Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/293

 FOURTH YEAR OF THE WAR -TROUBLES IN KOilKYRA. 271 man admiral Nikostratus, with twelve triremes from Naupaktus, 1 and five hundred Messenian hoplites. Nikostratus did his best to allay the furious excitement prevail- ing, and to persuade the people to use their victory with modera- tion. Under his auspices, a convention of amnesty and peace was concluded between the contending parties, save only ten pro- claimed individuals of the most violent oligarchs, who were to be tried as ringleaders : these men of course soon disappeared, so that there would have been no trial at all, which seems to have baen what Nikostratus desired. At the same time an alliance offensive and defensive was established between Korkyra and Athens, and the Athenian admiral was then on the point of departing, when the Korkyrsean leaders entreated him to leave with them, for greater safety, five ships out of his little fleet of twelve, offering him five of their own triremes instead. Not- withstanding the peril of this proposition to himself, Nikostratus acceded to it, and the Korkyraeans, preparing the five ships to be sent along with him, began to enroll among the crews the names of their principal enemies. To the latter this presented the appearance of sending them to Athens, which they accounted a sentence of death. Under this impression they took refuge as suppliants in the temple of the Dioskuri, where Nikostratus went to visit them and tried to reassure them by the promise that noth- ing was intended against their personal safety. But he found it impossible to satisfy them, and as they persisted in refusing to serve, the Korkyrcean Demos began to suspect treachery. They took arms again, searched the houses of the recusants for arms, and were bent on putting some of them to death, if Nikostratu* had not taken them under his protection. The principal men ot the defeated party, to the number of about four hundred, !>" took sanctuary in the temple and sacred ground of Here ; a- . the leaders of the people, afraid that in this inviolable position they might still cause further insurrection in the city, opened a negotiation and prevailed upon them to be ferried across to the little island immediately opposite to the Hera2um ; where they were kept under watch, with provisions regularly transmitted across to them, for four days. 2 1 Thucvd. iii. 74, 75. * Thucyd. iii, 75, 7fi