History of the Peloponnesian War

for some little time, however, they nevertheless did hold their own, but afterwards turned to flight and were pursued to shore. And such of them as took refuge in the city of Eretria, assuming that it was friendly, suffered a most cruel fate, being butchered by the inhabitants; but those who escaped to the fort in Eretrian territory which the Athenians themselves held were saved, as also all the ships that reached Chalcis.

The Peloponnesians, having captured twenty-two Athenian ships and having either slain or taken prisoner their crews, set up a trophy. And not long afterwards they succeeded in persuading all Euboea to revolt except Oreus, which the Athenians themselves held, and proceeded to set in order the general affairs of the island.

When the report of what had happened in Euboea reached Athens, there was greater consternation than ever before. For neither the disaster in Sicily, great though it seemed at the time, nor any other event had ever yet so frightened them.

At a time when their army at Samos was in revolt, when there were no more ships to be had nor men to man them, when they were in a state of sedition at home and there was no telling when a conflict might break out among themselves, when, to crown all, a disaster had now come upon them of this magnitude, in which they had lost both their fleet and, worst of all, Euboea, from which they derived more benefit than from Attica—had they not every reason to be despondent?

But what alarmed them most and touched them most nearly was the possibility that the enemy, now victorious, might dare to make straight for Athens and attack the Peiraeus, which was now without ships to defend it; and they believed that they were all but there already.

And indeed, if they had been more bold, the enemy could readily have done this very thing, and they would either, by setting up a blockade, have caused the city to be still more torn by factions, or else, if they had remained and laid siege to it, would have compelled the fleet in Ionia, though hostile to the oligarchy, to come to the rescue of their own relatives and of the city as a whole; and thereby the Hellespont would have been theirs, and Ionia, and the islands, and everything as far as Euboea— indeed almost the whole empire of the Athenians.

But it was not on this occasion only that the Lacedaemonians proved the most convenient people in the world for the Athenians to make war upon, but on many others also. For being widely different in character—the one people being quick, the other slow; the one adventurous, the other timorous—it was especially in the case of a naval power that they were most helpful. And the Syracusans proved this; for it was because they were most similar in character to the Athenians[*](cf. 7.55.2, where the same reason for the success of the Syracusans is given.) that they made war upon them most successfully.

However this may be, after the announcement of their defeat the Athenians, in spite of their difficulties, manned twenty ships, and also called meetings of the assembly—one immediately, which was called to meet on that occasion for the first time in the place called Pnyx, where at other times also they had been wont to meet.[*](ie. this was the first recognition of the Pnyx as once more the true seat of the assembly. The last assembly which had formally met had been held at Colonus (8.67.2); one appointed, but not held, was to have met at the theatre of Dionysus (8.93.3).) At this meeting they deposed the Four Hundred, voted to deliver the management of affairs to the Five Thousand (and all who could furnish themselves with a hoplite's outfit were to belong to this number), and decided that no one was to receive pay for any office, the offender to be accounted accursed.

Other meetings also were held later, at frequent intervals, as a result of which they appointed supervisors of the laws[*](The νομοθέται were a committee of jurors (ἡλιασταὶ) to whom ambiguities and contradictions in the laws, as well as proposed changes in them, were referred by the Senate.) and voted the other measures pertaining to their form of government. And during the first period the Athenians appear to have enjoyed the best government they ever had, at least in my time; for there was a moderate blending of the few and the many, and this it was that first caused the state to recover from the wretched plight into which it had fallen.

And they also voted to recall Alcibiades and others with him; and sending envoys both to him and to the army at Samos, they urged them to take a hand in their affairs.

At this change the party of Peisander and Alexicles and all the leading supporters of the oligarchy at once secretly left the city and went to Deceleia; but Aristarchus, alone of these, since he chanced to be a general, hastily took some bowmen of the most barbarous sort[*](The τοξόται in question are the police or city-guard of slaves, mostly drawn from Scythia (hence βαρβαροι). See Boeckh, Oecon. i. 276-278.) and proceeded to Oenoe.