people of Aegina also considered themselves to be oppressed and ill-treated, and secretly bemoaned their grievances in the ears of the Spartans, for they dared not openly bring any charges against the Athenians.  At this time, too, Potidaea, a city subject to Athens, but a colony of Corinth, revolted, and its siege materially hastened the outbreak of the war.  Archidamus, indeed, the king of the Lacedaemonians, sent ambassadors to Athens, was willing to submit all disputed points to arbitration, and endeavoured to moderate the excitement of his allies, so that war probably would not have broken out if the Athenians could have been persuaded to rescind their decree of exclusion against the Megarians, and to come to terms with them.  And, for this reason, Perikles, who was particularly opposed to this, and urged the people not to give way to the Megarians, alone bore the blame of having begun the war.

XXX.  It is said, that when an embassy arrived at Athens from Lacedaemon to treat upon these matters, Perikles argued that there was a law which forbade the tablet, on which the decree against the Megarians was written, to be taken down.  “Then,” said Polyalkes, one of the ambassadors, “do not take it down, but turn it with its face to the wall; for there is no law against that!”

Clever as this retort was, it had no effect on Perikles.  He had, it seems, some private spite at the Megarians, though the ground of quarrel which he put publicly forward was that the Megarians had applied to their own use some of the sacred ground; and he passed a decree for a herald to be sent to the Megarians, and then to go on to the Lacedaemonians to complain of their conduct.  This decree of Perikles is worded in a candid and reasonable manner; but the herald, Anthemokritus, was thought to have met his death at the hands of the Megarians, and Charinus passed a decree to the effect that Athens should wage war against them to the death, without truce or armistice; that any Megarian found in Attica should be punished with death, and that the generals, when taking the usual oath for each year, should swear in addition that they would invade the Megarian territory twice every year; and that Anthemokritus should be buried near the city gate leading into the Thriasian plain, which is now called the Double Gate.

Now, the Megarians say that they were not to blame for the murder of Anthemokritus, and lay it upon Perikles and Aspasia, quoting the hackneyed rhymes from the ‘Acharnians,’ of Aristophanes: 

    “Some young Athenians in their drunken play,
    From Megara Simaetha stole away,
    The men of Megara next, with angered soul,
    Two of Aspasia’s choicest harlots stole.”