Book 5
THE following summer, the truce for a year For the arguments with which Arnold establishes, as I think, this interpretation of the passage, see his Appendix. All the later German editors adopt, with little or no variety, the view of Heilmann, Böckh, and others, who suppose it to mean, that in the following summer the truce was broken, and war renewed until the time of the Pythian games. In addition to what Arnold has observed respecting the unsuitableness of the pluperfect tense to such a mode of interpretation, it may be remarked that Thucydides applies the term τὴν ἐκεχειρίαν to the year's truce in the last chapter but one of the preceding book; and therefore it is much more natural that the same armistice should be intended by the same term in this and the following chapters. It seems evident too that there is an opposition expressed by the μέν here and the δέ in the first line of the next chapter:— the one sentence stating how long the truce continued, viz. until the Pythian games, and the other, what military measure was first executed after its expiration; while the chief event which occurred during its continuance is mentioned parenthetically between the two. Nor, again, does it seem at all like the style of Thucydides to allude so cursorily, and by anticipation, to the Pythian games, as the cause which put a final stop to hostilities, and to make no subsequent mention of them at all in what would be the natural place for doing so; but to lead his readers to conclude that the proposals for peace originated solely in the difficulties of both the great belligerent powers, and their natural anxiety to be released from them; which is the sum and substance of his history from chap. 13 to 17. continued till the Pythian games, and then ended. During the suspension of arms, the Athenians expelled the Delians from their island, thinking that they had been consecrated when in a state of impurity from some crime of ancient date; and, moreover, that this had been the deficiency in their former purification of it; in which case I have before explained that they considered themselves to have performed it rightly by taking up the coffins of the dead. The Delians found a residence at Atramyttium in Asia, given to them by Pharnaces, as each of them arrived there.
After the armistice had expired, Cleon, having persuaded the Athenians to the measure, led an expedition against the Thrace-ward towns, with twelve hundred heavy-armed, and three hundred cavalry of the Athenians, a larger force of the allies, and thirty ships.
After landing in the first place at Scione, which was still being besieged, and taking thence some heavy-armed from the garrison, he sailed into the port of the Colophonians, belonging to the Toronaeans, and at no great distance from their city.
Thence, having learned from deserters both that Brasidas was not in Torone, and that those who were in it were not strong enough to give him battle, with his land forces he marched against the city, while he sent ten ships to sail round into the harbour.
First, then, he came to the fortifications which Brasidas had raised anew round the city, from a wish to include the suburb, and so by taking down a part of the original wall had made it one city.
Pasitelidas, the Lacedaemonians commander, and the garrison that was there, went to the defence of the fortifications, and tried to resist the assault of the Athenians. When they were being driven in, and the ships that had been sent round were at the same time sailing into the harbour, Pasitelidas, fearing that the ships might find the city deserted by its defenders before he could reach it, and that if the fortifications were carried he might be made prisoner in them, left them, and ran into the city.
But the Athenians from the ships had had time to take Torone, and their land forces, rushing after him, on the very first assault burst in with him through the part of the old wall that had been removed.
And thus some of the Peloponnesians and Toronaeans they slew immediately in close combat, and others they took alive, with Pasitelidas the commander. Now Brasidas was coming to the relief of Torone;
but hearing of its capture while on his way, he went back again, having been but forty stades short of arriving in time. Cleon and the Athenians erected two trophies, one by the harbour, the other near the fortifications; and sold into slavery the women and children of the Toronaeans, while the men themselves, with the Peloponnesians, and whatever Chalcidians there were besides, seven hundred in all, they sent off to Athens; whence some of them afterwards were dismissed, on conclusion of peace, while others were recovered by the Olynthians, through an exchange of prisoners.
About the same time, too, the Boeotians took by treachery Panactum, a fortress of the Athenians on the borders.
Cleon. after establishing a garrison in Torone, weighed anchor and sailed round Athos on his way to Amphipolis.
About this same time, Phaeax, son of Erasistratus, with two colleagues, being commissioned by the Athenians, sailed with two ships as ambassador to Italy and Sicily.
For on the departure of the Athenians from Sicily after the pacification, the Leontines had enrolled a large number of new citizens, and the commons were thinking of dividing the land.
When the aristocratical party were aware of it, they called in the Syracusans, and expelled the commons; who wandered about as they severally happened; while the nobles entered into an arrangement with the Syracusans, and having abandoned and laid waste their own city, lived at Syracuse with the enjoyment of the franchise.
Afterwards some of them, in consequence of not being pleased, withdrew from Syracuse, and occupied a quarter of the city of Leontini, called Phocaeae, and Bricinniae, which was a stronghold in the Leontine country. There the majority of the popular party who had been expelled, came to them, and having thus established themselves, they carried on the war from the fortifications.
The Athenians, hearing this, despatched Phaeax, to try if by any means they might persuade the allies they had there, and the rest of the Sicilians if they could, to join in attacking the Syracusans, on the strength of their gaining such additional power, and thus might save the commons of'
Leontini. So Phaeax came, and prevailed on the Camarinaeans and Agrigentines; but when the question was settled against him at Gela, he did not then proceed to the others, as he found that he should not prevail on them; but having returned through the country of the Sicels to Catana, and having on his route also visited Bricinniae, and encouraged its inhabitants, he sailed back again.
On his course to Sicily and return from it, he also communicated with certain cities in Italy on the subject of friendship with the Athenians. He likewise fell in with the Locrian settlers banished from Messana, who, after the pacification effected by the Sicilians, when the Messanians were divided into factions, and one of them had invited the Locrians to their aid, had been sent out for that purpose; and so Messana came into the hands of the Locrians for some time.
Phaeax then, having fallen in with these men on their way home, did them no harm, as proposals had been made to him by the Locrians for coming to terms with the Athenians.
For they were the only people of the allies who, when the Sicilians were reconciled to each other, did not make peace with the Athenians: nor would they have done it then, had they not been pressed by hostilities with the Itonaeans and Melaeans, who lived on their borders, and were a colony from them. So Phaeax returned, and arrived at Athens some time after.
Now when Cleon, at the lime we last mentioned him, sailed round from Torone to go against Amphipolis, making Eion the base of his operations, he assaulted Stagirus, a colony of the Andrians, but without reducing it; but Galepsus, the Thasian colony, he took by storm.
And having sent ambassadors to Perdiccas, that he might join him with an army according to the terms of their alliance, and others into Thrace, to Polles, the king of the Odomantians, who was to bring as many Thracian mercenaries as he could, he himself remained quiet in Eion, awaiting their arrival.
On hearing this, Brasidas, on his side also, took up an opposite position on Cerdylium. This spot is in the Argilian country, being on the high ground on the other side of the river, not far from the city of Amphipolis; and every thing was distinctly seen from it; so that Cleon could not unobserved by him set out with his army; as he expected him to do, and despising the numbers of the Lacedaemonians to march up with the forces he had with him against Amphipolis.
At the same time he was getting ready fifteen hundred Thracian mercenaries, and was calling all the Edonians to his aid, both targeteers and cavalry; and he had a thousand targeteers of the Myrcinians and Chalcidians, in addition to those in Amphipolis.
All his heavy-armed force too was mustered, about two thousand in number, and three hundred Grecian horse. With fifteen hundred of these Brasidas stationed himself on Cerdylium, whilst the rest were posted with Clearidas in Amphipolis.
Cleon remained quiet for some time, but was then compelled to do what Brasidas had expected.
For his soldiers being annoyed at sitting still, and reflecting, with regard to his command, against what skill and daring in the enemy, with what ignorance and cowardice in himself it would be held, and how unwillingly they had accompanied him from home, he perceived their murmers; and not wishing them to be exasperated by remaining stationary in the same place, he broke up his camp and led them forward.
And Or τῷ τρόπῳ may be understood, as by Haack and Arnold, of the temper and habits of Cleon's mind. But the aorist tense of the verbs ἐχρήσατο, ἐπίστευσε, and ἤλπισεν seems intended to refer to the single fact of his having adopted a particular plan, and his reasons for doing it, rather than to a continued state of mind, which would rather take the imperfect. And the following description of that plan, οὐχ ὡς τῷ ἀσφαλεῖ ... ἀλλ᾽ ὡς κύκλῳπεριστὰς βίᾳ αἱρήσων τὴν πόλιν, agrees, as closely as the different position of the parties rendered possible, with that of the arrangements for the decisive battle in Sphacteria, which were made by Demosthenes, but the credit of which Cleon would, of course, assume to himself. Compare especially IV. 32. 3, ὅπως ὅτι πλείστη ἀπορία ᾖ τοῖς πολεμίοις πανταχόθεν κεκυκλωμένοις, και μὴ ἔχωσι πρὸς ὅτι ἀντιτάξωνται, ἀλλ᾽ ἀμφίβολοι γίγνωνται τῷ πλήθει, κ. τ. λ. he adopted the same plan as he had also succeeded with at Pylus, and therefore felt confident in his own discernment. For that any one would come out against him to battle, he had not so much as a thought; but said that he was going up rather to see the place, and was waiting for his more numerous forces; not for the purpose of gaining a victory without any risk, should he be compelled to engage, but of surrounding the city on all sides, and so taking it by storm.
Having come, therefore, and posted his army on a strong hill in front of Amphipolis, he himself proceeded to reconnoitre the lake formed by the Strymon, and what was the position of the city on the side of Thrace.
He thought to retire, whenever he pleased, without a battle; for indeed there was neither any one seen on the wall, nor did any one come out through the gates, but they were all closed: so that he even considered he had made a mistake in not having come down with engines; for he believed that in that case he might have taken the city.
Immediately that Brasidas saw the Athenians in motion, he too went down from Cerdylium, and entered Amphipolis. Now for any regular sally, and array of troops against the Athenians, he made none;
being afraid of his own resources, and considering them inferior to the enemy; not so much in numbers, (for they were pretty nearly equal,) but in character; (for Literally, the Athenian force that was in the field had gone forth pare; i. e. free from all such things as might have marred their efficiency: χσηστοῖς καταλόγοις ἐκκριθέν, as he expresses it, VI. 31. 3. it was the flower of the Athenian force that was in the field, and the best of the Lemnians and Imbrians;) but he prepared to attack them by means of a stratagem.
For if he showed the enemy his numbers, and the equipment of the troops with him, which was such as ἀναγκαίαν οὐσαν, i. e. not such as they would have wished, but such as they could get. Compare II. 70. 1, βρώσεως περὶ ἀναγκαίας, and I. 61. , ξύμβασιν ἀναγκαίαν. —Arnold. necessity alone dictated, he did not think that he should conquer them so well as he should without their seeing his forces beforehand, Or, and ceasing to despise them on insufficient grounds. For the different explanations of this strange construction which have been proposed, see Poppo's note, in his last edition; which has been completed since this translation was commenced, and will be always referred to in future, unless the larger edition is expressly mentioned. The position of the τέ seems to show that καταφρονήσεως, as well as προόψεως, is dependent upon ἄνευ. and therefore that the μὴ must be considered as redundant. Or is it possible that it could have been carelessly used with a double force, qualifying at once both ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄντος and καταφρονήσεως; as it is in a somewhat similar manner, I. 40. 2? and despising them on sufficient grounds.
Having therefore himself picked out a hundred and fifty heavy-armed, and having put the rest under the command of Clearidas, he purposed making a sudden attack on the Athenians before they could retire; as he did not think that he should catch them again so isolated, if once their reinforcements should have joined them. Calling therefore all his soldiers together, and wishing to encourage them and acquaint them with his design, he spoke to the following effect:
Men of the Peloponnese, with regard to the character of the country from which we are come, namely, that through its bravery it has always been a free country, and that you are Dorians about to engage with Ionians, to whom you are habitually superior, let a brief declaration suffice.
But with regard to the present attack, I will explain in what way I purpose making it;
that the fact of your meeting the danger in small divisions, and not in one body, may not cause a want of courage by an appearance of weakness.
For I conjecture that it is through contempt of us, and their not expecting any one to march out against them to battle, that the enemy went up to their present position, and are now thinking nothing of us, while, without any order, they are engaged in looking about them. But whoever best observes such mistakes in his opponents, and also plans his attack upon them i.e. when it is deficient in actual strength, making up for it by art and by rapidity of movement. —Arnold. with regard to his own power, not so much in an open manner and in regular battle-array, as with reference to his present advantage, that man would be most successful.
And those stratagems by which one would most deceive his enemies, and benefit his friends, have the highest reputation.
While, then, they are still unprepared, yet confident, and are thinking, from what I see, of retiring rather than remaining; while their minds are irresolute, and before their plans are more definitely arranged, I will take my own division, and surprise them, if I can, by falling at full speed on the centre of their forces.