History of the Peloponnesian War

and when they had arrived by night, and launched the vessels from Nisaea, they sailed, not against Athens as they had intended, for they were afraid of the risk, ( [*](τις is here used, I think, with that signification of contempt which it sometimes conveys; to mark the writer's utter disbelief of the report alluded to.) some wind or other was also said to have prevented them,) but to the headland of Salamis looking towards Megara; where there was a fort, and a guard of three ships to prevent any thing from being taken in or out of Megara. So they assaulted the fort, and towed off the triremes empty; and making a sudden attack on the rest of Salamis, they laid it waste.

Now fire-signals of an enemy's approach were raised towards Athens, and a consternation was caused by them not exceeded by any during the whole war. For those in the city imagined that the enemy had already sailed into Piraeus; while those in Piraeus thought that Salamis had been taken, and that they were all but sailing into their harbours: which indeed, if they would but have not been afraid of it, might easily have been done; and it was not a wind that would have prevented it.

But at day-break the Athenians went all in a body to Piraeus to resist the enemy; and launched their ships, and going on board with haste and much uproar, sailed with the fleet to Salamis, while with their land-forces they mounted guard at Piraeus.

When the Peloponnesians saw them coming to the rescue, after overrunning the greater part of Salamis, and taking both men and booty, and the three ships from the port of Budorum, they sailed for Nisaea as quickly as they could; for their vessels too caused them some alarm, as they had been launched after lying idle a long time, and were not at all water-tight. On their arrival at Megara they returned again to Corinth by land.

When the Athenians found them no longer on the coast of Salamis, they also sailed back; and after this alarm they paid more attention in future to the safety of Piraeus, both by closing the harbours, and by all other precautions.

About the same period, in the beginning of this winter, Sitalces son of Teres, the king of the Odrysian Thracians, made an expedition against Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and the Thrace-ward Chalcidians; of two promises wishing to enforce the one, and himself to perform the other.