n; and the Athenian generals Nicostratus, son
of Diitrephes, Nicias, son of Niceratus, and Autocles, son of Tolmaeus.
Such was the armistice, and during the whole of it conferences went on
on the subject of a pacification.

In the days in which they were going backwards and forwards to these
conferences, Scione, a town in Pallene, revolted from Athens, and went
over to Brasidas. The Scionaeans say that they are Pallenians from
Peloponnese, and that their first founders on their voyage from Troy
were carried in to this spot by the storm which the Achaeans were
caught in, and there settled. The Scionaeans had no sooner revolted than
Brasidas crossed over by night to Scione, with a friendly galley ahead
and himself in a small boat some way behind; his idea being that if he
fell in with a vessel larger than the boat he would have the galley to
defend him, while a ship that was a match for the galley would probably
neglect the small vessel to attack the large one, and thus leave
him time to escape. His passage effected, he called a meeting of the
Scionaeans and spoke to the same effect as at Acanthus and Torone,
adding that they merited the utmost commendation, in that, in spite of
Pallene within the isthmus being cut off by the Athenian occupation
of Potidaea and of their own practically insular position, they had
of their own free will gone forward to meet their liberty instead of
timorously waiting until they had been by force compelled to their own
manifest good. This was a sign that they would valiantly undergo any
trial, however great; and if he should order affairs as he intended,
he should count them among the truest and sincerest friends of the
Lacedaemonians, and would in every other way honour them.

The Scionaeans were elated by his language, and even those who had
at first disapproved of what was being done catching the general
confidence, they determined on a vigorous conduct of the war, and
welcomed Brasidas with all possible honours, publicly crowning him
with a crown of gold as the liberator of Hellas; while private persons
crowded round him and decked him with garlands as though he had been an
athlete. Meanwhile Brasidas left them a small garrison for the present
and crossed back again, and not long afterwards sent over a larger
force, intending with the help of the Scionaeans to attempt Mende and
Potidaea before the Athenians should arrive; Scione, he felt, being too
like an island for them not to relieve