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The Lacedaemonians, seeing the Peloponnesus uniting against them and foreseeing the magnitude of the impending war, began exerting every possible effort to make sure their position of leadership. And first of all the Helots who had served with Brasidas in Thrace, a thousand in all, were given their freedom; then the Spartans, who had been taken prisoner on the island of Sphacteria and had been disgraced on the ground that they had diminished the glory of Sparta, were freed from their state of disgrace. [2] Also, in pursuance of the same policy, by means of the commendations and honours accorded in the course of the war they were incited to surpass in the struggles which lay before them the deeds of valour they had already performed; and toward their allies they conducted themselves more equitably and conciliated the most unfavourably disposed of them with kindly treatment. [3] The Athenians, on the contrary, desiring to strike with fear those whom they suspected of planning secession, displayed an example for all to see in the punishment they inflicted on the inhabitants of Scione; for after reducing them by siege, they put to the sword all of them from the youth upwards, sold into slavery the children and women, and gave the island1 to the Plataeans to dwell in, since they had been expelled from their native land on account of the Athenians.2 [4]

In the course of this year in Italy the Campanians advanced against Cyme with a strong army, defeated the Cymaeans in battle, and destroyed the larger part of the opposing forces. And settling down to a siege, they launched a number of assaults upon the city and took it by storm. They then plundered the city, sold into slavery the captured prisoners, and selected an adequate number of their own citizens to settle there.

1 Scione was a cherso-nesos ("near-island").

2 See chap. 56.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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    • Harper's, Cumae
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CAMPA´NIA
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CUMAE
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), PLATAEA
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