# The Peloponnesian War 1.20-21

Greek and Roman Historians, The Peloponnesian War, Lines 1.20-1.21. Latin.

Canonical: https://interlinea.aeterna-institute.org/library/latin/greek-and-roman-historians/the-peloponnesian-war-2/1.20

About this time the Athenians speculatively pursued their western interests, sending at first an expedition of 20 ships under Laches and Charoeades (c. 427) and then 40 more under Sophocles (not the tragedian), Pythodorus, and Eurymedon (426-425). This was a large force in total, given Athens' other commitments, but its goals are difficult to assess; both radical and conservative motives are given, such as the desire to give the sailors practice (not a ridiculous motive, but an inadequate one), to cut off grain shipments to the Peloponnese (by which Corinth is presumably meant), or even to see if the whole island of Sicily could be brought under control, whatever exactly that might entail. (In 424, after mostly halfhearted warfare, the Sicilians put aside their internal differences at a conference in Gela, of which the Pan-Sicilian Hermocrates was the hero. The Athenian commanders returned home to an undeserved disgrace: their mandate for outright conquest had hardly been clear, nor were their resources sufficient.) The attempt by the Athenian general Nicias to take Megara by military means (427) had more immediate promise of success.
It is possible that even the Spartans were uneasy at what the main events of 427, at Mytilene and Plataea, had done for their image: they had been ineffective and brutal. Perhaps in partial redress, but also in pursuit of a traditional line of policy, they issued a general invitation to participate in a large (10,000 strong) colony at Heraclea in Trachis at the southern approach to Thessaly. This colonizing effort had intelligible short-term military motives, namely, a felt need to gain a hold on the Thracian region - the only part of the Athenian empire reachable by land - and a desire to deny Athens access to its larder on Euboea. But Thessaly had always featured and was always to feature in ambitious Spartan thinking; and Sparta may already have had designs on the amphictyonic vote that one certainly finds Heraclea exercising in the 4th century. From the propaganda point of view, the exclusion of Ionians, Achaeans, and some others was telling. Sparta was presenting itself as a leader of Dorians, not just as a selfish promoter of Spartan interests. This was the redress offered to a Greek world well-disposed toward Sparta at the beginning of the war but now perhaps dismayed by the way things were going. It was a pity that the brutality of Spartan governors at Heraclea helped to ruin the project.

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Greek and Roman Historians, The Peloponnesian War. Text: The Latin Library (thelatinlibrary.com), used with permission. Changes: HTML markup removed and the text divided into reading sections by Interlinea.
License: Used with permission (https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/about.html). Source: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/historians/narrative/peloponnesianwar1.html.