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It was complained that Athens gave help to Corcyra in a war with Corinth, its mother city, made war upon Potidaea in Macedonia, a Corinthian colony, and also shut out Megara from the harbors of Attica. The demands made by Sparta, which included the granting of independence to Aegina, were rejected.
Failing after prolonged negotiation to obtain anything satisfactory from the Athenians; being unable, for all they could say, to prevent the vessels that were destined for Macedonia from also sailing against them; and receiving from the Lacedaemonian government a promise to invade Attica, if the Athenians should attack Potidaea, the Potidaeans, thus favoured by the moment, at last entered into league with the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, and revolted.
To return to the Lacedaemonians. The history of their first embassy, the injunctions which it conveyed, and the rejoinder which it provoked, concerning the expulsion of the accursed persons, have been related already. It was followed by a second, which ordered Athens to raise the siege of Potidaea, and to respect the independence of Aegina.
On their arrival, the Athenians, afraid that Aristeus, who had been notably the prime mover in the previous affairs of Potidaea and their Thracian possessions, might live to do them still more mischief if he escaped, slew them all the same day, without giving them a trial or hearing the defence which they wished to offer, and cast their bodies into a pit; thinking themselves justified in using in retaliation the same mode of warfare which the Lacedaemonians had begun, when they slew and cast into pits all the Athenian and allied traders whom they caught on board the merchantmen round Peloponnese.
There was another occasion on which his behaviour was very remarkable in the flight of the army after the battle of Delium, where he served among the heavy-armed, I had a better opportunity of seeing him than at Potidaea, for I was myself on horseback, and therefore comparatively out of danger. I particularly observed how superior he was to Laches in presence of mind.
Delay not, therefore, to assist Potidaea, a Dorian city besieged by Ionians, which is quite a reversal of the order of things; nor to assert the freedom of the rest.
Wherefore, Athenians, we must be exceedingly careful of our future measures, that by amendment therein we may efface the shame of the past. Does any one of you, Athenians, compute or consider the means, by which Philip, originally weak, has become great? Having first taken Amphipolis, then Pydna, Potidaea next, Methone afterward, he invaded Thessaly.
The Athenians, unaided by their Allies, abandon Athens, and embark for Salamis. The irresolute and selfish Policy of the Peloponnesians. Dexterity and Firmness of Themistocles. Battle of Salamis. Andros and Carystus besieged by the Greeks. Anecdotes of Themistocles. Honours awarded to him in Sparta. Xerxes returns to Asia. Olynthus and Potidaea besieged by Artabazus. The Athenians return Home.
Meanwhile the Corinthians, with Potidaea in revolt and the Athenian ships on the coast of Macedonia, alarmed for the safety of the place and thinking its danger theirs, sent volunteers from Corinth, and mercenaries from the rest of Peloponnese, to the number of sixteen hundred heavy infantry in all, and four hundred light troops.
Potidaea was presently closely invested by an Athenian army and fleet, and the Corinthians pretended to make this a fresh ground of complaint, though they had themselves incited the city to throw off its allegiance to Athens.
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