Chapter
Twelve
Seventh Year of the War - Occupation
of Pylos -
Surrender of the Spartan Army
in Sphacteria
Next summer, about the time of the
corn's coming into ear, ten Syracusan and as many Locrian vessels sailed
to Messina, in Sicily, and occupied the town upon the invitation of the
inhabitants; and Messina revolted from the Athenians. The Syracusans contrived
this chiefly because they saw that the place afforded an approach to Sicily,
and feared that the Athenians might hereafter use it as a base for attacking
them with a larger force; the Locrians because they wished to carry on
hostilities from both sides of the strait and to reduce their enemies,
the people of Rhegium. Meanwhile, the Locrians had invaded the Rhegian
territory with all their forces, to prevent their succouring Messina, and
also at the instance of some exiles from Rhegium who were with them; the
long factions by which that town had been torn rendering it for the moment
incapable of resistance, and thus furnishing an additional temptation to
the invaders. After devastating the country the Locrian land forces retired,
their ships remaining to guard Messina, while others were being manned
for the same destination to carry on the war from thence.
About the same time in the spring,
before the corn was ripe, the Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica
under Agis, the son of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat
down and laid waste the country. Meanwhile the Athenians sent off the forty
ships which they had been preparing to Sicily, with the remaining generals
Eurymedon and Sophocles; their colleague Pythodorus having already preceded
them thither. These had also instructions as they sailed by to look to
the Corcyraeans in the town, who were being plundered by the exiles in
the mountain. To support these exiles sixty Peloponnesian vessels had lately
sailed, it being thought that the famine raging in the city would make
it easy for them to reduce it. Demosthenes also, who had remained without
employment since his return from Acarnania, applied and obtained permission
to use the fleet, if he wished it, upon the coast of Peloponnese.
Off Laconia they heard that the Peloponnesian
ships were already at Corcyra, upon which Eurymedon and Sophocles wished
to hasten to the island, but Demosthenes required them first to touch at
Pylos and do what was wanted there, before continuing their voyage. While
they were making objections, a squall chanced to come on and carried the
fleet into Pylos. Demosthenes at once urged them to fortify the place,
it being for this that he had come on the voyage, and made them observe
there was plenty of stone and timber on the spot, and that the place was
strong by nature, and together with much of the country round unoccupied;
Pylos, or Coryphasium, as the Lacedaemonians call it, being about forty-five
miles distant from Sparta, and situated in the old country of the Messenians.
The commanders told him that there was no lack of desert headlands in Peloponnese
if he wished to put the city to expense by occupying them. He, however,
thought that this place was distinguished from others of the kind by having
a harbour close by; while the Messenians, the old natives of the country,
speaking the same dialect as the Lacedaemonians, could do them the greatest
mischief by their incursions from it, and would at the same time be a trusty
garrison.
After speaking to the captains of
companies on the subject, and failing to persuade either the generals or
the soldiers, he remained inactive with the rest from stress of weather;
until the soldiers themselves wanting occupation were seized with a sudden
impulse to go round and fortify the place. Accordingly they set to work
in earnest, and having no iron tools, picked up stones, and put them together
as they happened to fit, and where mortar was needed, carried it on their
backs for want of hods, stooping down to make it stay on, and clasping
their hands together behind to prevent it falling off; sparing no effort
to be able to complete the most vulnerable points before the arrival of
the Lacedaemonians, most of the place being sufficiently strong by nature
without further fortifications.
Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians were
celebrating a festival, and also at first made light of the news, in the
idea that whenever they chose to take the field the place would be immediately
evacuated by the enemy or easily taken by force; the absence of their army
before Athens having also something to do with their delay. The Athenians
fortified the place on the land side, and where it most required it, in
six days, and leaving Demosthenes with five ships to garrison it, with
the main body of the fleet hastened on their voyage to Corcyra and Sicily.
As soon as the Peloponnesians in
Attica heard of the occupation of Pylos, they hurried back home; the Lacedaemonians
and their king Agis thinking that the matter touched them nearly. Besides
having made their invasion early in the season, and while the corn was
still green, most of their troops were short of provisions: the weather
also was unusually bad for the time of year, and greatly distressed their
army. Many reasons thus combined to hasten their departure and to make
this invasion a very short one; indeed they only stayed fifteen days in
Attica.
About the same time the Athenian
general Simonides getting together a few Athenians from the garrisons,
and a number of the allies in those parts, took Eion in Thrace, a Mendaean
colony and hostile to Athens, by treachery, but had no sooner done so than
the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans came up and beat him out of it, with the
loss of many of his soldiers.
On the return of the Peloponnesians
from Attica, the Spartans themselves and the nearest of the Perioeci at
once set out for Pylos, the other Lacedaemonians following more slowly,
as they had just come in from another campaign. Word was also sent round
Peloponnese to come up as quickly as possible to Pylos; while the sixty
Peloponnesian ships were sent for from Corcyra, and being dragged by their
crews across the isthmus of Leucas, passed unperceived by the Athenian
squadron at Zacynthus, and reached Pylos, where the land forces had arrived
before them. Before the Peloponnesian fleet sailed in, Demosthenes found
time to send out unobserved two ships to inform Eurymedon and the Athenians
on board the fleet at Zacynthus of the danger of Pylos and to summon them
to his assistance. While the ships hastened on their voyage in obedience
to the orders of Demosthenes, the Lacedaemonians prepared to assault the
fort by land and sea, hoping to capture with ease a work constructed in
haste, and held by a feeble garrison. Meanwhile, as they expected the Athenian
ships to arrive from Zacynthus, they intended, if they failed to take the
place before, to block up the entrances of the harbour to prevent their
being able to anchor inside it. For the island of Sphacteria, stretching
along in a line close in front of the harbour, at once makes it safe and
narrows its entrances, leaving a passage for two ships on the side nearest
Pylos and the Athenian fortifications, and for eight or nine on that next
the rest of the mainland: for the rest, the island was entirely covered
with wood, and without paths through not being inhabited, and about one
mile and five furlongs in length. The inlets the Lacedaemonians meant to
close with a line of ships placed close together, with their prows turned
towards the sea, and, meanwhile, fearing that the enemy might make use
of the island to operate against them, carried over some heavy infantry
thither, stationing others along the coast. By this means the island and
the continent would be alike hostile to the Athenians, as they would be
unable to land on either; and the shore of Pylos itself outside the inlet
towards the open sea having no harbour, and, therefore, presenting no point
which they could use as a base to relieve their countrymen, they, the Lacedaemonians,
without sea-fight or risk would in all probability become masters of the
place, occupied as it had been on the spur of the moment, and unfurnished
with provisions. This being determined, they carried over to the island
the heavy infantry, drafted by lot from all the companies. Some others
had crossed over before in relief parties, but these last who were left
there were four hundred and twenty in number, with their Helot attendants,
commanded by Epitadas, son of Molobrus.
Meanwhile Demosthenes, seeing the
Lacedaemonians about to attack him by sea and land at once, himself was
not idle. He drew up under the fortification and enclosed in a stockade
the galleys remaining to him of those which had been left him, arming the
sailors taken out of them with poor shields made most of them of osier,
it being impossible to procure arms in such a desert place, and even these
having been obtained from a thirty-oared Messenian privateer and a boat
belonging to some Messenians who happened to have come to them. Among these
Messenians were forty heavy infantry, whom he made use of with the rest.
Posting most of his men, unarmed and armed, upon the best fortified and
strong points of the place towards the interior, with orders to repel any
attack of the land forces, he picked sixty heavy infantry and a few archers
from his whole force, and with these went outside the wall down to the
sea, where he thought that the enemy would most likely attempt to land.
Although the ground was difficult and rocky, looking towards the open sea,
the fact that this was the weakest part of the wall would, he thought,
encourage their ardour, as the Athenians, confident in their naval superiority,
had here paid little attention to their defences, and the enemy if he could
force a landing might feel secure of taking the place. At this point, accordingly,
going down to the water's edge, he posted his heavy infantry to prevent,
if possible, a landing, and encouraged them in the following terms:
"Soldiers and comrades in this adventure,
I hope that none of you in our present strait will think to show his wit
by exactly calculating all the perils that encompass us, but that you will
rather hasten to close with the enemy, without staying to count the odds,
seeing in this your best chance of safety. In emergencies like ours calculation
is out of place; the sooner the danger is faced the better. To my mind
also most of the chances are for us, if we will only stand fast and not
throw away our advantages, overawed by the numbers of the enemy. One of
the points in our favour is the awkwardness of the landing. This, however,
only helps us if we stand our ground. If we give way it will be practicable
enough, in spite of its natural difficulty, without a defender; and the
enemy will instantly become more formidable from the difficulty he will
have in retreating, supposing that we succeed in repulsing him, which we
shall find it easier to do, while he is on board his ships, than after
he has landed and meets us on equal terms. As to his numbers, these need
not too much alarm you. Large as they may be he can only engage in small
detachments, from the impossibility of bringing to. Besides, the numerical
superiority that we have to meet is not that of an army on land with everything
else equal, but of troops on board ship, upon an element where many favourable
accidents are required to act with effect. I therefore consider that his
difficulties may be fairly set against our numerical deficiencies, and
at the same time I charge you, as Athenians who know by experience what
landing from ships on a hostile territory means, and how impossible it
is to drive back an enemy determined enough to stand his ground and not
to be frightened away by the surf and the terrors of the ships sailing
in, to stand fast in the present emergency, beat back the enemy at the
water's edge, and save yourselves and the place."
Thus encouraged by Demosthenes, the
Athenians felt more confident, and went down to meet the enemy, posting
themselves along the edge of the sea. The Lacedaemonians now put themselves
in movement and simultaneously assaulted the fortification with their land
forces and with their ships, forty-three in number, under their admiral,
Thrasymelidas, son of Cratesicles, a Spartan, who made his attack just
where Demosthenes expected. The Athenians had thus to defend themselves
on both sides, from the land and from the sea; the enemy rowing up in small
detachments, the one relieving the other- it being impossible for many
to bring to at once- and showing great ardour and cheering each other on,
in the endeavour to force a passage and to take the fortification. He who
most distinguished himself was Brasidas. Captain of a galley, and seeing
that the captains and steersmen, impressed by the difficulty of the position,
hung back even where a landing might have seemed possible, for fear of
wrecking their vessels, he shouted out to them, that they must never allow
the enemy to fortify himself in their country for the sake of saving timber,
but must shiver their vessels and force a landing; and bade the allies,
instead of hesitating in such a moment to sacrifice their ships for Lacedaemon
in return for her many benefits, to run them boldly aground, land in one
way or another, and make themselves masters of the place and its garrison.
Not content with this exhortation,
he forced his own steersman to run his ship ashore, and stepping on to
the gangway, was endeavouring to land, when he was cut down by the Athenians,
and after receiving many wounds fainted away. Falling into the bows, his
shield slipped off his arm into the sea, and being thrown ashore was picked
up by the Athenians, and afterwards used for the trophy which they set
up for this attack. The rest also did their best, but were not able to
land, owing to the difficulty of the ground and the unflinching tenacity
of the Athenians. It was a strange reversal of the order of things for
Athenians to be fighting from the land, and from Laconian land too, against
Lacedaemonians coming from the sea; while Lacedaemonians were trying to
land from shipboard in their own country, now become hostile, to attack
Athenians, although the former were chiefly famous at the time as an inland
people and superior by land, the latter as a maritime people with a navy
that had no equal.
After continuing their attacks during
that day and most of the next, the Peloponnesians desisted, and the day
after sent some of their ships to Asine for timber to make engines, hoping
to take by their aid, in spite of its height, the wall opposite the harbour,
where the landing was easiest. At this moment the Athenian fleet from Zacynthus
arrived, now numbering fifty sail, having been reinforced by some of the
ships on guard at Naupactus and by four Chian vessels. Seeing the coast
and the island both crowded with heavy infantry, and the hostile ships
in harbour showing no signs of sailing out, at a loss where to anchor,
they sailed for the moment to the desert island of Prote, not far off,
where they passed the night. The next day they got under way in readiness
to engage in the open sea if the enemy chose to put out to meet them, being
determined in the event of his not doing so to sail in and attack him.
The Lacedaemonians did not put out to sea, and having omitted to close
the inlets as they had intended, remained quiet on shore, engaged in manning
their ships and getting ready, in the case of any one sailing in, to fight
in the harbour, which is a fairly large one.
Perceiving this, the Athenians advanced
against them by each inlet, and falling on the enemy's fleet, most of which
was by this time afloat and in line, at once put it to flight, and giving
chase as far as the short distance allowed, disabled a good many vessels
and took five, one with its crew on board; dashing in at the rest that
had taken refuge on shore, and battering some that were still being manned,
before they could put out, and lashing on to their own ships and towing
off empty others whosc crews had fled. At this sight the Lacedaemonians,
maddened by a disaster which cut off their men on the island, rushed to
the rescue, and going into the sea with their heavy armour, laid hold of
the ships and tried to drag them back, each man thinking that success depended
on his individual exertions. Great was the melee, and quite in contradiction
to the naval tactics usual to the two combatants; the Lacedaemonians in
their excitement and dismay being actually engaged in a sea-fight on land,
while the victorious Athenians, in their eagerness to push their success
as far as possible, were carrying on a land-fight from their ships. After
great exertions and numerous wounds on both sides they separated, the Lacedaemonians
saving their empty ships, except those first taken; and both parties returning
to their camp, the Athenians set up a trophy, gave back the dead, secured
the wrecks, and at once began to cruise round and jealously watch the island,
with its intercepted garrison, while the Peloponnesians on the mainland,
whose contingents had now all come up, stayed where they were before Pylos.
When the news of what had happened
at Pylos reached Sparta, the disaster was thought so serious that the Lacedaemonians
resolved that the authorities should go down to the camp, and decide on
the spot what was best to be done. There, seeing that it was impossible
to help their men, and not wishing to risk their being reduced by hunger
or overpowered by numbers, they determined, with the consent of the Athenian
generals, to conclude an armistice at Pylos and send envoys to Athens to
obtain a convention, and to endeavour to get back their men as quickly
as possible.
The generals accepting their offers,
an armistice was concluded upon the terms following:
That the Lacedaemonians should bring
to Pylos and deliver up to the Athenians the ships that had fought in the
late engagement, and all in Laconia that were vessels of war, and should
make no attack on the fortification either by land or by sea.
That the Athenians should allow the
Lacedaemonians on the mainland to send to the men in the island a certain
fixed quantity of corn ready kneaded, that is to say, two quarts of barley
meal, one pint of wine, and a piece of meat for each man, and half the
same quantity for a servant.
That this allowance should be sent
in under the eyes of the Athenians, and that no boat should sail to the
island except openly.
That the Athenians should continue
to the island same as before, without however landing upon it, and should
refrain from attacking the Peloponnesian troops either by land or by sea.
That if either party should infringe
any of these terms in the slightest particular, the armistice should be
at once void.
That the armistice should hold good
until the return of the Lacedaemonian envoys from Athens- the Athenians
sending them thither in a galley and bringing them back again- and upon
the arrival of the envoys should be at an end, and the ships be restored
by the Athenians in the same state as they received them.
Such were the terms of the armistice,
and the ships were delivered over to the number of sixty, and the envoys
sent off accordingly. Arrived at Athens they spoke as follows:
"Athenians, the Lacedaemonians sent
us to try to find some way of settling the affair of our men on the island,
that shall be at once satisfactory to our interests, and as consistent
with our dignity in our misfortune as circumstances permit. We can venture
to speak at some length without any departure from the habit of our country.
Men of few words where many are not wanted, we can be less brief when there
is a matter of importance to be illustrated and an end to be served by
its illustration. Meanwhile we beg you to take what we may say, not in
a hostile spirit, nor as if we thought you ignorant and wished to lecture
you, but rather as a suggestion on the best course to be taken, addressed
to intelligent judges. You can now, if you choose, employ your present
success to advantage, so as to keep what you have got and gain honour and
reputation besides, and you can avoid the mistake of those who meet with
an extraordinary piece of good fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp
continually at something further, through having already succeeded without
expecting it. While those who have known most vicissitudes of good and
bad, have also justly least faith in their prosperity; and to teach your
city and ours this lesson experience has not been wanting.
"To be convinced of this you have
only to look at our present misfortune. What power in Hellas stood higher
than we did? and yet we are come to you, although we formerly thought ourselves
more able to grant what we are now here to ask. Nevertheless, we have not
been brought to this by any decay in our power, or through having our heads
turned by aggrandizement; no, our resources are what they have always been,
and our error has been an error of judgment, to which all are equally liable.
Accordingly, the prosperity which your city now enjoys, and the accession
that it has lately received, must not make you fancy that fortune will
be always with you. Indeed sensible men are prudent enough to treat their
gains as precarious, just as they would also keep a clear head in adversity,
and think that war, so far from staying within the limit to which a combatant
may wish to confine it, will run the course that its chances prescribe;
and thus, not being puffed up by confidence in military success, they are
less likely to come to grief, and most ready to make peace, if they can,
while their fortune lasts. This, Athenians, you have a good opportunity
to do now with us, and thus to escape the possible disasters which may
follow upon your refusal, and the consequent imputation of having owed
to accident even your present advantages, when you might have left behind
you a reputation for power and wisdom which nothing could endanger.
"The Lacedaemonians accordingly invite
you to make a treaty and to end the war, and offer peace and alliance and
the most friendly and intimate relations in every way and on every occasion
between us; and in return ask for the men on the island, thinking it better
for both parties not to stand out to the end, on the chance of some favourable
accident enabling the men to force their way out, or of their being compelled
to succumb under the pressure of blockade. Indeed if great enmities are
ever to be really settled, we think it will be, not by the system of revenge
and military success, and by forcing an opponent to swear to a treaty to
his disadvantage, but when the more fortunate combatant waives these his
privileges, to be guided by gentler feelings conquers his rival in generosity,
and accords peace on more moderate conditions than he expected. From that
moment, instead of the debt of revenge which violence must entail, his
adversary owes a debt of generosity to be paid in kind, and is inclined
by honour to stand to his agreement. And men oftener act in this manner
towards their greatest enemies than where the quarrel is of less importance;
they are also by nature as glad to give way to those who first yield to
them, as they are apt to be provoked by arrogance to risks condemned by
their own judgment.
"To apply this to ourselves: if peace
was ever desirable for both parties, it is surely so at the present moment,
before anything irremediable befall us and force us to hate you eternally,
personally as well as politically, and you to miss the advantages that
we now offer you. While the issue is still in doubt, and you have reputation
and our friendship in prospect, and we the compromise of our misfortune
before anything fatal occur, let us be reconciled, and for ourselves choose
peace instead of war, and grant to the rest of the Hellenes a remission
from their sufferings, for which be sure they will think they have chiefly
you to thank. The war that they labour under they know not which began,
but the peace that concludes it, as it depends on your decision, will by
their gratitude be laid to your door. By such a decision you can become
firm friends with the Lacedaemonians at their own invitation, which you
do not force from them, but oblige them by accepting. And from this friendship
consider the advantages that are likely to follow: when Attica and Sparta
are at one, the rest of Hellas, be sure, will remain in respectful inferiority
before its heads."
Such were the words of the Lacedaemonians,
their idea being that the Athenians, already desirous of a truce and only
kept back by their opposition, would joyfully accept a peace freely offered,
and give back the men. The Athenians, however, having the men on the island,
thought that the treaty would be ready for them whenever they chose to
make it, and grasped at something further. Foremost to encourage them in
this policy was Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, a popular leader of the time
and very powerful with the multitude, who persuaded them to answer as follows:
First, the men in the island must surrender themselves and their arms and
be brought to Athens. Next, the Lacedaemonians must restore Nisaea, Pegae,
Troezen, and Achaia, all places acquired not by arms, but by the previous
convention, under which they had been ceded by Athens herself at a moment
of disaster, when a truce was more necessary to her than at present. This
done they might take back their men, and make a truce for as long as both
parties might agree.
To this answer the envoys made no
reply, but asked that commissioners might be chosen with whom they might
confer on each point, and quietly talk the matter over and try to come
to some agreement. Hereupon Cleon violently assailed them, saying that
he knew from the first that they had no right intentions, and that it was
clear enough now by their refusing to speak before the people, and wanting
to confer in secret with a committee of two or three. No, if they meant
anything honest let them say it out before all. The Lacedaemonians, however,
seeing that whatever concessions they might be prepared to make in their
misfortune, it was impossible for them to speak before the multitude and
lose credit with their allies for a negotiation which might after all miscarry,
and on the other hand, that the Athenians would never grant what they asked
upon moderate terms, returned from Athens without having effected anything.
Their arrival at once put an end
to the armistice at Pylos, and the Lacedaemonians asked back their ships
according to the convention. The Athenians, however, alleged an attack
on the fort in contravention of the truce, and other grievances seemingly
not worth mentioning, and refused to give them back, insisting upon the
clause by which the slightest infringement made the armistice void. The
Lacedaemonians, after denying the contravention and protesting against
their bad faith in the matter of the ships, went away and earnestly addressed
themselves to the war. Hostilities were now carried on at Pylos upon both
sides with vigour. The Athenians cruised round the island all day with
two ships going different ways; and by night, except on the seaward side
in windy weather, anchored round it with their whole fleet, which, having
been reinforced by twenty ships from Athens come to aid in the blockade,
now numbered seventy sail; while the Peloponnesians remained encamped on
the continent, making attacks on the fort, and on the look-out for any
opportunity which might offer itself for the deliverance of their men.
Meanwhile the Syracusans and their
allies in Sicily had brought up to the squadron guarding Messina the reinforcement
which we left them preparing, and carried on the war from thence, incited
chiefly by the Locrians from hatred of the Rhegians, whose territory they
had invaded with all their forces. The Syracusans also wished to try their
fortune at sea, seeing that the Athenians had only a few ships actually
at Rhegium, and hearing that the main fleet destined to join them was engaged
in blockading the island. A naval victory, they thought, would enable them
to blockade Rhegium by sea and land, and easily to reduce it; a success
which would at once place their affairs upon a solid basis, the promontory
of Rhegium in Italy and Messina in Sicily being so near each other that
it would be impossible for the Athenians to cruise against them and command
the strait. The strait in question consists of the sea between Rhegium
and Messina, at the point where Sicily approaches nearest to the continent,
and is the Charybdis through which the story makes Ulysses sail; and the
narrowness of the passage and the strength of the current that pours in
from the vast Tyrrhenian and Sicilian mains, have rightly given it a bad
reputation.
In this strait the Syracusans and
their allies were compelled to fight, late in the day, about the passage
of a boat, putting out with rather more than thirty ships against sixteen
Athenian and eight Rhegian vessels. Defeated by the Athenians they hastily
set off, each for himself, to their own stations at Messina and Rhegium,
with the loss of one ship; night coming on before the battle was finished.
After this the Locrians retired from the Rhegian territory, and the ships
of the Syracusans and their allies united and came to anchor at Cape Pelorus,
in the territory of Messina, where their land forces joined them. Here
the Athenians and Rhegians sailed up, and seeing the ships unmanned, made
an attack, in which they in their turn lost one vessel, which was caught
by a grappling iron, the crew saving themselves by swimming. After this
the Syracusans got on board their ships, and while they were being towed
alongshore to Messina, were again attacked by the Athenians, but suddenly
got out to sea and became the assailants, and caused them to lose another
vessel. After thus holding their own in the voyage alongshore and in the
engagement as above described, the Syracusans sailed on into the harbour
of Messina.
Meanwhile the Athenians, having received
warning that Camarina was about to be betrayed to the Syracusans by Archias
and his party, sailed thither; and the Messinese took this opportunity
to attack by sea and land with all their forces their Chalcidian neighbour,
Naxos. The first day they forced the Naxians to keep their walls, and laid
waste their country; the next they sailed round with their ships, and laid
waste their land on the river Akesines, while their land forces menaced
the city. Meanwhile the Sicels came down from the high country in great
numbers, to aid against the Messinese; and the Naxians, elated at the sight,
and animated by a belief that the Leontines and their other Hellenic allies
were coming to their support, suddenly sallied out from the town, and attacked
and routed the Messinese, killing more than a thousand of them; while the
remainder suffered severely in their retreat home, being attacked by the
barbarians on the road, and most of them cut off. The ships put in to Messina,
and afterwards dispersed for their different homes. The Leontines and their
allies, with the Athenians, upon this at once turned their arms against
the now weakened Messina, and attacked, the Athenians with their ships
on the side of the harbour, and the land forces on that of the town. The
Messinese, however, sallying out with Demoteles and some Locrians who had
been left to garrison the city after the disaster, suddenly attacked and
routed most of the Leontine army, killing a great number; upon seeing which
the Athenians landed from their ships, and falling on the Messinese in
disorder chased them back into the town, and setting up a trophy retired
to Rhegium. After this the Hellenes in Sicily continued to make war on
each other by land, without the Athenians.
Meanwhile the Athenians at Pylos
were still besieging the Lacedaemonians in the island, the Peloponnesian
forces on the continent remaining where they were. The blockade was very
laborious for the Athenians from want of food and water; there was no spring
except one in the citadel of Pylos itself, and that not a large one, and
most of them were obliged to grub up the shingle on the sea beach and drink
such water as they could find. They also suffered from want of room, being
encamped in a narrow space; and as there was no anchorage for the ships,
some took their meals on shore in their turn, while the others were anchored
out at sea. But their greatest discouragement arose from the unexpectedly
long time which it took to reduce a body of men shut up in a desert island,
with only brackish water to drink, a matter which they had imagined would
take them only a few days. The fact was that the Lacedaemonians had made
advertisement for volunteers to carry into the island ground corn, wine,
cheese, and any other food useful in a siege; high prices being offered,
and freedom promised to any of the Helots who should succeed in doing so.
The Helots accordingly were most forward to engage in this risky traffic,
putting off from this or that part of Peloponnese, and running in by night
on the seaward side of the island. They were best pleased, however, when
they could catch a wind to carry them in. It was more easy to elude the
look-out of the galleys, when it blew from the seaward, as it became impossible
for them to anchor round the island; while the Helots had their boats rated
at their value in money, and ran them ashore, without caring how they landed,
being sure to find the soldiers waiting for them at the landing-places.
But all who risked it in fair weather were taken. Divers also swam in under
water from the harbour, dragging by a cord in skins poppyseed mixed with
honey, and bruised linseed; these at first escaped notice, but afterwards
a look-out was kept for them. In short, both sides tried every possible
contrivance, the one to throw in provisions, and the other to prevent their
introduction.
At Athens, meanwhile, the news that
the army was in great distress, and that corn found its way in to the men
in the island, caused no small perplexity; and the Athenians began to fear
that winter might come on and find them still engaged in the blockade.
They saw that the convoying of provisions round Peloponnese would be then
impossible. The country offered no resources in itself, and even in summer
they could not send round enough. The blockade of a place without harbours
could no longer be kept up; and the men would either escape by the siege
being abandoned, or would watch for bad weather and sail out in the boats
that brought in their corn. What caused still more alarm was the attitude
of the Lacedaemonians, who must, it was thought by the Athenians, feel
themselves on strong ground not to send them any more envoys; and they
began to repent having rejected the treaty. Cleon, perceiving the disfavour
with which he was regarded for having stood in the way of the convention,
now said that their informants did not speak the truth; and upon the messengers
recommending them, if they did not believe them, to send some commissioners
to see, Cleon himself and Theagenes were chosen by the Athenians as commissioners.
Aware that he would now be obliged either to say what had been already
said by the men whom he was slandering, or be proved a liar if he said
the contrary, he told the Athenians, whom he saw to be not altogether disinclined
for a fresh expedition, that instead of sending and wasting their time
and opportunities, if they believed what was told them, they ought to sail
against the men. And pointing at Nicias, son of Niceratus, then general,
whom he hated, he tauntingly said that it would be easy, if they had men
for generals, to sail with a force and take those in the island, and that
if he had himself been in command, he would have done it.
Nicias, seeing the Athenians murmuring
against Cleon for not sailing now if it seemed to him so easy, and further
seeing himself the object of attack, told him that for all that the generals
cared, he might take what force he chose and make the attempt. At first
Cleon fancied that this resignation was merely a figure of speech, and
was ready to go, but finding that it was seriously meant, he drew back,
and said that Nicias, not he, was general, being now frightened, and having
never supposed that Nicias would go so far as to retire in his favour.
Nicias, however, repeated his offer, and resigned the command against Pylos,
and called the Athenians to witness that he did so. And as the multitude
is wont to do, the more Cleon shrank from the expedition and tried to back
out of what he had said, the more they encouraged Nicias to hand over his
command, and clamoured at Cleon to go. At last, not knowing how to get
out of his words, he undertook the expedition, and came forward and said
that he was not afraid of the Lacedaemonians, but would sail without taking
any one from the city with him, except the Lemnians and Imbrians that were
at Athens, with some targeteers that had come up from Aenus, and four hundred
archers from other quarters. With these and the soldiers at Pylos, he would
within twenty days either bring the Lacedaemonians alive, or kill them
on the spot. The Athenians could not help laughing at his fatuity, while
sensible men comforted themselves with the reflection that they must gain
in either circumstance; either they would be rid of Cleon, which they rather
hoped, or if disappointed in this expectation, would reduce the Lacedaemonians.
After he had settled everything in
the assembly, and the Athenians had voted him the command of the expedition,
he chose as his colleague Demosthenes, one of the generals at Pylos, and
pushed forward the preparations for his voyage. His choice fell upon Demosthenes
because he heard that he was contemplating a descent on the island; the
soldiers distressed by the difficulties of the position, and rather besieged
than besiegers, being eager to fight it out, while the firing of the island
had increased the confidence of the general. He had been at first afraid,
because the island having never been inhabited was almost entirely covered
with wood and without paths, thinking this to be in the enemy's favour,
as he might land with a large force, and yet might suffer loss by an attack
from an unseen position. The mistakes and forces of the enemy the wood
would in a great measure conceal from him, while every blunder of his own
troops would be at once detected, and they would be thus able to fall upon
him unexpectedly just where they pleased, the attack being always in their
power. If, on the other hand, he should force them to engage in the thicket,
the smaller number who knew the country would, he thought, have the advantage
over the larger who were ignorant of it, while his own army might be cut
off imperceptibly, in spite of its numbers, as the men would not be able
to see where to succour each other.
The Aetolian disaster, which had
been mainly caused by the wood, had not a little to do with these reflections.
Meanwhile, one of the soldiers who were compelled by want of room to land
on the extremities of the island and take their dinners, with outposts
fixed to prevent a surprise, set fire to a little of the wood without meaning
to do so; and as it came on to blow soon afterwards, almost the whole was
consumed before they were aware of it. Demosthenes was now able for the
first time to see how numerous the Lacedaemonians really were, having up
to this moment been under the impression that they took in provisions for
a smaller number; he also saw that the Athenians thought success important
and were anxious about it, and that it was now easier to land on the island,
and accordingly got ready for the attempt, sent for troops from the allies
in the neighbourhood, and pushed forward his other preparations. At this
moment Cleon arrived at Pylos with the troops which he had asked for, having
sent on word to say that he was coming. The first step taken by the two
generals after their meeting was to send a herald to the camp on the mainland,
to ask if they were disposed to avoid all risk and to order the men on
the island to surrender themselves and their arms, to be kept in gentle
custody until some general convention should be concluded.
On the rejection of this proposition
the generals let one day pass, and the next, embarking all their heavy
infantry on board a few ships, put out by night, and a little before dawn
landed on both sides of the island from the open sea and from the harbour,
being about eight hundred strong, and advanced with a run against the first
post in the island.
The enemy had distributed his force
as follows: In this first post there were about thirty heavy infantry;
the centre and most level part, where the water was, was held by the main
body, and by Epitadas their commander; while a small party guarded the
very end of the island, towards Pylos, which was precipitous on the sea-side
and very difficult to attack from the land, and where there was also a
sort of old fort of stones rudely put together, which they thought might
be useful to them, in case they should be forced to retreat. Such was their
disposition.
The advanced post thus attacked by
the Athenians was at once put to the sword, the men being scarcely out
of bed and still arming, the landing having taken them by surprise, as
they fancied the ships were only sailing as usual to their stations for
the night. As soon as day broke, the rest of the army landed, that is to
say, all the crews of rather more than seventy ships, except the lowest
rank of oars, with the arms they carried, eight hundred archers, and as
many targeteers, the Messenian reinforcements, and all the other troops
on duty round Pylos, except the garrison on the fort. The tactics of Demosthenes
had divided them into companies of two hundred, more or less, and made
them occupy the highest points in order to paralyse the enemy by surrounding
him on every side and thus leaving him without any tangible adversary,
exposed to the cross-fire of their host; plied by those in his rear if
he attacked in front, and by those on one flank if he moved against those
on the other. In short, wherever he went he would have the assailants behind
him, and these light-armed assailants, the most awkward of all; arrows,
darts, stones, and slings making them formidable at a distance, and there
being no means of getting at them at close quarters, as they could conquer
flying, and the moment their pursuer turned they were upon him. Such was
the idea that inspired Demosthenes in his conception of the descent, and
presided over its execution.
Meanwhile the main body of the troops
in the island (that under Epitadas), seeing their outpost cut off and an
army advancing against them, serried their ranks and pressed forward to
close with the Athenian heavy infantry in front of them, the light troops
being upon their flanks and rear. However, they were not able to engage
or to profit by their superior skill, the light troops keeping them in
check on either side with their missiles, and the heavy infantry remaining
stationary instead of advancing to meet them; and although they routed
the light troops wherever they ran up and approached too closely, yet they
retreated fighting, being lightly equipped, and easily getting the start
in their flight, from the difficult and rugged nature of the ground, in
an island hitherto desert, over which the Lacedaemonians could not pursue
them with their heavy armour.
After this skirmishing had lasted
some little while, the Lacedaemonians became unable to dash out with the
same rapidity as before upon the points attacked, and the light troops
finding that they now fought with less vigour, became more confident. They
could see with their own eyes that they were many times more numerous than
the enemy; they were now more familiar with his aspect and found him less
terrible, the result not having justified the apprehensions which they
had suffered, when they first landed in slavish dismay at the idea of attacking
Lacedaemonians; and accordingly their fear changing to disdain, they now
rushed all together with loud shouts upon them, and pelted them with stones,
darts, and arrows, whichever came first to hand. The shouting accompanying
their onset confounded the Lacedaemonians, unaccustomed to this mode of
fighting; dust rose from the newly burnt wood, and it was impossible to
see in front of one with the arrows and stones flying through clouds of
dust from the hands of numerous assailants. The Lacedaemonians had now
to sustain a rude conflict; their caps would not keep out the arrows, darts
had broken off in the armour of the wounded, while they themselves were
helpless for offence, being prevented from using their eyes to see what
was before them, and unable to hear the words of command for the hubbub
raised by the enemy; danger encompassed them on every side, and there was
no hope of any means of defence or safety.
At last, after many had been already
wounded in the confined space in which they were fighting, they formed
in close order and retired on the fort at the end of the island, which
was not far off, and to their friends who held it. The moment they gave
way, the light troops became bolder and pressed upon them, shouting louder
than ever, and killed as many as they came up with in their retreat, but
most of the Lacedaemonians made good their escape to the fort, and with
the garrison in it ranged themselves all along its whole extent to repulse
the enemy wherever it was assailable. The Athenians pursuing, unable to
surround and hem them in, owing to the strength of the ground, attacked
them in front and tried to storm the position. For a long time, indeed
for most of the day, both sides held out against all the torments of the
battle, thirst, and sun, the one endeavouring to drive the enemy from the
high ground, the other to maintain himself upon it, it being now more easy
for the Lacedaemonians to defend themselves than before, as they could
not be surrounded on the flanks.
The struggle began to seem endless,
when the commander of the Messenians came to Cleon and Demosthenes, and
told them that they were losing their labour: but if they would give him
some archers and light troops to go round on the enemy's rear by a way
he would undertake to find, he thought he could force the approach. Upon
receiving what he asked for, he started from a point out of sight in order
not to be seen by the enemy, and creeping on wherever the precipices of
the island permitted, and where the Lacedaemonians, trusting to the strength
of the ground, kept no guard, succeeded after the greatest difficulty in
getting round without their seeing him, and suddenly appeared on the high
ground in their rear, to the dismay of the surprised enemy and the still
greater joy of his expectant friends. The Lacedaemonians thus placed between
two fires, and in the same dilemma, to compare small things with great,
as at Thermopylae, where the defenders were cut off through the Persians
getting round by the path, being now attacked in front and behind, began
to give way, and overcome by the odds against them and exhausted from want
of food, retreated.
The Athenians were already masters
of the approaches when Cleon and Demosthenes perceiving that, if the enemy
gave way a single step further, they would be destroyed by their soldiery,
put a stop to the battle and held their men back; wishing to take the Lacedaemonians
alive to Athens, and hoping that their stubbornness might relax on hearing
the offer of terms, and that they might surrender and yield to the present
overwhelming danger. Proclamation was accordingly made, to know if they
would surrender themselves and their arms to the Athenians to be dealt
at their discretion.
The Lacedaemonians hearing this offer,
most of them lowered their shields and waved their hands to show that they
accepted it. Hostilities now ceased, and a parley was held between Cleon
and Demosthenes and Styphon, son of Pharax, on the other side; since Epitadas,
the first of the previous commanders, had been killed, and Hippagretas,
the next in command, left for dead among the slain, though still alive,
and thus the command had devolved upon Styphon according to the law, in
case of anything happening to his superiors. Styphon and his companions
said they wished to send a herald to the Lacedaemonians on the mainland,
to know what they were to do. The Athenians would not let any of them go,
but themselves called for heralds from the mainland, and after questions
had been carried backwards and forwards two or three times, the last man
that passed over from the Lacedaemonians on the continent brought this
message: "The Lacedaemonians bid you to decide for yourselves so long as
you do nothing dishonourable"; upon which after consulting together they
surrendered themselves and their arms. The Athenians, after guarding them
that day and night, the next morning set up a trophy in the island, and
got ready to sail, giving their prisoners in batches to be guarded by the
captains of the galleys; and the Lacedaemonians sent a herald and took
up their dead. The number of the killed and prisoners taken in the island
was as follows: four hundred and twenty heavy infantry had passed over;
three hundred all but eight were taken alive to Athens; the rest were killed.
About a hundred and twenty of the prisoners were Spartans. The Athenian
loss was small, the battle not having been fought at close quarters.
The blockade in all, counting from
the fight at sea to the battle in the island, had lasted seventy-two days.
For twenty of these, during the absence of the envoys sent to treat for
peace, the men had provisions given them, for the rest they were fed by
the smugglers. Corn and other victual was found in the island; the commander
Epitadas having kept the men upon half rations. The Athenians and Peloponnesians
now each withdrew their forces from Pylos, and went home, and crazy as
Cleon's promise was, he fulfilled it, by bringing the men to Athens within
the twenty days as he had pledged himself to do.
Nothing that happened in the war
surprised the Hellenes so much as this. It was the opinion that no force
or famine could make the Lacedaemonians give up their arms, but that they
would fight on as they could, and die with them in their hands: indeed
people could scarcely believe that those who had surrendered were of the
same stuff as the fallen; and an Athenian ally, who some time after insultingly
asked one of the prisoners from the island if those that had fallen were
men of honour, received for answer that the atraktos- that is, the arrow-
would be worth a great deal if it could tell men of honour from the rest;
in allusion to the fact that the killed were those whom the stones and
the arrows happened to hit.
Upon the arrival of the men the Athenians
determined to keep them in prison until the peace, and if the Peloponnesians
invaded their country in the interval, to bring them out and put them to
death. Meanwhile the defence of Pylos was not forgotten; the Messenians
from Naupactus sent to their old country, to which Pylos formerly belonged,
some of the likeliest of their number, and began a series of incursions
into Laconia, which their common dialect rendered most destructive. The
Lacedaemonians, hitherto without experience of incursions or a warfare
of the kind, finding the Helots deserting, and fearing the march of revolution
in their country, began to be seriously uneasy, and in spite of their unwillingness
to betray this to the Athenians began to send envoys to Athens, and tried
to recover Pylos and the prisoners. The Athenians, however, kept grasping
at more, and dismissed envoy after envoy without their having effected
anything. Such was the history of the affair of Pylos.
Chapter
Thirteen
Seventh and Eighth Years of the
War - End of Corcyraean Revolution -
Peace of Gela - Capture of Nisaea
The same summer, directly after these
events, the Athenians made an expedition against the territory of Corinth
with eighty ships and two thousand Athenian heavy infantry, and two hundred
cavalry on board horse transports, accompanied by the Milesians, Andrians,
and Carystians from the allies, under the command of Nicias, son of Niceratus,
with two colleagues. Putting out to sea they made land at daybreak between
Chersonese and Rheitus, at the beach of the country underneath the Solygian
hill, upon which the Dorians in old times established themselves and carried
on war against the Aeolian inhabitants of Corinth, and where a village
now stands called Solygia. The beach where the fleet came to is about a
mile and a half from the village, seven miles from Corinth, and two and
a quarter from the Isthmus. The Corinthians had heard from Argos of the
coming of the Athenian armament, and had all come up to the Isthmus long
before, with the exception of those who lived beyond it, and also of five
hundred who were away in garrison in Ambracia and Leucadia; and they were
there in full force watching for the Athenians to land. These last, however,
gave them the slip by coming in the dark; and being informed by signals
of the fact the Corinthians left half their number at Cenchreae, in case
the Athenians should go against Crommyon, and marched in all haste to the
rescue.
Battus, one of the two generals present
at the action, went with a company to defend the village of Solygia, which
was unfortified; Lycophron remaining to give battle with the rest. The
Corinthians first attacked the right wing of the Athenians, which had just
landed in front of Chersonese, and afterwards the rest of the army. The
battle was an obstinate one, and fought throughout hand to hand. The right
wing of the Athenians and Carystians, who had been placed at the end of
the line, received and with some difficulty repulsed the Corinthians, who
thereupon retreated to a wall upon the rising ground behind, and throwing
down the stones upon them, came on again singing the paean, and being received
by the Athenians, were again engaged at close quarters. At this moment
a Corinthian company having come to the relief of the left wing, routed
and pursued the Athenian right to the sea, whence they were in their turn
driven back by the Athenians and Carystians from the ships. Meanwhile the
rest of the army on either side fought on tenaciously, especially the right
wing of the Corinthians, where Lycophron sustained the attack of the Athenian
left, which it was feared might attempt the village of Solygia.
After holding on for a long while
without either giving way, the Athenians aided by their horse, of which
the enemy had none, at length routed the Corinthians, who retired to the
hill and, halting, remained quiet there, without coming down again. It
was in this rout of the right wing that they had the most killed, Lycophron
their general being among the number. The rest of the army, broken and
put to flight in this way without being seriously pursued or hurried, retired
to the high ground and there took up its position. The Athenians, finding
that the enemy no longer offered to engage them, stripped his dead and
took up their own and immediately set up a trophy. Meanwhile, the half
of the Corinthians left at Cenchreae to guard against the Athenians sailing
on Crommyon, although unable to see the battle for Mount Oneion, found
out what was going on by the dust, and hurried up to the rescue; as did
also the older Corinthians from the town, upon discovering what had occurred.
The Athenians seeing them all coming against them, and thinking that they
were reinforcements arriving from the neighbouring Peloponnesians, withdrew
in haste to their ships with their spoils and their own dead, except two
that they left behind, not being able to find them, and going on board
crossed over to the islands opposite, and from thence sent a herald, and
took up under truce the bodies which they had left behind. Two hundred
and twelve Corinthians fell in the battle, and rather less than fifty Athenians.
Weighing from the islands, the Athenians
sailed the same day to Crommyon in the Corinthian territory, about thirteen
miles from the city, and coming to anchor laid waste the country, and passed
the night there. The next day, after first coasting along to the territory
of Epidaurus and making a descent there, they came to Methana between Epidaurus
and Troezen, and drew a wall across and fortified the isthmus of the peninsula,
and left a post there from which incursions were henceforth made upon the
country of Troezen, Haliae, and Epidaurus. After walling off this spot,
the fleet sailed off home.
While these events were going on,
Eurymedon and Sophocles had put to sea with the Athenian fleet from Pylos
on their way to Sicily and, arriving at Corcyra, joined the townsmen in
an expedition against the party established on Mount Istone, who had crossed
over, as I have mentioned, after the revolution and become masters of the
country, to the great hurt of the inhabitants. Their stronghold having
been taken by an attack, the garrison took refuge in a body upon some high
ground and there capitulated, agreeing to give up their mercenary auxiliaries,
lay down their arms, and commit themselves to the discretion of the Athenian
people. The generals carried them across under truce to the island of Ptychia,
to be kept in custody until they could be sent to Athens, upon the understanding
that, if any were caught running away, all would lose the benefit of the
treaty. Meanwhile the leaders of the Corcyraean commons, afraid that the
Athenians might spare the lives of the prisoners, had recourse to the following
stratagem. They gained over some few men on the island by secretly sending
friends with instructions to provide them with a boat, and to tell them,
as if for their own sakes, that they had best escape as quickly as possible,
as the Athenian generals were going to give them up to the Corcyraean people.
These representations succeeding,
it was so arranged that the men were caught sailing out in the boat that
was provided, and the treaty became void accordingly, and the whole body
were given up to the Corcyraeans. For this result the Athenian generals
were in a great measure responsible; their evident disinclination to sail
for Sicily, and thus to leave to others the honour of conducting the men
to Athens, encouraged the intriguers in their design and seemed to affirm
the truth of their representations. The prisoners thus handed over were
shut up by the Corcyraeans in a large building, and afterwards taken out
by twenties and led past two lines of heavy infantry, one on each side,
being bound together, and beaten and stabbed by the men in the lines whenever
any saw pass a personal enemy; while men carrying whips went by their side
and hastened on the road those that walked too slowly.
As many as sixty men were taken out
and killed in this way without the knowledge of their friends in the building,
who fancied they were merely being moved from one prison to another. At
last, however, someone opened their eyes to the truth, upon which they
called upon the Athenians to kill them themselves, if such was their pleasure,
and refused any longer to go out of the building, and said they would do
all they could to prevent any one coming in. The Corcyraeans, not liking
themselves to force a passage by the doors, got up on the top of the building,
and breaking through the roof, threw down the tiles and let fly arrows
at them, from which the prisoners sheltered themselves as well as they
could. Most of their number, meanwhile, were engaged in dispatching themselves
by thrusting into their throats the arrows shot by the enemy, and hanging
themselves with the cords taken from some beds that happened to be there,
and with strips made from their clothing; adopting, in short, every possible
means of self-destruction, and also falling victims to the missiles of
their enemies on the roof. Night came on while these horrors were enacting,
and most of it had passed before they were concluded. When it was day the
Corcyraeans threw them in layers upon wagons and carried them out of the
city. All the women taken in the stronghold were sold as slaves. In this
way the Corcyraeans of the mountain were destroyed by the commons; and
so after terrible excesses the party strife came to an end, at least as
far as the period of this war is concerned, for of one party there was
practically nothing left. Meanwhile the Athenians sailed off to Sicily,
their primary destination, and carried on the war with their allies there.
At the close of the summer, the Athenians
at Naupactus and the Acarnanians made an expedition against Anactorium,
the Corinthian town lying at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, and took
it by treachery; and the Acarnanians themselves, sending settlers from
all parts of Acarnania, occupied the place.
Summer was now over. During the winter
ensuing, Aristides, son of Archippus, one of the commanders of the Athenian
ships sent to collect money from the allies, arrested at Eion, on the Strymon,
Artaphernes, a Persian, on his way from the King to Lacedaemon. He was
conducted to Athens, where the Athenians got his dispatches translated
from the Assyrian character and read them. With numerous references to
other subjects, they in substance told the Lacedaemonians that the King
did not know what they wanted, as of the many ambassadors they had sent
him no two ever told the same story; if however they were prepared to speak
plainly they might send him some envoys with this Persian. The Athenians
afterwards sent back Artaphernes in a galley to Ephesus, and ambassadors
with him, who heard there of the death of King Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes,
which took place about that time, and so returned home.
The same winter the Chians pulled
down their new wall at the command of the Athenians, who suspected them
of meditating an insurrection, after first however obtaining pledges from
the Athenians, and security as far as this was possible for their continuing
to treat them as before. Thus the winter ended, and with it ended the seventh
year of this war of which Thucydides is the historian.
In first days of the next summer
there was an eclipse of the sun at the time of new moon, and in the early
part of the same month an earthquake. Meanwhile, the Mitylenian and other
Lesbian exiles set out, for the most part from the continent, with mercenaries
hired in Peloponnese, and others levied on the spot, and took Rhoeteum,
but restored it without injury on the receipt of two thousand Phocaean
staters. After this they marched against Antandrus and took the town by
treachery, their plan being to free Antandrus and the rest of the Actaean
towns, formerly owned by Mitylene but now held by the Athenians. Once fortified
there, they would have every facility for ship-building from the vicinity
of Ida and the consequent abundance of timber, and plenty of other supplies,
and might from this base easily ravage Lesbos, which was not far off, and
make themselves masters of the Aeolian towns on the continent.
While these were the schemes of the
exiles, the Athenians in the same summer made an expedition with sixty
ships, two thousand heavy infantry, a few cavalry, and some allied troops
from Miletus and other parts, against Cythera, under the command of Nicias,
son of Niceratus, Nicostratus, son of Diotrephes, and Autocles, son of
Tolmaeus. Cythera is an island lying off Laconia, opposite Malea; the inhabitants
are Lacedaemonians of the class of the Perioeci; and an officer called
the judge of Cythera went over to the place annually from Sparta. A garrison
of heavy infantry was also regularly sent there, and great attention paid
to the island, as it was the landing-place for the merchantmen from Egypt
and Libya, and at the same time secured Laconia from the attacks of privateers
from the sea, at the only point where it is assailable, as the whole coast
rises abruptly towards the Sicilian and Cretan seas.
Coming to land here with their armament,
the Athenians with ten ships and two thousand Milesian heavy infantry took
the town of Scandea, on the sea; and with the rest of their forces landing
on the side of the island looking towards Malea, went against the lower
town of Cythera, where they found all the inhabitants encamped. A battle
ensuing, the Cytherians held their ground for some little while, and then
turned and fled into the upper town, where they soon afterwards capitulated
to Nicias and his colleagues, agreeing to leave their fate to the decision
of the Athenians, their lives only being safe. A correspondence had previously
been going on between Nicias and certain of the inhabitants, which caused
the surrender to be effected more speedily, and upon terms more advantageous,
present and future, for the Cytherians; who would otherwise have been expelled
by the Athenians on account of their being Lacedaemonians and their island
being so near to Laconia. After the capitulation, the Athenians occupied
the town of Scandea near the harbour, and appointing a garrison for Cythera,
sailed to Asine, Helus, and most of the places on the sea, and making descents
and passing the night on shore at such spots as were convenient, continued
ravaging the country for about seven days.
The Lacedaemonians seeing the Athenians
masters of Cythera, and expecting descents of the kind upon their coasts,
nowhere opposed them in force, but sent garrisons here and there through
the country, consisting of as many heavy infantry as the points menaced
seemed to require, and generally stood very much upon the defensive. After
the severe and unexpected blow that had befallen them in the island, the
occupation of Pylos and Cythera, and the apparition on every side of a
war whose rapidity defied precaution, they lived in constant fear of internal
revolution, and now took the unusual step of raising four hundred horse
and a force of archers, and became more timid than ever in military matters,
finding themselves involved in a maritime struggle, which their organization
had never contemplated, and that against Athenians, with whom an enterprise
unattempted was always looked upon as a success sacrificed. Besides this,
their late numerous reverses of fortune, coming close one upon another
without any reason, had thoroughly unnerved them, and they were always
afraid of a second disaster like that on the island, and thus scarcely
dared to take the field, but fancied that they could not stir without a
blunder, for being new to the experience of adversity they had lost all
confidence in themselves.
Accordingly they now allowed the
Athenians to ravage their seaboard, without making any movement, the garrisons
in whose neighbourhood the descents were made always thinking their numbers
insufficient, and sharing the general feeling. A single garrison which
ventured to resist, near Cotyrta and Aphrodisia, struck terror by its charge
into the scattered mob of light troops, but retreated, upon being received
by the heavy infantry, with the loss of a few men and some arms, for which
the Athenians set up a trophy, and then sailed off to Cythera. From thence
they sailed round to Epidaurus Limera, ravaged part of the country, and
so came to Thyrea in the Cynurian territory, upon the Argive and Laconian
border. This district had been given by its Lacedaemonian owners to the
expelled Aeginetans to inhabit, in return for their good offices at the
time of the earthquake and the rising of the Helots; and also because,
although subjects of Athens, they had always sided with Lacedaemon.
While the Athenians were still at
sea, the Aeginetans evacuated a fort which they were building upon the
coast, and retreated into the upper town where they lived, rather more
than a mile from the sea. One of the Lacedaemonian district garrisons which
was helping them in the work, refused to enter here with them at their
entreaty, thinking it dangerous to shut themselves up within the wall,
and retiring to the high ground remained quiet, not considering themselves
a match for the enemy. Meanwhile the Athenians landed, and instantly advanced
with all their forces and took Thyrea. The town they burnt, pillaging what
was in it; the Aeginetans who were not slain in action they took with them
to Athens, with Tantalus, son of Patrocles, their Lacedaemonian commander,
who had been wounded and taken prisoner. They also took with them a few
men from Cythera whom they thought it safest to remove. These the Athenians
determined to lodge in the islands: the rest of the Cytherians were to
retain their lands and pay four talents tribute; the Aeginetans captured
to be all put to death, on account of the old inveterate feud; and Tantalus
to share the imprisonment of the Lacedaemonians taken on the island.
The same summer, the inhabitants
of Camarina and Gela in Sicily first made an armistice with each other,
after which embassies from all the other Sicilian cities assembled at Gela
to try to bring about a pacification. After many expressions of opinion
on one side and the other, according to the griefs and pretensions of the
different parties complaining, Hermocrates, son of Hermon, a Syracusan,
the most influential man among them, addressed the following words to the
assembly:
"If I now address you, Sicilians,
it is not because my city is the least in Sicily or the greatest sufferer
by the war, but in order to state publicly what appears to me to be the
best policy for the whole island. That war is an evil is a proposition
so familiar to every one that it would be tedious to develop it. No one
is forced to engage in it by ignorance, or kept out of it by fear, if he
fancies there is anything to be gained by it. To the former the gain appears
greater than the danger, while the latter would rather stand the risk than
put up with any immediate sacrifice. But if both should happen to have
chosen the wrong moment for acting in this way, advice to make peace would
not be unserviceable; and this, if we did but see it, is just what we stand
most in need of at the present juncture.
"I suppose that no one will dispute
that we went to war at first in order to serve our own several interests,
that we are now, in view of the same interests, debating how we can make
peace; and that if we separate without having as we think our rights, we
shall go to war again. And yet, as men of sense, we ought to see that our
separate interests are not alone at stake in the present congress: there
is also the question whether we have still time to save Sicily, the whole
of which in my opinion is menaced by Athenian ambition; and we ought to
find in the name of that people more imperious arguments for peace than
any which I can advance, when we see the first power in Hellas watching
our mistakes with the few ships that she has at present in our waters,
and under the fair name of alliance speciously seeking to turn to account
the natural hostility that exists between us. If we go to war, and call
in to help us a people that are ready enough to carry their arms even where
they are not invited; and if we injure ourselves at our own expense, and
at the same time serve as the pioneers of their dominion, we may expect,
when they see us worn out, that they will one day come with a larger armament,
and seek to bring all of us into subjection.
"And yet as sensible men, if we call
in allies and court danger, it should be in order to enrich our different
countries with new acquisitions, and not to ruin what they possess already;
and we should understand that the intestine discords which are so fatal
to communities generally, will be equally so to Sicily, if we, its inhabitants,
absorbed in our local quarrels, neglect the common enemy. These considerations
should reconcile individual with individual, and city with city, and unite
us in a common effort to save the whole of Sicily. Nor should any one imagine
that the Dorians only are enemies of Athens, while the Chalcidian race
is secured by its Ionian blood; the attack in question is not inspired
by hatred of one of two nationalities, but by a desire for the good things
in Sicily, the common property of us all. This is proved by the Athenian
reception of the Chalcidian invitation: an ally who has never given them
any assistance whatever, at once receives from them almost more than the
treaty entitles him to. That the Athenians should cherish this ambition
and practise this policy is very excusable; and I do not blame those who
wish to rule, but those who are over-ready to serve. It is just as much
in men's nature to rule those who submit to them, as it is to resist those
who molest them; one is not less invariable than the other. Meanwhile all
who see these dangers and refuse to provide for them properly, or who have
come here without having made up their minds that our first duty is to
unite to get rid of the common peril, are mistaken. The quickest way to
be rid of it is to make peace with each other; since the Athenians menace
us not from their own country, but from that of those who invited them
here. In this way instead of war issuing in war, peace quietly ends our
quarrels; and the guests who come hither under fair pretences for bad ends,
will have good reason for going away without having attained them.
"So far as regards the Athenians,
such are the great advantages proved inherent in a wise policy. Independently
of this, in the face of the universal consent, that peace is the first
of blessings, how can we refuse to make it amongst ourselves; or do you
not think that the good which you have, and the ills that you complain
of, would be better preserved and cured by quiet than by war; that peace
has its honours and splendours of a less perilous kind, not to mention
the numerous other blessings that one might dilate on, with the not less
numerous miseries of war? These considerations should teach you not to
disregard my words, but rather to look in them every one for his own safety.
If there be any here who feels certain either by right or might to effect
his object, let not this surprise be to him too severe a disappointment.
Let him remember that many before now have tried to chastise a wrongdoer,
and failing to punish their enemy have not even saved themselves; while
many who have trusted in force to gain an advantage, instead of gaining
anything more, have been doomed to lose what they had. Vengeance is not
necessarily successful because wrong has been done, or strength sure because
it is confident; but the incalculable element in the future exercises the
widest influence, and is the most treacherous, and yet in fact the most
useful of all things, as it frightens us all equally, and thus makes us
consider before attacking each other.
"Let us therefore now allow the undefined
fear of this unknown future, and the immediate terror of the Athenians'
presence, to produce their natural impression, and let us consider any
failure to carry out the programmes that we may each have sketched out
for ourselves as sufficiently accounted for by these obstacles, and send
away the intruder from the country; and if everlasting peace be impossible
between us, let us at all events make a treaty for as long a term as possible,
and put off our private differences to another day. In fine, let us recognize
that the adoption of my advice will leave us each citizens of a free state,
and as such arbiters of our own destiny, able to return good or bad offices
with equal effect; while its rejection will make us dependent on others,
and thus not only impotent to repel an insult, but on the most favourable
supposition, friends to our direst enemies, and at feud with our natural
friends.
"For myself, though, as I said at
first, the representative of a great city, and able to think less of defending
myself than of attacking others, I am prepared to concede something in
prevision of these dangers. I am not inclined to ruin myself for the sake
of hurting my enemies, or so blinded by animosity as to think myself equally
master of my own plans and of fortune which I cannot command; but I am
ready to give up anything in reason. I call upon the rest of you to imitate
my conduct of your own free will, without being forced to do so by the
enemy. There is no disgrace in connections giving way to one another, a
Dorian to a Dorian, or a Chalcidian to his brethren; above and beyond this
we are neighbours, live in the same country, are girt by the same sea,
and go by the same name of Sicilians. We shall go to war again, I suppose,
when the time comes, and again make peace among ourselves by means of future
congresses; but the foreign invader, if we are wise, will always find us
united against him, since the hurt of one is the danger of all; and we
shall never, in future, invite into the island either allies or mediators.
By so acting we shall at the present moment do for Sicily a double service,
ridding her at once of the Athenians, and of civil war, and in future shall
live in freedom at home, and be less menaced from abroad."
Such were the words of Hermocrates.
The Sicilians took his advice, and came to an understanding among themselves
to end the war, each keeping what they had- the Camarinaeans taking Morgantina
at a price fixed to be paid to the Syracusans- and the allies of the Athenians
called the officers in command, and told them that they were going to make
peace and that they would be included in the treaty. The generals assenting,
the peace was concluded, and the Athenian fleet afterwards sailed away
from Sicily. Upon their arrival at Athens, the Athenians banished Pythodorus
and Sophocles, and fined Eurymedon for having taken bribes to depart when
they might have subdued Sicily. So thoroughly had the present prosperity
persuaded the citizens that nothing could withstand them, and that they
could achieve what was possible and impracticable alike, with means ample
or inadequate it mattered not. The secret of this was their general extraordinary
success, which made them confuse their strength with their hopes.
The same summer the Megarians in
the city, pressed by the hostilities of the Athenians, who invaded their
country twice every year with all their forces, and harassed by the incursions
of their own exiles at Pegae, who had been expelled in a revolution by
the popular party, began to ask each other whether it would not be better
to receive back their exiles, and free the town from one of its two scourges.
The friends of the emigrants, perceiving the agitation, now more openly
than before demanded the adoption of this proposition; and the leaders
of the commons, seeing that the sufferings of the times had tired out the
constancy of their supporters, entered in their alarm into correspondence
with the Athenian generals, Hippocrates, son of Ariphron, and Demosthenes,
son of Alcisthenes, and resolved to betray the town, thinking this less
dangerous to themselves than the return of the party which they had banished.
It was accordingly arranged that the Athenians should first take the long
walls extending for nearly a mile from the city to the port of Nisaea,
to prevent the Peloponnesians coming to the rescue from that place, where
they formed the sole garrison to secure the fidelity of Megara; and that
after this the attempt should be made to put into their hands the upper
town, which it was thought would then come over with less difficulty.
The Athenians, after plans had been
arranged between themselves and their correspondents both as to words and
actions, sailed by night to Minoa, the island off Megara, with six hundred
heavy infantry under the command of Hippocrates, and took post in a quarry
not far off, out of which bricks used to be taken for the walls; while
Demosthenes, the other commander, with a detachment of Plataean light troops
and another of Peripoli, placed himself in ambush in the precinct of Enyalius,
which was still nearer. No one knew of it, except those whose business
it was to know that night. A little before daybreak, the traitors in Megara
began to act. Every night for a long time back, under pretence of marauding,
in order to have a means of opening the gates, they had been used, with
the consent of the officer in command, to carry by night a sculling boat
upon a cart along the ditch to the sea, and so to sail out, bringing it
back again before day upon the cart, and taking it within the wall through
the gates, in order, as they pretended, to baffle the Athenian blockade
at Minoa, there being no boat to be seen in the harbour. On the present
occasion the cart was already at the gates, which had been opened in the
usual way for the boat, when the Athenians, with whom this had been concerted,
saw it, and ran at the top of their speed from the ambush in order to reach
the gates before they were shut again, and while the cart was still there
to prevent their being closed; their Megarian accomplices at the same moment
killing the guard at the gates. The first to run in was Demosthenes with
his Plataeans and Peripoli, just where the trophy now stands; and he was
no sooner within the gates than the Plataeans engaged and defeated the
nearest party of Peloponnesians who had taken the alarm and come to the
rescue, and secured the gates for the approaching Athenian heavy infantry.
After this, each of the Athenians
as fast as they entered went against the wall. A few of the Peloponnesian
garrison stood their ground at first, and tried to repel the assault, and
some of them were killed; but the main body took fright and fled; the night
attack and the sight of the Megarian traitors in arms against them making
them think that all Megara had gone over to the enemy. It so happened also
that the Athenian herald of his own idea called out and invited any of
the Megarians that wished, to join the Athenian ranks; and this was no
sooner heard by the garrison than they gave way, and, convinced that they
were the victims of a concerted attack, took refuge in Nisaea. By daybreak,
the walls being now taken and the Megarians in the city in great agitation,
the persons who had negotiated with the Athenians, supported by the rest
of the popular party which was privy to the plot, said that they ought
to open the gates and march out to battle. It had been concerted between
them that the Athenians should rush in, the moment that the gates were
opened, while the conspirators were to be distinguished from the rest by
being anointed with oil, and so to avoid being hurt. They could open the
gates with more security, as four thousand Athenian heavy infantry from
Eleusis, and six hundred horse, had marched all night, according to agreement,
and were now close at hand. The conspirators were all ready anointed and
at their posts by the gates, when one of their accomplices denounced the
plot to the opposite party, who gathered together and came in a body, and
roundly said that they must not march out- a thing they had never yet ventured
on even when in greater force than at present- or wantonly compromise the
safety of the town, and that if what they said was not attended to, the
battle would have to be fought in Megara. For the rest, they gave no signs
of their knowledge of the intrigue, but stoutly maintained that their advice
was the best, and meanwhile kept close by and watched the gates, making
it impossible for the conspirators to effect their purpose.
The Athenian generals seeing that
some obstacle had arisen, and that the capture of the town by force was
no longer practicable, at once proceeded to invest Nisaea, thinking that,
if they could take it before relief arrived, the surrender of Megara would
soon follow. Iron, stone-masons, and everything else required quickly coming
up from Athens, the Athenians started from the wall which they occupied,
and from this point built a cross wall looking towards Megara down to the
sea on either side of Nisaea; the ditch and the walls being divided among
the army, stones and bricks taken from the suburb, and the fruit-trees
and timber cut down to make a palisade wherever this seemed necessary;
the houses also in the suburb with the addition of battlements sometimes
entering into the fortification. The whole of this day the work continued,
and by the afternoon of the next the wall was all but completed, when the
garrison in Nisaea, alarmed by the absolute want of provisions, which they
used to take in for the day from the upper town, not anticipating any speedy
relief from the Peloponnesians, and supposing Megara to be hostile, capitulated
to the Athenians on condition that they should give up their arms, and
should each be ransomed for a stipulated sum; their Lacedaemonian commander,
and any others of his countrymen in the place, being left to the discretion
of the Athenians. On these conditions they surrendered and came out, and
the Athenians broke down the long walls at their point of junction with
Megara, took possession of Nisaea, and went on with their other preparations.
Just at this time the Lacedaemonian
Brasidas, son of Tellis, happened to be in the neighbourhood of Sicyon
and Corinth, getting ready an army for Thrace. As soon as he heard of the
capture of the walls, fearing for the Peloponnesians in Nisaea and the
safety of Megara, he sent to the Boeotians to meet him as quickly as possible
at Tripodiscus, a village so called of the Megarid, under Mount Geraneia,
and went himself, with two thousand seven hundred Corinthian heavy infantry,
four hundred Phliasians, six hundred Sicyonians, and such troops of his
own as he had already levied, expecting to find Nisaea not yet taken. Hearing
of its fall (he had marched out by night to Tripodiscus), he took three
hundred picked men from the army, without waiting till his coming should
be known, and came up to Megara unobserved by the Athenians, who were down
by the sea, ostensibly, and really if possible, to attempt Nisaea, but
above all to get into Megara and secure the town. He accordingly invited
the townspeople to admit his party, saying that he had hopes of recovering
Nisaea.
However, one of the Megarian factions
feared that he might expel them and restore the exiles; the other that
the commons, apprehensive of this very danger, might set upon them, and
the city be thus destroyed by a battle within its gates under the eyes
of the ambushed Athenians. He was accordingly refused admittance, both
parties electing to remain quiet and await the event; each expecting a
battle between the Athenians and the relieving army, and thinking it safer
to see their friends victorious before declaring in their favour.
Unable to carry his point, Brasidas
went back to the rest of the army. At daybreak the Boeotians joined him.
Having determined to relieve Megara, whose danger they considered their
own, even before hearing from Brasidas, they were already in full force
at Plataea, when his messenger arrived to add spurs to their resolution;
and they at once sent on to him two thousand two hundred heavy infantry,
and six hundred horse, returning home with the main body. The whole army
thus assembled numbered six thousand heavy infantry. The Athenian heavy
infantry were drawn up by Nisaea and the sea; but the light troops being
scattered over the plain were attacked by the Boeotian horse and driven
to the sea, being taken entirely by surprise, as on previous occasions
no relief had ever come to the Megarians from any quarter. Here the Boeotians
were in their turn charged and engaged by the Athenian horse, and a cavalry
action ensued which lasted a long time, and in which both parties claimed
the victory. The Athenians killed and stripped the leader of the Boeotian
horse and some few of his comrades who had charged right up to Nisaea,
and remaining masters of the bodies gave them back under truce, and set
up a trophy; but regarding the action as a whole the forces separated without
either side having gained a decisive advantage, the Boeotians returning
to their army and the Athenians to Nisaea.
After this Brasidas and the army
came nearer to the sea and to Megara, and taking up a convenient position,
remained quiet in order of battle, expecting to be attacked by the Athenians
and knowing that the Megarians were waiting to see which would be the victor.
This attitude seemed to present two advantages. Without taking the offensive
or willingly provoking the hazards of a battle, they openly showed their
readiness to fight, and thus without bearing the burden of the day would
fairly reap its honours; while at the same time they effectually served
their interests at Megara. For if they had failed to show themselves they
would not have had a chance, but would have certainly been considered vanquished,
and have lost the town. As it was, the Athenians might possibly not be
inclined to accept their challenge, and their object would be attained
without fighting. And so it turned out. The Athenians formed outside the
long walls and, the enemy not attacking, there remained motionless; their
generals having decided that the risk was too unequal. In fact most of
their objects had been already attained; and they would have to begin a
battle against superior numbers, and if victorious could only gain Megara,
while a defeat would destroy the flower of their heavy soldiery. For the
enemy it was different; as even the states actually represented in his
army risked each only a part of its entire force, he might well be more
audacious. Accordingly, after waiting for some time without either side
attacking, the Athenians withdrew to Nisaea, and the Peloponnesians after
them to the point from which they had set out. The friends of the Megarian
exiles now threw aside their hesitation, and opened the gates to Brasidas
and the commanders from the different states- looking upon him as the victor
and upon the Athenians as having declined the battle- and receiving them
into the town proceeded to discuss matters with them; the party in correspondence
with the Athenians being paralysed by the turn things had taken.
Afterwards Brasidas let the allies
go home, and himself went back to Corinth, to prepare for his expedition
to Thrace, his original destination. The Athenians also returning home,
the Megarians in the city most implicated in the Athenian negotiation,
knowing that they had been detected, presently disappeared; while the rest
conferred with the friends of the exiles, and restored the party at Pegae,
after binding them under solemn oaths to take no vengeance for the past,
and only to consult the real interests of the town. However, as soon as
they were in office, they held a review of the heavy infantry, and separating
the battalions, picked out about a hundred of their enemies, and of those
who were thought to be most involved in the correspondence with the Athenians,
brought them before the people, and compelling the vote to be given openly,
had them condemned and executed, and established a close oligarchy in the
town- a revolution which lasted a very long while, although effected by
a very few partisans.
Chapter
Fourteen
Eighth and Ninth Years of the
War - Invasion of Boeotia -
Fall of Amphipolis - Brilliant
Successes of Brasidas
The same summer the Mitylenians were
about to fortify Antandrus, as they had intended, when Demodocus and Aristides,
the commanders of the Athenian squadron engaged in levying subsidies, heard
on the Hellespont of what was being done to the place (Lamachus their colleague
having sailed with ten ships into the Pontus) and conceived fears of its
becoming a second Anaia-the place in which the Samian exiles had established
themselves to annoy Samos, helping the Peloponnesians by sending pilots
to their navy, and keeping the city in agitation and receiving all its
outlaws. They accordingly got together a force from the allies and set
sail, defeated in battle the troops that met them from Antandrus, and retook
the place. Not long after, Lamachus, who had sailed into the Pontus, lost
his ships at anchor in the river Calex, in the territory of Heraclea, rain
having fallen in the interior and the flood coming suddenly down upon them;
and himself and his troops passed by land through the Bithynian Thracians
on the Asiatic side, and arrived at Chalcedon, the Megarian colony at the
mouth of the Pontus.
The same summer the Athenian general,
Demosthenes, arrived at Naupactus with forty ships immediately after the
return from the Megarid. Hippocrates and himself had had overtures made
to them by certain men in the cities in Boeotia, who wished to change the
constitution and introduce a democracy as at Athens; Ptoeodorus, a Theban
exile, being the chief mover in this intrigue. The seaport town of Siphae,
in the bay of Crisae, in the Thespian territory, was to be betrayed to
them by one party; Chaeronea (a dependency of what was formerly called
the Minyan, now the Boeotian, Orchomenus) to be put into their hands by
another from that town, whose exiles were very active in the business,
hiring men in Peloponnese. Some Phocians also were in the plot, Chaeronea
being the frontier town of Boeotia and close to Phanotis in Phocia. Meanwhile
the Athenians were to seize Delium, the sanctuary of Apollo, in the territory
of Tanagra looking towards Euboea; and all these events were to take place
simultaneously upon a day appointed, in order that the Boeotians might
be unable to unite to oppose them at Delium, being everywhere detained
by disturbances at home. Should the enterprise succeed, and Delium be fortified,
its authors confidently expected that even if no revolution should immediately
follow in Boeotia, yet with these places in their hands, and the country
being harassed byincursions, and a refuge in each instance near for the
partisans engaged in them, things would not remain as they were, but that
the rebels being supported by the Athenians and the forces of the oligarchs
divided, it would be possible after a while to settle matters according
to their wishes.
Such was the plot in contemplation.
Hippocrates with a force raised at home awaited the proper moment to take
the field against the Boeotians; while he sent on Demosthenes with the
forty ships above mentioned to Naupactus, to raise in those parts an army
of Acarnanians and of the other allies, and sail and receive Siphae from
the conspirators; a day having been agreed on for the simultaneous execution
of both these operations. Demosthenes on his arrival found Oeniadae already
compelled by the united Acarnanians to join the Athenian confederacy, and
himself raising all the allies in those countries marched against and subdued
Salynthius and the Agraeans; after which he devoted himself to the preparations
necessary to enable him to be at Siphae by the time appointed.
About the same time in the summer,
Brasidas set out on his march for the Thracian places with seventeen hundred
heavy infantry, and arriving at Heraclea in Trachis, from thence sent on
a messenger to his friends at Pharsalus, to ask them to conduct himself
and his army through the country. Accordingly there came to Melitia in
Achaia Panaerus, Dorus, Hippolochidas, Torylaus, and Strophacus, the Chalcidian
proxenus, under whose escort he resumed his march, being accompanied also
by other Thessalians, among whom was Niconidas from Larissa, a friend of
Perdiccas. It was never very easy to traverse Thessaly without an escort;
and throughout all Hellas for an armed force to pass without leave through
a neighbour's country was a delicate step to take. Besides this the Thessalian
people had always sympathized with the Athenians. Indeed if instead of
the customary dose oligarchy there had been a constitutional government
in Thessaly, he would never have been able to proceed; since even as it
was, he was met on his march at the river Enipeus by certain of the opposite
party who forbade his further progress, and complained of his making the
attempt without the consent of the nation. To this his escort answered
that they had no intention of taking him through against their will; they
were only friends in attendance on an unexpected visitor. Brasidas himself
added that he came as a friend to Thessaly and its inhabitants, his arms
not being directed against them but against the Athenians, with whom he
was at war, and that although he knew of no quarrel between the Thessalians
and Lacedaemonians to prevent the two nations having access to each other's
territory, he neither would nor could proceed against their wishes; he
could only beg them not to stop him. With this answer they went away, and
he took the advice of his escort, and pushed on without halting, before
a greater force might gather to prevent him. Thus in the day that he set
out from Melitia he performed the whole distance to Pharsalus, and encamped
on the river Apidanus; and so to Phacium and from thence to Perrhaebia.
Here his Thessalian escort went back, and the Perrhaebians, whoare subjects
of Thessaly, set him down at Dium in the dominions of Perdiccas, a Macedonian
town under Mount Olympus, looking towards Thessaly.
In this way Brasidas hurried through
Thessaly before any one could be got ready to stop him, and reached Perdiccas
and Chalcidice. The departure of the army from Peloponnese had been procured
by the Thracian towns in revolt against Athens and by Perdiccas, alarmed
at the successes of the Athenians. The Chalcidians thought that they would
be the first objects of an Athenian expedition, not that the neighbouring
towns which had not yet revolted did not also secretly join in the invitation;
and Perdiccas also had his apprehensions on account of his old quarrels
with the Athenians, although not openly at war with them, and above all
wished to reduce Arrhabaeus, king of the Lyncestians. It had been less
difficult for them to get an army to leave Peloponnese, because of the
ill fortune of the Lacedaemonians at the present moment. The attacks of
the Athenians upon Peloponnese, and in particular upon Laconia, might,
it was hoped, be diverted most effectually by annoying them in return,
and by sending an army to their allies, especially as they were willing
to maintain it and asked for it to aid them in revolting. The Lacedaemonians
were also glad to have an excuse for sending some of the Helots out of
the country, for fear that the present aspect of affairs and the occupation
of Pylos might encourage them to move. Indeed fear of their numbers and
obstinacy even persuaded the Lacedaemonians to the action which I shall
now relate, their policy at all times having been governed by the necessity
of taking precautions against them. The Helots were invited by a proclamation
to pick out those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished
themselves against the enemy, in order that they might receive their freedom;
the object being to test them, as it was thought that the first to claim
their freedom would be the most high-spirited and the most apt to rebel.
As many as two thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves
and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new freedom. The Spartans,
however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever knew how each
of them perished. The Spartans now therefore gladly sent seven hundred
as heavy infantry with Brasidas, who recruited the rest of his force by
means of money in Peloponnese.
Brasidas himself was sent out by
the Lacedaemonians mainly at his own desire, although the Chalcidians also
were eager to have a man so thorough as he had shown himself whenever there
was anything to be done at Sparta, and whose after-service abroad proved
of the utmost use to his country. At the present moment his just and moderate
conduct towards the towns generally succeeded in procuring their revolt,
besides the places which he managed to take by treachery; and thus when
the Lacedaemonians desired to treat, as they ultimately did, they had places
to offer in exchange, and the burden of war meanwhile shifted from Peloponnese.
Later on in the war, after the events in Sicily, the present valour and
conduct of Brasidas, known by experience to some, by hearsay to others,
was what mainly created in the allies of Athens a feeling for the Lacedaemonians.
He was the first who went out and showed himself so good a man at all points
as to leave behind him the conviction that the rest were like him.
Meanwhile his arrival in the Thracian
country no sooner became known to the Athenians than they declared war
against Perdiccas, whom they regarded as the author of the expedition,
and kept a closer watch on their allies in that quarter.
Upon the arrival of Brasidas and
his army, Perdiccas immediately started with them and with his own forces
against Arrhabaeus, son of Bromerus, king of the Lyncestian Macedonians,
his neighbour, with whom he had a quarrel and whom he wished to subdue.
However, when he arrived with his army and Brasidas at the pass leading
into Lyncus, Brasidas told him that before commencing hostilities he wished
to go and try to persuade Arrhabaeus to become the ally of Lacedaemon,
this latter having already made overtures intimating his willingness to
make Brasidas arbitrator between them, and the Chalcidian envoys accompanying
him having warned him not to remove the apprehensions of Perdiccas, in
order to ensure his greater zeal in their cause. Besides, the envoys of
Perdiccas had talked at Lacedaemon about his bringing many of the places
round him into alliance with them; and thus Brasidas thought he might take
a larger view of the question of Arrhabaeus. Perdiccas however retorted
that he had not brought him with him to arbitrate in their quarrel, but
to put down the enemies whom he might point out to him; and that while
he, Perdiccas, maintained half his army it was a breach of faith for Brasidas
to parley with Arrhabaeus. Nevertheless Brasidas disregarded the wishes
of Perdiccas and held the parley in spite of him, and suffered himself
to be persuaded to lead off the army without invading the country of Arrhabaeus;
after which Perdiccas, holding that faith had not been kept with him, contributed
only a third instead of half of the support of the army.
The same summer, without loss of
time, Brasidas marched with the Chalcidians against Acanthus, a colony
of the Andrians, a little before vintage. The inhabitants were divided
into two parties on the question of receiving him; those who had joined
the Chalcidians in inviting him, and the popular party. However, fear for
their fruit, which was still out, enabled Brasidas to persuade the multitude
to admit him alone, and to hear what he had to say before making a decision;
and he was admitted accordingly and appeared before the people, and not
being a bad speaker for a Lacedaemonian, addressed them as follows:
"Acanthians, the Lacedaemonians have
sent out me and my army to make good the reason that we gave for the war
when we began it, viz., that we were going to war with the Athenians in
order to free Hellas. Our delay in coming has been caused by mistaken expectations
as to the war at home, which led us to hope, by our own unassisted efforts
and without your risking anything, to effect the speedy downfall of the
Athenians; and you must not blame us for this, as we are now come the moment
that we were able, prepared with your aid to do our best to subdue them.
Meanwhile I am astonished at finding your gates shut against me, and at
not meeting with a better welcome. We Lacedaemonians thought of you as
allies eager to have us, to whom we should come in spirit even before we
were with you in body; and in this expectation undertook all the risks
of a march of many days through a strange country, so far did our zeal
carry us. It will be a terrible thing if after this you have other intentions,
and mean to stand in the way of your own and Hellenic freedom. It is not
merely that you oppose me yourselves; but wherever I may go people will
be less inclined to join me, on the score that you, to whom I first came-
an important town like Acanthus, and prudent men like the Acanthians- refused
to admit me. I shall have nothing to prove that the reason which I advance
is the true one; it will be said either that there is something unfair
in the freedom which I offer, or that I am in insufficient force and unable
to protect you against an attack from Athens. Yet when I went with the
army which I now have to the relief of Nisaea, the Athenians did not venture
to engage me although in greater force than I; and it is not likely they
will ever send across sea against you an army as numerous as they had at
Nisaea. And for myself, I have come here not to hurt but to free the Hellenes,
witness the solemn oaths by which I have bound my government that the allies
that I may bring over shall be independent; and besides my object in coming
is not by force or fraud to obtain your alliance, but to offer you mine
to help you against your Athenian masters. I protest, therefore, against
any suspicions of my intentions after the guarantees which I offer, and
equally so against doubts of my ability to protect you, and I invite you
to join me without hesitation.
"Some of you may hang back because
they have private enemies, and fear that I may put the city into the hands
of a party: none need be more tranquil than they. I am not come here to
help this party or that; and I do not consider that I should be bringing
you freedom in any real sense, if I should disregard your constitution,
and enslave the many to the few or the few to the many. This would be heavier
than a foreign yoke; and we Lacedaemonians, instead of being thanked for
our pains, should get neither honour nor glory, but, contrariwise, reproaches.
The charges which strengthen our hands in the war against the Athenians
would on our own showing be merited by ourselves, and more hateful in us
than in those who make no pretensions to honesty; as it is more disgraceful
for persons of character to take what they covet by fair-seeming fraud
than by open force; the one aggression having for its justification the
might which fortune gives, the other being simply a piece of clever roguery.
A matter which concerns us thus nearly we naturally look to most jealously;
and over and above the oaths that I have mentioned, what stronger assurance
can you have, when you see that our words, compared with the actual facts,
produce the necessary conviction that it is our interest to act as we say?
"If to these considerations of mine
you put in the plea of inability, and claim that your friendly feeling
should save you from being hurt by your refusal; if you say that freedom,
in your opinion, is not without its dangers, and that it is right to offer
it to those who can accept it, but not to force it on any against their
will, then I shall take the gods and heroes of your country to witness
that I came for your good and was rejected, and shall do my best to compel
you by laying waste your land. I shall do so without scruple, being justified
by the necessity which constrains me, first, to prevent the Lacedaemonians
from being damaged by you, their friends, in the event of your nonadhesion,
through the moneys that you pay to the Athenians; and secondly, to prevent
the Hellenes from being hindered by you in shaking off their servitude.
Otherwise indeed we should have no right to act as we propose; except in
the name of some public interest, what call should we Lacedaemonians have
to free those who do not wish it? Empire we do not aspire to: it is what
we are labouring to put down; and we should wrong the greater number if
we allowed you to stand in the way of the independence that we offer to
all. Endeavour, therefore, to decide wisely, and strive to begin the work
of liberation for the Hellenes, and lay up for yourselves endless renown,
while you escape private loss, and cover your commonwealth with glory."
Such were the words of Brasidas.
The Acanthians, after much had been said on both sides of the question,
gave their votes in secret, and the majority, influenced by the seductive
arguments of Brasidas and by fear for their fruit, decided to revolt from
Athens; not however admitting the army until they had taken his personal
security for the oaths sworn by his government before they sent him out,
assuring the independence of the allies whom he might bring over. Not long
after, Stagirus, a colony of the Andrians, followed their example and revolted.
Such were the events of this summer.
It was in the first days of the winter following that the places in Boeotia
were to be put into the hands of the Athenian generals, Hippocrates and
Demosthenes, the latter of whom was to go with his ships to Siphae, the
former to Delium. A mistake, however, was made in the days on which they
were each to start; and Demosthenes, sailing first to Siphae, with the
Acarnanians and many of the allies from those parts on board, failed to
effect anything, through the plot having been betrayed by Nicomachus, a
Phocian from Phanotis, who told the Lacedaemonians, and they the Boeotians.
Succours accordingly flocked in from all parts of Boeotia, Hippocrates
not being yet there to make his diversion, and Siphae and Chaeronea were
promptly secured, and the conspirators, informed of the mistake, did not
venture on any movement in the towns.
Meanwhile Hippocrates made a levy
in mass of the citizens, resident aliens, and foreigners in Athens, and
arrived at his destination after the Boeotians had already come back from
Siphae, and encamping his army began to fortify Delium, the sanctuary of
Apollo, in the following manner.A trench was dug all round the temple and
the consecrated ground, and the earth thrown up from the excavation was
made to do duty as a wall, in which stakes were also planted, the vines
round the sanctuary being cut down and thrown in, together with stones
and bricks pulled down from the houses near; every means, in short, being
used to run up the rampart. Wooden towers were also erected where they
were wanted, and where there was no part of the temple buildings left standing,
as on the side where the gallery once existing had fallen in. The work
was begun on the third day after leaving home, and continued during the
fourth, and till dinnertime on the fifth, when most of it being now finished
the army removed from Delium about a mile and a quarter on its way home.
From this point most of the light troops went straight on, while the heavy
infantry halted and remained where they were; Hippocrates having stayed
behind at Delium to arrange the posts, and to give directions for the completion
of such part of the outworks as had been left unfinished.
During the days thus employed the
Boeotians were mustering at Tanagra, and by the time that they had come
in from all the towns, found the Athenians already on their way home. The
rest of the eleven Boeotarchs were against giving battle, as the enemy
was no longer in Boeotia, the Athenians being just over the Oropian border,
when they halted; but Pagondas, son of Aeolidas, one of the Boeotarchs
of Thebes (Arianthides, son of Lysimachidas, being the other), and then
commander-in-chief, thought it best to hazard a battle. He accordingly
called the men to him, company after company, to prevent their all leaving
their arms at once, and urged them to attack the Athenians, and stand the
issue of a battle, speaking as follows:
"Boeotians, the idea that we ought
not to give battle to the Athenians, unless we came up with them in Boeotia,
is one which should never have entered into the head of any of us, your
generals. It was to annoy Boeotia that they crossed the frontier and built
a fort in our country; and they are therefore, I imagine, our enemies wherever
we may come up with them, and from wheresoever they may have come to act
as enemies do. And if any one has taken up with the idea in question for
reasons of safety, it is high time for him to change his mind. The party
attacked, whose own country is in danger, can scarcely discuss what is
prudent with the calmness of men who are in full enjoyment of what they
have got, and are thinking of attacking a neighbour in order to get more.
It is your national habit, in your country or out of it, to oppose the
same resistance to a foreign invader; and when that invader is Athenian,
and lives upon your frontier besides, it is doubly imperative to do so.
As between neighbours generally, freedom means simply a determination to
hold one's own; and with neighbours like these, who are trying to enslave
near and far alike, there is nothing for it but to fight it out to the
last. Look at the condition of the Euboeans and of most of the rest of
Hellas, and be convinced that others have to fight with their neighbours
for this frontier or that, but that for us conquest means one frontier
for the whole country, about which no dispute can be made, for they will
simply come and take by force what we have. So much more have we to fear
from this neighbour than from another. Besides, people who, like the Athenians
in the present instance, are tempted by pride of strength to attack their
neighbours, usually march most confidently against those who keep still,
and only defend themselves in their own country, but think twice before
they grapple with those who meet them outside their frontier and strike
the first blow if opportunity offers. The Athenians have shown us this
themselves; the defeat which we inflicted upon them at Coronea, at the
time when our quarrels had allowed them to occupy the country, has given
great security to Boeotia until the present day. Remembering this, the
old must equal their ancient exploits, and the young, the sons of the heroes
of that time, must endeavour not to disgrace their native valour; and trusting
in the help of the god whose temple has been sacrilegiously fortified,
and in the victims which in our sacrifices have proved propitious, we must
march against the enemy, and teach him that he must go and get what he
wants by attacking someone who will not resist him, but that men whose
glory it is to be always ready to give battle for the liberty of their
own country, and never unjustly to enslave that of others, will not let
him go without a struggle."
By these arguments Pagondas persuaded
the Boeotians to attack the Athenians, and quickly breaking up his camp
led his army forward, it being now late in the day. On nearing the enemy,
he halted in a position where a hill intervening prevented the two armies
from seeing each other, and then formed and prepared for action. Meanwhile
Hippocrates at Delium, informed of the approach of the Boeotians, sent
orders to his troops to throw themselves into line, and himself joined
them not long afterwards, leaving about three hundred horse behind him
at Delium, at once to guard the place in case of attack, and to watch their
opportunity and fall upon the Boeotians during the battle. The Boeotians
placed a detachment to deal with these, and when everything was arranged
to their satisfaction appeared over the hill, and halted in the order which
they had determined on, to the number of seven thousand heavy infantry,
more than ten thousand light troops, one thousand horse, and five hundred
targeteers. On their right were the Thebans and those of their province,
in the centre the Haliartians, Coronaeans, Copaeans, and the other people
around the lake, and on the left the Thespians, Tanagraeans, and Orchomenians,
the cavalry and the light troops being at the extremity of each wing. The
Thebans formed twenty-five shields deep, the rest as they pleased. Such
was the strength and disposition of the Boeotian army.
On the side of the Athenians, the
heavy infantry throughout the whole army formed eight deep, being in numbers
equal to the enemy, with the cavalry upon the two wings. Light troops regularly
armed there were none in the army, nor had there ever been any at Athens.
Those who had joined in the invasion, though many times more numerous than
those of the enemy, had mostly followed unarmed, as part of the levy in
mass of the citizens and foreigners at Athens, and having started first
on their way home were not present in any number. The armies being nowin
line and upon the point of engaging, Hippocrates, the general, passed along
the Athenian ranks, and encouraged them as follows:
"Athenians, I shall only say a few
words to you, but brave men require no more, and they are addressed more
to your understanding than to your courage. None of you must fancy that
we are going out of our way to run this risk in the country of another.
Fought in their territory the battle will be for ours: if we conquer, the
Peloponnesians will never invade your country without the Boeotian horse,
and in one battle you will win Boeotia and in a manner free Attica. Advance
to meet them then like citizens of a country in which you all glory as
the first in Hellas, and like sons of the fathers who beat them at Oenophyta
with Myronides and thus gained possession of Boeotia."
Hippocrates had got half through
the army with his exhortation, when the Boeotians, after a few more hasty
words from Pagondas, struck up the paean, and came against them from the
hill; the Athenians advancing to meet them, and closing at a run. The extreme
wing of neither army came into action, one like the other being stopped
by the water-courses in the way; the rest engaged with the utmost obstinacy,
shield against shield. The Boeotian left, as far as the centre, was worsted
by the Athenians. The Thespians in that part of the field suffered most
severely. The troops alongside them having given way, they were surrounded
in a narrow space and cut down fighting hand to hand; some of the Athenians
also fell into confusion in surrounding the enemy and mistook and so killed
each other. In this part of the field the Boeotians were beaten, and retreated
upon the troops still fighting; but the right, where the Thebans were,
got the better of the Athenians and shoved them further and further back,
though gradually at first. It so happened also that Pagondas, seeing the
distress of his left, had sent two squadrons of horse, where they could
not be seen, round the hill, and their sudden appearance struck a panic
into the victorious wing of the Athenians, who thought that it was another
army coming against them. At length in both parts of the field, disturbed
by this panic, and with their line broken by the advancing Thebans, the
whole Athenian army took to flight. Some made for Delium and the sea, some
for Oropus, others for Mount Parnes, or wherever they had hopes of safety,
pursued and cut down by the Boeotians, and in particular by the cavalry,
composed partly of Boeotians and partly of Locrians, who had come up just
as the rout began. Night however coming on to interrupt the pursuit, the
mass of the fugitives escaped more easily than they would otherwise have
done. The next day the troops at Oropus and Delium returned home by sea,
after leaving a garrison in the latter place, which they continued to hold
notwithstanding the defeat.
The Boeotians set up a trophy, took
up their own dead, and stripped those of the enemy, and leaving a guard
over them retired to Tanagra, there to take measures for attacking Delium.
Meanwhile a herald came from the Athenians to ask for the dead, but was
met and turned back by a Boeotian herald, who told him that he would effect
nothing until the return of himself the Boeotian herald, and who then went
on to the Athenians, and told them on the part of the Boeotians that they
had done wrong in transgressing the law of the Hellenes. Of what use was
the universal custom protecting the temples in an invaded country, if the
Athenians were to fortify Delium and live there, acting exactly as if they
were on unconsecrated ground, and drawing and using for their purposes
the water which they, the Boeotians, never touched except for sacred uses?
Accordingly for the god as well as for themselves, in the name of the deities
concerned, and of Apollo, the Boeotians invited them first to evacuate
the temple, if they wished to take up the dead that belonged to them.
After these words from the herald,
the Athenians sent their own herald to the Boeotians to say that they had
not done any wrong to the temple, and for the future would do it no more
harm than they could help; not having occupied it originally in any such
design, but to defend themselves from it against those who were really
wronging them. The law of the Hellenes was that conquest of a country,
whether more or less extensive, carried with it possession of the temples
in that country, with the obligation to keep up the usual ceremonies, at
least as far as possible. The Boeotians and most other people who had turned
out the owners of a country, and put themselves in their places by force,
now held as of right the temples which they originally entered as usurpers.
If the Athenians could have conquered more of Boeotia this would have been
the case with them: as things stood, the piece of it which they had got
they should treat as their own, and not quit unless obliged. The water
they had disturbed under the impulsion of a necessity which they had not
wantonly incurred, having been forced to use it in defending themselves
against the Boeotians who first invaded Attica. Besides, anything done
under the pressure of war and danger might reasonably claim indulgence
even in the eye of the god; or why, pray, were the altars the asylum for
involuntary offences? Transgression also was a term applied to presumptuous
offenders, not to the victims of adverse circumstances. In short, which
were most impious- the Boeotians who wished to barter dead bodies for holy
places, or the Athenians who refused to give up holy places to obtain what
was theirs by right? The condition of evacuating Boeotia must therefore
be withdrawn. They were no longer in Boeotia. They stood where they stood
by the right of the sword. All that the Boeotians had to do was to tell
them to take up their dead under a truce according to the national custom.
The Boeotians replied that if they
were in Boeotia, they must evacuate that country before taking up their
dead; if they were in their own territory, they could do as they pleased:
for they knew that, although the Oropid where the bodies as it chanced
were lying (the battle having been fought on the borders) was subject to
Athens, yet the Athenians could not get them without their leave. Besides,
why should they grant a truce for Athenian ground? And what could be fairer
than to tell them to evacuate Boeotia if they wished to get what they asked?
The Athenian herald accordingly returned with this answer, without having
accomplished his object.
Meanwhile the Boeotians at once sent
for darters and slingers from the Malian Gulf, and with two thousand Corinthian
heavy infantry who had joined them after the battle, the Peloponnesian
garrison which had evacuated Nisaea, and some Megarians with them, marched
against Delium, and attacked the fort, and after divers efforts finally
succeeded in taking it by an engine of the following description. They
sawed in two and scooped out a great beam from end to end, and fitting
it nicely together again like a pipe, hung by chains a cauldron at one
extremity, with which communicated an iron tube projecting from the beam,
which was itself in great part plated with iron. This they brought up from
a distance upon carts to the part of the wall principally composed of vines
and timber, and when it was near, inserted huge bellows into their end
of the beam and blew with them. The blast passing closely confined into
the cauldron, which was filled with lighted coals, sulphur and pitch, made
a great blaze, and set fire to the wall, which soon became untenable for
its defenders, who left it and fled; and in this way the fort was taken.
Of the garrison some were killed and two hundred made prisoners; most of
the rest got on board their ships and returned home.
Soon after the fall of Delium, which
took place seventeen days after the battle, the Athenian herald, without
knowing what had happened, came again for the dead, which were now restored
by the Boeotians, who no longer answered as at first. Not quite five hundred
Boeotians fell in the battle, and nearly one thousand Athenians, including
Hippocrates the general, besides a great number of light troops and camp
followers.
Soon after this battle Demosthenes,
after the failure of his voyage to Siphae and of the plot on the town,
availed himself of the Acarnanian and Agraean troops and of the four hundred
Athenian heavy infantry which he had on board, to make a descent on the
Sicyonian coast. Before however all his ships had come to shore, the Sicyonians
came up and routed and chased to their ships those that had landed, killing
some and taking others prisoners; after which they set up a trophy, and
gave back the dead under truce.
About the same time with the affair
of Delium took place the death of Sitalces, king of the Odrysians, who
was defeated in battle, in a campaign against the Triballi; Seuthes, son
of Sparadocus, his nephew, succeeding to the kingdom of the Odrysians,
and of the rest of Thrace ruled by Sitalces.
The same winter Brasidas, with his
allies in the Thracian places, marched against Amphipolis, the Athenian
colony on the river Strymon. A settlement upon the spot on which the city
now stands was before attempted by Aristagoras, the Milesian (when he fled
from King Darius), who was however dislodged by the Edonians; and thirty-two
years later by the Athenians, who sent thither ten thousand settlers of
their own citizens, and whoever else chose to go. These were cut off at
Drabescus by the Thracians. Twenty-nine years after, the Athenians returned
(Hagnon, son of Nicias, being sent out as leader of the colony) and drove
out the Edonians, and founded a town on the spot, formerly called Ennea
Hodoi or Nine Ways. The base from which they started was Eion, their commercial
seaport at the mouth of the river, not more than three miles from the present
town, which Hagnon named Amphipolis, because the Strymon flows round it
on two sides, and he built it so as to be conspicuous from the sea and
land alike, running a long wall across from river to river, to complete
the circumference.
Brasidas now marched against this
town, starting from Arne in Chalcidice. Arriving about dusk at Aulon and
Bromiscus, where the lake of Bolbe runs into the sea, he supped there,
and went on during the night. The weather was stormy and it was snowing
a little, which encouraged him to hurry on, in order, if possible, to take
every one at Amphipolis by surprise, except the party who were to betray
it. The plot was carried on by some natives of Argilus, an Andrian colony,
residing in Amphipolis, where they had also other accomplices gained over
by Perdiccas or the Chalcidians. But the most active in the matter were
the inhabitants of Argilus itself, which is close by, who had always been
suspected by the Athenians, and had had designs on the place. These men
now saw their opportunity arrive with Brasidas, and having for some time
been in correspondence with their countrymen in Amphipolis for the betrayal
of the town, at once received him into Argilus, and revolted from the Athenians,
and that same night took him on to the bridge over the river; where he
found only a small guard to oppose him, the town being at some distance
from the passage, and the walls not reaching down to it as at present.
This guard he easily drove in, partly through there being treason in their
ranks, partly from the stormy state of the weather and the suddenness of
his attack, and so got across the bridge, and immediately became master
of all the property outside; the Amphipolitans having houses all over the
quarter.
The passage of Brasidas was a complete
surprise to the people in the town; and the capture of many of those outside,
and the flight of the rest within the wall, combined to produce great confusion
among the citizens; especially as they did not trust one another. It is
even said that if Brasidas, instead of stopping to pillage, had advanced
straight against the town, he would probably have taken it. In fact, however,
he established himself where he was and overran the country outside, and
for the present remained inactive, vainly awaiting a demonstration on the
part of his friends within. Meanwhile the party opposed to the traitors
proved numerous enough to prevent the gates being immediately thrown open,
and in concert with Eucles, the general, who had come from Athens to defend
the place, sent to the other commander in Thrace, Thucydides, son of Olorus,
the author of this history, who was at the isle of Thasos, a Parian colony,
half a day's sail from Amphipolis, to tell him to come to their relief.
On receiptof this message he at once set sail with seven ships which he
had with him, in order, if possible, to reach Amphipolis in time to prevent
its capitulation, or in any case to save Eion.
Meanwhile Brasidas, afraid of succours
arriving by sea from Thasos, and learning that Thucydides possessed the
right of working the gold mines in that part of Thrace, and had thus great
influence with the inhabitants of the continent, hastened to gain the town,
if possible, before the people of Amphipolis should be encouraged by his
arrival to hope that he could save them by getting together a force of
allies from the sea and from Thrace, and so refuse to surrender. He accordingly
offered moderate terms, proclaiming that any of the Amphipolitans and Athenians
who chose, might continue to enjoy their property with full rights of citizenship;
while those who did not wish to stay had five days to depart, taking their
property with them.
The bulk of the inhabitants, upon
hearing this, began to change their minds, especially as only a small number
of the citizens were Athenians, the majority having come from different
quarters, and many of the prisoners outside had relations within the walls.
They found the proclamation a fair one in comparison of what their fear
had suggested; the Athenians being glad to go out, as they thought they
ran more risk than the rest, and further, did not expect any speedy relief,
and the multitude generally being content at being left in possession of
their civic rights, and at such an unexpected reprieve from danger. The
partisans of Brasidas now openly advocated this course, seeing that the
feeling of the people had changed, and that they no longer gave ear to
the Athenian general present; and thus the surrender was made and Brasidas
was admitted by them on the terms of his proclamation. In this way they
gave up the city, and late in the same day Thucydides and his ships entered
the harbour of Eion, Brasidas having just got hold of Amphipolis, and having
been within a night of taking Eion: had the ships been less prompt in relieving
it, in the morning it would have been his.
After this Thucydides put all in
order at Eion to secure it against any present or future attack of Brasidas,
and received such as had elected to come there from the interior according
to the terms agreed on. Meanwhile Brasidas suddenly sailed with a number
of boats down the river to Eion to see if he could not seize the point
running out from the wall, and so command the entrance; at the same time
he attempted it by land, but was beaten off on both sides and had to content
himself with arranging matters at Amphipolis and in the neighbourhood.
Myrcinus, an Edonian town, also came over to him; the Edonian king Pittacus
having been killed by the sons of Goaxis and his own wife Brauro; and Galepsus
and Oesime, which are Thasian colonies, not long after followed its example.
Perdiccas too came up immediately after the capture and joined in these
arrangements.
The news that Amphipolis was in the
hands of the enemy caused great alarm at Athens. Not only was the town
valuable for the timber it afforded for shipbuilding, and the money that
it brought in; but also, although the escort of the Thessalians gave the
Lacedaemonians a means of reaching the allies of Athens as far as the Strymon,
yet as long as they were not masters of the bridge but were watched on
the side of Eion by the Athenian galleys, and on the land side impeded
by a large and extensive lake formed by the waters of the river, it was
impossible for them to go any further. Now, on the contrary, the path seemed
open. There was also the fear of the allies revolting, owing to the moderation
displayed by Brasidas in all his conduct, and to the declarations which
he was everywhere making that he sent out to free Hellas. The towns subject
to the Athenians, hearing of the capture of Amphipolis and of the terms
accorded to it, and of the gentleness of Brasidas, felt most strongly encouraged
to change their condition, and sent secret messages to him, begging him
to come on to them; each wishing to be the first to revolt. Indeed there
seemed to be no danger in so doing; their mistake in their estimate of
the Athenian power was as great as that power afterwards turned out to
be, and their judgment was based more upon blind wishing than upon any
sound prevision; for it is a habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope
what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they
do not fancy. Besides the late severe blow which the Athenians had met
with in Boeotia, joined to the seductive, though untrue, statements of
Brasidas, about the Athenians not having ventured to engage his single
army at Nisaea, made the allies confident, and caused them to believe that
no Athenian force would be sent against them. Above all the wish to do
what was agreeable at the moment, and the likelihood that they should find
the Lacedaemonians full of zeal at starting, made them eager to venture.
Observing this, the Athenians sent garrisons to the different towns, as
far as was possible at such short notice and in winter; while Brasidas
sent dispatches to Lacedaemon asking for reinforcements, and himself made
preparations for building galleys in the Strymon. The Lacedaemonians however
did not send him any, partly through envy on the part of their chief men,
partly because they were more bent on recovering the prisoners of the island
and ending the war.
The same winter the Megarians took
and razed to the foundations the long walls which had been occupied by
the Athenians; and Brasidas after the capture of Amphipolis marched with
his allies against Acte, a promontory running out from the King's dike
with an inward curve, and ending in Athos, a lofty mountain looking towards
the Aegean Sea. In it are various towns, Sane, an Andrian colony, close
to the canal, and facing the sea in the direction of Euboea; the others
being Thyssus, Cleone, Acrothoi, Olophyxus, and Dium, inhabited by mixed
barbarian races speaking the two languages. There is also a small Chalcidian
element; but the greater number are Tyrrheno-Pelasgians once settled in
Lemnos and Athens, and Bisaltians, Crestonians, and Edonians; the towns
being all small ones. Most of these came over to Brasidas; but Sane and
Dium held out and saw their land ravaged by him and his army.
Upon their not submitting, he at
once marched against Torone in Chalcidice, which was held by an Athenian
garrison, having been invited by a few persons who were prepared to handover
the town. Arriving in the dark a little before daybreak, he sat down with
his army near the temple of the Dioscuri, rather more than a quarter of
a mile from the city. The rest of the town of Torone and the Athenians
in garrison did not perceive his approach; but his partisans knowing that
he was coming (a few of them had secretly gone out to meet him) were on
the watch for his arrival, and were no sooner aware of it than they took
it to them seven light-armed men with daggers, who alone of twenty men
ordered on this service dared to enter, commanded by Lysistratus an Olynthian.
These passed through the sea wall, and without being seen went up and put
to the sword the garrison of the highest post in the town, which stands
on a hill, and broke open the postern on the side of Canastraeum.
Brasidas meanwhile came a little
nearer and then halted with his main body, sending on one hundred targeteers
to be ready to rush in first, the moment that a gate should be thrown open
and the beacon lighted as agreed. After some time passed in waiting and
wondering at the delay, the targeteers by degrees got up close to the town.
The Toronaeans inside at work with the party that had entered had by this
time broken down the postern and opened the gates leading to the market-place
by cutting through the bar, and first brought some men round and let them
in by the postern, in order to strike a panic into the surprised townsmen
by suddenly attacking them from behind and on both sides at once; after
which they raised the fire-signal as had been agreed, and took in by the
market gates the rest of the targeteers.
Brasidas seeing the signal told the
troops to rise, and dashed forward amid the loud hurrahs of his men, which
carried dismay among the astonished townspeople. Some burst in straight
by the gate, others over some square pieces of timber placed against the
wall (which has fallen down and was being rebuilt) to draw up stones; Brasidas
and the greater number making straight uphill for the higher part of the
town, in order to take it from top to bottom, and once for all, while the
rest of the multitude spread in all directions.
The capture of the town was effected
before the great body of the Toronaeans had recovered from their surprise
and confusion; but the conspirators and the citizens of their party at
once joined the invaders. About fifty of the Athenian heavy infantry happened
to be sleeping in the market-place when the alarm reached them. A few of
these were killed fighting; the rest escaped, some by land, others to the
two ships on the station, and took refuge in Lecythus, a fort garrisoned
by their own men in the corner of the town running out into the sea and
cut off by a narrow isthmus; where they were joined by the Toronaeans of
their party.
Day now arrived, and the town being
secured, Brasidas made a proclamation to the Toronaeans who had taken refuge
with the Athenians, to come out, as many as chose, to their homes without
fearing for their rights or persons, and sent a herald to invite the Athenians
to accept a truce, and to evacuate Lecythus with their property, as being
Chalcidian ground. The Athenians refused this offer, but asked for a truce
for a day to take up their dead. Brasidas granted it for two days, which
he employed in fortifying the houses near, and the Athenians in doing the
same to their positions. Meanwhile he called a meeting of the Toronaeans,
and said very much what he had said at Acanthus, namely, that they must
not look upon those who had negotiated with him for the capture of the
town as bad men or as traitors, as they had not acted as they had done
from corrupt motives or in order to enslave the city, but for the good
and freedom of Torone; nor again must those who had not shared in the enterprise
fancy that they would not equally reap its fruits, as he had not come to
destroy either city or individual. This was the reason of his proclamation
to those that had fled for refuge to the Athenians: he thought none the
worse of them for their friendship for the Athenians; he believed that
they had only to make trial of the Lacedaemonians to like them as well,
or even much better, as acting much more justly: it was for want of such
a trial that they were now afraid of them. Meanwhile he warned all of them
to prepare to be staunch allies, and for being held responsible for all
faults in future: for the past, they had not wronged the Lacedaemonians
but had been wronged by others who were too strong for them, and any opposition
that they might have offered him could be excused.
Having encouraged them with this
address, as soon as the truce expired he made his attack upon Lecythus;
the Athenians defending themselves from a poor wall and from some houses
with parapets. One day they beat him off; the next the enemy were preparing
to bring up an engine against them from which they meant to throw fire
upon the wooden defences, and the troops were already coming up to the
point where they fancied they could best bring up the engine, and where
place was most assailable; meanwhile the Athenians put a wooden tower upon
a house opposite, and carried up a quantity of jars and casks of water
and big stones, and a large number of men also climbed up. The house thus
laden too heavily suddenly broke down with a loud crash; at which the men
who were near and saw it were more vexed than frightened; but those not
so near, and still more those furthest off, thought that the place was
already taken at that point, and fled in haste to the sea and the ships.
Brasidas, perceiving that they were
deserting the parapet, and seeing what was going on, dashed forward with
his troops, and immediately took the fort, and put to the sword all whom
he found in it. In this way the place was evacuated by the Athenians, who
went across in their boats and ships to Pallene. Now there is a temple
of Athene in Lecythus, and Brasidas had proclaimed in the moment of making
the assault that he would give thirty silver minae to the man first on
the wall. Being now of opinion that the capture was scarcely due to human
means, he gave the thirty minae to the goddess for her temple, and razed
and cleared Lecythus, and made the whole of it consecrated ground. The
rest of the winter he spent in settling the places in his hands, and in
making designs upon the rest; and with the expiration of the winter the
eighth year of this war ended.
In the spring of the summer following,
the Lacedaemonians and Athenians made an armistice for a year; the Athenians
thinking that they would thus have full leisure to take their precautions
before Brasidas could procure the revolt of any more of their towns, and
might also, if it suited them, conclude a general peace; the Lacedaemonians
divining the actual fears of the Athenians, and thinking that after once
tasting a respite from trouble and misery they would be more disposed to
consent to a reconciliation, and to give back the prisoners, and make a
treaty for the longer period. The great idea of the Lacedaemonians was
to get back their men while Brasidas's good fortune lasted: further successes
might make the struggle a less unequal one in Chalcidice, but would leave
them still deprived of their men, and even in Chalcidice not more than
a match for the Athenians and by no means certain of victory. An armistice
was accordingly concluded by Lacedaemon and her allies upon the terms following:
1. As to the temple and oracle of
the Pythian Apollo, we are agreed that whosoever will shall have access
to it, without fraud or fear, according to the usages of his forefathers.
The Lacedaemonians and the allies present agree to this, and promise to
send heralds to the Boeotians and Phocians, and to do their best to persuade
them to agree likewise.
2. As to the treasure of the god,
we agree to exert ourselves to detect all malversators, truly and honestly
following the customs of our forefathers, we and you and all others willing
to do so, all following the customs of our forefathers. As to these points
the Lacedaemonians and the other allies are agreed as has been said.
3. As to what follows, the Lacedaemonians
and the other allies agree, if the Athenians conclude a treaty, to remain,
each of us in our own territory, retaining our respective acquisitions:
the garrison in Coryphasium keeping within Buphras and Tomeus: that in
Cythera attempting no communication with the Peloponnesian confederacy,
neither we with them, nor they with us: that in Nisaea and Minoa not crossing
the road leading from the gates of the temple of Nisus to that of Poseidon
and from thence straight to the bridge at Minoa: the Megarians and the
allies being equally bound not to cross this road, and the Athenians retaining
the island they have taken, without any communication on either side: as
to Troezen, each side retaining what it has, and as was arranged with the
Athenians.
4. As to the use of the sea, so far
as refers to their own coast and to that of their confederacy, that the
Lacedaemonians and their allies may voyage upon it in any vessel rowed
by oars and of not more than five hundred talents tonnage, not a vessel
of war.
5. That all heralds and embassies,
with as many attendants as they please, for concluding the war and adjusting
claims, shall have free passage, going and coming, to Peloponnese or Athens
by land and by sea.
6. That during the truce, deserters
whether bond or free shall be received neither by you, nor by us.
7. Further, that satisfaction shall
be given by you to us and by us to you according to the public law of our
several countries, all disputes being settled by law without recourse to
hostilities.
The Lacedaemonians and allies agree
to these articles; but if you have anything fairer or juster to suggest,
come to Lacedaemon and let us know: whatever shall be just will meet with
no objection either from the Lacedaemonians or from the allies. Only let
those who come come with full powers, as you desire us. The truce shall
be for one year.
Approved by the people. The tribe
of Acamantis had the prytany, Phoenippus was secretary, Niciades chairman.
Laches moved, in the name of the good luck of the Athenians, that they
should conclude the armistice upon the terms agreed upon by the Lacedaemonians
and the allies. It was agreed accordingly in the popular assembly that
the armistice should be for one year, beginning that very day, the fourteenth
of the month of Elaphebolion; during which time ambassadors and heralds
should go and come between the two countries to discuss the bases of a
pacification. That the generals and prytanes should call an assembly of
the people, in which the Athenians should first consult on the peace, and
on the mode in which the embassy for putting an end to the war should be
admitted. That the embassy now present should at once take the engagement
before the people to keep well and truly this truce for one year.
On these terms the Lacedaemonians
concluded with the Athenians and their allies on the twelfth day of the
Spartan month Gerastius; the allies also taking the oaths. Those who concluded
and poured the libation were Taurus, son of Echetimides, Athenaeus, son
of Pericleidas, and Philocharidas, son of Eryxidaidas, Lacedaemonians;
Aeneas, son of Ocytus, and Euphamidas, son of Aristonymus, Corinthians;
Damotimus, son of Naucrates, and Onasimus, son of Megacles, Sicyonians;
Nicasus, son of Cecalus, and Menecrates, son of Amphidorus, Megarians;
and Amphias, son of Eupaidas, an Epidaurian; and the Athenian generals
Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes, Nicias, son of Niceratus, and Autocles,
son of Tolmaeus. Such was the armistice, and during the whole of it conferences
went on on the subject of a pacification.
In the days in which they were going
backwards and forwards to these conferences, Scione, a town in Pallene,
revolted from Athens, and went over to Brasidas. The Scionaeans say that
they are Pallenians from Peloponnese, and that their first founders on
their voyage from Troy were carried in to this spot by the storm which
the Achaeans were caught in, and there settled. The Scionaeans had no sooner
revolted than Brasidas crossed over by night to Scione, with a friendly
galley ahead and himself in a small boat some way behind; his idea being
that if he fell in with a vessel larger than the boat he would have the
galley to defend him, while a ship that was a match for the galley would
probably neglect the small vessel to attack the large one, and thus leave
him time to escape. His passage effected, he called a meeting of the Scionaeans
and spoke to the same effect as at Acanthus and Torone, adding that they
merited the utmost commendation, in that, in spite of Pallene within the
isthmus being cut off by the Athenian occupation of Potidaea and of their
own practically insular position, they had of their own free will gone
forward to meet their liberty instead of timorously waiting until they
had been by force compelled to their own manifest good. This was a sign
that they would valiantly undergo any trial, however great; and if he should
order affairs as he intended, he should count them among the truest and
sincerest friends of the Lacedaemonians, and would in every other way honour
them.
The Scionaeans were elated by his
language, and even those who had at first disapproved of what was being
done catching the general confidence, they determined on a vigorous conduct
of the war, and welcomed Brasidas with all possible honours, publicly crowning
him with a crown of gold as the liberator of Hellas; while private persons
crowded round him and decked him with garlands as though he had been an
athlete. Meanwhile Brasidas left them a small garrison for the present
and crossed back again, and not long afterwards sent over a larger force,
intending with the help of the Scionaeans to attempt Mende and Potidaea
before the Athenians should arrive; Scione, he felt, being too like an
island for them not to relieve it. He had besides intelligence in the above
towns about their betrayal.
In the midst of his designs upon
the towns in question, a galley arrived with the commissioners carrying
round the news of the armistice, Aristonymus for the Athenians and Athenaeus
for the Lacedaemonians. The troops now crossed back to Torone, and the
commissioners gave Brasidas notice of the convention. All the Lacedaemonian
allies in Thrace accepted what had been done; and Aristonymus made no difficulty
about the rest, but finding, on counting the days, that the Scionaeans
had revolted after the date of the convention, refused to include them
in it. To this Brasidas earnestly objected, asserting that the revolt took
place before, and would not give up the town. Upon Aristonymus reporting
the case to Athens, the people at once prepared to send an expedition to
Scione. Upon this, envoys arrived from Lacedaemon, alleging that this would
be a breach of the truce, and laying claim to the town upon the faith of
the assertion of Brasidas, and meanwhile offering to submit the question
to arbitration. Arbitration, however, was what the Athenians did not choose
to risk; being determined to send troops at once to the place, and furious
at the idea of even the islanders now daring to revolt, in a vain reliance
upon the power of the Lacedaemonians by land. Besides the facts of the
revolt were rather as the Athenians contended, the Scionaeans having revolted
two days after the convention. Cleon accordingly succeeded in carrying
a decree to reduce and put to death the Scionaeans; and the Athenians employed
the leisure which they now enjoyed in preparing for the expedition. Meanwhile
Mende revolted, a town in Pallene and a colony of the Eretrians, and was
received without scruple by Brasidas, in spite of its having evidently
come over during the armistice, on account of certain infringements of
the truce alleged by him against the Athenians. This audacity of Mende
was partly caused by seeing Brasidas forward in the matter and by the conclusions
drawn from his refusal to betray Scione; and besides, the conspirators
in Mende were few, and, as I have already intimated, had carried on their
practices too long not to fear detection for themselves, and not to wish
to force the inclination of the multitude. This news made the Athenians
more furious than ever, and they at once prepared against both towns. Brasidas,
expecting their arrival, conveyed away to Olynthus in Chalcidice the women
and children of the Scionaeans and Mendaeans, and sent over to them five
hundred Peloponnesian heavy infantry and three hundred Chalcidian targeteers,
all under the command of Polydamidas.
Leaving these two towns to prepare
together against the speedy arrival of the Athenians, Brasidas and Perdiccas
started on a second joint expedition into Lyncus against Arrhabaeus; the
latter with the forces of his Macedonian subjects, and a corps of heavy
infantry composed of Hellenes domiciled in the country; the former with
the Peloponnesians whom he still had with him and the Chalcidians, Acanthians,
and the rest in such force as they were able. In all there were about three
thousand Hellenic heavy infantry, accompanied by all the Macedonian cavalry
with the Chalcidians, near one thousand strong, besides an immense crowd
of barbarians. On entering the country of Arrhabaeus, they found the Lyncestians
encamped awaiting them, and themselves took up a position opposite. The
infantry on either side were upon a hill, with a plain between them, into
which the horse of both armies first galloped down and engaged a cavalry
action. After this the Lyncestian heavy infantry advanced from their hill
to join their cavalry and offered battle; upon which Brasidas and Perdiccas
also came down to meet them, and engaged and routed them with heavy loss;
the survivors taking refuge upon the heights and there remaining inactive.
The victors now set up a trophy and waited two or three days for the Illyrian
mercenaries who were to join Perdiccas. Perdiccas then wished to go on
and attack the villages of Arrhabaeus, and to sit still no longer; but
Brasidas, afraid that the Athenians might sail up during his absence, and
of something happening to Mende, and seeing besides that the Illyrians
did not appear, far from seconding this wish was anxious to return.
While they were thus disputing, the
news arrived that the Illyrians had actually betrayed Perdiccas and had
joined Arrhabaeus; and the fear inspired by their warlike character made
both parties now think it best to retreat. However, owing to the dispute,
nothing had been settled as to when they should start; and night coming
on, the Macedonians and the barbarian crowd took fright in a moment in
one of those mysterious panics to which great armies are liable; and persuaded
that an army many times more numerous than that which had really arrived
was advancing and all but upon them, suddenly broke and fled in the direction
of home, and thus compelled Perdiccas, who at first did not perceive what
had occurred, to depart without seeing Brasidas, the two armies being encamped
at a considerable distance from each other. At daybreak Brasidas, perceiving
that the Macedonians had gone on, and that the Illyrians and Arrhabaeus
were on the point of attacking him, formed his heavy infantry into a square,
with the light troops in the centre, and himself also prepared to retreat.
Posting his youngest soldiers to dash out wherever the enemy should attack
them, he himself with three hundred picked men in the rear intended to
face about during the retreat and beat off the most forward of their assailants,
Meanwhile, before the enemy approached, he sought to sustain the courage
of his soldiers with the following hasty exhortation:
"Peloponnesians, if I did not suspect
you of being dismayed at being left alone to sustain the attack of a numerous
and barbarian enemy, I should just have said a few words to you as usual
without further explanation. As it is, in the face of the desertion of
our friends and the numbers of the enemy, I have some advice and information
to offer, which, brief as they must be, will, I hope, suffice for the more
important points. The bravery that you habitually display in war does not
depend on your having allies at your side in this or that encounter, but
on your native courage; nor have numbers any terrors for citizens of states
like yours, in which the many do not rule the few, but rather the few the
many, owing their position to nothing else than to superiority in the field.
Inexperience now makes you afraid of barbarians; and yet the trial of strength
which you had with the Macedonians among them, and my own judgment, confirmed
by what I hear from others, should be enough to satisfy you that they will
not prove formidable. Where an enemy seems strong but is really weak, a
true knowledge of the facts makes his adversary the bolder, just as a serious
antagonist is encountered most confidently by those who do not know him.
Thus the present enemy might terrify an inexperienced imagination; they
are formidable in outward bulk, their loud yelling is unbearable, and the
brandishing of their weapons in the air has a threatening appearance. But
when it comes to real fighting with an opponent who stands his ground,
they are not what they seemed; they have no regular order that they should
be ashamed of deserting their positions when hard pressed; flight and attack
are with them equally honourable, and afford no test of courage; their
independent mode of fighting never leaving any one who wants to run away
without a fair excuse for so doing. In short, they think frightening you
at a secure distance a surer game than meeting you hand to hand; otherwise
they would have done the one and not the other. You can thus plainly see
that the terrors with which they were at first invested are in fact trifling
enough, though to the eye and ear very prominent. Stand your ground therefore
when they advance, and again wait your opportunity to retire in good order,
and you will reach a place of safety all the sooner, and will know for
ever afterwards that rabble such as these, to those who sustain their first
attack, do but show off their courage by threats of the terrible things
that they are going to do, at a distance, but with those who give way to
them are quick enough to display their heroism in pursuit when they can
do so without danger."
With this brief address Brasidas
began to lead off his army. Seeing this, the barbarians came on with much
shouting and hubbub, thinking that he was flying and that they would overtake
him and cut him off. But wherever they charged they found the young men
ready to dash out against them, while Brasidas with his picked company
sustained their onset. Thus the Peloponnesians withstood the first attack,
to the surprise of the enemy, and afterwards received and repulsed them
as fast as they came on, retiring as soon as their opponents became quiet.
The main body of the barbarians ceased therefore to molest the Hellenes
with Brasidas in the open country, and leaving behind a certain number
to harass their march, the rest went on after the flying Macedonians, slaying
those with whom they came up, and so arrived in time to occupy the narrow
pass between two hills that leads into the country of Arrhabaeus. They
knew that this was the only way by which Brasidas could retreat, and now
proceeded to surround him just as he entered the most impracticable part
of the road, in order to cut him off.
Brasidas, perceiving their intention,
told his three hundred to run on without order, each as quickly as he could,
to the hill which seemed easiest to take, and to try to dislodge the barbarians
already there, before they should be joined by the main body closing round
him. These attacked and overpowered the party upon the hill, and the main
army of the Hellenes now advanced with less difficulty towards it- the
barbarians being terrified at seeing their men on that side driven from
the height and no longer following the main body, who, they considered,
had gained the frontier and made good their escape. The heights once gained,
Brasidas now proceeded more securely, and the same day arrived at Arnisa,
the first town in the dominions of Perdiccas. The soldiers, enraged at
the desertion of the Macedonians, vented their rage on all their yokes
of oxen which they found on the road, and on any baggage which had tumbled
off (as might easily happen in the panic of a night retreat), by unyoking
and cutting down the cattle and taking the baggage for themselves. From
this moment Perdiccas began to regard Brasidas as an enemy and to feel
against the Peloponnesians a hatred which could not be congenial to the
adversary of the Athenians. However, he departed from his natural interests
and made it his endeavour to come to terms with the latter and to get rid
of the former.
On his return from Macedonia to Torone,
Brasidas found the Athenians already masters of Mende, and remained quiet
where he was, thinking it now out of his power to cross over into Pallene
and assist the Mendaeans, but he kept good watch over Torone. For about
the same time as the campaign in Lyncus, the Athenians sailed upon the
expedition which we left them preparing against Mende and Scione, with
fifty ships, ten of which were Chians, one thousand Athenian heavy infantry
and six hundred archers, one hundred Thracian mercenaries and some targeteers
drawn from their allies in the neighbourhood, under the command of Nicias,
son of Niceratus, and Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes. Weighing from Potidaea,
the fleet came to land opposite the temple of Poseidon, and proceeded against
Mende; the men of which town, reinforced by three hundred Scionaeans, with
their Peloponnesian auxiliaries, seven hundred heavy infantry in all, under
Polydamidas, they found encamped upon a strong hill outside the city. These
Nicias, with one hundred and twenty light-armed Methonaeans, sixty picked
men from the Athenian heavy infantry, and all the archers, tried to reach
by a path running up the hill, but received a wound and found himself unable
to force the position; while Nicostratus, with all the rest of the army,
advancing upon the hill, which was naturally difficult, by a different
approach further off, was thrown into utter disorder; and the whole Athenian
army narrowly escaped being defeated. For that day, as the Mendaeans and
their allies showed no signs of yielding, the Athenians retreated and encamped,
and the Mendaeans at nightfall returned into the town.
The next day the Athenians sailed
round to the Scione side, and took the suburb, and all day plundered the
country, without any one coming out against them, partly because of intestine
disturbances in the town; and the following night the three hundred Scionaeans
returned home. On the morrow Nicias advanced with half the army to the
frontier of Scione and laid waste the country; while Nicostratus with the
remainder sat down before the town near the upper gate on the road to Potidaea.
The arms of the Mendaeans and of their Peloponnesian auxiliaries within
the wall happened to be piled in that quarter, where Polydamidas accordingly
began to draw them up for battle, encouraging the Mendaeans to make a sortie.
At this moment one of the popular party answered him factiously that they
would not go out and did not want a war, and for thus answering was dragged
by the arm and knocked about by Polydamidas. Hereupon the infuriated commons
at once seized their arms and rushed at the Peloponnesians and at their
allies of the opposite faction. The troops thus assaulted were at once
routed, partly from the suddenness of the conflict and partly through fear
of the gates being opened to the Athenians, with whom they imagined that
the attack had been concerted. As many as were not killed on the spot took
refuge in the citadel, which they had held from the first; and the whole,
Athenian army, Nicias having by this time returned and being close to the
city, now burst into Mende, which had opened its gates without any convention,
and sacked it just as if they had taken it by storm, the generals even
finding some difficulty in restraining them from also massacring the inhabitants.
After this the Athenians told the Mendaeans that they might retain their
civil rights, and themselves judge the supposed authors of the revolt;
and cut off the party in the citadel by a wall built down to the sea on
either side, appointing troops to maintain the blockade. Having thus secured
Mende, they proceeded against Scione.
The Scionaeans and Peloponnesians
marched out against them, occupying a strong hill in front of the town,
which had to be captured by the enemy before they could invest the place.
The Athenians stormed the hill, defeated and dislodged its occupants, and,
having encamped and set up a trophy, prepared for the work of circumvallation.
Not long after they had begun their operations, the auxiliaries besieged
in the citadel of Mende forced the guard by the sea-side and arrived by
night at Scione, into which most of them succeeded in entering, passing
through the besieging army.
While the investment of Scione was
in progress, Perdiccas sent a herald to the Athenian generals and made
peace with the Athenians, through spite against Brasidas for the retreat
from Lyncus, from which moment indeed he had begun to negotiate. The Lacedaemonian
Ischagoras was just then upon the point of starting with an army overland
to join Brasidas; and Perdiccas, being now required by Nicias to give some
proof of the sincerity of his reconciliation to the Athenians, and being
himself no longer disposed to let the Peloponnesians into his country,
put in motion his friends in Thessaly, with whose chief men he always took
care to have relations, and so effectually stopped the army and its preparation
that they did not even try the Thessalians. Ischagoras himself, however,
with Ameinias and Aristeus, succeeded in reaching Brasidas; they had been
commissioned by the Lacedaemonians to inspect the state of affairs, and
brought out from Sparta (in violation of all precedent) some of their young
men to put in command of the towns, to guard against their being entrusted
to the persons upon the spot. Brasidas accordingly placed Clearidas, son
of Cleonymus, in Amphipolis, and Pasitelidas, son of Hegesander, in Torone.
The same summer the Thebans dismantled
the wall of the Thespians on the charge of Atticism, having always wished
to do so, and now finding it an easy matter, as the flower of the Thespian
youth had perished in the battle with the Athenians. The same summer also
the temple of Hera at Argos was burnt down, through Chrysis, the priestess,
placing a lighted torch near the garlands and then falling asleep, so that
they all caught fire and were in a blaze before she observed it. Chrysis
that very night fled to Phlius for fear of the Argives, who, agreeably
to the law in such a case, appointed another priestess named Phaeinis.
Chrysis at the time of her flight had been priestess for eight years of
the present war and half the ninth. At the close of the summer the investment
of Scione was completed, and the Athenians, leaving a detachment to maintain
the blockade, returned with the rest of their army.
During the winter following, the
Athenians and Lacedaemonians were kept quiet by the armistice; but the
Mantineans and Tegeans, and their respective allies, fought a battle at
Laodicium, in the Oresthid. The victory remained doubtful, as each side
routed one of the wings opposed to them, and both set up trophies and sent
spoils to Delphi. After heavy loss on both sides the battle was undecided,
and night interrupted the action; yet the Tegeans passed the night on the
field and set up a trophy at once, while the Mantineans withdrew to Bucolion
and set up theirs afterwards.
At the close of the same winter,
in fact almost in spring, Brasidas made an attempt upon Potidaea. He arrived
by night, and succeeded in planting a ladder against the wall without being
discovered, the ladder being planted just in the interval between the passing
round of the bell and the return of the man who brought it back. Upon the
garrison, however, taking the alarm immediately afterwards, before his
men came up, he quickly led off his troops, without waiting until it was
day. So ended the winter and the ninth year of this war of which Thucydides
is the historian. |
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