Book 2

arg.0. The contents of the twelfth of the books of Diodorus. On the expedition of the Athenians against Cyprus. On the revolt of the Megarians from the Athenians. On the battle that took place at Coroneia between the Athenians and Boeotians. On the expedition of the Athenians against Euboea. The war in Sicily of the Syracusans against the Acragantines. The founding of Thurii in Italy and the faction among the settlers. How Charondas of Thurii, chosen as lawgiver, became the cause of many good things to his native land. How Zaleucus, having given laws among the Locrians, acquired great glory. How the Athenians, having expelled the Histiaeans, sent out their own settlers. On the war that took place between the Thurians and the Tarentines. On the faction that took place in Rome. On the war that took place between the Samians and the Milesians. How the Syracusans, having campaigned against the Picenes, razed the city. How in Greece there arose the war called the Corinthian. How in Italy the people of the Campanians was formed. The sea-battle of the Corinthians against the Corcyraeans. The revolt of Potidaea and the Chalcidians from the Athenians. On the expedition of the Athenians against the Potidaeans. On the faction that took place among the Thurians. How Meton the Athenian first set forth the nineteen-year cycle. How the Tarentines founded Heraclea in Italy. How at Rome Spurius Maelius, attempting a tyranny, was put to death. On the war called the Peloponnesian. On the battle that took place between the Boeotians and Plataeans. How, when Methone was besieged by the Athenians, Brasidas the Spartiate proved bravest and won renown. How the Athenians, campaigning against the Locrians, sacked the city of Thronium. How the Aeginetans, removed by the Athenians, settled the place called Thyreae. How the Lacedaemonians, campaigning into Attica, destroyed the possessions there. The second expedition of the Athenians against the Potidaeans. The expedition of the Lacedaemonians into Acarnania and the sea-battle against the Athenians. The expedition of Sitalces into Macedonia, and of the Lacedaemonians into Attica. On the embassy of the Leontines to Athens, and the cleverness of Gorgias, who went as ambassador, in his speeches. On the war that took place between the Leontines and the Syracusans. The revolt of the Lesbians from the Athenians, and the capture and razing of Plataea by the Lacedaemonians. The faction of the Corcyraeans among themselves. How the Athenians, falling into a plague, lost many of their citizens. How the Lacedaemonians founded the city Heraclea in Trachis. How the Athenians, having slain many of the Ambraciots, made the city desolate. Concerning the Lacedaemonians who were taken captive on the island of Sphacteria. On the rebuke of Postumius to his son on account of leaving his post. On the war that took place between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians over the Megarians. The war between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians over the Chalcidians. The battle in Boeotia between the Athenians and the Boeotians. The expedition of the Athenians against the exiles in Lesbos. The expulsion of the Delians by the Athenians. The capture and razing of Torone by the Athenians. How, when the Athenians and Lacedaemonians made an alliance privately, the other cities were estranged from them. How the Delians were brought back by the Athenians to their native land. How the Lacedaemonians made war on the Mantineans and Argives. The expedition of the Byzantines and Calchedonians into Bithynia. On the causes for which the Athenians campaigned against Syracuse.

1.1. One might justly be perplexed, fixing one's mind on the inconsistency in human life; for neither of the things reckoned good is found to be given to men whole and entire, nor of the evils any that is complete without some admixture of usefulness. The proofs of this it will be possible to take by fixing the mind on the deeds done in former times, and especially on the greatest.

1.2. For the expedition of Xerxes the king of the Persians against Greece, by reason of the magnitude of its forces, brought the greatest fear upon the Greeks, since they were about to fight for their enslavement; and, the Greek cities in Asia having been already enslaved beforehand, all supposed that the cities in Greece too would experience the like fortune.

1.3. But the war having taken, contrary to expectation, a paradoxical end, not only were the inhabitants of Greece freed from the dangers, but they also acquired great glory, and so great a prosperity filled every Greek city that all marveled at the change to the opposite.

1.4. For from these times, for fifty years, Greece received much increase toward prosperity. For in these times the arts grew because of the prosperity, and then the greatest craftsmen are recorded to have arisen, among whom is Pheidias the sculptor; likewise too the things pertaining to education advanced greatly, and philosophy and rhetoric were held in honor among all the Greeks, but especially among the Athenians.

1.5. For there were philosophers, those about Socrates and Plato and Aristotle; orators, Pericles and Isocrates and his pupils; and likewise men renowned for generalship, Miltiades, Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Myronides, and many others, about whom it would be long to write.

2.1. Above all the Athenians, having advanced in glory and courage, became renowned throughout almost the whole inhabited world; for they so increased their leadership that, without the Lacedaemonians and Peloponnesians, by themselves they overcame great Persian forces both by land and by sea, and so humbled the far-famed leadership of the Persians that they compelled them by treaty to liberate all the cities in Asia.

2.2. But concerning these things we have written the particulars more accurately in two books, this and the one before this; now we shall turn to the deeds before us, having first defined the times suited to the writing.

2.3. In the book before this, then, having made the beginning from the expedition of Xerxes, we went through the common deeds down to the year preceding the expedition of the Athenians against Cyprus under the command of Cimon; and in this one, having made the beginning from the expedition of the Athenians against Cyprus, we shall proceed down to the war voted by the Athenians against the Syracusans.

3.1. For when Euthydemus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus and Marcus Fabius Vibulanus. In their time the Athenians, having waged war on behalf of the Egyptians against the Persians and having lost all their ships in the island called Prosopitis, after a short interval resolved to make war again on the Persians on behalf of the Greeks in Asia. Having fitted out a fleet of two hundred triremes and having chosen as general Cimon the son of Miltiades, they ordered him to sail to Cyprus and to make war on the Persians.

3.2. Cimon, taking up the fleet, equipped with the valor of its men and with lavish supplies, sailed to Cyprus. At that time the generals of the Persian forces were Artabazus and Megabyzus. Artabazus, holding the command, was tarrying in Cyprus, having three hundred triremes, while Megabyzus was encamped about Cilicia, having land forces whose number was three hundred thousand.

3.3. Cimon, having sailed into Cyprus and holding command of the sea, took Citium and Marium by siege, and treated those he subdued humanely. After this, as triremes came against the island from Cilicia and Phoenicia, Cimon, putting out and engaging in battle, sank many of the ships and captured a hundred together with their men, and pursued the rest as far as Phoenicia.

3.4. The Persians, then, with the surviving ships fled to the land, at the place where Megabyzus was encamped with the land force; and the Athenians, having sailed up and disembarked their soldiers, joined battle, in which Anaxicrates, the other of the generals, having fought brilliantly, ended his life heroically; the rest, having prevailed in the battle and slain many, returned to the ships. After this the Athenians sailed back to Cyprus. These things, then, were done in the first year of the war.

4.1. When Pedieus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Marcus Valerius Lactuca and Spurius Verginius Tricostus. In their time Cimon the general of the Athenians, holding command of the sea, subdued the cities in Cyprus. As there was in Salamis a notable Persian garrison, and the city was full of missiles and arms of all kinds, and besides grain and the other supplies, he judged it advantageous to take it by siege.

4.2. For thus he supposed he would most easily gain control of all Cyprus and would dismay the Persians, who were unable to come to the aid of the Salaminians because the Athenians held command of the sea, but, by abandoning their allies, would be held in contempt, and in general that the whole war would be decided by all Cyprus being subdued by force; which indeed came to pass.

4.3. For the Athenians, having established a siege about Salamis, made assaults each day, and the soldiers in the city, having missiles and supplies, easily defended themselves from the walls against the besiegers.

4.4. Artaxerxes the king, learning of the reverses about Cyprus and having deliberated with his friends about the war, judged it advantageous to make peace with the Greeks. He wrote, therefore, to the commanders and satraps about Cyprus, on what terms they might be able to come to a settlement with the Greeks.

4.5. Therefore Artabazus and Megabyzus sent ambassadors to Athens to discuss a settlement. The Athenians, consenting, and having sent plenipotentiary ambassadors, of whom Callias the son of Hipponicus was the leader, there were made treaties of peace for the Athenians and their allies with the Persians, of which the chief points are these: that all the Greek cities in Asia be autonomous; that the satraps of the Persians not come down to the sea closer than a three days' journey, nor a warship sail within Phaselis and the Cyaneae; and, these things being fulfilled by the king and the generals, that the Athenians not campaign into the country which the king rules.

4.6. The treaties having been completed, the Athenians led their forces away from Cyprus, having won a brilliant victory and made most distinguished treaties. It came to pass also that Cimon, while tarrying about Cyprus, died of disease.

5.1. When Philiscus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Titus Romilius Vaticanus and Gaius Veturius Cichorius, and the Eleans celebrated the eighty-third Olympiad, in which Crison of Himera won the stadium-race.

5.2. In their time the Megarians revolted from the Athenians, and, sending an embassy to the Lacedaemonians, made an alliance; the Athenians, provoked, sent soldiers into the country of the Megarians, and, having plundered the possessions, became masters of much booty. As those from the city came to the aid of the country, a battle took place, in which the Athenians, having conquered, pursued the Megarians together within their walls.

6.1. When Timarchides was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Asterius Fontinius. In their time the Lacedaemonians, invading Attica, ravaged much country, and, having besieged some of the forts, returned to the Peloponnese; and Tolmides the general of the Athenians took Chaeronea.

6.2. As the Boeotians formed up and laid an ambush for Tolmides and his men, there took place a fierce battle about Coroneia, in which Tolmides, fighting, was slain, and of the other Athenians some were cut down, others were taken alive. So great a calamity having befallen the Athenians, they were compelled to leave all the cities in Boeotia autonomous, in order to recover the captives.

7.1. When Callimachus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Sextus Quintius . . . Trigeminus. In their time, in Greece, as the Athenians were humbled because of the defeat at Coroneia in Boeotia, many of the cities revolted from the Athenians. And as the inhabitants of Euboea especially were in revolt, Pericles, chosen as general, campaigned against Euboea with a notable force, and, taking the city of the Histiaeans by storm, expelled the Histiaeans from their native land, and, having dismayed the others, compelled them again to obey the Athenians. And they made a thirty-year peace, Callias and Chares having arranged it and confirmed the peace.

8.1. In Sicily a war arose for the Syracusans against the Acragantines for the following reasons. The Syracusans, having subdued Ducetius the ruler of the Sicels, and, when he became a suppliant, having released him from the charges, designated for him the city of the Corinthians as a dwelling-place.

8.2. He, after remaining a short time in Corinth, broke the agreements, and, pretending that an oracle had been given to him by the gods to found Calacte in Sicily, sailed back to the island with some settlers; and some of the Sicels too took part, among whom was Archonides the ruler of the Herbitaeans. He, then, was occupied about the settlement of Calacte.

8.3. The Acragantines, at once envying the Syracusans and at the same time accusing them because they had saved Ducetius, who was a common enemy, without the consent of the Acragantines, declared war on the Syracusans.

8.4. As the Sicilian cities were divided, some campaigning with the Acragantines and others with the Syracusans, notable forces were gathered on both sides. And, great rivalry arising for the cities, they encamped against one another about the river Himeras, and, a battle taking place, the Syracusans conquered, and slew of the Acragantines more than a thousand. After the battle, the Acragantines having sent an embassy about a settlement, the Syracusans agreed to peace.

9.1. And the affairs in Sicily were in this state. In Italy it came to pass that the city of Thurii was founded for the following reasons. In former times, when the Greeks had founded in Italy the city Sybaris, it came to pass that this received a quick increase because of the excellence of the country.

9.2. For, lying between two rivers, the Crathis and the Sybaris, from which it received this name, the settlers, occupying much fruitful country, acquired great wealth. Giving a share of the citizenship to many, they advanced so far that they seemed to far surpass the inhabitants of Italy, and in populousness they so excelled that the city had three hundred thousand citizens. There arose among them a demagogue Telys, and, accusing the greatest men, he persuaded the Sybarites to exile five hundred of the wealthiest citizens and to confiscate their property.

9.3. The exiles having gone to Croton and taken refuge at the altars in the marketplace, Telys sent ambassadors to the Crotoniates, who were ordered either to give up the exiles or to expect war.

9.4. An assembly having been gathered and the deliberation set forth, whether they ought to give up the suppliants to the Sybarites or to undertake war against more powerful men, and the senate and people being at a loss, at first the multitude inclined in their opinions toward the surrender of the suppliants because of the war; but afterward, Pythagoras the philosopher having advised them to save the suppliants, they changed their opinions and took up the war for the safety of the suppliants.

9.5. When the Sybarites campaigned against them with three hundred thousand, the Crotoniates ranged against them with a hundred thousand, Milo the athlete being in command, and, because of the surpassing strength of his body, being first to rout those ranged against him.

9.6. For this man, having six times won at Olympia and having a valor consistent with the nature of his body, is said to have gone to the battle crowned with his Olympic crowns and equipped in the gear of Heracles, with a lion-skin and a club; and, having become the cause of the victory, he was admired among the citizens.

10.1. As the Crotoniates, because of their anger, wished to take no one alive, but slew all who fell under them in the flight, the greater part were cut down; and they plundered the city and made it altogether desolate.

10.2. Later, fifty-eight years afterward, the Thessalians settled it together, and after a short time were driven out by the Crotoniates at the times in question.

10.3. And after a short while it was removed to another place and received another name, Lampon and Xenocritus becoming its founders in the following manner. For those who had been driven a second time from their native land, the Sybarites, sent ambassadors into Greece to the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, asking them to help in their return and to share in the colony.

10.4. The Lacedaemonians, then, paid no heed to them, but the Athenians, undertaking to cooperate, manned ten ships and sent them to the Sybarites, of which Lampon and Xenocritus were in command; and they proclaimed throughout the cities in the Peloponnese, making the colony common to anyone who wished to take part in it.

10.5. As many obeyed and received an oracle from Apollo that they ought to found a city in that place where they should dwell drinking water by measure but eating barley-cake without measure, they sailed to Italy, and, arriving at Sybaris, sought the place which the god had ordered them to inhabit.

10.6. Finding not far from Sybaris a spring named Thuria, having a bronze pipe which the natives called a medimnus, and thinking this was the place indicated by the god, they threw a wall about it, and, founding a city, named it from the spring Thurium.

10.7. They divided the city lengthwise into four broad streets, of which they call one Heracleia, another Aphrodisia, another Olympias, another Dionysias, and breadthwise they divided it into three broad streets, of which one was named Heroa, another Thuria, another Thurina. As these lanes were filled with houses, the city appeared to be well constructed.

11.1. Having been of one mind for a short time, the Thurians fell into great faction, not without reason. For the pre-existing Sybarites assigned the most notable magistracies to themselves and the cheap ones to the citizens enrolled later; and they thought that their women, the citizen-women, ought to sacrifice to the gods first, and the latecomers afterward; and besides this they apportioned the land near the city to themselves by lot, and the land lying far off to the newcomers.

11.2. A difference having arisen for the aforesaid reasons, the citizens enrolled later, being more numerous and stronger, slew nearly all the pre-existing Sybarites, and themselves settled the city. As there was much and good land, having summoned many settlers from Greece, they divided up the city and apportioned the land equally.

11.3. Those who survived quickly acquired great wealth, and, having made a friendship with the Crotoniates, governed themselves well. Having established a democratic constitution, they divided the citizens into ten tribes, and bestowed names on all of them from their peoples, naming three from those gathered from the Peloponnese, Arcadis and Achais and Eleia, an equal number from the other peoples of the same race, Boeotia, Amphictyonis, Doris, and the remaining four from the other races, Ias, Athenais, Euboeis, Nesiotis. They chose as lawgiver the best of the citizens admired for their education, Charondas.

11.4. He, having examined the legislations of all peoples, chose out the best and arranged them into his laws; and he devised and found out many things of his own, about which it is not inappropriate to make mention for the improvement of the readers.

12.1. First, then, for those who bring in a stepmother over their own children, he set as a penalty that these men should not become counselors to their native land, thinking that those who had deliberated ill concerning their own children would be bad counselors also to their native land. For he said that those who had married first and succeeded ought, while faring well, to stop, but those who had failed in marriage and again erred in the same matters ought to be supposed senseless.

12.2. Those who were convicted of malicious prosecution he ordered to walk about crowned with tamarisk, in order that among all the citizens they might appear as having won the first prize of wickedness. Therefore some who were condemned on this charge, not bearing the magnitude of the disgrace, voluntarily removed themselves from life. When this had been accomplished, everyone accustomed to malicious prosecution was exiled from the city, and the community had a blessed life, freed from such baseness.

12.3. Charondas also wrote a remarkable law about bad company, one overlooked by the other lawgivers. For supposing that good men sometimes, because of their friendship and association with the wicked, have their characters perverted toward baseness, and that worthlessness, like a plague, spreads over the life of men and makes diseased the souls of the best—for the road to the worse is downhill, having an easy passage; and so many of moderate character, lured by hollow pleasures, have run aground on the worst pursuits—wishing then to check this corruption, the lawgiver forbade the use of friendship and association with the wicked, and instituted lawsuits for bad company, and by great penalties deterred those about to err.

12.4. He wrote also another law far better than this and neglected by the lawgivers before him; for he made it law that all the sons of the citizens should learn letters, the city furnishing the wages to the teachers. For he supposed that those poor in their livelihoods, being unable privately to give wages, would be deprived of the fairest pursuits.

13.1. For the lawgiver preferred reading and writing above the other branches of learning, and very fittingly; for through this the most and most useful things pertaining to life are accomplished—votes, letters, wills, laws, the other things that most set life right.

13.2. For who could compose a worthy encomium of the learning of letters? For through these alone the dead are remembered by the living, and those separated far by distance converse, through what is written, with those very far off as though standing near; and in the treaties between peoples or kings in war, the security afforded by letters has the firmest pledge for the permanence of the agreements; and in general it alone preserves the most graceful pronouncements of wise men and the oracles of the gods, and besides philosophy and all education, and hands them down to those who come after for all time.

13.3. Therefore one must consider nature the cause of living, but of living well the education composed from letters. Whence, since the unlettered are deprived of certain great goods, he set them right by this legislation and deemed them worthy of public care and expense;

13.4. and he so far surpassed those who had before legislated that the sick among private persons should be treated by physicians at public wages, that, whereas they thought the bodies worthy of treatment, he treated the souls troubled by lack of education; and those physicians we pray never to have need of, but with the teachers of education we desire to pass all our time.

14.1. Both the aforesaid things many of the poets have witnessed in metrical verse; bad company in these: Whoever, in his company, takes pleasure in evil men, him I never asked, knowing that he is such as those he delights to be with; and the law set down concerning the stepmother in these: They say the lawgiver Charondas, in a certain legislation, says, among other things, this also: Whoever brings in a stepmother over his children, let him neither be of good repute nor share in speech among the citizens, as having procured an imported evil against his own affairs. For if you succeeded, he says, marrying the first time, while faring well, cease; but if you did not succeed, it is madness to make trial of a second again. For in truth he who twice errs in the same matters might justly be reckoned senseless.

14.2. And when Philemon the comic poet writes of those who often sail and agrees with the law: I marvel no longer if one has sailed, but if one has sailed twice, one might similarly declare that one should not marvel if someone has married, but if he has married twice; for it is better to expose oneself twice to the sea than to a woman.

14.3. For the greatest and most grievous factions in households arise because of stepmothers, between children and fathers, and on account of these many lawless deeds are dramatized in the theaters.

15.1. Charondas, then, wrote also another law deserving of acceptance, that concerning the guardianship of orphans. This, viewed superficially, appears to have nothing extraordinary nor deserving of acceptance, but, examined again and scrutinized with accuracy, has great seriousness and reputation.

15.2. For he wrote that the kinsmen on the father's side should administer the orphans' property, but that the orphans should be brought up among the relatives on the mother's side. Of itself, then, this law is seen to contain nothing wise or extraordinary, but, examined in depth, it is found justly to be worthy of praise. For when one seeks the reason why he entrusted the property to some and the upbringing of the orphans to others, a certain extraordinary device of the lawgiver becomes apparent;

15.3. for the relatives on the mother's side, not being entitled to the inheritance of the orphans, will not plot against them; while the kinsmen on the father's side cannot plot against them, because they are not entrusted with the persons, and the property comes to them only if the orphans die through disease or some other circumstance; so they will manage the money more carefully, having as their own the hopes that arise from fortune.

16.1. He set down another law against those who leave their post in war or, in general, do not take up arms on behalf of their native land. For whereas the other lawgivers had set death as the penalty against such men, he ordered such men to sit in the marketplace for three days in women's clothing.

16.2. This law is at once more humane than those among other peoples, and at the same time, by the magnitude of the disgrace, secretly deters such men from cowardice; for it is better to die than to experience such an outrage in one's native land; and at the same time he did not destroy the offenders, but kept them for the city's military needs, as men who would set themselves right by the punishment through the disgrace and would be eager to wipe out the previous shame by other deeds of valor.

16.3. And by the strictness of his laws the lawgiver preserved the laws. For he ordered men by every means to obey the law, even if it should be altogether badly written; but he conceded that the one in need of correction might correct it.

16.4. For he supposed that to be overcome by a lawgiver is noble, but to be overcome by a private man altogether absurd, even if it comes about for what is advantageous. And especially by this means he prevented those in the courts who introduced, instead of the express words, the pretexts and intentions of the lawbreakers, from overthrowing the supremacy of the laws by their own ingenious arguments;

16.5. wherefore some of those who had made such accusations said to the judges who were judging concerning the punishment of the lawbreakers that it was necessary to save either the law or the man.

17.1. They say, then, that Charondas legislated most paradoxically concerning the correction of laws. For seeing that in most cities, because of the multitude of those who attempted to correct the laws, the pre-existing legislations were corrupted and the multitudes were led into factions, he legislated something peculiar and altogether strange.

17.2. For he ordered that anyone wishing to correct some law, whenever he should make the proposal about the correction, should put his own neck into a noose and remain until the people should make their judgement concerning the corrected law; and if the assembly should accept the one written later, the proposer should be released, but if it should make the correction invalid, he should at once die, strangled by the noose.

17.3. As the legislation concerning correction was such, and fear was punishing the would-be lawgivers, no one dared to utter a word about the correction of laws; and in all the time afterward, among the Thurians, only three correctors of laws in all are recorded, because certain necessary circumstances brought them to the proposal for correction.

17.4. For there being a law that, if anyone strike out the eye of another, his own should be struck out in return, a one-eyed man, having his eye struck out and being deprived of his whole sight, supposed that the wrongdoer, by having his one eye struck out in return, paid a lesser penalty; for, having blinded one of the citizens, if the doer should submit to the penalty according to the law, he would not have met with an equal misfortune; it was just, then, that the man who had deprived a one-eyed man of his sight should have both his eyes struck out, if he was to receive an equal punishment.

17.5. Therefore the one-eyed man, being deeply pained, dared to set forth a speech in the assembly about his own misfortune, at once lamenting to the citizens his own misfortune and advising the multitudes to correct the law; and finally, putting his neck into the noose and succeeding in his proposal, he invalidated the existing law, confirmed the corrected one, and escaped the death of the noose.

18.1. The second law corrected was the one giving authority to a woman to divorce her husband and to live with whomever she wished. For one of the men advanced in age, having a younger wife and being deserted, advised the Thurians to correct the law and to add that the woman who left her husband should live with whomever she wished, provided he was not younger than her former husband; and likewise, if a man cast out his wife, he should not marry another younger than the one cast out.

18.2. Having hit the mark in his proposal and invalidated the former law, he escaped the danger from the noose; and the woman, being prevented from living with a younger man, again married the man who had divorced her.

18.3. The third law corrected was the one concerning heiresses, which is also found among Solon. For it ordered the nearest of kin to be adjudged to the heiress, and likewise the heiress to be adjudged to the next of kin, who had necessarily either to live with her or to pay five hundred drachmas into the account of a dowry to the poor heiress.

18.4. For a certain orphan heiress, of noble birth, being altogether destitute of the means of life and, because of her poverty, unable to live with a husband, took refuge with the people, and with tears set forth her own desolation and contempt, and besides proposed the correction of the law, so that, instead of the payment of five hundred drachmas, it should be written that the nearest of kin should of necessity live with the heiress adjudged to him; and the people, out of pity, having voted to correct the law, the orphan escaped the danger from the noose, and the next of kin, being rich, was compelled to marry a poor heiress without a dowry.

19.1. It remains for us to speak about the death of Charondas, in which something peculiar and paradoxical happened to him. For going out into the country with a small sword because of the brigands, and, on his return, an assembly being in session and a disturbance among the multitudes, he stopped to busy himself with the matters of the faction.

19.2. He had legislated that no one should attend the assembly with a weapon, and, forgetting that he had girded on the sword, he gave certain enemies a pretext for accusation. When one of them said, "You have annulled your own law," "No, by Zeus," he said, "but I will make it valid"; and, drawing the sword, he cut his own throat. Some of the historians attribute this deed to Diocles the lawgiver of the Syracusans.

19.3. Having sufficiently gone through the matters concerning Charondas the lawgiver, we wish to go through briefly also concerning Zaleucus the lawgiver, both because of the similar purpose of his life and because the men were born in neighboring cities.

20.1. Zaleucus, then, was by birth a Locrian from Italy, a man of noble birth and admired for his education, and a pupil of Pythagoras the philosopher. This man, meeting with much acceptance in his native land, was chosen as lawgiver, and, laying down a new legislation from the beginning, he began first with the gods of heaven.

20.2. For at once in the preface of the whole legislation he said that those dwelling in the city must first of all suppose and be persuaded that the gods exist, and, observing in their minds the heaven and its ordered arrangement, must judge that these are not the constructions of chance nor of men, and must reverence the gods as being the causes to men of all that is noble and good in life, and must keep their soul pure of all baseness, since the gods do not rejoice in the sacrifices and expenditures of the wicked, but in the just and noble pursuits of good men.

20.3. Through the preface, having summoned the citizens to piety and justice, he added, ordering that none of the citizens have an irreconcilable enemy, but should take up enmity in such a way as one who will come again to a settlement and friendship; and that the man who acts contrary to this should be reckoned among the citizens as savage and wild in soul. He exhorted the magistrates not to be self-willed nor arrogant, nor to judge with a view to enmity or friendship. And in the particular legislations he himself discovered many things very wisely and extraordinarily.

21.1. For whereas all others had set monetary fines against women who err, he by an ingenious penalty corrected their wantonness. For he wrote thus: a free woman is not to be attended by more than one maidservant, unless she is drunk, nor to go out of the city at night unless to commit adultery, nor to put on gold ornaments or an embroidered robe, unless she is a courtesan; nor is a man to wear a gilded ring or a Milesian cloak unless he is a fornicator or an adulterer.

21.2. Therefore he easily, by the shameful exemptions from the penalties, deterred them from harmful luxury and wantonness of pursuits; for no one wished, by admitting the shameful wantonness, to be a laughing-stock among the citizens.

21.3. He legislated well concerning many other things, both contracts and the other disputed matters of life, about which it would be long for us to write and foreign to the underlying history; therefore we shall bring the account back to what is continuous with what has been said before.

22.1. For when Lysimachides was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Titus Menenius and Publius Sestius Capitolinus. In their time the Sybarites, escaping the danger in the faction, settled about the river Traeis. And for some time they remained, but then, being expelled by the Bruttians, they were destroyed.

22.2. In Greece the Athenians, having recovered Euboea and expelled the Histiaeans from the city, sent out their own colony to it, Pericles being general, and, having sent out a thousand settlers, apportioned the city and the land by lot.

23.1. When Praxiteles was archon at Athens, the eighty-fourth Olympiad was celebrated, in which Crison of Himera won the stadium-race, and in Rome ten men were appointed as lawgivers, Publius Clodius Regillanus, Titus Minucius, Spurius Veturius, Gaius Julius, Sulpicius, Publius Sestius, Romulus, Spurius Postumius Calvinius.

23.2. These completed the laws. In their time the Thurians, waging war against the Tarentines, ravaged one another's lands both by land and by sea, and made many small battles and skirmishes, but accomplished no notable deed.

24.1. When Lysanias was archon at Athens, the Romans again chose ten men as lawgivers, Appius Clodius, Marcus Cornelius, Lucius Minucius, Gaius Sergius, Quintus Publius, Manius Rabuleius, Spurius Veturius.

24.2. These men were unable to complete the laws. One of them, falling in love with a noble but poor maiden, at first attempted to corrupt the girl with money, but when she paid no heed to him, he sent against her a false accuser, ordering him to lead her into slavery.

24.3. The false accuser, declaring that she was his own slave and bringing her before the magistrate as being held in slavery, the man came forward and accused her as a slave. And, the magistrate having heard the accusation and handed over the girl, the false accuser seized and led her off as his own slave.

24.4. The father of the maiden, being present and deeply distressed, as no one paid heed to him, passing by chance a butcher's shop, snatched up the cleaver lying on the board, and, striking his daughter with it, killed her, in order that she might not experience the outrage, and he himself, rushing out of the city, departed to the camp which was then at the place called Algidus.

24.5. Taking refuge with the multitude and announcing his misfortune with tears, he brought all to pity and much sympathy. As all rushed to come to the aid of the unfortunate man, by night with their arms they burst into Rome. These men, then, seized the hill called the Aventine.

25.1. At daybreak, the soldiers' hatred of wickedness having become known, the ten lawgivers, coming to the aid of their colleague, gathered many of the young men, as men who would settle the matter by arms; and, great rivalry having arisen, the most respectable of the citizens, foreseeing the magnitude of the danger, sent embassies to both sides about a settlement, and with much zeal begged them to cease from the faction and not to involve their native land in great calamities.

25.2. Finally, all having been persuaded, they made agreements with one another, to the effect that ten tribunes should be chosen having the greatest authority over the magistrates in the city, and that these should be, as it were, guardians of the freedom of the citizens; and of the consuls appointed each year, one should be chosen from the patricians, and one should in any case be appointed from the plebs, it being in the power of the people to choose both consuls from the plebs.

25.3. This they did, being eager to humble the superiority of the patricians; for these men, because of their nobility and the magnitude of the glory descending to them from their ancestors, were like masters of the city. And in the agreements it was added that the tribunes who had ruled the year should appoint in their place an equal number of tribunes, or, if they did not do this, should be burned alive; and if the tribunes did not agree with one another, the one who was in the middle should not be prevented from holding power. The faction in Rome, then, met with such a settlement.

26.1. When Diphilus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Marcus Horatius and Lucius Valerius Turpinus. In their time, the legislation in Rome having become incomplete because of the faction, the consuls completed it; for of the so-called Twelve Tables ten were completed, and the remaining two the consuls wrote up. And the underlying legislation having been completed, the consuls, having engraved it on twelve bronze tables, nailed them up to the rostra then lying before the senate-house. And the legislation that was written, composed briefly and without excess, has remained admired down to our own times.

26.2. While these things were being done, most of the peoples in the inhabited world were at peace, almost all keeping peace. For the Persians had two treaties with the Greeks, the one with the Athenians and their allies, in which the Greek cities in Asia were autonomous, and another written later with the Lacedaemonians, in which, on the contrary, it was written that the Greek cities in Asia should be subject to the Persians. Likewise too the Greeks were at peace with one another, the Athenians and Lacedaemonians having made a thirty-year peace.

26.3. Likewise too the affairs in Sicily had a peaceful condition, the Carthaginians having made treaties with Gelon, and the Greek cities in Sicily having conceded the leadership to the Syracusans, and the Acragantines, after the defeat at the river Himeras, having come to terms with the Syracusans.

26.4. The peoples in Italy and in Celtica were at rest, and besides Iberia and almost all the rest of the inhabited world. Therefore no warlike or memorable deed was accomplished in these times, but a single peace was achieved, and festivals and games and sacrifices to the gods and the other things pertaining to prosperity prevailed among all.

27.1. When Timocles was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Larinus Herminius and Titus Stertinius Structor. In their time the Samians, disputing with the Milesians about Priene, came into war, and, seeing that the Athenians were favorably disposed toward the Milesians, they revolted from them. The Athenians, having appointed Pericles as general, sent him against the Samians with forty triremes.

27.2. He, having sailed to Samos and entered and become master of the city, established a democracy in it. Having exacted from the Samians eighty talents and taken an equal number of boys as hostages, he handed these over to the Lemnians, and himself, having accomplished everything in a few days, returned to Athens.

27.3. As a faction arose in Samos, some choosing democracy and others wishing there to be an aristocracy, much disturbance held the city. Those opposed to the democracy, having crossed into Asia and gone to Sardis to Pissuthnes the satrap of the Persians about aid, Pissuthnes gave them seven hundred soldiers, hoping through this to gain control of Samos; and the Samians, with the soldiers given them, having sailed by night to Samos, secretly entered, the citizens cooperating, and easily gained control of Samos, and cast out of the city those opposed to them; and, having stolen the hostages from Lemnos and secured the affairs in Samos, they openly declared themselves enemies of the Athenians.

27.4. The Athenians, again having appointed Pericles as general, sent him against the Samians with sixty ships. After this Pericles, having fought a sea-battle against seventy triremes, conquered the Samians, and, having summoned twenty-five ships from the Chians and Mytilenaeans, with these besieged Samos.

27.5. After some days Pericles, leaving part of his force at the siege, broke camp to meet the Phoenician ships which the Persians had sent to the Samians.

28.1. The Samians, because of the departure of Pericles, thinking that they had a suitable opportunity for an attack on the ships left behind, sailed against them, and, conquering in the sea-battle, were filled with high spirit.

28.2. Pericles, hearing of the defeat of his men, at once turned back and gathered a notable fleet, wishing utterly to crush the fleet of the enemy. The Athenians having quickly sent sixty triremes, and the Chians and Mytilenaeans thirty, having a great force he established the siege both by land and by sea, making continuous assaults.

28.3. He also constructed engines, the first of those before him, both the so-called rams and tortoises, Artemon of Clazomenae having built them. Having vigorously besieged the city and thrown down the walls with the engines, he became master of Samos. Having punished those responsible, he exacted from the Samians the expenses incurred in the siege, assessing them at two hundred talents.

28.4. He took away their ships also and razed their walls, and, having established the democracy, returned to his native land. For the Athenians and Lacedaemonians the thirty-year peace remained unshaken down to these times. And these things were done in this year.

29.1. When Myrichides was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Lucius Julius and Marcus Geganius, and the Eleans celebrated the eighty-fifth Olympiad, in which Crison of Himera won for the second time. In their time, in Sicily, Ducetius, who had been leader of the Sicilian cities, founded the native town of the Calactines, and, settling many inhabitants in it, laid claim to the leadership of the Sicels, but, being cut off by disease, ended his life.

29.2. The Syracusans, having made all the cities of the Sicels subject except the one called Trinacie, resolved to campaign against it; for they very much suspected that the Trinacians would lay claim to the leadership of the kindred Sicels. This city had many great men, having always held the first place of the Sicilian cities; for this city was full of leaders proud in their courage.

29.3. Therefore, having gathered all their forces from Syracuse and the allied cities, they campaigned against it. The Trinacians were destitute of allies because the other cities obeyed the Syracusans, but they put up a great struggle. For, zealously enduring the dangers and slaying many, fighting heroically, all ended their lives.

29.4. Likewise too most of the older men removed themselves from life, not enduring the outrages of capture. The Syracusans, having brilliantly conquered men previously unconquered, enslaved the city and razed it, and the best of the spoils they sent to Delphi as a thank-offering to the god.

30.1. When Glaucides was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Titus Quintius and Agrippa Furius. In their time the Syracusans, because of their aforesaid successes, built a hundred triremes and doubled the number of their cavalry; they took thought also of the land force, and made preparations of money, imposing heavier tributes on the subject Sicels. They did this, intending little by little to gain control of all Sicily.

30.2. While these things were being done, in Greece it came about that the war called the Corinthian took its beginning for the following reasons. The Epidamnians, dwelling about the Adriatic, being colonists of the Corcyraeans and Corinthians, fell into faction with one another. The prevailing faction having exiled many of their opponents, the exiles, having gathered and taken along the Illyrians, sailed in common with them against Epidamnus.

30.3. As the barbarians campaigned with a great force, occupying the country and besieging the city, the Epidamnians, not being a match by themselves, sent ambassadors to Corcyra, asking the Corcyraeans, who were their kinsmen, to come to their aid. As these paid no heed, they sent an embassy to the Corinthians about an alliance, and made them alone their mother-city; at the same time they asked also for settlers.

30.4. The Corinthians, pitying the Epidamnians and hating the Corcyraeans because they alone of the colonists did not send the customary sacrificial victims to the mother-city, resolved to come to the aid of the Epidamnians. Therefore they sent out colonists to Epidamnus and enough soldiers to garrison the city.

30.5. At this the Corcyraeans, provoked, sent fifty triremes and a general over them. He, having sailed up to the city, ordered them to receive back the exiles; and they sent ambassadors to the Corinthian garrison, asking that the dispute about the colony be judged in a court, not by war. As the Corinthians paid no heed to them, both came down to war, and prepared notable naval forces and took on allies. The war named the Corinthian, then, arose for the aforesaid reasons.

30.6. The Romans, waging war against the Volscians, at first carried on skirmishes and small battles, but afterward, having conquered in a great line of battle, cut down most of the enemy.

31.1. When Theodorus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Marcus Genucius and Agrippa Curtius Chilo. In their time, in Italy, the people of the Campanians was formed, and received this name from the excellence of the plain lying nearby. In Asia those who had ruled the Cimmerian Bosporus, called the Archaeanactidae, ruled forty-two years; and Spartacus succeeded to the rule and ruled seven years.

31.2. In Greece the Corinthians, waging war against the Corcyraeans and having prepared naval forces, joined a sea-battle. The Corinthians, then, having seventy ships well fitted out, sailed against the enemy; but the Corcyraeans, ranging against them with eighty triremes, conquered in the sea-battle, and, having taken Epidamnus by siege, slew the other captives, but bound the Corinthians and handed them over to custody.

31.3. After the sea-battle the Corinthians, dismayed, sailed off to the Peloponnese, while the Corcyraeans, holding command of the sea in those parts, sailed against the allies of the Corinthians and ravaged their country.

32.1. When the annual period had passed, at Athens Euthymenes was archon, and in Rome, instead of consuls, three military tribunes were appointed, Aulus Sempronius, Lucius Atilius, Titus Quintus. In their time the Corinthians, having been worsted in the sea-battle, resolved to build a more notable fleet.

32.2. Therefore, having prepared much timber and hired shipwrights from the cities, with much ambition they constructed triremes and arms and missiles of all kinds, and, in general, prepared all the supplies for war; and they built triremes from the keel up, and repaired those that had been damaged, and summoned others from the allies.

32.3. As the Corcyraeans did the like and did not fall short in ambition, it was clear that the war would take a great increase. While these things were being done, the Athenians settled Amphipolis, and of the settlers some they enrolled from the citizens, others from the neighboring forts.

33.1. When Lysimachus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Titus Quintius and Marcus Geganius Macerinus, and the Eleans celebrated the eighty-sixth Olympiad, in which Theopompus the Thessalian won the stadium-race. In their time the Corcyraeans, learning of the multitude of the forces being prepared against them, sent ambassadors to the Athenians, asking them to come to their aid.

33.2. The Corinthians having done the same, and an assembly having been gathered, the people heard the ambassadors and voted to ally with the Corcyraeans. Therefore they at once sent out ten triremes fully fitted, and afterward promised to send more if there were need.

33.3. The Corinthians, having failed of the alliance with the Athenians, themselves manned ninety triremes and took on sixty from the allies. Having, then, a hundred and fifty ships fully fitted, and having chosen the most respectable men as generals, they put out against Corcyra, having resolved to fight at sea quickly.

33.4. The Corcyraeans, learning that the enemy's fleet was not far off, put out against them with a hundred and twenty triremes, together with those of the Athenians. A violent sea-battle taking place, at first the Corinthians prevailed, but afterward, the Athenians having appeared with another twenty ships, which they had sent in the second alliance, it came about that the Corcyraeans conquered. On the next day, all the Corcyraeans having sailed out, the Corinthians did not put out.

34.1. When Antiochides was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Marcus Fabius and Postumus Aebutius Ulecus. In their time, the Athenians having fought alongside the Corcyraeans and having become the cause of the victory in the sea-battle, the Corinthians were harshly disposed toward them.

34.2. Therefore, eager to take vengeance on the Athenians, they made the city Potidaea, which was their own colony, revolt from them. Likewise too Perdiccas the king of the Macedonians, being hostilely disposed toward the Athenians, persuaded the Chalcidians, having revolted from the Athenians, to abandon their cities on the sea and to be settled together into one, the one called Olynthus.

34.3. The Athenians, hearing of the revolt of the Potidaeans, sent out thirty ships and ordered them to plunder the country of the revolters and to sack the city. Those sent, having sailed to Macedonia according to the people's instructions, established a siege of Potidaea.

34.4. Thereupon, the Corinthians having come to the aid of the besieged with two thousand soldiers, the people of the Athenians too sent out two thousand. A battle taking place about the isthmus near Pallene, and the Athenians having conquered and slain more than three hundred, the Potidaeans were shut up in a siege.

34.5. While these things were being done, the Athenians founded a city in the Propontis called Astacus. In Italy the Romans, having sent colonists to Ardea, apportioned the land by lot.

35.1. When Crates was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Quintus Furius Fusus and Manius Papirius Crassus. In their time, in Italy, those who inhabited Thurii, being composed of many cities, fell into faction with one another, about of what city the Thurians ought to be called colonists and whom it was just to name as founder.

35.2. For the Athenians disputed about this colony, declaring that the most settlers had come from Athens, and the Peloponnesians, having furnished not a few cities of their own for the founding of Thurii, said that the inscription of the colony ought to belong to them.

35.3. Likewise too, many good men having shared in the colony and furnished many services, there was much debate, each eager to obtain this honor. Finally, the Thurians having sent to Delphi those who should ask whom they ought to proclaim founder of the city, the god gave the response that he himself ought to be considered founder. In this way the dispute having been settled, they declared Apollo the founder of the Thurians, and the multitude, freed from the faction, was restored to its previous concord.

35.4. In Greece Archidamus the king of the Lacedaemonians died, having ruled forty-two years, and Agis, succeeding to the rule, reigned twenty-seven years.

36.1. When Apseudes was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Titus Menenius and Proclus Geganius Macerinus. In their time Spartacus the king of the Bosporus died, having ruled seven years, and Seleucus succeeded to the rule and reigned forty years.

36.2. In Athens Meton, the son of Pausanias, who was renowned in astronomy, set forth the so-called nineteen-year cycle, making the beginning from the thirteenth of the month Scirophorion at Athens. In the said years the stars make their restoration and, as of some great year, take their cyclical return; therefore some name it the Year of Meton.

36.3. This man seems in this prediction and writing to have hit the mark marvelously; for the stars make their motion and indications in agreement with the writing; therefore down to our own times most of the Greeks, using the nineteen-year cycle, are not deceived of the truth.

36.4. In Italy the Tarentines, having removed those inhabiting the place called Siris from their native land and having added their own settlers, founded the city called Heraclea.

37.1. When Pythodorus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Titus Quintius and Nittus Menenius, and the Eleans celebrated the eighty-seventh Olympiad, in which Sophron of Ambracia won the stadium-race. In their time, in Rome, Spurius Maelius, attempting a tyranny, was put to death. The Athenians, having conquered at Potidaea in a notable battle, Callias the general having fallen in the line of battle, sent out another general, Phormion. He, taking over the army and sitting down before the city of the Potidaeans, made continuous assaults; but, the men inside defending vigorously, there was a long siege.

37.2. Thucydides the Athenian, beginning his history from here, wrote the war that took place between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, called the Peloponnesian. This war, then, lasted twenty-seven years, but Thucydides wrote twenty-two of them in eight books, or, as some divide them, nine.

38.1. When Euthydemus was archon at Athens, the Romans, instead of consuls, appointed three military tribunes, Manius Aemilianus Mamercus, Gaius Julius, Lucius Quintius. In their time the war called the Peloponnesian, the longest of the wars recorded, arose for the Athenians and Lacedaemonians. It is necessary, and suited to the underlying history, to set forth beforehand its causes.

38.2. The Athenians, laying claim to the leadership at sea, transferred to Athens the money gathered in common at Delos, about eight thousand talents, and handed it over to Pericles to guard. This man far surpassed the citizens in nobility and reputation and cleverness of speech. After some time, having spent privately a sufficient quantity of it and being asked for an accounting, he fell into illness, being unable to render the account of what had been entrusted.

38.3. As he was distressed about these things, Alcibiades his nephew, who was an orphan being brought up with him, being a boy in age, furnished him a pretext for the accounting concerning the money. For seeing his uncle grieved, he asked the cause of his grief. When Pericles said, "Being asked for the accounting concerning the money, I seek how I might be able to render the account of these things to the citizens," Alcibiades said that he ought to seek not how he might render the account, but how he might not render it.

38.4. Therefore Pericles, accepting the boy's pronouncement, sought by what means he might throw the Athenians into a great war; for thus he supposed he would most easily, through the disturbance and the distractions and fears of the city, escape the exact accounting of the money. And toward this pretext chance also worked together for him for the following reasons.

39.1. Pheidias was constructing the statue of Athena, and Pericles the son of Xanthippus had been appointed overseer. Some of those who had worked with Pheidias, having quarreled, at the instigation of the enemies of Pericles, sat down at the altars of the gods; and, being summoned because of the strange thing, they said that they would show that Pheidias had much of the sacred money, the overseer Pericles knowing and cooperating.

39.2. Therefore, an assembly having gathered about these things, the enemies of Pericles persuaded the people to arrest Pheidias, and they accused Pericles himself of sacrilege. In addition they maliciously prosecuted Anaxagoras the sophist, who was the teacher of Pericles, as being impious toward the gods; and they entangled Pericles in their accusations and slanders, eager through envy to slander the man's superiority and reputation.

39.3. Pericles, knowing that the people in warlike works admired good men because of the pressing needs, but in peace maliciously prosecuted the same men because of their leisure and envy, judged it advantageous to himself to throw the city into a great war, in order that, having need of the valor and generalship of Pericles, it might not admit the slanders against him, nor have leisure and time to examine accurately the account concerning the money.

39.4. There being a decree among the Athenians that the Megarians be excluded from the marketplace and the harbors, the Megarians took refuge with the Spartiates. The Lacedaemonians, persuaded by the Megarians, sent ambassadors most openly, from the decision of the common council, ordering the Athenians to annul the decree against the Megarians, and, if they were not persuaded, threatening to make war on them with their allies.

39.5. An assembly having been gathered about these things, Pericles, far surpassing all the citizens in cleverness of speech, persuaded the Athenians not to annul the decree, saying that it was the beginning of slavery to obey, contrary to one's advantage, the commands of the Lacedaemonians. He advised them, then, to bring in the produce from the country into the city and, holding command of the sea, to wage war against the Spartiates.

40.1. Having reasoned out carefully about the war, he enumerated the multitude of the allies of the city and the superiority of the naval force, and besides the quantity of money transferred from Delos to Athens, which had come about from the tributes of the cities gathered in common;

40.2. and of the common ten thousand talents, four thousand talents had been spent on the construction of the Propylaea and the siege of Potidaea; and each year from the tribute of the allies four hundred and sixty talents were brought in. Apart from these he declared that the processional vessels and the Median spoils were worth five hundred talents;

40.3. and in the temples he pointed out a quantity of votive offerings, and that the statue of Athena had fifty talents of gold, the construction about its adornment being removable; and these, if necessary need should overtake them, having borrowed from the gods, they would restore again in peace; and that the livelihoods of the citizens, because of the long peace, had received much increase toward prosperity.

40.4. Apart from this money he declared that there were available to the city, apart from the allies and those in the forts, twelve thousand hoplites, and that those in the forts and the metics were more than seventeen thousand, and the triremes present three hundred.

40.5. The Lacedaemonians he declared to be short of money and far inferior to the Athenians in naval forces. Having gone through these things and urged the citizens on to the war, he persuaded the people not to heed the Lacedaemonians. This he easily accomplished because of the cleverness of his speech, for which reason he was named Olympius.

40.6. Aristophanes the poet of the old comedy, who lived in the time of Pericles, mentions these things in these tetrameters: O penniless farmers, let someone understand my words, if you wish to hear how this war broke out. For first Pheidias began it, having fared ill, then Pericles, fearing lest he share in his fortune, casting in a small spark of the Megarian decree, blew up so great a war that with the smoke all the Greeks wept, both those there and those here; and again in others: Pericles the Olympian flashed lightning, thundered, confounded Greece. And Eupolis the poet: A sort of Persuasion sat upon his lips; so he charmed, and alone of the orators he left the sting behind in his hearers.

41.1. Such, then, were the causes of the Peloponnesian War, as Ephorus has recorded. The leading cities having fallen into war in this way, the Lacedaemonians, taking counsel with the Peloponnesians, voted to make war on the Athenians, and, sending an embassy to the king of the Persians, urged him to ally with them, and, sending embassies to the allies in Sicily and Italy, persuaded them to help with two hundred triremes,

41.2. while they themselves, with the Peloponnesians, having drawn up their land forces and prepared the other things for the war, first began the war. For in Boeotia the city of the Plataeans was autonomous and had an alliance with the Athenians.

41.3. In it some of the citizens, wishing to overthrow the autonomy, conversed with the Boeotians, undertaking to range the city under the confederacy of the Thebans and to hand over Plataea to them, if they should send soldiers to help.

41.4. Therefore, the Boeotians having sent three hundred picked soldiers by night, the traitors, having brought these inside the walls, made them masters of the city.

41.5. The Plataeans, wishing to preserve their alliance with the Athenians, at first, supposing that the Thebans had come in full force, sent an embassy to those who had seized the city and asked them to make a treaty; but when the night had passed and they perceived that they were few, they formed up and zealously fought for their freedom.

41.6. The battle taking place in the streets, at first the Thebans, because of their valor, had the advantage and slew many of those resisting; but, the servants and children throwing tiles from the houses and wounding the Thebans, they were routed; and some of them, having escaped from the city, were saved, while some, having fled into a house, were compelled to surrender themselves.

41.7. The Thebans, learning from those who had been saved from the battle what had happened, at once in full force set out in haste. Because of the unexpectedness, those in the country being unprepared, many were slain, and not a few were taken alive, and all the country was full of confusion and plunder.

42.1. The Plataeans, having sent an embassy to the Thebans, asked them to depart from their country and to receive back the captives. Therefore, this agreement having been made, the Thebans, having received back the captives and given back the booty, departed to Thebes, while the Plataeans sent ambassadors to the Athenians about aid, and themselves brought most of the property into the city.

42.2. The Athenians, learning of the matters concerning Plataea, at once sent enough soldiers; these, having arrived in haste, and not having anticipated the Thebans, conveyed the rest of the property from the country into the city, and, having gathered the children and women and the crowd, sent them off to Athens.

42.3. The Lacedaemonians, judging that the treaties had been broken by the Athenians, gathered a notable force from Lacedaemon and from the other Peloponnesians.

42.4. There fought as allies of the Lacedaemonians at that time all the Peloponnesians except the Argives—these kept quiet—and of those outside the Peloponnese the Megarians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, Phocians, Boeotians, most of the Locrians turned toward Euboea, and of the others the Amphissians.

42.5. With the Athenians fought as allies the inhabitants of the coast of Asia, the Carians and Dorians and Ionians and Hellespontines and all the islanders except those dwelling in Melos and Thera, likewise too those on Thrace except the Chalcidians and Potidaeans; and besides these the Messenians who inhabit Naupactus and the Corcyraeans. Of these, the Chians, Lesbians, and Corcyraeans furnished a navy, and all the others sent out foot-soldiers. The aforesaid, then, were the allies on both sides.

42.6. The Lacedaemonians, having mustered a notable force, gave the command to Archidamus the king. He with the force invaded Attica, and made assaults on the forts and ravaged much of the country. As the Athenians were provoked because of the overrunning of the country and wished to draw up against the enemy, Pericles, being general and holding the whole command, exhorted the young men to keep quiet, undertaking to drive the Lacedaemonians out of Attica without dangers.

42.7. Having manned a hundred triremes, then, and put a notable force into the ships, and set Carcinus and certain others as generals, he sent them to the Peloponnese. These, having ravaged much of the coastal country and taken some of the forts, dismayed the Lacedaemonians; therefore they quickly summoned the force from Attica and afforded much security to the Peloponnesians.

42.8. Attica having in this way been freed, Pericles met with acceptance among the citizens, as one able to be general and to wage war against the Lacedaemonians.

43.1. When Apollodorus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Marcus Geganius and Lucius Sergius. In their time the general of the Athenians did not cease plundering and destroying the country of the Peloponnesians and besieging the forts; and, fifty triremes having joined him from Corcyra, he ravaged the country of the Peloponnesians much more, and especially ravaged the part of the coast called Acte and burned the country houses.

43.2. After this, having sailed to Methone in Laconia, he overran the country and made assaults on the city. Thereupon Brasidas the Spartiate, being young in age but distinguished in strength and courage, seeing that Methone was in danger of being taken by force, took some of the Spartiates and dared to pass through the midst of the scattered enemy, and, having slain many, burst into the place.

43.3. A siege taking place, and Brasidas having run risks most brilliantly, the Athenians, unable to take the place, withdrew to the ships, while Brasidas, having saved Methone through his own valor and courage, met with acceptance among the Spartiates. Made proud because of this deed of valor, he often in later times, fighting recklessly, won great glory for courage.

43.4. The Athenians, having sailed around to Elis, ravaged the country and besieged Pheia, a place of the Eleans. As the Eleans came to its aid, they conquered in battle and, slaying many of the enemy, took Pheia by storm.

43.5. After this, the Eleans having drawn up in full force, they were repulsed to the ships; then, having sailed off to Cephallenia and brought its inhabitants into the alliance, they made the voyage to Athens.

44.1. After this the Athenians, having appointed Cleopompus as general, sent him out with thirty ships, ordering him both to guard Euboea and to make war on the Locrians. He, having sailed out, ravaged the coast of Locris and took the city Thronium by siege, and, joining battle with the Locrians ranged against him, conquered near the city Alope. Then he made the island lying off Locris, named Atalante, into a fortified outpost against Locris, making war on the natives.

44.2. The Athenians, accusing the Aeginetans of having cooperated with the Lacedaemonians, removed them from the city, and, sending settlers from the citizens, apportioned both Aegina and the land by lot.

44.3. The Lacedaemonians gave the exiled Aeginetans the place called Thyreae to dwell in, because the Athenians too had given Naupactus to those cast out of Messene to inhabit. The Athenians sent Pericles with a force to make war on the Megarians. He, having ravaged the country and ruined their possessions, returned to Athens with much booty.

45.1. The Lacedaemonians with the Peloponnesians and the other allies invaded Attica a second time. Going through the country, they felled the trees and burned the country houses, and ruined almost all the land except the place called the Tetrapolis; this they spared because their ancestors had dwelt there and had conquered the onset of Eurystheus, setting out from it; for they considered it just that those who had benefited their ancestors should receive the fitting benefactions from the descendants.

45.2. The Athenians did not dare to draw up in battle, but, being shut up within the walls, fell into a plague; for, a great multitude of all kinds having flowed together into the city, because of the close quarters they reasonably fell into diseases, drawing in corrupted air.

45.3. Therefore, being unable to drive the enemy out of the country, they again sent many ships to the Peloponnese, setting Pericles as general. He, having ravaged much of the coastal country and sacked some cities, made the Lacedaemonians depart from Attica.

45.4. After this the Athenians, their country having been deforested and the plague destroying many, were in despondency, and, thinking Pericles had become to them the cause of the war, were angry with him. Therefore, having removed him from the generalship and having taken some small pretexts of accusation, they fined him eighty talents.

45.5. After this, having sent an embassy to the Lacedaemonians, they asked to put an end to the war; but as no one paid heed to them, they were compelled again to choose Pericles as general. These things, then, were done in this year.

46.1. When Epameinon was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Lucius Papirius and Aulus Cornelius Macerinus. In their time, in Athens, Pericles the general died, a man far surpassing the citizens in birth and wealth, and besides in cleverness of speech and generalship.

46.2. The people, ambitious to take Potidaea by storm, sent out Hagnon as general, having the force which Pericles had previously had. He, having sailed to Potidaea with the whole fleet, prepared the things for the siege; for he prepared engines of all kinds for siege-craft and a quantity of arms and missiles, and besides a sufficient abundance of grain for the whole force. Making continuous assaults each day, he spent much time, being unable to take the city.

46.3. For the besieged, because of their fear from capture, defended vigorously, and, confident in the superior height of the walls, had the advantage over those from the harbor; and the plague, holding the besiegers, slew many, and despondency held the army.

46.4. Hagnon, knowing that the Athenians had spent on the siege more than a thousand talents and were harshly disposed toward the Potidaeans because they had been the first to revolt to the Lacedaemonians, feared to raise the siege; therefore he was compelled to persevere and to compel the soldiers to bring force against the city beyond their strength.

46.5. But when many of the citizens were being destroyed in the assaults and by the plague disease, leaving part of the force at the siege, he sailed off to Athens, having lost more than a thousand of the soldiers.

46.6. These having departed, the Potidaeans, the grain having altogether failed and those in the city being despondent, made overtures to the besiegers about a settlement. These gladly accepting, they made a settlement of this kind, that all the Potidaeans should depart from the city, taking nothing else, but having, the men one cloak, the women two.

46.7. These treaties having been made, the Potidaeans all, with their women and children, abandoned their native land according to the agreements, and, going to the Chalcidians on Thrace, settled among them; the Athenians sent about a thousand settlers from the citizens to Potidaea, and apportioned the city and the land by lot.

47.1. The Athenians, having appointed Phormion as general, sent him out with twenty triremes. He, having sailed around the Peloponnese, put in at Naupactus, and, holding command of the Crisaean Gulf, prevented the Lacedaemonians from sailing there. The Lacedaemonians sent out a notable force with Archidamus the king; he, going through Boeotia to Plataea, encamped. As they were about to ravage the country and were urging the Plataeans to revolt from the Athenians, when they paid no heed to them, he ravaged the country and ruined the possessions in it.

47.2. After this, having walled the city around, he hoped to wear down the Plataeans by the scarcity of necessities; none the less, bringing up engines and through these shaking the walls and making assaults unceasingly, they continued. But when even through the assaults they could not subdue the city, leaving a sufficient guard, they returned to the Peloponnese.

47.3. The Athenians, having appointed Xenophon and Phanomachus as generals, sent them to Thrace with a thousand soldiers. These, having arrived at Spartolus in Bottica, cut the country and destroyed the grain while it was green. As the Olynthians came to the aid of the Bottiaeans, they were defeated by them in battle; and of the Athenians both the generals and most of the soldiers were slain.

47.4. While these things were being done, the Lacedaemonians, persuaded by the Ambraciots, campaigned into Acarnania. Cnemus, in command of these, had a thousand foot-soldiers and a few ships; and, having taken on enough soldiers from the allies, he came into Acarnania and encamped near the city called Stratus.

47.5. The Acarnanians, having formed up and laid an ambush for the enemy, killed many, and compelled Cnemus to lead the force away to those called the Oeniadae.

48.1. About the same time Phormion the general of the Athenians, having twenty triremes, fell in with forty-seven Lacedaemonian ships. Having fought a sea-battle against these, he sank the flagship of the enemy and made many of the others unfit to sail, took twelve with their crews, and pursued the rest as far as the land. The Lacedaemonians, defeated beyond expectation, fled with the surviving ships to Patrae in Achaea. This sea-battle, then, took place near the place called Rhium. The Athenians, having set up a trophy and consecrated a ship to Poseidon at the strait, sailed off to the allied city Naupactus.

48.2. The Lacedaemonians sent out other ships to Patrae. These, having taken on the triremes left over from the sea-battle, were gathered at Rhium; and to the same place the land army of the Peloponnesians also came and encamped near the fleet.

48.3. Phormion, made proud by his previous victory, dared to attack the enemy ships, which were many times more numerous; and, having sunk some of them and lost some of his own, he had an indecisive victory. After this, the Athenians having sent twenty triremes, the Lacedaemonians, taking fright, sailed off to Corinth, not daring to fight at sea. These things, then, were done in this year.

49.1. When Diotimus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Gaius Julius and Proclus Verginius Tricostus, and the Eleans celebrated the eighty-eighth Olympiad, in which Symmachus of Messene from Sicily won the stadium-race.

49.2. In their time Cnemus the admiral of the Lacedaemonians, tarrying in Corinth, resolved to seize the Piraeus. For he learned that neither were there ships drawn up in it nor were soldiers appointed to its guard; for the Athenians were careless about its guard because they in no way expected anyone to dare to seize the place.

49.3. Therefore, having launched at Megara the forty triremes that had been hauled up, by night he sailed to Salamis; and, falling unexpectedly upon the fort of Salamis called Budorium, he carried off three ships and overran all Salamis.

49.4. The Salaminians having raised fire-signals to those in Attica, the Athenians, thinking that the Piraeus had been seized, quickly came to the aid in much confusion; but, learning what had happened, quickly manning enough ships, they sailed to Salamis.

49.5. The Peloponnesians, having been deceived in their design, sailed off from Salamis to their home. The Athenians, the enemy having sailed off, made a more careful guard of Salamis and left enough guards, and fortified the Piraeus, securing it with bars and sufficient guards.

50.1. About the same time Sitalces the king of the Thracians had inherited a kingdom of small extent, but, through his own courage and intelligence, greatly increased his dominion, ruling his subjects reasonably, being courageous in battles and skilled in generalship, and besides taking great care of his revenues. In the end he advanced to such power that he ruled the most land of those who had reigned before him in Thrace.

50.2. For its coast, beginning from the country of the Abderites, extended as far as the river Ister, and from the sea, going to the interior, it had so great an extent that a foot-traveler unburdened could march thirteen days. Reigning over so great a country, he received revenues each year of more than a thousand talents.

50.3. At the times in question, having a war, he gathered from Thrace foot-soldiers more than one hundred and twenty thousand, and cavalry fifty thousand. It is necessary to set forth beforehand the causes of this war, in order that the account about it may be clear to the readers. Sitalces, then, having made a friendship with the Athenians, agreed to ally with them in the war on Thrace; therefore, wishing to subdue the Chalcidians together with the Athenians, he prepared a notable force.

50.4. At the same time, being hostilely disposed toward Perdiccas the king of the Macedonians, he resolved to restore Amyntas the son of Philip to the Macedonian kingdom. For both the aforesaid reasons, then, it was necessary for him to muster a notable force. When the things for the expedition were prepared for him, he led forward his whole force and, going through Thrace, invaded Macedonia.

50.5. The Macedonians, dismayed at the magnitude of the force, did not dare to draw up in battle, but, having carried off the grain and as much of the property as was possible into the strongest forts, remained in these and kept quiet.

50.6. The Thracians, having restored Amyntas to the kingdom, at first tried by speeches and embassies to win over the cities; but when no one paid heed to them, at once attacking the first fort, they took it by storm.

50.7. After this some of the cities and forts, because of fear, voluntarily submitted. Having ravaged all Macedonia and become masters of much booty, they passed over to the Greek cities of the Chalcidians.

51.1. As Sitalces was occupied about these things, the Thessalians and Achaeans and Magnesians and all the other Greeks who dwelt between Macedonia and Thermopylae took counsel together and mustered a notable force in common; for they were wary lest the Thracians with so many myriads invade their country and they should endanger their native lands.

51.2. The Chalcidians having done the same, Sitalces, learning that the Greeks had gathered considerable forces, and reflecting that his soldiers were troubled by the winter, came to terms with Perdiccas, made marriage alliances, and led his forces back to Thrace.

52.1. While these things were being done, the Lacedaemonians, having taken along the allies from the Peloponnese, invaded Attica, Archidamus the king holding the command, and destroyed the grain while it was green, and, having ravaged the country, returned to their native lands.

52.2. The Athenians, not daring to draw up in battle, and being oppressed by the plague and the lack of grain, took up bad hopes about the future. These things, then, were done in this year.

53.1. When Eucleides was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed, instead of consuls, three military tribunes, Marcus Manius, Quintus Sulpicius Praetextatus, Servius Cornelius Cossus. In their time, in Sicily, the Leontines, being colonists of the Chalcidians and kinsmen of the Athenians, happened to be at war with the Syracusans. Being oppressed by the war, and, because of the superiority of the Syracusans, in danger of being taken by storm, they sent ambassadors to Athens, asking the people to come to their aid as quickly as possible and to rescue their city from the dangers.

53.2. The chief of those sent was Gorgias the orator, far surpassing all his contemporaries in cleverness of speech. He first discovered the arts of rhetoric and so far surpassed the others in sophistic skill that he received from his pupils a hundred minas as wages.

53.3. He, then, having arrived at Athens and been brought before the people, addressed the Athenians about the alliance, and by the strangeness of his diction astonished the Athenians, who were naturally gifted and fond of speech.

53.4. For he first used the more extraordinary figures of speech and those distinguished by their artifice, antitheses and clauses of equal length and balanced phrases and like endings and certain others of this kind, which at that time, because of the strangeness of the construction, were deemed worthy of acceptance, but now seem to have a labored quality and appear ridiculous, when used too often and to excess.

53.5. Finally, having persuaded the Athenians to ally with the Leontines, he, admired in Athens for his rhetorical art, made his return to Leontini.

54.1. The Athenians had long been desirous of Sicily because of the excellence of the country, and then too, gladly accepting the words of Gorgias, voted to send an alliance to the Leontines, putting forward as a pretext the need and request of their kinsmen, but in truth being eager to gain control of the island.

54.2. For also not many years before, when the Corinthians and Corcyraeans were at war with one another, and both were ambitious to get the Athenians as allies, the people preferred to ally with the Corcyraeans because Corcyra lies conveniently for the voyage to Sicily.

54.3. For in general the Athenians, having gained the leadership of the sea and accomplished great deeds, were well supplied with many allies and possessed the greatest forces, and received a quantity of money ready, having transferred from Delos the common money of the Greeks, being more than ten thousand talents, and used great leaders proven in generalship, and through all these things they hoped to subdue the Lacedaemonians, and, having acquired the leadership of all Greece, to lay hold of Sicily.

54.4. For these reasons, then, having voted to come to the aid of the Leontines, they sent to Sicily twenty ships and the generals Laches and Charoeades. These, having sailed to Rhegium, took on twenty ships from the Rhegians and the other Chalcidian colonists. Setting out from there, at first they overran the islands of the Liparaeans because the Liparaeans were allies of the Syracusans, and afterward, having sailed against the Locrians and gained control of five Locrian ships, they besieged the fort Mylae.

54.5. The neighboring Sicilians having come to the aid of the Mylaeans, a battle took place, in which the Athenians, having conquered, slew more than a thousand and took alive not fewer than six hundred; and at once, having taken the fort by siege, they held it.

54.6. While these things were being done, forty ships sailed in, which the people had sent, judging it better to take up the war more vigorously; Eurymedon and Sophocles were in command of them. The triremes having been gathered in one place, a notable fleet was now prepared, composed of eighty triremes.

54.7. As the war dragged on, the Leontines, having sent an embassy to the Syracusans, came to a settlement. Therefore the triremes of the Athenians sailed home, and the Syracusans, having given the Leontines a share of the citizenship, made them all Syracusans, and made the city a fort of the Syracusans. And the affairs in Sicily were in this state.

55.1. In Greece the Lesbians revolted from the Athenians; for they accused them because, when they wished to settle all the cities in Lesbos together into the city of the Mytilenaeans, they prevented it.

55.2. Therefore, having sent ambassadors to the Lacedaemonians and made an alliance, they advised the Spartiates to lay claim to the leadership at sea; and toward this design they undertook to furnish many triremes for the war.

55.3. The Lacedaemonians having gladly heeded and being engaged in the construction of triremes, the Athenians, having anticipated their preparation, at once sent a force to Lesbos, manning forty ships and appointing Cleinippides as general. He, taking on aid from the allies, sailed to Mytilene.

55.4. A sea-battle taking place, the Mytilenaeans, being worsted, were shut up in a siege; and, the Lacedaemonians having voted to come to the aid of the Mytilenaeans and being engaged in preparing a notable fleet, the Athenians anticipated them by sending other ships with a thousand hoplites to Lesbos.

55.5. Paches the son of Epicleros, in command of these, having arrived at Mytilene and taken over the existing force, walled the city around and made continuous assaults not only by land, but also by sea.

55.6. The Lacedaemonians sent out to Mytilene forty-five triremes and the general Alcidas, and invaded Attica with the allies; and, having gone over the neglected parts of Attica and ravaged the country, they returned home.

55.7. The Mytilenaeans, oppressed by the lack of grain and the war and at faction with one another, by agreement handed over the city to the besiegers.

55.8. In Athens, as the people deliberated how they ought to deal with the Mytilenaeans, Cleon the demagogue, being savage in character and violent, provoked the people, declaring that they ought to put to death all the Mytilenaeans themselves who had reached manhood and enslave the children and women.

55.9. Finally, the Athenians being persuaded and having voted according to the opinion of Cleon, those who would make plain to the general what had been decided by the people were sent to Mytilene.

55.10. As Paches read the decree, another came opposite to the former. Paches, learning of the change of mind of the Athenians, rejoiced, and, having gathered the Mytilenaeans into an assembly, released them from the charges and at the same time from the greatest fears. The Athenians, having pulled down the walls of Mytilene, apportioned all Lesbos by lot except the country of the Methymnaeans. The revolt of the Lesbians from the Athenians, then, had such an end.

56.1. About the same time the Lacedaemonians, besieging Plataea, walled the city around and guarded it with many soldiers. As the siege dragged on and the Athenians sent out no aid, the besieged were held fast by lack of grain and had lost many of the citizens in the assaults.

56.2. As they were at a loss and deliberating about their safety, to the many it seemed best to keep quiet, but to the others, about two hundred in number, it seemed best to force the guards by night and break through to Athens.

56.3. Watching, then, for a moonless night, they persuaded the rest to make an assault on the other parts of the circumvallation, while they themselves, having prepared ladders, and the enemy coming to the aid at the parts of the walls turned away, themselves by the ladders happened to climb up onto the wall, and, having killed the guards, escaped to Athens.

56.4. On the next day the Lacedaemonians, provoked at the escape of those who had departed from the city, assaulted the city of the Plataeans and brought all zeal to bear to subdue the besieged by force; but the Plataeans, dismayed and having sent an embassy, surrendered both themselves and the city to the enemy.

56.5. The commanders of the Lacedaemonians, summoning the Plataeans one by one, asked what good he had done to the Lacedaemonians; and, each confessing that he had done no benefit, they again asked whether they had done any harm to the Spartiates; and, no one contradicting, they condemned all to death.

56.6. Therefore they slew all who had been left behind, and, having razed it, leased out their land. The Plataeans, then, having kept their alliance with the Athenians most firm, unjustly fell into the greatest calamities.

57.1. While these things were being done, in Corcyra there arose a great faction and rivalry for the following reasons. In the war about Epidamnus, many Corcyraeans, becoming captives and thrown into the public prison, undertook to hand over Corcyra to the Corinthians, if they should release them.

57.2. The Corinthians having gladly accepted the words, the Corcyraeans, pretending to give a ransom, were released, having been guaranteed by their proxenoi for a sufficient number of talents.

57.3. And, keeping the pledge of what had been agreed, when they arrived at their native land, they seized and slaughtered those accustomed to demagoguery and especially to lead the multitude. Having overthrown the democracy, after a short time, the Athenians having come to the aid of the people, the Corcyraeans, having recovered their freedom, undertook to punish those who had made the insurrection; these, fearing the punishment, took refuge at the altars of the gods and became suppliants of the people and the gods.

57.4. The Corcyraeans, because of their piety toward the gods, released them from punishment, but sent them out of the city. These, again attempting revolution and having fortified a strong place in the island, harmed the Corcyraeans. These things, then, were done in this year.

58.1. When Euthynus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed, instead of consuls, three military tribunes, Marcus Fabius, Marcus Falinius, Lucius Servilius. In their time the Athenians, having been relieved of the plague for some time, fell again into the same calamities;

58.2. for they were so afflicted by the disease that they lost of their soldiers more than four thousand foot and four hundred cavalry, and of the others, both free and slaves, more than ten thousand. As the history seeks the cause of the severity of the disease, it is necessary to set forth these things.

58.3. Great rains having occurred in the winter, it came about that the earth became waterlogged, and many of the hollow places, having received a quantity of water, became ponds and held standing water like the marshy places, and these being heated in the summer and putrefying, thick and foul vapors were formed, and these, rising up, corrupted the nearby air; which indeed is seen to happen in the marshes that have a pestilential condition.

58.4. There contributed to the disease also the badness of the food brought in; for the crops in this year were altogether moist and had a corrupted nature. A third cause of the disease was that the Etesian winds did not blow, by which always in the summer much of the heat is cooled; and the heat having taken an increase and the air having become fiery, the bodies of men, no cooling having occurred, came to be ruined.

58.5. Therefore the diseases then all happened to be feverish because of the excess of the heat. For this reason most of the sick threw themselves into the wells and springs, desiring to cool their bodies by them.

58.6. The Athenians, because of the excess of the disease, referred the causes of the calamity to the divine. Therefore, according to a certain oracle, they purified the island Delos, which was sacred to Apollo but seemed to have been polluted because the dead had been buried in it.

58.7. Digging up, then, all the graves in Delos, they transferred them to the island called Rheneia, lying near Delos. They made it also a law neither to give birth in Delos nor to bury there. They held also the festival of the Delians, which had been celebrated before but had ceased for a long time.

59.1. While the Athenians were occupied about these things, the Lacedaemonians, having taken along the Peloponnesians, encamped about the isthmus, intending again to invade Attica; but, great earthquakes occurring, being seized with superstitious fear, they turned back to their native lands.

59.2. So great earthquakes happened in many parts of Greece that the sea, flooding over, destroyed some seaside cities, and in Locris, where there was a peninsula, broke through the isthmus and made the island called Atalante.

59.3. While these things were being done, the Lacedaemonians settled the place called Trachis and renamed it Heraclea for the following reasons.

59.4. The Trachinians had for many years waged war against the Oetaeans, who were their neighbors, and had lost most of their citizens. The city being desolate, they asked the Lacedaemonians, being their colonists, to take care of the city. They, both because of the kinship and because Heracles, who was their ancestor, had dwelt in ancient times in Trachis, resolved to make it a great city.

59.5. Therefore the Lacedaemonians and the Peloponnesians having sent out four thousand settlers, they received also from the other Greeks those who wished to share in the colony; and these were not fewer than six thousand. Therefore, having made Trachis a city of ten thousand men and having apportioned the land by lot, they named the city Heraclea.

60.1. When Stratocles was archon at Athens, in Rome, instead of consuls, three military tribunes were appointed, Lucius Furius, Spurius Pinarius, and Gaius Metellus. In their time the Athenians, having appointed Demosthenes as general, sent him out with thirty ships and enough soldiers. He, taking on fifteen triremes from the Corcyraeans and soldiers from the Cephallenians and Acarnanians and the Messenians at Naupactus, sailed to Leucas. Having ravaged the country of the Leucadians, he sailed off to Aetolia and sacked many of their villages. As the Aetolians formed up against him, a battle took place, in which the Athenians, being worsted, withdrew to Naupactus.

60.2. The Aetolians, elated by the victory and taking on three thousand Lacedaemonian soldiers, campaigned against Naupactus, the Messenians then dwelling in it, and were repulsed.

60.3. After this, having campaigned against the place called Molycria, they took the city. The general of the Athenians, Demosthenes, being wary lest they take Naupactus too by siege, summoned a thousand hoplites from Acarnania and sent them to Naupactus.

60.4. Demosthenes, tarrying about Acarnania, fell in with a thousand Ambraciots encamped, against whom, joining battle, he slew nearly all. As those from Ambracia came out in full force, again Demosthenes slew most of them, so that the city became almost desolate.

60.5. Demosthenes, then, thought it necessary to take Ambracia by siege, hoping, because of the desolation of the defenders, easily to take it. But the Acarnanians, fearing lest the Athenians, having gained control of the city, become harsher neighbors than the Ambraciots, said they would not follow.

60.6. As they were at faction, the Acarnanians, having come to terms with the Ambraciots, made peace for a hundred years, while Demosthenes, abandoned by the Acarnanians, sailed off with his twenty ships to Athens. The Ambraciots, having fallen into a great calamity, summoned a garrison from the Lacedaemonians, fearing the Athenians.

61.1. Demosthenes, having campaigned against Pylos, undertook to fortify this place against the Peloponnese; for it is exceptionally strong and lies in Messenia, four hundred stadia distant from Sparta. Having then many ships and enough soldiers, in twenty days he fortified Pylos. The Lacedaemonians, learning of the fortification of Pylos, gathered a notable force not only of foot but also of ships.

61.2. Therefore they sailed against Pylos with forty-five well-fitted triremes, and campaigned with twelve thousand foot, thinking it disgraceful that those who had not dared to come to the aid of Attica when it was being ravaged should fortify and seize a place in the Peloponnese.

61.3. These, then, Thrasymedes being in command, encamped near Pylos. An impulse having fallen upon the multitude to endure every danger and to subdue Pylos by force, they stationed the ships prow-foremost at the mouth of the harbor, in order through these to block the entrance of the enemy, and by land, attacking the wall by relays and bringing the greatest ambition, they put up marvelous struggles.

61.4. To the island called Sphacteria, which extends lengthwise and makes the harbor calm, they ferried the best of the Lacedaemonians and the allies. This they did, wishing to anticipate the Athenians in seizing the island, which lay very conveniently for the siege.

61.5. Spending the whole day in the assaults on the wall and being wounded because of the superior height of the wall, they did not cease from their force; therefore many of them died, and not a few were wounded, forcing their way against a fortified place.

61.6. The Athenians, having previously seized a place strong also by nature, and having a quantity of missiles and much abundance of the other useful things, defended zealously; for they hoped that, prevailing in the undertaking, they would bring the whole war into the Peloponnese and would ravage the country of the enemy piece by piece.

62.1. As the siege had unsurpassable zeal on both sides, and the Spartiates were bringing force against the walls, many others were admired for their deeds of valor, but Brasidas met with the greatest acceptance.

62.2. For when the trierarchs did not dare to bring the triremes to the land because of the difficulty of the places, Brasidas, being a trierarch, shouted and exhorted the helmsman not to spare the ship, but even by force to bring the trireme to the land; for it was disgraceful for the Spartiates to be unsparing of their life for the sake of victory, but to spare the ships and look on at the Athenians holding command of Laconia.

62.3. Finally, having compelled the helmsman to bring the ship in, the trireme ran aground, and Brasidas, mounting on the gangway of the ship, from it defended himself against the multitude of Athenians who ran together against him. And at first he slew many of those approaching, but afterward, as many missiles bore upon him, he was struck by many wounds in front.

62.4. Finally, much blood having been shed through the wounds, and because of this having fainted, his arm fell forward out of the ship, and his shield, slipping off and falling into the sea, fell into the hands of the enemy.

62.5. After this he, having heaped up many corpses of the enemy, was himself carried half-dead from the ship by his own men, so far surpassing the others in courage that, whereas the others who lost their shield were punished with death, he, on the same charge, won glory.

62.6. The Lacedaemonians, then, making continuous assaults on Pylos and having lost many soldiers, remained vigorously amid the dangers. One might marvel at the paradox of fortune and the peculiarity of the disposition of affairs about Pylos.

62.7. For the Athenians, defending themselves from Laconia against the Spartiates, prevailed, while the Lacedaemonians, having their own country as enemy territory, attacked the enemy from the sea; and it came about that those who prevailed on land held command of the sea, while those foremost at sea shut off the enemy from the land.

63.1. As the siege dragged on, and the Athenians prevailed with their ships and prevented the bringing of grain into the land, those cut off on the island were in danger of being destroyed by famine.

63.2. Therefore the Lacedaemonians, fearing for those cut off on the island, sent embassies to Athens about ending the war; and, as they did not consent, they asked to make an exchange of the men and to receive an equal number of the Athenians who had been captured; but the Athenians did not concede even this. Therefore the ambassadors spoke freely in Athens, saying that they admitted the Lacedaemonians to be superior in not wishing to make the exchange of the captives.

63.3. The Athenians, having worn down those on Sphacteria by the scarcity of necessities, took them by agreement. Those who surrendered themselves were a hundred and twenty Spartiates, and of the allies a hundred and eighty.

63.4. These, then, having been bound by Cleon the demagogue, who was then general, were brought to Athens; and the people voted to guard them, if the Lacedaemonians should be willing to end the war, but, if they should prefer to make war, then to put all the captives to death.

63.5. After this, having summoned the best of the Messenians settled at Naupactus and added enough of the other allies, they handed over Pylos to these to guard; for they thought that the Messenians, because of their hatred of the Spartiates, would most zealously harm Laconia, setting out from a strong place. And the affairs about Pylos were in this state.

64.1. Artaxerxes the king of the Persians died, having ruled forty years, and Xerxes, succeeding to the rule, reigned a year. In Italy, the Aequi having revolted from the Romans during the war, they made Aulus Postumius dictator and Lucius Julius master of the horse.

64.2. These, having campaigned with a great notable force into the country of the revolters, at first ravaged the possessions, and afterward, the Aequi having drawn up against them, a battle took place, in which the Romans conquered, and slew many of the enemy, and took not a few alive, and gained control of much booty.

64.3. After the battle the revolters, dismayed because of the defeat, submitted to the Romans, and Postumius, reputed to have managed the matters of the war well, celebrated the customary triumph. They say Postumius did something peculiar and altogether incredible; for in the battle his son, because of his eagerness, leaped forward from the post assigned by his father; and his father, keeping the ancestral custom, slew his son as having abandoned his post.

65.1. When this year had passed, at Athens Isarchus was archon, and in Rome the consuls established were Titus Quintius and Gaius Julius, and among the Eleans the eighty-ninth Olympiad was celebrated, in which Symmachus won the stadium-race for the second time. In their time the Athenians, having appointed Nicias the son of Niceratus as general and given him sixty triremes and three thousand hoplites, ordered him to plunder the allies of the Lacedaemonians.

65.2. He, sailing first to Melos, ravaged the country and besieged the city for a sufficient number of days; for this alone of the Cyclades islands kept its alliance with the Lacedaemonians, being a colony of Sparta.

65.3. Nicias, the Melians defending nobly and being unable to take the city, sailed off to Oropus in Boeotia. There, leaving the ships, he went into the country of the Tanagraeans with the hoplites, and caught there another force of the Athenians, of which Hipponicus the son of Callias was general.

65.4. Both armies having come together into the same place, these went through the country plundering, and, the Thebans coming to its aid, the Athenians, joining battle with them and slaying many, conquered.

65.5. After the battle the soldiers with Hipponicus made their return to Athens, while Nicias, going to the ships, sailed along to Locris, and, having plundered the coastal country, took on forty triremes from the allies, so that he had in all a hundred ships; and, having enrolled not a few foot-soldiers and mustered a notable force, he sailed against Corinth.

65.6. He having disembarked his soldiers, and the Corinthians having drawn up against them, the Athenians conquered in two battles and, slaying many of the enemy, set up a trophy. There died in the battle of the Athenians about eight, of the Corinthians more than three hundred.

65.7. Nicias, having sailed to Crommyon, ravaged the country and subdued the fort. At once breaking camp and fortifying a fort in Methana, he left a guard to guard the place and ravage the nearby country; and he himself, having plundered the coast, returned to Athens.

65.8. After this they sent sixty ships and two thousand hoplites to Cythera, of which Nicias, with certain others, had the command. He, having campaigned against the island and made assaults, took the city by agreement. And, leaving a garrison in the island, he sailed out to the Peloponnese and ravaged the coastal country.

65.9. And Thyreae, lying on the borders of Laconia and the Argolid, he took by siege, enslaved, and razed, and, having taken alive the Aeginetans dwelling in it and the commander of the garrison, Tantalus the Spartiate, he led them off to Athens. The Athenians, having bound Tantalus, guarded him with the other captives and the Aeginetans.

66.1. While these things were being done, the Megarians were oppressed by the war against the Athenians and that against the exiles; and, as they sent embassies to one another about these things, some of the citizens, being hostilely disposed toward the exiles, undertook to the generals of the Athenians to betray the city.

66.2. The generals, Hippocrates and Demosthenes, having agreed about the betrayal, sent six hundred soldiers by night into the city, and those who had made the agreement received the Athenians within the walls. The betrayal having become evident throughout the city, and the multitude being divided according to their choice, some allying with the Athenians, others coming to the aid of the Lacedaemonians, someone proclaimed of his own accord that those who wished should take up arms with the Athenians and Megarians.

66.3. Therefore, the Lacedaemonians being about to be abandoned by the Megarians, it came about that those guarding the long walls abandoned them and fled to the place called Nisaea, which is the dockyard of the Megarians.

66.4. The Athenians, having trenched it around, besieged it; and afterward, taking on craftsmen from Athens, they walled Nisaea around. The Peloponnesians, fearing lest, being taken by storm, they be put to death, handed over Nisaea to the Athenians by agreement. And the affairs concerning the Megarians were in this state.

67.1. Brasidas, having taken on a sufficient force from Lacedaemon and from the other Peloponnesians, broke camp toward Megara. Having dismayed the Athenians, he cast them out of Nisaea, and, having freed the city of the Megarians, restored it to the alliance of the Lacedaemonians; and he himself, with the force making his march through Thessaly, came to Dium in Macedonia.

67.2. From there, going to Acanthus, he allied with the Chalcidians. And first the city of the Acanthians, partly by dismaying it, partly by persuading it with humane words, he made revolt from the Athenians; then he induced many others of the inhabitants on Thrace to share in the alliance of the Lacedaemonians.

67.3. After this Brasidas, wishing to take up the war more vigorously, summoned soldiers from Lacedaemon, being eager to muster a notable force. The Spartiates, wishing the strongest of the Helots to perish, sent of them a thousand of the most high-spirited, thinking that most of them would be cut down in the battles.

67.4. They did also another violent and savage thing, by which they supposed they would humble the Helots; for they proclaimed that those of the Helots who had done some good to Sparta should register themselves, and, having judged them, undertook to free them; and, two thousand having registered, they ordered the strongest to kill these, each in his own house.

67.5. For they were very wary lest, seizing an opportunity and ranging with the enemy, they should bring Sparta into danger. Nevertheless, a thousand Helots having come to Brasidas, and soldiers having been levied from the allies, a sufficient force was mustered.

68.1. Therefore, taking courage from the multitude of soldiers, he campaigned against the place called Amphipolis. This city Aristagoras the Milesian had previously attempted to settle, fleeing Darius the king of the Persians;

68.2. but, he having died and the settlers having been expelled by the Thracians called the Edonians, after this, thirty-two years later, the Athenians sent ten thousand settlers to it. Likewise too, these having been destroyed by the Thracians at Drabescus, after an interval of two years they again recovered the city, Hagnon being in command.

68.3. It having often been fought over, Brasidas was eager to become master of the city. Therefore, having campaigned against it with a notable force and encamped near the bridge, at first he took the suburb of the city, and on the next day, having dismayed the Amphipolitans, he took the city by agreement, so that it was permitted to anyone who wished to depart from the city, taking his own property.

68.4. At once he won over also many of the neighboring cities, among which the most notable were Oesyme and Galepsus, both colonies of the Thasians, and Myrcinus, an Edonian town. He undertook also to build more triremes on the river Strymon, and summoned soldiers both from Lacedaemon and from the other allies.

68.5. He prepared also many suits of armor and distributed these to the unarmed of the young men, and made preparations of missiles and grain and all the others. When everything had been prepared for him, he broke camp from Amphipolis with the force, and, arriving at the place called Acte, encamped. In this were five cities, of which some were Greek, colonies of the Andrians, and others had a crowd of bilingual Bisaltic barbarians.

68.6. Having subdued these, he campaigned against the city Torone, a colony of the Chalcidians but held by the Athenians. Some betraying the city, brought in by these by night, he gained control of Torone without dangers. The affairs concerning Brasidas, then, advanced thus far in this year.

69.1. While these things were being done, at Delium there took place a line of battle in Boeotia between the Athenians and the Boeotians for the following reasons. Some of the Boeotians, dissatisfied with the constitution then in force and eager to establish democracies in the cities, conversed about their own purpose with the Athenian generals Hippocrates and Demosthenes, and undertook to hand over the cities in Boeotia.

69.2. The Athenians having gladly accepted, and the generals having divided the force for the management of the attack, Demosthenes, taking up most of the army, invaded Boeotia, and, finding the Boeotians forewarned of the betrayal, departed without accomplishing anything; Hippocrates, having led the Athenians in full force to Delium, seized the place, and, anticipating the onset of the Boeotians, fortified Delium. This place lies near the Oropia and the borders of Boeotia.

69.3. Pagondas, who held the generalship of the Boeotians, having summoned soldiers from all the cities in Boeotia, came to Delium with a great force; for he had foot-soldiers not much short of twenty thousand and cavalry about a thousand.

69.4. The Athenians exceeded the Boeotians in number, but were not armed like the enemy; for they had come out of the city suddenly and quickly, and because of their haste were unprepared.

70.1. Both having set out zealously, the forces were arrayed in the following manner. Among the Boeotians the Thebans were stationed on the right wing, the Orchomenians on the left, and the Boeotians filled the middle of the phalanx; before all fought the so-called charioteers and side-men among them, three hundred picked men. The Athenians, while still arraying their force, were compelled to join battle.

70.2. The line of battle being violent, at first the cavalry of the Athenians, fighting brilliantly, compelled the cavalry opposing them to flee; but afterward, the foot fighting it out, the Athenians stationed against the Thebans, being forced, were routed, while the rest, having routed the other Boeotians and slain many, pursued them over a considerable distance.

70.3. The Thebans, surpassing in bodily strength, turned back from the pursuit, and, falling upon the pursuing Athenians, compelled them to flee; and, having conquered in a distinguished battle, won great glory for courage.

70.4. Of the Athenians some fled to Oropus, others to Delium, some made their way to the sea to their own ships, others were scattered in various places as it chanced. Night coming on, there fell of the Boeotians not more than five hundred, and of the Athenians many times these. If, then, the night had not anticipated them, most of the Athenians would have died; for this, intervening, checked the impulses of the pursuers and saved the fugitives.

70.5. Nevertheless, so great was the multitude of the slain that the Thebans, from the value of the spoils, constructed the great portico in the marketplace and adorned it with bronze statues, and overlaid with bronze the temples and the porticoes in the marketplace with the arms nailed up from the spoils; and they instituted the celebration of the festival of the Delia from this money.

70.6. After the battle the Boeotians, making assaults on Delium, took the place by storm; and of those guarding Delium, most died fighting nobly, two hundred were captured, and the rest fled to the ships and were conveyed with the others to Attica. The Athenians, then, having plotted against the Boeotians, fell into such a calamity.

71.1. In Asia Xerxes the king died, having ruled a year, or, as some write, two months; and his brother Sogdianus, succeeding to the kingdom, ruled seven months. Darius, having slain him, reigned nineteen years.

71.2. Of the historians, Antiochus of Syracuse brought his history of Sicilian affairs to a close at this year, beginning from Cocalus the king of the Sicanians, in nine books.

72.1. When Ameinias was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Gaius Papirius and Lucius Junius. In their time the Scionaeans, despising the Athenians because of the defeat at Delium, revolted to the Lacedaemonians and handed over the city to Brasidas, who was general of the Lacedaemonians on Thrace.

72.2. In Lesbos, after the capture of Mytilene by the Athenians, those who had fled from the capture, being many in number, had long been attempting to return to Lesbos, and now, having formed up, seized Antandros, and, setting out from there, waged war against the Athenians holding Mytilene.

72.3. Provoked at this, the people of the Athenians sent out generals against them with a force, Aristides and Symmachus. These, having sailed to Lesbos and made continuous assaults, took Antandros, and of the exiles slew some and cast others out of the city, and themselves, leaving a garrison to guard the place, sailed off from Lesbos.

72.4. After this Lamachus the general, having ten triremes, sailed to the Pontus, and, anchoring at Heraclea on the river called Cales, lost all his ships; for great rains having burst forth, and the river having made the descent of its stream violent, the vessels, dashing against some rough places on the land, were destroyed.

72.5. The Athenians made a one-year truce with the Lacedaemonians on these terms, that each should hold what they then were masters of. Coming together often into conference, they thought it necessary to end the war and to cease altogether from their rivalry with one another; but the Lacedaemonians were eager to recover the captives taken on Sphacteria.

72.6. The treaties having been completed in the said manner, concerning the other matters all was agreed for them, but about Scione both disputed. Great rivalry arising, they broke off the treaties, and about Scione waged war against one another.

72.7. At this time also the city Mende revolted to the Lacedaemonians and made the rivalry over Scione stronger. Therefore Brasidas, having removed children and women and the other most useful things from Mende and Scione, secured the cities with notable garrisons,

72.8. while the Athenians, provoked at what had happened, voted to slaughter all the Scionaeans who had reached manhood, whenever they should be captured, and sent out a naval force against them of fifty triremes; of these Nicias and Nicostratus had the command.

72.9. These, having sailed first to Mende, gained control of the city, some betraying it; and Scione they walled around, and, sitting down to the siege, made continuous assaults.

72.10. The garrison in Scione, being many in number and having an abundance of missiles and grain and the other supplies, easily defended themselves against the Athenians, and, having the higher ground, wounded many. These things, then, were done in this year.

73.1. After this at Athens Alcaeus was archon, and in Rome the consuls were Opiter Lucretius and Lucius Sergius Fidenas. In their time the Athenians, accusing the Delians of secretly making an alliance with the Lacedaemonians, expelled them from the island and held the city themselves. To the expelled Delians Pharnaces the satrap gave the city Adramyttium to inhabit.

73.2. The Athenians, having appointed Cleon the demagogue as general and given him a notable land force, sent him to the places on Thrace. He, having sailed to Scione and there taken on soldiers from those besieging the city, sailed off and put in at Torone; for he knew that Brasidas had departed from these places, and that the soldiers left at Torone were not a match for him.

73.3. Having encamped near Torone and besieged it at once by land and by sea, he took the city by storm, and enslaved the children and women, and the men and those guarding the city he took captive, bound, and sent to Athens; and, leaving a sufficient garrison of the city, he sailed out with the force, and put in on Thrace at the river Strymon. Having encamped near the city Eion, distant from Amphipolis about thirty stadia, he made assaults on the town.

74.1. Learning that Brasidas with a force was tarrying about the city Amphipolis, he broke camp against him. Brasidas, when he heard that the enemy were approaching, having drawn up his force, met the Athenians; a great line of battle taking place, and both armies fighting brilliantly, at first the battle was evenly balanced, but afterward, each of the commanders being ambitious to decide the battle by himself, it came about that many notable men were slain, the generals putting themselves into the battle and bringing unsurpassable ambition for the victory.

74.2. Brasidas, then, having proved bravest and slain very many, heroically ended his life; and likewise, Cleon too having fallen in the battle, both forces were thrown into confusion because of the lack of leaders, but in the end the Lacedaemonians conquered and set up a trophy. The Athenians, having taken up the dead under truce and buried them, sailed off to Athens.

74.3. When some came to Lacedaemon from the battle and announced both the victory and the death of Brasidas, the mother of Brasidas, learning of what had happened in the battle, asked what sort of man Brasidas had been in the line of battle. When they answered that he was the best of all the Lacedaemonians, the mother of the dead man said that Brasidas her son was a good man, but inferior, however, to many others.

74.4. These words being spread throughout the city, the ephors publicly honored the woman, because she preferred the praise of her native land to the glory of her child.

74.5. After the said battle the Athenians resolved to make with the Lacedaemonians a fifty-year peace on these terms: that the captives on both sides be released, and that the cities taken in the war be given back.

74.6. The Peloponnesian War, then, having lasted down to the times in question for ten years, was ended in the said manner.

75.1. When Aristion was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Titus Quintius and Aulus Cornelius Cossus. In their time, the Peloponnesian War having just been ended, again disturbances and warlike movements occurred in Greece for the following reasons.

75.2. The Athenians and Lacedaemonians, having in common with their allies made treaties and settlements, apart from the allied cities made an alliance. By doing this they came under suspicion as having made a private alliance for the enslavement of the other Greeks.

75.3. Therefore the greatest of the cities sent embassies to one another and conferred about concord and alliance against the Athenians and Lacedaemonians. The cities standing at the head of this were the four most powerful, Argos, Thebes, Corinth, Elis.

75.4. The cities were reasonably suspected of conspiring against Greece because there had been added to the common treaties: "It shall be permitted to the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, whatever may seem good to these cities, to add to the treaties and to take away from the treaties." And apart from this, the Athenians by a decree gave ten men authority to deliberate about what was advantageous to the city; and the Lacedaemonians having done the like, it came about that the grasping ambition of the two cities became evident.

75.5. As many cities heeded the call to common freedom, and the Athenians were despised because of the disaster at Delium, and the Lacedaemonians were humbled in reputation because of the capture of those on the island of Sphacteria, many cities banded together, and they advanced the city of the Argives to the leadership.

75.6. For this city had great dignity because of its ancient deeds; for before the descent of the Heraclidae nearly all the greatest of the kings were from the Argolid; and besides this, having been at peace for a long time, it received the greatest revenues, and had a quantity not only of money but also of men.

75.7. The Argives, thinking that the whole leadership would be conceded to them, picked out a thousand of the younger of the citizens, those especially strong in their bodies and in their property; and, having released them from the other public services and furnishing them public maintenance, they ordered them to train in continuous exercises. These, then, because of the maintenance and the continuous training, quickly became athletes of warlike works.

76.1. The Lacedaemonians, seeing the Peloponnese banding together against them and foreseeing the magnitude of the war, secured the matters of their leadership as far as was possible. And first they freed the Helots, a thousand in number, who had campaigned with Brasidas on Thrace; and after this they released from disgrace the captive Spartiates taken on the island Sphacteria, whom they had surrounded with disgrace as having made Sparta less reputable.

76.2. Consistently with these, by praises and honors for those in the war they urged men to surpass their previous deeds of valor in the coming struggles; and they behaved more reasonably toward the allies, and by their humanity treated the most estranged of them.

76.3. The Athenians, on the contrary, wishing by fear to dismay those under suspicion of revolt, displayed to all as an example the punishment of the Scionaeans; for, having taken them by siege and slaughtered all who had reached manhood, they enslaved the children and women, and gave the island to dwell in to the Plataeans, who because of them had been driven from their native land.

76.4. About the same time, in Italy, the Campanians, having campaigned against Cyme with a great force, conquered the Cumaeans in battle and cut down most of those ranged against them. Sitting down to the siege and making more assaults, they took the city by storm. Having plundered it and enslaved those captured, they appointed enough settlers from among themselves.

77.1. When Astyphilus was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Lucius Quintius and Aulus Sempronius, and the Eleans celebrated the ninetieth Olympiad, in which Hyperbius of Syracuse won the stadium-race. In their time the Athenians, according to a certain oracle, gave back the island to the Delians, and the Delians dwelling in Adramyttium returned to their native land.

77.2. The Athenians not having given back Pylos to the Lacedaemonians, again these cities fell out with one another and were hostile. Learning of this, the people of the Argives persuaded the Athenians to make a friendship with the Argives.

77.3. As the difference increased, the Lacedaemonians persuaded the Corinthians to abandon the common assembly and to ally with the Lacedaemonians. Such disturbance having arisen and there being anarchy, the affairs in the Peloponnese were in this state.

77.4. In the regions outside, the Aenianians and Dolopians and Malians, having taken counsel together, campaigned with notable forces against Heraclea in Trachis. The Heracleans having drawn up against them and a fierce battle taking place, the inhabitants of Heraclea were defeated. Having lost many soldiers and fled together within their walls, they summoned aid from the Boeotians. The Thebans having sent them a thousand picked hoplites, with these they defended themselves against the invaders.

77.5. While these things were being done, the Olynthians, having campaigned against the city Mecyberna, which was garrisoned by the Athenians, cast out the garrison and themselves held the city.

78.1. When Archias was archon at Athens, the Romans appointed as consuls Lucius Papirius Mugilanus and Gaius Servilius Structus. In their time the Argives, accusing the Lacedaemonians of not having given the sacrificial victims to Pythian Apollo, declared war on them; at which time Alcibiades the general of the Athenians invaded the Argolid with a force.

78.2. The Argives, having taken these on, campaigned against Troezen, a city allied to the Lacedaemonians, and, having plundered the country and burned the country houses, departed to their home. The Lacedaemonians, provoked at the lawless acts against the Troezenians, resolved to make war on the Argives; therefore, having gathered a force, they appointed Agis the king as commander.

78.3. He with the force campaigned against the Argives, and ravaged the country, and, leading the force near the city, challenged the enemy to battle.

78.4. The Argives, having taken on three thousand soldiers from the Eleans and from the Mantineans not much fewer than these, led the army out of the city. A line of battle being about to take place, the generals on both sides, having exchanged embassies, agreed to a four-month truce.

78.5. The armies having returned home without accomplishing anything, both cities were angry with the generals who had made the truce. Therefore the Argives, throwing stones at the leaders, attempted to kill them, and barely amid much entreaty conceded them their lives, but, having confiscated their property, razed their houses.

78.6. The Lacedaemonians undertook to punish Agis, but, when he undertook to set right his error by noble deeds, barely conceded; and for the rest of the time, having chosen ten of the most intelligent men, they set them beside him as counselors and ordered him to do nothing without their consent.

79.1. After this the Athenians having sent by sea to Argos a thousand picked hoplites and two hundred cavalry, of whom Laches and Nicostratus were generals; with these was also Alcibiades, being a private citizen, because of the friendship with the Eleans and Mantineans; all having taken counsel together, it seemed best to dismiss the truce and to set out for the war.

79.2. Therefore each general urged his own men on to the contest, and, all readily obeying, they encamped outside the city. It seemed best to them, then, first of all to campaign against Orchomenus in Arcadia. Therefore, having gone into Arcadia and sitting down before the city, they made assaults each day on the walls.

79.3. Having subdued the city, they encamped near Tegea, having resolved to besiege this too. The Tegeans asking the Lacedaemonians to come to their aid quickly, the Spartiates, taking along all their own men and the allies, came to Mantineia, thinking that, this being attacked, the siege of Tegea would be lifted.

79.4. The Mantineans, having taken on the allies, and themselves campaigning in full force, drew up against the Lacedaemonians. A fierce battle taking place, the picked men of the Argives, a thousand in number, well trained in the things of war, routed those ranged against them first, and, pursuing, made much slaughter.

79.5. The Lacedaemonians, having routed the other parts of the army and slain many, turned back against those very men, and, encircling them with their multitude, hoped to cut them all down.

79.6. The picked men being far inferior in number but superior in deeds of valor, the king of the Lacedaemonians, fighting in front, persevered amid the dangers and would have slain them all; for he was eager to fulfill his promises to the citizens, and, having accomplished something great, to set right the disgrace that had occurred; he was not, however, allowed to carry out his purpose. For Pharax the Spartiate, being one of the counselors and having the greatest dignity in Sparta, ordered him to give the picked men a passage, and not, against men who had despaired of life and were running every risk, to make trial of valor in misfortune.

79.7. Whence he was compelled, according to the order just stated, to give a passage out according to the judgement of Pharax. The thousand, then, having been released to pass through in the said manner, were saved, while the Lacedaemonians, having conquered in a great battle and set up a trophy, departed to their home.

80.1. When the annual period had passed, at Athens Antiphon was archon, and in Rome, instead of consuls, four military tribunes were appointed, Gaius Furius and Titus Quintius, and besides Marcus Postumius and Aulus Cornelius. In their time the Argives and Lacedaemonians, having exchanged embassies with one another, made peace and an alliance.

80.2. Therefore the Mantineans, having lost the aid from the Argives, were compelled to submit to the Lacedaemonians. About the same time, in the city of the Argives, the thousand chosen by selection from the citizens came to an agreement, and resolved to overthrow the democracy and to establish an aristocracy of themselves.

80.3. Having many fellow-workers, because they excelled the citizens in property and in deeds of valor, at first they seized and slew those accustomed to demagoguery, and, having dismayed the others, abolished the laws and managed public affairs through themselves. Having held this constitution for eight months, they were overthrown, the people having banded together against them; therefore, these having been slain, the people recovered the democracy.

80.4. There was also another movement in Greece; for the Phocians, having quarreled with the Locrians, were judged by a line of battle, because of their own courage; for the Phocians conquered, slaying more than a thousand of the Locrians.

80.5. The Athenians, Nicias being general, took two cities, Cythera and Nisaea; and, having taken Melos by siege, they slaughtered all who had reached manhood, and enslaved the children and women.

80.6. And the affairs among the Greeks were in this state. In Italy the Fidenates, ambassadors having come to their city from Rome, slew these on small pretexts.

80.7. At this the Romans, provoked, voted to make war, and, having mustered a notable force, chose as dictator Anius Aemilius and, with him according to custom, Aulus Cornelius as master of the horse.

80.8. Aemilius, having prepared the things for the war, broke camp with the force against the Fidenates. The Fidenates having drawn up against him, a battle took place, fierce for a long time, and, many having fallen on both sides, the contest became evenly balanced.

81.1. When Euphemus was archon at Athens, in Rome there were appointed, instead of consuls, military tribunes, Lucius Furius, Lucius Quintius, Aulus Sempronius. In their time the Lacedaemonians, with the allies, having campaigned into the Argolid, took the place Hysiae, and, having slain the inhabitants, razed the fort; and they themselves, learning that the Argives had built long walls down to the sea, attacking, razed the walls that had been constructed, and made their return home.

81.2. The Athenians, having chosen Alcibiades as general and given him twenty ships, ordered him to help the Argives establish their constitution; for they were still in disturbances because many of those who chose the aristocracy had been left.

81.3. Alcibiades, then, having arrived at the city of the Argives and taken counsel with those preferring the democracy, picked out those of the Argives who seemed most to choose the cause of the Lacedaemonians; and, having removed these from the city and firmly established the democracy, sailed off to Athens.

81.4. As this year was ending, the Lacedaemonians, invading the Argolid with a great force, and ravaging much of the country, settled the exiles of the Argives at Orneae; and, having fortified this place against the Argolid and left a sufficient garrison, ordered them to harm the Argives.

81.5. The Lacedaemonians having departed from the Argolid, the Athenians sent as an alliance to the Argives forty triremes and twelve hundred hoplites; and the Argives, having campaigned with the Athenians against Orneae, took the city by storm, and of the garrison and exiles slew some and cast others out of Orneae. These things, then, were done in the fifteenth year of the Peloponnesian War.

82.1. In the sixteenth, among the Athenians Arimnestus was archon, and in Rome, instead of consuls, four military tribunes were appointed, Titus Claudius and Spurius Nautius, and besides Lucius Sentius and Sextus Julius. In their time, among the Eleans the ninety-first Olympiad was celebrated, in which Exaenetus of Acragas won the stadium-race.

82.2. The Byzantines and Calchedonians, having taken along Thracians, campaigned into Bithynia with great multitudes, and ravaged the country and, having taken by siege many of the small towns, accomplished deeds distinguished for cruelty; for, having taken many captives, men and women and children, they slaughtered all.

82.3. About the same time, in Sicily, the Egestaeans made war on the Selinuntians about disputed land, a river bounding the country of the disputing cities.

82.4. The Selinuntians, having crossed the stream, at first by force held the riverside, and afterward, having cut off much of the adjacent country, despised those they had wronged.

82.5. The Egestaeans, provoked, at first attempted by speeches to persuade them not to set foot on foreign land; but when no one paid heed to them, they campaigned against those holding the country, and, casting all out of the fields, themselves held the country.

82.6. A great difference having arisen for both cities, having gathered soldiers, they made the decision by arms. Therefore, both having drawn up, a fierce battle took place, in which the Selinuntians, conquering, slew not a few of the Egestaeans.

82.7. The Egestaeans, humbled and not being a match by themselves, at first tried to persuade the Acragantines and Syracusans to ally with them; failing of these, they sent ambassadors to Carthage, begging it to come to their aid; and, as it paid no heed to them, they sought some overseas alliance; in this chance worked with them.

83.1. For the Leontines having been removed from their city by the Syracusans and having lost both the city and the country, their exiles, having formed up, resolved again to take on the Athenians, who were their kinsmen, as allies.

83.2. Having conferred about these things with the Egestaeans, they took counsel together and in common sent ambassadors to the Athenians, asking them to come to the aid of their cities, which were being wronged, and undertaking to help them establish their affairs in Sicily.

83.3. The ambassadors having arrived at Athens, and the Leontines putting forward their kinship and the pre-existing alliance, and the Egestaeans undertaking both to give a quantity of money for the war and to ally against the Syracusans, it seemed best to the Athenians to send out some of their best men and to examine the affairs in the island and the Egestaeans.

83.4. These, then, having arrived at Egesta, the Egestaeans displayed a quantity of money, partly from home, partly borrowed from the neighbors for the sake of show.

83.5. The ambassadors having returned and announced the wealth of the Egestaeans, the people came together about these things. The deliberation having been set forth about campaigning against Sicily, Nicias the son of Niceratus, admired for his virtue among the citizens, advised not to campaign against Sicily;

83.6. for it was not possible at once to wage war against the Lacedaemonians and to send out great forces overseas, and, being unable to gain the leadership of the Greeks, to hope to acquire the greatest of the islands in the inhabited world; and the Carthaginians, having the greatest dominion and having often fought over Sicily, had not been able to gain control of the island, while the Athenians, far inferior in power to the Carthaginians, would make the strongest of the islands a spear-won possession.

84.1. He having discussed many other things suited to the matter before them, Alcibiades, standing at the head of the opposite opinion, the most distinguished of the Athenians, persuaded the people to take up the war; for this man was the cleverest of the citizens at speaking, and renowned for nobility and wealth and generalship.

84.2. At once, then, the people prepared a sufficient fleet, taking thirty triremes from the allies and fitting out a hundred of their own.

84.3. Having adorned these with all the things useful for war, they enrolled hoplites to the number of five thousand, and elected three generals for this expedition, Alcibiades and Nicias and Lamachus.