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1

While Callias was archon in athens, in Elis the Eighty-first Olympiad was celebrated, that in which Polymnastus of Cyrene won the "stadion," and in Rome the consuls were Servius Sulpicius and Publius Volumnius Amentinus. [2] During this year Tolmides, who was commander of the naval forces and vied with both the valour and fame of Myronides, was eager to accomplish a memorable deed. [3] Consequently, since in those times no one had very yet laid waste Laconia, he urged the Athenian people to ravage the territory of the Spartans, and he promised that by taking one thousand hoplites aboard the triremes he would with them lay waste Laconia and dim the fame of the Spartans. [4] When the Athenians acceded to his request, he then, wishing to take with him secretly a larger number of hoplites, had recourse to the following cunning subterfuge. The citizens thought that he would enrol for the force the young men in the prime of youth and most vigorous in body; but Tolmides, determined to take with him in the campaign not merely the stipulated one thousand, approached every young man of exceptional hardihood and told him that he was going to enrol him; it would be better, however, he added, for him to go as a volunteer than be thought to have been compelled to serve under compulsion by enrolment. [5] When by this scheme he had persuaded more than three thousand to enrol voluntarily and saw that the rest of the youth showed no further interest, he then enrolled the thousand he had been promised from all who were left. [6]

When all the other preparations for his expedition had been made, Tolmides set out to sea with fifty triremes and four thousand hoplites, and putting in at Methone in Laconia, he took the place; and when the Lacedaemonians came to defend it, he withdrew, and cruising along the cost to Gytheium, which was a seaport of the Lacedaemonians, he seized it, burned the city and also the dockyards of the Lacedaemonians, and ravaged its territory. [7] From here he set out to sea and sailed to Zacynthos which belonged to Cephallenia; he took the island and won over all the cities on Cephallenia, and then sailed across to the opposite mainland and put in at Naupactus. This city he likewise seized at the first assault and in it he settled the prominent Messenians whom the Lacedaemonians had allowed to go free under a truce. [8] At this time, it may be explained, the Lacedaemonians had finally overcome both the Helots and Messenians, with whom they had been at war over a long period,2 and the Messenians they had allowed to depart from Ithome under a truce, as we have said, but of the Helots they had punished those who were responsible for the revolt and had enslaved the rest.

1 456 B.C.

2 The beginning of the war is described in chap. 64 under the year 469, which is five years too early.

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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