For this is both just and for the dignity of the city to answer. For the Corinthians and they were now manifestly at difference; and Perdiccas, who before had been their confederate and friend, now warred upon them. Wherein if you give them way, you shall hereafter be commanded a greater matter as men that for fear will obey them likewise in that. For the valour that we have by nature, they shall never come unto by teaching; but the experience which they exceed us in, that must we attain unto by industry. ascertained, yet the evidences which an inquiry carried as far back as was Men of Peloponnesus, neither do we begin the war nor break the peace; but we bring aid to these our confederates, the Corcyraeans; if you please therefore to go any whither else, we hinder you not, but if against Corcyra, or any place belonging unto it, we will not suffer you. And after this there came to him from Athens a supply of forty sail, with Thucydides, Agnon, and Phormio; And though the Samians fought against these a small battle at sea, yet unable to hold out any longer, in the ninth month of the siege they rendered the city upon composition: namely, to demolish their walls, to give hostages, to deliver up their navy, and to repay the money spent by the Athenians in the war at days appointed. Wherefore, men of Lacedaemon, decree the war, as becometh the dignity of Sparta; and let not the Athenians grow yet greater, nor let us betray our confederates, but in the name of the Gods proceed against the doers of injustice. Not long after this, a thousand Athenians went aboard the galleys that lay at Pegae (for Pegae was in the hands of the Athenians) under the command of Pericles the son of Xantippus, and sailed into Sicyonia and landing put to flight such of the Sicyonians as made head, and then presently took up forces in Achaia, and putting over made war on Oenias, a city of Acarnania, which they besieged. An XML version of this text is available for download, But out of hand they procured of their confederates to go to Lacedaemon; and thither also they went themselves with clamours and accusations against the Athenians that they had broken the league and wronged the Peloponnesians. Of the Potidaeans and their friends there died somewhat less than three hundred, and of the Athenians themselves one hundred and fifty, with Callias one of their commanders. Contrariwise, the Athenians required the Lacedaemonians to banish such as were guilty of breach of sanctuary at Taenarus. In this time of respite he learned as much as he could of the language and fashions of the place. And when the Athenians heard of it, they came with all their forces out of the fields and lying before the citadel besieged it. And the Corcyraeans set up a trophy because they had sunk thirty galleys of the Corinthians and had, after the arrival of the Athenians, recovered the wreck and dead bodies that drove to them by reason of the wind; and because the day before, upon sight of the Athenians, the Corinthians had rowed astern and went away from them; and lastly, for that when they went to Sybota, the Corinthians came not out to encounter them. Besides, our city hath been ever free and well thought of, and this which they object is rather to be called a modesty proceeding upon judgment. But of the acts themselves done in the war, I thought not fit to write all that I heard from all authors nor such as I myself did but think to be true, but only those whereat I was myself present and those of which with all diligence I had made particular inquiry. Send to the Athenians about the matter of Potidaea; send about that wherein the confederates say they are injured; and the rather because they be content to refer the cause to judgment, and one that offereth himself to judgment may not lawfully be invaded as a doer of injury before the judgment be given. And whosoever shall temperately consider the war we now deliberate of will find it to be no small one. As others by other means were kept back from growing great, so also the Ionians by this: that the Persian affairs prospering, Cyrus and the Persian kingdom after the defeat of Croesus made war upon all that lieth from the river Halys to the seaside and so subdued all the cities which they possessed in the continent; and Darius afterward, when he had overcome the Phoenician fleet, did the like unto them in the islands. After this, the Lacedaemonians took in hand the war called the holy war and, having won the temple at Delphi, delivered the possession thereof to the Delphians. They were also otherwise not so gentle in their government as they had been, nor followed the war upon equal terms, and could easily bring back to their subjection such as should revolt. Also they had put to death some of those that had taken sanctuary at the altars of the severe goddesses as they were going away. History of the Peloponnesian War From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The History of the Peloponnesian War (Greek: Ἱστορίαι, "Histories") is a historical account of the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), which was fought between the Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta) and the Delian League (led by Athens). They were of their own number three thousand men of arms, besides many of their confederates, and of Macedonians that had served with Philip and Pausanias, six hundred horsemen. Written 431 B.C.E. Now let none of you conceive that we shall go to war for a trifle by not abrogating the act concerning Megara (yet this by them is pretended most, and that for the abrogation of it war shall stay), nor retain a scruple in your minds as if a small matter moved you to the war. For him they could not bring in, both because the fens are great, and the people of the fens of all the Egyptians the most warlike. The Corcyraeans lying at Leucimna, these twenty Athenian galleys under the command of Glaucon the son of Leagrus and Andocides the son of Leogorus, passing through the midst of the floating carcasses and wrecks, soon after they were described arrived at the camp of the Corcyraeans in Leucimna. What particular persons have spoken when they were about to enter into the war or when they were in it were hard for me to remember exactly, whether they were speeches which I have heard myself or have received at the second hand. Therefore, when they suffered worse things under the Medes' dominion, they bore it, but think ours to be rigorous. They said also that they were content to refer their cause to the oracle at Delphi, that war they would make none; but if they must needs have it, they should, by the violence of them, be forced in their own defence to seek out better friends than those whom they already had. Nevertheless they took it not but returned home. Wherein we know not how we can avoid one of these three great faults, foolishness, cowardice, or negligence. But the time growing long, the Athenians, wearied with the siege, went most of them away, and left both the guard of the citadel and the whole business to the nine archontes with absolute authority to order the same as to them it should seem good. And the body of the Athenians, as soon as their territory was clear of the barbarians, went home also and fetched thither their wives and children and such goods as they had from the places where they had been put out to keep, and went about the reparation of their city and walls. Of whom we ought not now to come short but rather to revenge us by all means upon our enemies, and do our best to deliver the state unimpaired by us to posterity. For we deliver opinions in safety, whereas in the action itself we fail through fear. For by his natural prudence, without the help of instruction before or after, he was both of extemporary matters upon short deliberation the best discerner and also of what for the most part would be their issue the best conjecturer. For through this refusal to accompany the army the most of them, to the end they might stay at home, were ordered to excuse their galleys with money, as much as it came to, by which means the navy of the Athenians was increased at the cost of their confederates, and themselves unprovided and without means to make war in case they should revolt. And then first came up amongst the Athenians the office of treasurers of Greece, who were receivers of the tribute, for so they called this money contributed. London, J. M. Dent; New York, E. P. Dutton. In the meantime was Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, sent from Lacedaemon commander of the Grecians with twenty galleys out of Peloponnesus, with which went also thirty sail of Athens, besides a multitude of other confederates, and making war on Cyprus subdued the greatest part of the same; and afterwards, under the same commander, came before Byzantium, which they besieged and won. Hearing this, they gave credit to Themistocles for the love they bore him; but when others coming thence averred plainly that the wall went up and that it was come to good height already, they could not then choose but believe it. When after long solicitation at Athens and no good done, the fleet was sent away against them no less than against Macedonia, and when the magistrates of Lacedaemon had promised them if the Athenians went to Potidaea, to invade Attica, then at last they revolted, and together with them the Chalcideans and Bottiaeans, all mutually sworn in the same conspiracy. and having lain a day and a night at sea upon the fleet of the Athenians, he arrived afterward at Ephesus. Besides that, the colony itself consisted in part of Corinthians and others of the Doric nation. For whilst traffic was not, nor mutual intercourse, but with fear, neither by sea nor land, and every man so husbanded the ground as but barely to live upon it without any stock of riches and planted nothing (because it was uncertain when another should invade them and carry all away, especially not having the defence of walls), but made account to be masters, in any place, of such necessary sustenance as might serve them from day to day, they made little difficulty to change their habitations. And the Corcyraeans, being fully persuaded that they can make all this appear on their own parts, have therefore sent us hither, desiring you to ascribe them to the number of your confederates. That they have done us the injury is manifest; for when we offered them a judicial trial of the controversy touching Epidamnus, they chose to prosecute their quarrel rather by arms than judgment. 9.1", "denarius"). He therefore, having gotten forces of Theagenes and persuaded his friends to the enterprise, seized on the citadel at the time of the Olympic holidays in Peloponnesus with intention to take upon him the tyranny, esteeming the feast of Jupiter to be the greatest and to touch withal on his particular in that he had been victor in the Olympian exercises. Of the Corcyraeans, eight hundred that were servants they sold, and kept prisoners two hundred and fifty, whom they used with very much favour that they might be a means, at their return, to bring Corcyra into the power of the Corinthians, the greatest part of these being principal men of the city. For which purpose it was by the Lacedaemonians themselves decreed that the peace was broken and that the Athenians had done unjustly; and also having sent to Delphi and enquired of Apollo whether they should have the better in the war or not, they received, as it is reported, this answer: ‘. Till at length (as it is reported) purposing to send over to Artabazus his last letters to the king, he was bewrayed unto them by a man of Argilus, in time past his minion and most faithful to him, who, being terrified with the cogitation that not any of those which had been formerly sent had ever returned, got him a seal like to the seal of Pausanias (to the end that if his jealousy were false or that he should need to alter anything in the letter, it might not be discovered) and opened the letter, wherein (as he had suspected the addition of some such clause) he found himself also written down to be murdered. And to that expedition they came together by the means of navigation, which the most part of Greece had now received. For he maketh it to consist of twelve hundred vessels, those that were of Boeotians carrying one hundred and twenty men apiece, and those which came with Philoctetes fifty: setting forth, as I suppose, both the greatest sort and the least; and therefore of the bigness of any of the rest he maketh in his catalogue no mention at all, but declareth that they who were in the vessels of Philoctetes served both as mariners and soldiers; for he writes that they who were at the oar were all of them archers. And the Athenians, taking with them the Boeotians and Phoceans, their confederates, made war against Pharsalus, a city of Thessaly, and were masters of the field as far as they strayed not from the army (for the Thessalian horsemen kept them from straggling) but could not win the city nor yet perform anything else of what they came for but came back again without effect and brought Orestes with them. We must now by helping the present labour for the future, for it is peculiar to our country to attain honour by labour. In the end he resolved of the shortest way, and with his soldiers about him ran as hard as he was able into Potidaea, and with much ado got in at the pier through the sea, cruelly shot at and with the loss of a few but the safety of the greatest part of his company. Now those that were besieged with Cylon were for want of both victual and water in very evil estate, and therefore Cylon and a brother of his fled privily out; but the rest, when they were pressed and some of them dead with famine, sat down as suppliants by the altar that is in the citadel. And if they carried themselves well against the Medes, when time was, and now ill against us, they deserve a double punishment, because they are not good as they were and because they are evil as they were not. Insomuch as you also, if you should put us down and reign yourselves, you would soon find a change of the love which they bear you now for fear of us if you should do again as you did for awhile when you were their commanders against the Medes. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War •“My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last forever.” In the Royal Ontario Museum “Thucydides the Athenian wrote the history of the war For the forces of the Athenians are rather mercenary than domestic; whereas our own power is less obnoxious to such accidents, consisting more in the persons of men than in money. English. Thus the Athenians built their walls, and fitted themselves in other kinds, immediately upon the departure of the Persians. Their fleet was commanded by Aristeus the son of Pellicas, Callicrates the son of Callias, and Timanor the son of Timanthes; and the land forces by Archetimus the son of Eurytimus and Isarchidas the son of Isarchus. The Thasians in the third year of the siege rendered themselves to the Athenians upon condition to raze their walls, to deliver up their galleys, to pay both the money behind and for the future as much as they were wont, and to quit both the mines and the continent. Available in PDF, epub, and Kindle ebook. And now we shall show you likewise that you cannot receive them in point of justice. And good reason, for to men in subjection the present is ever the worst estate. The Corinthians in their way homeward took in Anactorium, a town seated in the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, by deceit (this town was common to them and to the Corcyraeans), and having put into it Corinthians only, departed and went home. Title: The History of the Peloponnesian War; a New and Literal Version, from the Text of Arnold, Collated with Bekker, Göller, and Poppo Contributors: Thucydides, Henry Dale, Publisher: Nabu Press Published: 2010-08 ISBN: 9781177800150 line to jump to another position: This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy. For the actions that preceded this and those again that are yet more ancient, though the truth of them through length of time cannot by any means clearly be discovered, yet for any argument that, looking into times far past, I have yet light on to persuade me, I do not think they have been very great, either for matter of war or otherwise. And the Athenians, who had purposed so much before and already stowed their necessaries, at the coming in of the Medes went a ship-board and became seamen. Wherefore, though alone we repulsed the Corinthians in the late battle by sea, yet since they are set to invade us with greater preparation out of Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece, and seeing with our own single power we are not able to go through, and since also the danger, in case they subdue us, would be very great to all Greece, it is necessary that we seek the succours both of you and of whomsoever else we can; and we are also to be pardoned, though we make bold to cross our former custom of not having to do with other men, proceeding not from malice but error of judgment. Which is also the reason why the Athenian customs, through much experience, are more new to you than yours are to them. For the galleys of either side being many and taking up a large space at sea, after they were once in the medley they could not easily discern who were of the victors and who of the vanquished party. They will clear themselves of their accusations by war rather than by words, and come hither no more now to expostulate but to command. Thucydides (c. 460 B.C. They should communicate their power before hand that mean to make common the issue of the same, and they that share not in the crimes ought also to have no part in the sequel of them. "These are the points of justice we had to show you conformable to the law of the Grecians. Commentary references to this page Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. For we have more experience in land service by use of the sea than they have in sea service by use of the land. The Peloponnesian War. For if the city of Lacedaemon were now desolate and nothing of it left but the temples and floors of the buildings, I think it would breed much unbelief in posterity long hence of their power in comparison of the fame. Again, if we essay to alienate their confederates, we must aid them with shipping because the most of them are islanders. 36 Full PDFs related to this paper. Now he that by the arguments here adduced shall frame a judgment of the things past and not believe rather that they were such as the poets have sung or prose-writers have composed, more delightfully to the ear than conformably to the truth, as being things not to be disproved and by length of time turned for the most part into the nature of fables without credit, but shall think them here searched out by the most evident signs that can be, and sufficiently too, considering their antiquity: he, I say, shall not err. The Corinthians had in their right wing the galleys of Megara and of Ambracia; in the middle, other their confederates in order; and opposite to the Athenians and right wing of the Corcyraeans they were themselves placed, with such galleys as were best of sail, in the left. Therefore, deliberate well of these points, and take such a course that Peloponnesus may not by your leading fall into worse estate than it was left unto you by your progenitors. "Now if you yield unto us in what we request, this coincidence on our part of need will on your part be honourable for many reasons. "Men of Lacedaemon, both I myself have the experience of many wars, and I see you of the same age with me to have the like, insomuch as you cannot desire this war either through inexperience, as many do, nor yet as apprehending it to be profitable or safe. For the things that had passed were but the confusion of the articles and matter of the war to follow. Now using their authority at first in such manner as that the confederates lived under their own laws and were admitted to common council, by [the] war and administration of the common affairs of Greece from the Persian war to this, what against the barbarians, what against their own innovating confederates, and what against such of the Peloponnesians as chanced always in every war to fall in, they effected those great matters following. And we shall make recital of them not by way of deprecation but of protestation and declaration of what a city, in case you take ill advice, you have to enter the list withal. "But it may be some rely on this, that we exceed them in arms and multitude of soldiers so that we may waste their territories with incursions. For they command us to arise from before Potidaea and to restore the Aeginetae to the liberty of their own laws and to abrogate the act concerning the Megareans. Both sides having been heard and the Athenian people twice assembled, in the former assembly they approved no less of the reasons of the Corinthians than of the Corcyraeans. Your current position in the text is marked in blue. And (to say all in few words) this man, by the natural goodness of his wit and quickness of deliberation, was the ablest of all men to tell what was fit to be done upon a sudden. After this they warred on the revolted Naxians and brought them in by siege. For not only your own institutions are different from those of others, but also when any one of you comes abroad [with charge], he neither useth those of yours nor yet those of the rest of Greece. For the late return of the Greeks from Ilium caused not a little innovation; and in most of the cities there arose seditions, and those which were driven out built cities for themselves in other places. Once again it is a fantastic book which I highly recommend. Last of all, the Corinthians, when they had suffered the Lacedaemonians to be incensed first by the rest, came in and said as followeth. Thucydides. And also now you connive at the Athenians who are not as the Medes, far off, but hard at hand, choosing rather to defend yourselves from their invasion than to invade them, and by having to do with them when their strength is greater, to put yourselves upon the chance of fortune. But the Athenians, by the advice of Themistocles, when the Lacedaemonian ambassadors had so said, dismissed them presently with this answer, that they would presently send ambassadors about the business they spake of to Lacedaemon. For it falleth out with the events of actions, no less than with the purposes of man, to proceed with uncertainty, which is also the cause that when anything happeneth contrary to our expectation, we use to lay the fault on fortune. Whereas they allege in defence of their refusing to enter league with other cities that the same hath proceeded from modesty, the truth is that they took up that custom not from any virtue but mere wickedness, as being unwilling to have any confederate for a witness of their evil actions, and to be put to blush by calling them. Being afraid, he discovered to the master (for he was unknown) who he was and for what he fled, and said that unless he would save him, he meant to say that he had hired him to carry him away for money; and that to save him, there needed no more but this, to let none go out of the ship till the weather served to be gone; to which if he consented, he would not forget to requite him according to his merit. These were the quarrels between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. that the city of Athens was already walled, and that sufficiently for the defence of those within, and that if it shall please the Lacedaemonians upon any occasion to send ambassadors unto them, they were to send thenceforward as to men that understood what conduced both to their own and also to the common good of all Greece. For therein you shall reject us that are invaded and be none of your enemies; and them, who are your enemies and make the invasion, you shall not only not oppose but also suffer to raise unlawful forces in your dominions. and amongst the rest the Megareans, besides many other their great differences, laid open this especially, that contrary to the articles they were forbidden the Athenian markets and havens. Besides, we took the government upon us as esteeming ourselves worthy of the same; and of you also so esteemed till having computed the commodity, you now fall to allegation of equity, a thing which no man that had the occasion to achieve anything by strength ever so far preferred as to divert him from his profit. The estate of Greece, derived from the remotest known Consider before you enter how unexpected the chances of war be. Thus was Potidaea on both sides strongly besieged, and also from the sea by the Athenian galleys that came up and rode before it. And the Athenians planted Ionia and most of the islands, and the Peloponnesians most of Italy and Sicily and also certain parts of the rest of Greece. For they that by tradition of their ancestors know the most certainty of the acts of the Peloponnesians say that first Pelops, by the abundance of his wealth which he brought with him out of Asia to men in want, obtained such power amongst them, as, though he were a stranger, yet the country was called after his name; and that this power was also increased by his posterity. and to whomsoever it seemeth otherwise, let him go to the other side. But the fattest soils were always the most subject to these changes of inhabitants, as that which is now called Thessalia, and Boeotia, and the greatest part of Peloponnesus, except Arcadia, and of the rest of Greece, whatsoever was most fertile. History of the Peloponnesian War, Vol. For our fathers, when they undertook the Medes, did from less beginnings, nay abandoning the little they had, by wisdom rather than fortune, by courage rather than strength, both repel the barbarian and advance this state to the height it now is at. Category: Text… Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership of the movie clips of this video (from "300", "Troy", and "Monty Python's the Holy Grail"). When the people of Athens understood that Potidaea was unwalled on the part toward Pallene, not long after they sent thither sixteen hundred men of arms under the conduct of Phormio the son of Asopius, who arriving in Pallene left his galleys at Aphytis, and marching easily to Potidaea wasted the territory as he passed through.
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