Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.
The same winter the Potidæans at length found themselves no longer able
to hold out against their besiegers. The inroads of the Peloponnesians
into Attica had not had the desired effect of making the Athenians
raise the siege. Provisions there were none left; and so far had
distress for food gone in Potidæa that, besides a number of other
horrors, instances had even occurred of the people having eaten one
another. In this extremity they at last made proposals for capitulating
to the Athenian generals in command against them—Xenophon, son of
Euripides, Hestiodorus, son of Aristocleides, and Phanomachus, son of
Callimachus. The generals accepted their proposals, seeing the
sufferings of the army in so exposed a position; besides which the
state had already spent two thousand talents upon the siege. The terms
of the capitulation were as follows: a free passage out for themselves,
their children, wives and auxiliaries, with one garment apiece, the
women with two, and a fixed sum of money for their journey. Under this
treaty they went out to Chalcidice and other places, according as was
their power. The Athenians, however, blamed the generals for granting
terms without instructions from home, being of opinion that the place
would have had to surrender at discretion. They afterwards sent
settlers of their own to Potidæa, and colonized it. Such were the
events of the winter, and so ended the second year of this war of which
Thucydides was the historian.
CHAPTER VIII
Third Year of the War—Investment of Plataea—Naval Victories of
Phormio—Thracian Irruption into Macedonia under Sitalces
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