Pericles

However that may be, he again turned his attention to the rebels, and after crossing to Euboea with fifty ships of war and five thousand hoplites, he subdued the cities there. Those of the Chalcidians who were styled Hippobotae, or Knights, and who were preeminent for wealth and reputation, he banished from their city, and all the Hestiaeans he removed from the country and settled Athenians in their places, treating them, and them only, thus inexorably, because they had taken an Attic ship captive and slain its crew.

After this, when peace had been made for thirty years between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, be got a decree passed for his expedition to Samos,[*](440 B.C.) alleging against its people that, though they were ordered to break off their war against the Milesians, they were not complying. Now, since it is thought that he proceeded thus against the Samians to gratify Aspasia, this may be a fitting place to raise the query what great art or power this woman had, that she managed as she pleased the foremost men of the state, and afforded the philosophers occasion to discuss her in exalted terms and at great length.