Our starting point is a somewhat obscure incident which has lately attracted some attention. The year is 429 B.C., and the place is Athens in the third year of the Peloponnesian war. The plague, which had broken out only a year before, was still claiming its victims. Yet military operations were in full swing, and the general Phormio operating in the Corinthian gulf against a Peloponnesian fleet was able to score an impressive victory. The Lacedaemonians were deeply dissatisfied. This was (...) the first sea-fight they had been engaged in, and they found it hard to believe that their fleet was so much inferior to that of the Athenians. They dispatched three advisers to Knemos, the admiral in charge, instructing them to make better preparations for another sea-fight. Additional ships were solicited from the allies, and those already at hand were prepared for battle. It is at this point that the incident in question occurred. Not to prejudge the issue, I quote the text in full leaving the controversial phrases untranslated: 4. And Phormio on his part sent messengers to Athens to give information of the enemy's preparations and to tell about the battle which they had won, urging them also to send to him speedily as many ships as possible, since there was always a prospect that a battle might be fought any day. 5. So they sent him twenty ships, but gave τ δ κυμξοντι special orders to sail first to Crete. Nικας γρ Kρς Γορτνιος πρξενος ν persuaded them to sail against Cydonia, a hostile town, promising to bring it over to the Athenians; but he was really asking them to intervene to gratify the people of Polichne, who are neighbours of the Cydonians. 6. So μν λαβν τς νας. went to Crete, and helped the Polichnitans to ravage the lands of the Cydonians, and by reason of winds and stress of weather wasted not a little time. (shrink)