7. Disputes shall be amicably settled, by both parties, according to their established laws and customs.
Such was the substance of the treaty prepared at Sparta, seemingly in concert with Athenian envoys, and sent by the Spartans to Athens for approval, with the following addition: “If there be any provision which occurs to you, more honorable or just than these, come to Lacedæmon and tell us: for neither the Spartans nor their allies will resist any just suggestions. But let those who come, bring with them full powers to conclude, in the same manner as you desire of us. The truce shall be for one year.”
By the resolution which Lachês proposed in the Athenian public assembly, ratifying the truce, the people farther decreed that negotiations should be open for a definitive treaty, and directed the stratêgi to propose to the next ensuing assembly, a scheme and principles for conducting the negotiations. But at the very moment when the envoys between Sparta and Athens were bringing the truce to final adoption, events happened in Thrace which threatened to cancel it altogether. Two days[697] after the important fourteenth of Elaphebolion, but before the truce could be made known in Thrace, Skiônê revolted from Athens to Brasidas.
Skiônê was a town calling itself Achæan, one of the numerous colonies which, in the want of an acknowledged mother city, traced its origin to warriors returning from Troy. It was situated in the peninsula of Pallênê (the westernmost of those three narrow tongues of land into which Chalkidikê branches out); conterminous with the Eretrian colony Mendê. The Skiônæans, not without considerable dissent among themselves, proclaimed their revolt from Athens, under concert with Brasidas. He immediately crossed the gulf into Pallênê, himself in a little boat, but with a trireme close at his side; calculating that she would protect him against any small Athenian vessel,—while any Athenian trireme which he might encounter would attack his trireme, paying no attention to the little boat in which he himself was. The revolt of Skiônê was, from the position of the town, a more striking defiance of Athens than any of the preceding events. For the isthmus connecting Pallênê with the mainland was occupied by the town of Potidæa, a town assigned at the period of its capture seven years before to Athenian settlers, though probably containing some other residents besides. Moreover, the isthmus was so narrow, that the wall of Potidæa barred it across completely from sea to sea: Pallênê was therefore a quasi-island, not open to the aid of land-force from the continent, like the towns previously acquired by Brasidas. The Skiônæans thus put themselves, without any foreign aid, into conflict against the whole force of Athens, bringing into question her empire not merely over continental towns, but over islands.
Even to Brasidas himself their revolt appeared a step of astonishing boldness. On being received into the city, he convened a public assembly, and addressed to them the same language which he had employed at Akanthus and Torônê, disavowing all party preferences as well as all interference with the internal politics of the town, and exhorting them only to unanimous efforts against the common enemy. He bestowed upon them at the same time the warmest praise for their courage. “They, though exposed to all hazards of islanders, had stood forward of their own accord to procure freedom,[698] without waiting like cowards to be driven on by a foreign force towards what was clearly their own good. He considered them capable of any measure of future heroism, if the danger now impending from Athens should be averted, and he should assign to them the very first post of honor among the faithful allies of Lacedæmon.” This generous, straightforward, and animating tone of exhortation, appealing to the strongest political instinct of the Greek mind, the love of complete city autonomy, and coming from the lips of one whose whole conduct had hitherto been conformable to it, had proved highly efficacious in all the previous towns. But in Skiônê it roused the population to the highest pitch of enthusiasm:[699] it worked even upon the feelings of the dissentient minority, bringing them round to partake heartily in the movement: it produced a unanimous and exalted confidence which made them look forward cheerfully to all the desperate chances in which they had engaged themselves; and it produced at the same time, in still more unbounded manifestation, the same personal attachment and admiration as Brasidas inspired elsewhere. The Skiônæans not only voted to him publicly a golden crown, as the liberator of Greece, but when it was placed on his head, the burst of individual sentiment and sympathy was the strongest of which the Grecian bosom was capable. “They crowded round him individually, and encircled his head with fillets, like a victorious athlete,”[700] says the historian. This remarkable incident illustrates what I observed before, that the achievements, the self-relying march, the straightforward politics and probity of this illustrious man, who in character was more Athenian than Spartan, yet with the good qualities of Athens predominant, inspired a personal emotion towards him such as rarely found its way into Grecian political life. The sympathy and admiration felt in Greece towards a victorious athlete was not merely an intense sentiment in the Grecian mind, but was, perhaps of all others, the most wide-spread and Pan-Hellenic. It was connected with the religion, the taste, and the love of recreation, common to the whole nation, while politics tended rather to disunite the separate cities: it was farther a sentiment at once familiar and exclusively personal. Of its exaggerated intensity throughout Greece the philosophers often complained, not without good reason; but Thucydidês cannot convey a more lively idea of the enthusiasm and unanimity with which Brasidas was welcomed at Skiônê, just after the desperate resolution taken by the citizens, than by using this simile.
The Lacedæmonian commander knew well how much the utmost resolution of the Skiônæans was needed, and how speedily their insular position would draw upon them the vigorous invasion of Athens. He accordingly brought across to Pallênê a considerable portion of his army, not merely with a view to the defence of Skiônê, but also with the intention of surprising both Mendê and Potidæa, in both which places there were small parties of conspirators prepared to open the gates.
It was in this position that he was found by the commissioners who came to announce formally the conclusion of the truce for one year, and to enforce its provisions: Athenæus from Sparta, one of the three Spartans who had sworn to the treaty: Aristonymus, from Athens. The face of affairs was materially altered by this communication; much to the satisfaction of the newly acquired allies of Sparta in Thrace, who accepted the truce forthwith, but to the great chagrin of Brasidas, whose career was thus suddenly arrested. But he could not openly refuse obedience, and his army was accordingly transferred from the peninsula of Pallênê to Torônê.
The case of Skiônê, however, immediately raised an obstruction, doubtless very agreeable to him. The commissioners who had come in an Athenian trireme, had heard nothing of the revolt of that place, and Aristonymus was astonished to find the enemy in Pallênê. But on inquiring into the case, he discovered that the Skiônæans had not revolted until two days after the day fixed for the commencement of the truce: accordingly, while sanctioning the truce for all the other cities in Thrace, he refused to comprehend Skiônê in it, sending immediate news home to Athens. Brasidas, protesting loudly against this proceeding, refused on his part to abandon Skiônê, which was peculiarly endeared to him by the recent scenes; and even obtained the countenance of the Lacedæmonian commissioners, by falsely asseverating that the city had revolted before the day named in the truce. Violent was the burst of indignation when the news sent home by Aristonymus reached Athens: nor was it softened, when the Lacedæmonians, acting upon the version of the case sent to them by Brasidas and Athenæus, despatched an embassy hither to claim protection for Skiônê, or at any rate to procure the adjustment of the dispute by arbitration or pacific decision. Having the terms of the treaty on their side, the Athenians were least of all disposed to relax from their rights in favor of the first revolting islanders. They resolved at once to undertake an expedition for the reconquest of Skiônê; and farther, on the proposition of Kleon, to put to death all the adult male inhabitants of that place as soon as it should have been reconquered. At the same time, they showed no disposition to throw up the truce generally; and the state of feeling on both sides tended to this result, that, while the war continued in Thrace, it was suspended everywhere else.[701]
Fresh intelligence soon arrived, carrying exasperation at Athens yet farther, of the revolt of Mendê, the adjoining town to Skiônê. Those Mendæans, who had laid their measures for secretly introducing Brasidas, were at first baffled by the arrival of the truce-commissioners; but they saw that he retained his hold on Skiônê, in spite of the provisions of the truce, and they ascertained that he was willing still to protect them if they revolted, though he could not be an accomplice, as originally projected, in the surprise of the town. Being, moreover, only a small party, with the sentiment of the population against them, they were afraid, if they now relinquished their scheme, of being detected and punished for the partial steps already taken, when the Athenians should come against Skiônê. They therefore thought it on the whole the least dangerous course to persevere. They proclaimed their revolt from Athens, constraining the reluctant citizens to obey them:[702] the government seems before to have been democratical, but they now found means to bring about an oligarchical revolution along with the revolt. Brasidas immediately accepted their adhesion, and willingly undertook to protect them, professing to think that he had a right to do so, because they had revolted openly after the truce had been proclaimed. But the truce upon this point was clear, which he himself virtually admitted, by setting up as justification certain alleged matters in which the Athenians had themselves violated it. He immediately made preparation for the defence both of Mendê and Skiônê against the attack, which was now rendered more certain than before, conveying the women and children of those two towns across to the Chalkidic Olynthus, and sending thither as garrison five hundred Peloponnesian hoplites with three hundred Chalkidic peltasts; the commander of which force, Polydamidas, took possession of the acropolis with his own troops separately.[703] Brasidas then withdrew himself with the greater part of his army, to accompany Perdikkas on an expedition into the interior against Arrhibæus and the Lynkêstæ. On what ground, after having before entered into terms with Arrhibæus, he now became his active enemy, we are left to conjecture: probably his relations with Perdikkas, whose alliance was of essential importance, were such that this step was forced upon him against his will, or he may really have thought that the force under Polydamidas was adequate to the defence of Mendê and Skiônê; an idea which the unaccountable backwardness of Athens for the last six or eight months might well foster. Had he even remained, indeed, he could hardly have saved them, considering the situation of Pallênê and the superiority of Athens at sea; but his absence made their ruin certain.[704]
While Brasidas was thus engaged far in the interior, the Athenian armament under Nikias and Nikostratus reached Potidæa: fifty triremes, ten of them Chian; one thousand hoplites and six hundred bowmen from Athens; one thousand mercenary Thracians, with some peltasts from Methônê and other towns in the neighborhood. From Potidæa, they proceeded by sea to Cape Poseidonium, near which they landed for the purpose of attacking Mendê. Polydamidas, the Peloponnesian commander in the town, took post with his force of seven hundred hoplites, including three hundred Skiônæans, upon an eminence near the city, strong and difficult of approach: upon which the Athenian generals divided their forces; Nikias, with sixty Athenian chosen hoplites, one hundred and twenty Methonean peltasts, and all the bowmen, tried to march up the hill by a side path and thus turn the position; while Nikostratus with the main army attacked it in front. But such were the extreme difficulties of the ground that both were repulsed: Nikias was himself wounded, and the division of Nikostratus was thrown into great disorder, narrowly escaping a destructive defeat. The Mendæans, however, evacuated the position in the night and retired into the city; while the Athenians, sailing round on the morrow to the suburb on the side of Skiônê, ravaged the neighboring lands; and Nikias on the ensuing day carried his devastations still farther, even to the border of the Skiônæan territory.