§ 1. Quarrel between Corinth and Corcyra. § 2. Corcyrean embassy to Athens. Decision of the Athenians. § 3. They send a fleet to Corcyra. Naval engagements. Defeat of the Corinthians. § 4. Revolt of Potidea. § 5. Congress of the Peloponnesian allies at Sparta. The Spartans decide for war. § 6. Second congress. The allies resolve upon war. § 7. The Lacedæmonians require the Athenians to expel Pericles. 8. Attacks upon Pericles, Aspasia, and Anaxagoras. Imprisonment and death of Phidias. § 9. Further requisitions of the Lacedæmonians. Rejected by the Athenians. § 10. The Thebans surprise Platea. § 11. The Athenians prepare for war. Portents. § 12. Forces of the Lacedæmonians and Athenians. § 13. The Peloponnesian army assembles at the isthmus of Corinth.

1. ON the coast of Illyria, near the site of the modern Durazzo, the Corcyræans had founded the city of Epidamnus. Corcyra (now Corfu) was itself a colony of Corinth; and, though long at enmity with its mother country, was forced, according to the time-hallowed custom of the Greeks in such matters, to select the founder or acist of Epidamnus from the Corinthians. Accordingly Corinth became the metropolis of Epidamnus also. At the time of which we speak, the Epidamnians were hard pressed by the Illyrians, led by some oligarchical exiles of their own city, whom they had expelled in consequence of a domestic sedition. In their distress they applied to Corcyra for assist

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ance; which the Corcyræans, being principally connected with the Epidamnian oligarchy, refused. The Epidamnians, after consulting the oracle of Delphi, then sought help from the Corinthians, who undertook to assist them, and organized an expedition for that purpose, consisting partly of new settlers, and partly of a military force. The Corcyræans highly resented this interference, proceeded to restore the Epidamnian oligarchs, and with a fleet of 40 ships blockaded the town and its new Corinthian garrison. Hereupon the Corinthians fitted out a still stronger expedition, for which they collected both ships and money from their allies. The Corcyræans, having made a fruitless attempt to persuade the Corinthians to refer the matter to arbitration, prepared to meet the blow. Their fleet, the best in Greece after that of Athens, completely defeated the Corinthians off Cape Actium; and on the same day Epidamnus surrendered to their blockading squadron (B.c. 435).

§ 2. Deeply humbled by this defeat, the Corinthians spent the two following years in active preparations for retrieving it. They got ready 90 well-manned ships of their own; and by active exertions among their allies, they were in a condition, in the third year after their disgrace, to put to sea with a fleet of 150 sail. The Corcyræans, who had not enrolled themselves either in the Lacedæmonian or Athenian alliance, and therefore stood alone, were greatly alarmed at these preparations. They now resolved to remedy this deficiency; and as Corinth belonged to the Lacedæmonian alliance, the Corcyræans had no option, and were obliged to apply to Athens. Ambassadors were accordingly despatched to that city, who, being introduced into the assembly, endeavoured to set in a striking light the great accession of naval power which the Athenians would derive from an alliance with the Corcyræans. The Corinthians, who had also sent an embassy to Athens, replied to the arguments of the Corcyræan envoys, appealing to the terms of the Thirty Years' Truce, and reminding the Athenians that it was through the representations of the Corinthians that the Peloponnesian allies had not assisted the Samians in their late revolt. The opinions of the Athenian assembly were much divided on the subject; but the views of Pericles and other speakers at length prevailed. They urged that whatever course might now be taken, war could not ultimately be avoided; and that therefore the more prudent course was to avail themselves of the increase of strength offered by the Corcyræan alliance, rather than to be at last driven to undertake the war at a comparative disadvantage. To avoid, however, an open infringement of the Thirty Years' Truce, a middle course was adopted. It was resolved to con

clude only a defensive alliance with Corcyra; that is, to defend the Corcyræans in case their territories were actually invaded by the Corinthians, but beyond that not to lend them any active assistance.

§3. By entering upon this merely defensive alliance the Athenians also hoped to stand aloof and see the Corinthian and Corcyræan fleets mutually destroy one another; and it was probably in accordance with this policy that only a small squadron of ten triremes, under the command of Lacedæmonius the son of Cimon, was despatched to the assistance of the Corcyræans. The Corinthian fleet of 150 sail took up its station at Cape Cheimerium on the coast of Epirus; where the Corinthians established a naval camp, and summoned to their assistance the friendly Epirot tribes. The Corcyræan fleet of 110 sail, together with the 10 Athenian ships, were stationed at one of the adjoining islands called Sybota. A battle speedily ensued, which for the number of ships engaged, was the greatest yet fought between fleets entirely Grecian. Neither side, however, had yet adopted the Athenian tactics. They had no conception of that mode of attack in which the ship itself, by the method of handling it, became a more important instrument than the crew by which it was manned. Their only idea of a naval engagement was to lay the ships alongside one another, and to leave the hoplites on deck to decide the combat after the fashion of a land fight. At first Lacedæmonius, in accordance with his instructions, took no part in the battle, though he afforded all the assistance he could to the Corcyræans by manœuvring as if he were preparing to engage. After a hard fought day, victory finally declared in favour of the Corinthians. The Athenians now abandoned their neutrality, and did all in their power to save the flying Corcyræans from their pursuers. This action took place early in the morning; and the Corinthians, after returning to the spot where it had been fought in order to pick up their own dead and wounded, prepared to renew the attack in the afternoon, and to effect a landing at Corcyra. The Corcyræans made the best preparations they could to receive them, and the Athenians, who were now within the strict letter of their instructions, determined to give their new allies all the assistance in their power. The war pæan had been sounded, and the Corinthian line was in full advance, when suddenly it tacked and stood away to the coast of Epirus. This unexpected retreat was caused by the appearance of 20 Athenian vessels in the distance, which the Corinthians believed to be the advanced guard of a still larger fleet. But though this was not the case, the succour proved sufficient to deter the Corinthians from any further hostilities.

Drawing up their ships along the coast of Epirus, they sent a few men in a small boat to remonstrate with the Athenians for having violated the truce; and finding from the parley that the Athenians did not mean to undertake offensive operations against them, they sailed homewards with their whole fleet, after erecting a trophy at Sybota. On reaching Corinth 800 of their prisoners were sold as slaves; but the remaining 250, many of whom belonged to the first families in Corcyra, though detained in custody were treated with peculiar kindness, in the hope that they would eventually establish in that island a party favourable to Corinth. These events took place in the year B.C. 432.

§ 4. The Corinthians were naturally incensed at the conduct of Athens, and it is not surprising that they should have watched for an opportunity of revenge. This was soon afforded them by the enmity of the Macedonian prince Perdiccas towards the Athenians. Offended with the Athenians for having received into their alliance his two brothers Philip and Derdas, with whom he was at open variance, Perdiccas exerted all his efforts to injure Athens. He incited her tributaries among the Chalcidians and Bottiæans to revolt, including Potidea, a town seated on the isthmus of Pallené. Potidea, though now a tributary of Athens, was originally a colony of the Corinthians, towards whom it still owed a sort of metropolitan allegiance, and received from them certain annual magistrates called Epidemiurgi. Aware of the hostile feeling entertained at Corinth against the Athenians, Perdiccas not only sent envoys to that city to concert measures for a revolt of Potidea, but also to Sparta to induce the Peloponnesian league to declare war against Athens.

The Athenians were not ignorant of these proceedings. They were about to despatch an armament to the Thermaic gulf, designed to act against Perdiccas; and they now directed the commander of this armament to require the Potidæans to level their walls on the side of the town towards the sea, to dismiss their Corinthian magistrates, and to give hostages, as a pledge of their future fidelity. Thereupon the Potidæans openly raised the standard of revolt, in the summer apparently of B.C. 432. Instead of immediately blockading Potidea the Athenian fleet wasted six weeks in the siege of Therma, during which interval the Corinthians were enabled to throw a reinforcement of 2000 troops into Potidea. Thereupon a second armament was despatched from Athens, and joined the former one, which was now engaged in the siege of Pydna on the Macedonian coast. But as the town promised to hold out for some time, and as the necessity for attacking Potidæa seemed pressing, an accommodation was patched up with Perdiccas, and the whole Athenian

force marched overland against Potidea. Aristeus, the Corinthian general, was waiting to receive them near Olynthus, and a battle ensued in which the Athenians were victorious. The Corinthians ultimately succeeded in effecting their retreat to Potidea; and the Athenians, after receiving a further reinforcement, completely blockaded the town both by sea and land.

§ 5. Meanwhile the Lacedæmonians, urged on all sides by the complaints of their allies, summoned a general meeting of the Peloponnesian confederacy at Sparta. Besides the Corinthians other members of it had heavy grievances to allege against Athens, Foremost among these were the Megarians, who complained that their commerce had been ruined by a recent decree of the Athenians, which excluded them from every port within the Athenian jurisdiction. The pretexts for this severe measure were that the Megarians had harboured runaway Athenian slaves, and had cultivated pieces of unappropriated and consecrated land upon the borders. These reasons seem frivolous; and the real cause of the decree must no doubt be ascribed to the hatred which the Athenians entertained towards Megara, since her revolt from them fourteen years before. Egina was another, though not an open, accuser. No deputy from that island actually appeared at the congress; but the Æginetans loudly complained through the mouths of others, that Athens withheld from them the independence to which they were entitled.

The assembly having been convened, the deputies from the various allied cities addressed it in turn, the Corinthian envoy reserving himself for the last. He depicted in glowing language the ambition, the enterprise, and the perseverance of Athens, which he contrasted with the over-cautious and inactive policy of Sparta. Addressing himself to the Spartans, he exclaimed: "The Athenians are naturally innovators, prompt both in deciding and in acting: whilst you only think of keeping what you have got, and do even less than what positive necessity requires. They are bold beyond their means, venturesome beyond their judgment, sanguine even in desperate reverses; you do even less than you are able to perform, distrust your own conclusions, and when in difficulties fall into utter despair. They never hang back; you: never advance; they love to serve abroad, you seem chained at home; they believe that every new movement will procure them fresh advantage; you fancy that every new step will endanger what you already possess." And after telling them some more home-truths, he concluded with a threat that if they still delayed to perform their duty towards their confederates, the Corinthians would forthwith seek some other alliance. An Athenian ambassador, charged with some other business,