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

Scionaeans to attempt

Mende and Potidaea before the Athenians should arrive; Scione, he

felt, being too like an island for them not to relieve it. He had

besides intelligence in the above towns about their betrayal.

 

In the midst of his designs upon the towns in question, a galley

arrived with the commissioners carrying round the news of the

armistice, Aristonymus for the Athenians and Athenaeus for the

Lacedaemonians. The troops now crossed back to Torone, and the

commissioners gave Brasidas notice of the convention. All the

Lacedaemonian allies in Thrace accepted what had been done; and

Aristonymus made no difficulty about the rest, but finding, on

counting the days, that the Scionaeans had revolted after the date

of the convention, refused to include them in it. To this Brasidas

earnestly objected, asserting that the revolt took place before, and

would not give up the town. Upon Aristonymus reporting the case to

Athens, the people at once prepared to send an expedition to Scione.

Upon this, envoys arrived from Lacedaemon, alleging that this would be

a breach of the truce, and laying claim to the town upon the faith

of the assertion of Brasidas, and meanwhile offering to submit the

question to arbitration. Arbitration, however, was what the

Athenians did not choose to risk; being determined to send troops at

once to the place, and furious at the idea of even the islanders now

daring to revolt, in a vain reliance upon the power of the

Lacedaemonians by land. Besides the facts of the revolt were rather as

the Athenians contended, the Scionaeans having revolted two days after

the convention. Cleon accordingly succeeded in carrying a decree to

reduce and put to death the Scionaeans; and the Athenians employed the

leisure which they now enjoyed in preparing for the expedition.

 

Meanwhile Mende revolted, a town in Pallene and a colony of the

Eretrians, and was received without scruple by Brasidas, in spite of

its having evidently come over during the armistice, on account of

certain infringements of the truce alleged by him against the

Athenians. This audacity of Mende was partly caused by seeing Brasidas

forward in the matter and by the conclusions drawn from his refusal to

betray Scione; and besides, the conspirators in Mende were few, and,

as I have already intimated, had carried on their practices too long

not to fear detection for themselves, and not to wish to force the

inclination of the multitude. This news made the Athenians more

furious than ever, and they at once prepared against both towns.

Brasidas, expecting their arrival, conveyed away to Olynthus in

Chalcidice the women and children of the Scionaeans and Mendaeans, and

sent over to them five hundred Peloponnesian heavy infantry and

three hundred Chalcidian targeteers, all under the command of

Polydamidas.

 

Leaving these two towns to prepare together against the speedy

arrival of the Athenians, Brasidas and Perdiccas started on a second

joint expedition into Lyncus against Arrhabaeus; the latter with the

forces of his Macedonian subjects, and a corps of heavy infantry

composed of Hellenes domiciled in the country; the former with the

Peloponnesians whom he still had with him and the Chalcidians,

Acanthians, and the rest in such force as they were able. In all there

were about three thousand Hellenic heavy infantry, accompanied by

all the Macedonian cavalry with the Chalcidians, near one thousand

strong, besides an immense crowd of barbarians. On entering the

country of Arrhabaeus, they found the Lyncestians encamped awaiting

them, and themselves took up a position opposite. The infantry on

either side were upon a hill, with a plain between them, into which

the horse of both armies first galloped down and engaged a cavalry

action. After this the Lyncestian heavy infantry advanced from their

hill to join their cavalry and offered battle; upon which Brasidas and

Perdiccas also came down to meet them, and engaged and routed them

with heavy loss; the survivors taking refuge upon the heights and

there remaining inactive. The victors now set up a trophy and waited

two or three days for the Illyrian mercenaries who were to join

Perdiccas. Perdiccas then wished to go on and attack the villages of

Arrhabaeus, and to sit still no longer; but Brasidas, afraid that

the Athenians might sail up during his absence, and of something

happening to Mende, and seeing besides that the Illyrians did not

appear, far from seconding this wish was anxious to return.

 

While they were thus disputing, the news arrived that the

Illyrians had actually betrayed Perdiccas and had joined Arrhabaeus;

and the fear inspired by their warlike character made both parties now

think it best to retreat. However, owing to the dispute, nothing had

been settled as to when they should start; and night coming on, the

Macedonians and the barbarian crowd took fright in a moment in one

of those mysterious panics to which great armies are liable; and

persuaded that an army many times more numerous than that which had

really arrived was advancing and all but upon them, suddenly broke and

fled in the direction of home, and thus compelled Perdiccas, who at

first did not perceive what had occurred, to depart without seeing

Brasidas, the two armies being encamped at a considerable distance

from each other. At daybreak Brasidas, perceiving that the Macedonians

had gone on, and that the Illyrians and Arrhabaeus were on the point

of attacking him, formed his heavy infantry into a square, with the

light troops in the centre, and himself also prepared to retreat.

Posting his youngest soldiers to dash out wherever the enemy should

attack them, he himself with three hundred picked men in the rear

intended to face about during the retreat and beat off the most

forward of their assailants, Meanwhile, before the enemy approached,

he sought to sustain the courage of his soldiers with the following

hasty exhortation:

 

“Peloponnesians, if I did not suspect you of being dismayed at being

left alone to sustain the attack of a numerous and barbarian enemy,

I should just have said a few words to you as usual without further

explanation. As it is, in the face of the desertion of our friends and

the numbers of the enemy, I have some advice and information to offer,

which, brief as they must be, will, I hope, suffice for the more

important points. The bravery that you habitually display in war

does not depend on your having allies at your side in this or that

encounter, but on your native courage; nor have numbers any terrors

for citizens of states like yours, in which the many do not rule the

few, but rather the few the many, owing their position to nothing else

than to superiority in the field. Inexperience now makes you afraid of

barbarians; and yet the trial of strength which you had with the

Macedonians among them, and my own judgment, confirmed by what I

hear from others, should be enough to satisfy you that they will not

prove formidable. Where an enemy seems strong but is really weak, a

true knowledge of the facts makes his adversary the bolder, just as

a serious antagonist is encountered most confidently by those who do

not know him. Thus the present enemy might terrify an inexperienced

imagination; they are formidable in outward bulk, their loud yelling

is unbearable, and the brandishing of their weapons in the air has a

threatening appearance. But when it comes to real fighting with an

opponent who stands his ground, they are not what they seemed; they

have no regular order that they should be ashamed of deserting their

positions when hard pressed; flight and attack are with them equally

honourable, and afford no test of courage; their independent mode of

fighting never leaving any one who wants to run away without a fair

excuse for so doing. In short, they think frightening you at a

secure distance a surer game than meeting you hand to hand;

otherwise they would have done the one and not the other. You can thus

plainly see that the terrors with which they were at first invested

are in fact trifling enough, though to the eye and ear very prominent.

Stand your ground therefore when they advance, and again wait your

opportunity to retire in good order, and you will reach a place of

safety all the sooner, and will know for ever afterwards that rabble

such as these, to those who sustain their first attack, do but show

off their courage by threats of the terrible things that they are

going to do, at a distance, but with those who give way to them are

quick enough to display their heroism in pursuit when they can do so

without danger.”

 

With this brief address Brasidas began to lead off his army.

Seeing this, the barbarians came on with much shouting and hubbub,

thinking that he was flying and that they would overtake him and cut

him off. But wherever they charged they found the young men ready to

dash out against them, while Brasidas with his picked company

sustained their onset. Thus the Peloponnesians withstood the first

attack, to the surprise of the enemy, and afterwards received and

repulsed them as fast as they came on, retiring as soon as their

opponents became quiet. The main body of the barbarians ceased

therefore to molest the Hellenes with Brasidas in the open country,

and leaving behind a certain number to harass their march, the rest

went on after the flying Macedonians, slaying those with whom they

came up, and so arrived in time to occupy the narrow pass between

two hills that leads into the country of Arrhabaeus. They knew that

this was the only way by which Brasidas could retreat, and now

proceeded to surround him just as he entered the most impracticable

part of the road, in order to cut him off.

 

Brasidas, perceiving their intention, told his three hundred to

run on without order, each as quickly as he could, to the hill which

seemed easiest to take, and to try to dislodge the barbarians

already there, before they should be joined by the main body closing

round him. These attacked and overpowered the party upon the hill, and

the main army of the Hellenes now advanced with less difficulty

towards it—the barbarians being terrified at seeing their men on

that side driven from the height and no longer following the main

body, who, they considered, had gained the frontier and made good

their escape. The heights once gained, Brasidas now proceeded more

securely, and the same day arrived at Arnisa, the first town in the

dominions of Perdiccas. The soldiers, enraged at the desertion of

the Macedonians, vented their rage on all their yokes of oxen which

they found on the road, and on any baggage which had tumbled off (as

might easily happen in the panic of a night retreat), by unyoking

and cutting down the cattle and taking the baggage for themselves.

From this moment Perdiccas began to regard Brasidas as an enemy and to

feel against the Peloponnesians a hatred which could not be

congenial to the adversary of the Athenians. However, he departed from

his natural interests and made it his endeavour to come to terms

with the latter and to get rid of the former.

 

On his return from Macedonia to Torone, Brasidas found the Athenians

already masters of Mende, and remained quiet where he was, thinking it

now out of his power to cross over into Pallene and assist the

Mendaeans, but he kept good watch over Torone. For about the same time

as the campaign in Lyncus, the Athenians sailed upon the expedition

which we left them preparing against Mende and Scione, with fifty

ships, ten of which were Chians, one thousand Athenian heavy

infantry and six hundred archers, one hundred Thracian mercenaries and

some targeteers drawn from their allies in the