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 endeavored 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,
Pericles, 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.

Pericles 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 Pericles is worded in a candid and reasonable manner; but the
herald, Anthemocritus, 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 Anthemocritus should be buried near the city gate
leading into the Thriasian plain, which is now called the Double Gate.
How the dispute originated it is hard to say, but all writers agree in
throwing on Pericles the blame of refusing to reverse the decree.

Now, as the Lacedaemonians knew that if he could be removed from power
they would find the Athenians much more easy to deal with, they bade
them "drive forth the accursed thing," alluding to Pericles' descent