Book 5
And do you, Clearidas, afterwards, when you see me now charging, and in all probability frightening them, take your division, both the Amphipolitans and the other allies, and suddenly opening the gates rush out against them, and make all haste to close with them as quickly as possible. For we may expect that in this way they will be most alarmed;
since the force which follows up an attack is more terrible to an enemy than that which is already before him and engaged with him.
And do you be a brave man yourself, as it is natural that you should, being a Spartan; and do ye, allies, follow him courageously; and consider that it is the proof of good soldiership to to be willing, and to be alive to shame, and to obey your commanders. Reflect, too, that on this day you either gain your liberty, if you act bravely, and the title of confederates of the Lacedaemonians; or are slaves of the Athenians—if you fare as well as you possibly can, without being reduced to personal bondage, or put to death—and incur a more galling slavery than before, while you oppose the liberation of the rest of the Greeks.
Do not you, then, act as cowards, seeing for how much you are struggling; and I will show you that I am not better able to give advice to others, than to carry it out in action myself.
Having thus spoken, Brasidas himself prepared for marching out, and posted the rest of the troops with Clearidas at what were called the Thracian gates, to sally out after him, as had been arranged.
His descent from Cerdylium having been observed, as also his sacrificing, when he was in the city —of which a view is commanded from the outside—near the temple of Minerva, and his being occupied with these measures, tidings were carried to Cleon (for he had gone forward at the time to look about him) that the enemy's whole force was visible in the city; and that under the gates were observed many feet of horses and men, as though prepared to make a sally.
On receiving this intelligence he came up to the spot; and when he saw that it was so, not wishing to come to a decisive engagement before his reinforcements also had arrived, and thinking that he should have time to retire, he at once gave orders for the signal to march back, and sent word to the troops on the retreat to draw off in the direction of Eion, moving on their left wing;
which indeed was the only way they could.
But when he thought there was a dilatoriness on their part, he himself made the right wing turn round, and presenting their exposed side to the enemy, began to lead off his troops. Upon this, Brasidas, marking his opportunity, and seeing that the Athenian force was on the move, says to his own company and the rest: The men are not disposed to wait for us, as is evident by the motion of their spears and of their heads; for those who have this going on amongst them do not generally receive the charge of their assailants.
So then let somebody throw open for me the gates I have mentioned, and let us march out against them as quickly as possible, and with good courage. He, accordingly, sallied out by the gates near the stockade, the first in the long wall which was then standing, and ran full speed along the high road, where the trophy now stands, as you go by the strongest part of the position;
and falling on the Athenians, who were both terrified by their own disorder and confounded by his boldness, in the centre of their forces, he put them to the rout. Clearidas too, as had been arranged, sallied out after him by the Thracian gates, and rushed upon the enemy's troops.
The consequence was, that by this unexpected and sudden charge on both sides, the enemy were thrown into confusion; and their left wing, on the side of Eion, which had already advanced some distance, immediately broke away and fled.
When it was now on its retreat, Brasidas, in advancing along to attack the right wing, received a wound; and while the Athenians did not observe his fall, those who were near him took him up, and carried him off the field. The right of the Athenians, however, stood its ground better; and though Cleon, who from the first had no intention of making a stand, immediately fled, and was overtaken and killed by a Myrcinian targeteer, his heavy-armed retreated in a close body to the hill, and repulsed the charge of Clearidas twine or thrice, and did not give way till the Myrcinian and Chalcidian horse, with the targeteers, having surrounded them, and pouring their missiles upon them, put them to the rout.
And so now the whole army of the Athenians, flying with great difficulty, and taking many different roads over the mountains, effected their return to Eion;
excepting such as were killed either in the immediate action, or by the Chalcidian horse and the targeteers. Those who had taken up and rescued Brasidas, carried him still breathing into the city; where he lived to hear that his troops were victorious, but after a short interval expired.
The rest of the army, on returning with Clearidas from the pursuit, stripped the dead, and erected a trophy.
After this all the allies attended in arms, and interred Brasidas at the public expense in the city, in front of the present market-place. And ever since the Amphipolitans, having enclosed his tomb with a fence, have made offerings to him as to a hero, and have given him the honour of games and annual sacrifices. They also referred the settlement to him as its founder, demolishing the buildings of Hagnon, and obliterating whatever memorial of his founding the place was likely to remain: for they considered that Brasidas had been their preserver; and at the present time too, through fear of the Athenians, they courted the Lacedaemonians confederacy; while, on the other hand, they thought that Hagnon, in consequence of their hostility towards the Athenians, would not retain his honours either so beneficially or so agreeably to them.
The dead they restored to the Athenians. There were killed, of the Athenians, about six hundred; of their adversaries, only seven; because the battle was not fought with any regular order, but was rather brought on by such an accidental occurrence and previous alarm as has been described.
After taking up their dead, the Athenians sailed away home; while Clearidas and his party proceeded to settle matters about Amphipolis.
About the same time, towards the close of the summer, Ramphias, Autocharidas, and Epicydidas, Lacedaemonians, led a reinforcement of nine hundred heavy-armed to the Thraceward towns, and on their arrival at Heraclea in Trachinia arranged whatever appeared to them not to be on a good footing.
While they thus prolonged their stay in the place, this battle of Amphipolis happened to be fought; and so the summer ended
The following winter, Ramphias and his companions immediately passed through the country as far as Pierius in Thessaly; but as the Thessalians forbad their advance, and as Brasidas, moreover, was dead, to whom they were leading the force, they turned back home; thinking the time for action had gone by; as both the Athenians had departed in consequence of their defeat, and they were not competent to execute any of his designs.
But, most of all, they returned because they knew that the Lacedaemonians, at the time of their setting out, were more strongly disposed for peace.
It happened too, immediately after the battle of Amphipolis and the retreat of Ramphias from Thessaly, that neither party any longer applied themselves at all to the war, but they were rather inclined for peace. The Athenians were so, as having received a severe blow at Delium, and again shortly after at Amphipolis; and as no longer having that confident hope in their strength, through which they would not before accept the offered treaty, thinking, in consequence of their present success, that they should come off victorious in the struggle.
Besides, they were also afraid of their allies, lest they should be encouraged by their reverses to revolt on a larger scale; and they repented not having come to an arrangement, when they had a fine opportunity, after the events at Pylus.
The Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, wished for peace, because they found protracted beyond their expectation those hostilities by which they imagined that in a few years they should reduce the power of the Athenians, if they ravaged their land; and because they had met with the disaster on the island—such as had never yet befallen Sparta: and in consequence of their country being plundered from Pylus and Cythera; while their helots also were deserting, and there was a constant apprehension lest even those that remained in the country, trusting in the support of those who were out of it, should, on the strength of the present state of things, adopt some revolutionary designs against them, as on a former occasion.
It happened, too, that their thirty years' truce with the Argives was on the point of expiring, and the Argives would not renew it, unless the Cynurian territory were restored to them; so that it appeared impossible for them to carry on war at once with the Argives and Athenians. Besides, they suspected that some of the states in the Peloponnese would revolt from them to the Argives; as was really the case.
On these considerations both parties thought it best to conclude the arrangement; and particularly the Lacedaemonians, through the desire of recovering their men taken in the island; for those of them who were Spartans were of the highest rank, Ὁμοίως.] The meaning of this word is considered very doubtful; but to me it appears to signify, that as the prisoners were men of the highest rank, (or whatever the dignity might be which was intended by the word πρῶτοι,) so they were connected with those amongst themselves who were of the same rank. and connected with themselves in the same way.
They began therefore to negotiate immediately after their capture; but the Athenians, being so successful, would not yet make peace on fair terms. When, however, they had been defeated at Delium, immediately the Lacedaemonians, finding that they would now be more ready to accept their proposals, concluded the armistice for a year, during which they should meet together, and consult respecting a treaty for a longer period.
And when, moreover, the defeat at Amphipolis had befallen the Athenians, and Cleon and Brasidas were dead, who on each side were most opposed to the cause of peace-the one, because he was successful and honoured in consequence of the war; the other, because he thought, that if tranquillity were secured, he would be more easily detected in his evil practices, and less believed in his calumniations-then the individuals who in either country were most desirous of taking the lead, namely, Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians, and Nicias son of Niceratus, who of all his contemporaries was most generally successful in his military commands, were much more anxious for peace than ever. Nicias was so, because he wished, while he had met with no disaster, and was in high repute, permanently to secure his good fortune; and both at present to obtain a respite from troubles himself and give his countrymen the same, and to hand down to futurity a name for having continued to the end without subjecting the state to any disaster; and he thought that such a result is secured by freedom from danger, and by a man's committing himself as little as possible to fortune, and that such freedom from danger is afforded by peace. Pleistoanax, on the other hand, took the same view, because he was calumniated by his enemies on the subject of his restoration, and was continually being brought forward by them as the object of religious scruple on the part of the Lacedaemonians, whenever they met with any defeat; as though it were owing to his illegal restoration that these things befell them.
For they charged him with having, in concert with Aristocles, his brother, prevailed on the prophetess at Delphi to give the following charge to such Lacedaemonians as went, during a long period, to consult the oracle; that they should bring back the seed of the demigod son of Jupiter from a foreign land to his own; else they would i.e. that owing to the scarcity of provisions, they would have to buy them as dearly as though the implements used in raising them had been made of silver. plough with a silver share.
And so they said that in the course of time, when he had gone as an exile to Lycaeum, (in consequence of his former return from Attica, which was thought to have been effected by bribery,) and had then, through fear of the Lacedaemonians, half his house within the sanctuary of Jupiter, he induced them, in the nineteenth year of his exile, to restore him with the same dances and sacrifices as when they appointed their kings on first settling in Lacedaemonian.
Being annoyed therefore by this calumny, and thinking that in time of peace, when no reverse was experienced, and when, moreover, the Lacedaemonians were recovering their men from the island, he too should give his enemies no handle against him; whereas, as long as there was war, the leading men must always be exposed to accusations from the occurrence of disasters; he was ardently desirous of the pacification.
And so during this winter they were meeting in conference; and when it was now close upon spring, Literally, an armament was shaken on high before them; i.e. held in terrorem over their heads; like a weapon brandished in a man's face. The terrors of an armament, for which orders were sent round to the different states, as though for the purpose of building forts, were held forth by the Lacedaemonians, that the Athenians might the more readily listen to them. And when, after these conferences had been held. and they had urged many claims against each other, it was agreed that they should make peace on restoring what they had respectively taken during the war; but that the Athenians should keep Nisaea; (for on their demanding back Plataea, the Thebans said that it was not by force that they held the place, but in consequence of the inhabitants themselves having surrendered on definite terms, and not betrayed it to them; and the Athenians maintained that in the same way had they got possession of Nisaea;) then the Lacedaemonians convened their allies; and when all the rest, except the Boeotians, Corinthians, Eleans, and Megareans, who were displeased with what was being done, had voted for putting an end to the war, they concluded the arrangement, and made a treaty and bound themselves by oaths to the Athenians, and they to them, to the following effect:
1st, "The Athenians and Lacedaemonians, with their allies, ἐποιἠσαντο.] I have not translated this, as Hobbes and Bloomfield do, as though it had the force of a perfect; because I think the aorist was purposely used in such passages with reference to those who would read the record at any future time; and not to those who then took part in making the treaty. Compare the use of the same tense for the same reason in the first line of the history, ξυνέγραψε τὸν πόλεμον. made a treaty on the following terms, and swore to observe it, state by state. With regard to the temples common to the nation, that whoever wishes shall sacrifice, and go for that purpose, and consult the oracle, and attend the games, according to the custom of his fathers, whether proceeding by sea or land, without fear.
2nd, "That the temple and shrine of Apollo at Delphi, and the Delphians, shall be independent, self-taxed, and self judged, as regards both themselves and their territory, according to their hereditary usage.
3rd, "That the treaty shall be in force fifty years between the Athenians and their allies, and the Lacedaemonians and theirs, without guile or wrong, by land and by sea.
4th, "That it shall not be lawful to take the field for the purpose of inflicting injury, 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, by any means whatever. But should any dispute arise between them, they must have recourse to justice and oaths, in whatever way they may arrange.
5th, "That the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall restore Amphipolis to the Athenians. That of all the cities, however, which the Lacedaemonians may restore to the Athenians, the inhabitants shall be allowed to depart wherever they please, themselves and their property with them; and the cities shall be independent, only paying the tribute that was paid in the time of Aristides. That it shall not be lawful for the Athenians, or their allies, to take the field against them for their injury, after the treaty has been concluded. The cities referred to are Argilus, Stagirus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, and Spartolus. That these shall be considered as allies to neither party, neither the Lacedaemonians nor the Athenians; but if the Athenians gain the consent of the cities, then it shall be lawful for them to make them their allies, with their own free will. That the Mecybernaeans, Samaeans, and Singaeans shall inhabit their own cities, like the Olynthians and Acanthians; but that the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall restore Panactum to the Athenians.
6th, "That the Athenians, also, shall restore to the Lacedaemonians Coryphasium, Cythera, Methone, Pteleum, and Atalanta, and all the Lacedaemonians that are in prison at Athens, or any where else in all the Athenian dominions; and shall release those of the Peloponnesians who are being besieged in Scione; and all others in that place who are allies of the Lacedaemonians; and whoever amongst the allies of the Lacedaemonians is in prison at Athens, or any where else in the Athenian dominions.