In the year 430 the Plague broke out in Athens. Thucydides composed both a fascinating psychological portrait of a beleaguered city under attack by an invisible enemy (Thuc. II 51-54) as well as a detailed clinical account of the disease itself (Thuc. II 49). Despite this wealth of clinical detail no modern attempt at identifying the disease has succeeded - it may well be that this particular disease does not exist today, at least not in the specific form it had in 430. Thucydides indicates that even in his own time no one had ever seen any disease like this one. He also notes that while the plague did appear in other places, it raged most virulently in Athens (Thuc. II 47-48) where the crowding caused by the evacuation of people from the countryside must have provided perfect conditions for the transmission of the disease.
Although a first reading of Thucydides' account gives the impression of high rates of contagiousness as well as mortality, the overall historical context shows that the Plague's impact was limited. Later on in the year 430 the Athenians, after the Lacedaemonians had departed from Attica, were still able to send an expedition of some 4,000 hoplites and 300 cavalry against Epidaurus (Thuc. II 56); and the Plague did not prevent the Athenians from sending a fleet of 20 ships around the Peloponnese (Thuc. II 69). 20 triremes, if fully manned, had a combined crew of 4,000. So there remained enough healthy men of fighting age in Athens to continue with the war. Thucydides does say (III 87) that 4,400 Athenian hoplites in all died of the plague - out of a total of 13,000 in 431 (Thuc. II 13 and 31). This seems a large proportion (roughly one third), but possibly the largest number of fatalities came among the older hoplites who were going to leave active service in a few years anyway.
Nothing in Thucydides' accounts of the following years suggests that the Athenian population experienced such a steep decline as one might expect after reading about the virulence with which the Plague raged in the city. This should not, however, detract from the genuine suffering of those who contracted the disease nor from the terror which it induced in the population as a whole - and Thucydides' description of that terror makes for riveting reading even today.
Thucydides himself fell ill, but was one of those who recovered (Thuc. II 48). He notes that most of those who recovered never caught the disease again and that with the few who did it was never fatal (II 51). A few years later, in the winter of 427 to 426, there was a second major outbreak of the Plague in Athens (Thuc. III 87) - the fact suggests that there was a considerable reservoir of people in Athens who had not contracted it the first time round.
Failed to get effective aid to the Mytilenaeans (Thuc. III 26 and 29) since the Athenian fleet in the Aegean made it too difficult. The Lacedaemonians did invade Attica both in 428 and 427, but to no effect (Thuc. III 1 and 26).
When Mytilene finally capitulated in 427, Thucydides records that the Athenian assembly voted to put all men in Mytilene to death and to enslave all the women and children. The next day, ostensibly after the Athenians had had time
To feel the pangs of conscience, the assembly again convened to re-debate the matter. For this, the Mytilenian debate, Thucydides composed two speeches which he placed into the mouth, first, of Cleon - the leading politician after Pericles’ death and one whom Aristophanes mercilessly pilloried in his play, the Knights - and, second, that of Diodotus (otherwise unknown). It is Thucydides’ own ideas and views which the speeches present; and, against all humanity, they depict an Athens beyond conscience: the Athenian assembly votes to rescind the original Mytilenaean decree on the basis of purely utilitarian reasoning (Thuc. III 36-49). Moreover, Thucydides lets the assembly’s “mood swings” speak for themselves.
To sum up, now, the rest of the events from the year 427. First, Plataea finally surrendered (Thuc. III 52); second, on Corcyra a civil war broke out between the governing oligarchy and the democratic faction (see Box 13.1). Thucydides describes this civil war as exceptionally bitter and destructive (Thuc. III 70-85).
In 426 the Lacedaemonians began to invade Attica. Whether because they understood several earthquakes occurring during the march as a sign of divine disapprobation (Thuc. III 89) or because they were hardly convinced of the efficacy of such an invasion to begin with, they turned back and, thinking outside of the box, conceived another plan. They decided to found a colony, Heracleia Trachinia, at a strategic location near Thermopylae to provide both a way-station for an army marching northwards as well as a staging post for attacks on the nearby island of Euboea (Thuc. III 92). One can see in this plans for attacks on Athenian possessions in the north (where the Athenians were still fighting to suppress the revolt of many Chalcidian cities). In addition, since Euboea lay close to the mainland, it was usually not too difficult to bring an army over to the island even without full naval support. Athenian naval supremacy had hindered the Lacedaemonians from aiding the Mytilenaean revolt and from campaigning effectively in Acarnania and had additionally made the Lacedaemonian invasions of Attica useless. The strategic colony of Heracleia might allow for campaigns that could work around that naval supremacy. A large degree of hardheaded planning characterizes a Lacedaemonian strategy directed at achieving specific, attainable goals.
This applies less to Athenian actions in these years. Thucydides records particularly irrelevant campaigns on Sicily of all places (Thuc. III 86 and 88) as well as an expedition, launched from Naupactus, against the Aetolians whom the war had hitherto left unscathed (Thuc. III 94-98). All the same, in the winter of 426 to 425 the fighting in Acarnania began to go the Athenians’ way (Thuc. III 105-114); and in 425 the Athenians, who each year had been carrying out a periplus of the Peloponnese, scored a spectacular success and captured Pylos, a small town on the north of the Bay of Navarino. Across the mouth of this wide bay, almost closing it off from the sea entirely, lay the long, heavily wooded, and uninhabited island of Sphacteria (Thuc. IV 3-5).
The Lacedaemonians, now under the command of Archidamus’ son Agis II, had invaded Attica in 425, but as soon as they learned of the capture of Pylos, they returned to Laconia forthwith and attempted to recapture that town (Thuc. IV 6-8). In the course of the operations, however, a small Lacedaemonian detachment became trapped on Sphacteria (Thuc. IV 8 and 14). Since Athenian ships patrolled the waters around the island, the detachment on Sphacteria had no means of provisioning itself despite desperate attempts. Among other things, the Lacedaemonians promised immediate emancipation to any Helot who could get food to the island. Although the Athenians were summarily executing anyone whom they caught trying to get through, such was the Helots’ desire for freedom that there was no shortage of volunteers (Thuc. IV 26).
With what Helots could smuggle in and with typical Lacedaemonian hardiness in combat, those trapped on the island held out better than the Athenians expected. The difficulty in defeating these trapped Lacedaemonians led to another spectacular meeting of the assembly in Athens. There Cleon roundly assailed the commanders who had failed to bring the affair on Sphacteria to a successful conclusion - until one of them, Nicias, in a moment of frustration suggested that if Cleon were so smart, why did he not take over the command himself? Cleon, who had little military experience, had painted himself into a corner - without complete loss of face he could not turn down the offer. So the assembly, in one of many erratic decisions, gave the command to Cleon (Thuc. IV 27-29). Beginner’s luck, however, came to Cleon’s aid, and, happily for the Athenians, under his command the trapped Lacedaemonians were compelled to surrender (Thuc. IV 30-38).
Among the Lacedaemonians stood 120 Spartiates (Thuc. IV 38). The legend of Thermopylae (see chap. 10) - that Spartiates never surrendered, but always fought to the death (cf. Thuc. IV 40) - had nowhere found such ready belief as at Sparta itself. The surrender, not just of Lacedaemonians but of Spartiates themselves, dealt the legend, as well as Lacedaemonian morale, a severe blow. After the loss of Sphacteria the Lacedaemonians practically ceased fighting and concentrated on negotiating a settlement to the war which would involve, above all, the release of the 120 Spartiates (see Box 13.3).
The Athenians, too, were having their difficulties despite the capture of Pylos in 425. In the official year 425-24, they carried out a steep upward reassessment of their allies’ tribute (Fornara, Nr. 136). Wars are expensive to wage, and naval warfare with triremes (with 170 rowers on board all of whom had to be paid a daily wage) especially so. As the war went on, the Athenians simply needed more cash. Although Thucydides does not mention this reassessment, he too was acutely aware of the financial requirements imposed by war (see, e. g., I 141-142 and II 13). Even the Lacedaemonians had to meet such requirements as the so-called War Fund inscription (Fornara, Nr. 132: whatever its precise date - probably during this phase of the war) and Polybius’ perceptive analysis (VI 49) both show. Such efforts to secure financing, even if they cannot often be documented in such detail as the Athenians’ reassessment of the tribute, surely accompanied the war throughout.
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