Chalcidice and Bottica: some of the
towns also were taken by him.

CHAPTER III

_Congress of the Peloponnesian Confederacy at Lacedaemon_

The Athenians and Peloponnesians had these antecedent grounds of
complaint against each other: the complaint of Corinth was that her
colony of Potidaea, 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 Potidaeans. 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 Potidaea 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:

"Lacedaemonians! the confidence which you feel in your constitution and
social order, inclines you to receive any reflections of ours on other
powers with a certain scepticism. Hence springs your moderation, but
hence also the rather limited knowledge which you betray in dealing with
foreign politics. Time after time was our voice raised to warn you of
the blows about to be dealt us by Athens, and time after time, instead
of taking the trouble to ascertain the worth of our communications, you
contented yourselves with suspecting the speakers of being inspired
by private interest. And so, instead of calling these