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The History of the Peloponnesian War
Book 4 - Chapter XII
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Seventh Year of the War - Occupation of Pylos - Surrender of
the Spartan Army in Sphacteria
Next summer, about the time of the corn's coming into ear, ten
Syracusan and as many Locrian vessels sailed to Messina, in Sicily,
and occupied the town upon the invitation of the inhabitants; and
Messina revolted from the Athenians. The Syracusans contrived this
chiefly because they saw that the place afforded an approach to
Sicily, and feared that the Athenians might hereafter use it as a base
for attacking them with a larger force; the Locrians because they
wished to carry on hostilities from both sides of the strait and to
reduce their enemies, the people of Rhegium. Meanwhile, the Locrians
had invaded the Rhegian territory with all their forces, to prevent
their succouring Messina, and also at the instance of some exiles from
Rhegium who were with them; the long factions by which that town had
been torn rendering it for the moment incapable of resistance, and
thus furnishing an additional temptation to the invaders. After
devastating the country the Locrian land forces retired, their ships
remaining to guard Messina, while others were being manned for the
same destination to carry on the war from thence.
About the same time in the spring, before the corn was ripe, the
Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under Agis, the son
of Archidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians, and sat down and laid waste
the country. Meanwhile the Athenians sent off the forty ships which
they had been preparing to Sicily, with the remaining generals
Eurymedon and Sophocles; their colleague Pythodorus having already
preceded them thither. These had also instructions as they sailed by
to look to the Corcyraeans in the town, who were being plundered by the exiles
in the mountain. To support these exiles sixty Peloponnesian vessels
had lately sailed, it being thought that the famine raging in the
city would make it easy for them to reduce it.
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Demosthenes also, who had remained without employment since his
return from Acarnania, applied and obtained permission to use the fleet, if
he wished it, upon the coast of Peloponnese.
Off Laconia they heard that the Peloponnesian ships were already
at Corcyra, upon which Eurymedon and Sophocles wished to hasten to the
island, but Demosthenes required them first to touch at Pylos and do
what was wanted there, before continuing their voyage. While they were
making objections, a squall chanced to come on and carried the fleet
into Pylos. Demosthenes at once urged them to fortify the place, it
being for this that he had come on the voyage, and made them observe
there was plenty of stone and timber on the spot, and that the place
was strong by nature, and together with much of the country round
unoccupied; Pylos, or Coryphasium, as the Lacedaemonians call it,
being about forty-five miles distant from Sparta, and situated in
the old country of the Messenians. The commanders told him that
there was no lack of desert headlands in Peloponnese if he wished to
put the city to expense by occupying them. He, however, thought that
this place was distinguished from others of the kind by having a
harbour close by; while the Messenians, the old natives of the
country, speaking the same dialect as the Lacedaemonians, could do
them the greatest mischief by their incursions from it, and would at
the same time be a trusty garrison.
After speaking to the captains of companies on the subject, and
failing to persuade either the generals or the soldiers, he remained
inactive with the rest from stress of weather; until the soldiers
themselves wanting occupation were seized with a sudden impulse to
go round and fortify the place. Accordingly they set to work in
earnest, and having no iron tools, picked up stones, and put them
together as they happened to fit, and where mortar was needed, carried
it on their backs for want of hods, stooping down to make it stay
on, and clasping their hands together behind to prevent it falling
off; sparing no effort to be able to complete the most vulnerable
points before the arrival of the Lacedaemonians, most of the place
being sufficiently strong by nature without further fortifications.
Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians were celebrating a festival, and also
at first made light of the news, in the idea that whenever they
chose to take the field the place would be immediately evacuated by
the enemy or easily taken by force; the absence of their army before
Athens having also something to do with their delay. The Athenians
fortified the place on the land side, and where it most required it,
in six days, and leaving Demosthenes with five ships to garrison it,
with the main body of the fleet hastened on their voyage to Corcyra
and Sicily.
As soon as the Peloponnesians in Attica heard of the occupation of
Pylos, they hurried back home; the Lacedaemonians and their king
Agis thinking that the matter touched them nearly. Besides having made
their invasion early in the season, and while the corn was still
green, most of their troops were short of provisions: the weather also
was unusually bad for the time of year, and greatly distressed their
army. Many reasons thus combined to hasten their departure and to make
this invasion a very short one; indeed they only stayed fifteen days
in Attica.
About the same time the Athenian general Simonides getting
together a few Athenians from the garrisons, and a number of the
allies in those parts, took Eion in Thrace, a Mendaean colony and
hostile to Athens, by treachery, but had no sooner done so than the
Chalcidians and Bottiaeans came up and beat him out of it, with the
loss of many of his soldiers.
On the return of the Peloponnesians from Attica, the Spartans
themselves and the nearest of the Perioeci at once set out for
Pylos, the other Lacedaemonians following more slowly, as they had
just come in from another campaign. Word was also sent round
Peloponnese to come up as quickly as possible to Pylos; while the
sixty Peloponnesian ships were sent for from Corcyra, and being
dragged by their crews across the isthmus of Leucas, passed
unperceived by the Athenian squadron at Zacynthus, and reached
Pylos, where the land forces had arrived before them. Before the
Peloponnesian fleet sailed in, Demosthenes found time to send out
unobserved two ships to inform Eurymedon and the Athenians on board
the fleet at Zacynthus of the danger of Pylos and to summon them to
his assistance. While the ships hastened on their voyage in
obedience to the orders of Demosthenes, the Lacedaemonians prepared to
assault the fort by land and sea, hoping to capture with ease a work
constructed in haste, and held by a feeble garrison. Meanwhile, as
they expected the Athenian ships to arrive from Zacynthus, they
intended, if they failed to take the place before, to block up the
entrances of the harbour to prevent their being able to anchor
inside it. For the island of Sphacteria, stretching along in a line
close in front of the harbour, at once makes it safe and narrows its
entrances, leaving a passage for two ships on the side nearest Pylos
and the Athenian fortifications, and for eight or nine on that next
the rest of the mainland: for the rest, the island was entirely
covered with wood, and without paths through not being inhabited,
and about one mile and five furlongs in length. The inlets the
Lacedaemonians meant to close with a line of ships placed close
together, with their prows turned towards the sea, and, meanwhile,
fearing that the enemy might make use of the island to operate against
them, carried over some heavy infantry thither, stationing others
along the coast. By this means the island and the continent would be
alike hostile to the Athenians, as they would be unable to land on
either; and the shore of Pylos itself outside the inlet towards the
open sea having no harbour, and, therefore, presenting no point
which they could use as a base to relieve their countrymen, they,
the Lacedaemonians, without sea-fight or risk would in all probability
become masters of the place, occupied as it had been on the spur of
the moment, and unfurnished with provisions. This being determined,
they carried over to the island the heavy infantry, drafted by lot
from all the companies. Some others had crossed over before in
relief parties, but these last who were left there were four hundred
and twenty in number, with their Helot attendants, commanded by
Epitadas, son of Molobrus.
Meanwhile Demosthenes, seeing the Lacedaemonians about to attack him
by sea and land at once, himself was not idle. He drew up under the
fortification and enclosed in a stockade the galleys remaining to
him of those which had been left him, arming the sailors taken out
of them with poor shields made most of them of osier, it being
impossible to procure arms in such a desert place, and even these
having been obtained from a thirty-oared Messenian privateer and a
boat belonging to some Messenians who happened to have come to them.
Among these Messenians were forty heavy infantry, whom he made use
of with the rest. Posting most of his men, unarmed and armed, upon the
best fortified and strong points of the place towards the interior,
with orders to repel any attack of the land forces, he picked sixty
heavy infantry and a few archers from his whole force, and with
these went outside the wall down to the sea, where he thought that the
enemy would most likely attempt to land. Although the ground was
difficult and rocky, looking towards the open sea, the fact that
this was the weakest part of the wall would, he thought, encourage
their ardour, as the Athenians, confident in their naval
superiority, had here paid little attention to their defences, and the
enemy if he could force a landing might feel secure of taking the
place. At this point, accordingly, going down to the water's edge,
he posted his heavy infantry to prevent, if possible, a landing, and
encouraged them in the following terms:
"Soldiers and comrades in this adventure, I hope that none of you in
our present strait will think to show his wit by exactly calculating
all the perils that encompass us, but that you will rather hasten to
close with the enemy, without staying to count the odds, seeing in
this your best chance of safety. In emergencies like ours
calculation is out of place; the sooner the danger is faced the
better. To my mind also most of the chances are for us, if we will
only stand fast and not throw away our advantages, overawed by the
numbers of the enemy. One of the points in our favour is the
awkwardness of the landing. This, however, only helps us if we stand
our ground. If we give way it will be practicable enough, in spite
of its natural difficulty, without a defender; and the enemy will
instantly become more formidable from the difficulty he will have in
retreating, supposing that we succeed in repulsing him, which we shall
find it easier to do, while he is on board his ships, than after he
has landed and meets us on equal terms. As to his numbers, these
need not too much alarm you. Large as they may be he can only engage
in small detachments, from the impossibility of bringing to.
Besides, the numerical superiority that we have to meet is not that of
an army on land with everything else equal, but of troops on board
ship, upon an element where many favourable accidents are required
to act with effect. I therefore consider that his difficulties may
be fairly set against our numerical deficiencies, and at the same time
I charge you, as Athenians who know by experience what landing from
ships on a hostile territory means, and how impossible it is to
drive back an enemy determined enough to stand his ground and not to
be frightened away by the surf and the terrors of the ships sailing
in, to stand fast in the present emergency, beat back the enemy at the
water's edge, and save yourselves and the place."
Thus encouraged by Demosthenes, the Athenians felt more confident,
and went down to meet the enemy, posting themselves along the edge
of the sea. The Lacedaemonians now put themselves in movement and
simultaneously assaulted the fortification with their land forces
and with their ships, forty-three in number, under their admiral,
Thrasymelidas, son of Cratesicles, a Spartan, who made his attack just
where Demosthenes expected. The Athenians had thus to defend
themselves on both sides, from the land and from the sea; the enemy
rowing up in small detachments, the one relieving the other--it being
impossible for many to bring to at once--and showing great ardour and
cheering each other on, in the endeavour to force a passage and to
take the fortification. He who most distinguished himself was
Brasidas. Captain of a galley, and seeing that the captains and
steersmen, impressed by the difficulty of the position, hung back even
where a landing might have seemed possible, for fear of wrecking their
vessels, he shouted out to them, that they must never allow the
enemy to fortify himself in their country for the sake of saving
timber, but must shiver their vessels and force a landing; and bade
the allies, instead of hesitating in such a moment to sacrifice
their ships for Lacedaemon in return for her many benefits, to run
them boldly aground, land in one way or another, and make themselves
masters of the place and its garrison.
Not content with this exhortation, he forced his own steersman to
run his ship ashore, and stepping on to the gangway, was
endeavouring to land, when he was cut down by the Athenians, and after
receiving many wounds fainted away. Falling into the bows, his
shield slipped off his arm into the sea, and being thrown ashore was
picked up by the Athenians, and afterwards used for the trophy which
they set up for this attack. The rest also did their best, but were
not able to land, owing to the difficulty of the ground and the
unflinching tenacity of the Athenians. It was a strange reversal of
the order of things for Athenians to be fighting from the land, and
from Laconian land too, against Lacedaemonians coming from the sea;
while Lacedaemonians were trying to land from shipboard in their own
country, now become hostile, to attack Athenians, although the
former were chiefly famous at the time as an inland people and
superior by land, the latter as a maritime people with a navy that had
no equal.
After continuing their attacks during that day and most of the next,
the Peloponnesians desisted, and the day after sent some of their
ships to Asine for timber to make engines, hoping to take by their
aid, in spite of its height, the wall opposite the harbour, where
the landing was easiest. At this moment the Athenian fleet from
Zacynthus arrived, now numbering fifty sail, having been reinforced by
some of the ships on guard at Naupactus and by four Chian vessels.
Seeing the coast and the island both crowded with heavy infantry,
and the hostile ships in harbour showing no signs of sailing out, at a
loss where to anchor, they sailed for the moment to the desert
island of Prote, not far off, where they passed the night. The next
day they got under way in readiness to engage in the open sea if the
enemy chose to put out to meet them, being determined in the event
of his not doing so to sail in and attack him. The Lacedaemonians
did not put out to sea, and having omitted to close the inlets as they
had intended, remained quiet on shore, engaged in manning their
ships and getting ready, in the case of any one sailing in, to fight
in the harbour, which is a fairly large one.
Perceiving this, the Athenians advanced against them by each
inlet, and falling on the enemy's fleet, most of which was by this
time afloat and in line, at once put it to flight, and giving chase as
far as the short distance allowed, disabled a good many vessels and
took five, one with its crew on board; dashing in at the rest that had
taken refuge on shore, and battering some that were still being
manned, before they could put out, and lashing on to their own ships
and towing off empty others whose crews had fled. At this sight the
Lacedaemonians, maddened by a disaster which cut off their men on
the island, rushed to the rescue, and going into the sea with their
heavy armour, laid hold of the ships and tried to drag them back, each
man thinking that success depended on his individual exertions.
Great was the melee, and quite in contradiction to the naval tactics
usual to the two combatants; the Lacedaemonians in their excitement
and dismay being actually engaged in a sea-fight on land, while the
victorious Athenians, in their eagerness to push their success as
far as possible, were carrying on a land-fight from their ships. After
great exertions and numerous wounds on both sides they separated,
the Lacedaemonians saving their empty ships, except those first taken;
and both parties returning to their camp, the Athenians set up a
trophy, gave back the dead, secured the wrecks, and at once began to
cruise round and jealously watch the island, with its intercepted
garrison, while the Peloponnesians on the mainland, whose
contingents had now all come up, stayed where they were before Pylos.
When the news of what had happened at Pylos reached Sparta, the
disaster was thought so serious that the Lacedaemonians resolved
that the authorities should go down to the camp, and decide on the
spot what was best to be done. There, seeing that it was impossible to
help their men, and not wishing to risk their being reduced by
hunger or overpowered by numbers, they determined, with the consent of
the Athenian generals, to conclude an armistice at Pylos and send
envoys to Athens to obtain a convention, and to endeavour to get
back their men as quickly as possible.
The generals accepting their offers, an armistice was concluded upon
the terms following:
That the Lacedaemonians should bring to Pylos and deliver up to
the Athenians the ships that had fought in the late engagement, and
all in Laconia that were vessels of war, and should make no attack
on the fortification either by land or by sea.
That the Athenians should allow the Lacedaemonians on the mainland
to send to the men in the island a certain fixed quantity of corn
ready kneaded, that is to say, two quarts of barley meal, one pint
of wine, and a piece of meat for each man, and half the same
quantity for a servant.
That this allowance should be sent in under the eyes of the
Athenians, and that no boat should sail to the island except openly.
That the Athenians should continue to the island same as before,
without however landing upon it, and should refrain from attacking the
Peloponnesian troops either by land or by sea.
That if either party should infringe any of these terms in the
slightest particular, the armistice should be at once void.
That the armistice should hold good until the return of the
Lacedaemonian envoys from Athens--the Athenians sending them thither
in a galley and bringing them back again--and upon the arrival of the
envoys should be at an end, and the ships be restored by the Athenians
in the same state as they received them.
Such were the terms of the armistice, and the ships were delivered
over to the number of sixty, and the envoys sent off accordingly.
Arrived at Athens they spoke as follows:
"Athenians, the Lacedaemonians sent us to try to find some way of
settling the affair of our men on the island, that shall be at once
satisfactory to our interests, and as consistent with our dignity in
our misfortune as circumstances permit. We can venture to speak at
some length without any departure from the habit of our country. Men
of few words where many are not wanted, we can be less brief when
there is a matter of importance to be illustrated and an end to be
served by its illustration. Meanwhile we beg you to take what we may
say, not in a hostile spirit, nor as if we thought you ignorant and
wished to lecture you, but rather as a suggestion on the best course
to be taken, addressed to intelligent judges. You can now, if you
choose, employ your present success to advantage, so as to keep what
you have got and gain honour and reputation besides, and you can avoid
the mistake of those who meet with an extraordinary piece of good
fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp continually at something
further, through having already succeeded without expecting it.
While those who have known most vicissitudes of good and bad, have
also justly least faith in their prosperity; and to teach your city
and ours this lesson experience has not been wanting.
"To be convinced of this you have only to look at our present
misfortune. What power in Hellas stood higher than we did? and yet
we are come to you, although we formerly thought ourselves more able
to grant what we are now here to ask. Nevertheless, we have not been
brought to this by any decay in our power, or through having our heads
turned by aggrandizement; no, our resources are what they have
always been, and our error has been an error of judgment, to which all
are equally liable. Accordingly, the prosperity which your city now
enjoys, and the accession that it has lately received, must not make
you fancy that fortune will be always with you. Indeed sensible men
are prudent enough to treat their gains as precarious, just as they
would also keep a clear head in adversity, and think that war, so
far from staying within the limit to which a combatant may wish to
confine it, will run the course that its chances prescribe; and
thus, not being puffed up by confidence in military success, they
are less likely to come to grief, and most ready to make peace, if
they can, while their fortune lasts. This, Athenians, you have a
good opportunity to do now with us, and thus to escape the possible
disasters which may follow upon your refusal, and the consequent
imputation of having owed to accident even your present advantages,
when you might have left behind you a reputation for power and
wisdom which nothing could endanger.
"The Lacedaemonians accordingly invite you to make a treaty and to
end the war, and offer peace and alliance and the most friendly and
intimate relations in every way and on every occasion between us;
and in return ask for the men on the island, thinking it better for
both parties not to stand out to the end, on the chance of some
favourable accident enabling the men to force their way out, or of
their being compelled to succumb under the pressure of blockade.
Indeed if great enmities are ever to be really settled, we think it
will be, not by the system of revenge and military success, and by
forcing an opponent to swear to a treaty to his disadvantage, but when
the more fortunate combatant waives these his privileges, to be guided
by gentler feelings conquers his rival in generosity, and accords
peace on more moderate conditions than he expected. From that
moment, instead of the debt of revenge which violence must entail, his
adversary owes a debt of generosity to be paid in kind, and is
inclined by honour to stand to his agreement. And men oftener act in
this manner towards their greatest enemies than where the quarrel is
of less importance; they are also by nature as glad to give way to
those who first yield to them, as they are apt to be provoked by
arrogance to risks condemned by their own judgment.
"To apply this to ourselves: if peace was ever desirable for both
parties, it is surely so at the present moment, before anything
irremediable befall us and force us to hate you eternally,
personally as well as politically, and you to miss the advantages that
we now offer you. While the issue is still in doubt, and you have
reputation and our friendship in prospect, and we the compromise of
our misfortune before anything fatal occur, let us be reconciled,
and for ourselves choose peace instead of war, and grant to the rest
of the Hellenes a remission from their sufferings, for which be sure
they will think they have chiefly you to thank. The war that they
labour under they know not which began, but the peace that concludes
it, as it depends on your decision, will by their gratitude be laid to
your door. By such a decision you can become firm friends with the
Lacedaemonians at their own invitation, which you do not force from
them, but oblige them by accepting. And from this friendship
consider the advantages that are likely to follow: when Attica and
Sparta are at one, the rest of Hellas, be sure, will remain in
respectful inferiority before its heads."
Such were the words of the Lacedaemonians, their idea being that the
Athenians, already desirous of a truce and only kept back by their
opposition, would joyfully accept a peace freely offered, and give
back the men. The Athenians, however, having the men on the island,
thought that the treaty would be ready for them whenever they chose to
make it, and grasped at something further. Foremost to encourage
them in this policy was Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, a popular leader
of the time and very powerful with the multitude, who persuaded them
to answer as follows: First, the men in the island must surrender
themselves and their arms and be brought to Athens. Next, the
Lacedaemonians must restore Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and Achaia, all
places acquired not by arms, but by the previous convention, under
which they had been ceded by Athens herself at a moment of disaster,
when a truce was more necessary to her than at present. This done they
might take back their men, and make a truce for as long as both
parties might agree.
To this answer the envoys made no reply, but asked that
commissioners might be chosen with whom they might confer on each
point, and quietly talk the matter over and try to come to some
agreement. Hereupon Cleon violently assailed them, saying that he knew
from the first that they had no right intentions, and that it was
clear enough now by their refusing to speak before the people, and
wanting to confer in secret with a committee of two or three. No, if
they meant anything honest let them say it out before all. The
Lacedaemonians, however, seeing that whatever concessions they might
be prepared to make in their misfortune, it was impossible for them to
speak before the multitude and lose credit with their allies for a
negotiation which might after all miscarry, and on the other hand,
that the Athenians would never grant what they asked upon moderate
terms, returned from Athens without having effected anything.
Their arrival at once put an end to the armistice at Pylos, and
the Lacedaemonians asked back their ships according to the convention.
The Athenians, however, alleged an attack on the fort in contravention
of the truce, and other grievances seemingly not worth mentioning, and
refused to give them back, insisting upon the clause by which the
slightest infringement made the armistice void. The Lacedaemonians,
after denying the contravention and protesting against their bad faith
in the matter of the ships, went away and earnestly addressed
themselves to the war. Hostilities were now carried on at Pylos upon
both sides with vigour. The Athenians cruised round the island all day
with two ships going different ways; and by night, except on the
seaward side in windy weather, anchored round it with their whole
fleet, which, having been reinforced by twenty ships from Athens
come to aid in the blockade, now numbered seventy sail; while the
Peloponnesians remained encamped on the continent, making attacks on
the fort, and on the look-out for any opportunity which might offer
itself for the deliverance of their men.
Meanwhile the Syracusans and their allies in Sicily had brought up
to the squadron guarding Messina the reinforcement which we left
them preparing, and carried on the war from thence, incited chiefly by
the Locrians from hatred of the Rhegians, whose territory they had
invaded with all their forces. The Syracusans also wished to try their
fortune at sea, seeing that the Athenians had only a few ships
actually at Rhegium, and hearing that the main fleet destined to
join them was engaged in blockading the island. A naval victory,
they thought, would enable them to blockade Rhegium by sea and land,
and easily to reduce it; a success which would at once place their
affairs upon a solid basis, the promontory of Rhegium in Italy and
Messina in Sicily being so near each other that it would be impossible
for the Athenians to cruise against them and command the strait. The
strait in question consists of the sea between Rhegium and Messina, at
the point where Sicily approaches nearest to the continent, and is the
Charybdis through which the story makes Ulysses sail; and the
narrowness of the passage and the strength of the current that pours
in from the vast Tyrrhenian and Sicilian mains, have rightly given
it a bad reputation.
In this strait the Syracusans and their allies were compelled to
fight, late in the day, about the passage of a boat, putting out
with rather more than thirty ships against sixteen Athenian and
eight Rhegian vessels. Defeated by the Athenians they hastily set off,
each for himself, to their own stations at Messina and Rhegium, with
the loss of one ship; night coming on before the battle was
finished. After this the Locrians retired from the Rhegian
territory, and the ships of the Syracusans and their allies united and
came to anchor at Cape Pelorus, in the territory of Messina, where
their land forces joined them. Here the Athenians and Rhegians
sailed up, and seeing the ships unmanned, made an attack, in which
they in their turn lost one vessel, which was caught by a grappling
iron, the crew saving themselves by swimming. After this the
Syracusans got on board their ships, and while they were being towed
alongshore to Messina, were again attacked by the Athenians, but
suddenly got out to sea and became the assailants, and caused them
to lose another vessel. After thus holding their own in the voyage
alongshore and in the engagement as above described, the Syracusans
sailed on into the harbour of Messina.
Meanwhile the Athenians, having received warning that Camarina was
about to be betrayed to the Syracusans by Archias and his party,
sailed thither; and the Messinese took this opportunity to attack by
sea and land with all their forces their Chalcidian neighbour,
Naxos. The first day they forced the Naxians to keep their walls,
and laid waste their country; the next they sailed round with their
ships, and laid waste their land on the river Akesines, while their
land forces menaced the city. Meanwhile the Sicels came down from
the high country in great numbers, to aid against the Messinese; and
the Naxians, elated at the sight, and animated by a belief that the
Leontines and their other Hellenic allies were coming to their
support, suddenly sallied out from the town, and attacked and routed
the Messinese, killing more than a thousand of them; while the
remainder suffered severely in their retreat home, being attacked by
the barbarians on the road, and most of them cut off. The ships put in
to Messina, and afterwards dispersed for their different homes. The
Leontines and their allies, with the Athenians, upon this at once
turned their arms against the now weakened Messina, and attacked,
the Athenians with their ships on the side of the harbour, and the
land forces on that of the town. The Messinese, however, sallying
out with Demoteles and some Locrians who had been left to garrison the
city after the disaster, suddenly attacked and routed most of the
Leontine army, killing a great number; upon seeing which the Athenians
landed from their ships, and falling on the Messinese in disorder
chased them back into the town, and setting up a trophy retired to
Rhegium. After this the Hellenes in Sicily continued to make war on
each other by land, without the Athenians.
Meanwhile the Athenians at Pylos were still besieging the
Lacedaemonians in the island, the Peloponnesian forces on the
continent remaining where they were. The blockade was very laborious
for the Athenians from want of food and water; there was no spring
except one in the citadel of Pylos itself, and that not a large one,
and most of them were obliged to grub up the shingle on the sea
beach and drink such water as they could find. They also suffered from
want of room, being encamped in a narrow space; and as there was no
anchorage for the ships, some took their meals on shore in their turn,
while the others were anchored out at sea. But their greatest
discouragement arose from the unexpectedly long time which it took
to reduce a body of men shut up in a desert island, with only brackish
water to drink, a matter which they had imagined would take them
only a few days. The fact was that the Lacedaemonians had made
advertisement for volunteers to carry into the island ground corn,
wine, cheese, and any other food useful in a siege; high prices
being offered, and freedom promised to any of the Helots who should
succeed in doing so. The Helots accordingly were most forward to
engage in this risky traffic, putting off from this or that part of
Peloponnese, and running in by night on the seaward side of the
island. They were best pleased, however, when they could catch a
wind to carry them in. It was more easy to elude the look-out of the
galleys, when it blew from the seaward, as it became impossible for
them to anchor round the island; while the Helots had their boats
rated at their value in money, and ran them ashore, without caring how
they landed, being sure to find the soldiers waiting for them at the
landing-places. But all who risked it in fair weather were taken.
Divers also swam in under water from the harbour, dragging by a cord
in skins poppyseed mixed with honey, and bruised linseed; these at
first escaped notice, but afterwards a look-out was kept for them.
In short, both sides tried every possible contrivance, the one to
throw in provisions, and the other to prevent their introduction.
At Athens, meanwhile, the news that the army was in great
distress, and that corn found its way in to the men in the island,
caused no small perplexity; and the Athenians began to fear that
winter might come on and find them still engaged in the blockade. They
saw that the convoying of provisions round Peloponnese would be then
impossible. The country offered no resources in itself, and even in
summer they could not send round enough. The blockade of a place
without harbours could no longer be kept up; and the men would
either escape by the siege being abandoned, or would watch for bad
weather and sail out in the boats that brought in their corn. What
caused still more alarm was the attitude of the Lacedaemonians, who
must, it was thought by the Athenians, feel themselves on strong
ground not to send them any more envoys; and they began to repent
having rejected the treaty. Cleon, perceiving the disfavour with which
he was regarded for having stood in the way of the convention, now
said that their informants did not speak the truth; and upon the
messengers recommending them, if they did not believe them, to send
some commissioners to see, Cleon himself and Theagenes were chosen
by the Athenians as commissioners. Aware that he would now be
obliged either to say what had been already said by the men whom he
was slandering, or be proved a liar if he said the contrary, he told
the Athenians, whom he saw to be not altogether disinclined for a
fresh expedition, that instead of sending and wasting their time and
opportunities, if they believed what was told them, they ought to sail
against the men. And pointing at Nicias, son of Niceratus, then
general, whom he hated, he tauntingly said that it would be easy, if
they had men for generals, to sail with a force and take those in
the island, and that if he had himself been in command, he would
have done it.
Nicias, seeing the Athenians murmuring against Cleon for not sailing
now if it seemed to him so easy, and further seeing himself the object
of attack, told him that for all that the generals cared, he might
take what force he chose and make the attempt. At first Cleon
fancied that this resignation was merely a figure of speech, and was
ready to go, but finding that it was seriously meant, he drew back,
and said that Nicias, not he, was general, being now frightened, and
having never supposed that Nicias would go so far as to retire in
his favour. Nicias, however, repeated his offer, and resigned the
command against Pylos, and called the Athenians to witness that he did
so. And as the multitude is wont to do, the more Cleon shrank from the
expedition and tried to back out of what he had said, the more they
encouraged Nicias to hand over his command, and clamoured at Cleon
to go. At last, not knowing how to get out of his words, he
undertook the expedition, and came forward and said that he was not
afraid of the Lacedaemonians, but would sail without taking any one
from the city with him, except the Lemnians and Imbrians that were
at Athens, with some targeteers that had come up from Aenus, and
four hundred archers from other quarters. With these and the
soldiers at Pylos, he would within twenty days either bring the
Lacedaemonians alive, or kill them on the spot. The Athenians could
not help laughing at his fatuity, while sensible men comforted
themselves with the reflection that they must gain in either
circumstance; either they would be rid of Cleon, which they rather
hoped, or if disappointed in this expectation, would reduce the
Lacedaemonians.
After he had settled everything in the assembly, and the Athenians
had voted him the command of the expedition, he chose as his colleague
Demosthenes, one of the generals at Pylos, and pushed forward the
preparations for his voyage. His choice fell upon Demosthenes
because he heard that he was contemplating a descent on the island;
the soldiers distressed by the difficulties of the position, and
rather besieged than besiegers, being eager to fight it out, while the
firing of the island had increased the confidence of the general. He
had been at first afraid, because the island having never been
inhabited was almost entirely covered with wood and without paths,
thinking this to be in the enemy's favour, as he might land with a
large force, and yet might suffer loss by an attack from an unseen
position. The mistakes and forces of the enemy the wood would in a
great measure conceal from him, while every blunder of his own
troops would be at once detected, and they would be thus able to
fall upon him unexpectedly just where they pleased, the attack being
always in their power. If, on the other hand, he should force them
to engage in the thicket, the smaller number who knew the country
would, he thought, have the advantage over the larger who were
ignorant of it, while his own army might be cut off imperceptibly,
in spite of its numbers, as the men would not be able to see where
to succour each other.
The Aetolian disaster, which had been mainly caused by the wood, had
not a little to do with these reflections. Meanwhile, one of the
soldiers who were compelled by want of room to land on the extremities
of the island and take their dinners, with outposts fixed to prevent a
surprise, set fire to a little of the wood without meaning to do so;
and as it came on to blow soon afterwards, almost the whole was
consumed before they were aware of it. Demosthenes was now able for
the first time to see how numerous the Lacedaemonians really were,
having up to this moment been under the impression that they took in
provisions for a smaller number; he also saw that the Athenians
thought success important and were anxious about it, and that it was
now easier to land on the island, and accordingly got ready for the
attempt, sent for troops from the allies in the neighbourhood, and
pushed forward his other preparations. At this moment Cleon arrived at
Pylos with the troops which he had asked for, having sent on word to
say that he was coming. The first step taken by the two generals after
their meeting was to send a herald to the camp on the mainland, to ask
if they were disposed to avoid all risk and to order the men on the
island to surrender themselves and their arms, to be kept in gentle
custody until some general convention should be concluded.
On the rejection of this proposition the generals let one day
pass, and the next, embarking all their heavy infantry on board a
few ships, put out by night, and a little before dawn landed on both
sides of the island from the open sea and from the harbour, being
about eight hundred strong, and advanced with a run against the
first post in the island.
The enemy had distributed his force as follows: In this first post
there were about thirty heavy infantry; the centre and most level
part, where the water was, was held by the main body, and by
Epitadas their commander; while a small party guarded the very end
of the island, towards Pylos, which was precipitous on the sea-side
and very difficult to attack from the land, and where there was also a
sort of old fort of stones rudely put together, which they thought
might be useful to them, in case they should be forced to retreat.
Such was their disposition.
The advanced post thus attacked by the Athenians was at once put
to the sword, the men being scarcely out of bed and still arming,
the landing having taken them by surprise, as they fancied the ships
were only sailing as usual to their stations for the night. As soon as
day broke, the rest of the army landed, that is to say, all the
crews of rather more than seventy ships, except the lowest rank of
oars, with the arms they carried, eight hundred archers, and as many
targeteers, the Messenian reinforcements, and all the other troops
on duty round Pylos, except the garrison on the fort. The tactics of
Demosthenes had divided them into companies of two hundred, more or
less, and made them occupy the highest points in order to paralyse the
enemy by surrounding him on every side and thus leaving him without
any tangible adversary, exposed to the cross-fire of their host; plied
by those in his rear if he attacked in front, and by those on one
flank if he moved against those on the other. In short, wherever he
went he would have the assailants behind him, and these light-armed
assailants, the most awkward of all; arrows, darts, stones, and slings
making them formidable at a distance, and there being no means of
getting at them at close quarters, as they could conquer flying, and
the moment their pursuer turned they were upon him. Such was the
idea that inspired Demosthenes in his conception of the descent, and
presided over its execution.
Meanwhile the main body of the troops in the island (that under
Epitadas), seeing their outpost cut off and an army advancing
against them, serried their ranks and pressed forward to close with
the Athenian heavy infantry in front of them, the light troops being
upon their flanks and rear. However, they were not able to engage or
to profit by their superior skill, the light troops keeping them in
check on either side with their missiles, and the heavy infantry
remaining stationary instead of advancing to meet them; and although
they routed the light troops wherever they ran up and approached too
closely, yet they retreated fighting, being lightly equipped, and
easily getting the start in their flight, from the difficult and
rugged nature of the ground, in an island hitherto desert, over
which the Lacedaemonians could not pursue them with their heavy
armour.
After this skirmishing had lasted some little while, the
Lacedaemonians became unable to dash out with the same rapidity as
before upon the points attacked, and the light troops finding that
they now fought with less vigour, became more confident. They could
see with their own eyes that they were many times more numerous than
the enemy; they were now more familiar with his aspect and found him
less terrible, the result not having justified the apprehensions which
they had suffered, when they first landed in slavish dismay at the
idea of attacking Lacedaemonians; and accordingly their fear
changing to disdain, they now rushed all together with loud shouts
upon them, and pelted them with stones, darts, and arrows, whichever
came first to hand. The shouting accompanying their onset confounded
the Lacedaemonians, unaccustomed to this mode of fighting; dust rose
from the newly burnt wood, and it was impossible to see in front of
one with the arrows and stones flying through clouds of dust from
the hands of numerous assailants. The Lacedaemonians had now to
sustain a rude conflict; their caps would not keep out the arrows,
darts had broken off in the armour of the wounded, while they
themselves were helpless for offence, being prevented from using their
eyes to see what was before them, and unable to hear the words of
command for the hubbub raised by the enemy; danger encompassed them on
every side, and there was no hope of any means of defence or safety.
At last, after many had been already wounded in the confined space
in which they were fighting, they formed in close order and retired on
the fort at the end of the island, which was not far off, and to their
friends who held it. The moment they gave way, the light troops became
bolder and pressed upon them, shouting louder than ever, and killed as
many as they came up with in their retreat, but most of the
Lacedaemonians made good their escape to the fort, and with the
garrison in it ranged themselves all along its whole extent to repulse
the enemy wherever it was assailable. The Athenians pursuing, unable
to surround and hem them in, owing to the strength of the ground,
attacked them in front and tried to storm the position. For a long
time, indeed for most of the day, both sides held out against all
the torments of the battle, thirst, and sun, the one endeavouring to
drive the enemy from the high ground, the other to maintain himself
upon it, it being now more easy for the Lacedaemonians to defend
themselves than before, as they could not be surrounded on the flanks.
The struggle began to seem endless, when the commander of the
Messenians came to Cleon and Demosthenes, and told them that they were
losing their labour: but if they would give him some archers and light
troops to go round on the enemy's rear by a way he would undertake
to find, he thought he could force the approach. Upon receiving what
he asked for, he started from a point out of sight in order not to
be seen by the enemy, and creeping on wherever the precipices of the
island permitted, and where the Lacedaemonians, trusting to the
strength of the ground, kept no guard, succeeded after the greatest
difficulty in getting round without their seeing him, and suddenly
appeared on the high ground in their rear, to the dismay of the
surprised enemy and the still greater joy of his expectant friends.
The Lacedaemonians thus placed between two fires, and in the same
dilemma, to compare small things with great, as at Thermopylae,
where the defenders were cut off through the Persians getting round by
the path, being now attacked in front and behind, began to give way,
and overcome by the odds against them and exhausted from want of food,
retreated.
The Athenians were already masters of the approaches when Cleon
and Demosthenes perceiving that, if the enemy gave way a single step
further, they would be destroyed by their soldiery, put a stop to
the battle and held their men back; wishing to take the Lacedaemonians
alive to Athens, and hoping that their stubbornness might relax on
hearing the offer of terms, and that they might surrender and yield to
the present overwhelming danger. Proclamation was accordingly made, to
know if they would surrender themselves and their arms to the
Athenians to be dealt at their discretion.
The Lacedaemonians hearing this offer, most of them lowered their
shields and waved their hands to show that they accepted it.
Hostilities now ceased, and a parley was held between Cleon and
Demosthenes and Styphon, son of Pharax, on the other side; since
Epitadas, the first of the previous commanders, had been killed, and
Hippagretas, the next in command, left for dead among the slain,
though still alive, and thus the command had devolved upon Styphon
according to the law, in case of anything happening to his
superiors. Styphon and his companions said they wished to send a
herald to the Lacedaemonians on the mainland, to know what they were
to do. The Athenians would not let any of them go, but themselves
called for heralds from the mainland, and after questions had been
carried backwards and forwards two or three times, the last man that
passed over from the Lacedaemonians on the continent brought this
message: "The Lacedaemonians bid you to decide for yourselves so
long as you do nothing dishonourable"; upon which after consulting
together they surrendered themselves and their arms. The Athenians,
after guarding them that day and night, the next morning set up a
trophy in the island, and got ready to sail, giving their prisoners in
batches to be guarded by the captains of the galleys; and the
Lacedaemonians sent a herald and took up their dead. The number of the
killed and prisoners taken in the island was as follows: four
hundred and twenty heavy infantry had passed over; three hundred all
but eight were taken alive to Athens; the rest were killed. About a
hundred and twenty of the prisoners were Spartans. The Athenian loss
was small, the battle not having been fought at close quarters.
The blockade in all, counting from the fight at sea to the battle in
the island, had lasted seventy-two days. For twenty of these, during
the absence of the envoys sent to treat for peace, the men had
provisions given them, for the rest they were fed by the smugglers.
Corn and other victual was found in the island; the commander Epitadas
having kept the men upon half rations. The Athenians and
Peloponnesians now each withdrew their forces from Pylos, and went
home, and crazy as Cleon's promise was, he fulfilled it, by bringing
the men to Athens within the twenty days as he had pledged himself
to do.
Nothing that happened in the war surprised the Hellenes so much as
this. It was the opinion that no force or famine could make the
Lacedaemonians give up their arms, but that they would fight on as
they could, and die with them in their hands: indeed people could
scarcely believe that those who had surrendered were of the same stuff
as the fallen; and an Athenian ally, who some time after insultingly
asked one of the prisoners from the island if those that had fallen
were men of honour, received for answer that the atraktos--that is,
the arrow--would be worth a great deal if it could tell men of honour
from the rest; in allusion to the fact that the killed were those whom
the stones and the arrows happened to hit.
Upon the arrival of the men the Athenians determined to keep them in
prison until the peace, and if the Peloponnesians invaded their
country in the interval, to bring them out and put them to death.
Meanwhile the defence of Pylos was not forgotten; the Messenians
from Naupactus sent to their old country, to which Pylos formerly
belonged, some of the likeliest of their number, and began a series of
incursions into Laconia, which their common dialect rendered most
destructive. The Lacedaemonians, hitherto without experience of
incursions or a warfare of the kind, finding the Helots deserting, and
fearing the march of revolution in their country, began to be
seriously uneasy, and in spite of their unwillingness to betray this
to the Athenians began to send envoys to Athens, and tried to
recover Pylos and the prisoners. The Athenians, however, kept grasping
at more, and dismissed envoy after envoy without their having effected
anything. Such was the history of the affair of Pylos.
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