Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/197

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war began with an attack upon Plataea by the Thebans B.C. 431. The three hundred Thebans who surprised the town were overpowered and killed. But the Plataeans knew that this would lead to their being besieged, and obtained a reinforcement for their garrison from Athens. The siege went on till B.C. 427. That was one point of permanent war; but the Peloponnesian forces did not join the Thebans in the siege till the beginning of B.C. 429. Meanwhile Athens was engaged at two points, first in the siege of Potidaea, which did not surrender till the autumn of B.C. 430; and secondly, in sustaining invasions of their own territory. These invasions were regularly repeated in B.C. 431, 430, 428, 427. In B.C. 429 and 426 they were omitted, in the former, owing to the Spartans being engaged at Plataea, in the latter owing to earthquakes. The policy recommended by Pericles in regard to these invasions was for the people to remove into the city with all they could bring with them and leave the invaders to do their worst with the country. Meanwhile the Athenian fleets were to harry the coasts of the Peloponnese, and carry the arms of Athens into Western Greece and the Islands of the Ionian Sea. Thus in B.C. 431 Cephallenia was reduced, and in B.C. 429 Acarnania was successfully defended against a combined attack of Peloponnesians and Ambraciots. In this same year Phormio twice defeated the Peloponnesian fleet, which in the second battle