Book 5
Then, Clearidas, the moment you see me pressing on and in all likelihood striking terror into them, do you suddenly throw open the gates and at the head of your own men and the Amphipolitans and the rest of our allies rush out upon them and make all haste to close with them at once. In this way there is the best hope to put them in a panic;
for a force that comes up afterwards has always more terror for an enemy than that with which he is already engaged.
As for yourself, shew yourself a brave man, as becomes a Spartan; and do you, men of the allies, follow him bravely, and bear in mind that the three virtues of a good soldier are zeal, sense of honour, and obedience to his leaders; and that on this day there is in store for you, if you are brave, freedom and to be called allies of the Lacedaemonians—or else vassals of the Athenians (if you be so fortunate as to escape death or being sold into slavery) and that, too, in a harsher vassalage than you had before, while for the rest of the Hellenes you will prove a barrier to their liberation.
Nay, then, seeing how much is at stake, do you on your part not play the coward; and I, for my part, will show that I am not better able to exhort others than to carry out myself in action the advice I give to my fellows.”
After this brief speech, Brasidas himself prepared for the sally and placed the rest with Clearidas at the gate called Thracian, in order that they might come out to his support according to his orders.
But he had been seen when he came down from Cerdylium, and again in the city—which is in full view from outside—while sacrificing at the temple of Athena and busied about these matters; and word was brought to Cleon, who had gone forward at that time for the reconnaissance, that the whole army of the enemy could be clearly seen inside the city, and the feet of men and horses in great numbers were visible under the gates, as though ready for a sally.
Hearing this Cleon came nearer; and when he saw it, being unwilling to risk a battle before his reinforcements arrived, and thinking that he could get away in time, he gave orders to sound a retreat and at the same time passed along word to the troops as they set off to go to the left —as alone was possible—upon the road to Eion.
But as it seemed to him this was being done too slowly, he himself wheeled the right wing, thus exposing the unarmed sideie. the right side, the left being covered by the shield. to the enemy, and began to lead off his army.
At this moment Brasidas, seeing his opportunity and the army of the Athenians on the move, said to those immediately about himie. the hundred and fifty (5.8.4). and to the rest of the troops: “These men will not stand before us; they show it by the wagging of their spears and of their heads; men who do that never await an attack.
Somebody open the gates for me as I have ordered and let us boldly get at them as quickly as possible.” He went out then by the gate that led to the palisade and by the first gate of the long wall, which was then standing, and advanced at full speed up the straight road where now, as one comes to the steepest part of the hill, a trophy stands, and attacking the centre of the Athenians, who were amazed at his audacity, as well as panic-stricken because of their own disorder, he routed them.
At the same moment Clearidas, as he had been ordered, went out at the Thracian gate and bore down with his troops.
And so it came to pass that owing to the unexpected and sudden nature of the attack from both sides at once the Athenians were thrown into confusion; and the left wing, on the side toward Eion, which had already gone some distance in advance, was at once cut off, and fled.
(It was just when it began to retire that Brasidas, who was pressing forward against the right wing, was wounded, and the Athenians did not observe that he had fallen, but those who were near took him up and carried him from the field.) The right wing of the Athenians stood its ground better. Cleon, indeed, as he had not intended from the first to stand his ground, fled at once, and was overtaken and slain by a Myrcinian targeteer; but the hoplites, rallying at their first position on the hill, twice or thrice repulsed the attack of Clearidas, and did not give way till the Myrcinian and Chalcidian horse and the targeteers, who surrounded and hurled javelins at them, put them to flight.
Then at last the whole Athenian army took to flight, making their way with difficulty and by many routes over the hills, until finally the survivors—all that were not destroyed either at once in hand to hand conflict or by the Chalcidian horse and targeteers—got back to Eion.
Brasidas was taken up by his followers and carried safely from the battlefield to the city, still breathing; and he learned that his men were victorious, but after a little interval he died.
The rest of the army, after returning with Clearidas from the pursuit, despoiled the dead and set up a trophy.
After this all the allies gave Brasidas a public burial in the city at a spot facing what is now the market-place, following his body in full armour. And the Amphipolitans fenced in his monument and have ever since made offerings to him as a hero, giving honours and instituting games and yearly sacrifices. They also adopted him as founder of the colony, pulling down the edifices of Hagnon and obliterating whatever was likely, if left standing, to be a reminder of his settlement,cf. 4.102.3, 4. for at the present moment they courted the alliance of the Lacedaemonians through fear of the Athenians, thinking Brasidas to have been their saviour, whereas Hagnon, in consequence of their hostile attitude towards Athens, would not in like manner as beforeie. as formerly, when their relations with Athens were pleasant. Or the meaning may be, “so advantageously for them as Brasidas would.” receive their honours either with benefit to themselves or with pleasure to himself.
The dead they gave back to the Athenians. About six hundred of these had been killed, but of their adversaries only seven; for the fight had been made, not as a regular battle, but as the result of such an accident and previous panic as has been described.
After taking up the dead the Athenians sailed back home, but Clearidas and his followers remained and set in order the affairs of Amphipolis.
About the same time, towards the close of this summer, Rhamphias, Autocharidas, and Epicydidas, who were Lacedaemonians, were on their way with reinforcements, consisting of nine hundred hoplites, to the strongholds in Thrace, and arriving at Heracleia in Trachis they set in order whatever seemed to them amiss.
It was while they were staying there that the battle at Amphipolis occurred; and so the summer ended.
As soon as winter came on Rhamphias and his followers advanced as far as Pierium in Thessaly; but as the Thessalians hindered their progress and Brasidas, to whom they were bringing the army, was now dead, they turned back homeward. They thought the favourable moment was past, for the Athenians had gone away in consequence of their defeat, and they were not competent by themselves to carry out any of Brasidas' plans.
But the chief reason for their return was that they knew that the Lacedaemonians, at the time when they set out, were more than ever inclined to peace.
It so happened, too, that directly after the battle at Amphipolis and the withdrawal of Rhamphias from Thessaly neither side undertook any further military operations, and both were more inclined to peace. The Athenians were so inclined because they had been beaten at Delium,cf. 4.100., 4.101 and again at Amphipolis a little later, and consequently had no longer that confidence in their strength in reliance upon which they had earlier refused to accept the truce, as they then thought that with their existing good luck they would prove superior.
They were afraid, too, of their allies, lest, elated over these failures of theirs, the revolt among them might spread, and they repented that they had not come to terms when a good opportunity offered after the affair at Pylos.
The Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, favoured peace because the war was turning out contrary to their hopes. They had expected that in a few years, if they should ravage their territory, they could pull down the power of the Athenians; whereas they had met with the calamity on the island of Sphacteria, such an one as had never before befallen Sparta; their territory was ravaged from Pylos and Cythera; the Helots were deserting, and always there was apprehension that those who remained, relying on those beyond the border,ie. those who had escaped. might revolt in the present state of affairs, just as they had done before.The great revolt of the Helots, called the Third Messenian War; cf. 1.101.-1.103
It happened also that the thirty years' truce with the Argives was on the point of expiring,It expired the next year (cf. 5.28.2), and therefore dated from 457 B.C. and the Argives were unwilling to make another treaty unless the territory of Cynuriacf. 4.56.2. were restored to them; and it seemed impossible to carry on the war with the Argives and the Athenians at the same time. Besides, they suspected that some of the cities in the Peloponnesus would revolt to the Argives, as indeed did happen.
In consideration of these things, both parties thought it advisable to come to an agreement, especially the Lacedaemonians, because of their desire to recover the men captured at Sphacteria; for the Spartiates among these were men of high rank and all alike kinsmen of theirs.i.e., of the Lacedaemonians in authority. The Spartiates formed a clan; besides their common descent, they were closely connected by intermarriage. Or reading, with the schol., ἦσαν γὰρ ο ἵ σπαρτιᾶται αὐτῶν κτλ., “for there were among them some Spartiates of the first rank and related to the most distinguished families.”
Accordingly, they began negotiations directly after their capture, but the Athenians were not at all inclined, as long as they were getting on well, to make a settlement on fair terms. When, however, the Athenians were defeated at Delium, the Lacedaemonians knew immediately that they would now be more ready to accept offers, and they concluded the truce for a year, during which they were to come together and consult about a treaty for a longer period.
But when the Athenians had met defeat at Amphipolis also and both Cleon and Brasidas had been killed—the men who on either side had been most opposed to peace, the one because of his success and the reputation he had derived from the war, the other because he thought if quiet were restored he would be more manifest in his villainies and less credited in his calumnies—then it was that Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of the Lacedaemonians, and Nicias son of Niceratus, who had been of all the generals of his day most successful in his commands—men who had most zealously supported the cause of peace each in the interest of his own state—urged this course with greater zeal than ever. Nicias wished, while his record was still free from disaster and he was held in esteem, to preserve his good luck to the end, and not only at present both to rest from toil himself and to give his fellow-citizens a rest, but also to hand down to after times a name as of one who had lived his life through without injuring the state; and he thought that a man might achieve such a result by keeping out of danger and by least exposing himself to the caprices of fortune, and that it was peace only that offered freedom from danger. Pleistoanax, on the other hand, was for peace, because he was constantly maligned by his enemies about his return from exile, and because, whenever any reverses occurred, he was always spitefully recalled to their thoughts by these persons as though these misfortunes were due to his illegal restoration.
For they charged that he, along with his brother Aristocles, had bribed the priestess at Delphi constantly to answer the Lacedaemonians, whenever they came to consult the oracle: “Bring back the seed of the demigod, son of Zeus, from the foreign land to your own; otherwise you shall plough with a silver plough-share”ie. as the schol. explains, there would be a pestilence, and they would buy food at a very high price, as it were using silver tools.;
and that in course of time she had induced the Lacedaemonians to bring him back from banishment in the twentieth year427 B.C. since he had left the country in 446. cf. 1.114.2 and 2.21.1. with like dances and sacrifices as when at the founding of Lacedaemon they had first enthroned their kings. For he had fled for refuge to Mt. Lycaeum,A mountain in Arcadia on which was an ancient sanctuary of Zeus. on account of his retreat from Attica, that was thought to be due to bribery, and through fear of the Lacedaemonians had occupied at that time a house whereof the half was within the sanctuary of Zeus.
Vexed, therefore, by this calumny, and thinking that in time of peace, when no calamity would occur and, moreover, the Lacedaemonians would be recovering their men, he himself would not be exposed to the attack of his enemies, whereas so long as there was war it must always be that the leading men would be maligned in the event of any misfortunes, he became very ardent for the agreement. During this winter they kept attending conferences;
and toward spring there was a menace of warlike preparation on the part of the Lacedaemonians, orders being sent to the cities as though for the erection of a fortress to overawe the territory of the Athenians, that they might be more inclined to listen to terms; and at the same time as the result of their conferences, in which each party had filed many claims against the other, an agreement was finally reached that they should make peace, each party to restore to the other the territories which they had gained by war, though the Athenians were to keep Nisaea.cf. 4.69(For when they had demanded back Plataea, the Thebans protested that they had obtained possession of the place, not by force, but because the Plataeans had come over to them by agreement and not through betrayalcf. 3.52.2.; and the Athenians claimed to have obtained Nisaea in the same way.) At this time the Lacedaemonians summoned their own allies, and when all the rest had voted to stop hostilities, except the Boeotians, Corinthians, Eleans, and Megarians—to whom the negotiations were displeasing—they made the agreement, ratifying it by libations and oaths with the Athenians, and the Athenians with them, on the following terms:—
"The Athenians and the Lacedaemonians and their respective allies have concluded a treaty and sworn to it state by state upon the following terms:
1. "With regard to the common sanctuaries,With reference especially to Delphi and Olympia. whoever wishes may offer sacrifices and consult the oracles and attend as a deputy according to the customs of the fathers, both by land and sea, without fear. 2. "The precinct and the temple of Apollo at Delphi and the people of Delphi shall be independent, having their own system of taxation and their own courts of justice, both as regards themselves and their own territory, according to the customs of the fathers. 3.
"The truce shall be in force for fifty years between the Athenians and their allies and the Lacedaemonians and their allies, without fraud or hurt, both by land and sea. 4.
"It shall not be lawful to bear arms with harmful intent, 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 art or device. And if there be any dispute with one another, they shall have recourse to courts and oaths, according as they shall agree. 5. "The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall restore Amphipolis to the Athenians.
But in the case of cities delivered by the Lacedaemonians to the Athenians, their inhabitants shall be allowed to go away wherever they wish, having their own possessions; and these cities, so long as they pay the tribute that was fixed in the time of Aristeides, shall be independent. And it shall not be lawful for the Athenians and their allies, after the ratification of the treaty, to bear arms against the cities to their hurt, so long as they pay the tribute. These cities are Argilus,cf. 4.103.4. Stagirus,cf. 4.88.2. Acanthus,cf. 4.88.1. Stolus, Olynthus,cf. 1.58.2. Spartolus.cf. 2.79. These shall be allies neither of the Lacedaemonians nor of the Athenians; but if the Athenians can persuade these cities it shall be lawful for the Athenians to make them, with their own free will and consent, allies to themselves. 6.
"The Mecybernaeans and Sanaeanscf. 4.109.3, 5. and Singians shall dwell in their own towns on the same terms as the Olynthians and Acanthians. 7. "The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall restore Panactumcf. 5.3.5. to the Athenians.