This end he hoped to achieve by surrounding them with numbers so manifestly overwhelming as to convince them that their only course was to surrender; nor could it be said that a slur was cast even on Spartan bravery if 390 men with their attendants yielded up their weapons to an army falling not much, if at all, short of 10,000. From the first the Spartans had no chance. The stones and arrows shot from the slings and bows of their enemies told on them from a distance at which their own heavy spears were useless; and if they made a charge, the force in front fell back while others advanced to annoy them in the rear. Before them stood motionless the compact mass of Athenian hoplites; but all attempts to reach them were baffled by showers of weapons from the light-armed troops on either side. All, it is true, who came within their reach were borne down by the strokes of the most redoubtable warriors in the world; and at the outset the lightarmed troops of Demosthenes, even at a safe distance, gazed with feelings of wonder bordering almost on dismay upon men whosebravery, strength, and discipline had won for them a terrible reputation. But the discovery that at a little distance they were comparatively powerless so far restored their self-possession, that rushing simultaneously from every side they ran with loud cries and shoutings on the devoted band. Unable in the fearful din purposely raised by their assailants to hear the orders given, they at length began to fall back slowly to the guard-post at the northwestern end of the island where the ground is highest: but the very fact of their retreat insured their doom. They had abandoned the only spring of water on the islet, and in a few hours more or less thirst alone would do all that Demosthenes could desire. But in the meanwhile they were comparatively safe. Their rear was covered by the sea, and the Athenians now as vainly strove to dislodge them from their position as the Spartans had thus far sought in vain to come to close quarters with the Athenian hoplites. Demosthenes and Kleon were, however, soon relieved of their perplexity. The leader of the Messenian allies, pledging himself to find a track which should bring them to the rear of the enemy, led his men round from a spot not within sight of the Spartans, and creeping along wherever the precipitous ground gave a footing, suddenly showed himself above them. Summarily checking all further attack, he sent a herald to demand unconditional surrender; and the dropping of their shields as their hands were raised aloft showed that the inevitable terms were accepted. Four hundred and twenty hoplites had been cooped up in Sphakteria when Kleon arrived with his reinforcements. Of these 292 lived to be taken prisoners, and of these again not less than 120 were genuine Spartiatai of the noblest lineage. The loss of the Athenians was trifling. Return of Kleon with the Spartan prisoners to Athens. Seventy days had passed away since the victory of the Athenian ships in the harbour of Pylos had cut off the hoplites in Sphakteria from all communication with the army on land: but so carefully had Epitadas husbanded the provisions brought in during the three weeks of truce, or so successfully had the Peloponnesian boatmen and swimmers evaded the Athenian guard-ships, that the besieged were in no danger of famine when Demosthenes and Kleon determined to cut short the contest. The work was now done. Within twenty days from the time of his departure Kleon re-entered the harbour of Peiraieus, bringing with him the costliest freight which had ever been landed on its shores. Thucydides dismisses the fact with the curt comment that the mad pledge of Kleon had thus been literally redeemed. On this verdict little needs to be said. Disgraceful though it may be, it is not nearly so disgraceful as the conduct of Nikias and his partisans in not merely suffering but compelling Kleon to undertake a work which they regarded as fit only for a madman. The judgement of the historian is, in short, the judgement of his party; and it proves not the insanity of Kleon but the political immorality of those who would have it that 10,000 Athenians, under a general singularly fertile in expedients, popular with his men, and supported by precisely the kind of force which he most needed, could not hope to capture 400 Spartans who were cut off from all possibility of escape by a hedge of the enemy's ships and the forfeiture of their own navy. CHAPTER V. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR FROM THE CAPTURE OF SPHAKTERIA TO THE PEACE OF NIKIAS. Change in feeling at the popular Athens. THE success of Demosthenes and Kleon had a marked effect on public feeling at Athens. The occupation of Pylos, bringing with it the hope of capturing the hoplites shut up in Sphakteria, had not only removed the depression which till then had been very generally felt, but had awakened in the party of which Kleon was the most prominent speaker a desire of recovering for Athens the supremacy which she had won and lost before the thirty years' truce. But there were nevertheless many to whom such schemes appeared impracticable; and it was only the personal influence of Kleon which turned the scale in favour of carrying on the war. Now, it would seem, no voice was raised on behalf of peace; and Nikias had brought on himself so much disgrace by his behaviour in the matter of Sphakteria that he could not venture on warnings which would now have been both seasonable and wholesome. The Athenians could make peace whenever they might choose to do so; but without offering for the present any terms to the Spartans they placed a permanent garrison at Pylos, and the exiled Messenians returning eagerly from Naupaktos began to lay waste the Lakonian territories. The northern portion of the Peloponnesos was now to suffer from the activity of the Athenians. A fleet of eighty ships issued Campaign of from Peiraieus under cover of night, and before dawn Nikias on the army had disembarked on the beach beneath the the coasts of the Saronic hill on which stood the unfortified village of Solygeia gulf. distant about six miles from Corinth and two from the isthmus. Fire-signals announcing the event called forth the whole available Corinthian force. The fight which followed was one at close quarters throughout; but the issue of the obstinate contest, after a temporary repulse of the Athenians, was determined by the Athenian cavalry. The Corinthians, destitute of horsemen, were at length made to give way; the Athenians sailed on the same day to Krommyon, and ravaged its lands. On the next day they occupied the peninsula between Epidauros and Troizen, and building a wall across the isthmus, made it a permanent post from which raids might be made on the coast lands of the neighbourhood.1 Capture of the Persian envoy Arta phernes on his way to Sparta. The history of this momentous year was not yet closed. An Athenian fleet had yet to make its way to Sicily, and on its voyage Eurymedon was to bring about by his detestable treachery the slaughter which marked the end of the bloody struggles at Korkyra. An incident on the shores of the Egean brought the Athenians into momentary contest with the Persian power. Artaphernes, an envoy from Artaxerxes to the Spartans, was seized at Eion on the mouth of the Strymon by the commander of one of the tribute-gathering Athenian ships, and was brought to Athens with his dispatches. The gist of these lay in the complaint that with all his efforts the king could not make out what the Spartans wanted. Their ambassadors had come each with a different story, and if they wished to make their meaning clear, they must send with Artaphernes men who could speak intelligibly. The dispatch of Artaxerxes never reached Sparta. Artaphernes was sent back to Ephesos with some Athenian envoys to the great king. About 2 See p. 309. 1 Thuc. iv. 45. the objects of their mission nothing is said; but if we may fairly infer that they aimed at detaching Persia from all alliance with Sparta, we may be quite sure that they were guiltless of the treachery which led the Spartans to call down the force of an Asiatic despot to aid them in crushing an Hellenic city. To them the absurdity of bringing a Persian fleet or army to the Peloponnesos was manifest: and in the East their only interest was to keep the Persian king within the bounds which for nearly half a century he had been compelled to respect. But the object of the Athenians, whatever it may have been, was frustrated by the death of the king. The envoys heard the tidings at Ephesos, and returned straight to Athens. Order to the Chians to pull down The building of a new wall to their city by the Chians seemed to the Athenians to forebode a rebellion such as that which they had already had to crush in Samos and Lesbos, and a peremptory order was at once sent to them to pull it down. The decision of the Athenians was soon justified by the hostile movements of Lesbian exiles on the opposite mainland. the new wall of their city. Athenian occupation of Kythera. 424 B.C. The Spartans had been already more than vexed by the settlement of a hostile force on the little peninsula of Pylos; but within sight of the southwestern promontory of Lakonia lay an island, of which according to an old story the sage Chilon had said that it would be well for the Spartans if they could sink it to the bottom of the sea.1 Whatever precautions the Spartans may have taken (and Thucydides tells us that they guarded Kythera with more than usual care), they were ineffectual against the energetic attacks which Nikias and his colleagues, with a fleet of sixty ships carrying 2,000 hoplites and some horsemen, made simultaneously upon the two towns in the island. In fact, the resistance was more nominal than real; and the enterprise had been in part concerted with a friendly body among the people who wished to be rid of the oligarchic rule of Sparta. But for these allies the Athenians would without hesitation have dealt with Kythera as they had dealt with Aigina.2 As it was, some few were sent to take their trial at Athens, under promise, however, that they should not be put to death; and the Athenians set to work to show the Spartans how they meant to use their new conquest. Athenian ships made descents on Asine, Helos, and other places on the Lakonian gulf. The lands of Epidauros Limera on the eastern coast were then ravaged, and lastly the Athenian fleet appeared before Thyrea where the ex 1 Herod. vii. 235. See p. 188. This portion of the history of Herodotos must, it would seem, have been written before the descent of Nikias on the island. 2 See p. 251. pelled Aiginetans had found a home. The Aiginetans captured within it were all taken to Athens and were all there put to death. Thus was swept away the remnant of that people who had shared with the Athenians the glory of Salamis, and a second catastrophe' as horrible as that of Plataiai attested the strength of the fatal disease which rendered impossible the growth of an Hellenic nation. Massacre of Helots by the Spartans. It was at this time, it would seem, that the Spartans committed a crime, the reality of which we can accept only on the assertion of an historian with whose veracity even personal hatred was not allowed to interfere. Among those who risked life and limb to convey food to the men shut up in Sphakteria the most prominent were the Helots to whom the Spartans had promised freedom as the reward of their good service. But, if Thucydides may be believed, the eyes of the Spartans were blinded to everything except the fact that Helots (probably those who had not been manumitted) were deserting to the Messenians at Pylos, and that the success of Nikias had opened for them another refuge at Kythera. Happily for the lasting interests of mankind the most strenuous preachers of the gospel of slavery have never hesitated to act towards the slaves of other men on the hypothesis that of all evils slavery is the worst; and even Aristotle himself, who would no more concede the right of rebellion to his own animated machines" than he would concede it to his horses or his asses, would without scruple, if he wished to ruin the citizen of another state, teach that man's breathing instruments' that they had fully as much right to be free as their master. The panic fear caused by the dread of such teaching has led to some crimes the enormity of which staggers our powers of belief; but these crimes have in their turn sealed the doom of that accursed system which received an execrable sanction from philosophers like Aristotle and Plato. Goaded on by such unreasoning terrors, the Spartans, it is said, issued a proclamation that all who felt that their exploits on behalf of Sparta gave them a title to freedom might at once come forward and claim it, under the assurance that if their claim should be found to rest on good evidence the boon should be conferred upon them. How many came forward we are not told: two thousand, it is said, were selected as worthy of liberty, and with garlands on their heads went the round of the temples in which they now stood on a level with the highest born Dorian. But the Spartans never meant that the gift should be really enjoyed. A few days later, of these 2,000 men not one remained to be seen. How they had disappeared, no 1 έμψυχον ὄργανον. Polit. i. 4, 2. |