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The Etesian winds (cf. ii. 20), which are said to blow very hard off Cape Malea from the north-east (cf. vii. 188; viii. 12), lasted for about forty days in August and September. The battle of Salamis took place about Sept. 25.

It is remarkable that the Corcyreans are not taunted by the Corinthians (in Thuc. i. 37-43) with this instance of selfishness and double-dealing. But the dislike and suspicion felt by the rest of Greece for the western island is patent. The Corcyrean envoys themselves admit that their traditional policy of splendid isolation has proved a failure. Thuc. i. 32περιέστηκεν δοκοῦσα ἡμῶν πρότερον σωφροσύνη, τὸ μὴ ἐν ἀλλοτρίᾳ ξυμμαχίᾳ τῇ τοῦ πέλας γνώμῃ ξυγκινδυνεύειν, νῦν ἀβουλία καὶ ἀσθένεια φαινομένη”. Munro (J. H. S. xxii. 323) charitably suggests that the Corcyreans may never have promised to do more than protect the southern Peloponnese from attack, if the Persian admirals detached a squadron for the purpose; then their subsequent neutrality caused their absence from the line of battle to be misinterpreted. But it seems more likely that Corcyra did aim at avoiding compromising alliances, and was loth to send her navy to resist the Persian, when she might so soon need it for her own defence against the Carthaginian.

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