Greeks was a battle between the Corinthians and their colonists of Korkyra forecasts exactly the relations of these two great maritime states. The city of Epidamnos had been founded by settlers from Korkyra: but even hatred for the mother city could not embolden them to dispense with the rule which compelled them to go to her for the Oikistes or leader of the colony. Corinth had thus certain parental rights over the Epeirotic city; but Corinth was now ruled by an oligarchy, while the demos was supreme at Korkyra. At first the colony seems to have been prosperous; but some defeats sustained in a struggle with their barbarous neighbours broke the strength of the oligarchic faction, and the demos rising to power drove many of their opponents into banishment. These exiles took their revenge by ravaging the lands of the rival faction. The mischief done was so great that the Epidamnian demos sent ambassadors to Korkyra to beg for aid in their distress. But they could point to no tombs of common ancestors; and their prayer was rejected. To remain without help was to be ruined: and the question put to the Delphian god whether in this strait they might betake themselves to the Corinthians drew forth his distinct permission. A Corinthian army made its way to Epidamnos (436 B.C.). Sailing thither in great wrath, the Korkyraians insisted on ingress for themselves as well as on the expulsion of the Corinthian garrison. On the refusal of the Epidamnians the Korkyraians prepared to blockade the city, at the same time sending word that any Epidamnians or strangers who might wish to leave the place should be suffered to depart in peace, but that all who remained should be treated as enemies. The Corinthians by way of retaliation invited a fresh emigration to Epidamnos, and made ready to convey or escort the new colonists to their homes. To avert the storm gathering over their heads, the Korkyraians now sent envoys to Corinth expressing their willingness to submit matters to arbitration. To the reply of the Corinthians that the siege of Epidamnos must first be raised the Korkyraians answered that the siege should be raised, if the Corinthians would themselves quit the place, or that failing this they would leave matters as they were on both sides until the arbiters should decide whether Epidamnos should belong to Corinth or Korkyra. However unprincipled the conduct of the Korkyraians may have been, they had now, technically at least, put themselves

in the right: and the Corinthians were without excuse in the declaration of war by which they replied to these proposals. A naval victory left the Korkyraians masters of the sea. Two years later they found that the Corinthians had enlisted as mercenaries a large number of seamen from cities belonging to the Athenian confederacy. The gathering of a force which must crush them could be arrested only by an alliance with Athens: and there accordingly Korkyraian envoys appeared to plead the cause, not of justice or truth, but of expediency and self-interest. Corinthian ambassadors also hastened to Athens in the hope of turning the scale against their enemies (433 B.C.).

This quarrel between Corinth and Korkyra was no work of the Athenians; nor can these be blamed if, on resolving to act at all, they resolved to act wholly with regard to their own interests. Korkyra, again, was free to take such measures as the instinct of self-preservation might suggest and to the credit of her envoys it must be admitted, that their speech is confined solely to the principles of commercial exchange. They admitted that they had drawn down on themselves the full power of the Corinthians and their allies; and with these enemies they were unable to cope single-handed. On the other hand, the Athenians, they urged, would do well to seize the opportunity of alliance with a state whose navy, second only to that of Athens, would otherwise, in the impending war, be found in the ranks of their enemies.

In their reply the Corinthians naturally tried to blacken their enemies and to whitewash themselves. The arbitration, they urged, was proposed too late; it should have been offered before the Korkyraian blockade of Epidamnos was begun. This plea might have been reasonable if arbitration were a means for preventing the commission of wrongs rather than of redressing them when committed. To their own conduct, as showing a friendly spirit to Athens, they appealed without fear. They might have turned the scale in favour of the revolted Samians. They had not only refused to do this, but had grounded their refusal on the broad principle that there ought to be no interference between an imperial city and her free or subject allies: and all that they demanded now was that this principle should be observed by the Athenians in their turn.

The decision of the Athenians was determined by Perikles who saw as clearly as the Korkyraians that the great struggle

with Sparta could not now be very far off. But although Korkyra became the ally of Athens (432 B.C.), the force sent to her aid was confined to the small number of ten ships, for the express purpose of making it clear to the Corinthians that no aggressive measures were intended; and the generals received instructions to remain strictly neutral unless the Corinthians should attempt te effect a landing on any Korkyraian ground.

Their

The Corinthians lost no time in bringing the quarrel to an issue. In the conflict which ensued the Korkyraian fleet was probably saved from utter ruin only by the open interference of the Athenian ships, which thus came into direct conflict with the Corinthians, who after this work of destruction conveyed their disabled ships to Sybota, and, still unwearied, advanced again to the attack, although it was now late in the day. Paian, or battle cry, had already rung through the air, when they suddenly backed water. Twenty Athenian ships had come into sight, and the Corinthians, supposing them to be only the vanguard of a larger force, hastily retreated. The darkness was now closing in, and the Korkyraians also withdrew to their own ground. On the following day the latter sailed to Sybota with such of their ships as were still fit for service, supported by the thirty Athenian ships. Concluding that the Athenians now regarded the Thirty Years' Truce as broken, the Corinthians were afraid of being forcibly hindered by them in their homeward voyage. It became necessary therefore to learn what they meant to do. The answer of the Athenians was plain and decisive. They did not mean to break the truce, and the Corinthians might go where they pleased, so long as they did not go to Korkyra or to any city or settlement belonging to her. This declaration implied that the Corinthians were free to return home unmolested; and they were not slow to avail themselves of the permission. For the present the conflict was at an end; but it was to be followed by terrible consequences at a later time.

Henceforth the Corinthians regarded the Peloponnesian truce with Athens as virtually at an end. At Korkyra their schemes had failed; but they might strike perhaps a still heavier blow at her dominion elsewhere. The Makedonian chief Perdikkas was anxious to aid them in bringing about the revolt of Potidaia from Athens. To foil these plots, a fleet was sent from Athens with orders to insist on obedience to commands by which the

Potidaians had been ordered to pull down their seaward walls and to give hostages for their good behaviour (432 B.C.). A promise of help from Sparta was followed by the immediate revolt not only of Potidaia, but of the Chalkidians and Bottiaians. For two years Potidaia resisted the power of Athens, and before its fall Athens and Sparta had begun the fatal war which was to end in the ruin of the great imperial city.

war,

In truth, men's minds were becoming exasperated on both sides. The Corinthians, far from interfering between Sparta and Athens, as they had done before the Korkyraian troubles, were now doing all that they could to hurry the Spartans into while the Megarians resented their exclusion from all Athenian ports; and so keenly was this prohibition felt by them that they insisted upon it at Sparta as a direct breach of the truce. On the other hand, by bringing about the revolt of Potidaia the Corinthians had done to Athens a wrong which came directly within the terms of the Thirty Years' Truce. They had interfered between her and a city which had been included in the Athenian alliance, and had striven to detach from her the other allied cities on the northern shores of the Egean. In other words, they had made a deliberate effort to break up the Athenian empire; and thus in the council summoned by the Spartans for the purpose of ascertaining the grievances of their allies, they could only misrepresent the conduct of the Athenians and content themselves with contrasting Athenian energy, versatility, and foresight with Spartan dilatoriness, obstinacy, and stupid self-complacence. Whatever might be the truth of the picture thus drawn, the speech, so far as the existing truce was concerned, was invective, not argument. Hence the Athenian envoys, who happened to be present on some other errand, having received permission to speak, pointedly disclaimed the intention of defending Athens against the accusations of the Corinthians, and addressed themselves to the task of explaining her real position and the motives of her policy. As to the relation of Athens with her allies, they insisted that, although the states belonging to the Athenian alliance must feel in greater or less degree the pressure of a common burden, yet the solid benefits secured to them far outweighed this annoyance.

In the secret debate which followed this public conference the Spartan king Archidamos earnestly deprecated, it is said,

the course on which the Corinthians had set their hearts, and drew out in strong contrast the strong and the weak points in the system and resources of Sparta. In ships, in money, in population and extent of empire, she was no match for her great rival; and the preparation which might place her on a level with Athens must be a work of time. But the Athenians had offered to submit all disputes to arbitration; and to that tribunal it would be wise for the present to leave the issue. The effect of this wholesome advice was at once neutralised by a speech of the ephor Sthenelaïdas, who did his best to hound on his countrymen to take a leap in the dark. It was no part of his purpose, he said, to suggest that it might be well to learn what the Athenian people had to say in the matter. It was for wrong-doers to consider beforehand the effect of the crimes which they intended to commit: it was for the Spartans to decree without further thought a war in which the gods would defend the right.

Sthenelaïdas turned the scale in favour of war. The spirit and the fears of the representatives had been excited to the necessary point; and the decree of the Spartan assembly was accepted by a large majority.

But neither the Spartans nor their allies were yet ready to go to war; and the time during which they were preparing for the struggle was further occupied in efforts to introduce disunion in the Athenian councils, and, if possible, to deprive them of their master-spirit, Perikles. No formal declaration of war had been yet sent to Athens. Indeed, it was never sent at all; but availing themselves of the superstition connected with the alleged curse of Kylon, the Spartans insisted that Perikles must be banished. The demand was met by the rejoinder that the Spartans must first drive out the curse of Tainaron,—in other words must atone for the death of Pausanias. But although he sought to encourage a confident and even a fearless temper, Perikles was to the last careful that no provocation should come from Athens; and by his advice an answer was given to the subsequent demands from Sparta which was as moderate as it was dignified. The Athenians were as fully justified by Hellenic interpolitical law in excluding the Megarians from their ports, as were the Spartans in intrusting to the ephors the power of driving all strangers from Sparta at their will without assigning any reason for their decrees. The allies of Athens, it was added, should be left wholly free, if they were in this condition at the