But dissensions had already commenced within the walls, and the Skiônæan auxiliaries, becoming mistrustful of their situation, took advantage of the night to return home. The revolt of Mendê had been brought about against the will of the citizens by the intrigues and for the benefit of an oligarchical faction: moreover, it does not appear that Brasidas personally visited the town, as he had visited Skiônê and the other revolted towns: had he come, his personal influence might have done much to soothe the offended citizens, and create some disposition to adopt the revolt as a fact accomplished, after they had once been compromised with Athens. But his animating words had not been heard, and the Peloponnesian troops whom he had sent to Mendê, were mere instruments to sustain the newly erected oligarchy and keep out the Athenians. The feelings of the citizens generally towards them were soon unequivocally displayed. Nikostratus with half of the Athenian force was planted before that gate of Mendê which opened towards Potidæa: in the neighborhood of that gate, within the city, was the place of arms and the chief station both of the Peloponnesians and of the citizens; and Polydamidas, intending to make a sally forth, was marshalling both of them in battle order, when one of the Mendæan Demos, manifesting with angry vehemence a sentiment common to most of them, told him, “that he would not sally forth, and did not choose to take part in the contest.” Polydamidas seized hold of the man to punish him, when the mass of the armed Demos, taking part with their comrade, made a sudden rush upon the Peloponnesians. The latter, unprepared for such an onset, sustained at first some loss, and were soon forced to retreat into the acropolis; the rather, as they saw some of the Mendæans open the gates to the besiegers without, which induced them to suspect a preconcerted betrayal. No such concert, however, existed, though the besieging generals, when they saw the gates thus suddenly opened, soon comprehended the real position of affairs. But they found it impossible to restrain their soldiers, who pushed in forthwith, from plundering the town; and they had even some difficulty in saving the lives of the citizens.[705]
Mendê being thus taken, the Athenian generals desired the body of the citizens to resume their former government, leaving it to them to single out and punish the authors of the late revolt. What use was made of this permission, we are not told; but probably most of the authors had already escaped into the acropolis along with Polydamidas. Having erected a wall of circumvallation round the acropolis, joining the sea at both ends, and left a force to guard it, the Athenians moved away to begin the siege of Skiônê, where they found both the citizens and the Peloponnesian garrison posted on a strong hill, not far from the walls. As it was impossible to surround the town without being masters of this hill, the Athenians attacked it at once, and were more fortunate than they had been before Mendê; for they carried it by assault, compelling the defenders to take refuge in the town. After erecting their trophy, they commenced the wall of circumvallation. Before it was finished, the garrison who had been shut up in the acropolis of Mendê, got into Skiônê at night, having broken out by a sudden sally where the blockading wall around them joined the sea. But this did not hinder Nikias from prosecuting his operations, so that Skiônê was in no long time completely inclosed, and a division placed to guard the wall of circumvallation.[706]
Such was the state of affairs which Brasidas found on returning from the inland Macedonia. Unable either to recover Mendê or to relieve Skiônê, he was forced to confine himself to the protection of Torônê. Nikias, however, without attacking Torônê, returned soon afterwards with his armament to Athens, leaving Skiônê under blockade.
The march of Brasidas into Macedonia had been unfortunate in every way, and nothing but his extraordinary gallantry rescued him from utter ruin. The joint force of himself and Perdikkas consisted of three thousand Grecian hoplites, Peloponnesian, Akanthian, and Chalkidian, with one thousand Macedonian and Chalkidian horse, and a considerable number of non-Hellenic auxiliaries. As soon as they had got beyond the mountain-pass into the territory of the Lynkêstæ, they were met by Arrhibæus, and a battle ensued, in which that prince was completely worsted. They halted here for a few days, awaiting—before they pushed forward to attack the villages in the territory of Arrhibæus—the arrival of a body of Illyrian mercenaries, with whom Perdikkas had concluded a bargain.[707] At length Perdikkas became impatient to advance without them; while Brasidas, on the contrary, apprehensive for the fate of Mendê during his absence, was bent on returning back. The dissension between them becoming aggravated, they parted company and occupied separate encampments at some distance from each other, when both received unexpected intelligence which made Perdikkas as anxious to retreat as Brasidas. The Illyrians, having broken their compact, had joined Arrhibæus, and were now in full march to attack the invaders. The untold number of these barbarians was reported as overwhelming, and such was their reputation for ferocity as well as for valor, that the Macedonian army of Perdikkas, seized with a sudden panic, broke up in the night and fled without orders, hurrying Perdikkas himself along with them, and not even sending notice to Brasidas, with whom nothing had been concerted about the retreat. In the morning, the latter found Arrhibæus and the Illyrians close upon him, while the Macedonians were already far advanced in their journey homeward.
The contrast between the man of Hellas and of Macedonia, general as well as soldiers, was never more strikingly exhibited than on this critical occasion. The soldiers of Brasidas, though surprised as well as deserted, lost neither their courage nor their discipline: the commander preserved not only his presence of mind, but his full authority. His hoplites were directed to form in a hollow square, or oblong, with the light-armed and attendants in the centre, for the retreating march: youthful soldiers were posted either in the outer ranks, or in convenient stations, to run out swiftly and repel the assailing enemy; while Brasidas himself, with three hundred chosen men, formed the rear-guard.[708]
The short harangue which, according to a custom universal with Grecian generals, he addressed to his troops immediately before the enemy approached, is in many respects remarkable. Though some were Akanthians, some Chalkidians, some Helots, he designates all by the honorable title of “Peloponnesians.” Reassuring them against the desertion of their allies, as well as against the superior numbers of the advancing enemy, he invokes their native, homebred courage.[709] “Ye do not require the presence of allies to inspire you with bravery, nor do ye fear superior numbers of an enemy; for ye belong not to those political communities in which the larger number governs the smaller, but to those in which a few men rule subjects more numerous than themselves, having acquired their power by no other means than by superiority in battle.” Next, Brasidas tried to dissipate the prestige of the Illyrian name; his army had already vanquished the Lynkêstæ, and these other barbarians were noway better. A nearer acquaintance would soon show that they were only formidable from the noise, the gestures, the clashing of arms, and the accompaniments of their onset; and that they were incapable of sustaining the reality of close combat, hand to hand. “They have no regular order (said he) such as to impress them with shame for deserting their post: flight and attack are with them in equally honorable esteem, so that there is nothing to test the really courageous man: their battle, wherein every man fights as he chooses, is just the thing to furnish each with a decent pretence for running away.” “Repel ye their onset whenever it comes; and so soon as opportunity offers, resume your retreat in rank and order. Ye will soon arrive in a place of safety; and ye will be convinced that such crowds, when their enemy has stood to defy the first onset, keep aloof with empty menace and a parade of courage which never strikes; while if their enemy gives way, they show themselves smart and bold in running after him where there is no danger.”[710]
The superiority of disciplined and regimented force over disorderly numbers, even with equal undivided courage, is now a truth so familiar, that we require an effort of imagination to put ourselves back into the fifth century before the Christian era, when this truth was recognized only among the Hellenic communities; when the practice of all their neighbors—Illyrians, Thracians, Asiatics, Epirots, and even Macedonians—implied ignorance or contradiction of it. In respect to the Epirots, the difference between their military habits and those of the Greeks has been already noticed, having been pointedly manifested in the memorable joint attack on the Akarnanian town of Stratus, in the second year of the war.[711] Both Epirots and Macedonians, however, are a step nearer to the Greeks than either Thracians, or these Illyrian barbarians against whom Brasidas was now about to contend, and in whose case the contrast comes out yet more forcibly. Nor is it merely the contrast between two modes of fighting which the Lacedæmonian commander impresses upon his soldiers: he gives what may be called a moral theory of the principles on which that contrast is founded,—a theory of large range and going to the basis of Grecian social life, in peace as well as in war. The sentiment in each individual man’s bosom, of a certain place which he has to fill and duties which he has to perform, combined with fear of the displeasure of his neighbors as well as of his own self-reproach if he shrinks back, but at the same time essentially bound up and reciprocating with the feeling that his neighbors are under corresponding obligations towards him,—this sentiment, which Brasidas invokes as the settled military creed of his soldiers in their ranks, was not less the regulating principle of their intercourse in peace as citizens of the same community. Simple as this principle may seem, it would have found no response in the army of Xerxes, or of the Thracian Sitalkês, or of the Gaul Brennus. The Persian soldier rushes to death by order of the Great King, perhaps under terror of a whip which the Great King commands to be administered to him: the Illyrian or the Gaul scorns such a stimulus, and obeys only the instigation of his own pugnacity, or vengeance, or love of blood, or love of booty, but recedes as soon as that individual sentiment is either satisfied or overcome by fear. It is the Greek soldier alone who feels himself bound to his comrades by ties reciprocal and indissoluble,[712]—who obeys neither the will of a king, nor his own individual impulse, but a common and imperative sentiment of obligation,—whose honor or shame is attached to his own place in the ranks, never to be abandoned nor overstepped. Such conceptions of military duty, established in the minds of these soldiers whom Brasidas addressed, will come to be farther illustrated when we describe the memorable Retreat of the Ten Thousand: at present, I merely indicate them as forming a part of that general scheme of morality, social and political as well as military, wherein the Greeks stood exalted above the nations who surrounded them.
But there is another point in the speech of Brasidas which deserves notice. He tells his soldiers: “Courage is your homebred property; for ye belong to communities wherein the small number governs the larger, simply by reason of superior prowess in themselves and conquest by their ancestors.” First, it is remarkable that a large proportion of the Peloponnesian soldiers, whom Brasidas thus addresses, consisted of Helots, the conquered race, not the conquerors: yet so easily does the military or regimental pride supplant the sympathies of race, that these men would feel flattered by being addressed as if they were themselves sprung from the race which had enslaved their ancestors. Next, we here see the right of the strongest invoked as the legitimate source of power, and as an honorable and ennobling recollection, by an officer of Dorian race, oligarchical politics, unperverted intellect, and estimable character: and we shall accordingly be prepared, when we find a similar principle hereafter laid down by the Athenian envoys at Melos, to disallow the explanation of those who treat it merely as a theory invented by demagogues and sophists, upon one or other of whom it is common to throw the blame of all that is objectionable in Grecian politics or morality.
Having finished his harangue, Brasidas gave orders for retreat. As soon as his march began, the Illyrians rushed upon him with all the confidence and shouts of pursuers against a flying enemy, believing that they should completely destroy his army. But wherever they approached near, the young soldiers specially stationed for the purpose, turned upon and beat them back with severe loss; while Brasidas himself, with his rear-guard of three hundred, was present everywhere rendering vigorous aid. When the Lynkêstæ and Illyrians attacked, the army halted and repelled them, after which it resumed its retreating march. The barbarians found themselves so rudely handled, and with such unwonted vigor,—for they probably had had no previous experience of Grecian troops,—that after a few trials they desisted from meddling with the army in its retreat along the plain. They ran forward rapidly, partly in order to overtake the Macedonians under Perdikkas, who had fled before, partly to occupy the narrow pass, with high hills on each side, which formed the entrance into Lynkêstis, and which lay in the road of Brasidas. When the latter approached this narrow pass, he saw the barbarians masters of it; several of them were already on the summits, and more were ascending to reinforce them; while a portion of them were moving down upon his rear. Brasidas immediately gave orders to his chosen three hundred, to charge up the most assailable of the two hills, with their best speed, before it became more numerously occupied, not staying to preserve compact ranks. This unexpected and vigorous movement disconcerted the barbarians, who fled, abandoning the eminence to the Greeks, and leaving their own men in the pass exposed on one of their flanks.[713] The retreating army, thus master of one of the side hills, was enabled to force its way through the middle pass, and to drive away the Lynkêstian and Illyrian occupants. Having got through this narrow outlet, Brasidas found himself on the higher ground, nor did his enemies dare to attack him farther: so that he was enabled to reach, even in that day’s march, the first town or village in the kingdom of Perdikkas, called Arnissa. So incensed were his soldiers with the Macedonian subjects of Perdikkas, who had fled on the first news of danger without giving them any notice, that they seized and appropriated all the articles of baggage, not inconsiderable in number, which happened to have been dropped in the disorder of a nocturnal flight; and they even unharnessed and slew the oxen out of the baggage carts.[714]
Perdikkas keenly resented this behavior of the troops of Brasidas, following as it did immediately upon his own quarrel with that general, and upon the mortification of his repulse from Lynkêstis. From this moment he broke off his alliance with the Peloponnesians, and opened negotiations with Nikias, then engaged in constructing the wall of blockade round Skiônê. Such was the general faithlessness of this prince, however, that Nikias required as a condition of the alliance, some manifest proof of the sincerity of his intentions; and Perdikkas was soon enabled to afford a proof of considerable importance.[715]