ew a large rental from them.

In the same summer the remaining garrison of Plataea surrendered to the
Lacedaemonians, on terms to be decided by Lacedaemonian commissioners.
Before them the Plataeans justified their resistance, but the
commissioners ignored the defence, and, on the pretext that the only
question was whether they had suffered any "wrong" at the hands of the
Plataeans, and that the answer to that was obvious, put the Plataeans to
death and razed the city to the ground.

Meanwhile, at Corcyra, the popular and the oligarchical parties, who
favoured the Athenians and Peloponnesians respectively, had reached the
stage of murderous hostility to each other. The oligarchs captured the
government, and were then in turn attacked by the popular party; and
there was savage faction fighting. An attempt was made by the commander
of the Athenian squadron at Naupactus to act as moderator; the
appearance of a Peloponnesian squadron and a confused sea-fight,
somewhat in favour of the latter, brought the popular party to the verge
of a compromise. But the Peloponnesians retired on the reported approach
of a fresh Athenian fleet, and a democratic reign of terror followed.

"The father slew the son, and the supplicants were torn from the temples
and slain near them." And thus was initiated the peculiar horror of this
war--the desperate civil strife in one city after another, oligarchs
hoping to triumph by Lacedaemonian and democrats by Athenian, support,
and either party, when uppermost, ruling by terror. It was at this time
also that the Ionian and Dorian cities of Sicily, headed by Leontini and
Syracuse respectively, went to war with each other, and an Athenian
squadron was first induced to participate in the struggle.

Among the operations of the next, or sixth, summer was a campaign which
the Athenian commander Demosthenes conducted in AEtolia--successful at
the outset, but terminating in disaster, which made the general afraid
to return to Athens. He seized a chance, however, of recovering his
credit by foiling a Lacedaemonian expedition against Naupactus; and in
other ways he successfully established a high military reputation, so
that he was no longer afraid to reappear at Athens.

Next year, the Athenians dispatched a larger fleet with Sicily for its
objective. Demosthenes, however, who had a project of his own in view,
was given an independent command. He was thus enabled to seize and
fortify Pylos, a position on