The next lasting until the Pythian games During the armistice the Athenians expelled the Delians from Delos, concluding that they must have been polluted by some old offense at the time of their consecration, and that this had been the omission in the previous purification of the island which, as I have related, had been thought to have been duly accomplished by the removal of the graves of the dead. The Delians had Atramyttium in Asia given them by Pharnaces, and settled there when they left Delos.
5.1
422
10th Year/Summer
DELOS
The truce ends. The Athenians expel the Delians from Delos; they settie at Atramyttium.
5.2
422
10th Year/Summer
THRACE
Cleon leads an expedition to Thrace, going first to Scione and then to Torone, which he attacks.
5.3
422
10th Year/Summer
THRACE
The Athenians take Torone before Brasidas can come to its support. Torone’s women and children are enslaved, and its men and garrison sent to Athens, from which they are later exchanged or freed by the peace.
ATTICA
The Boeotians capture
Panactum by treachery.
Meanwhile Cleon prevailed on the Athenians to let him set sail at the expiration of the armistice for the cities in the Thracian district with twelve hundred hoplites and three hundred horse from Athens, a larger force of the allies, and thirty ships. [2] First touching at the still-besieged Scione, and taking some hoplites from the army there, he next sailed into Cophosa harbor in the territory of Torone, which is not far from the city. [3] From thence, having learnt from deserters that Brasidas was not in Torone, and that its garrison was not strong enough to give him battle, he advanced with his army against the city, sending ten ships to sail round into the harbor. [4] He came first to the fortification recently built in front of the city by Brasidas in order to take in the suburb, to do which he had pulled down part of the original wall and made it one city [5.3.1] Pasitelidas, the Spartan commander, with such garrison as there was in the place, hurried to this point to repel the Athenian assault; but finding himself hard pressed, and seeing the ships that had been sent round sailing into the harbor, Pasitelidas began to be afraid that they might get up to the city before its defenders were there, and the fortification being also carried, he might be taken prisoner, and so abandoned the outer fortification and ran into the city. [2] But the Athenians from the ships had already taken Torone, and their land forces following at his heels burst in with him with a rush over the part of the old wall that had been pulled down, killing some of the Peloponnesians and Toronaeans in the mêlée, and making prisoners of the rest, and Pasitelidas their commander amongst them. [3] Brasidas meanwhile had advanced to relieve Torone, and had only about four miles more to go when he heard of its fall on the road and turned back again. [4] Cleon and the Athenians set up two trophies, one by the harbor, the other by the fortification, and making slaves of the wives and children of the Toronaeans, sent the men with the Peloponnesians and any Chalcidians that were there, to the number of seven hundred, to Athens; from which, however, they all came home afterwards, the Peloponnesians on the conclusion of peace, and the rest by being exchanged against other prisoners with the Olynthians. [5] About the same time Panactum, a fortress on the Athenian border, was taken by treachery by the Boeotians. [6] Meanwhile Cleon, after placing a garrison in Torone, weighed anchor and sailed round Athos on his way to Amphipolis.
MAP 5.3 CLEON’S EXPEDITION TO THRACE
MAP 5.4 TRAVELS OF PHAEAX IN SICILY AND ITALY
5.4
422
10th Year/Summer
SICILY
The Athenians send Phaeax to Sicily to form a coalition against Syracuse and to rescue the exiled Leontines.
Phaeax returns to Athens unsuccessful.
About the same time Phaeax son of Erasistratus set sail with two colleagues as ambassador from Athens to Italy and Sicily. [2] The Leontines, upon the departure of the Athenians from Sicily after the peace agreement, had enrolled many new citizens and The People planned to redistribute the land; but those in power, aware of their intention, called in the Syracusans and expelled The People. [3] These last were scattered in various directions; but the upper classes came to an agreement with the Syracusans, abandoned and laid waste their city, and went to live at Syracuse, where they were made citizens. [4] Afterwards some of them were dissatisfied, and leaving Syracuse occupied Phocaeae, a quarter of the city of Leontini, and Bricinniae, a fortified place in the Leontine country, and being there joined by most of the exiled People carried on war from the fortifications. [5] The Athenians hearing this, sent Phaeax to see if they could not by some means so convince their allies there and the rest of the Sicilians of the ambitious designs of Syracuse, as to induce them to form a general coalition against her, and thus save The People of Leontini. [6] Arrived in Sicily, Phaeax succeeded at Camarina6a and Agrigentum, but meeting with a repulse at Gela did not go on to the rest, as he saw that he should not succeed with them, but returned through the country of the Sicels to Catana, and after visiting Bricinniae as he passed, and encouraging its inhabitants, sailed back to Athens.
5.5
422
10th Year/Summer
ITALY
Phaeax tries to secure the friendship of some Italian cities for Athens. Epizephyrian Locri, at war with its neighbors, makes peace with Athens.
During his voyage along the coast to and from Sicily, he talked with some cities in Italy on the subject of friendship with Athens, and also encountered some Locrian1a settlers exiled from Messana, who had been sent there when the Locrians were called in by one of the factions that divided Messana after the pacification of Sicily, and Messana came for a time into the hands of the Locrians. [2] These being met by Phaeax on their return home received no injury at his hands, as the Locrians had agreed with him for a treaty with Athens. [3] They were the only people of the allies of Syracuse who, when the reconciliation between the Sicilians took place, had not made peace with Athens; nor indeed would they have done so now, if they had not been pressed by a war with the Hipponians and Medmaeans who lived on their border, and were colonists of theirs. Phaeax meanwhile proceeded on his voyage, and at length arrived at Athens.
5.6
422
10th Year/Summer
THRACE
Cleon makes Eion his base and calls upon local allies for additional troops. Brasidas establishes a base at Amphipolis.
Cleon, having sailed round from Torone to Amphipolis, made Eion his base, and after an unsuccessful assault upon the Andrian colony of Stagirus, took Galepsus, a colony of Thasos, by storm. [2] He now sent envoys to Perdiccas to command his attendance with an army, as provided by the alliance; and others to Thrace, to Polles, king of the Odomantians, who was to bring as many Thracian mercenaries as possible; and himself remained inactive in Eion, awaiting their arrival. [3] Informed of this, Brasidas on his part took up a position of observation upon Cerdylium, a place situated in the Argilian country on high ground across the river, not far from Amphipolis, and commanding a view on all sides, and thus made it impossible for Cleon’s army to move without his seeing it; for he fully expected that Cleon, contemptuous of the scanty numbers of his opponent, would march against Amphipolis with the force that he had with him. [4] At the same time Brasidas made his preparations, calling to his standard fifteen hundred Thracian mercenaries, and all the Edonians, horse and peltasts; he also had a thousand Myrcinian and Chalcidian peltasts, besides those in Amphipolis, [5] and a force of hoplites numbering altogether about two thousand, and three hundred Hellenic horse. Fifteen hundred of these he had with him upon Cerdylium; the rest were stationed with Clearidas in Amphipolis.
MAP 5.7 BATTLE OF AMPHIPOLIS
5.7
422
10th Year/Summer
AMPHIPOLIS
In order to satisfy his men, Cleon makes a reconnaissance in force to Amphipolis. He does not expect to fight or to be attacked.
After remaining quiet for some time, Cleon was at length obliged to do as Brasidas expected. [2] His soldiers, tired of their inactivity, began seriously to reflect on the weakness and incompetence of their commander and the skill and valor that would be opposed to him, and on their own original unwillingness to accompany him. These murmurs coming to the ears of Cleon, he resolved not to disgust the army by keeping it in the same place, and broke up his camp and advanced. [3] The temper of the general was what it had been at Pylos, his success on that occasion having given him confidence in his capacity. He never dreamed of anyone coming out to fight him, but said that he was rather going up to view the place; and if he waited for his reinforcements it was not in order to make victory secure in case he should be compelled to engage, but to be enabled to surround and storm the city. [4] He accordingly came and posted his army upon a strong hill in front of Amphipolis, and proceeded to examine the lake formed by the Strymon, and how the city lay on the side of Thrace. [5] He thought to retire when he chose without fighting, as there was no one to be seen upon the wall or coming out of the gates, all of which were shut. Indeed, it seemed a mistake not to have brought down siege engines with him; he could then have taken the city, there being no one to defend it.
5.8
422
10th Year/Summer
AMPHIPOLIS
Recognizing Cleon’s ineptitude, Brasidas decides that this is an opportune moment to attack, and explains his plan to his troops.
As soon as Brasidas saw the Athenians in motion he descended himself from Cerdylium and entered Amphipolis. [2] He did not venture to go out in regular order against the Athenians: he mistrusted his strength, and thought it inadequate to the attempt; not in numbers—these were not so unequal—but in quality, the flower of the Athenian army being in the field, with the best of the Lemnians and Imbrians. He therefore prepared to assail them by stratagem. [3] For if he let the enemy see both the numbers of his men and the makeshift nature of their armament, he thought he was less likely to win than if the enemy did not have a view of them in advance and thus come rightly to despise them. [4] He accordingly picked out a hundred and fifty hoplites, and putting the rest under Clearidas, determined to attack suddenly before the Athenians retired; thinking that he should not again have such a chance of catching them alone if their reinforcements were once allowed to come up; and so calling all his soldiers together in order to encourage them and explain his intention, spoke as follows:
5.9
422
10th
Year/Summer AMPHIPOLIS
Brasidas says that the Athenians are careless and their advance to Amphipolis is a blunder. He divides his force and plans to launch a double surprise attack in order to panic the enemy. He promises to set an example by his own courage.
“Peloponnesians, the character of the country from which we have come, one which has always owed its freedom to valor, and the fact that you are Dorians and the enemy you are about to fight Ionians whom you are accustomed to beat, are things that do not need further comment. [2] But as for the plan of attack that I propose to pursue, this it is well to explain, in order that the fact of our adventuring with a part instead of with the whole of our forces may not damp your courage by the apparent disadvantage at which it places you. [3] I imagine it is the poor opinion that he has of us, and the fact that he has no idea of anyone coming out to engage him, that has made the enemy march up to the place and carelessly look about him as he is doing, without noticing us. [4] But the most successful soldier will always be the man who most happily detects a blunder like this, and who carefully consulting his own means makes his attack not so much by open and regular approaches, as by seizing the opportunity of the moment; [5] and these stratagems, which do the greatest service to our friends by most completely deceiving our enemies, have the most brilliant name in war. [6] Therefore, while their careless confidence continues, and they are still thinking, as in my judgment they are now doing, more of retreat than of maintaining their position, while their spirit is slack and not high-strung with expectation, I with the men under my command will, if possible, take them by surprise and fall with a run upon their center; [7] and do you, Clearidas, afterwards, when you see me already upon them, and, as is likely, dealing terror among them, take with you the Amphipolitans, and the rest of the allies, and suddenly open the gates and dash at them, and hasten to engage as quickly as you can. [8] That is our best chance of establishing a panic among them, as a fresh assailant has always more terrors for an enemy than the one he is immediately engaged with. [9] Show yourself a brave man, as a Spartiate should; and do you, allies, follow him like men, and remember that zeal, honor, and obedience mark the good soldier, and that this day will make you either free men and allies of Sparta, or slaves of Athens; even if you escape without personal loss of liberty or life, your bondage will be on harsher terms than before, and you will also hinder the liberation of the rest of the Hellenes. [10] Make no show of cowardice then on your part, seeing the greatness of the issues at stake, and I will show that what I preach to others I can practice myself.”
5.10
422
10th Year/Summer
AMPHIPOLIS
When Brasidas’ preparations are observed by the Athenians, Cleon orders his army to return to Eion. Brasidas’ sudden attack overwhelms the Athenians. Cleon is killed in the rout. Brasidas, however, is mortally wounded.
After this brief speech Brasidas himself prepared for the sally, and placed the rest with Clearidas at the Thracian gates to support him as had been agreed. [2] Meanwhile he had been seen coming down from Cerdylium and then in the city (which is overlooked from the outside), sacrificing near the temple of Athena; in short, all his movements had been observed, and word was brought to Cleon, who had at the moment gone on to look about him, that the whole of the enemy’s force could be seen in the city, and that the feet of horses and men in great numbers were visible under the gates, as if a sally were intended. [3] Upon hearing this he went up to look, and having done so, being unwilling to venture upon the decisive step of a battle before his reinforcements came up, and thinking that he would have time to retire, bid the retreat be sounded and sent orders to the men to execute it by moving on the left wing in the direction of Eion, which was indeed the only way practicable. [4] This however not being quick enough for him, he joined the retreat in person and made the right wing wheel round, thus turning its unarmed side to the enemy. [5] It was then that Brasidas seeing the Athenian force in motion and his opportunity come, said to the men with him and the rest, “Those fellows will never stand before us, one can see that by the way their spears and heads are going. Troops which do as they do seldom stand a charge. Quick, someone, open the gates I spoke of, and let us be out and at them with no fears for the result.” [6] Accordingly moving out by the palisade gate and by the first gate in the long wall then existing, he ran at top speed along the straight road, where the trophy now stands as you go by the steepest part of the hill, and fell upon and routed the center of the Athenians, panic-stricken by their own disorder and astounded at his audacity. [7] At the same moment Clearidas in execution of his orders issued out from the Thracian gates to support him, and also attacked the enemy. [8] The result was that the Athenians, suddenly and unexpectedly attacked on both sides, fell into confusion; and their left toward Eion, which had already got on some distance, at once broke and fled. Just as it was in full retreat and Brasidas was passing on to attack the right, he received a wound; but his fall was not perceived by the Athenians, as he was taken up by those near him and carried off the field. [9] The Athenian right made a better stand, and though Cleon, who from the first had no thought of fighting, at once fled and was overtaken and slain by a Myrcinian peltast, his infantry forming in close order upon the hill twice or thrice repulsed the attacks of Clearidas, and did not finally give way until they were surrounded and routed by the missiles of the Myrcinian and Chalcidian horse and the peltasts. [10] Thus all the Athenian army was now in flight; and those who escaped being killed in the battle by the Chalcidian horse and the peltasts dispersed among the hills, and with difficulty made their way to Eion. [11] The men who had taken up and rescued Brasidas, brought him into the city with the breath still in him: he lived to hear of the victory of his troops, and not long after expired. [12] The rest of the army returning with Clearidas from the pursuit stripped the dead and set up a trophy.
5.11
422
10th Year/Summer
AMPHIPOLIS
The Amphipolitans bury Brasidas and honor him as if he were their city’s founder. The Athenian casualties are very heavy.
After this all the allies attended in arms and buried Brasidas at the public expense in the city, in front of what is now the marketplace, and the Amphipolitans having enclosed his tomb, ever afterwards sacrifice to him as a hero and have given to him the honor of games and annual offerings. They constituted him the founder of their colony, and pulled down the Hagnonic erections and obliterated everything that could be interpreted as a memorial of his [Hagnon] having founded the place; for they considered that Brasidas had been their preserver and courting as they did the alliance of Sparta for fear of Athens, in their present hostile relations with the latter they could no longer with the same advantage or satisfaction pay Hagnon his honors. [2] They also gave the Athenians back their dead. About six hundred of the latter had fallen and only seven of the enemy, owing to there having been no regular engagement, but the affair of accident and panic that I have described. [3] After taking up their dead the Athenians sailed off home, while Clearidas and his troops remained to arrange matters at Amphipolis.
5.12
422
10th Year/Summer
HERACLEA
Spartan reinforcements for Thrace delay at Heraclea.
5.13
422/1
10th Year/Winter
THESSALY
The Spartan reinforcements halt because of Thessalian opposition and Spartan desire for peace.
5.14
422/1
10th Year/Winter
ATHENS-SPARTA
Both sides now desire peace, and Thucydides explains why this is so.
About the same time three Spartans—Ramphias, Autocharidas, and Epicydidas—led a reinforcement of nine hundred hoplites to the cities in the Thracian region, and arriving at Heraclea in Trachis made changes and reforms there as they thought best. [2] While they delayed there, this battle took place and so the summer ended.
With the beginning of winter Ramphias and his companions penetrated as far as Pierium in Thessaly; but as the Thessalians opposed their further advance, and Brasidas whom they came to reinforce was dead, they turned back home, thinking that the moment had gone by, the Athenians being defeated and gone, and themselves not equal to the execution of Brasidas’ designs. [2] The main cause however of their return was because they knew that when they set out, Spartan opinion was really in favor of peace.
Indeed it so happened that directly after the battle of Amphipolis and the retreat of Ramphias from Thessaly, both sides ceased to prosecute the war and turned their attention to peace. Athens had suffered severely at Delium, and again shortly afterwards at Amphipolis, and had no longer that confidence in her strength which had made her before refuse to accept the offer of peace, in the belief of ultimate victory which her success at the moment had inspired; [2] besides, she was afraid of her allies being tempted by her reverses to rebel more generally, and repented having let go the splendid opportunity for peace which the affair of Pylos had offered. [3] Sparta, on the other hand, found the actuality of the war falsify her notion that devastating their land for a few years would suffice for the overthrow of the power of the Athenians. She had suffered on the island a disaster hitherto unknown at Sparta; she saw her country plundered from Pylos and Cythera; the Helots were deserting, and she was in constant apprehension that those who remained in the Peloponnesus would rely upon those outside and take advantage of the situation to renew their old attempts at revolution. [4] Besides this, as chance would have it, her thirty years’ truce with the Argives was upon the point of expiring; and they refused to renew it unless Cynuria were restored to them; so that it seemed impossible to fight Argos and Athens at once. She also suspected some of the cities in the Peloponnesus of intending to go over to the enemy, as was indeed the case.
5.15
422/1
10th Year/Winter
ATHENS-SPARTA
The Spartans are eager for peace in order to liberate the prisoners taken at Pylos, some of whom belonged to the first families of Sparta.
These considerations made both sides disposed for an accommodation; the Spartans being probably the most eager, as they ardently desired to recover the men taken on the island, the Spartiates among whom belonged to the first families and were accordingly related to leading men in Sparta. [2] Negotiations had been begun directly after their capture, but the Athenians in their hour of triumph would not consent to any reasonable terms; though after their defeat at Delium Sparta, knowing that they would now be more inclined to listen, at once concluded the truce for a year, during which they were to confer together and see if a longer period could not be agreed upon.
5.16
422/1
10th Year/Winter
ATHENS-SPARTA
With Brasidas and Cleon dead, new leaders (king Pleistoanax in Sparta and Nicias in Athens) come to prominence. They are eager for peace. The campaign behind Pleistoanax’s return from exile is described.
Now, however, after the Athenian defeat at Amphipolis, and the death of Cleon and Brasidas, who had been the two principal opponents of peace on either side—the latter from the success and honor which war gave him, the former because he thought that, if tranquillity were restored, his crimes would be more open to detection and his slanders less credited—the foremost candidates for power in either city, Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of Sparta, and Nicias son of Niceratus, the most fortunate general of his time, each desired peace more ardently than ever. Nicias, while still happy and honored, wished to secure his good fortune, to obtain a present release from trouble for himself and his countrymen, and hand down to posterity a name as an ever-successful statesman, and thought the way to do this was to keep out of danger and commit himself as little as possible to fortune, and that peace alone made this keeping out of danger possible. Pleistoanax, on the other hand, was assailed by his enemies for his restoration, and regularly criticized by them in front of his countrymen for every reverse that befell them, as though his unjust restoration were the cause. [2] They accused him and his brother Aristocles of having bribed the prophetess of Delphi to tell the Spartan deputations which successively arrived at the temple to bring home the seed of the demigod son of Zeus from abroad, else they would have to plough with a silver share. [3] They insisted that in time, he had in this way induced the Spartans to restore him with the same dances and sacrifices with which they had instituted their kings upon the first settlement of Sparta. This they did in the nineteenth year of his exile to Lycaeum where he had gone when banished on suspicion of having accepted a bribe to retreat from Attica, and where he had built half his house within the consecrated precinct of Zeus for fear of the Spartans.
5.17
422/1
10th Year/Winter
ATHENS-SPARTA
As peace negotiations drag on, Sparta threatens to fortify a post in Attica. The final treaty involves compromises and is not approved by certain members of the Peloponnesian League.
The sting of this accusation, and the reflection that in peace no disaster could occur, and that when Sparta had recovered her men there would be nothing for his enemies to seize upon (whereas, while war lasted the highest station must always bear the scandal of everything that went wrong), made him ardently desire a settlement. [2] Accordingly this winter was employed in conferences; and as spring rapidly approached, the Spartans sent round orders to the cities to prepare for a fortified occupation of Attica, and held this as a sword over the heads of the Athenians to induce them to listen to their overtures; and at last, after many claims had been urged on either side at the conferences, a peace was agreed to upon the following basis: each party was to restore its conquests, but Athens was to keep Nisaea; her demand for Plataea being countered by the Thebans asserting that they had acquired the place not by force or treachery, but by the voluntary adhesion upon agreement of its citizens; and the same, according to the Athenian account, being the history of her acquisition of Nisaea. This arranged, the Spartans summoned their allies, and all voting for peace except the Boeotians, Corinthians, Eleans, and Megarians, who did not approve of these proceedings, they concluded the treaty and made peace, each of the contracting parties swearing to the following articles:
MAP 5.17 LOCATIONS MENTIONED IN THE FIFTY-YEAR TREATY OF PEACE
5.18
422/1
10th Year/Winter
ATHENS-SPARTA
Thucydides lists the articles of the treaty.
The Athenians and Spartans and their allies made a treaty, and swear to it, city by city, as follows:
• [2] Regarding the national temples, there shall be a free passage by land and by sea to all who wish it, to sacrifice, travel, consult, and attend the oracle or games, according to the customs of their countries.
• The temple and shrine of Apollo at Delphi and the Delphians shall be governed by their own laws, taxed by their own state, and judged by their own judges, the land and the people, according to the customs of their country.
• [3] The treaty shall be binding for fifty years upon the Athenians and the allies of the Athenians, and upon the Spartans and the allies of the Spartans, without fraud or harm by land or by sea.
• [4] It shall not be lawful to take up arms, with intent to do injury either for the Spartans and their allies against the Athenians and their allies, or for the Athenians and their allies against the Spartans and their allies, in any way or means whatsoever. But should any difference arise between them they are to have recourse to law and oaths, according as may be agreed between the parties.
• [5] The Spartans and their allies shall give back Amphipolis5a to the Athenians. Nevertheless, in the case of cities given up by the Spartans to the Athenians, the inhabitants shall be allowed to go where they please and to take their property with them; and the cities shall be independent, paying only the tribute of Aristides. And it shall not be lawful for the Athenians or their allies to carry on war against them after the treaty has been concluded, so long as the tribute is paid. The cities referred to are Argilus, Stagirus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, and Spartolus. These cities shall be neutral, allies neither of the Spartans nor of the Athenians; but if the cities consent, it shall be lawful for the Athenians to make them their allies, provided always that the cities wish it. [6] The Mecybernaeans, Sanaeans, and Singaeans shall inhabit their own cities, as also the Olynthians and Acanthians; [7] but the Spartans and their allies shall give back Panactum to the Athenians.
• The Athenians shall give back Coryphasium, Cythera, Methana, Pteleum, and Atalanta to the Spartans, and also all Spartans that are in the prison at Athens or elsewhere in the Athenian dominions, and shall let go the Peloponnesians besieged in Scione and all others in Scione that are allies of the Spartans, and all whom Brasidas sent in there, and any others of the allies of the Spartans that may be in the prison at Athens or elsewhere in the Athenian dominions.
• The Spartans and their allies shall in like manner give back any of the Athenians or their allies that they may have in their hands.
• [8] In the case of Scione, Torone, and Sermylium and any other cities that the Athenians may have, the Athenians may adopt such measures as they please.
• [9] The Athenians shall take an oath to the Spartans and their allies, city by city. Every man shall swear by the most binding oath of his country, seventeen from each city. The oath shall be as follows:—“I will abide by this agreement and treaty honestly and without deceit.” In the same way an oath shall be taken by the Spartans and their allies to the Athenians;
• [10] and the oath shall be renewed annually by both parties. Pillars shall be erected at Olympia, Pythia, the Isthmus, at Athens in the Acropolis, and at Sparta in the temple at Amyclae.
• [11] If anything be forgotten, whatever it be, and on whatever point, it shall be consistent with their oath for both parties the Athenians and Spartans to alter it, according to their discretion.
The treaty begins from the ephorate1a of Pleistolas in Sparta, on the 27th day of the month of Artemisium, and from the archonship of Alcaeus at Athens, on the 25th day of the month of Elaphebolion. [2] Those who took the oath and poured the libations for the Spartans were Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daithus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antippus, Tellis, Alcinadas, Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus; for the Athenians, Lampon, Isthmionicus, Nicias, Laches, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, and Demosthenes.
5.19
422/1
10th Year/Winter
ATHENS-SPARTA
Thucydides gives the date of the treaty and names of the oath-takers who acted as the representatives for Sparta and Athens.
5.20
422/1
10th Year/Winter
HELLAS
Thucydides explains his method of dating by annual summer and winter seasons rather than by referring to magistrates’ names.
This treaty was made in the spring, just at the end of winter, directly after the city festival of Dionysus, just ten years, with the difference of a few days, from the first invasion of Attica and the commencement of this war. [2] This must be calculated by the seasons rather than by trusting to the enumeration of the names of the various magistrates or offices of honor that are used to mark past events. Accuracy is impossible where an event may have occurred in the beginning, or middle, or at any period in their tenure of office. [3] But by computing by summers and winters, the method adopted in this history, it will be found that, each of these amounting to half a year, there were ten summers and as many winters contained in this first war.
5.21
422/1
10th Year/Winter
HELLAS
The Spartans begin to carry out the treaty but find that they cannot deliver Amphipolis and other Chalcidian cities which refuse to return to Athenian rule.
Meanwhile the Spartans, to whose lot it fell to begin the work of restitution, immediately set free all the prisoners of war in their possession, and sent Ischagoras, Menas, and Philocharidas as envoys to the cities in the Thracian region, to order Clearidas to hand over Amphipolis to the Athenians, and the rest of their allies each to accept the treaty as it affected them. [2] The allies, however, did not like its terms, and refused to accept it; Clearidas also, wishing to oblige the Chalcidians, would not hand over the city, declaring he could not do so against their will. [3] Meanwhile he hastened in person to Sparta with envoys from the place, to defend his disobedience against the possible accusations of Ischagoras and his companions, and also to see whether it was too late for the agreement to be altered; and on finding the Spartans were bound, quickly set out back again with instructions from them to hand over the place, if possible, or at all events to bring out the Peloponnesians that were in it.
5.22
422/1
10th Year/Winter
ATHENS-SPARTA
When some of Sparta’s allies refuse to accept the peace treaty, Sparta enters into an alliance with Athens.
The allies happened to be present in person at Sparta, and those who had not accepted the treaty were now asked by the Spartans to adopt it. This, however, they refused to do, for the same reasons as before, unless a fairer one than the present were agreed upon; [2] and remaining firm in their determination were dismissed by the Spartans, who now decided to form an alliance with the Athenians, thinking that Argos, who had refused the application of Ampelidas and Lichas for a renewal of the treaty, would without Athens no longer be formidable, and that the rest of the Peloponnesus would most likely keep quiet if the desired alliance of Athens were shut against them. [3] Accordingly, after conference with the Athenian ambassadors, an alliance was agreed upon and oaths were exchanged, upon the following terms:
5.23
422/1
10th Year/Winter
ATHENS-SPARTA
Thucydides reports the text of the treaty of alliance between Athens and Sparta.
•The Spartans shall be allies of the Athenians for fifty years.
•Should any enemy invade the territory of Sparta and injure the Spartans, the Athenians shall help them in such way as they most effectively can, according to their power. But if the invader is no longer there after plundering the country, that city shall be the enemy of Sparta and Athens, and shall be chastised by both, and one shall not make peace without the other. This to be performed honestly, loyally, and without fraud.
•[2] Should any enemy invade the territory of Athens and injure the Athenians, the Spartans shall help them in such way as they most effectively can, according to their power. But if the invader is no longer there after plundering the country, that city shall be the enemy of Sparta and Athens, and shall be chastised by both, and one shall not make peace without the other. This to be performed honestly, loyally, and without fraud.
•[3] Should the slave population rise, the Athenians shall help the Spartans with all their might, according to their power.
•[4] This treaty (of alliance) shall be sworn to by the same persons on either side that swore to the other treaty. It shall be renewed annually by the Spartans going to Athens for the Dionysia, and the Athenians to Sparta for the Hyacinthia, [5] and a pillar shall be set up by either party; at Sparta near the statue of Apollo at Amyclae, and at Athens on the Acropolis near the statue of Athena. [6] Should the Spartans and Athenians see fit to add to or take away from the alliance in any particular, it shall be consistent with their oaths for both parties to do so, according to their discretion.
5.24
422/1
10th Year/Winter
ATHENS-SPARTA
Thucydides lists the names of the oath-takers of the treaty of alliance. The Athenians return their Spartan prisoners. This ends the history of the “first war” that lasted ten years.
Those who took the oath for the Spartans were Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daithus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antippus, Alcinadas, Tellis, Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus; for the Athenians, Lampón, Isthmionicus, Laches, Nicias, Euthydemus, Proeles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, and Demosthenes.
[2] This alliance was made not long after the treaty; and the Athenians gave back the men from the island to the Spartans, and the summer of the eleventh year began. This completes the history of the first war, which occupied the whole of the ten previous years.
5.25
421
11th Year/Summer
HELLAS
The peace lasts almost seven years but is not accepted by all parties and proves unstable. Both sides continue to injure each other until they finally resume open hostilities.
After the treaty and the alliance between the Spartans and Athenians, concluded after the ten years’ war (in the ephorate of Pleistolas at Sparta, and the archonship of Alcaeus at Athens), the states which had accepted these agreements were at peace; but the Corinthians and some of the cities in the Peloponnesus tried to disturb the settlement and immediately agitated against Sparta. [2] Moreover, the Athenians, as time went on, began to suspect the Spartans because they had not performed some of the provisions of the treaty; [3] and though for six years and ten months they abstained from invasion of each other’s territory, yet abroad an unstable armistice did not prevent either party doing the other serious injury, until they were finally obliged to break the treaty made after the ten years’ war and to have recourse to open hostilities.
5.26
421
11th Year/Summer
HELLAS
Thucydides argues that the peace was not a genuine peace between wars but merely an interval of limited hostility during a single long war.
The history of this period has also been written by the same Thucydides, an Athenian, in the chronological order of events by summers and winters, up to the time when the Spartans and their allies put an end to the Athenian empire, and took the Long Walls and the Piraeus. The war had then lasted for twenty-seven years in all. [2] Only a mistaken judgment can object to including the interval of treaty in the war. Looked at in the light of the facts it cannot, it will be found, be rationally considered a state of peace, as neither party either gave or got back all that they had agreed, apart from the violations of it which occurred on both sides in the Mantinean and Epidaurian wars and other instances, and the fact that the allies in the region of Thrace were in as open hostility as ever, and that the Boeotians had only a truce renewed every ten days. [3] So that the first ten years’ war, the treacherous armistice that followed it, and the subsequent war will, calculating by the seasons, be found to make up the number of years which I have mentioned, with the difference of a few days, and to provide an instance of faith in oracles being for once justified by the event. [4] I certainly remember that all along from the beginning to the end of the war it was commonly declared that it would last thrice nine years. [5] I lived through the whole of it, being of an age to comprehend events, and giving my attention to them in order to know the exact truth about them. It was also my fate to be an exile from my country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis; and being present with both parties, and more especially with the Peloponnesians by reason of my exile, I had leisure to observe affairs more closely. [6] I will accordingly now relate the differences that arose after the ten years’ war, the breach of the treaty, and the hostilities that followed.
5.27
421
11th Year/Summer
ARGOS
Corinthian envoys visit Argos to express their fear that Sparta will use her alliance with Athens to dominate the Peloponnesus. They advise Argos to develop alliances to counter Sparta.
After the conclusion of the fifty years’ peace and of the subsequent alliance, the embassies from the Peloponnesus which had been summoned for this business returned from Sparta. [2] Most of them went straight home, but the Corinthians first turned aside to Argos and opened negotiations with some of the men in office there, pointing out that Sparta could have no good end in view, but only the subjugation of the Peloponnesus, or she would never have entered into treaty and alliance with the once detested Athenians, and that the duty of consulting for the safety of the Peloponnesus had now fallen upon Argos,2a who should immediately pass a decree inviting any Hellenic state that chose (such state being independent and accustomed to meet fellow powers upon the fair and equal ground of law and justice), to make a defensive alliance with the Argives and appoint a few individuals with plenipotentiary powers, instead of making the people the medium of negotiation, in order that, in the case of an applicant being rejected, the fact of his overtures might not be made public. They said that many would come over from hatred of the Spartans. [3] After this explanation of their views the Corinthians returned home.
5.28
421
11th Year/Summer
ARGOS
Argos follows the Corinthian envoys’ advice, believing war with Sparta to be inevitable and hoping herself to gain Peioponnesian supremacy.
The persons with whom they had communicated reported the proposal to their government and people, and the Argives passed the decree and chose twelve men to negotiate an alliance for any Hellenic state that wished it, except Athens and Sparta, neither of which should be able to join without referring the issue to the Argive people. [2] Argos came in to the plan all the more readily because she saw that war with Sparta was inevitable, her treaty with Sparta being on the point of expiring; and also because she hoped to gain the supremacy of the Peloponnesus. For at this time Sparta had sunk very low in public estimation because of her disasters, while the Argives were in a most flourishing condition, having taken no part in the war against Athens, but having on the contrary profited largely by their neutrality. [3] The Argives accordingly prepared to receive into alliance any of the Hellenes that desired it.
5.29
421
11th Year/Summer
PELOPONNESE
Mantinea allies with Argos to protect her own recent conquests in Arcadia. Other Peioponnesian states, unhappy that Athens and Sparta can alter the treaty without the consent of Sparta’s allies, begin to consider an Argive alliance.
The Mantineans and their allies were the first to come over through fear of the Spartans. Having taken advantage of the war against Athens to reduce a large part of Arcadia into subjection, they thought that Sparta would not leave them undisturbed in their conquests now that she had leisure to interfere, and consequently were glad to turn to a powerful city like Argos, the historical enemy of the Spartans, and a sister democracy. [2] Upon the defection of Mantinea the rest of the Peloponnesus at once began to consider following her example, thinking that the Mantineans would not have changed sides without good reason. Besides, they were angry with Sparta among other reasons for having inserted in the treaty with Athens that it should be consistent with their oaths for both parties, Spartans and Athenians, to add to or take away from it according to their discretion. [3] It was this clause that was the real origin of the panic in the Peloponnesus, by exciting suspicions of a Spartan and Athenian combination against their liberties: any alteration should properly have been made conditional upon the consent of the whole body of the allies. [4] Because of these apprehensions there was a very general desire in each state to place itself in alliance with Argos.
MAP 5.29 SUMMER OF 421, PELOPONNESUS
5.30
421
11th Year/Summer
CORINTH
Sparta tells Corinth to stay in the league and abide by the majority’s decision to accept the treaty. The Corinthians respond that their oaths prevent acceptance of the treaty and that they would continue to discuss the Argive alliance with their friends.
In the meantime the Spartans, perceiving the agitation going on in the Peloponnesus and that Corinth was the author of it and was herself about to enter into alliance with the Argives, sent ambassadors there in the hope of preventing what was in contemplation. They accused Corinth of having brought it all about, and told her that she could not desert Sparta and become the ally of Argos without adding violation of her oaths to the crime which she had already committed in not accepting the treaty with Athens, when it had been explicitly agreed that the decision of the majority of the allies should be binding upon all, unless the gods or heroes stood in the way. [2] Corinth in her answer, which she delivered before those of her allies who had like her refused to accept the treaty, and whom she had previously invited to attend, refrained from openly stating the injuries she complained of, such as the the failure to recover Sollium or Anactorium from the Athenians, or any other point in which she thought she had come off badly. Instead she took shelter under the pretext that she could not give up her Thracian allies, to whom her separate individual security had been given when they first rebelled with Potidaea, as well as upon subsequent occasions. [3] She denied, therefore, that she committed any violation of her oaths to the allies by not entering into the treaty with Athens. Since she had sworn upon the faith of the gods to her Thracian friends, she could not honestly give them up. Besides, the clause of the treaty was, “unless the gods or heroes stand in the way,” and it appeared to her in this case that the gods stood in the way. [4] This was what she said on the subject of her former oaths. As to the Argive alliance she would confer with her friends, and do whatever was right. [5] The Spartan envoys returning home, some Argive ambassadors who happened to be in Corinth urged her to conclude the alliance without further delay, but were told to attend at the next congress to be held at Corinth.
5.31
421
11th Year/Summer
PELOPONNESUS
Angered by Sparta’s support of Lepreum, Elis allies with Corinth and Argos. Corinth and the Thracian Chalcidians also ally with Argos, but Boeotia and Megara remain quiet, finding Argos too democratic.
Immediately afterwards an Elean embassy arrived, and first making an alliance with Corinth went on from there to Argos, according to their instructions, and became allies of the Argives, their country being just then at enmity with Sparta and Lepreum. [2] Some time back there had been a war between the Lepreans and some of the Arcadians; and the Eleans being called in by the former with the offer of half their lands, had put an end to the war, and leaving the land in the hands of its Leprean occupiers had imposed upon them the tribute of a talent to the Olympian Zeus. [3] Till the war against Athens this tribute was paid by the Lepreans, who then took the war as an excuse for no longer doing so, and upon the Eleans using force appealed to Sparta. The case was thus submitted to her arbitration; but the Eleans, suspecting the fairness of the tribunal, abandoned the submission and laid waste the Leprean territory. [4] The Spartans nevertheless decided that the Lepreans were independent and the Eleans aggressors, and as the latter did not abide by the arbitration, sent a garrison of hoplites into Lepreum. [5] Upon this the Eleans, holding that Sparta had received one of their rebel subjects, put forward the agreement providing that each allied state should come out of the war against Athens in possession of what it had at the beginning, and considering that justice had not been done them, went over to the Argives and now made the alliance through their ambassadors, who had been instructed for that purpose. [6] Immediately after them the Corinthians and the Thracian Chalcidians became allies of Argos. Meanwhile the Boeotians and Megarians, who acted together, remained quiet, being left to do as they pleased by Sparta, and thinking that the Argive democracy would not agree so well with their aristocratic forms of government as the Spartan constitution.
5.32
421
11th Year/Summer
THRACE
The Athenians capture Scione. DELOS
Athens permits the Delians to return to Delos. TEGEA
Corinth and Argos fail to pry Tegea away from the Spartan alliance. CORINTH
Corinth fails to persuade Boeotia to ally with Argos, and to secure for Corinth a ten-day truce with Athens.
About the same time in this summer Athens succeeded in reducing Scione, put the adult males to death and, making slaves of the women and children, gave the land to the Plataeans to live in. She also brought back the Delians to Delos, moved by her misfortunes in the field and by the commands of the god at Delphi.1c [2] Meanwhile the Phocians2a and Locrians commenced hostilities. [3] The Corinthians and Argives being now in alliance, went to Tegea to bring about its defection from Sparta, thinking that if so considerable a state could be persuaded to join, all the Peloponnesus would be on their side. [4] But when the Tegeans said that they would do nothing against Sparta, the hitherto zealous Corinthians relaxed their activity, and began to fear that none of the rest would now come over. [5] Still they went to the Boeotians and tried to persuade them to join the alliance and adopt common action generally with Argos and themselves, and also begged them to go with them to Athens and obtain for them a ten days’ truce similar to that made between the Athenians and Boeotians not long after the fifty years’ treaty, and in the event of the Athenians refusing, to renounce the armistice, and not make any truce in future without Corinth. These were the requests of the Corinthians. [6] The Boeotians refused them on the subject of the Argive alliance, but went with them to Athens where, however, they failed to obtain the ten days’ truce; the Athenian answer being that the Corinthians had truce already, as allies of Sparta. [7] Nevertheless the Boeotians did not renounce their ten days’ truce, in spite of the prayers and reproaches of the Corinthians for their breach of faith; and these last had to content themselves with a de facto armistice with Athens.
5.33
421
11th Year/Summer
ARCADIA
Sparta invades Parrhasia, a district subject to Mantinea, destroys the Mantinaean fort of Cypsela, and makes the Parrhasians independent.
The same summer the Spartans marched into Arcadia with their whole levy under Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, king of Sparta, against the Parrhasians, who were subjects of Mantinea, and a faction of whom had invited their aid. They also meant to demolish, if possible, the fort of Cypsela which the Mantineans had built and garrisoned in the Parrhasian territory as a hostile base against the district of Sciritis in Laconia. [2] The Spartans accordingly laid waste the Parrhasian country, and the Mantineans, placing their city in the hands of an Argive garrison, addressed themselves to the defense of their confederacy, but being unable to save Cypsela or the Parrhasian cities went back to Mantinea. [3] Meanwhile the Spartans made the Parrhasians independent, razed the fortress, and returned home.
5.34
421
11th Year/Summer
SPARTA
Helots among Spartan troops returning from Thrace are freed and allowed to live where they like. The disgraced Spartans captured at Sphacteria are at first restricted, but later restored to their full rights.
The same summer the soldiers from Thrace who had gone out with Brasidas came back, having been brought from thence after the treaty by Clearidas; and the Spartans decreed that the Helots who had fought with Brasidas should be free and allowed to live where they liked, and not long afterwards settled them with the Neodamodeis at Lepreum, which is situated on the Laconian and Elean border; Sparta being at this time at enmity with Elis. [2] Those, however, of the Spartans who had been taken prisoner on the island and had surrendered their arms might, it was feared, suppose that they were to be subjected to some degradation in consequence of their misfortune, and so make some attempt at revolution, if left in possession of their full rights. These were therefore at once deprived of some of their rights, although some of them were in office at the time, and thus they were barred from taking office, or buying and selling anything. After some time, however, their rights were restored to them.
5.35
421
11th Year/Summer
THRACE
The Dians take Thyssus.
ATHENS-SPARTA
Athens and Sparta are still at peace, but Sparta’s failure to fulfill her treaty obligations arouses Athenian suspicions. Athens holds onto Pylos and the other places she had agreed to give up, but does withdraw the Messenians and the Laconian deserters from Pylos.
The same summer the Dians took Thyssus, a city on Acte near Athos and in alliance with Athens. [2] During the whole of this summer, intercourse between the Athenians and Peloponnesians continued, although each party began to suspect the other immediately after the treaty, because of the places specified in it not being restored. [3] Sparta, to whose lot it had fallen to begin by restoring Amphipolis and the other cities, had not done so. She had equally failed to get the treaty accepted by her Thracian allies, or by the Boeotians or the Corinthians; although she was continually promising to unite with Athens in compelling their compliance, if it were longer refused. She also kept fixing a time at which those who still refused to come in were to be declared enemies to both parties, but took care not to bind herself by any written agreement. [4] Meanwhile the Athenians, seeing none of these promises actually fulfilled, began to suspect the honesty of her intentions, and consequently not only refused to comply with her demands for Pylos, but also repented having given up the prisoners from the island, and kept tight hold of the other places, until Sparta’s part of the treaty should be fulfilled. [5] Sparta, on the other hand, said she had done what she could, having given up the Athenian prisoners of war in her possession, evacuated Thrace, and performed everything else in her power. Amphipolis, she said, it was out of her ability to restore; but she would endeavor to bring the Boeotians and Corinthians in to the treaty, to recover Panactum, and send home all the Athenian prisoners of war in Boeotia. [6] Meanwhile she insisted that Pylos should be restored, or at least that the Messenians and Helots should be withdrawn (as her troops had been from Thrace), and the place garrisoned, if necessary, by the Athenians themselves. [7] After a number of different conferences held during the summer she succeeded in persuading Athens to withdraw the Messenians from Pylos and the rest of the Helots and deserters from Laconia, who were accordingly settled by her at Cranae in Cephallenia. [8] Thus during this summer there was peace and intercourse between the two peoples.
5.36
421/0
11th Year/Winter
SPARTA
Two of the new Spartan ephors oppose the treaty with Athens and plot with Corinth and Boeotia to bring Argos into alliance with Sparta—even if that should cause a break with Athens. Sparta asks Boeotia for Panactum in order to exchange it for Pylos.
Next winter, however, the ephors under whom the treaty had been made were no longer in office, and some of their successors were directly opposed to it. Embassies now arrived from the Spartan confederacy, and the Athenians, Boeotians, and Corinthians also presented themselves at Sparta, and after much discussion and no agreement between them, were returning to their homes; when Cleobulus and Xenares, the two ephors who were the most anxious to terminate the treaty, took advantage of this opportunity to communicate privately with the Boeotians and Corinthians, and advising them to act as much as possible together, instructed the former first to enter into alliance with Argos, and then to try and bring themselves and the Argives into alliance with Sparta. The Boeotians would thereby feel least compulsion to join the Attic treaty; and the Spartans would prefer to gain the friendship and alliance of Argos even at the price of the hostility of Athens and the rupture of the treaty. The Boeotians knew that an honorable friendship with Argos had long been the desire of Sparta; for the Spartans believed that this would considerably facilitate the conduct of the war outside the Peloponnesus. [2] Meanwhile they begged the Boeotians to place Panactum in Sparta’s hands in order that she might, if possible, obtain Pylos in exchange for it, and so be in a better position to resume hostilities with Athens.
MAP 5.35 EVENTS IN THRACE, ATTICA, AND PHOCIS, SUMMER 421
5.37
421/0
11th Year/Winter
BOEOTIA
Boeotia happily accepts Argos’ invitation to join her alliance, as this is exactly what the Spartan ephors had advised Boeotia to do. Boeotia promises to send delegates to Argos to negotiate alliance terms.
After receiving these instructions for their governments from Xenares and Cleobulus and their other friends at Sparta, the Boeotians and Corinthians departed. [2] On their way home they were joined by two persons in high office at Argos who had waited for them on the road, and who now explored with them the possibility of the Boeotians joining the Corinthians, Eleans, and Mantineans in becoming the allies of Argos, thinking that if this could be effected they would be able, thus united, to make peace or war as they pleased either against Sparta or any other power. [3] The Boeotian envoys were pleased at thus hearing themselves accidentally asked to do what their friends at Sparta had told them; and the two Argives perceiving that their proposal was agreeable, departed with a promise to send ambassadors to the Boeotians. [4] On their arrival the Boeotians reported to the boeotarchs what had been said to them at Sparta and also by the Argives who had met them, and the boeotarchs, pleased with the idea, embraced it with all the more eagerness from the lucky coincidence of Argos soliciting the very thing wanted by their friends at Sparta. [5] Shortly afterwards ambassadors appeared from Argos with the proposals indicated; and the boeotarchs approved of the terms and dismissed the ambassadors with a promise to send envoys to Argos to negotiate the alliance.
5.38
421/0
11th Year/Winter
BOEOTIA
Boeotia, Corinth, Megara, and Thrace form a pact, and agree to ally with Argos. However, the Boeotian councils, unwilling to offend Sparta and ignorant of the Spartan ephors’ wishes, refuse to ally with Argos.
In the meantime it was decided by the boeotarchs, the Corinthians, the Megarians, and the envoys from Thrace first to exchange oaths together to give help to each other whenever it was required and not to make war or peace except in common; after which the Boeotians and Megarians, who acted together, should make the alliance with Argos. [2] But before the oaths were taken the boeotarchs communicated these proposals to the four councils of the Boeotians, in whom the supreme power resides, and advised them to exchange oaths with all such cities as should be willing to enter into a defensive league with the Boeotians. [3] But the members of the Boeotian councils refused their assent to the proposal, being afraid of offending Sparta by entering into a league with the deserter Corinth; the boeotarchs not having acquainted them with what had passed at Sparta and with the advice given by Cleobulus and Xenares and the Boeotian partisans there, namely, that they should become allies of Corinth and Argos as a preliminary to joining up with Sparta; they having supposed that even if they should say nothing about all this, the councils would not vote against what had been decided and recommended by the boeotarchs. [4] When this difficulty arose, the Corinthians and the envoys from Thrace departed without anything having been concluded; and the boeotarchs, who had previously intended (after carrying this point) to try and effect the alliance with Argos, now gave up bringing the Argive question before the councils, or sending to Argos the envoys whom they had promised; and a general coldness and delay ensued in the matter.
5.39
421/0
11th Year/Winter
THRACE
The Olynthians take Mecyberna from the Athenians.
ATTICA
Sparta allies with Boeotia to gain Panactum (to exchange for Pylos), but the Boeotians raze the fort before delivering it to them.
In this same winter Mecyberna, which had an Athenian garrison inside it, was assaulted and taken by the 01ynthians.
[2] All this time negotiations had been going on between the Athenians and Spartans about the conquests still retained by each, and Sparta hoping that if Athens were to get back Panactum from the Boeotians, she might herself recover Pylos, now sent an embassy to the Boeotians and begged them to place Panactum and their Athenian prisoners in her hands, in order that she might exchange them for Pylos. [3] This the Boeotians refused to do unless Sparta made a separate alliance with them as she had done with Athens. Sparta knew that this would be a breach of faith with Athens, as it had been agreed that neither of them should make peace or war without the other; yet wishing to obtain Panactum which she hoped to exchange for Pylos, and the party who pressed for the dissolution of the treaty strongly pressing for the Boeotian alliance, she at length concluded the alliance just as winter gave way to spring; and Panactum was instantly razed. And so the eleventh year of the war ended.
5.40
420
12th Year/Summer
ARGOS
The Argives misinterpret recent events and, fearful of being left isolated, send envoys to Sparta to negotiate as favorable a treaty as possible with her.
In the first days of the following summer, the Argives, seeing that the promised ambassadors from Boeotia did not arrive, and that Panactum was being demolished, and that a separate alliance had been concluded between the Boeotians and Spartans, began to be afraid that Argos might be left isolated, and all her allies would go over to Sparta. [2] They supposed that the Boeotians had been persuaded by the Spartans to raze Panactum and to enter into the treaty with the Athenians, and that Athens was privy to this arrangement, so that an alliance with Athens would no longer be open to her. This was a resource which she had always counted upon, by reason of the existing tensions, if her treaty with Sparta were not maintained. [3] In this crisis the Argives, afraid that, as the result of refusing to renew the treaty with Sparta and aspiring to the supremacy of the Peloponnesus, they would at the same time be at war with the Spartans, Tegeans, Boeotians, and Athenians, now hastily sent off Eustrophus and Aeson, who seemed the persons most likely to be acceptable as envoys to Sparta, with the goal of making as good a treaty as they could with the Spartans, upon such terms as could be obtained, and of being left in peace.
5.41
420
12th Year/Summer
SPARTA
Argos and Sparta agree on the terms for a treaty, including a prospective trial by battle to determine the ownership of Cynuria. The Argive delegates return home to secure the approval of the Argive people.
Having reached Sparta, their ambassadors proceeded to negotiate the terms of the proposed treaty. [2] What the Argives first demanded was that they might be allowed to refer to the arbitration of some state or private person the question of the Cynurian land, a piece of frontier territory about which they have always been disputing, which contains the cities of Thyrea and Anthene, and which is occupied by the Spartans. The Spartans at first said that they could not allow this point to be discussed, but were ready to conclude upon the old terms. Eventually, however, the Argive ambassadors succeeded in obtaining from them this concession:—For the present there was to be a truce for fifty years, but it should be competent for either party, there being neither plague nor war in Sparta or Argos, to give a formal challenge and decide the question of this territory by battle, as on a former occasion, when both sides claimed the victory; pursuit not being allowed beyond the frontier of Argos or Sparta. [3] The Spartans at first thought this mere folly; but at last, anxious at any cost to have the friendship of Argos, they agreed to the terms demanded, and committed them to writing. However, before any of this should become binding, the ambassadors were to return to Argos and communicate with their people, and in the event of their approval, to come at the feast of the Hvacinthia and take the oaths. The envoys returned accordingly.
5.42
420
12th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Sparta returns Athenian prisoners held by Boeotia 4 and the razed fort of Panactum, but Athens responds indignantly to the razing of the fort, to the clauses of the treaty which the Spartans had not fulfilled, and to the alliance that Sparta had made with Boeotia.
In the meantime, while the Argives were engaged in these negotiations, the Spartan ambassadors, Andromedes, Phaedimus, and Antimenidas, who were to receive the prisoners from the Boeotians and restore them and Panactum to the Athenians, found that the Boeotians had themselves razed Panactum, upon the plea that oaths had been anciently exchanged between their people and the Athenians, after a dispute on the subject, to the effect that neither should inhabit the place, but that they should graze it in common. As for the Athenian prisoners of war in the hands of the Boeotians, these were delivered over to Andromedes and his colleagues, and by them conveyed to Athens and given back. The envoys at the same time announced the razing of Panactum, which to them seemed as good as its restitution, as it would no longer lodge an enemy of Athens. [2] This announcement was received with great indignation by the Athenians, who thought that the Spartans had played them false, both in the matter of the demolition of Panactum, which ought to have been restored to them standing, and in having, as they now heard, made a separate alliance with the Boeotians, in spite of their previous promise to join Athens in compelling the adherence of those who refused to accede to the treaty. The Athenians also considered the other points in which Sparta had failed in her compact, and thinking that they had been deceived, gave an angry answer to the ambassadors and sent them away.
5.43
420
12th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Alcibiades, who feels personally slighted by the Spartans, leads the faction opposed to the treaty with Sparta. He sends hastily to Argos advising them to send envoys to Athens, for now conditions are favorable for an anti-Sparta alliance.
The breach between the Spartans and Athenians having gone thus far, the party at Athens who wished to cancel the treaty immediately put themselves in motion. [2] Foremost amongst these was Alcibiades son of Clinias, a man still young in years for any other Hellenic city, but distinguished by the splendor of his ancestry. Alcibiades thought the Argive alliance really preferable, not that personal pique had not also a great deal to do with his opposition; he being offended with the Spartans for having negotiated the treaty through Nicias and Laches, and having overlooked him on account of his youth, and also for not having shown him the respect due to the ancient connection of his family with them as their proxenii which, renounced by his grandfather, he had himself recently attempted to renew by his attentions to their prisoners taken in the island. [3] Being thus, as he thought, slighted by all, he had in the first instance spoken against the treaty, saying that the Spartans were not to be trusted, but that they only negotiated in order to be enabled by this means to crush Argos, and afterwards to attack Athens alone; and now immediately upon the occurrence of this breach, he sent privately to the Argives, telling them to come as quickly as possible to Athens, accompanied by the Mantineans and Eleans, with proposals of alliance; as the moment was propitious and he himself would do all he could to help them.
5.44
420
12th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Argos drops negotiations with Sparta and moves to conclude an alliance with Athens. Spartan envoys come to Athens to explain their alliance with Boeotia and ask for the return of Pylos.
Upon receiving this message and discovering that the Athenians, far from being privy to the Boeotian alliance, were involved in a serious quarrel with the Spartans, the Argives paid no further attention to the embassy which they had just sent to Sparta on the subject of the treaty, and began to incline rather toward the Athenians, reflecting that, in the event of war, they would thus have on their side a city that was not only an ancient ally of Argos, but a sister democracy and very powerful at sea. [2] They accordingly at once sent ambassadors to Athens to negotiate for an alliance, accompanied by others from Elis and Mantinea.
[3] At the same time an embassy consisting of persons reputed to be well disposed toward the Athenians—Philocharidas, Leon, and Endius—arrived in haste from Sparta, out of fear that the Athenians in their irritation might conclude an alliance with the Argives. They also intended to ask for the return of Pylos in exchange for Panactum, and to defend their alliance with the Boeotians by pleading that it had not been made to hurt the Athenians.
5.45
420
12th Year/Summer
ATHENS
After Alcibiades persuades the Spartan envoys to deny before the Athenian assembly that they were fully empowered to negotiate, he attacks them and urges the assembly to choose alliance with Argos, Mantinea, and Elias.
When the envoys spoke in the council upon these points, stating that they had come with full powers to settle all others at issue between them, Alcibiades became afraid that if they were to repeat these statements to the popular assembly, they might gain the support of the multitude and cause the Argive alliance to be rejected, [2] so he resorted to the following stratagem. He persuaded the Spartans by a solemn assurance that if they would say nothing of their full powers in the assembly, he would give back Pylos to them (himself, the present opponent of its restitution, engaging to obtain this from the Athenians), and would settle the other points at issue. [3] His plan was to detach them from Nicias and to disgrace them before the people, as being without sincerity in their intentions, or even common consistency in their language, and so to get the Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans taken into alliance. [4] This plan proved successful. When the envoys appeared before the people, and upon the question being put to them, did not say as they had said in the council, that they had come with full powers, the Athenians lost all patience, and carried away by Alcibiades, who thundered more loudly than ever against the Spartans, were ready instantly to introduce the Argives and their companions and to take them into alliance. An earthquake, however, occurring before anything definite had been done, this assembly was adjourned.
5.46
420
12th Year/Summer
ATHENS-SPARTA
Nicias persuades the Athenians to delay the Argive alliance while he attempts to obtain Spartan fulfillment of the treaty. When he fails, however, Athens enters into alliances with Argos, Mantinea, and Elis.
In the assembly held the next day, Nicias, in spite of the Spartans having been deceived themselves, and having also allowed him to be deceived in not admitting that they had come with full powers, still maintained that it was best to be friends with the Spartans. He argued that they should postpone action on the Argive proposals and send once more to Sparta and learn her intentions. The postponement of the war could only increase their own prestige and injure that of their rivals; the excellent state of their affairs making it in their interest to preserve this prosperity as long as possible, while the affairs of Sparta were so desperate that the sooner she could try her fortune again the better. [2] He succeeded accordingly in persuading them to send ambassadors, himself being among them, to invite the Spartans, if they were really sincere, to restore Panactum intact with Amphipolis, and to abandon their alliance with the Boeotians (unless they consented to accede to the treaty), in agreement with the stipulation which forbade either party to negotiate without the other. [3] The ambassadors were also directed to say that the Athenians, had they wished to play false, might already have made alliance with the Argives, who had indeed come to Athens for that very purpose, and they went off furnished with instructions as to any other complaints that the Athenians had to make. [4] Having reached Sparta they communicated their instructions, and concluded by telling the Spartans that unless they gave up their alliance with the Boeotians, should the latter refuse to accept their treaty, the Athenians for their part would ally themselves with the Argives and their friends. The Spartans, however, refused to give up the Boeotian alliance—the party of Xenares the ephor, and others who shared their view, carrying the day upon this point—but renewed the oaths at the request of Nicias, who feared to return without having accomplished anything and to be disgraced; as was indeed his fate, he being held the author of the treaty with Sparta. [5] When he returned, and the Athenians heard that nothing had been done at Sparta, they flew into a rage, and deciding that faith had not been kept with them, took advantage of the presence of the Argives and their allies, who had been introduced by Alcibiades, and made a treaty and alliance with them upon the terms following:
MAP 5.45 PELOPONNESUS, SUMMER 420
5.47
420
12th Year/Summer
ATHENS
Thucydides offers the text of the hundred-year treaty between Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Elis.
The Athenians, Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans, acting for themselves and the allies in their respective empires, made a treaty for a hundred years, to be without fraud or injury by land and by sea.
• [2] It shall not be lawful to carry on war, either for the Argives, Eleans, Mantineans, and their allies, against the Athenians, or the allies in the Athenian empire; or for the Athenians and their allies against the Argives, Eleans, Mantineans, or their allies, in any way or means whatsoever. The Athenians, Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans shall be allies for a hundred years upon the terms following:—
• [3] If an enemy invade the country of the Athenians, the Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans shall go to the relief of Athens, according as the Athenians may require by message, in such way as they most effectively can, to the best of their power. But if the invader be gone after plundering the territory, the offending state shall be the enemy of the Argives, Mantineans, Eleans, and Athenians, and war shall be made against it by all these cities; and no one of the cities shall be able to make peace with that state, except all the above cities agree to do so.
• [4] Likewise the Athenians shall go to the relief of Argos, Mantinea, and Elis, if an enemy invade the country of Elis, Mantinea, or Argos, according as the above cities may require by message, in such way as they most effectively can, to the best of their power. But if the invader be gone after plundering the territory, the state offending shall be the enemy of the Athenians, Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans, and war shall be made against it by all these cities, and peace may not be made with that state except all the above cities agree to it.
• [5] No armed force shall be allowed to pass for hostile purposes through the country of the powers contracting, or of the allies in their respective empires, or to go by sea, except all the cities—that is to say, Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Elis—vote for such passage.
• [6] The relieving troops shall be maintained by the city sending them for thirty days from their arrival in the city that has required them, and upon their return in the same way; if their services be desired for a longer period the city that sent for them shall maintain them, at the rate of three Aeginetan obols per day for a heavy-armed soldier, archer, or light soldier, and an Aeginetan drachma for a cavalryman.
ILLUSTRATION 5.47 INSCRIPTION WITH PARTIAL TEXT OF THE TREATY BETWEEN ATHENS, ELIS, ARGOS, AND MANTINEA
• [7] The city sending for the troops shall have the command when the war is in its own country; but in case of the cities resolving upon a joint expedition the command shall be equally divided among all the cities.
• [8] The treaty shall be sworn to by the Athenians for themselves and their allies, by the Argives, Mantineans, Eleans, and their allies, by each state individually. Each shall swear the oath most binding in his country over full-grown victims; the oath being as follows: “I will stand by the alliance and its articles, justly, innocently, and sincerely, and I will not transgress the same in any way or means whatsoever.”
• [9] The oath shall be taken at Athens by the council and the magistrates, the prytaneis administering it; at Argos by the council, the Eighty, and the artynae, the Eighty administering it; at Mantinea by the demiurgi, the council, and the other magistrates, the theori and polemarchs administering it; at Elis by the demiurgi, the magistrates, and the Six Hundred, the demiurgi and the thesmophylakes administering it. [10] The oaths shall be renewed by the Athenians going to Elis, Mantinea, and Argos thirty days before the Olympic games; by the Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans going to Athens ten days before the feast of the Great Panathenaea. [11] The articles of the treaty, the oaths, and the alliance shall be inscribed on a stone pillar by the Athenians in the Acropolis, by the Argives in the agora, in the temple of Apollo; by the Mantineans in the temple of Zeus, in the agora and a bronze pillar shall be erected jointly by them at the Olympic games now at hand. [12] Should the above cities see fit to make any addition to these articles, whatever all the above cities shall agree upon, after consulting together, shall be binding.
5.48
420
12th Year/Summer
CORINTH
Neither Athens nor Sparta renounce their treaty. Although allied with Argos, Corinth refuses to join the new alliance.
Although the treaty and alliances were thus concluded, still the treaty between the Spartans and Athenians was not renounced by either party. [2] Meanwhile Corinth, although the ally of the Argives, did not accede to the new treaty, any more than she had done to the defensive and offensive alliance formed before this between the Eleans, Argives, and Mantineans, when she declared herself content with the first alliance, which was defensive only, and which bound them to help each other, but not to join in attacking any. [3] The Corinthians thus stood aloof from their allies, and again turned their thoughts toward Sparta.
5.49
420
12th Year/Summer
OLYMPIA
Elis excludes Sparta from the Olympic festival, alleging that Sparta violated the Olympic truce when she invaded Lepreum. Elis offers relief if Sparta restores Lepreum. Sparta protests but to no avail.
At the Olympic games which were held this summer, and in which the Arcadian Androsthenes was victor the first time in the wrestling and boxing, the Spartans were excluded from the temple by the Eleans, and thus prevented from sacrificing or contending, for having refused to pay the fine specified in the Olympic law imposed upon them by the Eleans, who alleged that they had attacked Fort Phyrcus, and sent some of their hoplites into Lepreum during the Olympic truce. The amount of the fine was two thousand minae,two for each hoplite, as the law prescribes. [2] The Spartans sent envoys, and pleaded that the penalty was unjust; saying that the truce had not yet been proclaimed at Sparta when the hoplites were sent off. [3] But the Eleans affirmed that the armistice with them had already begun (they proclaim it first among themselves), and that the aggression of the Spartans had taken them by surprise while they were living quietly as in time of peace, and not expecting anything. [4] The Spartans responded that if the Eleans really believed that Sparta had committed an aggression, they would not have subsequently proclaimed the truce at Sparta; but they had proclaimed it notwithstanding (as if they had believed nothing of the kind), and after the proclamation, the Spartans had made no attack upon their country. [5] Nevertheless the Eleans adhered to what they had said, that nothing would persuade them that an aggression had not been committed; if, however, the Spartans would restore Lepreum to them, they would give up their own share of the money and pay that of the god for them.
5.50
420
12th Year/Summer
OLYMPIA
The festival and games are conducted in the presence of Elean and allied armed forces to prevent a Spartan intrusion, which does not take place.
ARGOS
Argos invites Corinth to ally with her, but achieves nothing.
As this proposal was not accepted, the Eleans tried a second. Instead of restoring Lepreum, if this was objected to, the Spartans should ascend the altar of the Olympian Zeus, as they were so anxious to have access to the temple, and swear before the Hellenes that they would surely pay the fine at a later day. [2] This also being refused, the Spartans were excluded from the temple, the sacrifice, and the games, and sacrificed at home; the Lepreans being the only other Hellenes who did not attend. [3] Still the Eleans were afraid the Spartans would sacrifice by force, and kept guard with a heavy-armed company of their young men; being also joined by a thousand Argives, the same number of Mantineans, and by some Athenian cavalry who stayed at Harpina during the feast. [4] Great fears were felt in the assembly of the Spartans coming in arms, especially after Lichas son of Arcesilaus, a Spartan, had been whipped on the course by the umpires because, upon his horses being the winners, and the Boeotian people being proclaimed the victor on account of his having no right to enter, he came forward on the course and crowned the charioteer in order to show that the chariot was his. After this incident all were more afraid than ever, and expected a disturbance: the Spartans, however, kept quiet and let the feast pass by, as we have seen. [5] After the Olympic games, the Argives and the allies repaired to Corinth to invite her to come over to them. There they found some Spartan envoys; and a long discussion ensued, which after all ended in nothing because an earthquake occurred and they all dispersed to their homes.
5.51
420/9
12th Year/Winter
HERACLEA
The Heracleots are defeated by their neighbors; their Spartan general is killed.
Summer was now over. During the following winter a battle took place between the Heracleots in Trachinia and the Aenianians, Dolopians, Malians, and certain of the Thessalians, [2] all tribes bordering on and hostile to the city, which directly menaced their country. Accordingly, after having opposed and harassed it from its very foundation by every means in their power, they now in this battle defeated the Heracleots, Xenares son of Cnidis, their Spartan commander, being among the slain. Thus the winter ended and the twelfth year of this war ended also.
5.52
419
13th Year/Summer
HERACLEA
The Boeotians occupy Heraclea and offend Sparta.
PELOPONNESUS
Alcibiades leads a small Athenian force through the territories of the Peloponnesian allies.
After the battle Heraclea was so terribly reduced that in the first days of the following summer the Boeotians occupied the place and sent away the Spartan Agesippidas for misgovernment, fearing that the city might be taken by the Athenians while the Spartans were distracted with the affairs of the Peloponnesus. The Spartans, nevertheless, were offended with them for what they had done. [2] The same summer Alcibiades son of Clinias, now one of the generals at Athens, in concert with the Argives and the allies, went into the Peloponnesus with a few Athenian hoplites and archers, and some of the allies in those parts whom he gathered up as he passed, and with this army marched here and there through the Peloponnesus, and settled various matters connected with the alliance, and among other things induced the Patrians to carry their walls down to the sea, intending himself also to build a fort near the Achaean Rhium, but the Corinthians and Sicyonians, and all others who would have suffered by its being built, came up and hindered him.
5.53
419
13th Year/Summer
EPIDAURUS
Argos attacks Epidaurus to neutralize Corinth and shorten her communication route with Athens.
The same summer war broke out between the Epidaurians and Argives. The pretext was that the Epidaurians did not send an offering for their pasture land to Apollo Pythaeus, as they were bound to do, the Argives having the chief management of the temple; but, apart from this pretext, Alcibiades and the Argives were determined, if possible, to gain possession of Epidaurus, and thus to insure the neutrality of Corinth and give the Athenians a shorter passage for their reinforcement from Aegina than if they had to sail round Scyllaeum. The Argives accordingly prepared to invade Epidaurus by themselves, to exact the offering.
5.54
419
13th Year/Summer
SPARTA
The Spartans under Agis march out on a secret mission but turn back after unfavorable sacrifices.
EPIDAURUS
Argos invades Epidaurus during Carneia.
About the same time the Spartans marched out with all their people to Leuctra upon their frontier, opposite to Mount Lycaeum, under the command of Agis son of Archidamus, without anyone knowing their destination, not even the cities that sent the contingents. [2] The sacrifices, however, for crossing the frontier not proving propitious, the Spartans returned home themselves, and sent word to the allies to be ready to march after the month ensuing, which happened to be the month of Carneia, a holy time for the Dorians. [3] Upon the retreat of the Spartans the Argives marched out on the last day but three of the month before Carneia, and keeping this as the day during the whole time that they were out, invaded and plundered Epidaurus. [4] The Epidaurians summoned their allies to their aid, some of whom pleaded the month as an excuse; others came as far as the frontier of Epidaurus and there remained inactive.
MAP 5.54 LOCATIONS IN THE NARRATIVE FOR THE YEAR 419
5.55
419
13th Year/Summer
MANTINEA
Corinth commands Argos to leave Epidaurus. The Argives retire but reinvade after no agreements are reached. Athens and Sparta threaten to intervene but the Spartans return home after unfavorable sacrifices.
While the Argives were in Epidaurus embassies from the cities assembled at Mantinea, upon the invitation of the Athenians. The conference having begun, the Corinthian Euphamidas said that their actions did not agree with their words; while they were sitting deliberating about peace, the Epidaurians and their allies and the Argives were arrayed against each other in arms; deputies from each party should first go and separate the armies, and then the talk about peace might be resumed. [2] In compliance with this suggestion they went and made the Argives withdraw from Epidaurus, and afterwards reassembled, but without succeeding any better in coming to a conclusion; and the Argives a second time invaded Epidaurus and plundered the country. [3] The Spartans also marched out to Caryae; but the frontier sacrifices again proving unfavorable, they went back again, [4] and the Argives, after ravaging about a third of the Epidaurian territory, returned home. Meanwhile a thousand Athenian hoplites had come to their aid under the command of Alcibiades, but finding that the Spartan expedition was at an end, and that they were no longer wanted, went back again. So passed the summer.
5.56
419/8
13th Year/Winter
EPIDAURUS
After Sparta reinforces Epidaurus, Argos persuades Athens to return the Helots to Pylos. An Argive attempt to take Epidaurus fails.
The next winter the Spartans managed to elude the vigilance of the Athenians, and sent in a garrison of three hundred men to Epidaurus, under the command of Agesippidas. [2] Upon this the Argives went to the Athenians and complained of their having allowed an enemy to pass by sea, in spite of the clause in the treaty by which the allies were not to allow an enemy to pass through their country. Unless, therefore, the Athenians now put the Messenians and Helots in Pylos to harass the Spartans, they, the Argives, would consider that Athens had not kept faith with them. [3] The Athenians were persuaded by Alcibiades to inscribe at the bottom of the Laconian pillar that the Spartans had not kept their oaths, and to convey the Helots at Cranae to Pylos to plunder the country; but for the rest they remained quiet as before. [4] During this winter hostilities went on between the Argives and Epidaurians, without any pitched battle taking place, but only forays and ambushes, in which the losses were small and fell now on one side and now on the other. [5] At the close of the winter, toward the beginning of spring, the Argives went with scaling ladders to Epidaurus, expecting to find it left unguarded on account of the war and to be able to take it by assault, but returned unsuccessful. And the winter ended, and with it the thirteenth year of the war ended also.
5.57
419/8
13th Year/Winter
PELOPONNESUS
Sparta and her allies prepare a major effort against the Argive alliance.
In the middle of the next summer the Spartans, seeing the Epidaurians, their allies, in distress, and the rest of the Peloponnesus either in revolt or disaffected, concluded that it was high time for them to interfere if they wished to stop the progress of the evil, and accordingly with their full force, the Helots included, took the field against Argos, under the command of Agis son of Archidamus, king of the Spartans. [2] The Tegeans and the other Arcadian allies of Sparta joined in the expedition. The allies from the rest of the Peloponnesus and from outside mustered at Phlius; the Boeotians with five thousand hoplites and as many light troops, and five hundred horse and the same number of dismounted troopers; the Corinthians with two thousand hoplites; the rest more or less as might happen; and the Phliasians with all their forces, the army being in their country.
MAP 5.58 PELOPONNESIAN INVASION OF ARGOS
5.58
418
14th Year/Summer
ARGOS
The Argives confront the Spartans alone in Arcadia but Agis eludes them and joins his allies at Phlius. He advances by three roads toward Argos.
The preparations of the Spartans had from the first been known to the Argives, who did not, however, take the field until the enemy was on his way to join the rest at Phlius. Reinforced by the Mantineans with their allies, and by three thousand Elean hoplites, [2] they advanced and fell in with the Spartans at Methydrium in Arcadia. Each party took up its position upon a hill, and the Argives prepared to engage the Spartans while they were alone; but Agis eluded them by breaking up his camp in the night, and proceeded to join the rest of the allies at Phlius. [3] The Argives discovering this at daybreak, marched first to Argos and then up the Nemean road, down which they expected the Spartans and their allies would come. [4] Agis, however, instead of taking this road as they expected, ordered the Spartans, Arcadians, and Epidaurians to descend into the plain of Argos by a different, difficult road. The Corinthians, Pellenians, and Phliasians marched by another steep road; while the Boeotians, Megarians, and Sicyonians had instructions to come down by the Nemean road where the Argives were posted, so that if the enemy advanced into the plain against the troops of Agis, they might fall upon his rear with their cavalry. [5] These dispositions concluded, Agis invaded the plain and began to ravage Saminthus and other places.
5.59
418
14th Year/Summer
ARGOS
The Argives and their allies are surrounded by the Spartans and their allies, but do not recognize their danger. Two Argive leaders offer to submit all problems to arbitration and to make peace with Sparta.
Discovering this, the Argives came down from Nemea, day having now dawned. On their way they fell in with the troops of the Phliasians and Corinthians, and killed a few of the Phliasians, and had perhaps a few more of their own men killed by the Corinthians. [2] Meanwhile the Boeotians, Megarians, and Sicyonians, advancing upon Nemea according to their instructions, found the Argives no longer there as they had gone down on seeing their property ravaged, and were now forming for battle, the Spartans imitating their example. [3] The Argives were now completely surrounded; from the plain the Spartans and their allies shut them off from their city; above them were the Corinthians, Phliasians, and Pellenians; and on the side of Nemea the Boeotians, Sicyonians, and Megarians. Meanwhile their army was without cavalry, the Athenians alone among the allies not having yet arrived. [4] Now the bulk of the Argives and their allies did not see the danger of their position, but thought that they could not have a fairer field, having intercepted the Spartans in their own country and close to the city. [5] Two men, however, in the Argive army, Thrasylus, one of the five generals, and Alciphron, the Spartan proxenus, just as the armies were upon the point of engaging, went and held a parley with Agis and urged him not to bring on a battle, as the Argives were ready to refer to fair and equal arbitration whatever complaints the Spartans might have against them, and to make a treaty and live in peace in future.
5.60
418
14th Year/Summer
ARGOS
Agis and the two Argives agree to a truce and, without consulting anyone else, Agis leads the Spartan forces away. Both sides attack the authors of this truce, thinking they had lost a favorable opportunity to defeat their opponents.
The Argives who made these statements did so upon their own authority, not by order of the people, and Agis on his accepted their proposals, and without himself either consulting the majority, simply communicated the matter to a single individual, one of the high officers accompanying the expedition, and granted the Argives a truce for four months, in which to fulfill their promises; after which he immediately led off the army without giving any explanation to any of the other allies. [2] The Spartans and allies followed their general out of respect for the law, but amongst themselves loudly blamed Agis for going away from so fair a field (the enemy being hemmed in on every side by infantry and cavalry) without having done anything worthy of their strength. [3] Indeed this was by far the finest Hellenic army ever yet brought together; and it should have been seen while it was still united at Nemea, with the Spartans in full force, the Arcadians, Boeotians, Corinthians, Sicyonians, Pellenians, Phliasians and Megarians, and all these the flower of their respective populations, thinking themselves a match not merely for the Argive confederacy but for another added to it. [4] The army thus retired blaming Agis, and returned every man to his home. [5] The Argives however blamed still more loudly the persons who had concluded the truce without consulting the people, themselves thinking that they had let escape with the Spartans an opportunity such as they should never see again; as the struggle would have been under the walls of their city, and by the side of many and brave allies. [6] On their return accordingly they began to stone Thrasylus in the bed of the Charadrus, where they try all military cases before entering the city. Thrasylus fled to the altar, and so saved his life; his property however they confiscated.
5.61
418
14th Year/Summer
ARGOS
After Athenian troops arrive, Alcibiades denounces the Argive-Spartan truce and calls for a resumption of the war. The Argives agree and join the allied siege of Orchomenos, which then capitulates and joins the alliance.
After this arrived a thousand Athenian hoplites and three hundred horse, under the command of Laches and Nicostratus; whom the Argives, being nevertheless reluctant to break the truce with the Spartans, begged to depart, and refused to bring before the people, to whom they had a communication to make, until compelled to do so by the entreaties of the Mantineans and Eleans, who were still at Argos. [2] The Athenians, through Alcibiades their ambassador who was present there, told the Argives and the allies that they had no right to make a truce at all without the consent of their fellow confederates, and now that the Athenians had arrived so opportunely the war ought to be resumed. [3] These arguments proving successful with the allies, they immediately marched upon Orchomenos, all except the Argives, who, although they had consented like the rest, stayed behind at first, but eventually joined the others. [4] They now all besieged Orchomenos and made assaults upon it; one of their reasons for desiring to gain this place being that hostages from Arcadia had been lodged there by the Spartans. [5] The Orchomenians, alarmed at the weakness of their wall and the numbers of the enemy, and at the risk they ran of perishing before relief arrived, capitulated upon condition of joining the league, of giving hostages of their own to the Mantineans, and giving up those lodged with them by the Spartans.
Orchomenos thus secured, the allies now consulted as to which of the remaining places they should attack next. The Eleans were urgent for Lepreum;1a the Mantineans for Tegea; and the Argives and Athenians giving their support to the Mantineans, [2] the Eleans went home in a rage at their not having voted for Lepreum; while the rest of the allies made ready at Mantinea for going against Tegea, which a party inside had arranged to put into their hands.
5.62
418
14th Year/Summer
ORCHOMENOS
Because the allies vote to attack Tegea instead of Lepreum, the Eleans leave in anger.
5.63
418
14th Year/Summer
SPARTA
The loss of Orchomenos makes the Spartans furious at Agis; they threaten to punish him but relent when he promises to fight well. A new law attaches counselors to the king when he leads the army.
Meanwhile the Spartans, upon their return from Argos after concluding the four months’ truce, vehemently blamed Agis for not having subdued Argos, after an opportunity such as they thought they had never had before; for it was no easy matter to bring so many allies, and such good ones, together. [2] But when the news arrived of the capture of Orchomenos, they became more angry than ever, and, departing from all precedent, in the heat of the moment had almost decided to raze his house, and to fine him ten thousand drachmas. [3] Agis however entreated them to do none of these things, promising to atone for his fault by good service in the field, failing which they might then do to him whatever they pleased; [4] and they accordingly abstained from razing his house or fining him as they had threatened to do, and now made a law, hitherto unknown at Sparta, attaching to him ten Spartiates as counselors, without whose consent he should have no power to lead an army out of the city.
5.64
418
TEGEA
The Spartans receive word of Tegea’s peril and march out, summoning their allies to join them at Mantinea. The allies try to join them, but some are delayed by having to cross hostile territory.
At this juncture word arrived from their friends in Tegea that unless they speedily appeared, Tegea would go over from them to the Argives and their allies, if it had not gone over already. [2] Upon this news a force marched out from Sparta of Spartans and Helots and all their people immediately and upon a scale never before witnessed. [3] Advancing toward Orestheum in Maenalia, they directed the Arcadians in their league to follow close after them to Tegea, and going on themselves as far as Orestheum, from there sent back the sixth part of the Spartans, consisting of the oldest and youngest men, to guard their homes, and with the rest of their army arrived at Tegea; where their Arcadian allies soon after joined them. [4] Meanwhile they sent to Corinth, to the Boeotians, the Phocians, and Locrians, with orders to come up as quickly as possible to Mantinea. These had but short notice; and it was not easy except all together, and after waiting for each other, to pass through the enemy’s country, which lay right across and blocked the line of march. Nevertheless they made what haste they could. [5] Meanwhile the Spartans, with the Arcadian allies that had joined them, entered the territory of Mantinea, and encamping near the temple of Heracles began to plunder the country.
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MANTINEA
Agis advances upon the Argive army’s strong position but decides at the last minute to withdraw, to flood Mantinean territory, and thus to force the enemy to descend and fight in the plain. The Argives, after criticizing their generals for letting the enemy escape, do descend into the plain.
Here they were seen by the Argives and their allies, who immediately took up a strong position, difficult to approach, and formed up in order of battle. [2] The Spartans at once advanced against them, and came on within a stone’s throw or javelin’s cast, when one of the older men, seeing the enemy’s position to be a strong one, shouted to Agis that he must be thinking to cure one evil with another; meaning that he wished to make amends for his retreat from Argos, for which he had been so much blamed, by his present untimely wish to engage. [3] Meanwhile Agis, whether in consequence of this message or of some sudden new idea of his own, quickly led his army back without engaging, [4] and entering the Tegean territory, began to divert into Mantinean land the water about which the Mantineans and Tegeans are always fighting, on account of the extensive damage it does to whichever of the two countries it flows into. [5] His purpose in this was to make the Argives and their allies come down from the hill to resist the diversion of the water, as they would be sure to do when they knew of it, and thus to fight the battle in the plain. He accordingly stayed that day where he was, engaged in changing the course of the water. The Argives and their allies were at first amazed at the sudden retreat of the enemy after advancing so near, and did not know what to make of it; but when he had gone away and disappeared, without their having stirred to pursue him, they began anew to find fault with their generals, who had not only let the Spartans get off before, when they were so happily intercepted before Argos, but who now again allowed them to run away, without anyone pursuing them, and to escape at their leisure while the Argive army was leisurely betrayed. [6] The generals, half-stunned for the moment, afterwards led them down from the hill, and went forward and encamped in the plain, with the intention of attacking the enemy.
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MANTINEA
Returning to camp, the Spartans discover the enemy close by in battle order. Agis quickly orders the Spartans into proper formation to face the enemy.
The next day the Argives and their allies formed up in the order in which they meant to fight if they chanced to encounter the enemy; and the Spartans returning from the water to their old encampment by the temple of Heracles, suddenly saw their adversaries close in front of them, all in complete order, and advanced from the hill. [2] A shock like that of the present moment the Spartans do not ever remember to have experienced: there was scant time for preparation, as they instantly and hastily fell into their ranks. Agis, their king, directing everything, according to the law, [3] for when a king is in the field all commands proceed from him: he gives the word to the polemarchs, they to the lochagoi, these to the pentecostyes, these again to the enomotarchs, and these last to the enomoties.[4] In short all orders are required to pass in the same way and quickly reach the troops; as almost the whole Spartan army, save for a small part, consists of officers under officers, and the care of what is to be done falls upon many.
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14th Year/Summer
MANTINEA
Thucydides describes both sides’ order of battle.
In this battle the left wing was composed of the sciritae, who in a Spartan army always have that post to themselves alone; next to these were the soldiers of Brasidas from Thrace, and the neodamodeis with them; then came the Spartans themselves, company after company, with the Arcadians of Heraea at their side. After these were the Maenalians, and on the right wing the Tegeans with a few of the Spartans at the extremity; their cavalry being posted upon the two wings. [2] Such was the Spartan formation. That of their opponents was as follows: On the right were the Mantineans, the action taking place in their country; next to them the allies from Arcadia; after whom came the thousand picked men of the Argives, to whom the state had given a long course of military training at the public expense; next to them the rest of the Argives, and after them their allies, the Cleonaeans; and Orneans; and lastly the Athenians on the extreme left, and their own cavalry with them.
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MANTINEA
The Spartan army appears larger than that of its opponent. Thucydides calculates its numbers.
Such were the order and the forces of the two combatants. The Spartan army looked the largest; [2] though as to putting down the numbers of either host, or of the contingents composing it, I could not do so with any accuracy. Owing to the secrecy of their government the number of the Spartans was not known, and men are so apt to brag about the forces of their country that the estimate of their opponents was not trusted. The following calculation, however, makes it possible to estimate the numbers of the Spartans present upon this occasion. [3] There were seven companies in the field without counting the sciritae, who numbered six hundred men: in each company there were four pentecostyes, and in the pentecosty four enomoties. The first rank of the enomoty was composed of four soldiers: as to the depth, although they had not been all drawn up alike, but as each captain chose, they were generally ranged eight deep; the first rank along the whole line, exclusive of the sciritae, consisted of four hundred and forty-eight men.
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MANTINEA
Both sides now encourage their men to fight: the Argives and their allies with speeches, the Spartans with war songs and mutual reminders of their superior training.
The armies being now on the eve of engaging, each contingent received some words of encouragement from its own commander. The Mantineans were reminded that they were going to fight for their country and to avoid returning to the experience of servitude after having tasted that of empire; the Argives, that they would contend for their ancient supremacy, to regain their once equal share of the Peloponnesus of which they had been so long deprived, and to punish an enemy and a neighbor for a thousand wrongs; the Athenians, of the glory of gaining the honors of the day with so many and brave allies in arms, and that a victory over the Spartans in the Peloponnesus would cement and extend their empire, and would besides preserve Attica from all invasions in future. [2] These were the incitements addressed to the Argives and their allies. The Spartans meanwhile, man to man, and with their war songs in the ranks, exhorted each brave comrade to remember what he had learnt before; well aware that the long training of action was of more use for saving lives than any brief verbal exhortation, though ever so well delivered.
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14th Year/Summer
MANTINEA
The armies advance to battle.
After this they joined battle, the Argives and their allies advancing with haste and fury, the Spartans slowly and to the music of many flute players—a standing institution in their army, that has nothing to do with religion, but is meant to make them advance evenly, stepping in time, without breaking their order, as large armies are apt to do in the moment of engaging.
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14th Year/Summer
MANTINEA
Agis, concerned by the overlap of his left by the enemy’s right, orders his leftmost units to extend left and other units from the right to fill the gap thus opened in the line.
Just before the battle joined, King Agis resolved upon the following maneuver. All armies are alike in this: on going into action they get forced out rather on their right wing, and one and the other overlap with this their adversary’s left; because fear makes each man do his best to shelter his unarmed side with the shield of the man next him on the right, thinking that the closer the shields are locked together the better will he be protected. The man primarily responsible for this is the first upon the right wing, who is always striving to withdraw from the enemy his unarmed side; and the same apprehension makes the rest follow him. [2] On the present occasion the Mantineans reached with their wing far beyond the sciritae, and the Spartans and Tegeans still farther beyond the Athenians, as their army was the largest. [3] Agis afraid of his left being surrounded, and thinking that the Mantineans outflanked it too far, ordered the sciritae and Brasideans to move out from their place in the ranks and make the line even with the Mantineans, and told the polemarchs Hipponoidas and Aristocles to fill up the gap thus formed, by throwing themselves into it with two companies taken from the right wing; thinking that his right would still be strong enough and to spare, and that the line fronting the Mantineans would gain in solidity.
MAP 5.71 THE BATTLE OF MANTINEA CAMPAIGN
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MANTINEA
The polemarchs on the right refuse to move their units, and Agis rescinds his order. The Spartan left is defeated but the Spartan right easily routs its opponents.
However, as he gave these orders in the moment of the onset, and at short notice, Aristocles and Hipponoidas refused to move (for which offense they were afterwards found guilty of cowardice and banished from Sparta); and although Agis, when he saw that the two companies did not move, ordered the sciritae to return to their place in line, they did not have time to fill up the breach in question before the enemy closed. [2] Now it was, however, that the Spartans, utterly worsted in respect of skill, showed themselves as superior in point of courage. [3] As soon as they came to close quarters with the enemy, the Mantinean right broke the sciritae and Brasideans, and bursting in with their allies and the thousand picked Argives into the unclosed breach in their line cut up and surrounded the Spartans, and drove them in full rout to the wagons, slaying some of the older men on guard there. [4] But if the Spartans got the worst of it in this part of the field, it was not so with the rest of their army, and especially the center, where the three hundred knights, as they are called, fought round King Agis, and fell on the older men of the Argives and the five companies so named, and on the Cleonaeans, the Orneans, and the Athenians next them, and instantly routed them; the greater number not even waiting to strike a blow, but giving way the moment that they came on, some even being trodden under foot, in their fear of being overtaken by their assailants.
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MANTINEA
Agis orders his successful right wing to support the defeated left, and the Argiveallied force flees. Spartan pursuit is brief.
The army of the Argives and their allies having given way in this quarter was now completely cut in two, and as the Spartan and Tegean right simultaneously closed round the Athenians with the troops that outflanked them, these last found themselves placed between two fires, being surrounded on one side and already defeated on the other. Indeed they would have suffered more severely than any other part of the army, but for the services of the cavalry which they had with them. [2] Agis also, on perceiving the distress of his left opposed to the Mantineans and the thousand Argives, ordered all the army to advance to the support of the defeated wing; [3] and while this took place, as the enemy moved past and slanted away from them, the Athenians escaped at their leisure, and with them the beaten Argive division. Meanwhile the Mantineans and their allies and the picked body of the Argives ceased to press the enemy and, seeing their friends defeated and the Spartans in full advance upon them, took to flight. [4] Many of the Mantineans perished; but the bulk of the picked body of the Argives made good their escape. The flight and retreat, however, were neither hurried nor long; the Spartans fighting long and stubbornly until the rout of their enemy, but that once accomplished, pursuing for a short time and not far.
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MANTINEA
The Spartans return the enemy dead under truce and bury their own. Losses on both sides are enumerated.
Such was the battle, as nearly as possible as I have described it; the greatest that had occurred for a very long while among the Hellenes,’ and joined by the most considerable states. [2] The Spartans took up a position in front of the enemy’s dead, and immediately set up a trophy and stripped the slain; they took up their own dead and carried them back to Tegea, where they buried them, and restored those of the enemy under truce. [3] The Argives, Orneans, and Cleonaeans had seven hundred killed; the Mantineans two hundred, and the Athenians and Aeginetans also two hundred, with both their generals. On the side of the Spartans, the allies did not suffer any loss worth speaking of: as to the Spartans themselves it was difficult to learn the truth; it is said, however, that there were slain about three hundred of them.
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14th Year/Summer
MANTINEA
The Spartans dismiss their allies and celebrate the Carneia.
EPIDAURUS
Epidaurians plunder Argive territory. The Argives return and begin a circumvallation of Epidaurus.
While the battle was impending, Pleistoanax, the other king, set out with a reinforcement composed of the oldest and youngest men, and got as far as Tegea, where he heard of the victory and went back again. [2] The Spartans also sent a message to turn back the allies from Corinth and from beyond the Isthmus, and returning home themselves dismissed their allies, and celebrated the Carneian festival, which happened to be at that time. [3] The imputations cast upon them by the Hellenes at the time, whether of cowardice on account of the disaster in the island, or of mismanagement and slowness generally, were all wiped out by this single action: fortune, it was thought, might have humbled them, but the men themselves were the same as ever. [4] The day before this battle, the Epidaurians with all their forces invaded the deserted Argive territory, and killed many of the guards left there in the absence of the Argive army. [5] After the battle three thousand Elean hoplites arrived to aid the Mantineans, as well as a reinforcement of one thousand Athenians; all these allies marched at once against Epidaurus while the Spartans were keeping the Carneia and, dividing the work among themselves, began to build a wall round the city. [6] The rest left off; but the Athenians finished at once the part assigned to them round Cape Heraeum; and after all joined in leaving a garrison in the fortification in question, they returned to their respective cities. Summer now came to an end.
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ARGOS
Sparta, relying upon a strengthened antidemocratic party in Argos after the battle, offers to negotiate a peace. After much discussion, Argos accepts the Spartan proposal.
In the first days of the next winter, when the Carneian holidays were over, the Spartans took the field, and arriving at Tegea sent on to Argos proposals for an accommodation. [2] There had before been a party in the city desirous of overthrowing the democracy; and after the battle that had been fought, these were now in a far better position to persuade the people to listen to terms. Their plan was to make a treaty with the Spartans first, follow it with an alliance, and after this to fall upon the popular party. [3] Lichas son of Arcesilaus, the Argive proxenus accordingly arrived at Argos with two proposals from Sparta, to regulate the conditions of war or peace, according to whichever one they preferred. After much discussion, Alcibiades happening to be in the city, the Spartan party, who now ventured to act openly, persuaded the Argives to accept the proposal for a peace treaty, which ran as follows:
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ARGOS-SPARTA
Thucydides presents the text of the peace proposal offered by Sparta to Argos.
The assembly of the Spartans agrees to negotiate with the Argives upon the terms following:
• The Argives shall restore to the Orchomenians their children, and to the Maenalians their men, and shall restore the men they have in Mantinea to the Spartans.
• [2] They shall evacuate Epidaurus, and raze the fortification there. If the Athenians refuse to withdraw from Epidaurus, they shall be declared enemies of the Argives and of the Spartans, and of the allies of the Spartans and the allies of the Argives.
• [3] If the Spartans have any children in their custody, they shall restore them every one to his city.
• [4] As to the offering to the god, the Argives, if they wish, shall impose an oath upon the Epidaurians, but, if not, they shall swear it themselves.
• [5] All the cities in the Peloponnesus, both small and great, shall be independent according to the customs of their country.
• [6] If any of the powers outside the Peloponnesus invade Peloponnesian territory, the parties contracting shall unite to repel them, on such terms as they may agree upon, as being most fair for the Peloponnesians.
• [7] All allies of the Spartans outside the Peloponnesus shall be on the same footing as the Spartans, and the allies of the Argives shall be on the same footing as the Argives, being left in enjoyment of their own possessions.
• [8] This treaty shall be shown to the allies, and shall be concluded, if they approve: if the allies think fit, they may send the treaty to be considered at home.
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ARGOS
Renouncing her pact with Athens, Elis, and Mantinea, Argos allies with Sparta.
The Argives began by accepting this proposal, and the Spartan army returned home from Tegea. After this, normal intercourse was renewed between them, and not long afterwards the same faction contrived that the Argives should give up the alliance with the Mantineans, Eleans, and Athenians, and should make a treaty of alliance with the Spartans; which was consequently done upon the following terms:
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ARGOS-SPARTA
Thucydides offers the text of the treaty of alliance between Argos and Sparta.
The Spartans and Argives agree to a treaty and alliance for fifty years upon the terms following:
• All disputes shall be decided by fair and impartial arbitration, consistent with the customs of the two countries.
• The rest of the cities in the Peloponnesus may be included in this treaty and alliance, as independent and sovereign, in full enjoyment of what they possess; all disputes being decided by fair and impartial arbitration, consistent with the customs of the said cities.
• [2] All allies of the Spartans outside the Peloponnesus shall be upon the same footing as the Spartans themselves, and the allies of the Argives shall be upon the same footing as the Argives themselves, continuing to enjoy what they possess.
• [3] If it shall be anywhere necessary to make an expedition in common, the Spartans and Argives shall consult upon it and decide, as may be most fair for the allies.
• [4] If any of the cities, whether inside or outside the Peloponnesus, have a question of frontiers or of other matters, it must be settled; but if one allied city should have a quarrel with another allied city, it must be referred to some third city thought impartial by both parties. Private citizens shall have their disputes decided according to the laws of their respective countries.
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ARGOS-SPARTA
Argos and Sparta fulfill the terms of their treaty and extend their alliance to Perdiccas and the Chalcidian cities.
EPIDAURUS
As ordered by Argos, the Athenians leave Epidaurus.
The treaty and above alliance concluded, each party at once released everything whether acquired by war or otherwise, and thereafter acting in common voted to receive neither herald nor embassy from the Athenians unless they evacuated their forts and withdrew from the Peloponnesus, and also to make neither peace nor war with anyone, except joindy. [2] Zeal was not wanting: both parties sent envoys to the Thracian district and to Perdiccas, and persuaded the latter to join their league. Still he did not at once break with Athens, although inclined to do so upon seeing the way shown him by Argos, the original home of his family. They also renewed their old oaths with the Chalcidians and took new ones: [3] the Argives, besides, sent ambassadors to the Athenians, bidding them evacuate the fort at Epidaurus. The Athenians, seeing their own men outnumbered by the rest of the garrison, sent Demosthenes to bring them out. This general, under color of a gymnastic contest which he arranged on his arrival, got the rest of the garrison out of the place and shut the gates behind them. Afterwards the Athenians renewed their treaty with the Epidaurians, and by themselves gave up the fortress.
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MANTINEA-SPARTA
Mantinea and Sparta make peace; a Spartan-Argive army strengthens the oligarchy at Sicyon and establishes an oligarchy at Argos.
After the defection of Argos from the league, the Mantineans, though they held out at first, in the end found themselves powerless without the Argives; they too came to terms with Sparta, and gave up their rule over the cities. [2] The Spartans and Argives, each a thousand strong, now took the field together, and the former first went by themselves to Sicyon and made the government there more oligarchic than before, and then both, uniting, put down the democracy at Argos and set up an oligarchy favorable to Sparta. These events occurred at the close of the winter, just before spring; and the fourteenth year of the war ended.
MAP 5.82 EVENTS OF THE YEARS 417 AND 416
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417
15th Year/Summer
ARGOS
Argive democrats revive and overthrow the oligarchs, killing some and banishing others. Sparta resolves to attack Argos, but procrastinates. Argos renews ties with Athens and begins to build long walls to the sea.
The next summer the people of Dium, in Athos, revolted from the Athenians to the Chalcidians, and the Spartans settled affairs in Achaea in a way more agreeable to the interests of their country. [2] Meanwhile the popular party at Argos little by little gathering strength and courage, waited for the moment of the Gymnopaedic festival at Sparta and then fell upon the oligarchs. After a fight in the city victory declared for the popular party, who slew some of their opponents and banished others. [3] The Spartans for a long while disregarded the messages of their friends at Argos; at last they postponed the Gymnopaediae and marched to their assistance, but learning at Tegea of the defeat of the oligarchs, refused to go any further in spite of the entreaties of those who had escaped, and returned home and celebrated the festival. [4] Later on, envoys arrived with messages from the Argives in the city and from the exiles, when the allies were also at Sparta; and after much had been said on both sides, the Spartans decided that the party in the city had done wrong and resolved to march against Argos, but kept delaying and putting off the matter. [5] Meanwhile the popular party at Argos, in fear of the Spartans, began again to court the Athenian alliance, which they were convinced would be of the greatest service to them; and accordingly proceeded to build long walls to the sea, in order that in case of a blockade by land, with the help of the Athenians they might have the advantage of importing what they wanted by sea. [6] Some of the cities in the Peloponnesus were also privy to the building of these walls; and the Argives with all their people, women and slaves not excepted, applied themselves to the work, while carpenters and masons came to them from Athens. Summer was now over.
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15th Year/Winter
ARGOS
Sparta invades Argos and destroys the long walls. Argos plunders Phlius for harboring Argive exiles.
MACEDONIA
Athens blockades Perdiccas because, by joining the Argive-Spartan alliance, he forced the Athenians to cancel their expedition against Chalcidice and Amphipolis.
The following winter the Spartans, hearing of the walls that were being built, marched against Argos with their allies (except for the Corinthians), under the command of their king Agis son of Archidamus. [2] They had intelligence of affairs in the city itself but this intelligence, which they counted upon, came to nothing; however, they took and razed the walls which were being built, and after capturing the Argive city Hysiae and killing all the freemen that fell into their hands, went back and dispersed every man to his city. [3] After this the Argives marched into Phlius and plundered it for harboring their exiles, most of whom had settled there, and so returned home. [4] The same winter the Athenians blockaded Macedonia in retaliation for the alliance entered into by Perdiccas with the Argives and Spartans, and also because of his breach of his engagements on the occasion of the expedition prepared by Athens against the Chalcidians in the Thracian region and against Amphipolis, under the command of Nicias son of Niceratus, which had to be abandoned mainly because of his desertion. He was therefore proclaimed an enemy. And thus the winter ended, and the fifteenth year of the war ended with it.
5.84
416
16th Year/Summer
ARGOS
Alcibiades seizes three hundred pro-Spartan Argives and lodges them in nearby islands.
MELOS
An Athenian expedition against Melos sends envoys to negotiate.
The next summer Alcibiades sailed with twenty ships to Argos and seized the suspected persons still left of the Spartan faction to the number of three hundred, whom the Athenians forthwith lodged in the neighboring islands of their empire. The Athenians also made an expedition against the isle of Melos with thirty ships of their own, six Chian, and two Lesbian vessels, sixteen hundred hoplites, three hundred archers, and twenty mounted archers from Athens, and about fifteen hundred hoplites from the allies and the islanders. [2] The Melians are a colony of Sparta that would not submit to the Athenians like the other islanders, and at first remained neutral and took no part in the struggle, but afterwards upon the Athenians using violence and plundering their territory, assumed an attitude of open hostility. [3] Cleomedes son of Lycomedes, and Tisias son of Tisimachus, the generals, encamping in their territory with the above armament, before doing any harm to their land, sent envoys to negotiate. These the Melians did not bring before the people, but bade them state the object of their mission to the magistrates and the few; upon which the Athenian envoys spoke as follows:
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MELOS
Noting that only the Few, not The People, are present, the Athenians offer to debate frankly and spontaneously.
Athenians: “Since the negotiations are not to go on before the people, in order that we may not be able to speak straight on without interruption, and deceive the ears of the multitude by seductive arguments which would pass without refutation (for we know that this is the meaning of our being brought before the few), what if you who sit there were to pursue a method more cautious still! Make no set speech yourselves, but take us up at whatever you do not like, and settle that before going any farther. And first tell us if this proposition of ours suits you.”
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16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Melians agree to talk, but feel that their only choices are war or slavery.
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416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
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416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Melian commissioners answered:
Melians: “To the fairness of quietly instructing each other as you propose there is nothing to object; but your military preparations are too far advanced to agree with what you say, as we see you are come to be judges in your own cause, and that all we can reasonably expect from this negotiation is war, if we prove to have right on our side and refuse to submit, or in the contrary case, slavery.”
Athenians: “If you have met to reason about presentiments of the future, or for anything else than to consult for the safety of your state upon the facts that you see before you, we will cease talking; otherwise we will go on.”
Melians: “It is natural and excusable for men in our position to turn more ways than one both in thought and utterance. However, the question in this conference is, as you say, the safety of our country; and the discussion, if you please, can proceed in the way which you propose.”
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16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Athenians say that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
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416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Melians point out how useful moral arguments could be to Athens if her empire fell.
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416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Athenians reply that it is in their mutual interests for Melos to peacefully accept Athenian rule.
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5.93
5.94
5.95
5.96
5.97
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Athenians say that Athens must subdue Melos to keep the respect of its subjects.
Athenians: “For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretenses—either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us—and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Spartans, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
Melians: “As we think, at any rate, it is expedient—we speak as we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest—that you should not destroy what is our common protection, namely, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be persuasive. And you are as much interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon.”
Athenians: “The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival empire like Sparta, even if Sparta was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers. [2] This, however, is a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show you that we have come here in the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what we are now going to say, for the preservation of your country; as we would desire to exercise that empire over you without trouble, and see you preserved for the good of us both.”
Melians: “And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule?”
Athenians: “Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.”
Melians: “So you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither side.”
Athenians: “No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.”
Melians: “Is that your subjects’ idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some conquered rebels?”
Athenians: “As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in thwarting the masters of the sea.”
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416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Melians argue that Athens’ policy will only create more enemies for her.
5.99
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
5.100
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
5.101
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
5.102
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
5.103
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Melians are advised to avoid hope, which deludes men and leads them to ruin.
Melians: “But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at our case and conclude from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of it?”
Athenians: “Why, the fact is that mainlanders generally give us but little alarm; the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is rather islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke, who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious danger.”
Melians: “Well then, if you risk so much to retain your empire, and your subjects to get rid of it, it were surely great baseness and cowardice in us who are still free not to try everything that can be tried, before submitting to your yoke.”
Athenians: “Not if you are well advised, the contest not being an equal one, with honor as the prize and shame as the penalty, but a question of self-preservation and of not resisting those who are far stronger than you are.”
Melians: “But we know that the fortune of war is sometimes more impartial than the disproportion of numbers might lead one to suppose; to submit is to give ourselves over to despair, while action still preserves for us a hope that we may stand erect.”
Athenians: “Hope, danger’s comforter, may be indulged in by those who have abundant resources, if not without loss, at all events without ruin; but its nature is to be extravagant, and those who go so far as to stake their all upon the venture see it in its true colors only when they are ruined; but so long as the discovery would enable them to guard against it, it is never found wanting. [2] Let not this be the case with you, who are weak and hang on a single turn of the scale; nor be like the vulgar, who, abandoning such security as human means may still afford, when visible hopes fail them in extremity, turn to the invisible, to prophecies and oracles, and other such inventions that delude men with hopes to their destruction.”
5.104
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
5.105
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Athenians also hope for the gods’ favor, since they only do what is natural to both gods and men: “rule where they can.” It is foolish to believe that the Spartans, who are moral hypocrites when the interests of others are concerned, will aid Melos because of sentiment or shame.
5.106
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
5.107
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
5.108
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
Melians: “You may be sure that we are as well aware as you of the difficulty of contending against your power and fortune, unless the terms be equal. But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Spartans, who are bound, if only for very shame, to come to the aid of their kindred. Our confidence, therefore, after all is not so utterly irrational.”
Athenians: “When you speak of the favor of the gods, we may as fairly hope for that as yourselves; neither our pretensions nor our conduct being in any way contrary to what men believe of the gods, or practice among themselves. [2] Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can. And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist forever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do. [3] Thus, as far as the gods are concerned, we have no fear and no reason to fear that we shall be at a disadvantage. But when we come to your notion about the Spartans, which leads you to believe that shame will make them help you, here we bless your simplicity but do not envy your folly. [4] The Spartans, when their own interests or their country’s laws are in question, are the worthiest men alive; of their conduct toward others much might be said, but no clearer idea of it could be given than by shortly saying that of all the men we know they are most conspicuous in considering what is agreeable honorable, and what is expedient just. Such a way of thinking does not promise much for the safety which you now unreasonably count upon.”
Melians: “But it is for this very reason that we now trust to their respect for expediency to prevent them from betraying the Melians, their colonists, and thereby losing the confidence of their friends in Hellas and helping their enemies.”
Athenians: “Then you do not adopt the view that expediency goes with security, while justice and honor cannot be followed without danger; and danger the Spartans generally court as little as possible.”
Melians: “But we believe that they would be more likely to face even danger for our sake, and with more confidence than for others, as our nearness to the Peloponnesus makes it easier for them to act; and our common blood insures our fidelity.”
5.109
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
5.110
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
5.111
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Athenians advise the Melians not to act from fear of dishonor or disgrace, saying that Melos lacks the resources for such concepts and that heeding them now will bring her to ruin.
Athenians: “Yes, but what an intending ally trusts to is not the goodwill of those who ask his aid, but a decided superiority of power for action; and the Spartans look to this even more than others. At least, such is their distrust of their home resources that it is only with numerous allies that they attack a neighbor; now is it likely that while we are masters of the sea they will cross over to an island?”
Melians: “But they would have others to send. The Cretan sea is a wide one, and it is more difficult for those who command it to intercept others, than for those who wish to elude them to do so safely. [2] And should the Spartans miscarry in this, they would fall upon your land, and upon those left of your allies whom Brasidas did not reach; and instead of places which are not yours, you will have to fight for your own country and your own confederacy.”
Athenians: “Some diversion of the kind you speak of you may one day experience, only to learn, as others have done, that the Athenians never once yet withdrew from a siege for fear of any. [2] But we are struck by the fact, that after saying you would consult for the safety of your country, in all this discussion you have mentioned nothing which men might trust in and think to be saved by. Your strongest arguments depend upon hope and the future, and your actual resources are too scanty, as compared with those arrayed against you, for you to come out victorious. [3] You will therefore show great blindness of judgment, unless, after allowing us to retire, you can find some counsel more prudent than this. You will surely not be caught by that idea of disgrace, which in dangers that are disgraceful, and at the same time too plain to be mistaken, proves so fatal to mankind; since in too many cases the very men that have their eyes perfectly open to what they are rushing into, let the thing called disgrace, by the mere influence of a seductive name, lead them on to a point at which they become so enslaved by the phrase as in fact to fall willfully into hopeless disaster, and incur disgrace more disgraceful as the companion of error, than when it comes as the result of misfortune. [4] This, if you are well advised, you will guard against; and you will not think it dishonorable to submit to the greatest city in Hellas, when it makes you the moderate offer of becoming its tributary ally, without ceasing to enjoy the country that belongs to you; nor when you have the choice given you between war and security, will you be so blinded as to choose the worse. And it is certain that those who do not yield to their equals, who keep terms with their superiors, and are moderate toward their inferiors, on the whole succeed best. [5] Think over the matter, therefore, after our withdrawal, and reflect once and again that it is for your country that you are consulting, that you have not more than one, and that upon this one deliberation depends its prosperity or ruin.”
5.112
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Melians refuse to yield and offer the Athenians no more than friendly neutrality.
The Athenians now withdrew from the conference; and the Melians, left to themselves, came to a decision corresponding to what they had maintained in the discussion, and answered, [2] “Our resolution, Athenians, is the same as it was at first. We will not in a moment deprive of freedom a city that has been inhabited these seven hundred years; but we put our trust in the fortune by which the gods have preserved it until now, and in the help of men, that is, of the Spartans; and so we will try and save ourselves. [3] Meanwhile we invite you to allow us to be friends to you and foes to neither party, and to retire from our country after making such a treaty as shall seem fit to us both.”
5.113
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Athenians predict ruin for Melos.
Such was the answer of the Melians. The Athenians now departing from the conference said, “Well, you alone, as it seems to us, judging from these resolutions, regard what is future as more certain than what is before your eyes, and what is out of sight, in your eagerness, as already coming to pass; and as you have staked most on, and trusted most in, the Spartans, your fortune, and your hopes, so will you be most completely deceived.”
5.114
416
16th Year/Summer
MELOS
The Athenians begin their siege of Melos.
The Athenian envoys now returned to the army; and as the Melians showed no signs of yielding, the generals at once commenced hostilities, and built a wall around the Melians, dividing the work among the different states. [2] Subsequently the Athenians returned home with most of their army, leaving behind them a certain number of their own citizens and of the allies to keep guard by land and sea. The force thus left stayed on and besieged the place.
5.115
416
16th Year/Summer
PHLIUS
The Argives lose eighty men in an ambush.
PYLOS
Athenians from Pylos plunder so much from Sparta that she permits retaliation.
MELOS
The Melians sally out by night successfully
About the same time the Argives invaded the territory of Phlius and lost eighty men cut off in an ambush by the Phliasians and Argive exiles. [2] Meanwhile the Athenians at Pylos took so much plunder from the Spartans that the latter, although they still refrained from breaking off the treaty and going to war with Athens, yet proclaimed that any of their people that chose might plunder the Athenians. [3] The Corinthians also commenced hostilities with the Athenians for private quarrels of their own; but the rest of the Peloponnesians stayed quiet. [4] Meanwhile the Melians attacked by night and took the part of the Athenian lines near the market, and killed some of the men, and brought in corn and all else that they could find useful to them, and so returned and kept quiet, while the Athenians took measures to keep better guard in future. Summer was now over.
5.116
416/5
16th Year/Winter
ARGOS
Sparta threatens Argos but withdraws.
MELOS
After some treachery, the Melians surrender. The men are executed, the women and children enslaved.
The next winter the Spartans intended to invade the Argive territory, but arriving at the frontier found the sacrifices for crossing unfavorable, and went back again. This attempt of theirs made the Argives suspicious of certain of their fellow citizens, some of whom they arrested; others, however, escaped them. [2] About the same time the Melians again took another part of the Athenian lines which were but feebly garrisoned. [3] Reinforcements afterwards arriving from Athens in consequence, under the command of Philocrates son of Demeas, the siege was now pressed vigorously, and some treachery taking place inside, the Melians surrendered at discretion to the Athenians, [4] who put to death all the grown men whom they took, and sold the women and children for slaves, and subsequently sent out five hundred colonists and settled the place themselves.
The Pythian games were athletic and musical contests held at Delphi (Map 4.128, BX) every four years. See Appendix I, Greek Religious Festivals, ©5.
Delos: Map 5.3. The earlier purification of Delos was described in 3.104.
Atramyttium, in Asia Minor: Map 5.3. In 5.32 Thucydides says that the Delians were allowed to return to Delos, but some of them must have remained in Atramyttium because he mentions them again in 8.108 as residing there.
This Pharnaces was the Persian governor of the Hellespontine region (Map 5.3), whom the Peloponnesian envoys to the Persian king were trying to reach in 2.67 when the Thracians detained them and turned them over to the Athenians.
Thrace: Map 5.3. This continues the narrative of events in Thrace from 4.135.
Hoplites were heavily armed Greek infantrymen. See Appendix F, Land Warfare, ©2.
Scione: Map 5.3. The siege of Scione began in the summer of 423; see 4.131.
Torone: Map 5.3.
A trophy was set up by the victors after an ancient Greek battle. It usually consisted of a set of captured armor arranged on a pole that was raised on or near the battlefield.
Olynthus: Map 5.3.
Panactum: Map 5.3.
Boeotia: Map 5.3.
Mount Athos: Map 5.3.
Amphipolis: Map 5.3. The narrative of Cleon’s voyage will be continued in 5.6.
This episode resumes the narrative of events in Sicily from 4.65.
Leontini: Map 5.4.
Thucydides is referring to the Peace of Gela; see 4.65.
Bricinniae, possible location: Map 5.4.
Camarina: Map 5.4.
Agrigentum: Map
Gela: Map 5.4.
Catana: Map 5.4.
Locri (Epizephyrian): Map 5.4.
Messana: Map 5.4.
The pacification, or “reconciliation between the Sicilians,” took place in 424; see 4.65.
Hipponium: Map 5.4.
Medma: Map 5.4.
Torone, Map 5.7, BX. Cleon’s voyage is continued from 5.3.
Amphipolis: Map 5.7, AX.
Eion: Map 5.7, AX.
Andros: Map 5.3.
Stagirus: Map 5.7, AX.
Galepsus: Map 5.7, AY.
Thasos: Map 5.7, AY.
Odomantian territory, approximate location: Map 5.7, AY.
Cerdylium, a hill near Amphipolis: exact location unknown.
Argilus: Map 5.7, AX.
Edonian territory, approximate location: Map 5.7, AX.
Peltasts were lightly armed troops; see note 4.111.1a.
Myrcinus: Map 5.7, AX.
Chalcidice, Map 5.7, AX.
The Pylos campaign is described in 4.2-41. Cleon’s role in it begins at 4.21.3.
The Strymon River (Map 5.7, AX) flowed through Lake Cercinitis (Map 5.7, AX).
Lemnos: Map 5.7, BY.
Imbros: Map 5.7, AY.
This is one of several manifestations in Thucydides of Dorian contempt for Ionian valor; see Appendix H, Dialects and Ethnic Groups, ©8.
A Spartiate is a full citizen of Sparta and a member of the highest Spartan military caste.
Eion: Map 5.7, AX.
See the Introduction (sect. II.v) for a discussion of speeches in Thucydides.
Myrcinus: Map 5.7, AX.
Chalcidice: Map 5.7, AX.
For Hagnon’s foundation of Amphipolis in 437/6, see 4.102.3.
The return of the vanquished dead was part of the post-battle ritual of hoplite warfare. See Appendix F, Land Warfare, ©6.
Heraclea in Thracis: Map 5.7, BX. This city was last mentioned in 4.78 and appears once more in 5.52.4
Pierium, location unknown, but probably in southern Thessaly: Map 5.7, BX.
The Delium campaign is described in 4.89-101.
Pylos: Map 5.17, BX.
Cythera: Map 5.17, BY.
For information on Spartan Helots, see Appendix C, Spartan Institutions, ©3-4.
Argos: Map 5.17, BY.
Cynuria: Map 5.17, BY.
Thucydides is referring to the men captured on the island of Sphacteria in the final action at Pylos; see 4.31-38.
The text of Thucydides is corrupt at this point. (Translators generally seek to reproduce the sense of Plutarch, Nicias, 10.8.) See note at 5.34 for the Spartan population problem.
Delphi: Map 5.17, BX.
The demigod son of Zeus referred to here is Heracles.
Lycaeum: Map 5.17, BX. Pleistoanax’s withdrawal from Attica is described in 1.114.2.
Attica: Map 5.17, BY. The “cities” Sparta called on here were the members of the Peioponnesian League; see Appendix D, The Peloponnesian League, ©3-4.
Nisaea: Map 5.17, BY.
Plataea: Map 5.17, BY.
Boeotia: Map 5.17, BY.
Corinth: Map 5.17, BY.
Elis: Map 5.17, BX.
Megara: Map 5.17, BY.
Delphi: Map 5.17, BX.
Amphipolis: Map 5.17, AY.
By this clause the Spartans agree to return to Athens not only Amphipolis but certain other cities of the Thracian district of the Athenian Empire that had revolted. This involved not only the dissolution of the Chalcidian League, to which Thucydides refers by the term “Chalcidians,” but also the physical return to their own cities of the people who had migrated to Olynthus, Acanthus, or other large cities. For the cities that were to be restored to Athens, Sparta secured a guarantee of autonomy, provided that they paid to Athens the tribute assessed by Aristides in 478/7 at the foundation of the Delian League. The peace proved largely abortive. Thucydides mentions Aristides in 1.91.3.
Argilus, Stagirus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, Spartolus: Map 5.17, AY.
Mecyberna, Sane, Singos: Map 5.17, AY.
Panactum : Map 5.17, BY.
Coryphasium (Pylos): Map 5.17, BX; Cythera, Methana: Map 5.17, BY.
Pteleum, possible location: Map 5.17, AY.
Atalanta: Map 5.17, BY.
Scione: Map 5.17, AY.
Torone: Map 5.17, AY.
Sermylium: Map 5.17, AY.
Olympia: Map 5.17, BX.
Pythia (Delphi): Map 5.17, BX.
Isthmus of Corinth: Map 5.17, BY.
An ephor was one of the most powerful officials of the Spartan government; see Appendix C, Spartan Institutions, ©5. See also Appendix K, Calendars and Dating Systems, ©1-2.
Archons were the chief administrative officers of the Athenian government. Alcaeus was the Eponymous archon for that year; see Appendix A, The Athenian Government, ©6.
For the Festival of Dionysus, see Appendix I, Greek Religious Festivals, ©8.
See Appendix K, Classical Greek Calendars and Dating Systems, ©1-3, 8.
Amphipolis: Map 5.17, AY.
“The slave population” refers to the Spartan Helots (see 4.80.3 and 5.14.3 for Sparta’s constant fear of Helot revolt). Athenian slaves did desert later on in the war (see 7.27.5), but there are no indications that Athens at any time feared a revolt of its slaves as Sparta always feared an uprising of the Helots. See 4.80.2-5, 5.14.3, and Appendix C, Spartan Institutions, ©3-4.
The Dionysia at Athens and the Hyacinthia at Sparta were annual religious festivals; see Appendix I, Classical Greek Religious Festivals, ©8.
Thucydides refers to the men captured on the island of Sphacteria in the final action at Pylos; see 4.31-38.
This comment was certainly written after the end of the war in 404, although Thucydides’ narrative breaks off in 411; see the Introduction (sect. II. ii).
For the Mantinean War, see 5.64-74. Mantinea: Map 5.29.
For the Epidaurian War, see 5.53-80. Epidaurus: Map 5.29.
See the Introduction (sect. IV. i) for a discussion of Thucydides’ attitude to oracles and to religion.
Amphipolis: Map 5.17, AY. Thucydides describes his role in Brasidas’ attack on Amphipolis in 4.104.4-4.107.3.
This is one of Thucydides’ infrequent but informative remarks about himself. See the Introduction (sect. I) for a discussion of what is known about the life of Thucydides.
The claims of Argos to the “leadership” of the Peloponnesus (or the “supremacy” as Crawley translates the word) came to an abrupt halt in 546 B.C. when Sparta defeated the Argives at the battle of the Champions (described by Herodotus at i, 82). The Corinthians now seek to revive their hopes, as they had earlier threatened Sparta that they might (see 1.71.6ff). The Argives accepted the call (5.28.2 and 5.40.3) and before the battle of Mantinea their army was urged to fight for their ancient “supremacy” (5.69.1). Some Argives even proposed that the dispute over the border territory of Cynuria (Map 5.29) should be settled by another battle of the Champions (see 5.41.2).
Perhaps Thucydides reflects a Peioponnesian point of view here when he calls the subject of his history the “war against Athens,” as the Peloponnesians may well have done, instead of the “Peloponnesian War,” as the Athenians called it, and as it has come down to us.
Mantinea: Map 5.29.
Arcadia: Map 5.29.
These Mantinean fears were well founded; see 5.33.
The clause referred to was that of the peace treaty described in 5.18.11, not that of the Athens-Sparta alliance (5.23.6), which it seems to echo.
See Appendix D, The Peloponnesian League, ©5, for the “gods and heroes clause” of the treaties of the league.
Sollium, Anactorium: Map 5.29.
Thrace: Map 5.35, AY
Potidaea: Map 5.35, AY.
Elis: Map 5.29.
Lepreum: Map 5.29.
A talent is a unit of weight and money. See Appendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©5.
For the “Attic war,” see note 5.28.2a.
Being independent and paying tribute were not incompatible; see 5.18.5.
Chalcidice: Map 5.35, AY.
Megara: Map 5.29 and Map 5.35, BY.
This harsh punishment was carried out in accordance with the decree moved by Cleon in 4.122.6. Scione: Map 5.35, AY.
Delos: Map 5.3 5, BY. Some Delians must have remained in Atramyttium, however, where Thucydides describes them as residing in 8.108.4.
Delphi: Map 5.35, BX.
Phocis: Map 5.35, BY.
Locris (presumably Opuntian Locris): Map 5.35, BY.
Tegea: Map 5.29 and Map 5.35, BY.
I.e., for Corinth.
Arcadia: Map 5.29.
Parrhasia: Map 5.29.
Sciritis: Map 5.29.
Mantinea: Map 5.29.
When Brasidas took the seven hundred Helots to fight in Thrace (4.80) he inaugurated the radical policy change at Sparta of using Helots for military purposes rather than keeping them all in bitter subjection. Brasidas’ Helots were not liberated until their return, as this chapter shows, but in the meantime Sparta had further developed that policy by creating a special class of neodamodeis whose numbers seem to increase steadily in the succeeding half century (see 7.19.3). Their precise status remains unknown, and although the name implies that they were made part of the citizen body, most scholars reject this notion. See Appendix C, Spartan Institutions, ©9.
Lepreum: Map 5.35, BX. The settlement of these former Helots and neodamodeis in Lepreum was undoubtedly connected with Sparta’s contemporary difficulties with Elis(see5.31.2ff.).
Thucydides refers to the men captured on the island of Sphacteria in the final action at Pylos; see 4.31-38.
Spartan concern to recover the 120 Spartiates taken prisoner on Sphacteria is evident (4.41.3, 4.108.7, 4.117.1, and 5.15.1). The reason may lie in the serious decline in the number of Spartiates—from eight thousand in 480 (Herodotus, 7.234.2) to about two thousand five hundred in 418, judging from Thucydides’ comments in 5.68.3 (see note there), and to less than one thousand by 371 (according to Aristotle’sPolitics, 1270a 30ff). To be taken prisoner of war was a dreadful disgrace at Sparta, and the lenient treatment of the survivors of Sphacteria shows that they were badly needed at home.
The Dians lived at Dium on the Acte Peninsula of Chalcidice (Map 5.35, AY).
Thyssus: Map 5.35, AY.
Acte Peninsula: Map 5.35, AY.
Mount Athos, on the Acte Peninsula: Map 5.35, AY.
Amphipolis: Map 5.35, AY.
Pylos: Map 5.35, BX.
Panactum (Map 5.35, BY) was the Athenian border fort captured by the Boeotians in 422; see 5.3.5.
Cranae, on the island of Cephallenia: Map 5.35, BX.
Panactum: Map 5.35, BY.
Pylos: Map 5.35, BX.
Boeotarchs were the chief magistrates of the Boeotian Federal government. See note 5.38.2a.
Thrace: Map 5.35, AY.
The federal constitution of Boeotia of 396/5 was described by the Oxyrhynchus Historian (the unknown author of a major history of Greece written by a younger contemporary of Thucydides, of which fragments on papyri were discovered in the sands of Oxyrhynchus, Egypt). According to him, there were eleven “divisions” with a boeotarch for each (see 4.91); Thebes, the real power, constituted four divisions; all divisions contributed hoplites and cavalry to the federal army; every division was divided into four councils, each of which in turn served as the body preparing business for the whole division; and each division sent sixty representatives to a central Boeotian council. The Oxyrhynchus History does not say that this central council was divided into four, and many scholars incline to the view that Thucydides has here erred.
Mecyberna, in Chalcidice: Map 5.35, AY.
Olynthus: Map 5.35, AY. Mecyberna was the port city for Olynthus. The Olynthians, by expelling the Athenian garrison from it, signified their rejection of the peace treaty described in 5.18.5.
Panactum: Map 5.35, BY.
Pylos: Map 5.35, BX.
For details about Argive aspirations to the supremacy of the Peloponnesus, see note at 5.27.2e.
Cynuria: Map 5.45.
Thyrea and the possible location of Andiene: Map 5.45.
For the battle of the Champions in 546 B.C., see note at 5.27.2a.
Panactum, Boeotia: Map 5.45.
A proxenus, although a citizen and resident of his own state, served as a “friend or representative” (much like a modern honorary consul) of a foreign state.
Thucydides refers to the men captured on the island of Sphacteria in the final action at Pylos; see 4.31-38.
For the relationship between Endius and Alcibiades, see 8.6.3.
For the council and the assembly, see Appendix A, The Athenian Government.
Pylos: Map 5.45.
Panactum: Map 5.45.
Amphipolis: Map 5.35, AY.
The members of this alliance, Elis, Mantinea, Argos, and Athens, are shown on Map 5.45.
For the Aeginetan obol and the drachma, see Appendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©3.
Demiurgi: the title of high officers in a number of states, most of them Dorian.
The Olympic games and the great feast of the Panathenaea were quadrennial religious festivals; see Appendix I, Classical Greek Religious Festivals, ©5, 8.
A fragment of the Athenian copy of this treaty was found on the south slope of the Acropolis (IG i2 86 (GHI 72, not in ML)). There are only minor variations from the text given by Thucydides. See illustration 5.47.
The agora was a city’s main square for commercial, social, and political activity.
Olympia: Map 5.45. See Appendix I, Classical Greek Religious Festivals, ©5.
Fort Phrycus: site unknown.
Lepreum: Map 5.45.
At sixty minae to the talent, this sum amounts to more than thirty-three talents. See Appendix J, Classical Greek Currency, ©3-4.
For a discussion of the truces that were regularly declared during certain great religious festivals, see Appendix I, Classical Greek Religious Festivals, ©7.
Harpina: site unknown.
Heraclea in Trachis was last mentioned in 5.12. For its location, and that of Aenis of the Aenianians, Malis, and Thessaly: Map 5.54, AY. Dolopia (possible location): Map 5.54, AX,
Patrae: Map 5.54, AX.
Achaean Rhium: Map 5.54, AX.
Sicyon: Map 5.54, AY.
Epidaurus: Map 5.54, BY.
Aegina: Map 5.54, BY.
Point Scyllaeum: Map 5.54, BY; the strategic position of Epidaurus across Athenian lines of communication with Argos and its other allies can also be seen on Map 5.58.
Leuctra: the site of this Leuctra in the Peloponnesus is unknown. There is another Leuctra in Boeotia which is the site of a famous defeat inflicted upon the Spartans by the Boeotians in 371.
Mount Lycaeum: Map 5.54, BX.
The cities that sent contingents were probably those of the perioikoi, not those of the Peloponnesian League; see Appendix C, Spartan Institutions, ©9.
Only the Spartans among the Greeks are known to have conducted ritual sacrifices to determine the attitude of the gods to a planned military action.
Some scholars think that this means that the Argives extended the number of days before their Carneian truce by adding intercalated days; see Appendix K, Calendars and Dating Systems, ©7.
Caryae: Map 5.58, BY.
Pylos: Map 5.58, BX. These Helots, of course, were those who had escaped from Spartan rule and had sought refuge with the Messenians at Pylos.
This Cranae was on the island of Cephallenia (Map 5.54, AX), to which the Helots who had escaped to Pylos had been transferred in 421, at Sparta’s request; see 5.35.7.
Tegea: Map 5.58, AX.
Arcadia: Map 5.58, AX.
Phlius: Map 5.58, AX.
Methydrium in Arcadia: Map 5.58, AX.
The road from Argos to Nemea: for Nemea’s location, see Map 5.58, AY.
Pellene:Map5.58, AX.
Sicyon, Megara: Map 5.58, AY.
Saminthus in the Argive plain: exact site unknown.
Nemea: Map 5.58, AY
Proxenus: see note 5.43.2a or Glossary.
Arcadia, Peliene, and Phlius: Map 5.58, AX. Nemea, Boeotia, Corinth, Sicyon, and Megara: Map 5.58, AY.
Thucydides refers here to the bed of a usually dry watercourse—the Charadrus—that ran along the north and east sides of the city of Argos.
It would have been sacrilege, an insult to the gods, to harm someone who had taken refuge at an altar.
Orchomenos: Map 5.58, AX.
Arcadia: Map 5.58, AX.
Lepreum: Map 5.58, BX.
Orchomenos: Map 5.71, BX.
Maenalia, a district in Arcadia in which Orestheum was located. Orestheum: Map 5.58, BX.
Arcadia: Map 5.58, AX, and Map 5.71, BX.
Phocis: Map 5.71, AY.
Locris (Opuntian Locris): Map 5.71, AY.
Military officers and units of the Spartan army, see Appendix C, Spartan Institutions, ©7-9.
For the sciritae, see Appendix C, Spartan Institutions, ©9.
The return of these troops, the granting of freedom to these Helots among them, and their settlement with the neodamodeis in Lepreum was mentioned in 5.34.
Heraea, in Arcadia: Map 5.71, BX.
Maenalia, in Arcadia: Map 5.71, BX.
For the Argive picked force trained at public expense, see Appendix F, Ancient Greek Land Warfare, ©7.
Cleonae:Map5.71, BY.
Orneae:Map5.71, BX.
Taking into account the one sixth of the army sent home before the battle (5.64.3), and including the six hundred sciritae, one reaches by Thucydides’ method of calculation a total Spartan army in 418 of about five thousand. If the numbers of Spartiates and perioikoi (see Glossary) in the “companies” (lochoi) were roughly equal, one arrives at a total of no more than two thousand five hundred Spartiates in all. But some have argued that Thucydides has made a serious mistake. His calculations are based on an army of seven “companies,” but in Xenephon’s History of Greece, which covers the period from the end of Thucydides to 362 B.C., one encounters a Spartan army of six “divisions” (morae) with two “companies” in each. Was Thucydides unaware that there had been by 418 a great reform of the army? The answer greatly affects both our understanding of the developing Spartan demographic problem (see note 5.34.1b and Appendix G, Spartan Institutions ©7-9) and our estimate of Thucydides’ credibility. Scholarly opinion is much divided.
The three hundred so-called knights of the Spartan army were the king’s bodyguard, who fought on foot around him.
Tegea: Map 5.71, BX.
Argos: Map 5.71, BY.
Orneae: Map5.71, BX.
Cleonae: Map 5.71, BY.
Aegina: Map 5.71, BY. These Aeginitan casualties were Athenian settlers; Thucydides mentions the expulsion of the Aeginetans from their island and its resettlement by Athenians in 2.27 and 7.57.2.
Isthmus of Corinth: Map 5.71, AY.
For the Carneian festival, see Appendix I, Religious Festivals, ©8, and Appendix H, Dialects and Ethnic Groups, ©5.
The island referred to is Sphacteria at Pylos, where almost three hundred Spartans surrendered to Athenian forces in 425; see 4.31-40.
Cape Heraeum juts out northward into the sea from Old Epidaurus. Epidaurus: Map 5.71, BY.
Proxenus: see note 5.43.2a or Glossary. This Lichas may be remembered as the owner of victorious racehorces at Olympia; see 5.50.4.
Orchomenos: Map 5.71, BX.
Maenalia, in Arcadia: Map 5.71, BX.
The offering to the god refers here to the ostensible cause of the war between Argos and Epidaurus; see 5.53.1.
The “allies” here are probably the states of the Peloponnesian League, a Spartan-led coalition which Argos would not have been willing to join. See Appendix D, The Peloponnesian League, ©3, 5-6.
Thracian district, including Chalcidice: Map 5.82, AX, AY.
Perdiccas was the king of Macedonia (Map 5.82, AX).
This special treaty with Mantinea, now a Peloponnesian League ally (see Appendix D, The Peloponnesian League, ©5), is also mentioned in what is probably a near-contemporary treaty between Sparta and Aetolian Erxadieis.
Sicyon: Map 5.82, BX.
Dium in Mount Athos (on the Acte Peninsula): Map 5.82, AX.
“The Chalcidians” are the Chalcidian League referred to in note 5.18.5b; Chalcidice: Map 5.82, AX.
Achaea: Map 5.82, BX.
Hysiae: Map 5.82, BX.
Phlius: Map 5.82, BX.
Macedonia: Map 5.82, AX.
Chalcidice, Thrace: Map 5.82, AX, AY “The Chalcidians” here are the members of the Chalcidian League; see note 5.18.5b.
Amphipolis: Map 5.82, AX.
For what happened to these unfortunate hostages, see 6.61.3.
Melos: Map 5.82, BY. An earlier Athenian expedition to Melos was described in 3.91, but the background to this invasion is not fully explained by Thucydides.
Chios: Map 5.82, BY.
Lesbos: Map 5.82, AY.
Scholars have differed as to whether this statement could have been written only after 404, when Athens did get off more lightly than was to be expected. See the Introduction (sect. II.ii).
See the Introduction (sect. IV.i) for a discussion of Thucydides’ view of religion.
Cretan sea: Map 5.82, BY.
For another Athenian general’s attitude toward risk and disgrace, see 8.27.2-3.
Phlius: Map 5.82, BX.
Pylos: Map 5.82, BX.
Melos: Map 5.82, BY