Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/353

 71-75] THE CORCYRAEAN SEDITION 237 Corcyraean oligarchs who were now in power, on the arrival of a Corinthian trireme and Lacedaemonian envoys, attacked and defeated the people, who at nightfall took refuge in the Acropolis and the higher parts of the city, and there concentrated their forces. They also held the Hyllaic harbour; the other party seized the Agora, where most of them lived, and the adjacent harbour which looked towards the continent. On the following day they skirmished a little, and both 73 parties sent messengers round the .,, ^ . . Rcuiforcanaits arrive. country inviting the slaves to join them, and promising them liberty ; the greater number came to the aid of the people, while the other faction was reinforced by eight hundred auxiliaries from the mainland. After resting a day they fought again, and the people, 74 who had the advantage in numbers and in a second conflict the in the strength of their positions, gained /"^"M' «'<^ victorious. the victory. Their women joined vigorously in the fray, hurling tiles from the housetops, and showing amid the uproar a fortitude beyond their sex. The conflict was decided towards evening; the oligarchy, fearing lest the people should take the arsenal with a sudden rush and so make an end of them, set fire to the private houses which surrounded the Agora, as well as to the larger blocks of buildings, sparing neither their own property nor that of any one else in their determination to stop them. Much merchandise was burnt, and the whole city would have been destroyed if the wind had carried the flame in that direction. Both parties now left off fighting, and kept watch in their own positions during the night. When the popular cause triumphed, the Corinthian vessel stole away and most of the auxiliaries crossed over unobserved to the continent. On the following day, Nicostratus the son of Diitrephes, 75 an Athenian general, arrived from Naupactus with twelve ships and five hundred Messenian hoplites. He tried to