An opportunity soon offered itself to the Athenians, of retaliating on Sparta for this cruel treatment of the maritime prisoners. In execution of the idea projected at the commencement of the war, the Lacedæmonians sent Anêristus and two others as envoys to Persia, for the purpose of soliciting from the Great King aids of money and troops against Athens; the dissensions among the Greeks thus gradually paving the way for him to regain his ascendency in the Ægean. Timagoras of Tegea, together with an Argeian named Pollis, without any formal mission from his city, and the Corinthian Aristeus, accompanied them. As the sea was in the power of Athens, they travelled overland through Thrace to the Hellespont; and Aristeus, eager to leave nothing untried for the relief of Potidæa, prevailed upon them to make application to Sitalkês, king of the Odrysian Thracians. That prince was then in alliance with Athens, and his son Sadokus had even received the grant of Athenian citizenship: yet the envoys thought it possible not only to detach him from the Athenian alliance, but even to obtain from him an army to act against the Athenians and raise the blockade of Potidæa,—this being refused, they lastly applied to him for a safe escort to the banks of the Hellespont, in their way towards Persia. But Learchus and Ameiniadês, then Athenian residents near the person of Sitalkês, had influence enough not only to cause rejection of these requests, but also to induce Sadokus, as a testimony of zeal in his new character of Athenian citizen, to assist them in seizing the persons of Aristeus and his companions in their journey through Thrace. Accordingly, the whole party were seized and conducted as prisoners to Athens, where they were forthwith put to death, without trial or permission to speak,—and their bodies cast into rocky chasms, as a reprisal for the captured seamen slain by the Lacedæmonians.[320] [320] Thucyd. ii. 67. Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. Greece, vol. iii, ch. 20, p. 129) says that “the envoys were sacrificed chiefly to give a decent color to the baseness” of killing Aristeus, from whom the Athenians feared subsequent evil, in consequence of his ability and active spirit. I do not think this is fairly contained in the words of Thucydidês. He puts in the foreground of Athenian motive, doubtless, fear from the future energy of Aristeus; but if that had been the only motive, the Athenians would probably have slain him singly without the rest: they would hardly think it necessary to provide themselves with “any decent color,” in the way that Dr. Thirlwall suggests. Thucydidês names the special feeling of the Athenians against Aristeus (in my judgment), chiefly in order to explain the extreme haste of the Athenian sentence of execution—αὐθήμερον—ἀκρίτους, etc.: they were under the influence of combined motives,—fear, revenge, retaliation.