Kitap 4
Meanwhile Mende revolted, a town in Pallene and a colony of the Eretrians, and was received without scruple by Brasidas, in spite of its having evidently come over during the armistice, on account of certain infringements of the truce alleged by him against the Athenians.
This audacity of Mende was partly caused by seeing Brasidas forward in the matter and by the conclusions drawn from his refusal to betray Scione; and besides, the conspirators in Mende were few, and, as I have already intimated, had carried on their practices too long not to fear detection for themselves, and not to wish to force the inclination of the multitude.
This news made the Athenians more furious than ever, and they at once prepared against both towns.
Brasidas expecting their arrival conveyed away to Olynthus in Chalcidice the women and children of the Scionaeans and Mendaeans, and sent over to them five hundred Peloponnesian heavy infantry and three hundred Chalcidian targeteers, all under the command of Polydamidas.Leaving these two towns to prepare together against the speedy arrival of the Athenians,
Brasidas and Perdiccas started on a second joint expedition into Lyncus against Arrhabaeus; the latter with the forces of his Macedonian subjects, and a corps of heavy infantry composed of Hellenes domiciled in the country; the former with the Peloponnesians whom he still had with him and the Chalcidians, Acanthians, and the rest in such force as they were able. In all there were about three thousand Hellenic heavy infantry, accompanied by all the Macedonian cavalry with the Chalcidians, near one thousand strong, besides an immense crowd of barbarians.
On entering the country of Arrhabaeus, they found the Lyncestians encamped awaiting them, and themselves took up a position opposite.
The infantry on either side were upon a hill, with a plain between them, into which the horse of both armies first galloped down, and engaged a cavalry action. After this the Lyncestian heavy infantry advanced from their hill to join their cavalry and offered battle; upon which Brasidas and Perdiccas also came down to meet them, and engaged and routed them with heavy loss; the survivors taking refuge upon the heights and there remaining inactive.
The victors now set up a trophy and waited two or three days for the Illyrian mercenaries who were to join Perdiccas. Perdiccas then wished to go on and attack the villages of Arrhabaeus, and to sit still no longer; but Brasidas, afraid that the Athenians might sail up during his absence, and of something happening to Mende, and seeing besides that the Illyrians did not appear, far from seconding this wish was anxious to return.
While they were thus disputing, the news arrived that the Illyrians had actually betrayed Perdiccas and had joined Arrhabaeus; and the fear inspired by their warlike character made both parties now think it best to retreat. However, owing to the dispute, nothing had been settled as to when they should start; and night coming on, the Macedonians and the barbarian crowd took fright in a moment in one of those mysterious panics to which great armies are liable; and persuaded that an army many times more numerous than that which had really arrived was advancing and all but upon them, suddenly broke and fled in the direction of home, and thus compelled Perdiccas, who at first did not perceive what had occurred, to depart without seeing Brasidas, the two armies being encamped at a considerable distance from each other.
At daybreak Brasidas, perceiving that the Macedonians had gone on, and that the Illyrians and Arrhabaeus were on the point of attacking him, formed his heavy infantry into a square, with the light troops in the center, and himself also prepared to retreat.
Posting his youngest soldiers to dash out wherever the enemy should attack them, he himself with three hundred picked men in the rear intended to face about during the retreat and beat off the most forward of their assailants.
Meanwhile, before the enemy approached, he sought to sustain the courage of his soldiers with the following hasty exhortation:—
‘Peloponnesians, if I did not suspect you of being dismayed at being left alone to sustain the attack of a numerous and barbarian enemy, I should just have said a few words to you as usual without further explanation. As it is, in the face of the desertion of our friends and the numbers of the enemy, I have some advice and information to offer, which, brief as they must be, will, I hope, suffice for the more important points.
The bravery that you habitually display in war does not depend on your having allies at your side in this or that encounter, but on your native courage; nor have numbers any terrors for citizens of states like yours, in which the many do not rule the few, but rather the few the many, owing their position to nothing else than to superiority in the field.
Inexperience now makes you afraid of barbarians; and yet the trial of strength which you had with the Macedonians among them, and my own judgment, confirmed by what I hear from others, should be enough to satisfy you that they will not prove formidable.
Where an enemy seems strong but is really weak, a true knowledge of the facts makes his adversary the bolder, just as a serious antagonist is encountered most confidently by those who do not know him. Thus the present enemy might terrify an inexperienced imagination, they are formidable in outward bulk, their loud yelling is unbearable, and the brandishing of their weapons in the air has a threatening appearance.
But when it comes to real fighting with an opponent who stands his ground, they are not what they seemed; they have no regular order that they should be ashamed of deserting their positions when hard pressed; flight and attack are with them equally honourable, and afford no test of courage; their independent mode of fighting never leaving any one who wants to run away without a fair excuse for so doing. In short, they think frightening you at a secure distance a surer game than meeting you hand to hand; otherwise they would have done the one and not the other.
You can thus plainly see that the terrors with which they were at first invested are in fact trifling enough, though to the eye and ear very prominent. Stand your ground therefore when they advance, and again wait your opportunity to retire in good order, and you will reach a place of safety all the sooner, and will know for ever afterwards that rabble such as these, to those who sustain their first attack, do but show off their courage by threats of the terrible things that they are going to do, at a distance, but with those who give way to them are quick enough to display their heroism in pursuit when they can do so without danger.’
With this brief address Brasidas began to lead off his army. Seeing this, the barbarians came on with much shouting and hubbub, thinking that he was flying and that they would over take him and cut him off.
But wherever they charged they found the young men ready to dash out against them, while Brasidas with his picked company sustained their onset. Thus the Peloponnesians withstood the first attack, to the surprise of the enemy, and afterwards received and repulsed them as fast as they came on, retiring as soon as their opponents became quiet. The main body of the barbarians ceased therefore to molest the Hellenes with Brasidas in the open country, and leaving behind a certain number to harass their march, the rest went on after the flying Macedonians, slaying those with whom they came up, and so arrived in time to occupy the narrow pass between two hills that leads into the country of Arrhabaeus. They knew that this was the only way by which Brasidas could retreat, and now proceeded to surround him just as he entered the most impracticable part of the road, in order to cut him off.
Brasidas, perceiving their intention, told his three hundred to run on without order, each as quickly as he could, to the hill which seemed easiest to take, and to try to dislodge the barbarians already there, before they should be joined by the main body closing round him.
These attacked and overpowered the party upon the hill, and the main army of the Hellenes now advanced with less difficulty towards it; the barbarians being terrified at seeing their men on that side driven from the height, and no longer following the main body, who, they considered, had gained the frontier and made good their escape.
The heights once gained, Brasidas now proceeded more securely, and the same day arrived at Arnisa, the first town in the dominions of Perdiccas.
The soldiers, enraged at the desertion of the Macedonians, vented their rage on all their yokes of oxen which they found on the road, and on any baggage which had tumbled off (as might easily happen in the panic of a night retreat), by unyoking and cutting down the cattle and taking the baggage for themselves. From this moment
Perdiccas began to regard Brasidas as an enemy and to feel against the Peloponnesians a hatred which could not be congenial to the adversary of the Athenians. However, he departed from his natural interests and made it his endeavour to come to terms with the latter and to get rid of the former.
On his return from Macedonia to Torone, Brasidas found the Athenians already masters of Mende, and remained quiet where he was, thinking it now out of his power to cross over into Pallene and assist the Mendaeans, but he kept good watch over Torone.
For about the same time as the campaign in Lyncus, the Athenians sailed upon the expedition which we left them preparing against Mende and Scione, with fifty ships, ten of which were Chians, one thousand Athenian heavy infantry and six hundred archers, one hundred Thracian mercenaries and some targeteers drawn from their allies in the neighbourhood, under the command of Nicias, son of Niceratus, and Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes.
Weighing from Potidaea, the fleet came to land opposite the temple of Poseidon, and proceeded against Mende; the men of which town, reinforced by three hundred Scionaeans, with their Peloponnesians auxiliaries, seven hundred heavy infantry in all, under Polydamidas, they found encamped upon a strong hill outside the city.
These Nicias, with one hundred and twenty light-armed Methonaeans, sixty picked men from the Athenian heavy infantry, and all the archers, tried to reach by a path running up the hill, but received a wound and found himself unable to force the position; while Nicostratus, with all the rest of the army, advancing upon the hill, which was naturally difficult, by a different approach further off, was thrown into utter disorder; and the whole Athenian army narrowly escaped being defeated.
For that day, as the Mendaeans and their allies showed no signs of yielding, the Athenians retreated and encamped, and the Mendaeans at nightfall returned into the town.
The next day the Athenians sailed round to the Scione side and took the suburb, and all day plundered the country, without any one coming out against them, partly because of intestine disturbances in the town; and the following night the three hundred Scionaeans returned home.
On the morrow Nicias advanced with half the army to the frontier of Scione and laid waste the country; while Nicostratus with the remainder sat down before the town near the upper gate on the road to Potidaea.
The arms of the Mendaeans and of their Peloponnesian auxiliaries within the wall happened to be piled in that quarter, where Polydamidas accordingly began to draw them up for battle, encouraging the Mendaeans to make a sortie.
At this moment one of the popular party answered him factiously that they would not go out and did not want a war, and for thus answering was dragged by the arm and knocked about by Polydamidas. Hereupon the infuriated commons at once seized their arms and rushed at the Peloponnesians and at their allies of the opposite faction.
The troops thus assaulted were at once routed, partly from the suddenness of the conflict and partly through fear of the gates being opened to the Athenians, with whom they imagined that the attack had been concerted.
As many as were not killed on the spot took refuge in the citadel, which they had held from the first; and the whole Athenian army, Nicias having by this time returned and being close to the city, now burst into Mende, which had opened its gates without any convention, and sacked it just as if they had taken it by storm, the generals even finding some difficulty in restraining them from also massacring the inhabitants.
After this the Athenians told the Mendaeans that they might retain their civil rights, and themselves judge the supposed authors of the revolt; and cut off the party in the citadel by a wall built down to the sea on either side, appointing troops to maintain the blockade. Having thus secured Mende, they proceeded against Scione.
The Scionaeans and Peloponnesians marched out against them, occupying a strong hill in front of the town, which had to be captured by the enemy before they could invest the place.
The Athenians stormed the hill, defeated and dislodged its occupants, and having encamped and set up a trophy, prepared for the work of circumvallation.
Not long after they had begun their operations, the auxiliaries besieged in the citadel of Mende forced the guard by the sea side and arrived by night at Scione, into which most of them succeeded in entering, passing through the besieging army.