But Amphipolis was lost by the negligence of the Athenian commanders. Encles and Thucydides, the historian, to whom the defense of the place was intrusted, had means ample to prevent the capture had they employed ordinary precaution. The Athenians, indignant, banished Thucydides for twenty years, and probably Eucles also—a just sentence, since they did not keep the bridge over the Strymon properly guarded, nor retained the Athenian squadron at Eion. The banishment of Thucydides gave him leisure to write the history on which his great fame rests—the most able and philosophical of all the historical works of antiquity.
Truce of one year.
Brasidas, after the fall of Amphipolis, extended his military operations with success. He took Torone, Lecythus, and other places, and then went into winter quarters. The campaign had been disastrous to the Athenians, and a truce of one year was agreed upon by the belligerent parties—Athens of the one party, and Sparta, Corinth, Sicyon, Epidaurus, and Megara, of the other.
Its conditions.
The conditions of this truce stipulated that Delphi might be visited by all Greeks, without distinction; that all violations of the property of the Delphian god should be promptly punished; that the Athenian garrisons at Pylus, Cythera, Nisæa, and Methana, should remain unmolested; that the Lacedæmonians should be free to use the sea for trading purposes; and that neither side should receive deserters from the other—important to both parties, since Athens feared the revolt of subject allies, and Sparta the desertion of Helots.
But two days had elapsed after the treaty was made before Scione in Thrace revolted to Brasidas—a great cause of exasperation to the Athenians, although the revolt took place before the treaty was known. Mendes, a neighboring town, also revolted. Brasidas sent the inhabitants a garrison to protect themselves, and departed with his forces for an expedition into the interior of Macedonia, but was soon compelled to retreat before the Illyrians.
Both Cleon and Brasidas opposed to the truce.
An Athenian force, under Nicias and Nicostratus, however, proceeded to Thrace to recover the revolted cities. Everywhere else the truce was observed. It was intended to give terms for more complete negotiations. This was the policy of Nicias. But Cleon and his party, the democracy, was opposed to peace, and wished to prosecute the war vigorously in Thrace. Brasidas, on his part, was equally in favor of continued hostilities. And this was the great question of the day in Greece.
Death of Cleon and of Brasidas.
The war party triumphed, and Cleon, by no means an able general, was sent with an expedition to recover Amphipolis, B.C. 422. He succeeded in taking Torone, but Amphipolis, built on a hill in the peninsula formed by the river Strymon, as it passes from the Strymonic Gulf to Lake Kerkernilis, was a strongly fortified place in which Brasidas intrenched. He was obliged to remain inactive at Eion, at the mouth of the river, three miles distant from Amphipolis, which excited great discontent in his army, but which was the wiser course, until his auxiliaries arrived. But the murmur of the hoplites compelled him to some sort of action, and while he was reconnoitering, he was attacked by Brasidas. Cleon was killed, and his army totally defeated. Brasidas, the ablest general of the day, however, was also mortally wounded, and carried from the field. This unsuccessful battle compelled the Athenians to return home, deeply disgusted with their generals. But they embarked in the enterprise reluctantly, and with no faith in their leader, and this was one cause of their defeat. The death of Brasidas, however, converted the defeat into a substantial victory, since there remained no Spartan with sufficient ability to secure the confidence of the allies. Brasidas, when he died, was the first man in Greece, and universally admired for his valor, intelligence, probity, and magnanimity.