History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Hobbes, Thomas. translator. London: John Bohn, 1843.

And this number on both sides, against Sicily and for it, some to help win and some to help save it, came to the war at Syracuse, not on any pretence of right nor as kindred to aid kindred, but as profit or necessity severally chanced to induce them. The Athenians, being Ionic, went against the Syracusians, that be Doric, voluntarily.

With these, as being their colonies, went the Lemnians and Imbrians, and the Aeginetae that dwelt in Aegina then, all of the same language and institutions with themselves; also the Hestiaeans of Euboea. Of the rest, some went with them as their subjects and some as their free confederates and some also hired.

Subjects and tributaries: as the Eretrians, Chalcideans, Styrians, and Carystians, from Euboea; Ceians, Andrians, Tenians, from out of the islands; Milesians, Samians, and Chians, from Ionia.

Of these the Chians followed them as free, not as tributaries of money, but of galleys. And these were almost all of them Ionians, descended from the Athenians, except only the Carystians, that are of the nation of the Dryopes. And though they were subjects and went upon constraint, yet they were Ionians against Dorians. Besides these there went with them Aeolians, namely, the Methymnaeans, subjects to Athens, not tributaries of money but of galleys; and the Tenedians and Aenians, tributaries. Now here, Aeolians were constrained to fight against Aeolians, namely, against their founders the Boeotians, that took part with the Syracusians.

But the Plataeans, and only they, being Boeotians, fought against Boeotians upon just quarrel. The Rhodians and Cythereans, Doric both, by constraint bore arms; one of them, namely the Cythereans, a colony of the Lacedaemonians, with the Athenians against the Lacedaemonians that were with Gylippus;

and the other, that is to say, the Rhodians, being by descent Argives, not only against the Syracusians, who were also Doric, but against their own colony, the Geloans, which took part with the Syracusians. Then of the islanders about Peloponnesus, there went with them the Cephallenians and Zacynthians, not but that they were free states, but because they were kept in awe as islanders by the Athenians, who were masters of the sea.

And the Corcyraeans, being not only Doric but Corinthians, fought openly against both Corinthians and Syracusians, though a colony of the one and of kin to the other, which they did necessarily (to make the best of it), but indeed no less willingly, in respect of their hatred to the Corinthians. Also the Messenians, now so called, in Naupactus, were taken along to this war, and the Messenians at Pylus, then holden by the Athenians.

Moreover the Megarean outlaws, though not many, by advantage taken of their misery, were fain to fight against the Selinuntians that were Megareans likewise. But now the rest of their army was rather voluntary.

The Argives not so much for the league as for their enmity against the Lacedaemonians and their present particular spleen, followed the Athenians to the war, though Ionic, against Dorians. And the Mantineans and other Arcadian mercenaries went with them as men accustomer ever to invade the enemy shewed them; and now for gain had for enemies, as much as any, those other Arcadians which went thither with the Corinthians. The Cretans and Aetolians were all mercenary; and it fell out that the Cretans, who together with the Rhodians were founders of Gela, not only took not part with their colony, but fought against it willingly for their hire. And some Acarnanians also went with them for gain;

but most of them went as confederates, in love to Demosthenes and for good will to the state of Athens. And thus many within the bound of the Ionian gulf.

Then of Italians, fallen into the same necessity of seditious times, there went with them to this war the Thurians and Metapontians; of Greek Sicilians, the Naxians and Catanaeans. Of barbarian, the Egestaeans, who also drew with them the most of those Greek Sicilians. Without Sicily, there went with them some Tuscans, upon quarrels between them and the Syracusians, and some Iapygian mercenaries. These were the nations that followed the army of the Athenians.