In the spring of 425 the Athenians tried to tighten a circle around their enemy by establishing an outpost on a deserted promontory at Pylos on the west coast of the Peloponnese (Thucydides 4.3-4). Initially Spartan leaders showed little concern, but when the king and his troops in Attica received news of the occupation, they quickly returned from their spring invasion and tried to dislodge the Athenians from their outpost. Due to the failure of the Spartan commanders to seal off Pylos’ harbor, Athenian ships trapped 420 of their men on the island of Sphacteria (Thucydides 4.14.2, 38.5). A quick assessment of the situation convinced the Spartans to sue for peace - unilaterally.
The terms of Sparta’s proposal were reasonable. In return for the men on the island, they offered peace and friendship. The Spartans expected the Athenians to be willing to make peace (2.59.2), since they had made an earlier offer, which the Spartans had rejected (Thucydides 4.21.1). In the meantime, however, the political environment in Athens had changed. Pericles, who had advised the Athenians to adopt a mostly defensive posture (1.143-44), was dead, and the Athenians had become increasingly aggressive. Demagogues like Cleon wanted more than a return to the conditions of 431, as the Spartans’ proposal implied. By insisting on public negotiations, which would expose the degree to which the Spartans were willing to compromise their allies’ interests, the Athenians, in effect, rejected the offer of peace.
Attacking Sphacteria proved to be a difficult task. Just as the Athenians were about to abandon their blockade, a strange series of events allowed them to launch a successful attack and surround the soldiers on the island. While admitting a degree of hyperbole, Thucydides likens the situation to the Spartans’ stand against the Persians at Thermopylae (on numbers see Wilson 1979, 104-5). At Pylos, however, the Athenians held their fire long enough for the Spartans to consult with their commanders. To the astonishment of the Greek world, when instructed, ‘‘On your own decide what to do concerning yourselves, as long as you do not act disgracefully’’ (4.38.3), the Spartans on Sphacteria surrendered.
The consequences of the surrender were devastating for Sparta. Having already forfeited a significant number of ships, which the Athenians had refused to return following the failed negotiations, as well as the trust of their allies, they now lost both men and territory. The 292 men held prisoner by the Athenians (Thucydides 4.38.5) would effectively prevent the Peloponnesians from invading Attica. Pylos would provide a sanctuary for runaway slaves in the heart of the helots’ homeland and an outpost from which to foment rebellion. Perhaps most important, the Spartans themselves lost their nerve and resolve.
The Athenians were clearly buoyed by their unexpected success. Soon afterwards they invaded Corinthian territory, secured the control of the entrance to the gulf of Corinth, captured the island of Cythera, off the south coast of the Peloponnese, and almost took Megara - all the while trying to secure a foothold in Sicily. During the same summer (424), they planned a daring double-pronged attack on Boeotia. But Athens would not enjoy its good fortune for long. The Spartan general Brasidas quickly forced the Athenians to withdraw from Megara. Then with an army of a thousand mercenaries and seven hundred helots (Thucydides 4.78.1, 80.5) he marched to the northeast, toward Thrace, to help the Macedonian king Perdiccas and the Athenian allies in Chalcidice, in rebellion from the earliest years of the war. Brasidas’ daring campaign reversed Sparta’s fortunes and pressured the Athenians into a negotiated peace.
Through a combination of military and diplomatic skills, Brasidas very nearly gained control of Chalcidice, an area rich in gold, silver, and timber for shipbuilding. He was also helped by the slow response of the Athenians. Not until they realized that Brasidas had control of the allied city of Acanthus and was threatening Amphipolis did they make a move. If the Athenians lost control of Amphipolis, the path would be open for their enemies to march to the Hellespont (Thucydides 4.108.1). As the final days of the war would demonstrate, if the Spartans could control the Hellespont they could starve Athens into submission.
Despite the successes in Boeotia and Chalcidice, the Spartans in power seem to have been more interested in retrieving the prisoners from Pylos and establishing peace than in defeating the Athenians. In the midst of Brasidas’ campaign the two sides negotiated a truce. Brasidas, however, refused to return the town of Scione in accordance with the terms of the new agreement. At the instigation of Cleon, the Athenians voted to kill all the Scioneans, although they did not reduce the city for another two years. The harsh treatment that the Athenians inflicted on Scione reflected the fear that Brasidas’ expedition had roused. As we have seen, on the occasion of the revolt in Lesbos, the Athenians had initially voted to kill all the men and sell the women and children into slavery, but on second thought recognized the savagery of their decision. By the eleventh year of the war, they were no longer so reasonable. When they finally took Scione in the summer of 421, they carried out the punishment that the Mytileneans so narrowly escaped (Thucydides 5.32.1). According to Ducrey (1968, 117-22), the fate of the Scioneans is the first sure example of such severe punishment inflicted by Athenians on a captured Greek city. (On the Thracian elements in Hecuba see Gregory 1999, xiii-xiv.)
World History
