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>The Lacedaemonians thus placed between two fires, and in the same

dilemma, to compare small things with great, as at Thermopylae,

where the defenders were cut off through the Persians getting round by

the path, being now attacked in front and behind, began to give way,

and overcome by the odds against them and exhausted from want of food,

retreated.

 

The Athenians were already masters of the approaches when Cleon

and Demosthenes perceiving that, if the enemy gave way a single step

further, they would be destroyed by their soldiery, put a stop to

the battle and held their men back; wishing to take the Lacedaemonians

alive to Athens, and hoping that their stubbornness might relax on

hearing the offer of terms, and that they might surrender and yield to

the present overwhelming danger. Proclamation was accordingly made, to

know if they would surrender themselves and their arms to the

Athenians to be dealt at their discretion.

 

The Lacedaemonians hearing this offer, most of them lowered their

shields and waved their hands to show that they accepted it.

Hostilities now ceased, and a parley was held between Cleon and

Demosthenes and Styphon, son of Pharax, on the other side; since

Epitadas, the first of the previous commanders, had been killed, and

Hippagretas, the next in command, left for dead among the slain,

though still alive, and thus the command had devolved upon Styphon

according to the law, in case of anything happening to his

superiors. Styphon and his companions said they wished to send a

herald to the Lacedaemonians on the mainland, to know what they were

to do. The Athenians would not let any of them go, but themselves

called for heralds from the mainland, and after questions had been

carried backwards and forwards two or three times, the last man that

passed over from the Lacedaemonians on the continent brought this

message: “The Lacedaemonians bid you to decide for yourselves so

long as you do nothing dishonourable”; upon which after consulting

together they surrendered themselves and their arms. The Athenians,

after guarding them that day and night, the next morning set up a

trophy in the island, and got ready to sail, giving their prisoners in

batches to be guarded by the captains of the galleys; and the

Lacedaemonians sent a herald and took up their dead. The number of the

killed and prisoners taken in the island was as follows: four

hundred and twenty heavy infantry had passed over; three hundred all

but eight were taken alive to Athens; the rest were killed. About a

hundred and twenty of the prisoners were Spartans. The Athenian loss

was small, the battle not having been fought at close quarters.

 

The blockade in all, counting from the fight at sea to the battle in

the island, had lasted seventy-two days. For twenty of these, during

the absence of the envoys sent to treat for peace, the men had

provisions given them, for the rest they were fed by the smugglers.

Corn and other victual was found in the island; the commander Epitadas

having kept the men upon half rations. The Athenians and

Peloponnesians now each withdrew their forces from Pylos, and went

home, and crazy as Cleon’s promise was, he fulfilled it, by bringing

the men to Athens within the twenty days as he had pledged himself

to do.

 

Nothing that happened in the war surprised the Hellenes so much as

this. It was the opinion that no force or famine could make the

Lacedaemonians give up their arms, but that they would fight on as

they could, and die with them in their hands: indeed people could

scarcely believe that those who had surrendered were of the same stuff

as the fallen; and an Athenian ally, who some time after insultingly

asked one of the prisoners from the island if those that had fallen

were men of honour, received for answer that the atraktos—that is,

the arrow—would be worth a great deal if it could tell men of honour

from the rest; in allusion to the fact that the killed were those whom

the stones and the arrows happened to hit.

 

Upon the arrival of the men the Athenians determined to keep them in

prison until the peace, and if the Peloponnesians invaded their

country in the interval, to bring them out and put them to death.

Meanwhile the defence of Pylos was not forgotten; the Messenians

from Naupactus sent to their old country, to which Pylos formerly

belonged, some of the likeliest of their number, and began a series of

incursions into Laconia, which their common dialect rendered most

destructive. The Lacedaemonians, hitherto without experience of

incursions or a warfare of the kind, finding the Helots deserting, and

fearing the march of revolution in their country, began to be

seriously uneasy, and in spite of their unwillingness to betray this

to the Athenians began to send envoys to Athens, and tried to

recover Pylos and the prisoners. The Athenians, however, kept grasping

at more, and dismissed envoy after envoy without their having effected

anything. Such was the history of the affair of Pylos.

CHAPTER XIII

_Seventh and Eighth Years of the War - End of Corcyraean Revolution -

Peace of Gela - Capture of Nisaea_

 

The same summer, directly after these events, the Athenians made

an expedition against the territory of Corinth with eighty ships and

two thousand Athenian heavy infantry, and two hundred cavalry on board

horse transports, accompanied by the Milesians, Andrians, and

Carystians from the allies, under the command of Nicias, son of

Niceratus, with two colleagues. Putting out to sea they made land at

daybreak between Chersonese and Rheitus, at the beach of the country

underneath the Solygian hill, upon which the Dorians in old times

established themselves and carried on war against the Aeolian

inhabitants of Corinth, and where a village now stands called Solygia.

The beach where the fleet came to is about a mile and a half from

the village, seven miles from Corinth, and two and a quarter from

the Isthmus. The Corinthians had heard from Argos of the coming of the

Athenian armament, and had all come up to the Isthmus long before,

with the exception of those who lived beyond it, and also of five

hundred who were away in garrison in Ambracia and Leucadia; and they

were there in full force watching for the Athenians to land. These

last, however, gave them the slip by coming in the dark; and being

informed by signals of the fact the Corinthians left half their number

at Cenchreae, in case the Athenians should go against Crommyon, and

marched in all haste to the rescue.

 

Battus, one of the two generals present at the action, went with a

company to defend the village of Solygia, which was unfortified;

Lycophron remaining to give battle with the rest. The Corinthians

first attacked the right wing of the Athenians, which had just

landed in front of Chersonese, and afterwards the rest of the army.

The battle was an obstinate one, and fought throughout hand to hand.

The right wing of the Athenians and Carystians, who had been placed at

the end of the line, received and with some difficulty repulsed the

Corinthians, who thereupon retreated to a wall upon the rising

ground behind, and throwing down the stones upon them, came on again

singing the paean, and being received by the Athenians, were again

engaged at close quarters. At this moment a Corinthian company

having come to the relief of the left wing, routed and pursued the

Athenian right to the sea, whence they were in their turn driven

back by the Athenians and Carystians from the ships. Meanwhile the

rest of the army on either side fought on tenaciously, especially

the right wing of the Corinthians, where Lycophron sustained the

attack of the Athenian left, which it was feared might attempt the

village of Solygia.

 

After holding on for a long while without either giving way, the

Athenians aided by their horse, of which the enemy had none, at

length routed the Corinthians, who retired to the hill and, halting,

remained quiet there, without coming down again. It was in this rout

of the right wing that they had the most killed, Lycophron their

general being among the number. The rest of the army, broken and put

to flight in this way without being seriously pursued or hurried,

retired to the high ground and there took up its position. The

Athenians, finding that the enemy no longer offered to engage them,

stripped his dead and took up their own and immediately set up a

trophy. Meanwhile, the half of the Corinthians left at Cenchreae to

guard against the Athenians sailing on Crommyon, although unable to

see the battle for Mount Oneion, found out what was going on by the

dust, and hurried up to the rescue; as did also the older Corinthians

from the town, upon discovering what had occurred. The Athenians

seeing them all coming against them, and thinking that they were

reinforcements arriving from the neighbouring Peloponnesians,

withdrew in haste to their ships with their spoils and their own

dead, except two that they left behind, not being able to find them,

and going on board crossed over to the islands opposite, and from

thence sent a herald, and took up under truce the bodies which they

had left behind. Two hundred and twelve Corinthians fell in the

battle, and rather less than fifty Athenians.

 

Weighing from the islands, the Athenians sailed the same day to

Crommyon in the Corinthian territory, about thirteen miles from the

city, and coming to anchor laid waste the country, and passed the

night there. The next day, after first coasting along to the territory

of Epidaurus and making a descent there, they came to Methana

between Epidaurus and Troezen, and drew a wall across and fortified

the isthmus of the peninsula, and left a post there from which

incursions were henceforth made upon the country of Troezen, Haliae,

and Epidaurus. After walling off this spot, the fleet sailed off home.

 

While these events were going on, Eurymedon and Sophocles had put to

sea with the Athenian fleet from Pylos on their way to Sicily and,

arriving at Corcyra, joined the townsmen in an expedition against

the party established on Mount Istone, who had crossed over, as I have

mentioned, after the revolution and become masters of the country,

to the great hurt of the inhabitants. Their stronghold having been

taken by an attack, the garrison took refuge in a body upon some

high ground and there capitulated, agreeing to give up their mercenary

auxiliaries, lay down their arms, and commit themselves to the

discretion of the Athenian people. The generals carried them across

under truce to the island of Ptychia, to be kept in custody until they

could be sent to Athens, upon the understanding that, if any were

caught running away, all would lose the benefit of the treaty.

Meanwhile the leaders of the Corcyraean commons, afraid that the

Athenians might spare the lives of the prisoners, had recourse to

the following stratagem. They gained over some few men on the island

by secretly sending friends with instructions to provide them with a

boat, and to tell them, as if for their own sakes, that they had

best escape as quickly as possible, as the Athenian generals were

going to give them up to the Corcyraean people.

 

These representations succeeding, it was so arranged that the men

were caught sailing out in the boat that was provided, and the

treaty became void accordingly, and the whole body were given up to

the Corcyraeans. For this result the Athenian generals were in a great

measure responsible; their evident disinclination to sail for

Sicily, and thus to leave to others the honour of conducting the men

to Athens, encouraged the intriguers in

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