But farther, if we should even grant that Kleon had a separate party-interest in promoting the war, it will still remain to be considered, whether, at this particular crisis, the employment of energetic warlike measures in Thrace was not really the sound and prudent policy for Athens. Taking Periklês as the best judge of that policy, we shall find him at the outset of the war inculcating emphatically two important points: 1. To stand vigorously upon the defensive, maintaining unimpaired their maritime empire, “keeping their subject-allies well in hand,” submitting patiently even to see Attica ravaged. 2. To abstain from trying to enlarge their empire or to make new conquests during the war.[727] Consistently with this well-defined plan of action, Periklês, had he lived, would have taken care to interfere vigorously and betimes to prevent Brasidas from making his conquests: had such interference been either impossible or accidentally frustrated, he would have thought no efforts too great to recover them. To maintain undiminished the integrity of the empire, as well as that impression of Athenian force upon which the empire rested, was his cardinal principle. Now it is impossible to deny that in reference to Thrace, Kleon adhered more closely than his rival Nikias to the policy of Periklês. It was to Nikias, more than to Kleon, that the fatal mistake made by Athens in not interfering speedily after Brasidas first broke into Thrace is to be imputed: it was Nikias and his partisans, desirous of peace at almost any price, and knowing that the Lacedæmonians also desired it, who encouraged his countrymen, at a moment of great public depression of spirit, to leave Brasidas unopposed in Thrace, and rely on the chance of negotiation with Sparta for arresting his progress. The peace-party at Athens carried their point of the truce for a year, with the promise and for the express purpose of checking the farther conquests of Brasidas; also with the farther promise of maturing that truce into a permanent peace, and obtaining under the peace even the restoration of Amphipolis.
Such was the policy of Nikias and his party, the friends of peace and opponents of Kleon. And the promises which they thus held out might perhaps appear plausible in March 422 B.C., at the moment when the truce for one year was concluded. But the subsequent events had frustrated them in the most glaring manner, and had even shown the best reason for believing that no such expectations could possibly be realized while Brasidas was in unbroken and unopposed action. For the Lacedæmonians, though seemingly sincere in concluding the truce on the basis of uti possidetis, and desiring to extend it to Thrace as well as elsewhere, had been unable to enforce the observance of it upon Brasidas, or to restrain him even from making new acquisitions, so that Athens never obtained the benefit of the truce, exactly in that region where she most stood in need of it. Only by the despatch of her armament to Skiônê and Mendê had she maintained herself in possession even of Pallênê. Now what was the lesson to be derived from this experience, when the Athenians came to discuss their future policy, after the truce was at an end? The great object of all parties at Athens was to recover the lost possessions in Thrace, especially Amphipolis. Nikias, still urging negotiations for peace, continued to hold out hopes that the Lacedæmonians would be willing to restore that place, as the price of their captives now at Athens; and his connection with Sparta would enable him to announce her professions even upon authority. But to this Kleon might make, and doubtless did make, a complete reply, grounded upon the most recent experience: “If the Lacedæmonians consent to the restitution of Amphipolis (he would say), it will probably be only with the view of finding some means to escape performance, and yet to get back their prisoners. But granting that they are perfectly sincere, they will never be able to control Brasidas, and those parties in Thrace who are bound up with him by community of feeling and interest; so that after all, you will give them back their prisoners on the faith of an equivalent beyond their power to realize. Look at what has happened during the truce! So different are the views and obligations of Brasidas in Thrace from those of the Lacedæmonians, that he would not even obey their order when they directed him to stand as he was, and to desist from farther conquest: much less will he obey them when they direct him to surrender what he has already got: least of all, if they enjoin the surrender of Amphipolis, his grand acquisition and his central point for all future effort. Depend upon it, if you desire to regain Amphipolis, you will only regain it by energetic employment of force, as has happened with Skiônê and Mendê: and you ought to put forth your strength for this purpose immediately, while the Lacedæmonian prisoners are yet in your hands, instead of waiting until after you shall have been deluded into giving them up, thereby losing all your hold upon Lacedæmon.”
Such anticipations were fully verified by the result: for subsequent history will show that the Lacedæmonians, when they had bound themselves by treaty to give up Amphipolis, either would not, or could not, enforce performance of their stipulation, even after the death of Brasidas: much less could they have done so during his life, when there was his great personal influence, strenuous will, and hopes of future conquest, to serve as increased obstruction to them. Such anticipations were also plainly suggested by the recent past: so that in putting them into the mouth of Kleon, we are only supposing him to read the lesson open before his eyes.
Now since the war-policy of Kleon, taken at this moment after the expiration of the one year’s truce, may be thus shown to be not only more conformable to the genius of Periklês, but also founded on a juster estimate of events both past and future, than the peace-policy of Nikias, what are we to say to the historian, who, without refuting such presumptions, every one of which is deduced from his own narrative, nay, without even indicating their existence, merely tells us that “Kleon opposed the peace in order that he might cloke dishonest intrigues and find matter for plausible crimination?” We cannot but say of this criticism, with profound regret that such words must be pronounced respecting any judgment of Thucydidês, that it is harsh and unfair towards Kleon, and careless in regard to truth and the instruction of his readers. It breathes not that same spirit of honorable impartiality which pervades his general history: it is an interpolation by the officer whose improvidence had occasioned to his countrymen the fatal loss of Amphipolis, retaliating upon the citizen who justly accused him: it is conceived in the same tone as his unaccountable judgment in the matter of Sphakteria.
Rejecting on this occasion the judgment of Thucydidês, we may confidently affirm that Kleon had rational public grounds for urging his countrymen to undertake with energy the reconquest of Amphipolis. Demagogue and leather-seller though he was, he stands here honorably distinguished, as well from the tameness and inaction of Nikias, who grasped at peace with hasty credulity through sickness of the efforts of war, as from the restless movement and novelties, not merely unprofitable but ruinous, which we shall presently find springing up under the auspices of Alkibiadês. Periklês had said to his countrymen, at a time when they were enduring all the miseries of pestilence, and were in a state of despondency even greater than that which prevailed in B.C. 422: “You hold your empire and your proud position, by the condition of being willing to encounter cost, fatigue, and danger: abstain from all views of enlarging the empire, but think no effort too great to maintain it unimpaired. To lose what we have once got is more disgraceful than to fail in attempts at acquisition.”[728] The very same language was probably held by Kleon when exhorting his countrymen to an expedition for the reconquest of Amphipolis. But when uttered by him, it would have a very different effect from that which it had formerly produced when held by Periklês, and different also from that which it would now have produced if held by Nikias. The entire peace-party would repudiate it when it came from Kleon; partly out of dislike to the speaker, partly from a conviction, doubtless felt by every one, that an expedition against Brasidas would be a hazardous and painful service to all concerned in it, general as well as soldiers; partly also from a persuasion, sincerely entertained at the time, though afterwards proved to be illusory by the result, that Amphipolis might really be got back through peace with the Lacedæmonians.
If Kleon, in proposing the expedition, originally proposed himself as the commander, a new ground of objection, and a very forcible ground, would thus be furnished. Since everything which Kleon does is understood to be a manifestation of some vicious or silly attribute, we are told that this was an instance of his absurd presumption, arising out of the success of Pylus, and persuading him that he was the only general who could put down Brasidas. But if the success at Pylus had really filled him with such overweening military conceit, it is most unaccountable that he should not have procured for himself some command during the year which immediately succeeded the affair at Sphakteria, the eighth year of the war: a season of most active warlike enterprise, when his presumption and influence arising out of the Sphakterian victory must have been fresh and glowing. As he obtained no command during this immediately succeeding period we may fairly doubt whether he ever really conceived such excessive personal presumption of his own talents for war, and whether he did not retain after the affair of Sphakteria the same character which he had manifested in that affair, reluctance to engage in military expeditions himself, and a disposition to see them commanded as well as carried on by others. It is by no means certain that Kleon, in proposing the expedition against Amphipolis, originally proposed to take the command of it himself: I think it at least equally probable, that his original wish was to induce Nikias or the stratêgi to take the command of it, as in the case of Sphakteria. Nikias, doubtless, opposed the expedition as much as he could: when it was determined by the people, in spite of his opposition, he would peremptorily decline the command for himself, and would do all he could to force it upon Kleon, or at least would be better pleased to see it under his command than under that of any one else. He would be not less glad to exonerate himself from a dangerous service than to see his rival entangled in it; and he would have before him the same alternative which he and his friends had contemplated with so much satisfaction in the affair of Sphakteria: either the expedition would succeed, in which case Amphipolis would be taken, or it would fail, and the consequence would be the ruin of Kleon. The last of the two was really the more probable at Amphipolis, as Nikias had erroneously imagined it to be at Sphakteria.
It is easy to see, however, that an expedition proposed under these circumstances by Kleon, though it might command a majority in the public assembly, would have a large proportion of the citizens unfavorable to it, and even wishing that it might fail. Moreover, Kleon had neither talents nor experience for commanding an army, and the being engaged under his command in fighting against the ablest officer of the time, could inspire no confidence to any man in putting on his armor. From all these circumstances united, political as well as military, we are not surprised to hear that the hoplites whom he took out with him went with much reluctance.[729] An ignorant general, with unwilling soldiers, many of them politically disliking him, stood little chance of wresting Amphipolis from Brasidas: but had Nikias or the stratêgi done their duty, and carried the entire force of the city under competent command to the same object, the issue would probably have been different as to gain and loss; certainly very different as to dishonor.
Kleon started from Peiræus, apparently towards the beginning of August, with twelve hundred Athenian, Lemnian, and Imbrian hoplites, and three hundred horsemen, troops of excellent quality and condition: besides an auxiliary force of allies, number not exactly known, and thirty triremes. This armament was not of magnitude at all equal to the taking of Amphipolis; for Brasidas had equal numbers, besides all the advantages of the position. But it was a part of the scheme of Kleon, on arriving at Eion, to procure Macedonian and Thracian reinforcements before he commenced his attack. He first halted in his voyage near Skiônê, from which place he took away such of the hoplites as could be spared from the blockade. He next sailed across the gulf from Pallênê to the Sithonian peninsula, to a place called the Harbor of the Kolophonians, near Torônê.[730] Having here learned that neither Brasidas himself, nor any considerable Peloponnesian garrison were present in Torônê, he landed his forces and marched to attack the town, sending ten triremes at the same time round a promontory which separated the harbor of the Kolophonians from Torônê, to assail the latter place from seaward. It happened that Brasidas, desiring to enlarge the fortified circle of Torônê, had broken down a portion of the old wall, and employed the materials in building a new and larger wall inclosing the proasteion, or suburb: this new wall appears to have been still incomplete and in an imperfect state of defence. Pasitelidas, the Peloponnesian commander, resisted the attack of the Athenians as long as he could; but when already beginning to give way, he saw the ten Athenian triremes sailing into the harbor, which was hardly guarded at all. Abandoning the defence of the suburb, he hastened to repel these new assailants, but came too late, so that the town was entered from both sides at once. Brasidas, who was not far off, rendered aid with the utmost celerity, but was yet at five miles’ distance from the city when he learned the capture, and was obliged to retire unsuccessfully. Pasitelidas the commander, with the Peloponnesian garrison and the Torônæan male population, were despatched as prisoners to Athens; while the Torônæan women and children, by a fate but too common in those days, were sold as slaves.[731]
After this not unimportant success, Kleon sailed round the promontory of Athos to Eion at the mouth of the Strymon, within three miles of Amphipolis. From hence, in execution of his original scheme, he sent envoys to Perdikkas, urging him to lend effective aid as the ally of Athens in the attack of Amphipolis, with his whole forces; and to Pollês the king of the Thracian Odomantes, inviting him also to come with as many Thracian mercenaries as could be levied. The Edonians, the Thracian tribe nearest to Amphipolis, took part with Brasidas: and the local influence of the banished Thucydidês would no longer be at the service of Athens, much less at the service of Kleon. Awaiting the expected reinforcements, Kleon employed himself, first in an attack upon Stageirus in the Strymonic gulf, which was repulsed; next upon Galêpsus, on the coast opposite the island of Thasos, which was successful. But the reinforcements did not at once arrive, and being too weak to attack Amphipolis without them, he was obliged to remain inactive at Eion; while Brasidas on his side made no movement out of Amphipolis, but contented himself with keeping constant watch over the forces of Kleon, the view of which he commanded from his station on the hill of Kerdylion, on the western bank of the river-communication with Amphipolis by the bridge. Some days elapsed in such inaction on both sides; but the Athenian hoplites, becoming impatient of doing nothing, soon began to give vent to those feelings of dislike which they had brought out from Athens against their general, “whose ignorance and cowardice (says the historian) they contrasted with the skill and bravery of his opponent.”[732] Athenian hoplites, if they felt such a sentiment, were not likely to refrain from manifesting it; and Kleon was presently made aware of the fact in a manner sufficiently painful to force him against his will into some movement; which, however, he did not intend to be anything else than a march for the purpose of surveying the ground all round the city, and a demonstration to escape the appearance of doing nothing, being aware that it was impossible to attack the place with any effect before his reinforcements arrived.
To comprehend the important incidents which followed, it is necessary to say a few words on the topography of Amphipolis, as far as we can understand it on the imperfect evidence before us. That city was placed on the left bank of the Strymon, on a conspicuous hill around which the river makes a bend, first in a southwesterly direction, then, after a short course to the southward, back in a southeasterly direction. Amphipolis had for its only artificial fortification one long wall, which began near the point northeast of the town, where the river narrows again into a channel, after passing through the lake Kerkinitis, ascended along the eastern side of the hill, crossing the ridge which connects it with Mount Pangæus, and then descended so as to touch the river again at another point south of the town; thus being, as it were, a string to the highly-bent bow formed by the river. On three sides therefore, north, west, and south, the city was defended only by the Strymon, and was thus visible without any intervening wall to spectators from the side of the sea (south), as well as from the side of the continent (or west and north).[733] At some little distance below the point where the wall touched the river south of the city, was the bridge,[734] a communication of great importance for the whole country, which connected the territory of Amphipolis with that of Argilus. On the western or right bank of the river, bordering it, and forming an outer bend corresponding to the bend of the river, was situated Mount Kerdylium: in fact, the course of the Strymon is here determined by these two steep eminences, Kerdylium on the west, and the hill of Amphipolis on the east, between which it flows. At the time when Brasidas first took the place, the bridge was totally unconnected with the long city wall; but during the intervening eighteen months, he had erected a palisade work—probably an earthen bank topped with a palisade—connecting the two. By means of this palisade, the bridge was thus at the time of Kleon’s expedition comprehended within the fortifications of the city; and Brasidas, while keeping watch on Mount Kerdylium, could pass over whenever he chose into the city, without any fear of impediment.[735]