The English Works of Thomas Hobbes (1839) 2 vols. - Vol. 8 (34 page)

65.
“And for this last injury you charge us with, namely, the unlawful invading of your city in time of peace and of your
new–moon
2
sacrifice, we do not think, no not in this action, that we have offended so much as you yourselves. For though we had done unjustly, if we had assaulted your city or wasted your territory as enemies, of our own accord; yet when the prime men of your own city, both for wealth and nobility, willing to discharge you of foreign league, and conform you to the common institutions
3
of all Bœotia, did of their own accord call us in, wherein lieth the injury then? For they that lead transgress, rather than they that follow. But as we conceive, neither they nor we have transgressed at all. But being citizens as well as you, and having more to hazard, they opened their own gates and took us into the city as friends, not as enemies, with intention to keep the ill–affected from being worse, and to do right to the good: taking upon them to be moderators of your councils; and not to deprive the city of your persons, but to reduce you into one body with the rest of your kindred; and not to engage you in hostility with any, but to settle you in peace with all. 66. And for an argument that we did not this as enemies; we did harm to no man, but proclaimed, that if any man were willing to have the city governed after the
1
common form of all Bœotia, he should come to us. And you came willingly at first, and were quiet
2
. But afterwards, when you knew we were but few, though we might seem to have done somewhat more than was fit to do without the consent of your multitude, you did not by us as we did by you, first innovate nothing in fact, and then with words persuade us to go forth again; but contrary to the composition, assaulted us. And for those men you slew in the affray, we grieve not so much; for they suffered by a kind of law. But to kill those that held up their hands for mercy, whom taken alive you afterwards had promised to spare, was not this a horrible cruelty
3
? You committed in this business three crimes, one in the neck of another; first the breach of the composition, then the death that followed of our men, and thirdly the falsifying of your promise to save them, if we did no hurt to any thing of yours in the fields. And yet you say that we are the transgressors; and that you for your parts deserve not to undergo a judgment. But it is otherwise. And if these men judge aright, you shall be punished now for all your
1
crimes at once.

67.
“We have herein, men of Lacedæmon, been thus large both for your sakes and ours: for yours, to let you see, that if you condemn them, it will be no injustice; for ours, that the equity of our revenge may the better appear. Be
2
not moved with the recital of their virtues of old, if any they had; which though they ought to help the wronged, should double the punishment of such as commit wickedness, because their offence doth not become them. Nor let them fare ever the better for their lamentation or your compassion, when they cry out upon your fathers’ sepulchres and their own want of friends. For we on the other side affirm, that the youth of our city suffered harder measure from them: and their fathers, partly slain at Coroneia in bringing Bœotia to your confederation, and partly alive and now old and deprived of their children, make far juster supplication to you for revenge. And pity belongeth to such as suffer undeservedly; but on the contrary, when men are worthily punished, as these are, it is to be rejoiced at. And for their present want of friends, they may thank themselves. For of their own accord they rejected the better confederates. And the law hath been broken by them, without precedent wrong from us, in that they condemned our men spitefully rather than judicially; in which point we shall now come short of requiting them: for they shall suffer legally, and not, as they say they do, with hands upheld from battle, but as men that have put themselves upon trial by consent. Maintain therefore, ye Lacedæmonians, the law of the Grecians against these men that have transgressed it; and give unto us, that have suffered contrary to the law, the just recompense of our alacrity in your service. And let not the words of these give us a repulse from you; but set up an example to the Grecians, by
1
presenting [unto these men] a trial, not of words, but of facts; which, if they be good, a short narration of them will serve the turn; if ill, compt orations do but veil them. But if such as have the authority, as you have now, would collect the matter to a head, and according as any man should make answer thereunto, so proceed to sentence
2
, men would be less in the search of fair speeches, wherewith to excuse the foulness of their actions.”

68.
Thus spake the Thebans. And the Lacedæmonian judges, conceiving their interrogatory to stand well, namely,
whether they had received any benefit by them or not, in this present war:
for they had indeed
3
intreated them both at other times, according to the ancient league of Pausanias after the Medan war, to stand neutral; and also a little before the siege the Platæans had rejected their proposition, of being common friends to both sides according to the same league: taking themselves
4
, in respect of these their just offers, to be now discharged of the league, and to have received evil at their hands, caused them one by one to be brought forth, and having asked them again the same question,
whether they had any way benefited the Lacedæmonians and their confederates in this present war or not;
as they answered
Not,
led them aside and slew them, not exempting any. Of the Platæans themselves they slew no less than two hundred; of the Athenians who were besieged with them, twenty–five. The women they made slaves; and the Thebans assigned the city for a year, or thereabouts, for a habitation to such Megareans as in sedition had been driven from their own, and to all those Platæans which, living, were of the Theban faction. But afterwards, pulling it all down to the very foundation, they built a hospital
1
in the place, near the temple of Juno, of two hundred foot diameter, with chambers on every side in circle both above and below; using therein the roofs and doors of the Platæans’ buildings. And of the rest of the stuff that was in the city–wall, as brass and iron, they made bedsteads, and dedicated them to Juno; to whom also they built a stone chapel of a hundred foot over. The land they confiscated, and set it to farm afterwards for ten years to the Thebans. So far were the Lacedæmonians alienated from the Platæans, especially, or rather altogether for the Thebans’ sake
2
, whom they thought useful to them in the war now on foot. So ended the business at Platæa, in the fourscore and thirteenth year after their league made with the Athenians.

69.
The forty galleys of Peloponnesus, which having been sent to aid the Lesbians fled, as hath been related, through the wide sea, chased by the Athenians and tossed by storms on the coast of Crete, came thence dispersed into Peloponnesus: and found thirteen galleys, Leucadians and Ambraciotes, in the haven of Cyllene, with Brasidas the son of Tellis, come hither to be of council with Alcidas. For the Lacedæmonians, seeing they failed of Lesbos, determined with their fleet augmented to sail to Corcyra, which was in sedition; (there being but twelve Athenian galleys about Naupactus); to the end they might be there before the supply of a greater fleet should come from Athens. So Brasidas and Alcidas employed themselves in that.

70.
The sedition in Corcyra began upon the coming home of those captives, which were taken in the battles by sea at Epidamnus, and released afterwards by the Corinthians, at the ransom, as was voiced, of eighty talents
1
, for which they had given security to their hosts; but in fact, for that they had persuaded the Corinthians, that they would put Corcyra into their power. These men going from man to man, solicited
1
the city to revolt from the Athenians. And two galleys being now come in, one of Athens, another of Corinth, with ambassadors from both those states, the Corcyræans upon audience of them both, decreed to hold the Athenians for their confederates on
2
articles agreed on; but withal to remain friends to the Peloponnesians, as they had formerly been. There was one Peithias, voluntary host
3
of the Athenians, and that had been principal magistrate of the people. Him these men called into judgment, and laid to his charge a practice to bring the city into the servitude of the Athenians. He again, being acquit, called in question five of the wealthiest of the same men, saying, they had cut certain stakes
4
in the ground belonging to the temples both of Jupiter and of Alcinus; upon every of which there lay a penalty of a stater
1
. And the cause going against them, they took sanctuary in the temples, to the end, the sum being great, they might pay it by portions [as they should be taxed]. But Peithias (for he was also of the senate) obtained that the law should proceed. These five being by the law excluded the senate
2
, and understanding that Peithias, as long as he was a senator, would cause the people to hold for friends and foes the same that were so to the Athenians, conspired with the rest
3
, and armed with daggers suddenly brake into the senate–house, and slew both Peithias and others, as well private men as senators, to the number of about sixty persons; only a few of those of Peithias his faction, escaped in the Athenian galley that lay yet in the harbour. 71. When they had done this, and called the Corcyræans to an assembly, they told them, that what they had done was for the best, and that they should not be now in bondage to the Athenians: and for the future they advised them to be in quiet, and to receive neither party with more than one galley at once, and to take them for enemies if they were more. And when they had spoken, forced them to decree it accordingly. They also presently sent ambassadors to Athens, both to show that it was fit for them to do
4
what they had done, and also to dissuade such Corcyræans as were fled thither of the other faction, from doing any thing to their prejudice, for fear the matter should fall into a relapse.

72.
When these arrived, the Athenians apprehended both the ambassadors themselves, as seditious persons, and also all those Corcyræans whom they had there prevailed with; and sent them to custody in Ægina. In the meantime, upon the coming in of a galley of Corinth with ambassadors from Lacedæmon, those that managed the state assailed the commons, and overcame them in fight. And night coming on, the commons fled into the citadel and the higher parts of the city; where they rallied themselves and encamped, and made themselves masters of the haven called the Hillaique haven. But the nobility seized on the marketplace, (where also the most of them dwelt), and on the haven on the side toward the continent
1
. 73. The next day they skirmished a little with shot; and both parts sent abroad into the villages
2
to solicit the slaves with promise of liberty, to take their parts. And the greatest part of the slaves took part with the commons; and the other side had an aid of eight hundred men from the continent. 74. The next day but one they fought again, and the people had the victory, having the odds both in strength of places and in number of men. And the women also manfully assisted them, throwing tiles from the houses, and enduring the tumult even beyond the condition of their sex. The
few
began to fly about twilight
3
, and fearing lest the people should even with their shout
1
take the arsenal, and so come on and put them to the sword, to stop their passage set fire on the houses in circle about the market–place and upon others near it. Much goods of merchants was hereby burnt, and the whole city, if the wind had risen and carried the flame that way, had been in danger to have been destroyed. When the people had gotten the victory, the Corinthian galley stole away; and most of the auxiliaries gat over privily into the continent.

75.
The next day Nicostratus, the son of Diitrephes, an Athenian commander, came in with twelve galleys and five hundred Messenian men of arms from Naupactus; and both negociated a reconciliation, and induced them (to the end they might agree) to condemn ten of the principal authors of the sedition, (who presently fled), and to let the rest alone, with articles both between themselves and with the Athenians, to esteem friends and enemies the same the Athenians did. When he had done this, he would have been gone; but the
2
people persuaded him before he went, to leave behind him five of his galleys, the better to keep their adversaries from stirring, and to take as many of theirs, which they would man with Corcyræans and send with him. To this he agreed; and they made a list of those that should embark, consisting altogether of their enemies
1
. But these, fearing to be sent to Athens, took sanctuary in the temple of Castor and Pollux. But Nicostratus endeavoured to raise them, and spake to them to put them into courage
2
. But when he could not prevail, the people, arming themselves, on pretence that their diffidence to go along with Nicostratus proceeded from some evil intention, took away their arms out of their houses; and would also have killed some of them such as they chanced on, if Nicostratus had not hindered them. Others also when they saw this, took sanctuary in the temple of Juno; and they were in all above four hundred. But the people fearing some innovation, got them by persuasion to rise: and conveying them into the island that lieth over against the temple of Juno, sent them their necessaries thither.