The Corinthians, however, were
not at all disposed to acquiesce in their defeat, and during the whole
of the following year they were busy organising a fresh expedition on a
vast scale, being resolved at all costs to put down the insolence of
Corcyra. These preparations caused no small anxiety to the Corcyraeans.
Hitherto they had stood apart, and refused to take any share in the
complicated game of Greek politics. The course of affairs during the
last forty years had tended more and more to divide the Greek world
into two opposite camps, arrayed under the banners of Athens and
Sparta. As Dorians, the Corcyraeans would naturally have enrolled
themselves among the allies of Sparta,—as islanders and seamen, they
might have leaned to the side of Athens: but confident in their remote
situation, and in the power of their fleet, they had chosen to remain
neutral. But finding themselves threatened with destruction, they now
resolved to abandon their policy of selfish isolation, and sue for
admission into the Athenian alliance. Ambassadors were sent to Athens
to urge their plea; and the Corinthians, hearing of their intention,
sent representatives of their own to oppose the application.
The Athenians were fully alive to the gravity of the question which they were called upon to decide, and after listening to the arguments of the Corcyraean and Corinthian orators, they adjourned the debate until the next day. To Corinth they were bound by old ties of obligation; for on three distinct occasions the Corinthians had done them signal service. More than seventy years before the date which we have reached, the Spartans summoned their allies to consider whether it was expedient to compel the Athenians to receive back the banished tyrant Hippias; and it was chiefly by the eloquence of the Corinthian speaker Sosicles, who drew a vivid picture of the miseries of despotical government, that they were shamed out of their purpose. A few years later, when the Athenians were at war with Aegina, they were aided by twenty Corinthian ships. And quite recently, in the great peril which menaced Athens at the revolt of Samos, Corinth had once more shown herself a friend. At a congress of the Peloponnesian allies, summoned to consider an appeal from the Samians for help, the Corinthians had spoken strongly against interference with the revolted allies of another city. Corinth was a place of old renown, the queen of the Isthmus, a centre of civilisation; whereas Corcyra was a remote island, and her people, though Greeks by descent, were in manners and character more than half barbarians.
But there were two arguments put forward by the Corcyraean orator, which outweighed all other considerations of policy or friendship. The first was addressed to the fears of the Athenians, the second to their ambition. War, he argued, was inevitable, and it was of the utmost importance for Athens to secure the alliance of the Corcyraean fleet, and prevent it from being added to the naval forces of her enemies. And his concluding words struck a note which found a response among the more daring spirits among his hearers, whose thoughts, as it would seem, were already turning to the western colonies of Greece, as a new field of enterprise and conquest. "It will not do," he said, "to be too nice. While you are hesitating, and weighing nice points of international right, you will be outdistanced in the race for power, if you tamely give up a great naval station which holds the key to Italy and Sicily."
Such reasoning, hollow and false as it was, turned the scale in favour of Corcyra, and a defensive alliance was concluded, pledging the Athenians and Corcyraeans to aid each other against any attack on the territory or allies of either state. For the Athenians wished to avoid breaking the Thirty Years' Truce, and therefore refrained from entering into any agreement which might oblige them to acts of open aggression against Corinth.
There can be little doubt that Pericles, who was mainly responsible for this decision, committed a fatal error in advising the Athenians to take up the cause of Corcyra. By this act Athens incurred the implacable hostility of Corinth, and revived the old grudge which that city had conceived against her when Megara joined the Athenian alliance. In the constantly shifting currents of Greek politics, Athens might well, under wise guidance, have steered her way safely through the perils which surrounded her. The Corinthians had half forgotten their grievance, as is proved by their conduct at the revolt of Samos; and the tone of their representative at the Corcyraean debate is decidedly friendly.