History of the Peloponnesian War

On the next day they were no more inclined to attack the city, though the inhabitants were in a state of great confusion and fear, and though Brasidas, it is said, urged Alcidas to do so, but did not have equal authority with him. Instead, they merely landed on the promontory of Leucimne and ravaged the fields.

Meanwhile the people of Corcyra, becoming alarmed lest the ships should attack them, conferred with the suppliants and also with the other members of the opposite faction on the best means of saving the city. And some of them they persuaded to go on board the ships; for in spite of all the Corcyraeans had manned thirty ships.

But the Peloponnesians, after ravaging the land till midday, sailed away, and toward night a signal was flashed to them that sixty Athenian ships were approaching from Leucas. These ships had been sent by the Athenians, under the command of Eurymedon son of Thucles, when they learned of the revolution at Corcyra and that the fleet under Alcidas was about to sail thither.

The Peloponnesians accordingly set sail that very night for home, going with all speed and keeping close to the shore; and hauling their ships across the Leucadian isthmus,[*](This isthmus was the ἀκτὴ ἠπείρου of Homer (ω 378), now Santa Maura, the neck of land, about three stadia in width, joining Leucas with the mainland.) in order to avoid being seen, as they would be if they sailed around, they got away.

Now the Corcyraeans had no sooner perceived that the Athenian fleet was approaching and that the enemy's fleet had gone than they secretly brought the Messenians,[*](The 500 whom Nicostratus had bought, the object being doubtless merely the intimidation of the oligarchs.) who had till then been outside the walls, into the city, and ordered the ships which they had manned to sail round into the Hyllaic harbour[*](The object was that the oligarchs on them might be cut off from their friends in the neighbourhood of the agora and in the temple of Hera.); then while these were on their way thither they slew any of their personal enemies whom they could lay hands upon. They also put ashore and despatched all those on board the ships whom they had persuaded to go aboard, then went into the temple of Hera, persuaded about fifty of the suppliants there to submit to trial, and condemned them all to death.

But most of the suppliants, not having consented to be tried, when they saw what was happening set about destroying one another in the sacred precinct itself, while a few hanged themselves on trees, and still others made away with themselves as best they could.

And during the seven days that Eurymedon, after his arrival, stayed there with his sixty ships, the Corcyraeans continued slaughtering such of their fellow-citizens as they considered to be their personal enemies. The charge they brought was of conspiring to overthrow the democracy, but some were in fact put to death merely to satisfy private enmity, and others, because money was owing to them, were slain by those who had borrowed it.

Death in every form ensued, and whatever horrors are wont to be perpetrated at such times all happened then—aye, and even worse. For father slew son, men were dragged from the temples and slain near them, and some were even walled up in the temple of Dionysus and perished there.