Surrender of Platæa.
The surrender of Platæa to the Lacedæmonians took place not long after; but not until one-half of the garrison had sallied from the city, scaled the wall of circumvallation, and escaped safely to Athens. The Platæans were sentenced to death by the Spartan judges, and barbarously slain. The captured women were sold as slaves, and the town and territory were handed over to the Thebans.
Cruelties of the Athenians at Corcyra.
Scenes not less bloody took place in the western part of Greece, in the island of Corcyra, before which a naval battle was fought between the Lacedæmonians and the Athenians. The island had been governed by oligarchies, under the protection of Sparta, but the retirement of the Lacedæmonian fleet enabled the Athenian general to wreak his vengeance on the party which had held supremacy, which was exterminated in the most cruel manner, [pg 260] which produced a profound sensation, and furnished Thucydides a theme for the most profound reflections on the acerbity and ferocity of the political parties, which, it seems, then divided Greece, and were among the exciting causes of the war itself—the struggle between the advocates of democratic and aristocratic institutions.
Nicias. He continues the policy of Pericles. Opposed by Alcibiades and Cleon.
A new character now appears upon the stage at Athens—Nicias—one of the ten generals who, in rank and wealth, was the equal of Pericles. He belonged to the oligarchal party, and succeeded Cimon and Thucydides in the control of it. But he was moderate in his conduct, and so won the esteem of his countrymen, that he retained power until his death, although opposed to the party which had the ascendency. He was incorruptible as to pecuniary gains, and adopted the conservative views of Pericles, avoiding new acquisitions at a distance, or creating new enemies. He surrounded himself, not as Pericles did, with philosophers, but religions men, avoided all scandals, and employed his large fortune in securing popularity. Pericles disdained to win the people by such means, cultivated art, and patronized the wits who surrounded Aspasia. Nicias was zealous in the worship of the gods, was careful to make no enemies, and conciliated the poor by presents. Yet he increased his private fortune, so far as he could, by honorable means, and united thrift and sagacity with honesty and piety. He was not a man of commanding genius, but his character was above reproach, and was never assailed by the comic writers. He was the great opponent of Alcibiades, the oracle of the democracy—one of those memorable demagogues who made use of the people to forward his ambitious projects. He was also the opponent of Cleon, whose office it was to supervise official men for the public conduct—a man of great eloquence, but fault-finding and denunciatory.
The fifth year of the war.
The fifth year of the war was not signalized by the usual invasion of Attica, which gave the Athenians leisure to send an expedition under Nicias against the [pg 261] island of Melos, inhabited by ancient colonists from Sparta. Demosthenes, another general, was sent around the Peloponnesus to attack Acarnania, and he ravaged the whole territory of Leueas. He also attacked Ætolia, but was completely beaten, and obliged to retire with loss; but this defeat was counterbalanced by a great victory, the next year, over the enemy at Olpæ, when the Lacedæmonian general was slain. He returned in triumph to Athens with considerable spoil. The attention of the Athenians was now directed to Delos, the island sacred to Apollo, and a complete purification of the island was made, and the old Delian festivals renewed with peculiar splendor.
The sixth year of the war. Undecisive nature of the conflict. Great defeat of the Lacedæmonians at Pylus. Sparta seeks peace. Peace prevented by Cleon.
The war had now lasted six years, without any grand or decisive results on either side. The expeditions of both parties were of the nature of raids—destructive, cruel, irritating, but without bringing any grand triumphs. Though the seventh year was marked by the usual enterprise on the part of the Lacedæmonians—the invasion of Attica—Corcyra promised to be the principal scene of military operations. Both an Athenian and Spartan fleet was sent thither. But an unforeseen incident gave a new character to the war. In the course of the voyage to Corcyra, Demosthenes, the Athenian general, stopped at Pylus, with the intention of erecting a fort on the uninhabited promontory, since it protected the spacious basin now known as the bay of Navarino, and was itself easily defended. Eurymedon, the admiral, insisted on going directly to Corcyra, but the fleet was driven by a storm into the very harbor which Demosthenes proposed to defend. The place was accordingly fortified by Demosthenes, where he himself remained with a garrison, while the fleet proceeded to Corcyra. Intelligence of this insult to Sparta—the attempt to plant a hostile fort on its territory—induced the Lacedæmonians to send their fleet to Pylus, instead of Corcyra. Forty-three triremes, under Thrasymelidas, and a powerful land force, advanced to attack Demosthenes, intrenched with his small army on the [pg 262] rocky promontory. When the news of this new diversion reached the Athenian fleet at Corcyra, it returned to Pylus, to succor Demosthenes. Here a naval battle took place, in which the Lacedæmonians were defeated. This defeat jeopardized the situation of the Spartan army which had occupied the island of Shacteria, cut off from supplies from the main land, as well as the existence of the fleet. So great was this exigency, that the ephors came from Sparta to consult on operations. They took a desponding view, and sent a herald to the Athenian generals to propose an armistice, in order to allow time for envoys to go to Athens and treat for peace. But Athens demanded now her own terms, elated by the success. Cleon, the organ of the popular mind, excited and sanguine, gave utterance to the feelings of the people, and insisted on the restoration of all the territory they had lost during the war. The Lacedæmonian envoys, unable to resist a vehement speaker like Cleon, which required qualities they did not possess, and which could only be acquired from skill in managing popular assemblies, to which they were unused, returned to Pylus. And it was the object of Cleon to prevent a hearing of the envoys by a select committee (what they desired) for fear that Nicias and other conservative politicians would accede to their proposals. Thus the best opportunity that could be presented for making an honorable peace and reuniting Greece was lost by the arts of a demagogue, who inflamed and shared the popular passions. Had Pericles been alive, the treaty would probably have been made, but Nicias had not sufficient influence to secure it.