History of the Peloponnesian War

Thus they spoke; and all the host of the Corcyraeans that was within hearing shouted: "Take them and kill them !" But the Athenians made answer as follows: "

We are not beginning war, men of the Peloponnesus, nor are we breaking the treaty, but we have come to aid the Corcyraeans here, who are our allies. If, then, you wish to sail anywhere else, we do not hinder you; but if you ever sail against Corcyra or any place of theirs, we shall not permit it, if we are able to prevent it."

When the Athenians had given this answer the Corinthians began preparations for the voyage homeward and set up a trophy at Sybota on the mainland; and the Corcyraeans took up the wrecks and dead bodies[*](Taking up the dead bodies without asking permission of the enemy indicated that the field was maintained, and was therefore a claim of victory.) that had been carried in their direction by the current and by the wind, which had arisen in the night and scattered them in every direction, and set up, as being the victors, a rival trophy at Sybota on the island. Each side claimed the victory on the following grounds:

The Corinthians set up a trophy because they had prevailed in the sea-fight up to nightfall, and had thus been able to carry off a greater number of wrecks and dead bodies, and because they held as prisoners not less than a thousand men and had disabled about seventy ships; and the Corcyraeans, because they had destroyed about thirty ships, and, after the Athenians came, had taken up the wrecks that came their way and the dead bodies, whereas the Corinthians on the day before had backed water and retreated at sight of the Attic ships, and after the Athenians came would not sail out from Sybota and give battlefor these reasons set up a trophy. So each side claimed the victory.

The Corinthians, as they sailed homeward, took by stratagem Anactorium, which is at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, a place held by the Corcyraeans and themselves in common, and establishing there some Corinthian colonists returned home. Of their Corcyraean prisoners they sold eight hundred who were slaves, but two hundred and fifty they kept in custody and treated them with much consideration, their motive being that when they returned to Corcyra they might win it over to their side;1 and it so happened that most of these were among the most influential men of the city.