The invasion of Attica by the Lacedæmonians had now become an ordinary enterprise, undertaken in every year of the war except the third and sixth, and then omitted only from accidental causes; though the same hopes were no longer entertained from it as at the commencement of the war. During the present spring, Agis king of Sparta conducted the Peloponnesian army into the territory, seemingly about the end of April, and repeated the usual ravages.

It seemed, however, as if Korkyra were about to become the principal scene of the year’s military operations: for the exiles of the oligarchical party, having come back to the island and fortified themselves on Mount Istônê, carried on war with so much activity against the Korkyræans in the city, that distress and even famine reigned there; while sixty Peloponnesian triremes were sent thither to assist the aggressors. As soon as it became known at Athens how hardly the Korkyræans in the city were pressed, orders were given to an Athenian fleet of forty triremes, about to sail for Sicily under Eurymedon and Sophoklês, to halt in their voyage at Korkyra, and to lend whatever aid might be needed.[502] But during the course of this voyage, an incident occurred elsewhere, neither foreseen nor imagined by any one, which gave a new character and promise to the whole war,—illustrating forcibly the observations of Periklês and Archidamus before its commencement, on the impossibility of calculating what turn events might take.[503]

So high did Demosthenês stand in the favor of his countrymen, after his brilliant successes in the Ambrakian gulf, that they granted him permission, at his own request, to go aboard and to employ the fleet in any descent which he might think expedient on the coast of Peloponnesus. The attachment of this active officer to the Messenians at Naupaktus, inspired him with the idea of planting a detachment of them on some well-chosen maritime post in the ancient Messenian territory, from whence they would be able permanently to harass the Lacedæmonians and provoke revolt among the Helots,—the more so, from their analogy of race and dialect. The Messenians, active in privateering, and doubtless well acquainted with the points of this coast, all of which had formerly belonged to their ancestors, had probably indicated to him Pylus, on the southwestern shore. That ancient and Homeric name was applied specially and properly to denote the promontory which forms the northern termination of the modern bay of Navarino, opposite to the island of Sphagia, or Sphakteria; though in vague language the whole neighboring district seems also to have been called Pylus. Accordingly, in circumnavigating Laconia, Demosthenês requested that the fleet might be detained at this spot long enough to enable him to fortify it, engaging himself to stay afterwards and maintain it with a garrison. It was an uninhabited promontory, about forty-five miles from Sparta; that is, as far distant as any portion of her territory, presenting rugged cliffs, and easy of defence both by sea and land: but its great additional recommendation, with reference to the maritime power of Athens, consisted in its overhanging the spacious and secure basin now called the bay of Navarino. That basin was fronted and protected by the islet called Sphakteria, or Sphagia, untrodden, untenanted, and full of wood, which stretched along the coast for about a mile and three quarters, leaving only two narrow entrances: one at its northern end, opposite to the position fixed on by Demosthenês, so confined as to admit only two triremes abreast,—the other at the southern end, about four times as broad; while the inner water approached by these two channels was both roomy and protected. It was on the coast of Peloponnesus, a little within the northern or narrowest of the two channels, that Demosthenês proposed to plant his little fort,—the ground being itself eminently favorable, and a spring of fresh water[504] in the centre of the promontory.[505]

But Eurymedon and Sophoklês decidedly rejected all proposition of delay; and with much reason, since they had been informed (though seemingly without truth) that the Peloponnesian fleet had actually reached Korkyra: they might well have remembered the mischief which had ensued three years before from the delay of the reinforcement sent to Phormio in some desultory operations on the coast of Krete. The fleet accordingly passed by Pylus without stopping: but a terrible storm drove them back and forced them to seek shelter in the very harbor which Demosthenês had fixed upon,—the only harbor anywhere near. That officer took advantage of this accident to renew his proposition, which however appeared to the commanders chimerical: there were plenty of desert capes round Peloponnesus, they said, if he chose to waste the resources of the city in occupying them,[506]—nor were they at all moved by his reasons in reply. Finding himself thus unsuccessful, Demosthenês presumed upon the undefined permission granted to him by the Athenian people, to address himself first to the soldiers, last of all to the taxiarchs, or inferior officers, and to persuade them to second his project, even against the will of the commanders. Much inconvenience might well have arisen from such clashing of authority: but it happened that both the soldiers and the taxiarchs took the same view of the case as their commanders, and refused compliance: nor can we be surprised at such reluctance, when we reflect upon the seeming improbability of being able to maintain such a post against the great real, and still greater supposed, superiority of Lacedæmonian land-force. It happened, however, that the fleet was detained there for some days by stormy weather; so that the soldiers, having nothing to do, were seized with the spontaneous impulse of occupying themselves with the fortification, and crowded around to execute it with all the emulation of eager volunteers. Having contemplated nothing of the kind on starting from Athens, they had neither tools for cutting stone, nor hods for carrying mortar:[507] accordingly, they were compelled to build their wall by collecting such pieces of rock or stones as they found, and putting them together as each happened to fit in: whenever mortar was needed, they brought it up on their backs bent inwards, with hands joined behind them to prevent it from slipping away. Such deficiencies were made up, however, partly by the unbounded ardor of the soldiers, partly by the natural difficulties of the ground, which hardly required fortification except at particular points; the work was completed in a rough way in six days, and Demosthenês was left in garrison with five ships, while Eurymedon with the main fleet sailed away to Korkyra. The crews of the five ships, two of which, however, were sent away to warn Eurymedon afterwards, would amount to about one thousand in all: but there presently arrived two armed Messenian privateers, from which Demosthenês obtained a reinforcement of forty Messenian hoplites, together with a supply of wicker shields, though more fit for show than for use, wherewith to arm his rowers. Altogether, it appears that he must have had about two hundred hoplites, besides the half-armed seamen.[508]

Intelligence of this attempt to plant, even upon the Lacedæmonian territory, the annoyance and insult of a hostile post, was soon transmitted to Sparta,—yet no immediate measures were taken to march to the spot; as well from the natural slowness of the Spartan character, strengthened by a festival which happened to be then going on, as from the confidence entertained that, whenever attacked, the expulsion of the enemy was certain. A stronger impression, however, was made by the news upon the Lacedæmonian army invading Attica, who were at the same time suffering from want of provisions, the corn not being yet ripe, and from an unusually cold spring: accordingly, Agis marched them back to Sparta, and the fortification of Pylus thus produced the effect of abridging the invasion to the unusually short period of fifteen days. It operated in like manner to the protection of Korkyra: for the Peloponnesian fleet, recently arrived thither, or still on its way, received orders immediately to return for the attack of Pylus. Having avoided the Athenian fleet by transporting the ships across the isthmus at Leukas, it reached Pylus about the same time as the Lacedæmonian land-force from Sparta, composed of the Spartans themselves and the neighboring Periœki: for the more distant Periœki, as well as the Peloponnesian allies, being just returned from Attica, were summoned to come as soon as they could, but did not accompany this first march.[509]

At the last moment, before the Peloponnesian fleet came in and occupied the harbor, Demosthenês detached two out of his five triremes to warn Eurymedon and the main fleet, and to entreat immediate succor: the remaining ships he hauled ashore under the fortification, protecting them by palisades planted in front, and preparing to defend himself in the best manner he could. Having posted the larger portion of his force,—some of them mere seamen without arms, and many only half-armed,—round the assailable points of the fortification, to resist attacks from the land-force, he himself, with sixty chosen hoplites and a few bowmen, marched out of the fortification down to the sea-shore. It was on that side that the wall was weakest, for the Athenians, confident in their naval superiority, had given themselves little trouble to provide against an assailant fleet. Accordingly, Demosthenês foresaw that the great stress of the attack would lie on the sea-side, and his only chance of safety consisted in preventing the enemy from landing; a purpose, seconded by the rocky and perilous shore, which left no possibility of approach for ships, except on a narrow space immediately under the fortification. It was here that he took post, on the water’s edge, addressing a few words of encouragement to his men, and warning them that it was useless now to display acuteness in summing up perils which were but too obvious,—and that the only chance of escape lay in boldly encountering the enemy before they could set foot ashore; the difficulty of effecting a landing from ships in the face of resistance being better known to Athenian mariners than to any one else.[510]

With a fleet of forty-three triremes, under Thrasymelidas, and a powerful land-force, simultaneously attacking, the Lacedæmonians had good hopes of storming at once a rock so hastily converted into a military post. But as they foresaw that the first attack might possibly fail, and that the fleet of Eurymedon would probably return, they resolved to occupy forthwith the island of Sphakteria, the natural place where the Athenian fleet would take station for the purpose of assisting the garrison ashore. The neighboring coast on the mainland of Peloponnesus was both harborless and hostile, so that there was no other spot near, where they could take station. And the Lacedæmonian commanders reckoned upon being able to stop up, as it were mechanically, both the two entrances into the harbor, by triremes lashed together, from the island to the mainland, with their prows pointing outwards; so that they would be able at any rate, occupying the island as well as the two channels, to keep off the Athenian fleet, and to hold Demosthenês closely blocked up[511] on the rock of Pylus, where his provisions would quickly fail him. With these views, they drafted off by lot some hoplites from each of the Spartan lochi, accompanied as usual by Helots, and sent them across to Sphakteria; while their land-force and their fleet approached at once to attack the fortification.

Of the assault on the land-side, we hear little: the Lacedæmonians were proverbially unskilful in the attack of anything like a fortified place, and they appear now to have made little impression. But the chief stress and vigor of the attack came on the sea-side, as Demosthenês had foreseen. The landing-place, even where practicable, was still rocky and difficult,—and so narrow in dimensions, that the Lacedæmonian ships could only approach by small squadrons at a time; while the Athenians maintained their ground firmly to prevent a single man from setting foot on land. The assailing triremes rowed up with loud shouts and exhortations to each other, striving to get so placed as that the hoplites in the bow could effect a landing: but such were the difficulties arising partly from the rocks and partly from the defence, that squadron after squadron tried this in vain. Nor did even the gallant example of Brasidas procure for them any better success. That officer, commanding a trireme, and observing that some of the pilots near him were cautious in driving their ships close in shore for fear of breaking them against the rocks, indignantly called to them not to spare the planks of their vessels, when the enemy had insulted them by erecting a fort in the country: Lacedæmonians, he exclaimed, ought to carry the landing by force, even though their ships should be dashed to pieces,—nor ought the Peloponnesian allies to be backward in sacrificing their ships for Sparta, in return for the many services which she had rendered to them.[512] Foremost in performance as well as in exhortation, Brasidas constrained his own pilot to drive his ship close in, and advanced in person even on to the landing-steps for the purpose of leaping first ashore. But here he stood exposed to all the weapons of the Athenian defenders, who beat him back and pierced him with so many wounds, that he fainted away, and fell back into the bows, or foremost part of the trireme, beyond the rowers; while his shield, slipping away from the arm, dropped down and rolled overboard into the sea. His ship was obliged to retire, like the rest, without having effected any landing: and all these successive attacks from the sea, repeated for one whole day and a part of the next were repulsed by Demosthenês and his little band with victorious bravery. To both sides it seemed a strange reversal of ordinary relations,[513] that the Athenians, essentially maritime, should be fighting on land—and that, too, Lacedæmonian land—against the Lacedæmonians, the select land-warriors of Greece, now on shipboard, and striving in vain to compass a landing on their own shore. The Athenians, in honor of their success, erected a trophy, the chief ornament of which was the shield of Brasidas, which had been cast ashore by the water.

On the third day, the Lacedæmonians did not repeat their attack, but sent some of their vessels round to Asinê, in the Messenian gulf, for timber to construct battering machines; which they intended to employ against the wall of Demosthenês, on the side towards the harbor, where it was higher, and could not be assailed without machines, but where, at the same time, there was great facility in landing,—for their previous attack had been made on the side fronting the sea, where the wall was lower, but the difficulties of landing insuperable.[514] But before these ships came back, the face of affairs was seriously changed by the unwelcome return of the Athenian fleet from Zakynthus, under Eurymedon, reinforced by four Chian ships, and some of the guard-ships at Naupaktus, so as now to muster fifty sail. The Athenian admiral, finding the enemy’s fleet in possession of the harbor, and seeing both the island of Sphakteria occupied, and the opposite shore covered with Lacedæmonian hoplites,[515]—for the allies from all parts of Peloponnesus had now arrived,—looked around in vain for a place to land, and could find no other night-station except the uninhabited island of Prôtê, not very far distant. From hence he sailed forth in the morning to Pylus, prepared for a naval engagement,—hoping that perhaps the Lacedæmonians might come out to fight him in the open sea, but resolved, if this did not happen, to force his way in and attack the fleet in the harbor; the breadth of sea between Sphakteria and the mainland being sufficient to admit of nautical manœuvre.[516] The Lacedæmonian admirals, seemingly confounded by the speed of the Athenian fleet in coming back, never thought of sailing out of the harbor to fight, nor did they even realize their scheme of blocking up the two entrances of the harbor with triremes closely lashed together. Both entrances were left open, though they determined to defend themselves within: but even here, so defective were their precautions, that several of their triremes were yet moored, and the rowers not fully aboard, when the Athenian admirals sailed in by both entrances at once to attack them. Most of the Lacedæmonian triremes, afloat, and in fighting trim, resisted the attack for a certain time, but were at length vanquished, and driven back to the shore, many of them with serious injury.[517] Five of them were captured and towed off, one with all her crew aboard, and the Athenians, vigorously pursuing their success, drove against such as took refuge on the shore, as well as those which were not manned at the moment when the attack began, and had not been able to get afloat or into action. Some of the vanquished triremes being deserted by their crews, who jumped out upon the land, the Athenians were proceeding to tow them off, when the Lacedæmonian hoplites on the shore opposed a new and strenuous resistance. Excited to the utmost pitch by witnessing the disgraceful defeat of their fleet, and aware of the cruel consequences which turned upon it,—they marched all armed into the water, seized the ships to prevent them from being dragged off, and engaged in a desperate conflict to baffle the assailants: we have already seen a similar act of bravery, two years before, on the part of the Messenian hoplites accompanying the fleet of Phormio near Naupaktus.[518] Extraordinary daring and valor was here displayed on both sides, in the attack as well as in the defence, and such was the clamor and confusion, that neither the land skill of the Lacedæmonians, nor the sea skill of the Athenians, were of much avail: the contest was one of personal valor and considerable suffering on both sides. At length the Lacedæmonians carried their point, and saved all the ships ashore; none being carried away except those at first captured. Both parties thus separated: the Athenians retired to the fortress at Pylus, where they were doubtless hailed with overflowing joy by their comrades, and where they erected a trophy for their victory, giving up the enemy’s dead for burial, and picking up the floating wrecks and pieces.[519]

But the great prize of the victory was neither in the five ships captured, nor in the relief afforded to the besieged at Pylus. It lay in the hoplites occupying the island of Sphakteria, who were now cut off from the mainland, as well as from all supplies. The Athenians, sailing round it in triumph, already looked upon them as their prisoners; while the Lacedæmonians on the opposite mainland, deeply distressed, but not knowing what to do, sent to Sparta for advice. So grave was the emergency, that the ephors came in person to the spot forthwith. Since they could still muster sixty triremes, a greater number than the Athenians,—besides a large force on land, and the whole command of the resources of the country,—while the Athenians had no footing on shore except the contracted promontory of Pylus, we might have imagined that a strenuous effort to carry off the imprisoned detachment across the narrow strait to the mainland would have had a fair chance of success. And probably, if either Demosthenês or Brasidas had been in command, such an effort would have been made. But Lacedæmonian courage was rather steadfast and unyielding than adventurous: and, moreover, the Athenian superiority at sea exercised a sort of fascination over men’s minds, analogous to that of the Spartans themselves on land; so that the ephors, on reaching Pylus, took a desponding view of their position, and sent a herald to the Athenian generals to propose an armistice, in order to allow time for envoys to go to Athens and treat for peace.

To this Eurymedon and Demosthenês assented, and an armistice was concluded on the following terms: The Lacedæmonians agreed to surrender not only all their triremes now in the harbor, but also all the rest in their ports, altogether to the number of sixty; also, to abstain from all attack upon the fortress at Pylus, either by land or sea, for such time as should be necessary for the mission of envoys to Athens as well as for their return, both to be effected in an Athenian trireme provided for the purpose. The Athenians on their side engaged to desist from all hostilities during the like interval; but it was agreed that they should keep strict and unremitting watch over the island, yet without landing upon it. For the subsistence of the detachment in the island, the Lacedæmonians were permitted to send over every day two chœnikes of barley-meal in cakes, ready baked, two kotylæ of wine,[520] and some meat, for each hoplite,—together with half that quantity for each of the attendant Helots; but this was all to be done under the supervision of the Athenians, with peremptory obligation to send no secret additional supplies. It was, moreover, expressly stipulated that if any one provision of the armistice, small or great, were violated, the whole should be considered as null and void. Lastly, the Athenians engaged, on the return of the envoys from Athens, to restore the triremes in the same condition as they received them.

Such terms sufficiently attest the humiliation and anxiety of the Lacedæmonians; while the surrender of their entire naval force to the number of sixty triremes, which was forthwith carried into effect, demonstrates at the same time that they sincerely believed in the possibility of obtaining peace. Well aware that they were themselves the original beginners of the war, at a time when the Athenians desired peace, and that the latter had besides made fruitless overtures while under the pressure of the epidemic, they presumed that the same dispositions still prevailed at Athens, and that their present pacific wishes would be so gladly welcomed as to procure without difficulty the relinquishment of the prisoners in Sphakteria.[521]

The Lacedæmonian envoys, conveyed to Athens in an Athenian trireme, appeared before the public assembly to set forth their mission, according to custom, prefacing their address with some apologies for that brevity of speech which belonged to their country. Their proposition was in substance a very simple one: “Give up to us the men in the island, and accept, in exchange for this favor, peace, with the alliance of Sparta.” They enforced their cause, by appeals, well-turned and conciliatory, partly indeed to the generosity, but still more to the prudential calculation of Athens; explicitly admitting the high and glorious vantage-ground on which she was now placed, as well as their own humbled dignity and inferior position.[522] They, the Lacedæmonians, the first and greatest power in Greece, were now smitten by adverse fortune of war,—and that too without misconduct of their own, so that they were for the first time obliged to solicit an enemy for peace; which Athens had the precious opportunity of granting, not merely with honor to herself, but also in such manner as to create in their minds an ineffaceable friendship. And it became Athens to make use of her present good fortune while she had it,—not to rely upon its permanence, nor to abuse it by extravagant demands; her own imperial prudence, as well as the present circumstances of the Spartans, might teach her how unexpectedly the most disastrous casualties occurred. By granting what was now asked, she might make a peace which would be far more durable than if it were founded on the extorted compliances of a weakened enemy, because it would rest on Spartan honor and gratitude; the greater the previous enmity, the stronger would be such reactionary sentiment.[523] But if Athens should now refuse, and if, in the farther prosecution of the war, the men in Sphakteria should perish,—a new and inexpiable ground of quarrel,[524] peculiar to Sparta herself, would be added to those already subsisting, which rather concerned Sparta as the chief of the Peloponnesian confederacy. Nor was it only the good-will and gratitude of the Spartans which Athens would earn by accepting the proposition tendered to her; she would farther acquire the grace and glory of conferring peace on Greece, which all the Greeks would recognize as her act. And when once the two preëminent powers, Athens and Sparta, were established in cordial amity, the remaining Grecian states would be too weak to resist what they two might prescribe.[525]

Such was the language held by the Lacedæmonians in the assembly at Athens. It was discreetly calculated for their purpose, though when we turn back to the commencement of the war, and read the lofty declarations of the Spartan ephors and assembly respecting the wrongs of their allies and the necessity of extorting full indemnity for them from Athens, the contrast is indeed striking. On this occasion, the Lacedæmonians acted entirely for themselves and from consideration of their own necessities; severing themselves from their allies, and soliciting a special peace for themselves, with as little scruple as the Spartan general, Menedæus, during the preceding year, when he abandoned his Ambrakiot confederates after the battle of Olpæ, to conclude a separate capitulation with Demosthenês.

The course proper to be adopted by Athens in reference to the proposition, however, was by no means obvious. In all probability, the trireme which brought the Lacedæmonian envoys also brought the first news of that unforeseen and instantaneous turn of events which had rendered the Spartans in Sphakteria certain prisoners,—so it was then conceived,—and placed the whole Lacedæmonian fleet in their power; thus giving a totally new character of the war. The sudden arrival of such prodigious intelligence,—the astounding presence of Lacedæmonian envoys, bearing the olive-branch, and in an attitude of humiliation,—must have produced in the susceptible public of Athens emotions of the utmost intensity; an elation and confidence such as had probably never been felt since the reconquest of Samos. It was difficult at first to measure the full bearings of the new situation, and even Periklês himself might have hesitated what to recommend: but the immediate and dominant impression with the general public was, that Athens might now ask her own terms, as consideration for the prisoners in the island.[526] Of this reigning tendency Kleon[527] made himself the emphatic organ, as he had done three years before in the sentence passed on the Mitylenæans; a man who—like leading journals, in modern times—often appeared to guide the public because he gave vehement utterance to that which they were already feeling, and carried it out in its collateral bearings and consequences. On the present occasion, he doubtless spoke with the most genuine conviction; for he was full of the sentiment of Athenian force and Athenian imperial dignity, as well as disposed to a sanguine view of future chances. Moreover, in a discussion like that now opened, where there was much room for doubt, he came forward with a proposition at once plain and decisive. Reminding the Athenians of the dishonorable truce of thirty years to which they had been compelled by the misfortunes of the time to accede, fourteen years before the Peloponnesian war,—Kleon insisted that now was the time for Athens to recover what she had then lost,—Nisæa, Pegæ, Trœzen, and Achaia. He proposed that Sparta should be required to restore these to Athens, in exchange for the soldiers now blocked up in Sphakteria; after which a truce might be concluded for as long a time as might be deemed expedient.

This decree, adopted by the assembly, was communicated as the answer of Athens to the Lacedæmonian envoys, who had probably retired after their first address, and were now sent for again into the assembly, to hear it. On being informed of the resolution, they made no comment on its substance, but invited the Athenians to name commissioners, who might discuss with them freely and deliberately suitable terms for a pacification. Here, however, Kleon burst upon them with an indignant rebuke. He had thought from the first, he said, that they came with dishonest purposes, but now the thing was clear,—nothing else could be meant by this desire to treat with some few men apart from the general public. If they had really any fair proposition to make, he called upon them to proclaim it openly to all. But this the envoys could not bring themselves to do. They had probably come with authority to make certain concessions, but to announce these concessions forthwith would have rendered negotiation impossible, besides dishonoring them in the face of their allies. Such dishonor would be incurred, too, without any advantage, if the Athenians should after all reject the terms, which the temper of the assembly before them rendered but too probable. Moreover, they were totally unpractised in the talents for dealing with a public assembly, such discussions being so rare as to be practically unknown in the Lacedæmonian system. To reply to the denunciation of a vehement speaker like Kleon, required readiness of elocution, dexterity, and self-command, which they had had no opportunity of acquiring. They remained silent,—abashed by the speaker and intimidated by the temper of the assembly: their mission was thus terminated, and they were reconveyed in the trireme to Pylus.[528]

It is probable that if these envoys had been able to make an effective reply to Kleon, and to defend their proposition against his charge of fraudulent purpose, they would have been sustained by Nikias and a certain number of leading Athenians, so that the assembly might have been brought at least to try the issue of a private discussion between diplomatic agents on both sides. But the case was one in which it was absolutely necessary that the envoys should stand forward with some defence for themselves; which Nikias might effectively second, but could not originate: and as they were incompetent to this task, the whole affair broke down. We shall hereafter find other examples, in which the incapacity of Lacedæmonian envoys, to meet the open debate of Athenian political life, is productive of mischievous results. In this case, the proposition of the envoys to enter into treaty with select commissioners, was not only quite reasonable, but afforded the only possibility—though doubtless not a certainty—of some ultimate pacification: and the manœuvre whereby Kleon discredited it was a grave abuse of publicity, not unknown in modern, though more frequent in ancient, political life. Kleon probably thought that if commissioners were named, Nikias, Lachês, and other politicians of the same rank and color, would be the persons selected; persons whose anxiety for peace and alliance with Sparta would make them over-indulgent and careless in securing the interests of Athens: and it will be seen, when we come to describe the conduct of Nikias four years afterwards, that this suspicion was not ill-grounded.

Unfortunately Thucydidês, in describing the proceedings of this assembly, so important in its consequences because it intercepted a promising opening for peace, is brief as usual,—telling us only what was said by Kleon and what was decided by the assembly. But though nothing is positively stated respecting Nikias and his partisans, we learn from other sources, and we may infer from what afterwards occurred, that they vehemently opposed Kleon, and that they looked coldly on the subsequent enterprise against Sphakteria as upon his peculiar measure.[529]

It has been common to treat the dismissal of the Lacedæmonian envoys on this occasion as a peculiar specimen of democratical folly. But over-estimation of the prospective chances arising out of success, to a degree more extravagant than that of which Athens was now guilty, is by no means peculiar to democracy. Other governments, opposed to democracy not less in temper than in form,—an able despot like the emperor Napoleon, and a powerful aristocracy like that of England,[530]—have found success to the full as misleading. That Athens should desire to profit by this unexpected piece of good fortune, was perfectly reasonable: that she should make use of it to regain advantages which former misfortunes had compelled herself to surrender, was a feeling not unnatural. And whether the demand was excessive, or by how much, is a question always among the most embarrassing for any government—kingly, oligarchical, or democratical—to determine.

We may, however, remark that Kleon gave an impolitic turn to Athenian feeling, by directing it towards the entire and literal reacquisition of what had been lost twenty years before. Unless we are to consider his quadruple demand as a flourish, to be modified by subsequent negotiation, it seems to present some plausibility, but little of long-sighted wisdom: for while, on the one hand, it called upon Sparta to give up much which was not in her possession and must have been extorted by force from allies,—on the other hand, the situation of Athens was not the same as it had been when she concluded the thirty years’ truce; nor does it seem that the restoration of Achaia and Trœzen would have been of any material value to her. Nisæa and Pegæ—which would have been tantamount to the entire Megarid, inasmuch as Megara itself could hardly have been held with both its ports in the possession of an enemy—would, indeed, have been highly valuable, since she could then have protected her territory against invasion from Peloponnesus, besides possessing a port in the Corinthian gulf. And it would seem that if able commissioners had now been named for private discussion with the Lacedæmonian envoys, under the present urgent desire of Sparta, coupled with her disposition to abandon her allies,—this important point might possibly have been pressed and carried, in exchange for Sphakteria. Nay, even if such acquisition had been found impracticable, still, the Athenians would have been able to effect some arrangement which would have widened the breach, and destroyed the confidence, between Sparta and her allies; a point of great moment for them to accomplish. There was therefore every reason for trying what could be done by negotiation, under the present temper of Sparta; and the step, by which Kleon abruptly broke off such hopes, was decidedly mischievous.

On the return of the envoys without success to Pylus,[531] twenty days after their departure from that place, the armistice immediately terminated; and the Lacedæmonians redemanded the triremes which they had surrendered. But Eurymedon refused compliance with this demand, alleging that the Lacedæmonians had, during the truce, made a fraudulent attempt to surprise the rock of Pylus, and had violated the stipulations in other ways besides; while it stood expressly stipulated in the truce, that the violation by either side even of the least among its conditions, should cancel all obligation on both sides. Thucydidês, without distinctly giving his opinion, seems rather to imply, that there was no just ground for the refusal: though if any accidental want of vigilance had presented to the Lacedæmonians an opportunity for surprising Pylus, they would be likely enough to avail themselves of it, seeing that they would thereby drive off the Athenian fleet from its only landing-place, and render the continued blockade of Sphakteria impracticable. However the truth may be, Eurymedon persisted in his refusal, in spite of loud protests of the Lacedæmonians against his perfidy. Hostilities were energetically resumed: the Lacedæmonian army on land began again to attack the fortifications of Pylus, while the Athenian fleet became doubly watchful in the blockade of Sphakteria, in which they were reinforced by twenty fresh ships from Athens, making a fleet of seventy triremes in all. Two ships were perpetually rowing round the island in opposite directions, throughout the whole day; while at night, the whole fleet were kept on watch, except on the sea-side of the island in stormy weather.[532]

The blockade, however, was soon found to be more full of privation in reference to the besiegers themselves, and more difficult of enforcement in respect to the island and its occupants, than had been originally contemplated. The Athenians were much distressed for want of water; they had only one really good spring in the fortification of Pylus itself, quite insufficient for the supply of a large fleet: many of them were obliged to scrape the shingle and drink such brackish water as they could find; while ships as well as men were perpetually afloat, since they could take rest and refreshment only by relays successively landing on the rock of Pylus, or even on the edge of Sphakteria itself, with all the chance of being interrupted by the enemy,—there being no other landing-place,[533] and the ancient trireme affording no accommodation either for eating or sleeping. At first, all this was patiently borne, in the hopes that Sphakteria would speedily be starved out, and the Spartans forced to renew the request for capitulation: but no such request came, and the Athenians in the fleet gradually became sick in body as well as impatient and angry in mind. In spite of all their vigilance, clandestine supplies of provisions continually reached the island, under the temptation of large rewards offered by the Spartan government. Able swimmers contrived to cross the strait, dragging after them by ropes skins full of linseed and poppy-seed mixed with honey; while merchant vessels, chiefly manned by Helots, started from various parts of the Laconian coast, selecting by preference the stormy nights, and encountering every risk in order to run their vessel with its cargo ashore on the sea-side of the island, at a time when the Athenian guard-ships could not be on the lookout.[534] They cared little about damage to their vessel in landing, provided they could get the cargo on shore; for ample compensation was insured to them, together with emancipation to every Helot who succeeded in reaching the island with a supply. Though the Athenians redoubled their vigilance, and intercepted many of these daring smugglers, still, there were others who eluded them: moreover, the rations supplied to the island by stipulation during the absence of the envoys in their journey to Athens had been so ample, that Epitadas the commander had been able to economize, and thus to make the stock hold out longer. Week after week passed without any symptoms of surrender, and the Athenians not only felt the present sufferings of their own position, but also became apprehensive for their own supplies, all brought by sea round Peloponnesus to this distant and naked shore. They began even to mistrust the possibility of thus indefinitely continuing the blockade against the contingencies of such violent weather, as would probably ensue at the close of summer. In this state of weariness and uncertainty, the active Demosthenês began to organize a descent upon the island, with the view of carrying it by force. He not only sent for forces from the neighboring allies, Zakynthus and Naupaktus, but also transmitted an urgent request to Athens that reinforcements might be furnished to him for the purpose, making known explicitly both the uncomfortable condition of the armament, and the unpromising chances of simple blockade.[535]

The arrival of these envoys caused infinite mortification to the Athenians at home. Having expected to hear, long before, that Sphakteria had surrendered, they were now taught to consider even the ultimate conquest as a matter of doubt: they were surprised that the Lacedæmonians sent no fresh envoys to solicit peace, and began to suspect that such silence was founded upon well-grounded hopes of being able to hold out. But the person most of all discomposed was Kleon, who observed that the people now regretted their insulting repudiation of the Lacedæmonian message, and were displeased with him as the author of it; while, on the contrary, his numerous political enemies were rejoiced at the turn which events had taken, as it opened a means of effecting his ruin. At first, Kleon contended that the envoys had misrepresented the state of facts; to which the latter replied by entreating, that if their accuracy were mistrusted, commissioners of inspection might be sent to verify it; and Kleon himself, along with Theogonês, was forthwith named for this function.

But it did not suit Kleon’s purpose to go as commissioner to Pylus, since his mistrust of the statement was a mere general suspicion, not resting on any positive evidence: moreover, he saw that the dispositions of the assembly tended to comply with the request of Demosthenês, and to despatch a reinforcing armament. He accordingly altered his tone at once: “If ye really believe the story (he said), do not waste time in sending commissioners, but sail at once to capture the men. It would be easy with a proper force, if our generals were men (here he pointed reproachfully to his enemy Nikias, then stratêgus[536]), to sail and take the soldiers in the island. That is what I at least would do, if I were general.” His words instantly provoked a hostile murmur from a portion of the assembly: “Why do you not sail then at once, if you think the matter so easy?” while Nikias, taking up this murmur, and delighted to have caught his political enemy in a trap, stood forward in person, and pressed him to set about the enterprise without delay; intimating the willingness of himself and his colleagues to grant him any portion of the military force of the city which he chose to ask for. Kleon at first closed with this proposition, believing it to be a mere stratagem of debate and not seriously intended: but so soon as he saw that what was said was really meant, he tried to back out, and observed to Nikias: “It is your place to sail: you are general, not I.”[537] Nikias only replied by repeating his exhortation, renouncing formally the command against Sphakteria, and calling upon the Athenians to recollect what Kleon had said, as well as to hold him to his engagement. The more Kleon tried to evade the duty, the louder and more unanimous did the cry of the assembly become that Nikias should surrender it to him, and that he should undertake it. At last, seeing that there was no possibility of receding, Kleon reluctantly accepted the charge, and came forward to announce his intention in a resolute address: “I am not at all afraid of the Lacedæmonians (he said): I shall sail without even taking with me any of the hoplites from the regular Athenian muster-roll, but only the Lemnian and Imbrian hoplites who are now here (that is, Athenian kleruchs or out-citizens who had properties in Lemnos and Imbros, and habitually resided there), together with some peltasts, brought from Ænos, in Thrace, and four hundred bowmen. With this force, added to what is already at Pylos, I engage in the space of twenty days either to bring the Lacedæmonians in Sphakteria hither as prisoners, or to kill them in the island.” The Athenians—observes Thucydidês—laughed somewhat at Kleon’s looseness of tongue; but prudent men had pleasure in reflecting that one or other of the two advantages was now certain: either they would get rid of Kleon, which they anticipated as the issue at once most probable and most desirable,—or, if mistaken on this point, the Lacedæmonians in the island would be killed or taken.[538] The vote was accordingly passed for the immediate departure of Kleon, who caused Demosthenês to be named as his colleague in command, and sent intelligence to Pylus at once that he was about to start with the reinforcement solicited.

This curious scene, interesting as laying open the interior feeling of the Athenian assembly, suggests, when properly considered, reflections very different from those which have been usually connected with it. It seems to be conceived by most historians as a mere piece of levity or folly in the Athenian people, who are supposed to have enjoyed the excellent joke of putting an incompetent man against his own will at the head of this enterprise, in order that they might amuse themselves with his blunders: Kleon is thus contemptible, and the Athenian people ridiculous. Certainly, if that people had been disposed to conduct their public business upon such childish fancies as are here implied, they would have made a very different figure from that which history actually presents to us. The truth is, that in regard to Kleon’s alleged looseness of tongue, which excited more or less of laughter among the persons present, there was no one really ridiculous except the laughers themselves: for the announcement which he made was so far from being extravagant, that it was realized to the letter, and realized, too, let us add, without any peculiar aid from unforeseen favorable accident. To show how much this is the case, we have only to contrast the jesters before the fact with the jesters after it. While the former deride Kleon as a promiser of extravagant and impossible results, we find Aristophanês, in his comedy of the Knights, about six months afterwards,[539] laughing at him as having achieved nothing at all,—as having cunningly put himself into the shoes of Demosthenês, and stolen away from that general the glory of taking Sphakteria, after all the difficulties of the enterprise had been already got over, and “the cake ready baked,”—to use the phrase of the comic poet. Both of the jests are exaggerations in opposite directions; but the last in order of time, if it be good at all against Kleon, is a galling sarcasm against those who derided Kleon as an extravagant boaster.

If we intend fairly to compare the behavior of Kleon with that of his political adversaries, we must distinguish between the two occasions: first, that in which he had frustrated the pacific mission of the Lacedæmonian envoys; next, the subsequent delay and dilemma which has been recently described. On the first occasion, his advice appears to have been mistaken in policy, as well as offensive in manner: his opponents, proposing a discussion by special commissioners as a fair chance for honorable terms of peace, took a juster view of the public interests. But the case was entirely altered when the mission for peace (wisely or unwisely) had been broken up, and when the fate of Sphakteria had been committed to the chances of war. There were then imperative reasons for prosecuting the war vigorously, and for employing all the force requisite to insure the capture of that island. And looking to this end, we shall find that there was nothing in the conduct of Kleon either to blame or to deride; while his political adversaries, Nikias among them, are deplorably timid, ignorant, and reckless of the public interest; seeking only to turn the existing disappointment and dilemma into a party opportunity for ruining him.

To grant the reinforcement asked for by Demosthenês was obviously the proper measure, and Kleon saw that the people would go along with him in proposing it: but he had at the same time good grounds for reproaching Nikias, and the other stratêgi, whose duty it was to originate that proposition, with their backwardness in remaining silent, and in leaving the matter to go by default, as if it were Kleon’s affair and not theirs. His taunt: “This is what I would have done, if I were general,” was a mere phrase of the heat of debate, such as must have been very often used, without any idea on the part of the hearers of construing it as a pledge which the speaker was bound to realize: nor was it any disgrace to Kleon to decline a charge which he had never sought, and to confess his incompetence to command. The reason why he was forced into the post, in spite of his own unaffected reluctance, was not, as some historians would have us believe, because the Athenian people loved a joke, but from two feelings, both perfectly serious, which divided the assembly,—feelings opposite in their nature, but coinciding on this occasion to the same result. His enemies loudly urged him forward, anticipating that the enterprise under him would miscarry, and that he would thus be ruined: his friends, perceiving this manœuvre, but not sharing in such anticipations, and ascribing his reluctance to modesty, pronounced themselves so much the more vehemently on behalf of their leader, and repaid the scornful cheer by cheers of sincere encouragement. “Why do you not try your hand at this enterprise, Kleon, if you think it so easy? You will soon find that it is too much for you;” was the cry of his enemies: to which his friends would reply: “Yes, to be sure, try, Kleon: by all means, try: do not be backward; we warrant that you will come honorably out of it, and we will stand by you.” Such cheer and counter-cheer is precisely in the temper of an animated multitude, as Thucydidês[540] states it, divided in feeling; and friends as well as enemies thus concurred to impose upon Kleon a compulsion not to be eluded. Of all the parties here concerned those whose conduct is the most unpardonably disgraceful are Nikias and his oligarchical friends; who force a political enemy into a supreme command against his own strenuous protest, persuaded that he will fail so as to compromise the lives of many soldiers, and the destinies of the state on an important emergency,—but satisfying themselves with the idea that they shall bring him to disgrace and ruin.

It is to be remarked, that Nikias and his fellow stratêgi were backward on this occasion, partly because they were really afraid of the duty. They anticipated a resistance to the death at Sphakteria, such as that at Thermopylæ: in which case, though victory might perhaps be won by a superior assailant force, it would not be won without much bloodshed and peril, besides an inexpiable quarrel with Sparta. If Kleon took a more correct measure of the chances, he ought to have credit for it, as one “bene ausus vana contemnere.” And it seems probable, that if he had not been thus forward in supporting the request of Demosthenês for reinforcement,—or rather, if he had not been so placed that he was compelled to be forward,—Nikias and his friends would have laid aside the enterprise, and reopened negotiations for peace, under circumstances neither honorable nor advantageous to Athens. Kleon was in this manner one main author of the most important success which Athens obtained throughout the whole war.

On joining Demosthenês with his reinforcement, Kleon found every preparation for attack made by that general, and the soldiers at Pylus eager to commence such aggressive measures as would relieve them from the tedium of a blockade. Sphakteria had become recently more open to assault in consequence of an accidental conflagration of the wood, arising from a fire kindled by the Athenian seamen, while landing at the skirt of the island, and cooking their food: under the influence of a strong wind, most of the wood in the island had thus caught fire and been destroyed. To Demosthenês this was an accident especially welcome; for the painful experience of his defeat in the forest-covered hills of Ætolia had taught him how difficult it was for assailants to cope with an enemy whom they could not see, and who knew all the good points of defence in the country.[541] The island being thus stripped of its wood, he was enabled to survey the garrison, to count their number, and to lay his plan of attack on certain data. He now, too, for the first time, discovered that he had underrated their real number, having before suspected that the Lacedæmonians had sent in rations for a greater total than was actually there. The island was occupied altogether by four hundred and twenty Lacedæmonian hoplites, out of whom more than one hundred and twenty were native Spartans, belonging to the first families in the city. The commander, Epitadas, with the main body, occupied the centre of the island, near the only spring of water which it afforded:[542] an advanced guard of thirty hoplites was posted not far from the sea-shore, in the end of the island farthest from Pylus; while the end immediately fronting Pylus, peculiarly steep and rugged, and containing even a rude circuit of stones, of unknown origin, which served as a sort of defence, was held as a post of reserve.[543]

Such was the prey which Kleon and Demosthenês were anxious to grasp. On the very day of the arrival of the former, they sent a herald to the Lacedæmonian generals on the mainland, inviting the surrender of the hoplites on the island, on condition of being simply detained under guard without any hardship, until a final pacification should take place. Of course the summons was refused; after which, leaving only one day for repose, the two generals took advantage of the night to put all their hoplites aboard a few triremes, making show as if they were merely commencing the ordinary nocturnal circumnavigation, so as to excite no suspicion in the occupants of the island. The entire body of Athenian hoplites, eight hundred in number, were thus disembarked in two divisions, one on each side of the island, a little before daybreak: the advanced guard of thirty Lacedæmonians, completely unprepared, were surprised even in their sleep and all slain.[544] At the point of day, the entire remaining force from the seventy-two triremes was also disembarked, leaving on board only the thalamii, or lowest tier of rowers, and reserving only a sufficient number to man the walls of Pylus. Altogether, there could not have been less than ten thousand troops employed in the attack of the island,—men of all arms: eight hundred hoplites, eight hundred peltasts, eight hundred bowmen; the rest armed with javelins, slings, and stones. Demosthenês kept his hoplites in one compact body, but distributed the light-armed into separate companies of about two hundred men each, with orders to occupy the rising grounds all round, and harass the flanks and rear of the Lacedæmonians.[545]

To resist this large force, the Lacedæmonian commander Epitadas had only three hundred and sixty hoplites around him; for his advanced guard of thirty men had been slain, and as many more must have been held in reserve to guard the rocky station in his rear: of the Helots who were with him, Thucydidês says nothing, during the whole course of the action. As soon as he saw the numbers and disposition of his enemies, Epitadas placed his men in battle array, and advanced to encounter the main body of hoplites whom he saw before him. But the Spartan march was habitually slow:[546] moreover, the ground was rough and uneven, obstructed with stumps, and overlaid with dust and ashes, from the recently burnt wood, so that a march at once rapid and orderly was hardly possible: and he had to traverse the whole intermediate space, since the Athenian hoplites remained immovable in their position. No sooner had his march commenced, than he found himself assailed both in rear and flanks, especially in the right or unshielded flank, by the numerous companies of light-armed.[547] Notwithstanding their extraordinary superiority of number, these men were at first awe-stricken at finding themselves in actual contest with Lacedæmonian hoplites:[548] still, they began the fight, poured in their missile weapons, and so annoyed the march that the hoplites were obliged to halt, while Epitadas ordered the most active among them to spring out of their ranks and repel the assailants. But pursuers with spear and shield had little chance of overtaking men lightly clad and armed, who always retired, in whatever direction the pursuit was commenced, had the advantage of difficult ground, redoubled their annoyance against the rear of the pursuers as soon as the latter retreated to resume their place in the ranks, and always took care to get round to the rear of the hoplites.

After some experience of the inefficacy of Lacedæmonian pursuit, the light-armed, becoming far bolder than at first, closed upon them nearer and more universally, with arrows, javelins, and stones, raising shouts and clamor that rent the air, rendering the word of command inaudible by the Lacedæmonian soldiers, who at the same time were almost blinded by the thick clouds of dust, kicked up from the recently spread wood-ashes.[549] Such method of fighting was one for which the Lykurgean drill made no provision, and the longer it continued the more painful did the embarrassment of the exposed hoplites become: their repeated efforts to destroy or even to reach nimble and ever-returning enemies, all proved abortive, whilst their own numbers were incessantly diminished by wounds which they could not return. Their only offensive arms consisted of the long spear and short sword usual to the Grecian hoplite, without any missile weapons whatever; nor could they even pick up and throw back the javelins of their enemies, since the points of these javelins commonly broke off and stuck in the shields, or sometimes even in the body which they had wounded. Moreover, the bows of the archers, doubtless carefully selected before starting from Athens, were powerfully drawn, so that their arrows may sometimes have pierced and inflicted wounds even through the shield or the helmet,—but at any rate, the stuffed doublet, which formed the only defence of the hoplite on his unshielded side, was a very inadequate protection against them.[550] Under this trying distress did the Lacedæmonians continue for a long time, poorly provided for defence, and altogether helpless for aggression,—without being able to approach at all nearer to the Athenian hoplites. At length the Lacedæmonian commander, seeing that his position grew worse and worse, gave orders to close the ranks and retreat to the last redoubt in the rear: but this movement was not accomplished without difficulty, for the light-armed assailants became doubly clamorous and forward, and many wounded men, unable to move, or at least to keep in rank, were overtaken and slain.[551]

A diminished remnant, however, reached the last post in safety, and they were here in comparative protection, since the ground was so rocky and impracticable that their enemies could not attack them either in flank or rear: though the position at any rate could not have been long tenable separately, inasmuch as the only spring of water in the island was in the centre, which they had just been compelled to abandon. The light-armed being now less available, Demosthenês and Kleon brought up their eight hundred Athenian hoplites, who had not before been engaged; but the Lacedæmonians were here at home[552] with their weapons, and enabled to display their well-known superiority against opposing hoplites, especially as they had the advantage of higher ground against enemies charging from beneath. Although the Athenians were double their own numbers and withal yet unexhausted, they were repulsed in many successive attacks. The besieged maintained their ground in spite of all their previous fatigue and suffering, harder to be borne from the scanty diet on which they had recently subsisted. The struggle lasted so long that heat and thirst began to tell even upon the assailants, when the commander of the Messenians came to Kleon and Demosthenês, and intimated that they were now laboring in vain; promising at the same time that if they would confide to him a detachment of light troops and bowmen, he would find his way round to the higher cliffs, in the rear of the assailants.[553] He accordingly stole away unobserved from the rear, scrambling round over pathless crags, and by an almost impracticable footing on the brink of the sea, amidst approaches which the Lacedæmonians had left unguarded, never imagining that they could be molested in that direction. He suddenly appeared with his detachment on the higher peak above them, so that their position was thus commanded, and they found themselves, as at Thermopylæ, between two fires, without any hope of escape. Their enemies in front, encouraged by the success of the Messenians, pressed forward with increased ardor, until at length the courage of the Lacedæmonians gave way, and the position was carried.[554]

A few moments more, and they would have been all overpowered and slain, when Kleon and Demosthenês, anxious to carry them as prisoners to Athens, constrained their men to halt, and proclaimed by herald an invitation to surrender, on condition of delivering up their arms and being held at the disposal of the Athenians. Most of them, incapable of farther effort, closed with the proposition forthwith, signifying compliance by dropping their shields and waving both hands above their heads. The battle being thus ended, Styphon the commander—originally only third in command, but now chief, since Epitadas had been slain, and the second in command, Hippagretês, was lying disabled by wounds on the field—entered into conference with Kleon and Demosthenês, and entreated permission to send across for orders to the Lacedæmonians on the mainland. The Athenian commanders, though refusing this request, sent themselves and invited Lacedæmonian heralds over from the mainland, through whom communications were exchanged twice or three times between Styphon and the chief Lacedæmonian authorities. At length the final message came: “The Lacedæmonians direct you to take counsel for yourselves, but to do nothing disgraceful.”[555] Their counsel was speedily taken; they surrendered themselves and delivered up their arms; two hundred and ninety-two in number, the survivors of the original total of four hundred and twenty. And out of these, no less than one hundred and twenty were native Spartans, some of them belonging to the first families in the city.[556] They were kept under guard during that night, and distributed on the morrow among the Athenian trierarchs to be conveyed as prisoners to Athens; while a truce was granted to the Lacedæmonians on shore, in order that they might carry across the dead bodies for burial. So careful had Epitadas been in husbanding the provisions, that some food was yet found in the island; though the garrison had subsisted for fifty-two days upon casual supplies, aided by such economies as had been laid by during the twenty days of the armistice, when food of a stipulated quantity was regularly furnished. Seventy-two days had thus elapsed, from the first imprisonment in the island to the hour of their surrender.[557]

The best troops in modern times would neither incur reproach, nor occasion surprise, by surrendering, under circumstances in all respects similar to this gallant remnant in Sphakteria. Yet in Greece the astonishment was prodigious and universal, when it was learned that the Lacedæmonians had consented to become prisoners:[558] for the terror inspired by their name, and the deep-struck impression of Thermopylæ, had created a belief that they would endure any extremity of famine, and perish in the midst of any superiority of hostile force, rather than dream of giving up their arms and surviving as captives. The events of Sphakteria, shocking as they did this preconceived idea, discredited the military prowess of Sparta in the eyes of all Greece, and especially in those of her own allies. Even in Sparta itself, too, the same feeling prevailed,—partially revealed in the answer transmitted to Styphon from the generals on shore, who did not venture to forbid surrender, yet discountenanced it by implication: and it is certain that the Spartans would have lost less by their death than by their surrender. But we read with disgust the spiteful taunt of one of the allies of Athens (not an Athenian) engaged in the affair, addressed in the form of a question to one of the prisoners: “Have your best men then been all slain?” The reply conveyed an intimation of the standing contempt entertained by the Lacedæmonians for the bow and its chance-strokes in the line: “That would be a capital arrow which could single out the best man.” The language which Herodotus puts into the mouth of Demaratus, composed in the early years of the Peloponnesian war, attests this same belief in Spartan valor: “The Lacedæmonians die, but never surrender.”[559] Such impression was from henceforward, not indeed effaced, but sensibly enfeebled, and never again was it restored to its former pitch.

But the general judgment of the Greeks respecting the capture of Sphakteria, remarkable as it is to commemorate, is far less surprising than that pronounced by Thucydidês himself. Kleon and Demosthenês returning with a part of the squadron and carrying all the prisoners, started from Sphakteria on the next day but one after the action, and reached Athens within twenty days after Kleon had left it. Thus, “the promise of Kleon, insane as it was, came true,” observes the historian.[560]

Men with arms in their hands have always the option between death and imprisonment, and Grecian opinion was only mistaken in assuming as a certainty that the Lacedæmonians would choose the former. But Kleon had never promised to bring them home as prisoners: his promise was disjunctive,—that they should be either so brought home, or slain, within twenty days: and no sentence throughout the whole of Thucydidês astonishes me so much as that in which he stigmatizes such an expectation as “insane.” Here are four hundred and twenty Lacedæmonian hoplites, without any other description of troops to aid them,—without the possibility of being reinforced,—without any regular fortification,—without any narrow pass, such as that of Thermopylæ,—without either a sufficient or a certain supply of food,—cooped up in a small open island less than two miles in length. Against them are brought ten thousand troops of diverse arms, including eight hundred fresh hoplites from Athens, and marshalled by Demosthenês, a man alike enterprising and experienced: for the talents as well as the presence and preparations of Demosthenês are a part of the data of the case, and the personal competence of Kleon to command alone, is foreign to the calculation. Now if, under such circumstances, Kleon engaged that this forlorn company of brave men should be either slain or taken prisoners, how could he be looked upon, I will not say as indulging in an insane boast, but even as overstepping the most cautious and mistrustful estimate of probability? Even to doubt of this result, much more to pronounce such an opinion as that of Thucydidês, implies an idea not only of superhuman power in the Lacedæmonian hoplites, but of disgraceful cowardice on the part of Demosthenês and the assailants. Nor was the interval of twenty days, named by Kleon, at all extravagantly narrow, considering the distance of Athens from Pylus: for the attack of this petty island could not possibly occupy more than one or two days at the utmost, though the blockade of it might by various accidents have been prolonged, or might even, by some terrible storm, be altogether broken off. If, then, we carefully consider this promise made by Kleon in the assembly, we shall find that so far from deserving the sentence pronounced upon it by Thucydidês, of being a mad boast which came true by accident, it was a reasonable and even a modest anticipation of the future:[561] reserving the only really doubtful point in the case, whether the garrison of the island would be ultimately slain or made prisoners. Demosthenês, had he been present at Athens instead of being at Pylus, would willingly have set his seal to the engagement taken by Kleon.

I repeat with reluctance, though not without belief, the statement made by one of the biographers of Thucydidês,[562] that Kleon was the cause of the banishment of the latter as a general, and has therefore received from him harder measure than was due in his capacity of historian. But though this sentiment is not probably without influence in dictating the unaccountable judgment which I have just been criticizing,—as well as other opinions relative to Kleon, on which I shall say more in a future chapter,—I nevertheless look upon that judgment not as peculiar to Thucydidês, but as common to him with Nikias and those whom we must call, for want of a better name, the oligarchical party of the time at Athens. And it gives us some measure of the prejudice and narrowness of vision which prevailed among that party at the present memorable crisis; so pointedly contrasting with the clear-sighted and resolute calculations, and the judicious conduct in action, of Kleon, who, when forced against his will into the post of general, did the very best which could be done in his situation,—he selected Demosthenês as colleague and heartily seconded his operations. Though the military attack of Sphakteria, one of the ablest specimens of generalship in the whole war, and distinguished not less by the dextrous employment of different descriptions of troops, than by care to spare the lives of the assailants,—belongs altogether to Demosthenês, yet if Kleon had not been competent to stand up in the Athenian assembly and defy those gloomy predictions which we see attested in Thucydidês, Demosthenês would never have been reinforced nor placed in condition to land on the island. The glory of the enterprise, therefore, belongs jointly to both: and Kleon, far from stealing away the laurels of Demosthenês (as Aristophanês represents, in his comedy of the Knights), was really the means of placing them on his head, though he at the same time deservedly shared them. It has hitherto been the practice to look at Kleon only from the point of view of his opponents, through whose testimony we know him: but the real fact is, that this history of the events of Sphakteria, when properly surveyed, is a standing disgrace to those opponents and no inconsiderable honor to him; exhibiting them as alike destitute of political foresight and of straightforward patriotism,—as sacrificing the opportunities of war, along with the lives of their fellow-citizens and soldiers, for the purpose of ruining a political enemy. It was the duty of Nikias, as stratêgus, to propose, and undertake in person if necessary, the reduction of Sphakteria: if he thought the enterprise dangerous, that was a good reason for assigning to it a larger military force, as we shall find him afterwards reasoning about the Sicilian expedition,—but not for letting it slip or throwing it off upon others.[563]