History of the Peloponnesian War

with an understanding that if any one were caught running away, the treaty would be void in the case of all.

But the leaders of the popular party at Corcyra, fearing. that the Athenians might not put to death those that were sent to them, contrive the following stratagem.

They persuade some few of the men in the island, by secretly sending friends to them, and instructing them to say, as though with a kind motive, that it was best for them to make their escape as quickly as possible, and that they would themselves get a vessel ready, for that the Athenian generals intended to give them up to the Corcyraean populace.

So when they had persuaded them, and through their own arrangements about the vessel the men were caught sailing away, the treaty was declared void, and the whole party given up to the Corcyraeans.

And the Athenian generals contributed no small share to such a result—that the pretext seemed strictly true, and its contrivers took it in hand more securely—by showing that they would not wish the men to be conveyed to Athens by another party, (they themselves being bound for Sicily,) and so to confer the honour on those who took them there.

When the Corcyraeans had got possession of them, they shut them up in a large building, and afterwards taking them out by twenties, led them through two rows of heavy-armed soldiers posted on each side; the prisoners being bound together, and beaten and stabbed by the men ranged in the lines, wherever any of them happened to see a personal enemy; while men carrying whips went by their side, and hastened on the way those that were proceeding too slowly.