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

down the Hagnonic erections, and obliterated

everything that could be interpreted as a memorial of his having

founded the place; for they considered that Brasidas had been their

preserver, and courting as they did the alliance of Lacedaemon for

fear of Athens, in their present hostile relations with the latter

they could no longer with the same advantage or satisfaction pay

Hagnon his honours. They also gave the Athenians back their dead.

About six hundred of the latter had fallen and only seven of the

enemy, owing to there having been no regular engagement, but the

affair of accident and panic that I have described. After taking up

their dead the Athenians sailed off home, while Clearidas and his

troops remained to arrange matters at Amphipolis.

 

About the same time three Lacedaemonians—Ramphias, Autocharidas,

and Epicydidas—led a reinforcement of nine hundred heavy infantry to

the towns in the direction of Thrace, and arriving at Heraclea in

Trachis reformed matters there as seemed good to them. While they

delayed there, this battle took place and so the summer ended.

 

With the beginning of the winter following, Ramphias and his

companions penetrated as far as Pierium in Thessaly; but as the

Thessalians opposed their further advance, and Brasidas whom they came

to reinforce was dead, they turned back home, thinking that the moment

had gone by, the Athenians being defeated and gone, and themselves not

equal to the execution of Brasidas’s designs. The main cause however

of their return was because they knew that when they set out

Lacedaemonian opinion was really in favour of peace.

 

Indeed it so happened that directly after the battle of Amphipolis

and the retreat of Ramphias from Thessaly, both sides ceased to

prosecute the war and turned their attention to peace. Athens had

suffered severely at Delium, and again shortly afterwards at

Amphipolis, and had no longer that confidence in her strength which

had made her before refuse to treat, in the belief of ultimate victory

which her success at the moment had inspired; besides, she was

afraid of her allies being tempted by her reverses to rebel more

generally, and repented having let go the splendid opportunity for

peace which the affair of Pylos had offered. Lacedaemon, on the

other hand, found the event of the war to falsify her notion that a

few years would suffice for the overthrow of the power of the

Athenians by the devastation of their land. She had suffered on the

island a disaster hitherto unknown at Sparta; she saw her country

plundered from Pylos and Cythera; the Helots were deserting, and she

was in constant apprehension that those who remained in Peloponnese

would rely upon those outside and take advantage of the situation to

renew their old attempts at revolution. Besides this, as chance

would have it, her thirty years’ truce with the Argives was upon the

point of expiring; and they refused to renew it unless Cynuria were

restored to them; so that it seemed impossible to fight Argos and

Athens at once. She also suspected some of the cities in Peloponnese

of intending to go over to the endeed was indeed the case.

 

These considerations made both sides disposed for an

accommodation; the Lacedaemonians being probably the most eager, as

they ardently desired to recover the men taken upon the island, the

Spartans among whom belonged to the first families and were

accordingly related to the governing body in Lacedaemon.

Negotiations had been begun directly after their capture, but the

Athenians in their hour of triumph would not consent to any reasonable

terms; though after their defeat at Delium, Lacedaemon, knowing that

they would be now more inclined to listen, at once concluded the

armistice for a year, during which they were to confer together and

see if a longer period could not be agreed upon.

 

Now, however, after the Athenian defeat at Amphipolis, and the death

of Cleon and Brasidas, who had been the two principal opponents of

peace on either side—the latter from the success and honour which

war gave him, the former because he thought that, if tranquillity were

restored, his crimes would be more open to detection and his

slanders less credited—the foremost candidates for power in either

city, Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of Lacedaemon, and Nicias,

son of Niceratus, the most fortunate general of his time, each desired

peace more ardently than ever. Nicias, while still happy and honoured,

wished to secure his good fortune, to obtain a present release from

trouble for himself and his countrymen, and hand down to posterity a

name as an ever-successful statesman, and thought the way to do this

was to keep out of danger and commit himself as little as possible

to fortune, and that peace alone made this keeping out of danger

possible. Pleistoanax, again, was assailed by his enemies for his

restoration, and regularly held up by them to the prejudice of his

countrymen, upon every reverse that befell them, as though his

unjust restoration were the cause; the accusation being that he and

his brother Aristocles had bribed the prophetess of Delphi to tell the

Lacedaemonian deputations which successively arrived at the temple

to bring home the seed of the demigod son of Zeus from abroad, else

they would have to plough with a silver share. In this way, it was

insisted, in time he had induced the Lacedaemonians in the

nineteenth year of his exile to Lycaeum (whither he had gone when

banished on suspicion of having been bribed to retreat from Attica,

and had built half his house within the consecrated precinct of Zeus

for fear of the Lacedaemonians), to restore him with the same dances

and sacrifices with which they had instituted their kings upon the

first settlement of Lacedaemon. The smart of this accusation, and

the reflection that in peace no disaster could occur, and that when

Lacedaemon had recovered her men there would be nothing for his

enemies to take hold of (whereas, while war lasted, the highest

station must always bear the scandal of everything that went wrong),

made him ardently desire a settlement. Accordingly this winter was

employed in conferences; and as spring rapidly approached, the

Lacedaemonians sent round orders to the cities to prepare for a

fortified occupation of Attica, and held this as a sword over the

heads of the Athenians to induce them to listen to their overtures;

and at last, after many claims had been urged on either side at the

conferences a peace was agreed on upon the following basis. Each party

was to restore its conquests, but Athens was to keep Nisaea; her

demand for Plataea being met by the Thebans asserting that they had

acquired the place not by force or treachery, but by the voluntary

adhesion upon agreement of its citizens; and the same, according to

the Athenian account, being the history of her acquisition of

Nisaea. This arranged, the Lacedaemonians summoned their allies, and

all voting for peace except the Boeotians, Corinthians, Eleans, and

Megarians, who did not approve of these proceedings, they concluded

the treaty and made peace, each of the contracting parties swearing to

the following articles:

 

The Athenians and Lacedaemonians and their allies made a treaty,

and swore to it, city by city, as follows;

 

1. Touching the national temples, there shall be a free passage by

land and by sea to all who wish it, to sacrifice, travel, consult, and

attend the oracle or games, according to the customs of their

countries.

 

2. The temple and shrine of Apollo at Delphi and the Delphians

shall be governed by their own laws, taxed by their own state, and

judged by their own judges, the land and the people, according to

the custom of their country.

 

3. The treaty shall be binding for fifty years upon the

Athenians and the allies of the Athenians, and upon the Lacedaemonians

and the allies of the Lacedaemonians, without fraud or hurt by land or

by sea.

 

4. It shall not be lawful to take up arms, with intent to do hurt,

either for the Lacedaemonians and their allies against the Athenians

and their allies, or for the Athenians and their allies against the

Lacedaemonians and their allies, in any way or means whatsoever. But

should any difference arise between them they are to have recourse

to law and oaths, according as may be agreed between the parties.

 

5. The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall give back

Amphipolis to the Athenians. Nevertheless, in the case of cities given

up by the Lacedaemonians to the Athenians, the inhabitants shall be

allowed to go where they please and to take their property with

them: and the cities shall be independent, paying only the tribute

of Aristides. And it shall not be lawful for the Athenians or their

allies to carry on war against them after the treaty has been

concluded, so long as the tribute is paid. The cities referred to

are Argilus, Stagirus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, and Spartolus.

These cities shall be neutral, allies neither of the Lacedaemonians

nor of the Athenians: but if the cities consent, it shall be lawful

for the Athenians to make them their allies, provided always that

the cities wish it. The Mecybernaeans, Sanaeans, and Singaeans shall

inhabit their own cities, as also the Olynthians and Acanthians: but

the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall give back Panactum to the

Athenians.

 

6. The Athenians shall give back Coryphasium, Cythera, Methana,

Lacedaemonians that are in the prison at Athens or elsewhere in the

Athenian dominions, and shall let go the Peloponnesians besieged in

Scione, and all others in Scione that are allies of the

Lacedaemonians, and all whom Brasidas sent in there, and any others of

the allies of the Lacedaemonians that may be in the prison at Athens

or elsewhere in the Athenian dominions.

 

7. The Lacedaemonians and their allies shall in like manner give

back any of the Athenians or their allies that they may have in

their hands.

 

8. In the case of Scione, Torone, and Sermylium, and any other

cities that the Athenians may have, the Athenians may adopt such

measures as they please.

 

9. The Athenians shall take an oath to the Lacedaemonians and

their allies, city by city. Every man shall swear by the most

binding oath of his country, seventeen from each city. The oath

shall be as follows; “I will abide by this agreement and treaty

honestly and without deceit.” In the same way an oath shall be taken

by the Lacedaemonians and their allies to the Athenians: and the

oath shall be renewed annually by both parties. Pillars shall be

erected at Olympia, Pythia, the Isthmus, at Athens in the Acropolis,

and at Lacedaemon in the temple at Amyclae.

 

10. If anything be forgotten, whatever it be, and on whatever

point, it shall be consistent with their oath for both parties, the

Athenians and Lacedaemonians, to alter it, according to their

discretion.

 

The treaty begins from the ephoralty of Pleistolas in

Lacedaemon, on the 27th day of the month of Artemisium, and from the

archonship, of Alcaeus at Athens, on the 25th day of the month of

Elaphebolion. Those who took the oath and poured the libations for the

Lacedaemonians were Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetis, Chionis,

Metagenes, Acanthus, Daithus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas,

Antippus, Tellis, Alcinadas, Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus: for the

Athenians, Lampon, Isthmonicus, Nicias, Laches, Euthydemus, Procles,

Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates,

Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, and Demosthenes.

 

This treaty was made in the spring, just at the end of winter,

directly after the city festival of Dionysus, just ten years, with the

difference of a few days, from the first invasion of Attica and the

commencement of this war. This must be calculated by the seasons

rather than by trusting to the enumeration of the names of the several

magistrates or offices of honour that