[426-425 B.C.]
These massacres at Corcyra, Mytilene, Platæa, and Melos were doubly disastrous; iniquity always striking back at its perpetrators, thus making two victims. Through such reversions to the barbarity of former days the sense of right, of justice will everywhere become enfeebled until it finally disappears.
As though nature herself had wished to take part in the general disorder, earthquakes visited Attica, Eubœa, and all of Bœotia, particularly Orchomenos. Pestilence had never made its appearance in the Peloponnesus: now for a year it raged among the Athenians with terrible mortality. Since its outbreak it had carried off forty-three hundred hoplites, three hundred horsemen, and innumerable victims among the general population. This was the last blow fate dealt the Athenians. To appease the god to whom all pollution was an offence, they caused the island of Apollo to be thoroughly purified as had already been done by the Pisistratidæ. Birth and death being alike forbidden at Delos, the remains of the dead buried there were exhumed and sent elsewhere, and the sick were transported to Rhenea, a neighbouring island. Finally, there were instituted in honour of Apollo games and horse-races which were to be celebrated every four years, the Greeks as well as the Romans thinking to gain thus the protection of a god, whom they caused to be represented by images at these festivals.
The Ionians, excluded from the Peloponnesian solemnities, flocked to those of Delos, where Nicias, at the first celebration, made himself remarkable for the magnificence of his gifts. In one night he caused to be constructed between Delos and Rhenea a bridge seven hundred metres long, carpeted and decorated with wreaths, across which was to pass the procession of the dead exiled in the name of religion from the holy island (425 B.C.).
It is a proof of the part taken by the people of Athens in the great things accomplished by Pericles, that in the four years passed without his enlightened counsel, they had displayed under the double scourge of plague and war that steadfastness he had particularly enjoined upon them: no disturbances took place in the city and no pettiness of spirit was shown in the choice of military chiefs. In vain Cleon thundered from the tribune. Into the hands of none but tried generals, were they noble, rich, or friends of peace, like Nicias and Demosthenes, was given the command of their armies. At Mytilene and Corcyra those who had placed their trust in Lacedæmon had perished; the destruction of Platæa was the only check received by Athens. She began to turn her gaze toward Sicily; soon she sent there twenty galleys to aid the Leontini against Syracuse. Her pretext was community of origin with the Leontini, but in reality she wished to prevent the exportation of Sicilian grain into the Peloponnesus.
Demosthenes was a true general, able and bold; to him war was a science made up of difficult combinations as well as courage. Leaving to his colleague, Nicias, the seas near Athens he set out for western waters, to destroy the influence of Corinth even in the gulf that bears his name. Aided by the Acarnanians he had the preceding year (426) vanquished in the land-battle of Olpæ, by force of superior tactics, the Peloponnesians, who lost so many men that the general had three hundred panoplies, his share of the plunder, consecrated in the temple at Athens. But this Acarnanian War, related at such length by Thucydides, could not have very serious results. An audacious enterprise by Demosthenes seemed, at one moment, to have brought it to a close. Struck, while navigating around the Peloponnesus, by the advantageous position of Pylos a promontory on the coast of Messene which commands the present harbour of Navarino, the best sea-port of the peninsula, left deserted by the Spartans since the Messenian War, the idea came to him that if he could occupy it with Messenians he would be “attaching a burning torch to the flank of the Peloponnesus.” He obtained from the people permission to act on this idea; but when the fleet which had set out for Corcyra and Italy arrived at Pylos, the generals commanding it shrank from the project and refused to execute it. The winds interposed in Demosthenes’ behalf, by driving the ships on to the coast and forcing the Athenians to land. Once on shore the soldiers, with that industry that characterised the Athenians, set to work to construct walls and fortifications, without either tools for cutting stone or hods for carrying mortar. At the end of six days the rampart was about finished and Demosthenes, with six galleys, took up his position on the point (425).
[425 B.C.]
Sparta was with reason alarmed at this move, the place chosen by Demosthenes at the west of the Peloponnesus, forming an excellent station for hostile fleets, and from Pylos the Athenians would be able to spread agitation through all Messene, perhaps even to incite the helots to fresh revolt. The Peloponnesian army was at once recalled from Attica where it had only arrived two weeks before, and also the fleet from Corcyra with the end in view of blockading Pylos by land and by sea. At the entrance to this harbour was an island fifteen stadia [not quite two miles] long called Sphacteria. The Lacedæmonians landed on this island a force of four hundred and twenty hoplites, and barred the channel on either side with vessels having their prows turned outward. Pylos had no other defence seaward than the difficulty of effecting a landing on her shores, but it was on this side that the attack began. It lasted two days and was unsuccessful. Brasidas, who had displayed great valour, was covered with wounds and lost his shield, which the waters carried over to the Athenians. There was still hope for the Lacedæmonians; but at this point forty Athenian galleys arriving from Zacynthus, assailed their fleet and after a furious combat drove their ships upon the land. Thus Sphacteria was surrounded by an armed circle that kept close guard about her night and day.
Sparta was thrown into consternation by the news of this defeat. Her population that in Lycurgus’ time numbered nine thousand was reduced in the year of the battle of Platæa to five thousand, which in another quarter of a century had dwindled to seven hundred; hence she could not support the loss of the men now held under siege by the Athenians. The ephors went in person to Pylos to examine the condition of affairs and saw no other way to preserve the lives of their fellow-citizens than to conclude an armistice with the Athenian generals. It was agreed that Laconia should send ambassadors to Athens, and that she should immediately surrender all the vessels, sixty galleys, that she had in the port of Pylos; Athens to continue the blockade of Sphacteria but allowing to pass in daily, two Attic phœnices of flour, two cotyles of wine, and a portion of meat per soldier, with half that allowance for the menials.
The Lacedæmonian deputies appeared in the assembly at Athens and, contrary to their usual custom, delivered a long discourse offering peace in exchange for the Spartan prisoners and adding that the treaty once made, all other cities would follow their example and lay down arms. Where now were all the causes of complaint held against Athens at the commencement of the war? The Spartans deserted their allies and the cause they had formerly held so just for the sake of some fellow-citizens in danger. But had they not also the preceding year betrayed the Ambracians after the defeat at Olpæ? Unfortunately Pericles was no longer there to urge upon the people a prudent generosity. Cleon exhorted the assembly to demand the restitution of the towns ceded when the Thirty Years’ Truce was concluded, and the deputies, unable to accept such terms, retired without having accomplished anything.