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Contents of the Thirteenth Book of Diodorus
chapter 1chapter 2chapter 3chapter 4chapter 5chapter 6chapter 7chapter 8chapter 9chapter 10chapter 11chapter 12chapter 13chapter 14chapter 15chapter 16chapter 17chapter 18chapter 19chapter 20chapter 21chapter 22chapter 23chapter 24chapter 25chapter 26chapter 27chapter 28chapter 29chapter 30chapter 31chapter 32chapter 33chapter 34chapter 35chapter 36chapter 37chapter 38chapter 39chapter 40chapter 41chapter 42chapter 43chapter 44chapter 45chapter 46chapter 47chapter 48chapter 49chapter 50chapter 51chapter 52chapter 53chapter 54chapter 55chapter 56chapter 57chapter 58chapter 59chapter 60chapter 61chapter 62chapter 63chapter 64chapter 65chapter 66chapter 67chapter 68chapter 69chapter 70chapter 71chapter 72chapter 73chapter 74chapter 75chapter 76chapter 77chapter 78chapter 79chapter 80chapter 81chapter 82chapter 83chapter 84chapter 85chapter 86chapter 87chapter 88chapter 89chapter 90chapter 91chapter 92chapter 93chapter 94chapter 95chapter 96chapter 97chapter 98chapter 99chapter 100chapter 101chapter 102chapter 103chapter 104chapter 105chapter 106chapter 107chapter 108chapter 109chapter 110chapter 111chapter 112chapter 113chapter 114
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It happened at this time that a serious civil strife
occurred in Corcyra accompanied by massacre, which is
said to have been due to various causes but most of all to the mutual hatred that existed
between its own inhabitants.
[2]
For never in any state have there
taken place such murderings of citizens nor have there been greater quarrelling and
contentiousness which culminated in bloodshed.1 For it would seem that the number of those who were slain by their fellow
citizens before the present civil strife was some fifteen hundred, and all of these were
leading citizens.
[3]
And although these misfortunes had already
befallen them, Fortune brought upon them a second disaster, in that she increased once more the
disaffection which prevailed among them. For the foremost Corcyraeans, who desired the
oligarchy, favoured the cause of the Lacedaemonians, whereas the masses which favoured the
democracy were eager to ally themselves with the Athenians.
[4]
For the peoples who were struggling for leadership in Greece were devoted to opposing principles; the Lacedaemonians, for example, made
it their policy to put the control of the government in the hands of the leading citizens of
their allied states, whereas the Athenians regularly established democracies in their cities.
[5]
Accordingly the Corcyraeans, seeing that their most
influential citizens were planning to hand the city over to the Lacedaemonians, sent to the
Athenians for an army to protect their city.
[6]
And Conon, the general of the Athenians, sailed to Corcyra and left in the city six hundred men from the Messenians
in Naupactus,2 while he himself sailed on with
his ships and cast anchor off the sacred precinct of Hera.
[7]
And
the six hundred, setting out unexpectedly with the partisans of the people's party at the time
of full market3
against the supporters of the Lacedaemonians, arrested some of them, slew others, and drove
more than a thousand from the state; they also set the slaves free and gave citizenship to the
foreigners living among them as a precaution against the great number and influence of the
exiles.
[8]
Now the men who had been exiled from their country
fled to the opposite mainland; but a few days later some people still in the city who favoured
the cause of the exiles seized the market-place, called back the exiles, and essayed a final
decision of the struggle. When night brought an end to the fighting they came to an agreement
with each other, stopped their quarrelling, and resumed living together as one people in their
fatherland.Such, then, was the end of the massacre in
Corcyra.
1 Thucydides (Thuc. 3.70 ff.) describes the earlier civil strife on the island.
2 These Messenians had been allowed by the Spartans to leave their country and had been settled in Naupactus by the Athenian general Tolmides in 456 B.C. (cp. Book 11.84).
3 In the middle of the morning.
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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