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In one day I passed the Ionian sea, and reached Corcyra from Brundisium; thence in five more I sacrificed at Delphi, and in other five days came to my forces in Macedonia, where, after I had finished the usual sacrifices for the purifying of the army, I entered on my duties, and, in the space of fifteen days, put an honorable period to the war.
Else why did they seduce from her allegiance Corcyra, which they still hold in defiance of us, and why are they blockading Potidæa, the latter a most advantageous post for the command of the Thracian peninsula, the former a great naval power which might have assisted the Peloponnesians?
About 455 the latter established himself in Corcyra whence Cleonymus had been expelled by Demetrius Poliorcetes, and now threatened the Tarentines from the Adriatic as well as from the Ionian sea.
All was in vain. The Thebans accused them of flat treachery to Boeotia, securing their condemnation. Corcyra similarly proved unprofitable; it was afflicted by fratricidal dissensions which coloured one of Thucydides' darkest pictures. As the war went on it became clearer that it was a struggle between two rival political creeds, democracy and oligarchy.
The persons condemned took a course apparently desperate, but successful in the issue: for, while their friends advised them to yield to the necessity of the occasion, and withdraw to Corcyra, to the Romans, they resolved to present themselves to the multitude; and either, by that act, to mollify their resentment, or endure whatever might befall them.
A long and costly siege drained Athens of much revenue and distracted her attention; but worst of all was the final estrangement of the great trade rival whom she had thwarted in Greece itself by occupying Megara, in the west by joining Corcyra, and in the east by attacking Potidsea. The cup was full; Athenian ambition had run its course.
The weak Macedonian fleet under Heraclides remained inactive at Heraclea, and did not venture to dispute the possession of the sea with the enemy. The latter went early to winter quarters, the Romans proceeding to the Piraeeus and Corcyra, the Rhodians and Pergamenes going home. Philip might on the whole congratulate himself upon the results of this campaign.
Here they seemed to meet with their first success. The people of Corcyra acceded to the proposals made to them, and promised at once to equip and man their fleet, and send it round into the Ægean Sea. They immediately engaged in the work, and seemed to be honestly intent on fulfilling their promises. They were, however, in fact, only pretending.
Great was the indignation at Corcyra when the news arrived that her colony had been surrendered to Corinth, and a force of forty ships was sent off in haste, bearing a peremptory demand to the Epidamnians that they should receive back their exiles and send away the new colonists.
They then sent before them to Italy and Sicily three ships, which had orders to find out what cities in those regions would receive them, and to meet them again on their way, that they might know before they put in. At length the great armament proceeded to cross from Corcyra to Sicily. It consisted of a hundred and thirty-four triremes in all, besides two Rhodian vessels of fifty oars.
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