History of the Peloponnesian War

About the same time that these things were in doing, Eurymedon and Sophocles, after their departure from Pylus with the Athenian fleet towards Sicily, arriving at Corcyra, joined with those of the city, and made war upon those Corcyraeans which lay encamped upon the hill Istone, and which after the sedition had come over, and both made themselves masters of the field and much annoyed the city, and having assaulted their fortification, took it.

But the men all in one troop escaped to a certain high ground and thence made their composition, which was this: that they should deliver up the strangers that aided them; and that they themselves, having rendered their arms, should stand to the judgment of the people of Athens.

Hereupon the generals granted them truce and transported them to the island of Ptychia to be there in custody till the Athenians should send for them; with this condition, that if any one of them should be taken running away, then the truce to be broken for them all.

But the patrons of the commons of Corcyra, fearing lest the Athenians would not kill them when they came thither, devise against them this plot.

To some few of those in the island they secretly send their friends and instruct them to say, as if forsooth it were for good will, that it was their best course with all speed to get away; and withal, to offer to provide them of a boat; for that the Athenian commanders intended verily to deliver them to the Corcyraean people.