A diminished remnant, however, reached the last post in safety, and they were here in comparative protection, since the ground was so rocky and impracticable that their enemies could not attack them either in flank or rear: though the position at any rate could not have been long tenable separately, inasmuch as the only spring of water in the island was in the centre, which they had just been compelled to abandon. The light-armed being now less available, Demosthenês and Kleon brought up their eight hundred Athenian hoplites, who had not before been engaged; but the Lacedæmonians were here at home[552] with their weapons, and enabled to display their well-known superiority against opposing hoplites, especially as they had the advantage of higher ground against enemies charging from beneath. Although the Athenians were double their own numbers and withal yet unexhausted, they were repulsed in many successive attacks. The besieged maintained their ground in spite of all their previous fatigue and suffering, harder to be borne from the scanty diet on which they had recently subsisted. The struggle lasted so long that heat and thirst began to tell even upon the assailants, when the commander of the Messenians came to Kleon and Demosthenês, and intimated that they were now laboring in vain; promising at the same time that if they would confide to him a detachment of light troops and bowmen, he would find his way round to the higher cliffs, in the rear of the assailants.[553] He accordingly stole away unobserved from the rear, scrambling round over pathless crags, and by an almost impracticable footing on the brink of the sea, amidst approaches which the Lacedæmonians had left unguarded, never imagining that they could be molested in that direction. He suddenly appeared with his detachment on the higher peak above them, so that their position was thus commanded, and they found themselves, as at Thermopylæ, between two fires, without any hope of escape. Their enemies in front, encouraged by the success of the Messenians, pressed forward with increased ardor, until at length the courage of the Lacedæmonians gave way, and the position was carried.[554]
A few moments more, and they would have been all overpowered and slain, when Kleon and Demosthenês, anxious to carry them as prisoners to Athens, constrained their men to halt, and proclaimed by herald an invitation to surrender, on condition of delivering up their arms and being held at the disposal of the Athenians. Most of them, incapable of farther effort, closed with the proposition forthwith, signifying compliance by dropping their shields and waving both hands above their heads. The battle being thus ended, Styphon the commander—originally only third in command, but now chief, since Epitadas had been slain, and the second in command, Hippagretês, was lying disabled by wounds on the field—entered into conference with Kleon and Demosthenês, and entreated permission to send across for orders to the Lacedæmonians on the mainland. The Athenian commanders, though refusing this request, sent themselves and invited Lacedæmonian heralds over from the mainland, through whom communications were exchanged twice or three times between Styphon and the chief Lacedæmonian authorities. At length the final message came: “The Lacedæmonians direct you to take counsel for yourselves, but to do nothing disgraceful.”[555] Their counsel was speedily taken; they surrendered themselves and delivered up their arms; two hundred and ninety-two in number, the survivors of the original total of four hundred and twenty. And out of these, no less than one hundred and twenty were native Spartans, some of them belonging to the first families in the city.[556] They were kept under guard during that night, and distributed on the morrow among the Athenian trierarchs to be conveyed as prisoners to Athens; while a truce was granted to the Lacedæmonians on shore, in order that they might carry across the dead bodies for burial. So careful had Epitadas been in husbanding the provisions, that some food was yet found in the island; though the garrison had subsisted for fifty-two days upon casual supplies, aided by such economies as had been laid by during the twenty days of the armistice, when food of a stipulated quantity was regularly furnished. Seventy-two days had thus elapsed, from the first imprisonment in the island to the hour of their surrender.[557]
The best troops in modern times would neither incur reproach, nor occasion surprise, by surrendering, under circumstances in all respects similar to this gallant remnant in Sphakteria. Yet in Greece the astonishment was prodigious and universal, when it was learned that the Lacedæmonians had consented to become prisoners:[558] for the terror inspired by their name, and the deep-struck impression of Thermopylæ, had created a belief that they would endure any extremity of famine, and perish in the midst of any superiority of hostile force, rather than dream of giving up their arms and surviving as captives. The events of Sphakteria, shocking as they did this preconceived idea, discredited the military prowess of Sparta in the eyes of all Greece, and especially in those of her own allies. Even in Sparta itself, too, the same feeling prevailed,—partially revealed in the answer transmitted to Styphon from the generals on shore, who did not venture to forbid surrender, yet discountenanced it by implication: and it is certain that the Spartans would have lost less by their death than by their surrender. But we read with disgust the spiteful taunt of one of the allies of Athens (not an Athenian) engaged in the affair, addressed in the form of a question to one of the prisoners: “Have your best men then been all slain?” The reply conveyed an intimation of the standing contempt entertained by the Lacedæmonians for the bow and its chance-strokes in the line: “That would be a capital arrow which could single out the best man.” The language which Herodotus puts into the mouth of Demaratus, composed in the early years of the Peloponnesian war, attests this same belief in Spartan valor: “The Lacedæmonians die, but never surrender.”[559] Such impression was from henceforward, not indeed effaced, but sensibly enfeebled, and never again was it restored to its former pitch.
But the general judgment of the Greeks respecting the capture of Sphakteria, remarkable as it is to commemorate, is far less surprising than that pronounced by Thucydidês himself. Kleon and Demosthenês returning with a part of the squadron and carrying all the prisoners, started from Sphakteria on the next day but one after the action, and reached Athens within twenty days after Kleon had left it. Thus, “the promise of Kleon, insane as it was, came true,” observes the historian.[560]
Men with arms in their hands have always the option between death and imprisonment, and Grecian opinion was only mistaken in assuming as a certainty that the Lacedæmonians would choose the former. But Kleon had never promised to bring them home as prisoners: his promise was disjunctive,—that they should be either so brought home, or slain, within twenty days: and no sentence throughout the whole of Thucydidês astonishes me so much as that in which he stigmatizes such an expectation as “insane.” Here are four hundred and twenty Lacedæmonian hoplites, without any other description of troops to aid them,—without the possibility of being reinforced,—without any regular fortification,—without any narrow pass, such as that of Thermopylæ,—without either a sufficient or a certain supply of food,—cooped up in a small open island less than two miles in length. Against them are brought ten thousand troops of diverse arms, including eight hundred fresh hoplites from Athens, and marshalled by Demosthenês, a man alike enterprising and experienced: for the talents as well as the presence and preparations of Demosthenês are a part of the data of the case, and the personal competence of Kleon to command alone, is foreign to the calculation. Now if, under such circumstances, Kleon engaged that this forlorn company of brave men should be either slain or taken prisoners, how could he be looked upon, I will not say as indulging in an insane boast, but even as overstepping the most cautious and mistrustful estimate of probability? Even to doubt of this result, much more to pronounce such an opinion as that of Thucydidês, implies an idea not only of superhuman power in the Lacedæmonian hoplites, but of disgraceful cowardice on the part of Demosthenês and the assailants. Nor was the interval of twenty days, named by Kleon, at all extravagantly narrow, considering the distance of Athens from Pylus: for the attack of this petty island could not possibly occupy more than one or two days at the utmost, though the blockade of it might by various accidents have been prolonged, or might even, by some terrible storm, be altogether broken off. If, then, we carefully consider this promise made by Kleon in the assembly, we shall find that so far from deserving the sentence pronounced upon it by Thucydidês, of being a mad boast which came true by accident, it was a reasonable and even a modest anticipation of the future:[561] reserving the only really doubtful point in the case, whether the garrison of the island would be ultimately slain or made prisoners. Demosthenês, had he been present at Athens instead of being at Pylus, would willingly have set his seal to the engagement taken by Kleon.
I repeat with reluctance, though not without belief, the statement made by one of the biographers of Thucydidês,[562] that Kleon was the cause of the banishment of the latter as a general, and has therefore received from him harder measure than was due in his capacity of historian. But though this sentiment is not probably without influence in dictating the unaccountable judgment which I have just been criticizing,—as well as other opinions relative to Kleon, on which I shall say more in a future chapter,—I nevertheless look upon that judgment not as peculiar to Thucydidês, but as common to him with Nikias and those whom we must call, for want of a better name, the oligarchical party of the time at Athens. And it gives us some measure of the prejudice and narrowness of vision which prevailed among that party at the present memorable crisis; so pointedly contrasting with the clear-sighted and resolute calculations, and the judicious conduct in action, of Kleon, who, when forced against his will into the post of general, did the very best which could be done in his situation,—he selected Demosthenês as colleague and heartily seconded his operations. Though the military attack of Sphakteria, one of the ablest specimens of generalship in the whole war, and distinguished not less by the dextrous employment of different descriptions of troops, than by care to spare the lives of the assailants,—belongs altogether to Demosthenês, yet if Kleon had not been competent to stand up in the Athenian assembly and defy those gloomy predictions which we see attested in Thucydidês, Demosthenês would never have been reinforced nor placed in condition to land on the island. The glory of the enterprise, therefore, belongs jointly to both: and Kleon, far from stealing away the laurels of Demosthenês (as Aristophanês represents, in his comedy of the Knights), was really the means of placing them on his head, though he at the same time deservedly shared them. It has hitherto been the practice to look at Kleon only from the point of view of his opponents, through whose testimony we know him: but the real fact is, that this history of the events of Sphakteria, when properly surveyed, is a standing disgrace to those opponents and no inconsiderable honor to him; exhibiting them as alike destitute of political foresight and of straightforward patriotism,—as sacrificing the opportunities of war, along with the lives of their fellow-citizens and soldiers, for the purpose of ruining a political enemy. It was the duty of Nikias, as stratêgus, to propose, and undertake in person if necessary, the reduction of Sphakteria: if he thought the enterprise dangerous, that was a good reason for assigning to it a larger military force, as we shall find him afterwards reasoning about the Sicilian expedition,—but not for letting it slip or throwing it off upon others.[563]
The return of Kleon and Demosthenês to Athens, within the twenty days promised, bringing with them near three hundred Lacedæmonian prisoners, must have been by far the most triumphant and exhilarating event which had occurred to the Athenians throughout the whole war. It at once changed the prospects, position, and feelings of both the contending parties. Such a number of Lacedæmonian prisoners, especially one hundred and twenty Spartans, was a source of almost stupefaction to the general body of Greeks, and a prize of inestimable value to the captors. The return of Demosthenês in the preceding year from the Ambrakian gulf, when he brought with him three hundred Ambrakian panoplies, had probably been sufficiently triumphant; but the entry into Peiræus on this occasion from Sphakteria, with three hundred Lacedæmonian prisoners, must doubtless have occasioned emotions transcending all former experience; and it is much to be regretted that no description is preserved to us of the scene, as well as of the elate manifestations of the people when the prisoners were marched up from Peiræus to Athens. We should be curious, also, to read some account of the first Athenian assembly held after this event,—the overwhelming cheers heaped upon Kleon by his joyful partisans, who had helped to invest him with the duties of general, in confidence that he would discharge them well,—contrasted with the silence or retraction of Nikias, and the other humiliated political enemies. But all such details are unfortunately denied to us, though they constitute the blood and animation of Grecian history, now lying before us only in its skeleton.
The first impulse of the Athenians was to regard the prisoners as a guarantee to their territory against invasion:[564] they resolved to keep them securely guarded until the peace, but if, at any time before that event, the Lacedæmonian army should enter Attica, to bring forth the prisoners and put them to death in sight of the invaders. They were at the same time full of spirits in regard to the prosecution of the war, and became farther confirmed in the hope, not merely of preserving their power undiminished, but even of recovering much of what they had lost before the thirty years’ truce. Pylus was placed in an improved state of defence, with the adjoining island of Sphakteria, doubtless as a subsidiary occupation: the Messenians, transferred thither from Naupaktus, and overjoyed to find themselves once more masters even of an outlying rock of their ancestorial territory, began with alacrity to overrun and ravage Laconia, while the Helots, shaken by the recent events, manifested inclination to desert to them. The Lacedæmonian authorities, experiencing evils before unfelt and unknown, became sensibly alarmed lest such desertions should spread through the country. Reluctant as they were to afford obvious evidence of their embarrassments, they nevertheless brought themselves, probably under the pressure of the friends and relatives of the Sphakterian captives, to send to Athens several missions for peace; but all proved abortive.[565] We are not told what they offered, but it did not come up to the expectations which the Athenians thought themselves entitled to indulge.
We, who now review these facts with a knowledge of the subsequent history, see that the Athenians could have concluded a better bargain with the Lacedæmonians during the six or eight months succeeding the capture of Sphakteria, than it was ever open to them to make afterwards; and they had reason to repent that they let slip the opportunity. Perhaps also Periklês, had he been still alive, might have taken the same prudent measure of the future, and might have had ascendency enough over his countrymen to be able to arrest the tide of success at its highest point, before it began to ebb again. But if we put ourselves back into the situation of Athens during the autumn which succeeded the return of Kleon and Demosthenês from Sphakteria, we shall easily enter into the feelings under which the war was continued. The actual possession of the captives now placed Athens in a far better position than she had occupied at a time when they were only blocked up in Sphakteria, and when the Lacedæmonian envoys first arrived to ask for peace. She was now certain of being able to command peace with Sparta on terms at least tolerable, whenever she chose to invite it,—she had also a fair certainty of escaping the hardship of invasion. Next, and this was perhaps the most important feature of the case, the apprehension of Lacedæmonian prowess was now greatly lowered, and the prospects of success to Athens considered as prodigiously improved,[566] even in the estimation of impartial Greeks; much more in the eyes of the Athenians themselves. Moreover, the idea of a tide of good fortune, of the favor of the gods, now begun and likely to continue, of future success as a corollary from past, was one which powerfully affected Grecian calculations generally. Why not push the present good fortune, and try to regain the most important points lost before and by the thirty years’ truce, especially in Megara and Bœotia,—points which Sparta could not concede by negotiation, since they were not in her possession? Though these speculations failed, as we shall see in the coming chapter, yet there was nothing unreasonable in undertaking them. Probably, the almost universal sentiment of Athens was at this moment warlike,—and even Nikias, humiliated as he must have been by the success in Sphakteria, would forget his usual caution in the desire of retrieving his own personal credit by some military exploit. That Demosthenês, now in full measure of esteem, would be eager to prosecute the war, with which his prospects of personal glory were essentially associated, just as Thucydidês[567] observes about Brasidas on the Lacedæmonian side, can admit of no doubt. The comedy of Aristophanês, called the Acharnians, was acted about six months before the affair of Sphakteria, when no one could possibly look forward to such an event,—the comedy of the Knights, about six months after it.[568] Now, there is this remarkable difference between the two,—that while the former breathes the greatest sickness of war, and presses in every possible way the importance of making peace, although at that time Athens had an opportunity of coming even to a decent accommodation,—the latter, running down Kleon with unmeasured scorn and ridicule, talks in one or two places only of the hardships of war, and drops altogether that emphasis and repetition with which peace had been dwelt upon in the Acharnians,—although coming out at a time when peace was within the reach of the Athenians.
To understand properly the history of this period, therefore, we must distinguish various occasions which are often confounded. At the moment when Sphakteria was first blockaded, and when the Lacedæmonians first sent to solicit peace, there was a considerable party at Athens disposed to entertain the offer, and the ascendency of Kleon was one of the main causes why it was rejected. But after the captives were brought home from Sphakteria, the influence of Kleon, though positively greater than it had been before, was no longer required to procure the dismissal of Lacedæmonian pacific offers and the continuance of the war: the general temper of Athens was then warlike, and there were very few to contend strenuously for an opposite policy. During the ensuing year, however, the chances of war turned out mostly unfavorable to Athens, so that by the end of that year she had become much more disposed to peace.[569] The truce for one year was then concluded,—but even after that truce was expired, Kleon still continued eager, and on good grounds, as will be shown hereafter, for renewing the war in Thrace, at a time when a large proportion of the Athenian public had grown weary of it. He was one of the main causes of that resumption of warlike operations, which ended in the battle of Amphipolis, fatal both to himself and to Brasidas. There were thus two distinct occasions on which the personal influence and sanguine character of Kleon seems to have been of sensible moment in determining the Athenian public to war instead of peace. But at the moment which we have now reached, that is, the year immediately following the capture of Sphakteria, the Athenians were all sufficiently warlike without him; probably Nikias himself as well as the rest.