previous next
44. Such were the words of the Corinthians. The Athenians heard both sides, and they held two assemblies; in the first of them they1 were more influenced by the words of the Corinthians, but in the second they changed their minds and inclined towards the Corcyraeans. They would not go so far as to make an alliance both offensive and defensive with them; for then, if the Corcyraeans had required them to join2 in an expedition against Corinth, the treaty with the Peloponnesians would have been broken. But they concluded a defensive league, by which the two states promised to aid each other if an attack were made on the territory or on the allies of either. [2] For they knew that in any case the war with Peloponnesus was inevitable, and they had no mind to let Corcyra and her navy fall into the hands of the Corinthians. Their plan3 was to embroil them more and more with one another, and then, when the war came, the Corinthians and the other naval powers would be weaker. [3] They also considered that Corcyra was conveniently situated for the coast voyage to Italy and Sicily.

1 The Athenians after some hesitation enter into a defensive alliance with Corcyra.

2 B.C. 433.

3 Motives of the Athenians.

Thucydides translated into English; with introduction, marginal analysis, notes, and indices. Volume 1. Thucydides. Benjamin Jowett. translator. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1881.

This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Notes (Charles D. Morris)
load focus Notes (E.C. Marchant)
load focus English (1910)
load focus English (Thomas Hobbes, 1843)
hide References (33 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (16):
    • Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone, 1042
    • Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone, 643
    • W. W. How, J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, 6.105
    • E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 3, 3.91
    • E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 7, 7.11
    • C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER I
    • C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 4, CHAPTER LXIII
    • C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.46
    • C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.48
    • C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.55
    • C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.75
    • C.E. Graves, Commentary on Thucydides: Book 5, 5.89
    • E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides Book 1, 1.128
    • E.C. Marchant, Commentary on Thucydides Book 1, 1.74
    • Harold North Fowler, Commentary on Thucydides Book 5, 5.27
    • Harold North Fowler, Commentary on Thucydides Book 5, 5.46
  • Cross-references to this page (6):
    • Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, NEGATIVE SENTENCES
    • Herbert Weir Smyth, A Greek Grammar for Colleges, SOME GRAMMATICAL AND RHETORICAL FIGURES
    • Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.1
    • Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.6.1
    • Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.pos=7.2
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CORCY´RA
  • Cross-references in notes to this page (1):
    • Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Thuc. 3.70
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (10):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: