian triremes sailed back home, and the Syracusans, granting the Leontines the right of citizenship, made them all Syracusans and their city a stronghold of the Syracusans.

Such were the affairs in Sicily at this time.

In Greece the Lesbians revolted from the Athenians; for they harboured against them the complaint that, when they wished to merge all the cities of Lesbos with the city of the Mytilenaeans,136 the Athenians had prevented it. [2] Consequently, after dispatching ambassadors to the Peloponnesians and concluding an alliance with them, they advised the Spartans to make an attempt to seize the supremacy at sea, and toward this design they promised to supply many triremes for the war. [3] The Lacedaemonians were glad to accept this offer, but while they were busied with the building of the triremes, the Athenians forestalled their completion by sending forthwith a force against Lesbos, having manned forty ships and chosen Cleinippides as their commander, He gathered reinforcements from the allies and put in at Mytilene. [4] In a naval battle which followed the Mytilenaeans were defeated and enclosed within a siege of their city. Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians had voted to send aid to the Mytilenaeans and were making ready a strong fleet, but the Athenians forestalled them by sending to Lesbos additional ships along with a thousand hoplites. [5] Their commander, Paches the son of Epiclerus, upon arriving at Mytilene, took over the force already there, threw a wall about the city, and kept launching continuous assaults upon it not only by land but by sea as well. [6]

The Lacedaemonians sent forty-five triremes to Mytilene under the command of Alcidas, and they also invaded Attica together with their allies; here they visited the districts of Attica which they had passed by before, ravaged the countryside, and then returned home. [7] And the Mytilenaeans, who were distressed by lack of food and the war and were also quarrelling among themselves, formally surrendered the city to the besiegers. [8] While in Athens the people were deliberating on what action they should take against the Mytilenaeans, Cleon, the leader of the populace and a man of cruel and violent nature, spurred on the people, declaring that they should slay all the male Mytilenaeans from the youth upward and sell into slavery the children and women. [9] In the end the Athenians were won over and voted as Cleon had proposed, and messengers were dispatched to Mytilene to make known to the general the measures decreed by the popular assembly. [10] Even as Paches had finished reading the decree a second decree arrived, the opposite of the first. Paches was glad when he learned that the Athenians had changed their minds, and gathering the Mytilenaeans in assembly he declared them free of the charges as well as of the greatest fears. The Athenians pulled down the walls of Mytilene and portioned out in allotments137 the entire island of Lesbos with the exception of the territory of the Methymnaeans.

Such, then, was the end of the revolt of the Lesbians from the Athenians.

About the same time the Lacedaemonians who were besieging Plataea threw a wall about the city and kept a guard over it of many soldiers. And as the siege dragged on and the Athenians still sent them no help, the besieged not only were suffering from lack of food but had also lost many of their fellow citizens in the assaults. [2] While they were thus at a loss and were conferring together how they could be saved, the majority were of the opinion that they should make no move, but the rest, some two hundred in number, decided to force a passage through the guards by night and make their way to Athens. [3] And so, on a moonless night for which they had waited, they persuaded the rest of the Plataeans to make an assault upon one side of the encircling wall; they themselves then made ready ladders, and when the enemy rushed to defend the opposite parts of the walls, they managed by means of the ladders to get up on the wall, and after slaying the guards they made their escape to Athens. [4] The next day the Lacedaemonians, provoked at the flight of the men who had got away from the city, made an assault upon the city of the Plataeans and strained every nerve to subdue the besieged by storm; and the Plataeans in dismay sent envoys to the enemy and surrendered to them both themselves and the city. [5] The commanders of the Lacedaemonians, summoning the Plataeans one by one, asked what good deed he had ever performed for the Lacedaemonians, and when each confessed that he had done them no good turn, they asked further if he had ever done the Spartans any harm; and when not a man could deny that he had, they condemned all of them to death. [6] Consequently they slew all who still remained, razed the city to the ground, and farmed out its territory. So the Plataeans, who had maintained with the greatest constancy their alliance with the Athenians, fell unjust victims to the most tragic fate.

While these events were taking place, in Cercyra bitter civil strife and contentiousness arose for the following reasons. In the fighting about Epidamnus138 many Cercyraeans had been taken prisoner and cast into the state prison, and these men promised the Corinthians that, if the Corinthians set them free, they would hand Cercyra over to them. [2] The Corinthians gladly agreed to the proposals, and the Cercyraeans, after going through the pretence of paying a ransom, were released on bail of a considerable sum of talents furnished by the proxeni.139 [3] Faithful to their promises the Cercyraeans, as soon as they had returned to their native land, arrested and put to death the men who had always been popular leaders and had acted as champions of the people. They also put an end to the democracy; but when, a little after this time, the Athenians came to the help of the popular party, the Cercyraeans, who had now recovered their liberty, undertook to mete out punishment to the men responsible for the revolt against the established government. These, in fear of the usual punishment, fled for refuge to the altars of the gods and became suppliants of the people and of the gods. [3] And the Cercyraeans, out of reverence for the gods, absolved them from that punishment but expelled them from the city. But these exiles, undertaking a second revolution, fortified a strong position on the island, and continued to harass the Cercyraeans.

These, then, were the events of this year. 140

When Euthynes was archon in Athens, the Romans elected in place of consuls three military tribunes, Marcus Fabius, Marcus Falinius, and Lucius Servilius. In this year the Athenians, who had enjoyed a period of relief from the plague,141 became involved again in the same misfortunes; [2] for they were so seriously attacked by the disease that of their soldiers they lost more than four thousand infantry and four hundred cavalry, and of the rest of the population, both free and slave, more than ten thousand. And since history seeks to ascertain the cause of the malignancy of this disease, it is our duty to explain these matters. [3]

As a result of heavy rains in the previous winter the ground had become soaked with water, and many low-lying regions, having received a vast amount of water, turned into shallow pools and held stagnant water, very much as marshy regions do; and when these waters became warm in the summer and grew putrid, thick foul vapours were formed, which, rising up in fumes, corrupted the surrounding air, the very thing which may be seen taking place in marshy grounds which are by nature pestilential. [4] Contributing also to the disease was the bad character of the food available; for the crops which were raised that year were altogether watery and their natural quality was corrupted. And a third cause of the disease proved to be the failure of the etesian142 winds to blow, by which normally most of the heat in summer is cooled; and when the heat intensified and the air grew fiery, the bodies of the inhabitants, being without anything to cool them, wasted away. [5] Consequently all the illnesses which prevailed at that time were found to be accompanied by fever, the cause of which was the excessive heat. And this was the reason why most of the sick threw themselves into the cisterns and springs in their craving to cool their bodies. [6] The Athenians, however, because the disease was so severe, ascribed the causes of their misfortune to the deity. Consequently, acting upon the command of a certain oracle, they purified the island of Delos, which was sacred to Apollo and had been defiled, as men thought, by the burial there of the dead. [7] Digging up, therefore, all the graves on Delos, they transferred the remains to the island of Rheneia, as it is called, which lies near Delos. They also passed a law that neither birth nor burial should be allowed on Delos. And they also celebrated the festival assembly,143 the Delia, which had been held in former days but had not been observed for a long time.

While the Athenians were busied with these matters, the Lacedaemonians, taking with them the Peloponnesians, pitched camp at the Isthmus144 with the intention of invading Attica again; but when great earthquakes took place, they were filled with superstitious fear and returned to their native lands. [2] And so severe in fact were the shocks in many parts of Greece that the sea actually swept away and destroyed some cities lying on the coast, while in Locris the strip of land forming a peninsula was torn through and the island known as Atalante145 was formed. [3]

While these events were taking place, the Lacedaemonians colonized Trachis, as it was called, and renamed it Heracleia,146 for the following reasons. [4] The Trachinians had been at war with the neighbouring Oetaeans for many years and had lost the larger number of their citizens. Since the city was deserted, they thought it proper that the Lacedaemonians, who were colonists from Trachis, should assume the care of it. And the Lacedaemonians, both because of their kinship and because Heracles, their ancestor, in ancient times had made his home in Trachis, decided to make it a great city. [5] Consequently the Lacedaemonians and the Peloponnesians sent forth four thousand colonists and accepted any other Greeks who wished to have a part in the colony; the latter numbered not less than six thousand. The result was that they made Trachis a city of ten thousand inhabitants, and after portioning out the territory in allotments they named the city Heracleia. 147

When Stratocles was archon in Athens, in Rome in place of consuls three military tribunes were elected, Lucius Furius, Spurius Pinarius, and Gaius Metellus.148 This year the Athenians chose Demosthenes general and sent him forth with thirty ships and an adequate body of soldiers. He added to his force fifteen ships from the Cercyraeans and soldiers from the Cephallenians, Acarnanians, and the Messenians in Naupactus, and then sailed to Leucas. After ravaging the territory of the Leucadians he sailed to Aetolia and plundered many of its villages. But the Aetolians rallied to oppose him and there was a battle in which the Athenians were defeated, whereupon they withdrew to Naupactus. [2] The Aetolians, elated by their victory, after adding to their army three thousand Lacedaemonian soldiers, marched upon Naupactus, which was inhabited at the time by Messenians, but were beaten off. [3] After this they marched upon the city called Molycria149 and captured it. But the Athenian general, Demosthenes, being concerned lest the Aetolians should reduce by siege Naupactus also, summoned a thousand hoplites from Acarnania and sent them to Naupactus. [4] And Demosthenes, while tarrying in Acarnania, fell in with a thousand Ambraciotes, who were encamped there, and joining battle with them he destroyed nearly the entire force. And when the men of Ambracia came out against him en masse, again Demosthenes slew the larger number of them, so that their city became almost uninhabited. [5] Demosthenes then believed that he should take Ambracia by storm, hoping that he would have an easy conquest because the city had no one to defend it. But the Acarnanians, fearing lest, if the Athenians became masters of the city, they should be harder neighbours to deal with than the Ambraciotes, refused to follow him. [6] And since they were thus in disagreement, the Acarnanians came to terms with the Ambraciotes and concluded with them a peace of one hundred years, while Demosthenes, being left in the lurch by the Acarnanians, sailed back with his twenty ships to Athens. The Ambraciotes, who had experienced a great disaster, sent for a garrison of Lacedaemonians, since they stood in fear of the Athenians.

Demosthenes now led an expedition against Pylos,150 intending to fortify this stronghold as a threat to the Peloponnesus; for it is an exceptionally strong place, situated in Messenia and four hundred stades distant from Sparta. Since he had at the time both many ships and an adequate number of soldiers, in twenty days he threw a wall about Pylos. The Lacedaemonians, when they learned that Pylos had been fortified, gathered together a large force, both infantry and ships. [2] Consequently, when they set sail for Pylos, they not only had a fleet of forty-five fully equipped triremes but also marched with an army of twelve thousand soldiers; for they considered it to be a disgraceful thing that men who were not brave enough to defend Attica while it was being ravaged should fortify and hold a fortress in the Peloponnesus. [3] Now these forces under the command of Thrasymedes pitched their camp in the neighbourhood of Pylos. And since the troops were seized by an eager desire to undergo any and every danger and to take Pylos by storm, the Lacedaemonians stationed the ships with their prows facing the entrance to the harbour in order that they might use them for blocking the enemy's attempt to enter, and assaulting the walls with the infantry in successive waves and displaying all possible rivalry, they put up contests of amazing valour. [4] Also to the island called Sphacteria, which extends lengthwise to the harbour and protects it from the winds, they transported the best troops of the Lacedaemonians and their allies. This they did in their desire to forestall the Athenians in getting control of the island before them, since its situation was especially advantageous to the prosecution of the siege. [5] And though they were engaged every day in the fighting before the fortifications and were suffering wounds because of the superior height of the wall, they did not relax the violence of their fighting; as a consequence, many of them were slain and not a few were wounded as they pressed upon a position which had been fortified. [6] The Athenians, who had secured beforehand a place which was also a natural stronghold and possessed large supplies of missiles and a great abundance of everything else they might need, kept defending their position with spirit; for they hoped that, if they were successful in their design, they could carry the whole war to the Peloponnesus and ravage, bit by bit, the territory of the enemy.

Both sides displayed unsurpassable energy in the siege, and as for the Spartans in their assaults upon the walls, while many others were objects of wonder for their deeds of valour, the greatest acclaim was won by Brasidas. [2] For when the captains of the triremes lacked the courage to bring the ships to land because of the rugged nature of the shore, he, being himself the commander of a trireme, called out in a loud voice to the pilot, ordering him not to spare the vessel but to drive the trireme at full speed to the land; for it would be disgraceful, he cried, for Spartans to be unsparing of their lives as they fought for victory, and yet to spare their vessels and to endure the sight of Athenians holding the soil of Laconia. [3] And finally he succeeded in forcing the pilot to drive the ship forward and, when the trireme struck the shore, Brasidas, taking his stand on the gangway, fought off from there the multitude of Athenians who converged upon him. And at the outset he slew many as they came at him, but after a while, as numerous missiles assailed him, he suffered many wounds on the front of his body. [4] In the end he suffered much loss of blood from the wounds, and as he lost consciousness his arm extended over the side of the ship and his shield,151 slipping off and falling into the sea, came into the hands of the enemy. [5] After this Brasidas, who had built up a heap of many corpses of the enemy, was himself carried off half-dead from the ship by his men, having surpassed to such a degree all other men in bravery that, whereas in the case of all other men those who lose their shields are punished with death, he for that very reason won for himself glory. [6]

Now the Lacedaemonians, although they kept making continuous assaults upon Pylos and had lost many soldiers, remained steadfast in the fierce struggles. And one may well be amazed at the strange perversity of Fortune and at the singular character of her ordering of what happened at Pylos. [7] For the Athenians, defending themselves from a base on Laconian soil, were gaining the mastery over the Spartans, whereas the Lacedaemonians, regarding their own soil as the enemy's, were assaulting the enemy from the sea as then base; and, as it happened, those who were masters of the land in this case controlled the sea, and those who held first place on the sea were beating off an attack on land which they held.

Since the siege dragged on and the Athenians, after their victory152 with their ships, were preventing the conveyance of food to the land, the soldiers caught on the island153 were in danger of death from starvation. [2] Consequently the Lacedaemonians, fearing for the men left on the island, sent an embassy to Athens to discuss the ending of the war. When no agreement was being reached, they asked for an exchange of men,154 the Athenians to get back an equal number of their soldiers now held prisoner; but not even to this would the Athenians agree. Whereupon the ambassadors spoke out frankly in Athens, that by their unwillingness to effect an exchange of prisoners the Athenians acknowledged that Lacedaemonians were better men than they. [3] Meanwhile the Athenians wore down the bodily strength of the Spartans on Sphacteria through their lack of provisions and accepted their formal surrender. Of the men who gave themselves up one hundred and twenty were Spartans and one hundred and eighty were of their allies. [4] These, then, were brought by Cleon the leader of the populace, since he held the office of general when this took place, in chains to Athens; and the people voted to keep them in custody in case the Lacedaemonians should be willing to end the war, but to slay all the captives if they should decide to continue it. [5] After this they sent for select troops from the Messenians who had been settled in Naupactus,155 joined to them an adequate force from their other allies, and turned over to them the garrisoning of Pylos; for they believed that the Messenians, by reason of their hatred of the Spartans, would show the greatest zeal in harrying Laconia by forays, once they were operating from a strong position as their base.

Such were the events about Pylos in this year.

Artaxerxes, the king of the Persians, died156 after a reign of forty years, and Xerxes succeeded to the throne and ruled for a year.

In Italy, when the Aequi revolted from the Romans, in the war which followed Aulus Postumius was made Dictator and Lucius Julius was named Master of the Horse. [2] And the Romans, having marched against the territory of the rebels with a large and strong army, first of all plundered their possessions, and when the Aequi later drew up against them, a battle ensued in which the Romans were victorious, slaying many of the enemy, taking not a few captive, and capturing great quantities of booty. [3] After the battle the revolters, being broken in spirit because of the defeat, submitted themselves to the Romans, and Postumius, because he had conducted the war brilliantly, as the Romans thought, celebrated the customary triumph. And Postumius, we are told, did a peculiar thing and altogether unbelievable; for in the battle his own son in his eagerness leaped forward from the station assigned him by his father, and his father, preserving the ancient discipline, had his son executed as one who had left his station. 157

At the close of this year, in Athens the archon was Isarchus and in Rome the consuls elected were Titus Quinctius and Gaius Julius, and among the Eleians the Eighty-ninth Olympiad was celebrated, that in which Symmachus158 won the "stadion" for the second time. This year the Athenians chose as general Nicias, the son of Niceratus, and assigning to him sixty triremes and three thousand hoplites, they ordered him to plunder the allies of the Lacedaemonians. [2] He sailed to Melos as the first place, where he ravaged their territory and for a number of days laid siege to the city; for it was the only island of the Cyclades which was maintaining its alliance with the Lacedaemonians, being a Spartan colony. [3] Nicias was unable to take the city, however, since the Melians defended themselves gallantly, and he then sailed to Oropus159 in Boeotia. Leaving his ships there, he advanced with his hoplites into the territory of the Tanagraeans, where he fell in with another Athenian force which was commanded by Hipponicus, the son of Callias. [4] When the two armies had united, the generals pressed forward, plundering the land; and when the Thebans sallied forth to the rescue, the Athenians offered them battle, in which they inflicted heavy casualties and were victorious. [5]

After the battle the soldiers with Hipponicus made their way back to Athens, but Nicias, returning to his ships, sailed along the coast to Locris, and when he had laid waste the country on the coast, he added to his fleet forty triremes from the allies, so that he possessed in all one hundred ships. He also enrolled no small number of soldiers and gathered together a strong armament, whereupon he sailed against Corinth. [6] There he disembarked the soldiers, and when the Corinthians drew up their forces against them, the Athenians gained the victory in two battles, slew many of the enemy, and set up a trophy. There perished in the fighting eight Athenians and more than three hundred Corinthians.160 [7] Nicias then sailed to Crommyon,161 ravaged its territory, and seized its stronghold. Then he immediately removed from there and built a stronghold near Methone,162 in which he left a garrison for the twofold purpose of protecting the place and ravaging the neighbouring countryside; then Nicias plundered the coast and returned to Athens. [8]

After these events the Athenians sent sixty ships and two thousand hoplites to Cythera,163 the expedition being under the command of Nicias and certain other generals. Nicias attacked the island, hurled assaults upon the city, and received its formal surrender. And leaving a garrison behind on the island he sailed off to the Peloponnesus and ravaged the territory along the coast. [9] And Thyreae, which lies on the border between Laconia and Argolis, he took by siege, making slaves of its inhabitants, and razed it to the ground; and the Aeginetans, who inhabited the city, together with the commander of the garrison, Tantalus the Spartan, he took captive and carried off to Athens. And the Athenians fettered Tantalus and kept him under guard together with the other prisoners, as well as the Aeginetans.

While these events were taking place the Megarians were finding themselves in distress because of their war with the Athenians on the one hand and with their exiles on the other hand. And while representatives164 were exchanging opinions regarding the exiles, certain citizens165 who were hostile to the exiles approached the Athenian generals with the offer to deliver the city to them. [2] The generals, Hippocrates and Demosthenes, agreeing to this betrayal, sent by night six hundred soldiers to the city, and the conspirators admitted the Athenians within the walls. When the betrayal became known throughout the city and while the multitude were divided according to party, some being in favour of fighting on the side of the Athenians and others of aiding the Lacedaemonians, a certain man,166 acting on his own initiative, made the proclamation that any who so wished could take up arms on the side of the Athenians and Megarians. [3] Consequently, when the Lacedaemonians were on the point of being left in the lurch by the Megarians, it so happened that the Lacedaemonian garrison of the long walls167 abandoned them and sought safety in Nisaea, as it is called, which is the sea-port of the Megarians. [4] The Athenians thereupon dug a ditch about Nisaea and put it under siege, and then, bringing skilled workmen from Athens, they threw a wall about it. And the Peloponnesians, fearing lest they should be taken by storm and put to death, surrendered Nisaea to the Athenians.

Such, then, were the affairs of the Megarians at this time.

Brasidas, taking an adequate force from Lacedaemon and the other Peloponnesian states, advanced against Megara. And striking terror into the Athenians he expelled them from Nisaea, and then he set free the city of the Megarians and brought it back into the alliance of the Lacedaemonians. After this he made his way with his army through Thessaly and came to Dium in Macedonia. [2] From there he advanced against Acanthus and associated himself with the cause of the Chalcidians. The city of the Acanthians was the first which he brought, partly through fear and partly through kindly and persuasive arguments, to revolt from the Athenians; and afterwards he induced many also of the other peoples of Thrace to join the alliance of the Lacedaemonians. [3] After this Brasidas, wishing to prosecute the war more vigorously, proceeded to summon soldiers from Lacedaemon, since he was eager to gather a strong army. And the Spartans, wishing to destroy the most influential among the Helots, sent him a thousand of the most high-spirited Helots, thinking that the larger number of them would perish in the fighting. [4] They also committed another violent and savage act whereby they thought to humble the pride of the Helots: They made public proclamation that any Helots who had rendered some good service to Sparta should give in their names, and promised that after passing upon their claims they would set them free; and when two thousand had given in their names, they then commanded the most influential citizens to slay these Helots, each in his own home. [5] For they were deeply concerned lest the Helots should seize an opportune moment to line up with the enemy and bring Sparta into peril. Nevertheless, since Brasidas had been joined by a thousand Helots and troops had been levied among the allies, a satisfactory force was assembled.

Brasidas, confiding in the multitude of his soldiers, now advanced with his army against the city known as Amphipolis. This city Aristagoras of Miletus at an earlier time had undertaken to found as a colony,168 when he was fleeing from Darius, the king of the Persians; [2] after his death the colonists were driven out by the Thracians who are called Edones, and thirty-two years after this event the Athenians dispatched ten thousand colonists to the place. In like manner these colonists also were utterly destroyed by Thracians at Drabescus,169 and two years later170 the Athenians again recovered the city, under the leadership of Hagnon. [3] Since the city had been the object of many a battle, Brasidas was eager to master it. Consequently he set out against it with a strong force, and pitching his camp near the bridge,171 he first of all seized the suburb of the city and then on the next day, having struck terror into the Amphipolitans, he received the formal surrender of the city on the condition that anyone who so wished could take his property and leave the city. [4]

Immediately after this Brasidas brought over to his side a number of the neighbouring cities, the most important of which were Oesyme and Galepsus, both colonies of the Thasians, and also Myrcinus, a small Edonian city. He also set about building a number of triremes on the Strymon River and summoned soldiers from both Lacedaemon and the rest of the allies. [5] Also he had many complete suits of armour made, which he distributed among the young men who possessed no arms, and he gathered supplies of missiles and grain and everything else. And when all his preparations had been made, he set out from Amphipolis with his army and came to Acte,172 as it is called, where he pitched his camp. In this area there were five cities, of which some were Greek, being colonies from Andros, and the others had a populace of barbarians of Bisaltic173 origin, which were bilingual. [6] After mastering these cities Brasidas led his army against the city of Torone, which was a colony of the Chalcidians but was held by Athenians. Since certain men were ready to betray the city, Brasidas was by night admitted by them and got Torone in his power without a fight.

To such a height did the fortunes of Brasidas attain in the course of this year.

While these events were happening, at Delium in Boeotia a pitched battle took place between the Athenians and the Boeotians for the following reasons. Certain Boeotians, who were restive under the form of government which obtained at the time and were eager to establish democracies in the cities, discussed their policy with the Athenian generals, Hippocrates and Demosthenes, and promised to deliver the cities of Boeotia into their hands. [2] The Athenians gladly accepted this offer and, having in view the arrangements for the attack, the generals divided their forces: Demosthenes, taking the larger part of the army, invaded Boeotia, but finding the Boeotians already informed of the betrayal he withdrew without accomplishing anything; Hippocrates led the popular levy of the Athenians against Delium, seized the place, and threw a wall about it before the approach of the Boeotians. The town lies near the territory of Oropus and the boundary of Boeotia.174 [3] Pagondas, who commanded the Boeotians, having summoned soldiers from all the cities of Boeotia, came to Delium with a great army, since he had little less than twenty thousand infantry and about a thousand cavalry. [4] The Athenians, although superior to the Boeotians in number, were not so well equipped as the enemy; for they had left the city hurriedly and on short notice, and in such haste they were unprepared.

Both armies advanced to the fray in high spirits and the forces were disposed in the following manner. On the Boeotian side, the Thebans were drawn up on the right wing, the Orchomenians on the left, and the centre of the line was made up of the other Boeotians; the first line of the whole army was formed of what they called "charioteers and footmen,"175 a select group of three hundred. The Athenians were forced to engage the enemy while still marshalling their army. [2] A fierce conflict ensued and at first the Athenian cavalry, fighting brilliantly, compelled the opposing cavalry to flee; but later, after the infantry had become engaged, the Athenians who were opposed to the Thebans were overpowered and put to flight, although the remaining Athenians overcame the other Boeotians, slew great numbers of them, and pursued them for some distance. [3] But the Thebans, whose bodily strength was superior, turned back from the pursuit, and falling on the pursuing Athenians forced them to flee; and since they had won a conspicuous victory,176 they gained for themselves great fame for valour. [4] Of the Athenians some fled for refuge to Oropus and others to Delium; certain of them made for the sea and the Athenian ships; still others scattered this way and that, as chance dictated. When night fell, the Boeotian dead were not in excess of five hundred, the Athenian many times that number.177 However, if night had not intervened, most of the Athenians would have perished, for it broke the drive of the pursuers and brought safety to those in flight. [5] Even so the multitude of the slain was so great that from the proceeds of the booty the Thebans not only constructed the great colonnade in their market-place but also embellished it with bronze statues, and their temples and the colonnades in the market-place they covered with bronze by the armour from the booty which they nailed to them; furthermore, it was with this money that they instituted the festival called Delia.178 [6]

After the battle the Boeotians launched assaults upon Delium and took the place by storm179; of the garrison of Delium the larger number died fighting gallantly and two hundred were taken prisoner; the rest fled for safety to the ships and were transported with the other refugees to Attica. Thus the Athenians, who devised a plot against the Boeotians, were involved in the disaster we have described.

In Asia King Xerxes died after a reign of one year, or, as some record, two months; and his brother Sogdianus succeeded to the throne and ruled for seven months. He was slain by Darius, who reigned nineteen years. [2]

Of the historians Antiochus of Syracuse concluded with this year his history of Sicily, which began with Cocalus,180 the king of the Sicani, and embraced nine Books. 181

When Ameinias was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Gaius Papirius and Lucius Junius. In this year the people of Scione, holding the Athenians in contempt because of their defeat at Delium, revolted to the Lacedaemonians and delivered their city into the hands of Brasidas, who was in command of the Lacedaemonian forces in Thrace. [2]

In Lesbos, after the Athenian seizure of Mytilene, the exiles, who had escaped the capture in large numbers, had for some time been trying to return to Lesbos, and they succeeded at this time in rallying and seizing Antandrus,182 from which as their base they then carried on war with the Athenians who were in possession of Mytilene. [3] Exasperated by this state of affairs the Athenian people sent against them as generals Aristeides and Symmachus with an army. They put in at Lesbos and by means of sustained assaults took possession of Antandrus, and of the exiles some they put to death and others they expelled from the city; then they left a garrison to guard the place and sailed away from Lesbos. [4] After this Lamachus the general sailed with ten triremes into the Pontus and anchored at Heracleia,183 on the river Cales, as it is called, but he lost all his ships; for when heavy rains fell, the river brought down so violent a current that his vessels were driven on certain rocky places and broken to pieces on the bank. [5]

The Athenians concluded a truce with the Lacedaemonians for a year, on the terms that both of them should remain in possession of the places of which they were masters at the time. They held many discussions and were of the opinion that they should stop the war and put an end to their mutual rivalry; and the Lacedaemonians were eager to recover their citizens who had been taken captive at Sphacteria. [6] When the truce had been concluded on the terms here mentioned, they were in entire agreement on all other matters, but both of them laid claim to Scione.184 And so bitter a controversy followed that they renounced the truce and continued their war against each other over the issue of Scione. [7]

At this time the city of Mende185 also revolted to the Lacedaemonians and made the quarrel over Scione the more bitter. Consequently Brasidas removed the children and women and all the most valuable property from Mende and Scione and safeguarded the cities with strong garrisons, [8] whereupon the Athenians, being incensed at what had taken place, voted to put to the sword all the Scionaeans from the youth upward, when they should take the city, and sent a naval force of fifty triremes against them, the command of which was held by Nicias and Nicostratus. [9] They sailed to Mende first and conquered it with the aid of certain men who betrayed it; then they threw a wall about Scione, settled down to a siege, and launched unceasing assaults upon it. [10] But the garrison of Scione, which was strong in numbers and abundantly provided with missiles and food and all other supplies, had no difficulty in repulsing the Athenians and, because they held a higher position, in wounding many of their men.

Such, then, were the events of this year. 186

The next year Alcaeus was archon in Athens and in Rome the consuls were Opiter Lucretius and Lucius Sergius Fideniates. During this year the Athenians, accusing the Delians of secretly concluding an alliance with the Lacedaemonians, expelled them from the island and took their city for their own. To the Delians who had been expelled the satrap Pharniaces gave the city of Adramytium187 to dwell in. [2]

The Athenians elected as general Cleon, the leader of the popular party, and supplying him with a strong body of infantry sent him to the regions lying off Thrace. He sailed to Scione, where he added to his force soldiers from the besiegers of the city, and then sailed away and put in at Torone; for he knew that Brasidas had gone from these parts and that the soldiers who were left in Torone were not strong enough to offer battle. [3] After encamping near Torone and besieging the city both by land and by sea, he took it by storm, and the children and women he sold into slavery, but the men who garrisoned the city he took captive, fettered them, and sent them to Athens. Then, leaving an adequate garrison for the city, he sailed away with his army and put in at the Strymon River in Thrace. Pitching camp near the city of Eion, which is about thirty stades distant from Amphipolis, he launched successive assaults upon the town.

Cleon, learning that Brasidas and his army were tarrying at the city of Amphipolis, broke camp and marched against him. And when Brasidas heard of the approach of the enemy, he formed his army in battle-order and went out to meet the Athenians. A fierce battle ensued, in which both armies engaged brilliantly, and at first the fight was evenly balanced, but later, as the leaders on both sides strove to decide the battle through their own efforts, it was the lot of many important men to be slain, the generals injecting themselves into the battle and bringing into it a rivalry for victory that could not be surpassed. [2] Brasidas, after fighting with the greatest distinction and slaying a very large number, ended his life heroically; and when Cleon also, after displaying like valour, fell in the battle, both armies were thrown into confusion because they had no leaders, but in the end the Lacedaemonians were victorious and set up a trophy. The Athenians got back their dead under a truce, gave them burial, and sailed away to Athens. [3] And when certain men from the scene of the battle arrived at Lacedaemon and brought the news of Brasidas' victory as well as of his death, the mother of Brasidas, on learning of the course of the battle, inquired what sort of a man Brasidas had shown himself to be in the conflict. And when she was told that of all the Lacedaemonians he was the best, the mother of the dead man said, "My son Brasidas was a brave man, and yet he was inferior to many others." [4] When this reply passed throughout the city, the ephors accorded the woman public honours, because she placed the fair name of her country above the fame of her son. [5]

After the battle we have described the Athenians decided to make a truce of fifty years with the Lacedaemonians, upon the following terms: The prisoners with both sides were to be released and each side should give back the cities which had been taken in the course of the war. [6] Thus the Peloponnesian War, which had continued up to that time for ten years, came to an end in the manner we have described. 188

When Aristion was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Quinctius and Aulus Cornelius Cossus. During this year, although the Peloponnesian War had just come to an end, again tumults and military movements occurred throughout Greece, for the following reasons. [2] Although the Athenians and Lacedaemonians had concluded a truce and cessation of hostilities in company with their allies, they had formed an alliance without consultation with the allied cities. By this act they fell under suspicion of having formed an alliance for their private ends, with the purpose of enslaving the rest of the Greeks. [3] As a consequence the most important of the cities maintained a mutual exchange of embassies and conversations regarding a union of policy and an alliance against the Athenians and Lacedaemonians. [4] The leading states in this undertaking were the four most powerful ones, Argos, Thebes, Corinth, and Elis.

There was good reason to suspect that Athens and Lacedaemon had common designs against the rest of Greece, since a clause had been added to the compact which the two had made, namely, that the Athenians and Lacedaemonians had the right, according as these states may deem it best, to add to or subtract from the agreements. Moreover, the Athenians by decree had lodged in ten men the power to take counsel regarding what would be of advantage to the city; and since much the same thing had also been done by the Lacedaemonians, the selfish ambitions of the two states were open for all to see. [5] Many cities answered to the call of their common freedom, and since the Athenians were disdained by reason of the defeat they had suffered at Delium and the Lacedaemonians had had their fame reduced because of the capture of their citizens on the island of Sphacteria,189 a large number of cities joined together and selected the city of the Argives to hold the position of leader. [6] For this city enjoyed a high position by reason of its achievements in the past, since until the return of the Heracleidae190 practically all the most important kings had come from the Argolis, and furthermore, since the city had enjoyed peace for a long time, it had received revenues of the greatest size and had a great store not only of money but also of men. [7] The Argives, believing that the entire leadership was to be conceded to them, picked out one thousand of their younger citizens who were at the same time the most vigorous in body and the most wealthy, and freeing them also from every other service to the state and supplying them with sustenance at public expense, they had them undergo continuous training and exercise. These young men, therefore, by reason of the expense incurred for them and their continuous training, quickly formed a body of athletes trained to deeds of war.

The Lacedaemonians, seeing the Peloponnesus uniting against them and foreseeing the magnitude of the impending war, began exerting every possible effort to make sure their position of leadership. And first of all the Helots who had served with Brasidas in Thrace, a thousand in all, were given their freedom; then the Spartans, who had been taken prisoner on the island of Sphacteria and had been disgraced on the ground that they had diminished the glory of Sparta, were freed from their state of disgrace. [2] Also, in pursuance of the same policy, by means of the commendations and honours accorded in the course of the war they were incited to surpass in the struggles which lay before them the deeds of valour they had already performed; and toward their allies they conducted themselves more equitably and conciliated the most unfavourably disposed of them with kindly treatment. [3] The Athenians, on the contrary, desiring to strike with fear those whom they suspected of planning secession, displayed an example for all to see in the punishment they inflicted on the inhabitants of Scione; for after reducing them by siege, they put to the sword all of them from the youth upwards, sold into slavery the children and women, and gave the island191 to the Plataeans to dwell in, since they had been expelled from their native land on account of the Athenians.192 [4]

In the course of this year in Italy the Campanians advanced against Cyme with a strong army, defeated the Cymaeans in battle, and destroyed the larger part of the opposing forces. And settling down to a siege, they launched a number of assaults upon the city and took it by storm. They then plundered the city, sold into slavery the captured prisoners, and selected an adequate number of their own citizens to settle there. 193

When Astyphilus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Lucius Quinctius and Aulus Sempronius, and the Eleians celebrated the Ninetieth Olympiad, that in which Hyperbius of Syracuse won the "stadion." This year the Athenians, in obedience to a certain oracle, returned their island to the Delians, and the Delians who were dwelling in Adramytium194 returned to their native land. [2] And since the Athenians had not returned the city of Pylos to the Lacedaemonians, these cities were again at odds with each other and hostile. When this was known to the Assembly of the Argives, that body persuaded the Athenians to close a treaty of friendship with the Argives. [3] And since the quarrel kept growing, the Lacedaemonians persuaded the Corinthians to desert the league of states195 and ally themselves with the Lacedaemonians. Such being the confusion that had arisen together with a lack of leadership, the situation throughout the Peloponnesus was as has been described. [4]

In the regions outside,196 the Aenianians, Dolopians, and Melians, having come to an understanding, advanced with strong armaments against Heracleia in Trachis. The Heracleians drew up to oppose them and a great battle took place, in which the people of Heracleia were defeated. Since they had lost many soldiers and had sought refuge within their walls, they sent for aid from the Boeotians. The Thebans dispatched to their help a thousand picked hoplites, with whose aid they held off their adversaries. [5]

While these events were taking place, the Olynthians dispatched an army against the city of Mecyberna197 which had an Athenian garrison, drove out the garrison, and themselves took possession of the city. 198

When Archias was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Lucius Papirius Mugilanus and Gaius Servilius Structus. In this year the Argives, charging the Lacedaemonians199 with not paying the sacrifices to Apollo Pythaeus,200 declared war on them; and it was at this very time that Alcibiades, the Athenian general, entered Argolis with an army. [2] Adding these troops to their forces, the Argives advanced against Troezen, a city which was an ally of the Lacedaemonians, and after plundering its territory and burning its farm-buildings they returned home. The Lacedaemonians, being incensed at the lawless acts committed against the Troezenians, resolved to go to war against the Argives; consequently they mustered an army and put their king Agis in command. [3] With this force Agis advanced against the Argives and ravaged their territory, and leading his army to the vicinity of the city he challenged the enemy to battle. [4] The Argives, adding to their army three thousand soldiers from the Eleians and almost as many from the Mantineians, led out their forces from the city. When a pitched battle was imminent, the generals conducted negotiations with each other and agreed upon a cessation of hostilities for four months. [5] But when the armies returned to their homes without accomplishing anything, both cities were angry with the generals who had agreed upon the truce. Consequently the Argives hurled stones at their commanders and began to menace them with death; only reluctantly and after much supplication their lives were spared, but their property was confiscated and their homes razed to the ground. [6] The Lacedaemonians took steps to punish Agis, but when he promised to atone for his error by worthy deeds, they reluctantly let him off, and for the future they chose ten of their wisest men, whom they appointed his advisers, and they ordered him to do nothing without learning their opinion.

After this the Athenians dispatched to Argos by sea a thousand picked hoplites and two hundred cavalry, under the command of Laches and Nicostratus; and Alcibiades also accompanied them, although in a private capacity, because of the friendly relations he enjoyed with the Eleians and Mantineians; and when they were all gathered in council, they decided to pay no attention to the truce but to set about making war. [2] Consequently each general urged on his own troops to the conflict, and when they all responded eagerly, they pitched camp outside the city. Now they agreed that they should march first of all against Orchomenus in Arcadia; and so, advancing into Arcadia, they settled down to the siege of the city and made daily assaults upon its walls. [3] And after they had taken the city, they encamped near Tegea, having decided to besiege it also. But when the Tegeatans called upon the Lacedaemonians for immediate aid, the Spartans gathered all their own soldiers and those of their allies and moved on Mantineia, believing that, once Mantineia was attacked in the war, the enemy would raise the siege of Tegea.201 [4] The Mantineians gathered their allies, and marching forth themselves en masse, formed their lines opposite the Lacedaemonians. A sharp battle followed, and the picked troops of the Argives, one thousand in number, who had received excellent training in warfare, were the first to put to flight their opponents and made great slaughter of them in their pursuit. [5] But the Lacedaemonians, after putting to flight the other parts of the army and slaying many, wheeled about to oppose the Argives and by their superior numbers surrounded them, hoping to destroy them to a man. [6] Now although the picked troops of the Argives, though in numbers far inferior, were superior in feats of courage, the king of the Lacedaemonians led the fight and held out firmly against the perils he encountered; and he would have slain all the Argives—for he was resolved to fulfil the promises he had made to his fellow citizens and wipe out, by a great deed, his former ill repute—but he was not allowed to consummate that purpose. For Pharax the Spartan, who was one of the advisers of Agis and enjoyed the highest reputation in Sparta, directed him to leave a way of escape for the picked men and not, by hazarding the issue against men who had given up all hope of life, to learn what valour is when abandoned by Fortune. [7] So the king was compelled, in obedience to the command recently given him,202 to leave a way of escape even as Pharax advised. So the Thousand, having been allowed to pass through in the manner described, made their way to safety, and the Lacedaemonians, having won the victory in a great battle, erected a trophy and returned home. 203

When this year had come to an end, in Athens the archon was Antiphon, and in Rome in place of consuls four military tribunes were elected, Gaius Furius, Titus Quinctius, Marcus Postumius, and Aulus Cornelius. During this year the Argives and Lacedaemonians, after negotiations with each other, concluded a peace and formed an alliance. [2] Consequently the Mantineians, now that they had lost the help of the Argives, were compelled to subject themselves to the Lacedaemonians. And about the same time in the city of the Argives the Thousand who had been selected out of the total muster of citizens came to an agreement among themselves and decided to dissolve the democracy and establish an aristocracy from their own number. [3] And having as they did many to aid them, because of the prominent position their wealth and brave exploits gave them, they first of all seized the men who had been accustomed to be the leaders of the people and put them to death, and then, by terrorizing the rest of the citizens, they abolished the laws and were proceeding to take the management of the state into their own hands. They maintained this government for eight months and then were overthrown, the people having united against them; and so these men were put to death and the people got back the democracy. [4]

Another movement also took place in Greece. The Phocians also, having quarrelled with the Locrians, settled the issue in pitched battle by virtue of their own valour. For the victory lay with the Phocians, who slew more than one thousand Locrians. [5]

The Athenians under the command of Nicias seized two cities, Cythera and Nisaea204; and they reduced Melos by siege, slew all the males from the youth upward, and sold into slavery the children and women.205 [6]

Such were the affairs of the Greeks in this year. In Italy the Fidenates, when ambassadors came to their city from Rome, put them to death for trifling reasons. [7] Incensed at such an act, the Romans voted to go to war, and mobilizing a strong army they appointed Anius Aemilius Dictator and with him, following their custom, Aulus Cornelius Master of Horse. [8] Aemilius, after making all the preparations for the war, marched with his army against the Fidenates. And when the Fidenates drew up their forces to oppose the Romans, a fierce battle ensued which continued a long time; heavy losses were incurred on both sides and the conflict was indecisive. 206

When Euphemus was archon in Athens, in Rome in place of consuls military tribunes were elected, Lucius Furius, Lucius Quinctius, and Aulus Sempronius. In this year the Lacedaemonians and their allies took the field against Argolis and captured the stronghold of Hysiae,207 and slaying the inhabitants they razed the fortress to the ground; and when they learned that the Argives had completed the construction of the long walls clear to the sea,208 they advanced there, razed the walls that had been finished, and then made their way back home. [2]

The Athenians chose Alcibiades general, and giving him twenty ships commanded him to assist the Argives in establishing the affairs of their government; for conditions were still unsettled among them because many still remained of those who preferred the aristocracy. [3] So when Alcibiades had arrived at the city of the Argives and had consulted with the supporters of the democracy, he selected those Argives who were considered to be the strongest adherents of the Lacedaemonian cause; these he removed from the city,209 and when he had assisted in establishing the democracy on a firm basis, he sailed back to Athens. [4]

Toward the end of the year the Lacedaemonians invaded Argolis with a strong force, and after ravaging a large part of the country they settled the exiles from Argos in Orneae210; this place they fortified as a stronghold against Argolis, and leaving in it a strong garrison, they ordered it to harass the Argives. [5] But when the Lacedaemonians had withdrawn from Argolis, the Athenians dispatched to the Argives a supporting force of forty triremes and twelve hundred hoplites. The Argives then advanced against Orneae together with the Athenians and took the city by storm, and of the garrison and exiles some they put to death and others they expelled from Orneae.

These, then, were the events of the fifteenth year of the Peloponnesian War. 211

In the sixteenth year of the War Arimnestus was archon among the Athenians, and in Rome in place of consuls four military tribunes were elected, Titus Claudius, Spurius Nautius, Lucius Sentius, and Sextus Julius. And in this year among the Eleians the Ninety-first Olympiad was celebrated, that in which Exaenetus of Acragas won the "stadion." [2] The Byzantines and Chalcedonians, accompanied by Thracians, made war in great force against Bithynia, plundered the land, reduced by siege many of the small settlements, and performed deeds of exceeding cruelty; for of the many prisoners they took, both men and women and children, they put all to the sword. [3]

About the same time in Sicily war broke out between the Egestaeans and the Selinuntians from a difference over territory, where a river divided the lands of the quarrelling cities. [4] The Selinuntians, crossing the stream, at first seized by force the land along the river, but later they cut off for their own a large piece of the adjoining territory, utterly disregarding the rights of the injured parties. [5] The people of Egesta, aroused to anger, at first endeavoured to persuade them by verbal arguments not to trespass on the territory of another city; however, when no one paid any attention to them, they advanced with an army against those who held the territory, expelled them all from their fields, and themselves seized the land. [6] Since the quarrel between the two cities had become serious, the two parties, having mustered soldiers, sought to bring about the decision by recourse to arms. Consequently, when both forces were drawn up in battle-order, a fierce battle took place in which the Selinuntians were the victors, having slain not a few Egestaeans. [7] Since the Egestaeans had been humbled and were not strong enough of themselves to offer battle, they at first tried to induce the Acragantini and the Syracusans to enter into an alliance with them. Failing in this, they sent ambassadors to Carthage to beseech its aid. And when the Carthaginians would not listen to them, they looked about for some alliance overseas; and in this, chance came to their aid.

Now since the Leontines had been forced by the Syracusans to leave their city for another place and had thus lost their city and their territory,212 those of them who were living in exile got together and decided once more to take the Athenians, who were their kinsmen, as allies. [2] When they had conferred with the Egestaeans on the matter and come to an agreement, the two cities jointly dispatched ambassadors to Athens, asking the Athenians to come to the aid of their cities, which were victims of ill treatment, and promising to assist the Athenians in establishing order in the affairs of Sicily. [3] When, now, the ambassadors had arrived in Athens, and the Leontines stressed their kinship and the former alliance and the Egestaeans promised to contribute a large sum of money for the war and also to fight as an ally against the Syracusans, the Athenians voted to send some of their foremost men and to investigate the situation on the island and among the Egestaeans. [4] When these men arrived at Egesta, the Egestaeans showed them a great sum of money which they had borrowed partly from their own citizens and partly from neighbouring peoples for the sake of making a good show.213 [5] And when the envoys had returned and reported on the wealth of the Egestaeans, a meeting of the people was convened to consider the matter. When the proposal was introduced to dispatch an expedition to Sicily, Nicias the son of Niceratus, a man who enjoyed the respect of his fellow citizens for his uprightness, counselled against the expedition to Sicily. [6] They were in no position, he declared, at the same time both to carry on a war against the Lacedaemonians and to send great armaments overseas; and so long as they were unable to secure their supremacy over the Greeks, how could they hope to subdue the greatest island in the inhabited world? even the Carthaginians, he added, who possessed a most extensive empire and had waged war many times to gain Sicily, had not been able to subdue the island, and the Athenians, whose military power was far less than that of the Carthaginians, could not possibly win by the spear and acquire the most powerful of the islands.

After Nicias had set forth these and many other considerations appropriate to the proposal before the people, Alcibiades, who was the principal advocate of the opposite view and a most prominent Athenian, persuaded the people to enter upon the war; for this man was the ablest orator among the citizens and was widely known for his high birth, wealth, and skill as a general. [2] At once, then, the people got ready a strong fleet, taking thirty triremes from their allies and equipping one hundred of their own. [3] And when they had fitted these ships out with every kind of equipment that is useful in war, they enrolled some five thousand hoplites and elected three generals, Alcibiades, Nicias, and Lamachus, to be in charge of the campaign. [4]

Such were the matters with which the Athenians were occupied. And as for us, since we are now at the beginning of the war between the Athenians and the Syracusans, pursuant to the plan we announced at the beginning of this Book214 we shall assign to the next Book the events which follow.

1 Cp. chap. 40; but only Pericles and the generals named below belong in this period.

2 The years 480-451 B.C.

3 The years 450-416 B.C.

4 450 B.C.

5 Euthynus I.A. 4.1.22a.

6 Cp. Book 11.77.

7 Probably only of the fleet.

8 449 B.C.

9 A city of Lycia on the Pamphylian Gulf.

10 At the entrance to the Black Sea at Byzantium.

11 There was a cessation of hostilities at this time between Athens and Persia; but the specific terms of the treaty, as they are stated here and in fourth-century orators, are clearly false. See Walker in Camb. Anc. Hist. 5, pp. 87-88, 469-471.

12 448 B.C.

13 447 B.C.

14 This is probably a corruption of Fontinalis.

15 The Athenians had established democracies in most of the cities of Boeotia and the oligarchs had consequently withdrawn from them into Thebes, where they mustered their forces to fall upon Tolmides.

16 446 B.C.

17 Between Athens and Sparta.

18 Cp. Book 11.92.

19 The northern shore.

20 The city.

21 In 444 B.C., two years later than by Diodorus' chronology.

22 In 511 B.C.

23 In 453 B.C.

24 Medimnos among the Greeks was a measure of grain.

25 Charondas must be placed in the late 7th and early 6th centuries B.C. Aristotle (Aristot. Pol. 2.12) states that he legislated for his native city of Catana and for the other Chalcidian cities of Sicily and Italy, and praises the precision of his laws. The legal fragments which Diodorus attributes to him are taken to be of Neo-Pythagorean origin.

26 Cp. Aesch. Seven 599-600:“ ἐν παντὶ πράγει δ᾽ ἔσθ᾽ ὁμιλίας κακῆς
κακίον οὐδέν, καρπὸς οὐ κομιστέος.
”("In every issue naught is more evil than evil partnership—the fruit thereof must have no garnering." Tr. by Smyth in L.C.L.).

27 One wonders whether Diodorus, as he wrote these words, was recalling the inscription "Healing-place of the Soul," which, he told us, stood on the library of the Egyptian Pharaoh Osymandyas (Book 1.49.3).

28 Eur. Phoenix fr. 812 （Nauck）. The passage in fuller form is quoted by Aeschin. 1.152. These lines are also attributed to Menander, who, Kock thinks (Menander fr. 414), may have quoted them from Euripides.

29 From an unknown comic poet (anon. fr. 110 （Kock）).

30 Such a law is also attested for Locris; cp. Bonner-Smith, Administration of Justice from Homer to Aristotle, 1, p. 75.

31 See Plut. Sol. 20.

32 See Book 13.33.

33 As distinguished from the two Locri in Greece.

34 Miletus was noted for the luxurious life of its inhabitants.

35 The preceding legislation of Zaleucus has been cited as an example of "imperfect" laws, that is, those which lack any penal sanction other than the offender's sense of shame or the infamy attaching to him (cp. S. Pufendorf, De jure naturae et gentium, 1.6.14).

36 445 B.C.

37 444 B.C.

38 The famous Decemvirate.

39 The sources do not agree on the names. Here Publius Clodius should be Appius Claudius; and Diodorus also omits the names of A. Manlius Vulso and P. Curiatius.

40 The Laws of the Twelve Tables, the first Roman laws to be put in writing. The common Roman tradition was that two of the laws were passed under the second Decemvirate; but Diodorus (chap. 26.1) states that they were added under the consuls Horatius and Valerius, and this seems more likely (see Beloch, Römische Geschichte, p. 245). The correct dates of the Decemvirates are 451 and 450 B.C., and of the consuls Horatius and Valerius, 449.

41 443 B.C.

42 These are only seven names, and the last, Spurius Veturius, is not found in other lists; Clodius should be Claudius.

43 Appius Claudius (Livy 3 44).

44 Verginia. The following story ranks among the most famous of Roman tradition. The classic account is in Livy 3.44 ff.

45 This is probably a defective translation of decemviri collegae auxilium ferentes (see Klimke, Diodor und die röm. Annalistik, p. 7).

46 Diodorus had forgotten that he had already acknowledged the existence of tribunes under the year 466 (Book. 11.68.8). It may be, however, that in this year the patricians first recognized in law the tribunate or some of its powers.

47 Diodorus is the only authority for this law, which probably derives from the story of the burning to death of nine tribunes (Valerius Maximus 6.3.2; Dio Cassius fr. 22).

48 Some such a provision as this may be hidden in τὸν ἀνὰ μέσον κείμενον. See Eduard Meyer, "Untersuchungen über Diodors römische Geschichte," Rhein. Museum, 37 (1882), 610-627, especially pp. 618 ff., where he discusses the defective tradition which Diodorus has followed in the legislation described above.

49 442 B.C.

50 This is the treaty given in chap. 4.5.

51 441 B.C.

52 Thuc. 1.115 says fifty.

53 The Assyrians had siege machinery several centuries earlier than this.

54 440 B.C.

55 For the third time; cp. chaps. 5 and 23.

56 The inhabitants of Cale Acte; cp. chap. 8.2 above.

57 439 B.C.

58 The correct date is 435 B.C.

59 The Epidamnians were in fact colonists of Cercyra, which was a colony of Corinth.

60 The Illyrians.

61 Cp. Livy 3.66.

62 438 B.C.

63 Campania is probably derived from the Latin word campus ("plain").

64 The capital of this kingdom was Panticapaeum, on the present Straits of Kertch.

65 437 B.C.

66 436 B.C.

67 This refers to the vote of the Athenian Assembly just above to "send more later if necessary."

68 435 B.C.

69 Ulecus is a corruption of Alba or Elva.

70 434 B.C.

71 See chap. 11.

72 Archidamus died in 426 B.C. This error on the part of Diodorus is all the more surprising since he states that Archidamus led an army into Boeotia in 429 (chap. 47.1) and invaded Attica in 426 (chap. 52.1).

73 433 B.C.

74 The Straits of Kertch; the kingdom included all the territory about the Sea of Azof.

75 According to Philochorus (Schol. to Aristoph. Birds 997) what Meton set up was a sundial, on the wall of the Pnyx.

76 Meton certainly was too good an astronomer to have spoken of "stars." This Metonic Cycle was designed to adjust the lunar year, which all the Greeks used, to the solar year. Its scheme called for the intercalation of seven lunar months in the nineteen years. Modern computation shows that 235 lunations are 6,939 days, 16.5 hours, and 19 solar years are 6,939 days, 14.5 hours. An inscription from Miletus reveals that in 432 B.C. the summer solstice, which is the beginning of the solar year, fell on the 13th day of the month Scirophorion, the date given by Diodorus for the beginning of Meton's 19-year cycle. See B. D. Meritt, The Athenian Calendar in the Fifth Century, p. 88.

77 On the gulf of Tarentum.

78 432 B.C

79 Thucydides wrote a continuous account, and the ancients knew of divisions into as many as thirteen Books.

80 431 B.C.

81 The following "causes" are clearly drawn from a violent anti-Periclean source, and Diodorus himself appears to wish to disavow them when he states (chap. 41.1) that he has taken them directly from Ephorus.

82 Given as ten thousand in chaps. 40.2; 54.3; Book 13.21.2.

83 In 454 B.C.

84 The gold and ivory statue in the Parthenon.

85 The general name given the teachers of advanced education in the fifth century.

86 Anaxagoras was one of the most distinguished physical philosophers of Greece, who maintained that the universe was directed by unchangeable Mind and tried to give a natural explanation of eclipses, rainbows, the heavenly bodies, of which he said the sun was a mass of blazing metal larger than the Peloponnesus, and other phenomena of nature. Of course such teaching ran counter to the popular polytheism of the day.

87 It is more than likely that the accusations against these two friends of Pericles fell some years before the outbreak of the war (cp. Adcock in Camb. Anc. Hist. 5, pp. 477-480). At any rate Thucydides' account of the causes of the war makes no mention of either Pheidias or Anaxagoras.

88 The Peloponnesian League.

89 The entrance to the Acropolis.

90 Aristoph. Peace 603 ff. (in imitation of Archilochus). The translation is that of Rogers in the L.C.L., slightly changed where the Greek of Diodorus varies from the accepted text and because of the missing lines.

91 Eupolis fr. 94, 11.5-7 (Kock). Eupolis was a contemporary of Aristophanes and one of the most brilliant writers of the Old Comedy.

92 431 B.C.

93 The fuller account of the following incident is in Thuc. 2.2 ff.

94 The Boeotian League, which had been revived after Athens lost her dominating position in Central Greece in the battle of Coroneia in 447 B.C. (cp. chap. 6).

95 Thucydides (Thuc. 2.5.7) says that the Plataeans persuaded the Thebans to withdraw from their territory and that they then slew the Theban captives.

96 Thucydides (Thuc. 2.6.4) calls these "the least efficient of the men."

97 The thirty-year truce concluded in 446 B.C. (chap. 7).

98 Those facing Euboea were the Opuntian Locrians, those on the Corinthian Gulf the Ozolian.

99 There is a lacuna in the Greek; the preceding words of the sentence are taken from Thuc. 2.9.5.

100 The ten generals were the most important Athenian magistrates of this period, and Pericles, elected every year as one of the ten, acted as their president.

101 Many editors read "enemy" for "Peloponnesians," thereby making the Athenians the ones who were made safe. But there is no reason to emend the text. The fleet dispatched by Pericles was ravaging the territory of many of Sparta's Peloponnesian allies; cp. the following chapter, and Thuc. 2.25, 30.

102 430 B.C.

103 The eastern coast between Argolis and Laconia.

104 The single able general the Peloponnesians produced in this ten-year war. For his further career see below, chaps. 62, 67-68, 74.

105 Thronium and Alope are in Opuntian Locris facing the northern tip of Euboea.

106 In northern Laconia near the border of Argolis.

107 Cp. Book 11.84.7.

108 "Four-city." This was the north-eastern part of Attica containing the four demes of Marathon, Oenoe, Probalinthus, and Tricorythus, forming an administrative unit.

109 The Athenians had been the only people of Greece to offer a home to the Heracleidae, in Tricorythus of the Tetrapolis; cp. Book 4.57.

110 The detailed description of this plague, whose symptoms resemble more those of typhus than of any other disease, is in Thuc. 2.47 ff

111 Thuc. 2.65.3 mentions only "a fine"; Plut. Per. 35 states that estimates of the fine varied from fifteen to fifty talents; according to Plato (Plat. Gorg. 516a) the charge was embezzlement. The scholia on Aristoph. Cl. 859, explain that Pericles entered in his accounts an expenditure εἰς τὰ δέοντα ("for necessary purposes"), which the Lacedaemonians interpreted as being for bribes and accordingly punished some of their leading men. Also mentioned is the charge that the gold on Athena's statue was not of the weight charged; but Pheidias removed and weighed it, disproving the allegation.

112 429 B.C.

113 An Athenian army had been before the city for four years; cp. chap. 34.

114 At about the centre of the north side of the Gulf of Corinth.

115 Specifically the Corinthians, the leading naval allies of the Lacedaemonians.

116 In the Thracian Chalcidice near Olynthus.

117 In southern Acarnania.

118 Phormio's famous manoeuvring in this battle is described in Thuc. 2.83-84.

119 A cape at the entrance of the Corinthian Gulf.

120 The Greek, which reads "at the Isthmus," must be defective, for Thucydides' account makes it certain that the ship was dedicated near the scene of the battle (Thuc. 2.84.4); the emendation of Wurm would have the dedication made "to Poseidon the patron god of the Isthmus."

121 Thuc. 2.86.4 states that there were seventy-seven ships against Phormio's twenty.

122 These were reinforcements from Athens.

123 428 B.C.

124 Used to block the entrance; cp. Book 18.64.4.

125 Abdera was on the Nestus River facing the Aegean Sea; the Ister is the Danube.

126 In 431 B.C. The war described below opened two years later.

127 Perdiccas had driven his brother Philip from the kingdom, and Philip had taken refuge at the court of Sitalces; cp. Thuc. 2.95.

128 Seuthes, a nephew of Sitalces and his successor on the throne, married Stratonice, Perdiccas' sister (Thuc. 2.101 6).

129 427 B.C.

130 Some 1800 dollars, 360 pounds sterling.

131 Cp. chap. 33.

132 The Confederacy of Delos.

133 The group of small volcanic islands west of the toe of Italy; cp. Book 5.7.

134 Epizephyrian Locris on the east shore of the toe of Italy.

135 On the north coast of Sicily west of Messene.

136 By this union of the island (sunoikismos) the separate governments of the different cities would have been dissolved and the inhabitants would all have become citizens of Mitylene, the capital and seat of rule; just as, traditionally under Theseus, the governments of the several cities of Attica were put down and Athens became the city-state of the entire area.

137 Among Athenian colonists. Thuc. 3.50.2 states that the Lesbians arranged to work the allotments as renters, paying the colonists a fixed rental.

138 Cp. chap. 31.

139 Proxeni were citizens of one city chosen by another city to look after the interests of its citizens who were residing, sojourning, or doing business there; they were a sort of consul in the modern sense.

140 426 B.C.

141 Cp. chap. 45.

142 That is, the "annual" winds, blowing from the northwest in summer.

143 An ancient festival of the Ionian Amphictyony, held in honour of Apollo and Artemis. Cp. Thuc. 3.104.

144 Of Corinth.

145 Opposite Opus in Opuntian Locris.

146 At the head of the Malian Gulf.

147 425 B.C.

148 These names are badly confused. They should be L. Pinarius Mamercinus Rufus, L. Furius Medullinus Fusus, and Sp. Postumius Albus Regillensis.

149 About five miles south-west of Naupactus.

150 The reader may refer to the detailed account of the following campaign in Thuc. 4.3-23, 26-40. In the Bay of Navarino, on which Pylos lies, occurred the famous naval Battle of Navarino between the allied British, Russian, and French fleet and the Turkish. The victory of the allied fleet, 20th October 1827, decided the issue of the Greek war of independence.

151 The inscription on a shield found in the Agora excavations states that it was taken by the Athenians from Lacedaemonians at Pylos (Shear in Hesperia, 6 (1937), 347-348). It must have originally belonged to the collection of shields taken at Pylos which Pausanias (Paus. 1.15.4) saw suspended as trophies in the Stoa Poikile, although the cistern in which it was found had been filled before the third century B.C. No doubt the captured shield of the Spartan captain occupied a central place in this collection.

152 Over the Spartan fleet; cp. Thuc. 4.14.

153 Sphacteria.

154 The Lacedaemonians would get back the Spartans upon Sphacteria.

155 Cp. Book 11.84.7-8.

156 In the spring of 424 B.C.

157 424 B.C.

158 Of Messene; cp. chap. 49.1.

159 Oropus was always debatable territory between Attica and Boeotia.

160 Thuc. 4.44.6 states that two hundred and twelve Corinthians died, and of the Athenians "somewhat fewer than fifty."

161 In Megaris.

162 Strabo states that the correct name was Methana (in Argolis; cp. Thuc. 4.45.

163 The large island off the south-eastern tip of Laconia.

164 From the different parties in the city.

165 These represented the party of the masses; cp. Thuc. 4.66.

166 Thuc. 4.68.3 says he was the Athenian herald.

167 These connected Megara with its harbour.

168 In 497 B.C.; cp. Hdt. 5.126.

169 Cp. Book 11.70.5.

170 Twenty-nine years later, according to Thuc. 4.102.3.

171 Over the Strymon River and not far from the city.

172 The region about Mt. Athos.

173 A Thracian tribe.

174 Oropus was the last city of Attica on the coast before the border of Boeotia. Delium lay near the coast in the territory of Tanagra.

175 This designation is probably derived from that of an originally wealthy class who were able to provide their own chariots for warfare, like the Roman "Knights," who could furnish horses. The three hundred are what were known later as the "Sacred Band" of the Thebans which was drawn up, not as here before the whole Theban line, but many men deep on one wing (cp. Plut. Pelopidas 18 ff.). Thuc. 4.93.4 states that in this battle "the Thebans were marshalled in ranks twenty-five shields deep," a statement which cannot have been true of the whole Theban contingent.

176 Delium was the greatest battle of the Archidamian War; Socrates participated in it and his life was saved by Alcibiades (Plat. Sym. 221a-c); Socrates had saved Alcibiades at Potidaea in 432 B.C. (Plat. Sym. 220e).

177 The Athenian losses were less than a thousand in addition to light-armed troops and baggage carriers (Thuc. 4.101).

178 Held at Delium.

179 A "flame-thrower" was used in the assault upon the walls; cp. Thuc. 4.100.

180 Cp. Book 4.78 f.

181 423 B.C.

182 On the south coast of the Troad, some fifteen miles from Lesbos.

183 More accurately, with Thuc. 4.75.2, "in the territory of Heracleia," since the city lay on the Lycus, not the Cales, River.

184 This city, on the promontory of Pallene, revolted to Brasidas before it had learned of the signing of the truce, but in fact two days, as was later reckoned, after its signing (Thuc. 4.120 ff.).

185 On the Thermaic Gulf west of Scione.

186 422 B.C.

187 On the coast of Asia Minor north-east of Lesbos.

188 421 B.C.

189 See chap. 63.

190 See Book 4.57 ff.

191 Scione was a cherso-nesos ("near-island").

192 See chap. 56.

193 420 B.C.

194 Cp. chap. 73.1.

195 See chap. 75 at end.

196 Since the following three tribes are of southern Thessaly, apparently Diodorus does not consider that area to be a part of Greece proper.

197 Situated a short distance east of Olynthus.

198 419 B.C.

199 The Epidaurians, not the Lacedaemonians (see Thuc. 5.53); but Diodorus frequently uses the term "Lacedaemonian" in a wide sense to refer to any ally of Sparta.

200 The temple is likely the one in Asine, which was the only building spared by the Argives when they razed that city (cp. Paus. 2.36.5; Thuc. 5.53.1).

201 Presumably in order to bring aid to the Mantineians.

202 Cp. chap. 78.6.

203 418 B.C.

204 The loss of Cythera was a blow to the Spartans, that of Nisaea to the Megarians.

205 Melos was destroyed in 416 B.C.

206 417 B.C.

207 In Argolis near the Laconian border.

208 The walls were to connect Argos and the sea. This was an enormous undertaking and the walls were certainly not yet completed (cp. below and Thuc. 5.82.5).

209 They were distributed among the islands of the Athenian Empire.

210 In north-west Argolis on the border of Phlius.

211 416 B.C.

212 See chaps. 53 f.

213 For this display see Thuc. 6.46.

214 Cp. chap. 2.3.