Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/291

 FOURTH YEAR OF THE WAR TROUBLES IN KORKYRA. 269 denly into the senate-house during full sitting, and there slew Peithias with sixty other persons, partly senators, partly private individuals : some others of his friends escaped the same fate by getting aboard the Attic trireme which had brought the envoys, and which was still in the harbor, but now departed forthwith to Athens. These assassins, under the fresh terror arising from their recent act, convoked an assembly, affirmed that what they had done was unavoidable to guard Korkyra against being made the slave of Athens, and proposed a resolution of full neutrality, both towards Athens and towards the Peloponnesians, to re- ceive no visit from either of the belligerents, except of a pacific character, and with one single ship at a time. And this resolu- tion the assembly was constrained to pass, it probably was not very numerous, and the oligarchical partisans were at hand in arms. 1 At the same time they sent envoys to Athens, to com- municate the recent events with such coloring as suited their views, and to dissuade the fugitive partisans of Peithias from provoking any armed Athenian intervention, such as might occa- sion a counter-revolution in the island. 2 With some of the fugi- tives, representations of this sort, or perhaps the fear of compro- mising their own families, left behind, prevailed: but most of them, and the Athenians along with them, appreciated better both what had been done, and what was likely to follow. The oligarchical envoys, together with such of the fugitives as had been induced to adopt their views, were seized by the Athenians* as conspirators, and placed in detention at jEgina ; while a fleet of sixty Athenian triremes, under Eurymedon, was immediately fitted out to sail for Korkyra, for which there was the greater necessity, as the Lacedaemonian fleet, under Alkidas, lately mus- tered at Kyllene after its return from Ionia, was understood to be on the point of sailing thither. 3 But the oligarchical leaders at Korkyra knew better than to roly on the chances of this mission to Athens, and proceeded in 1 Thncyd. iii, 71. us 6s EIKOV, at kiriKvpuaai qvayKaaav TJ) J'V U /JLT] V . 8 Thucyd. iii, 71. /cat roi)f eicci KaraTre^svyoraf Treiaoviaf urjSlv uvenu TT/tistov Trpdaaeiv, OTruf fj.rj rif lirior^Q}) yevrjrat. 1 Thucyd. iii, 80.