Book 1

1 Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, and of how they fought each other. He began as soon as it broke out, expecting that it would be a great war and more worth recording than any before it. He judged so because both sides were at the height of their power when they entered it, with their preparation complete in every respect, and because he saw the rest of the Hellenic world taking one side or the other, some at once, others meaning to. This was in fact the greatest upheaval that had ever come upon the Hellenes and upon a part of the barbarians, and one might say upon most of mankind. As for the events before it, and those still older, it was impossible to discover them clearly because of the length of time; but from the evidence I find I can trust, when I look back as far as I can, I do not think they were great, either in their wars or in anything else.

2 It is evident that the country now called Hellas was not settled firmly in the past. There were migrations in early times, and each people readily abandoned its land whenever it was pressed by others, who were always more numerous. There was no trade, and they did not mix with one another without fear, either by land or by sea. Each people worked its own land only enough to live from it; they had no surplus of wealth and planted no orchards, since it was never certain when someone would come and take it all, especially as they had no walls; and as they thought they could get their daily bread anywhere, they moved away without much difficulty. For this reason they were strong neither in the size of their cities nor in their other resources. The best land always saw the most frequent changes of inhabitants: what is now called Thessaly, and Boeotia, and most of the Peloponnese except Arcadia, and the richest parts of the rest. For the goodness of the soil made some men more powerful than others; this bred factions that ruined them, and at the same time they were more exposed to the designs of foreigners. Attica, at any rate, was free of faction from very early times because of the thinness of its soil, and the same people always lived in it. And here is no small proof of my argument that it was because of the migrations that the other regions did not grow in the same way. When men were driven out of the rest of Hellas by war or faction, the most powerful of them withdrew to the Athenians as to a safe place, and by becoming citizens they made the city, from very early times, still larger in population, so that later the Athenians even sent out colonies to Ionia, since Attica was not large enough.

3 The weakness of the ancients is shown to me no less clearly by this. Before the Trojan War, Hellas appears to have done nothing in common. Indeed, I think that as a whole it did not even have this name yet. Before Hellen son of Deucalion the name did not exist at all; the various peoples, the Pelasgian most widely, gave their own names to the regions they held. But when Hellen and his sons grew powerful in Phthiotis and were called in to other cities to help them, the peoples one by one, through this contact, came to be called Hellenes more and more; yet it was a long time before the name prevailed among them all. Homer is the best evidence. Though he lived long after even the Trojan War, he nowhere uses this name for them all, or for anyone except the men who came with Achilles from Phthiotis, who were in fact the first Hellenes; in his poems he calls them Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. Nor does he use the word barbarians, because, I think, the Hellenes had not yet been set apart under one name as its opposite. At any rate, those who came to be called Hellenes, city by city, wherever they understood one another’s speech, and later all of them together, did nothing in a body before the Trojan War, because of their weakness and their lack of contact with one another. And even this expedition they made together only when they had come to use the sea more.

4 Minos is the earliest man known to us by report to have acquired a navy. He controlled most of what is now the Hellenic sea, ruled the Cyclades, and was the first to colonize most of them, driving out the Carians and installing his own sons as governors. He also cleared piracy from the sea as far as he could, as was natural, so that more of his revenues would reach him.

5 For in early times the Hellenes, and those barbarians who lived on the coasts of the mainland or held islands, turned to piracy once they began to cross over to one another more by ship. They were led by men of no small power, who sought gain for themselves and a living for the weak. Falling on cities that were unwalled and made up of scattered villages, they plundered them and made most of their living from this, since the work as yet carried no disgrace but even brought some glory. This is shown by some of the mainland peoples even now, among whom it is an honor to do this well, and by the ancient poets, in whose poems people everywhere alike ask those who land from ships whether they are pirates, as though those who were asked would not be ashamed of the work, and those who wanted to know would not think it a reproach. They also plundered one another on land. And to this day much of Hellas lives in the old way, around the Ozolian Locrians, the Aetolians, the Acarnanians, and the mainland in those parts; and the habit of carrying arms has survived among these mainlanders from the old piracy.

6 For all Hellas used to carry arms, because its dwellings were unprotected and travel from one to another was unsafe, and like the barbarians they lived their daily lives under arms. The parts of Hellas that still live this way are a sign of the customs that were once the same for all. The Athenians were among the first to lay aside their arms and to change to an easier and more luxurious way of life. It is not long since the older men of the wealthy class, in their delicate living, stopped wearing linen tunics and fastening their hair in a knot on the head with a brooch of golden cicadas; and from them, through kinship, this fashion long prevailed among the older Ionians as well. The Lacedaemonians, for their part, were the first to wear simple dress of the present kind, and in other ways as well those who owned more lived on terms as nearly equal as possible with the many. They were also the first to strip, undressing in public and rubbing themselves with oil for exercise. In early times, even at the Olympic games, the athletes competed with loincloths around their private parts, and it is not many years since the practice ended. Even now, among some of the barbarians, especially those of Asia, prizes are offered for boxing and wrestling, and they compete in loincloths. One could show that the ancient Hellenic world lived like the barbarian world of today in many other ways too.

7 Of the cities, those that were founded most recently, when sailing had become easier, and that had more surplus wealth, were built with walls right on the shore and took over isthmuses, both for trade and for strength against their neighbors. But the old cities, because piracy persisted so long, were built mostly away from the sea, on the islands as well as on the mainland (for the pirates raided one another and all others who lived on the coast but were not seafarers), and to this day they remain inland.

8 The islanders, who were Carians and Phoenicians, were pirates no less, for these peoples settled most of the islands. Here is the evidence. When Delos was purified by the Athenians in this war¹ and all the graves of the dead on the island were taken up, more than half proved to be Carian, recognized by the kind of arms buried with them and by the way they bury their dead even now. Once Minos had established his navy, sailing from one people to another became easier, for he removed the evildoers from the islands at the time when he was colonizing most of them; and the men who lived by the sea, now acquiring more property, lived more securely, and some even built walls around themselves, as they were growing richer than before. For in their desire for gain the weaker submitted to slavery under the stronger, while the more powerful, having surplus wealth, made the smaller cities their subjects. And it was later, when they had gone further in this direction, that they made the expedition against Troy.

9 Agamemnon, I think, was able to gather that expedition because he surpassed the men of his time in power, and not so much because he led the suitors of Helen bound by their oaths to Tyndareus. Those Peloponnesians who have received the clearest account from earlier generations also say that Pelops first won power through the great wealth he brought with him from Asia to a people without means, and so, though an immigrant, he gave his name to the land; and later his descendants came to still greater power. Eurystheus was killed in Attica by the Heraclids. Atreus was his mother’s brother, and when Eurystheus set out on campaign he entrusted Mycenae and his rule to Atreus because of their kinship (Atreus happened to be in exile from his father over the death of Chrysippus). When Eurystheus did not come back, the Mycenaeans, out of fear of the Heraclids, wanted Atreus, who seemed powerful and had won over the people of Mycenae and of all whom Eurystheus ruled; so Atreus took over the kingship, and the descendants of Pelops became greater than those of Perseus. Agamemnon, I think, inherited all this, and since he was also stronger at sea than the others, he gathered the expedition less through goodwill than through fear. For he evidently came with the most ships himself and supplied the Arcadians with ships besides, as Homer has shown, if his evidence is enough for anyone. And in the passage on the handing down of the scepter Homer says that Agamemnon “ruled over many islands and all Argos.” Living on the mainland, he could not have ruled islands other than those nearby (and these would not be many) unless he also had a navy. From this expedition we must judge what the earlier ones were like.

10 That Mycenae was small, or that some town of that time does not seem important now, is not an exact sign, and one would be wrong to use it to doubt that the expedition was as great as the poets have said and as tradition holds. Suppose the city of the Lacedaemonians were deserted, and only its temples and the foundations of its buildings were left. After a long time, I think, later generations would strongly doubt that its power had matched its fame. (And yet the Lacedaemonians occupy two-fifths of the Peloponnese and lead the whole of it, as well as many allies outside it; still, since their city is not built together in one place and has no costly temples or buildings, but is settled in villages in the old Hellenic way, it would seem inferior.) Whereas if the Athenians suffered the same fate, their power would be guessed, from the plain sight of the city, to have been twice what it is. So it is not reasonable to be skeptical, or to look at the appearance of cities rather than their power. We should think that that expedition was the greatest of all before it but fell short of those of our day, if here too we must trust the poetry of Homer, which he is likely, being a poet, to have embellished to make it greater; and even so it appears inferior. He has given it twelve hundred ships, and he has the Boeotian ships carry a hundred and twenty men each and those of Philoctetes fifty, indicating, I think, the largest and the smallest; at any rate he did not mention the size of any others in the Catalogue of Ships. That the rowers were all fighting men as well, he has shown in the ships of Philoctetes, for he has made all the oarsmen archers. And it is not likely that many passengers sailed with them besides the kings and those highest in authority, especially since they were to cross the open sea with the equipment of war, and in boats that had no decks either but were fitted out in the old way, more like pirate craft. So if one takes the mean between the largest and the smallest ships, not many men appear to have come, considering that they were sent from all Hellas in common.

11 The cause was not so much shortage of men as shortage of money. For lack of supplies they brought a smaller army, of the size they hoped could live off the country while it fought. When they arrived and won a battle (which is clear, for otherwise they could not have built the wall around their camp), even then they evidently did not use their whole force, but turned to farming the Chersonese and to plunder, for lack of supplies. This is the more reason why the Trojans held out by force for those ten years while the Hellenes were scattered, since the Trojans were a match for whatever part was left behind at any time. If the Hellenes had come with plenty of supplies, and had kept together and carried on the war continuously without plundering and farming, they would easily have won in battle and taken the city, since even when they were not together, but only with the part of them present at the time, they held their own; and if they had settled down to a siege they would have taken Troy in less time and with less trouble. But through lack of money the undertakings before this one were weak, and this one itself, the most famous of all before it, is shown by the facts to have been less than its fame and than the account of it that now prevails because of the poets.

12 For even after the Trojan War, Hellas was still on the move and being resettled, so that it had no rest in which to grow. The return of the Hellenes from Ilium, coming so late, brought about many changes, and factions arose in the cities nearly everywhere; those driven out by them founded new cities. Sixty years after the capture of Ilium the present Boeotians were driven out of Arne by the Thessalians and settled the country now called Boeotia but formerly the Cadmeian land (part of their people had been in this land before, and from these came the Boeotians who joined the expedition to Ilium); and in the eightieth year the Dorians, with the Heraclids, took possession of the Peloponnese. With difficulty and after a long time Hellas came to a lasting rest, and no longer uprooted, it sent out colonies. The Athenians settled the Ionians and most of the islanders; the Peloponnesians settled most of Italy and Sicily and some places in the rest of Hellas. All these were founded after the Trojan War.

13 As Hellas grew more powerful and went on acquiring wealth still more than before, tyrannies were established in most of the cities, since revenues were growing (before this there had been hereditary kingships with fixed privileges); and Hellas began to fit out navies and to take more to the sea. The Corinthians are said to have been the first to handle ships in a way close to the present one, and the first triremes in Hellas are said to have been built at Corinth. It appears too that Ameinocles, a Corinthian shipwright, built four ships for the Samians; and it was about three hundred years before the end of this war that Ameinocles went to the Samians. The oldest sea battle we know of was fought between the Corinthians and the Corcyreans, and this too was about two hundred and sixty years before the same date. For the Corinthians, whose city lay on the Isthmus, had always kept a market there, since in early times the Hellenes, both those inside the Peloponnese and those outside it, had dealings with one another more by land than by sea, passing through the Corinthians’ territory; and they were rich, as the ancient poets have shown as well, for they called the place “wealthy.” And when the Hellenes took more to the sea, the Corinthians acquired ships and cleared away piracy, and by providing a market for traffic by both land and sea they made their city powerful through the income of money. Later the Ionians too had a large navy, in the time of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians, and of his son Cambyses; and when they made war on Cyrus they controlled the sea off their own coast for some time. Polycrates, who was tyrant of Samos in the time of Cambyses, was strong at sea and made several of the islands his subjects; he also took Rhenea and dedicated it to Delian Apollo. And the Phocaeans, when they were founding Massalia, defeated the Carthaginians in a sea battle.

14 These were the most powerful navies. Yet even these, it appears, though they came many generations after the Trojan War, used few triremes and were still fitted out with fifty-oared ships and long boats, as the navies of that time had been. It was only a little before the Persian Wars and the death of Darius, who was king of the Persians after Cambyses, that triremes came into use in numbers, among the tyrants of Sicily and among the Corcyreans. These were the last navies worth mention established in Hellas before the expedition of Xerxes. For the Aeginetans and the Athenians, and any others, had small fleets, and most of these were fifty-oared ships. It was late that Themistocles persuaded the Athenians, when they were at war with the Aeginetans and the barbarian was also expected, to build the ships with which they fought at sea; and even these did not yet have decks running their whole length.

15 Such, then, were the navies of the Hellenes, both the old ones and those that came later. Still, those who applied themselves to them gained no small strength, both in income of money and in rule over others. For they sailed against the islands and subdued them, especially those whose own land was not enough for them. On land, no war arose from which any considerable power came. All the wars that did take place were between each people and its own neighbors, and the Hellenes did not go out on expeditions far from home to subdue others. For the subject cities had not joined the greatest cities, nor did the cities themselves make common expeditions on equal terms; rather, neighbors fought one another separately. It was above all in the war fought long ago between the Chalcidians and the Eretrians that the rest of the Hellenic world too divided, to join in alliance with one side or the other.

16 Various peoples met, in various places, with obstacles to their growth. The Ionians, when their affairs had made great progress, were attacked by Cyrus and the Persian kingdom: having overthrown Croesus and everything between the river Halys and the sea, Cyrus made war on them and enslaved the cities on the mainland; and later Darius, strong with the Phoenician fleet, enslaved the islands as well.

17 As for the tyrants in the Hellenic cities, since they looked ahead only to their own interests, to their own persons and the growth of their own houses, they governed their cities with as much caution as they could, and nothing worth mention was done by them, except perhaps by each against his own neighbors; for the tyrants in Sicily advanced furthest in power. Thus Hellas was held back on every side for a long time, so that it achieved nothing conspicuous in common, and city by city it lacked daring.

18 But at last the tyrants of the Athenians, and those of the rest of Hellas, which had long been ruled by tyrants even before Athens, most of them and the last of them, except those in Sicily, were put down by the Lacedaemonians. (For though Lacedaemon, after its founding by the Dorians who now live there, suffered from faction for the longest time of any city we know of, it nevertheless gained good laws from very early times and was never ruled by tyrants. It is about four hundred years, or a little more, to the end of this war since the Lacedaemonians have had the same constitution, and through this they became powerful and settled the affairs of other cities as well.) Not many years after the tyrants were put down in Hellas, the battle of Marathon was fought between the Medes and the Athenians. In the tenth year after it the barbarian came again with his great expedition against Hellas to enslave it. With a great danger hanging over them, the Lacedaemonians led the Hellenes who joined in the war, since they were the strongest; and the Athenians, as the Medes advanced, resolved to abandon their city, packed up their belongings, went on board their ships, and became a naval people. They drove the barbarian back together, but not long afterward the Hellenes who had revolted from the King and those who had fought in the war together divided, some with the Athenians and some with the Lacedaemonians; for these two had shown themselves the greatest in power, the one strong on land, the other at sea. For a short time the alliance in arms held; then the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians quarreled and made war on each other with their allies; and any other Hellenes who fell out anywhere now went over to one or the other. So from the Persian Wars down to this war, now making truces, now fighting either each other or their own allies in revolt, they prepared well for war and became more experienced, training in the midst of dangers.

19 The Lacedaemonians led their allies without making them pay tribute, but took care that they should be governed by oligarchies suited to the interest of the Lacedaemonians alone. The Athenians, in time, took over the ships of the allied cities, except those of Chios and Lesbos, and assessed all of them a sum of money to pay. And so their own resources for this war became greater than they had ever been at their peak, when the alliance was still intact.

20 Such, then, I have found ancient times to be, though it is hard to trust every piece of evidence one after another. For men accept from one another reports of past events, even those of their own country, equally without testing them. The mass of the Athenians, at any rate, think that Hipparchus was tyrant when he was killed by Harmodius and Aristogeiton,² and do not know that it was Hippias who ruled, as the eldest of the sons of Peisistratus, and that Hipparchus and Thessalus were his brothers. On that day, at the very moment, Harmodius and Aristogeiton suspected that one of their accomplices had informed Hippias, so they kept away from him, thinking he had been warned. But wanting to do something and take the risk before they were arrested, they came upon Hipparchus near the place called the Leocorium, as he was marshaling the Panathenaic procession, and killed him. And there are many other things, still existing even now and not forgotten through lapse of time, about which the rest of the Hellenes too have wrong ideas: for example, that the kings of the Lacedaemonians each cast not one vote but two, and that the Lacedaemonians have a Pitanate company, which never existed at all. So little trouble do most men take in searching for the truth, and so readily do they turn to what lies at hand.

21 Still, from the evidence I have given, anyone who believes that things were very much as I have described them would not go wrong. He would not trust rather what the poets have sung about them, embellishing them to make them greater, or what the prose chroniclers have composed with an eye more to what will attract the audience than to the truth: things that cannot be checked and that, most of them, have lost all credit through time and passed into myth. He would instead consider that they have been discovered from the clearest signs, sufficiently for events so old. And this war, although men always judge the war they are fighting to be the greatest while they are in it, and once it is over admire the ancient ones more, will nevertheless show itself, to those who examine the facts themselves, to have been greater than those were.

22 As for what each side said in speeches, either when about to go to war or when already in it, it was hard to remember the exact words spoken, both for me with what I heard myself and for those who reported to me from elsewhere. I have written the speeches as I thought each speaker would have said what the situation at each moment most required, keeping as close as possible to the general sense of what was actually said. But as for the deeds done in the war, I did not think it right to write them down on the word of whoever happened to be at hand, nor as I thought they had happened, but I went into each one with all the accuracy I could, both those at which I was present myself and those I learned of from others. The facts were found out with great labor, because those present at each event did not give the same account of the same things, but spoke as each one’s sympathy or memory served. For a listener, perhaps, the absence of myth from my work will make it less pleasing; but if those who wish to see clearly what happened, and what will one day happen again, in the same or a similar way, as human things go, judge it useful, that will be enough. It has been composed as a possession for all time, not as a prize piece to be heard for the moment.

23 Of earlier deeds, the greatest was the war against the Medes, and yet it was quickly decided in two sea battles and two land battles. But this war went on to a great length, and it brought upon Hellas such sufferings as no other brought in an equal time. Never were so many cities taken and left desolate, some by barbarians, some by the Hellenes themselves fighting one another (and some even changed their inhabitants when they were captured); never were there so many exiles, or so much killing, some in the war itself, some through civil strife. Things that before had been told by report but seldom confirmed in fact ceased to be incredible: earthquakes, which seized the largest part of the earth at once and with the greatest violence; eclipses of the sun, which happened more often than is remembered from earlier times; great droughts in some places, and famines from them; and, not least in the harm it did and the part of the people it destroyed, the plague. All these fell upon them together with this war. The Athenians and the Peloponnesians began it by breaking the thirty years’ treaty they had made after the capture of Euboea.³ As for why they broke it, I have first set down the grievances and the disputes, so that no one may ever have to ask from what origin so great a war arose among the Hellenes. The truest cause, though the one least spoken of, I believe to have been this: the Athenians were growing great and causing fear in the Lacedaemonians, and so compelled them to go to war. But the grievances openly stated on each side, on account of which they broke the treaty and entered the war, were these.

24 Epidamnus is a city on the right as you sail into the Ionian Gulf.⁴ Its neighbors are the Taulantians, barbarians of the Illyrian race. It was colonized by the Corcyreans, but its founder was Phalius son of Eratocleides, a Corinthian of the line of Heracles, who was summoned from the mother city according to the ancient custom; and some Corinthians and others of the Dorian race joined in the settlement. As time went on, the power of the Epidamnians became great and their population large. But after many years of civil strife among themselves, so it is said, they were ruined in a war with the neighboring barbarians and lost most of their power. Finally, shortly before this war, their people drove out the men of power, who went over to the barbarians and plundered those in the city by land and by sea. When the Epidamnians in the city were hard pressed, they sent envoys to Corcyra as their mother city, begging the Corcyreans not to stand by and watch them be destroyed, but to reconcile the exiles with them and put an end to the war with the barbarians. They made this plea seated as suppliants in the temple of Hera. But the Corcyreans did not accept their supplication and sent them away with nothing.

25 When the Epidamnians learned that there was no help for them from Corcyra, they were at a loss how to deal with their situation. They sent to Delphi and asked the god whether they should hand their city over to the Corinthians as its founders and try to get some help from them. The god answered that they should hand it over and make the Corinthians their leaders. So the Epidamnians went to Corinth and, as the oracle directed, handed over the colony, pointing out that their founder was from Corinth and making the oracle known, and they begged the Corinthians not to stand by and watch them be destroyed, but to come to their defense. The Corinthians undertook to help them, both on grounds of justice, since they held that the colony was no less theirs than the Corcyreans’, and also out of hatred for the Corcyreans, because although they were colonists of Corinth they neglected her. At the common festivals they did not give the Corinthians the customary privileges, nor did they begin the sacrifice with a Corinthian, as the other colonies did; instead they looked down on them. In wealth they were at that time equal to the richest of the Hellenes, and in preparation for war they were stronger; they sometimes boasted that they were far superior at sea, and claimed the fame of the Phaeacians, who had lived on Corcyra before them and were renowned for their ships. (This was all the more reason why they kept building up their navy, and they were not without power: they had a hundred and twenty triremes when the war began.)

26 Having all these grievances, then, the Corinthians gladly sent the help to Epidamnus. They invited anyone who wished to go there as a settler, and sent a garrison of Ambraciots, Leucadians, and their own men. These went by land to Apollonia, a colony of Corinth, for fear that the Corcyreans would stop them if they crossed by sea. When the Corcyreans learned that the settlers and the garrison had arrived at Epidamnus and that the colony had been given to the Corinthians, they were furious. They sailed at once with twenty-five ships, and later with another fleet, and insultingly ordered the Epidamnians to take back the exiles (for the exiles of Epidamnus had come to Corcyra, pointing to the tombs of their ancestors and appealing to their kinship as grounds for asking to be restored) and to send away the garrison the Corinthians had sent and the settlers. The Epidamnians would not listen to any of it, and so the Corcyreans marched against them with forty ships, along with the exiles, intending to restore them, and taking the Illyrians with them as well. They sat down before the city and proclaimed that any Epidamnian who wished, and the foreigners, could leave unharmed; otherwise they would treat them as enemies. When this had no effect, the Corcyreans laid siege to the city, which stands on an isthmus.

27 When messengers came to the Corinthians from Epidamnus saying that they were being besieged, the Corinthians prepared an expedition, and at the same time proclaimed a colony to Epidamnus, on equal and like terms for anyone who wished to go; anyone who did not want to sail at once, but wished to have a share in the colony, could stay at home by depositing fifty Corinthian drachmas. Many sailed, and many paid down the money. They also asked the Megarians to escort them with ships, in case the Corcyreans tried to stop them from sailing. The Megarians made ready to sail with them with eight ships, and the Paleans of Cephallenia with four. They also asked the Epidaurians, who provided five; the Hermionians provided one, the Troezenians two, the Leucadians ten, and the Ambraciots eight. They asked the Thebans and the Phliasians for money, and the Eleans for unmanned ships and money. The Corinthians themselves made ready thirty ships and three thousand hoplites.

28 When the Corcyreans learned of these preparations, they went to Corinth with envoys from Lacedaemon and Sicyon, whom they took with them, and demanded that the Corinthians withdraw the garrison and the settlers at Epidamnus, since they had no claim to Epidamnus. If the Corinthians did claim anything, the Corcyreans were willing to submit the dispute to arbitration in the Peloponnese, before cities on which both sides agreed, and whichever side the colony was judged to belong to should keep it. They were also willing to refer it to the oracle at Delphi. But they told the Corinthians not to make war; otherwise, they said, if the Corinthians used force, they too would be compelled to make friends they did not want, others than their present ones, for the sake of help. The Corinthians answered that if the Corcyreans withdrew their ships and the barbarians from Epidamnus, they would consider the matter; before that it was not right for the Epidamnians to be under siege while they themselves went to arbitration. The Corcyreans replied that they would do this if the Corinthians also withdrew their men from Epidamnus; they were ready too for both sides to stay where they were and make a truce until the case was decided.

29 The Corinthians would listen to none of this. When their ships were manned and their allies had arrived, they first sent ahead a herald to declare war on the Corcyreans, then put out with seventy-five ships and two thousand hoplites and sailed for Epidamnus to make war on the Corcyreans. The ships were commanded by Aristeus son of Pellichus, Callicrates son of Callias, and Timanor son of Timanthes; the infantry by Archetimus son of Eurytimus and Isarchidas son of Isarchus. When they reached Actium in the territory of Anactorium, where the temple of Apollo stands at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, the Corcyreans sent a herald ahead to them in a small boat to forbid them to sail against Corcyra, and at the same time manned their ships, putting braces on the old ones to make them seaworthy and refitting the rest. When the herald brought back no peaceful answer from the Corinthians and their ships were manned, eighty in number (for forty were besieging Epidamnus), they put out against the enemy, drew up their line, and fought at sea. The Corcyreans won by a wide margin and destroyed fifteen of the Corinthian ships. On the same day it also happened that the force besieging Epidamnus brought the city to terms: the foreigners were to be sold, and the Corinthians to be kept in chains until some other decision was made.

30 After the sea battle the Corcyreans set up a trophy on Leucimme, a headland of Corcyra, and put to death all the prisoners they had taken except the Corinthians, whom they kept in chains. Afterward, when the Corinthians and their allies had gone home defeated at sea, the Corcyreans were masters of the whole sea in those parts. They sailed to Leucas, the Corinthian colony, and ravaged its land, and burned Cyllene, the port of the Eleans, because the Eleans had provided ships and money to the Corinthians. For most of the time after the sea battle they controlled the sea and sailed about doing damage to the allies of the Corinthians, until, as the summer was coming round, the Corinthians sent ships and an army, since their allies were suffering, and encamped at Actium and around Cape Cheimerium in Thesprotis, to protect Leucas and the other cities friendly to them. The Corcyreans encamped opposite them on Leucimme with ships and infantry. Neither side sailed against the other; they faced each other through that summer, and when winter came both went home.

31 All through the year after the sea battle, and the year after that, the Corinthians, angry over the war with Corcyra, built ships and prepared a naval force as strong as they could, collecting rowers from the Peloponnese itself and from the rest of Hellas and winning them over with pay. When the Corcyreans learned of these preparations they were afraid; and since they were in treaty with none of the Hellenes and had not enrolled themselves in either the Athenian or the Lacedaemonian treaty, they decided to go to the Athenians, become their allies, and try to get some help from them. When the Corinthians learned of this, they too came to Athens as envoys, so that the Athenian navy should not be added to the Corcyrean and prevent them from ending the war as they wished. An assembly was held, and the two sides argued against each other. The Corcyreans spoke as follows.

32 “Athenians, when men come to their neighbors to ask for help, as we do now, without any great service done or any alliance already in place to give them a claim, it is right that they should first show, above all, that what they ask is to the others’ advantage, or failing that, at least that it will do them no harm; and then that their gratitude can be relied on. If they can establish none of this clearly, they should not be angry if they fail. The Corcyreans have sent us in the belief that, along with our request for alliance, we can give you sure grounds on these points as well. But it so happens that the same policy has proved both inconsistent with the request we now make of you and unprofitable for our own affairs at present. For in the past we never chose to be anyone’s ally, and now we have come to ask others for exactly this; and because of it we stand alone in the present war with the Corinthians. What once seemed our prudence, not to share the dangers of an alliance with others at the discretion of a neighbor, has now turned out to be folly and weakness. In the sea battle that took place we beat back the Corinthians by ourselves. But now that they have set out against us with a larger force from the Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas, and we see that we cannot prevail with our own strength alone, and since the danger is great if we fall under their power, we are compelled to ask help from you and from anyone else. And we should be forgiven if we now dare to act against our former policy of keeping clear of affairs, not out of any malice, but rather through an error of judgment.

33 “If you are persuaded, the chance that brings us to need you will prove fortunate for you in many ways. First, you will be helping men who are wronged and who do no harm to others. Second, by taking in men whose most vital interests are at stake, you will lay up a favor with a testimony that will be remembered forever. And we possess the largest navy except your own. Consider: what good fortune could be rarer, or more painful to your enemies, than this? A power whose addition you would have valued above much money and gratitude is here, offering itself unasked, without danger or expense, and bringing you besides a name for virtue with the many, gratitude from those you defend, and strength for yourselves. In all of history few have had all these at once, and few who ask for alliance come to those they call on bringing as much security and honor as they will receive. And if any of you thinks that the war in which we could be useful will not happen, he is mistaken in his judgment. He does not see that the Lacedaemonians are eager for war out of fear of you, and that the Corinthians, who have influence with them and are your enemies, are seizing us first as a step toward attacking you, so that we may not stand together against them in common hatred, and so that by moving first they may make sure of one of two things: either crippling us or securing themselves. It is our business, in turn, to get in first, we by offering the alliance and you by accepting it, and to plot against them first rather than counter their plots.

34 “If they say that it is not just for you to receive their colonists, let them learn that every colony honors its mother city when it is well treated, but becomes estranged when it is wronged. Colonists are not sent out to be the slaves of those left behind, but to be their equals. That the Corinthians were in the wrong is clear. When we invited them to arbitration over Epidamnus, they chose to pursue their grievances by war rather than by fair means. And let their conduct toward us, their kinsmen, be a warning to you, so that you are not led astray by their deceit and do not give them help when they ask for it openly. For the man who has fewest regrets from doing favors for his enemies will go on in the greatest safety.

35 “Nor will you break the treaty with the Lacedaemonians by receiving us, since we are allies of neither side. For it is stated in it that any Hellenic city that is no one’s ally may join whichever side it pleases. And it would be monstrous if these men may man their ships from cities under the treaty, and from the rest of Hellas besides, and not least from your own subjects, while they bar us from the alliance open to us and from help from anywhere else, and then call it a wrong if you are persuaded to grant what we ask. We shall have far more cause to complain if we fail to persuade you. For you will be thrusting away us, who are in danger and are not your enemies, while you not only fail to stop these men, who are your enemies and are advancing, but allow them to draw strength from your own empire. That is not just. Rather, you should either stop them from hiring men from your empire, or send us too whatever help you are persuaded to send, and best of all receive us openly and help us. Many are the advantages we can point out, as we suggested at the start, and the greatest is that our enemies are the same, which is the surest pledge, and these enemies are not weak but able to harm those who leave them. And when the alliance offered is a naval one and not a land one, its loss is not the same. Your best course is, if you can, to let no one else possess ships; if not, to have the strongest naval power as your friend.

36 “And if anyone thinks that what we say is to your advantage but fears that by following it he will break the treaty, let him understand this. His fear, if it has strength behind it, will frighten his opponents more, while his confidence, if he rejects us, will be weak and will frighten enemies who are strong all the less. Let him understand too that he is deliberating now not about Corcyra more than about Athens, and that he is not providing for her best when, with the war that is coming and all but here, he looks only at the moment and hesitates to gain a place whose friendship or enmity carries the greatest consequences. For Corcyra lies well on the coastal route to Italy and Sicily, so that it can stop a fleet from coming from there to join the Peloponnesians, and can escort a fleet from here to those parts; and in other ways too it is most useful. In the briefest summary, which covers both the whole and each part, you may learn from this why you should not abandon us. There are three navies worth mention among the Hellenes: yours, ours, and that of the Corinthians. If you allow two of these to combine, and the Corinthians seize us first, you will fight at sea against the Corcyreans and the Peloponnesians together; if you receive us, you will be able to fight against them with your ships increased by ours.” So spoke the Corcyreans. After them the Corinthians spoke as follows.

37 “Since these Corcyreans have spoken not only about your receiving them but also to the effect that we are in the wrong and that they are being attacked unjustly, we must first deal with both these points ourselves before going on to the rest of our argument, so that you may know more surely beforehand the claim we make, and may have good reason to reject their need. They say that it was out of prudence that they have never accepted an alliance with anyone. But they adopted this policy for wickedness, not for virtue: they wanted no ally to witness their wrongdoing, and no need to feel shame at calling one in. Their city, too, lies in a position that is self-sufficient, and so makes them the judges of the injuries they do to anyone, rather than leaving it to agreements. For they sail out very little to their neighbors, but very often receive others who are forced to put in at Corcyra. And this fine-sounding refusal of treaties they have held up as a screen, not to avoid sharing in the wrongs of others, but so that they may do wrong alone, so that where they are strong they may use force, where they go unnoticed they may take more than their share, and where they happen to gain something they may feel no shame. And yet if they were good men, as they claim, the less exposed they were to attack from their neighbors, the more clearly they could have shown their virtue by giving and accepting what is just.

38 “But they are not like this, either toward others or toward us. Though they are our colonists, they have always stood apart from us, and now they are at war with us, saying they were not sent out to be ill treated. We say that we did not found the colony to be insulted by them either, but to be their leaders and to receive due respect. At any rate our other colonies honor us, and no city is loved more by its colonists than we are. And clearly, if we please the majority, we could not rightly displease these men alone, nor would we make war on them in this unusual way unless we were wronged in some unusual way. Even if we were at fault, it would have been honorable for them to give way to our anger, and shameful for us to use force against their moderation. But in their insolence and the license of their wealth they have committed many offenses against us, and above all this: Epidamnus was ours, and they laid no claim to it while it was in distress, but when we came to its help they seized it by force and hold it.

39 “And now they say that before all this they were willing to have the matter decided by arbitration. But an offer of arbitration made by one who holds the advantage and makes it from a safe position should count for nothing; it counts only from one who puts his deeds on an equal footing with his words before entering the contest. These men offered this fine pretense of arbitration not before laying siege to the place, but only when they thought we would not stand by and allow it. And they have come here, not content with their own offenses there, to ask you now not to be their allies but their partners in wrong, and to receive them when they are at odds with us. They should have come to you when they were safest, not now, when we have been wronged and they are in danger, and when you, who had no share in their power then, will now give them a share in your help, and who had no part in their offenses will bear an equal share of the blame from us. Those who are to share the consequences should have shared the power long ago.

40 “That we come with fitting grievances, and that these men are violent and grasping, has been shown. You must now learn why it would not be just for you to receive them. For if it is stated in the treaty that any of the cities not enrolled may join whichever side it wishes, the clause is not meant for those who join one side in order to harm the other. It is meant for a city that needs protection without robbing another of what is his, and that will not bring war instead of peace to those who receive it, if they are wise. That is what you would suffer now if you were not persuaded by us. For you would not only become their helpers but our enemies instead of our partners in the treaty; if you go with them, we must defend ourselves against them, and you with them. And yet it would be most just for you to stand aside from both of us, or else to go with us against them instead (for you are in treaty with the Corinthians, but with the Corcyreans you have never had even an armistice), and not to set up the rule that you receive those who revolt from others. We did not cast our vote against you when the Samians revolted, though the rest of the Peloponnesians were divided in their vote on whether to help them; we openly argued that each side should be left to punish its own allies. For if you receive and help those who do wrong, it will be seen that just as many of your own allies will come over to us, and you will be setting up a rule more against yourselves than against us.

41 “These, then, are the claims of justice we have on you, sufficient under the laws of the Hellenes. But we also have an appeal to make and a claim on your gratitude, such that, since we are neither enemies who would harm you nor friends who would take advantage of you, we say it should be repaid to us now. Once, before the Persian Wars, when you were short of warships for your war with the Aeginetans, you received twenty ships from the Corinthians. That service, and the one in the matter of the Samians, when it was because of us that the Peloponnesians did not help them, enabled you to defeat the Aeginetans and to punish the Samians. And these were done at moments of the kind in which men, going against their own enemies, care for nothing in the world except victory. For they count as a friend whoever serves them, even if he was an enemy before, and as an enemy whoever opposes them, even if he happens to be a friend, since they handle even their own affairs worse for the sake of the struggle at hand.

42 “Think about these things, and let the younger men learn them from their elders, and resolve to repay us in kind. Let no one think that what we say is just, but that if he goes to war, his advantage lies elsewhere. For advantage follows most closely where a man does least wrong. And the coming war, with which the Corcyreans try to frighten you into wrongdoing, still lies in the dark. It is not worth being carried away by it into acquiring an enmity with the Corinthians that is already open and not in the future. It would be wiser to remove the suspicion that already exists because of the Megarians, for a final favor, if it comes at the right moment, can cancel a greater grievance, even if it is a smaller favor. Nor should you be drawn in because they offer a great naval alliance. For to do no wrong to one’s equals is a surer strength than to be carried away by what is plain for the moment and to gain an advantage through dangers.

43 “We ourselves have now met the case we stated at Lacedaemon, that each side should punish its own allies, and we ask to receive the same treatment from you, and that you, having been helped by our vote, should not harm us by yours. Pay us back equally, knowing that this is the very moment when the man who serves is most a friend, and the man who opposes most an enemy. Do not receive these Corcyreans as allies against our will, and do not help them in their wrongdoing. If you do this, you will be acting as you should, and planning what is best for yourselves.”

44 Such was the speech of the Corinthians. The Athenians heard both sides, and held the assembly twice. At the first they inclined no less to the arguments of the Corinthians; but on the next day they changed their minds. They decided not to make an alliance with the Corcyreans that would bind them to have the same enemies and friends (for if the Corcyreans told them to sail with them against Corinth, their treaty with the Peloponnesians would be broken), but they made a defensive alliance to help each other if anyone attacked Corcyra, or Athens, or the allies of either. For they thought that the war with the Peloponnesians would come in any case, and they did not want to give up Corcyra, with so large a navy, to the Corinthians. They wanted rather to wear them down against each other as much as possible, so that, if it came to it, they would go to war with the Corinthians and the other naval powers when these were weaker. At the same time the island seemed to them well placed on the coastal route to Italy and Sicily.

45 With these considerations the Athenians received the Corcyreans, and not long after the Corinthians had left they sent ten ships to help them. Their generals were Lacedaemonius son of Cimon, Diotimus son of Strombichus, and Proteas son of Epicles. They were instructed not to fight the Corinthians at sea unless the Corinthians sailed against Corcyra and were about to land there or on some place belonging to it; in that case they were to stop them as best they could. These instructions were given so as not to break the treaty.

46 The ships arrived at Corcyra. The Corinthians, when their preparations were complete, sailed against Corcyra with a hundred and fifty ships. Ten of these were Elean, twelve Megarian, ten Leucadian, twenty-seven Ambraciot, one Anactorian, and ninety were the Corinthians’ own. Each city had its own generals, and the Corinthians had Xenocleides son of Euthycles and four others. Sailing from Leucas, they reached the mainland opposite Corcyra and anchored at Cheimerium in Thesprotis. This is a harbor, and above it, some way from the sea, lies the city of Ephyra, in the Elaeatis district of Thesprotis. Near it the Acherusian lake empties into the sea; the river Acheron flows through Thesprotis into the lake, and gives it its name. The river Thyamis also flows there, forming the boundary between Thesprotis and Cestrine, and between these rivers rises the headland of Cheimerium. It was here on the mainland that the Corinthians anchored and made their camp.

47 When the Corcyreans learned that they were sailing toward them, they manned a hundred and ten ships, under the command of Miciades, Aesimides, and Eurybatus, and encamped on one of the islands called Sybota; and the ten Athenian ships were with them. Their infantry was on the headland of Leucimme, together with a thousand hoplites from Zacynthus who had come to help them. The Corinthians too had many of the barbarians who had come to their support on the mainland, for the mainlanders in those parts have always been their friends.

48 When the Corinthians were ready, they took three days’ provisions and put out by night from Cheimerium to give battle. At dawn, as they sailed, they caught sight of the Corcyrean ships out at sea and sailing toward them. As soon as they saw each other, they drew up in line of battle. On the Corcyrean right wing were the Athenian ships, and the Corcyreans themselves held the rest of the line, having formed their ships into three divisions, each commanded by one of the three generals. So the Corcyreans were drawn up. On the Corinthian side the Megarian and Ambraciot ships held the right wing, and the other allies were in the center, each in its own group; the Corinthians themselves, with their fastest ships, held the left wing, opposite the Athenians and the Corcyrean right.

49 When the signals had been raised on each side, they closed and fought. Both sides had many hoplites on their decks, and many archers and javelin throwers, for they were still equipped in the old way, rather unskillfully. The battle was hard fought, not in skill but rather because it was more like a battle on land. For whenever they rammed one another, they could not easily get clear, because of the number and crowding of the ships, and they relied for victory more on the hoplites on the decks, who stood and fought while the ships lay still. There was no breaking of the line; they fought more with fury and strength than with skill. Everywhere there was great uproar, and the battle was confused. In it the Athenian ships came up to support the Corcyreans wherever they were pressed and caused fear in the enemy, but they did not begin fighting, since their generals were afraid of the Athenians’ instructions. The right wing of the Corinthians suffered most. For the Corcyreans with twenty ships routed them, chased them in disorder to the mainland, sailed right up to their camp, landed, burned the deserted tents, and plundered their property. Here, then, the Corinthians and their allies were defeated and the Corcyreans prevailed. But where the Corinthians themselves were, on the left, they were winning decisively, since the Corcyreans, whose numbers were smaller to begin with, were short the twenty ships that had gone in pursuit. The Athenians, seeing the Corcyreans hard pressed, now began to help them more openly, at first holding back so as not to ram any ship themselves. But when the rout became plain and the Corinthians pressed hard, then every man set to work and no distinction was made any longer: things came to such a pass that the Corinthians and the Athenians were compelled to fight each other.

50 When the rout came, the Corinthians did not take in tow the hulls of the ships they had disabled, but turned to the men, rowing through the wreckage to kill rather than to take them alive; and not knowing that their own men on the right wing had been defeated, they killed their own friends without realizing it. For there were many ships on both sides, covering a wide stretch of sea, and once they were engaged it was not easy to tell who was winning and who was losing. In the number of ships, this was the greatest sea battle of Hellenes against Hellenes that had yet been fought. When the Corinthians had chased the Corcyreans to land, they turned to the wrecks and their own dead, and recovered most of them and brought them to Sybota, where the land army of the barbarians had come to support them. This Sybota is a deserted harbor in Thesprotis. After doing this they gathered again and sailed against the Corcyreans. The Corcyreans, with the ships that were still seaworthy and all that were left, together with the Athenian ships, sailed out against them in turn, afraid that they would try to land on their territory. It was already late, and the paean for the attack had been sung, when the Corinthians suddenly began to back water. They had sighted twenty Athenian ships sailing up, which the Athenians had sent later to support the ten, afraid, as in fact happened, that the Corcyreans would be defeated and their own ten ships would be too few to defend them.

51 The Corinthians saw these ships first, and suspecting that they came from Athens and that there were more of them than they could see, they began to withdraw. The Corcyreans could not see the ships, which were sailing up from a direction hidden from them, and they wondered why the Corinthians were backing water, until some of them saw the ships and said, “There are ships sailing up.” Then they too withdrew, for it was already getting dark, and the Corinthians had turned away and broken off. So the two sides parted, and the battle ended at nightfall. The Corcyreans were encamped at Leucimme when these twenty ships from Athens, commanded by Glaucon son of Leagrus and Andocides son of Leogoras,⁵ made their way through the corpses and the wreckage and sailed into the camp not long after they were sighted. The Corcyreans (for it was night) were afraid they were enemy ships, but then recognized them, and the ships anchored.

52 The next day the thirty Athenian ships and as many of the Corcyrean ships as were seaworthy put out and sailed to the harbor at Sybota where the Corinthians lay at anchor, wanting to know whether they would fight. The Corinthians put out from the shore, drew up in line in open water, and waited there. They had no intention of starting a battle of their own accord, since they saw that fresh ships had arrived from Athens and that they themselves faced many difficulties: they had to guard the prisoners they had on their ships, and there was no way to repair their ships in a deserted place. They were thinking rather of how to make their way home, for they were afraid that the Athenians would consider the treaty broken, since they had come to blows, and would not let them sail away.

53 So they decided to put some men in a small boat, without a herald’s staff, and send them to the Athenians to test them. They sent them and they said this: “You are doing wrong, men of Athens, in starting a war and breaking the treaty. We are punishing our enemies, and you stand in our way with arms raised against us. If it is your intention to stop us from sailing against Corcyra, or anywhere else we wish, and so to break the treaty, take us first, who are here, and treat us as enemies.” So they spoke. All of the Corcyrean camp that heard it at once shouted to seize them and kill them, but the Athenians answered as follows: “We are not starting a war, men of the Peloponnese, nor breaking the treaty. We have come to help these Corcyreans, who are our allies. If you wish to sail anywhere else, we do not stop you. But if you sail against Corcyra or any place of theirs, we shall not stand by and allow it, as far as it is in our power.”

54 After the Athenians gave this answer, the Corinthians prepared for the voyage home and set up a trophy at the Sybota on the mainland. The Corcyreans took up the wrecks and the dead that had drifted toward them, carried by the current and by a wind that rose in the night and scattered them everywhere, and set up a rival trophy at the Sybota on the island, as victors. Each side claimed the victory on these grounds. The Corinthians set up a trophy because they had prevailed in the sea battle until nightfall, so that they had recovered most of the wrecks and the dead, and they held no fewer than a thousand prisoners and had sunk about seventy ships. The Corcyreans set up a trophy because they had destroyed about thirty ships, and after the Athenians came had recovered the wrecks and dead on their side; because the day before the Corinthians had backed water and retreated before them on seeing the Athenian ships; and because, when the Athenians came, the Corinthians did not sail out against them from Sybota.

55 So each side claimed the victory. On their voyage home the Corinthians took Anactorium, which is at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, by treachery (it was held in common by the Corcyreans and themselves), settled Corinthian colonists in it, and went home. Of the Corcyrean prisoners, they sold the eight hundred who were slaves, and kept two hundred and fifty in chains, treating them with great consideration, so that when they went back they might win Corcyra over to the Corinthians; and in fact most of them were among the most powerful men in the city. In this way Corcyra survived the war with the Corinthians, and the Athenian ships left it. This was the first cause of the war that the Corinthians had against the Athenians: that the Athenians had fought at sea against them, with the Corcyreans, while under treaty.

56 Immediately after this, further disputes arose between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians, leading them toward war. While the Corinthians were working out how to take revenge on the Athenians, the Athenians, suspecting their hostility, ordered the Potidaeans, who live on the isthmus of Pallene and are colonists of Corinth but allies of Athens paying tribute, to pull down their wall on the side facing Pallene and to give hostages, and also to send away the Corinthian magistrates and in future not to receive those whom the Corinthians sent out every year. They feared that the Potidaeans, persuaded by Perdiccas and the Corinthians, would revolt, and would bring the other allies in Thrace to revolt with them.

57 The Athenians made these preparations against the Potidaeans immediately after the sea battle at Corcyra. For the Corinthians were now openly at odds with them, and Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, who had been their ally and friend before, had become their enemy. He had become their enemy because the Athenians had made an alliance with his brother Philip and with Derdas, who were acting together against him. In his alarm he was sending to Lacedaemon to work for a war between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians, and he was trying to win over the Corinthians, with a view to the revolt of Potidaea. He also made proposals to the Chalcidians in Thrace and the Bottiaeans to join in the revolt, thinking that if he had these places, which bordered his own country, as allies, he could more easily carry on the war with their help. The Athenians learned of this and wanted to forestall the revolt of the cities. They happened to be sending thirty ships and a thousand hoplites against his country, under the command of Archestratus son of Lycomedes with ten others,⁶ and they instructed the commanders of the ships to take hostages from the Potidaeans and pull down their wall, and to keep watch on the neighboring cities so that they would not revolt.

58 The Potidaeans sent envoys to the Athenians, to see whether they could persuade them to make no changes in their affairs; but they also went to Lacedaemon with the Corinthians, to get help ready if it should be needed. After long negotiations at Athens they gained nothing useful; the ships were sailing against Macedonia and against them alike; and the authorities at Lacedaemon promised them that if the Athenians moved against Potidaea they would invade Attica. Then, at this moment, they revolted, together with the Chalcidians and the Bottiaeans, all bound by a common oath. Perdiccas persuaded the Chalcidians to abandon and pull down their cities on the coast and move inland to Olynthus, and to make that one city strong; and to those who abandoned their cities he gave part of his own territory of Mygdonia, around Lake Bolbe, to live on while the war with the Athenians lasted. So they moved inland, pulling down their cities, and prepared for war.

59 The thirty Athenian ships arrived in the Thracian region and found Potidaea and the rest already in revolt. The generals, thinking it impossible with their present force to make war both on Perdiccas and on the places that had revolted with him, turned to Macedonia, against which they had been sent in the first place, and settled down to make war there together with Philip and the brothers of Derdas, who had invaded with an army from inland.

60 Meanwhile, now that Potidaea had revolted and the Athenian ships were off Macedonia, the Corinthians feared for the place and considered the danger their own. They sent volunteers of their own and others from the rest of the Peloponnese whom they won over with pay, sixteen hundred hoplites in all and four hundred light-armed troops. Their general was Aristeus son of Adeimantus, and it was not least out of friendship for him that most of the soldiers from Corinth went with him as volunteers, for he had always been on good terms with the Potidaeans. They arrived in Thrace forty days after Potidaea revolted.

61 The news that the cities had revolted also reached the Athenians at once. When they learned that Aristeus and his men were on their way as well, they sent two thousand of their own hoplites and forty ships against the places in revolt, with Callias son of Calliades and four others as generals. These arrived first in Macedonia and found the earlier thousand, who had just taken Therme and were besieging Pydna. They too sat down before Pydna and besieged it. But then they made an agreement and an alliance with Perdiccas, as they were forced to, since Potidaea pressed them and Aristeus had arrived, and they withdrew from Macedonia. They came to Beroea and from there to Strepsa, and after first making an attempt on the place and failing to take it, they marched by land toward Potidaea with three thousand of their own hoplites, many allies besides, and six hundred Macedonian cavalry, those with Philip and Pausanias; at the same time seventy ships sailed along the coast. Advancing by short stages, they reached Gigonus on the third day and encamped.

62 The Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians with Aristeus, expecting the Athenians, were encamped on the Olynthus side of the isthmus and had set up a market outside the city. The allies had chosen Aristeus as general of all the infantry and Perdiccas of the cavalry; for Perdiccas had at once broken with the Athenians again and was fighting on the side of the Potidaeans, leaving Iolaus in command in his place. Aristeus’ plan was this: he would keep his own force on the isthmus and watch for the Athenians if they came on, while the Chalcidians, the allies from outside the isthmus, and the two hundred cavalry from Perdiccas stayed at Olynthus; and when the Athenians advanced against him, these would come up from behind and catch the enemy between them. Callias, the Athenian general, and his colleagues sent the Macedonian cavalry and a few of the allies toward Olynthus to prevent help from coming from there, and they themselves broke camp and marched on Potidaea. When they reached the isthmus and saw the enemy preparing for battle, they took up position opposite them, and not long after the two sides engaged. The wing of Aristeus himself, with the picked men of the Corinthians and others who were around him, routed the troops facing it and pursued them a long way. But the rest of the army, Potidaeans and Peloponnesians, was defeated by the Athenians and fled inside the wall.

63 As Aristeus came back from the pursuit and saw that the rest of the army had been defeated, he was at a loss which way to risk going, to Olynthus or to Potidaea. He decided to draw his men together into as small a space as possible and force his way into Potidaea at a run. He got through by way of the breakwater, through the sea, under fire and with difficulty, losing a few men but saving most. The troops at Olynthus who were to help the Potidaeans (it is about sixty stades away and in plain sight), when the battle began and the signals were raised, advanced a short way to give help, and the Macedonian cavalry drew up against them to stop them. But since the Athenians won quickly and the signals were taken down, they withdrew again inside the wall, and the Macedonians went back to the Athenians; so neither side’s cavalry took part. After the battle the Athenians set up a trophy and gave back the dead to the Potidaeans under truce. Of the Potidaeans and their allies a little fewer than three hundred died; of the Athenians themselves a hundred and fifty, and Callias their general.

64 The Athenians at once built a wall to cut off the city on the isthmus side and kept a garrison there; but the side toward Pallene was left unwalled. For they did not think they had enough men both to garrison the isthmus and to cross to Pallene and build a wall there, and they were afraid that if they divided their forces the Potidaeans and their allies would attack them. When the Athenians at home learned that Pallene was unwalled, some time later they sent sixteen hundred of their own hoplites, with Phormio son of Asopius as general. When he arrived at Pallene he made Aphytis his base and brought his army up to Potidaea, advancing by short stages and ravaging the land as he went; and since no one came out to fight, he built a wall to cut off the city on the Pallene side. So Potidaea was now closely besieged on both sides, and from the sea as well by ships blockading it.

65 Once the city was walled off, Aristeus had no hope of saving it unless something came from the Peloponnese or some other unexpected thing happened. He advised that all but five hundred should wait for a wind and sail out, so that the food would last longer, and he was willing to be one of those who stayed. When he could not persuade them, he wanted to arrange what came next and to put affairs outside the city on the best possible footing, so he sailed out, evading the Athenian blockade. Staying among the Chalcidians, he joined them in the war in various ways; in particular he laid an ambush near the city of Sermyle and killed many of its men; and he negotiated with the Peloponnese to see how some help might be had. After the walling of Potidaea, Phormio, with his sixteen hundred men, ravaged Chalcidice and Bottice and took some towns.

66 These, then, were the grievances that had arisen between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians. The Corinthians complained that the Athenians were besieging Potidaea, their colony, with Corinthian and Peloponnesian men inside it; the Athenians complained against the Peloponnesians that they had caused a city that was their ally and paid tribute to revolt, and had come and fought openly against them on the side of the Potidaeans. The war, however, had not yet broken out; there was still an armistice, for the Corinthians had done these things on their own account.

67 But with Potidaea under siege the Corinthians did not keep quiet, since they had men inside and also feared for the place. They at once summoned the allies to Lacedaemon and, once there, loudly denounced the Athenians for having broken the treaty and wronged the Peloponnese. The Aeginetans did not send envoys openly, for fear of the Athenians, but in secret they did as much as anyone to urge on the war, saying that they were not independent as the treaty provided. The Lacedaemonians summoned in addition any of the allies and anyone else who said he had been wronged by the Athenians, held their usual assembly, and told them to speak. Others came forward and stated their grievances, each in turn, and among them the Megarians, who set out a good many other disputes, but above all that they were excluded from the harbors in the Athenian empire and from the market of Attica, contrary to the treaty.⁷ The Corinthians came forward last, having let the others first stir up the Lacedaemonians, and spoke as follows.

68 “Lacedaemonians, the trust you place in your own constitution and in your dealings with one another makes you slower to believe the rest of us when we tell you something. It gives you moderation, but it leaves you more ignorant in your handling of affairs abroad. Time and again we warned you of the harm the Athenians were about to do us, and each time, instead of learning from what we told you, you suspected the speakers of talking out of their own private quarrels. And so it was not before we suffered, but now that we are in the thick of it, that you have called these allies together; and among them it is fitting that we should speak not least, since we have the greatest grievances: we are insulted by the Athenians and neglected by you. If they were wronging Hellas somewhere out of sight, you would need instruction, as men who did not know. But as it is, why make a long speech? You see that some of us have been enslaved already, and that they are plotting against others, not least against our allies, and that they have long been prepared, in case war should ever come. Otherwise they would not have taken Corcyra and held it in spite of us, or be besieging Potidaea. Potidaea is the most convenient place for operations in Thrace, and Corcyra would have given the Peloponnesians a very large navy.

69 “And you are to blame for this. First you allowed them to fortify their city after the Persian Wars, and later to build the Long Walls; and ever since, you have been depriving of freedom not only those they have enslaved but now your own allies as well. For it is not the man who enslaves but the man who could stop it and stands by who more truly does the deed, especially if he claims the honor of virtue as the liberator of Hellas. Even now we have barely managed to meet, and even now not on any clear basis. We ought no longer to be asking whether we are being wronged, but how we shall defend ourselves. For those who act have made their plans and move at once, without delay, against men who have not yet decided. And we know the path the Athenians take, and how they encroach on their neighbors little by little. As long as they think they are unobserved because of your dullness, they are less bold; but once they know that you see and let it pass, they will press on hard. You alone of the Hellenes, Lacedaemonians, sit still, defending yourselves against an enemy not with your power but with your hesitation; you alone put down the growth of your enemies not when it is beginning but when it has doubled. And yet you were said to be safe; but your reputation, it seems, was greater than the fact. We ourselves know that the Mede came from the ends of the earth to the Peloponnese before your forces went out to meet him as they should; and now you overlook the Athenians, who are not far off, as he was, but near at hand. Instead of attacking them yourselves you prefer to defend yourselves when they attack, and to put yourselves at the mercy of chance by fighting men far more powerful than before. Yet you know that the barbarian failed mostly through his own mistakes, and that against these same Athenians we have often survived more through their errors than through any help from you; for hopes placed in you have before now ruined some who trusted them and made no preparations. And let none of you think that we speak out of hostility rather than complaint. Complaint is for friends who have made mistakes; accusation is for enemies who have done wrong.

70 “Besides, we believe that we, if anyone, have a right to find fault with our neighbors, especially when the interests at stake are so great. Of these, it seems to us, you are not aware. You have never considered what kind of men the Athenians are against whom you will have to fight, and how much, how utterly, they differ from you. They are innovators, quick to form plans and quick to carry out in deed whatever they decide. You are good at keeping what you have, at devising nothing new, and, when you act, at not achieving even what is necessary. Again, they are daring beyond their power, they take risks beyond their judgment, and in danger they are full of hope. Your way is to do less than your power allows, to distrust even what your judgment is sure of, and to think you will never be free of dangers. They are decisive while you hesitate; they go abroad while you are the greatest stay-at-homes. For they think that by being away they may gain something, while you think that by going out you may harm even what you have. When they defeat their enemies they follow up as far as they can, and when they are beaten they fall back as little as possible. Further, they use their bodies for their city as if they were not their own, and their minds as most truly their own, to accomplish something for her. When they have formed a plan and fail to carry it out, they think they have been robbed of something that was theirs; when they go out and gain something, they think they have done little compared with what is to come. And if they fail in some attempt, they form new hopes instead and make up the loss. For they alone possess a thing and hope for it at the same moment once they have conceived it, because they set about whatever they decide so quickly. And all this they labor at, with toil and danger, all their lives, and enjoy least what they have, because they are always acquiring more. They think no holiday is anything but doing what has to be done, and they count untroubled quiet no less a misfortune than painful work. So if someone were to sum them up by saying that they were born neither to have rest themselves nor to let other men have it, he would be right.

71 “And yet, Lacedaemonians, with such a city ranged against you, you hold back. You think that peace lasts longest not for those who use their power justly but make it plain in their resolve that they will not put up with being wronged; instead you practice fairness on the principle of not hurting others and of not being harmed yourselves in defending yourselves. You could hardly achieve this even if you lived beside a city like your own. But as it is, as we have just shown, your ways are old-fashioned compared with theirs. And it is inevitable, as in any craft, that what is new always prevails. For a city at peace, established customs that are left undisturbed are best; but for those compelled to face many challenges, much improvement is needed too. That is why the Athenian system, because of their wide experience, has been made new far more than yours. Here, then, let your slowness end. Now help the Potidaeans and the others, as you promised, by invading Attica quickly, so that you do not betray friends and kinsmen to their worst enemies, and do not drive the rest of us in despair to some other alliance. If we did so, we would be doing nothing wrong in the sight of the gods by whom we swore, or of men who understand. For it is not those who turn to others when deserted who break treaties, but those who do not help the men they swore to help. But if you are willing to be zealous, we shall stay; for we would be committing an impiety if we changed sides, and we would find no others more congenial to us. In view of this, take good counsel, and try to lead a Peloponnese no smaller than the one your fathers handed down to you.”

72 So spoke the Corinthians. Now an Athenian embassy happened to be at Lacedaemon already on other business, and when its members heard of these speeches they decided that they must come before the Lacedaemonians. They did not mean to make any defense against the charges the cities were bringing, but to show on the question as a whole that the Lacedaemonians should not decide quickly but should consider it at greater length. At the same time they wanted to show how great their own city was in power, and to remind the older men of what they knew and to tell the younger of what they had not seen, thinking that their words would turn the Lacedaemonians toward peace rather than war. So they went to the Lacedaemonians and said that they too wished to address their assembly, if nothing prevented it. The Lacedaemonians invited them to come forward, and the Athenians came forward and spoke as follows.

73 “Our embassy did not come here to argue with your allies, but on the business for which our city sent us. But since we hear that there is no small outcry against us, we have come forward, not to answer the charges of the cities (for you are not judges before whom either we or they could plead), but so that you may not be easily persuaded by your allies to decide wrongly on matters of great importance. We wish at the same time to show, on the whole question that has been raised against us, that we hold what we possess not unreasonably, and that our city is worth taking into account. Why speak of very ancient matters, for which the evidence is hearsay rather than the eyes of those who will hear us? But the Persian Wars, and all that you know yourselves, we must speak of, even if you are weary of always hearing them brought up. For when we acted, we ran our risks for a benefit; you had your share of its substance, and we should not be robbed of all the credit, if the credit is of any use to us. What we say will be said not so much to beg off as to bear witness, and to make clear what kind of city you will have to contend with if you do not decide well. We say that at Marathon we alone stood in the front of the danger against the barbarian; and that when he came the second time, and we were not able to defend ourselves on land, we went on board our ships, the whole people, and fought with the others at Salamis. That kept him from sailing against the Peloponnese and destroying it city by city, since the cities could not have helped one another against a large fleet. He himself gave the greatest proof of it. When he was defeated at sea, he withdrew in haste with the greater part of his army, since his power was no longer a match for them.

74 “Such being the outcome, and it having been shown clearly that the fate of the Hellenes depended on their ships, we contributed the three things most useful to it: the largest number of ships, the shrewdest general, and the most unhesitating zeal. Of the four hundred ships we provided a little under two-thirds; we provided Themistocles as commander, who more than anyone brought about the battle in the narrows, which most clearly saved the cause, and for this you yourselves honored him more than any foreigner who has ever come to you; and we showed zeal by far the most daring. When no one came to help us by land, and the rest up to our borders were already slaves, we resolved to abandon our city and sacrifice our property, and even so not to desert the common cause of the remaining allies, or to scatter and become useless to them, but to go on board our ships and face the danger, and not to be angry that you had not come to our aid first. So we say that we did you no less a service than we received. You came to help from cities still inhabited, and to keep them inhabited in future, when you feared for yourselves rather than for us (at any rate, while we were still unharmed, you did not appear). We set out from a city that no longer existed and ran our risks for one that had only a slim hope of existing again, and so we helped to save you, in part, and ourselves. If we had gone over to the Mede at the start, fearing for our land, as others did, or if afterward we had not dared to take to our ships, as men already ruined, there would have been no point in your fighting at sea, since you did not have enough ships, and his affairs would have gone forward at leisure, as he wished.

75 “Do we not deserve, Lacedaemonians, for the zeal we showed then and for the intelligence of our judgment, not to be so excessively hated by the Hellenes for the empire we hold? We did not gain this empire by force. You were unwilling to stay on and finish the war against what was left of the barbarian, and the allies came to us and of their own accord asked us to be their leaders. It was the course of events itself that compelled us at first to advance our empire to its present point, chiefly out of fear, then for honor as well, and later for advantage too. And it no longer seemed safe, once we were hated by most of them, when some had already revolted and been subdued, and when you were no longer friendly to us as before but suspicious and at odds with us, to let it go and run the risk; for those who revolted would have gone over to you. No one can be blamed for arranging his own interests well when the greatest dangers are at stake.

76 “You at any rate, Lacedaemonians, lead the cities in the Peloponnese after arranging their affairs to suit your interest. And if you had stayed on through the whole of that time and become hated in your leadership, as we have, we know well that you would have been no less oppressive to your allies, and would have been compelled either to rule with a strong hand or to run risks yourselves. So we too have done nothing remarkable, nothing contrary to human ways, if we accepted an empire that was offered to us and then did not give it up, mastered by the three strongest motives, honor, fear, and advantage. Nor were we the first to act this way: it has always been established that the weaker are kept down by the stronger. And we thought ourselves worthy of it, and so did you, until now, calculating your interest, you use the argument of justice. Yet no one, given the chance to gain something by strength, has ever preferred that argument and so held back from taking more. Those deserve praise who, following human nature in ruling others, prove more just than their power requires. At any rate we think that if others took our place they would show very clearly whether we are moderate; but in our case our very fairness has brought us, unreasonably, more ill repute than praise.

77 “For although we put ourselves at a disadvantage in lawsuits with our allies under our agreements, and have the cases tried at Athens under laws equal for both sides, we are thought to be fond of litigation. And none of them asks why others who have an empire elsewhere, and are less moderate toward their subjects than we are, are not reproached for this. It is because those who can use force have no need of lawsuits. But our allies, used to dealing with us on equal terms, if they are worsted in any way contrary to what they think right, whether by a decision or by the power our empire gives us, are not grateful that they have not lost more; they resent what they lack more bitterly than if we had put the law aside from the start and openly taken more than our share. In that case not even they would have argued that the weaker ought not to give way to the stronger. Men, it seems, are angrier at being wronged than at being forced. The one seems like being cheated by an equal, the other like being compelled by a superior. At any rate they endured worse than this at the hands of the Mede, but our empire seems harsh to them; and naturally so, for the present is always heavy to subjects. You, certainly, if you overthrew us and ruled in our place, would soon lose the goodwill you have won through fear of us, if you were to show the same disposition now as you displayed during your brief leadership against the Mede. For you have customs of your own that do not mix with those of others, and besides, each one of you, when he goes abroad, follows neither these nor those that the rest of Hellas observes.

78 “Deliberate slowly, then, as on no small matter, and do not let the judgments and grievances of others persuade you to bring trouble on yourselves. Before you are in the war, consider how great a part the unforeseen plays in it. As it lengthens it usually comes down to chance, which both of us are equally far from controlling, and its outcome is a risk in the dark. When men go to war they turn first to action, which should come later, and only when they are suffering do they take up words. We have not yet made any such mistake ourselves, and we see that you have not. So we tell you, while good counsel is still a free choice for both of us, not to break the treaty or violate your oaths, but to settle our differences by arbitration according to the agreement. Otherwise, calling to witness the gods by whom we swore, we shall try to defend ourselves against you if you begin the war, in whatever way you lead.”

79 So spoke the Athenians. When the Lacedaemonians had heard the charges of the allies against the Athenians and what the Athenians had said, they sent everyone out and deliberated among themselves about the situation. The opinions of the majority tended the same way: that the Athenians were already in the wrong and that they must go to war quickly. But Archidamus their king, a man thought to be both intelligent and prudent, came forward and spoke as follows.

80 “I myself have experience of many wars already, Lacedaemonians, and I see among you men of the same age, so that no one is likely to long for war out of inexperience, as most men would, or because he thinks it a good and safe thing. You would find that this war you are now deliberating about would be no small one, if you considered it soberly. Against the Peloponnesians and our neighbors our strength is of a like kind, and we can move quickly against each of them. But against men whose land is far away, who are besides the most experienced at sea, and who are excellently equipped in every other way, with private and public wealth, with ships and horses and arms, and with a population larger than any other single place in Hellas, and who also have many allies paying them tribute, how can we lightly take up a war against such men, and in what can we trust that we should rush into it unprepared? In our ships? But we are weaker there; and if we train and prepare to match them, it will take time. In our money? But there we fall short still further: we have none in a common treasury, and we do not readily pay contributions from our private means.

81 “Perhaps someone may take confidence in our superiority in arms and numbers, so that we can invade and ravage their land. But they have much other land under their rule, and they will bring in what they need by sea. If, again, we try to make their allies revolt, we shall have to support these too with ships, since most of them are islanders. What kind of war, then, will ours be? Unless we either defeat them at sea or take away the revenues from which they maintain their navy, we shall take more harm than we inflict. And in that case it will no longer be honorable even to make peace, especially if we are thought to have begun the quarrel. Let us not be carried away by the hope that the war will soon be over if we ravage their land. I fear rather that we may leave it to our children as well, so unlikely is it that the Athenians, with their pride, will be slaves to their land, or be panic-stricken by war like men without experience.

82 “I do not say that we should be so insensible as to let them harm our allies, or fail to expose their plots. But we should not take up arms yet. We should send to them and make complaints, without either threatening war too openly or suggesting that we will give way; and meanwhile we should build up our own strength by winning allies, Hellenes and barbarians alike, wherever we can gain any addition in naval power or money (no one can blame those who, like us, are the targets of Athenian plots for saving themselves by taking on barbarians as well as Hellenes), and at the same time we should develop our own resources. If they listen to our envoys, so much the better. If not, after two or three years have passed we shall be better fortified and can go against them, if we so decide. And perhaps when they see our preparations, and our words keeping pace with them, they will be more inclined to give way, while their land is still unravaged and they are deliberating about goods they still possess and that are not yet destroyed. For you must think of their land as nothing but a hostage, and the better it is cultivated, the better the hostage. We should spare it as long as possible, and not drive them to desperation and so make them harder to handle. For if we are unprepared, and are hurried by the complaints of our allies into ravaging it, take care that we do not bring on the Peloponnese more disgrace and more difficulty. Complaints, whether of cities or of individuals, can be settled; but a war taken up by all for the sake of private interests, when no one can know how it will go, is not easy to end with honor.

83 “And let no one think it cowardice that many of us do not quickly attack one city. They too have allies, no fewer than ours, who pay them money; and war is a matter not so much of arms as of money, which makes arms effective, especially when a land power fights a sea power. Let us first provide ourselves with money, then, and not be carried away beforehand by the speeches of our allies. Since it is we who will bear most of the blame for the outcome, whichever way it goes, let us also take time to look ahead a little.

84 “And do not be ashamed of the slowness and hesitation for which they blame us most. If you hurry, you will be longer in finishing, because you started unprepared; and besides, the city we inhabit has always been free and most highly regarded. This quality may well be, more than anything, a sensible moderation. Because of it we alone neither grow insolent in success nor give way to misfortune as much as others. When people urge us to dangers with praise, against our own judgment, we are not carried away by the pleasure of it; and if anyone tries to provoke us with accusations, we are no more persuaded for being vexed. We are good in war and good in counsel because of our discipline: good in war because shame is the chief part of self-control and courage the chief part of shame; good in counsel because we are brought up too unlearned to look down on the laws, and with too severe a discipline to disobey them. We are not so clever in useless things as to find fine words of blame for the enemy’s preparations and then fail to match them in deed. We hold rather that the minds of our neighbors are much like our own, and that the chances that befall us cannot be determined by argument. We always prepare in deed against our enemies on the assumption that their plans are good. We must place our hopes not on the chance that they will blunder, but on the soundness of our own foresight. And we should not think that one man differs much from another, but that the best is he who is trained in the hardest school of necessity.

85 “These are the practices that our fathers handed down to us and that we have always kept, to our benefit. Let us not give them up, or in a brief part of a single day, under pressure, decide about many lives, much wealth, many cities, and our good name. Let us decide at leisure. We can do this more than others, because of our strength. Send to the Athenians about Potidaea, and send about the wrongs the allies say they suffer, especially since the Athenians are ready to submit to arbitration; and against one who offers arbitration it is not lawful to proceed as against a wrongdoer before the case is heard. But prepare for war at the same time. This will be the best decision for yourselves and the most frightening to your enemies.” So spoke Archidamus. Last of all Sthenelaidas, who was one of the ephors at the time, came forward and spoke as follows.

86 “The long speech of the Athenians I do not understand. They praised themselves at length, but nowhere denied that they are wronging our allies and the Peloponnese. And yet if they were good men then against the Medes but are bad men now toward us, they deserve double punishment, because they have turned bad from good. We are the same now as we were then, and if we are sensible we shall not stand by while our allies are wronged, nor delay to help them; for they are not delaying in their suffering. Others have much money, and ships, and horses; we have good allies, whom we must not betray to the Athenians. Nor must this be settled by lawsuits and words, since it is not in words that our allies are being harmed. We must help them quickly and with all our strength. And let no one tell us that we ought to deliberate when we are being wronged; it is rather those who intend to do wrong who ought to deliberate long. Vote for war, then, Lacedaemonians, as befits Sparta. Do not let the Athenians grow greater, and let us not betray our allies, but with the help of the gods let us go against the wrongdoers.”

87 When he had said this, he himself, as ephor, put the question to the assembly of the Lacedaemonians. They decide by shouting, not by ballot, and he said he could not tell which shout was louder. Wanting them to show their opinion openly and so to be more eager for war, he said: “Those of you, Lacedaemonians, who think that the treaty has been broken and that the Athenians are in the wrong, stand up and go to that place,” pointing to a place, “and those who do not think so, to the other side.” They stood up and divided, and those who thought the treaty had been broken were far more numerous. They called in the allies and told them that in their own view the Athenians were in the wrong, but that they wanted to summon all the allies and put it to a vote, so that they might make war by a common decision, if it was so decided. Having accomplished this, the allies went home, and the Athenian envoys later did the same, after doing the business for which they had come. This decision of the assembly, that the treaty had been broken, was made in the fourteenth year of the thirty years’ treaty that was concluded after the affair of Euboea.⁸

Notes

1. 1. The purification of Delos took place in the winter of 426/5 BC; Thucydides describes it at 3.104.

2. 2. Hipparchus was killed in 514 BC; Hippias was expelled in 510 BC. Thucydides returns to the story at length at 6.54–59.

3. 3. The Thirty Years’ Treaty between Athens and Sparta was made in 446/5 BC, after Pericles put down the revolt of Euboea (1.114–115).

4. 4. Epidamnus, later Dyrrachium, is modern Durrës in Albania. The Ionian Gulf is the Adriatic; sailing north into it, the city lies on the right.

5. 5. The manuscripts name Andocides as the second commander, but the editor marks the name as doubtful: an Athenian inscription recording payments for this expedition appears to name Glaucon together with Metagenes and Dracontides.

6. 6. The number of Archestratus’ colleagues is corrupt in the manuscripts; many editors read “four,” giving the usual board of five.

7. 7. The so-called Megarian decree, passed at Athens shortly before the war; its terms are given again at 1.139.

8. 8. That is, in 432 BC.