Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/158

 136 HISTORY OF GREECE. thirty more triremes, under Kleopompus, were sent through the Euripus to the Lokrian coast opposite to the northern part of Euboea. Some disembarkations were made, whereby the Lokrian towns of Thronium and Alope were sacked, and farther devas- tation inflicted : while a permanent garrison was planted, and a fortified post erected, in the uninhabited island of Atalanta, op- posite to the Lokrian coast, in order to restrain privateers from Opus and the other Lokrian towns in their excursions against Euboea. 1 It was farther determined to expel the .^Eginetan inhabitants from ^Egina, and to occupy the island with Athenian colonists. This step was partly rendered prudent by the impor- tant position of the island midway between Attica and Pelopon- nesus ; but a concurrent motive, and probably the stronger motive, was the gratification of ancient antipathy and revenge against a people who had been among the foremost in provoking the war and in inflicting upon Athens so much suffering. The -ZEgine- tans with their wives and children were all put on shipboard and landed in Peloponnesus, where the Spartans permitted them to occupy the maritime district and town of Thyrea, their last frontier towards Argos : some of them, however, found shelter in other parts of Greece. The island was made over to a detach- ment of Athenian kleruchs, or citizen proprietors, sent thither by lot.2 To the sufferings of the JEginetans, which we shall hereafter find still more deplorably aggravated, we have to add those of the Megarians. Both had been most zealous in kindling the war, but upon none did the distress of war fall so heavily. Both probably shared the premature confidence felt among the Pelo- ponnesian confederacy, that Athens could never hold out more than a year or two, and were thus induced to overlook their own undefended position against her. Towards the close of September, the full force of Athens, citizens and metics, marched into the Megarid under Perikles, and laid waste the greater part of the territory : while they were in it, the hundred ships which had been circumnavigating Peloponnesus, having arrived at JEgina on their return, went and ja'ned their fellow-citizens i 1 Thucyd. ii, 26-32 ; Diodor. xii, 44. * Thucyd. ii, 27