History of the Peloponnesian War

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.

When they were persuaded to do so and that a boat was treacherously prepared, as they rowed away they were taken; and the truce being now broken, were all given up into the hands of the Corcyraeans.

It did much further this plot, that to make the pretext seem more serious and the agents in it less fearful, the Athenian generals gave out that they were nothing pleased that the men should be carried home by others, whilst they themselves were to go into Sicily, and the honour of it be ascribed to those that should convoy them.

The Corcyraeans, having received them into their hands, imprisoned them in a certain edifice, from whence afterwards they took them out by twenty at a time and made them pass through a lane of men of arms, bound together and receiving strokes and thrusts from those on either side, according as any one espied his enemy. And to hasten the pace of those that went slowliest on, others were set to follow them with whips.