The Corinthians had sent their troops to Epidamnus overland by way of Apollonia because they expected trouble from Corcyra, and their expectations were justified. The Corcyreans were prepared to stand aside and let the Epidamnians destroy one another, but they could not allow the Corinthians to establish themselves in a colony belonging to Corcyra. When they learned that garrisons and new settlers had arrived and that the Epidamnians had given the colony over to Corinth, they were annoyed. Their angry response showed their customary arrogance and their failure to appreciate the seriousness of the Corinthian undertaking.
As we have seen, the exiled aristocrats had already been to Corcyra and asked for help in their restoration. Only now, after the Corinthian intervention, did the Corcyreans agree. They sailed to Epidamnus with a considerable fleet and laid down the law: the Epidamnians were to send away the garrison and settlers and to take back the exiled aristocrats.1 This was not a proposal for discussions or negotiation; it was an ultimatum, delivered in insolent language, whose terms were totally unacceptable. Corinth could not accept them without disgrace, and the Epidamnian democrats could not accept them without the greatest danger to themselves.
It is difficult to speculate on the thinking of the Corcyreans, for we have little evidence, and they seem to have been an erratic people. On this occasion, however, it seems clear that they overestimated their own strength in respect to Corinth, while underestimating the determination and potential strength of Corinth. In 435, Corcyra had one hundred and twenty warships, while the Corinthians had almost no navy. This disparity in strength lured the Corcyreans into a confidence very close to complacency. The contemptuous tone of their ultimatum suggests that they hardly expected the Corinthians to fight, and if fighting should be necessary, Corcyra expected to win an easy victory.
Epidamnus rejected the demands of Corcyra. The Corcyreans, with forty ships, the Illyrians, and the exiled Epidamnian aristocrats, besieged the city, which was located on a promontory and connected to the mainland by an isthmus. Before sealing off the city, the Corcyreans offered safe conduct to any foreigner or Epidamnian who wished to leave, but no one accepted.2
The Corinthians responded with a vigor that showed how badly Corcyra had misjudged their intentions and capacities. Their first action showed that the scope of their undertaking had already broadened. It was no longer merely a matter of assisting the Epidamnian democrats against their enemies, or even of declaring Corinth the metropolis of the old colony. The Corinthians undertook to found an altogether new colony which would be Corinthian, but on a new basis. Anyone who wished to take part would have an equal share in the new colony. Presumably this meant a redistribution of the land; at the very least it would mean the confiscation and distribution of the land of the exiles and perhaps some land would be taken from the barbarians as well.3 The Corinthians were eager to collect as many settlers as possible and added a provision that anyone who wished to join the colony but was unable to go immediately could reserve a place by the deposit of fifty drachmas. The response of both immediate colonists and depositors was gratifying.
The military preparations were no less thorough and ambitious. The Corinthians themselves provided thirty ships and three thousand hoplites. These could take care of themselves in case of Corcyrean attack, but the large body of colonists needed protection. To this end the Corinthians went round to their friends asking them to supply ships for convoy duty. Megara sent eight, Cephallenia four, Epidaurus five, Hermione one, Troezen two, Leucas ten, and Ambracia eight. The landlubbers of Thebes and Phlius were asked to give money in support of the expedition, while Elis provided unmanned ships as well as money.4 The scope of Corinth’s influence is made very clear by the response to her requests. With the exception of Leucas and Ambracia, these states were not Corinthian colonies or obliged to assist her in war. Although many of them were members of the Peloponnesian League, it was not in that capacity that they were asked for aid or gave it. However we understand the workings of that organization, it is clear that a league meeting would be necessary before Corinth could ask for help. As we have argued above, the league was in fact a Spartan alliance, and only Sparta could call out the forces of the league. There was, of course, no such meeting. Even more interesting, Sparta was not asked to assist. We would hardly expect her to be asked to supply ships or money, but why wasn’t she asked for troops, at least a token detachment to indicate support, even a general? Little Troezen and Hermione had been asked to make their tiny contributions, surely more for psychological than military purposes. The presence of a Spartan contingent at Epidamnus could hardly fail to have an intimidating effect on the Corcyreans, yet so far as we know Sparta was not asked for help. We begin to suspect that the Spartans did not favor the Corinthian expedition.
Even without the Spartans, the massive support gathered by the Corinthians did not fail to have its effect on the Corcyreans. By now it had dawned on Corcyra that the fleet in being did not reflect the true power of Corinth, whose wealth and political influence in the Peloponnese could crush a friendless and isolated Corcyra. Frightened out of their previous arrogance, the Corcyreans came to Corinth to undertake serious negotiations. They began by repeating their demand that the Corinthians withdraw their garrisons and colonists from Epidamnus on the grounds that they had no right to be there. If the Corinthians would not agree to that, Corcyra was prepared to submit the matter to the arbitration of any mutually acceptable Peloponnesian states. Failing this, they were willing to put the case before the oracle at Delphi. After this display of reasonableness, they put forward a veiled threat. If the Corinthians proved obdurate, the Corcyreans would be forced to seek friends elsewhere, others beyond those whom they now had. They did not wish to do so, but necessity would compel them.5 The veil was not hard to penetrate; the reference was to Athens.
We need not question the sincerity of the Corcyrean desire for a peaceful settlement. The Corcyreans knew that they had miscalculated, and they were frightened. They believed themselves legally in the right, as their offer of impartial arbitration shows, but they must have realized that arbitration would probably result in a compromise of some sort, and they were ready to accept one. At the same time, they were not frightened enough to surrender their position in Epidamnus. Unless a suitable compromise were reached, Corcyra would fight, and the Corcyreans were prepared to seek the help of mighty Athens if necessary.
It was clear now that what had begun as a minor incident in a remote corner of the Greek world had developed into a very dangerous situation and a threat to the general peace. We have good evidence that the Spartan government was keenly aware of the danger. Thucydides tells us that when the Corcyreans went to Corinth to parley they were accompanied by ambassadors (πρέσβεις) from Sicyon and Sparta.6 It has been suggested that these Spartans were not official representatives but private citizens lending their good offices to the Corcyrean cause.7 But, as Gomme has pointed out, “the Greek for private persons is ἰδιῶαι τινες, not πρέσβεις.” Thucydides is very careful to distinguish official ambassadors from private citizens who engage in diplomatic negotiations.8 The report of Thucydides shows us that the peace party was still in power at Sparta and that it took a serious view of the conflict between Corinth and Corcyra. The Spartans knew that there was a chance that Athens would be involved, which meant that Sparta might also be dragged into the affair. The Spartan ambassadors were sent to lend weight to the Corcyrean request for a peaceful settlement, not necessarily to support Corcyra’s claim to Epidamnus. They could not, of course, force the Corinthians to negotiate, but they could at least make their attitude clear.
Under the eyes of the ambassadors from Sicyon and Sparta, the Corinthians could not flatly reject the Corcyrean proposal, but their response shows that they wanted no peaceful settlement. They said that if the Corcyreans withdrew their ships and the barbarians from Epidamnus, they would think about the Corcyrean proposal (βονλεύεσθαι), but so long as the city was under siege it would be improper to negotiate. The Corinthian conditions for negotiation were altogether unacceptable and patently insincere. They asked the Corcyreans to withdraw their forces but said nothing about the garrison and colonists with which Corinth had reinforced Epidamnus. If Corcyra had agreed, Corinth would have been given the opportunity to strengthen its hold on the city and to reinforce it against a siege. In return for this strategic advantage, Corinth offered not to accept arbitration, but merely to think about it.
It would have been madness for the Corcyreans to accept, and they did not. Unlike the Corinthians, however, they showed their sincere desire for a peaceful solution by offering counter-proposals. They agreed to withdraw their forces from Epidamnus if the Corinthians would do the same. If this were not acceptable, they were also prepared to leave both forces where they were, but to make a truce in the fighting until peace negotiations were completed.9 This left the Corinthians with a very simple choice. If they wanted to avoid war they had merely to select a procedure. Every provision would be made to save the prestige of Corinth, and she could have her choice of arbitrators. Instead they turned a deaf ear to the Corcyrean offers, gathered their ships and allies, and wasted no time in declaring war on Corcyra.10
The Corinthian force, consisting of seventy-five ships and two thousand hoplites, sailed north as far as Actium on the Ambracian Gulf, where it was met by a Corcyrean herald who asked it to stop. Once again Corinth refused, and a naval battle ensued. Eighty Corcyrean ships won a total victory, destroying fifteen of the Corinthian vessels. On the very same day Epidamnus capitulated, on condition that the other immigrants should be sold as slaves, but the Corinthians should be imprisoned until some settlement was made.11 The Corcyreans clearly did not want to anger the Corinthians further and were eager to keep open the possibility of a negotiated peace even now. The same hope and intention was demonstrated by the Corcyreans who had won the naval battle. After setting up a trophy to commemorate their victory, they killed such prisoners as they had taken, but not the Corinthians, who were merely kept in bonds. This caution was in vain, and the Corcyrean hopes were not rewarded. The defeated Corinthians were in no mood for a settlement, but more eager than ever for revenge.
Since there was no prospect of peace, the Corcyreans took advantage of their victory and consequent mastery of the western seas to punish those states who had assisted the Corinthians. They ravaged Leucas, burned the Elean naval base at Cyllene, and harried the Corinthian colonies of the neighborhood. Toward the end of the summer of 435 the Corinthians were compelled to defend their allies and sent an expedition to Actium. Its purpose was to protect Leucas and the other friends of Corinth near by from further attacks. The Corcyreans sent a similar force to Leucimne, where they had set up their trophy of victory and which gives its name to the battle, on the coast opposite the Corinthian camp. For the rest of the summer the two armies looked at each other across the bay but took no action. When winter came each side went home.12
Far from chastening the Corinthians, the defeat at Leucimne had only hardened their determination to punish and humiliate Corcyra. For almost two years after the battle they made preparations for revenge. They realized that a large fleet would be needed to defeat Corcyra and began to build ships, but men were needed to row these ships, men experienced in naval tactics. Corinth took advantage of her wealth to hire oarsmen from the Peloponnese and the rest of Greece, even from the Athenian Empire.13 These preparations thoroughly frightened the Corcyreans, who realized that they alone could not hope to withstand the attack of an aroused Corinth supported by many allies and mercenary oarsmen. Corinth had called the bluff of the Corcyreans, who now had no choice but to go to Athens in search of assistance. When the Corinthians heard of what was happening, they too sent ambassadors to Athens to argue against the Corcyrean appeal.
It is difficult for us to imagine the scene that took place in Athens in the summer of 433. If a similar situation arose in the modern world there would be private, if not secret, discussions in which first the ambassadors of one state would make their plea, and then, in another session, their opponents would present their case. The government would decide its course of action and go before the legislative body to seek approval. Only then, when the foreign ambassadors were gone, would there be a debate. Far different was the Athenian procedure. All discussion took place on the Pnyx, where the people of Athens were gathered in their assembly, on a hill from which they could see their market place and the temples on the Acropolis. Each speaker addressed this assembly, and when the speakers had finished, it was the business of their audience to decide what should be done. Presumably the foreign ambassadors withdrew after the speeches, but everything they had said was known directly by each citizen who must vote to decide Athenian policy. Thucydides has reported the speeches of both sides; he was surely present, and we may be sure that he has given us an accurate account of the arguments used.14
The Corcyrean ambassadors were faced with a difficult task. Hindsight can sometimes be a disadvantage to the historian; because we know that Athens ultimately accepted an alliance with Corcyra and came to her assistance, it is too easy to assume her decision was a foregone conclusion. In fact, as we shall see, there was good reason to expect an Athenian refusal. Corcyra was remote from Athenian interests, especially from the more modest interests Athens had pursued since 445. The presence of the Corinthian ambassadors made it impossible for the Athenians to ignore the fact that a favorable answer to the Corcyrean request would alienate Corinth and probably lead to war. Athens obviously had much to fear from a Corcyrean alliance, and it was up to the Corcyreans to prove that she had more to gain. It was, of course, also necessary to deal with all the arguments that were likely to come up. Thus, the Corcyreans argued that they were in the right in the quarrel over Epidamnus. The colony was theirs and the Corinthians were the aggressors. Most telling of all the moral arguments was the fact that Corinth had refused arbitration.15 They further demonstrated the legality of an Athenian alliance with Corcyra by pointing out that the Thirty Years’ Peace had expressly provided that neutrals, such as Corcyra, could join either alliance with impunity.16
Such matters of right and legality are never without some significance, for their persuasiveness, or lack thereof, are to some degree instrumental in affecting foreign policy through public opinion, even in the modern world, where public opinion is rather remote from the places where policy is made. They were all the more important in Athens, where public policy was formulated by the people sitting in view of the temples of the gods. But the men of Athens, like modern men, were more readily moved by fear and interest than by right and legality, and the heart of the Corcyrean appeal is an attempt to demonstrate the practical advantages to Athens of the alliance. After a brief reference to the honor that will accrue to Athens for helping men who are in the right and the debt of gratitude they will incur by accepting Athenian help, the Corcyreans make it clear how valuable that gratitude will be. “We possess a navy that is the greatest except for your own,” which will be added to the power of Athens by the alliance. “In the entire course of time few have received so many advantages all at once, and few when they come to ask for an alliance offer to those whom they ask as much security and honor as they expect to receive.” 17
The force of the Corcyrean appeal was immeasurably strengthened, moreover, by their assertion that not only would the alliance be useful in the future, it was already necessary. A war between Athens and the Peloponnesians is coming:
If any one of you thinks it will not happen his judgment is in error, and he does not perceive that the Spartans are eager for war out of fear of you, and that the Corinthians have great influence with them and are your enemies; they are making an attempt on us now with the thought of attacking you in the future, in order that we may not stand together out of common hatred toward them and so that they may not fail to accomplish two things before we do: either to harm us or strengthen themselves.18
Since the war is inevitable, it is of the greatest importance that the Athenians should not allow the mighty Corcyrean navy to fall under Corinthian control but should rather try to acquire it for themselves. Corcyra, the ambassadors further pointed out, was conveniently located for the coasting voyage to Sicily and Italy. Whoever controlled it could prevent fleets from coming to the aid of the Peloponnesians or could send a fleet there in safety. There might be Athenians who saw the expediency of an alliance with Corcyra but who feared to make it lest it be a breach of the peace. That fear was dangerous to Athens, for if it led to the refusal of the alliance, confidence in the security provided by a treaty would be unsupported by power. The acquisition of new strength, on the other hand, fortified by a demonstration of confidence, would put fear into the other side. The Athenians should consider that they were deciding the fate of Athens, not merely Corcyra, in a war which was all but upon them. It would be far more dangerous to reject the alliance and allow Corcyra to fall under Corinthian control than to accept it. The Corcyreans summed up their argument:
There are three fleets worthy of mention in Greece, yours, ours, and the Corinthians’; if the Corinthians get control of us first, you will see two of them become one and you will have to fight against the Corcyrean and Peloponnesian fleets at once; if you accept us you will fight against them with our ships in addition to your own.19
The Corinthian speech must have been shaped, in part, by the need to reply to the remarks of the Corcyreans. Since the case for their intervention in Epidamnus was weak, they said as little about it as possible. As they had no acceptable moral grounds for their actions, they launched into an attack on the character of the Corcyreans. They called them an insolent and arrogant people whose previous policy of isolation was prompted not by an admirable prudence but by the desire to shield their infamous actions. The burden of the Corinthian case for Corcyrean immorality was the outrageous behavior of Corcyra as a colony towards the Corinthian metropolis. All their other colonies, they claimed, showed them exceptional deference and honor; only Corcyra insulted them. The claim that right was on the side of Corcyra because she alone had been willing to accept arbitration the Corinthians rejected as specious. If the Corcyreans were sincere, they should have asked for arbitration before they laid siege to Epidamnus. Now they sought an alliance only after they were in danger, seeking to embroil Athens in their troubles, without having given previous service to deserve Athenian assistance in their moment of peril.20
All this is very weak and unconvincing, and the Corinthian speaker must have been glad to move on to a more satisfactory topic. The Corcyreans had insisted that an alliance with them would not be a violation of the treaty of 445, and technically they were right. But the Corinthians pointed out that if Athens accepted the alliance it would be contravening the spirit of the Thirty Years’ Peace.
For although it says in the treaty that any of the unenrolled cities may join whichever side it likes, the clause is not meant for those who join one side with the intention of injuring the other, but for whoever seeks security without depriving another of his services and whoever will not bring war instead of peace, if they are prudent, to those who accept him.21
The argument is difficult and somewhat obscure, perhaps even more so in Greek than the English translation can indicate. The Corinthians appear to suggest that Athens should not make a treaty with Corcyra because in so doing she would help the Corcyreans deprive Corinth of their services, to which the Corinthians have a right. We have no reason to believe that anyone would have recognized such an obligation, and it is puzzling that the Corinthians could have hoped to impose on the Athenians with such an argument. Their second claim seems more reasonable. They assert that the clause in the treaty permitting neutrals to join either side was never intended to cover cases such as that which Corcyra now presented. No state should accept an alliance with a neutral if the acceptance of such an alliance is likely to cause a war. In this the Corinthians appear to be quite right. Surely no one in 446/5 envisaged a situation in which a signatory would accept into an alliance a neutral state already at war with the other signatory. The strictest interpretation of the letter of the treaty permitted Athens to accept Corcyra, but common sense argued that to do so would almost amount to an act of war against Corinth, and so, by extension, a breach of the Thirty Years’ Peace.
The Corinthians left no doubt about their response to a treaty between Athens and Corcyra. Not only would the Athenians become allies of the Corcyreans, but enemies of Corinth, “for if you join them it will be necessary for us to include you in our punishment of them.” 22 The Corinthians would be particularly aggrieved to find Athens allied with their enemy, for they could recall services that they had rendered the Athenians over the years. They had lent the Athenians twenty ships with which to fight Aegina before the Persian Wars, and they had opposed Peloponnesian intervention against Athens in the recent Samian War. These actions had taken place “at critical moments when assistance is most valuable and the giver of assistance most deserving of future friendship.” 23 The Corinthian action during the Samian War they regarded as the most deserving of gratitude. For Athens to turn its back on that service would not only be dishonorable but dangerous, for the Corinthians had meant to establish a general principle by their restraint. They had argued that each one should be free to discipline his own allies. If the Athenians received Corcyra into an alliance now, they would be setting a precedent which would have evil consequences for themselves, for in a future crisis they would find their own allies deserting to the side of Corinth.24
In this way the Corinthians tried to show that the rejection of the Corcyrean treaty was not only just but expedient. It remained to counter the most telling argument of the Corcyreans: war was inevitable, and in that war the Athenians must be sure to have the Corcyrean fleet on their side. The Corinthian answer was very simple; they merely denied that the war was inevitable, arguing that the Athenian decision about the alliance would determine whether the war would come. “The imminence of war, with which the Corcyreans frighten you and bid you do wrong is still uncertain,” they said, urging the Athenians not to turn the hostility of Corinth from a possibility into a certainty. Instead they should try to remove the suspicion that existed because of the Megarians, “for the most recent favor, which comes at an opportune time, even if it is smaller, can erase greater complaints.” 25 The best policy would be to resist the temptation of a great naval alliance, which was as dangerous as it was attractive. Instead, Athens should pay Corinth back in kind for past services and particularly observe the rule established by Corinth, that each side should punish its own allies with impunity. “In doing these things not only will you be doing what is proper but also what is in your own best interest.” 26
The Corinthian speech tells us a great deal about the diplomatic climate in the Greek world in the years between the two Peloponnesian wars, and we learn as much from what the Corinthians did not say as from what they said. It provides the most forceful refutation of the view that Athens was engaged in aggressive imperialism between 445 and 435. If this was the view of the Corinthians, we could not fail to find references to it in their speech. We should expect them to complain about Athenian encroachment in the west at Thurii. We should be certain to hear of Phormio’s campaign in Acarnania, if it had really taken place in 437, as is sometimes alleged.27 The speech we have is far from tactful. It does not flatter and it does not beg. It speaks of past favors and demands a quid fro quo. It does not hesitate to mention complaints against Athenian behavior in regard to Megara or to suggest improvement in that behavior. If the Athenians were doing other things to trouble the Corinthians, the Corinthian ambassadors would certainly have mentioned them. In the absence of complaints against aggressive Athenian imperialism, we are justified in concluding that there were none.
The tone and arguments of the Corinthians point in quite a different direction and give us a vital insight into the thinking that led them to undertake the campaign against Corcyra in the face of Spartan disapproval and the threat of an alliance with Athens. The key may be found in their action during the Samian rebellion and the principle they derived from it. We may imagine that the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ Peace had left Corinth far from satisfied and her suspicions of Athens unallayed. The Athenians, after all, continued to control Naupactus on the Corinthian Gulf, and it remained to be seen whether they would not try to extend their power westward into the Corinthian preserve. The establishment of Thurii as a Panhellenic colony and the subsequent restraint shown by the Athenians in refusing to interfere in its affairs must have gone a long way toward persuading the Corinthians of their good intentions. The Corinthians responded by arguing for Peloponnesian neutrality during the Samian rebellion. They had received the Athenian diplomatic signal, to employ the current jargon, and replied with one of their own. They believed that they had established a mutually accepted principle: each side could punish its own allies without interference. Put in slightly broader terms, this meant that the Athenians were to refrain from expansion into the Corinthian area of influence in return for similar security in their own.
The Corinthians were surely not mistaken in their understanding that the Athenians had accepted this modus vivendi. As we have seen, all Athenian actions between the wars may be understood as measures to make the new arrangement workable. It is surely this mutual understanding that gave the Corinthians the confidence necessary to persevere in their war against Corcyra. When the Spartans intervened in behalf of arbitration out of fear that Athens would become involved, the Corinthians must have soothed them by assuring them that Athens would not, in respect for the tacit agreement that had been reached. Sparta need not participate, for together with her friends, Corinth could defeat Corcyra and put an end to her insolence. Athens would not interfere just as the Corinthians and Spartans had not interfered at Samos. Peace would be even more secure.
The Corinthian expectation was not altogether mistaken, for Pericles had no taste for western expansion and a great desire to avoid war; he did accept the general principle enunciated by Corinth. Where the Corinthians went tragically wrong was in their assessment of the particular case of Corcyra. To begin with, Corcyra was not an ally nor a subordinate of Corinth, but a neutral. Corinth might regard her as her subject or subordinate because of colonial ties, but no one else, least of all the Corcyreans, had the same view. For this reason Corcyra was in no way comparable to Samos. This might not have been too serious had it not been for the Corcyrean navy. Whatever her desire to keep the peace and to avoid remote entanglements, Athens could not allow the second largest navy in Greece to fall under the control of another potentially great naval power. This was not simply a matter of spheres of influence, of allowing the two great blocs freedom from external interference; it involved a major change in the balance of power. The entire plan for Athenian security depended on the unchallenged control of the sea by Athens. The sustenance of her population depended on imports; her prosperity depended on trade and imperial revenues guaranteed by an overwhelmingly superior navy. Her very defense against any attacker was based on her unquestioned superiority at sea. To allow the creation of a fleet to rival her own by the union of the Corinthian and Corcyrean navies was unthinkable.
It may seem surprising that the Corinthians did not see the danger of their policy as we do and, apparently, as the Spartans and Sicyonians did. If we believe the account of Thucydides, they seem to have expected that the Athenians would really desist from aiding the Corcyreans and might even be persuaded to join with Corinth against Corcyra.28 It is clear, in any case, that they did not want war with Athens and did not expect it. How are we to explain the terrible miscalculation of the Corinthians? They were far from a naive and inexperienced people. Their history shows that they were shrewd diplomats and generally well informed as to the politics and policies of the other states and skillful in diplomatic negotiations, yet they made the most serious of errors in judging that the Athenians would refuse the alliance with Coreyra. There is no way to be sure of the answer, but perhaps a clue may be found in one of those recurring features of human nature that Thucydides did not choose to underscore. The leaders of states often undertake policies that assume an understanding of their consequences. The prudent thing to do is to ascertain carefully whether all the involved parties share a common understanding and also to consider in advance the possible consequences of miscalculation.
The fact is that states rarely behave with such prudence. In the crisis following the Sarajevo assassination of 1914, Germany urged Austria to attack Serbia and to do so quickly. It was her opinion that the war could be “localized,” that is, that Russia would not become involved. The Germans argued further that England would not take a hand, although the German ambassador in London sent telegram after telegram to Berlin asserting that England would fight. In this instance there was excellent reason to believe that a major and dangerous general war would result, a war whose dangers were hardly justified by the provocation or opportunities presented by the Serbian crisis. The Germans did not want a general war, yet they persisted in their policy. They were prepared to fight a great war if necessary, but they hoped and expected that it would not come and were both surprised and infuriated when their opponents did not behave according to expectations.29
The Corinthians, we may be allowed to suspect, behaved in a similar fashion. They were determined to crush Corcyra, and they hoped that they could do so without Athenian interference. They had reason to believe that their hope might be ill founded, and we may be sure that the Spartans and Sicyonians pointed the danger out to them. In their anger and optimism they engaged in wishful thinking rather than prudent calculation and forced the Athenians to make a decision they would have liked to avoid.
Thucydides provides us with our only account of the Athenian deliberations, and it is most unsatisfactory. We are told that the Athenians needed two meetings of the assembly to arrive at their decision. After the first they inclined towards the Corinthian view, but on the second day they changed their minds. Even then they refused to make the offensive and defensive alliance (ξνμμαχα) that the Corcyreans requested, but agreed only to a defensive alliance (ἐπιμαχία).30 From this brief account it is obvious that there must have been a hot debate and a significant difference of opinion. At least two sharply different attitudes must have been presented, and the situation is ideal for a typically Thucydidean pair of speeches, an antilogy to illustrate the situation in Athens most graphically. This is precisely what we will find later on, when Thucydides takes us into the Spartan assembly to hear the debate between Archidamus and Sthenelaidas on the decision for war. Thucydides himself was surely present at the debate in Athens in 433, yet he gives us no account of the speeches; he does not tell us who spoke on either side. We are not even told what position Pericles took. This is the most surprising of all the Thucydidean omissions and must be taken into account by all those who seek to penetrate the secrets of his mind. Such a goal is beyond our present purpose, but it is hard to ignore the possibility that Thucydides has deliberately ignored the factional conflict in Athens out of a conviction that it was irrelevant. In his view the war would have come in any case; the growth of Athenian power made it inevitable. We shall see that it was Pericles who advocated the alliance with Corcyra. The common view held Pericles responsible for bringing on the war. This was precisely the view Thucydides wanted to refute, and his technique was to treat the Athenian decision impersonally, as a consequence of all the Athenians’ deliberations and an inevitable response to the situation.31 The modern historian, however, may not assume such an interpretation and must try to understand how and why the Athenians came to dieir decision, and who led the contending parties.
Plutarch tells us in a direct statement what we should have believed in any case, that it was Pericles who “persuaded the people to send aid” to the Corcyreans.32 We have no reason to doubt the accuracy of his report, for it is fully confirmed by Pericles’ actions from 433 to his death. The account of Thucydides proves that he fully supported the policy that finally led to war, while arguing against a policy of aggression. The decision for limited involvement with Corcyra for defensive purposes is fully Periclean, and we may be sure that Pericles argued in behalf of the treaty that was finally adopted. But what was the nature of the opposition which came so close to carrying the day? The two assemblies took place in the summer of 433. In the spring of that year the ten years of the exile of Thucydides, son of Melesias, had come to an end. He must have been in Athens for the debate. It is more than likely that his return gave new life to his scattered and disheartened faction and that he led the opposition to Pericles. Such a position is entirely consistent with his opposition to Athenian imperialism, but that opposition had long been discredited. What gave him the support to challenge Pericles so severely was the general realization that an alliance with Corcyra might ultimately bring war with Sparta. Once again the moderates on whom Pericles relied so heavily must have been attracted by the arguments of his rival. The danger to Athens must have seemed remote and problematical, her economic interests in the quarrel negligible. Why should Athens risk a great war in the interests of Corcyra?
We do not know what arguments Pericles employed to bring a majority around to his view, but his rhetorical and political skill must have been taxed to the utmost. Thucydides, speaking in his own voice, tells us why the Athenians finally made the decision they did. The foremost of the reasons is that they were persuaded that a war with the Peloponnesians would come, and they wanted to be sure of the Corcyrean fleet in that event. But he also gives another reason, and some modern scholars have believed it to be primary: “The island [of Corcyra], moreover, seemed to them to be well situated for a coasting voyage to Italy and Sicily.” 33 Some scholars have taken this to mean that the prospect of commercial advantage led the Athenians to accept the Corcyrean alliance. They have imagined a “Piraeus Party” of merchants and financiers with unlimited commercial and imperial ambitions who, even in 433, dreamed of adding Sicily and Italy to the Athenian Empire,34 or a fear on the part of Athens that if Corcyra fell into Corinthian hands, the Athenians would be deprived of a vital source of grain in Italy and Sicily.35 Their view is that Thucydides did not comprehend or suppressed the economic motives that really caused the war.
There is little point in attacking this position here at any length, for it has won few adherents and is little more than a straw man.36 Suffice it to say that it was Pericles and not any Piraeus Party who made the vital decisions that led to war, and nobody suggests he was a member of or controlled by that party. Whatever reasons he had for his policy, they were surely not to gain commercial advantages in the west. Similarly, the argument of Grundy that Athens had to defend Corcyra from Corinth to prevent the Corinthians from cutting off an important grain supply is altogether unconvincing. He argues that Athens was not only reluctant to lose a trading interest in Sicily, but also that
Sicily was an all-important resource to her in case she were cut off at some future time from the Pontus; and her connection with that region through the narrow waters of the Hellespont and Bosporus was in the very nature of things most precarious. The question whether she should turn to the Pontus or to Sicily for her food supply had been, up to 446, a disputed one in Athenian politics. She could face the risk in the Hellespont and Bosporus so long as she had access to Sicily.37
There is more than a little doubt that Athens ever contemplated Sicily as an alternative to the Black Sea region as a primary source of grain. More geographic, if not geopolitical, reasons would seem to argue against such a dependency, and as we have seen, the evidence of any serious Athenian interest in western expansion is slender at best. However that may be, it is perfectly clear that such ideas were no part of Periclean policy after 445, and that, after all, is what is at issue. Pericles could face no risk whatever in the Hellespont and Bosporus, and between 440 and 435 he took every possible measure to guarantee the security of the route to the northeast. In 433, Athens had a perfectly abundant and secure source of grain and was not compelled to involve herself in the west on that account.
It is, moreover, far from clear that trade with the west required that Corcyra be in friendly hands. Merchant ships could sail directly across to Sicily from the Corinthian Gulf if necessary, but why should it be necessary? Would the Corinthians bar Athenian merchantmen from Corcyrean ports if they controlled Corcym? There was certainly no precedent for such action and no reason to expect it. The Corcyreans had not barred Corinthians from their ports during the many years of their hostility, else we should have heard the Corinthians complain of it. Only in case of war need the Athenians fear such economic interference, and at such a time the objection would be strategic rather than commercial. The brief notice of Thucydides cited above does not, in fact, justify any economic interpretation of Athenian actions. It is better seen as a strategic consideration. In case of war, both sides would seek military, naval, and economic help from the Greeks of the west, as in fact they did. Sicily and southern Italy contained a large number of wealthy and powerful Greek states. The state controlling the route to the west would be in a very advantageous position to win their assistance for themselves and to prevent it falling into hostile hands. Thus, the reference to the convenient location is merely one of two strategic reasons for supporting Corcyra, given the assumption that war was inevitable: in the first place, Corcyra had a large fleet that must not be allowed to fall under Corinthian control; secondly, Corcyra was strategically located with regard to the western Greeks.
According to Thucydides, then, the main reason why the Athenians agreed to aid Corcyra was because they believed the war with the Peloponnesians to be inevitable and wanted to gain a strategic advantage before it came. It remains for us to ask whether the Athenians held this belief. We have already seen that the affair at Corcyra did involve a vital Athenian interest: it threatened the naval supremacy of Athens. To expect the Athenians to allow the Corcyrean navy to fall into Corinthian hands is to expect more than is possible in human affairs. For Pericles to allow a major unfavorable shift in the balance of power without objection would not be statesmanship but saintliness. It would be a reckless and foolish policy, for whatever the friendly and peaceful intentions of the Corinthian government in 433, there could be no guarantee of its attitude five years, or even one year, later, by which time the balance would have irrevocably shifted.
Still, we may ask whether there was no alternative to accepting the treaty. The Athenians might have suggested an international conference, such as were common among European powers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where some compromise might have been reached. Perhaps Corinth would have been willing to guarantee the autonomy and continued neutrality of Corcyra and her navy in return for a chance to chastise her and assume the control of Epidamnus. We may well doubt whether such a solution would have been possible, given the anger of the Corinthians and their expectation of Athenian neutrality as a quid pro quo for their forbearance during the Samian War. In any case, the idea of such a conference is altogether out of place in fifth-century Greece, where there was no precedent for it and no professional diplomatic corps. Given the situation, there seems to have been no real alternative to an alliance with Corcyra of some kind.
If the Athenians had not made the treaty with Corcyra, it is not certain that the war with the Peloponnesians would have come, but it is fair to say that the Athenians were compelled by reasons of strategy and their own security to make that treaty. Once it was made, the likelihood of war with Corinth became much greater. The belief that war would come helped the Athenians decide to ally themselves with Corcyra and so was a self-fulfilling prophecy, for the alliance drove the states closer to war.38 Yet even at the moment of decision, the Athenians seem to have hoped to achieve their ends without provoking a war over Corcyra.
A full defensive and offensive alliance with Corcyra while she was at war with Corinth would have violated the peace, so Athens made a defensive alliance only.39 We know that some Athenians favored a more active policy,40 so the Athenian policy appears to be a compromise between the war party, who wanted an offensive alliance, and the peace party, who wanted no alliance at all. Meyer suggests that Pericles, who already knew that war was inevitable, favored a full treaty with Corcyra. Under the pressure of the mass of Athenians, who still had the idea that they could choose freely, he was compelled to yield and accept a middle way in the defensive alliance, “which gave nothing away and at least avoided the appearance of a breach of the peace.” 41 We may well doubt this suggestion. For one thing, it ignores the fact that at least part of the Athenian people sharply criticized Pericles for the halfheartedness of his policy of aid to the Corcyreans.42 This shows that the “middle way” adopted by the Athenians was the policy of Pericles himself and not the unperceptive masses. Its execution, still under the leadership of Pericles, was prudent and defensive. The evidence seems to indicate that the cautious policy of defensive alliance was Pericles’. Perhaps his great difficulty in having it adopted by the Athenians may be explained by the likelihood that it fully pleased neither the party led by Thucydides nor the men around Cleon.43
The way in which the Athenians chose to fulfill their obligation to Corcyra shows clearly that Pericles had not yet despaired of avoiding a war. On or shortly after the thirteenth day of the first prytany of 433/2, probably in July, he sent a squadron of ten ships to Corcyra under the command of Lacedaemonius, son of Cimon, Diotimus, son of Strombichus, and Proteas, son of Spicles.44 The choice of generals was very important, for their mission was delicate and the execution of their instructions would require experience, judgment, and cool heads. Diotimus and Proteas obviously met these requirements, for both continued to play an important part in Athenian affairs.45 But the choice of Lacedaemonius was the shrewdest and most typically Periclean stroke. To be sure, he was an experienced soldier,46 but it was as the son of Cimon that he was most valuable. By employing Lacedaemonius in this controversial mission, Pericles was cleverly striking a devastating blow against his conservative political opponents. If Thucydides, son of Melesias, was to rebuild his opposition party, he must find his support among old Cimonians who would rally to his apparently Cimonian policy of peace with the Peloponnesians. But here was Lacedaemonius, the son of Cimon, taking the lead in executing the policy of Pericles. It was a graphic assertion that the Cimonian policy and the Periclean were one and the same. As Cimon had carried his spurs up to the Acropolis and supported the policy of Themistocles in the moment of peril to the fatherland before Salamis, so did his son now take the lead in carrying out the policy that the safety of Athens required. The gesture could not have failed to have a destructive effect on the political fortunes of the son of Melesias.
It is true that the opposition took every opportunity to attack Pericles’ motives in appointing Lacedaemonius. He sent Lacedaemonius with only ten ships, they said, to insult him. He was jealous of him, as of all the sons of Cimon, and gave him only a few ships and sent him out “against his will.” He knew that the house of Cimon was very friendly to Sparta, and did this so that “if he should accomplish no great or outstanding deed, he might be blamed for his Laconism.” 47 These are the charges of an outwitted and outraged faction and are not, of course, to be credited. Yet their suggestion that the assignment was given to Lacedaemonius out of political calculation is quite right.
In addition to embarrassing his opponents, Pericles may have had another reason for selecting the son of Cimon and a friend of Sparta to lead the squadron at Corcyra. The generals were ordered not to fight with the Corinthians unless they sailed against Corcyra itself and were about to land on some part of its territory. If that should happen, the Athenians were to prevent the landing by force. “These orders were given in order not to break the treaty.” 48 These were very difficult instructions to carry out. How, in the midst of a naval battle, can a man be absolutely certain of the intentions of the participants? The Corinthians might approach Corcyra as part of a tactical maneuver, with no intention of landing, but this might not be clear until the last moment. By then it might be too late to prevent a landing if that were the true Corinthian intention. An Athenian general might very well have to attack the Corinthian fleet. This could bring on a war with Corinth, which might soon bring in Sparta. If that should happen, it would be best that the crucial decision be made by a man well known to be a friend of the Spartans.
The orders themselves give evidence of a policy that was not halfhearted but shrewdly cautious. The dispatch of ten Athenian ships was less a military maneuver than a diplomatic one. By sending that small squadron, Athens was not declaring war but raising its bid in the diplomatic game. There was still time, the Athenians indicated, to avoid a great war if the Corinthians would refrain from the conquest of Corcyra and the seizure of her fleet. The presence of an Athenian force was proof that Athens was serious in its determination to prevent a shift in the balance of power, but its small size showed that the Athenians had no wish to take advantage of the situation to destroy or diminish Corinthian power. At the same time, Pericles seems to have believed that it might be possible for the Athenian ships to stand aside throughout the entire battle and avoid involvement. It was not, after all, clear in advance that Corinth would win a sea battle with Corcyra. The two fleets were well matched, and it was altogether possible that die Corinthians would lose as they had at Leucimne. An even better result from the Athenian point of view was also possible. The two fleets might do great damage to one another, the Corinthians would be unable to take Corcyra, and the battle might end in a stalemate in which the power of both the second and third greatest Greek naval states would be shattered. Thucydides tells us that the Athenians had just such a thought in mind when they made the purely defensive alliance with Corcyra. They hoped “to wear the two sides out as much as possible against each other so that they might find Corinth and the other naval powers weaker in case it should be necessary to go to war with them.” 49
The strategy of Pericles, therefore, had three levels. The first was essentially diplomatic, in which a controlled show of force would avoid a technical breach of the Thirty Years’ Peace and might even avoid war altogether. The second was optimistically strategic, in which the Athenians hoped to achieve the destruction of both great naval powers at no cost to themselves. The last was also strategic and, as it turned out, more realistic. When this level was reached, the Athenians would intervene to prevent the capture of Corcyra and its fleet even if that brought war with Corinth.
After the Athenian squadron had arrived at Corcyra, the Corinthians set sail with a fleet of one hundred and fifty ships. Of these, ninety were Corinthian, and the rest came from Elis, Megara, Leucas, Ambracia, and Anactorium.50 Each contingent was commanded by its own general, so that there can be no question of volunteers who accompanied the expedition as private citizens. They were official representatives of their own states, presumably acting under the terms of an alliance with Corinth, and any action in which they became involved would involve their governments as well. All the allied states except for Megara and Elis were Corinthian colonies. The presence of Megara is evidence of her close cooperation with Corinth since the restoration of the Megarian oligarchy during the First Peloponnesian War. Perhaps Elis was present to avenge the damage the Corcyreans had done to her port after Leucimne.
It is interesting to note, however, that Epidaurus, Hermione, Troezen, and Cephallenia did not join with Corinth as they had in the earlier battle, and Thebes and Phlius seem not to have contributed money. The situation in 433 was very different from what it had been two years earlier. There was now a real chance that a war with Athens might result from this campaign. There is every reason to believe, moreover, that the supporters of peace still ruled at Sparta and strongly disapproved of the Corinthian adventure. It is very likely, as Gomme suggests, that the Spartans applied some pressure on their more susceptible allies to keep them home.51
The Corinthians and their allies gathered at Leucas and then sailed northwards, setting up a base at Cheimerium on the mainland across from Corcyra. When the Corcyreans learned what was happening, they established their base on one of the group of islands called Sybota which gave a name to the battle which ensued. The Corcyrean naval force consisted of one hundred and ten of their own ships and ten from Athens. In addition, they placed their infantry, reinforced by one thousand hoplites from Zacynthus, at the Leucimne promontory. Against these the Corinthians could muster an army of barbarians from the mainland, where Corinth had always been influential.52- When the Corinthians sailed out to offer battle, they placed their own ships on the left wing and found themselves opposite the Athenians, who were on the right wing of the Corcyrean line. The battle tactics employed made the difficult decisions required of the Athenian generals even more uncertain. Instead of employing the elegant and skillful maneuvers and ramming tactics that the Athenians had perfected, they fought in the old clumsy way. The ships, their decks loaded with hoplites and archers, came together and clung to one another. Instead of a naval battle, it became a hoplite encounter fought on stationary ships; skill gave way to brute strength. “Everywhere there was uproar and confusion.” 53
When the Athenians saw that the Corcyreans were in difficulty, they came up to assist but avoided fighting, in strict obedience to their instructions. The Corcyreans were successful on the left wing, but they made the mistake of pursuing the enemy with too much zeal. They detached twenty ships from the line to pursue the routed ships and plunder the Corinthian camp. The Corinthians took advantage of the weakness thus created to press the right wing of the Corcyrean line. This compelled the Athenians, who were stationed at the vital spot, to make the fateful decision, and Thucydides describes with great skill the stages by which they reached it.
When the Athenians saw the Corcyreans pressed, they began to help them without reservation. At first they held back from making an actual attack on an enemy ship, but when it became plain that a rout was taking place and that the Corinthians were in hot pursuit, then at last each man took part in the work and fine distinctions were no longer made; the situation had devoloped to the point where the Corinthians and Athenians had necessarily to fight one another.54
The number of ships engaged in the battle was so large and the area it covered so great that confusion reigned. Disabled ships littered the sea, and the survivors sometimes killed their own men swimming in the sea, for they could not tell who had won in each quarter of the battle or which ships had been sunk. Finally, after driving the Corcyreans to the shore, the Corinthians cleared the sea, picked up their dead, and regrouped on the mainland. Then they came forward again to finish the job.
The Corcyreans, now reinforced by an Athenian contingent ready to fight, likewise reorganized their forces and prepared to defend their island from invasion. The scene that followed would be too dramatic to believe if it had been told by Herodotus or Plutarch, but since we have it from the most sober and austere of historians, we cannot doubt its historicity. The Corcyreans literally had their backs to the wall, and it is plain that total defeat and annihilation were imminent. The Corinthians had already sounded the signal to attack, when suddenly they began to back water. No doubt the Corcyreans and Athenians were at a loss to understand what was happening, but soon the explanation was plain enough. On the horizon there appeared twenty Athenian triremes that had been sent as reinforcements.
An inscription recording the payment made to the generals leading the relief force tells us that it was sent out twenty-three days after the first ten ships sailed.55 Thucydides says that these additional ships were sent because the Athenians feared that the original ten would be too few to help the Corcyreans, who were likely to be defeated,56 but we should like to know what made them alter their first decision. Plutarch provides us with the answer: his political opponents criticized Pericles sharply on the ground that “he had provided little help for the Corcyreans by sending ten ships, but a great pretext for complaint by their enemies.” It was for this reason that he later sent the additional twenty ships.57 Here is evidence that at home as well as on the seas it was increasingly difficult to limit the Athenian involvement, once the original commitment had been made.
The effect of the Athenian reinforcement was decisive. The Corinthians assumed that the twenty were merely the precursors of a great Athenian fleet and began to withdraw. As night was rapidly approaching, both sides broke off the battle and retired to their respective camps. By the dawn of the next day the military situation had changed radically. The Corcyreans, who had been on the verge of annihilation, were now supported by thirty undamaged Athenian ships. This time it was they who sailed out and offered battle to the Corinthians. The Corinthians, who had been within sight of victory the previous afternoon, put out to sea in a defensive formation but refused to take the bait. They now sought to avoid a battle, for not only did they fear the Athenians whom they saw before them, but they could not be certain that more Athenians might not be on the way. They feared that the previous day’s skirmish might be seen by the Athenians as a casus helli and an excuse to destroy the Corinthian fleet before it could get home.58 But even at this late date both sides hoped to avoid an irrevocable conflict.
The Corinthians sent some men to parley with the Athenians. They did not carry a herald’s wand, the equivalent of a flag of truce, for to do so would be an admission that a state of war existed between Corinth and Athens, something both sides wished to deny. They reproached the Athenians with doing wrong, breaking the treaty, and beginning a war by preventing the Corinthians from punishing their enemies. “If you intend,” they said, “to prevent us from sailing to Corcyra or anywhere else we like, and in this way you break the treaty, first seize us and treat us as enemies.” The Corcyreans who heard this speech immediately roared their approval of the suggestion and urged the Athenians to kill them, but they were disappointed. Instead, the Athenians returned a very careful answer in perfect accord with their strict orders and limited objectives:
We are not beginning a war, O Peloponnesians, nor are we breaking the treaty, but we have come to bring help to our Corcyrean allies. If you want to sail anywhere else we will not hinder you; but if you mean to sail against Corcyra or some part of her territory, we will not permit it, insofar as it is in our power.59
It is possible to believe that the Corinthians acted as they did out of fear that the Athenians would destroy their fleet and that they already regarded war with Athens as inevitable. The Athenian generals were still under orders, although the events of the previous day had made them obsolete. They knew, for the newly arrived generals could tell them, that no additional ships were underway and that the arrival of reinforcements did not represent a change in policy. If Pericles knew that Corinthians and Athenians had fought one another, if he had heard the Corinthian heralds announce officially that they regarded the Athenian defense of Corcyra as a breach of the peace and an act of war, he would have known that the war could no longer be avoided. But he was far away in Athens. As a result, the Athenian generals had no choice but to allow the Corinthians to sail away.
Each side set up a trophy claiming victory at the Battle of Sybota, evidence of how indecisive it had been tactically, thanks to the Athenian intervention. From the strategic point of view, however, it was clearly a victory for Corcyra, for it had been the intention of Corinth to destroy the Corcyrean fleet and seize the island, and that they had altogether failed to do. Far from giving up the project, the Corinthians wasted no time in preparing for the next round as they sailed home. They seized Anactorium by treachery and settled it with Corinthian colonists. Of the many Corcyreans they had captured in battle, the Corinthians sold eight hundred as slaves. But two hundred and fifty, leading men in Corcyra, they held in custody and treated well. It was their hope that the captives might return to Corcyra in the future and bring it over to Corinth by treachery also. From all this it became perfectly clear that the Corinthians had no intention of giving up the war with Corcyra, which must unavoidably cause them to fight Athens. As Thucydides says, the Battle of Sybota was “the first ground which the Corinthians had for war with the Athenians, because they had fought on the side of the Corcyreans in a naval battle while still under a treaty with Corinth.” 60
1 Thuc. 1.26. 3.
2 Thuc. 1. 26.4–5.
3 Thuc. 1. 27. 1; Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 161–162.
4 Thuc. 1.27. 1–2.
5 Thuc. 1.27. 1–4.
6 1. 28. 1.
7 W. H. Forbes, Thucydides Book 1 (Oxford, 1895), ad. loc.
8 See 1. 115. 2–3, where the official representatives of Miletus go to Athens to complain against Samos accompanied by ἂνδρες ἰδιῶται, who wanted to overthrow the Samian government, and 2. 67. 1, where Thucydides carefully distinguishes between the envoys (πρέσβεις) from Corinth, Sparta, and Tegea, and Pollis, a citizen of Argos, who is acting ἰδίᾳ.
9 Thuc. 1. 28. 1–5.
10 Thuc. 1.29. 1.
11 Thuc. 1.29. 1–5.
12 Thuc. 1. 30. 1–4.
13 Thuc. 1. 31. 1; 1. 35. 3.
14 Without getting into the general question of the nature and reliability of Thucydidean speeches, I should like to argue for the general accuracy of his accounts of the speeches in the Athenian assembly during the period when he himself was in Athens. In the famous and disputed passage in which he speaks of his technique in reporting speeches, Thucydides says that he gives the speeches “in a way which, it seems to me, each speaker might most likely express himself to suit the occasion” (ὼς δ” ἂν έδόκουν ἐμοὶ ἕκασϒοι περὶ ϒῶν ἀεὶ παρόντων τὰ δέοντα μάλιστ” εἰπεῖν). This has rightly given rise to much debate, for it is far from ambiguous. But the clause that follows is too often ignored, and it is perfectly clear: “holding as closely as possible to the general sense of what really was said” (ἐχομένῳ ὅτι ὅτι ἐϒϒύτατα τῆς ξυμπάσης ϒνώμης τῶν ἀληθῶς λεχθέντων) (1. 22. 1–2). Unless we believe that Thucydides is a liar, we must concede that he tried to give an accurate report of what was said. Unless we believe he was a fool or had an especially bad memory, we must concede that when he reports speeches at which he was present, he has given us a reasonably accurate account of them.
15 1. 34. 1–3.
16 1.35. 1.
17 1.33. 1–2.
18 1. 33.3.
19 1. 34–36; the quotation is from 1. 36. 3.
20 1. 37–39.
21 1. 40. 2.
22 1. 40. 3–4.
23 1. 141.
24 1.40. 6.
25 1. 42. 2–4. I shall argue later that the decree excluding Megara from the harbors of the Athenian Empire had not yet been proposed, so the reference here is to some other grievance. Such grievances must have been many and continuous in the long history of mutual suspicion between Athens and Megara, which went well back into the sixth century at least.
26 1. 43.
27 See Appendix G, pp. 384–385.
28 1. 40. 4.
29 For a very revealing insight into the thoughts and emotions of the German leaders, see the somewhat hysterical marginal notes made by Kaiser Wilhelm II on the report of Russia’s decision to mobilize on July 30, 1914. (Max Montgelas and Walter Shücking, eds., Outbreak of the World War: German Documents Collected by Karl Kautsky [1924], No. 401, 348–50, translated by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace). My interpretation of the July Crisis of 1914 is based on the second volume of Luigi Albertini’s The Origins of the War of 1914, translated and edited by I. M. Massey (Oxford, 1953), and the pertinent chapter in A. J. P. Taylor’s The Struggle for the Mastery of Europe (Oxford, 1954), 520–531.
30 1. 44.
31 F. M. Cornford (Thucydides Mythistoricus [London, 1907], 43) has suggested that Thucydides does not mention Pericles in the debate on the Corcyrean alliance “because the Athenians had a policy of their own, which Pericles adopted only when his hand was forced. The historian conveys the correct impression, that the policy in question was not originated by the nominal leader of the demos.” He appears to have been unaware of Plutarch’s direct statement that Pericles persuaded the Athenians to make the alliance (Per. 29. 1).
32 Per. 29. 1: ἕπεισε τὸύ δῆμον ἀποστεīλαἱ βοήθειαν.
33 1. 44. 3.
34 See Cornford, Thucydides, 1—51.
35 G. B. Grundy, Thucydides and the History of His Age, 328–329.
36 For a direct assault that is more effective in its negative accomplishments than in making a case for the Thucydidean interpretation, see G. Dickins, CQ, V (1911), 238–248.
37 Grundy, Thucydides, 328–329.
38 A keen insight into the way this worked is provided by Hans-Peter Stahl (Thukydides, Die Stellung des Menschen im geschichtlichen Prozess [Munich, 1966], 40), who says: “die den Beschluss bestimmende Uberzeugung von der Unvermeidbarkeit des Krieges, d.h. die intellektuelle Vorstellung vom weiteren Ablauf der einmal begonnenen Kausalkette, schafft überhaupt erst die Voranssetzung dafür, dass der Geschehensablauf sich in derselben Zielrichtung fortsetzt…."
39 1. 44. 1.
40 Plut. Per. 29. 3.
41 Forschungen, II, 325.
42 Plut. Per. 29. 3.
43 For a similar interpretation of Pericles’ policy, see De Sanctis, Pericle, 230–231.
44 1. 45. 1; the date is fixed precisely by a decree recording the money paid for the expedition, IG, I2, 295 = Tod, 55. See Meritt, Athenian Financial Documents, 68–71.
45 Diotimus appears to have been sent to help the Neapolitans, probably during the same generalship and after the Battle of Sybota (see below, pp. 253 and 385). He was also the head of an Athenian delegation to Susa (Strabo 1. 3. 1, p. 47), which may have been the one Aristophanes laughed at in the Acharnians (61ff). Proteas was sufficiently important to be reelected to the strategia for the following year (2. 32. 2 and IG, 12, 296, 1. 31).
46 He had been hipparch in about 446 QIG, 12, 400).
47 Plut. Per. 29. 2–3.
48 1. 45. 3.
49 1. 44. 2.
50 1. 46. 1.
51 Gomme, Hist. Comm., I, 178.
52 1. 47. 1–3. It is difficult to explain the presence of the Zacynthians. B. Schmidt (Die lnsel Zakynthos, cited by Classen-Steup, I, 148) suggests that the two islands had been friendly in the past, but if such friendship existed it did not reach the point of a military alliance (see Thuc. 1.31. 2.). Classen is probably right in suggesting that the alliance was as new as the one just made in Athens, and Gomme (Hist. Comm., I, 183) may be right in connecting the Zacynthian action with the island’s friendship for Athens (Thuc. 2. 7. 3 and 2. 9. 4).
53 1. 49. 4.
54 1. 49. 7.
55 IG, I2, 295 = Tod, 55. See also J. Johnson, AJA, XXXIII (1929), 398–400 and Meritt, Athenian Financial Documents, 68–71.
56 1. 50. 5.
57 Per. 29. 3.
58 1. 52.
59 1. 53. 4.
60 1. 55. 2.