Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/89

 ATHENS BEFORE THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 6? the island, and the Corinthians designed to gain them over, so as to make them instruments for effecting a revolution in the island. The calamitous incidents arising from their return will appear in a future chapter. Thus relieved from all danger, the Korkyrseans picked up the dead bodies and the wrecks which had floated during the night on to their island, and even found sufficient pretence to erect a trophy, chiefly in consequence of their partial success on the left wing. In truth, they had been only rescued from ruin by the unexpected coming of the last Athenian ships : but the last result was as triumphant to them as it was disastrous and humiliating to the Corinthians, who had incurred an immense cost, and taxed all their willing allies, only to leave their enemy stronger than she was before. From this time forward they considered the thirty years' truce as broken, and conceived a hatred, alike deadly and undisguised, against Athens ; so that the latter gained nothing by the moderation of her admirals in sparing the Corin- thian fleet off the coast of Epirus. An opportunity was not long wanting for the Corinthians to strike a blow at their enemy, through one of her wide-spread dependencies. On the isthmus of that lesser peninsula called Pellene, which forms the westernmost of the three prongs of the greater peninsula called Chalkidike, between the Thermaic and the Strymonic gulfs, was situated the Dorian town of Potidaea, one of the trib- utary allies of Athens, but originally colonized from Corinth, anr still maintaining a certain metropolitan allegiance towards the latter : insomuch that every year certain Corinthians were sent thither as magistrates, under the title of Epidemiurgi. On various points of the neighboring coast, also, there were several small towns belonging to the Chalkidians and Bottiaeans, enrolled in like manner in the list of Athenian tributaries. The nei^h- O boring inland territory, Mygdonia and Chalkidike, 1 was held by the Macedonian king Perdikkas, son of that Alexander who had 1 Sea the geographical Commentary of Gatterer upon Thrace, embodied in Poppo, Prolegg. ad Thucyd. vol. ii, ch. 29. The words T& inl BppicTif rd, enl QppKTje x<jpia (Thucyd. ii, 29} denote generally the towns in Chalkidike, places in the direction or in the skirts of Thrace, rather than parts of Thrace itself.