Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/266

 150 PELOPONNESIAN ENVOYS SENT TO PERSIA [ll in the war and supplied the Peloponnesian fleet with money, tiiey continued to resist, and were at last over- thrown, not by their enemies, but by themselves and their own internal dissensions. So that at the time Pericles was more than justified in the conviction at which his foresight had arrived, that the Athenians would win an easy victory over the unaided forces of the Pelopon- nesians. 66 Durinsf the same summer the Lacedaemonians and their TheLacedaanomans allies Sent a fleet of a hundred ships attack Zacynthns with- against the island of Zacynthus, which out result. ]jgg opposite Elis. The Zacynthians are colonists of the Peloponnesian Achaeans, and were allies of the Athenians, There were on board the fleet a thousand Lacedaemonian hoplites, under the command of Cnemus the Spartan admiral. They disembarked and ravaged the greater part of the country ; but as the inhabitants would not come to terms, they sailed away home. 67 At the end of the same summer, Aristeus the Corinthian, Envoys sent from the the Lacedaemonian ambassadors Ane- Peloponnesian cities to ristus, Nicolaus, and Stratodemus, the King are detained jimagoras of Tegea, and Pollis of by Sitalces and givemtp 111 1 .. • • to the Athenians. They ^^'gos who had no public mission, are carried to Athens were on their way to Asia in the hope and put to death. ^f persuading the King to give them money and join in the war. They went first of all to Sitalces son of Teres, in Thrace, wishing if possible to detach him from the Athenians, and induce him to lead an army to the relief of Potidaea, which was still blockaded by Athenian forces ; they also wanted him to convey them across the Hellespont on their intended journey to Phar- naces, the son of Pharnabazus, who was to send them on to the King. At the time of their arrival two Athenian envoys, Learchus the son of Callimachus, and Ameiniades the son of Philemon, chanced to be at the court of Sitalces ; and they entreated his son Sadocus, who had been made