The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]

When the sedition was at this point, on the fourth or fifth day after the transfer of the men to the island, the ships of the Peloponnesians, three-and-fifty in number, came up from Cyllene, having been stationed there since their return from Ionia. The commander of them, as before, was Alcidas, Brasidas sailing with him as counsellor. After coming to anchor at Sybota, a port on the mainland, as soon as it was morning they sailed towards Corcyra.

The Corcyræans, being in great confusion, and alarmed both at the state of things in the city and at the advance of the enemy, at once proceeded to equip sixty vessels, and to send them out, as they were successively manned, against the enemy; though the Athenians advised them to let them sail out first, and afterwards to follow themselves with all their ships together. On their vessels coming up to the enemy in this scattered manner, two immediately went over to them, while in others the crews were fighting amongst themselves, and there was no order in their measures. The Peloponnesians, seeing their confusion, drew up twenty of their ships against the Corcyræans, and the remainder against the twelve of the Athenians, amongst which were the two celebrated vessels, Salaminia and Paralus.

The Corcyræans, coming to the attack in bad order, and by few ships at a time, were distressed through their own arrangements; while the Athenians, fearing the enemy’s numbers and the chance of their surrounding them, did not attack their whole fleet, or even the centre of the division opposed to themselves, but took it in flank, and sank one ship. After this, when the Peloponnesians had formed in a circle, they began to sail round them, and endeavoured to throw them into confusion. The division which was opposed to the Corcyræans perceiving this, and fearing that the same thing might happen as had at Naupactus, advanced to their support. Thus the whole united fleet simultaneously attacked the Athenians, who now began to retire, rowing astern; at the same time wishing the vessels of the Corcyræans to retreat first, while they themselves drew off as leisurely as possible, and while the enemy were still ranged against them. The sea-fight then, having been of this character, ended at sunset.

The Corcyræans, fearing that the enemy, on the strength of his victory, might sail against the city, and either rescue the men in the island, or proceed to some other violent measures, carried the men over again to the sanctuary of Juno, and kept the city under guard. The Peloponnesians, however, though victorious in the engagement, did not dare to sail against the city, but withdrew with thirteen of the Corcyræan vessels to the continent, whence they had put out. The next day they advanced none the more against the city, though the inhabitants were in great confusion, and though Brasidas, it is said, advised Alcidas to do so, but was not equal to him in authority; but they landed on the promontory of Leucimne, and ravaged the country.

Meanwhile, the commons of the Corcyræans, being very much alarmed lest the fleet should sail against them, entered into negotiation with the suppliants and the rest for the preservation of the city. And some of them they persuaded to go on board the ships; for, notwithstanding the general dismay, they still manned thirty, in expectation of the enemy’s advance against them. But the Peloponnesians, after ravaging the land till mid-day, sailed away; and at nightfall the approach of sixty Athenian ships from Leucas was signalled to them, which the Athenians had sent with Eurymedon son of Thucles, as commander, on hearing of the sedition, and of the fleet about to go to Corcyra with Alcidas.

The Peloponnesians then immediately proceeded homeward by night with all haste, passing along shore; and having hauled their ships over the isthmus of Leucas, that they might not be seen doubling it, they sailed back. The Corcyræans, on learning the approach of the Athenian fleet and the retreat of the enemy, took and brought into the city the Messenians, who before had been without the walls: and having ordered the ships they had manned to sail round into the Hyllaic harbour, while they were going round, they put to death any of their opponents they might have happened to seize; and afterwards despatched, as they landed them from the ships, all that they had persuaded to go on board. They also went to the sanctuary of Juno, and persuaded about fifty men to take their trial, and condemned them all to death. The majority of the suppliants, who had not been prevailed on by them, when they saw what was being done, slew one another there on the sacred ground; while some hanged themselves on the trees, and others destroyed themselves as they severally could. During seven days that Eurymedon stayed after his arrival with his sixty ships, the Corcyræans were butchering those of their countrymen whom they thought hostile to them; bringing their accusations, indeed, against those only who were for putting down the democracy; but some were slain for private enmity also, and others for money owed them by those who had borrowed it. Every mode of death was thus had recourse to; and whatever ordinarily happens in such a state of things, happened then, and still more. For father murdered son, and they were dragged out of the sanctuaries, or slain in them; while in that of Bacchus some were walled up and perished. So savagely did the sedition proceed; while it appeared to do so all the more from its being amongst the earliest.[54]