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The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 02 - (From the Rise of Greece to the Christian Era) by Unknown
page 51 of 540 (09%)
overran Acarnania, drove the people of Oeneadae to the shelter of their
city walls, and after ravaging the country returned home, having made
himself a terror to his enemies, and done good service to Athens; for
not the least casualty, even by accident, befell the troops under his
command.

When he sailed into the Black Sea with a great and splendidly equipped
fleet, he assisted the Greek cities there, and treated them with
consideration, and showed the neighboring savage tribes and their chiefs
the greatness of his force, and his confidence in his power, by sailing
where he pleased, and taking complete control over that sea. He left at
Sinope thirteen ships, and a land force under the command of Lamachus,
to act against Timesileon, who had made himself despot of that city.
When he and his party were driven out, Pericles passed a decree that six
hundred Athenian volunteers should sail to Sinope, and become citizens
there, receiving the houses and lands which had formerly been in the
possession of the despot and his party. But in other cases he would not
agree to the impulsive proposals of the Athenians, and he opposed them
when, elated by their power and good fortune, they talked of recovering
Egypt and attacking the seaboard of the Persian empire. Many, too, were
inflamed with that ill-starred notion of an attempt on Sicily, which was
afterward blown into a flame by Alcibiades and other orators. Some even
dreamed of the conquest of Etruria and Carthage, in consequence of the
greatness which the Athenian empire had already reached, and the full
tide of success which seemed to attend it.

Pericles, however, restrained these outbursts, and would not allow the
people to meddle with foreign states, but used the power of Athens
chiefly to preserve and guard her already existing empire, thinking it
to be of paramount importance to oppose the Lacedaemonians, a task to
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