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alternatehistory.com
This is my new, and hopefully longer-lasting, side project. I am reading the real History for my Ancient Political Thought class. I thought "hey! I could make an alt-Peloponnesian TL". Just to dispel speculation, there will still be a Hellenistic age and a Greek conquest of Persia. When and under whom is yet to be seen. This TL will not cover all chapters, but rather the most major events. Large parts of the text will be copied word for word from the Robert Strassler translation of the text. I take credit only for the changes- most of this text is excellently translated by Strassler.
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Book Three, Summer of the Fifth Year of War, Athens
Chapter 49
Such were the words of Diodotus. The two opinions thus expressed wre the ones that most directly contradicted each other, and the Athenians now proceeded to a vote in which the show of hands was almost equal. The motion of Cleon carried the day. [1]
Chapter 50
Paches carried out the massacre of the Mytilenians. All the men who had fought, along with the old, the sick, and the pregnant, were put to death by the Athenian men. The woman and the others were sold as slaves far to the west, to the Carthaginians, and from there into the lands of Massalia and Iberia, and some east to the lands of the King. Those who had been the prime movers in the rebellion were sent off to Athens for a special execution, the number of these men being more than a thousand. Afterwards, tribute was not imposed upon the Lesbians; but all their land, except that of the Methymnians, was divided into three thousand allotments, three hundred of which were reserved as sacred, and the rest assigned by lot to Athenian shareholders, who were sent out to the island. With these the Lesbians agreed to pay a rent of two minae a year for each allotment, and cultivated the land themselves. The Athenians also took possession of the cities on the continent belonging to the Mytilenians, which thus became for the future subject to Athens. Such were the events that took place at Lesbos.
[1] This is the point of departure. In OTL, Diodotus, the only figure in the History to not be attested by other sources, and who may have been a stand-in for the opinion of Thucydides, won out in the debate against Cleon. Here, since the vote was basically equal on either side, Cleon's bloody-minded rage won out. The Mytilenians were slaughtered.