It has been already stated, that the circumvallation of Platæa was accomplished by a double wall and a double ditch, one ditch without the encircling walls, another between them and the town; the two walls being sixteen feet apart, joined together, and roofed all round, so as to look like one thick wall, and to afford covered quarters for the besiegers. Both the outer and inner circumference were furnished with battlements, and after every ten battlements came a roofed tower, covering the whole breadth of the double wall,—allowing a free passage inside, but none outside. In general, the entire circuit of the roofed wall was kept under watch night and day: but on wet nights the besiegers had so far relaxed their vigilance as to retire under cover of the towers, and leave the intermediate spaces unguarded: and it was upon this omission that the plan of escape was founded. The Platæans prepared ladders of a proper height to scale the blockading double wall, ascertaining its height by repeatedly counting the ranges of bricks, which were quite near enough for them to discern, and not effectually covered with whitewash. On a cold and dark December night, amidst rain, sleet, and a roaring wind, they marched forth from the gates, lightly armed, some few with shields and spears, but most of them with breastplates, javelins, and bows and arrows: the right foot was naked, and the left foot alone shod, so as to give to it a more assured footing on the muddy ground.[390] Taking care to sally out with the wind in their faces, and at such a distance from each other as to prevent any clattering of arms, they crossed the inner ditch and reached the foot of the wall without being discovered: the ladders, borne in the van, were immediately planted, and Ammeas, son of Korœbus, followed by eleven others, armed only with a short sword and breastplate, mounted the wall: others, armed with spears, followed him, their shields being carried and handed to them when on the top by comrades behind. It was the duty of this first company to master and maintain the two towers, right and left, so as to keep the intermediate space free for passing over. This was successfully done, the guards in both towers being surprised and slain, without alarming the remaining besiegers: and many of the Platæans had already reached the top of the wall, when the noise of a tile accidently knocked down by one of them, betrayed what was passing. Immediately a general clamor was raised, alarm was given, and the awakened garrison rushed up from beneath to the top of the wall, yet not knowing where the enemy was to be found; a perplexity farther increased by the Platæans in the town, who took this opportunity of making a false attack on the opposite side. Amidst such confusion and darkness, the blockading detachment could not tell where to direct their blows, and all remained at their posts, except a reserve of three hundred men, kept constantly in readiness for special emergencies, who marched out and patrolled the outside of the ditch to intercept any fugitives from within. At the same time, fire-signals were raised to warn their allies at Thebes,—but here again the Platæans in the town had foreseen and prepared fire-signals on their part, which they hoisted forthwith, in order to deprive this telegraphic communication of all special meaning.[391]
Meanwhile, the escaping Platæans, masters of the two adjoining towers,—on the top of which some of them mounted, while others held the doorway through, so as to repel with spears and darts all approach of the blockaders,—prosecuted their flight without interruption over the space between, shoving down the battlements in order to make it more level and plant a greater number of ladders. In this manner they all successively got over and crossed the outer ditch; every man, immediately after crossing, standing ready on the outer bank, with bow and javelin, to repel assailants and maintain safe passages for his comrades in the rear. At length, when all had descended, there remained the last and greatest difficulty,—the escape of those who occupied the two towers and kept the intermediate portion of wall free: yet even this was accomplished successfully and without loss. The outer ditch was, however, found embarrassing,—so full of water from the rain as to be hardly fordable, yet with thin ice on it also, from a previous frost: for the storm, which in other respects was the main help to their escape, here retarded their passage of the ditch by an unusual accumulation of water. It was not, however, until all had crossed except the defenders of the towers,—who were yet descending and scrambling through,—that the Peloponnesian reserve of three hundred were seen approaching the spot with torches. Their unshielded right side was turned towards the ditch, and the Platæans, already across and standing on the bank, immediately assailed them with arrows and javelins,—in which the torches enabled them to take tolerable aim, while the Peloponnesians on their side could not distinguish their enemies in the dark, and had no previous knowledge of their position. They were thus held in check until the rearmost Platæans had surmounted the difficulties of the passage: after which the whole body stole off as speedily as they could, taking at first the road towards Thebes, while their pursuers were seen with their torch-lights following the opposite direction, on the road which led by the heights called Dryos-Kephalæ to Athens: after having marched about three quarters of a mile on the road to Thebes, leaving the chapel of the Hero Androkratês on their right hand, the fugitives quitted it, and striking to the eastward towards Erythræ and Hysiæ, soon found themselves in safety among the mountains which separate Bœotia from Attica at that point; from whence they passed into the glad harbor and refuge of Athens.[392]
Two hundred and twelve brave men thus emerged to life and liberty, breaking loose from that impending fate which too soon overtook the remainder, and preserving for future times the genuine breed and honorable traditions of Platæa. One man alone was taken prisoner at the brink of the outer ditch, while a few, who had enrolled themselves originally for the enterprise, lost courage and returned in despair even from the foot of the inner wall; telling their comrades within that the whole band had perished. Accordingly, at daybreak, the Platæans within sent out a herald to solicit a truce for burial of the dead bodies, and it was only by the answer made to this request, that they learned the actual truth. The description of this memorable outbreak exhibits not less daring in the execution than skill and foresight in the design; and is the more interesting, inasmuch as the men who thus worked out their salvation were precisely the bravest men, who best deserved it.
Meanwhile, Pachês and the Athenians kept Mitylênê closely blocked up, the provisions were nearly exhausted, and the besieged were already beginning to think of capitulation,—when their spirits were raised by the arrival of the Lacedæmonian envoy Salæthus, who had landed at Pyrrha on the west of Lesbos, and contrived to steal in through a ravine which obstructed the continuity of the blockading wall,—about February 427 B.C. He encouraged the Mitylenæans to hold out, assuring them that a Peloponnesian fleet under Alkidas was on the point of setting out to assist them, and that Attica would be forthwith invaded by the general Peloponnesian army. His own arrival, also, and his stay in the town, was in itself no small encouragement: we shall see hereafter, when we come to the siege of Syracuse by the Athenians, how much might depend upon the presence of one single Spartan. All thought of surrender was accordingly abandoned, and the Mitylenæans awaited with impatience the arrival of Alkidas, who started from Peloponnesus at the beginning of April, with forty-two triremes; while the Lacedæmonian army at the same time invaded Attica, in order to keep the attention of Athens fully employed. Their ravages on this occasion were more diligent, searching, and destructive to the country than before, and were continued the longer because they awaited the arrival of news from Lesbos. But none reached them, their stock of provisions was exhausted, and the army was obliged to break up.[393]
The news, when it did arrive, proved very unsatisfactory.
Salæthus and the Mitylenæans had held out until their provisions were completely exhausted, but neither relief, nor tidings, reached them from Peloponnesus. At length, even Salæthus became convinced that no relief would come; he projected, therefore, as a last hope, a desperate attack upon the Athenians and their wall of blockade. For this purpose, he distributed full panoplies among the mass of the people, or commons, who had hitherto been without them, having at best nothing more than bows or javelins.[394] But he had not sufficiently calculated the consequences of this important step. The Mitylenæan multitude, living under an oligarchical government, had no interest whatever in the present contest, which had been undertaken without any appeal to their opinion. They had no reason for aversion to Athens, seeing that they suffered no practical grievance from the Athenian alliance: and we shall find hereafter that even among the subject-allies—to say nothing of a privileged ally like Mitylênê—the bulk of the citizens were never forward, sometimes positively reluctant, to revolt. The Mitylenæan oligarchy had revolted, in spite of the absence of practical wrongs, because they desired an uncontrolled town-autonomy as well as security for its continuance: but this was a feeling to which the people were naturally strangers, having no share in the government of their own town, and being kept dead and passive, as it was the interest of the oligarchy that they should be, in respect to political sentiment. A Grecian oligarchy might obtain from its people quiet submission under ordinary circumstances, but if ever it required energetic effort, the genuine devotion under which alone such effort could be given, was found wanting. Accordingly, the Mitylenæan demos, so soon as they found themselves strengthened and ennobled by the possession of heavy armor, refused obedience to the orders of Salæthus for marching out and imperiling their lives in a desperate struggle. They were under the belief—not unnatural under the secrecy of public affairs habitually practised by an oligarchy, but which, assuredly, the Athenian demos would have been too well informed to entertain—that their governors were starving them, and had concealed stores of provisions for themselves. Accordingly, the first use which they made of their arms was, to demand that these concealed stores should be brought out and fairly apportioned to all, threatening, unless their demand was complied with at once, to enter into negotiations with the Athenians, and surrender the city. The ruling Mitylenæans, unable to prevent this, but foreseeing that it would be their irretrievable ruin, preferred the chance of negotiating themselves for a capitulation. It was agreed with Pachês, that the Athenian armament should enter into possession of Mitylênê; that the fate of its people and city should be left to the Athenian assembly, and that the Mitylenæans should send envoys to Athens to plead their cause: until the return of these envoys, Pachês engaged that no one should be either killed, or put in chains, or sold into slavery. Nothing was said about Salæthus, who hid himself as well as he could in the city. In spite of the guarantee received from Pachês, so great was the alarm of those Mitylenæans who had chiefly instigated the revolt, that when he actually took possession of the city, they threw themselves as suppliants upon the altars for protection; but being induced, by his assurances, to quit their sanctuary, were placed in the island of Tenedos until answer should be received from Athens.[395]
Having thus secured possession of Mitylênê, Pachês sent round some triremes to the other side of the island, and easily captured Antissa. But before he had time to reduce the two remaining towns of Pyrrha and Eresus, he received news which forced him to turn his attention elsewhere.
To the astonishment of every one, the Peloponnesian fleet of Alkidas was seen on the coast of Ionia. It ought to have been there much earlier, and had Alkidas been a man of energy, it would have reached Mitylênê even before the surrender of the city. But the Peloponnesians, when about to advance into the Athenian waters and brave the Athenian fleet, were under the same impressions of conscious weakness and timidity—especially since the victories of Phormio in the preceding year—as that which beset land-troops who marched up to attack the Lacedæmonian heavy-armed.[396] Alkidas, though unobstructed by the Athenians, who were not aware of his departure,—though pressed to hasten forward by Lesbian and Ionian exiles on board, and aided by expert pilots from those Samian exiles who had established themselves at Anæa,[397] on the Asiatic continent, and acted as zealous enemies of Athens,—nevertheless, instead of sailing straight to Lesbos, lingered first near Peloponnesus, next at the island of Delos, making capture of private vessels with their crews; until at length, on reaching the islands of Ikarus and Mykonus, he heard the unwelcome tidings that the besieged town had capitulated. Not at first crediting the report, he sailed onward to Embaton, in the Erythræan territory on the coast of Asia Minor, where he found the news confirmed. As only seven days had elapsed since the capitulation had been concluded, Teutiaplus, an Eleian captain in the fleet, strenuously urged the daring project of sailing on forthwith, and surprising Mitylênê by night in its existing unsettled condition: no preparation would have been made for receiving them, and there was good chance that the Athenians might be suddenly overpowered, the Mitylenæans again armed, and the town recovered.
Such a proposition, which was indeed something more than daring, did not suit the temper of Alkidas. Nor could he be induced by the solicitation of the exiles to fix and fortify himself either in any port of Ionia, or in the Æolic town of Kymê, so as to afford support and countenance to such subjects of the Athenian empire as were disposed to revolt; though he was confidently assured that many of them would revolt on his proclamation, and that the satrap Pissuthnês of Sardis would help him to defray the expense. Having been sent for the express purpose of relieving Mitylênê, Alkidas believed himself interdicted from any other project, and determined to return to Peloponnesus at once, dreading nothing so much as the pursuit of Pachês and the Athenian fleet. From Embaton, accordingly, he started on his return, coasting southward along Asia Minor as far as Ephesus. But the prisoners taken in his voyage were now an encumbrance to his flight; and their number was not inconsiderable, since all the merchant-vessels in his route had approached the fleet without suspicion, believing it to be Athenian: a Peloponnesian fleet near the coast of Ionia was as yet something unheard of and incredible. To get rid of his prisoners, Alkidas stopped at Myonnêsus, near Teos, and there put to death the greater number of them,—a barbarous proceeding, which excited lively indignation among the neighboring Ionic cities to which they belonged; insomuch that when he reached Ephesus, the Samian exiles dwelling at Anæa, who had come forward so actively to help him, sent him a spirited remonstrance, reminding him that the slaughter of men neither engaged in war, nor enemies, nor even connected with Athens, except by constraint, was disgraceful to one who came forth as the liberator of Greece,—and that, if he persisted, he would convert his friends into enemies, not his enemies into friends. So keenly did Alkidas feel this animadversion, that he at once liberated the remainder of his prisoners, several of them Chians; and then started from Ephesus, taking his course across sea towards Krete and Peloponnesus. After much delay off the coast of Krete from stormy weather, which harassed and dispersed his fleet, he at length reached in safety the harbor of Kyllênê in Elis, where his scattered ships were ultimately reunited.[398]
Thus inglorious was the voyage of the first Peloponnesian admiral who dared to enter that Mare clausum which passed for a portion of the territory of Athens.[399] But though he achieved little, his mere presence excited everywhere not less dismay than astonishment: for the Ionic towns were all unfortified, and Alkidas might take and sack any one of them by sudden assault, even though unable to hold it permanently. Pressing messages reached Pachês from Erythræ and from several other places, while the Athenian triremes called Paralus and Salaminia, the privileged vessels which usually carried public and sacred deputations, had themselves seen the Peloponnesian fleet anchored at Ikarus, and brought him the same intelligence. Pachês, having his hands now free by the capture of Mitylênê, set forth immediately in pursuit of the intruder, whom he chased as far the island of Patmos. It was there ascertained that Alkidas had finally disappeared from the eastern waters, and the Athenian admiral, though he would have rejoiced to meet the Peloponnesian fleet in the open sea, accounted it fortunate that they had not taken up a position in some Asiatic harbor,—in which case it would have been necessary for him to undertake a troublesome and tedious blockade,[400] besides all the chances of revolt among the Athenian dependencies. We shall see how much, in this respect, depended upon the personal character of the Lacedæmonian commander, when we come hereafter to the expedition of Brasidas.