Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Thomas Hobbes, Ed.

THE SECOND BOOK

THE PRINCIPAL CONTENTS

• The entry of the Theban soldiers into Plataea by the treason of some within.
-- Their repulse and slaughter. -- The irruption of the Peloponnesians into Attica. -- The wasting of the coast of Peloponnesus by the Athenian fleet. -- The public funeral of the first slain. -- The second invasion of Attica. -- The pestilence in the city of Athens. -- The Ambraciotes' war against the Amphilochi. -- Plataea assaulted, besieged. -- The Peloponnesian fleet beaten by Phormio before the strait of the Gulf of Crissa. -- The same fleet repaired and reinforced, and beaten again by Phormio before Naupactus. -- The attempt of the Peloponnesians on Salamis. -- The fruitless expedition of the Thracians against the Macedonians. -- This in the first three years of the war.

2. The peace, which after the winning of Euboea was concluded for thirty years, lasted fourteen years. But in the fifteenth year, being the forty-eighth of the priesthood of Chrysis in Argos, Aenesias being then ephor at Sparta and Pythadorus, archon of Athens, having then two months of his government to come, in the sixth month after the battle at Potidaea and in the beginning of the spring, three hundred and odd Thebans led by Pythangelus the son of Phyleides and Diemporus the son of Onetoridas, Boeotian rulers, about the first watch of the night entered with their arms into Plataea, a city of Boeotia and confederate of the Athenians. [2] They were brought in and the gates opened unto them by Naucleides and his accomplices, men of Plataea that for their own private ambition intended both the destruction of such citizens as were their enemies and the putting of the whole city under the subjection of the Thebans. [3] This they negotiated with one Eurymachus the son of Leontiadas, one of the most potent men of Thebes. For the Thebans, foreseeing the war, desired to preoccupy Plataea, which was always at variance with them, whilst there was yet peace and the war not openly on foot. By which means they more easily entered undiscovered, there being no order taken before for a watch. [4] And making a stand in their arms in the market place, they did not, as they that gave them entrance would have had them, fall presently to the business and enter the houses of their adversaries, but resolved rather to make favourable proclamation and to induce the city to composition and friendship. And the herald proclaimed, ‘that if any man, according to the ancient custom of all the Boeotians, would enter into the same league of war with them, he should come and bring his arms to theirs,’ supposing the city by this means would easily be drawn to their side.

3. The Plataeans, when they perceived that the Thebans were already entered and had surprised the city, through fear and opinion that more were entered than indeed were (for they could not see them in the night), came to composition and accepting the condition rested quiet, and the rather, for that they had yet done no man harm. [2] But whilst that these things were treating, they observed that the Thebans were not many and thought that if they should set upon them, they might easily have the victory. For the Plataean commons were not willing to have revolted from the Athenians. [3] Wherefore it was thought fit to undertake the matter, and they united themselves by digging through the common walls between house and house that they might not be discovered as they passed the streets. They also placed carts in the streets without the cattle that drew them to serve them instead of a wall, and every other thing they put in readiness as they severally seemed necessary for the present enterprise. [4] When all things according to their means were ready, they marched from their houses towards the enemies, taking their time whilst it was yet night and a little before the break of day because they would not have to charge them when they should be emboldened by the light and on equal terms, but when they should by night be terrified and inferior to them in knowledge of the places of the city. So they forthwith set upon them and came quickly up to hand strokes.

4. And the Thebans, seeing this and finding they were deceived, cast themselves into a round figure and beat them back in that part where the assault was made; [2] and twice or thrice they repulsed them. But at last, when both the Plataeans themselves charged them with a great clamour, and their wives also and families shouted and screeched from the houses and withal threw stones and tiles amongst them, the night having been also very wet, they were afraid and turned their backs and fled here and there about the city, ignorant for the most part, in the dark and dirt, of the ways out by which they should have been saved (for this accident fell out upon the change of the moon) and pursued by such as were well acquainted with the ways to keep them in; [3] insomuch as the greatest part of them perished. The gate by which they entered, and which only was left open, a certain Plataean shut up again with the head of a javelin, which he thrust into the staple instead of a bolt, so that this way also their passage was stopped. [4] As they were chased up and down the city, some climbed the walls and cast themselves out and for the most part died. Some came to a deserted gate of the city and with a hatchet given them by a woman cut the staple and got forth unseen; but these were not many, for the thing was soon discovered. [5] Others again were slain dispersed in several parts of the city. But the greatest part, and those especially who had cast themselves before into a ring, happened into a great edifice adjoining to the wall, the doors whereof, being open, they thought had been the gates of the city and that there had been a direct way through to the other side. [6] The Plataeans, seeing them now pent up, consulted whether they should burn them as they were by firing the house or else resolve of some other punishment. [7] At length both these and all the rest of the Thebans that were straggling in the city agreed to yield themselves and their arms to the Plataeans at discretion. [8] And this success had they that entered into Plataea.

5. But the rest of the Thebans that should with their whole power have been there before day for fear the surprise should not succeed with those that were in, came so late with their aid that they heard the news of what was done by the way. [2] Now Plataea is from Thebes seventy furlongs, and they marched the slower for the rain which had fallen the same night. For the river Asopus was swollen so high that it was not easily passable. [3] So that what by the foulness of the way and what by the difficulty of passing the river, they arrived not till their men were already some slain and some taken prisoners. [4] When the Thebans understood how things had gone, they lay in wait for such of the Plataeans as were without (for there were abroad in the villages both men and household stuff, as was not unlikely, the evil happening unexpectedly and in time of peace), desiring, if they could take any prisoners, to keep them for exchange for those of theirs within, which (if any were so) were saved alive. [5] This was the Thebans' purpose. But the Plataeans, whilst they were yet in council, suspecting that some such thing would be done and fearing their case without, sent a herald unto the Thebans whom they commanded to say that what they had already done, attempting to surprise their city in time of peace, was done wickedly, and to forbid them to do any injury to those without, and that otherwise they would kill all those men of theirs that they had alive, which, if they would withdraw their forces out of their territory, they would again restore unto them. [6] Thus the Thebans say, and that the Plataeans did swear it. But the Plataeans confess not that they promised to deliver them presently but upon treaty if they should agree, and deny that they swore it. [7] Upon this the Thebans went out of their territory; and the Plataeans, when they had speedily taken in whatsoever they had in the country, immediately slew their prisoners. They that were taken were one hundred and eighty; and Eurymachus, with whom the traitors had practised, was one.

6. When they had done, they sent a messenger to Athens and gave truce to the Thebans to fetch away the bodies of their dead, and ordered the city as was thought convenient for the present occasion. [2]

The news of what was done coming straightway to Athens, they instantly laid hands on all the Boeotians then in Attica and sent an officer to Plataea to forbid their farther proceeding with their Theban prisoners till such time as they also should have advised of the matter; for they were not yet advertised of their putting to death. [3] For the first messenger was sent away when the Thebans first entered the town; and the second, when they were overcome and taken prisoners; but of what followed after they knew nothing. So that the Athenians, when they sent, knew not what was done; and the officer arriving found that the men were already slain. [4] After this, the Athenians sending an army to Plataea, victualled it and left a garrison in it, and took thence both the women and children and also such men as were unserviceable for the war.

7. This action falling out at Plataea and the peace now clearly dissolved, the Athenians prepared themselves for war; so also did the Lacedaemonians and their confederates, intending on either part to send ambassadors to the king and to other barbarians, wheresoever they had hope of succours, and contracting leagues with such cities as were not under their own command. [2] The Lacedaemonians besides those galleys which they had in Italy and Sicily, of the cities that took part with them there, were ordered to furnish, proportionably to the greatness of their several cities, so many more as the whole number might amount to five hundred sail and to provide a sum of money assessed, and in other things not to stir farther but to receive the Athenians coming but with one galley at once till such time as the same should be ready. [3] The Athenians, on the other side, surveyed their present confederates and sent ambassadors to those places that lay about Peloponnesus, as Corcyra, Cephalonia, Acarnania, and Zacynthus, knowing that as long as these were their friends, they might with the more security make war round about upon the coast of Peloponnesus.

8. Neither side conceived small matters but put their whole strength to the war, and not without reason. For all men in the beginnings of enterprises are the most eager. Besides, there were then in Peloponnesus many young men, and many in Athens, who for want of experience not unwillingly undertook the war. And not only the rest of Greece stood at gaze to behold the two principal states in combat, [2] but many prophecies were told and many sung by the priests of the oracles both in the cities about to war and in others. [3] There was also a little before this an earthquake in Delos, which in the memory of the Grecians never shook before, and was interpreted for and seemed to be a sign of what was to come afterwards to pass. And whatsoever thing then chanced of the same nature, it was all sure to be inquired after. [4]

But men's affections for the most part went with the Lacedaemonians, and the rather, for that they gave out they would recover the Grecians' liberty. And every man, both private and public person, endeavoured as much as in them lay both in word and deed to assist them and thought the business so much hindered as himself was not present at it. [5] In such passion were most men against the Athenians, some for desire to be delivered from under their government and others for fear of falling into it. And these were the preparations and affections brought unto the war.

9. But the confederates of either party, which they had when they began it, were these. [2] The Lacedaemonians had all Peloponnesus within the isthmus except the Argives and Achaeans (for these were in amity with both, save that the Pellenians at first, only of all Achaia, took their part; but afterwards all the rest did so likewise); and without Peloponnesus, the Megareans, Locrians, Boeotians, Phoceans, Ambraciotes, Leucadians, and Anactorians. Of which the Corinthians, Megareans, Sicyonians, Pellenians, Eleians, Ambraciotes, and Leucadians found shipping; [3] the Boeotians, Phoceans, and Locrians, horsemen; and the rest of the cities, footmen. And these were the confederates of the Lacedaemonians. The Athenian confederates were these: [4] the Chians, Lesbians, Plataeans, the Messenians in Naupactus, most of the Acarnanians, Corcyraeans, Zacynthians, and other cities their tributaries among those nations; also that part of Caria which is on the seacoast and the Dorians adjoining to them; Ionia, Hellespont, the cities bordering on Thrace; all the islands from Peloponnesus to Crete on the east and all the rest of the Cyclades except Melos and Thera. [5] Of these the Chians, Lesbians, and Corcyraeans found galleys; the rest, footmen and money. [6] These were their confederates and the preparation for the war on both sides.

10. The Lacedaemonians, after the business of Plataea, sent messengers presently up and down Peloponnesus and to their confederates without to have in readiness their forces and such things as should be necessary for a foreign expedition, as intending the invasion of Attica. [2] And when they were all ready, they came to the rendezvous in the isthmus at a day appointed, two-thirds of the forces of every city. [3] When the whole army was gotten together, Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, general of the expedition, called together the commanders of the several cities and such as were in authority and most worthy to be present and spake unto them as followeth:

11. ‘Men of Peloponnesus and confederates, not only our fathers have had many wars, both within and without Peloponnesus, but we ourselves also, such as are anything in years, have been sufficiently acquainted therewith; yet did we never before set forth with so great a preparation as at this present. And now, not only we are a numerous and puissant army that invade, but the state also is puissant that is invaded by us. [2] We have reason therefore to show ourselves neither worse than our fathers nor short of the opinion conceived of ourselves. For all Greece is up at this commotion observing us, and through their hatred to the Athenians do wish that we may accomplish whatsoever we intend. [3] And therefore, though we seem to invade them with a great army and to have much assurance that they will not come out against us to battle, yet we ought not for this to march the less carefully prepared but of every city, as well the captain as the soldier, to expect always some danger or other in that part wherein he himself is placed. [4] For the accidents of war are uncertain, and for the most part the onset begins from the lesser number and upon passion. And oftentimes the lesser number, being afraid, hath beaten back the greater with the more ease; for that through contempt they have gone unprepared. [5] And in the land of an enemy, though the soldiers ought always to have bold hearts yet for action, they ought to make their preparations as if they were afraid. For that will give them both more courage to go upon the enemy and more safety in fighting with him. [6] But we invade not now a city that cannot defend itself but a city every way well appointed. So that we must by all means expect to be fought withal, though not now because we be not yet there, yet hereafter, when they shall see us in their country wasting and destroying their possessions. [7] For all men, when in their own sight and on a sudden they receive any extraordinary hurt, fall presently into choler; and the less they consider, with the more stomach they assault. [8] And this is likely to hold in the Athenians somewhat more than in the others, for they think themselves worthy to have the command of others and to invade and waste the territories of their neighbours rather than to see their neighbours waste theirs. [9] Wherefore, as being to war against a great city and to procure both to your ancestors and yourselves a great fame, either good or bad as shall be the event, follow your leaders in such sort as above all things you esteem of order and watchfulness. For there is nothing in the world more comely nor more safe than when many men are seen to observe one and the same order.’

12. Archidamus, having thus spoken and dismissed the council, first sent Melesippus the son of Diacritus, a man of Sparta, to Athens to try if the Athenians, seeing them now on their journey, would yet in some degree remit of their obstinacy. [2] But the Athenians neither received him into their city nor presented him to the state; for the opinion of Pericles had already taken place, not to receive from the Lacedaemonians neither herald nor ambassador as long as their army was abroad. Therefore they sent him back without audience with commandment to be out of their borders the selfsame day, and that hereafter if they would anything with them, they should return everyone to his home and send their ambassadors from thence. [3] They sent with him also certain persons to convoy him out of the country to the end that no man should confer with him, who, when he came to the limits and was to be dismissed, uttered these words, ‘This day is the beginning of much evil unto the Grecians,’ and so departed. [4] When he returned to the camp, Archidamus, perceiving that they would not relent, dislodged and marched on with his army into their territory. [5] The Boeotians with their appointed part and with horsemen aided the Peloponnesians, but with the rest of their forces went and wasted the territory of Plataea.

13. Whilst the Peloponnesians were coming together in the isthmus, and when they were on their march before they brake into Attica, Pericles the son of Xantippus, who with nine others was general of the Athenians, when he saw they were about to break in, suspecting that Archidamus, either of private courtesy or by command of the Lacedaemonians to bring him into jealousy (as they had before for his sake commanded the excommunication), might oftentimes leave his lands untouched, told the Athenians beforehand in an assembly, ‘that though Archidamus had been his guest, it was for no ill to the state; and howsoever, if the enemy did not waste his lands and houses as well as the rest, that then he gave them to the commonwealth,’ and therefore desired ‘that for this he might not be suspected.’ Also he advised them concerning the business in hand the same things he had done before, ‘that they should make preparations for the war and receive their goods into the city; [2] that they should not go out to battle but come into the city and guard it; that they should also furnish out their navy, wherein consisted their power, and hold a careful hand over their confederates,’ telling them, ‘how that in the money that came from these lay their strength, and that the victory in war consisted wholly in counsel and store of money.’ [3] Farther he bade them be confident, ‘in that there was yearly coming into the state from the confederates for tribute, besides other revenue, six hundred talents, and remaining yet then in the citadel six thousand talents of silver coin,’ (for the greatest sum there had been was ten thousand talents wanting three hundred, out of which was taken that which had been expended upon the gate-houses of the citadel and upon other buildings and for the charges of Potidaea) [4] ‘besides the uncoined gold and silver of private and public offerings, and all the dedicated vessels belonging to the shows and games, and the spoils of the Persian, and other things of that nature, which amounted to no less than five hundred talents.’ [5] He added farther that ‘much money might be had out of other temples without the city which they might use; and if they were barred the use of all these, they might yet use the ornaments of gold about the goddess herself’; and said that ‘the image had about it the weight of forty talents of most pure gold and which might all be taken off; but having made use of it for their safety,’ he said, ‘they were to make restitution of the like quantity again.’ Thus he encouraged them touching matter of money. [6] ‘Men of arms,’ he said, ‘they had thirteen thousand besides the sixteen thousand that were employed for the guard of the city and upon the walls.’ For so many at the first kept watch at the coming in of the enemy, young and old together and strangers that dwelt amongst them as many as could bear arms. [7] For the length of the Phalerian wall to that part of the circumference of the wall of the city where it joined was thirtyfive furlongs, and that part of the circumference which was guarded (for some of it was not kept with a watch, namely, the part between the long wall and the Phalerian) was forty-three furlongs. And the length of the long walls down to Piraeus (of which there was a watch only on the outmost) was forty furlongs. And the whole compass of Piraeus together with Munychia was sixty furlongs, whereof that part that was watched was but half. [8] He said farther, ‘they had of horsemen, accounting archers on horseback, twelve hundred; and sixteen hundred archers; [9] and of galleys fit for the sea, three hundred.’ All this and no less had the Athenians when the invasion of the Peloponnesians was first in hand and when the war began. These and other words spake Pericles, as he used to do, for demonstration that they were likely to outlast this war.

14. When the Athenians had heard him, they approved of his words and fetched into the city their wives and children and the furniture of their houses, pulling down the very timber of the houses themselves. Their sheep and oxen they sent over into Euboea and into the islands over against them. [2] Nevertheless this removal, in respect they had most of them been accustomed to the country life, grieved them very much.

15. This custom was from great antiquity more familiar with the Athenians than any other of the rest of Greece. For in the time of Cecrops and the first kings down to Theseus the inhabitants of Attica had their several boroughs and therein their common halls and their governors, and, unless they were in fear of some danger, went not to the king for advice; but every city administered their own affairs and deliberated by themselves. [2] And some of them had also their particular wars, as the Eleusinians who joined with Eumolpus against Erectheus. But after Theseus came to the kingdom, one who besides his wisdom was also a man of very great power, he not only set good order in the country in other respects but also dissolved the councils and magistracies of the rest of the towns; and assigning them all one hall and one council-house, brought them all to cohabit in the city that now is; and constrained them, enjoying their own as before, to use this one for their city, which (now when they all paid their duties to it) grew great and was by Theseus so delivered to posterity. [3] And from that time to this day, the Athenians keep a holiday at the public charge to the goddess and call it Synoecia. [4] That which is now the citadel, and the part which is to the south of the citadel, was before this time the city. An argument whereof is this: that the temples of the gods are all set either in the citadel itself or, if without, yet in that quarter, as that of Jupiter Olympius and of Apollo Pythius and of Tellus and of Bacchus in Limnae (in honour of whom the old Bacchanals were celebrated on the twelfth day of the month Athesterion, according as the Ionians who are derived from Athens do still observe them), besides other ancient temples situated in the same part. [5] Moreover, they served themselves with water for the best uses of the fountain which, now the Nine-pipes, built so by the tyrants, was formerly, when the springs were open, called Callirhoe, and was near. And from the old custom, before marriages and other holy rites they ordain the use of the same water to this day. [6] And the citadel, from the ancient habitation of it, is also by the Athenians still called the city.

16. The Athenians therefore had lived a long time governed by laws of their own country towns and, after they were brought into one, were nevertheless (both for the custom which most had, as well of the ancient time as since till the Persian war, to live in the country with their whole families; and also especially for that since the Persian war they had already repaired their houses and furniture) unwilling to remove. [2] It pressed them likewise and was heavily taken besides their houses to leave the things that pertained to their religion (which, since their old form of government, were become patrial) and to change their manner of life and to be no better than banished every man his city.

17. After they came into Athens, there was habitation for a few and place of retire with some friends or kindred. But the greatest part seated themselves in the empty places of the city and in temples and in all the chapels of the heroes, saving in such as were in the citadel and the Eleusinium and other places strongly shut up. The Pelasgicum also under the citadel, though it were a thing accursed to dwell in it and forbidden by the end of a verse in a Pythian oracle in these words, ‘Best is the Pelasgicum empty,’ was nevertheless for the present necessity inhabited. [2] And in my opinion, this prophecy now fell out contrary to what was looked for. For the unlawful dwelling there caused not the calamities that befell the city, but the war caused the necessity of dwelling there, which war the oracle, not naming, foretold only that it should one day be inhabited unfortunately. [3]

Many also furnished the turrets of the walls and whatsoever other place they could any of them get. For when they were come in, the city had not place for them all; but afterwards they had the long walls divided amongst them and inhabited there and in most parts of Piraeus. [4] Withal they applied themselves to the business of the war, levying their confederates and making ready a hundred galleys to send about Peloponnesus. [5] Thus were the Athenians preparing.

18. The army of the Peloponnesians marching forward came first to Oenoe, a town of Attica, the place where they intended to break in, and encamping before it, prepared with engines and by other means to assault the wall. [2] For Oenoe, lying on the confines between Attica and Boeotia, was walled about; and the Athenians kept a garrison in it for defence of the country when at any time there should be war. [3] For which cause they made preparation for the assault of it, and also spent much time about it otherwise.

And Archidamus for this was not a little taxed as thought to have been both slow in gathering together the forces for the war and also to have favoured the Athenians in that he encouraged not the army to a forwardness in it. And afterwards likewise his stay in the isthmus and his slowness in the whole journey was laid to his charge, but especially his delay at Oenoe. [4] For in this time the Athenians retired into the city: whereas it was thought that the Peloponnesians, marching speedily, might but for this delay have taken them all without. [5] So passionate was the army of Archidamus for his stay before Oenoe. But expecting that the Athenians, whilst their territory was yet unhurt, would relent and not endure to see it wasted, for that cause (as it is reported) he held his hand.

19. But after, when they had assaulted Oenoe and tried all means but could not take it, and seeing the Athenians sent no herald to them, then at length arising from thence—about eighty days after that which happened to the Thebans that entered Plataea, the summer and corn being now at the highest—they fell into Attica, led by Archidamus the son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. [2] And when they had pitched their camp, they fell to wasting of the country, first about Eleusis and then in the plain of Thriasia, and put to flight a few Athenian horsemen at the brooks called Rheiti. After this, leaving the Aegaleon on the right hand, they passed through Cecropia till they came unto Acharnas, which is the greatest town in all Attica of those that are called Demoi, and pitching there, both fortified their camp and stayed a great while wasting the country thereabout.

20. Archidamus was said to have stayed so long at Acharnas with his army in battle array and not to have come down all the time of his invasion into the champaign with this intention. [2] He hoped that the Athenians, flourishing in number of young men and better furnished for war than ever they were before, would perhaps have come forth against him and not endured to see their fields cut down and wasted; [3] and, therefore, seeing they met him not in Thriasia, he thought good to try if they would come out against him lying now at Acharnas. [4] Besides, the place seemed unto him commodious for the army to lie in; and it was thought also that the Acharnans, being a great piece of the city (for they were three thousand men of arms), would not have suffered the spoiling of their lands, but rather have urged the rest to go out and fight. And if they came not out against him at this invasion, they might hereafter more boldly both waste the champaign country and come down even to the walls of the city. For the Acharnans, after they should have lost their own, would not be so forward to hazard themselves for the goods of other men; but there would be the thoughts of sedition in one towards another in the city. [5] These were the cogitations of Archidamus, whilst he lay at Acharnas.

21. The Athenians, as long as the army of the enemy lay about Eleusis and the fields of Thrius and as long as they had any hope it would come on no farther, remembering that also Pleistoanax the son of Pausanias, king of Lacedaemon, when fourteen years before this war he entered Attica with an army of the Peloponnesians as far as Eleusis and Thriasia, retired again and came no farther (for which he was also banished Sparta as thought to have gone back for money), they stirred not. But when they saw the army now at Acharnas but sixty furlongs from the city, then they thought it no longer to be endured; [2] and when their fields were wasted (as it was likely) in their sight, which the younger sort had never seen before nor the elder but in the Persian war, it was taken for a horrible matter and thought fit by all, especially by the youth, to go out and not endure it any longer. [3] And holding councils apart one from another, they were at much contention, some to make a sally and some to hinder it. And the priests of the oracles giving out prophecies of all kinds, everyone made the interpretation according to the sway of his own affection. But the Acharnians, conceiving themselves to be no small part of the Athenians, were they that, whilst their own lands were wasting, most of all urged their going out. Insomuch as the city was every way in tumult and in choler against Pericles, remembering nothing of what he had formerly admonished them, but reviled him for that being their general he refused to lead them into the field, and imputing unto him the cause of all their evil.

22. But Pericles, seeing them in passion for their present loss and ill advised and being confident he was in the right touching not sallying, assembled them not nor called any council for fear lest being together they might upon passion rather than judgment commit some error, but looked to the guarding of the city and as much as he could to keep it in quiet. [2] Nevertheless he continually sent out horsemen to keep the scouts of the army from entering upon and doing hurt to the fields near the city. And there happened at Phrygii a small skirmish between one troop of horse of the Athenians, with whom were also the Thessalians, and the horsemen of the Boeotians. Wherein the Athenians and Thessalians had not the worse till such time as the Boeotians were aided by the coming in of their men of arms; and then they were put to flight and a few of the Athenians and Thessalians slain, whose bodies, notwithstanding, they fetched off the same day without leave of the enemy. [3] And the Peloponnesians the next day erected a trophy. This aid of the Thessalians was upon an ancient league with the Athenians and consisted of Larissaeans, Pharsalians, Parasians, Cranonians, Pyrasians, Gyrtonians, Pheraeans. The leaders of the Larissaeans were Polymedes and Aristonus, men of contrary factions in their city; of the Pharsalians, Meno; and of the rest, out of the several cities several commanders.

23. The Peloponnesians, seeing the Athenians would not come out to fight, dislodging from Acharnas wasted certain other villages between the hills Parnethus and Brelissus. [2] Whilst these were in Attica, the Athenians sent the hundred galleys which they had provided, and in them one thousand men of arms and four hundred archers, about Peloponnesus, the commanders whereof were Charcinus the son of Xenotimus, Proteus the son of Epicles, and Socrates the son of Antigenes, who thus furnished weighed anchor and went their way. [3] The Peloponnesians, when they had stayed in Attica as long as their provision lasted, went home through Boeotia, not the way they came in, but passing by Oropus, wasted the country called Peiraice, which is of the tillage of the Oropians, subjects to the people of Athens. And when they were come back into Peloponnesus, they disbanded and went every man to his own city.

24. When they were gone, the Athenians ordained watches both by sea and land, such as were to continue to the end of the war, and made a decree to take out a thousand talents of the money in the citadel and set it by so as it might not be spent, but the charges of the war be borne out of other money, and made it capital for any man to move or give his vote for the stirring of this money for any other use, but only if the enemy should come with an army by sea to invade the city for necessity of that defence. [2] Together with this money they likewise set apart one hundred galleys, and those to be every year the best and captains to be appointed over them, which were to be employed for no other use than the money was and for the same danger if need should require.

25. The Athenians that were with the hundred galleys about Peloponnesus and with them the Corcyraeans with the aid of fifty sail more and certain others of the confederates thereabout amongst other places which they infested in their course landed at Methone, a town of Laconia, and assaulted it as being but weak and few men within. [2] But it chanced that Brasidas the son of Tellis, a Spartan, had a garrison in those parts, and hearing of it, succoured those of the town with one hundred men of arms. Wherewith running through the Athenian army, dispersed in the fields, directly towards the town, he put himself into Methone; and with the loss of few of his men in the passage he saved the place, and for this adventure was the first that was praised at Sparta in this war. [3] The Athenians putting off from thence sailed along the coast and put in at Pheia of Elis, where they spent two days in wasting the country and in a skirmish overthrew three hundred choice men of the Lower Elis together with other Eleians thereabouts that came forth to defend it. [4] But the wind arising and their galleys being tossed by the weather in a harbourless place, the most of them embarked and sailed about the promontory called Icthys into the haven of Pheia. But the Messenians and certain others that could not get aboard went by land to the town of Pheia and rifled it. [5] And when they had done, the galleys that now were come about took them in and, leaving Pheia, put forth to sea again. By which time a great army of Eleians was come to succour it, but the Athenians were now gone away and wasting some other territory.

26. About the same time the Athenians sent likewise thirty galleys about Locris, which were to serve also for a watch about Euboea. [2] Of these Cleopompus the son of Clinias had the conduct and, landing his soldiers in divers parts, both wasted some places of the sea coast and won the town of Thronium, of which he took hostages, and overcame in fight at Alope the Locrians that came out to aid it.

27. The same summer, the Athenians put the Aeginetae, man, woman, and child, out of Aegina, laying to their charge that they were the principal cause of the present war. And it was also thought the safer course to hold Aegina, being adjacent to Peloponnesus, with a colony of their own people; and not long after they sent inhabitants into the same. [2] When the Aeginetae were thus banished, the Lacedaemonians gave them Thyrea to dwell in and the occupation of the lands belonging unto it to live on, both upon hatred to the Athenians, and for the benefits received at the hands of the Aeginetae in the time of the earthquake and insurrection of the Helotes. This territory of Thyrea is in the border between Argolica and Laconica, and reacheth to the seaside. So some of them were placed there, and the rest dispersed into other parts of Greece.

28. Also the same summer, on the first day of the month according to the moon (at which time it seems only possible), in the afternoon happened an eclipse of the sun. The which, after it had appeared in the form of a crescent and withal some stars had been discerned, came afterwards again to the former brightness.

29. The same summer also, the Athenians made Nymphodorus the son of Pythos, of the city of Abdera (whose sister was married to Sitalces and that was of great power with him), their host, though before they took him for an enemy, and sent for him to Athens, hoping by his means to bring Sitalces the son of Teres, king of Thrace, into their league. [2] This Teres, the father of Sitalces, was the first that advanced the kingdom of the Odrysians above the power of the rest of Thrace. [3] For much of Thrace consisteth of free states. And Tereus that took to wife out of Athens Procne the daughter of Pandion was no kin to this Teres nor of the same part of Thrace. But that Tereus was of the city of Daulia in the country now called Phocis, then inhabited by the Thracians. And the fact of the women concerning Itys was done there; and by the poets, where they mention the nightingale, that bird is also called Daulias. And it is more likely that Pandion matched his daughter to this man, for vicinity and mutual succour, than with the other that was so many days' journey off as Odrysae. And Teres (which is also another name) was the first that seized on the kingdom of Odrysae. [4] Now Sitalces, this man's son, the Athenians got into their league that they might have the towns lying on Thrace and Perdiccas to be of their party. [5] Nymphodorus, when he came to Athens, made this league between them and Sitalces and caused Sadocus the son of Sitalces to be made free of Athens and also undertook to end the war in Thrace. For he would persuade Sitalces to send unto the Athenians a Thracian army of horsemen and targeteers. [6] He likewise reconciled Perdiccas to the Athenians, and procured of him the restitution of Therme. And Perdiccas presently aided the Athenians and Phormio in the war against the Chalcideans. [7] Thus were Sitalces the son of Teres, king of Thrace, and Perdiccas the son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, made confederates with the Athenians.

30. The Athenians, being yet with their hundred galleys about Peloponnesus, took Solium, a town that belonged to the Corinthians, and put the Palaerenses only, of all the Acarnanians, into the possession both of the town and territory. Having also by force taken Astacus from the tyrant Euarchus, they drave him thence and joined the place to their league. [2] From thence they sailed to Cephalonia and subdued it without battle (this Cephalonia is an island lying over against Acarnania and Leucas and hath in it these four cities, the Pallenses, Cranii, Samaei, and Pronaei) and not long after returned with their fleet to Athens.

31. About the end of the autumn of this summer the Athenians, both themselves and the strangers that dwelt amongst them, with the whole power of the city, under the conduct of Pericles the son Xantippus, invaded the territory of Megara. And those Athenians likewise that had been with the hundred galleys about Peloponnesus, in their return, being now at Aegina, hearing that the whole power of the city was gone into Megaris, went and joined them. [2] And this was the greatest army that ever the Athenians had together in one place before, the city being now in her strength and the plague not yet amongst them. For the Athenians themselves were no less than ten thousand men of arms, besides the three thousand at Potidaea; and the strangers that dwelt amongst them and accompanied them in this invasion were no fewer than three thousand men of arms more, besides other great numbers of lightarmed soldiers. [3] And when they had wasted the greatest part of the country, they went back to Athens. And afterwards, year after year during this war the Athenians often invaded Megaris, sometimes with their horsemen and sometimes with their whole army, until such time as they had won Nisaea.

32. Also in the end of this summer they fortified Atalante, an island lying upon the Locrians of Opus, desolate till then, for a garrison against thieves, which passing over from Opus and other parts of Locris might annoy Euboea. These were the things done this summer after the retreat of the Peloponnesians out of Attica.

33. The winter following, Euarchus of Acarnania, desirous to return to Astacus, prevaileth with the Corinthians to go thither with forty galleys and fifteen hundred men of arms to re-establish him, to which he hired also certain other mercenaries for the same purpose. The commanders of this army were Euphamidas the son of Aristonymus, Timoxenes the son of Timocrates, and Eumachus the son of Chrysis. [2] When they had re-established him, they endeavoured to draw to their party some other places on the seacoast of Acarnania; but missing their purpose, they set sail homeward. [3] As they passed by the coast of Cephalonia, they disbarked in the territory of the Cranii where, under colour of composition, they were deceived and lost some part of their forces. For the assault made upon them by the Cranii being unexpected, they got off with much ado and went home.

34. The same winter the Athenians, according to their ancient custom, solemnized a public funeral of the first slain in this war in this manner. [2] Having set up a tent, they put into it the bones of the dead three days before the funeral; and everyone bringeth whatsoever he thinks good to his own. [3] When the day comes of carrying them to their burial, certain cypress coffins are carried along in carts, for every tribe one, in which are the bones of the men of every tribe by themselves. There is likewise borne an empty hearse covered over for such as appear not nor were found amongst the rest when they were taken up. [4] The funeral is accompanied by any that will, whether citizen or stranger; and the women of their kindred are also by at the burial lamenting and mourning. [5] Then they put them into a public monument which standeth in the fairest suburbs of the city, in which place they have ever interred all that died in the wars except those that were slain in the field of Marathon, who, because their virtue was thought extraordinary, were therefore buried thereright. [6] And when the earth is thrown over them, someone thought to exceed the rest in wisdom and dignity, chosen by the city, maketh an oration wherein he giveth them such praises as are fit; which done, the company depart. And this is the form of that burial; [7] and for the whole time of the war, whensoever there was occasion, they observed the same. [8] For these first the man chosen to make the oration was Pericles the son of Xantippus, who, when the time served, going out of the place of burial into a high pulpit to be heard the farther off by the multitude about him, spake unto them in this manner:

35. "Though most that have spoken formerly in this place have commended the man that added this oration to the law as honourable for those that die in the wars, yet to me it seemeth sufficient that they who have showed their valour by action should also by an action have their honour, as now you see they have, in this their sepulture performed by the state, and not to have the virtue of many hazarded on one to be believed as that one shall make a good or bad oration. [2] For to speak of men in a just measure, is a hard matter; and though one do so, yet he shall hardly get the truth firmly believed. The favourable hearer and he that knows what was done will perhaps think what is spoken short of what he would have it and what it was; and he that is ignorant will find somewhat on the other side which he will think too much extolled, especially if he hear aught above the pitch of his own nature. For to hear another man praised finds patience so long only as each man shall think he could himself have done somewhat of that he hears. And if one exceed in their praises, the hearer presently through envy thinks it false. [3] But since our ancestors have so thought good, I also, following the same ordinance, must endeavour to be answerable to the desires and opinions of everyone of you as far forth as I can.

36. "I will begin at our ancestors; being a thing both just and honest that to them first be given the honour of remembrance in this kind. For they, having been always the inhabitants of this region, by their valour have delivered the same to succession of posterity hitherto in the state of liberty. [2] For which they deserve commendation, but our fathers deserve yet more; for that besides what descended on them, not without great labour of their own they have purchased this our present dominion and delivered the same over to us that now are. [3] Which in a great part also we ourselves that are yet in the strength of our age here present have enlarged and so furnished the city with everything, both for peace and war, as it is now all-sufficient in itself. [4] The actions of war whereby all this was attained and the deeds of arms both of ourselves and our fathers in valiant opposition to the barbarians or Grecians in their wars against us, amongst you that are well acquainted with the sum, to avoid prolixity I will pass over. But by what institutions we arrived at this, by what form of government and by what means we have advanced the state to this greatness, when I shall have laid open this, I shall then descend to these men's praises. For I think they are things both fit for the purpose in hand and profitable to the whole company, both of citizens and strangers, to hear related.

37. "We have a form of government not fetched by imitation from the laws of our neighboring states (nay, we are rather a pattern to others, than they to us) which, because in the administration it hath respect not to a few but to the multitude, is called a democracy. Wherein, though there be an equality amongst all men in point of law for their private controversies, yet in conferring of dignities one man is preferred before another to public charge, and that according to the reputation not of his house but of his virtue, and is not put back through poverty for the obscurity of his person as long as he can do good service to the commonwealth. [2] And we live not only free in the administration of the state but also one with another void of jealousy touching each other's daily course of life, not offended at any man for following his own humour, nor casting on any man censorious looks, which though they be no punishment, yet they grieve. [3] So that conversing one with another for the private without offence, we stand chiefly in fear to transgress against the public and are obedient always to those that govern and to the laws, and principally to such laws as are written for protection against injury, and such unwritten as bring undeniable shame to the transgressors.

38. "We have also found out many ways to give our minds recreation from labour by public institution of games and sacrifices for all the days of the year with a decent pomp and furniture of the same by private men, by the daily delight whereof we expel sadness. [2] We have this farther by the greatness of our city that all things from all parts of the earth are imported hither, whereby we no less familiarly enjoy the commodities of all other nations than our own.

39. "Then in the studies of war we excel our enemies in this. We leave our city open to all men; nor was it ever seen that by banishing of strangers we denied them the learning or sight of any of those things which, if not hidden, an enemy might reap advantage by, not relying on secret preparation and deceit but upon our own courage in the action. They, in their discipline, hunt after valour presently from their youth with laborious exercise, and yet we that live remissly undertake as great dangers as they. For example, the Lacedaemonians invade not our dominion by themselves alone but with the aid of all the rest. [2] But when we invade our neighbours, though we fight in hostile ground against such as in their own ground fight in defence of their own substance, yet for the most part we get the victory. [3] Never enemy yet fell into the hands of our whole forces at once both because we apply ourselves much to navigation and by land also send many of our men into divers countries abroad. But when, fighting with a part of it, they chance to get the better, they boast they have beaten the whole; and when they get the worse, they say they are beaten by the whole. [4] And yet when, from ease rather than studious labour and upon natural rather than doctrinal valour, we come to undertake any danger, we have this odds by it that we shall not faint beforehand with the meditation of future trouble, and in the action we shall appear no less confident than they that are ever toiling, procuring admiration to our city as well in this as in divers other things.

40. For we also give ourselves to bravery, and yet with thrift; and to philosophy, and yet without mollification of the mind. And we use riches rather for opportunities of action than for verbal ostentation, and hold it not a shame to confess poverty but not to have avoided it. [2] Moreover there is in the same men a care both of their own and the public affairs and a sufficient knowledge of state matters even in those that labour with their hands. For we only think one that is utterly ignorant therein to be a man not that meddles with nothing but that is good for nothing. We likewise weigh what we undertake and apprehend it perfectly in our minds, not accounting words for a hindrance of action but that it is rather a hindrance to action to come to it without instruction of words before. [3] For also in this we excel others, daring to undertake as much as any and yet examining what we undertake; whereas with other men ignorance makes them dare, and consideration dastards. And they are most rightly reputed valiant who, though they perfectly apprehend both what is dangerous and what is easy, are never the more thereby diverted from adventuring. Again, we are contrary to most men in matter of bounty. [4] For we purchase our friends not by receiving but by bestowing benefits. And he that bestoweth a good turn is ever the most constant friend because he will not lose the thanks due unto him from him whom he bestowed it on. Whereas the friendship of him that oweth a benefit is dull and flat, as knowing his benefit not to be taken for a favour but for a debt. [5] So that we only do good to others not upon computation of profit but freeness of trust.

41. "In sum it may be said both that the city is in general a school of the Grecians, and that the men here have everyone in particular his person disposed to most diversity of actions, and yet all with grace and decency. [2] And that this is not now rather a bravery of words upon the occasion than real truth, this power of the city, which by these institutions we have obtained, maketh evident. [3] For it is the only power now found greater in proof than fame, and the only power, that neither grieveth the invader when he miscarries with the quality of those he was hurt by, nor giveth cause to the subjected states to murmur as being in subjection to men unworthy. [4] For both with present and future ages we shall be in admiration for a power not without testimony but made evident by great arguments, and which needeth not either a Homer to praise it or any other such whose poems may indeed for the present bring delight, but the truth will afterwards confute the opinion conceived of the actions. For we have opened unto us by our courage all seas and lands and set up eternal monuments on all sides both of the evil we have done to our enemies and the good we have done to our friends. [5]

"Such is the city for which these men, thinking it no reason to lose it, valiantly fighting have died. And it is fit that every man of you that be left should be like minded to undergo any travail for the same.

42. "And I have therefore spoken so much concerning the city in general as well to show you that the stakes between us and them, whose city is not such, are not equal as also to make known by effects the worth of these men I am to speak of, the greatest part of their praises being therein already delivered. [2] For what I have spoken of the city hath by these, and such as these, been achieved. Neither would praises and actions appear so levelly concurrent in many other of the Grecians as they do in these, the present revolution of these men's lives seeming unto me an argument of their virtues, noted in the first act thereof and in the last confirmed. [3] For even such of them as were worse than the rest do nevertheless deserve that for their valour shown in the wars for defence of their country they should be preferred before the rest. For having by their good actions abolished the memory of their evil, they have profited the state thereby more than they have hurt it by their private behaviour. [4] Yet there was none of these that preferring the further fruition of his wealth was thereby grown cowardly, or that for hope to overcome his poverty at length and to attain to riches did for that cause withdraw himself from the danger. For their principal desire was not wealth but revenge on their enemies, which esteeming the most honourable cause of danger, they made account through it both to accomplish their revenge and to purchase wealth withal; putting the uncertainty of success to the account of their hope, but for that which was before their eyes relying upon themselves in the action, and therein choosing rather to fight and die than to shrink-and be saved, they fled from shame, but with their bodies they stood out the battle; and so in a moment whilst fortune inclineth neither way, left their lives not in fear but in opinion of victory.

43. "Such were these men, worthy of their country. And for you that remain, you may pray for a safer fortune, but you ought not to be less venturously minded against the enemy, not weighing the profit by an oration only, which any man amplifying may recount to you that know as well as he the many commodities that arise by fighting valiantly against your enemies, but contemplating the power of the city in the actions of the same from day to day performed and thereby becoming enamoured of it. And when this power of the city shall seem great to you, consider then that the same was purchased by valiant men, and by men that knew their duty, and by men that were sensible of dishonour when they were in fight, and by such men as, though they failed of their attempt, yet would not be wanting to the city with their virtue but made unto it a most honourable contribution. [2] For having everyone given his body to the commonwealth, they receive in place thereof an undecaying commendation and a most remarkable sepulchre not wherein they are buried so much as wherein their glory is laid up upon all occasions both of speech and action to be remembered forever. [3] For to famous men all the earth is a sepulchre; and their virtues shall be testified not only by the inscription in stone at home but by an unwritten record of the mind, which more than of any monument will remain with everyone forever. [4] In imitation therefore of these men and placing happiness in liberty and liberty in valour, be forward to encounter the dangers of war. [5] For the miserable and desperate men are not they that have the most reason to be prodigal of their lives, but rather such men as, if they live, may expect a change of fortune and whose losses are greatest if they miscarry in aught. [6] For to a man of any spirit death, which is without sense, arriving whilst he is in vigour and common hope, is nothing so bitter as after a tender life to be brought into misery.

44. "Wherefore I will not so much bewail as comfort you, the parents, that are present, of these men. For you know that whilst they lived, they were obnoxious to manifold calamities. Whereas whilst you are in grief, they only are happy that die honourably as these have done, and to whom it hath been granted not only to live in prosperity but to die in it. [2] Though it be a hard matter to dissuade you from sorrow for the loss of that which the happiness of others, wherein you also when time was rejoiced yourselves, shall so often bring into your remembrance (for sorrow is not for the want of a good never tasted but for the privation of a good we have been used to); [3] yet such of you as are of the age to have children may bear the loss of these in the hope of more. For the later children will both draw on with some the oblivion of those that are slain and also doubly conduce to the good of the city by population and strength. For it is not likely that they should equally give good counsel to the state that have not children to be equally exposed to danger in it. [4] As for you that are past having of children, you are to put the former and greater part of your life to the account of your gain; and supposing the remainder of it will be but short, you shall have the glory of these for a consolation of the same. For the love of honour never growth old, nor doth that unprofitable part of our life take delight (as some have said) in gathering of wealth so much as it doth in being honoured.

45. "As for you that are the children or brethren of these men, I see you shall have a difficult task of emulation. For every man useth to praise the dead, so that with odds of virtue you will hardly get an equal reputation but still be thought a little short. For men envy their competitors in glory while they live, but to stand out of their way is a thing honoured with an affection free from opposition. [2] And since I must say somewhat also of feminine virtue for you that are now widows, I shall express it in this short admonition. It will be much for your honour not to recede from your sex and to give as little occasion of rumour amongst the men, whether of good or evil, as you can.

46. ‘Thus also have I, according to the prescript of the law, delivered in word what was expedient; and those that are here interred have in fact been already honoured; and further, their children shall be maintained till they be at man's estate at the charge of the city, which hath therein propounded both to these and them that live a profitable garland in their matches of valour. For where the rewards of virtue are greatest, there live the worthiest men. [2] So now having lamented everyone his own, you may be gone.’

47. Such was the funeral made this winter, which ending, ended the first year of this war. [2]

In the very beginning of summer the Peloponnesians and their confederates, with two-thirds of their forces as before, invaded Attica under the conduct of Archidamus the son of Zeuxidamas, king of Lacedaemon, and after they had encamped themselves, wasted the country about them. [3] They had not been many days in Attica when the plague first began amongst the Athenians, said also to have seized formerly on divers other parts, as about Lemnos and elsewhere; but so great a plague and mortality of men was never remembered to have happened in any place before. [4] For at first neither were the physicians able to cure it through ignorance of what it was but died fastest themselves, as being the men that most approached the sick, nor any other art of man availed whatsoever. All supplications to the gods and enquiries of oracles and whatsoever other means they used of that kind proved all unprofitable; insomuch as subdued with the greatness of the evil, they gave them all over.

48. It began, by report, first in that part of Ethiopia that lieth upon Egypt, and thence fell down into Egypt and Africa and into the greatest part of the territories of the king. [2] It invaded Athens on a sudden and touched first upon those that dwelt in Piraeus, insomuch as they reported that the Peloponnesians had cast poison into their wells (for springs there were not any in that place). But afterwards it came up into the high city, and then they died a great deal faster. [3] Now let every man, physician or other, concerning the ground of this sickness, whence it sprung, and what causes he thinks able to produce so great an alteration, speak according to his own knowledge. For my own part, I will deliver but the manner of it and lay open only such things as one may take his mark by to discover the same if it come again, having been both sick of it myself and seen others sick of the same.

49. This year, by confession of all men, was of all other, for other diseases, most free and healthful. If any man were sick before, his disease turned to this; [2] if not, yet suddenly, without any apparent cause preceding and being in perfect health, they were taken first with an extreme ache in their heads, redness and inflammation of the eyes; and then inwardly, their throats and tongues grew presently bloody and their breath noisome and unsavoury. [3] Upon this followed a sneezing and hoarseness, and not long after the pain, together with a mighty cough, came down into the breast. And when once it was settled in the stomach, it caused vomit; and with great torment came up all manner of bilious purgation that physicians ever named. [4] Most of them had also the hickyexe which brought with it a strong convulsion, and in some ceased quickly but in others was long before it gave over. [5] Their bodies outwardly to the touch were neither very hot nor pale but reddish, livid, and beflowered with little pimples and whelks, but so burned inwardly as not to endure any the lightest clothes or linen garment to be upon them nor anything but mere nakedness, but rather most willingly to have cast themselves into the cold water. And many of them that were not looked to, possessed with insatiate thirst, ran unto the wells, and to drink much or little was indifferent, being still from ease and power to sleep as far as ever. [6] As long as the disease was at its height, their bodies wasted not but resisted the torment beyond all expectation; insomuch as the most of them either died of their inward burning in nine or seven days whilst they had yet strength, or, if they escaped that, then the disease falling down into their bellies and causing there great exulcerations and immoderate looseness, they died many of them afterwards through weakness. For the disease, which took first the head, began above and came down and passed through the whole body; [7] and he that overcame the worst of it was yet marked with the loss of his extreme parts; [8] for breaking out both at their privy members and at their fingers and toes, many with the loss of these escaped; there were also some that lost their eyes. And many that presently upon their recovery were taken with such an oblivion of all things whatsoever, as they neither knew themselves nor their acquaintance.

50. For this was a kind of sickness which far surmounted all expression of words and both exceeded human nature in the cruelty wherewith it handled each one and appeared also otherwise to be none of those diseases that are bred amongst us, and that especially by this. For all, both birds and beasts, that use to feed on human flesh, though many men lay abroad unburied, either came not at them or tasting perished. [2] An argument whereof as touching the birds is the manifest defect of such fowl, which were not then seen, neither about the carcases or anywhere else. But by the dogs, because they are familiar with men, this effect was seen much clearer.

51. So that this disease (to pass over many strange particulars of the accidents that some had differently from others) was in general such as I have shown, and for other usual sicknesses at that time no man was troubled with any. Now they died some for want of attendance and some again with all the care and physic that could be used. [2] Nor was there any to say certain medicine that applied must have helped them; for if it did good to one, it did harm to another. [3] Nor any difference of body, for strength or weakness, that was able to resist it; but it carried all away, what physic soever was administered. [4] But the greatest misery of all was the dejection of mind in such as found themselves beginning to be sick (for they grew presently desperate and gave themselves over without making any resistance), as also their dying thus like sheep, infected by mutual visitation, for the greatest mortality proceeded that way. For if men forebore to visit them for fear, then they died forlorn; [5] whereby many families became empty for want of such as should take care of them. If they forbore not, then they died themselves, and principally the honestest men. For out of shame they would not spare themselves but went in unto their friends, especially after it was come to this pass that even their domestics, wearied with the lamentations of them that died and overcome with the greatness of the calamity, were no longer moved therewith. [6] But those that were recovered had much compassion both on them that died and on them that lay sick, as having both known the misery themselves and now no more subject to the danger. For this disease never took any man the second time so as to be mortal. And these men were both by others counted happy, and they also themselves, through excess of present joy, conceived a kind of light hope never to die of any other sickness hereafter.

52. Besides the present affliction, the reception of the country people and of their substance into the city oppressed both them and much more the people themselves that so came in. [2] For having no houses but dwelling at that time of the year in stifling booths, the mortality was now without all form; and dying men lay tumbling one upon another in the streets, and men halfdead about every conduit through desire of water. The temples also where they dwelt in tents were all full of the dead that died within them. [3] For oppressed with the violence of the calamity and not knowing what to do, men grew careless both of holy and profane things alike. [4] And the laws which they formerly used touching funerals were all now broken, every one burying where he could find room. And many for want of things necessary, after so many deaths before, were forced to become impudent in the funerals of their friends. For when one had made a funeral pile, another getting before him would throw on his dead and give it fire. And when one was in burning, another would come and, having cast thereon him whom he carried, go his way again.

53. And the great licentiousness, which also in other kinds was used in the city, began at first from this disease. For that which a man before would dissemble and not acknowledge to be done for voluptuousness, he durst now do freely, seeing before his eyes such quick revolution, of the rich dying and men worth nothing inheriting their estates. [2] Insomuch as they justified a speedy fruition of their goods even for their pleasure, as men that thought they held their lives but by the day. [3] As for pains, no man was forward in any action of honour to take any because they thought it uncertain whether they should die or not before they achieved it. But what any man knew to be delightful and to be profitable to pleasure, that was made both profitable and honourable. [4] Neither the fear of the gods nor laws of men awed any man, not the former because they concluded it was alike to worship or not worship from seeing that alike they all perished, nor the latter because no man expected that lives would last till he received punishment of his crimes by judgment. But they thought there was now over their heads some far greater judgment decreed against them before which fell, they thought to enjoy some little part of their lives.

54. Such was the misery into which the Athenians being fallen were much oppressed, having not only their men killed by the disease within but the enemy also laying waste their fields and villages without. [2] In this sickness also (as it was not unlikely they would) they called to mind this verse said also of the elder sort to have been uttered of old: [3]

A Doric war shall fall,
And a great plague withal.

55. After the Peloponnesians had wasted the champaign country, they fell upon the territory called Paralos as far as to the mountain Laurius where the Athenians had silver mines, and first wasted that part of it which looketh towards Peloponnesus and then that also which lieth toward Andros and Euboea. [2] And Pericles, who was also then general, was still of the same mind he was of in the former invasion, that the Athenians ought not to go out against them to battle.

56. Whilst they were yet in the plain and before they entered into the maritime country, he furnished a hundred galleys to go about Peloponnesus and, as soon as they were ready, put to sea. [2] In these galleys he had four thousand men of arms, and in vessels then purposely first made to carry horses, three hundred horsemen. [3] The Chians and Lesbians joined likewise with him with fifty galleys. This fleet of the Athenians, when it set forth, left the Peloponnesians still in Paralia; [4] and coming before Epidaurus, a city of Peloponnesus, they wasted much of the country thereabout and assaulting the city had a hope to take it, though it succeeded not. [5] Leaving Epidaurus, they wasted the territories about of Troezene, Halias, and Hermione, places all on the seacoast of Peloponnesus. [6] Putting off from hence, they came to Prasiae, a small maritime city of Laconia, and both wasted the territory about it and took and razed the town itself. And having done this, came home and found the Peloponnesians not now in Attica but gone back.

57. All the while the Peloponnesians were in the territory of the Athenians and the Athenians abroad with their fleet, the sickness, both in the army and city, destroyed many, insomuch as it was said that the Peloponnesians, fearing the sickness (which they knew to be in the city both by fugitives and by seeing the Athenians burying their dead), went the sooner away out of the country. [2] And yet they stayed there longer in this invasion than they had done anytime before and wasted even the whole territory, for they continued in Attica almost forty days.

58. The same summer Agnon the son of Nicias and Cleopompus the son of Clinias, who were joint commanders with Pericles with that army which he had employed before, went presently and made war upon the Chalcideans of Thrace and against Potidaea which was yet besieged. [2] Arriving, they presently applied engines and tried all means possible to take it, but neither the taking of the city nor anything else succeeded worthy so great preparation. For the sickness coming amongst them afflicted them mightily indeed and even devoured the army. And the Athenian soldiers which were there before and in health catched the sickness from those that came with Agnon. As for Phormio and his sixteen hundred, they were not now amongst the Chalcideans. [3] And Agnon therefore came back with his fleet, having of four thousand men in less than forty days lost one thousand and fifty of the plague. But the soldiers that were there before stayed upon the place and continued the siege of Potidaea.

59. After the second invasion of the Peloponnesians the Athenians, having their fields now the second time wasted and both the sickness and war falling upon them at once, changed their minds and accused Pericles, as if by his means they had been brought into these calamities, and desired earnestly to compound with the Lacedaemonians, to whom also they sent certain ambassadors, but they returned without effect. [2] And being then at their wits' end, they kept a stir at Pericles. [3] And he, seeing them vexed with their present calamity and doing all those things which he had before expected, called an assembly (for he was yet general) with intention to put them again into heart and, assuaging their passion, to reduce their minds to a more calm and less dismayed temper. And standing forth, he spake unto them in this manner:

60. "Your anger towards me cometh not unlooked for, for the cause of it I know. And I have called this assembly, therefore, to remember you and reprehend you for those things wherein you have either been angry with me or given way to your adversity without reason. [2] For I am of this opinion, that the public prosperity of the city is better for private men than if the private men themselves were in prosperity and the public wealth in decay. [3] For a private man, though in good estate, if his country come to ruin, must of necessity be ruined with it; whereas he that miscarrieth in a flourishing commonwealth shall much more easily be preserved. [4] Since then the commonwealth is able to bear the calamities of private men, and everyone cannot support the calamities of the commonwealth, why should not everyone strive to defend it and not, as you now, astonished with domestic misfortune, forsake the common safety and fall a-censuring both me that counselled the war and yourselves that decreed the same as well as I? [5] And it is I you are angry withal, one, as I think myself, inferior to none either in knowing what is requisite or in expressing what I know, and a lover of my country and superior to money. [6] For he that hath good thoughts and cannot clearly express them were as good to have thought nothing at all. He that can do both and is ill affected to his country will likewise not give it faithful counsel. And he that will do that too yet if he be superable by money will for that alone set all the rest to sale. [7] Now if you followed my advice in making this war, as esteeming these virtues to be in me somewhat above the rest, there is sure no reason that I should now be accused of doing you wrong.

61. "For though to such as have it in their own election (being otherwise in good estate), it were madness to make choice of war; yet when we must of necessity either give way, and so without more ado be subject to our neighbours, or else save ourselves from it by danger, he is more to be condemned that declineth the danger than he that standeth to it. [2] For mine own part I am the man I was and of the mind I was; but you are changed, won to the war when you were entire but repenting it upon the damage and condemning my counsel in the weakness of your own judgment. The reason of this is because you feel already everyone in particular that which afflicts you, but the evidence of the profit to accrue to the city in general you see not yet. [3] And your minds, dejected with the great and sudden alteration, cannot constantly maintain what you have before resolved. For that which is sudden and unexpected and contrary to what one hath deliberated enslaveth the spirit, which by this disease principally, in the neck of the other incommodities, is now come to pass in you. [4] But you that are born in a great city and with education suitable, how great soever the affliction be, ought not to shrink at it and eclipse your reputation (for men do no less condemn those that through cowardice lose the glory they have than hate those that through impudence arrogate the glory they have not) but to set aside the grief of your private losses and lay your hands to the common safety.

62. "As for the toil of the war, that it may perhaps be long and we in the end never the nearer to victory, though that may suffice which I have demonstrated at other times touching your causeless suspicion that way, yet this I will tell you, moreover, touching the greatness of your means for dominion, which neither you yourselves seem ever to have thought on nor I touched in my former orations, nor would I also have spoken it now but that I see your minds dejected more than there is cause for. [2] That though you take your dominion to extend only to your confederates, I affirm that of the two parts of the world of manifest use, the land and the sea, you are of one of them entire masters, both of as much of it as you make use of and also of as much more as you shall think fit yourselves. Neither is there any king or nation whatsoever of those that now are that can impeach your navigation with the fleet and strength you now go. [3] So that you must not put the use of houses and lands wherein now you think yourselves deprived of a mighty matter into the balance with such a power as this nor take the loss of these things heavily in respect of it, but rather set little by them as but a light ornament and embellishment of wealth, and think that our liberty as long as we hold fast that will easily recover unto us these things again; whereas subjected once to others, even that which we possess besides will be diminished. Show not yourselves both ways inferior to your ancestors, who not only held this (gotten by their own labours not left them) but have also preserved and delivered the same unto us (for it is more dishonour to lose what one possesseth than to miscarry in the acquisition of it), and encounter the enemy not only with magnanimity but also with disdain. [4] For a coward may have a high mind upon a prosperous ignorance; but he that is confident upon judgment to be superior to his enemy doth also disdain him, which is now our case. [5] And courage in equal fortune is the safer for our disdain of the enemy where a man knows what he doth; for he trusteth less to hope, which is of force only in uncertainties, and more to judgment upon certainties, wherein there is a more sure foresight.

63. "You have reason besides to maintain the dignity the city hath gotten for her dominion in which you all triumph, and either not decline the pains or not also pursue the honour. And you must not think the question is now of your liberty and servitude only. Besides the loss of your rule over others, you must stand the danger you have contracted by offence given in the administration of it. [2] Nor can you now give it over (if any fearing at this present that that may come to pass, encourage himself with the intention of not to meddle hereafter), for already your government is in the nature of a tyranny, which is both unjust for you to take up and unsafe to lay down. [3] And such men as these, if they could persuade others to it or lived in a free city by themselves, would quickly overthrow it. For the quiet life can never be preserved if it be not ranged with the active life, nor is it a life conducible to a city that reigneth but to a subject city that it may safely serve.

64. ‘Be not therefore seduced by this sort of men nor angry with me, together with whom yourselves did decree this war, because the enemy invading you hath done what was likely he would if you obeyed him not. And as for the sickness, the only thing that exceeded the imagination of all men, it was unlooked for; and I know you hate me somewhat the more for that, but unjustly, unless when anything falleth out above your expectation fortunate, you will also dedicate unto me that. [2] Evils that come from heaven you must bear necessarily, and such as proceed from your enemies, valiantly; for so it hath been the custom of this city to do heretofore, which custom let it not be your part to reverse. [3] Knowing that this city hath a great name amongst all people for not yielding to adversity and for the mighty power it yet hath after the expense of so many lives and so much labour in the war, the memory whereof, though we should now at length miscarry (for all things are made with this law, to decay again), will remain with posterity forever. How that being Grecians, most of the Grecians were our subjects; that we have abided the greatest wars against them, both universally and singly, and have inhabited the greatest and wealthiest city. [4] Now this he with the quiet life will condemn, the active man will emulate, and they that have not attained to the like will envy. [5] But to be hated and to displease is a thing that happeneth for the time to whosoever he be that hath the command of others; and he does well, that undergoeth hatred for matters of great consequence. For the hatred lasteth not and is recompensed both with a present splendour and an immortal glory hereafter. [6] Seeing then you foresee both what is honourable for the future and not dishonourable for the present procure both the one and the other by your courage now. Send no more heralds to the Lacedaemonians, nor let them know the evil present does anyway afflict you; for they whose minds least feel and whose actions most oppose a calamity both among states and private persons are the best.’

65. In this speech did Pericles endeavour to appease the anger of the Athenians towards himself and withal to withdraw their thoughts from the present affliction. [2] But they, though for the state in general they were won and sent to the Lacedaemonians no more but rather inclined to the war, yet they were everyone in particular grieved for their several losses: the poor because entering the war with little, they lost that little; and the rich because they had lost fair possessions, together with goodly houses and costly furniture in them, in the country; but the greatest matter of all was that they had war instead of peace. [3] And altogether, they deposed not their anger till they had first fined him in a sum of money. [4] Nevertheless, not long after (as is the fashion of the multitude) they made him general again and committed the whole state to his administration. For the sense of their domestic losses was now dulled, and for the need of the commonwealth they prized him more than any other whatsoever. [5] For as long as he was in authority in the city in time of peace, he governed the same with moderation and was a faithful watchman of it; and in his time it was at the greatest. [6] And after the war was on foot, it is manifest that he therein also foresaw what it could do. He lived after the war began two years and six months. [7] And his foresight in the war was best known after his death. For he told them that if they would be quiet and look to their navy, and during this war seek no further dominion nor hazard the city itself, they should then have the upper hand. But they did contrary in all, and in such other things besides as seemed not to concern the war managed the state, according to their private ambition and covetousness, perniciously both for themselves and their confederates. What succeeded well the honour and profit of it came most to private men, and what miscarried was to the city's detriment in the war. [8] The reason whereof was this: that being a man of great power both for his dignity and wisdom, and for bribes manifestly the most incorrupt, he freely controlled the multitude and was not so much led by them as he led them. Because, having gotten his power by no evil arts, he would not humour them in his speeches but out of his authority durst anger them with contradiction. [9] Therefore, whensoever he saw them out of season insolently bold, he would with his orations put them into a fear; and again, when they were afraid without reason, he would likewise erect their spirits and embolden them. [10] It was in name a state democratical, but in fact a government of the principal man. But they that came after, being more equal amongst themselves and affecting everyone to be the chief, applied themselves to the people and let go the care of the commonwealth. [11] From whence amongst many other errors, as was likely in a great and dominant city, proceeded also the voyage into Sicily, which was not so much upon mistaking those whom they went against as for want of knowledge in the senders of what was necessary for those that went the voyage. For through private quarrels about who should bear the greatest sway with the people they both abated the vigour of the army and then also first troubled the state at home with division. [12] Being overthrown in Sicily and having lost, besides other ammunition, the greatest part of their navy, and the city being then in sedition, yet they held out three years both against their first enemies and the Sicilians with them and against most of their revolted confederates besides, and also afterwards against Cyrus the king's son, who took part with and sent money to the Peloponnesians to maintain their fleet and never shrunk till they had overthrown themselves with private dissensions. [13] So much was in Pericles above other men at that time that he could foresee by what means the city might easily have outlasted the Peloponnesians in this war.

66. The Lacedaemonians and their confederates made war the same summer with one hundred galleys against Zacynthus, an island lying over against Elis. The inhabitants whereof were a colony of Achaeans of Peloponnesus but confederates of the people of Athens. [2] There went in this fleet a thousand men of arms and Cnemus a Spartan for admiral, who, landing, wasted the greatest part of the territory. But they of the island not yielding, they put off again and went home.

67. In the end of the same summer, Aristeus of Corinth and Aneristus, Nicolaus, Stratodemus, and Timagorus of Tegea, ambassadors of the Lacedaemonians, and Pollis of Argos, a private man, as they were travelling into Asia to the king to get money of him and to draw him into their league, took Thrace in their way and came unto Sitalces the son of Teres with a desire to get him also, if they could, to forsake the league with Athens and to send his forces to Potidaea, which the Athenian army now besieged, and not to aid the Athenians any longer, and withal to get leave to pass through his country to the other side of the Hellespont to go, as they intended, to Pharnabazus the son of Pharnaces, who would convoy them to the king. [2] But the ambassadors of Athens, Learchus the son of Callimachus and Ameiniades the son of Philemon, then resident with Sitalces, persuaded Sadocus the son of Sitalces, who was now a citizen of Athens, to put them into their hands that they might not go to the king and do hurt to the city whereof he himself was now a member. [3] Whereunto condescending, as they journeyed through Thrace to take ship to cross the Hellespont, he apprehended them before they got to the ship by such others as he sent along with Learchus and Ameiniades with command to deliver them into their hands. [4] And they, when they had them, sent them away to Athens. When they came thither, the Athenians, fearing Aristeus, lest escaping he should do them further mischief (for he was manifestly the author of all the business of Potidaea and about Thrace), the same day put them all to death, unjudged and desirous to have spoken, and threw them into the pits, thinking it but just to take revenge of the Lacedaemonians that began it and had slain and thrown into pits the merchants of the Athenians and their confederates whom they took sailing in merchant ships about the coast of Peloponnesus. For in the beginning of the war, the Lacedaemonians slew as enemies whomsoever they took at sea, whether confederates of the Athenians or neutral, all alike.

68. About the same time, in the end of summer, the Ambraciotes, both they themselves and divers barbarian nations by them raised, made war against Argos of Amphilochia and against the rest of that territory. [2] The quarrel between them and the Argives arose first from hence. [3] This Argos and the rest of Amphilochia was planted by Amphilochus the son of Amphiaraus after the Trojan war, who, at his return, misliking the then state of Argos, built this city in the Gulf of Ambracia and called it Argos after the name of his own country. [4] And it was the greatest city and had the most wealthy inhabitants of all Amphilochia. [5] But many generations after, being fallen into misery, they communicated their city with the Ambraciotes, bordering upon Amphilochia; and then they first learned the Greek language now used from the Ambraciotes that lived among them. [6] For the rest of the Amphilochians were barbarians. [7] Now the Ambraciotes in process of time drave out the Argives and held the city by themselves. Whereupon the Amphilochians submitted themselves to the Acarnanians, and both together called in the Athenians who sent thirty galleys to their aid and Phormio for general. Phormio, being arrived, took Argos by assault and, making slaves of the Ambraciotes, put the town into the joint possessions of the Amphilochians and Acarnanians. [8] And this was the beginning of the league between the Athenians and Acarnanians. [9] The Ambraciotes therefore, deriving their hatred to the Argives from this their captivity, came in with an army partly of their own and partly raised amongst the Chaonians and other neighboring barbarians now in this war. And coming to Argos, were masters of the field; but when they could not take the city by assault, they returned and disbanding went every nation to his own. These were the acts of the summer.

69. In the beginning of the winter the Athenians sent twenty galleys about Peloponnesus under the command of Phormio, who, coming to lie at Naupactus, guarded the passage that none might go in or out from Corinth and the Crisaean gulf. And other six galleys under the conduct of Melesander they sent into Caria and Lycia, as well to gather tribute in those parts as also to hinder the Peloponnesian pirates lying on those coasts from molesting the navigation of such merchant ships as they expected to come to them from Phaselis, Phoenicia, and that part of the continent. [2] But Melesander, landing in Lycia with such forces of the Athenians and their confederates as he had aboard, was overcome in battle and slain with the loss of a part of his army.

70. The same winter, the Potidaeans, unable any longer to endure the siege, seeing the invasion of Attica by the Peloponnesians could not make them rise and seeing their victual failed and that they were forced, amongst divers other things done by them for necessity of food, to eat one another, propounded at length to Xenophon the son of Euripides, Hestiodorus the son of Aristocleidas, and Phanomachus the son of Callimachus, the Athenian commanders that lay before the city, to give the same into their hands. [2] And they, seeing both that the army was already afflicted by lying in that cold place and that the state had already spent two thousand talents upon the siege, accepted of it. The conditions agreed on were these: [3] ‘to depart, they and their wives and children and their auxiliary soldiers, every man with one suit of clothes and every woman with two, and to take with them everyone a certain sum of money for his charges by the way.’ Hereupon a truce was granted them to depart; [4] and they went, some to the Chalcideans and others to other places as they could get to. But the people of Athens called the commanders in question for compounding without them, conceiving that they might have gotten the city to discretion, and sent afterwards a colony to Potidaea of their own citizens. These were the things done in this winter. And so ended the second year of this war, written by Thucydides.

71. The next summer, the Peloponnesians and their confederates came not into Attica but turned their arms against Plataea, led by Archidamus the son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, who, having pitched his camp, was about to waste the territory thereof. But the Plataeans sent ambassadors presently unto him with words to this effect: [2] ‘Archidamus, and you Lacedaemonians, you do neither justly nor worthy yourselves and ancestors in making war upon Plataea. For Pausanias of Lacedaemon, the son of Cleombrotus, having, together with such Grecians as were content to undergo the danger of the battle that was fought in this our territory, delivered all Greece from the slavery of the Persians, when he offered sacrifice in the market-place of Plataea to Jupiter the deliverer, called together all the confederates and granted to the Plataeans this privilege: that their city and territory should be free; that none should make any unjust war against them nor go about to subject them; and if any did, the confederates then present should to their utmost ability revenge their quarrel. [3] These privileges your fathers granted us for our valour and zeal in those dangers. But now do you the clean contrary; for you join with our greatest enemies, the Thebans, to bring us into subjection. [4] Therefore calling to witness the gods then sworn by and the gods both of your and our country, we require you that you do no damage to the territory of Plataea nor violate those oaths, but that you suffer us to enjoy our liberty in such sort as was allowed us by Pausanias.’

72. The Plataeans having thus said, Archidamus replied and said thus: ‘Men of Plataea, if you would do as ye say, you say what is just. For as Pausanias hath granted to you, so also be you free and help to set free the rest, who, having been partakers of the same dangers then and being comprised in the same oath with yourselves, are now brought into subjection by the Athenians. And this so great preparation and war is only for the deliverance of them and others, of which if you will especially participate, keep your oaths; at least (as we have also advised you formerly) be quiet and enjoy your own in neutrality, receiving both sides in the way of friendship, neither side in the way of faction.’ Thus said Archidamus. [2] And the ambassadors of Plataea, when they had heard him, returned to the city, and having communicated his answer to the people, brought word again to Archidamus: ‘that what he had advised was impossible for them to perform without leave of the Athenians in whose keeping were their wives and children; and that they feared also for the whole city lest when the Lacedaemonians were gone, the Athenians should come and take the custody of it out of their hands; or that the Thebans, comprehended in the oath of receiving both sides, should again attempt to surprise it.’ But Archidamus, to encourage them, made this answer: [3] ‘Deliver you unto us Lacedaemonians your city and your houses, show us the bounds of your territory, give us your trees by tale, and whatsoever else can be numbered; and depart yourselves whither you shall think good as long as the war lasteth: and when it shall be ended, we will deliver it all unto you again. In the meantime we will keep them as deposited and will cultivate your ground and pay you rent for it, as much as shall suffice for your maintenance.’

73. Hereupon the ambassadors went again into the city and, having consulted with the people, made answer ‘that they would first acquaint the Athenians with it, and if they would consent, they would then accept the conditions; till then, they desired a suspension of arms and not to have their territory wasted.’ Upon this he granted them so many days truce, as was requisite for their return, and for so long forebore to waste their territory. [2] When the Plataean ambassadors were arrived at Athens and had advised on the matter with the Athenians, they returned to the city with this answer: [3] ‘The Athenians say thus: that neither in former times, since we were their confederates, did they ever abandon us to the injuries of any, nor will they now neglect us but give us their utmost assistance. And they conjure us by the oath of our fathers not to make any alienation touching the league.’

74. When the ambassadors had made this report, the Plataeans resolved in their councils not to betray the Athenians but rather to endure, if it must be, the wasting of their territory before their eyes and to suffer whatsoever misery could befall them, and no more to go forth but from the walls to make this answer: [2] ‘that it was impossible for them to do as the Lacedaemonians had required.’ When they had answered so, Archidamus, the king, first made a protestation to the gods and heros of the country, saying thus: ‘All ye Gods and Heros, protectors of Plataeis, be witnesses that we neither invade this territory (wherein our fathers after their vows unto you overcame the Medes, and which you made propitious for the Grecians to fight in) unjustly now in the beginning because they have first broken the league they had sworn, nor what we shall further do will be any injury because, though we have offered many and reasonable conditions, they have yet been all refused; assent ye also to the punishment of the beginners of injury and to the revenge of those that bear lawful arms.’

75. Having made this protestation to the gods, he made ready his army for the war.

And first having felled trees, he therewith made a palisade about the town that none might go out. That done, he raised a mount against the wall, hoping with so great an army all at work at once, to have quickly taken it. [2] And having cut down wood in the hill Cithaeron, they built a frame of timber and wattled it about on either side to serve instead of walls to keep the earth from falling too much away and cast into it stones and earth and whatsoever else would serve to fill it up. [3] Seventy days and nights continually they poured on, dividing the work between them for rest in such manner as some might be carrying, whilst others took their sleep and food. And they were urged to labour by the Lacedaemonians that commanded the mercenaries of the several cities and had the charge of the work. [4] The Plataeans, seeing the mount to rise, made the frame of a wall with wood which, having placed on the wall of the city in the place where the mount touched, they built it within full of bricks taken from the adjoining houses for that purpose demolished, the timber serving to bind them together that the building might not be weakened by the height. [5] The same was also covered with hides and quilts both to keep the timber from shot of wildfire and those that wrought from danger. [6] So that the height of the wall was great on one side, and the mount went up as fast on the other. The Plataeans used also this device: they brake a hole in their own wall where the mount joined and drew the earth from it into the city.

76. But the Peloponnesians, when they found it out, took clay and therewith daubing hurdles of reeds cast the same into the chink, which mouldering not, as did the earth, they could not draw it away. [2] The Plataeans, excluded here, gave over that plot, and digging a secret mine, which they carried under the mount from within the city by conjecture, fetched away the earth again and were a long time undiscovered; so that still casting on, the mount grew still less, the earth being drawn away below and settling over the part where it was voided. [3] The Plataeans, nevertheless, fearing that they should not be able even thus to hold out, being few against many, devised this further. They gave over working at the high wall against the mount and, beginning at both ends of it where the wall was low, built another wall in form of a crescent, inward to the city; that if the great wall were taken, this might resist and put the enemy to make another mount, and by coming further in to be at double pains and withal more encompassable with shot. [4] The Peloponnesians, together with the rising of their mount, brought to the city their engines of battery. One of which, by the help of the mount, they applied to the high wall, wherewith they much shook it and put the Plataeans into great fear. And others to other parts of the wall, which the Plataeans partly turned aside by casting ropes about them and partly with great beams, which, being hung in long iron chains by either end upon two other great beams jetting over and inclining from above the wall like two horns, they drew up to them athwart; and where the engine was about to light, slacking the chains and letting their hands go, they let fall with violence to break the beak of it.

77. After this the Peloponnesians, seeing their engines availed not and thinking it hard to take the city by any present violence, prepared themselves to besiege it. But first they thought fit to attempt it by fire, being no great city, and when the wind should rise, if they could, to burn it; [2] for there was no way they did not think on to have gained it without expense and long siege. [3] Having therefore brought faggots, they cast them from the mount into the space between it and their new wall, which by so many hands was quickly filled, and then into as much of the rest of the city as at that distance they could reach and, throwing amongst them fire, together with brimstone and pitch, kindled the wood and raised such a flame, as the like was never seen before made by the hand of man. [4] For as for the woods in the mountains, the trees have indeed taken fire; but it hath been by mutual attrition and have flamed out of their own accord. [5] But this fire was a great one, and the Plataeans that had escaped other mischiefs wanted little of being consumed by this. For near the wall they could not get by a great way; and if the wind had been with it (as the enemy hoped it might), they could never have escaped. [6] It is also reported that there fell much rain then with great thunder and that the flame was extinguished and the danger ceased by that.

78. The Peloponnesians, when they failed likewise of this, retaining a part of their army and dismissing the rest, enclosed the city about with a wall, dividing the circumference thereof to the charge of the several cities. There was a ditch both within and without it out of which they made their bricks; [2] and after it was finished, which was about the rising of Arcturus, they left a guard for one half of the wall (for the other was guarded by the Boeotians) and departed with the rest of their army and were dissolved according to their cities. [3] The Plataeans had before this sent their wives and children and all their unserviceable men to Athens. The rest were besieged, being in number of the Plataeans themselves four hundred, of Athenians eighty, and a hundred and ten women to dress their meat. [4] These were all when the siege was first laid and not one more, neither free nor bond, in the city. In this manner was the city besieged.

79. The same summer at the same time that this journey was made against Plataea, the Athenians with two thousand men of arms of their own city and two hundred horsemen made war upon the Chalcideans of Thrace and the Bottiaeans, when the corn was at the highest, under the conduct of Xenophon the son of Euripides and two others. [2] These coming before Spartolus in Bottiaea destroyed the corn and expected that the town should have been rendered by the practice of some within. But such as would not have it so having sent for aid to Olynthus before, there came into the city for safeguard thereof a supply both of men of arms and other soldiers from thence. [3] And these issuing forth of Spartolus, the Athenians put themselves into order of battle under the town itself. The men of arms of the Chalcideans and certain auxiliaries with them were overcome by the Athenians and retired within Spartolus. [4] And the horsemen of the Chalcideans and their light-armed soldiers overcame the horsemen and light-armed of the Athenians, but they had some few targeteers besides of the territory called Crusis. When the battle was now begun, came a supply of other targeteers from Olynthus. [5] Which the light-armed soldiers of Spartolus perceiving, emboldened both by this addition of strength and also as having had the better before, with the Chalcidean horse and this new supply charged the Athenians afresh. The Athenians hereupon retired to two companies they had left with the carriages. [6] And as oft as the Athenians charged, the Chalcideans retired; and when the Athenians retired, the Chalcideans charged them with their shot. Especially the Chalcidean horsemen rode up and, charging them where they thought fit, forced the Athenians in extreme affright to turn their backs and chased them a great way. [7] The Athenians fled to Potidaea and, having afterwards fetched away the bodies of their dead upon truce, returned with the remainder of their army to Athens. Four hundred and thirty men they lost and their chief commanders all three. And the Chalcideans and Bottiaeans, when they had set up a trophy and taken up their dead bodies, disbanded and went everyone to his city.

80. Not long after this, the same summer, the Ambraciotes and Chaonians, desiring to subdue all Acarnania and to make it revolt from the Athenians, persuaded the Lacedaemonians to make ready a fleet out of the confederate cities and to send a thousand men of arms into Acarnania, saying that if they aided them both with a fleet and a land army at once, the Acarnanians of the seacoast being thereby disabled to assist the rest, having easily gained Acarnania they might be masters afterward both of Zacynthus and Cephalonia and the Athenians hereafter less able to make their voyages about Peloponnesus, and that there was a hope beside to take Naupactus. [2] The Peloponnesians assenting sent thither Cnemus, who was yet admiral, with his men of arms in a few galleys immediately, and withal sent word to the cities about, as soon as their galleys were ready, to sail with all speed to Leucas. [3] Now the Corinthians were very zealous in the behalf of the Ambraciotes, as being their own colony. And the galleys which were to go from Corinth, Sicyonia, and that part of the coast were now making ready; [4] and those of the Leucadians, Anactorians, and Ambraciotes were arrived before and stayed at Leucas for their coming. Cnemus and his thousand men of arms, when they had crossed the sea undescried of Phormio, who commanded the twenty Athenian galleys that kept watch at Naupactus, presently prepared for the war by land. [5] He had in his army of Grecians, the Ambraciotes, Leucadians, Anactorians, and the thousand Peloponnesians he brought with him; and of barbarians, a thousand Chaonians, who have no king but were led by Photius and Nicanor, which two being of the families eligible had now the annual government. With the Chaonians came also the Thesprctians, they also without a king. [6] The Molossians and Atintanians were led by Sabylinthus, protector of Tharups their king, who was yet in minority. The Parauaeans were led by their king Oroedus; and under Oroedus served likewise, by permission of Antiochus their king, a thousand Orestians. [7] Also Perdiccas sent thither, unknown to the Athenians, a thousand Macedonians; [8] but these last were not yet arrived. With this army began Cnemus to march without staying for the fleet from Corinth. And passing through Argeia, they destroyed Limnaea, a town unwalled. From thence they marched towards Stratus, the greatest city of Acarnania, conceiving that if they could take this first, the rest would come easily in.

81. The Acarnanians seeing a great army by land was entered their country already and expecting the enemy also by sea, joined not to succour Stratus but guarded everyone his own and sent for aid to Phormio. But he answered them that since there was a fleet to be set forth from Corinth, he could not leave Naupactus without a guard. [2] The Peloponnesians and their confederates, with their army divided into three, marched on towards the city of the Stratians to the end that, being encamped near it, if they yielded not on parley, they might presently assault the walls. [3] So they went on, the Chaonians and other barbarians in the middle, the Leucadians and Anactorians and such others as were with these on the right hand, and Cnemus with the Peloponnesians and Ambraciotes on the left, each army at great distance and sometimes out of sight of one another. [4] The Grecians in their march kept their order and went warily on till they had gotten a convenient place to encamp in. But the Chaonians, confident of themselves and by the inhabitants of that continent accounted most warlike, had not the patience to take in any ground for a camp but carried furiously on together with the rest of the barbarians, thought to have taken the town by their clamour and to have the action ascribed only to themselves. [5] But they of Stratus, aware of this whilst they were yet in their way and imagining if they could overcome these thus divided from the other two armies, that the Grecians also would be the less forward to come on, placed divers ambushes not far from the city and, when the enemies approached, fell upon them both from the city and from the ambushes at once and, putting them into affright, slew many of the Chaonians upon the place; [6] and the rest of the barbarians, seeing these to shrink, stayed no longer but fled outright. [7] Neither of the Grecian armies had knowledge of this skirmish because they were gone so far before to choose (as they then thought) a commodious place to pitch in. [8] But when the barbarians came back upon them running, they received them and joining both camps together stirred no more for that day. And the Stratians assaulted them not, for want of the aid of the rest of the Acarnanians, but used their slings against them and troubled them much that way (for without their men of arms there was no stirring for them); and in this kind the Acarnanians are held excellent.

82. When night came, Cnemus withdrew his army to the river Anapus, from Stratus eighty furlongs, and fetched off the dead bodies upon truce the next day. And whereas the city Oeniadae was come in of itself, he made his retreat thither before the Acarnanians should assemble with their succours; and from thence went everyone home. And the Stratians set up a trophy of the skirmish against the barbarians.

83. In the meantime the fleet of Corinth and the other confederates that was to set out from the Crisaean gulf and to join with Cnemus to hinder the lower Acarnanians from aiding the upper came not at all but were compelled to fight with Phormio and those twenty Athenian galleys that kept watch at Naupactus, about the same time that the skirmish was at Stratus. [2] For as they sailed along the shore, Phormio waited on them till they were out of the strait, intending to set upon them in the open sea. [3] And the Corinthians and their confederates went not as to fight by sea but furnished rather for the land service in Acarnania and never thought that the Athenians with their twenty galleys durst fight with theirs that were sevenand-forty. Nevertheless, when they saw that the Athenians as themselves sailed by one shore kept over against them on the other, and that now when they went off from Patrae in Achaia to go over to Acarnania in the opposite continent, the Athenians came towards them from Chalcis and the river Evenus and also knew that they had come to anchor there the night before, they found they were then to fight of necessity directly against the mouth of the strait. [4] The commanders of the fleet were such as the cities that set it forth had severally appointed, but of the Corinthians, these: Machon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas. [5] The Peloponnesians ordered their fleet in such manner as they made thereof a circle as great as, without leaving the spaces so wide as for the Athenians to pass through, they were possibly able with the stems of their galleys outward and sterns inward, and into the midst thereof received such small vessels as came with them and also five of their swiftest galleys, the which were at narrow passages to come forth in whatsoever part the enemy should charge.

84. But the Athenians with their galleys ordered one after one in file went round them and shrunk them up together by wiping them ever as they past and putting them in expectation of present fight. But Phormio had before forbidden them to fight till he himself had given them the signal. [2] For he hoped that this order of theirs would not last long, as in an army on land, but that the galleys would fall foul of one another and be troubled also with the smaller vessels in the midst. And if the wind should also blow out of the gulf, in expectation whereof he so went round them, and which usually blew there every morning, he made account they would then instantly be disordered. As for giving the onset, because his galleys were more agile than the galleys of the enemy, he thought it was in his own election and would be most opportune on that occasion. [3] When this wind was up and the galleys of the Peloponnesians, being already contracted into a narrow compass, were both ways troubled, by the wind and withal by their own lesser vessels that encumbered them, and when one galley fell foul of another and the mariners laboured to set them clear with their poles and, through the noise they made keeping off and reviling each other, heard nothing neither of their charge nor of the galleys' direction, and through want of skill unable to keep up their oars in a troubled sea, rendered the galley untractable to him that sat at the helm, then and with this opportunity he gave the signal. And the Athenians, charging, drowned first one of the admiral galleys and divers others after it in the several parts they assaulted and brought them to that pass at length that not one applying himself to the fight they fled all towards Patrae and Dyme, cities of Achaia. [4] The Athenians, after they had chased them and taken twelve galleys and slain most of the men that were in them, fell off and went to Molycreium; and when they had there set up a trophy and consecrated one galley to Neptune, they returned with the rest to Naupactus. [5] The Peloponnesians with the remainder of their fleet went presently along the coast of Cyllene, the arsenal of the Eleians; and thither, after the battle at Stratus, came also Cnemus from Leucas and with him those galleys that were there and with which this other fleet should have been joined.

85. After this the Lacedaemonians sent unto Cnemus to the fleet Timocrates, Brasidas, and Lycophron to be of his council with command to prepare for another better fight and not to suffer a few galleys to deprive them of the use of the sea. [2] For they thought this accident (especially being their first proof by sea) very much against reason, and that it was not so much a defect of the fleet as of their courage, never comparing the long practice of the Athenians with their own short study in these businesses. And therefore they sent these men thither in passion. [3] Who, being arrived with Cnemus, intimated to the cities about to provide their galleys and caused those they had before to be repaired. [4] Phormio likewise sent to Athens to make known both the enemy's preparation and his own former victory and withal to will them to send speedily unto him as many galleys as they could make ready because they were every day in expectation of a new fight. Hereupon they sent him twenty galleys but commanded him that had the charge of them to go first into Crete. [5] For Nicias, a Cretan of Gortyna, the public host of the Athenians, had persuaded them to a voyage against Cydonia, telling them they might take it in, being now their enemy, which he did to gratify the Polichnitae that bordered upon the Cydonians. [6] Therefore with these galleys he sailed into Crete and together with the Polichnitae wasted the territory of the Cydonians, where also, by reason of the winds and weather unfit to take sea in, he wasted not a little of his time.

86. In the meantime, whilst these Athenians were wind-bound in Crete, the Peloponnesians that were in Cyllene in order of battle sailed along the coast of Panormus of Achaia, to which also were their land forces come to aid them. [2] Phormio likewise sailed by the shore to Rhium Molycricum and anchored without it with twenty galleys, the same he had used in the former battle. [3] Now this Rhium was of the Athenians' side, and the other Rhium in Peloponnesus lies on the opposite shore, distant from it at the most but seven furlongs of sea; and these two make the mouth of the Crisaean gulf. [4] The Peloponnesians therefore came to an anchor at Rhium of Achaia with seventy-seven galleys, not far from Panormus where they left their land forces. [5] After they saw the Athenians and had lain six or seven days one against the other meditating and providing for the battle, the Peloponnesians not intending to put off without Rhium into the wide sea for fear of what they had suffered by it before, nor the other to enter the strait because to fight within they thought to be the enemy's advantage. [6] At last Cnemus, Brasidas, and the other commanders of the Peloponnesians, desiring to fight speedily before a new supply should arrive from Athens, called the soldiers together and, seeing the most of them to be fearful through their former defeat and not forward to fight again, encouraged them first with words to this effect:

87. ‘Men of Peloponnesus, if any of you be afraid of the battle at hand for the success of the battle past, his fear is without ground. [2] For you know we were inferior to them then in preparation and set not forth as to a fight at sea but rather to an expedition by land. Fortune likewise crossed us in many things, and somewhat we miscarried by unskilfulness. [3] So as the loss can no way be ascribed to cowardice, nor is it just, so long as we were not overcome by mere force but have somewhat to allege in our excuse, that the mind should be dejected for the calamity of the event; but we must think that though fortune may fail men, yet the courage of a valiant man can never fail, and not that we may justify cowardice in anything by pretending want of skill, and yet be truly valiant. [4] And yet you are not so much short of their skill as you exceed them in valour. And though this knowledge of theirs, which you so much fear, joined with courage will not be without a memory also to put what they know in execution; yet without courage no art in the world is of any force in the time of danger. For fear confoundeth the memory, and skill without courage availeth nothing. [5] To their odds therefore of skill oppose your odds of valour, and to the fear caused by your overthrow oppose your being then unprovided. [6] You have further now a greater fleet and to fight on your own shore with your aids at hand of men of arms; and, for the most part, the greatest number and best provided get the victory. [7] So that we can neither see any one cause in particular why we should miscarry; and whatsoever were our wants in the former battle, supplied in this will now turn to our instruction. [8] With courage therefore, both masters and mariners, follow every man in his order, not forsaking the place assigned him. [9] And for us, we shall order the battle as well as the former commanders and leave no excuse to any man of his cowardice. And if any will needs be a coward, he shall receive condign punishment; and the valiant shall be rewarded according to their merit.’

88. Thus did the commanders encourage the Peloponnesians. And Phormio, he likewise doubting that his soldiers were but fainthearted and observing they had consultations apart and were afraid of the multitude of the enemy's galleys, thought good, having called them together, to encourage and admonish them upon the present occasion. [2] For though he had always before told them and predisposed their minds to an opinion that there was no number of galleys so great which setting upon them they ought not to undertake, and [also] most of the soldiers had of long time assumed a conceit of themselves that being Athenians they ought not to decline any number of galleys whatsoever of the Peloponnesians, yet when he saw that the sight of the enemy present had dejected them, he thought fit to revive their courage and, having assembled the Athenians, said thus: [3]

89. ‘Soldiers, having observed your fear of the enemy's number, I have called you together, not enduring to see you terrified with things that are not terrible. [2] For first, they have prepared this great number and odds of galleys for that they were overcome before and because they are even in their own opinions too weak for us. And next, their present boldness proceeds only from their knowledge in land service, in confidence whereof (as if to be valiant were peculiar unto them) they are now come up, wherein having for the most part prospered, they think to do the same in service by sea. [3] But in reason the odds must be ours in this as well as it is theirs in the other kind. For in courage they exceed us not; and as touching the advantage of either side, we may better be bold now than they. [4] And the Lacedaemonians, who are the leaders of the confederates, bring them to fight for the greatest part (in respect of the opinion they have of us) against their wills. For else they would never have undertaken a new battle after they were once so clearly overthrown. [5] Fear not therefore any great boldness on their part. But the fear which they have of you is far both greater and more certain, not only for that you have overcome them before, but also for this, that they would never believe you would go about to resist unless you had some notable thing to put in practice upon them. [6] For when the enemy is the greater number, as these are now, they invade chiefly upon confidence of their strength; but they that are much the fewer must have some great and sure design when they dare fight unconstrained. [7] Wherewith these men now amazed fear us more for our unlikely preparation than they would if it were more proportionable. Besides, many great armies have been overcome by the lesser through unskilfulness and some also by timorousness, both which we ourselves are free from. [8] As for the battle, I will not willingly fight it in the gulf nor go in thither, seeing that to a few galleys with nimbleness and art against many without art, straitness of room is disadvantage. For neither can one charge with the beak of the galley as is fit unless he have sight of the enemy afar off, or if he be himself over-pressed, again get clear. Nor is there any getting through them or turning to and fro at one's pleasure, which are all the works of such galleys as have their advantage in agility; but the sea fight would of necessity be the same with a battle by land wherein the greater number must have the better. [9] But of this I shall myself take the best care I am able. In the meantime, keep you your order well in the galleys, and every man receive his charge readily; and the rather because the enemy is at anchor so near us. In the fight have in great estimation order and silence as things of great force in most military actions, especially in a fight by sea; and charge these your enemies according to the worth of your former acts. [10] You are to fight for a great wager, either to destroy the hope of the Peloponnesian navies or to bring the fear of the sea nearer home to the Athenians. [11] Again, let me tell you, you have beaten them once already; and men once overcome will not come again to the danger so well resolved as before.’

90. Thus did Phormio also encourage his soldiers. The Peloponnesians, when they saw the Athenians would not enter the gulf and strait, desiring to draw them in against their wills, weighed anchor and betime in the morning, having arranged their galleys by four and four in a rank, sailed along their own coast within the gulf, leading the way in the same order as they had lain at anchor, with their right wing. [2] In this wing they had placed twenty of their swiftest galleys to the end that if Phormio, thinking them going to Naupactus, should for safeguard of the town sail along his own coast likewise within the strait, the Athenians might not be able to get beyond that wing of theirs and avoid the impression but be inclosed by their galleys on both sides. [3] Phormio, fearing (as they expected) what might become of the town now without guard, as soon as he saw them from anchor, against his will and in extreme haste went aboard and sailed along the shore with the land forces of the Messenians marching by to aid him. [4] The Peloponnesians, when they saw them sail in one long file, galley after galley, and that they were now in the gulf and by the shore (which they most desired), upon one sign given turned suddenly everyone as fast as he could upon the Athenians, hoping to have intercepted them every galley. [5] But of those the eleven foremost, avoiding that wing and the turn made by the Peloponnesians, got out into the open sea. The rest they intercepted and, driving them to the shore, sunk them. The men, as many as swam not out, they slew; [6] and the galleys some they tied to their own and towed them away empty, and one with the men and all in her they had already taken. But the Messenian succours on land, entering the sea with their arms, got aboard of some of them and fighting from the decks recovered them again after they were already towing away.

91. And in this part the Peloponnesians had the victory and overcame the galleys of the Athenians. Now the twenty galleys that were their right wing gave chase to those eleven Athenian galleys which had avoided them when they turned and were gotten into the open sea. These flying toward Naupactus arrived there before the enemies, all save one, and when they came under the temple of Apollo, turned their beakheads and put themselves in readiness for defence in case the enemy should follow them to the land. [2] But the Peloponnesians, as they came after, were paeanising as if they had already had the victory; and one galley which was of Leucas, being far before the rest, gave chase to one Athenian galley that was behind the rest of the Athenians. [3] Now it chanced that there lay out into the sea a certain ship at anchor to which the Athenian galley first coming fetched a compass about her and came back full butt against the Leucadian galley that gave her chase and sunk her. [4] Upon this unexpected and unlikely accident they began to fear; and having also followed the chase, as being victors, disorderly, some of them let down their oars into the water and hindered the way of their galleys (a matter of very ill consequence, seeing the enemy was so near) and stayed for more company; and some of them, through ignorance of the coast, ran upon the shelves.

92. The Athenians seeing this took heart again and together with one clamour set upon them who resisted not long, because of their present errors committed and their disarray, but turned and fled to Panormus from whence at first they set forth. [2] The Athenians followed and took from them six galleys that were hindmost and recovered their own which the Peloponnesians had sunk by the shore and tied astern of theirs. Of the men some they slew and some also they took alive. [3] In the Leucadian galley that was sunk near the ship was Timocrates, a Lacedaemonian, who, when the galley was lost, ran himself through with his sword; and his body drave into the haven of Naupactus. [4] The Athenians, falling off, erected a trophy in the place from whence they set forth to this victory and took up their dead and the wreck, as much as was on their own shore, and gave truce to the enemy to do the like. [5] The Peloponnesians also set up a trophy, as if they also had had the victory, in respect of the flight of those galleys which they sunk by the shore; and the galley which they had taken they consecrated to Neptune in Rhium of Achaia, hard by their trophy. [6] After this, fearing the supply which was expected from Athens, they sailed by night into the Crisaean gulf and to Corinth, all but the Leucadians. [7] And those Athenians with twenty galleys out of Crete, that should have been with Phormio before the battle, not long after the going away of the galleys of Peloponnesus arrived at Naupactus. And the summer ended.

93. But before the fleet, gone into the Crisaean gulf and to Corinth, was dispersed, Cnemus and Brasidas and the rest of the commanders of the Peloponnesians in the beginning of winter instructed by the Megareans thought good to make an attempt upon Peiraeus, the haven of the Athenians. Now it was without guard or bar, and that upon very good cause, considering how much they exceeded others in the power of their navy. [2] And it was resolved that every mariner with his oar, his cushion, and one thong for his oar to turn in should take his way by land from Corinth to the other sea that lieth to Athens and, going with all speed to Megara, launch forty galleys out of Nisaea, the arsenal of the Megareans, which then were there, and sail presently into Peiraeus. [3] For at that time there neither stood any galleys for a watch before it, nor was there any imagination that the enemies would on such a sudden come upon them; for they durst not have attempted it openly, though with leisure; nor if they had had any such intention, could it but have been discovered. [4] As soon as it was resolved on, they set presently forward and, arriving by night, launched the said galleys of Nisaea and set sail, not now towards Peiraeus, as they intended, fearing the danger (and a wind was also said to have risen that hindered them), but toward a promontory of Salamis lying out towards Megara. Now there was in it a little fort, and underneath in the sea lay three galleys that kept watch to hinder the importation and exportation of anything to or from the Megareans. This fort they assaulted, and the galleys they towed empty away after them and, being come upon the Salaminians unawares, wasted also other parts of the island.

94. By this time the fires signifying the coming of enemies were lifted up towards Athens and affrighted them more than anything that had happened in all this war. For they in the city thought the enemies had been already in Peiraeus, and they in Peiraeus thought the city of the Salaminians had been already taken and that the enemy would instantly come into Peiraeus, which, had they not been afraid nor been hindered by the wind, they might also easily have done. [2] But the Athenians, as soon as it was day, came with the whole strength of the city into Peiraeus and launched their galleys and embarking in haste and tumult set sail toward Salamis, leaving for the guard of Peiraeus an army of foot. [3] The Peloponnesians upon notice of these succours, having now overrun most of Salamis and taken many prisoners and much other booty besides the three galleys from the fort of Budorus, went back in all haste to Nisaea. And somewhat they feared the more for that their galleys had lain long in the water and were subject to leaking. And when they came to Megara, they went thence to Corinth again by land. [4] The Athenians likewise, when they found not the enemy at Salamis, went home and from that time forward looked better to Peiraeus both for the shutting of the ports and for their diligence otherwise.

95. About the same time in the beginning of the same winter, Sitalces an Odrysian, the son of Teres, king of Thrace, made war upon Perdiccas the son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and upon the Chalcideans bordering on Thrace upon two promises, one of which he required to be performed to him, and the other he was to perform himself. [2] For Perdiccas had promised somewhat unto him for reconciling him to the Athenians, who had formerly oppressed him with war, and for not restoring his brother Philip to the kingdom, that was his enemy, which he never paid him. And Sitalces himself had covenanted with the Athenians when he made league with them that he would end the war which they had against the Chalcideans of Thrace. [3] For these causes therefore he made this expedition and took with him both Amyntas the son of Philip (with purpose to make him king of Macedonia) and also the Athenian ambassadors then with him for that business and Agnon the Athenian commander. For the Athenians ought also to have joined with him against the Chalcideans both with a fleet and with as great land forces as they could provide.

96. Beginning therefore with the Odrysians, he levied first those Thracians that inhabit on this side the mountains Haemus and Rhodope, as many as were of his own dominion, down to the shore of the Euxine Sea and the Hellespont. Then beyond Haemus he levied the Getes and all the nations between Ister and the Euxine Sea. The Getes and the people of those parts are borderers upon the Scythians and furnished as the Scythians are, all archers on horseback. [2] He also drew forth many of those Scythians that inhabit the mountains and are free states, all swordsmen, and are called Dii, the greatest part of which are on the mountain Rhodope; whereof some he hired, and some went as voluntaries. [3] He levied also the Agrianes and Laeaeans and all other the nations of Paeonia in his own dominion. These are the utmost bounds of his dominion, extending to the Graaeans and Laeaeans, nations of Paeonia, and to the river Strymon, which, rising out of the mountain Scomius, passeth through the territories of the Graaeans and Laeaeans, who make the bounds of his kingdom toward Paeonia and are subject only to their own laws. [4] But on the part that lieth to the Triballians, who are also a free people, the Treres make the bound of his dominion, and the Tilataeans. These dwell on the north side of the mountain Scomius and reach westward as far as to the river Oscius, which cometh out of the same hill Nestus and Hebrus doth; a great and desert hill adjoining to Rhodope.

97. The dimensions of the dominion of the Odrysians by the seaside is from the city of the Abderites to the mouth of Ister in the Euxine Sea; and is, the nearest way, four days' and as many nights' sail for a round ship, with a continual fore wind. By land likewise the nearest way, it is from the city Abdera to the mouth of Ister eleven days' journey for an expedite footman. [2] Thus it lay in respect of the sea. Now for the continent: from Byzantium to the Laeaeans and to the river Strymon (for it reacheth this way farthest into the main land) it is for the like footman thirteen days' journey. [3] The tribute they received from all the barbarian nations and from the cities of Greece, in the reign of Seuthes (who reigned after Sitalces and made the most of it), was in gold and silver, by estimation, four hundred talents by year. And presents of gold and silver came to as much more, besides vestures, both wrought and plain, and other furniture presented not only to him but also to all the men of authority and Odrysian nobility about him. [4] For they had a custom, which also was general to all Thrace contrary to that of the kingdom of Persia, to receive rather than to give; and it was there a greater shame to be asked and deny than to ask and go without. Nevertheless they held this custom long by reason of their power, for without gifts there was nothing to be gotten done amongst them. So that this kingdom arrived thereby to great power. [5] For of all the nations of Europe that lie between the Ionian Gulf and the Euxine Sea, it was, for revenue of money and other wealth, the mightiest; though indeed for strength of an army and multitudes of soldiers, the same be far short of the Scythians. [6] For there is no nation, not to say of Europe but neither of Asia, that are comparable to this, or that as long as they agree, are able, one nation to one, to stand against the Scythians. And yet in matter of counsel and wisdom in the present occasions of life, they are not like to other men.

98. Sitalces therefore, king of this great country, prepared his army and, when all was ready, set forward and marched towards Macedonia: first, through his own dominion; then, over Cercine, a desert mountain dividing the Sintians from the Paeonians, over which he marched the same way himself had formerly made with timber when he made war against the Paeonians. Passing this mountain out of the country of the Odrysians, they had on their right hand the Paeonians and on the left the Sintians and Medes; [2] and beyond it they came to the city of Doberus in Paeonia. [3] His army, as he marched, diminished not any way, except by sickness, but increased by the accession of many free nations of Thrace that came in uncalled in hope of booty. Insomuch as the whole number is said to have amounted to no less than a hundred and fifty thousand men, whereof the most were foot, the horse being a third part or thereabouts. [4] And of the horse, the greatest part were the Odrysians themselves and the next most, the Getes. And of the foot, those swordsmen, a free nation that came down to him out of the mountain Rhodope, were the most warlike. The rest of the promiscuous multitude were formidable only for their number.

99. Being all together at Doberus, they made ready to fall in from the hill's side into the lower Macedonia, the dominion of Perdiccas. [2] For there are in Macedonia the Lyncestians and the Elimeiotae and other highland nations, who, though they be confederates and in subjection to the other, yet have their several kingdoms by themselves. [3] But of that part of the now Macedonia which lieth toward the sea, Alexander, the father of this Perdiccas, and his ancestors the Temenidae, who came out of Argos, were the first possessors and reigned in the same, having first driven out of Pieria the Pierians, which afterwards seated themselves in Phagres and other towns beyond Strymon at the foot of Pangaeum (from which cause that country is called the Gulf of Pieria to this day which lieth at the foot of Pangaeum and bendeth toward the sea), and out of that which is called Bottia, the Bottiaeans, that now border upon the Chalcideans. [4] They possessed besides a certain narrow portion of Paeonia near unto the river Axius reaching from above down to Pella and to the sea. Beyond Axius they possess the country called Mygdonia as far as to Strymon, from whence they have driven out the Edonians. [5] Furthermore, they drave the Eordians out of the territory now called Eordia (of whom the greatest part perished, but there dwell a few of them yet about Physca) and the Almopians out of Almopia. [6] The same Macedonians subdued also other nations and hold them yet, as Anthemus, Crestonia, and Bisaltia, and a great part of the Macedonians themselves. But the whole is called Macedonia and was the kingdom of Perdiccas the son of Alexander when Sitalces came to invade it.

100. The Macedonians, unable to stand in the field against so huge an army, retired all within their strongholds and walled towns, as many as the country afforded, [2] which were not many then, but were built afterwards by Archelaus the son of Perdiccas when he came to the kingdom, who then also laid out the highways straight and took order both for matter of war, as horses and arms and for other provision, better than all the other eight kings that were before him. The Thracian army, arising from Doberus, invaded that territory first which had been the principality of Philip and took Eidomene by force; [3] but Gortynia, Atalanta, and some other towns he had yielded to him for the love of Amyntas the son of Philip, who was then in the army. They also assaulted Europus but could not take it. Then they went on further into Macedonia on the part that lies on the right hand of Pella and Cyrrhus; [4] but within these into Bottiaea and Pieria they entered not but wasted Mygdonia, Crestonia, and Anthemus. Now the Macedonians had never any intention to make head against them with their foot; [5] but sending out their horsemen, which they had procured from their allies of the higher Macedonia, they assaulted the Thracian army in such places where, few against many, they thought they might do it with most convenience. And where they charged, none was able to resist them, being both good horsemen and well armed with breastplates; but enclosed by the multitude of the enemies, they fought against manifest odds of number so that in the end they gave it over, esteeming themselves too weak to hazard battle against so many.

101. After this Sitalces gave way to a conference with Perdiccas touching the motives of this war. And forasmuch as the Athenians were not arrived with their fleet (for they thought not that Sitalces would have made the journey, but had sent ambassadors to him with presents), he sent a part of his army against the Chalcideans and Bottiaeans, wherewith, having compelled them within their walled towns, he wasted and destroyed their territory. [2] Whilst he stayed in these parts, the Thessalians southward, and the Magnetians, and the rest of the nations subject to the Thessalians, and all the Grecians as far as to Thermopylae were afraid he would have turned his forces upon them and stood upon their guard. [3] And northward, those Thracians that inhabit the champaign country beyond Strymon, namely the Panaeans, Odomantians, Droans, and Dersaeans, all of them free states, were afraid of the same. [4] He gave occasion also to a rumour that he meant to lead his army against all those Grecians that were enemies to the Athenians, as called in by them to that purpose by virtue of their league. [5] But whilst he stayed, he wasted the Chalcidean, Bottiaean, and Macedonian territories; and when he could not effect what he came for and his army both wanted victual and was afflicted with the coldness of the season, Seuthes the son of Spardocus, his cousin-german and of greatest authority next himself, persuaded him to make haste away. Now Perdiccas had dealt secretly with Seuthes and promised him his sister in marriage and money with her; [6] and Sitalces at the persuasion of him after the stay of full thirty days, whereof he spent eight in Chalcidea, retired with his army with all speed into his own kingdom. And Perdiccas shortly after gave to Seuthes his sister Stratonica in marriage, as he had promised. This was the issue of this expedition of Sitalces.

102. The same winter, after the fleet of the Peloponnesians was dissolved, the Athenians that were at Naupactus under the conduct of Phormio sailed along the coast to Astacus and, disbarking, marched into the inner parts of Acarnania. He had in his army four hundred men of arms that he brought with him in his galleys and four hundred more Messenians. With these he put out of Stratus, Coronta, and other places all those whose fidelity he thought doubtful. And when he had restored Cynes the son of Theolytus to Coronta, they returned again to their galleys. [2] For they thought they should not be able to make war against the Oeniades (who only of all Acarnania are the Athenians' enemies) in respect of the winter. For the river Achelöus, springing out of the mountain Pindus and running through Dolopia, and through the territories of the Agraeans and the Amphilochians, and through most part of the champaign of Acarnania, passing above by the city of Stratus, and falling into the sea by the city of the Oeniades, which also it moateth about with fens, by the abundance of water maketh it hard lying there for an army in time of winter. [3] Also most of the islands Echinades lie just over against Oenia, hard by the mouth of Achelöus. And the river, being a great one, continually heapeth together the gravel, insomuch that some of those islands are become continent already; and the like in short time is expected by the rest. [4] For not only the stream of the river is swift, broad, and turbidous, but also the islands themselves stand thick, and, because the gravel cannot pass, are joined one to another, lying in and out, not in a direct line nor so much as to give the water his course directly forward into the sea. These islands are all desert and but small ones. [5] It is reported that Apollo by his oracle did assign this place for an habitation to Alcmaeon the son of Amphiareus, at such time as he wandered up and down for the killing of his mother, telling him ‘that he should never be free from the terrors that haunted him till he had found out and seated himself in such a land as when he slew his mother, the sun had never seen nor was then land because all other lands were polluted by him.’ Hereupon being at a nonplus, as they say, with much ado he observed this ground congested by the river Achelöus and thought there was enough cast up to serve his turn already since the time of the slaughter of his mother, after which it was now a long time that he had been a wanderer. [6] Therefore, seating himself in the places about the Oeniades, he reigned there and named the country after the name of his son Acarnas. Thus goes the report, as we have heard it concerning Alcmaeon.

103. But Phormio and the Athenians, leaving Acarnania and returning to Naupactus, in the very beginning of the spring came back to Athens and brought with them such galleys as they had taken and the freemen they had taken prisoners in their fights at sea, who were again set at liberty by exchange of man for man. [2] So ended that winter, and the third year of the war written by Thucydides.