Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.
The Athenians and Peloponnesians had these antecedent grounds of
complaint against each other: the complaint of Corinth was that her
colony of Potidæa, and Corinthian and Peloponnesian citizens within it,
were being besieged; that of Athens against the Peloponnesians that
they had incited a town of hers, a member of her alliance and a
contributor to her revenue, to revolt, and had come and were openly
fighting against her on the side of the Potidæans. For all this, war
had not yet broken out: there was still truce for a while; for this was
a private enterprise on the part of Corinth.
But the siege of Potidæa put an end to her inaction; she had men inside
it: besides, she feared for the place. Immediately summoning the allies
to Lacedaemon, she came and loudly accused Athens of breach of the
treaty and aggression on the rights of Peloponnese. With her, the
Aeginetans, formally unrepresented from fear of Athens, in secret
proved not the least urgent of the advocates for war, asserting that
they had not the independence guaranteed to them by the treaty. After
extending the summons to any of their allies and others who might have
complaints to make of Athenian aggression, the Lacedaemonians held
their ordinary assembly, and invited them to speak. There were many who
came forward and made their several accusations; among them the
Megarians, in a long list of grievances, called special attention to
the fact of their exclusion from the ports of the Athenian empire and
the market of Athens, in defiance of the treaty. Last of all the
Corinthians came forward, and having let those who preceded them
inflame the Lacedaemonians, now followed with a speech to this effect:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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