History of the Peloponnesian War

Thus the course of life being at that time thrown into confusion in the city, human nature, which is wont to do wrong even in spite of the laws, having then got the mastery of the law, gladly showed itself to be unrestrained in passion, above reward for justice, and an enemy to all superiority. They would not else have preferred vengeance to region, and gain to innocence; in which state envy would have had no power to hurt them.

And so men presume in their acts of vengeance to be the first to violate those common laws on such questions, from which all have a hope secured to them of being themselves rescued from misfortune; and they will not allow them to remain, in case of any one's ever being in danger and in need of some of them.

Such then were the passions which the Corcyraeans in the city indulged towards one another, being the first that did so. And Eurymedon and the Athenians sailed away with their ships;

after which the Corcyraean exiles, (for five hundred of them had escaped,) having taken some forts that were on the mainland, were masters of their own territory on the opposite coast, and sallying forth from it, plundered those in the island, and did them much damage, a violent famine being produced in the city. They also sent embassies to Lacedaemon and Corinth about their restoration.

When they met with no success, they afterwards got some boats and auxiliaries and crossed over to the island, to the number of six hundred in all; and having burnt their boats, that they might have no hope from any thing but the command of the country, they went up to the hill Istone, and after building a fort on it, began to annoy those in the city, and were in the mean time masters of the country.