The History of the Peloponnesian War
By Thucydides
Written about 431 BC
Translated by Richard Crawley
London 1910.
The Fifth Book
Chapter XV
Tenth Year of the War – Death of Cleon and Brasidas – Peace of Nicias.
The next summer the truce for a year ended, after lasting until the Pythian games.
During the armistice the Athenians expelled the Delians from Delos, concluding that
they must have been polluted by some old offence at the time of their consecration,
and that this had been the omission in the previous purification of the island,
which, as I have related, had been thought to have been duly accomplished by the
removal of the graves of the dead. The Delians had Atramyttium in Asia given them
by Pharnaces, and settled there as they removed from Delos.
Meanwhile Cleon prevailed on the Athenians to let him set sail at the expiration
of the armistice for the towns in the direction of Thrace with twelve hundred heavy
infantry and three hundred horse from Athens, a large force of the allies, and thirty
ships. First touching at the still besieged Scione, and taking some heavy infantry
from the army there, he next sailed into Cophos, a harbour in the territory of Torone,
which is not far from the town. From thence, having learnt from deserters that Brasidas
was not in Torone, and that its garrison was not strong enough to give him battle,
he advanced with his army against the town, sending ten ships to sail round into
the harbour. He first came to the fortification lately thrown up in front of the
town by Brasidas in order to take in the suburb, to do which he had pulled down
part of the original wall and made it all one city. To this point Pasitelidas, the
Lacedaemonian commander, with such garrison as there was in the place, hurried to
repel the Athenian assault; but finding himself hard pressed, and seeing the ships
that had been sent round sailing into the harbour, Pasitelidas began to be afraid
that they might get up to the city before its defenders were there and, the fortification
being also carried, he might be taken prisoner, and so abandoned the outwork and
ran into the town. But the Athenians from the ships had already taken Torone, and
their land forces following at his heels burst in with him with a rush over the
part of the old wall that had been pulled down, killing some of the Peloponnesians
and Toronaeans in the melee, and making prisoners of the rest, and Pasitelidas their
commander amongst them. Brasidas meanwhile had advanced to relieve Torone, and had
only about four miles more to go when he heard of its fall on the road, and turned
back again. Cleon and the Athenians set up two trophies, one by the harbour, the
other by the fortification and, making slaves of the wives and children of the Toronaeans,
sent the men with the Peloponnesians and any Chalcidians that were there, to the
number of seven hundred, to Athens; whence, however, they all came home afterwards,
the Peloponnesians on the conclusion of peace, and the rest by being exchanged against
other prisoners with the Olynthians. About the same time Panactum, a fortress on
the Athenian border, was taken by treachery by the Boeotians. Meanwhile Cleon, after
placing a garrison in Torone, weighed anchor and sailed around Athos on his way
to Amphipolis.
About the same time Phaeax, son of Erasistratus, set sail with two colleagues
as ambassador from Athens to Italy and Sicily. The Leontines, upon the departure
of the Athenians from Sicily after the pacification, had placed a number of new
citizens upon the roll, and the commons had a design for redividing the land; but
the upper classes, aware of their intention, called in the Syracusans and expelled
the commons. These last were scattered in various directions; but the upper classes
came to an agreement with the Syracusans, abandoned and laid waste their city, and
went and lived at Syracuse, where they were made citizens. Afterwards some of them
were dissatisfied, and leaving Syracuse occupied Phocaeae, a quarter of the town
of Leontini, and Bricinniae, a strong place in the Leontine country, and being there
joined by most of the exiled commons carried on war from the fortifications. The
Athenians hearing this, sent Phaeax to see if they could not by some means so convince
their allies there and the rest of the Sicilians of the ambitious designs of Syracuse
as to induce them to form a general coalition against her, and thus save the commons
of Leontini. Arrived in Sicily, Phaeax succeeded at Camarina and Agrigentum, but
meeting with a repulse at Gela did not go on to the rest, as he saw that he should
not succeed with them, but returned through the country of the Sicels to Catana,
and after visiting Bricinniae as he passed, and encouraging its inhabitants, sailed
back to Athens.
During his voyage along the coast to and from Sicily, he treated with some cities
in Italy on the subject of friendship with Athens, and also fell in with some Locrian
settlers exiled from Messina, who had been sent thither when the Locrians were called
in by one of the factions that divided Messina after the pacification of Sicily,
and Messina came for a time into the hands of the Locrians. These being met by Phaeax
on their return home received no injury at his hands, as the Locrians had agreed
with him for a treaty with Athens. They were the only people of the allies who,
when the reconciliation between the Sicilians took place, had not made peace with
her; nor indeed would they have done so now, if they had not been pressed by a war
with the Hipponians and Medmaeans who lived on their border, and were colonists
of theirs. Phaeax meanwhile proceeded on his voyage, and at length arrived at Athens.
Cleon, whom we left on his voyage from Torone to Amphipolis, made Eion his base,
and after an unsuccessful assault upon the Andrian colony of Stagirus, took Galepsus,
a colony of Thasos, by storm. He now sent envoys to Perdiccas to command his attendance
with an army, as provided by the alliance; and others to Thrace, to Polles, king
of the Odomantians, who was to bring as many Thracian mercenaries as possible; and
himself remained inactive in Eion, awaiting their arrival. Informed of this, Brasidas
on his part took up a position of observation upon Cerdylium, a place situated in
the Argilian country on high ground across the river, not far from Amphipolis, and
commanding a view on all sides, and thus made it impossible for Cleon’s army to
move without his seeing it; for he fully expected that Cleon, despising the scanty
numbers of his opponent, would march against Amphipolis with the force that he had
got with him. At the same time Brasidas made his preparations, calling to his standard
fifteen hundred Thracian mercenaries and all the Edonians, horse and targeteers;
he also had a thousand Myrcinian and Chalcidian targeteers, besides those in Amphipolis,
and a force of heavy infantry numbering altogether about two thousand, and three
hundred Hellenic horse. Fifteen hundred of these he had with him upon Cerdylium;
the rest were stationed with Clearidas in Amphipolis.
After remaining quiet for some time, Cleon was at length obliged to do as Brasidas
expected. His soldiers, tired of their inactivity, began also seriously to reflect
on the weakness and incompetence of their commander, and the skill and valour that
would be opposed to him, and on their own original unwillingness to accompany him.
These murmurs coming to the ears of Cleon, he resolved not to disgust the army by
keeping it in the same place, and broke up his camp and advanced. The temper of
the general was what it had been at Pylos, his success on that occasion having given
him confidence in his capacity. He never dreamed of any one coming out to fight
him, but said that he was rather going up to view the place; and if he waited for
his reinforcements, it was not in order to make victory secure in case he should
be compelled to engage, but to be enabled to surround and storm the city. He accordingly
came and posted his army upon a strong hill in front of Amphipolis, and proceeded
to examine the lake formed by the Strymon, and how the town lay on the side of Thrace.
He thought to retire at pleasure without fighting, as there was no one to be seen
upon the wall or coming out of the gates, all of which were shut. Indeed, it seemed
a mistake not to have brought down engines with him; he could then have taken the
town, there being no one to defend it.
As soon as Brasidas saw the Athenians in motion he descended himself from Cerdylium
and entered Amphipolis. He did not venture to go out in regular order against the
Athenians: he mistrusted his strength, and thought it inadequate to the attempt;
not in numbers- these were not so unequal- but in quality, the flower of the Athenian
army being in the field, with the best of the Lemnians and Imbrians. He therefore
prepared to assail them by stratagem. By showing the enemy the number of his troops,
and the shifts which he had been put to to to arm them, he thought that he should
have less chance of beating him than by not letting him have a sight of them, and
thus learn how good a right he had to despise them. He accordingly picked out a
hundred and fifty heavy infantry and, putting the rest under Clearidas, determined
to attack suddenly before the Athenians retired; thinking that he should not have
again such a chance of catching them alone, if their reinforcements were once allowed
to come up; and so calling all his soldiers together in order to encourage them
and explain his intention, spoke as follows:
“Peloponnesians, the character of the country from which we have come, one which
has always owed its freedom to valour, and the fact that you are Dorians and the
enemy you are about to fight Ionians, whom you are accustomed to beat, are things
that do not need further comment. But the plan of attack that I propose to pursue,
this it is as well to explain, in order that the fact of our adventuring with a
part instead of with the whole of our forces may not damp your courage by the apparent
disadvantage at which it places you. I imagine it is the poor opinion that he has
of us, and the fact that he has no idea of any one coming out to engage him, that
has made the enemy march up to the place and carelessly look about him as he is
doing, without noticing us. But the most successful soldier will always be the man
who most happily detects a blunder like this, and who carefully consulting his own
means makes his attack not so much by open and regular approaches, as by seizing
the opportunity of the moment; and these stratagems, which do the greatest service
to our friends by most completely deceiving our enemies, have the most brilliant
name in war. Therefore, while their careless confidence continues, and they are
still thinking, as in my judgment they are now doing, more of retreat than of maintaining
their position, while their spirit is slack and not high-strung with expectation,
I with the men under my command will, if possible, take them by surprise and fall
with a run upon their centre; and do you, Clearidas, afterwards, when you see me
already upon them, and, as is likely, dealing terror among them, take with you the
Amphipolitans, and the rest of the allies, and suddenly open the gates and dash
at them, and hasten to engage as quickly as you can. That is our best chance of
establishing a panic among them, as a fresh assailant has always more terrors for
an enemy than the one he is immediately engaged with. Show yourself a brave man,
as a Spartan should; and do you, allies, follow him like men, and remember that
zeal, honour, and obedience mark the good soldier, and that this day will make you
either free men and allies of Lacedaemon, or slaves of Athens; even if you escape
without personal loss of liberty or life, your bondage will be on harsher terms
than before, and you will also hinder the liberation of the rest of the Hellenes.
No cowardice then on your part, seeing the greatness of the issues at stake, and
I will show that what I preach to others I can practise myself.”
After this brief speech Brasidas himself prepared for the sally, and placed the
rest with Clearidas at the Thracian gates to support him as had been agreed. Meanwhile
he had been seen coming down from Cerdylium and then in the city, which is overlooked
from the outside, sacrificing near the temple of Athene; in short, all his movements
had been observed, and word was brought to Cleon, who had at the moment gone on
to look about him, that the whole of the enemy’s force could be seen in the town,
and that the feet of horses and men in great numbers were visible under the gates,
as if a sally were intended. Upon hearing this he went up to look, and having done
so, being unwilling to venture upon the decisive step of a battle before his reinforcements
came up, and fancying that he would have time to retire, bid the retreat be sounded
and sent orders to the men to effect it by moving on the left wing in the direction
of Eion, which was indeed the only way practicable. This however not being quick
enough for him, he joined the retreat in person and made the right wing wheel round,
thus turning its unarmed side to the enemy. It was then that Brasidas, seeing the
Athenian force in motion and his opportunity come, said to the men with him and
the rest: “Those fellows will never stand before us, one can see that by the way
their spears and heads are going. Troops which do as they do seldom stand a charge.
Quick, someone, and open the gates I spoke of, and let us be out and at them with
no fears for the result.” Accordingly issuing out by the palisade gate and by the
first in the long wall then existing, he ran at the top of his speed along the straight
road, where the trophy now stands as you go by the steepest part of the hill, and
fell upon and routed the centre of the Athenians, panic-stricken by their own disorder
and astounded at his audacity. At the same moment Clearidas in execution of his
orders issued out from the Thracian gates to support him, and also attacked the
enemy. The result was that the Athenians, suddenly and unexpectedly attacked on
both sides, fell into confusion; and their left towards Eion, which had already
got on some distance, at once broke and fled. Just as it was in full retreat and
Brasidas was passing on to attack the right, he received a wound; but his fall was
not perceived by the Athenians, as he was taken up by those near him and carried
off the field. The Athenian right made a better stand, and though Cleon, who from
the first had no thought of fighting, at once fled and was overtaken and slain by
a Myrcinian targeteer, his infantry forming in close order upon the hill twice or
thrice repulsed the attacks of Clearidas, and did not finally give way until they
were surrounded and routed by the missiles of the Myrcinian and Chalcidian horse
and the targeteers. Thus the Athenian army was all now in flight; and such as escaped
being killed in the battle, or by the Chalcidian horse and the targeteers, dispersed
among the hills, and with difficulty made their way to Eion. The men who had taken
up and rescued Brasidas, brought him into the town with the breath still in him:
he lived to hear of the victory of his troops, and not long after expired. The rest
of the army returning with Clearidas from the pursuit stripped the dead and set
up a trophy.
After this all the allies attended in arms and buried Brasidas at the public
expense in the city, in front of what is now the marketplace, and the Amphipolitans,
having enclosed his tomb, ever afterwards sacrifice to him as a hero and have given
to him the honour of games and annual offerings. They constituted him the founder
of their colony, and pulled down the Hagnonic erections, and obliterated everything
that could be interpreted as a memorial of his having founded the place; for they
considered that Brasidas had been their preserver, and courting as they did the
alliance of Lacedaemon for fear of Athens, in their present hostile relations with
the latter they could no longer with the same advantage or satisfaction pay Hagnon
his honours. They also gave the Athenians back their dead. About six hundred of
the latter had fallen and only seven of the enemy, owing to there having been no
regular engagement, but the affair of accident and panic that I have described.
After taking up their dead the Athenians sailed off home, while Clearidas and his
troops remained to arrange matters at Amphipolis.
About the same time three Lacedaemonians- Ramphias, Autocharidas, and Epicydidas-
led a reinforcement of nine hundred heavy infantry to the towns in the direction
of Thrace, and arriving at Heraclea in Trachis reformed matters there as seemed
good to them. While they delayed there, this battle took place and so the summer
ended.
With the beginning of the winter following, Ramphias and his companions penetrated
as far as Pierium in Thessaly; but as the Thessalians opposed their further advance,
and Brasidas whom they came to reinforce was dead, they turned back home, thinking
that the moment had gone by, the Athenians being defeated and gone, and themselves
not equal to the execution of Brasidas’s designs. The main cause however of their
return was because they knew that when they set out Lacedaemonian opinion was really
in favour of peace.
Indeed it so happened that directly after the battle of Amphipolis and the retreat
of Ramphias from Thessaly, both sides ceased to prosecute the war and turned their
attention to peace. Athens had suffered severely at Delium, and again shortly afterwards
at Amphipolis, and had no longer that confidence in her strength which had made
her before refuse to treat, in the belief of ultimate victory which her success
at the moment had inspired; besides, she was afraid of her allies being tempted
by her reverses to rebel more generally, and repented having let go the splendid
opportunity for peace which the affair of Pylos had offered. Lacedaemon, on the
other hand, found the event of the war to falsify her notion that a few years would
suffice for the overthrow of the power of the Athenians by the devastation of their
land. She had suffered on the island a disaster hitherto unknown at Sparta; she
saw her country plundered from Pylos and Cythera; the Helots were deserting, and
she was in constant apprehension that those who remained in Peloponnese would rely
upon those outside and take advantage of the situation to renew their old attempts
at revolution. Besides this, as chance would have it, her thirty years’ truce with
the Argives was upon the point of expiring; and they refused to renew it unless
Cynuria were restored to them; so that it seemed impossible to fight Argos and Athens
at once. She also suspected some of the cities in Peloponnese of intending to go
over to the endeed was indeed the case.
These considerations made both sides disposed for an accommodation; the Lacedaemonians
being probably the most eager, as they ardently desired to recover the men taken
upon the island, the Spartans among whom belonged to the first families and were
accordingly related to the governing body in Lacedaemon. Negotiations had been begun
directly after their capture, but the Athenians in their hour of triumph would not
consent to any reasonable terms; though after their defeat at Delium, Lacedaemon,
knowing that they would be now more inclined to listen, at once concluded the armistice
for a year, during which they were to confer together and see if a longer period
could not be agreed upon.
Now, however, after the Athenian defeat at Amphipolis, and the death of Cleon
and Brasidas, who had been the two principal opponents of peace on either side-
the latter from the success and honour which war gave him, the former because he
thought that, if tranquillity were restored, his crimes would be more open to detection
and his slanders less credited- the foremost candidates for power in either city,
Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of Lacedaemon, and Nicias, son of Niceratus,
the most fortunate general of his time, each desired peace more ardently than ever.
Nicias, while still happy and honoured, wished to secure his good fortune, to obtain
a present release from trouble for himself and his countrymen, and hand down to
posterity a name as an ever-successful statesman, and thought the way to do this
was to keep out of danger and commit himself as little as possible to fortune, and
that peace alone made this keeping out of danger possible. Pleistoanax, again, was
assailed by his enemies for his restoration, and regularly held up by them to the
prejudice of his countrymen, upon every reverse that befell them, as though his
unjust restoration were the cause; the accusation being that he and his brother
Aristocles had bribed the prophetess of Delphi to tell the Lacedaemonian deputations
which successively arrived at the temple to bring home the seed of the demigod son
of Zeus from abroad, else they would have to plough with a silver share. In this
way, it was insisted, in time he had induced the Lacedaemonians in the nineteenth
year of his exile to Lycaeum (whither he had gone when banished on suspicion of
having been bribed to retreat from Attica, and had built half his house within the
consecrated precinct of Zeus for fear of the Lacedaemonians), to restore him with
the same dances and sacrifices with which they had instituted their kings upon the
first settlement of Lacedaemon. The smart of this accusation, and the reflection
that in peace no disaster could occur, and that when Lacedaemon had recovered her
men there would be nothing for his enemies to take hold of (whereas, while war lasted,
the highest station must always bear the scandal of everything that went wrong),
made him ardently desire a settlement. Accordingly this winter was employed in conferences;
and as spring rapidly approached, the Lacedaemonians sent round orders to the cities
to prepare for a fortified occupation of Attica, and held this as a sword over the
heads of the Athenians to induce them to listen to their overtures; and at last,
after many claims had been urged on either side at the conferences a peace was agreed
on upon the following basis. Each party was to restore its conquests, but Athens
was to keep Nisaea; her demand for Plataea being met by the Thebans asserting that
they had acquired the place not by force or treachery, but by the voluntary adhesion
upon agreement of its citizens; and the same, according to the Athenian account,
being the history of her acquisition of Nisaea. This arranged, the Lacedaemonians
summoned their allies, and all voting for peace except the Boeotians, Corinthians,
Eleans, and Megarians, who did not approve of these proceedings, they concluded
the treaty and made peace, each of the contracting parties swearing to the following
articles:
The Athenians and Lacedaemonians and their allies made a treaty, and swore to
it, city by city, as follows;
1. Touching the national temples, there shall be a free passage by land and by
sea to all who wish it, to sacrifice, travel, consult, and attend the oracle or
games, according to the customs of their countries.
2. The temple and shrine of Apollo at Delphi and the Delphians shall be governed
by their own laws, taxed by their own state, and judged by their own judges, the
land and the people, according to the custom of their country.
3. The treaty shall be binding for fifty years upon the Athenians and the allies
of the Athenians, and upon the Lacedaemonians and the allies of the Lacedaemonians,
without fraud or hurt by land or by sea.
4. It shall not be lawful to take up arms, with intent to do hurt, either for
the Lacedaemonians and their allies against the Athenians and their allies, or for
the Athenians and their allies against the Lacedaemonians and their allies, in any
way or means whatsoever. But should any difference arise between them they are to
have recourse to law and oaths, according as may be agreed between the parties.
5. The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall give back Amphipolis to the Athenians.
Nevertheless, in the case of cities given up by the Lacedaemonians to the Athenians,
the inhabitants shall be allowed to go where they please and to take their property
with them: and the cities shall be independent, paying only the tribute of Aristides.
And it shall not be lawful for the Athenians or their allies to carry on war against
them after the treaty has been concluded, so long as the tribute is paid. The cities
referred to are Argilus, Stagirus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, and Spartolus. These
cities shall be neutral, allies neither of the Lacedaemonians nor of the Athenians:
but if the cities consent, it shall be lawful for the Athenians to make them their
allies, provided always that the cities wish it. The Mecybernaeans, Sanaeans, and
Singaeans shall inhabit their own cities, as also the Olynthians and Acanthians:
but the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall give back Panactum to the Athenians.
6. The Athenians shall give back Coryphasium, Cythera, Methana, Pteleum, and Atalanta
to the Lacedaemonians, and also all Lacedaemonians that are in the prison at Athens
or elsewhere in the Athenian dominions, and shall let go the Peloponnesians besieged
in Scione, and all others in Scione that are allies of the Lacedaemonians, and all
whom Brasidas sent in there, and any others of the allies of the Lacedaemonians
that may be in the prison at Athens or elsewhere in the Athenian dominions.
7. The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall in like manner give back any of
the Athenians or their allies that they may have in their hands.
8. In the case of Scione, Torone, and Sermylium, and any other cities that the
Athenians may have, the Athenians may adopt such measures as they please.
9. The Athenians shall take an oath to the Lacedaemonians and their allies, city
by city. Every man shall swear by the most binding oath of his country, seventeen
from each city. The oath shall be as follows; “I will abide by this agreement and
treaty honestly and without deceit.” In the same way an oath shall be taken by the
Lacedaemonians and their allies to the Athenians: and the oath shall be renewed
annually by both parties. Pillars shall be erected at Olympia, Pythia, the Isthmus,
at Athens in the Acropolis, and at Lacedaemon in the temple at Amyclae.
10. If anything be forgotten, whatever it be, and on whatever point, it shall
be consistent with their oath for both parties, the Athenians and Lacedaemonians,
to alter it, according to their discretion.
The treaty begins from the ephoralty of Pleistolas in Lacedaemon, on the 27th
day of the month of Artemisium, and from the archonship, of Alcaeus at Athens, on
the 25th day of the month of Elaphebolion. Those who took the oath and poured the
libations for the Lacedaemonians were Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetis,
Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daithus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antippus,
Tellis, Alcinadas, Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus: for the Athenians, Lampon, Isthmonicus,
Nicias, Laches, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes,
Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, and Demosthenes.
This treaty was made in the spring, just at the end of winter, directly after
the city festival of Dionysus, just ten years, with the difference of a few days,
from the first invasion of Attica and the commencement of this war. This must be
calculated by the seasons rather than by trusting to the enumeration of the names
of the several magistrates or offices of honour that are used to mark past events.
Accuracy is impossible where an event may have occurred in the beginning, or middle,
or at any period in their tenure of office. But by computing by summers and winters,
the method adopted in this history, it will be found that, each of these amounting
to half a year, there were ten summers and as many winters contained in this first
war.
Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians, to whose lot it fell to begin the work of restitution,
immediately set free all the prisoners of war in their possession, and sent Ischagoras,
Menas, and Philocharidas as envoys to the towns in the direction of Thrace, to order
Clearidas to hand over Amphipolis to the Athenians, and the rest of their allies
each to accept the treaty as it affected them. They, however, did not like its terms,
and refused to accept it; Clearidas also, willing to oblige the Chalcidians, would
not hand over the town, averring his inability to do so against their will. Meanwhile
he hastened in person to Lacedaemon with envoys from the place, to defend his disobedience
against the possible accusations of Ischagoras and his companions, and also to see
whether it was too late for the agreement to be altered; and on finding the Lacedaemonians
were bound, quickly set out back again with instructions from them to hand over
the place, if possible, or at all events to bring out the Peloponnesians that were
in it.
The allies happened to be present in person at Lacedaemon, and those who had
not accepted the treaty were now asked by the Lacedaemonians to adopt it. This,
however, they refused to do, for the same reasons as before, unless a fairer one
than the present were agreed upon; and remaining firm in their determination were
dismissed by the Lacedaemonians, who now decided on forming an alliance with the
Athenians, thinking that Argos, who had refused the application of Ampelidas and
Lichas for a renewal of the treaty, would without Athens be no longer formidable,
and that the rest of the Peloponnese would be most likely to keep quiet, if the
coveted alliance of Athens were shut against them. Accordingly, after conference
with the Athenian ambassadors, an alliance was agreed upon and oaths were exchanged,
upon the terms following:
1. The Lacedaemonians shall be allies of the Athenians for fifty years.
2. Should any enemy invade the territory of Lacedaemon and injure the Lacedaemonians,
the Athenians shall help in such way as they most effectively can, according to
their power. But if the invader be gone after plundering the country, that city
shall be the enemy of Lacedaemon and Athens, and shall be chastised by both, and
one shall not make peace without the other. This to be honestly, loyally, and without
fraud.
3. Should any enemy invade the territory of Athens and injure the Athenians,
the Lacedaemonians shall help them in such way as they most effectively can, according
to their power. But if the invader be gone after plundering the country, that city
shall be the enemy of Lacedaemon and Athens, and shall be chastised by both, and
one shall not make peace without the other. This to be honestly, loyally, and without
fraud.
4. Should the slave population rise, the Athenians shall help the Lacedaemonians
with all their might, according to their power.
5. This treaty shall be sworn to by the same persons on either side that swore
to the other. It shall be renewed annually by the Lacedaemonians going to Athens
for the Dionysia, and the Athenians to Lacedaemon for the Hyacinthia, and a pillar
shall be set up by either party: at Lacedaemon near the statue of Apollo at Amyclae,
and at Athens on the Acropolis near the statue of Athene. Should the Lacedaemonians
and Athenians see to add to or take away from the alliance in any particular, it
shall be consistent with their oaths for both parties to do so, according to their
discretion.
Those who took the oath for the Lacedaemonians were Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas,
Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daithus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas,
Antippus, Alcinadas, Tellis, Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus; for the Athenians, Lampon,
Isthmionicus, Laches, Nicias, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus,
Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, and Demosthenes.
This alliance was made not long after the treaty; and the Athenians gave back
the men from the island to the Lacedaemonians, and the summer of the eleventh year
began. This completes the history of the first war, which occupied the whole of
the ten years previously.
Chapter XVI
Feeling against Sparta in Peloponnese – League of the Mantineans, Eleans, Argives,
and Athenians – Battle of Mantinea and breaking up of the League.
After the treaty and the alliance between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, concluded
after the ten years’ war, in the ephorate of Pleistolas at Lacedaemon, and the archonship
of Alcaeus at Athens, the states which had accepted them were at peace; but the
Corinthians and some of the cities in Peloponnese trying to disturb the settlement,
a fresh agitation was instantly commenced by the allies against Lacedaemon. Further,
the Lacedaemonians, as time went on, became suspected by the Athenians through their
not performing some of the provisions in the treaty; and though for six years and
ten months they abstained from invasion of each other’s territory, yet abroad an
unstable armistice did not prevent either party doing the other the most effectual
injury, until they were finally obliged to break the treaty made after the ten years’
war and to have recourse to open hostilities.
The history of this period has been also written by the same Thucydides, an Athenian,
in the chronological order of events by summers and winters, to the time when the
Lacedaemonians and their allies put an end to the Athenian empire, and took the
Long Walls and Piraeus. The war had then lasted for twenty-seven years in all. Only
a mistaken judgment can object to including the interval of treaty in the war. Looked
at by the light of facts it cannot, it will be found, be rationally considered a
state of peace, where neither party either gave or got back all that they had agreed,
apart from the violations of it which occurred on both sides in the Mantinean and
Epidaurian wars and other instances, and the fact that the allies in the direction
of Thrace were in as open hostility as ever, while the Boeotians had only a truce
renewed every ten days. So that the first ten years’ war, the treacherous armistice
that followed it, and the subsequent war will, calculating by the seasons, be found
to make up the number of years which I have mentioned, with the difference of a
few days, and to afford an instance of faith in oracles being for once justified
by the event. I certainly all along remember from the beginning to the end of the
war its being commonly declared that it would last thrice nine years. I lived through
the whole of it, being of an age to comprehend events, and giving my attention to
them in order to know the exact truth about them. It was also my fate to be an exile
from my country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis; and being present
with both parties, and more especially with the Peloponnesians by reason of my exile,
I had leisure to observe affairs somewhat particularly. I will accordingly now relate
the differences that arose after the ten years’ war, the breach of the treaty, and
the hostilities that followed.
After the conclusion of the fifty years’ truce and of the subsequent alliance,
the embassies from Peloponnese which had been summoned for this business returned
from Lacedaemon. The rest went straight home, but the Corinthians first turned aside
to Argos and opened negotiations with some of the men in office there, pointing
out that Lacedaemon could have no good end in view, but only the subjugation of
Peloponnese, or she would never have entered into treaty and alliance with the once
detested Athenians, and that the duty of consulting for the safety of Peloponnese
had now fallen upon Argos, who should immediately pass a decree inviting any Hellenic
state that chose, such state being independent and accustomed to meet fellow powers
upon the fair and equal ground of law and justice, to make a defensive alliance
with the Argives; appointing a few individuals with plenipotentiary powers, instead
of making the people the medium of negotiation, in order that, in the case of an
applicant being rejected, the fact of his overtures might not be made public. They
said that many would come over from hatred of the Lacedaemonians. After this explanation
of their views, the Corinthians returned home.
The persons with whom they had communicated reported the proposal to their government
and people, and the Argives passed the decree and chose twelve men to negotiate
an alliance for any Hellenic state that wished it, except Athens and Lacedaemon,
neither of which should be able to join without reference to the Argive people.
Argos came into the plan the more readily because she saw that war with Lacedaemon
was inevitable, the truce being on the point of expiring; and also because she hoped
to gain the supremacy of Peloponnese. For at this time Lacedaemon had sunk very
low in public estimation because of her disasters, while the Argives were in a most
flourishing condition, having taken no part in the Attic war, but having on the
contrary profited largely by their neutrality. The Argives accordingly prepared
to receive into alliance any of the Hellenes that desired it.
The Mantineans and their allies were the first to come over through fear of the
Lacedaemonians. Having taken advantage of the war against Athens to reduce a large
part of Arcadia into subjection, they thought that Lacedaemon would not leave them
undisturbed in their conquests, now that she had leisure to interfere, and consequently
gladly turned to a powerful city like Argos, the historical enemy of the Lacedaemonians,
and a sister democracy. Upon the defection of Mantinea, the rest of Peloponnese
at once began to agitate the propriety of following her example, conceiving that
the Mantineans not have changed sides without good reason; besides which they were
angry with Lacedaemon among other reasons for having inserted in the treaty with
Athens that it should be consistent with their oaths for both parties, Lacedaemonians
and Athenians, to add to or take away from it according to their discretion. It
was this clause that was the real origin of the panic in Peloponnese, by exciting
suspicions of a Lacedaemonian and Athenian combination against their liberties:
any alteration should properly have been made conditional upon the consent of the
whole body of the allies. With these apprehensions there was a very general desire
in each state to place itself in alliance with Argos.
In the meantime the Lacedaemonians perceiving the agitation going on in Peloponnese,
and that Corinth was the author of it and was herself about to enter into alliance
with the Argives, sent ambassadors thither in the hope of preventing what was in
contemplation. They accused her of having brought it all about, and told her that
she could not desert Lacedaemon and become the ally of Argos, without adding violation
of her oaths to the crime which she had already committed in not accepting the treaty
with Athens, when it had been expressly agreed that the decision of the majority
of the allies should be binding, unless the gods or heroes stood in the way. Corinth
in her answer, delivered before those of her allies who had like her refused to
accept the treaty, and whom she had previously invited to attend, refrained from
openly stating the injuries she complained of, such as the non-recovery of Sollium
or Anactorium from the Athenians, or any other point in which she thought she had
been prejudiced, but took shelter under the pretext that she could not give up her
Thracian allies, to whom her separate individual security had been given, when they
first rebelled with Potidaea, as well as upon subsequent occasions. She denied,
therefore, that she committed any violation of her oaths to the allies in not entering
into the treaty with Athens; having sworn upon the faith of the gods to her Thracian
friends, she could not honestly give them up. Besides, the expression was, “unless
the gods or heroes stand in the way.” Now here, as it appeared to her, the gods
stood in the way. This was what she said on the subject of her former oaths. As
to the Argive alliance, she would confer with her friends and do whatever was right.
The Lacedaemonian envoys returning home, some Argive ambassadors who happened to
be in Corinth pressed her to conclude the alliance without further delay, but were
told to attend at the next congress to be held at Corinth.
Immediately afterwards an Elean embassy arrived, and first making an alliance
with Corinth went on from thence to Argos, according to their instructions, and
became allies of the Argives, their country being just then at enmity with Lacedaemon
and Lepreum. Some time back there had been a war between the Lepreans and some of
the Arcadians; and the Eleans being called in by the former with the offer of half
their lands, had put an end to the war, and leaving the land in the hands of its
Leprean occupiers had imposed upon them the tribute of a talent to the Olympian
Zeus. Till the Attic war this tribute was paid by the Lepreans, who then took the
war as an excuse for no longer doing so, and upon the Eleans using force appealed
to Lacedaemon. The case was thus submitted to her arbitrament; but the Eleans, suspecting
the fairness of the tribunal, renounced the reference and laid waste the Leprean
territory. The Lacedaemonians nevertheless decided that the Lepreans were independent
and the Eleans aggressors, and as the latter did not abide by the arbitration, sent
a garrison of heavy infantry into Lepreum. Upon this the Eleans, holding that Lacedaemon
had received one of their rebel subjects, put forward the convention providing that
each confederate should come out of the Attic war in possession of what he had when
he went into it, and considering that justice had not been done them went over to
the Argives, and now made the alliance through their ambassadors, who had been instructed
for that purpose. Immediately after them the Corinthians and the Thracian Chalcidians
became allies of Argos. Meanwhile the Boeotians and Megarians, who acted together,
remained quiet, being left to do as they pleased by Lacedaemon, and thinking that
the Argive democracy would not suit so well with their aristocratic government as
the Lacedaemonian constitution.
About the same time in this summer Athens succeeded in reducing Scione, put the
adult males to death, and, making slaves of the women and children, gave the land
for the Plataeans to live in. She also brought back the Delians to Delos, moved
by her misfortunes in the field and by the commands of the god at Delphi. Meanwhile
the Phocians and Locrians commenced hostilities. The Corinthians and Argives, being
now in alliance, went to Tegea to bring about its defection from Lacedaemon, seeing
that, if so considerable a state could be persuaded to join, all Peloponnese would
be with them. But when the Tegeans said that they would do nothing against Lacedaemon,
the hitherto zealous Corinthians relaxed their activity, and began to fear that
none of the rest would now come over. Still they went to the Boeotians and tried
to persuade them to alliance and a common action generally with Argos and themselves,
and also begged them to go with them to Athens and obtain for them a ten days’ truce
similar to that made between the Athenians and Boeotians not long after the fifty
years’ treaty, and, in the event of the Athenians refusing, to throw up the armistice,
and not make any truce in future without Corinth. These were the requests of the
Corinthians. The Boeotians stopped them on the subject of the Argive alliance, but
went with them to Athens, where however they failed to obtain the ten days’ truce;
the Athenian answer being that the Corinthians had truce already, as being allies
of Lacedaemon. Nevertheless the Boeotians did not throw up their ten days’ truce,
in spite of the prayers and reproaches of the Corinthians for their breach of faith;
and these last had to content themselves with a de facto armistice with Athens.
The same summer the Lacedaemonians marched into Arcadia with their whole levy
under Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of Lacedaemon, against the Parrhasians,
who were subjects of Mantinea, and a faction of whom had invited their aid. They
also meant to demolish, if possible, the fort of Cypsela which the Mantineans had
built and garrisoned in the Parrhasian territory, to annoy the district of Sciritis
in Laconia. The Lacedaemonians accordingly laid waste the Parrhasian country, and
the Mantineans, placing their town in the hands of an Argive garrison, addressed
themselves to the defence of their confederacy, but being unable to save Cypsela
or the Parrhasian towns went back to Mantinea. Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians made
the Parrhasians independent, razed the fortress, and returned home.
The same summer the soldiers from Thrace who had gone out with Brasidas came
back, having been brought from thence after the treaty by Clearidas; and the Lacedaemonians
decreed that the Helots who had fought with Brasidas should be free and allowed
to live where they liked, and not long afterwards settled them with the Neodamodes
at Lepreum, which is situated on the Laconian and Elean border; Lacedaemon being
at this time at enmity with Elis. Those however of the Spartans who had been taken
prisoners on the island and had surrendered their arms might, it was feared, suppose
that they were to be subjected to some degradation in consequence of their misfortune,
and so make some attempt at revolution, if left in possession of their franchise.
These were therefore at once disfranchised, although some of them were in office
at the time, and thus placed under a disability to take office, or buy and sell
anything. After some time, however, the franchise was restored to them.
The same summer the Dians took Thyssus, a town on Acte by Athos in alliance with
Athens. During the whole of this summer intercourse between the Athenians and Peloponnesians
continued, although each party began to suspect the other directly after the treaty,
because of the places specified in it not being restored. Lacedaemon, to whose lot
it had fallen to begin by restoring Amphipolis and the other towns, had not done
so. She had equally failed to get the treaty accepted by her Thracian allies, or
by the Boeotians or the Corinthians; although she was continually promising to unite
with Athens in compelling their compliance, if it were longer refused. She also
kept fixing a time at which those who still refused to come in were to be declared
enemies to both parties, but took care not to bind herself by any written agreement.
Meanwhile the Athenians, seeing none of these professions performed in fact, began
to suspect the honesty of her intentions, and consequently not only refused to comply
with her demands for Pylos, but also repented having given up the prisoners from
the island, and kept tight hold of the other places, until Lacedaemon’s part of
the treaty should be fulfilled. Lacedaemon, on the other hand, said she had done
what she could, having given up the Athenian prisoners of war in her possession,
evacuated Thrace, and performed everything else in her power. Amphipolis it was
out of her ability to restore; but she would endeavour to bring the Boeotians and
Corinthians into the treaty, to recover Panactum, and send home all the Athenian
prisoners of war in Boeotia. Meanwhile she required that Pylos should be restored,
or at all events that the Messenians and Helots should be withdrawn, as her troops
had been from Thrace, and the place garrisoned, if necessary, by the Athenians themselves.
After a number of different conferences held during the summer, she succeeded in
persuading Athens to withdraw from Pylos the Messenians and the rest of the Helots
and deserters from Laconia, who were accordingly settled by her at Cranii in Cephallenia.
Thus during this summer there was peace and intercourse between the two peoples.
Next winter, however, the ephors under whom the treaty had been made were no
longer in office, and some of their successors were directly opposed to it. Embassies
now arrived from the Lacedaemonian confederacy, and the Athenians, Boeotians, and
Corinthians also presented themselves at Lacedaemon, and after much discussion and
no agreement between them, separated for their several homes; when Cleobulus and
Xenares, the two ephors who were the most anxious to break off the treaty, took
advantage of this opportunity to communicate privately with the Boeotians and Corinthians,
and, advising them to act as much as possible together, instructed the former first
to enter into alliance with Argos, and then try and bring themselves and the Argives
into alliance with Lacedaemon. The Boeotians would so be least likely to be compelled
to come into the Attic treaty; and the Lacedaemonians would prefer gaining the friendship
and alliance of Argos even at the price of the hostility of Athens and the rupture
of the treaty. The Boeotians knew that an honourable friendship with Argos had been
long the desire of Lacedaemon; for the Lacedaemonians believed that this would considerably
facilitate the conduct of the war outside Peloponnese. Meanwhile they begged the
Boeotians to place Panactum in her hands in order that she might, if possible, obtain
Pylos in exchange for it, and so be more in a position to resume hostilities with
Athens.
After receiving these instructions for their governments from Xenares and Cleobulus
and their friends at Lacedaemon, the Boeotians and Corinthians departed. On their
way home they were joined by two persons high in office at Argos, who had waited
for them on the road, and who now sounded them upon the possibility of the Boeotians
joining the Corinthians, Eleans, and Mantineans in becoming the allies of Argos,
in the idea that if this could be effected they would be able, thus united, to make
peace or war as they pleased either against Lacedaemon or any other power. The Boeotian
envoys were were pleased at thus hearing themselves accidentally asked to do what
their friends at Lacedaemon had told them; and the two Argives perceiving that their
proposal was agreeable, departed with a promise to send ambassadors to the Boeotians.
On their arrival the Boeotians reported to the Boeotarchs what had been said to
them at Lacedaemon and also by the Argives who had met them, and the Boeotarchs,
pleased with the idea, embraced it with the more eagerness from the lucky coincidence
of Argos soliciting the very thing wanted by their friends at Lacedaemon. Shortly
afterwards ambassadors appeared from Argos with the proposals indicated; and the
Boeotarchs approved of the terms and dismissed the ambassadors with a promise to
send envoys to Argos to negotiate the alliance.
In the meantime it was decided by the Boeotarchs, the Corinthians, the Megarians,
and the envoys from Thrace first to interchange oaths together to give help to each
other whenever it was required and not to make war or peace except in common; after
which the Boeotians and Megarians, who acted together, should make the alliance
with Argos. But before the oaths were taken the Boeotarchs communicated these proposals
to the four councils of the Boeotians, in whom the supreme power resides, and advised
them to interchange oaths with all such cities as should be willing to enter into
a defensive league with the Boeotians. But the members of the Boeotian councils
refused their assent to the proposal, being afraid of offending Lacedaemon by entering
into a league with the deserter Corinth; the Boeotarchs not having acquainted them
with what had passed at Lacedaemon and with the advice given by Cleobulus and Xenares
and the Boeotian partisans there, namely, that they should become allies of Corinth
and Argos as a preliminary to a junction with Lacedaemon; fancying that, even if
they should say nothing about this, the councils would not vote against what had
been decided and advised by the Boeotarchs. This difficulty arising, the Corinthians
and the envoys from Thrace departed without anything having been concluded; and
the Boeotarchs, who had previously intended after carrying this to try and effect
the alliance with Argos, now omitted to bring the Argive question before the councils,
or to send to Argos the envoys whom they had promised; and a general coldness and
delay ensued in the matter.
In this same winter Mecyberna was assaulted and taken by the Olynthians, having
an Athenian garrison inside it.
All this while negotiations had been going on between the Athenians and Lacedaemonians
about the conquests still retained by each, and Lacedaemon, hoping that if Athens
were to get back Panactum from the Boeotians she might herself recover Pylos, now
sent an embassy to the Boeotians, and begged them to place Panactum and their Athenian
prisoners in her hands, in order that she might exchange them for Pylos. This the
Boeotians refused to do, unless Lacedaemon made a separate alliance with them as
she had done with Athens. Lacedaemon knew that this would be a breach of faith to
Athens, as it had been agreed that neither of them should make peace or war without
the other; yet wishing to obtain Panactum which she hoped to exchange for Pylos,
and the party who pressed for the dissolution of the treaty strongly affecting the
Boeotian connection, she at length concluded the alliance just as winter gave way
to spring; and Panactum was instantly razed. And so the eleventh year of the war
ended.
In the first days of the summer following, the Argives, seeing that the promised
ambassadors from Boeotia did not arrive, and that Panactum was being demolished,
and that a separate alliance had been concluded between the Boeotians and Lacedaemonians,
began to be afraid that Argos might be left alone, and all the confederacy go over
to Lacedaemon. They fancied that the Boeotians had been persuaded by the Lacedaemonians
to raze Panactum and to enter into the treaty with the Athenians, and that Athens
was privy to this arrangement, and even her alliance, therefore, no longer open
to them- a resource which they had always counted upon, by reason of the dissensions
existing, in the event of the noncontinuance of their treaty with Lacedaemon. In
this strait the Argives, afraid that, as the result of refusing to renew the treaty
with Lacedaemon and of aspiring to the supremacy in Peloponnese, they would have
the Lacedaemonians, Tegeans, Boeotians, and Athenians on their hands all at once,
now hastily sent off Eustrophus and Aeson, who seemed the persons most likely to
be acceptable, as envoys to Lacedaemon, with the view of making as good a treaty
as they could with the Lacedaemonians, upon such terms as could be got, and being
left in peace.
Having reached Lacedaemon, their ambassadors proceeded to negotiate the terms
of the proposed treaty. What the Argives first demanded was that they might be allowed
to refer to the arbitration of some state or private person the question of the
Cynurian land, a piece of frontier territory about which they have always been disputing,
and which contains the towns of Thyrea and Anthene, and is occupied by the Lacedaemonians.
The Lacedaemonians at first said that they could not allow this point to be discussed,
but were ready to conclude upon the old terms. Eventually, however, the Argive ambassadors
succeeded in obtaining from them this concession: For the present there was to be
a truce for fifty years, but it should be competent for either party, there being
neither plague nor war in Lacedaemon or Argos, to give a formal challenge and decide
the question of this territory by battle, as on a former occasion, when both sides
claimed the victory; pursuit not being allowed beyond the frontier of Argos or Lacedaemon.
The Lacedaemonians at first thought this mere folly; but at last, anxious at any
cost to have the friendship of Argos they agreed to the terms demanded, and reduced
them to writing. However, before any of this should become binding, the ambassadors
were to return to Argos and communicate with their people and, in the event of their
approval, to come at the feast of the Hyacinthia and take the oaths.
The envoys returned accordingly. In the meantime, while the Argives were engaged
in these negotiations, the Lacedaemonian ambassadors- Andromedes, Phaedimus, and
Antimenidas- who were to receive the prisoners from the Boeotians and restore them
and Panactum to the Athenians, found that the Boeotians had themselves razed Panactum,
upon the plea that oaths had been anciently exchanged between their people and the
Athenians, after a dispute on the subject to the effect that neither should inhabit
the place, but that they should graze it in common. As for the Athenian prisoners
of war in the hands of the Boeotians, these were delivered over to Andromedes and
his colleagues, and by them conveyed to Athens and given back. The envoys at the
same time announced the razing of Panactum, which to them seemed as good as its
restitution, as it would no longer lodge an enemy of Athens. This announcement was
received with great indignation by the Athenians, who thought that the Lacedaemonians
had played them false, both in the matter of the demolition of Panactum, which ought
to have been restored to them standing, and in having, as they now heard, made a
separate alliance with the Boeotians, in spite of their previous promise to join
Athens in compelling the adhesion of those who refused to accede to the treaty.
The Athenians also considered the other points in which Lacedaemon had failed in
her compact, and thinking that they had been overreached, gave an angry answer to
the ambassadors and sent them away.
The breach between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians having gone thus far, the
party at Athens, also, who wished to cancel the treaty, immediately put themselves
in motion. Foremost amongst these was Alcibiades, son of Clinias, a man yet young
in years for any other Hellenic city, but distinguished by the splendour of his
ancestry. Alcibiades thought the Argive alliance really preferable, not that personal
pique had not also a great deal to do with his opposition; he being offended with
the Lacedaemonians for having negotiated the treaty through Nicias and Laches, and
having overlooked him on account of his youth, and also for not having shown him
the respect due to the ancient connection of his family with them as their proxeni,
which, renounced by his grandfather, he had lately himself thought to renew by his
attentions to their prisoners taken in the island. Being thus, as he thought, slighted
on all hands, he had in the first instance spoken against the treaty, saying that
the Lacedaemonians were not to be trusted, but that they only treated, in order
to be enabled by this means to crush Argos, and afterwards to attack Athens alone;
and now, immediately upon the above occurring, he sent privately to the Argives,
telling them to come as quickly as possible to Athens, accompanied by the Mantineans
and Eleans, with proposals of alliance; as the moment was propitious and he himself
would do all he could to help them.
Upon receiving this message and discovering that the Athenians, far from being
privy to the Boeotian alliance, were involved in a serious quarrel with the Lacedaemonians,
the Argives paid no further attention to the embassy which they had just sent to
Lacedaemon on the subject of the treaty, and began to incline rather towards the
Athenians, reflecting that, in the event of war, they would thus have on their side
a city that was not only an ancient ally of Argos, but a sister democracy and very
powerful at sea. They accordingly at once sent ambassadors to Athens to treat for
an alliance, accompanied by others from Elis and Mantinea.
At the same time arrived in haste from Lacedaemon an embassy consisting of persons
reputed well disposed towards the Athenians- Philocharidas, Leon, and Endius- for
fear that the Athenians in their irritation might conclude alliance with the Argives,
and also to ask back Pylos in exchange for Panactum, and in defence of the alliance
with the Boeotians to plead that it had not been made to hurt the Athenians. Upon
the envoys speaking in the senate upon these points, and stating that they had come
with full powers to settle all others at issue between them, Alcibiades became afraid
that, if they were to repeat these statements to the popular assembly, they might
gain the multitude, and the Argive alliance might be rejected, and accordingly had
recourse to the following stratagem. He persuaded the Lacedaemonians by a solemn
assurance that if they would say nothing of their full powers in the assembly, he
would give back Pylos to them (himself, the present opponent of its restitution,
engaging to obtain this from the Athenians), and would settle the other points at
issue. His plan was to detach them from Nicias and to disgrace them before the people,
as being without sincerity in their intentions, or even common consistency in their
language, and so to get the Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans taken into alliance.
This plan proved successful. When the envoys appeared before the people, and upon
the question being put to them, did not say as they had said in the senate, that
they had come with full powers, the Athenians lost all patience, and carried away
by Alcibiades, who thundered more loudly than ever against the Lacedaemonians, were
ready instantly to introduce the Argives and their companions and to take them into
alliance. An earthquake, however, occurring, before anything definite had been done,
this assembly was adjourned.
In the assembly held the next day, Nicias, in spite of the Lacedaemonians having
been deceived themselves, and having allowed him to be deceived also in not admitting
that they had come with full powers, still maintained that it was best to be friends
with the Lacedaemonians, and, letting the Argive proposals stand over, to send once
more to Lacedaemon and learn her intentions. The adjournment of the war could only
increase their own prestige and injure that of their rivals; the excellent state
of their affairs making it their interest to preserve this prosperity as long as
possible, while those of Lacedaemon were so desperate that the sooner she could
try her fortune again the better. He succeeded accordingly in persuading them to
send ambassadors, himself being among the number, to invite the Lacedaemonians,
if they were really sincere, to restore Panactum intact with Amphipolis, and to
abandon their alliance with the Boeotians (unless they consented to accede to the
treaty), agreeably to the stipulation which forbade either to treat without the
other. The ambassadors were also directed to say that the Athenians, had they wished
to play false, might already have made alliance with the Argives, who were indeed
come to Athens for that very purpose, and went off furnished with instructions as
to any other complaints that the Athenians had to make. Having reached Lacedaemon,
they communicated their instructions, and concluded by telling the Lacedaemonians
that unless they gave up their alliance with the Boeotians, in the event of their
not acceding to the treaty, the Athenians for their part would ally themselves with
the Argives and their friends. The Lacedaemonians, however, refused to give up the
Boeotian alliance- the party of Xenares the ephor, and such as shared their view,
carrying the day upon this point- but renewed the oaths at the request of Nicias,
who feared to return without having accomplished anything and to be disgraced; as
was indeed his fate, he being held the author of the treaty with Lacedaemon. When
he returned, and the Athenians heard that nothing had been done at Lacedaemon, they
flew into a passion, and deciding that faith had not been kept with them, took advantage
of the presence of the Argives and their allies, who had been introduced by Alcibiades,
and made a treaty and alliance with them upon the terms following:
The Athenians, Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans, acting for themselves and the
allies in their respective empires, made a treaty for a hundred years, to be without
fraud or hurt by land and by sea.
1. It shall not be lawful to carry on war, either for the Argives, Eleans, Mantineans,
and their allies, against the Athenians, or the allies in the Athenian empire: or
for the Athenians and their allies against the Argives, Eleans, Mantineans, or their
allies, in any way or means whatsoever. The Athenians, Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans
shall be allies for a hundred years upon the terms following:
2. If an enemy invade the country of the Athenians, the Argives, Eleans, and
Mantineans shall go to the relief of Athens, according as the Athenians may require
by message, in such way as they most effectually can, to the best of their power.
But if the invader be gone after plundering the territory, the offending state shall
be the enemy of the Argives, Mantineans, Eleans, and Athenians, and war shall be
made against it by all these cities: and no one of the cities shall be able to make
peace with that state, except all the above cities agree to do so.
3. Likewise the Athenians shall go to the relief of Argos, Mantinea, and Elis,
if an enemy invade the country of Elis, Mantinea, or Argos, according as the above
cities may require by message, in such way as they most effectually can, to the
best of their power. But if the invader be gone after plundering the territory,
the state offending shall be the enemy of the Athenians, Argives, Mantineans, and
Eleans, and war shall be made against it by all these cities, and peace may not
be made with that state except all the above cities agree to it.
4. No armed force shall be allowed to pass for hostile purposes through the country
of the powers contracting, or of the allies in their respective empires, or to go
by sea, except all the cities- that is to say, Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Elis-
vote for such passage.
5. The relieving troops shall be maintained by the city sending them for thirty
days from their arrival in the city that has required them, and upon their return
in the same way: if their services be desired for a longer period, the city that
sent for them shall maintain them, at the rate of three Aeginetan obols per day
for a heavy-armed soldier, archer, or light soldier, and an Aeginetan drachma for
a trooper.
6. The city sending for the troops shall have the command when the war is in
its own country: but in case of the cities resolving upon a joint expedition the
command shall be equally divided among all the cities.
7. The treaty shall be sworn to by the Athenians for themselves and their allies,
by the Argives, Mantineans, Eleans, and their allies, by each state individually.
Each shall swear the oath most binding in his country over full-grown victims: the
oath being as follows:
“I STAND BY THE ALLIANCE AND ITS ARTICLES, JUSTLY, INNOCENTLY, AND Sincerely,
AND I WILL NOT TRANSGRESS THE SAME IN ANY WAY OR MEANS Whatsoever.”
The oath shall taken at Athens by the Senate and the magistrates, the Prytanes
administering it: as by the Senate, the Eighty, and the Artynae, the Eighty administering
it: at Mantinea by the Demiurgi, the Senate, and the other magistrates, the Theori
and Polemarchs administering it: at Elis by the Demiurgi, the magistrates, and the
Six Hundred, the Demiurgi and the Thesmophylaces administering it. The oaths shall
be renewed by the Athenians going to Elis, Mantinea, and Argos thirty days before
the Olympic games: by the Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans going to Athens ten days
before the great feast of the Panathenaea. The articles of the treaty, the oaths,
and the alliance shall be inscribed on a stone pillar by the Athenians in the citadel,
by the Argives in the market-place, in the temple of Apollo: by the Mantineans in
the temple of Zeus, in the market-place: and a brazen pillar shall be erected jointly
by them at the Olympic games now at hand. Should the above cities see good to make
any addition in these articies, whatever all the above cities shall agree upon,
after consulting together, shall be binding.
Although the treaty and alliances were thus concluded, still the treaty between
the Lacedaemonians and Athenians was not renounced by either party. Meanwhile Corinth,
although the ally of the Argives, did not accede to the new treaty, any more than
she had done to the alliance, defensive and offensive, formed before this between
the Eleans, Argives, and Mantineans, when she declared herself content with the
first alliance, which was defensive only, and which bound them to help each other,
but not to join in attacking any. The Corinthians thus stood aloof from their allies,
and again turned their thoughts towards Lacedaemon.
At the Olympic games which were held this summer, and in which the Arcadian Androsthenes
was victor the first time in the wrestling and boxing, the Lacedaemonians were excluded
from the temple by the Eleans, and thus prevented from sacrificing or contending,
for having refused to pay the fine specified in the Olympic law imposed upon them
by the Eleans, who alleged that they had attacked Fort Phyrcus, and sent heavy infantry
of theirs into Lepreum during the Olympic truce. The amount of the fine was two
thousand minae, two for each heavy-armed soldier, as the law prescribes. The Lacedaemonians
sent envoys, and pleaded that the imposition was unjust; saying that the truce had
not yet been proclaimed at Lacedaemon when the heavy infantry were sent off. But
the Eleans affirmed that the armistice with them had already begun (they proclaim
it first among themselves), and that the aggression of the Lacedaemonians had taken
them by surprise while they were living quietly as in time of peace, and not expecting
anything. Upon this the Lacedaemonians submitted, that if the Eleans really believed
that they had committed an aggression, it was useless after that to proclaim the
truce at Lacedaemon; but they had proclaimed it notwithstanding, as believing nothing
of the kind, and from that moment the Lacedaemonians had made no attack upon their
country. Nevertheless the Eleans adhered to what they had said, that nothing would
persuade them that an aggression had not been committed; if, however, the Lacedaemonians
would restore Lepreum, they would give up their own share of the money and pay that
of the god for them.
As this proposal was not accepted, the Eleans tried a second. Instead of restoring
Lepreum, if this was objected to, the Lacedaemonians should ascend the altar of
the Olympian Zeus, as they were so anxious to have access to the temple, and swear
before the Hellenes that they would surely pay the fine at a later day. This being
also refused, the Lacedaemonians were excluded from the temple, the sacrifice, and
the games, and sacrificed at home; the Lepreans being the only other Hellenes who
did not attend. Still the Eleans were afraid of the Lacedaemonians sacrificing by
force, and kept guard with a heavy-armed company of their young men; being also
joined by a thousand Argives, the same number of Mantineans, and by some Athenian
cavalry who stayed at Harpina during the feast. Great fears were felt in the assembly
of the Lacedaemonians coming in arms, especially after Lichas, son of Arcesilaus,
a Lacedaemonian, had been scourged on the course by the umpires; because, upon his
horses being the winners, and the Boeotian people being proclaimed the victor on
account of his having no right to enter, he came forward on the course and crowned
the charioteer, in order to show that the chariot was his. After this incident all
were more afraid than ever, and firmly looked for a disturbance: the Lacedaemonians,
however, kept quiet, and let the feast pass by, as we have seen. After the Olympic
games, the Argives and the allies repaired to Corinth to invite her to come over
to them. There they found some Lacedaemonian envoys; and a long discussion ensued,
which after all ended in nothing, as an earthquake occurred, and they dispersed
to their different homes.
Summer was now over. The winter following a battle took place between the Heracleots
in Trachinia and the Aenianians, Dolopians, Malians, and certain of the Thessalians,
all tribes bordering on and hostile to the town, which directly menaced their country.
Accordingly, after having opposed and harassed it from its very foundation by every
means in their power, they now in this battle defeated the Heracleots, Xenares,
son of Cnidis, their Lacedaemonian commander, being among the slain. Thus the winter
ended and the twelfth year of this war ended also. After the battle, Heraclea was
so terribly reduced that in the first days of the summer following the Boeotians
occupied the place and sent away the Lacedaemonian Agesippidas for misgovernment,
fearing that the town might be taken by the Athenians while the Lacedaemonians were
distracted with the affairs of Peloponnese. The Lacedaemonians, nevertheless, were
offended with them for what they had done.
The same summer Alcibiades, son of Clinias, now one of the generals at Athens,
in concert with the Argives and the allies, went into Peloponnese with a few Athenian
heavy infantry and archers and some of the allies in those parts whom he took up
as he passed, and with this army marched here and there through Peloponnese, and
settled various matters connected with the alliance, and among other things induced
the Patrians to carry their walls down to the sea, intending himself also to build
a fort near the Achaean Rhium. However, the Corinthians and Sicyonians, and all
others who would have suffered by its being built, came up and hindered him.
The same summer war broke out between the Epidaurians and Argives. The pretext
was that the Epidaurians did not send an offering for their pasture-land to Apollo
Pythaeus, as they were bound to do, the Argives having the chief management of the
temple; but, apart from this pretext, Alcibiades and the Argives were determined,
if possible, to gain possession of Epidaurus, and thus to ensure the neutrality
of Corinth and give the Athenians a shorter passage for their reinforcements from
Aegina than if they had to sail round Scyllaeum. The Argives accordingly prepared
to invade Epidaurus by themselves, to exact the offering.
About the same time the Lacedaemonians marched out with all their people to Leuctra
upon their frontier, opposite to Mount Lycaeum, under the command of Agis, son of
Archidamus, without any one knowing their destination, not even the cities that
sent the contingents. The sacrifices, however, for crossing the frontier not proving
propitious, the Lacedaemonians returned home themselves, and sent word to the allies
to be ready to march after the month ensuing, which happened to be the month of
Carneus, a holy time for the Dorians. Upon the retreat of the Lacedaemonians the
Argives marched out on the last day but three of the month before Carneus, and keeping
this as the day during the whole time that they were out, invaded and plundered
Epidaurus. The Epidaurians summoned their allies to their aid, some of whom pleaded
the month as an excuse; others came as far as the frontier of Epidaurus and there
remained inactive.
While the Argives were in Epidaurus embassies from the cities assembled at Mantinea,
upon the invitation of the Athenians. The conference having begun, the Corinthian
Euphamidas said that their actions did not agree with their words; while they were
sitting deliberating about peace, the Epidaurians and their allies and the Argives
were arrayed against each other in arms; deputies from each party should first go
and separate the armies, and then the talk about peace might be resumed. In compliance
with this suggestion, they went and brought back the Argives from Epidaurus, and
afterwards reassembled, but without succeeding any better in coming to a conclusion;
and the Argives a second time invaded Epidaurus and plundered the country. The Lacedaemonians
also marched out to Caryae; but the frontier sacrifices again proving unfavourable,
they went back again, and the Argives, after ravaging about a third of the Epidaurian
territory, returned home. Meanwhile a thousand Athenian heavy infantry had come
to their aid under the command of Alcibiades, but finding that the Lacedaemonian
expedition was at an end, and that they were no longer wanted, went back again.
So passed the summer. The next winter the Lacedaemonians managed to elude the
vigilance of the Athenians, and sent in a garrison of three hundred men to Epidaurus,
under the command of Agesippidas. Upon this the Argives went to the Athenians and
complained of their having allowed an enemy to pass by sea, in spite of the clause
in the treaty by which the allies were not to allow an enemy to pass through their
country. Unless, therefore, they now put the Messenians and Helots in Pylos to annoy
the Lacedaemonians, they, the Argives, should consider that faith had not been kept
with them. The Athenians were persuaded by Alcibiades to inscribe at the bottom
of the Laconian pillar that the Lacedaemonians had not kept their oaths, and to
convey the Helots at Cranii to Pylos to plunder the country; but for the rest they
remained quiet as before. During this winter hostilities went on between the Argives
and Epidaurians, without any pitched battle taking place, but only forays and ambuscades,
in which the losses were small and fell now on one side and now on the other. At
the close of the winter, towards the beginning of spring, the Argives went with
scaling ladders to Epidaurus, expecting to find it left unguarded on account of
the war and to be able to take it by assault, but returned unsuccessful. And the
winter ended, and with it the thirteenth year of the war ended also.
In the middle of the next summer the Lacedaemonians, seeing the Epidaurians,
their allies, in distress, and the rest of Peloponnese either in revolt or disaffected,
concluded that it was high time for them to interfere if they wished to stop the
progress of the evil, and accordingly with their full force, the Helots included,
took the field against Argos, under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus, king
of the Lacedaemonians. The Tegeans and the other Arcadian allies of Lacedaemon joined
in the expedition. The allies from the rest of Peloponnese and from outside mustered
at Phlius; the Boeotians with five thousand heavy infantry and as many light troops,
and five hundred horse and the same number of dismounted troopers; the Corinthians
with two thousand heavy infantry; the rest more or less as might happen; and the
Phliasians with all their forces, the army being in their country.
The preparations of the Lacedaemonians from the first had been known to the Argives,
who did not, however, take the field until the enemy was on his road to join the
rest at Phlius. Reinforced by the Mantineans with their allies, and by three thousand
Elean heavy infantry, they advanced and fell in with the Lacedaemonians at Methydrium
in Arcadia. Each party took up its position upon a hill, and the Argives prepared
to engage the Lacedaemonians while they were alone; but Agis eluded them by breaking
up his camp in the night, and proceeded to join the rest of the allies at Phlius.
The Argives discovering this at daybreak, marched first to Argos and then to the
Nemean road, by which they expected the Lacedaemonians and their allies would come
down. However, Agis, instead of taking this road as they expected, gave the Lacedaemonians,
Arcadians, and Epidaurians their orders, and went along another difficult road,
and descended into the plain of Argos. The Corinthians, Pellenians, and Phliasians
marched by another steep road; while the Boeotians, Megarians, and Sicyonians had
instructions to come down by the Nemean road where the Argives were posted, in order
that, if the enemy advanced into the plain against the troops of Agis, they might
fall upon his rear with their cavalry. These dispositions concluded, Agis invaded
the plain and began to ravage Saminthus and other places.
Discovering this, the Argives came up from Nemea, day having now dawned. On their
way they fell in with the troops of the Phliasians and Corinthians, and killed a
few of the Phliasians and had perhaps a few more of their own men killed by the
Corinthians. Meanwhile the Boeotians, Megarians, and Sicyonians, advancing upon
Nemea according to their instructions, found the Argives no longer there, as they
had gone down on seeing their property ravaged, and were now forming for battle,
the Lacedaemonians imitating their example. The Argives were now completely surrounded;
from the plain the Lacedaemonians and their allies shut them off from their city;
above them were the Corinthians, Phliasians, and Pellenians; and on the side of
Nemea the Boeotians, Sicyonians, and Megarians. Meanwhile their army was without
cavalry, the Athenians alone among the allies not having yet arrived. Now the bulk
of the Argives and their allies did not see the danger of their position, but thought
that they could not have a fairer field, having intercepted the Lacedaemonians in
their own country and close to the city. Two men, however, in the Argive army, Thrasylus,
one of the five generals, and Alciphron, the Lacedaemonian proxenus, just as the
armies were upon the point of engaging, went and held a parley with Agis and urged
him not to bring on a battle, as the Argives were ready to refer to fair and equal
arbitration whatever complaints the Lacedaemonians might have against them, and
to make a treaty and live in peace in future.
The Argives who made these statements did so upon their own authority, not by
order of the people, and Agis on his accepted their proposals, and without himself
either consulting the majority, simply communicated the matter to a single individual,
one of the high officers accompanying the expedition, and granted the Argives a
truce for four months, in which to fulfil their promises; after which he immediately
led off the army without giving any explanation to any of the other allies. The
Lacedaemonians and allies followed their general out of respect for the law, but
amongst themselves loudly blamed Agis for going away from so fair a field (the enemy
being hemmed in on every side by infantry and cavalry) without having done anything
worthy of their strength. Indeed this was by far the finest Hellenic army ever yet
brought together; and it should have been seen while it was still united at Nemea,
with the Lacedaemonians in full force, the Arcadians, Boeotians, Corinthians, Sicyonians,
Pellenians, Phliasians and Megarians, and all these the flower of their respective
populations, thinking themselves a match not merely for the Argive confederacy,
but for another such added to it. The army thus retired blaming Agis, and returned
every man to his home. The Argives however blamed still more loudly the persons
who had concluded the truce without consulting the people, themselves thinking that
they had let escape with the Lacedaemonians an opportunity such as they should never
see again; as the struggle would have been under the walls of their city, and by
the side of many and brave allies. On their return accordingly they began to stone
Thrasylus in the bed of the Charadrus, where they try all military causes before
entering the city. Thrasylus fled to the altar, and so saved his life; his property
however they confiscated.
After this arrived a thousand Athenian heavy infantry and three hundred horse,
under the command of Laches and Nicostratus; whom the Argives, being nevertheless
loath to break the truce with the Lacedaemonians, begged to depart, and refused
to bring before the people, to whom they had a communication to make, until compelled
to do so by the entreaties of the Mantineans and Eleans, who were still at Argos.
The Athenians, by the mouth of Alcibiades their ambassador there present, told the
Argives and the allies that they had no right to make a truce at all without the
consent of their fellow confederates, and now that the Athenians had arrived so
opportunely the war ought to be resumed. These arguments proving successful with
the allies, they immediately marched upon Orchomenos, all except the Argives, who,
although they had consented like the rest, stayed behind at first, but eventually
joined the others. They now all sat down and besieged Orchomenos, and made assaults
upon it; one of their reasons for desiring to gain this place being that hostages
from Arcadia had been lodged there by the Lacedaemonians. The Orchomenians, alarmed
at the weakness of their wall and the numbers of the enemy, and at the risk they
ran of perishing before relief arrived, capitulated upon condition of joining the
league, of giving hostages of their own to the Mantineans, and giving up those lodged
with them by the Lacedaemonians. Orchomenos thus secured, the allies now consulted
as to which of the remaining places they should attack next. The Eleans were urgent
for Lepreum; the Mantineans for Tegea; and the Argives and Athenians giving their
support to the Mantineans, the Eleans went home in a rage at their not having voted
for Lepreum; while the rest of the allies made ready at Mantinea for going against
Tegea, which a party inside had arranged to put into their hands.\
Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians, upon their return from Argos after concluding the
four months’ truce, vehemently blamed Agis for not having subdued Argos, after an
opportunity such as they thought they had never had before; for it was no easy matter
to bring so many and so good allies together. But when the news arrived of the capture
of Orchomenos, they became more angry than ever, and, departing from all precedent,
in the heat of the moment had almost decided to raze his house, and to fine him
ten thousand drachmae. Agis however entreated them to do none of these things, promising
to atone for his fault by good service in the field, failing which they might then
do to him whatever they pleased; and they accordingly abstained from razing his
house or fining him as they had threatened to do, and now made a law, hitherto unknown
at Lacedaemon, attaching to him ten Spartans as counsellors, without whose consent
he should have no power to lead an army out of the city.
At this juncture arrived word from their friends in Tegea that, unless they speedily
appeared, Tegea would go over from them to the Argives and their allies, if it had
not gone over already. Upon this news a force marched out from Lacedaemon, of the
Spartans and Helots and all their people, and that instantly and upon a scale never
before witnessed. Advancing to Orestheum in Maenalia, they directed the Arcadians
in their league to follow close after them to Tegea, and, going on themselves as
far as Orestheum, from thence sent back the sixth part of the Spartans, consisting
of the oldest and youngest men, to guard their homes, and with the rest of their
army arrived at Tegea; where their Arcadian allies soon after joined them. Meanwhile
they sent to Corinth, to the Boeotians, the Phocians, and Locrians, with orders
to come up as quickly as possible to Mantinea. These had but short notice; and it
was not easy except all together, and after waiting for each other, to pass through
the enemy’s country, which lay right across and blocked up the line of communication.
Nevertheless they made what haste they could. Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians with
the Arcadian allies that had joined them, entered the territory of Mantinea, and
encamping near the temple of Heracles began to plunder the country.
Here they were seen by the Argives and their allies, who immediately took up
a strong and difficult position, and formed in order of battle. The Lacedaemonians
at once advanced against them, and came on within a stone’s throw or javelin’s cast,
when one of the older men, seeing the enemy’s position to be a strong one, hallooed
to Agis that he was minded to cure one evil with another; meaning that he wished
to make amends for his retreat, which had been so much blamed, from Argos, by his
present untimely precipitation. Meanwhile Agis, whether in consequence of this halloo
or of some sudden new idea of his own, quickly led back his army without engaging,
and entering the Tegean territory, began to turn off into that of Mantinea the water
about which the Mantineans and Tegeans are always fighting, on account of the extensive
damage it does to whichever of the two countries it falls into. His object in this
was to make the Argives and their allies come down from the hill, to resist the
diversion of the water, as they would be sure to do when they knew of it, and thus
to fight the battle in the plain. He accordingly stayed that day where he was, engaged
in turning off the water. The Argives and their allies were at first amazed at the
sudden retreat of the enemy after advancing so near, and did not know what to make
of it; but when he had gone away and disappeared, without their having stirred to
pursue him, they began anew to find fault with their generals, who had not only
let the Lacedaemonians get off before, when they were so happily intercepted before
Argos, but who now again allowed them to run away, without any one pursuing them,
and to escape at their leisure while the Argive army was leisurely betrayed. The
generals, half-stunned for the moment, afterwards led them down from the hill, and
went forward and encamped in the plain, with the intention of attacking the enemy.
The next day the Argives and their allies formed in the order in which they meant
to fight, if they chanced to encounter the enemy; and the Lacedaemonians returning
from the water to their old encampment by the temple of Heracles, suddenly saw their
adversaries close in front of them, all in complete order, and advanced from the
hill. A shock like that of the present moment the Lacedaemonians do not ever remember
to have experienced: there was scant time for preparation, as they instantly and
hastily fell into their ranks, Agis, their king, directing everything, agreeably
to the law. For when a king is in the field all commands proceed from him: he gives
the word to the Polemarchs; they to the Lochages; these to the Pentecostyes; these
again to the Enomotarchs, and these last to the Enomoties. In short all orders required
pass in the same way and quickly reach the troops; as almost the whole Lacedaemonian
army, save for a small part, consists of officers under officers, and the care of
what is to be done falls upon many.
In this battle the left wing was composed of the Sciritae, who in a Lacedaemonian
army have always that post to themselves alone; next to these were the soldiers
of Brasidas from Thrace, and the Neodamodes with them; then came the Lacedaemonians
themselves, company after company, with the Arcadians of Heraea at their side. After
these were the Maenalians, and on the right wing the Tegeans with a few of the Lacedaemonians
at the extremity; their cavalry being posted upon the two wings. Such was the Lacedaemonian
formation. That of their opponents was as follows: On the right were the Mantineans,
the action taking place in their country; next to them the allies from Arcadia;
after whom came the thousand picked men of the Argives, to whom the state had given
a long course of military training at the public expense; next to them the rest
of the Argives, and after them their allies, the Cleonaeans and Orneans, and lastly
the Athenians on the extreme left, and lastly the Athenians on the extreme left,
and their own cavalry with them.
Such were the order and the forces of the two combatants. The Lacedaemonian army
looked the largest; though as to putting down the numbers of either host, or of
the contingents composing it, I could not do so with any accuracy. Owing to the
secrecy of their government the number of the Lacedaemonians was not known, and
men are so apt to brag about the forces of their country that the estimate of their
opponents was not trusted. The following calculation, however, makes it possible
to estimate the numbers of the Lacedaemonians present upon this occasion. There
were seven companies in the field without counting the Sciritae, who numbered six
hundred men: in each company there were four Pentecostyes, and in the Pentecosty
four Enomoties. The first rank of the Enomoty was composed of four soldiers: as
to the depth, although they had not been all drawn up alike, but as each captain
chose, they were generally ranged eight deep; the first rank along the whole line,
exclusive of the Sciritae, consisted of four hundred and forty-eight men.
The armies being now on the eve of engaging, each contingent received some words
of encouragement from its own commander. The Mantineans were, reminded that they
were going to fight for their country and to avoid returning to the experience of
servitude after having tasted that of empire; the Argives, that they would contend
for their ancient supremacy, to regain their once equal share of Peloponnese of
which they had been so long deprived, and to punish an enemy and a neighbour for
a thousand wrongs; the Athenians, of the glory of gaining the honours of the day
with so many and brave allies in arms, and that a victory over the Lacedaemonians
in Peloponnese would cement and extend their empire, and would besides preserve
Attica from all invasions in future. These were the incitements addressed to the
Argives and their allies. The Lacedaemonians meanwhile, man to man, and with their
war-songs in the ranks, exhorted each brave comrade to remember what he had learnt
before; well aware that the long training of action was of more saving virtue than
any brief verbal exhortation, though never so well delivered.
After this they joined battle, the Argives and their allies advancing with haste
and fury, the Lacedaemonians slowly and to the music of many flute-players- a standing
institution in their army, that has nothing to do with religion, but is meant to
make them advance evenly, stepping in time, without break their order, as large
armies are apt to do in the moment of engaging.
Just before the battle joined, King Agis resolved upon the following manoeuvre.
All armies are alike in this: on going into action they get forced out rather on
their right wing, and one and the other overlap with this adversary’s left; because
fear makes each man do his best to shelter his unarmed side with the shield of the
man next him on the right, thinking that the closer the shields are locked together
the better will he be protected. The man primarily responsible for this is the first
upon the right wing, who is always striving to withdraw from the enemy his unarmed
side; and the same apprehension makes the rest follow him. On the present occasion
the Mantineans reached with their wing far beyond the Sciritae, and the Lacedaemonians
and Tegeans still farther beyond the Athenians, as their army was the largest. Agis,
afraid of his left being surrounded, and thinking that the Mantineans outflanked
it too far, ordered the Sciritae and Brasideans to move out from their place in
the ranks and make the line even with the Mantineans, and told the Polemarchs Hipponoidas
and Aristocles to fill up the gap thus formed, by throwing themselves into it with
two companies taken from the right wing; thinking that his right would still be
strong enough and to spare, and that the line fronting the Mantineans would gain
in solidity.
However, as he gave these orders in the moment of the onset, and at short notice,
it so happened that Aristocles and Hipponoidas would not move over, for which offence
they were afterwards banished from Sparta, as having been guilty of cowardice; and
the enemy meanwhile closed before the Sciritae (whom Agis on seeing that the two
companies did not move over ordered to return to their place) had time to fill up
the breach in question. Now it was, however, that the Lacedaemonians, utterly worsted
in respect of skill, showed themselves as superior in point of courage. As soon
as they came to close quarters with the enemy, the Mantinean right broke their Sciritae
and Brasideans, and, bursting in with their allies and the thousand picked Argives
into the unclosed breach in their line, cut up and surrounded the Lacedaemonians,
and drove them in full rout to the wagons, slaying some of the older men on guard
there. But the Lacedaemonians, worsted in this part of the field, with the rest
of their army, and especially the centre, where the three hundred knights, as they
are called, fought round King Agis, fell on the older men of the Argives and the
five companies so named, and on the Cleonaeans, the Orneans, and the Athenians next
them, and instantly routed them; the greater number not even waiting to strike a
blow, but giving way the moment that they came on, some even being trodden under
foot, in their fear of being overtaken by their assailants.
The army of the Argives and their allies, having given way in this quarter, was
now completely cut in two, and the Lacedaemonian and Tegean right simultaneously
closing round the Athenians with the troops that outflanked them, these last found
themselves placed between two fires, being surrounded on one side and already defeated
on the other. Indeed they would have suffered more severely than any other part
of the army, but for the services of the cavalry which they had with them. Agis
also on perceiving the distress of his left opposed to the Mantineans and the thousand
Argives, ordered all the army to advance to the support of the defeated wing; and
while this took place, as the enemy moved past and slanted away from them, the Athenians
escaped at their leisure, and with them the beaten Argive division. Meanwhile the
Mantineans and their allies and the picked body of the Argives ceased to press the
enemy, and seeing their friends defeated and the Lacedaemonians in full advance
upon them, took to flight. Many of the Mantineans perished; but the bulk of the
picked body of the Argives made good their escape. The flight and retreat, however,
were neither hurried nor long; the Lacedaemonians fighting long and stubbornly until
the rout of their enemy, but that once effected, pursuing for a short time and not
far.
Such was the battle, as nearly as possible as I have described it; the greatest
that had occurred for a very long while among the Hellenes, and joined by the most
considerable states. The Lacedaemonians took up a position in front of the enemy’s
dead, and immediately set up a trophy and stripped the slain; they took up their
own dead and carried them back to Tegea, where they buried them, and restored those
of the enemy under truce. The Argives, Orneans, and Cleonaeans had seven hundred
killed; the Mantineans two hundred, and the Athenians and Aeginetans also two hundred,
with both their generals. On the side of the Lacedaemonians, the allies did not
suffer any loss worth speaking of: as to the Lacedaemonians themselves it was difficult
to learn the truth; it is said, however, that there were slain about three hundred
of them.
While the battle was impending, Pleistoanax, the other king, set out with a reinforcement
composed of the oldest and youngest men, and got as far as Tegea, where he heard
of the victory and went back again. The Lacedaemonians also sent and turned back
the allies from Corinth and from beyond the Isthmus, and returning themselves dismissed
their allies, and kept the Carnean holidays, which happened to be at that time.
The imputations cast upon them by the Hellenes at the time, whether of cowardice
on account of the disaster in the island, or of mismanagement and slowness generally,
were all wiped out by this single action: fortune, it was thought, might have humbled
them, but the men themselves were the same as ever.
The day before this battle, the Epidaurians with all their forces invaded the
deserted Argive territory, and cut off many of the guards left there in the absence
of the Argive army. After the battle three thousand Elean heavy infantry arriving
to aid the Mantineans, and a reinforcement of one thousand Athenians, all these
allies marched at once against Epidaurus, while the Lacedaemonians were keeping
the Carnea, and dividing the work among them began to build a wall round the city.
The rest left off; but the Athenians finished at once the part assigned to them
round Cape Heraeum; and having all joined in leaving a garrison in the fortification
in question, they returned to their respective cities.
Summer now came to an end. In the first days of the next winter, when the Carnean
holidays were over, the Lacedaemonians took the field, and arriving at Tegea sent
on to Argos proposals of accommodation. They had before had a party in the town
desirous of overthrowing the democracy; and after the battle that had been fought,
these were now far more in a position to persuade the people to listen to terms.
Their plan was first to make a treaty with the Lacedaemonians, to be followed by
an alliance, and after this to fall upon the commons. Lichas, son of Arcesilaus,
the Argive proxenus, accordingly arrived at Argos with two proposals from Lacedaemon,
to regulate the conditions of war or peace, according as they preferred the one
or the other. After much discussion, Alcibiades happening to be in the town, the
Lacedaemonian party, who now ventured to act openly, persuaded the Argives to accept
the proposal for accommodation; which ran as follows:
The assembly of the Lacedaemonians agrees to treat with the Argives upon the
terms following:
1. The Argives shall restore to the Orchomenians their children, and to the Maenalians
their men, and shall restore the men they have in Mantinea to the Lacedaemonians.
2. They shall evacuate Epidaurus, and raze the fortification there. If the Athenians
refuse to withdraw from Epidaurus, they shall be declared enemies of the Argives
and of the Lacedaemonians, and of the allies of the Lacedaemonians and the allies
of the Argives.
3. If the Lacedaemonians have any children in their custody, they shall restore
them every one to his city.
4. As to the offering to the god, the Argives, if they wish, shall impose an
oath upon the Epidaurians, but, if not, they shall swear it themselves.
5. All the cities in Peloponnese, both small and great, shall be independent
according to the customs of their country.
6. If any of the powers outside Peloponnese invade Peloponnesian territory, the
parties contracting shall unite to repel them, on such terms as they may agree upon,
as being most fair for the Peloponnesians.
7. All allies of the Lacedaemonians outside Peloponnese shall be on the same
footing as the Lacedaemonians, and the allies of the Argives shall be on the same
footing as the Argives, being left in enjoyment of their own possessions.
8. This treaty shall be shown to the allies, and shall be concluded, if they
approve; if the allies think fit, they may send the treaty to be considered at home.
The Argives began by accepting this proposal, and the Lacedaemonian army returned
home from Tegea. After this intercourse was renewed between them, and not long afterwards
the same party contrived that the Argives should give up the league with the Mantineans,
Eleans, and Athenians, and should make a treaty and alliance with the Lacedaemonians;
which was consequently done upon the terms following:
The Lacedaemonians and Argives agree to a treaty and alliance for fifty years
upon the terms following:
1. All disputes shall be decided by fair and impartial arbitration, agreeably
to the customs of the two countries.
2. The rest of the cities in Peloponnese may be included in this treaty and alliance,
as independent and sovereign, in full enjoyment of what they possess, all disputes
being decided by fair and impartial arbitration, agreeably to the customs of the
said cities.
3. All allies of the Lacedaemonians outside Peloponnese shall be upon the same
footing as the Lacedaemonians themselves, and the allies of the Argives shall be
upon the same footing as the Argives themselves, continuing to enjoy what they possess.
4. If it shall be anywhere necessary to make an expedition in common, the Lacedaemonians
and Argives shall consult upon it and decide, as may be most fair for the allies.
5. If any of the cities, whether inside or outside Peloponnese, have a question
whether of frontiers or otherwise, it must be settled, but if one allied city should
have a quarrel with another allied city, it must be referred to some third city
thought impartial by both parties. Private citizens shall have their disputes decided
according to the laws of their several countries.
The treaty and above alliance concluded, each party at once released everything
whether acquired by war or otherwise, and thenceforth acting in common voted to
receive neither herald nor embassy from the Athenians unless they evacuated their
forts and withdrew from Peloponnese, and also to make neither peace nor war with
any, except jointly. Zeal was not wanting: both parties sent envoys to the Thracian
places and to Perdiccas, and persuaded the latter to join their league. Still he
did not at once break off from Athens, although minded to do so upon seeing the
way shown him by Argos, the original home of his family. They also renewed their
old oaths with the Chalcidians and took new ones: the Argives, besides, sent ambassadors
to the Athenians, bidding them evacuate the fort at Epidaurus. The Athenians, seeing
their own men outnumbered by the rest of the garrison, sent Demosthenes to bring
them out. This general, under colour of a gymnastic contest which he arranged on
his arrival, got the rest of the garrison out of the place, and shut the gates behind
them. Afterwards the Athenians renewed their treaty with the Epidaurians, and by
themselves gave up the fortress.
After the defection of Argos from the league, the Mantineans, though they held
out at first, in the end finding themselves powerless without the Argives, themselves
too came to terms with Lacedaemon, and gave up their sovereignty over the towns.
The Lacedaemonians and Argives, each a thousand strong, now took the field together,
and the former first went by themselves to Sicyon and made the government there
more oligarchical than before, and then both, uniting, put down the democracy at
Argos and set up an oligarchy favourable to Lacedaemon. These events occurred at
the close of the winter, just before spring; and the fourteenth year of the war
ended. The next summer the people of Dium, in Athos, revolted from the Athenians
to the Chalcidians, and the Lacedaemonians settled affairs in Achaea in a way more
agreeable to the interests of their country. Meanwhile the popular party at Argos
little by little gathered new consistency and courage, and waited for the moment
of the Gymnopaedic festival at Lacedaemon, and then fell upon the oligarchs. After
a fight in the city, victory declared for the commons, who slew some of their opponents
and banished others. The Lacedaemonians for a long while let the messages of their
friends at Argos remain without effect. At last they put off the Gymnopaediae and
marched to their succour, but learning at Tegea the defeat of the oligarchs, refused
to go any further in spite of the entreaties of those who had escaped, and returned
home and kept the festival. Later on, envoys arrived with messages from the Argives
in the town and from the exiles, when the allies were also at Sparta; and after
much had been said on both sides, the Lacedaemonians decided that the party in the
town had done wrong, and resolved to march against Argos, but kept delaying and
putting off the matter. Meanwhile the commons at Argos, in fear of the Lacedaemonians,
began again to court the Athenian alliance, which they were convinced would be of
the greatest service to them; and accordingly proceeded to build long walls to the
sea, in order that in case of a blockade by land; with the help of the Athenians
they might have the advantage of importing what they wanted by sea. Some of the
cities in Peloponnese were also privy to the building of these walls; and the Argives
with all their people, women and slaves not excepted, addressed themselves to the
work, while carpenters and masons came to them from Athens.
Summer was now over. The winter following the Lacedaemonians, hearing of the
walls that were building, marched against Argos with their allies, the Corinthians
excepted, being also not without intelligence in the city itself; Agis, son of Archidamus,
their king, was in command. The intelligence which they counted upon within the
town came to nothing; they however took and razed the walls which were being built,
and after capturing the Argive town Hysiae and killing all the freemen that fell
into their hands, went back and dispersed every man to his city. After this the
Argives marched into Phlius and plundered it for harbouring their exiles, most of
whom had settled there, and so returned home. The same winter the Athenians blockaded
Macedonia, on the score of the league entered into by Perdiccas with the Argives
and Lacedaemonians, and also of his breach of his engagements on the occasion of
the expedition prepared by Athens against the Chalcidians in the direction of Thrace
and against Amphipolis, under the command of Nicias, son of Niceratus, which had
to be broken up mainly because of his desertion. He was therefore proclaimed an
enemy. And thus the winter ended, and the fifteenth year of the war ended with it.
Chapter XVII.
Sixteenth Year of the War – The Melian Conference – Fate of Melos.
THE next summer Alcibiades sailed with twenty ships to Argos and seized the suspected
persons still left of the Lacedaemonian faction to the number of three hundred,
whom the Athenians forthwith lodged in the neighbouring islands of their empire.
The Athenians also made an expedition against the isle of Melos with thirty ships
of their own, six Chian, and two Lesbian vessels, sixteen hundred heavy infantry,
three hundred archers, and twenty mounted archers from Athens, and about fifteen
hundred heavy infantry from the allies and the islanders. The Melians are a colony
of Lacedaemon that would not submit to the Athenians like the other islanders, and
at first remained neutral and took no part in the struggle, but afterwards upon
the Athenians using violence and plundering their territory, assumed an attitude
of open hostility. Cleomedes, son of Lycomedes, and Tisias, son of Tisimachus, the
generals, encamping in their territory with the above armament, before doing any
harm to their land, sent envoys to negotiate. These the Melians did not bring before
the people, but bade them state the object of their mission to the magistrates and
the few; upon which the Athenian envoys spoke as follows:
Athenians.
Since the negotiations are not to go on before the people, in order that we may
not be able to speak straight on without interruption, and deceive the ears of the
multitude by seductive arguments which would pass without refutation (for we know
that this is the meaning of our being brought before the few), what if you who sit
there were to pursue a method more cautious still? Make no set speech yourselves,
but take us up at whatever you do not like, and settle that before going any farther.
And first tell us if this proposition of ours suits you.
The Melian commissioners answered:
Melians.
To the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you propose there is nothing
to object; but your military preparations are too far advanced to agree with what
you say, as we see you are come to be judges in your own cause, and that all we
can reasonably expect from this negotiation is war, if we prove to have right on
our side and refuse to submit, and in the contrary case, slavery. Athenians. If
you have met to reason about presentiments of the future, or for anything else than
to consult for the safety of your state upon the facts that you see before you,
we will give over; otherwise we will go on. Melians. It is natural and excusable
for men in our position to turn more ways than one both in thought and utterance.
However, the question in this conference is, as you say, the safety of our country;
and the discussion, if you please, can proceed in the way which you propose.
Athenians.
For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences- either of how
we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking
you because of wrong that you have done us- and make a long speech which would not
be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us
by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or
that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the
real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world
goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they
can and the weak suffer what they must.
Melians.
As we think, at any rate, it is expedient- we speak as we are obliged, since
you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest- that you should not
destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger
to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid
if they can be got to pass current. And you are as much interested in this as any,
as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the
world to meditate upon.
Athenians.
The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival empire
like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible
to the vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers.
This, however, is a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show
you that we are come here in the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what
we are now going to say, for the preservation of your country; as we would fain
exercise that empire over you without trouble, and see you preserved for the good
of us both.
Melians.
And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule?
Athenians. Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the
worst, and we should gain by not destroying you. Melians. So that you would not
consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither
side.
Athenians.
No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument
to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.
Melians.
Is that your subjects’ idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with
you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists,
and some conquered rebels?
Athenians.
As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that
if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we
do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire
we should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and
weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed
in baffling the masters of the sea.
Melians.
But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate?
For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey
your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen
to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall
look at case from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this
but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become
so who would otherwise have never thought of it?
Athenians.
Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm; the liberty
which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is rather
islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke,
who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into
obvious danger.
Melians.
Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to get
rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free
not to try everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke.
Athenians.
Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with honour
as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of
not resisting those who are far stronger than you are.
Melians.
But we know that the fortune of war is sometimes more impartial than the disproportion
of numbers might lead one to suppose; to submit is to give ourselves over to despair,
while action still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect.
Athenians.
Hope, danger’s comforter, may be indulged in by those who have abundant resources,
if not without loss at all events without ruin; but its nature is to be extravagant,
and those who go so far as to put their all upon the venture see it in its true
colours only when they are ruined; but so long as the discovery would enable them
to guard against it, it is never found wanting. Let not this be the case with you,
who are weak and hang on a single turn of the scale; nor be like the vulgar, who,
abandoning such security as human means may still afford, when visible hopes fail
them in extremity, turn to invisible, to prophecies and oracles, and other such
inventions that delude men with hopes to their destruction.
Melians.
You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of contending
against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the
gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against
unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians,
who are bound, if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred. Our
confidence, therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational.
Athenians.
When you speak of the favour of the gods, we may as fairly hope for that as yourselves;
neither our pretensions nor our conduct being in any way contrary to what men believe
of the gods, or practise among themselves. Of the gods we believe, and of men we
know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it
is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we
found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist for ever after us; all
we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same
power as we have, would do the same as we do. Thus, as far as the gods are concerned,
we have no fear and no reason to fear that we shall be at a disadvantage. But when
we come to your notion about the Lacedaemonians, which leads you to believe that
shame will make them help you, here we bless your simplicity but do not envy your
folly. The Lacedaemonians, when their own interests or their country’s laws are
in question, are the worthiest men alive; of their conduct towards others much might
be said, but no clearer idea of it could be given than by shortly saying that of
all the men we know they are most conspicuous in considering what is agreeable honourable,
and what is expedient just. Such a way of thinking does not promise much for the
safety which you now unreasonably count upon.
Melians.
But it is for this very reason that we now trust to their respect for expediency
to prevent them from betraying the Melians, their colonists, and thereby losing
the confidence of their friends in Hellas and helping their enemies.
Athenians.
Then you do not adopt the view that expediency goes with security, while justice
and honour cannot be followed without danger; and danger the Lacedaemonians generally
court as little as possible.
Melians.
But we believe that they would be more likely to face even danger for our sake,
and with more confidence than for others, as our nearness to Peloponnese makes it
easier for them to act, and our common blood ensures our fidelity.
Athenians.
Yes, but what an intending ally trusts to is not the goodwill of those who ask
his aid, but a decided superiority of power for action; and the Lacedaemonians look
to this even more than others. At least, such is their distrust of their home resources
that it is only with numerous allies that they attack a neighbour; now is it likely
that while we are masters of the sea they will cross over to an island?
Melians.
But they would have others to send. The Cretan Sea is a wide one, and it is more
difficult for those who command it to intercept others, than for those who wish
to elude them to do so safely. And should the Lacedaemonians miscarry in this, they
would fall upon your land, and upon those left of your allies whom Brasidas did
not reach; and instead of places which are not yours, you will have to fight for
your own country and your own confederacy.
Athenians.
Some diversion of the kind you speak of you may one day experience, only to learn,
as others have done, that the Athenians never once yet withdrew from a siege for
fear of any. But we are struck by the fact that, after saying you would consult
for the safety of your country, in all this discussion you have mentioned nothing
which men might trust in and think to be saved by. Your strongest arguments depend
upon hope and the future, and your actual resources are too scanty, as compared
with those arrayed against you, for you to come out victorious. You will therefore
show great blindness of judgment, unless, after allowing us to retire, you can find
some counsel more prudent than this. You will surely not be caught by that idea
of disgrace, which in dangers that are disgraceful, and at the same time too plain
to be mistaken, proves so fatal to mankind; since in too many cases the very men
that have their eyes perfectly open to what they are rushing into, let the thing
called disgrace, by the mere influence of a seductive name, lead them on to a point
at which they become so enslaved by the phrase as in fact to fall wilfully into
hopeless disaster, and incur disgrace more disgraceful as the companion of error,
than when it comes as the result of misfortune. This, if you are well advised, you
will guard against; and you will not think it dishonourable to submit to the greatest
city in Hellas, when it makes you the moderate offer of becoming its tributary ally,
without ceasing to enjoy the country that belongs to you; nor when you have the
choice given you between war and security, will you be so blinded as to choose the
worse. And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms
with their superiors, and are moderate towards their inferiors, on the whole succeed
best. Think over the matter, therefore, after our withdrawal, and reflect once and
again that it is for your country that you are consulting, that you have not more
than one, and that upon this one deliberation depends its prosperity or ruin.
The Athenians now withdrew from the conference; and the Melians, left to themselves,
came to a decision corresponding with what they had maintained in the discussion,
and answered:
“Our resolution, Athenians, is the same as it was at first. We will not in a
moment deprive of freedom a city that has been inhabited these seven hundred years;
but we put our trust in the fortune by which the gods have preserved it until now,
and in the help of men, that is, of the Lacedaemonians; and so we will try and save
ourselves. Meanwhile we invite you to allow us to be friends to you and foes to
neither party, and to retire from our country after making such a treaty as shall
seem fit to us both.”
Such was the answer of the Melians. The Athenians now departing from the conference
said: “Well, you alone, as it seems to us, judging from these resolutions, regard
what is future as more certain than what is before your eyes, and what is out of
sight, in your eagerness, as already coming to pass; and as you have staked most
on, and trusted most in, the Lacedaemonians, your fortune, and your hopes, so will
you be most completely deceived.”
The Athenian envoys now returned to the army; and the Melians showing no signs
of yielding, the generals at once betook themselves to hostilities, and drew a line
of circumvallation round the Melians, dividing the work among the different states.
Subsequently the Athenians returned with most of their army, leaving behind them
a certain number of their own citizens and of the allies to keep guard by land and
sea. The force thus left stayed on and besieged the place.
About the same time the Argives invaded the territory of Phlius and lost eighty
men cut off in an ambush by the Phliasians and Argive exiles. Meanwhile the Athenians
at Pylos took so much plunder from the Lacedaemonians that the latter, although
they still refrained from breaking off the treaty and going to war with Athens,
yet proclaimed that any of their people that chose might plunder the Athenians.
The Corinthians also commenced hostilities with the Athenians for private quarrels
of their own; but the rest of the Peloponnesians stayed quiet. Meanwhile the Melians
attacked by night and took the part of the Athenian lines over against the market,
and killed some of the men, and brought in corn and all else that they could find
useful to them, and so returned and kept quiet, while the Athenians took measures
to keep better guard in future.
Summer was now over. The next winter the Lacedaemonians intended to invade the
Argive territory, but arriving at the frontier found the sacrifices for crossing
unfavourable, and went back again. This intention of theirs gave the Argives suspicions
of certain of their fellow citizens, some of whom they arrested; others, however,
escaped them. About the same time the Melians again took another part of the Athenian
lines which were but feebly garrisoned. Reinforcements afterwards arriving from
Athens in consequence, under the command of Philocrates, son of Demeas, the siege
was now pressed vigorously; and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians
surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, who put to death all the grown men whom
they took, and sold the women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out
five hundred colonists and inhabited the place themselves.
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