Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/446

 424 HISTORY OF GREECE. liberation of their city, not in order to enslave it, or to Acquire profit for themselves. On the other hand, he did not tbink the worse of those who had gone over to Lekythus, for their liking towards Athens : he wished them to come back freely ; and he was sure that the more they knew the Lacedaemonians the better they would esteem them. He was prepared to forgive and forget previous hostility, but while he invited all of them to live for the future as cordial friends and fellow-citizens, he should also for the future hold each man responsible for his conduct, either as friend or as enemy." On the expiration of the two days' truce, Brasidas attacked the Athenian garrison in Lekythus, promising a recompense of thirty minae to the soldier who should first force his Avay into it. Notwithstanding very poor means of defence, partly a wooden palisade, partly houses with battlements on the roof, this garri- son repelled him for one whole day : on the next morning he brought up a machine, for the same purpose as that which the Boeotians had employed at Delium, to set fire to the wood-work. The Athenians on their side, se.eing this fire-machine approaching, put up, on a building in front of their position, a wooden scaffold- ing, upon which many of them mounted, with casks of water and large stones to break it or to extinguish the flames. At last, the weight accumulated becoming greater than the scaffolding could support, it broke down with a prodigious noise ; so that all the persons and things upon it rolled down in confusion. Some of these men were hurt, yet the injury was not in reality serious ; had not the noise, the cries, and strangeness of the incident alarmed those behind, who could not see precisely what had oc- curred, to such a degree, that they believed the enemy to have already forced the defences. Many of them accordingly took to flight, and those who remained were insufficient to prolong the resistance successfully ; so that Brasidas, perceiving the disorder and diminished number of the defenders, relinquished his fire- machine, and again renewed his attempt to carry the place by assault, which now fully succeeded. A considerable proportion of the Athenians and others in the fort escaped across the narrow gulf to the peninsula of Pallene, by means of the two triremes and some merchant-vessels at hand : but every man found in it was p it to death. Brasidas, thus master of the fort, and con