History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides (classic literature books .TXT) 📗
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difficult one, and was always guarded by the Athenians; and, in the
present instance, the Lacedaemonians had information that they meant
to dispute their passage. So they resolved to remain in Boeotia, and
to consider which would be the safest line of march. They had also
another reason for this resolve. Secret encouragement had been given
them by a party in Athens, who hoped to put an end to the reign of
democracy and the building of the Long Walls. Meanwhile the
Athenians marched against them with their whole levy and a thousand
Argives and the respective contingents of the rest of their allies.
Altogether they were fourteen thousand strong. The march was
prompted by the notion that the Lacedaemonians were at a loss how to
effect their passage, and also by suspicions of an attempt to
overthrow the democracy. Some cavalry also joined the Athenians from
their Thessalian allies; but these went over to the Lacedaemonians
during the battle.
The battle was fought at Tanagra in Boeotia. After heavy loss on
both sides, victory declared for the Lacedaemonians and their
allies. After entering the Megarid and cutting down the fruit trees,
the Lacedaemonians returned home across Geraneia and the isthmus.
Sixty-two days after the battle the Athenians marched into Boeotia
under the command of Myronides, defeated the Boeotians in battle at
Oenophyta, and became masters of Boeotia and Phocis. They dismantled
the walls of the Tanagraeans, took a hundred of the richest men of the
Opuntian Locrians as hostages, and finished their own long walls. This
was followed by the surrender of the Aeginetans to Athens on
conditions; they pulled down their walls, gave up their ships, and
agreed to pay tribute in future. The Athenians sailed round
Peloponnese under Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus, burnt the arsenal of
Lacedaemon, took Chalcis, a town of the Corinthians, and in a
descent upon Sicyon defeated the Sicyonians in battle.
Meanwhile the Athenians in Egypt and their allies were still
there, and encountered all the vicissitudes of war. First the
Athenians were masters of Egypt, and the King sent Megabazus a Persian
to Lacedaemon with money to bribe the Peloponnesians to invade
Attica and so draw off the Athenians from Egypt. Finding that the
matter made no progress, and that the money was only being wasted,
he recalled Megabazus with the remainder of the money, and sent
Megabuzus, son of Zopyrus, a Persian, with a large army to Egypt.
Arriving by land he defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a
battle, and drove the Hellenes out of Memphis, and at length shut them
up in the island of Prosopitis, where he besieged them for a year
and six months. At last, draining the canal of its waters, which he
diverted into another channel, he left their ships high and dry and
joined most of the island to the mainland, and then marched over on
foot and captured it. Thus the enterprise of the Hellenes came to ruin
after six years of war. Of all that large host a few travelling
through Libya reached Cyrene in safety, but most of them perished. And
thus Egypt returned to its subjection to the King, except Amyrtaeus,
the king in the marshes, whom they were unable to capture from the
extent of the marsh; the marshmen being also the most warlike of the
Egyptians. Inaros, the Libyan king, the sole author of the Egyptian
revolt, was betrayed, taken, and crucified. Meanwhile a relieving
squadron of fifty vessels had sailed from Athens and the rest of the
confederacy for Egypt. They put in to shore at the Mendesian mouth
of the Nile, in total ignorance of what had occurred. Attacked on
the land side by the troops, and from the sea by the Phoenician
navy, most of the ships were destroyed; the few remaining being
saved by retreat. Such was the end of the great expedition of the
Athenians and their allies to Egypt.
Meanwhile Orestes, son of Echecratidas, the Thessalian king, being
an exile from Thessaly, persuaded the Athenians to restore him. Taking
with them the Boeotians and Phocians their allies, the Athenians
marched to Pharsalus in Thessaly. They became masters of the
country, though only in the immediate vicinity of the camp; beyond
which they could not go for fear of the Thessalian cavalry. But they
failed to take the city or to attain any of the other objects of their
expedition, and returned home with Orestes without having effected
anything. Not long after this a thousand of the Athenians embarked
in the vessels that were at Pegae (Pegae, it must be remembered, was
now theirs), and sailed along the coast to Sicyon under the command of
Pericles, son of Xanthippus. Landing in Sicyon and defeating the
Sicyonians who engaged them, they immediately took with them the
Achaeans and, sailing across, marched against and laid siege to
Oeniadae in Acarnania. Failing however to take it, they returned home.
Three years afterwards a truce was made between the Peloponnesians
and Athenians for five years. Released from Hellenic war, the
Athenians made an expedition to Cyprus with two hundred vessels of
their own and their allies, under the command of Cimon. Sixty of these
were detached to Egypt at the instance of Amyrtaeus, the king in the
marshes; the rest laid siege to Kitium, from which, however, they were
compelled to retire by the death of Cimon and by scarcity of
provisions. Sailing off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought with the
Phoenicians, Cyprians, and Cilicians by land and sea, and, being
victorious on both elements departed home, and with them the
returned squadron from Egypt. After this the Lacedaemonians marched
out on a sacred war, and, becoming masters of the temple at Delphi, it
in the hands of the Delphians. Immediately after their retreat, the
Athenians marched out, became masters of the temple, and placed it
in the hands of the Phocians.
Some time after this, Orchomenus, Chaeronea, and some other places
in Boeotia being in the hands of the Boeotian exiles, the Athenians
marched against the above-mentioned hostile places with a thousand
Athenian heavy infantry and the allied contingents, under the
command of Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus. They took Chaeronea, and made
slaves of the inhabitants, and, leaving a garrison, commenced their
return. On their road they were attacked at Coronea by the Boeotian
exiles from Orchomenus, with some Locrians and Euboean exiles, and
others who were of the same way of thinking, were defeated in
battle, and some killed, others taken captive. The Athenians evacuated
all Boeotia by a treaty providing for the recovery of the men; and the
exiled Boeotians returned, and with all the rest regained their
independence.
This was soon afterwards followed by the revolt of Euboea from
Athens. Pericles had already crossed over with an army of Athenians to
the island, when news was brought to him that Megara had revolted,
that the Peloponnesians were on the point of invading Attica, and that
the Athenian garrison had been cut off by the Megarians, with the
exception of a few who had taken refuge in Nisaea. The Megarians had
introduced the Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians into the
town before they revolted. Meanwhile Pericles brought his army back in
all haste from Euboea. After this the Peloponnesians marched into
Attica as far as Eleusis and Thrius, ravaging the country under the
conduct of King Pleistoanax, the son of Pausanias, and without
advancing further returned home. The Athenians then crossed over again
to Euboea under the command of Pericles, and subdued the whole of
the island: all but Histiaea was settled by convention; the Histiaeans
they expelled from their homes, and occupied their territory
themselves.
Not long after their return from Euboea, they made a truce with
the Lacedaemonians and their allies for thirty years, giving up the
posts which they occupied in Peloponnese—Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and
Achaia. In the sixth year of the truce, war broke out between the
Samians and Milesians about Priene. Worsted in the war, the
Milesians came to Athens with loud complaints against the Samians.
In this they were joined by certain private persons from Samos itself,
who wished to revolutionize the government. Accordingly the
Athenians sailed to Samos with forty ships and set up a democracy;
took hostages from the Samians, fifty boys and as many men, lodged
them in Lemnos, and after leaving a garrison in the island returned
home. But some of the Samians had not remained in the island, but
had fled to the continent. Making an agreement with the most
powerful of those in the city, and an alliance with Pissuthnes, son of
Hystaspes, the then satrap of Sardis, they got together a force of
seven hundred mercenaries, and under cover of night crossed over to
Samos. Their first step was to rise on the commons, most of whom
they secured; their next to steal their hostages from Lemnos; after
which they revolted, gave up the Athenian garrison left with them
and its commanders to Pissuthnes, and instantly prepared for an
As soon as the Athenians heard the news, they sailed with sixty
ships against Samos. Sixteen of these went to Caria to look out for
the Phoenician fleet, and to Chios and Lesbos carrying round orders
for reinforcements, and so never engaged; but forty-four ships under
the command of Pericles with nine colleagues gave battle, off the
island of Tragia, to seventy Samian vessels, of which twenty were
transports, as they were sailing from Miletus. Victory remained with
the Athenians. Reinforced afterwards by forty ships from Athens, and
twenty-five Chian and Lesbian vessels, the Athenians landed, and
having the superiority by land invested the city with three walls;
it was also invested from the sea. Meanwhile Pericles took sixty ships
from the blockading squadron, and departed in haste for Caunus and
Caria, intelligence having been brought in of the approach of the
Phoenician fleet to the aid of the Samians; indeed Stesagoras and
others had left the island with five ships to bring them. But in the
meantime the Samians made a sudden sally, and fell on the camp,
which they found unfortified. Destroying the lookout vessels, and
engaging and defeating such as were being launched to meet them,
they remained masters of their own seas for fourteen days, and carried
in and carried out what they pleased. But on the arrival of
Pericles, they were once more shut up. Fresh reinforcements afterwards
arrived—forty ships from Athens with Thucydides, Hagnon, and
Phormio; twenty with Tlepolemus and Anticles, and thirty vessels
from Chios and Lesbos. After a brief attempt at fighting, the Samians,
unable to hold out, were reduced after a nine months’ siege and
surrendered on conditions; they razed their walls, gave hostages,
delivered up their ships, and arranged to pay the expenses of the
war by instalments. The Byzantines also agreed to be subject as
before.
Second Congress at Lacedaemon - Preparations for War and
Diplomatic Skirmishes - Cylon - Pausanias - Themistocles_
After this, though not many years later, we at length come to what
has been already related, the affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea, and the
events that served as a pretext for the present war. All these actions
of the Hellenes against each other and the barbarian occurred in the
fifty years’ interval between the retreat of Xerxes and the
beginning of the present war. During this interval the Athenians
succeeded in placing their empire on a firmer basis, and advanced
their own home power to a very great height. The Lacedaemonians,
though fully aware of it, opposed it only for a little while, but
remained inactive during most of the period, being of old slow to go
to war except under the pressure of necessity, and in the present
instance being hampered by wars at home; until the growth of the
Athenian power could be no longer ignored, and their own confederacy
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