Appendix: Analysis of Book 2

Ch. 1 Preface to the Ten Years' War.

Ch. 2-6 The ban attempt on Plataea, April 431 B.C. The Thebans surprised the town while the Peloponnesians were preparing to invade Attica. They offered to accept Plataea as an ally; which offer the Plataeans in their terror were about to accept. But, on noticing that the Thebans were few in number, they decided to attack them; and of the Thebans some were killed and the rest were captured while searching in vain for the gates of the town. Hereupon a large force arrived from Thebes, and the Plataeans expostulated with them, promising on their partso the Thebans saidthat they would release the prisoners if their land were left unharmed. But, when the Thebans departed, the prisoners were put to death. Then the Athenians sent troops and supplies to Plataea, and the women, children, and old men were removed from the town to Athens.

Ch. 7-9 The preparations and the feelings of both sides. The Peloponnesians formed a prodigious scheme for a huge navy, but nothing came of it all. (Λέων ἐγέλασεν ἐνταῦθα.) The Athenians made a special point of securing the friendship of the N.W. islands. The usual prophecies were whispered: the usual portents were reported. Sparta's catch-word was Freedom: Athens cried Empire. Therefore all to whom the choice of sides lay open chose Sparta. But the islands and coast-towns of Asia and of the North-West were bound to support Athens; and Plataea, Naupactus, and the Acarnanians, except those of Astacus and Oeniadae, were indebted to her for benefits received.

Ch. 10-12 The Lacedaemonians muster at the Isthmus preparatory to invading Attica. There Archidamus the Spartan king harangued them in a speech which exemplifies the [p. 241] habitual caution and hesitancy of the Spartans in their undertakings outside the Peloponnese. The despatch of a Spartan to ascertain the temper of the Athenians produced nothing more than an aphorism from the messenger.

Ch. 13 Notes of speeches made by Pericles in the assembly when the first invasion was imminent. He stated the grounds of his confidence that Athens was a match for Sparta.

Ch. 14-16 The Athenians, following the advice of Pericles, conveyed their goods from the country into the city. But the move was irksome to all those who had been brought up in the country. (Antiquarian digression on early Attica.)

Ch. 18-22 Opening of the campaign of 431 B.C. The first invasion of Attica was desultory and ill-planned. Archidamus delayed at Oenoe in the hope that Athens would be terrified into submission by the great numbers of his army. But the Athenians were more discontented with Pericles than afraid of Archidamus. The king, being repulsed in an attempt ou Oenoe, made his way to Acharnae, where he again tarried, hoping to entice the enemy ont to battle. And the enemy would have been enticed to battle had not Pericles persistently withstood their clamour. He only sent out a squadron or two of horse to protect the country in the immediate neighbourhood of the city.

Ch. 23-26 But, in the meanwhile, Carcinas and Proteas and Socrates sailed from Piraeus with a fleet of one hundred sail, and made descents on the coasts of the Peloponnese. An attack on Methone was repulsed by Brasidas. Simultaneously Cleopompos, in command of a fleet of thirty ships, made a successful expedition to the coast of the Opuntian Locrians. When Archidamus had left Attica, the Athenians formed a reserve fund of one thousand talents and a reserve fleet of one hundred vessels.

Ch. 27 In the same summer the Athenians appropriated Aegina.

Ch. 28 On the 3rd of August there was an eclipse of the sun, which was considered remarkable by those who did not know Anaxagoras.

Ch. 29 Formation of an alliance between Athens and Sitalces of Thrace, and reconciliation of Athens and Perdiccas of Macedon. Sitalces promised to aid the Athenians in the reduction of Chalcidice.

Ch. 30-31 After their failure at Methone, Carcinus and his colleagues made a highly successful expedition to Acarnania and Cephallenia. They expelled Euarchus, tyrant of Astacus, and gained Cephallenia for Athens. On the homeward voyage, [p. 242] they learnt that Pericles had invaded the Megarid with the whole of the Athenian forces. Similar expeditions were undertaken annually (sometimes twice a year, in the spring and autumn, IV. 66) until 424 B. C., when Nisaea was captured.

Ch. 32 In the late autumn, the Athenians fortified Atalanta to protect Euboea from Locrian pirates.

Ch. 33 When the Athenian fleet had left Acarnania, Euarchus recovered Astacus with help from Corinth.

Ch. 34 At the close of the campaign the Athenians buried the bones of their dead with much ceremony in the Ceramicus. And every year this ceremony was repeated: for this was a custom of the Athenians. The funeral oration was delivered this year by Pericles himself.

Ch. 35-46 The historian's report of the speech delivered by Pericles. The general introduction is followed by a special introduction to the first and most important part of the body of the speech; that is to say, to that part which contains a description of the ideal Athens and of the ideal Athenian, Athens and the Athenians as Pericles desire them to be, and as, in his view, they might benay, as they almost were. Athens is a liberal education to Greece, and even her enemies admit her greatness. (c. 41.) The Athenian is versatile and patriotic, able to live in any land, yet loving his own above all others. It is this ideal. this true Athens that the citizens must keep before their minds. They must love their city, (ἐρασταὶ γιγνόμενοι αὐτῆς) as Plato says¹ philosophers are lovers of the ideal and the true (ἐρασταὶ τοῦ ὄντος τε καὶ ἀληθείας): must be her true philosopher-citizens, learning their lesson of self-devotion from the pattern of Greece. Then they would prove to the world that Athenian versatility (εὐτραπελία) meant something more than the mere cunning which the Thebans associated with that quality, that the Athenian character was as far above the Spartan as the Athenian ideal of ἐλευθερία was above the Spartan ideal of εὐνομία. Next the orator praised the fallen, exhorted his hearers to be like them, and bade the relatives not to weep for those who had brought them to such great honour by one glorious act never to be forgotten.

The oration closed with a short peroration remarkable for its calm dignity and unaffected simplicity.

Ch. 47 Opening of the campaign of 430 B.C. The second invasion of Attica had but begun when a mysterious epidemic [p. 243] broke out in Athens. No medicine, no prayers, no voices of oracles availed, so that men at last gave them up as useless.

Ch. 48-54 History of the origin of the epidemic; of its symptoms and effects; of its influence on morality.

It seems that it broke out in Ethiopia, and passed thence to the Persian Empire. Anyhow, it appeared quite suddenly in Piraeus, and thence made its way to the crowded city. The historian promises to relate what he had himself suffered and had observed in others.

There were three stages in the disease, which followed one another with such rapidity that the crisis came generally in a week or nine days. Many who survived the crisis died subsequently from exhaustion. Others were disabled for a time or permanently. Even birds of prey and beasts shrank from the tainted flesh of the dead: no eagles gathered there. The doctors could discover no satisfactory treatment, and no natural strength made any man proof against the infection. But worse than all the bodily suffering was the mental depression that accompanied the disease Relatives neglected to tend their sick and to mourn their dead. But so much the more readily, when natural ties were forgotten, did good friends sacrifice themselves; and many generous men thus lost their lives. While the epidemic raged there was very little other sickness in the city: and those who once recovered were not liable to another attack; at any rate, a second attack was never serious. In the general panic, the ceremonies of religion and the decencies of burial were disregarded.

While the love of many grew cold, wickedness increased. For hope and fear were fled, and men gave themselves up to the pleasures of the moment, feeling that there was no future. The old people called to mind an oracular saying heard in their youth; but, though it seemed to apply to the present, they could not agree about one of the words.

Ch. 55-57 While Archidamus was ravaging Attica, Pericles left Athens with a fleet of one hundred ships to ravage the coasts of the Peloponnese. An attack on Epidaurus failed. The enemy retired from Attica where they had been for forty days. This proved to be the longest of all the invasions of Attica, though it was said that it would have lasted still longer had not the Peloponnesians feared the epidemic, which had scarcely been felt in the Peloponnese.

Ch. 58-59 When Pericles returned, the fleet was sent to Potidaea under Hagnon. The only result was that the army already before the town caught the epidemic from the newlyarrived troops, so that Hagnon returned after losing many men [p. 244] owing to the disease. At Athens the discontent caused by the invasion and the plague together was so serious that Pericles called a special assembly and delivered an oration in defence of himself and his policy.

Ch. 60-64 Version by Thucydides of the speech then de- livered. Pericles upbraided his hearers for falling so very far short of the ideal he had set before them. Instead of being ready to sacrifice themselves for their city they had made overtures for peace to Sparta. And what was the use of blaming him for misfortunes sent by Providence?

Ch. 65 Great as was the effect produced by the speech, the Athenians nevertheless did not rest satisfied until they had fined Pericles. Then follows a notice of the statesman's death, and an account of his character and policy.

Ch. 66-67 Two Lacedaemonian failures narrated. An expedi- tion against Zacynthus produced no result, and ambassadors from the Peloponnese to the Great King fell into the hands of the Athenians. having been arrested by Sadocus, son of Sitalces, while passing through Thrace. Among them was the notorious Corinthian Aristeus. They were put to death at Athens without a trial.

Ch. 68 In the autumn the Ambraciots, enemies of Athens, attacked the Amphilocian Argos, but were unable to take it. The historian narrates the origin and earlier history of this Argos.

Ch. 69-70 During the winter, Phormio was sent from Athens with twenty ships to Naupactus to command the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth. About the same time Melesandrus, an Athenian general, was defeated and killed in Lycia. Potidaea surrendered on terms which the Athenians at home considered unnecessarily favourable.

Ch. 71-78 Opening of the campaign of 429 B.C. Instead of invading Attica, Archidamus attacked Plataea. After unsuccessful negotiations with the Plataeans and a solemn appeal to heaven, the king attempted to carry a mound to the top of the walls, but the Plataeans first built on to their wall opposite the mound, and then successfully undermined the enemy's work. Then they built a new wall in towards the city, concave to the old wall where they had raised its height, their object being to take the enemy between a cross-fire in case they gained the raised wall. Then the enemy used batteringrams, but the Plataeans broke them by letting down huge beams upon them. Next Archidamus tried to burn the town. As the attempt failed he was forced to blockade Plataea, which contained four hundred and eighty men and one hundred [p. 245] and ten women. The rest of the inhabitants had been sent to Athens, which had promised to send aid to Plataca and had encouraged it to hold out.

Ch. 79 An Athenian expeditionary force sent to subdue Chalcidice is defeated, and three generals killed, near Spartolus.

Ch. 80-82 Mean while a combined expedition of Lacedae- monians, Ambraciots, and barbarians was planned against Acarnania. The main body of the fleet was still preparing, when Cnemus, the Spartan admiral, started from Leucadia for Stratus. Near that city the barbarians were completely defeated, and Cnemus retreated to Oeniadae.

Ch. 83-84 At almost the same time the main body of the fleet, consisting of forty-seven vessels, was intercepted by Phormio while on its way to Acarnania. In an engagement fought soon after day-break, the Peloponnesians were utterly defeated, and pursued to Patrae.

Ch. 85-86 When the news of the defeat reached Sparta, the ephors sent out three commissioners, one of whom was Brasidas, to advise Cnemus; for they were indignant at the result of this the first great naval battle of the war. The commissioners had orders to bring on a new battle, and a better one. On their arrival both sides then sent for reinforcements. Twenty ships were sent from Athens, but were ordered to go first to Crete, where they were delayed by bad weather. The Peloponnesians, having seventy-seven ships, were anxious to bring on a battle before any reinforcements reached Phormio.

Ch. 87-89 The commanders of both sides harangued their troops before the engagement. The Peloponnesians excused the former defeat, and pointed out that their side was superior both in courage and in numbers. On the other hand, Phormio declared that it was fear which made the enemy bring a fleet of seventy-seven to fight a fleet of twenty ships; and the boldness of the Athenians in accepting battle with so small a force filled the enemy, they might be sure, with astonishment and apprehension.

Ch. 90-92 A detailed and admirably perspicuous account of the battle in the Gulf. The Peloponnesians were defeated by superior seamanship. One of the Spartan commissioners committed suicide when his ship was disabled at the crisis of the battle. Phormio returned to Naupactus where he was joined by the twenty ships from Crete. The main body of the Peloponnesians, under Cnemus and Brasidas, returned to Corinth. [p. 246]

Ch. 93-94 There, on the suggestion of the Megarians, they planned a night attack on the Piraeus. But their courage failed them at the last minute, so they plundered Salamis instead. The Athenians were at first greatly alarmed, but a fleet was sent out at dawn, and the Peloponnesians retired in haste to Nisaea. Then the Piraeus was made a closed harbour as a precaution against surprises.

Ch. 95-101 Expedition of Sitalces against Perdiccas of Mace- don and the Chalcidians. Perdiccas had deceived him, and he had made a promise to Athens that he would help to restore order in Chalcidice. The Athenians had promised to send a large force to help him; but, feeling doubts about his sincerity, only sent commissioners bearing presents. However, Sitalces crossed the Balkans with a vast, but very miscellaneous force. Thucydides gives an account of the kingdom. revenues, and empire of the Odrysae, and of the rise of the Macedonian monarchy. The forces of Perdiccas were quite insufficient to withstand Sitalces, at whose approach even the Greeks trembled as far south as Thermopylae, and made ready their arms. But the Athenian force did not come, and provisions ran short: so, after ravaging Chalcidice, Bottice, and Macedonia, he acceded to his nephew's suggestion that he should depart. His nephew Seuthes obtained the sister of Perdiccas in marriage as a return for his mediation.