Chapter 17
Introduction
In 425 BCE, six years into the twenty-seven-year-long debacle of the Peloponnesian War, there occurred what Thucydides describes as the most shocking event of the entire war: nearly 300 Spartans surrendered to the Athenians. Fifty-five years earlier, conceivably within living memory, 300 Spartans etched themselves into the Western consciousness by fighting to the death against an overwhelmingly large Persian army at Thermopylae. Asked by the Persians to lay down their weapons, the Spartans at Thermopylae replied tersely: ‘Come and get them.’ Yet on the island of Sphacteria, near the fabled site of Pylos that was once home to the Homeric king Nestor, virtually the same number of Spartans surrendered and were taken to Athens in chains. One of the captured Spartan shields can still be seen in the Agora Museum in Athens, inscribed simply with ‘taken by the Athenians from the Lacedaemonians [another name for the Spartans and their allies from Laconia] at Pylos’. After fighting to a stalemate for several years, the Athenian victory at Pylos utterly humiliated Sparta and seemed to turn the tide of the war decisively in Athens’ favour. The battle also signalled a sea-change in the art of warfare: the rise of light-armed troops, often at the expense of the proud hoplites of the Greek city-states.
Directions to the Site
Modern Pylos is a lovely town in the south-western corner of the Peloponnese. Situated right on the Bay of Navarino, where a great nineteenth-century naval battle was fought, Pylos has several fine tourist hotels and tavernas, and is close to sites of great beauty and interest, including the Bronze Age ‘Palace of Nestor’ and the extensive Venetian and Ottoman fortifications at Methoni. Pylos has some interesting fortifications of its own, which are well worth seeing. Ancient Pylos was situated on a dramatic promontory at the opposite end of the Bay of Navarino from the modern town, close to Voidokoilia Bay, a horseshoe of white sand that is perhaps the finest beach in mainland Greece. To visit the ancient site and the areas connected to the battle of 425, take the main road north-east out of modern Pylos, ascending the hill along the southern edge of the Bay of Navarino. Just on the outskirts of town there are a few good places to stop at the side of the road, from where you can see the entire Bay of Navarino and island of Sphacteria. After continuing for another 2.5km, you will reach a fork where the main road continues east to Kalamata. At this fork, turn left and follow the signs for Gialova, a little over 3km to the north along the bay. At Gialova, turn left to follow the signs for Navarino Castle, which will take you right to the southern base of ancient Pylos, just across from Sphacteria. To reach Voidokoilia Bay and the other side of ancient Pylos, return to Gialova and turn left to go north, and after 5.5km take a sharp left at the major three-way fork, following the signs for Voidokoilia. You will reach Voidokoilia Bay, lying below the northern side of ancient Pylos, after driving approximately 3.5km from that fork.
Historical Outline of the Battle
By the time the Peloponnesian War broke out in 431 BCE, Sparta had for centuries produced the best and most feared hoplite warriors in the world. From boyhood, Spartans devoted themselves to military training, leaving all other tasks to women and, especially, to the helots, Sparta’s state-owned serfs. Whereas virtually all other Greek states filled their military ranks with amateurs – farmers who put down their ploughs in order to fight as hoplites when the need arose – Sparta’s army was comprised of full-time soldiers, highly-trained, battle-hardened and legendary for their courage. This system worked very well for the Spartans. They emerged as the leading state in Greece, and in the war against Persia from 480-479 they won great renown by holding off the numberless Persians for several days at Thermopylae before heroically dying to the last man, and then dealing the death-blow to the Persian invasion at the Battle of Plataea. The other Greeks were very reluctant to confront the Spartan phalanx in open battle, with spear against spear and shield against shield in the great othismos, the bone-chilling mass shove of hoplite warfare. The Spartans held one of their laws to be greater than all others: no Spartan is to yield his ground to the enemy; he must fight and win, or fight and die in his allotted place in the line. His skill and training meant that he was likely to win.
From the outset, the Peloponnesian War was a study in contrasts. Two states at the height of their power were gearing up for a great contest: Athens, the leading naval power in the Mediterranean world, confident in the triremes that had bested the Persians at Salamis a generation earlier and gained for Athens a maritime empire; and Sparta, the undisputed masters of the hoplite phalanx, unbeatable on land. The Athenian general Pericles advised his fellow citizens to rely on their ships, to guard their power over the sea and refuse to engage the Spartans in the plains outside the city walls. Athenian hoplites just could not beat Spartan ones, but behind their walls the Athenians could bring in by sea as many supplies as they needed, and could launch amphibious raids against the territory of Sparta and its allies almost with impunity. Sparta, on the other hand, conceived of the strategy of ravaging Athenian territory in order to break the Athenians’ will and entice them into open battle. The Spartans reasoned that honour, if nothing else, would compel the Athenians to sally out from their walls at the sight of their own lands being ruined. The war, perhaps predictably, devolved into a stalemate.
After Pericles, the mastermind of Athens’ strategy in the early years of the war, died during a ruinous outbreak of plague in 429, a new set of military leaders rose to prominence. These generals pursued a more aggressive policy than Pericles had advocated, making ever bolder and more widespread forays into enemy territory. The greatest of this new generation of generals was Demosthenes.
Though Demosthenes would earn great fame among his contemporaries and later military historians, his career as a commander did not begin well. In 426 he led an expedition of Athenian hoplites and allies into Aetolia, a rugged region of western Greece populated by semi-barbaric tribes that Demosthenes thought would make for an easy campaign. Confident that he was about to add new territory to the Athenian empire in yet another part of Greece, and urged on by his Messenian allies (long-time subjects of Sparta in the Peloponnese), Demosthenes marched into Aetolia even before all of his allies had arrived, especially those from Locris, a region not far from Aetolia. As Thucydides comments by way of foreshadowing the campaign’s result, the Locrian allies would have been especially important since they fought as light-armed javelin-throwers, a type of soldier that Demosthenes desperately needed to complement his hoplites and the few archers supplied by allies.
When the Athenian force marched into their territory, the Aetolians initially fled their villages and took to the hills. Soon, however, the Aetolians gathered in force. It turned out that they knew of Demosthenes’ approach in advance, and prepared quickly to meet him. Not being the ‘good sort’ of Greeks who settled their differences through hoplite clashes on level plains, the Aetolians were primarily armed with javelins. They wore little or no armour, and thus were much more mobile than the heavily encumbered Athenian hoplites. Swarming down from the hills, the Aetolians began to sow chaos and confusion among the Athenian force. At first Demosthenes’ men held out, making use of their archers. The commander of the archers, though, was soon killed, and his men scattered and ran for their lives. To make matters worse, the Athenians’ local guide was also killed, meaning that the Athenians and their allies got lost as they tried to evade the faster Aetolians. The greatest misfortune occurred when the Athenians in their bewilderment entered a dense wood, which the Aetolians set ablaze. Harried, wounded, lost and surrounded by burning trees and an invisible and mobile enemy, Demosthenes’ men fell thick and fast. We are not told how many of the Athenians’ allies perished, but some 120 Athenian hoplites fell, who Thucydides says were in the prime of life and the best Athenians to die during the entire course of the war. As for Demosthenes, he survived, but hid for a period among the allies, fearing to return and face the music at Athens.
The lesson of the Aetolian campaign was clear: light-armed troops could be deadly even against hoplites, especially in rugged terrain. Scholarly portrayals of the period of ‘canonical’ hoplite battle, in which two equally matched phalanxes met in a level plain, without trickery or deceit, and usually without supporting arms such as archers or cavalry, are probably overstated. But the hoplite was the mainstay of Greek armies and had been for hundreds of years. Much of military history is the tension between technology and ideology in terms of developments in the theory and practice of warfare. Greek culture and society certainly privileged the hoplite as an emblem of Greek freedom and courage. And yet the hoplite was more than just an ideological statement of the primacy and virtue of the independent Greek landowner; he was deadly too, as the Persians learned to their great cost at Marathon and Plataea. Hoplite snobbery prompted Demosthenes to barge into Aetolia without his full complement of allies. The Athenian hoplites were no Spartans, but they certainly ought to have been better than the tribesmen of Aetolia. Or so Demosthenes likely reasoned. The experience of Aetolia challenged deeply-held beliefs about warfare. While he nursed his wounded pride and avoided the angry Athenians, Demosthenes might have entertained a revolutionary idea. For five years the Athenians had hidden behind their walls as Spartan hoplites ravaged Athenian lands, all because Spartan hoplites were supposed to be invincible. But if light-armed Aetolians could be victorious over Athenian hoplites, could light-armed troops also beat the Spartans?
The test of this idea came the following year. In the summer of 425, an Athenian fleet set sail for Sicily, to land first at Corcyra (modern Corfu) to help their democratic allies there. Demosthenes, no longer an official general, went along with the expedition. At his own request, the Athenians allowed him to do whatever he saw fit as the ships sailed around the Peloponnese and Spartan territory. Evidently, his loss in Aetolia had been largely forgiven. Demosthenes urged the Athenian commanders to put in at Pylos, to which they agreed only after a storm came up and prevented them from sailing further towards Corcyra. Pylos was a rocky promontory on the northern end of the Bay of Navarino in Messenia, the Spartan-controlled south-western quadrant of the Peloponnese. Demosthenes advocated the innovative strategy of fortifying Pylos in order to have a permanent Athenian presence in Spartan territory – a forward operating base, or epiteichismos, in technical military terms – and to foment revolt among the Messenians who had long been subject to humiliating serfdom at the hands of Sparta. This strategy certainly had merit, and foreshadowed the methods adopted by several gifted leaders in the following decades, including the Theban genius Epameinondas in the fourth century who finally broke the back of Spartan power. The Athenians set about fortifying the place, and after a few days Demosthenes was left with five ships and a garrison, while the rest of the fleet sailed on. Once the Spartans heard what Demosthenes was up to, they cut short their annual invasion of Attica and hurried to Pylos.
Pylos Map 1. Satellite image courtesy of the USGS.
The Spartan fleet arrived and decided on the following plan. The main body of the Athenian fleet would surely return to the aid of Demosthenes and his men, so the Spartans resolved to attack the new Athenian fortification by land and sea. The Spartans also decided to place over 400 soldiers on the island of Sphacteria that stretched across the mouth of the bay to the south of Pylos, to prevent the Athenians from using the island as a base. After Demosthenes delivered a speech to encourage his men to stand fast, the Spartans attacked from land and aboard forty-three triremes. One of the Spartan trireme commanders was Brasidas, who would rise to prominence in the years following the Battle of Pylos by taking the city of Amphipolis, a crucial Athenian ally in the north (for more on Brasidas, see the chapters on Naupactus and Amphipolis in this book). At Pylos, Brasidas distinguished himself by ordering his steersman to ram the boat against the rocky shore in order to overwhelm the Athenian defenders with a bold stroke. Brasidas suffered many wounds as he stood exhorting his men, and finally fainted and lost his shield, which was later displayed at Athens. We hear no more of him during this episode, but at Pylos he gained familiarity with Demosthenes and his daring new approach to the Peloponnesian War.
The Spartans attacked for three days, but the Athenians managed to hold out. Finally, the Athenian fleet arrived back at Pylos and engaged the Spartan triremes, beating them handily. The Spartans had failed to dislodge the Athenian garrison and had been bested by the superior Athenian navy. Worst of all, the Athenians now controlled the sea, meaning that the more than 400 Spartans stationed on the island of Sphacteria were now trapped. With the Athenians sailing around the island on regular patrols, the Spartans panicked and begged for an armistice. Upon the advice of the firebrand Cleon in the assembly at Athens, the Athenians declined to make peace with the Spartans. The two sides thus settled into a protracted conflict at Pylos, with the Spartans still besieged on the island and their countrymen seemingly unable to do anything about it.
As the weeks dragged on, Cleon, a notorious demagogue who earned the hatred of Thucydides, Aristophanes and other members of the Athenian elite, publicly chided the Athenian general Nicias for not having the stomach to attack the Spartans trapped on the island and finish the job at Pylos. In a dazzling comedic passage in Thucydides’ otherwise bleak treatment of the war, Nicias suggests that Cleon put his money where his mouth is by taking command himself. The well-to-do of Athens thought this was a splendid suggestion, since either Cleon would fail, as they thought likely, and the city would be rid of him, or he would succeed and Athens would score a great victory against Sparta. Backed into a corner, Cleon accepted the command, and then upped the ante by boasting that he would defeat the Spartans without using any Athenians whatsoever. Instead, he proposed to sail along with the many light-armed troops that were in Athens from the allies, especially those lying near Thrace in the northern Aegean. Thrace was the land of the peltast, an unarmoured mobile skirmisher expert in hurling javelins and named after his light crescent-shaped shield, the peltē. Many Thracian peltasts were mercenaries, professional killers willing to fight for whoever offered the most cash. Aside from these peltasts, the troops in Cleon’s expedition included archers, slingers and other troops not thought to be up to the challenge of facing hoplites. Cleon’s enemies surely sniggered at the prospect of his imminent defeat.
Pylos Map 2: The Spartan battle plan. Satellite image courtesy of the USGS.
Thucydides, who clearly hated Cleon and the other populist demagogues in post-Periclean Athens, tells us that Cleon was backed into the command at Pylos through his ill-considered blustering, a situation compounded by his foolish and tactically idiotic boast that he would prevail with only light-armed mercenaries and other non-Athenian soldiers. Many scholars, however, see through Thucydides’ simplistic portrayal of Cleon, particularly in the Pylos episode. Though impossible to prove, it seems overwhelmingly likely that Cleon and Demosthenes had a pre-arranged plan for Cleon to assume the official command (remember that Demosthenes held no official military post in 425) and that he would bring to Pylos just the sort of troops Demosthenes needed to try out his revolutionary new idea, namely, that hoplites were vulnerable to large numbers of coordinated light-armed skirmishers. That Demosthenes underwent his painful military education in Aetolia just the preceding year renders very unlikely that Cleon’s commandeering of a large light-armed force was mere coincidence. Cleon, though not one to shy away from an opportunity to win fame and influence, seemed happy to hand over the bulk of the command to Demosthenes after arriving at Pylos. To add weight to the charge that Thucydides’ narrative is here much embellished, we are told that Demosthenes gained a distinct advantage from a ‘chance’ fire that occurred on the island, revealing to the Athenians the exact position of all the Spartans. Thucydides says that this was quite fortuitous, since dense forests had been largely to blame for Demosthenes’ defeat in Aetolia. It strains belief to imagine that such an advantage for the Athenians at Pylos, amounting to a direct application of the principles learned in Aetolia, arose by pure happenstance. Much more likely, Demosthenes had set about creating the ideal conditions for a great light-armed assault against the trapped Spartans.
That assault came shortly after the arrival of Cleon’s force. Demosthenes wasn’t taking any chances: he sent 800 hoplites to the island before dawn, who surprised and quickly overwhelmed the small advance post of thirty Spartans. He then sent across all of his light troops at dawn, some 800 archers, more than 800 peltasts and an undisclosed number of Messenian and other troops. Demosthenes intended to make the best use of his irregular troops. Thucydides’ description of the Athenian disposition is an important document for military history:
Under the direction of Demosthenes, this force was divided into companies of roughly 200 men – sometimes more and sometimes less – who occupied the highest points of ground, with the object of causing the enemy the greatest possible embarrassment; for he would be surrounded on all sides and have no single point against which to counter-attack; instead he would always be exposed to great numbers in every direction, and if he attacked those in front he would be shot at from the rear, if he attacked those on one flank, he would be shot at by those on the other. Wherever he went, he would have enemies behind him, lightly armed and the hardest of all to deal with, since with their arrows, javelins, stones, and slings they were effective at long range and it was impossible to come to close quarters with them; for in running away they had the advantage in speed, and as soon as the pursuit was relaxed back they came again. (translated by Rex Warner in the Penguin Classics edition)
The Spartans, the most feared hoplites in all Greece, were rendered virtually helpless. At first they tried to engage the Athenian hoplites and fight it out the old-fashioned way. But the Athenian hoplites stubbornly refused to engage. Instead, whenever the Spartans advanced, the Athenian light troops on the flanks and in the rear of the Athenian hoplites would unleash their missiles on the Spartans. Whenever the Spartans tried to pursue the light troops, the light troops simply retreated from the heavier hoplites with ease, continuing to hurl missiles all the while. Seeing the most renowned fighters in Greece unable to attack or even resist, the light troops gained more confidence and pressed their attack. As the Spartans were killed and wounded, a great dust cloud arose which, combined with the clamour of shouts from the light-armed Athenian mercenaries, confounded the Spartans utterly. Retreating to the fortified high point at the far northern end of the island, the Spartans at least temporarily managed to prevent the Athenians from surrounding them on all sides.
An enterprising Messenian offered to lead a contingent of light troops up the steep cliffs behind the Spartans and thus surround them completely, leaving no avenue for escape. When the Spartans saw the Messenians’ force appear suddenly behind them, they no longer stood their ground. Thucydides evokes the situation at Thermopylae, ‘to compare small things with great’, where the Spartans were similarly surrounded. Yet at Thermopylae the Spartans fought to the bitter end, choosing to die rather than surrender to the Persians. Things did not work out in the same way at Pylos. Demosthenes and Cleon called off the attack, wanting to capture the Spartans alive. During a short truce, the Spartans on the mainland ordered those on the island to do whatever they wished, provided it was not ‘dishonourable’. Two hundred and ninty-two Spartans, including 120 full Spartiate ‘equals’, the elite Spartan warriors, surrendered to the Athenians and were taken as hostages to Athens.
Pylos Map 3: The Athenian attack. Satellite image courtesy of the USGS.
Pylos Map 4: The Spartans surrounded. Satellite image courtesy of the USGS.
The contrast with Thermopylae could not have been greater. Thucydides says that the capture of these Spartans was the most shocking event of the entire twenty-seven-year war. The impression among the Greeks was that the Spartans would never surrender – indeed this myth had been assiduously cultivated since Thermopylae. But now nearly 300 Spartans, eerily similar to the number that had fought and died against Xerxes’ hordes in 480, were humiliated prisoners at Athens. An allied soldier of Athens, probably one of the light-armed skirmishers, goaded one of the Spartan prisoners by asking whether the best and bravest of the Spartans were the ones who had been killed on the island, rather than captured. Trying in vain to maintain a shred of his hoplite dignity, the Spartan replied that it would be quite the ‘spindle’ that could pick out the good men from the bad. ‘Spindle’ was the derogatory word chosen by the Spartan instead of ‘arrow’ or ‘javelin’ in order to emphasize the ungentlemanly manner of fighting by which the Spartans had been bested.
Try as he might, this Spartan could not cover up the fact that Greek warfare was now changed forever. Increasingly it would be difficult to fight wars by using only, or even primarily, the hoplite phalanx. To be sure, great phalanx battles still lay ahead for the Greeks, but the Greeks – and especially the Spartans – would cling to the standard phalanx to their great peril. Demosthenes had taken to heart the cruel lesson he learned in Aetolia, and had won a great success for Athens, one which seemed to turn the tide of the war towards Athenian victory. Despite Spartan attempts to downplay the achievement of Demosthenes’ light-armed force, one Spartan did sense the way the military winds were blowing. Brasidas, who had been present at the outset of the Battle of Pylos, drew all the insight he could from Demosthenes’ victory. In the coming year, Brasidas used similarly novel tactics to great effect, and added several important innovations of his own, on his way to capturing the Athenian-allied city of Amphipolis and rescuing the Spartan war effort that had suffered so dearly at Pylos.
The Battle Site Today
Before going to the site of the battle itself, it is worthwhile to stop above the harbour as you leave the modern town of Pylos. From the high points on the road out of town, you can see the entire Bay of Navarino, the island of Sphacteria and the promontory of ancient Pylos. Note the large southern channel between the island and the mainland, which is nearly 1.5km wide and was therefore too large for the Spartans to block without considerable effort. From here, looking north across the bay at Sphacteria, you will see three distinct rises in the ground. The first two are on the island itself, while the third and most northerly is actually ancient Pylos, on the mainland and separated from Sphacteria by a small channel of only 100 metres.
Fig. 17.1: Captured Spartan shield displayed at Athens. The inscription reads: ‘The Athenians [taken from] the Lacedaemonians at Pylos.’ Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations. Photo by Craig Mauzy.
Fig. 17.2: The Bay of Navarino with the northern tip of Sphacteria in the centre and the fortress of Pylos to the right. Authors’ photo.
The initial clash between the Athenians and Spartans, which the Athenians won despite the valiant efforts of Brasidas, took place at the northern edge of the Bay of Navarino, just under the southern tip of ancient Pylos (called Navarino Castle by the modern signs). The Athenian landing spot (N36° 57.119"; E021° 39.681") was probably located on the beach just to the east of ancient Pylos, while the Spartans set up camp along the beach at the modern village of Gialova, 3-4km away. Several key points of the battle can be seen along the path that skirts the base of ancient Pylos. The rugged coastline below the path probably represents the rocks where Brasidas urged his ships to run aground in order to dislodge the Athenians from their clearly advantageous defensive position, and just across the channel is the northern high point of Sphacteria where the Spartans finally surrendered after being surrounded on all sides. A medieval fortification is visible at this high point. Note the steep cliffs descending behind the high point to the sea, where the enterprising ally of Athens ascended with a Messenian contingent to appear suddenly in the Spartans’ rear.
Fig. 17.3: The northern tip of Sphacteria and the place of the Spartans’ last stand, as seen from the ancient fortress of Pylos. Authors’ photo.
The summit of ancient Pylos (N36° 57.575"; E021° 39.447"), now called Palaiokastro because of the thirteenth-century Frankish fortifications still at the site, is best reached from Voidokoilia Bay, a striking horseshoe of sand that is perhaps the finest beach in all of mainland Greece. From the southern edge of the beach a steep and narrow trail leads you first past the ‘Cave of Nestor’, known in Greek mythology as the place where Nestor and his father herded their cattle, and then to the castle itself, where blocks from the ancient fortifications can be seen incorporated into the later medieval works. The castle on top of ancient Pylos affords spectacular views of Voidokoilia, Navarino and Sphacteria, including the spot of the Spartans’ surrender. It is also easy to see why Demosthenes felt that this place could be fortified to serve as a base in the Peloponnese from which to foment anti-Spartan revolts.
It is possible to visit the island of Sphacteria itself. From modern Pylos, several boat operators offer two to three-hour tours of the bay and the island, stopping at several points on the island where monuments from the nineteenth-century Battle of Navarino have been erected. At the time of writing, these tours cost around €13 per person. Disappointingly, it is considerably more difficult to explore the island at any length. Small boats are available for private rental, at around €50 per day, for those confident enough to pilot one themselves. The wind often picks up considerably in the afternoon, so do use caution. The best landing spot is at the Russian church memorial in the centre of the eastern, mainland side of the island (a spot at which most guided tours stop, albeit only for a few minutes). This low point at the centre of the island is likely where the main Spartan camp was located. The Athenians landed initially further towards the south of the island, where they overran the Spartan advance post before attacking the main body of Spartans in the centre. A path extends from the church to the north, following roughly the course of the battle, in which the Athenians and their light-armed allies progressively drove the beleaguered Spartan hoplites until they reached the northernmost high point, directly across from ancient Pylos and home to ruined medieval fortifications. Standing at the northernmost point, where the Spartans ultimately surrendered, one cannot fail to be impressed with the Messenians’ feat of scaling the cliffs behind the Spartan position.
Further Reading
Ancient Sources
–Thucydides 4.2-41
Virtually our only ancient source for the battle, Thucydides has often been censured for the apparent errors in his topographical description of Pylos, Sphacteria and the surrounding area. While his topographical details may be problematic, and his attributions of motive to the Athenians, Spartans and their leaders may be somewhat contrived, Thucydides’ narrative of the course of the battle itself appears generally trustworthy.
Modern Sources
Books
–Gomme, A.W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides Vol. 3: The Ten Years’ War, Books IV-V (Oxford, 1956).
For decades the standard commentary on Thucydides, this volume usefully discusses Thucydides’ treatment of the battle, including the problems in topographical detail as observed by earlier scholars.
–Hornblower, Simon, A Commentary on Thucydides Vol. 2: Books IV-V.24 (Oxford, 1996).
A magisterial commentary on Thucydides that provides an update to Gomme and a greater focus on literary concerns. Utterly indispensible for any reader of Thucydides and students of this battle.
–Kagan, Donald, The Archidamian War (Ithaca, 1974).
The relevant volume in a multi-volume set that remains the standard in historical scholarship on the Peloponnesian War.
–Lazenby, John, The Peloponnesian War: A Military Study (London, 2004).
A comprehensive treatment of the Peloponnesian War from a strictly military perspective, from a leading scholar of ancient warfare.
–Lendon, J.E., Song of Wrath: The Peloponnesian War Begins (London, 2010).
lively, popular account of the early years of the Peloponnesian War, with useful bibliographical essays.
–Roisman, J., The General Demosthenes and his Use of Military Surprise (Stuttgart, 1993).
A thorough treatment of Demosthenes as a general.
–Wilson, J.B., Pylos 425 BC: A Historical and Topographical Study of Thucydides’ Account of the Campaign (Warminster, 1979).
Provides a Greek text and English translation of Thucydides’ treatment of the battle, along with a detailed commentary, complete with maps and other visual aids.
Articles
–Samos, Loren J., II, ‘Thucydides’ Sources and the Spartan Plan at Pylos’, Hesperia 75 (2006), pp.525-40.
A good recent article that suggests that the Spartans themselves were a primary source for Thucydides’ treatment of the battle, and that Thucydides never visited Pylos himself.
–Sears, M.A., ‘The Topography of the Pylos Campaign and Thucydides’ Literary Themes’, Hesperia 80 (2011), pp.157-68.
Summarizes the problems in Thucydides’ topographical description of Pylos, including the relevant earlier bibliography, and suggests an explanation for the errors based on Thucydides’ literary programme.