Argilus was situated between Stageirus and the river Strymon, along the western bank of which river its territory extended. Along the eastern bank of the same river,—south of the lake which it forms under the name of Kerkinitis, and north of the town of Eion at its mouth, was situated the town and territory of Amphipolis, communicating with the lands of Argilus by the important bridge there situated. The Argilians were colonists from Andros, like Akanthus and Stageirus, and the adhesion of those two cities to Brasidas gave him opportunity to cultivate intelligences in Argilus, wherein there had existed a standing discontent against Athens, ever since the foundation of the neighboring city of Amphipolis.[658] The latter city had been established by the Athenian Agnon, at the head of a numerous body of colonists, on a spot belonging to the Edonian Thracians, called Ennea Hodoi, or Nine Ways, about five years prior to the commencement of the war (B.C. 437), after two previous attempts to colonize it,—one by Histiæus and Aristagoras, at the period of the Ionic revolt, and a second by the Athenians about 465 B.C., both of which lamentably failed. So valuable, however, was the site, from its vicinity to the gold and silver mines near Mount Pangæus and to large forests of ship-timber, as well as for command of the Strymon, and for commerce with the interior of Thrace and Macedonia, that the Athenians had sent a second expedition under Agnon, who founded the city and gave it the name of Amphipolis. The resident settlers there, however, were only in small proportion Athenian citizens; the rest of mixed origin, some of them Argilian, a considerable number Chalkidians. The Athenian general Euklês was governor in the town, though seemingly with no paid force under his command.
Among these mixed inhabitants a conspiracy was organized to betray the town to Brasidas, the inhabitants of Argilus as well as the Chalkidians each of them tampering with those of the same race who resided in Amphipolis; and the influence of Perdikkas, not inconsiderable, in consequence of the commerce of the place with Macedonia, was employed to increase the number of partisans. Of all the instigators, however, the most strenuous as well as the most useful were the inhabitants of Argilus. Amphipolis, together with the Athenians as its founders, had been odious to them from its commencement; and its foundation had doubtless abridged their commerce and importance as masters of the lower course of the Strymon. They had been long laying snares against the city, and the arrival of Brasidas now presented to them an unexpected chance of success. It was they who enabled him to accomplish the surprise, deferring proclamation of their own defection from Athens until they could make it subservient to his conquest of Amphipolis.
Starting with his army from Arnê in the Chalkidic peninsula, Brasidas arrived in the afternoon at Aulon and Bromiskus, near the channel whereby the lake Bolbê is connected with the sea: from hence, after his men had supped, he began his night-march to Amphipolis, on a cold and snowy night of November, or the beginning of December. He reached Argilus in the middle of the night, where the leaders at once admitted him, proclaiming their revolt from Athens. With their aid and guidance, he then hastened forward without delay to the bridge across the Strymon, which he reached before break of day.[659] It was guarded only by a feeble piquet,—the town of Amphipolis itself being situated on the hill at some little distance higher up the river;[660] so that Brasidas, preceded by the Argilian conspirators, surprised and overpowered the guard without difficulty. Thus master of this important communication, he crossed with his army forthwith into the territory of Amphipolis, where his arrival spread the utmost dismay and terror. The governor Euklês, the magistrates, and the citizens, were all found wholly unprepared: the lands belonging to the city were occupied by residents, with their families and property around them, calculating upon undisturbed security, as if there had been no enemy within reach. Such of these as were close to the city succeeded in running thither with their families, though leaving their property exposed,—but the more distant became in person as well as in property at the mercy of the invader. Even within the town, filled with the friends and relatives of these victims without, indescribable confusion reigned, of which the conspirators within tried to avail themselves in order to get the gates thrown open. And so complete was the disorganization, that if Brasidas had marched up without delay to the gates and assaulted the town, many persons supposed that he would have carried it at once. Such a risk, however, was too great even for his boldness, the rather as repulse would have been probably his ruin. Moreover, confiding in the assurances of the conspirators that the gates would be thrown open, he thought it safer to seize as many persons as he could from the out-citizens, as a means of working upon the sentiments of those within the walls; lastly, this process of seizure and plunder was probably more to the taste of his own soldiers, and could not well be hindered.
But he waited in vain for the opening of the gates. The conspirators in the city, in spite of the complete success of their surprise and the universal dismay around them, found themselves unable to carry the majority along with them. As in Akanthus, so in Amphipolis, those who really hated Athens and wished to revolt were only a party-minority; the greater number of citizens, at this critical moment, stood by Euklês and the few native Athenians around him in resolving upon defence, and in sending off an express to Thucydidês (the historian) at Thasos, the colleague of Euklês, as general in the region of Thrace, for immediate aid. This step, of course immediately communicated to Brasidas from within, determined him to make every effort for enticing the Amphipolitans to surrender before the reinforcement should arrive; the rather, as he was apprized that Thucydidês, being a large proprietor and worker of gold mines in the neighboring region, possessed extensive personal influence among the Thracian tribes, and would be able to bring them together for the relief of the place, in conjunction with his own Athenian squadron. He therefore sent in propositions for surrender on the most favorable terms, guaranteeing to every citizen who chose to remain, Amphipolitan or even Athenian, continued residence with undisturbed property and equal political rights, and granting to every one who chose to depart, five days for the purpose of carrying away his property.
Such easy conditions, when made known in the city, produced presently a sensible change of opinion among the citizens, proving acceptable both to Athenians and Amphipolitans, though on different grounds.[661] The properties of the citizens without, as well as many of their relatives, were all in the hands of Brasidas: no one counted upon the speedy arrival of reinforcement; and even if it did arrive, the city might be preserved, but the citizens without would still be either slain or made captive: a murderous battle would ensue, and perhaps, after all, Brasidas, assisted by the party within, might prove victorious. The Athenian citizens in Amphipolis, knowing themselves to be exposed to peculiar danger, were perfectly well pleased with his offer, as extricating them from a critical position and procuring for them the means of escape, with comparatively little loss; while the non-Athenian citizens, partakers in the same relief from peril, felt little reluctance in accepting a capitulation which preserved both their rights and their properties inviolate, and merely severed them from Athens, towards which city they felt, not hatred, but indifference. Above all, the friends and relatives of the citizens exposed in the out-region were strenuous in urging on the capitulation, so that the conspirators soon became bold enough to proclaim themselves openly, insisting upon the moderation of Brasidas and the prudence of admitting him. Euklês found that the tone of opinion, even among his own Athenians, was gradually turned against him, nor could he prevent the acceptance of the terms, and the admission of the enemy into the city, on that same day.
No such resolution would have been adopted, had the citizens been aware how near at hand Thucydidês and his forces were. The message despatched early in the morning from Amphipolis found him at Thasos with seven triremes; with which he instantly put to sea, so as to reach Eion at the mouth of the Strymon, within three miles of Amphipolis, on the same evening. He hoped to be in time for saving Amphipolis, but the place had surrendered a few hours before. He arrived, indeed, only just in time to preserve Eion; for parties in that town were already beginning to concert the admission of Brasidas, who would probably have entered it at daybreak the next morning. Thucydidês, putting the place in a condition of defence, successfully repelled an attack which Brasidas made both by land and by boats on the river. He at the same time received and provided for the Athenian citizens who were retiring from Amphipolis.[662]
The capture of this city, perhaps the most important of all the foreign possessions of Athens, and the opening of the bridge over the Strymon, by which even all her eastern allies became approachable by land, occasioned prodigious emotion throughout all the Grecian world. The dismay felt at Athens[663] was greater than had been ever before experienced: hope and joy prevailed among her enemies, and excitement and new aspirations became widely spread among her subject-allies. The bloody defeat at Delium, and the unexpected conquests of Brasidas, now again lowered the prestige of Athenian success, sixteen months after it had been so powerfully exalted by the capture of Sphakteria. The loss of reputation which Sparta had then incurred, was now compensated by a reaction against the unfounded terrors since conceived about the probable career of her enemy. It was not merely the loss of Amphipolis, serious as that was, which distressed the Athenians, but also their insecurity respecting the maintenance of their whole empire: they knew not which of their subject-allies might next revolt, in contemplation of aid from Brasidas, facilitated by the newly-acquired Strymonian bridge. And as the proceedings of that general counted in part to the credit of his country, it was believed that Sparta, now for the first time shaking off her languor,[664] had taken to herself the rapidity and enterprise once regarded as the exclusive characteristic of Athens. But besides all these chances of evil to the Athenians, there was another yet more threatening, the personal ascendency and position of Brasidas himself. It was not merely the boldness, the fertility of aggressive resource, the quick movements, the power of stimulating the minds of soldiers, which lent efficiency to that general; but also his incorruptible probity, his good faith, his moderation, his abstinence from party-cruelty or jobbing, and from all intermeddling with the internal constitutions of the different cities, in strict adherence to that manifesto whereby Sparta had proclaimed herself the liberator of Greece. Such talents and such official worth had never before been seen combined. Set off as they were by the full brilliancy of successes such as were deemed incredible before they actually occurred, they inspired a degree of confidence and turned a tide of opinion towards this eminent man which rendered him personally one of the first powers in Greece. Numerous solicitations were transmitted to him at Amphipolis from parties among the subject-allies of Athens, in their present temper of large hopes from him and diminished fear of the Athenians: the anti-Athenian party in each was impatient to revolt, the rest of the population less restrained by fear.[665]
Of those who indulged in these sanguine calculations, many had yet to learn by painful experience that Athens was still but little abated in power: but her inaction during this important autumn had been such as may well explain their mistake. It might have been anticipated that, on hearing the alarming news of the junction of Brasidas with the Chalkidians, and Perdikkas so close upon their dependent allies, they would forthwith have sent a competent force to Thrace, which, if despatched at that time, would probably have obviated all the subsequent disasters. So they would have acted at any other time, and perhaps even then, if Periklês had been alive. But the news arrived just at the period when Athens was engaged in the expedition against Bœotia, which ended very shortly in the ruinous defeat of Delium. Under the discouragement arising from the death of the stratêgus, Hippokratês, and one thousand citizens, the idea of a fresh expedition to Thrace would probably have been intolerable to Athenian hoplites: the hardships of a winter service in Thrace, as experienced a few years before in the blockade of Potidæa, would probably also aggravate their reluctance. In Grecian history, we must steadfastly keep in mind that we are reading about citizen soldiers, not about professional soldiers; and that the temper of the time, whether of confidence or dismay, modifies to an unspeakable degree all the calculations of military and political prudence. Even after the rapid successes of Brasidas, not merely at Akanthus and Stageirus, but even at Amphipolis, they sent only a few inadequate guards[666] to the points most threatened, thus leaving to their enterprising enemy the whole remaining winter for his operations, without hindrance. Without depreciating the merits of Brasidas, we may see that his extraordinary success was in great part owing to the no less extraordinary depression which at that time pervaded the Athenian public: a feeling encouraged by Nikias and other leading men of the same party, who were building upon it in order to get the Lacedæmonian proposals for peace accepted.
But while we thus notice the short-comings of Athens, in not sending timely forces against Brasidas, we must at the same time admit, that the most serious and irreparable loss which she sustained, that of Amphipolis, was the fault of her officers more than her own. Euklês, and the historian Thucydidês, the two joint Athenian commanders in Thrace, to whom she had confided the defence of that important town, had means amply sufficient to place it beyond all risk of capture, if they had employed the most ordinary vigilance and precaution beforehand. That Thucydidês became an exile immediately after this event, and remained so for twenty years, is certain from his own statement: and we hear, upon what in this case is quite sufficient authority, that the Athenians condemned him, probably Euklês also, to banishment, on the proposition of Kleon.[667]
In considering this sentence, historians[668] commonly treat Thucydidês as an innocent man, and find nothing to condemn except the calumnies of the demagogue along with the injustice of the people. But this view of the case cannot be sustained, when we bring together all the facts even as indicated by Thucydidês himself. At the moment when Brasidas surprised Amphipolis, Thucydidês was at Thasos; and the event is always discussed as if he was there by necessity or duty; as if Thasos was his special mission. Now we know from his own statement that his command was not special or confined to Thasos: he was sent as joint commander along with Euklês generally to Thrace, and especially to Amphipolis.[669] Both of them were jointly and severally responsible for the proper defence of Amphipolis, with the Athenian empire and interests in that quarter such nomination of two or more officers, coördinate and jointly responsible, being the usual habit of Athens, wherever the scale or the area of military operations was considerable, instead of naming one supreme responsible commander, with subordinate officers acting under him and responsible to him. If, then, Thucydidês “was stationed at Thasos,” to use the phrase of Dr. Thirlwall, this was because he chose to station himself there, in the exercise of his own discretion.