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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