Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/176

 6o RISE OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE [l told them that in their judgment the Athenians were guilty, but that they wished to hold a general assembly of the allies and take a vote from them all ; then the war, if they approved of it, might be undertaken by common consent. Having accomplished their purpose, the allies returned home ; and the Athenian envoys, when their errand was B.C. 445. done, returned likewise. Thirteen years of the thirty years' peace which was concluded after the recovery of Euboea had elapsed and the fourteenth year had begun when the Lacedaemonian assembly decided that the treaty had been broken. 88 In arriving at this decision and resolving to go to war, the Lacedaemonians were influenced, not so much by the speeches of their allies, as by the fear of the Athenians and of their increasing powers For they saw the greater part of Hellas already subject to them. 89 How the Athenians attained the position in which they B.C. 479. ji^^ Aihemans after ^ose to greatness I will now proceed ^' ^' the retreat of the Per- to describe. When the Persians, de- sians continue the war. ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ Hellenes on sea and land, had retreated from Europe, and the remnant of the fleet, which had taken refuge at Mycale, had there perished, Leotychides, the Lacedaemonian king, who had com- manded the Hellenes in the battle, returned home with the allies from Peloponnesus. But the Athenians and their allies from Ionia and the Hellespont, who had now revolted from the king, persevered and besieged Sestos, at that time still in the hands of the Persians. Remaining there through the winter they took the place, which the Barbarians deserted. The allies then sailed back from the Hellespont to their respective homes. Meanwhile the Athenian people, now quit of the Barbarians, fetched their wives, their children, and the remains of their property from the places in which they had been deposited, and set to work, re- building the city and the walls. Of the old line of wall but » Cp. i. 23 fin.