274 HISTORY OF GREECE. than their success against the Korkyraeans, thirteen of whose tri- remes they carried away as prizes. 1 It was the expectation in Korkyra, that they would on the morrow make a direct attack which could hardly have failed of success on the town and harbor ; and we may easily believe (what report afterwards stated), that Brasidas advised Alkidas to this decisive proceeding. And the Korkyraean leaders, more terrified than ever, first removed their prisoners from the little island to the Herceum, and then tried to come to a compromise with the oligarchical party generally, for the purpose of organiz- ing some effective and united defence. Thirty triremes were made ready and manned, wherein some even of the oligarchical Korkyraeans were persuaded to form part of the crews. But the slackness of Alkidas proved their best defence : instead of com- ing straight to the town, he contented himself with landing in the island at some distance from it, on the promontory of Leukimne : after ravaging the neighboring lands for some hours, he returned to his station at Sybota. He had lost an opportunity which never again returned : for on the very same night the fire-signals of Leukas telegraphed to him the approach of the fleet under Eurymedon from Athens, sixty triremes. His only thought was now for the escape of the Peloponnesian fleet, which was in fact saved by this telegraphic notice. Advantage was taken of the darkness to retire close along the land as far as the isthmus which separates Leukas from the mainland, across which isth- mus the ships were dragged by hand or machinery, so that they jaight not fall in with or be descried by the Athenian fleet in sailing round the Leukadian promontory. From hence Alkidas made the best of his way home to Peloponnesus, leaving the Korkyraean oligarchs to their fate. 9 That fate was deplorable in the extreme. The arrival of Eurymedon opens a third unexpected transition in this checkeied narrative, the Korkyraean Demos passing, abruptly and unex- pectedly, from intense alarm and helplessness to elate and irre- sistible mastery. In the bosom of Greeks, and in a population seemingly amongst the least refined of all Greeks, including too a great many slaves just emancipated against the will of
1 Thucyd. iii, 77, 78, 79. * Thucyd iii, 80
