an assault. In the ninth month of the siege
the Samians surrendered. Pericles demolished their walls, confiscated
their fleet, and imposed a heavy fine upon them, some part of which was
paid at once by the Samians, who gave hostages for the payment of the
remainder at fixed periods.

Pericles, after the reduction of Samos, returned to Athens, where he
buried those who had fallen in the war in a magnificent manner, and was
much admired for the funeral oration which, as is customary, was spoken
by him over the graves of his countrymen. Ion says that his victory over
the Samians wonderfully flattered his vanity. Agamemnon, he was wont to
say, took ten years to take a barbarian city, but he in nine months had
made himself master of the first and most powerful city in Ionia. And
the comparison was not an unjust one, for truly the war was a very great
undertaking, and its issue quite uncertain, since, as Thucydides tells
us, the Samians came very near to wresting the empire of the sea from
the Athenians.

After these events, as the clouds were gathering for the Peloponnesian
war, Pericles persuaded the Athenians to send assistance to the people
of Corcyra, who were at war with the Corinthians, and thus to attach to
their own side an island with a powerful naval force, at a moment when
the Peloponnesians had all but declared war against them.

When the people passed this decree, Pericles sent only ten ships under
the command of Lacedaemonius, the son of Cimon, as if he designed a
deliberate insult; for the house of Cimon was on peculiarly friendly
terms with the Lacedaemonians. His design in sending Lacedaemonius out,
against his will, and with so few ships, was that if he performed
nothing brilliant he might be accused, even more than he was already, of
leaning to the side of the Spartans. Indeed, by all means in his power,
he always threw obstacles in the way of the advancement of Cimon's
family, representing that by their very names they were aliens, one son
being named Lacedaemonius, another Thessalus, another Elius. Moreover,
the mother of all three was an Arcadian.

Now Pericles was much reproached for sending these ten ships, which were
of little value to the Corcyreans, and gave a great handle to his
enemies to use against him, and in consequence sent a larger force after
them to Corcyra, which arrived there after the battle. The Corinthians,
enraged at this, complained in the congress of Sparta of the conduct of
t