History of the Peloponnesian War

The Corcyraeans had been in a state of revolution ever since the home-coming of the captives who had been taken in the two sea-fights off Epidamnus[*](cf. 1.47.-1.55) and had been released by the Corinthians. They had nominally been set free on bail in the sum of eight hundred talents[*](£160,000, $776,000.) pledged by their proxeni, but in fact they had been bribed to bring Corcyra over to the Corinthian side.

And these men had been going from citizen to citizen and intriguing with them, with a view to inducing the city to revolt from Athens. And on the arrival of an Attic and Corinthian ship bringing envoys, and after the envoys had held conferences with them, the Corcyraeans voted to continue to be allies to the Athenians according to their agreement,[*](The agreement was for a defensive alliance (ἐπιμαχία); cf. 1.44.1.) but on the other hand to renew their former friendship with the Peloponnesians.

Thereupon the returned prisoners brought Peithias, a volunteer proxenus of the Athenians and leader of the popular party, to trial, charging him with trying to bring Corcyra into servitude to Athens.

But he, being acquitted, brought suits in turn against the five wealthiest men of their number, alleging that they were cutting vine-poles from the sacred precincts of Zeus and Alcinous, an offence for which a fine of a stater[*](If of gold, about 16s.; if the silver Athenian stater, about 2s. 8d.; if the silver Corinthian stater, about 1s. 4d.) for each stake was fixed by law.

When they had been convicted and because of the excessive amount of the fine took refuge at the temples as suppliants, that they might arrange for the payment of the fine by instalments, Peithias persuaded the senate, of which he was also a member, to let the law take its course.

The condemned men, seeing that they were debarred by the law from carrying out their proposal and at the same time learning that Peithias, so long as he continued to be a member of the senate, would persist in his attempt to persuade the populace to conclude an offensive and defensive alliance with the Athenians, banded together and suddenly rushing into the senate with daggers in their hands killed Peithias and others, both senators and private persons, to the number of sixty. A few, however, who held the same political views as Peithias, took refuge in the Attic trireme that was still in the harbour.