penalty being a stater for each stake. Upon their conviction, the
amount of the penalty being very large, they seated themselves as
suppliants in the temples to be allowed to pay it by instalments;
but Peithias, who was one of the senate, prevailed upon that body to
enforce the law; upon which the accused, rendered desperate by the
law, and also learning that Peithias had the intention, while still
a member of the senate, to persuade the people to conclude a defensive
and offensive alliance with Athens, banded together armed with
daggers, and suddenly bursting into the senate killed Peithias and
sixty others, senators and private persons; some few only of the party
of Peithias taking refuge in the Athenian galley, which had not yet
departed.
After this outrage, the conspirators summoned the Corcyraeans to
an assembly, and said that this would turn out for the best, and would
save them from being enslaved by Athens: for the future, they moved to
receive neither party unless they came peacefully in a single ship,
treating any larger number as enemies. This motion made, they
compelled it to be adopted, and instantly sent off envoys to Athens to
justify what had been done and to dissuade the refugees there from any
hostile proceedings which might lead to a reaction.
Upon the arrival of the embassy, the Athenians arrested the envoys
and all who listened to them, as revolutionists, and lodged them in
Aegina. Meanwhile a Corinthian galley arriving in the island with
Lacedaemonian envoys, the dominant Corcyraean party attacked the
commons and defeated them in battle. Night coming on, the commons took
refuge in the Acropolis and the higher parts of the city, and
concentrated themselves there, having also possession of the Hyllaic
harbour; their adversaries occupying the market-place, where most of
them lived, and the harbour adjoining, looking towards the mainland.
The next day passed in skirmishes of little importance, each party
sending into the country to offer freedom to the slaves and to
invite them to join them. The mass of the slaves answered the appeal
of the commons; their antagonists being reinforced by eight hundred
mercenaries from the continent.
After a day's interval hostilities recommenced, victory remaining
with the commons, who had the advantage in numbers and position, the
women also valiantly assisting them, pelting with tiles from the
houses, and supporting the melee with a fortitude beyond their sex.
Towards dusk, the oligarchs in full rout, fearing that the
victorious commons might assault and carry the arsenal and put them to
the sword, fired the houses round the marketplace and the
lodging-houses, in order to bar their advance; sparing neither their
own, nor those of their neighbours; by which much stuff of the
merchants was consumed and the city risked total destruction, if a
wind had come to help the flame by blowing on it. Hostilities now
ceasing, both sides kept quiet, passing the night on guard, while
the Corinthian ship stole out to sea upon the victory of the
commons, and most of the mercenaries passed over secretly to the
continent.
The next day the Athenian general, Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes,
came up from Naupactus with twelve ships and five hundred Messenian
heavy infantry. He at once endeavoured to bring about a settlement,
and persuaded the two parties to agree together to bring to trial
ten of the ringleaders, who presently fled, while the rest were to
live in peace, making terms with each other, and entering into a
defensive and offensive alliance with the Athenians. This arranged, he
was about to sail away, when the leaders of the commons induced him to
leave them five of his ships to make their adversaries less disposed
to move, while they manned and sent with him an equal number of
their own. He had no sooner consented, than they began to enroll their
enemies for the ships; and these, fearing that they might be sent
off to Athens, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of the
Dioscuri. An attempt on the part of Nicostratus to reassure them and
to persuade them to rise proving unsuccessful, the commons armed