His apprehensions were well founded. A single night’s reflection filled the better sort of Athenians with horror at the inhuman decision into which they had been hurried. They demanded a new assembly to reconsider the question; and though this was contrary to law, the _strategi_ consented and convened the citizens. In the second day’s debate the atrocious decree was rescinded. Every nerve was now strained to enable the mercy-bearing barque to overtake the messengers of death, who were a whole day’s journey in advance. The strongest oarsmen were selected, and urged to their greatest exertion by the promise of large rewards if they should arrive in time. Their food was given them while they plied the oar, and sleep was allowed them only in short intervals, and by turns. The weather proved favorable, and they arrived just as Paches, who had received the first dispatch, was preparing for its execution. The Mytilenians were saved, but the walls of their city were leveled, and its fleet surrendered to the Athenians. The island of Lesbos, with the exception of Methym´na, which had refused all share in the revolt, was divided into 3,000 parts, of which 300 were devoted to the gods, and the rest assigned by lot to Athenian settlers. The prisoners at Athens were tried for their share in the conspiracy, and put to death. [Sidenote: B. C. 427.] =171.= The Corcyrean prisoners who had been carried to Corinth in 432, were now sent home, in the hope that their account of the generous treatment they had received would induce their countrymen to withdraw from the Athenian alliance. They joined with the oligarchical faction to effect a revolution in Corcyra, killed the chiefs of the popular party, gained possession of the harbor, the arsenal, and the market-place, and thus, by overawing the people, obtained a vote in the assembly to maintain in future a strict neutrality. The people, however, fortified themselves in the higher parts of the town, and called to their aid the serfs from the interior of the island, to whom they promised freedom.