Book 5
And you, Clearidas, afterwards, as soon as you shall see me to have charged and, as it is probable, to have put them into affright, take those that are with you, both Amphipolitans and all the rest of the confederates, and setting open the gates run out upon them, and with all possible speed come up to stroke of hand.
For there is great hope this way to terrify them, seeing they which come after are ever of more terror to the enemy than those that are already present and in fight.
And be valiant, as is likely you should that are a Spartan; and you, confederates, follow manfully, and believe that the parts of a good soldier are willingness, sense of shame, and obedience to his leaders; and that this day you shall either gain yourselves liberty by your valour, and to be called confederates of the Lacedaemonians, or else not only to serve the Athenians yourselves, and at the best, if you be not led captives nor put to death, to be in greater servitude than before, but also to be the hinderers of the liberty of the rest of the Grecians.
But be not you cowards, seeing how great a matter is at stake; and I, for my part, will make it appear that I am not more ready to persuade another than to put myself into action.
When Brasidas had thus said, he both prepared to go out himself, and also placed the rest that were with Clearidas before the gates called the Thracian gates to issue forth afterwards as was appointed.
Now Brasidas having been in sight when he came down from Cerdylium and again when he sacrificed in the city by the temple of Pallas, which place might be seen from without, it was told Cleon [whilst Brasidas was ordering of his men] (for he was at this time gone off a little to look about him) that the whole army of the enemies was plainly to be discerned within the town, and that the feet of many men and horses, ready to come forth, might be discerned from under the gate.
Hearing this, he came to the place; and when he saw it was true, being not minded to fight until his aids arrived, and yet making no other account but that his retreat would be discovered, he commanded at once to give the signal of retreat, and that as they went the left wing should march foremost, which was the only means they had to withdraw towards Eion.
But when he thought they were long about it, causing the right wing to wheel about and lay open their disarmed parts to the enemy, he led away the army himself.
Brasidas at the same time, having spied his opportunity and that the army of the Athenians removed, said to those about him and the rest: These men stay not for us; it is apparent by the wagging of their spears and of their heads; for where such motion is, they use not to stay for the charge of the enemy;
therefore open me some body the gates appointed and let us boldly and speedily sally forth upon them. Then he went out himself at the gate towards the trench, and which was the first gate of the long wall, which then was standing; and at high speed took the straight way, in which, as one passeth by the strongest part of the town, there standeth now a trophy, and charging upon the midst of the Athenian army, which was terrified both with their own disarray and the valour of the man, forced them to fly.
And Clearidas, as was appointed, having issued out by the Thracian gates, was withal coming upon them.
And it fell out that the Athenians, by this unexpected and sudden attempt, were on both sides in confusion; and the left wing which was next to Eion, and which indeed was marching away before, was immediately broken off from the rest of the army and fled. When that was gone, Brasidas coming up to the right wing, was there wounded.
The Athenians saw not when he fell; and they that were near took him up and carried him off. The right wing stood longer to it: and though Cleon himself presently fled (as at first he intended not to stay) and was intercepted by a Myrcinian targetier and slain, yet his men of arms, casting themselves into a circle on the [top of a little] hill, twice or thrice resisted the charge of Clearidas and shrunk not at all, till begirt with the Myrcinian and Chalcidean horse and with the targetiers, they were put to flight by their darts.
Thus the whole army of the Athenians, getting away with much ado over the hills and by several ways, all that were not slain upon the place or by the Chalcidean horse and targetiers, recovered Eion.
The other side taking up Brasidas out of the battle, and having so long kept him alive, brought him yet breathing into the city; and he knew that his side had gotten the victory, but expired shortly after.
When Clearidas with the rest of the army were returned from pursuit of the enemy, they rifled those that were slain and erected a trophy.
After this the confederates, following the corpse of Brasidas, all of them in their arms, buried him in the city, at the public charge, in the entrance of that which is now the market place. And the Amphipolitans afterwards, having taken in his monument with a wall, killed unto him as to a hero, honoured him with games and anniversary sacrifice, and attributed their colony unto him as to the founder, pulling down the edifices of Agnon, and defacing whatsoever monument might maintain the memory of his foundation. This they did both for that they esteemed Brasidas for their preserver and also because at this time, through fear of the Athenians, they courted the Lacedaemonians for a league. As for Agnon, because of their hostility with the Athenians, they thought it neither expedient for them to give him honours, nor that they would be acceptable unto him if they did.
The dead bodies they rendered to the Athenians, of whom there were slain about six hundred, and but seven of the other side, by reason that it was no set battle, but fought upon such an occasion and precedent affright.
After the dead were taken up, the Athenians went home by sea; and Clearidas and those with him stayed to settle the estate of Amphipolis.
About the same time of the summer now ending, Ramphias, Autocharidas, and Epicydidas, Lacedaemonians, were leading a supply towards the parts upon Thrace of nine hundred men of arms; and when they were come to Heracleia in Trachinia, they stayed there to amend such things as they thought amiss.
Whilst they stayed, this battle was fought; and the summer ended.
The next winter, they that were with Ramphias went presently forward as far as [the hill] Pierium in Thessaly. But the Thessalians forbidding them to go on, and Brasidas, to whom they were carrying this army, being dead, they returned homewards, conceiving that the opportunity now served not, both because the Athenians were upon this overthrow gone away and for that they themselves were unable to perform any of those designs which the other had intended.
But the principal cause of their return was this: that they knew at their coming forth that the Lacedaemonians had their minds more set upon a peace than war.
Presently after the battle of Amphipolis and return of Ramphias out of Thessaly, it fell out that neither side did any act of war but were inclined rather to a peace; the Athenians for the blow they had received at Delium, and this other a little after at Amphipolis, and because they had no longer that confident hope in their strength on which they relied when formerly they refused the peace, as having conceived upon their present success that they should have had the upper hand;
also they stood in fear of their own confederates, lest emboldened by these losses of theirs they should more and more revolt; and repented that they made not the peace after their happy success at Pylus, when occasion was offered to have done it honourably;
and the Lacedaemonians on the other side did desire peace because the war had not proceeded as they expected; for they had thought they should in a few years have warred down the power of Athens by wasting their territory; and because they were fallen into that calamity in the island, the like whereof had never happened unto Sparta before; because also their country was continually ravaged by those of Pylus and Cythera, and their Helotes continually fled to the enemy; and because they feared lest those which remained, trusting in them that were run away, should in this estate of theirs raise some innovation, as at other times before they had done.
Withal it happened that the thirty years' peace with the Argives was now upon the point of expiring; and the Argives would not renew it without restitution made them of Cynuria; so that to war against the Argives and the Athenians, both at once, seemed impossible. They suspected also that some of the cities of Peloponnesus would revolt to the Argives, as indeed it came afterwards to pass.
These things considered, it was by both parts thought good to conclude a peace, but especially by the Lacedaemonians for the desire they had to recover their men taken in the island. For the Spartans that were amongst them were both of the prime men of the city and their kinsmen.
And therefore they began to treat presently after they were taken; but the Athenians, by reason of their prosperity, would not lay down the war at that time on equal terms. But after their defeat at Delium, the Lacedaemonians, knowing they would be apter now to accept it, made that truce for a year, during which they were to meet and consult about a longer time.
But when also this other overthrow happened to the Athenians at Amphipolis, and that both Cleon and Brasidas were slain, the which on either side were most opposite to the peace, the one for that he had good success and honour in the war, the other because in quiet times his evil actions would more appear and his calumniations be the less believed, those two that in the two states aspired most to be chief, Pleistoanax, the son of Pausanias, and Nicias, the son of Niceratus, who in military charges had been the most fortunate of his time, did most of all other desire to have the peace go forward. Nicias because he was desirous, having hitherto never been overthrown, to carry his good fortune through and to give both himself and the city rest from their troubles for the present, and for the future to leave a name that in all his time he had never made the commonwealth miscarry; which he thought might be done by standing out of danger and by putting himself as little as he might into the hands of fortune; and to stand out of danger is the benefit of peace. Pleistoanax had the same desire because of the imputation laid upon him about his return from exile by his enemies, that suggested unto the Lacedaemonians upon every loss they received that the same befell them for having, contrary to the law, repealed his banishment.
For they charged him further that he and his brother Aristocles had suborned the prophetess of Delphi to answer the deputies of the Lacedaemonians, when they came thither, most commonly with this: that they should bring back the seed of the semigod, the son of Jupiter, out of a strange country into his own; and that if they did not, they should plough their land with a silver plough;
and so at length to have made the Lacedaemonians, nineteen years after, with such dances and sacrifices as they who were the first founders of Lacedaemon had ordained to be used at the enthroning of their kings, to fetch him home again; who lived in the meantime in exile in the mountain Lycaeum, in a house whereof the one half was part of the temple of Jupiter, for fear of the Lacedaemonians, as being suspected to have taken a bribe to withdraw his army out of Attica.
Being troubled with these imputations and considering with himself, there being no occasion of calamity in time of peace and the Lacedaemonians thereby recovering their men, that he also should cease to be obnoxious to the calumniations of his enemies whereas, in war, such as had charge could not but be quarrelled upon their losses—he was therefore forward to have the peace concluded.
And this winter they fell to treaty, and withal the Lacedaemonians braved them with a preparation already making against the spring, sending to the cities about for that purpose, as if they meant to fortify in Attica, to the end that the Athenians might give them the better ear. When after many meetings and many demands on either side, it was at last agreed that peace should be concluded, each part rendering what they had taken in the war, save that the Athenians should hold Nisaea (for when they [likewise] demanded Plataea and the Thebans answered that it was neither taken by force nor by treason, but rendered voluntarily, the Athenians said that they also had Nisaea in the same manner), the Lacedaemonians calling together their confederates, and all but the Boeotians, Corinthians, Eleians, and Megareans, (for these disliked it) giving their votes for the ending of the war, they concluded the peace, and confirmed it to the Athenians with sacrifice, and swore it, and the Athenians again unto them, upon these articles:
"The Athenians and Lacedaemonians and their confederates have made peace and sworn it, city by city, as followeth:
"Touching the public temples, it shall be lawful to whomsoever will to sacrifice in them and to have access unto them and to ask counsel of the oracles in the same and to send their deputies unto them, according to the custom of his country, securely both by sea and land. "The whole place consecrate and temple of Apollo in Delphi, and Delphi itself, shall be governed by their own law, taxed by their own state, and judged by their own judges, both city and territory, according to the institution of the place.
"The peace shall endure between the Athenians with their confederates and the Lacedaemonians with their confederates for fifty years, both by sea and land, without fraud and without harm-doing.
"It shall not be lawful to bear arms with intention of hurt, neither for the Lacedaemonians and their confederates against the Athenians nor for the Athenians and their confederates against the Lacedaemonians by any art or machination whatsoever; if any controversy shall arise between them, the same shall be decided by law and by oath, in such manner as they shall agree on.
"The Lacedaemonians and their confederates shall render Amphipolis to the Athenians; the inhabitants of whatsoever city the Lacedaemonians shall render unto the Athenians shall be at liberty to go forth whither they will with bag and baggage. "Those cities which paid the tribute taxed in the time of Aristides, continuing to pay it, shall be governed by their own laws. And now that the peace is concluded, it shall be unlawful for the Athenians or their confederates to bear arms against them or to do them any hurt as long as they shall pay the said tribute; the cities are these: Argilus, Stageirus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, Spartolus;
and they shall be confederates of neither side, neither of the Lacedaemonians nor of the Athenians;