History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

CHAPTER VIII

_Third Year of the War - Investment of Plataea - Naval Victories

of Phormio - Thracian Irruption into Macedonia under Sitalces_

 

The next summer the Peloponnesians and their allies, instead of

invading Attica, marched against Plataea, under the command of

Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedaemonians. He had

encamped his army and was about to lay waste the country, when the

Plataeans hastened to send envoys to him, and spoke as follows:

“Archidamus and Lacedaemonians, in invading the Plataean territory,

you do what is wrong in itself, and worthy neither of yourselves nor

of the fathers who begot you. Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, your

countryman, after freeing Hellas from the Medes with the help of

those Hellenes who were willing to undertake the risk of the battle

fought near our city, offered sacrifice to Zeus the Liberator in the

marketplace of Plataea, and calling all the allies together restored

to the Plataeans their city and territory, and declared it

independent and inviolate against aggression or conquest. Should any

such be attempted, the allies present were to help according to their

power. Your fathers rewarded us thus for the courage and patriotism

that we displayed at that perilous epoch; but you do just the

contrary, coming with our bitterest enemies, the Thebans, to enslave

us. We appeal, therefore, to the gods to whom the oaths were then

made, to the gods of your ancestors, and lastly to those of our

country, and call upon you to refrain from violating our territory

or transgressing the oaths, and to let us live independent, as

Pausanias decreed.”

 

The Plataeans had got thus far when they were cut short by

Archidamus saying: “There is justice, Plataeans, in what you say, if

you act up to your words. According, to the grant of Pausanias,

continue to be independent yourselves, and join in freeing those of

your fellow countrymen who, after sharing in the perils of that

period, joined in the oaths to you, and are now subject to the

Athenians; for it is to free them and the rest that all this provision

and war has been made. I could wish that you would share our labours

and abide by the oaths yourselves; if this is impossible, do what we

have already required of you—remain neutral, enjoying your own; join

neither side, but receive both as friends, neither as allies for the

war. With this we shall be satisfied.” Such were the words of

Archidamus. The Plataeans, after hearing what he had to say, went into

the city and acquainted the people with what had passed, and presently

returned for answer that it was impossible for them to do what he

proposed without consulting the Athenians, with whom their children

and wives now were; besides which they had their fears for the town.

After his departure, what was to prevent the Athenians from coming and

taking it out of their hands, or the Thebans, who would be included in

the oaths, from taking advantage of the proposed neutrality to make

a second attempt to seize the city? Upon these points he tried to

reassure them by saying: “You have only to deliver over the city and

houses to us Lacedaemonians, to point out the boundaries of your land,

the number of your fruit-trees, and whatever else can be numerically

stated, and yourselves to withdraw wherever you like as long as the

war shall last. When it is over we will restore to you whatever we

received, and in the interim hold it in trust and keep it in

cultivation, paying you a sufficient allowance.”

 

When they had heard what he had to say, they re-entered the city,

and after consulting with the people said that they wished first to

acquaint the Athenians with this proposal, and in the event of their

approving to accede to it; in the meantime they asked him to grant

them a truce and not to lay waste their territory. He accordingly

granted a truce for the number of days requisite for the journey,

and meanwhile abstained from ravaging their territory. The Plataean

envoys went to Athens, and consulted with the Athenians, and

returned with the following message to those in the city: “The

Athenians say, Plataeans, that they never hitherto, since we became

their allies, on any occasion abandoned us to an enemy, nor will

they now neglect us, but will help us according to their ability;

and they adjure you by the oaths which your fathers swore, to keep the

alliance unaltered.”

 

On the delivery of this message by the envoys, the Plataeans

resolved not to be unfaithful to the Athenians but to endure, if it

must be, seeing their lands laid waste and any other trials that might

come to them, and not to send out again, but to answer from the wall

that it was impossible for them to do as the Lacedaemonians

proposed. As soon as he had received this answer, King Archidamus

proceeded first to make a solemn appeal to the gods and heroes of

the country in words following: “Ye gods and heroes of the Plataean

territory, be my witnesses that not as aggressors originally, nor

until these had first departed from the common oath, did we invade

this land, in which our fathers offered you their prayers before

defeating the Medes, and which you made auspicious to the Hellenic

arms; nor shall we be aggressors in the measures to which we may now

resort, since we have made many fair proposals but have not been

successful. Graciously accord that those who were the first to

offend may be punished for it, and that vengeance may be attained by

those who would righteously inflict it.”

 

After this appeal to the gods Archidamus put his army in motion.

First he enclosed the town with a palisade formed of the fruit-trees

which they cut down, to prevent further egress from Plataea; next they

threw up a mound against the city, hoping that the largeness of the

force employed would ensure the speedy reduction of the place. They

accordingly cut down timber from Cithaeron, and built it up on

either side, laying it like lattice-work to serve as a wall to keep

the mound from spreading abroad, and carried to it wood and stones and

earth and whatever other material might help to complete it. They

continued to work at the mound for seventy days and nights without

intermission, being divided into relief parties to allow of some being

employed in carrying while others took sleep and refreshment; the

Lacedaemonian officer attached to each contingent keeping the men to

the work. But the Plataeans, observing the progress of the mound,

constructed a wall of wood and fixed it upon that part of the city

wall against which the mound was being erected, and built up bricks

inside it which they took from the neighbouring houses. The timbers

served to bind the building together, and to prevent its becoming weak

as it advanced in height; it had also a covering of skins and hides,

which protected the woodwork against the attacks of burning missiles

and allowed the men to work in safety. Thus the wall was raised to a

great height, and the mound opposite made no less rapid progress.

The Plataeans also thought of another expedient; they pulled out

part of the wall upon which the mound abutted, and carried the earth

into the city.

 

Discovering this the Peloponnesians twisted up clay in wattles of

reed and threw it into the breach formed in the mound, in order to

give it consistency and prevent its being carried away like the

soil. Stopped in this way the Plataeans changed their mode of

operation, and digging a mine from the town calculated their way under

the mound, and began to carry off its material as before. This went on

for a long while without the enemy outside finding it out, so that for

all they threw on the top their mound made no progress in

proportion, being carried away from beneath and constantly settling

down in the vacuum. But the Plataeans, fearing that even thus they

might not be able to hold out against the superior numbers of the

enemy, had yet another invention. They stopped working at the large

building in front of the mound, and starting at either end of it

inside from the old low wall, built a new one in the form of a

crescent running in towards the town; in order that in the event of

the great wall being taken this might remain, and the enemy have to

throw up a fresh mound against it, and as they advanced within might

not only have their trouble over again, but also be exposed to

missiles on their flanks. While raising the mound the Peloponnesians

also brought up engines against the city, one of which was brought

up upon the mound against the great building and shook down a good

piece of it, to the no small alarm of the Plataeans. Others were

advanced against different parts of the wall but were lassoed and

broken by the Plataeans; who also hung up great beams by long iron

chains from either extremity of two poles laid on the wall and

projecting over it, and drew them up at an angle whenever any point

was threatened by the engine, and loosing their hold let the beam go

with its chains slack, so that it fell with a run and snapped off

the nose of the battering ram.

 

After this the Peloponnesians, finding that their engines effected

nothing, and that their mound was met by the counterwork, concluded

that their present means of offence were unequal to the taking of

the city, and prepared for its circumvallation. First, however, they

determined to try the effects of fire and see whether they could

not, with the help of a wind, burn the town, as it was not a large

one; indeed they thought of every possible expedient by which the

place might be reduced without the expense of a blockade. They

accordingly brought faggots of brushwood and threw them from the

mound, first into the space between it and the wall; and this soon

becoming full from the number of hands at work, they next heaped the

faggots up as far into the town as they could reach from the top,

and then lighted the wood by setting fire to it with sulphur and

pitch. The consequence was a fire greater than any one had ever yet

seen produced by human agency, though it could not of course be

compared to the spontaneous conflagrations sometimes known to occur

through the wind rubbing the branches of a mountain forest together.

And this fire was not only remarkable for its magnitude, but was also,

at the end of so many perils, within an ace of proving fatal to the

Plataeans; a great part of the town became entirely inaccessible,

and had a wind blown upon it, in accordance with the hopes of the

enemy, nothing could have saved them. As it was, there is also a story

of heavy rain and thunder having come on by which the fire was put out

and the danger averted.

 

Failing in this last attempt the Peloponnesians left a portion of

their forces on the spot, dismissing the rest, and built a wall of

circumvallation round the town, dividing the ground among the

various cities present; a ditch being made within and without the

lines, from which they got their bricks. All being finished by about

the rising of Arcturus, they left men enough to man half the wall, the

rest being manned by the Boeotians, and drawing off their army

dispersed to their several cities. The Plataeans had before sent off

their wives