History of the Peloponnesian War

This is an AI modernization of History of the Peloponnesian War into contemporary English. The original Richard Crawley translation (1874) is available on Standard Ebooks.

Contents

• Book I: Origins and Causes
  • The State of Greece from the Earliest Times to the Start of the Peloponnesian War
  • Causes of the War -- The Affair of Epidamnus -- The Affair of Potidaea
  • The Congress at Sparta
  • From the End of the Persian War to the Beginning of the Peloponnesian War — How Athens Went from Leadership to Empire
  • Second Congress at Sparta — Preparations for War and Diplomatic Skirmishes — Cylon — Pausanias — Themistocles
• Book II: The First Years
  • The Attack on Plataea — The First Invasion of Attica — Pericles' Funeral Oration
  • The Second Year of the War — The Plague of Athens — Pericles' Position and Policy — The Fall of Potidaea
  • Third Year of the War — The Siege of Plataea — Phormio's Naval Victories — Sitalces Invades Macedonia
• Book III: Escalation
  • Fourth and Fifth Years of the War -- Revolt of Mytilene
  • Fifth Year of the War -- Trial and Execution of the Plataeans -- Revolution in Corcyra
  • Sixth Year of the War — Campaigns of Demosthenes in Western Greece — Ruin of Ambracia
• Book IV: Turning Points
  • Seventh Year of the War — Occupation of Pylos — Surrender of the Spartan Army on Sphacteria
  • Seventh and Eighth Years of the War — End of the Corcyraean Revolution — Peace of Gela — Capture of Nisaea
  • Eighth and Ninth Years of the War -- Invasion of Boeotia -- Fall of Amphipolis -- Brilliant Successes of Brasidas
• Book V: Uneasy Peace
  • Tenth Year of the War — Death of Cleon and Brasidas — Peace of Nicias
  • Unrest in the Peloponnese -- The League of Mantinea, Elis, Argos, and Athens -- The Battle of Mantinea and the League's Collapse
  • Sixteenth Year of the War — The Melian Dialogue — The Fate of Melos
• Book VI: The Sicilian Expedition
  • Seventeenth Year of the War -- The Sicilian Campaign -- Affair of the Hermae -- Departure of the Expedition
  • Seventeenth Year of the War — Parties at Syracuse — Story of Harmodius and Aristogiton — Disgrace of Alcibiades
  • Seventeenth and Eighteenth Years of the War -- Inaction of the Athenian Army -- Alcibiades at Sparta -- Investment of Syracuse
• Book VII: Catastrophe at Syracuse
  • Eighteenth and Nineteenth Years of the War -- Arrival of Gylippus at Syracuse -- Fortification of Decelea -- Successes of the Syracusans
  • Nineteenth Year of the War -- Arrival of Demosthenes -- Defeat of the Athenians at Epipolae -- The Folly and Stubbornness of Nicias
  • Nineteenth Year of the War -- Battles in the Great Harbour -- Retreat and Annihilation of the Athenian Army
• Book VIII: The War in Ionia
  • Revolt of Ionia — Intervention of Persia — The War in Ionia
  • Twentieth and Twenty-first Years of the War — Intrigues of Alcibiades — Withdrawal of the Persian Subsidies — Oligarchic Coup at Athens — Patriotism of the Army at Samos
  • Twenty-first Year of the War — Recall of Alcibiades to Samos — Revolt of Euboea and Downfall of the Four Hundred — Battle of Cynossema

Book I: Origins and Causes

I

The State of Greece from the Earliest Times to the Start of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Spartans and the Athenians. He began writing the moment the war broke out, convinced it would be a great war — greater and more worth recording than any before it. He had good reason to think so. Both sides had made their preparations down to the last detail. And he could see the rest of the Greek world choosing sides in the conflict; those that didn't join immediately were planning to. This was, in fact, the greatest upheaval in recorded history — not just among the Greeks, but across much of the non-Greek world as well. I had almost said: of all mankind.

Now, the events of the distant past — and even those just before the war — can't be pinned down with certainty, given how much time has passed. But after pushing my investigation back as far as I could, the evidence all leads me to the same conclusion: nothing in earlier times came close to the scale of this war, whether in military terms or anything else.

Here is what I mean.

The country we now call Greece had no stable population in ancient times. The opposite, in fact: migrations were constant. Tribes would pack up and leave whenever a stronger group pushed in on them. There was no trade, no safe travel by land or sea. People farmed only enough to survive. They had no surplus wealth. They never planted orchards or vineyards, since some invader could show up at any moment and take everything — and with no walls to stop him, why bother? They figured they could scratch out the basics of survival anywhere, so they didn't think twice about moving on. As a result, they never built great cities or achieved anything of real importance.

The richest land changed hands the most. Regions like Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese (except Arcadia), and the most fertile parts of Greece were constantly being fought over. The very fertility of the soil was the problem: it made certain families wealthy, which bred political rivalries — and those rivalries tore communities apart. Rich land also attracted invaders.

Attica, by contrast, had thin, poor soil. And for precisely that reason, it avoided the political upheavals that plagued the rest of Greece and kept the same population from the very earliest times. This actually proves my point: migrations were what prevented growth elsewhere. The most powerful refugees from wars and civil conflicts across Greece kept gravitating to Athens as a safe haven. They became citizens, and they swelled the city's population so much that eventually Attica couldn't hold them all, and Athens had to send colonists across the sea to Ionia.

Here's another thing that convinces me of how weak the ancient world really was. Before the Trojan War, there's no sign that the Greeks ever acted together as one people. They didn't even share a common name. Before Hellen, the son of Deucalion, the name "Hellenes" didn't exist. Instead, each region went by its own tribal name — especially "Pelasgians," which was the most widespread. It was only after Hellen and his sons gained power in Phthiotis and were invited as allies into other cities that the name "Hellenes" spread, one city at a time, through these connections. But it took a long time for the name to catch on everywhere.

The best evidence for this comes from Homer. He was born well after the Trojan War, yet he never uses "Hellenes" as a name for all Greeks. He only applies it to the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis — the original Hellenes. In his poems, the Greeks are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He doesn't even use the word "barbarian," probably because the Greeks hadn't yet been set apart from the rest of the world under one common name.

So the various Greek communities — both those who first picked up the name city by city as they came to know each other, and those who adopted it later as a collective label — were unable to act together before the Trojan War. They lacked the strength and the mutual connections to do anything as a united force.

And in fact, they couldn't have launched even the Trojan expedition without first gaining experience at sea. The first person known to have built a real navy was Minos. He made himself master of the sea we now call the Aegean and ruled over the Cyclades islands. He was the first to colonize most of them, driving out the Carians and installing his own sons as governors. And naturally, he did his best to stamp out piracy — he needed those waters safe so the revenue would flow to him.

Here's the thing about piracy: in the early days, as seafaring became more common, Greeks and non-Greeks along the coasts and on the islands took it up as a way of life. The most powerful men led the raids. Their motives were profit for themselves and survival for the poor. They would descend on unwalled towns — really just clusters of villages — and plunder them. This was their main livelihood, and there was no shame in it. In fact, there was a certain glory. You can see traces of this in the way some mainland peoples still admire a successful raider, and in the old poets, who everywhere show travelers being asked: "Are you pirates?" — as though the people being asked wouldn't dream of denying it, and the people asking wouldn't think of holding it against them. The same kind of raiding happened on land, too.

Even today, many parts of Greece follow the old customs. The Ozolian Locrians, the Aetolians, the Acarnanians, and that whole region of the mainland — people there still carry weapons, a holdover from the old pirate days. In fact, all of Greece used to go armed. People's homes were undefended, travel was dangerous, and wearing weapons was as routine for Greeks as it was for non-Greeks. The fact that these regions still live this way shows that all of Greece once did too.

The Athenians were the first to put down their weapons and adopt a more comfortable, refined way of life. In fact, it wasn't so long ago that the wealthy older men among them stopped wearing linen undergarments and pinning up their hair with golden grasshopper clasps — a fashion that spread to their Ionian relatives and lasted a long time among the older generation there.

The Spartans, by contrast, were the first to adopt a simpler style of dress, more in line with what we'd consider modern. Their wealthy citizens made a point of living like everyone else. The Spartans also pioneered competing naked in athletic contests, stripping down and oiling their bodies for exercise. Previously, even at the Olympic Games, athletes had worn belts around their waists — and it was only a few years ago that this practice finally stopped. To this day, some non-Greek peoples, especially in Asia, wear belts in boxing and wrestling matches. In many ways, the old Greek way of life resembled what we see among non-Greek peoples today.

As for towns: in later times, when sea travel was easier and wealth had accumulated, walled cities began springing up along the coasts, and strategic isthmuses were fortified for trade and defense. But the older towns — both on the islands and the mainland — were built inland, away from the sea, because of piracy. Pirates plundered each other and anyone living along the coast, whether they were seafarers or not. Many of these old inland towns still stand where they were originally built.

The islanders were major pirates too. Most of them were Carians and Phoenicians — they had colonized the majority of the islands. We know this because during the purification of Delos that Athens carried out during this war, all the graves on the island were dug up, and more than half the remains turned out to be Carian. They were identified by the style of weapons buried with them and by the burial method, which was still practiced by Carians in our own day.

But once Minos had established his navy, sea travel became safer. He colonized most of the islands and drove out the criminals. Coastal peoples turned their energy to building wealth, and life grew more settled. Some even built walls around their towns, now that they had riches worth protecting. The desire for profit made weaker communities accept the dominance of stronger ones, and the powerful, now flush with capital, brought smaller towns under their control. It was at a somewhat later stage of this development that the Greeks launched the expedition against Troy.

What allowed Agamemnon to assemble that armada was, in my opinion, his military superiority more than the oaths of Tyndareus that bound Helen's former suitors to follow him.

Here's the story, at least according to the most reliable Peloponnesian traditions. First, Pelops arrived from Asia among a population that was barely scraping by, but he brought enormous wealth with him. He gained so much power that the entire region was named after him — the Peloponnese, "Pelops' island" — even though he was an outsider. And fortune kept increasing the power of his descendants.

The chain of events went like this: Eurystheus was killed in Attica by the Heraclids — the descendants of Heracles. When Eurystheus had set out on that campaign, he had left Mycenae and its government in the hands of Atreus, his uncle on his mother's side. Atreus had earlier left his own father's household because of the death of Chrysippus. When Eurystheus never came back, Atreus took power — the people of Mycenae wanted him to, partly out of fear of the Heraclids, and partly because Atreus had built up considerable strength and had been carefully cultivating popular support. So the dynasty of Pelops came to surpass the dynasty of Perseus.

Agamemnon inherited all of this. And he also had a navy far stronger than anyone else's. So, in my opinion, it was fear just as much as loyalty that held the alliance together when the fleet sailed for Troy. The proof of his naval power is right there in Homer: Agamemnon's own contingent was the largest, and he also supplied ships to the Arcadians, who had none of their own — at least, that's what Homer says, if we accept his testimony. Homer also says, in describing the handing down of the royal scepter, that Agamemnon was "king of many islands, and of all Argos."

Now, Agamemnon was primarily a land power. He could not have ruled over any islands except those near the coast — and there wouldn't have been many of those — unless he had a fleet. So we can judge the character of earlier enterprises from this expedition.

And just because Mycenae was a small place, or because many of the towns from that era seem insignificant now, that's no reason to doubt the scale of the expedition as described by the poets and by tradition. Think about it this way: suppose Sparta were abandoned today, and nothing were left but the temples and building foundations. Future generations would find it very hard to believe that Sparta's power had matched its reputation. And yet the Spartans control two-fifths of the Peloponnese and lead the whole region, not to mention their many allies beyond it. Still, since the city is not built in a compact way, has no grand temples or impressive public buildings, and is really just a collection of villages in the old Greek fashion, it would look underwhelming to the eye.

But if Athens suffered the same fate, you'd guess from its ruins that the city had been twice as powerful as it actually is.

So we have no right to judge a city's power by its appearance. But we can safely conclude that the expedition against Troy was the greatest up to that point, even if it fell short of what we see in our own time. And if we can trust Homer's account — allowing for the poetic exaggeration he would naturally have employed — we can see that even by the standards of the Trojan War, the force was far smaller than modern armies.

Homer puts the fleet at twelve hundred ships. The Boeotian ships carried a hundred and twenty men each; the ships of Philoctetes carried fifty. I take these as the maximum and minimum crew sizes — Homer doesn't specify the complement for any other contingent in the catalogue of ships. That all the men rowed as well as fought is clear from his account of Philoctetes' ships, where every rower is described as an archer. It's unlikely that many passengers sailed along beyond the kings and senior officers, especially since they had to cross open water carrying their equipment in ships that had no decks — ships built in the old pirate style.

So if we average the largest and smallest crews, the total number who sailed to Troy was not very impressive, considering this was supposed to be the combined might of all Greece. And this was due less to a shortage of men than to a shortage of money. The difficulty of feeding the army forced them to limit its size to what the land around Troy could support. Even after they won a victory on arrival — and they must have, since otherwise they couldn't have built the fortifications around their camp — they clearly didn't use their full strength. Instead, they turned to farming the nearby peninsula and to piracy, just to keep themselves fed. This dispersal of forces is exactly what allowed the Trojans to hold out for ten years: they only ever had to face the fraction of the Greek army that stayed on duty at any given time.

If the Greeks had brought enough supplies and committed their entire force to fighting instead of scattering for food, they would have easily beaten the Trojans in open battle — after all, they could hold their own even with just the troops left behind on rotation. If they had pressed the siege properly, they would have taken Troy in far less time and with far less trouble. But the shortage of money that weakened all earlier expeditions weakened this one too. Even this expedition — the most famous of them all — turns out, when you look at what it actually accomplished rather than what the poets say about it, to have fallen short of its reputation.

Even after the Trojan War, Greece was still in turmoil — people uprooting and resettling — so the stability needed for real growth was a long time coming. The Greeks' late return from Troy caused revolutions across the land, with civil strife breaking out almost everywhere. The people driven into exile by these conflicts went on to found new cities. Sixty years after Troy fell, the modern Boeotians were pushed out of Arne by the Thessalians and settled in what is now Boeotia — previously called Cadmeis. (A branch of them had already been there earlier; some had even joined the Trojan expedition.) Twenty years after that, the Dorians and the Heraclids took control of the Peloponnese.

So it took a very long time before Greece could settle into a lasting peace, stop its constant upheavals, and begin sending out colonies — as Athens eventually did to Ionia and most of the Aegean islands, and the Peloponnesians did to most of Italy, Sicily, and some other parts of Greece. All of these colonies were founded after the Trojan War.

As Greek power grew and the pursuit of wealth intensified, state revenues increased, and tyrannies were established in city after city. (The word "tyrant" in Greek doesn't mean what it means today — it simply meant a sole ruler who had seized power, often with popular support. The older form of government had been hereditary monarchy with defined powers.) With their new wealth, Greek states began building fleets and turning to the sea.

The Corinthians are said to have been the first to develop something close to the modern style of warship, and Corinth was the first place in Greece where proper galleys were built. We know of a Corinthian shipwright named Ameinocles who built four ships for the Samians. That was roughly three hundred years ago, counting back from the end of this war. The earliest naval battle on record was also fought by the Corinthians — against the Corcyraeans — about two hundred and sixty years ago by the same reckoning.

Sitting on its isthmus, Corinth had been a trading hub since time immemorial. In the old days, when almost all Greek commerce traveled overland, Corinthian territory was the crossroads through which it all passed. The city grew enormously rich — the old poets called it "wealthy Corinth" — and when sea trade expanded, Corinth used that wealth to build a navy and suppress piracy. By offering a marketplace for both overland and maritime trade, the city gained all the power that great wealth can buy.

Later, the Ionians built a powerful navy during the reign of Cyrus, the first Persian king, and his son Cambyses. While at war with Persia, the Ionians commanded the Ionian Sea for a time. Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos during the reign of Cambyses, also had a formidable fleet — he conquered many of the islands with it, including Rhenea, which he dedicated to the god Apollo at Delos. Around the same time, the Phocaeans, while founding Marseilles, defeated the Carthaginians in a sea battle.

These were the most powerful navies of that era. But even they, though many generations had passed since the Trojan War, were mostly made up of old-style fifty-oared ships and longboats, with very few proper galleys among them. It was only shortly before the Persian War and the death of Darius, the successor of Cambyses, that the tyrants of Sicily and the Corcyraeans acquired any significant number of galleys. After those, no Greek state had a navy worth mentioning before Xerxes' invasion. Aegina, Athens, and a few others may have had some ships, but they were mostly fifty-oared vessels. It was only at the very end of this period that the war with Aegina and the looming threat of a Persian invasion gave Themistocles the leverage to persuade the Athenians to build the fleet that fought at Salamis — and even those ships didn't have full decks.

That, then, is the history of Greek navies in the period I've covered. Modest as these fleets were, they gave enormous power to the states that invested in them — in both revenue and territorial control. Navies were the means by which the islands were reached and conquered, the smallest ones falling first. Wars on land during this period were strictly local: border skirmishes between neighbors, nothing more. There were no distant campaigns of conquest. No great state gathered subject cities around itself. No alliance of equals formed to mount joint expeditions. Whatever fighting occurred was small-scale warfare between nearby rivals. The closest thing to a larger conflict was the old war between Chalcis and Eretria, in which the rest of the Greek world did take sides to some extent.

Meanwhile, various obstacles held back growth in different regions. The Ionians, for instance, were rising fast — until they collided with Persia under King Cyrus. After overthrowing Croesus and conquering everything between the Halys River and the sea, Cyrus didn't stop until he had subjugated every coastal city. The islands were left for Darius and his Phoenician navy to deal with later.

As for the tyrants who held power in various Greek cities, their habit of looking out for nobody but themselves and their families — making personal security their top priority — meant nothing great ever came out of their rule. Their ambitions extended only as far as their nearest neighbors. (The exception was Sicily, where tyrants achieved real power.)

So for a long time, across all of Greece, the same pattern held: individual states were too weak, too divided, or too self-interested to unite for any great common purpose or to accomplish anything remarkable on their own.

But eventually, the tyrannies fell. Sparta brought down the tyrants at Athens and the even older tyrannies throughout the rest of Greece — all except those in Sicily. Sparta was able to do this because, despite suffering from an extraordinarily long period of civil strife after the Dorians first settled there, the city had established good laws very early on and had enjoyed an unbroken freedom from tyrants. For more than four hundred years — counting to the end of this war — Sparta has maintained the same form of government. This long stability gave Sparta the power and authority to shape the affairs of other states.

Not many years after the tyrants were deposed, the battle of Marathon was fought between the Persians and the Athenians. Ten years after that, the Persians came back with a massive invasion force bent on conquering all of Greece. In the face of this great danger, the Spartans assumed command of the allied Greek forces by virtue of their superior power. The Athenians, meanwhile, made the extraordinary decision to abandon their city. They broke up their homes, took to their ships, and reinvented themselves as a naval power.

After this alliance drove off the Persians, it soon split into two camps — one including those Greeks who had revolted from the Persian king, and the other including those who had sided with him during the war. Athens stood at the head of one, Sparta at the head of the other: Athens the supreme naval power, Sparta the supreme military power on land.

The alliance held together for a short time. Then the Spartans and Athenians quarreled and went to war against each other, dragging their respective allies along. All across Greece, whenever a conflict broke out, the parties involved gravitated to one side or the other. So the entire period from the Persian War to this one — apart from some intervals of peace — was spent in constant warfare, either between these two powers or against their own rebellious allies. The result was that both sides were in a perpetual state of military readiness, sharpened by the kind of experience that can only be learned in the school of danger.

The Spartans controlled their allies not by collecting tribute but by installing friendly oligarchies — governments of the few — to ensure obedience to Spartan interests. Athens, by contrast, gradually stripped its allies of their warships and imposed cash payments instead, with the exceptions of Chios and Lesbos. Both powers entered this war with resources that separately exceeded what each had commanded when their original alliance had been intact.

I've now laid out the results of my investigation into early times, and I'll grant that it won't be easy to accept every detail on faith. Most people don't bother testing the traditions they receive — even traditions about their own country. They just accept whatever they're told.

Take the average Athenian citizen. He believes that Hipparchus was the tyrant when Harmodius and Aristogiton struck him down. He doesn't know that Hippias, the eldest son of Pisistratus, was the one actually in power, and that Hipparchus and Thessalus were merely his brothers. What really happened was this: on the very day — at the very moment — the assassination was planned, Harmodius and Aristogiton became convinced that one of their accomplices had tipped off Hippias. Believing they'd been betrayed, they didn't dare attack him. But unwilling to be arrested and to have risked their lives for nothing, they went after Hipparchus instead and killed him near the temple of the daughters of Leos, while he was organizing the Panathenaic procession.

There are plenty of other false beliefs current among the Greeks, even about events from their own time — things that haven't had the chance to be obscured by the passage of centuries. For example, there's the widespread idea that the Spartan kings each have two votes. In fact, they have one. And people believe there's a Spartan military company called the Pitanate company. No such unit exists. That's how little effort most people put into investigating the truth. They just accept the first story they hear.

Still, I believe the conclusions I've drawn from the evidence I've cited can be relied on. They won't be overturned by some poet embellishing for dramatic effect, or by some chronicler who sacrifices accuracy for a good story — writers whose claims can't be verified, and whose subjects have been stripped of historical value by time and elevated into legend. Setting those aside, I'm satisfied that I've worked from the clearest evidence available and reached conclusions as solid as anyone can reasonably expect when dealing with events this ancient.

Now, as for this war: I know that people caught up in a struggle always think their war is the most important, and that once it's over they go back to admiring earlier events. But an honest look at the evidence will show that this war truly was greater than all that came before it.

With regard to the speeches in this history: some were given before the war started, others while it was underway. In some cases I heard them myself; in others I relied on reports from various sources. It was impossible in every case to remember the exact words. So my practice has been to have the speakers say what, in my judgment, the situation demanded of them, while sticking as closely as I could to the overall sense of what was actually said.

As for the narrative of events: far from accepting the first account that came along, I didn't even trust my own impressions without verification. My account rests partly on what I witnessed myself, partly on what others reported to me — and I subjected every report to the most rigorous cross-examination possible. My conclusions came at some cost, since eyewitnesses to the same events frequently disagreed with each other, whether from faulty memory or from bias toward one side.

The absence of storytelling flair in my history will, I'm afraid, make it less enjoyable to listen to. But if it proves useful to those who want an accurate understanding of the past as a guide to the future — which, given human nature, will resemble the past even if it doesn't exactly repeat it — then I will be satisfied. I have written my work not as a piece designed to win applause in the moment, but as a possession for all time.

The Persian War — the greatest achievement of earlier times — was decided quickly: two battles at sea and two on land. But the Peloponnesian War dragged on for an immense length of time, and even measured against its duration, the suffering it brought to Greece was without parallel. Never had so many cities been captured and left desolate — some by foreign invaders, others by the warring Greek factions themselves, with populations uprooted and replaced. Never had there been so much exile and bloodshed, both on the battlefield and in civil conflicts. Old stories that had been passed down through tradition but were barely credible suddenly stopped seeming far-fetched. Earthquakes struck with unprecedented frequency and violence. Eclipses of the sun occurred more often than in all previous memory. Terrible droughts hit various regions, bringing famine in their wake. And then came that most devastating and deadly catastrophe of all: the plague.

All of this descended on Greece along with this war. It was begun when the Athenians and Spartans broke the Thirty Years' Peace that had been established after the conquest of Euboea. As to why they broke the peace, I will begin by setting out each side's grievances and points of dispute, so that no one will ever need to wonder what caused a war of this magnitude.

The real cause, however — the one that was least openly discussed — I believe was this: the growth of Athenian power, and the fear it inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.

But it's worth examining the specific complaints each side put forward that led to the collapse of the peace and the outbreak of war.

BOOK ONE, PART II

Causes of the War -- The Affair of Epidamnus -- The Affair of Potidaea

The city of Epidamnus sits on the right-hand side as you enter the Ionian Gulf. Its neighbors are the Taulantians, an Illyrian people. The city was a colony of Corcyra, founded by Phalius, son of Eratocleides, a descendant of Heracles who had been invited from Corinth -- the original mother city -- following the old custom. Some Corinthians and other Greeks of Dorian descent had joined the colonists.

Over time, Epidamnus grew into a large and prosperous city. But internal political divisions -- triggered, it is said, by a war against the neighboring non-Greek tribes -- left it badly weakened and stripped of much of its power. In the final crisis before the war, the common people drove out the aristocrats. The exiled nobles teamed up with the local tribes and began raiding the city by land and sea.

The people of Epidamnus, finding themselves under siege, sent ambassadors to Corcyra begging their mother city for help. They asked the Corcyraeans not to stand by while they were destroyed, but to broker peace with the exiles and put an end to the war with the tribes. The ambassadors sat as suppliants in the temple of Hera and made their appeal. But the Corcyraeans refused to hear their plea, and the envoys went home empty-handed.

When the Epidamnians realized that no help was coming from Corcyra, they were at a loss for what to do. So they sent to the oracle at Delphi and asked the god whether they should hand over their city to the Corinthians and try to get help from their original founders. The god told them yes -- deliver the city to Corinth and place themselves under Corinthian protection.

So the Epidamnians went to Corinth and handed over the colony, just as the oracle commanded. They pointed out that their original founder had come from Corinth. They revealed the god's answer. And they begged the Corinthians not to let them be destroyed.

The Corinthians were happy to oblige. They felt the colony belonged to them as much as to the Corcyraeans, and they saw protecting it as a kind of duty. But they also had a grudge. They resented the Corcyraeans for their disrespect toward the mother city. Every other Corinthian colony gave Corinth the traditional honors at public events -- precedence at sacrifices, the usual courtesies. Corcyra gave them nothing but contempt. And this was a city that could rival any in Greece for wealth, that had serious military power, and that took no small pride in its naval reputation -- a tradition stretching back to its legendary early inhabitants, the Phaeacians of Homer's Odyssey. This pride drove the Corcyraeans to invest heavily in their fleet, which became formidable. In fact, they entered the war with a hundred and twenty warships.

All of these grievances made Corinth eager to send the promised aid to Epidamnus. They put out a call for volunteer settlers and dispatched a force of troops from Ambracia, Leucas, and Corinth itself. The force marched overland to Apollonia, a Corinthian colony, since they were afraid the Corcyraeans would intercept them by sea.

When the Corcyraeans learned that settlers and soldiers had arrived in Epidamnus and that the colony had been surrendered to Corinth, they were furious. They immediately put to sea with twenty-five ships, quickly followed by more, and issued a high-handed demand: the Epidamnians were to take back the banished nobles and dismiss the Corinthian garrison and settlers. (The backstory here is that the Epidamnian exiles had already gone to Corcyra, pointed to the tombs of their ancestors, and appealed to their kinship to be restored.) But the Epidamnians refused every demand.

So the Corcyraeans launched a full military operation with forty ships. They brought the exiles along, planning to reinstall them, and they recruited Illyrian allies as well. They set up camp before the city and issued a proclamation: any native or foreigner who wanted to leave could depart unharmed. Anyone who stayed would be treated as an enemy. When nobody took the offer, the Corcyraeans began their siege. Epidamnus sits on an isthmus, and the Corcyraeans closed in.

When the Corinthians got word that Epidamnus was under siege, they mobilized. They announced a new colony at Epidamnus, promising full political equality to anyone who joined. Those who were not ready to sail immediately could pay a deposit of fifty Corinthian drachmas and still claim a share in the colony without leaving Corinth. Large numbers signed up -- some ready to depart at once, others paying the deposit.

In case the Corcyraeans tried to block the voyage, Corinth asked several allied cities to provide escort ships. Megara contributed eight ships, Pale in Cephallonia four, Epidaurus five, Hermione one, Troezen two, Leucas ten, and Ambracia eight. The Thebans and Phliasians were asked for money, the Eleans for money and empty ship hulls. Corinth herself provided thirty ships and three thousand heavy infantry.

When the Corcyraeans heard about these preparations, they went to Corinth accompanied by envoys from Sparta and Sicyon, whom they had persuaded to come along. The Corcyraeans demanded that Corinth recall the garrison and settlers from Epidamnus, since Corinth had no rightful claim to the place. If Corinth did have claims to press, the Corcyraeans offered to submit the dispute to arbitration by mutually agreed-upon cities in the Peloponnese, with the colony going to whichever side the arbitrators chose. They were also willing to refer the matter to the oracle at Delphi. But they added a warning: if Corinth insisted on war despite these offers, the Corcyraeans would be forced to seek allies in places they would rather not -- and to let their need for help override their old loyalties.

Corinth's answer was blunt: withdraw your fleet and the tribal forces from Epidamnus, and then we can talk. While the city was still under siege, arbitration was out of the question. The Corcyraeans countered: if Corinth withdrew her troops, they would withdraw theirs. Or both sides could stay where they were under an armistice while the matter was decided.

Corinth rejected every proposal. Once their ships were manned and their allies had arrived, they sent a herald ahead to formally declare war. Then they set sail for Epidamnus with seventy-five ships and two thousand heavy infantry to engage the Corcyraeans. The fleet was commanded by Aristeus son of Pellichas, Callicrates son of Callias, and Timanor son of Timanthes. The army was led by Archetimus son of Eurytimus and Isarchidas son of Isarchus.

When they reached Actium, at the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia in the territory of Anactorium -- where the temple of Apollo stands -- the Corcyraeans sent a herald in a small boat to warn them not to advance. Meanwhile, the Corcyraeans scrambled to man their ships. Every vessel was outfitted for battle, with the older ships reinforced with undergirding ropes to make them seaworthy.

When the herald returned with no offer of peace from the Corinthians, the Corcyraeans put to sea with eighty ships (their other forty were still besieging Epidamnus). They formed their battle line and attacked -- and won a decisive victory, destroying fifteen Corinthian ships.

That very same day, Epidamnus fell to its besiegers. The terms of surrender were these: foreigners would be sold into slavery, and the Corinthians would be held as prisoners of war until their fate was decided.

After the battle, the Corcyraeans set up a victory monument at Leukimme, a headland on Corcyra. They killed all their captives except the Corinthians, whom they kept as prisoners. With the Corinthians and their allies beaten and gone, the Corcyraeans now controlled the entire sea in that region. They sailed to Leucas, a Corinthian colony, and raided its territory. They burned Cyllene, the port of the Eleans, as punishment for supplying ships and money to Corinth.

For most of the period after the battle, the Corcyraeans remained masters of the sea, and Corinthian allies were harassed by Corcyraean raiding ships. Finally, toward the end of summer, Corinth responded. Alarmed by the suffering of her allies, she sent ships and troops who set up camp at Actium and around Chimerium in Thesprotis, to protect Leucas and the other friendly cities. The Corcyraeans established a matching base at Leukimme.

Neither side attacked. They sat facing each other for the rest of the summer, and when winter came, both went home.

For the entire year after the battle -- and the year after that -- Corinth threw everything she had into building ships and assembling a powerful fleet. Rowers were recruited from across the Peloponnese and the rest of Greece with the promise of generous pay.

The Corcyraeans were alarmed. They had no allies anywhere in Greece -- they had never joined either the Athenian or the Spartan alliance. So they decided to go to Athens, seeking to join the Athenian alliance and secure Athenian support. When Corinth learned of this plan, she too sent ambassadors to Athens, hoping to prevent an Athenian-Corcyraean alliance that would wreck her plans for the war.

An assembly was called, and both sides made their case.

The Corcyraeans spoke first:

"Athenians -- when a nation that has never done its neighbors any great service, and has no favors to call in, comes before them asking for help, as we come before you now, they should be expected to meet certain conditions first. They need to show that granting their request is either in your interest or at least poses no risk. And they need to show that they will remember the favor. If they cannot make these points clearly, they should not be surprised if they are turned down.

"The Corcyraeans believe they can satisfy you on all of these counts, which is why they have sent us here. But we have to admit that our position is awkward. Our past policy makes this request look inconsistent, and our current situation makes it look desperate. We say inconsistent because a nation that has never in its entire history been willing to ally with any of its neighbors is now asking those neighbors for an alliance. And we say desperate because our war with Corinth has left us completely isolated. What once seemed like sensible caution -- staying out of other people's alliances to avoid getting dragged into other people's wars -- now looks like foolishness and weakness.

"It is true that in the recent naval battle we drove back the Corinthians on our own. But now they have assembled an even larger force from the Peloponnese and the rest of Greece. We can see that we cannot fight them alone. The stakes are enormous -- if they conquer us, we lose everything. So we find it necessary to ask for help, from you and from anyone else who will listen. And we hope you will forgive us for abandoning our old principle of total independence. It was not adopted out of bad intentions -- it was simply a mistake.

"Now, there are many reasons why you will be glad you said yes to this request.

"First, you will be helping a nation that has done no wrong and is the victim of aggression.

"Second, everything we hold dear is on the line. Your willingness to take us in at such a moment will earn you a gratitude we will never forget.

"Third, apart from you yourselves, we are the greatest naval power in Greece.

"Think about it: could you imagine a luckier break? A power whose alliance you would gladly have paid a high price for -- in both resources and prestige -- shows up at your door uninvited, delivers itself into your hands without any danger or cost to you, and on top of all that earns you a reputation for generosity in the eyes of the world, the lasting gratitude of those you help, and a major addition to your own strength. Search through all of history and you will not find many cases where a nation gained all these advantages at once. You will find even fewer cases where a power seeking help was in a position to give its new ally as much security and honor as it received.

"Some will argue that our alliance will only matter if there is a war. To that we say: if any of you thinks that war is far off, he is dangerously mistaken. He is blind to the fact that Sparta views you with jealousy and wants war, and that Corinth is powerful in Spartan councils -- the same Corinth that is your enemy, that is right now trying to crush us as a stepping stone to attacking you. She wants to prevent us from uniting against her, because she does not want to face us both at once. She also wants to get a head start on you, either by crippling our power or by absorbing it into her own.

"Our policy should be to get ahead of her -- for Corcyra to offer alliance and for Athens to accept it. We should be making plans against Corinth, not waiting for her to make plans against us.

"If Corinth claims that receiving one of her colonies into your alliance is unjust, let her understand this: every colony that is treated well honors its parent city, but one that is treated unjustly becomes estranged. Colonists are not sent out to be slaves of those who stay behind. They are meant to be their equals. And Corinth's injustice toward us is clear. When we offered to settle the Epidamnus dispute through arbitration, Corinth chose war over a fair hearing. Let her treatment of us, her own kinsmen, serve as a warning to you: do not be taken in by her deceptions or give in to her direct demands. Concessions to adversaries end only in regret. The more firmly they are refused, the greater your security.

"If anyone argues that receiving us would violate the treaty between Athens and Sparta, the answer is simple: we are a neutral state, and the treaty expressly provides that any neutral Greek state may join whichever side it chooses. And it is intolerable that Corinth should be allowed to recruit sailors not only from her own allies but from the rest of Greece -- including no small number from your own subject states -- while we are shut out from the alliance the treaty leaves open to us, and from any other help we might find, and you are accused of wrongdoing for saying yes.

"But if you turn us down, we will have far more reason to complain. We are in danger. We are not your enemies. And yet you refuse us -- while Corinth, who is the aggressor and your enemy, meets no resistance from you and is even allowed to draw military resources from your own territory. That is not right. Either you should stop her from recruiting in your domains, or you should send help to us as well.

"But your best course is to openly support us. The advantages, as we said at the start, are many. Here is perhaps the most important: the power that is your enemy is also our enemy -- and that power is fully capable of punishing anyone who betrays the alliance. There is a world of difference between rejecting an alliance with a land power and rejecting one with a naval power. Your first priority should be to prevent any other naval power from existing, if you can. Failing that, you should secure the friendship of the strongest one that does.

"And if any of you agrees that what we say makes sense but hesitates out of fear that accepting would provoke a breach of the treaty, consider this: your strength, even if it makes others nervous, will be a deterrent to your enemies. But your weakness, however comforting it feels to play it safe, will hold no terror for a powerful adversary.

"Remember too that your decision affects Athens, not just Corcyra, and that you are not serving Athens well if -- at a time when you are already scanning the horizon for the war that is nearly upon you -- you hesitate to bring onto your side a place whose friendship or hostility could prove decisive. Corcyra lies right along the coastal route to Italy and Sicily. It can block naval reinforcements from reaching the Peloponnese from the west, and from the Peloponnese heading west. In every way, it is a supremely valuable strategic position.

"To sum it all up in a single point, both in general and in particular: do not sacrifice us. Remember that there are only three significant naval powers in Greece -- Athens, Corcyra, and Corinth. If you allow two of those three to merge and Corinth absorbs us, you will have to fight the combined fleets of Corcyra and the Peloponnese. But if you receive us, you will have our ships alongside yours in the coming struggle."

Those were the words of the Corcyraeans. When they finished, the Corinthians replied:

"These Corcyraeans have not limited themselves to the question of whether you should accept their alliance. They have also accused us of injustice and claimed they are victims of an unprovoked war. We need to address both points before moving on, so that you can properly evaluate our case and have good reason to reject their request.

"According to them, their long-standing refusal to ally with anyone was a policy of wise restraint. In reality, it was adopted for selfish reasons, not honorable ones. Their conduct is such that they have no desire for allies who might witness it, or whose approval they might need to seek. Their geographical position makes them a law unto themselves. When they wrong someone, the case is not heard by mutually agreed-upon judges -- it is decided by Corcyra alone. Because they rarely visit their neighbors, while foreign ships are constantly forced to put in at their harbor, they always have the upper hand.

"In short, their much-advertised policy of independence is not about avoiding involvement in the wrongdoing of others. It is about having a monopoly on wrongdoing themselves -- the freedom to use force wherever they are strong enough, fraud wherever they can get away with it, and to pocket their gains without shame. If they were the honest people they claim to be, their very independence from others would have given them the perfect opportunity to prove their honesty by dealing fairly.

"But that has not been their conduct -- not toward others, and not toward us. As our colony, their attitude has always been one of estrangement, and now it is outright hostility. They say: 'We were not sent out to be mistreated.' We reply: we did not found this colony to be insulted by it, but to be its head and to receive proper respect. Our other colonies honor us. We are well-loved by our colonists. And if the majority are satisfied, then these Corcyraeans clearly have no good reason to stand alone in their resentment. We are not waging war without serious provocation.

"Besides, even if we were in the wrong, it would be honorable for them to defer to us, and shameful for us to exploit their goodwill. But in their pride and their wealth, they have sinned against us again and again -- and never more deeply than over Epidamnus. When our colony was in distress, they made no move to help. But the moment we came to the rescue, they seized it by force and hold it still.

"As for their claim that they offered arbitration first -- that offer deserves no credit. An offer of arbitration from a party that has already secured a dominant position is meaningless. What earns credit is placing yourself on equal terms with your opponent before resorting to arms, not after. In their case, it was only after they had laid siege to the city -- and only when they realized we would not quietly tolerate it -- that they suddenly thought of the convenient word 'arbitration.'

"And now, not content with their own misconduct at Epidamnus, they come here asking you to join them not in alliance but in crime -- to take them in while they are at war with us. They should have approached you when they were strong, not now when they are in danger and we have been wronged. You would be admitting to your protection people who never shared their power with you, yet you would bear equal blame from us for offenses you had no part in. They should have shared their strength with you before asking you to share your risks with them.

"So we have proved the reality of our grievances and the violent, grasping character of our opponents. But you still need to hear why you cannot justly receive them.

"It may be true that the treaty allows any unlisted state to join whichever side it chooses. But that provision is meant for states seeking protection without malicious intent -- not for states whose alliance will bring the receiver war instead of peace. And that is exactly what will happen to you if you refuse to listen to us. You cannot become their ally and remain our friend. If you join in their attack on us, you will share the punishment we inflict on them.

"You have every right to stay neutral. Or, if you must take sides, you should by rights take ours. Athens has a treaty with Corinth. You were never even in a truce with Corcyra.

"And do not set the precedent that defection is to be rewarded. When the Samians revolted from you, and the rest of the Peloponnesian powers were evenly divided on whether to help them, did we vote against you? No. We told them to their faces that every power has the right to discipline its own allies. If you make it your policy to welcome and assist every rebel, you will find just as many of your own subjects coming over to us -- and the principle you establish will cut deeper against you than against us.

"This, then, is what Greek law entitles us to demand. But we also have claims on your gratitude, and since we are not your enemies and our friendship poses no threat, we believe those claims should be honored now.

"When you needed warships for the war against Aegina, before the Persian invasion, Corinth lent you twenty ships. That act of generosity, together with our support during the Samian crisis -- when we were the ones who blocked the Peloponnesians from helping the rebels -- enabled you to conquer Aegina and punish Samos. We did this at moments when people are most tempted, in their drive for victory, to forget everything else -- when they count anyone who helps them as a friend, even a former enemy, and anyone who opposes them as a foe, even a former friend, and let their real interests suffer in the heat of the moment.

"Weigh these things carefully. Let your young men learn from their elders what we have done for you. Let them resolve to treat us as we have treated you. And do not merely acknowledge the justice of our argument while questioning its practicality in the event of war. The most just course is generally the wisest one as well. Besides, the war that the Corcyraeans are using as a scare tactic to push you into the wrong decision -- that war is still uncertain. It is not worth rushing into the open and declared hostility of Corinth over something that may never come.

"The wiser course would be to undo the damage caused by your treatment of Megara. A timely act of goodwill has more power to erase old grievances than the facts alone might justify. And do not be seduced by the prospect of a great naval alliance. True security comes not from grabbing at short-term advantages, but from dealing justly with other great powers and preserving lasting peace.

"It is now our turn to benefit from the very principle we laid down at Sparta: that every power has the right to discipline its own allies. We claim the same treatment from you. You benefited from our vote then -- do not repay us with a vote that does us harm. Return like for like. Remember that this is the very moment when the one who stands with you is your truest friend, and the one who stands against you is your greatest enemy.

"Do not accept these Corcyraeans into your alliance against our wishes. Do not abet them in their crimes. Act as we have a right to expect, and you will best serve your own interests at the same time."

Those were the words of the Corinthians.

The Athenians heard both sides out, and two assemblies were held. In the first, opinion leaned toward Corinth's position. In the second, the mood had shifted, and the assembly voted for an alliance with Corcyra -- but with significant limitations. It would be a defensive alliance, not an offensive one. Athens would not be obligated to join Corcyra in any attack on Corinth. But each side had the right to the other's help if its own territory or that of an ally was invaded.

The reasoning was becoming clear to everyone. The Peloponnesian War was now seen as a matter of when, not if. No one wanted to hand over a navy as large as Corcyra's to Corinth -- though if the two of them could weaken each other through their own fighting, that would not be a bad way to prepare for the larger conflict Athens might someday face against Corinth and the other naval powers. At the same time, Corcyra's location was strategically invaluable: it sat right along the coastal shipping route to Italy and Sicily.

With these calculations in mind, Athens accepted Corcyra into its alliance. Shortly after the Corinthian envoys left, Athens sent ten ships to assist the Corcyraeans. The squadron was commanded by Lacedaemonius son of Cimon, Diotimus son of Strombichus, and Proteas son of Epicles. Their orders were carefully calibrated: avoid a fight with the Corinthian fleet unless absolutely necessary. If the Corinthians sailed against Corcyra and threatened a landing on the island or any of its possessions, the Athenians were to do everything in their power to stop them. But they were not to provoke a confrontation. Athens was anxious not to be seen as breaking the treaty.

Meanwhile, the Corinthians completed their preparations and sailed for Corcyra with a hundred and fifty ships. Of these, Elis provided ten, Megara twelve, Leucas ten, Ambracia twenty-seven, Anactorium one, and Corinth herself ninety. Each allied contingent had its own admiral; the Corinthian force was under the command of Xenoclides son of Euthycles, along with four colleagues.

Sailing from Leucas, they made landfall on the mainland opposite Corcyra and anchored in the harbor of Chimerium, in Thesprotian territory. Above the harbor, set back from the sea, lay the city of Ephyre, in the Elean district. Nearby, the Acherusian lake drains into the sea; it gets its name from the river Acheron, which flows through Thesprotis and feeds into the lake. The river Thyamis also flows through the area, forming the boundary between Thesprotis and Kestrine, and between these two rivers rises the headland of Chimerium.

This is where the Corinthians anchored and set up camp.

When the Corcyraeans saw them coming, they manned a hundred and ten ships under the command of Meikiades, Aisimides, and Eurybatus, and stationed themselves at one of the Sybota islands. The ten Athenian ships were with them. On Point Leukimme they posted their land forces, along with a thousand heavy infantry from Zacynthus who had come to help. The Corinthians, too, had allies on the mainland: local non-Greek tribes, long allied with Corinth, had turned out in large numbers.

When their preparations were complete, the Corinthians took three days' provisions aboard and slipped out of Chimerium under cover of night, ready for battle. At dawn, they spotted the Corcyraean fleet out at sea, heading toward them. Both sides formed their battle lines.

On the Corcyraean right wing were the Athenian ships. The rest of the line was held by the Corcyraean vessels, organized into three squadrons, each under one of the three admirals. On the Corinthian side, the Megarian and Ambraciot ships held the right wing, the other allied contingents filled the center, and the left was composed of Corinth's best and fastest ships -- positioned to face the Athenians and the Corcyraean right wing.

When the signals went up on both sides, they joined battle.

Both fleets had large numbers of heavy infantry on their decks, along with archers and javelin-throwers -- the old-fashioned style of naval warfare that still prevailed at the time. The sea battle was hard-fought but not sophisticated. It looked more like a battle on land than one at sea. Whenever ships collided, the crush of vessels made it nearly impossible to disengage. Victory depended mainly on the heavy infantry standing on deck, fighting hand-to-hand while the ships held still. Nobody tried the maneuver of breaking through the enemy line. Raw strength and courage counted for more than seamanship.

The fighting was chaotic everywhere. Meanwhile, the Athenian ships moved up to support the Corcyraeans whenever they were in trouble, which unnerved the Corinthians -- but the Athenian commanders held back from fully entering the battle, constrained by their orders.

The Corinthian right wing took the worst of it. The Corcyraeans routed them and chased them back to the mainland with twenty ships, sailing right up to the Corinthian camp, where they burned the empty tents and looted the supplies. So on that part of the field, the Corinthians and their allies were beaten, and the Corcyraeans had won.

But where the Corinthians themselves fought, on the left wing, they were winning decisively. The Corcyraean forces there were already shorthanded, and with twenty of their ships off chasing the routed right wing, they were weaker still.

Seeing the Corcyraeans in real trouble, the Athenians began to help more openly. At first, they still held back from ramming any Corinthian ships. But as the rout became unmistakable and the Corinthians pressed their advantage harder, the moment finally came when all restraint was dropped, all distinctions abandoned. Athenians and Corinthians raised their hands against each other.

After the rout, the Corinthians did not bother to lash the disabled enemy hulls to their ships and tow them away. Instead, they sailed through the wreckage killing the men in the water, not caring about taking prisoners. In the confusion, they even killed some of their own allies by mistake, not realizing that their right wing had been defeated. With so many ships on both sides spread across such a wide stretch of sea, it was impossible, once the fighting was joined, to tell who was winning and who was losing. In terms of the sheer number of ships engaged, this was the largest naval battle ever fought between Greeks up to that time.

After chasing the Corcyraeans back toward shore, the Corinthians turned their attention to the wrecks and their dead. They managed to recover most of them and brought them to Sybota, a deserted harbor in Thesprotis where their allied land forces -- supplied by the local tribes -- were based.

This task done, the Corinthians regrouped and sailed out again against the Corcyraeans. The Corcyraeans, for their part, advanced to meet them with every ship still seaworthy, accompanied by the Athenian vessels. They feared a landing on Corcyra itself. It was getting late in the day, and the battle hymn had already been sung for the attack -- when the Corinthians suddenly began backing water.

They had spotted twenty Athenian ships sailing toward them.

Athens had sent these reinforcements after the original ten, worried -- as it turned out, with good reason -- that the Corcyraeans would be defeated and their small squadron unable to protect them. The Corinthians saw these ships first. They suspected they were Athenian, and they feared that even more might be behind them. So they began to pull back.

The Corcyraeans had not yet seen the approaching ships, since the new squadron was coming from an angle that was hard for them to spot. They were puzzled by the Corinthian retreat -- until some of their lookouts caught sight of the ships and shouted that there were vessels approaching from ahead. At that, the Corcyraeans also fell back. It was growing dark, and the Corinthian withdrawal had effectively ended the fighting.

So the two fleets separated, and the battle ended with nightfall.

The Corcyraeans were back in their camp at Leukimme when the twenty Athenian ships -- under the command of Glaucon son of Leagrus and Andocides son of Leogoras -- came threading their way through the floating corpses and wreckage and sailed up to the camp. It was dark by now, and the Corcyraeans were afraid these might be enemy ships. But they soon recognized them, and the reinforcements dropped anchor.

The next morning, all thirty Athenian ships put to sea along with every Corcyraean vessel still fit to fight. They sailed to the harbor at Sybota, where the Corinthians were anchored, to see if they would accept battle.

The Corinthians put out from shore and formed a line in open water -- but went no further. They had no intention of fighting. Fresh Athenian reinforcements had arrived. They were surrounded by difficulties: guarding the prisoners they had aboard, maintaining their ships in a place with no repair facilities. What worried them most was getting home. They feared that Athens might now consider the treaty broken by the fighting that had occurred and refuse to let them leave.

So they came up with a plan. They put some men into a small boat and sent them toward the Athenian ships without the herald's staff that normally signaled a formal embassy -- it was a test. The men called out:

"You are doing wrong, Athenians -- starting a war and breaking the treaty. We are here to deal with our own enemies, and we find you blocking our path with weapons drawn. If you intend to stop us from sailing to Corcyra or anywhere else we choose, and if you mean to break the treaty, then seize us first and treat us as enemies."

Every Corcyraean within earshot immediately shouted to take them and kill them. But the Athenians answered calmly:

"We are not starting a war, Peloponnesians, and we are not breaking the treaty. These Corcyraeans are our allies, and we have come to help them. If you want to sail somewhere else, we will not stand in your way. But if you sail against Corcyra or any of its possessions, we will do our best to stop you."

Hearing this reply, the Corinthians began preparing to sail home. They set up a victory monument at Sybota on the mainland. The Corcyraeans, meanwhile, recovered the wrecks and dead that had drifted their way overnight -- scattered in all directions by the current and a wind that rose in the night -- and set up their own victory monument at Sybota on the island.

Both sides claimed they had won, and both had their reasons. The Corinthians had been winning the sea battle until nightfall. They had recovered most of the wrecks and dead. They held no fewer than a thousand prisoners of war and had sunk close to seventy enemy ships. The Corcyraeans had destroyed about thirty Corinthian ships. After the Athenian reinforcements arrived, they had recovered the wrecks and dead on their side of the battle. They had watched the Corinthians back away at the sight of the Athenian ships. And when the Athenians arrived in full force, the Corinthians had refused to come out and fight from Sybota.

Both sides claimed victory. Neither could prove it decisively.

On their way home, the Corinthians seized Anactorium, which sits at the entrance to the Gulf of Ambracia. The city had been shared territory between Corcyra and Corinth, but Corinth took it through treachery and installed her own settlers. Then the fleet headed home.

Of the prisoners, eight hundred were slaves -- these the Corinthians sold. Two hundred and fifty were free citizens, and these were treated with great care and courtesy. The Corinthians were playing a long game: most of these men were prominent and influential in Corcyra, and Corinth hoped they would eventually bring their city over to the Corinthian side.

And so Corcyra survived the war with Corinth as an independent power, and the Athenian ships sailed home from the island.

This was the first grievance Corinth held against Athens: that the Athenians had fought alongside the Corcyraeans against Corinthian forces during a time of treaty.

Almost immediately, new tensions arose between Athens and the Peloponnesian powers, pushing the situation closer to outright war.

Corinth was plotting retaliation, and Athens knew it.

The Potidaeans -- inhabitants of the isthmus of Pallene, a Corinthian colony that was also a tribute-paying ally of Athens -- were ordered by Athens to tear down the city wall facing Pallene, to hand over hostages, to dismiss the Corinthian magistrates serving in the city, and to stop accepting the officials Corinth sent annually to replace them. Athens feared that Perdiccas, king of Macedonia, and the Corinthians might persuade Potidaea to revolt -- and that the revolt might spread to the other Athenian allies in Thrace.

Athens took these precautions immediately after the battle at Corcyra. Corinth was now openly hostile. And Perdiccas son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, had gone from being an old friend and ally of Athens to an active enemy. The cause was simple: Athens had made an alliance with his brother Philip and with Derdas, who were in league against him.

Alarmed, Perdiccas had sent envoys to Sparta to try to drag Athens into a war with the Peloponnesians. He was also working to win over Corinth to support a revolt at Potidaea. And he made overtures to the Chalcidians and the Bottiaeans in Thrace, trying to draw them into the rebellion. His thinking was that if he could line up these border states as allies, it would be much easier to wage his war against Athens with their help.

Athens saw all of this coming and moved to act first. An expedition of thirty ships and a thousand heavy infantry was already being sent to Macedonia under the command of Archestratus son of Lycomedes, with four colleagues. The Athenians now added new instructions: take hostages from Potidaea, tear down the wall, and watch closely for signs of revolt in the neighboring cities.

Meanwhile, the Potidaeans sent envoys to Athens, hoping to persuade the Athenians to leave them alone. They also sent representatives to Sparta with the Corinthians, working to secure Peloponnesian support if the worst happened.

The negotiations in Athens went nowhere. Despite everything the Potidaeans said, they could not prevent the fleet bound for Macedonia from being turned against them as well. And from Sparta came a promise: if Athens attacked Potidaea, the Spartans would invade Attica.

Seizing the moment, the Potidaeans entered into a league with the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans -- and revolted from Athens.

Perdiccas went further. He persuaded the Chalcidians to abandon their coastal towns, demolish them, and consolidate their population inland at Olynthus, making it a single strong fortress. To those who followed his advice, he offered land in his own territory of Mygdonia, around Lake Bolbe, for as long as the war against Athens lasted. The Chalcidians tore down their towns, moved inland, and prepared for war.

The thirty Athenian ships arrived in Thrace to find Potidaea and the other cities already in revolt. The commanders realized it was impossible, with the forces they had, to fight both Perdiccas and the rebel cities at the same time. So they turned to their original mission in Macedonia, established themselves there, and joined forces with Philip and Derdas's brothers, who had invaded Perdiccas's territory from the interior.

With Potidaea in revolt and Athenian ships operating off the Macedonian coast, the Corinthians grew anxious for the city's safety -- and took it personally. They sent sixteen hundred heavy infantry (volunteers from Corinth and mercenaries from across the Peloponnese) along with four hundred light troops. The expedition was commanded by Aristeus son of Adimantus, who had always been a devoted friend of the Potidaeans. In fact, it was mainly out of loyalty to him that most of the Corinthian volunteers had signed up. They arrived in Thrace forty days after the revolt began.

Athens also got word of the revolt immediately. Learning that Aristeus and his reinforcements were on the way, they sent a second force: two thousand heavy infantry of their own citizens and forty ships, under the command of Callias son of Calliades and four colleagues. This force arrived in Macedonia first and found the original thousand-man expedition already in control of Therme and besieging Pydna. They joined the siege for a while, but then came to terms and made a hasty alliance with Perdiccas -- driven by the urgency of the situation at Potidaea and by the news that Aristeus had arrived there.

Withdrawing from Macedonia, the Athenians marched to Beroea, then on to Strepsa. After a failed attempt to take Strepsa, they continued their march overland toward Potidaea. Their combined force now numbered three thousand Athenian heavy infantry, plus allied troops and six hundred Macedonian cavalry -- the followers of Philip and Pausanias. Seventy ships sailed alongside them up the coast. Advancing in short daily marches, they reached Gigonus on the third day and set up camp.

Meanwhile, the Potidaeans and the Peloponnesians under Aristeus had taken up position on the isthmus, on the side facing Olynthus, waiting for the Athenians. They had set up their marketplace outside the city walls. The allied forces had chosen Aristeus as overall commander of the infantry; the cavalry was placed under Perdiccas, who had instantly abandoned his new alliance with Athens and gone back to supporting Potidaea, leaving a deputy named Iolaus in command of his own forces.

Aristeus's plan was this: he would hold the isthmus with his own troops and wait for the Athenian attack. The Chalcidians and the allies outside the isthmus, along with the two hundred cavalry that Perdiccas had stationed at Olynthus, would hit the Athenians from behind when they advanced -- catching them between two fires.

The Athenian general Callias countered by sending the Macedonian cavalry and a few allied units toward Olynthus to prevent any move from that direction. Then the Athenians broke camp and marched on Potidaea.

When they reached the isthmus and saw the enemy drawn up for battle, they formed their own line and attacked. Aristeus's wing -- where he fought alongside the Corinthians and the other elite troops -- routed the forces facing them and chased them a considerable distance. But the rest of the Potidaean and Peloponnesian army was defeated by the Athenians and fled behind the city walls.

Returning from his pursuit, Aristeus faced a terrible choice: try to reach Olynthus, or fight his way back into Potidaea. He chose Potidaea. Drawing his men into the tightest formation possible, he made a dash for the city along the breakwater by the sea, running through a hail of missiles. He got most of his men through, though some were lost.

Meanwhile, the Potidaean reserves at Olynthus -- about seven miles away and in full view of the battlefield -- had advanced a short distance to help when the battle started and the signals went up. The Macedonian cavalry moved to block them. But when the Athenians won quickly and the signal flags came down, the Olynthus force withdrew behind its walls, and the Macedonian cavalry rode back to the Athenian side. Neither army had effective cavalry support in the battle itself.

After the fighting, the Athenians set up a victory monument and returned the Potidaean dead under a truce. The Potidaeans and their allies had lost close to three hundred men. The Athenians lost a hundred and fifty of their own citizens, including their general Callias.

The Athenians immediately built siege works against the wall on the isthmus side and garrisoned them. But they did not fortify the Pallene side. They did not think they had enough men to both hold the isthmus and build fortifications across on Pallene at the same time -- they were afraid the Potidaeans and their allies would attack while their forces were divided.

When the Athenians back home learned that the Pallene side was unfortified, they eventually sent out sixteen hundred more heavy infantry under the command of Phormio son of Asopius. Arriving at Pallene, Phormio based himself at Aphytis and advanced on Potidaea in careful stages, raiding the countryside as he went. When no one came out to challenge him in the field, he built siege works against the wall on the Pallene side.

And so Potidaea was at last completely invested -- besieged from both sides on land, and blockaded from the sea by the Athenian fleet.

Aristeus, seeing the siege ring close and having no hope of rescue unless something dramatic happened in the Peloponnese, advised everyone except five hundred defenders to watch for a favorable wind and sail out. The goal was to make the food supplies last longer. He was willing to stay behind as one of the five hundred. But no one would listen. So, choosing the next best option -- making himself useful on the outside -- he slipped past the Athenian guard ships and escaped by sea.

Staying among the Chalcidians, Aristeus continued the fight. He ambushed and killed a number of soldiers from the city of Sermylia. He kept up communications with the Peloponnese, trying to arrange for a relief force. Meanwhile, after the siege of Potidaea was complete, Phormio used his sixteen hundred men to ravage the territory of the Chalcidians and the Bottiaeans. Several towns fell to him as well.

CHAPTER III

The Congress at Sparta

The Athenians and the Peloponnesians each had their reasons for anger. Corinth's complaint was that Athens was besieging Potidaea, a Corinthian colony with Corinthian and Peloponnesian citizens trapped inside. Athens, for its part, accused the Peloponnesians of stirring one of its allied, tribute-paying cities into revolt, and of openly sending troops to fight alongside the Potidaeans. But even with all of this, war had not yet broken out. A truce still held — barely. What had happened so far was technically a private venture on Corinth's part.

But the siege of Potidaea changed everything. Corinth had men inside the city, and feared losing the place entirely. Wasting no time, Corinth summoned its allies to Sparta and loudly accused Athens of breaking the treaty and threatening the rights of the entire Peloponnese. The Aeginetans joined them — not openly, since they were afraid of Athens, but behind the scenes they were among the most aggressive voices pushing for war, claiming they had been denied the independence the treaty guaranteed them. The Spartans then opened the invitation to anyone else who had complaints about Athenian aggression, held a regular assembly, and asked the delegates to speak.

Many came forward with their accusations. Among them were the Megarians, who presented a long list of grievances and drew particular attention to the fact that they had been shut out of every port in the Athenian empire and from the marketplace of Athens itself — a clear violation of the treaty. Last of all, the Corinthians stepped forward. They had deliberately let the others go first to work up the Spartans' anger. Now they delivered a speech that went something like this:

---

"Spartans — the confidence you place in your own constitution and way of life makes you skeptical whenever anyone else raises the alarm about other powers. That's where your famous restraint comes from. But it also leaves you dangerously uninformed about what's happening beyond your borders.

"Time and again we warned you about the blows Athens was planning to strike against us. Time and again, instead of actually investigating what we were telling you, you dismissed us as acting out of self-interest. And so, instead of calling your allies together before the damage was done, you waited until we were already bleeding from it. We come before you now — and among your allies, no one has a better right to speak, because no one has more to complain about: Athenian aggression and Spartan neglect.

"If Athens had been carrying out these attacks on Greek liberty in secret, you might need us to spell it out for you. But long speeches are unnecessary when the evidence is right in front of your eyes. Some of your allies are already enslaved. Others are marked for the same fate — especially our allies. And the aggressor has been making preparations for war for a long time. Why else did Athens take control of Corcyra through deception and now hold it against us by force? Why else is it besieging Potidaea? One of those places is perfectly positioned for action against the cities of Thrace, while the other would have contributed a very large navy to the Peloponnesian cause.

"And you are responsible for all of this. You were the ones who first allowed Athens to fortify its city after the Persian War, and then to build the Long Walls. From that day to this, you have been depriving people of their freedom — not just those Athens has directly enslaved, but your own allies as well. Because the real blame for a people's subjugation belongs not so much to the one who does it as to the power that stands by and lets it happen, especially when that power claims the glory of being the liberator of Greece.

"At last we are assembled. It was not easy to get here, and even now our purpose is not clearly defined. We should no longer be debating whether we have been wronged — we should be debating how to defend ourselves. The aggressors have their plans fully developed and are already acting on them, while we are still making up our minds. And we know exactly how Athenian aggression works — how it creeps forward, step by step. Athens may take some comfort from the idea that you are too slow to notice what it's doing. But that comfort is nothing compared to the boost it will get when it realizes you see everything and simply don't care enough to act.

"Spartans — of all the Greeks, you alone sit idle. You defend yourselves not by doing anything, but by looking as if you might do something. You alone wait until an enemy has doubled its power instead of crushing it early. People used to say you could be relied upon. We're afraid that was always more reputation than reality. The Persians had time to march from the ends of the earth all the way to the Peloponnese before you sent out any force worth mentioning against them. But that was a distant enemy. Athens is right next door — and yet you completely ignore it. You'd rather play defense against Athens than go on the offense. You'd rather gamble on the outcome after Athens has grown far stronger than it was. You know perfectly well that the Persians were mostly wrecked by their own mistakes. And if Athens hasn't destroyed us yet, we owe that more to Athenian blunders than to anything you've done to protect us. In fact, faith in Spartan protection has already ruined some of your allies, since trusting in you led them to let their guard down.

"We hope none of you take these words as hostile. This is how friends speak to friends who are making a mistake. Accusations are for enemies. And we believe we have as good a right as anyone to point out a neighbor's faults, especially when we consider the enormous contrast between your two national characters — a contrast you seem barely aware of. You have never seriously considered what kind of enemy you're dealing with in the Athenians, or how completely different they are from you.

"The Athenians are innovators by nature. They are quick to conceive a plan and quick to carry it out. You have a gift for holding onto what you already have, but you never invent anything new, and when you're forced to act, you never go far enough. They are bold beyond what their resources justify, daring beyond what prudence allows, and optimistic even in the worst danger. Your habit is to attempt less than your strength warrants, to doubt even your own sound judgment, and to assume that no danger can ever be overcome. They are decisive where you procrastinate. They are always abroad; you are always at home. They believe that being away from home is how they gain new territory; you fear that any advance might endanger what you've left behind. When they win, they press the advantage. When they lose, they barely flinch. They spend their bodies freely in their country's cause but guard their minds jealously for the same service. A plan left unexecuted feels like a loss to them. A success feels like a small thing compared to what they might do next. When one attempt fails, fresh ambition fills the gap — because they alone turn hope into reality through the sheer speed of their follow-through. And so they labor through danger and hardship every day of their lives, with little time to enjoy what they have, because they are always chasing the next thing. Their only idea of a holiday is doing what needs to be done. For them, constant effort is less painful than the quiet of an undisturbed life. In a word: the Athenians were born to take no rest themselves and to give none to anyone else.

"That is your enemy, Spartans. And yet you still hang back. You still don't see that peace lasts longest for those who are not just careful to use their power fairly, but who also make it absolutely clear they will not tolerate injustice. Instead, your notion of fair dealing is: don't harm anyone else, and don't risk your own safety to stop others from being harmed. You might have gotten away with that philosophy if your neighbor were another state just like you. But as we've shown, your ways are old-fashioned compared to Athens. In politics, as in any craft, new methods will always overtake old ones. Established customs may serve a community that is left in peace, but when you're constantly forced to act, you need to constantly improve your methods. That is why Athens, with its vast experience, has left you so far behind.

"Enough delay. For the present, help your allies — and Potidaea in particular, as you promised — by invading Attica immediately. Do not abandon your friends and kinsmen to their bitterest enemies. Do not drive the rest of us, in despair, to seek some other alliance. If we did that, no one could blame us — not the gods who witnessed our oaths, nor the people who heard them. The breach of a treaty is not the fault of the people who were abandoned and forced to look elsewhere. It's the fault of the power that failed to protect its allies. But if you act, we will stand by you. It would go against our nature to switch sides, and we could never find an ally as well-suited to us as you are. So choose the right course. Make sure that the Peloponnese under your leadership does not fall from the prestige it enjoyed under your ancestors."

---

Those were the Corinthians' words. Now it happened that there were Athenian ambassadors already in Sparta on other business. When they heard these speeches, they felt they had to respond — not to answer the specific charges made by the various cities, but to make the broader case that this was not something to be decided in a rush. They also wanted to remind everyone of Athens's power, refreshing the memories of the older Spartans and educating the younger ones, in the hope that this might make them choose peace over war. So they asked the Spartans for permission to address the assembly. The Spartans invited them forward, and the Athenians spoke as follows:

---

"We didn't come here to argue with your allies. We came on other business entirely. But the sheer intensity of the outcry against us has compelled us to speak. We're not here to rebut the accusations of these cities — you aren't a court, and this isn't a trial. What we want is to prevent you from making a terrible decision by giving in too easily to your allies' pressure. We also want to show you, taking the big picture, that we have a legitimate claim to what we possess, and that our city deserves respect.

"There's no need to go back to ancient history — there, we could appeal to tradition, but not to your own experience. But we must speak about the Persian War and events within living memory, even though we're frankly tired of constantly having to bring this up. When we acted in that war, we took enormous risks for the benefit of all. You got your share of the concrete results — don't try to deny us whatever credit the story itself brings. We tell it not to win sympathy but to set the record straight, and to show you what kind of opponent you'd be taking on if you're reckless enough to go to war with Athens.

"Here is what we say: at Marathon, we stood at the front and faced the Persian invader alone. When the Persians came the second time, we couldn't match them on land, so we put our entire population on our ships and fought at Salamis. That battle prevented the Persian fleet from sailing down to the Peloponnese and destroying your states one by one — since no combination of Greek forces could have stopped the sheer number of his ships. The best proof of this is what the invader himself did afterward: once defeated at sea, he recognized that his power was broken and retreated as fast as he could with the bulk of his army.

"That was the outcome, and it proved beyond question that Greece's survival depended on its fleet. And to that fleet, we contributed three critical things: the largest number of ships, the best commander, and the most fearless courage. Our contingent was nearly two-thirds of the entire fleet of four hundred ships. The commander was Themistocles, who was chiefly responsible for making the battle happen in the straits — which everyone agrees was what saved us. Indeed, that is why you yourselves honored him more than any foreign visitor in Spartan history. And our courage was unmatched. We received no reinforcements from behind. Everything in front of us had already fallen. Yet we abandoned our city, sacrificed our property — and instead of deserting the alliance or making ourselves useless by scattering, we boarded our ships and met the danger head-on, with no resentment toward you for failing to come to our aid.

"So we say to you: we gave you at least as much as you gave us. You fought from cities that were still standing. Your homes were still intact. Your real concern was for your own survival as much as for ours. You didn't show up until we had nothing left to lose. We abandoned a city that was no longer a city. We staked our lives on nothing but desperate hope. And we played our full part in saving you as well as ourselves. But if we had done what others did — if fear for our territory had made us surrender to the Persians before you arrived, or if our losses had broken our spirit and kept us from manning our ships — your fleet would have been too weak for a sea battle, and the Persian king would have achieved his aims without a fight.

"Surely, Spartans, the patriotism we showed in that crisis, and the wisdom of our choices, should count for something — enough, at least, to spare us the extreme hostility the Greeks seem to feel toward our empire. That empire we did not seize by force. It came to us because you were unwilling to finish the war against Persia, and the allies came to us on their own and asked us to lead them. From that point, the nature of the situation itself drove us to expand our power to its present level. Fear was the original motive, then honor, and then self-interest as well. Eventually, when most of our allies hated us, when some had already revolted and been put down, and when you were no longer friendly but suspicious and hostile — it no longer seemed safe to let go of what we had. Anyone who left our alliance would go straight to yours. And no one can blame a people who, in a moment of tremendous risk, act in their own best interest.

"You Spartans have certainly done the same thing. You've used your dominance to arrange the governments of the Peloponnese exactly as you see fit. If you had stayed in command back then and become hated for it the way we are — and you would have — we're certain you'd have been just as harsh with your allies and been forced to choose between strong rule and danger to yourselves. So it was nothing extraordinary, and nothing contrary to human nature, that we accepted an empire offered to us and refused to give it up — driven by the three most powerful motives there are: fear, honor, and interest. And we didn't set the precedent. It has always been the way of the world that the weaker submit to the stronger. Besides, we believed we deserved our position, and you agreed — until your calculations of interest suddenly made you start talking about justice, a principle that has never once stopped anyone from seizing what they could take by force. Credit is due to those who, though powerful enough to rule by might alone, still show more regard for fairness than their position requires.

"We believe that our restraint would be most clearly appreciated if someone else were in our position. But ironically, our very fairness has earned us more criticism than praise. For example, when we settle disputes with our allies through impartial legal proceedings in Athens, we get called litigious. No one ever asks why other imperial powers — who treat their subjects far worse — don't get the same complaint. The answer is obvious: where you can simply use force, you don't need to bother with law. But our allies are so used to dealing with us as equals that whenever they lose a case — whether by legal judgment or by the exercise of our authority — they forget to be grateful for everything they've been allowed to keep and focus on the small part that was taken. If we had simply thrown law aside from the beginning and ruled by naked greed, they wouldn't even complain, because they'd accept that the weak must yield to the strong. But people, it seems, are more outraged by legal injustice than by brute force. The first feels like being cheated by an equal; the second like being overpowered by a superior. They endured far worse from the Persians without complaint, yet they call our rule harsh — and that's only natural, because the present master always seems the heaviest burden. This much is certain: if you were to overthrow us and take our place, the goodwill that fear of us has brought you would evaporate fast. We saw a glimpse of this during your brief command against the Persians. Your way of life at home, with its rules and institutions, is incompatible with how the rest of the world operates — and your citizens, the moment they go abroad, follow neither Spartan rules nor anyone else's.

"Take your time, then. This is a decision of enormous consequence. Don't let the complaints and opinions of others drag you into trouble. Consider how large a role chance plays in war before you commit to one. The longer a war goes on, the more it becomes a matter of luck — and neither of us can control which way that luck falls. People who rush into war almost always start at the wrong end: they act first and only discuss the matter after disaster strikes. We have not yet made that mistake, and as far as we can tell, neither have you. While there is still time for both of us to choose wisely, we urge you: do not break the treaty. Do not violate your oaths. Let our differences be settled by arbitration, as our agreement provides. If you refuse — if you choose war — then we call the gods who witnessed our oaths to testify, and whatever path you take, we will do our best to match you."

---

Those were the Athenians' words. After the Spartans had heard the allies' complaints and the Athenians' response, they cleared the hall and debated among themselves. The majority reached the same conclusion: Athens was clearly the aggressor, and war should be declared immediately.

But then Archidamus, one of the Spartan kings — a man with a reputation for both wisdom and moderation — stood up and spoke:

---

"I have lived long enough, Spartans, to have experienced many wars. And I see men among you of my own age who know the same thing I do: that longing for war is the luxury of those who have never fought one — those who imagine it will be safe or profitable. This war you are now debating would be one of the greatest in our history, if you think about it clearly.

"Against Peloponnesians and neighbors, our strength is comparable, and we can strike quickly at different points. But a war against a people who live far away, who have extraordinary mastery of the sea, who are supremely well equipped in every department — with both public and private wealth, with ships, cavalry, and heavy infantry, with a population larger than any other Greek state, and on top of all that a network of tribute-paying allies — what justifies us in rushing headlong into this? What gives us confidence? Our ships? We are outmatched. And if we're going to train up a navy to rival theirs, that takes time. Our money? We have an even worse shortage there. There's nothing in the public treasury, and people aren't eager to contribute from their own pockets. Maybe we can trust in our superiority in heavy infantry and manpower — enough to invade and devastate their land. But Athens controls plenty of other territory in its empire and can import whatever it needs by sea. And if we try to stir up revolts among its allies, we'll need a fleet to support them, since most of those allies are on islands.

"So what kind of war are we actually planning to fight? Unless we can either defeat them at sea or cut off the revenues that fund their navy, we'll mostly just be hurting ourselves. And once we've committed, our honor won't let us quit — especially if people think we started it. Don't let yourselves be seduced by the fantasy that the war will be over quickly once we devastate their farmland. I'm afraid this war may last so long that we'll hand it down to our children. The Athenian spirit will not be enslaved by the destruction of their land, and Athenian experience will not be intimidated by war.

"I'm not saying you should sit by and let them harm your allies or get away with their schemes. But I am saying: don't take up arms right now. Send an embassy first. Make your complaints known — in a tone that doesn't sound like war but doesn't sound like submission either. And use the time to strengthen our position. Find new allies — Greek or non-Greek, it doesn't matter, as long as they add to our naval or financial strength. When you're the target of Athenian ambitions, nobody can blame you for seeking help wherever you can find it. And at the same time, build up our own resources.

"If Athens listens to our embassy, so much the better. If not, in two or three years our position will be far stronger, and we can attack then if we choose. By that time, the sight of our preparations — backed by language that makes our intentions clear — may bring Athens to terms while its land is still untouched and its leaders can still calculate the cost of stubbornness. Think of Athenian territory as a hostage — and the more prosperous it is, the more valuable the hostage. Spare it as long as possible. Don't drive them to desperation, which only makes them harder to deal with. If we let ourselves be swept up by the complaints of our allies and lay waste to Attica while we're still unprepared, we risk bringing deep disgrace and disaster on the entire Peloponnese. Complaints, whether from states or individuals, can be settled. But a war launched by a coalition for mixed motives, with no way to predict how it will unfold — that kind of war does not end neatly.

"And no one should think it cowardly for so many allies to hesitate before attacking a single city. Athens has just as many allies as we do — and allies that pay tribute. War is won with money more than weapons, because money is what makes weapons useful. That is truer than ever in a fight between a land power and a sea power. So first, let us secure our finances. Don't let the talk of our allies rush us. We will bear the greatest share of the consequences, good or bad, so we have the right to take our time thinking it through.

"As for the slowness and caution that they love to criticize us for — don't be ashamed of it. If we rush into war unprepared, haste at the start only delays the finish. Besides, our city has been free and famous throughout all of history. What they call slowness is really wise restraint. Because of it, we alone don't become arrogant in victory or collapse in defeat. We can't be flattered into reckless action by applause, and we can't be goaded into it by insults. We are both warlike and wise — warlike because discipline breeds honor, and honor breeds courage; wise because we are raised with just enough education to respect the law, and just enough self-control to obey it. We are not trained to be clever critics of enemy plans in theory while failing to beat them in practice. We are taught to assume the enemy's plans are as good as our own and that the breaks of fortune can't be calculated in advance. In real life, we always prepare as if the enemy will do everything right. We base our hopes not on the enemy's mistakes but on the soundness of our own planning. We don't believe there's much natural difference between one person and another — just that the advantage belongs to whoever was raised in the toughest school.

"These are the traditions our ancestors handed down to us. They have always served us well. We must not abandon them. And we must not be stampeded into deciding in a single day a question that affects many lives, many fortunes, and many cities — a question in which our honor is deeply at stake. We must decide calmly. Our strength allows us that luxury.

"As for Athens: send to them about Potidaea. Send about the wrongs their allies have suffered — particularly since Athens has offered to submit to arbitration. And the law forbids attacking someone who offers arbitration as if they were a proven wrongdoer. But at the same time — prepare for war. That is the decision that will be best for you and most frightening to your enemies."

---

Those were the words of Archidamus. Last to speak was Sthenelaidas, one of the ephors — the senior magistrates — for that year. He addressed the Spartans like this:

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"The long speech of the Athenians — I don't pretend to understand it. They talked at great length about how wonderful they are, but they never once denied that they are harming our allies and the Peloponnese. Fine — if they fought well against the Persians then but are treating us badly now, they deserve double punishment: they were once good and have chosen to become bad. We, meanwhile, are the same as we have always been. And if we are wise, we will not ignore the suffering of our allies or put off until tomorrow what must be done today.

"Others have money and ships and cavalry. But we have good allies — and we must not hand them over to Athens. This is not a matter to be settled by lawsuits and speeches. We are not being harmed by words. Our response must be swift and powerful.

"And don't tell me we need to deliberate at length while being treated unjustly. Long deliberation is for those who are planning injustice, not suffering it.

"Vote for war, Spartans. The honor of Sparta demands it. Do not allow Athens to grow any stronger. Do not betray our allies. With the gods on our side, let us march against the aggressors."

---

With that, Sthenelaidas, in his capacity as ephor, put the question to the Spartan assembly. The Spartans normally decided matters by acclamation — whoever shouted loudest won. Sthenelaidas declared that he couldn't tell which side was louder. In reality, he wanted to force people to take a visible stand, figuring that would push more of them toward war. So he said: "All Spartans who believe the treaty has been broken and Athens is guilty — go stand over there." He pointed to one spot. "All who disagree — go there." They stood up and divided.

Those who voted that the treaty had been broken were the clear majority.

The Spartans then summoned the allied delegates and told them the verdict: in their judgment, Athens was guilty of violating the treaty. However, they wanted to convene a full congress of all the allies and put it to a formal vote, so that any decision to go to war would be made collectively. Having achieved their goal, the delegates headed home — the Athenian ambassadors leaving a little later, after wrapping up the business that had originally brought them to Sparta.

This vote — the judgment that the treaty had been broken — was taken in the fourteenth year of the Thirty Years' Peace, which had been signed after the Euboean affair.

The Spartans voted that the treaty was broken and that war must come — not so much because their allies' arguments had persuaded them, but because they were afraid. They could see Athenian power growing, and most of Greece already under its control.

CHAPTER IV

From the End of the Persian War to the Beginning of the Peloponnesian War — How Athens Went from Leadership to Empire

Here is how Athens rose to the position of power that would eventually lead to this war.

After the Persians had been driven out of Europe — defeated on both land and sea by the Greeks — and after the remnants of their fleet had been destroyed at Mycale, Leotychides, king of the Spartans and commander of the Greek forces at Mycale, sailed home with the allies from the Peloponnese. But the Athenians, along with the allies from Ionia and the Hellespont region (who had recently revolted against the Persian king), stayed behind and laid siege to Sestos, which the Persians still held. They spent the winter camped outside it, and when the Persians finally abandoned the place, they captured it. After that, each contingent sailed home to their own cities.

Meanwhile, the people of Athens — now that the Persians had left their country — immediately set about retrieving their families and whatever possessions they had sent away for safekeeping, and they began rebuilding their city and its walls. The city was in ruins. Only scattered sections of the walls were still standing, and most of the houses had been destroyed, though a few survived — the ones where Persian officers had set up their quarters.

When the Spartans learned that the Athenians were rebuilding, they sent an embassy to Athens. Privately, they would have preferred that no city — Athens or any other — had defensive walls. But they were mainly acting at the urging of their allies, who were alarmed by the size of Athens's new navy and the courage the Athenians had shown in the Persian War. The Spartans asked Athens not only to stop building walls for itself but to join them in tearing down the walls of every city outside the Peloponnese. They didn't reveal their real concern — their suspicion of Athens's growing power. Instead, they framed it as a strategic argument: if the Persians ever invaded again, they shouldn't find any fortified city to use as a base of operations, the way they had used Thebes. The Peloponnese alone, they argued, would serve as a perfectly adequate base for retreat and counterattack for everyone.

On the advice of Themistocles, the Athenians immediately dismissed the Spartan ambassadors with a polite answer: they would send their own ambassadors to Sparta to discuss the matter. But behind the scenes, Themistocles had a plan. He told the Athenians to send him to Sparta right away — but to delay sending his fellow ambassadors. They should wait until the walls were high enough to be defended. In the meantime, every person in the city was to work on the walls: men, women, and children. They should tear down any building — public or private — if its materials could be used. Spare nothing.

After giving these instructions and promising to handle everything on the Spartan end, Themistocles set off. When he arrived in Sparta, he didn't request a meeting with the authorities. Instead, he stalled. Whenever a Spartan official asked why he hadn't appeared before the assembly, he said he was waiting for his fellow ambassadors, who had been held up by some business back in Athens. He expected them any day now, and was surprised they hadn't arrived yet.

At first, the Spartans believed him — Themistocles was someone they liked and trusted. But then other travelers began arriving from Athens, all reporting the same thing: the walls were going up, and they were already getting high. The Spartans didn't know what to make of it. Themistocles, sensing their suspicions, told them not to trust rumors. Instead, he suggested they send some trustworthy men of their own to Athens to see for themselves and report back. The Spartans agreed and dispatched their inspectors.

But Themistocles had already anticipated this. He secretly sent word to Athens: detain the Spartan inspectors. Don't imprison them openly — just make sure they can't leave. And don't release them until Themistocles and his colleagues returned safely. By now his fellow ambassadors had arrived in Sparta — Abronichus, son of Lysicles, and Aristides, son of Lysimachus — bringing news that the walls were high enough. Themistocles had been worried that once the Spartans learned the truth, they might hold him hostage. But now the leverage was mutual.

So the Athenians held the Spartan envoys, and Themistocles finally appeared before the Spartan assembly and spoke openly. Athens, he told them, was now fully fortified — strong enough to protect its people. From now on, any embassy that Sparta or its allies sent to Athens should proceed with the understanding that they were dealing with a people perfectly capable of judging both their own interests and the common good. When the Athenians had decided to abandon their city and take to their ships, he reminded them, they had made that bold choice on their own — without asking Sparta's permission. And whenever Athens had deliberated alongside Sparta, the Athenians had shown judgment second to none.

Athens now believed it was right to have walls. This was better not just for Athens, he argued, but for the entire Greek alliance. Without equal military strength, it was impossible to contribute equal or fair counsel to a common cause. Either every member of the alliance should go without walls, he said, or Athens's decision to build them should be accepted as perfectly legitimate.

The Spartans didn't show any open anger at what they heard. After all, the embassy had supposedly been meant to offer friendly advice, not to give orders. Besides, relations between Athens and Sparta were still warm, thanks to Athens's heroism in the Persian War. But make no mistake — the Spartans were quietly furious that they hadn't gotten their way. The ambassadors from both sides went home without any formal complaint.

And so the Athenians walled their city in record time. Even today you can see how hastily it was done. The foundations are a jumble of mismatched stones — some rough, some uncut — laid down however they came to hand. Tombstones, sculpted columns, anything and everything was thrown into the construction. The city's perimeter was expanded in every direction at once, and in their rush, the builders grabbed whatever material was available.

Themistocles also convinced the Athenians to finish the walls around the port of Piraeus, a project he had started during his earlier term as chief magistrate. He recognized the strategic value of the location — a site with three natural harbors — and understood that Athens's future as a naval power depended on it. He was the first to tell the Athenians plainly: commit to the sea. In doing so, he began laying the foundations of empire.

On his advice, they built the walls at Piraeus with extraordinary thickness. You could still see them in his day: the stones were massive blocks, squared and fitted together without rubble or mortar, clamped on the outside with iron and lead. Two wagons running side by side would bring the stones up. The walls reached only about half the height Themistocles originally planned, but his vision was clear: walls so thick and tall that a skeleton garrison of older men and the unfit could hold them, freeing everyone else for the fleet.

The fleet was always his priority. He understood — rightly, I believe — that the sea approach was the more dangerous route for a Persian invasion, and that Piraeus was more strategically valuable than the upper city itself. He used to tell the Athenians that if they were ever overwhelmed on land, they should retreat to Piraeus and fight the world from their ships.

That was how the Athenians completed their walls and began rebuilding everything else, immediately after the Persian withdrawal.

Around this time, Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, was sent from Sparta as commander-in-chief of the Greek forces, with twenty ships from the Peloponnese. The Athenians contributed thirty ships, and a number of other allies joined as well. They campaigned against Cyprus and subdued most of the island, then moved against Byzantium, which was still in Persian hands, and forced it to surrender. All of this happened while Sparta was still the acknowledged leader of the alliance.

But Pausanias was already becoming a problem. His arrogance and heavy-handedness were alienating the Greeks — especially the Ionians and the peoples who had only recently won their freedom from Persia. These allies approached the Athenians and asked them, as fellow Ionians and kinsmen, to take over leadership and protect them from Pausanias's bullying. The Athenians accepted the offer. They were determined to put a stop to his behavior and to arrange everything else in whatever way best served their interests.

Meanwhile, the Spartans recalled Pausanias for an investigation. Serious accusations had been piling up from Greeks arriving in Sparta: by all appearances, he was behaving more like a tyrant than a general. As it happened, his recall came at the very moment when his abusive conduct had already driven the allies to abandon him — all except the troops from the Peloponnese — and line up behind Athens.

Back in Sparta, Pausanias was found guilty of various personal abuses but acquitted of the most serious charges. Among the chief accusations — and apparently the best supported — was that he had been collaborating with the Persians. The Spartans chose not to send him back to his command. Instead, they dispatched a man named Dorkis with a small force. But the allies were no longer willing to accept Spartan leadership. Seeing this, Dorkis and his men went home, and the Spartans didn't send anyone to replace them. They were worried that anyone they sent would be corrupted the way Pausanias had been. Besides, they were ready to wash their hands of the Persian War, and they trusted that the Athenians were capable of handling the job — and at that point still considered them friends.

This is how Athens inherited the leadership of the Greek alliance — not through conquest, but through the allies' own free choice, driven by their hatred of Pausanias. The Athenians immediately organized the new league. They determined which cities would contribute money and which would contribute ships, with the stated purpose of retaliating against Persia by raiding the king's territory.

This was when the office of "Treasurers of Greece" was first created. These Athenian officials collected the tribute — as the financial contributions came to be called. The initial assessment was set at 460 talents, an enormous sum. The treasury was kept on the island of Delos, and the allied congresses met in the temple of Apollo there.

At first, the alliance operated as a genuine partnership. The allies were independent, and decisions were made by common vote at these congresses. But over time, that would change.

Here is what happened — the military campaigns and political developments — during the period between the Persian War and the present war, as Athens dealt with non-Greeks, with its own rebellious allies, and with Peloponnesian powers that crossed its path at various points. I am going into this digression because every historian before me has neglected it. They have written either about Greek history before the Persian War or about the Persian War itself. The one exception is Hellanicus, who touched on this period in his history of Athens, but his account is brief and his dates are unreliable. Besides, understanding this period is essential — it explains how the Athenian empire grew.

First, under the command of Cimon, son of Miltiades, the Athenians besieged and captured Eion on the Strymon River, which was still held by the Persians. They enslaved the population. Next, they conquered the island of Scyros in the Aegean, expelled its inhabitants (a people called the Dolopians), and settled it with Athenians. Then came a war against Carystus, on the island of Euboea, while the rest of Euboea stayed neutral; it ended when Carystus surrendered on terms.

After that came the revolt of Naxos — the first time an allied city tried to leave the league. Athens besieged it and forced it back into line. This was a turning point. It set the precedent: allies who tried to leave would be compelled to stay. And more would follow.

The main reasons allies revolted were falling behind on tribute payments, failing to provide ships, or refusing to serve in military campaigns. The Athenians were strict and demanding about these obligations, which made them deeply unpopular. They applied relentless pressure on people who weren't used to that kind of discipline and didn't want it. In other ways, too, the Athenians were no longer the easygoing leaders they had been at the start. They carried more than their fair share of the military burden, and that made it all the easier for them to crack down on anyone who tried to pull out.

But the allies had largely done this to themselves. Most of them, wanting to avoid the trouble and expense of military service, had arranged to pay cash instead of providing ships. The result was that Athens used their money to build up its own fleet, while the allies who had opted out found themselves — when they eventually did rebel — without the ships or the military experience to fight back.

Next came the battles at the Eurymedon River, where the Athenians and their allies fought the Persians and won on both land and sea on the same day, under Cimon's command. They captured and destroyed the entire Phoenician fleet — two hundred ships.

Some time later, the island of Thasos revolted, over a dispute with Athens about trading posts on the Thracian coast and a gold mine the Thasians controlled. The Athenians sailed against Thasos, defeated its fleet, and landed on the island. Around the same time, they sent ten thousand settlers — Athenians and allies — to a place then called Nine Ways (later renamed Amphipolis). They managed to take Nine Ways from the local Edonians, but when they pushed deeper into Thrace, they were wiped out at the Edonian town of Drabescus. The Thracians had united against them, seeing the new settlement as a hostile act.

Meanwhile, the Thasians, besieged and desperate, secretly appealed to Sparta. They asked the Spartans to invade Attica to draw Athens away. Sparta — without telling Athens — agreed and fully intended to do it. But then fate intervened. A massive earthquake struck Sparta, and in the chaos, the helots — the enslaved population — along with the Thuriats and Aethaeans from the surrounding communities, rose in revolt and seized the fortress at Ithome. Most of these helots were descendants of the old Messenians, enslaved generations earlier, which is why the rebels all came to be called Messenians.

With Sparta now fighting a full-blown insurgency at Ithome, the Thasians were left on their own. In the third year of the siege, they came to terms with Athens: they tore down their walls, surrendered their fleet, agreed to pay whatever Athens demanded immediately plus regular tribute going forward, and gave up their mainland possessions and the mine.

The Spartans, finding the war against the Messenian rebels dragging on, called on their allies for help — including, notably, the Athenians. Athens responded, sending a substantial force under Cimon's command. The Spartans had specifically asked for Athenian help because of their reputation as experts in siege warfare. Sparta's own attempts to storm Ithome had failed, revealing a weakness in precisely that area.

But what happened next caused the first open rift between Athens and Sparta.

When the assault on Ithome still couldn't break through, the Spartans grew nervous about having the Athenians around. They saw the Athenians as bold, innovative, and — crucially — ethnically different. What if the besieged Messenians persuaded these Athenians to switch sides or stir up political trouble? So the Spartans dismissed the Athenian contingent — and only the Athenians, while every other ally was allowed to stay. They didn't admit to their real reasons, of course. They simply said they no longer needed the help.

The Athenians saw through the excuse immediately. They knew it wasn't a polite discharge — it was a calculated insult born of suspicion. They were furious. They had done nothing to deserve this kind of treatment. The moment they returned home, they broke off the alliance that had been formed during the Persian War and allied themselves instead with Argos, Sparta's bitter enemy. Both Athens and Argos also concluded alliances with Thessaly.

Eventually the rebels at Ithome, after holding out for ten years, could resist no longer. They surrendered to Sparta on terms: they and their families would leave the Peloponnese under safe conduct and never return. Anyone caught there in the future would become the property of whoever captured them. (The Spartans had an old prophecy from Delphi warning them to let go the suppliants of Zeus at Ithome.) Athens, now openly hostile to Sparta, took these refugees in and settled them at Naupactus, a town Athens had recently captured from the Ozolian Locrians.

Athens picked up another ally around this time, too. The city of Megara left the Spartan alliance, frustrated by a border war that Corinth had forced on them. Athens moved into Megara, garrisoned the port of Pegae, and built the Megarians long walls connecting their city to the port of Nisaea, where Athens stationed a garrison. This was the main reason Corinth developed such a deep and lasting hatred for Athens.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, a Libyan ruler named Inaros, son of Psammetichus, whose base was at Marea above the city of Pharos, led almost all of Egypt in revolt against the Persian king Artaxerxes. Inaros invited the Athenians to help. Athens had two hundred ships — their own and their allies' — engaged in a campaign around Cyprus. They abandoned that operation and sailed for Egypt instead. They entered the Nile, took control of the river and two-thirds of the capital city, Memphis, and then laid siege to the remaining third — a district called White Castle — where Persians, Medes, and Egyptians loyal to the king had taken refuge.

At the same time, closer to home, things were heating up. An Athenian force that landed at Haliae was defeated by the Corinthians and Epidaurians. But the Athenians then won a naval battle against a Peloponnesian fleet off Cecruphalia. After that, full-scale war broke out between Athens and Aegina. In a major sea battle off Aegina, both sides brought in their allies. The Athenians won, capturing seventy enemy ships, and then landed on the island and began a siege under the command of Leocrates, son of Stroebus. The Peloponnesians sent three hundred heavy infantry to reinforce Aegina — troops who had been serving with the Corinthians and Epidaurians.

At the same time, the Corinthians and their allies seized the heights of Geraneia and marched down into the territory of Megara. They were betting that Athens, with large forces tied down in Aegina and Egypt, couldn't possibly defend Megara too. But the Athenians refused to pull troops from the siege of Aegina. Instead, they scraped together a force from whoever was left in the city — the old men and the young boys — and marched into Megarian territory under Myronides.

The battle with the Corinthians was a draw, and both sides withdrew believing they had won. But the Athenians got slightly the better of it and set up a victory trophy after the Corinthians left. Back in Corinth, the older citizens shamed the soldiers, and about twelve days later the Corinthians marched back out and set up their own trophy, claiming victory. The Athenians sallied out from Megara, attacked the party erecting the trophy, and routed the rest of the Corinthian force.

The retreating Corinthians suffered a disaster. A large detachment, pursued and losing their way, blundered into an enclosed field — private property surrounded by a deep ditch, with no way out. The Athenians, who knew the terrain, blocked the entrance with heavy infantry and surrounded the field with light troops, who stoned everyone inside. It was a devastating blow to Corinth. The rest of the Corinthian army made it home, but the damage was done.

Around this time, the Athenians began building their famous Long Walls — one to Phalerum and one to Piraeus — connecting the city directly to the sea.

Meanwhile, the Phocians invaded Doris, the ancestral homeland of the Spartans, which included the towns of Boeum, Kitinium, and Erineum. They captured one of these towns. The Spartans responded by marching out with fifteen hundred of their own heavy infantry and ten thousand allied troops, under the command of Nicomedes, son of Cleombrotus (acting as regent, since King Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, was still a minor). They forced the Phocians to give back the town and began their march home.

But getting home was the problem. If they went by sea across the Gulf of Corinth, the Athenian fleet could intercept them. The land route over Geraneia wasn't safe either — Athens controlled Megara and Pegae, and the pass was difficult and always guarded. On top of that, they had intelligence that the Athenians planned to block their passage. So the Spartans decided to stay in Boeotia while they figured out the safest route. They had another reason, too: a faction within Athens had secretly reached out to them, hoping Spartan pressure would help overthrow the Athenian democracy and stop the construction of the Long Walls.

The Athenians, however, marched out to meet them with their entire army, plus a thousand Argive troops and contingents from their other allies — fourteen thousand strong in all. They marched partly because they weren't sure how the Spartans planned to get home, but also because they suspected a plot against the democracy. Some Thessalian cavalry joined the Athenian side as well, though during the actual battle, they switched over to the Spartans.

The two armies met at Tanagra in Boeotia. It was a brutal fight with heavy losses on both sides, but the Spartans and their allies won. They marched into Megarian territory, cut down the fruit trees, and then headed home over Geraneia and across the isthmus.

But the story wasn't over. Just sixty-two days after Tanagra, the Athenians marched back into Boeotia under Myronides, defeated the Boeotians at the battle of Oenophyta, and took control of all of Boeotia and Phocis. They tore down the walls of Tanagra, took a hundred of the wealthiest men of Opuntian Locris as hostages, and finished building their own Long Walls.

Aegina surrendered next, on terms: the Aeginetans pulled down their walls, handed over their ships, and agreed to pay regular tribute to Athens. Then the Athenians sailed around the Peloponnese under Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus. They burned the Spartan naval arsenal, captured the Corinthian town of Chalcis, and defeated the Sicyonians in a battle after landing on their territory.

Meanwhile, the Athenian expedition in Egypt — still going after all this time — was meeting disaster. At first the Athenians had been dominant. But the Persian king sent a man named Megabazus to Sparta with a chest of money, hoping to bribe the Peloponnesians into invading Attica and forcing Athens to pull its forces out of Egypt. When that scheme went nowhere and the money was wasted, the king recalled Megabazus and tried a different approach: he sent Megabyzus, son of Zopyrus, to Egypt with a massive army. Megabyzus defeated the Egyptians and their Greek allies in battle, drove them out of Memphis, and eventually cornered them on the island of Prosopitis, where he besieged them for a year and a half. In the end, he drained the canal that surrounded the island, redirecting the water into another channel. The Greek ships were left stranded on dry ground, and what had been an island was now connected to the mainland. Megabyzus simply marched his army across and captured it.

Six years of war, and the whole enterprise ended in ruin. Out of that huge force, only a handful escaped overland through Libya to the safety of Cyrene. The rest were killed or captured. Egypt returned to Persian control — all except Amyrtaeus, a local ruler who held out in the marshes. The marshes were too vast to conquer, and the people who lived there were the toughest fighters in Egypt. Inaros, the Libyan king who had started the whole revolt, was betrayed, captured, and crucified.

To make matters worse, a relief squadron of fifty ships from Athens and the allied fleet sailed for Egypt with no idea of what had happened. They anchored at one of the mouths of the Nile, completely unaware. They were attacked from land by ground forces and from sea by the Phoenician navy. Most of the ships were destroyed. Only a handful escaped.

That was the end of Athens's great Egyptian expedition.

Back in Greece, an exiled Thessalian king named Orestes, son of Echecratidas, convinced the Athenians to restore him to his throne. Athens marched into Thessaly with its Boeotian and Phocian allies, reaching the city of Pharsalus. They controlled the immediate area around their camp, but couldn't move beyond it because of the Thessalian cavalry. They failed to take the city and accomplished nothing. They went home, and Orestes went with them, still in exile.

Not long after, a thousand Athenians sailed from Pegae (which Athens now controlled) along the coast to Sicyon, under the command of Pericles, son of Xanthippus. They landed and defeated the Sicyonians in battle, then immediately picked up Achaean allies and crossed over to besiege Oeniadae in Acarnania. They couldn't take it, and eventually went home.

Three years later, Athens and the Peloponnesians agreed to a five-year truce. Freed from war in Greece, the Athenians launched another expedition to Cyprus with two hundred ships under Cimon's command. Sixty of these were diverted to Egypt at the request of Amyrtaeus, the rebel king still holding out in the marshes. The rest besieged the city of Kitium on Cyprus. But Cimon died during the siege, and supplies ran short, so they pulled back. Sailing off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought and won a combined land and sea battle against the Phoenicians, Cyprians, and Cilicians, and then sailed home, rejoined by the squadron returning from Egypt.

After this, the Spartans marched out on what they called a Sacred War, seized control of the temple at Delphi, and handed it over to the Delphians. As soon as the Spartans left, the Athenians marched in, retook the temple, and handed it back to the Phocians.

Some time later, several towns in Boeotia — Orchomenus, Chaeronea, and others — were taken over by Boeotian exiles hostile to Athens. The Athenians sent a thousand heavy infantry and allied contingents, under Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus, to deal with them. They captured Chaeronea, enslaved its inhabitants, and left a garrison before starting the march home. But on the road, at Coronea, they were ambushed by the Boeotian exiles from Orchomenus, joined by Locrians, Euboean exiles, and other like-minded opponents. The Athenians were defeated — some killed, others taken prisoner. To get their captured men back, Athens had to sign a treaty evacuating all of Boeotia. The exiles returned, and every Boeotian city regained its independence.

This was soon followed by the revolt of Euboea. Pericles had already crossed to the island with an Athenian army when devastating news arrived: Megara had revolted, the Peloponnesians were about to invade Attica, and the Athenian garrison in Megara had been overwhelmed — all except a small group that had escaped to Nisaea. The Megarians had brought in Corinthian, Sicyonian, and Epidaurian forces before declaring their revolt.

Pericles rushed his army back from Euboea. The Peloponnesians invaded Attica, advancing as far as Eleusis and Thrius and devastating the countryside under the command of King Pleistoanax. But they went no further and turned back. The Athenians then crossed back to Euboea under Pericles and subdued the entire island. Most cities were settled by negotiation, but the people of Histiaea were expelled and their territory taken over by Athenian settlers.

Not long after the return from Euboea, Athens and Sparta agreed to a Thirty Years' Peace. Athens gave up the positions it held in the Peloponnese — Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and Achaia.

In the sixth year of this truce, war broke out between Samos and Miletus over the city of Priene. The Milesians, losing the fight, came to Athens with loud complaints against Samos. They were joined by a faction within Samos that wanted to overthrow its government. Athens sailed to Samos with forty ships, installed a democracy, took hostages — fifty boys and fifty men — and deposited them on the island of Lemnos. Then they left a garrison and went home.

But some Samians had fled to the mainland. They struck a deal with the most powerful men still in the city and formed an alliance with Pissuthnes, the Persian governor of Sardis. With a force of seven hundred mercenaries, they crossed back to Samos under cover of darkness. Their first move was to overthrow the democracy, rounding up most of its supporters. Then they rescued their hostages from Lemnos. After that they openly revolted, handed over the Athenian garrison and its commanders to Pissuthnes, and immediately prepared to attack Miletus. Byzantium joined the revolt as well.

When the Athenians got word of this, they sailed against Samos with sixty ships. Sixteen of these were sent elsewhere — some to Caria to watch for a Phoenician fleet, others to Chios and Lesbos to summon reinforcements — and never saw action. The remaining forty-four, commanded by Pericles and nine other generals, met a Samian fleet of seventy ships (twenty of them troop transports) off the island of Tragia as the Samians were sailing back from Miletus. The Athenians won.

Reinforced by forty more ships from Athens and twenty-five from Chios and Lesbos, the Athenians landed on Samos and, with their superiority on land, surrounded the city with three siege walls. They also blockaded it from the sea. Meanwhile, Pericles took sixty ships from the blockade and hurried toward Caunus and Caria — intelligence had come in that a Phoenician fleet was on its way to help Samos. (A Samian named Stesagoras and others had sailed off with five ships to bring them.)

While Pericles was away, the Samians launched a surprise attack. They fell on the Athenian camp, which had been left unfortified, destroyed the lookout ships, and defeated the ships that were launched against them. For fourteen days, the Samians controlled their own waters, bringing in and shipping out whatever they wanted. But when Pericles returned, the blockade slammed shut again.

Fresh reinforcements poured in — forty ships from Athens under Thucydides, Hagnon, and Phormio; twenty more under Tlepolemus and Anticles; and thirty ships from Chios and Lesbos. The Samians put up a brief fight but couldn't hold out. After a nine-month siege, they surrendered on terms: they tore down their walls, gave hostages, handed over their ships, and agreed to pay the costs of the war in installments. The Byzantines also submitted and returned to their former status as subjects.

CHAPTER 5

Second Congress at Sparta — Preparations for War and Diplomatic Skirmishes — Cylon — Pausanias — Themistocles

After all this — though not many years later — we come at last to the events already described: the affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea, and everything else that served as the immediate pretext for the present war. All these conflicts among the Greeks, and between the Greeks and the non-Greeks, took place during the fifty years between the retreat of Xerxes and the beginning of the war I am writing about. During that half-century, the Athenians steadily tightened their grip on their empire and built up their own power to extraordinary heights. The Spartans saw it all happening. They pushed back briefly, but for most of this period they sat on their hands. They had always been slow to go to war unless absolutely forced into it, and during these years they were tied down by conflicts closer to home. But eventually the growth of Athenian power became impossible to ignore, especially once it started encroaching on Sparta's own alliance. At that point, the Spartans decided they could bear it no longer. The time had come to throw everything they had against this hostile power and break it, if they could, by launching the present war.

Now, even though the Spartans had already made up their minds that the treaty had been broken and that Athens was to blame, they still sent to Delphi to ask the god whether going to war would go well for them. The answer they reportedly received was this: if they committed their full strength, victory would be theirs. The god himself would be with them, whether they called on him or not.

Still, they wanted to summon their allies one more time and put the question of war to a formal vote. The allied ambassadors arrived, a congress was convened, and one after another they stood up and spoke their minds. Most of them denounced the Athenians and demanded that the war begin. The Corinthians were the most insistent. They had already been working the other cities behind the scenes, lobbying them individually to vote for war — terrified that if it came too late, Potidaea would fall before help arrived. They were present at this congress too, and they came forward last to deliver the following speech:

THE SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS

"Fellow allies, we can no longer accuse the Spartans of failing in their duty. They have voted for war themselves and assembled us here for that very purpose. And we say 'duty' deliberately, because leadership comes with obligations. Those at the top are expected to look after the common good with special care — that is the price they pay for the special honor they receive from the rest of us in everything else. Beyond that, they must manage everyone's individual interests fairly.

"Now, those of us who have already dealt with the Athenians need no warning to watch our backs. But the inland states, the ones off the main trade routes — they need to understand something. If they fail to support the coastal powers, they will find that the goods they export and the imports they depend on from the sea will both be disrupted. They should not sit there thinking this discussion has nothing to do with them. They need to recognize that when the coastal states fall, the danger will spread inland next. Their own interests are deeply at stake in what we decide here today.

"For these reasons, no one should hesitate to trade peace for war. Wise men stay quiet when they are not being harmed — but brave men abandon peace for war when they are wronged, and return to peace when the right opportunity comes. They are not drunk on military success, but they also refuse to swallow an insult just for the sake of comfortable inaction. In fact, if you cling to comfort and do nothing, you will lose the very peace you treasure — and that is the fastest way to lose it. On the other hand, if success in war makes you overconfident, you are forgetting how hollow that confidence really is. Plenty of badly conceived plans have succeeded only because the enemy's plans were even worse. And plenty of apparently brilliant strategies have ended in humiliation. The confidence we feel when we draw up our plans is never fully justified in execution. We make our calculations safely at a desk, but when it comes to action, fear takes over and things fall apart.

"Applying these principles to our situation: we are not rushing into war recklessly. We are going in under pressure, with legitimate grievances, and after we have dealt with the Athenians we will stop at the right time. We have many reasons to expect success. First, we have the advantage in numbers and in military experience. Second, we have the advantage of uniform obedience — when we give orders, our men follow them.

"As for the naval strength Athens possesses: we can build that up from our existing resources and from the treasuries at Olympia and Delphi. A loan from those funds would let us lure away their foreign sailors with higher pay. After all, Athenian power is built on mercenaries, not on loyal citizens. Ours is not exposed to that risk, since our strength lies in men, not money. A single naval defeat could ruin them entirely. And if they hold out longer than that, well, the extra time just gives us more opportunity to train our own sailors. Once we match them in skill, we will obviously surpass them in courage — because the advantages we have by nature are something they can never learn, while their edge in skill is something we can close with practice. The money for all this will come from our contributions. Nothing could be more outrageous than this: their allies never stop contributing toward their own enslavement, while we refuse to spend money for revenge and self-preservation — money that, if we hold it back, will just end up in Athenian hands and be used against us.

"We have other ways to fight this war, too. We can encourage revolts among their subject allies — which is the surest way to cut off the tribute payments that fund their power. We can fortify positions in their territory. And there will be other opportunities we cannot foresee right now. War, more than anything else, refuses to follow a script. It demands improvisation. The side that keeps its head and adapts to the unexpected comes out safest; the side that panics meets with disaster.

"Let us also face this reality: if this were just a border dispute between neighboring states, we could tolerate it. But what we are dealing with is an enemy in Athens that is a match for our entire coalition — and more than a match for any single member of it. Unless we stand together, as a unified body, as individual nations, and as individual cities, Athens will pick us off one by one. And that conquest — as frightening as it sounds — would mean nothing less than outright slavery. That is a word that the Peloponnese should not even be able to hear whispered without shame, let alone watch as it happens to state after state.

"People would say one of two things about us: either that we deserved it, or that we were too cowardly to stop it. They would say we had proved ourselves unworthy sons of our fathers, who gave freedom to all of Greece, while we stood by and let a tyrant state establish itself in Greece — even though in our own cities we consider it our sacred duty to overthrow any sole ruler. I do not see how our behavior could escape three of the most damning charges: stupidity, cowardice, and negligence. Surely you have not taken refuge in contempt for the enemy — that attitude which has proved fatal so many times that people no longer call it 'contemptuous' but 'contemptible.'

"Still, there is no point in dwelling on the past except where it serves the present. For the future, we must protect what we have now and redouble our efforts. Earning virtue through hard work is in our blood, and you must not abandon that tradition just because you happen to enjoy some slight advantage in wealth and resources. What was won through sacrifice should not be thrown away in times of plenty. No — we must march boldly into this war, and for many reasons. The god has commanded it and promised to stand with us. The rest of Greece will join the fight, some out of fear, some out of self-interest. You will not be the ones breaking a treaty — the god himself, by advising us to go to war, has already judged that the treaty has been violated. Treaties are broken not by those who resist aggression, but by those who commit it.

"So from every angle, you are fully justified in going to war. We urge this course in the interest of all, keeping in mind that shared interest is the strongest bond between states, just as it is between individuals. Do not delay in helping Potidaea — a Dorian city under siege by Ionians, which is a complete reversal of the natural order. Do not delay in defending the freedom of the rest. We cannot afford to wait any longer. For some of us, waiting means disaster right now. For the rest, once it becomes known that we met in congress but did not dare to act, disaster will follow soon enough.

"Fellow allies: you see the crisis. You see the wisdom of this course. Vote for war. Do not let the terrors of the moment frighten you — look beyond them to the lasting peace that will follow. Out of war, peace gains fresh strength. But refusing to leave your comfort zone for war? That is no reliable way to avoid danger. The tyrant city that has established itself in Greece was established against all of us alike, with a program of universal domination — partly achieved, partly still in the works. Let us attack it, bring it down, and win lasting security for ourselves and freedom for the Greeks who are now enslaved."

Such were the words of the Corinthians.

The Spartans, having now heard everyone out, put the question to a vote of all the allied states present, great and small alike. The majority voted for war.

Even so, it was impossible for them to start immediately — they were not ready. But they resolved that each state would procure the necessary resources without delay. And despite the time this took, less than a year passed before the invasion of Attica began and the war was openly underway.

DIPLOMATIC SKIRMISHES

In the meantime, the Spartans spent the interval sending embassies to Athens loaded with complaints. The idea was to establish the best possible pretext for war, in case Athens ignored them.

The first Spartan embassy ordered the Athenians to "drive out the curse of the goddess." Here is the story behind it.

Several generations earlier, there lived an Athenian named Cylon. He was an Olympic champion, a man of noble birth and great influence, who had married the daughter of Theagenes, the tyrant — that is, the sole ruler — of Megara. Cylon consulted the oracle at Delphi, and the god told him to seize the Acropolis of Athens during "the grand festival of Zeus."

So Cylon got a military force from his father-in-law Theagenes, talked his friends into joining him, and when the Olympic festival came around in the Peloponnese, he seized the Acropolis. He intended to make himself tyrant of Athens. He figured the Olympics must be "the grand festival of Zeus" the oracle meant — and besides, it seemed like an especially fitting occasion for an Olympic victor. Whether the "grand festival" actually referred to a celebration in Attica rather than elsewhere was a question that never crossed his mind. The oracle had not bothered to clarify, either. As it happened, the Athenians had their own "grand festival of Zeus" — the Diasia, a festival of Zeus Meilichios (Zeus the Gracious), celebrated outside the city, where the entire population offered not animal sacrifices but bloodless offerings particular to their local customs.

None of this mattered. Cylon was sure he had picked the right moment, and he made his move.

As soon as the Athenians found out, they poured in from the countryside, surrounded the Acropolis, and laid siege. But as time dragged on, most of them grew tired of the blockade and went home. The job of keeping guard was left to the nine archons, with full authority to handle the situation as they saw fit. (At this time, the nine archons still performed most of the functions of government.)

Meanwhile, Cylon and his supporters were running out of food and water. Cylon himself and his brother managed to escape. But the rest, now desperate — some actually dying of starvation — sat down as suppliants at the altar on the Acropolis. The Athenians standing guard saw that the men were on the point of death right there in the sacred precinct. They raised them up with a promise that no harm would come to them. Then they led them out and killed them. Some who tried to take refuge at the altars of the Dread Goddesses as they were being led past were cut down on the spot.

Because of this act, the men who killed them — and their descendants — were branded as "accursed," cursed against the goddess. They were driven out of Athens. Later, Cleomenes of Sparta, working with an Athenian political faction, drove them out again. The living were expelled, and the bones of the dead were dug up and cast out. And yet, in time, they came back. Their descendants still lived in the city.

This was the "curse" that the Spartans were now demanding Athens drive out. Their stated motive was reverence for the gods. Their real motive was something else: they knew that Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was connected to this curse through his mother's side. They figured that if Pericles were banished, their plans against Athens would advance considerably. Not that they seriously expected the Athenians to comply — they were mainly hoping to turn public opinion against him, to create the impression that the coming war was partly his fault. Because Pericles was the most powerful man of his time, the leading statesman of Athens, and he opposed the Spartans on every front. He refused to make any concessions and constantly pushed Athens toward war.

THE ATHENIAN COUNTER-DEMANDS

The Athenians fired back. They ordered the Spartans to drive out "the curse of Taenarus." The Spartans had once dragged some Helot suppliants away from the temple of Poseidon at Taenarus and killed them. The Spartans themselves believed this crime had brought on the great earthquake that struck Sparta.

The Athenians also ordered the Spartans to drive out "the curse of the goddess of the Brazen House." Here is that story.

After Pausanias the Spartan was recalled from his command in the Hellespont — this was his first recall — he was put on trial and acquitted. Since he was not sent out again in any official capacity, he took a galley from the city of Hermione on his own initiative, without Spartan authorization, and sailed back to the Hellespont as a private citizen. His cover story was that he was going to fight in the Greek war against Persia. His real purpose was to continue the secret dealings he had begun with the Persian king before his recall. He was dreaming of ruling all of Greece.

Here is how he first managed to put the king in his debt and get the whole scheme started. When Pausanias was first at Byzantium, right after the Greek campaign returned from Cyprus, he had captured some relatives and kinsmen of the Persian king. He secretly sent these prisoners to the king, telling the other allies that they had escaped. He arranged this with the help of a man named Gongylus, from Eretria, whom he had put in charge of Byzantium and the prisoners. He also gave Gongylus a letter for the king. The contents — discovered later — were as follows:

"Pausanias, general of Sparta, wishes to do you a favor, and sends you these prisoners of war. I also propose, with your approval, to marry your daughter and bring Sparta and the rest of Greece under your control. I believe I can accomplish this with your cooperation. If any of this interests you, send a trustworthy man to the coast, and we can conduct our correspondence through him."

That was the letter in full. Xerxes was delighted.

He dispatched Artabazus, son of Pharnaces, to the coast with orders to take over as governor of the province of Daskylion, replacing Megabates. Artabazus was to send a reply to Pausanias at Byzantium as quickly as possible, show him the royal seal, and faithfully carry out whatever Pausanias asked of him on the king's behalf. Artabazus arrived, carried out the king's orders, and sent the following reply:

"Thus says King Xerxes to Pausanias: For the men you saved and sent to me across the sea from Byzantium, a debt is recorded in our house forever, and I am well pleased with your proposals. Let neither night nor day stop you from carrying out your promises to me. Spare no expense of gold or silver, and hold back no number of troops, wherever they may be needed. With Artabazus, an honorable man whom I send to you, advance my interests and yours boldly, in whatever way brings the most honor and advantage to us both."

Pausanias had already been held in high honor by the Greeks as the hero of Plataea. But after receiving this letter, he became prouder than ever. He could no longer live like a normal person. He left Byzantium dressed in Persian clothing. When he traveled through Thrace, he surrounded himself with a bodyguard of Persians and Egyptians. He ate at a Persian-style table. He was completely incapable of hiding his ambitions — everything he did in small ways betrayed what he intended to do on a grand scale one day. He also made himself extremely difficult to approach and displayed such a violent temper toward everyone, without exception, that no one could get near him. This, more than anything else, was why the allied states turned away from Sparta and went over to Athens.

When reports of this behavior reached the Spartans, they recalled him — that was his first recall. After he sailed out a second time in the ship from Hermione, again without orders, he gave further proof of the same behavior. The Athenians besieged him and expelled him from Byzantium. He did not return to Sparta. Instead, word came that he had settled at Colonae in the Troad and was intriguing with the Persians, and that his continued stay there was up to no good.

At this point the ephors — Sparta's chief magistrates — stopped hesitating. They sent a herald carrying a scytale — the official Spartan dispatch stick — with orders: accompany the herald back to Sparta, or be declared a public enemy. Pausanias was desperate above all to avoid suspicion. He was confident he could make the charges go away with money. So he returned to Sparta a second time.

At first the ephors threw him in prison — they had the power to do this even to members of the royal family. But he soon negotiated his way out and offered to stand trial before anyone who wanted to investigate him.

The Spartans, however, had no solid proof against him — neither his personal enemies nor the nation as a whole could produce the kind of indisputable evidence needed to punish a member of the royal house. And at that moment Pausanias held high office: he was serving as regent for his young cousin King Pleistarchus, the son of Leonidas, who was still a minor.

But his contempt for Spartan customs and his imitation of Persian ways gave plenty of grounds for suspicion. People reviewed every instance in which he had departed from normal behavior. They remembered, for example, that he had taken it upon himself to inscribe on the tripod at Delphi — the one the Greeks had dedicated as a first offering from the spoils of the Persian War — the following couplet:

The Persians defeated, great Pausanias raised This monument, that Phoebus might be praised.

The Spartans had immediately erased this inscription and replaced it with the names of all the cities that had helped defeat the Persians and dedicated the offering. But the incident was now seen as an early sign of the same arrogance he had since displayed — and it fit perfectly with his current schemes.

On top of this, the Spartans received reports that he was even intriguing with the Helots — and this was true. He had promised them freedom and citizenship if they would join him in an uprising and help him carry out his plans to the end.

Yet even now, the ephors refused to take decisive action against him. This was in keeping with Spartan tradition: they were always reluctant to reach an irrevocable verdict against a Spartan citizen without undeniable proof.

Then, at last, it is said that the man who was about to carry Pausanias's latest letter to Artabazus — a man from Argilus, once the favorite and most trusted servant of Pausanias — turned informer. He had been growing alarmed by a certain observation: none of the previous messengers had ever come back. So he forged a copy of the seal on the letter. That way, if his suspicions were wrong, or if Pausanias wanted to make some correction, the tampering would not be discovered. He opened the letter — and found exactly what he had feared: a postscript ordering his own execution.

When the ephors were shown the letter, they were more convinced than ever. But they still wanted to hear Pausanias incriminate himself with their own ears. So the informer, by prearrangement, went to the temple at Taenarus as a suppliant. There he built himself a hut divided in two by a partition wall. He hid several of the ephors in one half. Then Pausanias came to him.

Pausanias asked why he was sitting there as a suppliant. The man confronted him: he told Pausanias about the order in the letter to have him killed. Point by point, he laid out everything — how he had served faithfully as a go-between with the Persian king, had never put Pausanias in any danger, and yet was to be rewarded with the same death as all the other messengers. Pausanias admitted everything. He told the man not to be angry about it. He gave him a pledge of safe passage from the temple and begged him to leave at once and not delay the business at hand.

The ephors listened carefully to every word. Then they left, taking no immediate action. But now they had certainty, and they prepared to arrest Pausanias in the city.

The story goes that just as they were about to seize him in the street, Pausanias read it in the face of one of the approaching ephors. Another ephor, out of personal sympathy, gave him a secret signal. He understood instantly. He broke into a run for the temple of the goddess of the Brazen House, whose sacred enclosure was nearby, and made it inside before they could catch him. He ducked into a small storage room that was part of the temple complex, trying to get out of the open air. The ephors, having lost the footrace, afterward removed the roof of the chamber. Once they confirmed he was inside, they sealed the doors, barricaded the exits, and starved him out.

When they could tell he was on the verge of death, they dragged him out of the temple while there was still breath in his body. He died as soon as they brought him outside.

At first they were going to throw his body into the Kaiadas — the pit where Sparta disposed of criminals — but they finally decided to bury him somewhere nearby. Later, the oracle at Delphi ordered the Spartans to move his tomb to the place where he had actually died (where he still lies, in consecrated ground, as an inscription on a monument records). The god also declared that what they had done was a curse upon them, and that they owed two bodies to the goddess of the Brazen House in place of the one they had taken. So they had two bronze statues made and dedicated them to the goddess as a substitute for Pausanias.

Since the god himself had declared it a curse, the Athenians turned the whole thing around and demanded that the Spartans drive out their own curse.

THE FALL OF THEMISTOCLES

During the investigation into Pausanias's dealings with Persia, evidence surfaced that also implicated Themistocles. The Spartans sent envoys to Athens demanding that the Athenians punish him just as they had punished Pausanias.

The Athenians agreed. But as it happened, Themistocles had already been ostracized — exiled by popular vote — and was living in Argos, from where he frequently traveled around the Peloponnese. The Athenians and Spartans joined forces and sent men with orders to arrest him wherever they found him.

Themistocles caught wind of their intentions and fled to Corcyra, a state that owed him favors. But the Corcyraeans said they could not risk sheltering him at the cost of angering both Athens and Sparta. They ferried him across to the mainland opposite.

From there, with agents tracking his every move, Themistocles found himself running out of options. Desperate, he was forced to stop at the house of Admetus, the king of the Molossians — even though the two of them were not on good terms.

Admetus happened to be out. But his wife took Themistocles in, and she told him what to do: take their child in his arms and sit down by the hearth. This was the most powerful form of supplication.

Soon Admetus returned. Themistocles told the king who he was and begged him: do not take revenge on a man in exile for any opposition Themistocles might once have shown him back in Athens. After all, Themistocles was now far too low for revenge to mean anything. Retaliation was only honorable between equals. Besides, his opposition to the king had only affected whether Admetus got what he wanted — it had never threatened his safety or his life. But if Admetus handed Themistocles over to his pursuers and the fate they had in store for him, he would be sending him to certain death.

Admetus listened. Then he raised Themistocles up together with the child still in his arms — the most solemn acknowledgment of the supplication.

When the Spartans arrived shortly afterward and demanded that he hand Themistocles over, Admetus refused. Nothing they said could change his mind. Instead, he sent Themistocles overland to the coast at Pydna, in the territory of King Alexander of Macedon, since Themistocles wished to reach the Persian king.

At Pydna, Themistocles found a merchant ship about to sail for Ionia. He went aboard. But a storm drove the vessel straight to the Athenian naval squadron that was blockading the island of Naxos. Themistocles was terrified. Fortunately, no one on the ship knew who he was. He pulled the ship's captain aside and told him his identity and why he was fleeing. He said: if you refuse to save me, I will tell them you are smuggling me for a bribe. But if you keep me hidden, no one leaves the ship until we can sail safely. Do this, and I will reward you handsomely.

The captain agreed. He anchored offshore, out of reach of the Athenian squadron, and waited for a day and a night. Then he sailed on and eventually reached Ephesus.

Themistocles rewarded him with money — he had received funds from friends in Athens and from his own secret savings in Argos. Then he set out inland with a Persian escort and sent a letter to King Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, who had just come to the throne. It read:

"I am Themistocles. I come to you. Of all the Greeks, I did the most harm to your father's house — but only when I was forced to defend my country against his invasion. Yet the good I did him during his retreat far outweighed the harm, because his retreat brought danger to me but safety to him. You owe me a debt of gratitude" — here he mentioned the warning he had sent to Xerxes at Salamis to withdraw, as well as his claim (which was false) that he was responsible for the bridges over the Hellespont not being destroyed — "and now, still able to do you great service, I come to you, pursued by the Greeks for my friendship to Persia. Give me one year. After that, I will appear before you in person and explain why I have come."

The king, it is said, approved this plan and told him to do as he proposed. Themistocles used the year to study the Persian language and customs as thoroughly as he could. When he finally arrived at court, he achieved a level of influence there greater than any Greek had ever attained — before or since. This was partly due to his brilliant reputation, partly due to the hope he dangled before the king of subjugating Greece, but mostly due to the daily, unmistakable proof of his extraordinary ability.

For Themistocles was a man who showed the most undeniable signs of genius — and in this regard, he deserves admiration beyond anyone else, without parallel. Through sheer natural intelligence, without formal training or supplementary study, he was the best judge of any sudden crisis that left no time for deliberation, and the best at predicting how the future would unfold, even its most distant possibilities. He could explain clearly whatever fell within his area of experience, and he could render sound judgments even on matters he had never encountered before. He had an extraordinary ability to foresee the good and evil hidden in an uncertain future. In short — whether we measure the range of his natural gifts or the minimal effort he put into developing them — this remarkable man surpassed all others in the ability to meet any emergency by pure instinct.

As for his death: disease was the real cause, though there is a story that he poisoned himself when he realized he could never fulfill his promises to the king. However he died, there is a monument to him in the marketplace of Magnesia, in Asia. He had been governor of the district. The king had given him Magnesia, which brought in fifty talents a year, for his bread; Lampsacus, considered the richest wine country, for his wine; and Myus for his other provisions. His relatives, it is said, brought his bones home in accordance with his wishes and buried them secretly in Attic soil. This had to be done in secret, since Athenian law forbade the burial in Attica of anyone condemned as a traitor.

So ends the story of Pausanias the Spartan and Themistocles the Athenian — the two most famous men of their time in all of Greece.

THE FINAL DIPLOMATIC EXCHANGES

To return to the Spartans and their demands. Their first embassy, which demanded the expulsion of the "accursed," along with Athens's response, has already been described. A second embassy followed, ordering Athens to lift the siege of Potidaea and to respect the independence of Aegina. Above all, it made one thing perfectly clear: war could be avoided if Athens revoked the Megarian Decree — the law that barred the Megarians from using Athenian harbors and the Athenian marketplace.

Athens was not inclined to revoke the decree, or to accept any of the other demands. The Athenians accused the Megarians of encroaching on sacred land and unmarked border territory, and of harboring their runaway slaves.

Finally, a last embassy arrived carrying the Spartan ultimatum. The ambassadors were Ramphias, Melesippus, and Agesander. They said not a word about any of the previous complaints. They delivered only this:

"Sparta wishes the peace to continue, and there is no reason why it should not — if you leave the Greeks independent."

The Athenians called an assembly and opened the matter to debate. They resolved to address all of Sparta's demands at once and give a single, final answer. Many speakers came forward, arguing both sides — some insisting that war was unavoidable, others urging that the decree should be revoked rather than letting it stand in the way of peace.

Then Pericles, son of Xanthippus, stepped forward. He was the first man of his time at Athens — the ablest in both strategy and action — and he gave the following advice:

THE SPEECH OF PERICLES

"There is one principle, Athenians, that I hold to through everything, and that is the principle of no concession to the Peloponnesians.

"I know that the fighting spirit people feel when they are being talked into war does not always survive contact with reality — that as circumstances change, so do people's convictions. Yet I see that now, as before, very nearly the same advice is called for, and I put it to those of you who are letting yourselves be persuaded: support the national decision even if things go badly, or else give up any claim to credit if things go well. The course of events can be as unpredictable as the plans of men. That is exactly why we tend to blame luck for anything that does not turn out the way we expected.

"It was already clear that Sparta had designs against us. It is even clearer now. The treaty says we should submit our disputes to arbitration and that, in the meantime, each side keeps what it has. Yet the Spartans have never offered us arbitration. They have never accepted it when we offered. They want complaints settled by force, not by negotiation. And now here they are, dropping the tone of protest and adopting the tone of command. They order us to lift the siege of Potidaea, to let Aegina be independent, to revoke the Megarian Decree. And they cap it all off with an ultimatum: leave the Greeks independent.

"I hope none of you will think we are going to war over a trifle if we refuse to revoke the Megarian Decree. They have put that complaint at the front of their list, and they are telling us that revoking it will prevent war. Do not let any trace of self-reproach creep into your minds, as though you were going to war over something small. Because this 'trifle' contains the entire test of your resolve. If you give in, you will immediately face a bigger demand — since they will assume that fear made you obey the first time. But a firm refusal will make it unmistakably clear that they must deal with you as equals.

"So make your decision now. Either submit before any harm is done — or, if we are going to war (and I, for one, believe we should), then go to war without caring whether the stated cause is large or small. Commit to making no concessions and no longer holding your possessions on borrowed time. Because when an equal power issues demands to a neighbor as though giving orders, before even attempting arbitration — whether those demands are large or small — it all means the same thing. It means slavery.

"As for the war itself and the resources of each side, listen carefully and you will see that Athens is in no way inferior. The Peloponnesians farm their own land. They have no financial reserves, public or private. They have no experience in long wars fought far from home, because their poverty forces them to keep their campaigns against each other short. States like this cannot frequently man a fleet or frequently send out an army. They cannot afford to be away from their farms or to spend their own money. And they do not control the sea.

"Remember: it is capital that sustains a war, not forced contributions. Farmers are always more willing to serve with their bodies than with their wallets. They are confident their bodies will survive the dangers, but they have no such confidence about their money — especially if the war drags on longer than they expect, which it very well might.

"In a single battle, the Peloponnesians and their allies might be able to stand against all of Greece. But they are incapable of waging a sustained war against a power fundamentally different from their own. Their problem is that they have no single decision-making body. Instead, they have a council made up of many different peoples, where every state gets an equal vote and each one pushes its own agenda. The usual result? Nothing gets done. Some of them want to punish a particular enemy. Others just want to protect their own treasury. They are slow to assemble, and when they do, they spend very little time on the common cause and most of it on their own business. Each one assumes that his own inaction will not matter — that someone else will take care of things. And because every one of them thinks this way, the common cause quietly falls apart.

"But the main obstacle they will face is lack of money. Raising funds will be slow, and the opportunities of war wait for no one.

"We should also not be alarmed by two possibilities: that they might build fortifications in Attica, or that they might develop a navy. Even in peacetime, it would be hard for an enemy fort to function as a rival city — let alone in wartime, with Athens just as strongly fortified against them as they are against us. A garrison post might do some damage through raids and by encouraging deserters, but it could never stop us from sailing against their coast, building our own fortifications in their territory, and hitting back with our powerful fleet. Our naval expertise gives us more advantage on land than their military skill gives them at sea.

"As for seamanship — they will not acquire it easily. You have been practicing since the Persian War and you still have not perfected it. What chance does an agricultural population with no seafaring tradition have? Especially when our strong naval patrols will prevent them from even getting the practice they need? A small squadron might tempt them to risk an engagement, bolstered by numbers and emboldened by ignorance. But the presence of a powerful fleet will keep them pinned down. Without practice they will only grow clumsier, and therefore more cautious. Seamanship is an art, just like anything else. It does not allow for occasional dabbling. In fact, it is so demanding that it leaves no room for anything else.

"And even if they were to raid the treasuries at Olympia and Delphi and try to poach our foreign sailors with higher pay, that would only be a serious threat if we could not match them by manning our ships with our own citizens and the resident foreigners among us. But we can always do that. And best of all, we have a larger and more skilled pool of native helmsmen and sailors among our own citizens than all the rest of Greece combined. Not to mention: none of our foreign sailors would give up their citizenship and go into exile just for the sake of a few days' higher wages fighting on the enemy's side — with far worse prospects.

"That, I think, is a fair assessment of the Peloponnesians' position. Our own position is free of every weakness I have described in theirs, and has other advantages they cannot match. If they march against our territory, we will sail against theirs. And then we will see: the devastation of all of Attica is not the same thing as the devastation of even a fraction of the Peloponnese. They cannot replace their losses without fighting a pitched battle, but we have plenty of land on the islands and the mainland.

"Control of the sea is an enormous advantage. Think about it this way: suppose we were islanders. Could you imagine a more impregnable position? Well, that is how we should think of ourselves from now on. Write off the land and the houses. Guard the sea and the city. Do not let anger over lost property provoke you into a pitched battle against the Peloponnesians' numerical superiority. If we win that battle, we will only have to fight another one against the same numbers. If we lose, we lose our allies too — the source of our strength — because they will not stay loyal a single day once we can no longer project power against them. Mourn the loss of houses and land if you must, but do not mourn them the way you would mourn the loss of lives. Houses and land do not win men — men win houses and land. If I thought I could persuade you, I would tell you to go out and destroy your own property with your own hands, just to show the Peloponnesians that it will never make you submit.

"I have many other reasons to believe we will succeed — if you can resist the temptation to expand the empire while fighting the war, and if you avoid getting drawn into unnecessary risks. Honestly, I am more afraid of our own mistakes than of the enemy's strategies. But those are matters for another speech, as events require.

"For now, send these envoys away with this answer: We will allow Megara access to our markets and harbors when the Spartans stop expelling foreigners from their territory in ways that harm us and our allies — since there is nothing in the treaty that forbids either practice. We will leave the allied cities independent, provided they were independent when we made the treaty — and provided the Spartans grant their own allied cities a genuine independence, not the kind that serves Spartan interests, but the kind each city actually wants. We are willing to submit to the arbitration process that our agreements specify. We will not start hostilities, but we will fight back against anyone who does.

"This answer upholds both the rights and the dignity of Athens. But understand this clearly: war is coming. And the more willingly we accept it, the less eager our enemies will be to press it. Out of the greatest dangers, both nations and individuals win the greatest glory. Our fathers stood against the Persians — not just with fewer resources than ours, but after abandoning even the resources they had. By wisdom more than fortune, by daring more than strength, they beat back the invaders and built everything we have today. We must not fall short of them. We must resist our enemies in every way we can, and hand down our power to the next generation undiminished."

Such were the words of Pericles.

The Athenians were persuaded. They voted as he advised and answered the Spartans along the lines he recommended, both on the individual points and on the general principle: they would do nothing under dictation, but they were prepared to have the disputes settled fairly and impartially through the arbitration process specified in the treaty.

The envoys went home. They did not come back.

These, then, were the charges and grievances that existed between the two rival powers on the eve of the war, arising directly from the affairs at Epidamnus and Corcyra. Even so, contact between them continued — communication went on, though without the formality of official heralds, and not without deep suspicion. Events were unfolding that amounted to a breach of the treaty and grounds for war.

Book II: The First Years

VI

The Attack on Plataea — The First Invasion of Attica — Pericles' Funeral Oration

The war between Athens and Sparta, with their respective allies, now truly began. From this point on, all contact between the two sides ceased except through heralds, and hostilities were pursued without interruption. The history follows events in chronological order, summer by summer and winter by winter.

The Thirty Years' Peace that had been signed after the conquest of Euboea lasted fourteen years. In the fifteenth year — just at the beginning of spring, about six months after the battle of Potidaea — a Theban force a little over three hundred strong made an armed entry into Plataea, a town in Boeotia allied with Athens. It was roughly the first watch of the night. The force was commanded by the Theban generals Pythangelus, son of Phyleides, and Diemporus, son of Onetorides.

The gates had been opened from the inside — by a Plataean named Naucleides, who, along with his political faction, had invited the Thebans in. Their plan was to kill their political opponents, hand the city over to Thebes, and seize power for themselves. The whole scheme had been arranged through Eurymachus, son of Leontiades, a man of great influence in Thebes. Plataea and Thebes had always been at odds, and the Thebans, seeing war on the horizon, wanted to seize their old enemy while the peace still technically held and before actual hostilities broke out. That was how the Thebans managed to slip in so easily without being detected — no guard had been posted.

Once the soldiers had grounded their weapons in the marketplace, the conspirators who had let them in urged them to get straight to work: go to the houses of their enemies and kill them. But the Thebans refused. Instead, they decided to make a conciliatory announcement and try to bring the city over peacefully. Their herald called on anyone who wished to rejoin the old Boeotian alliance to lay down their arms alongside the Thebans. They believed this approach would win the city without a fight.

When the Plataeans realized that Thebans were inside their walls and had seized the town, they panicked. In the darkness, they assumed a much larger force had entered than was actually the case. Unable to see clearly, they came to terms and accepted the Thebans' proposal without resistance — especially since the Thebans weren't harming anyone.

But then, somehow, during the negotiations, the Plataeans discovered just how few Thebans there actually were. They decided they could easily overpower them. The majority of Plataeans had no intention of abandoning their alliance with Athens, and they resolved to fight back.

Here is how they prepared. They dug through the shared walls between their houses, moving from one to another without having to go through the streets, where they might be seen. They dragged wagons into the streets — without oxen — to serve as barricades, and made every other arrangement the situation allowed. When everything was in place, they waited for the right moment. Then they burst out of their houses and attacked.

It was still dark, but dawn was close. They had planned it this way deliberately: in daylight, the Thebans would be confident and dangerous, fighting on equal terms. In the dark, they would be terrified — and the Plataeans, who knew every street and alley, would have the advantage. So they struck at once and closed in fast.

The Thebans, caught off guard, formed up tight and fought back. Twice, even three times, they beat off the attackers. But the Plataeans kept coming, shouting and charging. Women and slaves screamed from the rooftops and hurled stones and roof tiles down on the Thebans. It had been raining hard all night, and at last the Thebans' nerve broke. They turned and ran through the town.

It was a slaughter. Most of the fleeing Thebans had no idea which streets led out of the city. The mud was everywhere. The moon was in its last quarter, so there was almost no light. The Plataeans, meanwhile, knew every turn and could cut off their escape routes with ease. The only gate that had been left open was the one the Thebans had come in through — and a Plataean slammed it shut by driving the spike of a javelin through the bar in place of the bolt. Even that way out was sealed.

Now the Thebans were hunted through the town. Some scrambled up onto the city wall and threw themselves over — most of them dying from the fall. One group found an unguarded gate and a woman who gave them an axe; they hacked through the bar and got out, though they were spotted quickly and only a few made it. Others were killed in ones and twos in different parts of the city.

The largest group — the most organized survivors — rushed into a large building that stood against the city wall. The doors facing the street happened to be open, and the Thebans, in their confusion, thought they were the city gates with a passage leading straight through to the outside. They were trapped. The Plataeans debated whether to set the building on fire and burn them alive, or find some other way to deal with them. In the end, this group and the other Theban survivors still scattered through the town surrendered unconditionally — giving up themselves and their weapons to the Plataeans.

That was the fate of the Thebans inside Plataea.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Theban army — a much larger force that was supposed to have arrived before dawn as backup — got the news of the disaster while still on the march and pushed forward to help. Plataea was about eight miles from Thebes, but the rain during the night had swollen the Asopus River, making it difficult to cross. Marching through rain and struggling through the flooding, they arrived too late. The entire raiding party was either dead or captured.

When the Thebans learned what had happened, they immediately turned their attention to the Plataeans who were outside the city walls. Since the attack had come during peacetime, completely without warning, there were naturally people and livestock out in the fields. The Thebans wanted to seize some of them as hostages, hoping to trade them for any of their own men who had been taken alive.

But the Plataeans anticipated this move almost before it was made. Alarmed for their people outside the walls, they sent a herald to the Thebans, warning them that what they had done — attacking a city in peacetime — was an outrage, and demanding that they leave the people in the countryside alone. If the Thebans ignored this warning, the Plataeans threatened to execute their prisoners. But if the Thebans withdrew from Plataean territory, they promised to hand the captives back.

That is the Theban version of events, and the Thebans claim the Plataeans swore an oath to this effect. The Plataeans tell a different story. They deny they made any unconditional promise to return the prisoners immediately — only that they might do so after negotiations. And they deny swearing any oath at all.

Whatever the truth, once the Thebans withdrew from Plataean territory without doing any damage, the Plataeans rushed to bring in everything they had in the countryside. Then they immediately executed the prisoners. There were a hundred and eighty of them. Eurymachus — the man who had arranged the whole plot — was among the dead.

After this, the Plataeans sent a messenger to Athens and returned the Theban dead under a truce. Then they organized the city's defenses as best they could for the emergency ahead.

The Athenians, meanwhile, had received word of the attack almost as it was happening. They immediately arrested all the Boeotians in Attica and sent a herald to Plataea, ordering the Plataeans not to take any drastic action against their Theban prisoners until Athens could weigh in. But the news of the executions hadn't reached Athens yet. The first messenger had left Plataea just as the Thebans were entering the city; the second had left right after their defeat and capture. Athens had no idea what had happened since. So the Athenians sent their instructions in the dark — and by the time the herald arrived, the men were already dead.

After this, the Athenians marched to Plataea with supplies, left a garrison, and evacuated the women, children, and least able-bodied men.

With the attack on Plataea, the treaty had been shattered by an unmistakable act of war. Athens began preparing in earnest, and so did Sparta and its allies. Both sides sent embassies to the Persian king and to whatever other foreign powers might help them. They also tried to win over the independent Greek states. Sparta ordered its allies in Italy and Sicily to build ships up to a combined total of five hundred, with each city's contribution proportional to its size. They were also to prepare a set amount of money. Until the fleet was ready, they were to remain neutral and allow single Athenian ships into their harbors.

Athens, for its part, reviewed its existing alliances and sent envoys to the states surrounding the Peloponnese — Corcyra, Cephallenia, Acarnania, and Zacynthus — reasoning that if these could be counted on, Athens could carry the war around the entire Peloponnesian coastline.

Both sides were thinking big and throwing everything into the effort, which was only natural. Enthusiasm is always highest at the start of a war. At this particular moment, the Peloponnese and Athens were both full of young men eager to fight — men whose inexperience made them hungry for action. The rest of Greece watched with breathless excitement as its two greatest powers squared off. Everywhere, oracles were being recited and prophecies chanted by the people who collect such things, and not just in the combatant states.

There was even an earthquake at Delos shortly before the war — the first anyone could remember happening there. People saw it as an omen of what was to come. In fact, nothing unusual happened during this period without someone finding meaning in it.

The sympathies of the Greek world ran heavily in Sparta's favor, especially since the Spartans had declared themselves the liberators of Greece. Every city and every individual threw themselves into the cause, convinced that wherever they weren't personally involved, things would go wrong. That was the depth of popular fury against Athens — whether from states desperate to escape Athenian rule or from those terrified of being swallowed up by it.

Such were the preparations and the passions with which the war began.

The allies on each side were as follows. With Sparta: all the Peloponnesian states inside the Isthmus, except Argos and the Achaeans, who were neutral — though Pellene was the one Achaean city that joined from the start, and the rest eventually followed. Outside the Peloponnese, Sparta had the Megarians, Locrians, Boeotians, Phocians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians. Ships were provided by Corinth, Megara, Sicyon, Pellene, Elis, Ambracia, and Leucas. Cavalry came from Boeotia, Phocis, and Locris. The other states furnished infantry.

That was the Spartan alliance. Athens had the Chians, Lesbians, Plataeans, the Messenians at Naupactus, most of the Acarnanians, the Corcyraeans, and the Zacynthians, along with tribute-paying cities in the following regions: the coast of Caria and its Dorian neighbors, Ionia, the Hellespont, the Thracian coast, the islands between the Peloponnese and Crete to the east, and all the Cyclades except Melos and Thera. Ships were provided by Chios, Lesbos, and Corcyra; infantry and money by the rest.

Those were the alliances and resources on each side.

Immediately after the attack on Plataea, Sparta sent orders throughout the Peloponnese and to the rest of its alliance: prepare troops and supplies for a foreign campaign. The objective was the invasion of Attica. The various states assembled at the Isthmus at the appointed time, each contributing two-thirds of its total force. When the entire army had mustered, King Archidamus of Sparta, the expedition's commander, called together the generals and leading officers of every contingent and addressed them:

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"Peloponnesians and allies — our fathers waged many campaigns, both inside and outside the Peloponnese, and the older men among us are no strangers to war. Yet we have never marched out with a force as large as this one. And if our army is remarkable in its numbers and quality, so is the power of the city we march against.

"We must not, then, show ourselves inferior to our ancestors or fall short of our own reputation. All of Greece is watching this campaign, its hopes and attention fixed on what we do — and its sympathies firmly against the hated Athens.

"But even though this army looks overwhelming, and some of you may think the enemy won't dare meet us in the field, that is no excuse for carelessness. Officers and soldiers of every contingent must stay prepared for danger at all times. War is unpredictable. Attacks usually come in sudden rushes of impulse. Time and again, overconfident armies have been caught off guard, while smaller forces, made cautious by a proper sense of danger, have held the line against superior numbers.

"Confidence is fine in an invading army. But in enemy territory, it must be paired with caution. That combination produces troops who can strike hard and withstand anything thrown at them.

"The city we march against is far from helpless. It is armed to the teeth. We should fully expect the Athenians to take the field against us. If they haven't already done so before we arrive, they certainly will when they see us ravaging their land, destroying their property before their very eyes. Nothing enrages people more than suffering injuries they are not used to, watching them happen in real time. Where thought is least, action is fiercest.

"The Athenians are precisely that kind of enemy. They aspire to rule the world. They are far more accustomed to invading their neighbors' territory than to watching their own be ravaged.

"Keeping all this in mind, march with discipline and vigilance as your highest priorities. Obey your orders promptly the moment they come. Nothing gives an army more strength and more safety than the union of a great force under a single discipline."

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With that brief speech, Archidamus dismissed the assembly and immediately sent Melesippus, son of Diacritus, a Spartan, to Athens, in case the Athenians might be more inclined to give in now that a Peloponnesian army was actually on the move.

But the Athenians would not let him into the city or address the assembly. Pericles had already pushed through a decree: once the Spartans had marched, no herald and no embassy would be received. Melesippus was sent away without a hearing and ordered to be beyond the Athenian frontier by the end of the day. In the future, if those who sent him had anything to say, they would need to return to their own territory first before dispatching envoys.

An escort was assigned to make sure Melesippus spoke to no one along the way. When he reached the border and was about to be dismissed, he said these words before departing:

"This day will be the beginning of great suffering for the Greeks."

When the message reached the camp that the Athenians had no intention of yielding, Archidamus finally broke camp and advanced into Attica. Meanwhile, the Boeotians sent their contingent of troops and cavalry to join the Peloponnesian expedition, while their remaining forces marched on Plataea and laid waste to its countryside.

While the Peloponnesians were still mustering at the Isthmus — or on the march but not yet in Attica — Pericles, one of the ten Athenian generals, realized that the invasion was going to happen and had a potential problem to deal with. Archidamus happened to be his personal friend. Pericles suspected that when the Spartans ravaged the countryside, Archidamus might deliberately spare his estates — either out of genuine friendship or as a calculated move by Sparta to discredit Pericles. (Something similar had been attempted before, with the demand that Athens expel the "accursed" family.)

So Pericles got ahead of it. He announced to the Athenian assembly that Archidamus was indeed his friend, but that friendship would never extend to harming the state. If the enemy left his houses and lands untouched while destroying everyone else's, he would immediately hand over his entire property to the public. No one should suspect him of anything.

He then gave the Athenians the same advice he had been giving all along. Prepare for war. Move everything from the countryside into the city. Do not march out to fight. Come inside the walls and defend them. Put your faith in the fleet — that was where Athens's real strength lay. Keep a tight rein on the allies, because the money from their tribute payments was the foundation of Athenian power. Wars were won with sound strategy and capital.

On that score, he told them, they had no reason for despair. Setting aside other sources of income, the annual revenue from allied tribute alone averaged six hundred talents of silver. There were still six thousand talents of coined silver in the Acropolis, out of nine thousand seven hundred that had once been there. The difference had been spent on the grand entrance to the Acropolis, on other public buildings, and on the siege of Potidaea. In addition, there was uncoined gold and silver in public and private offerings, sacred vessels used in processions and games, spoils taken from the Persians, and other resources worth at least another five hundred talents. The treasures from the other temples could be added to this — a considerable sum.

And if they were ever truly desperate, they could even strip the gold from the statue of Athena herself. The statue held forty talents of pure gold, and all of it was removable. This could be used for the city's survival — though every penny would have to be paid back.

Those were their financial resources, and they were substantial. As for their army: thirteen thousand heavy infantry in the field, plus another sixteen thousand on garrison and home defense duty — a force made up of the oldest and youngest citizens, along with resident aliens who had heavy armor. The defensive walls were well manned. The Phaleric Wall ran about four miles before joining the city wall, and the city wall itself ran nearly five miles, though not all of it required a guard. The Long Walls to Piraeus stretched about four and a half miles, with the outer wall manned. The entire circuit of Piraeus, including Munychia, was nearly seven and a half miles, though only half was guarded.

Pericles also showed them they had twelve hundred cavalry — including mounted archers — sixteen hundred unmounted archers, and three hundred galleys ready for service.

Those were Athens's resources as the Peloponnesian invasion approached. Pericles made his usual arguments for why the war could be won.

The Athenians listened and began carrying in their wives, children, and household goods from the countryside — even stripping the woodwork from their houses to bring it with them. They sent their sheep and cattle to Euboea and the nearby islands.

But the move was hard. Most Athenians had always lived in the country, and leaving home was agony.

This attachment to rural life went further back in Athens than almost anywhere else. In the earliest times, under Cecrops and the first kings all the way down to Theseus, Attica had been a collection of independent townships, each with its own town hall and magistrates. Except in times of danger, these communities ran their own affairs without consulting the king in Athens. Sometimes they even fought against him — as when the people of Eleusis, under Eumolpus, warred against Erechtheus.

Then came Theseus — a king of equal intelligence and power. One of his greatest achievements was to abolish the separate councils and magistracies of the smaller towns and merge them all into a single government centered on Athens. People could still own their private property, but from that point on there was one capital, one political center. By the time Theseus died, he had created a genuinely great state. Athens still celebrates the Synoecia — the Festival of Union — in his honor, paid for by the state as an offering to the goddess Athena.

Before Theseus, the city had consisted of the Acropolis and the area just south of it. This can be seen from the fact that the temples of the other gods — aside from the temple of Athena on the Acropolis itself — are mostly clustered in that southern quarter: the temples of Olympian Zeus, of Pythian Apollo, of Earth, and of Dionysus in the Marshes, where the ancient festival of Dionysia is still celebrated in the month of Anthesterion, not only by the Athenians but also by their Ionian descendants. Other ancient temples stand in the same district. The fountain, too — known as Enneacrounos, or "Nine Pipes," since the old tyrants had it remodeled, though it was originally called Callirhoe, or "Fair Water," when the spring ran free — was nearby and was used for the most important sacred rituals. In fact, the old custom of using its water before weddings and for other ceremonies survives to this day. And because of the Athenians' ancient roots in that quarter, they still call the Acropolis simply "the city."

For a long time, then, the Athenians had lived scattered across Attica in independent townships. Even after the centralization under Theseus, old habits died hard. From the earliest times right down to the present war, most Athenians still lived in the countryside with their families and households. Naturally, they were not eager to move now — especially since many had only just restored their homes after the Persian invasion. The anguish of abandoning their houses, the ancient family temples, the way of life that had been theirs since time immemorial — of saying goodbye to what each person regarded as their true home — was deep and bitter.

When they arrived in Athens, a few had houses of their own to go to, and some found places with friends or relatives. But the vast majority had to crowd into whatever empty spaces they could find — the open areas of the city, the temples, the shrines of the heroes. Every available spot was taken. The only exceptions were the Acropolis, the temple of Eleusinian Demeter, and other sanctuaries that were always kept sealed.

There was even a plot of land below the Acropolis called the Pelasgian, which was cursed and forbidden for habitation. An old oracle of the Pythian god warned:

"Leave the Pelasgian ground desolate — woe to the day that men inhabit it!"

Even this cursed ground was now built over, out of sheer necessity. And in my opinion, if the oracle came true, it was in the opposite way from what people expected. The misfortunes that followed did not come because the ground was settled — rather, the ground was settled because of the war, and the war brought the misfortunes. The god did not mention the war by name, but he foresaw that the ground would only be settled on a dark day for Athens.

Many people also took up residence in the towers along the walls, or anywhere else they could fit. The city simply could not hold everyone. Later, they divided up the Long Walls and much of Piraeus into lots and settled people there too. All the while, preparations for war continued at full speed. The allies were being assembled, and a fleet of a hundred ships was being fitted out for operations around the Peloponnese.

That was the state of things at Athens.

Meanwhile, the Peloponnesian army was advancing. The first town they reached in Attica was Oenoe, a walled fortress on the border between Attica and Boeotia that the Athenians used as a military strongpoint. The Peloponnesians sat down before it and prepared to assault the walls with siege engines.

This wasted valuable time and brought fierce criticism down on Archidamus. He had already been suspected of Athenian sympathies and half-heartedness from the very beginning — during the debates over going to war. His lingering at the Isthmus and the painfully slow pace of the march had damaged his reputation further. But the delay at Oenoe was worst of all. The Athenians were using the time to carry in their property from the fields. The Peloponnesian rank and file believed that a quick advance would have caught everything still out in the open, if not for Archidamus's procrastination.

That was how the army felt about their commander during the siege. Archidamus, for his part, is said to have expected the Athenians to flinch — to make concessions while their land was still unharmed rather than watch it be destroyed. That was why he waited.

But after every attempt to take Oenoe had failed and no herald came from Athens offering terms, he finally broke camp and invaded Attica in earnest. This was roughly eighty days after the Theban attack on Plataea, right in the middle of summer, when the grain was ripe.

The army encamped at Eleusis and the Thriasian plain and began their work of destruction. They routed a detachment of Athenian cavalry near a place called Rheiti — the Brooks — then advanced with Mount Aegaleus on their right, through Cropia, until they reached Acharnae, the largest township in Attica. There they set up camp and continued their devastation for a long time.

Archidamus's reason for staying at Acharnae instead of pushing down into the plain was calculated. He hoped that the Athenians — with their large population of young men, their army at peak readiness — might be tempted to come out and fight to stop the destruction. And if they didn't come out at Eleusis or the Thriasian plain, he thought the spectacle of a camp at Acharnae might provoke them into a rash sortie. Acharnae was an important place: its three thousand heavy infantry were a significant portion of the Athenian army. Surely those men would not sit still while their own property was reduced to ashes. Archidamus expected them to force the rest of the city into battle.

On the other hand, if the Athenians still refused to take the field, he could safely ravage the open plain in future invasions and push his advance right up to the city walls. The Acharnians, having already lost everything, would be far less willing to risk their lives for other people's property next time. Division in the Athenian ranks — that was Archidamus's goal.

For a while, as long as the army had been at Eleusis and the Thriasian plain, the Athenians held onto hope that it would come no closer. They remembered that fourteen years earlier, King Pleistoanax of Sparta had invaded Attica with a Peloponnesian army but had turned back at Eleusis and Thria without advancing further — a decision that cost him exile from Sparta, since people assumed he had been bribed.

But when the army appeared at Acharnae, barely seven miles from Athens, patience snapped.

Athenian territory was being ravaged before their very eyes. The young men had never seen anything like it. The old men hadn't seen it since the Persian Wars. It was a wound to their pride, and the demand to march out and stop it was nearly universal — especially among the young. Groups formed in the streets and argued furiously. Those who wanted to fight shouted the loudest, but there were voices against it too. Oracle-collectors recited every prophecy they could find, and both sides of the debate had eager listeners. The Acharnians were the most vocal of all — their land was being burned, and they made up no small part of the army.

The whole city was in an uproar. Pericles was the target of universal rage. His earlier advice was forgotten. He was cursed for not leading the army out, blamed for every misfortune the city was suffering.

But Pericles could see that anger and recklessness were in command. He was confident that his refusal to march out was right. He would not call an assembly or any public meeting, fearing what a debate driven by fury rather than judgment might produce. Instead, he focused on defending the city and keeping it as calm as possible. He sent cavalry out regularly to prevent enemy raiding parties from plundering the farms close to the walls.

There was a minor cavalry skirmish at Phrygia. Athenian horsemen, fighting alongside Thessalian cavalry, clashed with the Boeotian horse and held their own at first. But when Boeotian heavy infantry came up in support, the Thessalians and Athenians were driven back and lost a few men. They recovered the bodies the same day without needing a truce. The Peloponnesians set up a trophy the next day.

The Thessalians had come to help Athens because of their old alliance. The contingents came from Larisa, Pharsalus, Cranon, Pyrasos, Gyrton, and Pherae, each under its own commander. The Larisaean commanders were Polymedes and Aristonus; the Pharsalian general was Menon.

When it became clear that the Athenians were not going to come out and fight, the Peloponnesians broke camp from Acharnae and ravaged several of the townships between Mount Parnes and Brilessus. While they were still in Attica, the Athenians launched the hundred ships they had been preparing on a cruise around the Peloponnese, carrying a thousand heavy infantry and four hundred archers, under the command of Carcinus, son of Xenotimus, Proteas, son of Epicles, and Socrates, son of Antigenes.

This fleet set sail, and the Peloponnesians, having stayed in Attica until their supplies ran out, withdrew through Boeotia by a different route than the one they had used coming in. As they passed through, they ravaged the territory of Graea near Oropus, which was held from Athens by the Oropians. Then they reached the Peloponnese and dispersed to their home cities.

After the enemy withdrew, the Athenians set up permanent guard posts by land and sea at the locations they intended to hold throughout the war. They also voted to set aside a special reserve fund of a thousand talents from the money in the Acropolis. This reserve was not to be touched. The ongoing expenses of the war would be paid for from other sources. Anyone who proposed — or put to a vote — spending this reserve for any purpose other than defending the city against an enemy naval attack would face the death penalty. Along with this money, they set aside a special fleet of one hundred of the best ships each year, with their captains. These ships were to be used only alongside the reserve fund, and only against the same emergency.

Meanwhile, the Athenian fleet of a hundred ships cruising around the Peloponnese — reinforced by fifty Corcyraean vessels and other allied ships from the region — raided and ravaged the coastline. Among other operations, they landed in Laconia and attacked Methone. The town had no garrison and its walls were weak. But it happened that Brasidas, son of Tellis, a Spartan officer in charge of the local district's defense, heard about the attack. He hurried to the rescue with a hundred heavy infantry, burst straight through the scattered Athenian force — which had its attention fixed on the walls — and threw himself into Methone. He lost a few men forcing his way in, but he saved the town. For this exploit, he became the first officer in the war to receive an official commendation from Sparta.

The Athenians sailed on. Touching at Pheia in Elis, they ravaged the countryside for two days and defeated a picked force of three hundred men who had come out from the Elean valley to defend it. But a fierce storm blew in, and with no harbor for shelter, most of the troops boarded their ships, rounded Point Ichthys, and made for the port of Pheia. Meanwhile, the Messenians and others who hadn't made it aboard marched overland and captured the town. The fleet sailed around and picked them up, then put to sea again. The main Elean army had arrived by then, and Pheia was evacuated. The Athenians continued their cruise, raiding other points along the coast.

Around the same time, the Athenians sent thirty ships to patrol the coast of Locris and guard Euboea, under the command of Cleopompus, son of Clinias. He made several coastal raids, captured the town of Thronium and took hostages from it, and defeated a force of Locrians who had assembled to resist him at Alope.

During this same summer, the Athenians expelled the people of Aegina — men, women, and children — from their island, on the grounds that the Aeginetans had been a primary cause of the war. Besides, Aegina lay so close to the Peloponnese that it seemed safer to settle it with Athenian colonists, which was soon done. The expelled Aeginetans were given refuge in Thyrea by the Spartans, partly because of the quarrel with Athens, and partly because the Aeginetans had helped Sparta during the earthquake and the Helot revolt. Thyrea sits on the border between Argolis and Laconia, reaching down to the sea. Some of the Aeginetans settled there; the rest scattered across Greece.

That same summer, at the start of a new lunar month — the only time it can apparently happen — the sun was eclipsed after noon. It took on the shape of a crescent, and some stars became visible, before it gradually returned to normal.

Also during this summer, the Athenians made Nymphodorus, son of Pythes, an Abderite, their diplomatic representative and summoned him to Athens. His sister was married to Sitalces, king of the Thracians, and the Athenians — who had previously regarded Nymphodorus as an enemy — wanted to use this connection to bring Sitalces into their alliance.

Sitalces was the son of Teres, and Teres had been the first ruler to build the great kingdom of the Odrysians into a real power — something quite unusual in Thrace, where most of the population remained independent. This Teres, by the way, has no connection to the Tereus of mythology, who married Pandion's daughter Procne from Athens. They didn't even come from the same part of Thrace. Tereus lived in Daulis, in what is now Phocis but was then Thracian territory. That was where the women committed the famous outrage against Itys — and it is why many poets call the nightingale the "Daulian bird." Besides, Pandion would naturally have sought a marriage alliance close to home for mutual advantage, not one that required a journey of many days to the land of the Odrysians. The names are different, and this Teres was the first powerful king of the Odrysians.

Sitalces, his son, was the man the Athenians now wanted as an ally, hoping he could help them subdue the Thracian coastal cities and deal with Perdiccas of Macedon. Nymphodorus came to Athens, concluded the alliance with Sitalces, and secured Athenian citizenship for Sitalces' son Sadocus. He also promised to end the fighting in Thrace by persuading Sitalces to send a force of Thracian cavalry and light infantry to fight alongside Athens. On top of that, Nymphodorus reconciled Athens with Perdiccas and convinced the Athenians to return the town of Therme to him. Perdiccas promptly joined forces with Athens and the Athenian commander Phormio in an expedition against the Chalcidians.

And so Sitalces, son of Teres, king of the Thracians, and Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, both became allies of Athens.

Meanwhile, the Athenian fleet of a hundred ships was still cruising the Peloponnese. They captured Sollium, a Corinthian town, and gave it to the Acarnanians of Palaira. They stormed Astacus, expelled its tyrant Evarchus, and brought the city into the Athenian alliance. Then they sailed to the island of Cephallenia — which lies off Acarnania and Leucas and consists of four communities: the Paleans, Cranians, Samaeans, and Pronaeans — and won it over without a fight. Not long afterward, the fleet returned to Athens.

Toward autumn, the Athenians invaded the territory of Megara with their full levy — every citizen, including the resident aliens — under the command of Pericles. The hundred ships on their way home from the Peloponnesian cruise had just reached Aegina when they heard the whole army was at Megara, so they sailed over and joined the invasion. This was without question the largest Athenian army ever assembled. The city was still at full strength, not yet touched by the plague. At least ten thousand citizen heavy infantry took the field, plus the three thousand still at Potidaea. The resident aliens who joined numbered at least three thousand more, and there was a large force of light troops besides. They ravaged most of Megarian territory and withdrew.

Further invasions of Megara were made by the Athenians every year during the war, sometimes with cavalry alone, sometimes with the full army. This continued until they captured the port of Nisaea.

Toward the end of that summer, the Athenians also fortified the small, uninhabited island of Atalanta, off the Opuntian coast, to prevent pirates from raiding Euboea out of Opus and the rest of Locris.

Those were the events of the summer after the Peloponnesians withdrew from Attica.

The following winter, the Acarnanian exile Evarchus persuaded the Corinthians to send a fleet of forty ships and fifteen hundred heavy infantry to restore him to power in Astacus. He also hired some mercenaries of his own. The expedition was commanded by Euphamidas, son of Aristonymus, Timoxenus, son of Timocrates, and Eumachus, son of Chrysis. They sailed over, restored Evarchus, and tried to capture some other places on the Acarnanian coast. When that failed, they headed home. On the way, they put in at Cephallenia and landed in the territory of the Cranians. The Cranians agreed to terms — and then ambushed them, killing some of their men. After this betrayal, the Corinthians hurried back to their ships and sailed home.

In the same winter, the Athenians held a public funeral — at state expense — for those who had been the first to die in the war. The ceremony followed a tradition handed down from their ancestors, and it went like this:

Three days before the funeral, the bones of the dead are laid out in a tent that has been erected for the purpose. Family members bring whatever offerings they wish. On the day of the procession, coffins of cypress wood are carried on wagons, one for each of the ten tribes, with the bones of each tribe's dead placed inside. Among them is carried one empty bier, draped and decorated, for the missing — those whose bodies could not be recovered. Anyone who wishes may join the procession, citizen or foreigner, and the women of the dead men's families are there to mourn at the graveside.

The dead are buried in the public cemetery in the Ceramicus, the most beautiful suburb of the city. Those who fall in war are always buried there — with the sole exception of the men who died at Marathon, whose valor was considered so extraordinary that they were buried on the battlefield itself.

After the bodies are laid in the earth, a man chosen by the state — someone of recognized wisdom and high reputation — delivers a eulogy over them. Then everyone departs. This is the custom, and it was observed throughout the entire war whenever the occasion called for it.

These were the first to have fallen, and Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was chosen to speak over them. When the time came, he stepped forward from the burial ground to a raised platform, built so that as many people as possible could hear him. And he spoke as follows:

---

"Most of those who have spoken here before me have praised the man who added this speech to the ceremony, calling it a fine thing that the fallen should be honored with words as well as deeds. Personally, I would have preferred that men who proved their courage through action be honored through action alone — as you see in this funeral, prepared at the people's expense — rather than having the reputations of many brave men rest on whether one individual happens to speak well or badly. It is hard to strike the right note when your listeners can barely be convinced you are telling the truth. The friend who knew the dead man well will think you have not done him justice. The stranger will suspect exaggeration whenever he hears praise that exceeds what he imagines himself capable of. People can tolerate hearing others praised only so long as they believe they could have done the same. Once you pass that point, jealousy sets in — and with it, disbelief.

"But since our ancestors established this custom, I must follow the law and do my best to meet the expectations of each of you.

"I will begin with our ancestors. It is right and proper to honor them first on an occasion like this. They lived in this country in an unbroken line, generation after generation, and through their courage they handed it down to us free. They deserve our praise. Our own fathers deserve it even more, for they added to what they inherited the empire we now possess, and they spared no effort to leave it to us. And those of us here today — men still in the prime of life — have expanded that empire further still, while equipping the city with everything it needs to be self-sufficient in both war and peace.

"The military achievements that won us our various possessions — whether our own or our fathers' resistance to Greek or foreign invasion — are too well known to this audience to need retelling. I will pass over them. But what I do want to examine is the road by which we reached our present greatness, the form of government that produced it, and the national character from which it sprang. These are questions worth exploring before I turn to the praise of the dead, because I believe this is the right occasion for such a discussion — and one that every person here, citizen or foreigner, can profit from hearing.

"Our constitution does not copy the laws of our neighbors. We are a model to others, not imitators. Because power rests with the majority rather than the few, our system is called a democracy. Before the law, every citizen is equal in settling private disputes. When it comes to public life, what matters is ability, not social class. No one is held back by poverty or obscurity, as long as they have something to contribute to the city.

"The freedom we enjoy in public life extends to our daily lives as well. We do not watch our neighbors with jealous eyes or resent them for living as they please. We do not give them the kind of dirty looks that, while technically harmless, are poisonous all the same. Yet this tolerance in private does not make us lawless in public. We obey the authorities and the laws — especially those that protect the vulnerable, and those unwritten laws whose violation brings universal shame.

"Beyond this, we have provided countless ways for the mind to find rest from work. We hold festivals and public games throughout the year. Our private homes are furnished with taste and elegance, and the daily pleasure these bring keeps the spirit fresh. The sheer size of our city draws goods from every corner of the world into our harbor, so that the products of foreign lands are as familiar to an Athenian as those of his own.

"Our military policy, too, sets us apart. We throw our city open to the world. We never pass laws to keep foreigners out or prevent them from seeing or learning anything — even though an enemy might occasionally benefit from our openness. We trust not in secret preparations and clever tricks, but in the courage that comes naturally to our citizens. In education, our rivals impose grueling discipline on their children from the very start, drilling toughness into them from the cradle. We Athenians live exactly as we please — and yet we are just as ready to face any legitimate danger.

"Here is the proof. The Spartans never invade our territory alone — they always bring their entire alliance. But we Athenians march into our neighbors' land by ourselves and usually win, even though we are fighting men who are defending their own homes. No enemy has ever faced our full combined strength, because we have to maintain our navy and simultaneously send our citizens on missions across the world. When the enemy engages some fraction of our forces and wins, they boast of having defeated all of Athens. When they lose, they claim they were beaten by our entire army. Yet if we are willing to face danger with a relaxed way of life rather than constant drilling, with natural courage rather than state-imposed toughness, then we have the best of both worlds. We are spared the misery of training for hardships that haven't arrived, yet we face them just as fearlessly as those who train for nothing else.

"And these are not the only reasons to admire our city. We love beauty without becoming extravagant. We love wisdom without becoming soft. Wealth is something we use, not something we show off, and we see no disgrace in admitting to poverty — only in failing to fight against it. Our leaders manage public affairs and private business alike, and our ordinary citizens, though busy with their own work, are excellent judges of public policy. We are unique among peoples in regarding the man who takes no part in civic life not as someone minding his own business, but as useless. We Athenians may not all originate policy, but we can all judge it soundly. We do not see debate as an obstacle to action — we see it as an essential first step before any wise action can be taken.

"In fact, we combine daring and deliberation to a degree found nowhere else — and in the same people. In most places, boldness comes from ignorance and hesitation from thinking too much. But the truly brave are those who understand exactly what dangers lie ahead and go forward anyway. In generosity, too, we stand apart. We win friends by giving, not by receiving. The giver is the stronger friend, because his continued kindness keeps the other in his debt, while the receiver feels that any return he makes is repayment, not a free gift. We Athenians alone extend our help without calculating the cost — not out of self-interest, but out of the fearless confidence of a free people.

"In short, I say that as a city, we are the school of Greece. And I doubt the world can produce another man who, relying on himself alone, is equal to so many challenges and blessed with so graceful a versatility as the Athenian. This is not empty boasting — it is proven fact, demonstrated by the very power our way of life has created. Athens alone, when put to the test, exceeds her reputation. Athens alone gives her enemies no cause for embarrassment at being beaten, and her subjects no grounds to complain that their rulers are unworthy. We have left our power on full display, with mighty proofs that need no Homer to sing their praises — proofs that no poet's charm could embellish, because the facts would dissolve the fiction. We have forced every sea and every land to open before our daring, and everywhere, for good or ill, we have left behind us monuments that will never perish.

"That is the Athens for which these men fought and died, choosing freely not to let her be taken from them. And it is right that every one of their survivors be willing to suffer in her cause.

"I have spoken at length about the character of our city for a reason: to show you that our stake in this struggle is not the same as that of people who have nothing like this to lose, and to let the evidence itself establish the praise of the men I am here to honor. That praise is now largely complete. The Athens I have celebrated is the Athens that the heroism of these men, and men like them, created. Few Greeks could be measured against their deeds and found their equals.

"And if proof of a man's worth is needed, look at how they met their end — an end that sometimes crowned a life of merit, and sometimes gave the first proof of it. For there is justice in the idea that a man's courage in his country's battles should cover his other failings. His service to the public outweighs whatever flaws he had as a private individual. None of these men let the lure of future wealth drain their courage, or let the hope of escaping poverty tempt them to avoid danger. Vengeance against the enemy mattered more to them than any personal comfort. They considered this the most glorious of all risks, and they embraced it willingly — letting hope take care of the uncertain future while trusting in themselves to handle the fight at hand. When the moment came, they chose to stand and die rather than to save themselves by giving in. They fled from dishonor, but they met danger face to face. In one brief moment, at the very peak of their fortune, they passed from the world — leaving behind not their fear, but their glory.

"These men died as Athenians should. You who survive them must resolve to meet the enemy with no less courage, though you may pray for a better outcome. Do not be content merely to hear about the advantages of defending your city — I could go on at length, and you already know them well enough. Instead, look at Athens herself. Gaze at her, day after day, until the love of her fills your heart. And when her greatness breaks over you in full, remember this: it was built by men of daring, men who understood their duty, men who felt the sting of shame in the face of failure — men who, when they fell short in some enterprise, refused to deprive their city of their courage and instead laid it at her feet as the finest offering they could make.

"By giving their lives together, each of them won for himself a fame that will never grow old. Their grave is not only this mound of earth — it is in every land, in every heart. Far from home, where no carved column bears their names, an unwritten memorial lives in the minds of all people, remembered not on stone but in the soul.

"Take these men as your model. Know that happiness comes from freedom, and freedom from courage, and do not shrink from the dangers of war. It is not those with nothing to live for who should be readiest to risk their lives — they have nothing to lose. It is those like you, who still have everything to gain or lose, for whom a fall would be most devastating. Surely, for a person of spirit, the humiliation of cowardice is infinitely worse than a death that comes swift and unfelt, in the fullness of strength and hope.

"And so I offer comfort, not condolence, to the parents of the dead who may be here. You know better than anyone how many dangers life holds. Fortunate are those whose loved ones drew a death so glorious as their portion, and whose own lives were measured out to end in the same happiness in which they were lived. I know this is hard to hear — especially when you will be constantly reminded, by the happiness of others, of the blessings you once enjoyed. Grief is sharpest not for things we never had, but for things we had and lost. Still, those of you young enough to have more children should take heart. New children will help you bear the loss, and they will serve the state as both reinforcement and security. No man can make fair and impartial decisions for the city unless he, like his fellow citizens, has children of his own at stake. Those of you who are past that age can take comfort in this: the greater part of your life was lived in good fortune, and the time that remains will be brightened by the fame of the fallen. Only the love of honor never grows old. And in the twilight of life, it is honor — not profit, as some would say — that warms the heart.

"To the sons and brothers of the dead, I see a hard struggle ahead of you. Everyone praises a man once he is gone, and even if your own merit is extraordinary, you will find it nearly impossible not just to match their reputation, but even to come close. The living must contend with envy. The dead are honored with a goodwill that rivalry cannot touch.

"And if I must say something about womanly virtue to those of you who are now widows, I will put it briefly: your greatest glory is to be no less than the nature you were born with, and the best among you is the one who is least talked about among men, whether for praise or blame.

"My task is now complete. I have done what I could with words, and the requirements of our custom are satisfied. As for deeds, the men buried here have already received part of their honors. For the rest — their children will be raised at public expense until they come of age. This is the prize the city offers, the garland of victory in the contest of courage, both for the fallen and for those who live on after them. Where the rewards for bravery are greatest, there you will find the best citizens.

"Now that your mourning is done, you may go."

---

CHAPTER VII

The Second Year of the War — The Plague of Athens — Pericles' Position and Policy — The Fall of Potidaea

That was the funeral ceremony, and with it the first year of the war came to an end.

At the start of the following summer, the Spartans and their allies invaded Attica again with two-thirds of their forces, just as before. The army was under the command of King Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus. They settled in and began systematically destroying the countryside.

They had not been in Attica many days when the plague first appeared among the Athenians.

People said it had broken out earlier in several places — around the island of Lemnos and elsewhere — but no one could remember a plague this devastating or this deadly. Doctors were useless at first. They had no idea how to treat it, and they were the ones dying fastest, since they had the most contact with the sick. No other human skill or expertise made any difference either. Prayers at the temples, consultations with oracles, rituals of every kind — all equally pointless. Eventually the sheer scale of the catastrophe made people stop trying.

The disease is said to have started in the parts of Ethiopia south of Egypt, then spread down into Egypt and Libya and across much of the Persian Empire. It struck Athens suddenly. The first cases appeared in the port district of Piraeus — which is why people claimed that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the water supply, since Piraeus had no wells at that time, only open cisterns. Later the plague moved into the upper city, and the death toll climbed sharply.

I will leave it to others — whether doctors or laypeople — to speculate about the plague's origins and what might have caused a disruption this severe. For my part, I will simply describe what it was like and document the symptoms, so that if it ever strikes again, anyone who reads this will be able to recognize it. I can do this with some authority, because I caught the disease myself and I watched it destroy others around me.

That year had been remarkably free of ordinary illness. The few cases of anything else that did occur all ended up turning into the plague. But otherwise, people in perfect health were struck down without warning. It began with an intense burning heat in the head and redness and swelling in the eyes. The throat and tongue turned bloody, and the breath became foul and unnatural. Next came sneezing and hoarseness. Soon the pain moved down to the chest, producing a harsh, racking cough. When it reached the stomach, it caused violent nausea and vomiting — every kind of bile discharge that medical literature has a name for — accompanied by terrible suffering. Most patients were then seized by an agonizing dry heaving, producing powerful spasms that in some cases subsided quickly but in others went on for a long time.

The skin was not especially hot to the touch and was not pale. It was flushed and livid, breaking out in small blisters and open sores. But inside, the body burned so intensely that patients could not stand to have even the lightest linen or cloth on their skin. They wanted to be completely naked. What they craved most was to throw themselves into cold water — and some of the sick who had no one to look after them actually did, plunging into rain cisterns in the agony of unquenchable thirst. It made no difference whether they drank a little or a lot. And all the while there was the unbearable torment of being unable to rest or sleep.

Here was the strangest thing: the body did not waste away while the disease was at its peak. It held up against the assault with astonishing resilience. When victims finally died — most of them on the seventh or eighth day, killed by the internal inflammation — they still had some physical strength left. But if they survived past that crisis point and the disease moved down into the bowels, it caused severe ulceration and uncontrollable diarrhea, and the resulting weakness usually killed them. The infection started in the head and worked its way through the entire body from top to bottom. Even when it did not kill, it left its mark on the extremities. It attacked the genitals, the fingers, and the toes. Many people survived but lost those parts of their body. Some lost their eyes. Others recovered only to find that their memory was completely gone — they did not recognize themselves or anyone they knew.

The nature of the disease defied description, and its violence was almost beyond what the human body could endure. But what most clearly set it apart from any ordinary sickness was this: the birds and animals that normally feed on human remains either refused to touch the bodies — though corpses lay unburied everywhere — or they ate and died. The proof was unmistakable. Scavenging birds simply vanished. They were not seen near the bodies. They were not seen at all. The effects were easiest to observe with dogs.

Those, then, were the general features of the plague — setting aside the countless individual variations, which were many and strange. While the plague raged, Athens was free of every other illness. Any case of anything else simply turned into the plague.

Some people died alone and neglected. Others died surrounded by every possible care. No remedy worked reliably. What helped one patient killed the next. Strong bodies and weak bodies fell with equal ease — the disease swept all of them away regardless of how carefully they were tended.

But the most terrible thing about the plague was the despair. The moment people felt themselves getting sick, they gave up hope completely. That hopelessness destroyed their will to fight the disease and made them far easier prey. And then there was the horror of watching people die like animals from the infection they had caught while nursing the sick. This was the single greatest cause of death. If people were too afraid to visit one another, the sick died of neglect — and entire households were wiped out because there was no one to care for them. But if they did venture to help, they died too. This was especially true of people with any sense of decency. Honor would not let them spare themselves when their friends needed care, and they kept going to the houses of the sick even when the family members living there had already been worn down by the constant groaning of the dying and had themselves succumbed. It was the survivors — those who had already recovered from the plague — who showed the most compassion for the sick and dying. They knew from their own experience what it was like, and they had nothing to fear, because the disease never struck the same person twice — or at least never fatally. These people received everyone's congratulations and even allowed themselves, in the giddiness of the moment, to half-believe that they were now immune to every disease in the world.

The suffering was made infinitely worse by the flood of refugees from the countryside into the city. This hit the newcomers hardest. They had no houses to go to, and in the stifling heat of summer they were crammed into suffocating huts and shacks where death raged unchecked. Bodies piled on top of bodies. Half-dead people staggered through the streets and clustered around every fountain, desperate for water. The temples where refugees had set up camp became charnel houses, filled with the corpses of those who had crawled in and died right where they lay. The disaster overwhelmed everything. People stopped caring about anything — sacred or profane — because they had no idea whether they would live or die. Every traditional burial practice was abandoned. People disposed of the dead however they could. Many, having already lost so many friends and family that they had nothing left to build a proper funeral pyre, resorted to the most shameful methods. Some would race to a pyre that someone else had built, throw their own dead on top of it, and light it before the builders could stop them. Others would wait until a pyre was already burning with someone else's body and toss their corpse onto the flames before walking away.

The plague bred other forms of lawlessness too. People now openly did things they would previously have done only in secret and only furtively. They watched men who were rich and healthy one day drop dead the next, while people who had owned nothing suddenly inherited their property. So they decided: spend fast, enjoy now. Life and wealth alike could be gone tomorrow. No one was willing to endure hardship for what people used to call "honor" — who knew if you would live long enough for it to matter? The only thing anyone agreed on was that pleasure, right now, was what counted.

Fear of the gods did not restrain them. Neither did the law. As for religion, worshipping the gods or not seemed to make no difference — everyone was dying equally. As for the law, no one expected to live long enough to stand trial. A far heavier sentence had already been passed on them all, and it hung over every head. Before it fell, it only made sense to get some enjoyment out of life.

Such was the calamity that crushed Athens — death inside the walls, devastation outside them. In their misery, the Athenians naturally recalled an old prophecy that the elders said had been spoken long ago:

"A Dorian war shall come, and with it death."

A debate broke out about the exact wording. Some insisted the original verse said "dearth" — famine — not "death." But given the circumstances, "death" won out. People made the prophecy fit their suffering. I suspect that if another war with the Dorians ever comes and happens to bring famine with it, people will quote the verse the other way.

There was also the oracle that had been given to the Spartans before the war. When they asked the god at Delphi whether they should fight, he answered that if they put their full strength into it, victory would be theirs — and that he himself would be on their side. People now connected that oracle to the plague. It had struck Athens the moment the Peloponnesians invaded Attica. The plague never reached the Peloponnese in any significant way. It hit Athens hardest, and after Athens, the most densely populated cities.

That was the history of the plague.

---

After devastating the plains, the Peloponnesians advanced into the coastal region called Paralia, pushing as far as Laurium, where the Athenian silver mines were located. They ravaged the side facing the Peloponnese first, then the side facing Euboea and Andros. But Pericles, still serving as general, held to the same strategy as during the first invasion: he refused to let the Athenians march out against them.

While the Peloponnesians were still on the plains and had not yet entered the coastal region, Pericles had already prepared a fleet of a hundred ships for a strike against the Peloponnese. When everything was ready, he put to sea. The fleet carried four thousand Athenian heavy infantry, three hundred cavalry in horse transports — built for the first time by converting old warships — and was joined by fifty ships from Chios and Lesbos.

When this Athenian armada set sail, the Peloponnesians were still in Attica, in the Paralia district. The fleet reached Epidaurus on the Peloponnesian coast and ravaged most of its territory. They even hoped to take the city by assault, but that did not work out. Sailing on from Epidaurus, they laid waste the territories of Troezen, Halieis, and Hermione — all coastal towns of the Peloponnese. From there they sailed to Prasiai, a port in Spartan territory, ravaged part of the countryside, captured and sacked the town itself, and then headed home. By the time they returned, the Peloponnesians had withdrawn from Attica.

The entire time the Peloponnesians occupied Attica and the Athenians were at sea, the plague kept killing — aboard the ships and in the city alike. In fact, it was said that the Peloponnesians cut their invasion short partly out of fear of the disease. They heard from deserters that it was ravaging Athens, and they could see the funeral pyres burning from a distance. Even so, this was their longest invasion yet — they stayed in Attica for about forty days and devastated the entire countryside.

That same summer, Hagnon, son of Nicias, and Cleopompus, son of Clinias — Pericles' fellow generals — took the fleet he had just used and sailed against the Chalcidian communities in the direction of Thrace, and against Potidaea, which was still under siege. When they arrived, they brought up siege engines against Potidaea and tried every possible means to take it. Nothing worked. They could not capture the city, and the whole expedition fell short of its potential. The plague struck here too, and it was devastating — it completely crippled the force. The soldiers from the original garrison, who had been healthy, caught the infection from Hagnon's arriving troops. Only Phormio and his sixteen hundred men escaped, and only because they had already moved away from the Chalcidian region. In the end, Hagnon sailed back to Athens. He had lost 1,050 out of 4,000 heavy infantry in roughly forty days. The soldiers already stationed at Potidaea stayed behind and continued the siege.

---

After the Peloponnesians invaded for the second time, the mood in Athens shifted completely. Their land had been devastated twice now. War and plague were crushing them simultaneously. The Athenians turned on Pericles. He had pushed for the war, they said. He was the cause of everything they were suffering. They became desperate to make peace with Sparta and actually sent ambassadors — who failed to reach any agreement. Their despair was total, and they directed all of it at Pericles.

When Pericles saw his people enraged by the present crisis and behaving exactly the way he had predicted they would, he called an assembly. He was still serving as general, remember. His aim was twofold: to restore their confidence and to guide them from anger toward a calmer, more hopeful state of mind. He stepped forward and spoke.

---

"The anger you have directed at me comes as no surprise. I understand its causes. And I have called this assembly to make certain points — to remind you of things you seem to have forgotten, and to challenge you: your irritation with me is irrational, and your submission to suffering is beneath you.

"I believe that a nation's greatness benefits individual citizens far more than individual prosperity in a humiliated state. A man may be doing well personally, but if his country is ruined, he goes down with it. A thriving state, on the other hand, always offers its people a chance to recover from private misfortune. Since the state can absorb the setbacks of individuals while individuals cannot absorb the collapse of the state, it is every citizen's duty to rally to its defense — not to become so consumed by personal grief that you abandon the common cause, and not to blame me for recommending a war that you yourselves voted for.

"And yet if you are angry with me, consider whom you are angry with. I am, I believe, second to no one in understanding what our policy should be and in the ability to explain it. I am a patriot. And I am honest. A man who understands the right policy but cannot articulate it might as well have no ideas at all. A man with both insight and eloquence who does not love his country would make a halfhearted advocate at best. And if his patriotism could be bought, everything would be for sale. If you judged me even moderately distinguished in these qualities when you followed my advice into war, there is no reason now to accuse me of leading you wrong.

"For those who have a free choice and nothing at stake, war is the greatest of follies. But when the only choice is between submission — and the loss of your independence — or danger, with the hope of preserving it, then the man who refuses to take the risk deserves blame, not the one who accepts it.

"I am the same man I always was. I have not changed. You are the ones who have changed. You took my advice when things were going well and now repent of it because things have gone badly. My policy looks like an error only because your resolve has collapsed. The suffering is real and immediate — every one of you feels it. But the benefits are still in the future and not yet visible, and because you have been hit by a sudden, overwhelming reversal, your spirit has broken. That is what sudden, unexpected disasters do — they shatter morale. And the plague has certainly been that kind of emergency.

"But you were born citizens of a great city. You were raised to meet the standard of that greatness. You should be ready to face the worst disasters and still keep the glory of your name intact. The world judges failure as harshly in those who should have known better as it resents arrogance in those who overreach. So stop grieving for your private losses and start working for the survival of the state.

"If you are worried that the sacrifices this war demands will come to nothing — that all this effort might end in defeat — let me remind you of arguments I have made before about why your fears are groundless. And if those are not enough, let me now reveal an advantage that comes from the scale of your power, one I think has never occurred to you and that I have never mentioned in any previous speech. It sounds so audacious that I would hesitate to bring it up, except that I see you sinking into a despair that is completely unwarranted.

"You may think your empire extends only over your allies. Let me tell you the truth. The field of action in this world has two parts: land and sea. On the sea, you are supreme — totally, completely supreme. Not just in the waters you currently control, but anywhere you choose to sail. Your naval power is such that your ships can go wherever they please, and no king, no nation on earth can stop them. Compared to that kind of power, the loss of your land and houses — painful as it is — should be seen in perspective. Think of your farms and estates the way you would think of a garden or decorative landscaping on a great estate: nice to have, but not the source of your wealth.

"You should understand this too: liberty, preserved by your determination, will easily win back everything you have lost. But once you bend the knee, even what you still have will be taken from you. Your fathers did not inherit these possessions from others — they won them through their own effort, and they passed them down to you intact. In this, at least, you must prove yourselves their equals. Remember: losing what you already have is more shameful than failing to gain something new. You must face your enemies not just with courage but with contempt. Confidence can come from blissful ignorance — even a coward can feel confident if he does not know any better. But contempt for the enemy is the privilege of those who, like us, have good reason to know they are superior. And when the odds are equal, knowledge gives courage an extra edge — because its faith rests not on desperate hope but on a sober calculation of real advantages, which is far more reliable.

"Your country has a right to your service in defending the glory of its position. That glory is a source of pride for all of you, and you cannot refuse the burdens of empire while still expecting to enjoy its honors. Remember, too, what you are really fighting against. It is not merely a question of independence versus subjection. It is also a question of losing your empire and facing the hatred you have earned by holding it. Retreat is no longer an option — if it ever was. Let me be blunt: what you hold is, in effect, a tyranny. It may have been wrong to seize it, but it would be suicidal to let it go. People who preach retreat and modesty, if they convinced enough others, would destroy this city overnight. That kind of timidity is never safe without bold protectors standing in front of it. Meekness may serve a subject state well enough. It is fatal in an imperial one.

"Do not be seduced by such people, and do not be angry with me. I voted for war — but so did you. The enemy invaded your land and did exactly what you knew he would do if you refused his demands. The only thing we did not predict was the plague — and that is the only point where events have proven us wrong. I know the plague is a large part of why I am more unpopular than I deserve to be. But that is unfair — unless you are also willing to credit me for every piece of good luck that comes your way. The will of heaven must be endured with acceptance. The actions of the enemy must be met with courage. That was the old Athenian way. Do not abandon it now.

"Remember: if your city has the greatest name in all the world, it is because she never bent before disaster. She has spent more lives and effort in war than any other state and has won a power greater than any known before — a power whose memory will endure to the end of time. Even if we should eventually decline, as all things must, it will be remembered that we ruled over more Greeks than any other Greek state, that we withstood the greatest wars against united and individual enemies alike, and that we inhabited a city unmatched in wealth and greatness. The lazy and unambitious may criticize such glory. But it will inspire those with energy to strive for the same, and those who cannot match it will envy it. Hatred and resentment are the price of power — they fall on everyone who aspires to lead others. But true wisdom accepts that cost when the prize is great enough. Hatred fades. But the splendor of the present and the glory of the future endure forever in human memory.

"So make your decision: glory in the future and honor right now. Achieve both through immediate and determined action. Do not send ambassadors to Sparta. Do not give any sign that your present sufferings have broken you. The greatest individuals and the greatest communities are those whose minds are least shaken by disaster and whose hands are quickest to answer it."

---

Those were the arguments Pericles used to cure the Athenians of their anger against him and to turn their minds from their immediate suffering. As a community, he succeeded. They abandoned all thought of sending envoys to Sparta and threw themselves back into the war effort with renewed energy.

But as individuals, they could not stop hurting. The common people had been stripped of even the little they once had. The wealthy had lost magnificent country estates — fine properties with costly buildings — and worst of all, they had war instead of peace. Public resentment against Pericles did not fully subside until they had fined him. Yet not long after, in the way of crowds, they elected him general again and placed all their affairs in his hands, having grown somewhat numb to their private grief and having come to recognize that no one was better suited for the needs of the state.

For as long as Pericles led Athens in peacetime, he pursued a moderate and cautious policy, and under his leadership the city reached the peak of its power. When war came, he proved equally clear-sighted about Athens's true strength. He survived the war's outbreak by two years and six months, and his judgment was vindicated after his death even more than during his life. He had told the Athenians: be patient, focus on the navy, do not try to expand the empire while the war is on, and do not put the city at risk. Do this, he said, and you will prevail.

The Athenians did the exact opposite.

In matters that seemed to have nothing to do with the war, they let personal ambition and private greed drive them into ventures that were unjust to both themselves and their allies — projects that, if successful, would only benefit certain individuals, and that, if they failed, would damage the entire war effort. The reasons for this are not hard to find. Pericles, through his rank, his ability, and his well-known integrity, had been able to exercise genuine independent leadership. He led the people instead of being led by them. He never gained power through dishonest means, so he never had to flatter anyone. His reputation was so high that he could afford to tell the Athenians things they did not want to hear. When he saw them becoming recklessly overconfident, a single word from him could make them sober. When they panicked, he could instantly restore their nerve. It was, in name, a democracy. In practice, it was government by the first citizen.

His successors were different. They were more or less equal to one another, and each one scrambled for personal supremacy. The result was that they handed over the direction of state policy to the whims of the crowd. This, as you would expect in a large and powerful state, produced a long string of disasters. The most spectacular was the Sicilian expedition. The problem was not so much a miscalculation of the enemy's strength as a failure by the people at home to support those they had sent out. Instead of reinforcing the expedition, they got caught up in personal feuds over who would lead the democratic faction, paralyzed military operations in the field, and brought factional strife into the city itself for the first time.

And yet — even after losing most of their fleet and much of their army in Sicily, even with civil war already tearing the city apart, the Athenians still held out for three more years against their original enemies, now joined by the Sicilians, by most of their own former allies (who had revolted), and eventually by Cyrus, the Persian king's son, who bankrolled the Peloponnesian fleet. They did not finally collapse until they destroyed themselves through internal divisions. That is how overwhelmingly abundant the resources were from which Pericles had foreseen an easy victory over the Peloponnesians alone.

---

That same summer, the Spartans and their allies launched an expedition with a hundred ships against Zacynthus, an island off the coast of Elis. Its people were colonists originally from Achaea in the Peloponnese, and they were allied with Athens. A thousand Spartan heavy infantry were aboard, under the command of a Spartan admiral named Cnemus. They landed and ravaged most of the island, but the inhabitants refused to submit, and the fleet sailed home.

Toward the end of the same summer, a group of envoys — the Corinthian Aristeus, along with Aneristus, Nicolaus, and Pratodamus from Sparta, Timagoras from Tegea, and a private citizen named Pollis from Argos — set out for Asia. Their mission was to persuade the Persian king to provide funds and join the war on the Peloponnesian side. On their way, they stopped in Thrace to visit Sitalces, the son of Teres, hoping to convince him to abandon his alliance with Athens, march against Potidaea (which was still under Athenian siege), and help them cross the Hellespont to reach Pharnabazus, the Persian governor who would send them inland to the king.

But as it happened, there were Athenian ambassadors at Sitalces' court — Learchus, son of Callimachus, and Ameiniades, son of Philemon. They persuaded Sitalces' son Sadocus, who had recently been granted Athenian citizenship, to hand the envoys over to them. Sadocus arrested the Peloponnesian party as they traveled through Thrace toward their ship at the Hellespont. He sent a detachment with Learchus and Ameiniades to seize them, then turned them over to the Athenian ambassadors, who brought them back to Athens.

When the prisoners arrived, the Athenians — afraid that Aristeus in particular, who had been the driving force behind the trouble at Potidaea and in Thrace, would cause even more damage if he escaped — executed all of them on the same day. They gave them no trial. They refused to hear the defense the men wished to offer. They threw the bodies into a pit. The Athenians considered this justified retaliation for what the Spartans had been doing: at the start of the war, the Spartans had seized all the Athenian and allied traders they caught aboard merchant ships around the Peloponnese, killed them — allies of Athens and neutrals alike — and thrown the bodies into pits.

---

Around the same time, near the end of summer, an Ambraciot army — reinforced by a number of non-Greek peoples they had recruited — marched against Amphilochian Argos and the surrounding territory. The roots of this hostility went back a long way.

Amphilochian Argos and the rest of Amphilochia had originally been founded by Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus, who had been unhappy with conditions at home after returning from the Trojan War. He built a city on the Ambracian Gulf and named it Argos after his homeland. It became the largest city in Amphilochia, and its people the most powerful in the region.

But many generations later, after a series of misfortunes, the Argives invited the neighboring Ambraciots to join their settlement. It was through this partnership that the Amphilochians learned to speak Greek — the rest of the Amphilochians being non-Greek peoples. In time, however, the Ambraciots turned on the Argives and expelled them from the city. The dispossessed Amphilochians then allied themselves with the Acarnanians, and together they called on Athens for help. Athens sent a general named Phormio with thirty ships. He arrived, took Argos by storm, enslaved the Ambraciots inside it, and the Amphilochians and Acarnanians resettled the city together. That was the beginning of the alliance between Athens and the Acarnanians.

The Ambraciots' hatred for the Argives dated from the enslavement of their people. Now, during the war, they assembled this army from among themselves, the Chaonians, and other neighboring non-Greek peoples. They marched on Argos, took control of the surrounding countryside, but failed in their attacks on the city itself. Eventually they gave up and dispersed to their various homes.

Those were the events of the summer.

The following winter, the Athenians sent twenty ships around the Peloponnese under the command of Phormio. He stationed himself at Naupactus and kept watch over all traffic entering or leaving Corinth and the Crissaean Gulf. Six more ships under Melesander sailed to Caria and Lycia to collect tribute and to prevent Peloponnesian privateers from setting up in those waters and raiding the merchant shipping routes from Phaselis, Phoenicia, and the nearby coast. Melesander, however, marched inland into Lycia with a force of Athenians and allies from the ships and was killed in battle, along with a significant portion of his troops.

That same winter, the people of Potidaea finally reached the breaking point. The Peloponnesian invasions of Attica had failed to force Athens to lift the siege. Food was gone. The desperation had become so extreme that — among other horrors — there were cases of people eating one another. At last they opened negotiations to surrender, reaching out to the Athenian generals in command: Xenophon, son of Euripides; Hestiodorus, son of Aristocleides; and Phanomachus, son of Callimachus.

The generals accepted their terms. They could see how much their own army was suffering in such an exposed position, and the state had already spent two thousand talents on the siege — an enormous sum. The terms of the surrender were these: the entire population would be granted safe passage out — men, women, children, and auxiliary troops. Each man could take one piece of clothing; each woman, two. They would also receive a fixed sum of money for the journey. Under this agreement, the people of Potidaea left for Chalcidice and wherever else they could find refuge.

Back in Athens, there was anger. The people blamed the generals for agreeing to terms without authorization from the assembly. The general feeling was that the city would have been forced to surrender unconditionally if the siege had continued. Afterwards, the Athenians sent their own settlers to Potidaea and colonized it.

Those were the events of the winter, and with them the second year of this war — the war that Thucydides recorded — came to its end.

VIII

Third Year of the War — The Siege of Plataea — Phormio's Naval Victories — Sitalces Invades Macedonia

The next summer, instead of invading Attica again, the Peloponnesians and their allies marched against Plataea. Their commander was Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Spartans. He set up camp and was about to start destroying the countryside when the Plataeans rushed to send envoys to him. Here is what they said:

"Archidamus — Spartans — what you are doing by invading Plataean land is wrong. It is unworthy of you and unworthy of the men who came before you. Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, a Spartan like yourselves, freed Greece from the Persians with the help of every Greek willing to risk his life in the battle fought near our city. Afterward, he sacrificed to Zeus the Liberator right here in the marketplace of Plataea. He called all the allies together, restored our city and territory to us, and declared Plataea independent — sacred ground, protected from any aggression or conquest. If anyone ever attacked us, the allies present swore to defend us with everything they had. Your fathers rewarded us this way because of the courage and patriotism we showed in that desperate hour. But you are doing the exact opposite. You have come here with the Thebans — our bitterest enemies — to enslave us. So we appeal to the gods who witnessed those oaths, to the gods of your ancestors, and to the gods of our own country: stop. Do not violate our land. Do not break those oaths. Let us live as free people, just as Pausanias decreed."

The Plataeans had gotten this far when Archidamus cut them off:

"What you say is fair, Plataeans — if your actions match your words. Follow the terms that Pausanias set down. Stay independent, as he granted. But also join us in liberating your fellow Greeks — people who stood alongside you in those same dangers, who swore those same oaths, and who are now subject to Athens. This entire war, this massive effort, has been undertaken to free them and others like them. Ideally, you would share in our work and honor those oaths yourselves. But if that is too much to ask, then do what we have already proposed: stay neutral. Enjoy your own land. Take no side. Welcome both sides as friends, but join neither as an ally in war. That is all we ask."

Those were Archidamus's words. The Plataeans went back into the city, told the people what had been said, and returned with their answer. It was impossible, they said, to accept his proposal without consulting the Athenians — their wives and children were in Athens for safekeeping. And beyond that, they had real fears about the city itself. What if Archidamus left and the Athenians came and took Plataea from them? Or what if the Thebans — who would technically be covered by the proposed neutrality — tried to seize the city a second time?

Archidamus tried to reassure them. "Just hand the city and your houses over to us Spartans," he said. "Show us the boundaries of your land, the number of your fruit trees, and everything else that can be counted. Then go wherever you like for the duration of the war. When it's over, we will return everything we received. In the meantime, we will hold it in trust, keep it cultivated, and pay you a fair allowance."

They went back inside, consulted the people again, and came out with this response: they wanted to present Archidamus's offer to the Athenians first. If Athens approved, they would accept. In the meantime, they asked for a truce — no laying waste to their territory. Archidamus granted a truce long enough for the journey and held off from ravaging the land. The Plataean envoys went to Athens, talked it over with the Athenians, and returned with this message for the people inside the walls:

"The Athenians say this: never once, in all the time since you became our allies, have we abandoned you to an enemy. We will not abandon you now. We will help you with everything in our power. And we call upon you, by the oaths your fathers swore, to keep the alliance intact."

When the envoys delivered this message, the Plataeans made their decision. They would not betray Athens. They would endure it — the sight of their farmland being destroyed, whatever suffering came. They would not send anyone out again. They would answer from the walls: what the Spartans asked was impossible.

The moment Archidamus received this answer, he made a solemn appeal to the gods and heroes of the Plataean territory:

"You gods and heroes of Plataean soil — be my witnesses. We did not come here as aggressors. We did not invade this land until these people first broke the common oath. In this very land, our fathers prayed to you before defeating the Persians. You blessed the Greek cause here. We will not be the aggressors in what follows, either — we have made every fair proposal, and all have been refused. Grant that those who first broke faith be punished for it, and that those who seek righteous justice may find it."

With this prayer to the gods, Archidamus set his army to work.

First, they fenced the entire town in with a palisade, using the fruit trees they had cut down — no one would be getting in or out of Plataea. Then they began building an enormous earthen siege mound against the city wall, counting on the sheer size of their workforce to bring the city to its knees quickly.

They cut timber from nearby Mount Cithaeron and built it up on both sides of the mound like latticework, forming a kind of retaining wall to keep the earth from spreading outward. Then they piled in wood, stones, dirt, and anything else that would add to the mass. They worked on this mound for seventy days and seventy nights without stopping, rotating crews so that some could carry material while others slept and ate — with a Spartan officer assigned to each contingent to keep the men at their task.

But the Plataeans weren't sitting idle. Watching the mound rise, they built a wooden framework on top of the section of city wall that the mound was approaching, and filled it in with bricks scavenged from nearby houses. The timber held the structure together and kept it from weakening as it grew taller. They covered it with hides and leather to protect the woodwork from flaming projectiles and let the builders work safely behind it. The result was that their wall rose higher and higher — and the mound opposite kept pace.

Then the Plataeans tried something clever. They broke open the base of their own city wall where it met the siege mound and began carrying the earth from the mound into the city through the gap.

When the Peloponnesians discovered this, they plugged the breach by packing clay reinforced with woven reed mats into the gap — material that couldn't simply be scooped out and carried away like loose soil. Blocked from that approach, the Plataeans switched tactics again. They dug a tunnel from inside the city, calculated its path under the mound, and started hauling away the fill from below. This went on for a long time without the besiegers noticing. No matter how much material they piled on top, the mound made no real progress — it kept settling as its interior was hollowed out from underneath.

Still, the Plataeans worried that even these tricks might not be enough against such overwhelming numbers. So they came up with yet another plan. They stopped adding to the tall wooden superstructure they had built in front of the mound. Instead, starting from either end of it, they built a new crescent-shaped wall curving back into the city from the lower, older wall. The idea was that even if the enemy captured the main wall, they would hit this second line — and have to build a whole new siege mound against it. Worse, as they pushed deeper into the crescent, they would be exposed to missile fire from both sides.

While building up their mound, the Peloponnesians also brought siege engines against the city. One was hauled up onto the mound and battered against the tall wooden structure, knocking off a large section of it and terrifying the Plataeans. Other rams were aimed at different parts of the wall, but the Plataeans had answers for these too. They lassoed the battering rams and snapped them off. They also rigged an ingenious device: two heavy poles were laid along the top of the wall, projecting outward, with massive beams suspended from them on long iron chains. Whenever a ram threatened a section of wall, they would haul the beam up at an angle, then release it so that it swung down with the full slack of the chains and smashed the nose right off the battering ram.

After this, the Peloponnesians concluded that their engines were getting nowhere and that every mound they built was met with a countermeasure. Their current methods were simply not going to take the city. So they prepared to wall it in completely with a siege line. But first, they decided to try fire.

If they could burn the town — and it wasn't a large one — with the help of a good wind, maybe they wouldn't need a prolonged blockade. They were thinking through every possible way to take the place without the time and expense of a full siege.

They carried bundles of brushwood and threw them from the top of the mound into the gap between the mound and the wall. With so many hands at work, that space filled up fast. Then they heaped more brushwood as far into the town as they could reach, lit it with sulfur and pitch, and set the whole mass ablaze.

The fire that followed was greater than anything anyone had ever seen created by human hands — though of course it couldn't compare to the natural wildfires that sometimes erupt when the wind rubs mountain-forest branches together. But this fire wasn't just enormous. After everything the Plataeans had already endured, it very nearly killed them all. A huge portion of the town became completely inaccessible. If the wind had shifted toward the city, as the enemy hoped, nothing could have saved them.

As it turned out — and there is a story about this — a tremendous rainstorm struck, with thunder, and the fire was put out. The danger passed.

Having failed at this too, the Peloponnesians dismissed most of their army but left a garrison behind. They built a full wall of siege around the city, dividing the construction among the various allied contingents. There was a ditch on both the inner and outer sides of the wall, and the clay dug from the ditches was used to make the bricks. The whole thing was finished around the time Arcturus rose — late September. Then they left enough men to garrison half the wall (the Boeotians manned the other half) and marched the rest of the army home to their various cities.

The Plataeans had already sent their wives, children, elderly, and all the non-combatants to Athens before the siege began. The people left inside the walls numbered four hundred Plataean citizens, eighty Athenians, and a hundred and ten women to bake bread. That was everyone — not a single other person, slave or free, remained inside. Those were the arrangements for the blockade of Plataea.

---

That same summer, at the same time as the expedition against Plataea, the Athenians marched into the territory of the Chalcidians in Thrace and the Bottiaeans with two thousand heavy infantry and two hundred cavalry, just as the grain was ripening. The force was commanded by Xenophon, son of Euripides, along with two fellow generals.

They reached Spartolus in Bottiaea and destroyed the grain fields. There were hopes that the city would come over to them through the efforts of a pro-Athenian faction inside. But the opposing faction had sent word to Olynthus, and a garrison of heavy infantry and other troops arrived to reinforce the city.

These troops came out of Spartolus and engaged the Athenians in front of the town. The Chalcidian heavy infantry — along with some auxiliaries — were beaten and fell back inside the walls. But the Chalcidian cavalry and light troops got the better of their Athenian counterparts.

The Chalcidians already had a small number of light-armed troops from Crusis, and shortly after the battle, more reinforcements arrived from Olynthus. When the light troops in Spartolus saw this fresh force arriving — emboldened by the reinforcement and by their earlier success — they attacked the Athenians again, along with the Chalcidian cavalry and the new arrivals. The Athenians fell back toward the two divisions they had left guarding their baggage.

From that point on, it was a running fight. Whenever the Athenians advanced, the Chalcidians gave ground. The moment the Athenians pulled back, the Chalcidians pressed in and hit them with missiles. The Chalcidian cavalry rode up and charged them wherever they pleased. Finally, they caused a full-blown panic in the Athenian ranks, routed them, and chased them a long way.

The Athenians took refuge in Potidaea and later recovered their dead under a truce. They returned to Athens with what was left of their army. Four hundred and thirty men were dead, including all the generals. The Chalcidians and Bottiaeans set up a victory trophy, collected their own dead, and went home to their cities.

---

That same summer, not long after, the Ambraciots and Chaonians hatched a plan to conquer all of Acarnania and pull it away from Athens. They persuaded the Spartans to assemble a fleet from the alliance and send a thousand heavy infantry to Acarnania. Their argument was this: if they hit Acarnania by land and sea simultaneously, the coastal Acarnanians wouldn't be able to march inland to help, and the conquest of Acarnania would naturally lead to the capture of the islands of Zacynthus and Cephallenia. After that, the Athenian fleet would find it much harder to sail around the Peloponnese. There was even hope of taking Naupactus.

The Spartans agreed. They immediately sent Cnemus, who was still serving as high admiral, with the heavy infantry aboard a few ships, and dispatched orders for the allied fleet to assemble as quickly as possible at Leucas.

The Corinthians were the most eager participants — Ambracia was their colony. While ships from Corinth, Sicyon, and the neighboring cities were still being fitted out, and the contingents from Leucas, Anactorium, and Ambracia that had arrived earlier were waiting at Leucas, Cnemus and his thousand heavy infantry slipped past Phormio — the Athenian admiral stationed at Naupactus — and sailed into the gulf. He immediately began preparing for the land campaign.

His Greek forces consisted of the Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians, plus the thousand Peloponnesians he had brought. His non-Greek contingent included a thousand Chaonians. The Chaonians had no king; instead, their chieftainship rotated annually, and this year's leaders were Photys and Nicanor, both members of the royal family. Alongside the Chaonians came some Thesprotians (also without a king), some Molossians and Atintanians led by Sabylinthus (who was regent for King Tharyps, still a boy), and some Paravaeans under their king, Oroedus. A thousand Orestians, subjects of King Antichus, also joined under Oroedus's command. Perdiccas of Macedonia quietly sent a thousand Macedonians too, though they arrived too late — and the Athenians didn't know about them.

With this force, Cnemus set out without waiting for the Corinthian fleet. He marched through the territory of Amphilochian Argos, sacked the undefended village of Limnaea, and advanced on Stratus, the capital of Acarnania. He was convinced that if Stratus fell, the rest of the country would follow quickly.

The Acarnanians, facing a large invasion by land and the threat of a hostile fleet from the sea, made no effort to unite their forces. Each community stayed home to defend its own territory. They sent to Phormio for help, but he replied that with a Corinthian fleet about to sail, he couldn't leave Naupactus unguarded.

The Peloponnesians and their allies advanced on Stratus in three separate columns, planning to camp near the city and try negotiation first — and if that failed, to storm the walls. The order of march put the Chaonians and the other non-Greek troops in the center, the Leucadians and Anactorians and their followers on the right, and Cnemus with the Peloponnesians and Ambraciots on the left. The three divisions were spread so far apart that at times they couldn't even see one another.

The Greek contingents advanced in good order, posting lookouts, and took up a strong camp position. But the Chaonians — full of confidence and priding themselves on being the fiercest fighters in that part of the continent — refused to stop and make camp. They charged straight ahead with the rest of the non-Greek troops, convinced they could take the town by assault all on their own and win all the glory.

The Stratians saw what was happening. They realized that if they could break this leading division, the Greek troops behind it would lose heart. So they lined the approaches to the town with ambush parties. The moment the Chaonians got close, the Stratians hit them from the city and from the ambushes at the same time.

Panic swept through the Chaonians. Huge numbers of them were cut down. And when the rest of the non-Greek contingent saw the Chaonians breaking, they turned and ran too. Neither of the Greek columns knew what was happening — the Chaonians had been so far ahead that the battle was over before word reached them. When the fleeing non-Greek troops came crashing into their lines, they opened ranks to let them through, pulled their divisions together, and held their position for the rest of the day. The Stratians didn't attack them directly, since the rest of the Acarnanian reinforcements hadn't arrived yet. Instead, they slung stones at them from a distance — which caused real misery, since the Greeks couldn't move without their heavy armor. The Acarnanians were apparently expert slingers.

When night fell, Cnemus pulled his army back about nine miles to the Anapus River. The next day, he recovered his dead under a truce. The friendly Oeniadae came to join him, and he fell back to their city before the Acarnanian reinforcements could arrive. From there, everyone went home. The Stratians set up a trophy for their victory over the non-Greek troops.

---

Meanwhile, the fleet from Corinth and the rest of the allied ships in the Crissaean Gulf — the force that was supposed to link up with Cnemus and prevent the coastal Acarnanians from helping their countrymen inland — never made it. They were forced into battle at almost the same time as the fight at Stratus.

The problem was Phormio. He was watching them from Naupactus with his twenty Athenian ships as they hugged the coast, heading out of the gulf. His plan was to hit them in the open sea.

The Corinthians and their allies had set out for Acarnania with no intention of fighting a naval battle. Their ships were loaded like transports, packed with soldiers. It never crossed their minds that twenty Athenian ships would dare challenge their forty-seven.

But there the Athenians were — sailing in line, shadowing them along the coast. When the Peloponnesians tried to cross from Patrae in Achaea to the mainland on the far side, heading for Acarnania, they spotted the Athenians coming out from Chalcis and the Evenus River to intercept them. They slipped their moorings during the night and tried to get away, but they were spotted and finally forced to fight in the middle of the strait.

Each allied city had its own general. The Corinthian commanders were Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharchidas.

The Peloponnesians formed their ships into the largest circle they could manage — prows facing outward, sterns drawn in tight — without leaving a gap for the enemy to break through. Inside the circle, they placed all their smaller craft and their five fastest ships, positioned to dart out and reinforce any point that came under pressure.

The Athenians, formed in a single line, sailed around and around the circle, grazing past the enemy ships, constantly feinting as if about to attack — pulling the circle tighter and tighter. Phormio had already given his men strict orders: don't strike until I give the signal.

Here was his plan. He knew the Peloponnesian ships wouldn't hold formation the way infantry does on land. The ships would start fouling each other. The small boats in the center would add to the chaos. And if the wind rose from the gulf — as it usually did toward morning — they wouldn't be able to hold steady for a second. He also knew that the timing of the attack was entirely in his hands: his ships were faster, and the best moment would be when the wind arrived.

And the wind did come.

The Peloponnesian fleet was already crammed into a narrow space. Now the wind hit them, and the small boats began smashing into the warships. Everything fell apart at once. Ships fouled each other. Crews shoved at the hulls with poles. Men shouted and swore and fought with each other. The captains' orders and the boatswains' calls were drowned out by the noise. Sailors who hadn't had enough practice couldn't clear their oars in the choppy water, and the ships stopped responding to their helmsmen.

At that exact moment, Phormio gave the signal.

The Athenians struck. They sank one of the admirals' ships first, then tore into every vessel they reached. The confusion was so total that no one even tried to resist. The whole fleet broke and ran for Patrae and Dyme in Achaea. The Athenians gave chase, captured twelve ships, pulled most of the enemy crews off the decks, and sailed to Molycrium. They set up a victory trophy on the promontory of Rhium, dedicated a captured ship to Poseidon, and sailed back to Naupactus.

The Peloponnesians immediately took their surviving ships and hugged the coast from Dyme and Patrae to Cyllene, the Elean naval base. Cnemus also made his way there with the ships from Leucas that were supposed to have joined the fleet — arriving after the battle at Stratus.

---

The Spartans now sent three commissioners to the fleet to join Cnemus: Timocrates, Brasidas, and Lycophron. Their orders were blunt — prepare for another battle and get it right this time. Don't let a handful of ships drive you off the sea.

The Spartans simply couldn't understand what had gone wrong. They had never seen anything like this defeat, and since it was their first real naval engagement, they refused to believe their fleet was actually inferior. They assumed someone had bungled it. It never occurred to them that the Athenians had decades of naval experience while they had almost none. The commissioners were sent in anger.

As soon as they arrived, they joined Cnemus in requisitioning ships from the allied states and getting the existing fleet into fighting shape.

Meanwhile, Phormio sent word to Athens reporting the enemy's preparations and his own victory. He urgently requested reinforcements — he expected a battle any day. Athens sent twenty ships. But the orders given to the commander sent him to Crete first. A Cretan named Nicias, from Gortys, who served as Athens's diplomatic representative on the island, had talked the Athenians into attacking Cydonia, a hostile town. His real agenda was to do a favor for the Polichnitans, who were neighbors of the Cydonians and had their own grudge. So the fleet went to Crete, joined with the Polichnitans to ravage Cydonian territory, and then got pinned down by bad weather. They wasted a great deal of time there.

---

While the Athenians were stuck in Crete, the Peloponnesians at Cyllene finished their preparations and sailed along the coast to Panormus in Achaea, where their land army had come to support them.

Phormio also moved, sailing along the coast to Molycrian Rhium and anchoring just outside it with his twenty ships — the same twenty he had fought with before. This Rhium was friendly to Athens. The other Rhium, on the Peloponnesian side, lay directly across the strait. The water between the two was about three-quarters of a mile wide — the mouth of the Crissaean Gulf. At Achaean Rhium, not far from Panormus where their land army was camped, the Peloponnesians now anchored with seventy-seven ships, having seen the Athenians do the same.

For six or seven days the two fleets sat there facing each other, drilling and preparing. The Peloponnesians were determined not to sail out past the narrows into the open sea — they remembered what had happened last time. The Athenians were equally determined not to sail into the straits, knowing that fighting in tight waters would favor the enemy.

Finally, Cnemus, Brasidas, and the other Peloponnesian commanders decided they couldn't wait any longer. Reinforcements from Athens might arrive at any moment. And they could see that most of their own men were demoralized by the previous defeat and had no stomach for another fight. So they called the fleet together and gave them a pep talk:

"Peloponnesians — that last battle may have shaken some of you, but it's no reason to be afraid of this one. Think about it. We weren't prepared. The whole point of that voyage was a land campaign, not a sea fight. On top of that, we had some bad luck. And maybe, yes, inexperience played a part, since it was our first action at sea.

"So our defeat wasn't from cowardice. And men whose fighting spirit hasn't been broken — men who still have something to say to the enemy — shouldn't let their edge be dulled by one unlucky result. Brave men stay brave. Period. And while they do, they can never hide behind inexperience as an excuse for failure.

"Besides, you're not as far behind the enemy in experience as you are ahead of them in courage. Yes, the Athenians have technical skill. But skill without bravery — that still crumbles in the face of real danger. Fear robs a man of his wits, and without nerve, all the training in the world is useless.

"Set your courage against their experience. Set the fact that you were caught unprepared last time against the fear that defeat left behind. Remember: you have the advantage in numbers. You're fighting off your own coast, with your heavy infantry right there to back you up. Numbers and equipment win battles — that's the rule. There's no reason to expect defeat. Even our past mistakes work in our favor now, because they've taught us lessons we won't forget.

"Steersmen and sailors: do your jobs. Don't leave your assigned posts. As for us — your commanders — we promise to plan this battle at least as well as your previous commanders did. No one will have an excuse for cowardice. And if anyone insists on showing it, he'll get the punishment he deserves. The brave will be honored as they should be."

That was the Peloponnesian commanders' speech.

Phormio, meanwhile, had his own worries. He noticed his men gathering in nervous clusters, alarmed by the odds — twenty ships against seventy-seven. He decided to call them together and give them confidence. He had always told them, and had drilled the idea into them, that there was no number of enemy ships they couldn't face. And his men had long believed it — Athenians don't retreat before any number of Peloponnesian vessels. But right now, looking at what was in front of them, they were shaken. So Phormio called them together and spoke:

"Men — I see you're scared by the numbers out there, and that's why I've called you together. I won't have you afraid of something that isn't actually dangerous.

"First: the Peloponnesians already lost to us. They don't even believe they're our equals, or they wouldn't have needed to assemble this enormous fleet. Second: the thing they're counting on most — the courage they think comes naturally to them as soldiers — that confidence only comes from their success on land. They think it will transfer to the sea. But that advantage belongs to us on this element, just as theirs belongs to them on land. They are not braver than we are. Each side is simply more confident where it has more experience.

"Besides, the Spartans are using their allies to serve Spartan glory. Most of these men are being dragged into danger against their will. Otherwise, after a defeat that decisive, they would never have come back for more. So don't worry about their fighting spirit.

"You, on the other hand — you terrify them. And for good reason. Partly because you already beat them. Partly because they can't believe we would face them again unless we were planning something devastating. An enemy with superior numbers usually fights on confidence in those numbers, not real determination. But a smaller force that voluntarily confronts overwhelming odds? That force clearly has deep reserves of conviction to draw on. The Peloponnesians are more afraid of our seemingly reckless daring than they would be of any matched fleet. And remember: many a large force has been beaten by a smaller one — through lack of skill, sometimes through lack of nerve. We have neither problem.

"As for the battle itself: I will not fight in the narrows if I can help it. I will not sail in there at all. When a small, fast, well-handled squadron faces a mob of clumsily managed ships, tight water is nothing but a disadvantage. You can't set up a proper ramming run without seeing the target from far off. You can't pull back when you need to. You can't break their line or circle behind them — the kind of maneuvers that fast ships are built for. Instead, the sea battle turns into a land battle, and then numbers are all that matter.

"I'll make sure that doesn't happen. You do your part. Stay at your posts. Be sharp on the commands — especially since we're starting this close to the enemy. In the fight itself, discipline and silence are everything. They matter in war generally, and at sea above all else.

"Fight in a way that's worthy of what you've already done. The stakes are enormous. Either you destroy the Peloponnesians' hope of ever becoming a naval power, or you bring the nightmare of losing control of the sea one step closer to Athens.

"And let me remind you of one more thing: you've already beaten most of these men. And beaten men don't come back to the same danger with the same resolve."

That was Phormio's speech.

When the Peloponnesians saw that the Athenians weren't going to sail into the gulf and the narrows, they devised a plan to draw them in whether they wanted to come or not. At dawn, they formed up four abreast and sailed into the gulf, hugging their own coast and heading toward their territory, with the right wing leading — just as they had been anchored.

On this right wing, they placed their twenty best ships. The idea was this: if Phormio assumed they were heading for Naupactus and raced along the coast to protect it, the Athenians wouldn't be able to escape by getting past the right wing. They would be cut off.

It worked exactly as they hoped. Phormio, terrified for Naupactus — which had been left without a garrison — saw them heading out and reluctantly, hurriedly, embarked his men. He sailed along the shore with the Messenian land forces marching alongside to support him.

The Peloponnesians watched him come — his ships in single file, already inside the gulf, hugging the coast — exactly where they wanted him. At a single signal, they wheeled about and charged in line, rowing at full speed straight for the Athenians, hoping to cut off the entire squadron.

The eleven ships at the front of the Athenian line managed to escape the trap. They outran the Peloponnesian right wing and its sudden turn, reaching the open water beyond. But the rest were overtaken. The Peloponnesians drove them ashore and wrecked them. Every crewman who hadn't managed to swim away was killed. Some ships were lashed to Peloponnesian vessels and towed off empty. One was captured with its entire crew still aboard. A few others were being towed away when the Messenians waded into the sea in full armor, climbed onto the decks, and fought to take them back.

At this point, the Peloponnesians were winning. The Athenian fleet seemed destroyed. The twenty fast ships on the Peloponnesian right wing were now chasing the eleven Athenian ships that had escaped into the open water. All but one of those eleven outsailed their pursuers and made it safely into Naupactus. They formed up close to shore opposite the temple of Apollo, prows facing outward, ready to fight if the Peloponnesians came after them.

After a while, the Peloponnesians arrived, rowing toward them and singing the paean — the battle hymn of victory. One Athenian ship, the last straggler, was being chased by a single Leucadian vessel far ahead of the rest of the Peloponnesian fleet.

Then something happened.

There was a merchant ship anchored in the roadstead. The fleeing Athenian ship reached it first, swung around behind it, and rammed the Leucadian pursuer amidships.

The Leucadian ship went down.

The effect was instant. The Peloponnesians, already strung out and disorganized from the thrill of their victory, fell into a panic. Some crews dropped their oars and let their ships drift — a terrible mistake, with the Athenian prows so close. Others, unfamiliar with the local waters, ran aground on the shallows.

The Athenians saw their chance. With a single shout, they charged.

The Peloponnesians — rattled by their own mistakes, already falling apart — stood for barely a moment before they broke and fled back to Panormus, where they had started. The Athenians raced after them, captured the six nearest ships, and recovered their own vessels that had been disabled and taken in tow at the start of the fighting. They killed some of the captured crews and took others prisoner.

On board the Leucadian ship that went down next to the merchant vessel was the Spartan commissioner Timocrates. When his ship sank, he killed himself. His body washed ashore in the harbor of Naupactus.

The Athenians sailed back and set up a trophy at the spot from which they had launched their counterattack — the place where the battle turned. They recovered the wreckage and the bodies of their own dead that had drifted to shore and gave the enemy their dead back under a truce.

The Peloponnesians set up their own trophy too, claiming victory for the ships they had wrecked along the shore at the start of the battle. They dedicated the one ship they had captured at Achaean Rhium, placing it right next to their trophy.

After that, fearing the Athenian reinforcements that were on their way from Athens, every ship except the Leucadians sailed into the Crissaean Gulf and headed for Corinth. Not long after the Peloponnesians withdrew, the twenty Athenian ships — the ones that should have arrived before the battle — finally reached Naupactus.

And so the summer ended.

---

Winter came, but before the Peloponnesian fleet — now retired to Corinth and the Crissaean Gulf — fully dispersed, Cnemus, Brasidas, and the other captains let themselves be talked into an audacious scheme by the Megarians: a surprise attack on Piraeus, the port of Athens.

The plan was bold precisely because it was unthinkable. Athens's overwhelming naval superiority meant that Piraeus had been left unguarded and wide open. No one had even bothered to block the harbor entrances. Who would be crazy enough to attack?

Here was the plan: each man would carry his oar, his cushion, and his oar-strap. They would march overland from Corinth to the sea on the Athenian side, hurry to Megara, launch forty ships that happened to be sitting in the dockyards at Nisaea, and sail straight for Piraeus. No fleet was watching the harbor. No one expected an attack. And an open assault, it was assumed, would never be deliberately attempted — or if someone were planning one, word would reach Athens in time.

The plan was set. They marched, arrived at Nisaea after dark, and launched the ships. But then their nerve failed. There was also talk of an unfavorable wind. Instead of heading for Piraeus as originally planned, they sailed to the point of Salamis facing Megara. There was a fort there with a three-ship squadron guarding the entrance to Megara's harbor. They stormed the fort, towed off the three ships empty, and fell on the rest of the island, catching the inhabitants completely off guard. They began laying waste to Salamis.

Meanwhile, fire signals blazed toward Athens, and the city was gripped by one of the worst panics of the entire war. People in the city thought the enemy had already sailed into Piraeus. People in Piraeus thought Salamis had fallen and the enemy fleet would arrive at any second — which, honestly, could easily have happened if they hadn't lost their nerve. Certainly no wind would have stopped them.

At dawn, the Athenians mobilized everything. The whole city turned out. They launched their ships and rowed for Salamis in frantic haste, while the army took up defensive positions in Piraeus.

The Peloponnesians, seeing the relief force coming, quickly grabbed their plunder and prisoners — including the three ships from the fort — and raced back to Nisaea. The condition of their ships was another worry: they had sat in the docks so long that they were leaking badly. Once they reached Megara, they marched overland back to Corinth.

The Athenians arrived at Salamis to find the enemy gone. They sailed home. After that, they took proper precautions for Piraeus — closing the harbor entrances and implementing other security measures.

---

Around the same time, at the beginning of winter, Sitalces, son of Teres, king of the Odrysian Thracians, launched a massive invasion against Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of Macedonia, and the Chalcidians on the Thracian coast.

He had two scores to settle. Perdiccas had made him a promise back when he was under pressure at the start of the war: if Sitalces would reconcile him with the Athenians and drop the effort to restore his brother Philip (a rival claimant to the throne), Perdiccas would give him something in return. Perdiccas never kept that promise. And separately, Sitalces had agreed with the Athenians to help end the Chalcidian war in Thrace. These two obligations drove the invasion.

Sitalces brought along Amyntas, Philip's son, whom he intended to place on the Macedonian throne. He also had some Athenian envoys who were at his court handling these matters, plus the Athenian general Hagnon. The Athenians were supposed to join the campaign against the Chalcidians with a fleet and as many soldiers as they could muster.

Starting with the Odrysians, Sitalces called up the Thracian tribes under his control — those living between Mount Haemus and Mount Rhodope, stretching to the Black Sea and the Hellespont. Then he summoned the Getae, who lived beyond Haemus, and other peoples settled south of the Danube near the Black Sea. Like the Getae, these bordered on the Scythians and fought the same way — all mounted archers.

Beyond these, he called up many of the independent hill Thracians — fierce swordsmen called the Dii, who lived mostly around Mount Rhodope. Some came as hired soldiers, others as volunteers. He also summoned the Agrianes, the Laeaeans, and the rest of the Paeonian tribes within his empire. These peoples lay at its edges, extending up to the Laeaean Paeonians and the Strymon River, which flows from Mount Scombrus through the lands of the Agrianes and Laeaeans. Beyond that, the territory of the independent Paeonians began — the border of Sitalces' realm. On the side bordering the Triballi (also independent) were the Treres and Tilataeans, who lived north of Mount Scombrus and stretched westward to the river Oskius. This river rises in the same mountain range as the Nestus and the Hebrus — a vast, wild highland connected to Rhodope.

The Odrysian empire stretched along the coast from Abdera all the way to the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea. Sailing this coast by the shortest route, with a following wind the entire way, took a merchant ship four days and four nights. An active man on foot, traveling the shortest road, could walk from Abdera to the Danube in eleven days. That was the empire's length along the coast. Inland, from Byzantium to the Laeaeans and the Strymon — the farthest extent of the interior — was a thirteen-day march for a fast walker.

The tribute from all the non-Greek territories and the Greek cities, as collected under Seuthes (Sitalces' successor, who brought it to its highest level), amounted to roughly four hundred talents in gold and silver. Gifts in gold and silver came in at no less than that again — plus fine cloth, embroidered textiles, and other goods, given not only to the king but to Odrysian lords and nobles as well. In fact, the Odrysian court operated on the opposite principle from the Persian one: here, the custom was to take rather than to give. There was more shame in refusing a request than in asking for something and being turned down. This custom existed across Thrace, but the powerful Odrysians practiced it on a grand scale — it was impossible to get anything done at their court without a gift.

The result was a very powerful kingdom. In wealth and prosperity, it surpassed every state in Europe between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. In raw military manpower, it was second only to the Scythians — and no people in Europe could even begin to compete with the Scythians. Not even in Asia was there a single nation that could stand against them one-on-one, if the Scythians were united. (That said, the Scythians couldn't match other civilizations in general governance and practical intelligence.)

This was the empire that now took the field.

When everything was ready, Sitalces marched. First, he crossed his own territory, then the desolate mountain range of Cercine that divided the Sintians from the Paeonians, using a road he had cut through the forest during an earlier campaign. Crossing these mountains with the Paeonians on his right and the Sintians and Maedians on his left, he reached Doberus, in Paeonia.

He lost almost no one on the march — maybe a few to sickness — but his army actually grew, as many independent Thracians joined up uninvited, drawn by the prospect of plunder. The total force is said to have reached a hundred and fifty thousand men. Most were infantry, though about a third were cavalry, supplied mainly by the Odrysians themselves and secondarily by the Getae. The most dangerous infantry were the independent swordsmen from the Rhodope highlands. The rest of the vast horde was formidable mainly for its sheer size.

They assembled at Doberus and prepared to descend from the highlands into Lower Macedonia — the territory of Perdiccas. (The Lyncestae, Elimiots, and other peoples further inland were Macedonians by blood and allies and subjects of their coastal kinsmen, but they had their own separate governments.)

The coastal region now called Macedonia had been built up by Alexander, Perdiccas's father, and his ancestors — originally Temenids from Argos. They had carved out the kingdom piece by piece: driving the Pierians out of Pieria (the Pierians later settled at Phagres and other places under Mount Pangaeus beyond the Strymon — the area between Pangaeus and the sea is still called the Pierian Gulf); pushing the Bottiaeans out of Bottia (they now live as neighbors of the Chalcidians); and acquiring a narrow strip in Paeonia along the Axius River extending to Pella and the sea. They also gained the district of Mygdonia between the Axius and the Strymon by expelling the Edonians, and drove the Eordians from Eordia (most of whom perished, though a few still live around Physca) and the Almopians from Almopia. These Macedonians conquered territories belonging to other peoples, too — Anthemus, Crestonia, Bisaltia, and much of what is called Macedonia proper. The whole region was now simply called Macedonia, and Perdiccas, Alexander's son, was the reigning king at the time of Sitalces' invasion.

The Macedonians couldn't take the field against such an overwhelming force. They shut themselves up in whatever strongholds and fortresses the country had — though there weren't many. Most of the fortifications that exist now were built later by Archelaus, Perdiccas's son, after he came to power. Archelaus also cut straight roads and generally modernized the kingdom's military infrastructure — horses, heavy infantry, equipment — doing more than the eight kings before him combined.

The Thracian army advanced from Doberus and invaded the territory that had once been Philip's domain. They took Idomene by storm. Gortynia, Atalanta, and several other places surrendered through negotiation — these towns came over out of loyalty to Philip's son Amyntas, who was with Sitalces. They besieged Europus but failed to take it. After that, Sitalces pushed deeper into Macedonia, west of Pella and Cyrrhus, but didn't advance into Bottiaea or Pieria. Instead, he settled in to devastate Mygdonia, Crestonia, and Anthemus.

The Macedonians never even considered meeting the invasion with infantry. But their cavalry — reinforced by horsemen from their allies in the interior — launched hit-and-run attacks whenever they saw an opening. These Macedonian riders were armored in cuirasses and were superb horsemen. Wherever they charged, they cut through everything in front of them. But they kept getting tangled up in the massive enemy formations, and the risk was simply too great. In the end, they gave it up. They couldn't justify throwing a few horsemen against such overwhelming numbers.

Meanwhile, Sitalces tried negotiating with Perdiccas about the original reasons for the expedition. When the Athenians failed to show up with their fleet — they hadn't really believed Sitalces would actually come, though they did send gifts and envoys — he diverted a large portion of his army against the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans, penning them inside their walls and ravaging their territory.

While Sitalces was camped in the area, the peoples farther south grew terrified. The Thessalians, the Magnetes, the other subjects of Thessaly, and all the Greeks as far as Thermopylae feared the army might march south against them, and they prepared accordingly. Even the independent Thracian tribes north of the Strymon — the Panaeans, Odomanti, Droi, and Dersaeans, who lived on the plains — were worried. And there was even talk among Athens's Greek enemies about whether Sitalces might be invited by his Athenian allies to advance against them too.

But Sitalces held Chalcidice, Bottice, and Macedonia without achieving any of his real objectives. His army was running out of food and suffering from the harsh winter. His nephew Seuthes, son of Spardacus — his second-in-command — convinced him to withdraw without delay. Seuthes had been secretly bought off by Perdiccas, who had promised him his sister in marriage with a rich dowry.

Sitalces listened. After just thirty days in total — eight of them in Chalcidice — he pulled out and marched home as fast as he could. Perdiccas later kept his word, giving his sister Stratonice to Seuthes.

That was the story of Sitalces' expedition.

---

Later that winter, after the Peloponnesian fleet had dispersed, the Athenians at Naupactus under Phormio sailed along the coast to Astacus, landed, and marched into the interior of Acarnania with four hundred Athenian heavy infantry and four hundred Messenians. They expelled some politically unreliable people from Stratus, Coronta, and other places, and restored a man named Cynes, son of Theolytus, to Coronta. Then they went back to their ships.

They decided that marching against Oeniadae in winter was impossible. Unlike the rest of Acarnania, Oeniadae had always been hostile to Athens, but the terrain protected it. The Achelous River, flowing from Mount Pindus through the territories of the Dolopians, Agraeans, and Amphilochians and across the Acarnanian plain, passes by the town of Stratus in its upper course and empties into the sea near Oeniadae, surrounding the town with marshland and lakes. In winter, the flooding made it impossible for an army to approach.

Directly opposite Oeniadae, most of the islands called the Echinades lie so close to the mouths of the Achelous that the powerful river constantly piles sediment against them. Several islands have already been joined to the mainland, and the rest seem likely to follow before long. The current is strong, deep, and full of silt, and the islands are packed so close together — and staggered rather than lined up — that they trap the sediment and prevent it from washing out to sea.

There's a legend connected to this place. Alcmaeon, son of Amphiaraus, was wandering the earth after murdering his mother. Apollo told him through an oracle that he would find no peace until he settled in a land that hadn't been seen by the sun and hadn't existed as dry ground at the time of his crime — since every other place on earth was polluted for him. Baffled by this riddle, the story goes, Alcmaeon eventually noticed the silt deposits of the Achelous and reasoned that enough land might have built up during his long years of wandering to support him. He settled in the area around Oeniadae, established a kingdom, and gave the whole country its name — Acarnania — after his son Acarnan.

That, at least, is the story that has come down to us about Alcmaeon.

---

The Athenians under Phormio sailed from Acarnania back to Naupactus. In the spring, they returned to Athens, bringing with them the captured ships and all the prisoners of free birth from the recent battles. These were exchanged, man for man.

And so the winter ended, and with it the third year of this war, of which Thucydides was the historian.

Book III: Escalation

CHAPTER 9

Fourth and Fifth Years of the War -- Revolt of Mytilene

The next summer, just as the grain was ripening, the Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica again under the command of Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Spartans. They settled in and ravaged the land as before. The Athenian cavalry harassed them wherever they could, preventing the bulk of the light infantry from leaving camp to plunder the areas close to the city. After staying as long as their supplies lasted, the invaders withdrew and dispersed to their home cities.

Immediately after the Peloponnesian withdrawal, all of Lesbos except Methymna revolted from Athens. The Lesbians had actually wanted to revolt even before the war began, but the Spartans would not accept them into their alliance at the time. And now, even when they did revolt, they were forced to act sooner than planned. They had been waiting for the completion of new harbor fortifications, additional ships, and walls still under construction, as well as the arrival of archers and grain they were importing from the Black Sea. But their enemies at Tenedos, along with the Methymnians and some political dissidents within Mytilene itself -- men who served as diplomatic representatives of Athens -- sent word to the Athenians. The message was alarming: the Mytilenians were forcibly consolidating all of Lesbos under their control, and everything they were preparing was being coordinated with the Boeotians, their ethnic kin, and the Spartans. The goal was revolt. Unless Athens acted immediately, Lesbos would be lost.

The Athenians, already worn down by the plague and a war that had recently erupted and was now raging on all fronts, regarded the prospect of adding Lesbos to their list of enemies as a serious blow. Lesbos had its own fleet and resources that were still intact. At first the Athenians refused to believe the reports, giving too much weight to their hope that it might not be true. But when an Athenian embassy failed to persuade the Mytilenians to abandon the consolidation and military preparations they had been warned about, Athens became alarmed. They resolved to strike first.

They quickly dispatched forty ships that had been outfitted for a cruise around the Peloponnese, under the command of Cleippides, son of Deinias, and two other generals. Intelligence had reached them about a festival of Apollo at Cape Malea, which the entire population of Mytilene attended outside the city walls. If they moved fast enough, they might catch the Mytilenians by surprise. If the plan worked, excellent. If not, they were to order the Mytilenians to surrender their ships and tear down their walls -- and if they refused, to declare war.

The fleet sailed. The ten Mytilenian ships serving with the Athenian navy as required by the alliance were seized, and their crews placed in custody. But the Mytilenians received advance warning. A man crossed from Athens to Euboea, traveled overland to Geraestus, found a merchant ship about to sail, and reached Mytilene on the third day after leaving Athens. The Mytilenians promptly canceled the festival at Malea, barricaded the half-finished sections of their walls and harbors, and posted guards.

When the Athenian fleet arrived and saw the situation, the generals delivered their demands. The Mytilenians refused. And so hostilities began.

Forced into war before they were ready and without warning, the Mytilenians at first sailed out to fight, putting on a show of force just outside the harbor. But the Athenian ships drove them back, and they immediately offered to negotiate with the Athenian commanders. They hoped to get the fleet to leave, at least for now, on some reasonable terms. The Athenian commanders accepted the offer -- they were concerned about their ability to take on all of Lesbos. An armistice was agreed. The Mytilenians sent a delegation to Athens that included one of the original informers, now regretting what he had done. They would try to convince the Athenians that they meant no harm, and to get the fleet recalled.

At the same time, with little real hope that Athens would listen, they also secretly dispatched a galley to Sparta with envoys to request aid. The ship slipped past the Athenian fleet, which was anchored at Malea to the north of the city.

While these envoys were making the difficult open-sea crossing to Sparta to negotiate for reinforcements, the Mytilenian ambassadors returned from Athens empty-handed. Hostilities resumed immediately. The Mytilenians and the rest of Lesbos -- except for Methymna, which joined the Athenians along with troops from Imbros, Lemnos, and a few other allied states -- were now at war.

The Mytilenians launched a full-strength sortie against the Athenian camp. A battle followed in which they gained a slight advantage, but they retreated anyway, lacking the confidence to hold their ground overnight. After that they stayed put, hoping for reinforcements from the Peloponnese before risking another engagement. Their spirits were lifted by the arrival of Meleas, a Spartan, and Hermaeondas, a Theban, who had been sent out before the revolt began but had failed to reach Lesbos ahead of the Athenian fleet. They slipped in by galley after the battle and urged the Mytilenians to send another galley back with them carrying fresh envoys to Sparta. The Mytilenians did so.

Meanwhile, the Athenians were greatly encouraged by the Mytilenians' inaction. They called up allied reinforcements, which arrived quickly once the allies saw how little resistance the Lesbians were putting up. The Athenians moved their ships to a new anchorage south of the city, fortified two camps on either side of Mytilene, and set up a blockade of both harbors. The sea was now closed to the Mytilenians. But they still controlled the countryside, along with the rest of the Lesbians who had joined them. The Athenians held only the limited ground around their camps and used Malea primarily as a base for their ships and a marketplace for supplies.

CAMPAIGNS IN THE WEST

While the war around Mytilene continued in this fashion, the Athenians also sent thirty ships to the Peloponnese that same summer, under the command of Asopius, son of Phormio. The Acarnanians had specifically requested that the commander be a son or relative of Phormio.

The fleet sailed along the coast, ravaging the shoreline of Spartan territory. Then Asopius sent most of the ships home and continued on with twelve vessels to Naupactus. From there, he mobilized the full Acarnanian population for an expedition against Oeniadae. The fleet sailed up the Achelous River while the army laid waste to the countryside. But the inhabitants showed no signs of surrendering, so he dismissed the land forces and sailed to Leucas instead. He landed at Nericus, but during the retreat, he and most of his troops were cut off and killed by the local population, reinforced by coastguard forces. The Athenians later recovered their dead under a truce with the Leucadians.

THE MYTILENIAN SPEECH AT OLYMPIA

Meanwhile, the Mytilenian envoys who had been sent out on the first ship were told by the Spartans to come to Olympia, so the rest of the allies could hear their case and decide the matter together. And so they made the journey. It was the Olympiad in which the Rhodian athlete Dorieus won his second victory. After the festival, the envoys were given the floor and spoke as follows:

"Spartans and allies, we are well aware of the standard view among Greeks. When allies switch sides during a war, the people who receive them think well of them only insofar as they are useful. Otherwise, they are viewed as traitors to their former friends. And there is nothing unfair about this judgment -- when the rebels and the power they are leaving are genuinely aligned in policy and sympathy, equal in resources and power, and when there is no legitimate reason for the break.

"But that was not the case between us and the Athenians. And no one should think less of us for leaving them in a time of danger, after they honored us in time of peace.

"We will begin with justice and integrity, especially since we are here to ask for an alliance. We know that no friendship between individuals and no alliance between states can ever be solid unless the parties trust each other's honesty and are fundamentally alike in character. When feelings diverge, actions diverge too.

"Our alliance with Athens began when you Spartans withdrew from the Persian War and the Athenians stayed on to finish the job. But we did not become allies of the Athenians to help them enslave the Greeks. We became allies of the Greeks to help liberate them from Persia. As long as Athens led us fairly, we followed loyally. But when we saw them relax their hostility toward Persia and begin working to subjugate the allies instead, we grew alarmed.

"The allies, however, could not unite and defend themselves. There were too many of them, and they all had votes -- which meant they could be isolated and picked off. And so, one by one, they were all enslaved, except for us and the Chians, who continued to serve as independent, nominally free allies. But trust Athens as a leader? We could not -- not after what we had seen her do to the rest. It was hard to believe she would reduce all our fellow allies and then leave us alone, if she ever had the power to take us too.

"If all the allies had still been independent, we could have had more confidence that Athens would not try anything. But with the vast majority already her subjects, it was only natural for her to chafe at our special status -- the lone holdouts of independence in a sea of submission -- especially as she grew stronger every day and we grew more isolated. The only real guarantee of any alliance is mutual fear: each side too cautious to provoke the other, knowing they have no decisive advantage. That is the only thing that keeps would-be aggressors in check.

"The reason we were left independent was not Athenian generosity. Athens calculated that she could build her empire more effectively through clever language and political maneuvering than through brute force. We were useful as evidence: if an allied state with equal standing and a free vote was willingly going along with Athenian expeditions, surely the states being attacked must be in the wrong. The same system also allowed Athens to pick off the weaker states first, leaving the stronger ones isolated and stripped of natural allies until the end. If they had started with us, while the other states still had their own resources and a rallying point, the subjugation would have been much harder.

"Besides, our navy made Athens nervous. There was always the chance it might unite with yours or with some other power and become a serious threat. We also maintained our position partly by courting the Athenian popular assembly and its leaders of the day. But we never expected this arrangement to last much longer -- not from the examples we had seen of Athenian behavior toward everyone else. If this war had not broken out, our time was running short.

"So what kind of trust, what kind of freedom was this? We accepted each other reluctantly. Fear made them court us during wartime; fear made us court them during peace. What normally holds an alliance together -- mutual goodwill -- was replaced by mutual terror. Fear, not friendship, kept us in the alliance. And whichever side first felt confident enough to act was certain to be the first to break the arrangement.

"So if anyone wants to condemn us for making the first move -- because Athens was the one delaying the blow while we refused to sit around waiting for it to fall -- they are looking at this the wrong way. If we had been equally able to plot against them and to match their delay, we would have been their equals, and there would have been no need for us to be their subjects. But the freedom to attack was always theirs, so the freedom to act first in our own defense must clearly be ours.

"These, Spartans and allies, are the reasons for our revolt. They should be clear enough to convince our hearers that our conduct was justified -- and alarming enough to explain why we felt compelled to seek safety elsewhere. We wanted to do this long ago. We sent envoys to you while the peace still held, but you refused to receive us. Now, with the Boeotians inviting us, we responded immediately. We decided on a twofold break: from the Greeks and from the Athenians. Not to help Athens harm the Greeks, but to join in their liberation. Not to let Athens destroy us in the end, but to act before she could.

"Our revolt, however, came prematurely and before we were fully prepared. That makes it all the more urgent for you to take us into your alliance and send help quickly -- to show that you support your friends and damage your enemies at the same time. You have an opportunity like nothing you have ever had before. The Athenians are wasted by disease and drained by expense. Their ships are either patrolling your coasts or tied up blockading us. If you invade again this summer, by both sea and land, they probably will not have the fleet to resist on both fronts. Either they will not challenge your ships, or they will have to pull back from one of our two fronts.

"And do not think you would be putting yourselves at risk for a country that is not yours. Lesbos may seem far away, but when you need help, you will find her close enough. The war will not be decided in Attica, as some people imagine. It will be decided in the places that support Attica. Athens draws her revenue from her allies. That revenue will only grow if she takes us -- not only will no other state dare to revolt, but our resources will be added to hers, and we will be treated worse than those who were enslaved before us.

"But if you support us openly, you gain a state with a large navy -- the very thing you need most. You smooth the path to Athens's overthrow by depriving her of allies, who will be greatly emboldened to come over to your side. And you free yourselves from the charge that you do not support states that rebel against Athens. Show yourselves as liberators, and you can count on winning this war.

"Respect the hopes that the Greeks have placed in you. Respect Olympian Zeus, in whose temple we stand as suppliants. Become the allies and defenders of the Mytilenians. Do not abandon us. We are risking our lives in a cause where success means good for everyone, and failure -- if you refuse to help us -- means harm more terrible still. Be the men that Greece believes you to be, and that our fears desperately need you to be."

SPARTA'S RESPONSE AND THE STANDOFF

Such were the words of the Mytilenians. The Spartans and their allies were persuaded. They accepted the Lesbians into the alliance and voted to invade Attica. They ordered the allies present to march to the Isthmus as quickly as possible with two-thirds of their forces. The Spartans arrived first and began preparing hauling machines to drag their ships overland from Corinth to the Saronic Gulf, so they could attack Athens by sea and land simultaneously.

But the Spartans' enthusiasm was not shared by the rest of the alliance. The other states came in slowly, busy with their harvests and sick of making expeditions.

The Athenians, meanwhile, learned of these preparations. Aware that the enemy was counting on Athenian weakness, Athens decided to prove them wrong -- to show that she could handle the Peloponnesian threat without pulling a single ship away from Lesbos. They manned a hundred ships with Athenian citizens -- everyone except the two wealthiest property classes and the cavalry -- along with resident foreigners. They sailed to the Isthmus, made a show of force, and raided the Peloponnese at will.

This dramatic display stunned the Spartans. The Lesbians, it seemed, had been wrong about Athenian weakness. Coupled with the embarrassing failure of the allied forces to show up, and the news that the thirty Athenian ships in the Peloponnese were ravaging Spartan territory, the Spartans gave up and went home.

Afterward, however, they assembled a fleet of forty ships from across the alliance to send to Lesbos, and appointed Alcidas as high admiral to command the expedition. The Athenians, seeing the Spartans withdraw from the Isthmus, took their hundred ships home as well.

ATHENIAN NAVAL STRENGTH

If Athens had nearly the largest number of first-rate ships in active service at this moment, she had as many or even more at the very start of the war. Back then, a hundred ships guarded Attica, Euboea, and Salamis. Another hundred cruised around the Peloponnese. Others were stationed at Potidaea and elsewhere -- a grand total of two hundred and fifty warships in active service in a single summer.

This, along with the siege of Potidaea, is what drained the Athenian treasury. The Potidaea garrison consisted of three thousand heavy infantry, each drawing two drachmas a day -- one for himself and one for his servant -- maintained at that strength throughout the siege. On top of that, there were the sixteen hundred troops who had served under Phormio before leaving early, plus the full pay for all those ships' crews. This was how Athens first began hemorrhaging money. And it was the largest fleet she ever had in commission.

THE SIEGE TIGHTENS

Around the same time the Spartans were at the Isthmus, the Mytilenians marched overland with their mercenaries against Methymna, hoping to take it by treachery. They assaulted the town but failed, and withdrew to Antissa, Pyrrha, and Eresus. After securing those towns and strengthening their fortifications, they hurried home.

After they left, the Methymnians marched against Antissa, but were routed in a sortie by the Antissians and their mercenaries and retreated with heavy losses. When word reached Athens that the Mytilenians controlled the countryside and that Athenian forces could not contain them, the Athenians sent out a thousand heavy infantry under Paches, son of Epicurus, at the start of autumn. These soldiers rowed their own ships. On arrival at Mytilene, they built a single wall encircling the entire city, with forts at the strongest points. Mytilene was now under strict blockade -- by land and by sea. Winter was approaching.

FINANCIAL PRESSURES

Needing money for the siege, the Athenians took an extraordinary step: for the first time, they levied a direct property tax of two hundred talents on their own citizens. They also sent out twelve ships under Lysicles and four other commanders to collect tribute from the allies. After visiting several places and extracting payments, Lysicles marched inland from Myus in Caria, across the plain of the Meander, as far as the hill of Sandius. There the Carians and the people of Anaia attacked and killed him along with many of his soldiers.

THE GREAT ESCAPE FROM PLATAEA

That same winter, the Plataeans -- still under siege by the Peloponnesians and Boeotians -- were running out of food. There was no hope of relief from Athens and no other prospect of survival. They devised a plan with the Athenians trapped inside the city: they would try to break out over the enemy's walls.

The idea came from Theaenetus, son of Tolmides, a soothsayer, and Eupompides, son of Daimachus, one of the generals. Originally everyone was going to attempt it. Then half the men lost their nerve, deciding the risk was too great. About two hundred and twenty, however, volunteered to go through with it.

Here is how they did it.

First, they built ladders to match the height of the enemy's wall. They calculated the height by counting the layers of bricks on the side facing the city, which had not been fully plastered over. Many men counted the layers simultaneously. Some might get the number wrong, but most would get it right -- especially since they counted again and again, and the wall was close enough to see clearly. From the number of brick layers and the known width of each brick, they calculated the length the ladders needed to be.

The Peloponnesian siege wall was built as follows. It consisted of two parallel lines drawn around the city, about sixteen feet apart -- one facing the Plataeans, the other facing outward in case of an Athenian attack. The space between the two lines was filled with barracks for the garrison, built as one continuous structure so that the whole thing looked like a single thick wall with battlements on both sides. Every ten battlements there was a large tower, the full width of the wall, with no way through except down the middle of each tower. On rainy, stormy nights, the soldiers abandoned the battlements and kept watch from these towers instead, which were roofed and not far apart.

When their preparations were complete, the Plataeans waited for a stormy night -- wind, rain, no moon -- and set out. The men who had conceived the plan led the way.

They crossed the ditch surrounding the town and reached the enemy wall without being detected. The sentries could not see them in the darkness and could not hear them over the howling wind. The escapees also kept well spread out to avoid the clank of weapons striking together. They were lightly equipped, with only the left foot shod -- for grip in the mud.

They reached the battlements at one of the unguarded gaps between the towers. The ladder carriers went first and planted their ladders. Then twelve lightly armed men climbed up, carrying only daggers and breastplates. Their leader was Ammias, son of Coroebus, and he was the first man over the wall. His followers went up after him, six heading for each of the flanking towers. Behind them came a second wave of light troops armed with spears. Their shields were carried by men behind them, to be handed forward when they engaged the enemy.

They had gotten a good number of men over when they were discovered. A sentry in one of the towers heard the noise when a Plataean knocked a roof tile loose while grabbing the battlements. The alarm went up instantly. Troops rushed to the wall, but in the darkness and the storm they had no idea what they were facing. At the same moment, the Plataeans still inside the city launched a diversionary attack against the siege wall on the opposite side. This kept the garrison scattered and confused at their posts. No one dared leave his position to help elsewhere, and no one could figure out what was happening.

The Peloponnesian reserve force of three hundred, kept for emergencies, moved outside the wall toward the alarm. Fire signals were raised toward Thebes calling for help. But the Plataeans in the city had prepared for this: they immediately lit a mass of counter-signals they had set up in advance, specifically to scramble the enemy's messages. The idea was to make the Thebans' fire signals unreadable, so that no reinforcements would arrive before the escapees were clear.

Meanwhile, the first Plataeans over the wall stormed both flanking towers and killed the sentries, then posted themselves inside to block anyone from coming through. They raised ladders from the wall to the tower tops and used missiles to keep everyone at bay -- shooting from both the roofs and the bases of the towers. The main body kept climbing the wall, knocking down battlements, and passing over between the towers. Each man, as soon as he was over, took up a position at the edge of the outer ditch and fired arrows and javelins at anyone on the wall who tried to stop the others from crossing.

When the last men were over, the fighters in the towers came down -- not without difficulty -- and made for the ditch. At that moment the three hundred reserves arrived, carrying torches. The Plataeans, standing at the ditch's edge in darkness, had a clear view of their lit-up opponents and shot arrows and javelins at their exposed bodies. The Plataeans themselves were hard to see against the glare of the torches. Even the last of them managed to get across the ditch, though it was a brutal struggle.

Ice had formed on the water -- not the hard kind you can walk on, but the slushy kind that comes with an east wind. Snow driven by that same wind during the night had raised the water level, and the men could barely keep their heads above it as they waded across. But it was the very violence of the storm that made their escape possible.

Once across the ditch, the Plataeans regrouped and set off together along the road toward Thebes, keeping the chapel of the hero Androcrates on their right. Their reasoning was sound: the road toward the enemy's own territory was the last road anyone would suspect them of taking. And sure enough, they could see their pursuers behind them, carrying torches and heading the other way -- down the road to Athens, toward Cithaeron and Oakheads.

After about three-quarters of a mile on the Thebes road, the Plataeans turned off onto the mountain path toward Erythrae and Hysiae. They reached the hills and made it safely to Athens: two hundred and twelve men out of the two hundred and twenty who had set out. Some had turned back before crossing the wall, and one archer was captured at the outer ditch.

The Peloponnesians gave up the pursuit and returned to their posts. The Plataeans still in the city, knowing nothing about what had happened -- the men who turned back had told them no one survived -- sent a herald at dawn to arrange a truce for recovering the dead. When they learned the truth, they dropped the request.

That is how the Plataean escape party got over the wall and reached safety.

THE FALL OF MYTILENE

Toward the end of that same winter, the Spartans sent Salaethus to Mytilene by galley. He sailed to Pyrrha and then went overland, following a dry streambed through a gap in the Athenian siege wall. He slipped into the city undetected and told the Mytilenian authorities that an invasion of Attica was certain, that the forty ships being sent to relieve them would arrive, and that he had been sent ahead to deliver this news and take charge of the situation. The Mytilenians took heart and shelved all thoughts of negotiating with Athens.

And so the winter ended, and with it the fourth year of the war that Thucydides recorded.

THE FIFTH YEAR BEGINS

The following summer, the Peloponnesians dispatched the forty-two ships to Mytilene under Alcidas, their high admiral, and simultaneously invaded Attica with their allies. The plan was to hit Athens from two directions at once, making it harder for her to deal with the fleet sailing to Lesbos. The invasion was commanded by Cleomenes, standing in for King Pausanias, son of Pleistoanax, who was his nephew and still a minor.

This time the invaders did not just re-devastate the areas they had ravaged before. They pushed into new territory, extending the destruction to land that had been untouched in previous incursions. This invasion was the most painful the Athenians had yet experienced, after only the second. The enemy lingered and lingered, waiting for news from Lesbos that the fleet had accomplished something -- they assumed it must have arrived by now. But no news came. Their provisions ran out, and they retreated and dispersed to their home cities.

THE PEOPLE RISE UP

In the meantime, the Mytilenians were running out of food. The fleet from the Peloponnese was nowhere in sight -- it was dawdling somewhere along the route instead of arriving at Mytilene. They were forced to come to terms with Athens. Here is what happened.

Salaethus, now giving up hope that the fleet would come, armed the common people with heavy infantry equipment they had never possessed before, intending to lead a mass sortie against the Athenians. But the moment the common people had weapons in their hands, they refused to take orders. They gathered in groups and demanded that the authorities bring out the food reserves and distribute them equally to everyone. If the government refused, they said, they would negotiate their own surrender and hand the city over to the Athenians.

The authorities, unable to stop this and fully aware that they would be left out of any deal the people made on their own, decided to negotiate the capitulation themselves. They reached an agreement with Paches and the Athenian army: Mytilene would surrender unconditionally, and the Athenian troops would enter the city. In return, the Mytilenians were allowed to send an embassy to Athens to plead their case, and Paches would not imprison, enslave, or execute any citizen until the embassy returned.

Those were the terms. Even so, the men who had been most involved in negotiating with Sparta were so terrified when the Athenian army marched in that they went and sat down at the altars as suppliants. Paches persuaded them to get up, promising he would do them no harm. He sent them to the island of Tenedos to wait until Athens decided their fate. He also sent galleys to seize Antissa and took whatever other military steps he thought necessary.

THE PELOPONNESIAN FLEET ARRIVES TOO LATE

Meanwhile, the Peloponnesian fleet of forty ships -- which should have rushed to relieve Mytilene at top speed -- had wasted time cruising around the Peloponnese. Proceeding at a leisurely pace, they reached Delos without being spotted by the Athenians at Athens, and then sailed on to Icarus and Myconus. There they first heard that Mytilene had already fallen.

Wanting to confirm this, they put in at Embatum on the coast of Erythrae -- about seven days after the city's capture. The news was confirmed. They began debating what to do next.

An Elean named Teutiaplus spoke up:

"Alcidas -- and all of you Peloponnesians who share this command -- my advice is that we sail to Mytilene right now, before anyone knows we are here. We can expect to find the Athenians off their guard, the way men always are when they have just captured a city. This is especially true at sea, where they have no expectation of an enemy attacking -- and sea power happens to be our main strength. Even their land forces are probably scattered around the city's houses, relaxed in the carelessness of victory. If we strike suddenly, at night, I believe we can take the place -- especially with any sympathizers who may still be inside. Let us not shrink from the risk. Remember: this is exactly the kind of baseless panic that wins wars. The ability to guard against panic in yourself and to recognize when the enemy is vulnerable to it -- that is what separates a great general from an ordinary one."

But Alcidas was unmoved.

Other voices then spoke up -- Ionian exiles and Lesbians traveling with the fleet -- urging a different approach. Since a direct attack on Mytilene seemed too risky, why not seize one of the Ionian cities, or the Aeolian city of Cyme, and use it as a base to spark a revolt across Ionia? This was not a hopeless idea. Their arrival was being welcomed everywhere. The strategic goal would be to cut off Athens's single greatest source of revenue, while simultaneously forcing her to spend money blockading them. They might even be able to bring the Persian governor Pissuthnes into the war on their side.

Alcidas rejected this proposal too. His only thought, now that he had missed Mytilene, was to get back to the Peloponnese as quickly as possible.

So he sailed from Embatum along the coast. At the Teian town of Myonnesus, he butchered most of the prisoners he had captured on the voyage. When he anchored at Ephesus, envoys from the Samian exiles at Anaia came to him with a blunt message: this was not the way to liberate Greece, by massacring men who had never raised a hand against him and who were allies of Athens against their will, not by choice. If he kept this up, he would make more friends into enemies than enemies into friends.

Alcidas saw the point. He released all the Chian prisoners still in his hands and some of the others. The local populations along the coast, instead of fleeing at the sight of his ships, had actually been approaching them -- mistaking them for Athenian vessels. No one seriously imagined that while Athens controlled the sea, Peloponnesian warships would venture all the way to Ionia.

THE CHASE

Alcidas left Ephesus in a hurry, running for home. He had been spotted while still at anchor off Clarus by the Salaminia and the Paralus -- two Athenian state galleys that happened to be sailing from Athens. Now, fearing pursuit, he struck out across the open sea, determined to touch land nowhere until he reached the Peloponnese.

News of his fleet had already reached Paches from the Erythraean coast and from all directions. Since the Ionian cities had no fortifications, there was widespread panic that the Peloponnesians might raid the towns as they sailed past, even without intending to stay. The Salaminia and Paralus, having spotted him at Clarus, confirmed it. Paches gave hot pursuit. He chased Alcidas as far as the island of Patmos, but by then Alcidas had too great a lead and could not be overtaken. Paches turned back -- glad, in a way, that he had not caught them at sea, since if he had overtaken them near shore, they would have been forced to beach and fortify a position, leaving him with the headache of a blockade.

PACHES AT NOTIUM

On his return voyage along the coast, Paches stopped at Notium, the port town of Colophon. The Colophonians had settled there after their upper city was captured by a Persian named Itamenes and his soldiers -- called in by one of the factions during a civil conflict. This capture occurred around the time of the second Peloponnesian invasion of Attica.

But the refugees at Notium had split into factions themselves. One group brought in Arcadian and other mercenaries from the Persian governor Pissuthnes, quartered them in a fortified section of the town, and formed a new community allied with the pro-Persian Colophonians who joined them from the upper city. The opposing faction had gone into exile and now called on Paches for help.

Paches invited the commander of the Arcadian garrison, a man named Hippias, to a meeting under a guarantee of safe conduct -- promising that if they could not reach an agreement, he would return Hippias unharmed to the fortification. Hippias came out. Paches put him under arrest -- unchained, but in custody -- then launched a sudden assault on the fortified quarter and took it by surprise. He killed every Arcadian and non-Greek soldier inside. Then he brought Hippias back into the fortification as promised -- and as soon as the man was inside, seized him and had him shot down with arrows.

Paches handed Notium over to the Colophonians who had not sided with the Persians. Later, Athens sent settlers and colonized the place under Athenian law, gathering up all the scattered Colophonians they could find in other cities.

THE MYTILENIAN DEBATE

Back at Mytilene, Paches subdued Pyrrha and Eresus. He found the Spartan agent Salaethus hiding in the city and sent him to Athens, along with the Mytilenians he had placed in custody on Tenedos and anyone else he considered complicit in the revolt. He then sent back most of his forces, staying on with the remainder to settle affairs in Mytilene and across Lesbos as he saw fit.

When the prisoners arrived at Athens -- Salaethus among them -- the Athenians executed the Spartan immediately, despite his offer to arrange the Peloponnesian withdrawal from Plataea, which was still under siege.

Then they turned to the question of the Mytilenian prisoners. And in the heat of the moment, in a fury, they voted to execute not just the prisoners in Athens but every adult male in Mytilene, and to enslave the women and children. What inflamed them was the nature of the revolt itself. Mytilene had not been forced into subjection like the other allies -- she had been an independent state. And the audacity of the Peloponnesian fleet sailing all the way to Ionia to support her was taken as proof that the rebellion had been planned far in advance. A galley was immediately sent to Paches with orders to carry out the decree without delay.

But the very next day, second thoughts set in. On reflection, the Athenians were horrified by the sheer enormity of what they had decided -- the annihilation of an entire city for the crimes of a few. The Mytilenian ambassadors still in Athens and their Athenian supporters quickly sensed this shift and moved to reopen the question. The authorities agreed to a new debate all the more readily because it was obvious that most citizens wanted someone to give them a chance to reconsider.

An assembly was called at once. After heated argument on both sides, Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, stepped forward. It was Cleon who had pushed through the original death sentence. He was the most aggressive man in Athens and, at that moment, by far the most influential with the people. He spoke as follows:

THE SPEECH OF CLEON

"I have said it before, and I will say it again: democracy is not suited to running an empire. And nothing proves it better than this reversal on the question of Mytilene.

"Because you live in a society free from fear and conspiracy in your daily dealings with each other, you assume the same is true of your allies. You never stop to think that when you make mistakes -- by listening to their appeals, by giving in to your own compassion -- those mistakes put you in danger, and they earn you zero gratitude from the people you are trying to be kind to. You keep forgetting: your empire is a dictatorship. Your subjects are unwilling conspirators who obey you not because of your generosity but because of your power. It is your strength that keeps them in line, not their loyalty.

"But the worst thing -- the most dangerous thing -- is this constant changing of course. Because here is a truth you do not want to hear: bad laws that stay on the books are better for a state than good laws that are constantly overturned. Uneducated steadiness is more valuable than undisciplined cleverness. Ordinary men usually run a government better than brilliant ones. The brilliant ones always want to show they are smarter than the laws. They have to challenge every proposal, pick apart every speech, prove their superiority in every debate -- and that behavior is what ruins countries. Meanwhile, the ordinary men, who have the good sense to distrust their own intelligence, are content to know less than the laws and less than the experts. They judge fairly instead of competing. And they are the ones who get things done.

"That is the model we should follow. Instead, we are being led astray by intellectual one-upmanship -- pressured to advise you against our own better judgment.

"As for myself, I stand by my original position. And I am amazed at those who have reopened this case. Every hour of delay is an hour that benefits the guilty. When the sufferer's anger has cooled, he strikes with less force than the crime deserves. Punishment that falls swiftly on the heels of the offense is the punishment that comes closest to matching it.

"I am also curious to see who will stand up and argue the other side. Will someone really try to prove that the crimes of the Mytilenians serve our interests? That our own misfortunes somehow benefit our allies? Such a man must either trust his own eloquence so completely that he thinks he can argue black is white, or he must be taking a bribe to dress up lies in clever language. In contests like this, the state hands out the prizes but keeps all the risk.

"And the blame falls on you. You are the ones who set up these absurd competitions. You go to debates the way you go to performances. You take your facts on hearsay and judge a policy by the cleverness of the speaker. You decide what happened in the past not by what you saw with your own eyes but by the most impressive speech you heard about it. You are suckers for a new argument and hostile to any established conclusion. Slaves to every fresh paradox, contemptuous of anything ordinary. Every one of you wishes he could be the one giving the speech. Failing that, you compete with the speaker by nodding along and applauding every clever point half a second before he makes it -- quick to catch an argument but slow to see where it leads. You are chasing an experience that has nothing to do with the reality you live in, and you cannot even properly understand the reality you live in. You are, to put it bluntly, prisoners of the pleasure of listening. You behave more like an audience at a performance than a council running a city.

"To save you from yourselves, let me lay out the facts. No single state has ever done you as much harm as Mytilene.

"I can make allowances for states that revolt because they cannot endure our rule, or that have been forced into it by the enemy. But these people? They lived on an island with strong defenses. They had nothing to fear from our enemies except by sea, and they had their own navy to protect them. They were independent. They were honored by us above almost everyone else. And this is how they repaid us? This is not revolt -- revolt implies oppression. This was calculated, deliberate aggression. An attempt to destroy us by joining our worst enemies. It was worse than if they had gone to war with us on their own for the sake of building their own power.

"The fate of their neighbors -- other states that had already rebelled and been crushed -- taught them nothing. Their own prosperity could not dissuade them from courting disaster. Blindly confident in the future, full of ambitions that exceeded their power, they declared war. They chose might over right. Their attack was timed not to a grievance but to what they thought was the perfect opportunity.

"The truth is this: when great good fortune comes suddenly and unexpectedly, it makes people reckless. In most cases, success is safer when it comes in proportion to reasonable expectations than when it defies all odds. People find it easier, you might say, to fight off bad luck than to hold onto good luck.

"Our real mistake was treating the Mytilenians as special in the first place. If they had been treated like everyone else from the start, they would never have gone this far. It is human nature: show people consideration and they grow arrogant; show them firmness and they show respect.

"Punish them, then, as they deserve. Do not condemn the oligarchs and let the common people off the hook. The whole city attacked you. The people could have come over to us at any time -- they would still be in possession of their city if they had. But no. They decided it was safer to throw in their lot with the aristocrats and join the rebellion.

"Think about what happens next. If you impose the same punishment on an ally forced into rebellion by the enemy as on one that rebels of its own free will, which of them will hesitate to revolt at the first opportunity? The reward of success is freedom. The penalty of failure? Nothing very terrible. Meanwhile, we will have to risk our money and our lives against one state after another. When we win, we inherit a ruined city that can no longer produce the revenue our power depends on. When we lose, we have created another enemy, and we spend our time fighting our own allies instead of the enemies we already have.

"So do not hold out any hope to them. Not the hope that eloquence can create, and not the hope that money can buy. Not the mercy that human weakness supposedly deserves. Their offense was not involuntary. It was deliberate and malicious. Mercy is for those who act against their will.

"I say now what I said before: do not reverse your decision. Do not fall victim to the three failings most fatal to an empire -- pity, sentimentality, and leniency.

"Compassion belongs to those who can return it. Not to people who will never pity us and who are our permanent, necessary enemies. The orators who charm you with fine feelings can find less important stages for their performances -- somewhere the city does not pay a heavy price for a few moments of their audience's pleasure while the speakers themselves walk away with applause for their eloquence. And leniency should be reserved for people who might be our friends in the future, not for people who will remain exactly what they have always been: our enemies.

"Let me put it simply. Follow my advice and you will do what is both just and strategically sound. Choose differently and you will not win their gratitude -- you will pass sentence on yourselves. Because if they were right to revolt, then you have no right to rule. But if you are determined to rule -- whether you have the right to or not -- then you must punish them as your interests require, or else give up your empire and practice your noble principles from the safety of private life.

"Make up your minds to give them what they gave you. Do not let the survivors of their conspiracy be more forgiving than the conspirators who planned it. Think about what they would have done to you if they had won -- especially since they were the aggressors. It is always the unprovoked aggressor who pursues his victim most ruthlessly, because he knows what awaits him if his enemy survives. A man who has been wronged without cause is more dangerous, if he escapes, than an ordinary enemy.

"Do not betray yourselves. Put yourselves back in that moment -- remember what it felt like, remember how desperately you wanted to crush them. Now pay them back. Do not go soft now and forget the danger that hung over you then. Punish them as they deserve. Teach every ally, by an unmistakable example, that the penalty for rebellion is death. Once they understand that, you will no longer have to neglect your real enemies because you are too busy fighting your own allies."

THE SPEECH OF DIODOTUS

Such were the words of Cleon.

After him, Diodotus, son of Eucrates, who had also spoken most forcefully against executing the Mytilenians in the previous assembly, came forward and addressed the crowd:

"I do not blame those who reopened this debate, and I reject the argument that important decisions should not be revisited. In my view, the two greatest enemies of good judgment are haste and anger. Haste is the partner of folly. Anger is the partner of narrow-mindedness and brutality.

"As for the claim that debate is pointless and that actions should speak for themselves -- anyone who says this is either a fool or a fraud. A fool, if he genuinely believes we can deal with an uncertain future without discussion. A fraud, if he wants to push through something he knows is indefensible and thinks he can shut down opposition by smearing his opponents before they even speak.

"But what I find most intolerable is the accusation that a speaker who argues well must be arguing for personal profit. If the charge were merely incompetence, an unsuccessful speaker could at least walk away with his reputation for honesty intact. But when you accuse a man of corruption, he is suspected if he wins and considered both stupid and dishonest if he loses. The city gains nothing from this. Fear strips it of advisers. Frankly, it would be better if speakers like that lacked all eloquence -- then we would make fewer mistakes.

"A good citizen should win his case not by intimidating his opponents but by making a better argument. A wise city should neither lavish excessive honors on its best advisers nor strip them of the honors they deserve. It certainly should not punish a counselor whose advice turns out badly. Under such conditions, successful speakers would feel less pressure to chase popularity by saying what the crowd wants to hear, and unsuccessful ones would not resort to the same crowd-pleasing tricks just to get a hearing.

"But that is not how we do things. The moment a man is suspected of giving good advice from corrupt motives -- however uncertain the suspicion -- we punish him by rejecting the advice. The result is that sound counsel has become just as suspect as bad counsel. The advocate of the most extreme measures is no more obligated to use deception than the advocate of the wisest course is obligated to lie in order to be believed. Ours is the only city where it is impossible to do an honest public service without being suspected of secretly serving yourself. And yet, given the enormous stakes involved, we who advise you must try to see further than you who judge us on the spot -- especially since we, your advisers, are held accountable for our counsel, while you, our audience, are not. If those who gave advice and those who followed it shared the consequences equally, you would judge more carefully. As it stands, when things go wrong, you punish the one person who gave the advice and let yourselves off the hook -- the many who made the same mistake.

"But I have not come here to defend the Mytilenians or to prosecute them. If we are sensible, the question before us is not their guilt -- it is our interest. Even if I prove them guilty beyond all doubt, I will not call for their death unless it serves our advantage. And even if they have some claim to mercy, I will not recommend sparing them unless that is clearly good for Athens.

"I believe we are making a decision about the future, not passing judgment on the past. Cleon is absolutely certain that executing the Mytilenians will deter future revolts. I, with equal concern for the future, am equally certain of the opposite. And I ask you: do not let the superficial appeal of his argument lead you to reject mine. His speech may seem more just, given your anger right now. But this is not a courtroom. This is a political assembly. The question is not justice. It is how to make the Mytilenians useful to Athens.

"Consider. Governments everywhere have imposed the death penalty for all sorts of crimes, many of them far less serious than this one. Yet people keep committing those crimes anyway, driven by hope. No one who sets out on a dangerous course ever truly believes he will fail. And no city that launches a rebellion ever believes it lacks the resources -- its own or its allies' -- to succeed. Every person, every state is prone to error, and no law has ever been devised that can prevent it. Humanity has worked through every punishment on the list in search of a deterrent against wrongdoing. In ancient times, even the worst offenses probably carried lighter penalties. But as these were ignored, the punishment gradually escalated to death. And death is ignored just as readily.

"Either we must find some threat more terrifying than death, or we must accept that death does not work as a deterrent. As long as poverty gives people the reckless courage of desperation, as long as wealth breeds the arrogance and ambition of power, and as long as every other condition of life falls under the grip of some overwhelming passion -- people will always take risks. Hope and desire are always at work: desire leading the way, hope whispering that success is possible. Together, though invisible, they are far more powerful than any danger you can see.

"And then there is luck. Luck contributes enormously to the delusion, sometimes offering unexpected help that tempts people to take chances even when they are outmatched. This is especially true of nations, because the stakes are the highest imaginable -- freedom or empire -- and when people act together, every individual irrationally overestimates his own contribution. To put it plainly: it is impossible to prevent human nature from doing what it has set its mind on, whether by force of law or by any other deterrent.

"We must not, therefore, adopt a policy based on a false belief in the power of the death penalty. We must not cut off rebels from any hope of atonement.

"Think about what this means in practice. Right now, when a city that has revolted realizes it cannot win, it comes to terms while it still has the ability to pay reparations and continue paying tribute afterward. But under Cleon's rule, what city would not fortify itself better and hold out to the bitter end, if the penalty for early surrender and late surrender are exactly the same? And how does it benefit us to endure a costly siege only to inherit a ruined city that can no longer produce the revenue we depend on?

"We must not sit in harsh judgment on rebels to our own detriment. We must look for a way to use moderate punishment so that we can continue to benefit from the revenue our dependencies produce. We should rely for protection not on the terror of our legal code but on careful management. Right now, we do the exact opposite. When a free people held down by force rises up -- as is perfectly natural -- and we crush them, we think we are obligated to make an example of them. But the right approach with free people is not to punish them savagely after they revolt -- it is to watch them closely before they revolt, to prevent them from ever thinking of it in the first place. And once the rebellion is put down, make as few people responsible for it as possible.

"And think about what a colossal blunder you would be making if you follow Cleon's advice. Right now, in every allied city, the common people are on your side. Either they do not join the oligarchs in revolt, or if forced to, they immediately become the enemy of the rebels. When you go to war against a hostile city, you have the masses as your ally.

"But if you slaughter the people of Mytilene -- the very people who had nothing to do with the revolt, who surrendered the city to you the moment they got weapons -- two things happen. First, you commit the crime of killing the people who helped you. Second, you hand the aristocrats everywhere exactly what they want. The next time oligarchs push a city into revolt, the people will be on their side from the start -- because you will have shown, in advance, that the punishment is the same whether you are guilty or innocent. Even if the Mytilenian people were guilty, you should pretend not to notice, to avoid alienating the one class in the empire that is still friendly to us.

"I am convinced that it is far more useful for the preservation of our empire to tolerate injustice willingly than to destroy people we should keep alive, however justly. Cleon thinks justice and self-interest can both be satisfied by the same punishment. The facts say otherwise.

"Acknowledge, then, that mine is the wiser course. Do not be swayed by either pity or leniency -- those are not my motives any more than they are Cleon's. Judge the case on its merits. Be persuaded to try the Mytilenians whom Paches sent to Athens as the guilty parties, and leave the rest of the population alone.

"This is the best policy for the future and the most frightening to our enemies right now. Because sound strategy against an adversary is always superior to the blind fury of brute force."

THE VOTE AND THE RACE

Such were the words of Diodotus.

These two speeches staked out the sharpest possible opposition. Despite their change of heart, when the Athenians went to a vote, the show of hands was almost even. But Diodotus's motion carried the day.

A second galley was dispatched immediately. They raced to launch it, terrified that the first ship -- which had about a day and a night's head start -- would reach Lesbos first and the city would already be destroyed. The Mytilenian ambassadors in Athens supplied the crew with wine and barley cakes, and made enormous promises of reward if they arrived in time. The men rowed with extraordinary urgency. They ate their barley cakes kneaded with oil and wine without stopping, taking their meals at the oar. They slept in shifts while the others rowed.

By pure luck, they met no contrary wind. And since the first ship was in no particular hurry -- carrying out its grim errand without enthusiasm -- while the second pressed on as described, the first ship arrived only barely ahead. Paches had just finished reading the decree and was preparing to carry out the sentence when the second ship pulled into the harbor and stopped the massacre.

That is how close Mytilene came to annihilation.

As for the other prisoners -- the ones Paches had identified as the ringleaders of the revolt and sent to Athens -- they were put to death on Cleon's motion. The number was slightly over a thousand.

The Athenians also tore down the walls of Mytilene and confiscated the Mytilenian fleet. Afterward, they imposed no tribute on Lesbos. Instead, they divided all the land -- except for the territory of Methymna -- into three thousand allotments. Three hundred were set aside as sacred land for the gods. The remaining twenty-seven hundred were assigned by lot to Athenian shareholders, who were sent out to the island. The Lesbians agreed to pay these shareholders a rent of two minas per year for each allotment and continued farming the land themselves. The Athenians also seized the mainland towns belonging to Mytilene, which from then on were subject to Athens.

Such were the events that took place at Lesbos.

CHAPTER 10

Fifth Year of the War -- Trial and Execution of the Plataeans -- Revolution in Corcyra

During the same summer, after the fall of Lesbos, the Athenians under Nicias, son of Niceratus, launched an expedition against the island of Minoa, which lies just off the coast of Megara. The Megarians had been using it as a fortified outpost, building a tower on it. Nicias wanted to move the Athenian blockade closer -- running it from Minoa instead of from Budorum and Salamis. That way the Athenians could stop Peloponnesian warships and privateers from slipping out of the harbor unnoticed, as they had been doing regularly, and at the same time cut off supplies going into Megara.

He started by using siege engines brought up from the sea to capture two towers that projected from the Nisaean side. This cleared the entrance to the channel between the island and the shore. Next he walled off the mainland at the point where a bridge across a marsh had been allowing reinforcements to reach the island -- which was not far from the coast. It only took a few days to finish this work. After that, he built some additional fortifications on the island itself, left a garrison behind, and withdrew with his forces.

THE TRIAL OF THE PLATAEANS

Around the same time that summer, the Plataeans finally ran out of food. Unable to hold out against the siege any longer, they surrendered to the Peloponnesians. Here is how it happened.

The Peloponnesians launched an assault on the wall, and the Plataeans were too weak to fight it off. The Spartan commander could see how feeble they had become, but he deliberately chose not to take the city by storm. His instructions from Sparta had been carefully calculated: if a peace treaty were ever signed with Athens requiring both sides to give back the places they had captured during the war, Plataea could be said to have surrendered voluntarily -- and therefore would not be on the list of places to return. So instead, he sent a herald to ask the Plataeans a question: Were they willing to hand over their city to the Spartans of their own free will, and accept the Spartans as their judges -- on the understanding that only the guilty would be punished, and no one without a proper legal process?

The Plataeans were at the end of their strength. The moment the herald delivered this message, they gave up the city.

The Peloponnesians fed them for several days until five judges arrived from Sparta. When the judges got there, they brought no formal charges. They simply called the Plataeans forward, one by one, and asked them a single question: "Have you done anything to help the Spartans and their allies in the present war?"

The Plataeans asked permission to speak at greater length. They appointed two men to represent them: Astymachus, son of Asopolaus, and Lacon, son of Aeimnestus, who held the post of diplomatic representative to the Spartans. These two came forward and spoke as follows:

THE SPEECH OF THE PLATAEANS

"Spartans, when we surrendered our city, we trusted you. We expected a trial that at least resembled proper legal procedure -- not this. We never imagined we would face what we are facing now. And the judges we agreed to submit ourselves to were you, and you alone -- because we thought you were the ones most likely to give us justice. Not other people. Not whoever this turns out to serve. As things stand, we are afraid we have been doubly deceived: we suspect that what is at stake here is nothing less than our lives, and we suspect that you have already decided the verdict.

"We have good reason to think so. No accusation was brought against us first. We had to beg for the right to speak. And the question you put to us was so narrow that an honest answer condemns us, while a dishonest one can be exposed as a lie. We are trapped on every side.

"Our safest course -- our only course, really -- is to speak, whatever the risk. Men in our position could hardly stay silent without being tormented afterward by the thought that words might have saved us. And the difficulty runs deeper: we cannot introduce new evidence to change your minds, because you already know everything about us. Our fear is not that you have convicted us of failing in our duty to you and intend to punish us for that. Our fear is that you have already decided to hand us over to a third party, and that this trial exists only to give the appearance of justice.

"Nevertheless, we will lay before you every argument we can justly make -- not only about the quarrel the Thebans have with us, but about who we are and what we have done for all of Greece. And we will try to change your minds.

"To your short question -- whether we have done anything to help the Spartans and their allies in this war -- we say this: If you are asking us as enemies, then no, we did not help you, and failing to serve your enemy is no crime. If you are asking us as friends, then the blame falls on you, not us -- because you are the ones who marched against us.

"During the peace, and in the war against Persia, we served honorably. We were not the first to break the peace. And we were the only Boeotians who stood up to fight the Persians when they came to enslave Greece. We are an inland city, but we were there at the sea battle of Artemisium. When the decisive battle was fought on our own soil, we stood beside you and Pausanias. In every Greek action of that era, we did more than our share -- far more than a city our size had any obligation to do. And you, Spartans, should remember this especially: during the great panic at Sparta, when the Helots revolted after the earthquake and seized Ithome, we sent a third of our entire citizen body to help you.

"Those were the moments that defined us. Yes, afterward we became your enemies. But that was your fault. When the Thebans were oppressing us and we asked for your alliance, you turned us away. You told us to go to the Athenians instead -- they were our neighbors, you said, and you lived too far away. Even so, during this war we have never done anything unreasonable to you, and we never would have.

"If we refused to abandon the Athenians when you demanded it, we did nothing wrong. They were the ones who had helped us against the Thebans when you would not. After that, we could not honorably desert them -- especially since we had sought their alliance ourselves, been admitted as their citizens at our own request, and received real benefits from them. We were plainly obligated to follow their lead. And when it comes to the wrongs committed by either side in this war, blame the leaders, not the followers. Allies do what their leaders direct.

"As for the Thebans -- they have wronged us over and over. Their latest act of aggression is the very thing that put us in this position, and you know it as well as we do. They seized our city in peacetime -- and during a sacred festival, no less. We were fully justified in fighting back. The universal law of every people sanctions resistance against an invader. It cannot be right that we should now suffer for defending ourselves against them.

"If you judge this case based on your own short-term advantage and on Theban hostility toward us, you will prove yourselves servants of convenience, not judges of right. The Thebans may be useful to you now. But we -- and the rest of Greece -- gave you far more valuable help at a time of far greater need. Back then, you were not the ones making other people afraid. Back then, when the Persian king threatened to enslave us all, the Thebans were on his side.

"It is only fair, then, to weigh our patriotism in that crisis against whatever mistakes we may have made since. And you will find that the good far outweighs the bad -- good done at a time when very few Greeks were willing to stand up against the might of Xerxes, when the men who chose the dangerous path of honor over the safe path of self-interest earned the greatest praise. We were among those few. We were deeply honored for it. And yet now we are terrified that those same principles will be our death -- that choosing to act honorably with Athens will destroy us, when choosing to act prudently with Sparta would have saved us.

"But justice should not work that way. The same principles should produce the same verdicts. And true policy should mean more than whatever serves you this instant. It should mean lasting gratitude toward a faithful ally, combined -- of course -- with attention to your own interests.

"Consider something else. Right now, the Greeks generally look to you as a model of honor and integrity. If you pass an unjust sentence in this case -- and this is no obscure case, because you, the judges, are as famous as we, the defendants, are blameless -- people will be outraged. They will be appalled to see honorable men condemned by men even more honorable. They will be disgusted to see spoils taken from the Plataeans -- the benefactors of Greece -- dedicated in the temples of the gods.

"It will be a shocking thing for Spartans to destroy Plataea. It will be a monstrous thing for the city whose name your own fathers inscribed on the victory tripod at Delphi -- for its service to the Greek cause -- to be wiped off the map by you, to please the Thebans.

"This is how far we have fallen. If the Persians had won, we would have been destroyed. Now the Thebans have taken their place in your affections, and we face the same fate. We have survived two mortal dangers -- starvation, if we had not surrendered, and now a trial for our lives. We Plataeans gave everything we had, beyond our means, for the cause of Greece. And now we are abandoned by everyone, helped by no one, forsaken by every ally. We are reduced to doubting the one hope we had left: you.

"And yet, in the name of the gods who once presided over our common cause, and in the name of our service to Greece, we beg you: relent. If the Thebans have persuaded you, take it back. Ask them not to force you to stain your hands. Choose a clean conscience over a guilty debt. Do not sacrifice your honor for their satisfaction. Our lives can be taken quickly enough. But the shame of the deed will not wash away so easily. We are not enemies you can justly punish. We are friends who were forced to fight against you. Sparing our lives would be the righteous verdict.

"Remember, too, that we are prisoners who surrendered voluntarily, who stretched out our hands and asked for mercy. Greek law forbids the killing of such men. And we have been your benefactors -- always.

"Look at the tombs of your own fathers, killed fighting the Persians and buried in our land. Every year, without fail, we honored them with offerings of clothing and with the first fruits of everything our soil produced -- gifts from a friendly country to old comrades in arms, from allies to allies. If you decide wrongly here, your conduct will be the exact opposite of ours.

"Think about what it means. Pausanias buried your dead in our soil because he believed he was laying them to rest in friendly ground, among friendly people. If you kill us and hand our territory over to the Thebans, you will be leaving your own fathers and kinsmen in hostile soil, among their murderers, stripped of the honors we gave them. You will be enslaving the land where Greek freedom was won. You will be making desolate the temples where they prayed before they defeated the Persians. You will be taking away the ancestral sacrifices from the people who established them.

"This is not worthy of you, Spartans. It would be an offense against the common laws of Greece and against your own ancestors to kill your benefactors in order to satisfy someone else's hatred -- when you yourselves have not been wronged. Spare us. Let reason and compassion guide you. Think not only about the terrible fate awaiting us, but about who we are -- and about how unpredictable misfortune can be, how it can strike even those who have done nothing to deserve it.

"We have the right to plead, and our desperation compels us. We call upon the gods at whose altars all the Greeks worship. We beg you to hear us. We remind you of the oaths your fathers swore, and we hold you to them. We are suppliants at the tombs of your fathers. We appeal to the honored dead not to let us fall into the hands of the Thebans -- not to let their dearest friends be surrendered to their most hated enemies.

"Remember that day -- the day we did the most glorious deeds, fighting at your fathers' side. And now, on this day, we face the most dreadful fate.

"Finally -- and this is the hardest thing for men in our position, because ending the speech means the danger closes in -- we say this: We did not surrender our city to the Thebans. We would have chosen starvation first. We surrendered to you, trusting in you. If we cannot persuade you, then at least put us back where we were. Let us face whatever comes on our own terms. And we beg you: do not hand us over. We are your suppliants, Spartans. Plataeans -- the first among Greek patriots -- out of your hands, out of your faith, delivered to the Thebans, our bitterest enemies. Be our saviors. You are freeing the rest of Greece. Do not destroy us."

That was the speech of the Plataeans.

The Thebans were afraid the Spartans might be moved by what they had heard. They came forward and said they, too, wanted to address the judges, since the Plataeans had been allowed -- against the Thebans' wishes -- to give a long speech instead of simply answering the question. Permission was granted, and the Thebans spoke as follows:

THE SPEECH OF THE THEBANS

"We would never have asked to make this speech if the Plataeans had simply answered the question and left it at that. Instead, they turned on us with accusations, launched into a lengthy defense of themselves on matters that have nothing to do with this proceeding, and congratulated themselves on virtues that no one was questioning. Since they have done all that, we must respond -- so that neither our bad reputation nor their good one distorts your judgment. You should hear the real truth about both sides and decide accordingly.

"Here is the origin of our quarrel with Plataea. We founded Plataea, along with other places in Boeotia, after driving out a mixed population that had settled there. The Plataeans refused to accept our leadership, as originally agreed. They cut themselves off from the rest of the Boeotian people and betrayed their own nationality. We tried to force the issue. They went over to Athens, and together with the Athenians did us serious harm. We retaliated.

"Next, they claim they were the only Boeotians who refused to collaborate with the Persians. This is the point they are most proud of, and the one they use most aggressively against us. We say: they only resisted the Persians because Athens did too. By the same logic, when Athens later turned against the rest of Greece, the Plataeans were the only Boeotians who collaborated with Athens. But consider the circumstances of our collaboration with Persia. Our city at that time was not governed by a balanced oligarchy or a democracy. It was ruled by something closer to a tyranny -- a narrow clique of powerful men. These men, hoping to strengthen their own grip on power through a Persian victory, used force to keep the people in line and invited the Persians in. The city as a whole was not in control of its own actions. It should not be blamed for what it did while stripped of its constitutional government.

"Look instead at what we did after the Persians left and we regained our freedom. When the Athenians turned aggressive and tried to subjugate our country -- and they had already taken over most of it through internal factions -- did we not fight them? Did we not win at Coronea and liberate Boeotia? And are we not now actively contributing to the liberation of the rest of Greece, providing cavalry and a military force unmatched by any other state in the alliance?

"Let that be enough to answer the charge of collaboration with Persia. We will now show that you, the Plataeans, have done more harm to Greece than we have, and deserve punishment far more than we do.

"You say you became Athenian allies and citizens in order to defend yourselves against us. Fine. But in that case, you should have called in the Athenians only against us, instead of joining them in attacking everyone else. You had that option. If the Athenians ever led you somewhere you did not want to go, you could have refused -- Sparta was already your ally against Persia, as you keep reminding us, and that was protection enough. It certainly should have been enough to let you keep your independence and make your own choices. But no. You freely, willingly, without anyone forcing you, threw your lot in with Athens.

"You say it would have been dishonorable to betray your benefactors. But surely it was far more dishonorable -- far more criminal -- to betray the entire Greek alliance, the league that was liberating Greece, in favor of Athens, which was enslaving it. The debt you paid Athens was neither proportionate nor honorable. You called the Athenians in, you say, because you were being oppressed. But then you became their accomplices in oppressing others. True dishonor does not lie in failing to return a favor. It lies in returning a just debt by committing injustice.

"In any case, you have made one thing perfectly clear: when you alone among the Boeotians refused to collaborate with Persia, it was not for the sake of Greece. It was because Athens was not collaborating either. You wanted to side with Athens and oppose everyone else. And now you want credit for good deeds that were done only to please your Athenian friends. That cannot stand. You chose Athens. Live with that choice.

"And do not invoke the old alliance and expect it to save you now. You abandoned that alliance. You violated it by helping to subjugate the Aeginetans and other member states -- not under compulsion, but freely, under the same government you still have today, with no one forcing you as happened with us. Finally, just before the siege began, you were invited to stay neutral and join neither side. You refused. Who, then, deserves the hatred of Greece more than you? You sought Greece's ruin while wearing the mask of virtue. Whatever good qualities you once had, you have now proved to be a disguise. Your true nature has been exposed at last: when Athens took the path of injustice, you followed.

"That is our explanation of our forced collaboration with Persia, and your willing collaboration with Athens.

"Now for the last charge -- that we invaded your city unlawfully, in peacetime, during a festival. Here again, we do not think we were more to blame than you. If we had simply marched up, attacked your city on our own initiative, and ravaged your territory, we would be guilty. But that is not what happened. The leading men of your city -- your most prominent citizens, with the most to lose -- invited us in of their own free will. They wanted to end your foreign entanglement with Athens and bring you back into the Boeotian community where you belonged.

"Where is the crime in accepting that invitation? When wrong is done, the leaders bear more blame than the followers -- as you yourselves keep arguing. But in our judgment, no wrong was done by them or by us. They were citizens of Plataea, just as you are, with more at stake than most of you. They opened their own walls and let us into their own city -- not as enemies but as friends. Their aim was to prevent the worst elements among you from getting worse, to reward the loyal men among you, and to reform your policies without harming anyone. No one was to be exiled. Everyone was to be reconciled -- friends to all, enemies to none.

"Our behavior proves we meant no harm. We injured no one. We publicly invited anyone who wanted to live under a united Boeotian government to come over to our side. At first, you were glad to do it. You came to terms with us and remained peaceful -- until you realized how few of us there actually were.

"Now, maybe it was not entirely fair for us to enter the city without the consent of the general population. But you did not return the favor. Instead of leaving us unharmed and using negotiation to get us to leave -- as we had done with you -- you attacked us in violation of the agreement we had just made. The men you killed in actual fighting? We do not complain about that so much -- there was a rough justice in it. But the others -- the ones who held up their hands and surrendered, the ones whose lives you promised to spare -- those men you slaughtered in cold blood. If that is not an abomination, what is?

"After committing three crimes in succession -- violating the agreement, murdering the prisoners, breaking your promise not to kill them if we did not damage your property -- you still claim we are the criminals and you should go free. No. If these judges decide rightly, you will be punished for all three.

"Those are the facts, Spartans. We have laid them out in detail, for your sake and for ours -- so that you can feel confident your verdict is just, and so that we can know our vengeance stands on solid ground. Do not let your hearts be softened by hearing about their past virtues, whatever those may be. Past virtues can fairly be invoked by the victims of injustice. But for criminals, past virtue only deepens the guilt -- because they sinned against their own better nature.

"And do not let them win anything with their tears and wailing, with their appeals to your fathers' tombs and their own desolate condition. Against all that, we point to the far more terrible fate suffered by our own young men, butchered at their hands. The fathers of those dead men either fell at Coronea, fighting to bring Boeotia over to your side, or sit now as heartbroken old men by empty hearths, with far better reason to beg you for justice.

"Pity belongs to those who suffer undeservedly. Those who suffer justly -- as these men do -- deserve not pity but condemnation. Their present misery is their own doing. They rejected the better alliance when they had the choice. Their crime was not provoked by anything we did. Hatred drove their decision, not justice. And even now, no punishment they receive can truly be adequate. They will die by a legal sentence -- not, as they pretend, as suppliants begging for mercy on the battlefield, but as prisoners who agreed to stand trial.

"Uphold the law they broke, Spartans. Grant us -- the victims -- the justice we have earned. Do not let their speeches override their actions. Show the Greeks by example that the contests you judge are decided by deeds, not words. When deeds are good, a brief account is enough. When deeds are wicked, a flood of eloquent words is needed to disguise them. But if leaders like you were to do what you are doing now -- put one direct question to everyone and decide accordingly -- men would be far less tempted to dress up bad actions in fine language."

That was the speech of the Thebans.

The Spartan judges concluded that their question -- whether the Plataeans had done them any service in the war -- was perfectly fair. Their reasoning went like this: They had always invited Plataea to remain neutral, going back to the original agreement under Pausanias after the Persian War. Before the siege began, they had explicitly offered the same terms again. The Plataeans had refused. And so, the Spartans felt, the good faith of their repeated offers released them from any obligation under the old alliance. Since -- in their view -- the Plataeans had chosen to become enemies, the Spartans had suffered at their hands.

One by one, they brought the prisoners forward again and asked each man the same question: "Have you done anything to help the Spartans and their allies in this war?"

Each man said no.

Each man was taken out and killed. No exceptions.

The total number of Plataeans massacred was at least two hundred, along with twenty-five Athenians who had endured the siege alongside them. The women were enslaved.

As for the city itself, the Thebans gave it to some political exiles from Megara and to the surviving pro-Theban Plataeans to live in for about a year. Then they razed it to the ground -- down to the very foundations. On the precinct of Hera, they built a large inn, two hundred feet on each side, with rooms on two floors all around, using the roofing timber and doors stripped from the Plataeans' own houses. From the rest of the materials found in the walls -- the bronze and the iron -- they made couches and dedicated them to Hera. They also built a new stone temple to Hera, a hundred feet square. The Plataean land was confiscated and leased out on ten-year terms to Theban tenants.

The Spartans' hostility toward Plataea throughout this entire affair was driven, more than anything else, by their desire to please the Thebans, who were considered useful allies in the war that was still raging.

That was the end of Plataea -- in the ninety-third year of her alliance with Athens.

THE CORCYRAEAN REVOLUTION

Meanwhile, the forty Peloponnesian ships that had sailed to relieve Lesbos -- the ones last seen fleeing across the open sea with the Athenians in pursuit -- ran into a storm off Crete. Scattered by the weather, they made their way back to the Peloponnese, where they found thirteen ships from Leucas and Ambracia waiting at the port of Cyllene, along with a new arrival: Brasidas, son of Tellis, who had come as an adviser to the fleet commander Alcidas.

After the failure of the Lesbian expedition, the Spartans had decided to strengthen their fleet and sail for Corcyra, where a revolution had broken out. Their plan was to get there before the twelve Athenian ships stationed at Naupactus could be reinforced from Athens. Brasidas and Alcidas began preparing.

The revolution in Corcyra started with the return of the prisoners taken in the naval battles off Epidamnus. The Corinthians had officially released them on the security of eight hundred talents posted by their diplomatic contacts. In reality, these men had been released because they had promised to bring Corcyra over to the Corinthian side. They went to work immediately, approaching citizens one by one, scheming to detach the city from its Athenian alliance.

When both an Athenian and a Corinthian ship arrived carrying envoys, a public assembly was held. The Corcyraeans voted to remain allied with Athens as their treaty required, but also to be on friendly terms with the Peloponnesians, as they had been in the past.

The returned prisoners then brought charges against Peithias, a citizen who had voluntarily taken on the role of diplomatic representative to Athens and was the leader of the democratic faction. They accused him of trying to enslave Corcyra to Athens. He was acquitted. He retaliated by prosecuting five of the wealthiest returned prisoners for the crime of cutting timber stakes from land sacred to Zeus and Alcinous. The legal penalty was a stater per stake. They were convicted, and because the fines were enormous, they took refuge as suppliants in the temples, begging to pay in installments. But Peithias -- who was also a member of the council -- persuaded the council to enforce the law strictly.

Cornered by the law, and also learning that Peithias intended to use his seat on the council to push through a full defensive and offensive alliance with Athens, the condemned men banded together. They armed themselves with daggers. They burst into the council chamber without warning. They killed Peithias. They killed sixty others -- council members and private citizens alike. A handful of Peithias's supporters escaped to the Athenian ship, which had not yet left the harbor.

After this massacre, the conspirators called an assembly. They told the people that what had happened was for the best -- it would save Corcyra from being enslaved by Athens. Going forward, they proposed, the city should receive ships from neither side unless they came peacefully, one at a time. Any larger fleet should be treated as hostile. They forced the assembly to adopt this motion, then immediately sent envoys to Athens to put the best possible face on the murders and to discourage the Athenian refugees there from doing anything that might provoke a backlash.

When these envoys arrived in Athens, the Athenians arrested them -- along with anyone who had listened to their arguments -- as revolutionaries, and locked them up on the island of Aegina.

Back in Corcyra, a Corinthian ship arrived carrying Spartan envoys, and the party now in power attacked the democratic faction and defeated them in battle. When night fell, the democrats retreated to the Acropolis and the higher parts of the city, consolidating their position there. They also held the Hyllaic harbor. The oligarchs occupied the marketplace, where most of them lived, and the harbor facing the mainland.

The next day passed in minor skirmishing. Both sides sent messengers into the countryside offering freedom to slaves who would join them. The bulk of the slaves answered the call of the democrats. The oligarchs brought in eight hundred mercenaries from the mainland to reinforce their side.

After a day's pause, fighting broke out again. The democrats won, thanks to their superior numbers and stronger positions. The women fought alongside them with extraordinary courage, hurling roof tiles down from the houses and enduring the chaos of battle with a toughness that defied all expectation.

Toward evening, the oligarchs were in full retreat. Terrified that the victorious democrats would storm the naval arsenal and slaughter them, they set fire to the buildings around the marketplace and the surrounding lodging houses to block their enemies' advance. They spared nothing -- not their own property, not their neighbors'. Huge quantities of merchants' goods went up in flames, and the entire city would have been destroyed if the wind had shifted to fan the fire. With that, the fighting stopped. Both sides spent the night on alert. The Corinthian ship slipped away to sea once it was clear the democrats had won. Most of the mercenaries quietly crossed back to the mainland.

The next day, Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes, arrived from Naupactus with twelve Athenian ships and five hundred Messenian heavy infantry. He immediately tried to negotiate a settlement. He persuaded the two sides to agree on bringing the ten chief ringleaders to trial -- these men promptly fled -- while the rest of the population would make peace with each other and enter into an alliance with Athens.

With this arranged, Nicostratus was about to leave. But the democratic leaders talked him into leaving five of his ships behind to keep the oligarchs from causing trouble. In exchange, the democrats would man five of their own ships and send them with him. He agreed. The democrats immediately began enrolling their political enemies as crewmembers for the ships -- a transparent attempt to ship them off to Athens. These men, terrified, took refuge as suppliants in the temple of the Dioscuri.

Nicostratus tried to reassure them and coax them out. He failed. The democrats seized on this refusal as proof that their enemies had treacherous intentions. They confiscated their weapons from their houses and would have killed some of them on the spot if Nicostratus had not stepped in to stop them. Seeing what was happening, the rest of the oligarchic faction -- at least four hundred of them -- took refuge as suppliants in the temple of Hera. The democrats, fearing they might do something desperate, talked them into leaving the temple and transported them to the island just offshore, where food was sent across to them.

At this point in the revolution -- four or five days after the men had been moved to the island -- the Peloponnesian fleet arrived from Cyllene, where it had been anchored since its return from Ionia. Fifty-three ships, still under the command of Alcidas, with Brasidas aboard as his adviser. They dropped anchor at Sybota, a harbor on the mainland, and at dawn set sail for Corcyra.

The Corcyraeans were in a state of total panic -- chaos in the city and an enemy fleet bearing down on them. They scrambled to equip sixty ships, sending them out against the enemy as fast as each one was manned, despite the Athenians urging them to wait, let the Athenian ships go first, and then follow together in formation. But the Corcyraean ships approached the enemy in a straggling mess. Two immediately deserted. On others, the crews were fighting among themselves. There was no order anywhere.

The Peloponnesians, seeing the confusion, placed twenty ships to face the Corcyraeans and ranged the rest against the twelve Athenian vessels, which included the state ships Salaminia and Paralus.

The Corcyraeans, attacking recklessly and in scattered groups, were crippled by their own disorder. The Athenians, wary of being surrounded by superior numbers, did not attack the main body of the enemy fleet or even the center of the division facing them. Instead, they struck at its wing and sank one ship. The Peloponnesians then formed into a defensive circle, and the Athenians rowed around them, trying to throw them into disarray. The division that had been facing the Corcyraeans saw what was happening and, fearing a repeat of the disaster at Naupactus, came to support their comrades. The entire Peloponnesian fleet bore down on the Athenians together. The Athenians backed water and withdrew -- slowly, deliberately, buying time for the Corcyraeans to escape while keeping the enemy occupied. That was how the sea battle went. It lasted until sunset.

The Corcyraeans, terrified that the enemy fleet would now sail against the city, rescue the men on the island, or strike some other decisive blow, transported the prisoners from the island back to the temple of Hera and manned the city's defenses. But the Peloponnesians, though they had won the battle, did not dare attack the city. They took the thirteen Corcyraean ships they had captured and sailed back to the mainland.

The next day they still did not attack, even though the city was in chaos and ripe for the taking. Brasidas, it was said, urged Alcidas to strike, but Alcidas was his superior and would not listen. Instead, they landed on the promontory of Leukimme and ravaged the countryside.

Meanwhile, the democratic faction in Corcyra, still terrified of the fleet, opened negotiations with the suppliants and their allies in an effort to save the city. They persuaded some of the suppliants to go aboard the ships -- the democrats still managed to crew thirty vessels -- to face the expected attack. But the Peloponnesians, after ravaging the land until midday, sailed away. Toward nightfall, they received beacon signals warning them that sixty Athenian ships were approaching from Leucas, under the command of Eurymedon, son of Thucles. Athens had dispatched this fleet the moment they learned of the revolution and of Alcidas's plan to sail for Corcyra.

The Peloponnesians left immediately, traveling by night and hugging the coast. They hauled their ships across the Isthmus of Leucas rather than risk being spotted sailing around the headland. Then they were gone.

When the Corcyraean democrats learned that the Athenian fleet was approaching and the enemy had departed, they brought the Messenian troops into the city from outside the walls and ordered their own fleet to sail around to the Hyllaic harbor. As it made this transit, they began killing every political enemy they could get their hands on. They dragged the men they had persuaded to board the ships off the vessels and executed them as they landed. They went to the sanctuary of Hera and persuaded about fifty of the suppliants there to submit to a trial. Every single one was condemned to death.

The rest of the suppliants -- the majority, who had seen what was happening and refused to leave the temple -- killed themselves right there on the consecrated ground. Some hanged themselves from the trees. Others found their own ways to die.

For seven days after Eurymedon arrived with his sixty ships, the Corcyraeans butchered their fellow citizens -- anyone they considered an enemy. The official charge was attempting to overthrow the democracy. But in reality, some were killed over private grudges. Others were murdered by people who owed them money and did not want to pay. Death came in every form. Everything that happens in times like these happened here. Fathers killed their sons. Suppliants were dragged from the altars or cut down on top of them. Some were walled up inside the temple of Dionysus and left to die.

THUCYDIDES ON REVOLUTION

That is how savage the revolution was. And the impression it made was even greater because it was one of the first. Eventually, one could say, the entire Greek world was convulsed. In every city, the leaders of the democratic faction tried to bring in the Athenians, and the leaders of the oligarchic faction tried to bring in the Spartans. In peacetime, they would have had neither the pretext nor the desire to call in outside powers. But in wartime, with a powerful ally always available to help crush your domestic enemies and strengthen yourself in the process, invitations to intervene were never hard to come by for anyone who wanted a revolution.

The suffering that revolution inflicted on the cities was terrible beyond description. It had happened before and it will happen again, as long as human nature remains what it is -- though the severity will vary, and the symptoms will shift, depending on the particular circumstances. In times of peace and prosperity, both states and individuals behave better, because they are not forced into desperate choices. But war strips away the comfortable margin of daily life. It is a violent teacher. It drags the character of most people down to match their circumstances.

And so revolution spread from city to city. The places it reached last, having heard what had already been done elsewhere, pushed the extremes even further -- outdoing their predecessors in the ingenuity of their schemes and the savagery of their reprisals.

Words had to change their ordinary meanings and take new ones. Reckless aggression was now "courageous loyalty." Prudent hesitation was "cowardice in disguise." Moderation was "a cover for weakness." The ability to see all sides of a question was "an inability to act on any." Impulsive violence became "manliness." Careful deliberation became "a polite excuse for inaction." The man who advocated the most extreme measures was always considered trustworthy. The man who opposed him was automatically suspect.

To hatch a plot successfully was to be considered brilliant. To detect one was even more impressive. But to plan ahead so that neither plots nor counter-plots would be necessary -- that marked you as a traitor to your own faction and a coward in the face of the enemy. In short, the man who struck first was praised, and the man who encouraged someone else to strike was praised equally.

Even family ties grew weaker than party loyalty, because party members were more willing to act without hesitation or scruple. These associations were not formed to take advantage of the protections offered by existing laws. They were formed to overthrow those laws entirely. The trust between members rested not on any sacred oath but on their shared complicity in crime.

A reasonable proposal from an adversary was met not with good faith but with suspicion and defensive maneuvering by whichever side happened to be stronger. Revenge mattered more than self-preservation. If oaths of reconciliation were ever exchanged, they were offered by both sides only to get past an immediate crisis and held only as long as neither side had any other weapon at hand. The moment an opportunity arose, the first man to seize it and catch his enemy off guard considered this treacherous vengeance sweeter than an honest fight -- partly for the sake of safety, but also because a victory won through betrayal earned him a reputation for superior intelligence. And this is the general rule: people are quicker to call a scoundrel clever than to call an honest man smart. They are ashamed of the second label and proud of the first.

The root cause of all these evils was the desire for power, driven by greed and ambition. And from these passions came the ferocity of the partisan struggle. The leaders of each faction in every city wrapped themselves in the finest slogans -- "political equality for the people" on one side, "the wisdom of aristocratic government" on the other -- but the public interest they claimed to serve was really just a prize they intended to seize for themselves. Shrinking from nothing in their competition for dominance, they committed the most appalling acts. Their reprisals were worse still -- not limited by justice or the good of the state, but bounded only by the appetite of the moment. They were equally willing to satisfy their hunger for power through a rigged verdict or through brute force. Neither side had any use for conscience. But the ability to accomplish a hateful act under the cover of a noble phrase -- that was highly prized.

The citizens in the middle -- the moderates -- were destroyed by both sides. They died for refusing to join the fight, or simply because the partisans could not tolerate anyone who might survive.

In this way, every form of depravity took root across the Greek world because of the upheaval. The old simplicity -- the quality in which honor played so large a part -- was mocked and vanished. Society divided into hostile camps where no one trusted anyone. No promise could end it. No oath commanded respect. Everyone, calculating that nothing stable could last, focused on protecting themselves rather than allowing themselves to believe in anything.

In this contest, the less intelligent generally came out on top. Precisely because they feared their own limitations and their opponents' cleverness -- afraid they would be outmaneuvered in debate or outflanked by some sophisticated scheme -- they struck first, boldly and violently. Their opponents, arrogantly confident that they would see the danger coming and that action was unnecessary when intelligence would suffice, were caught off guard and destroyed.

THE AFTERMATH

Most of the crimes that would later become common across Greece were first committed in Corcyra: the vengeance of the governed against rulers who had given them nothing but arrogance; the desperate violence of men trying to escape lifelong poverty who coveted their neighbors' wealth; and the savage, pitiless acts committed by men who had entered the struggle not as members of a social class but as members of a political faction, and were driven beyond all limits by their ungovernable passions.

In the chaos that overtook civic life, human nature -- always straining against the law, now finally its master -- gladly showed what it was: ungoverned in its passions, contemptuous of justice, hostile to anything above it. Revenge would never have been placed above conscience, and profit above fairness, if not for the destructive power of envy. And when men take it upon themselves to tear down the universal laws that offer everyone protection in times of crisis -- the laws that exist so that anyone who falls on hard times can hope for fair treatment -- they destroy the very thing they may one day need to save themselves.

At the same time these revolutionary passions were tearing Corcyra apart, Eurymedon and the Athenian fleet sailed away. After their departure, about five hundred Corcyraean exiles who had managed to escape seized some forts on the mainland. From this base across the water, they raided Corcyraean territory on the island, doing so much damage that they caused a severe famine in the city. They also sent envoys to Sparta and Corinth to negotiate their return, but got nowhere. Eventually they gathered boats and mercenaries -- about six hundred men in all -- and crossed over to the island. They burned their boats so that the only option left was to conquer or die, then marched up to Mount Istone, fortified themselves there, and began raiding the lowlands. They were now in control of the countryside.

At the end of the same summer, the Athenians sent twenty ships to Sicily under the command of Laches, son of Melanopus, and Charoeades, son of Euphiletus. Syracuse and Leontini were at war. The Syracusans had the support of all the Dorian cities in Sicily except Camarina -- these states had been counted as part of the Spartan alliance from the beginning of the war, though they had not actively participated in it. The Leontines had Camarina and the Chalcidian cities on their side. In Italy, the Locrians backed Syracuse, while the Rhegians supported the Leontines, who were their kinsmen.

The allies of Leontini sent to Athens and invoked both their old alliance and their shared Ionian heritage, begging for a fleet to break the Syracusan blockade by land and sea. The Athenians sent one. Their official justification was their common ancestry with the Leontines. Their real motives were to cut off the export of Sicilian grain to the Peloponnese and to test whether Sicily could be brought under Athenian control.

They established a base at Rhegium in Italy and from there carried on the war alongside their allies.

CHAPTER 11

Sixth Year of the War — Campaigns of Demosthenes in Western Greece — Ruin of Ambracia

Summer was now over. During the following winter, the plague struck Athens for a second time. It had never completely disappeared, but there had been a noticeable break in its fury. This second outbreak lasted a full year — the first had lasted two — and nothing did more to weaken and demoralize the Athenians. No fewer than 4,400 heavy infantry from the ranks died of it, along with 300 cavalry, plus an unknown number of ordinary citizens that was never counted. During the same period, a series of earthquakes hit Athens, Euboea, and Boeotia — Orchomenus in Boeotia was struck especially hard.

That same winter, the Athenians in Sicily teamed up with the Rhegians and sailed against the Aeolian Islands with thirty ships. An invasion during summer was impossible because of the lack of fresh water on the islands. These islands were occupied by the Liparaeans, colonists originally from Cnidus, who lived on one not-very-large island called Lipara. From there, they farmed the rest of the chain: Didyme, Strongyle, and Hiera. The locals in that region believed that Hephaestus — the god of the forge — had his workshop on Hiera, because of the flames that could be seen shooting up from it at night and the smoke that poured out during the day. The islands lie off the coast of the Sicels and the Messinese, and had been allied with Syracuse. The Athenians raided their land, but when the inhabitants refused to surrender, the fleet sailed back to Rhegium. So ended the winter, and with it the fifth year of the war recorded by Thucydides.

THE SIXTH YEAR

The next summer, the Peloponnesians and their allies set out to invade Attica under the command of Agis, son of Archidamus. They got as far as the Isthmus — but then a series of earthquakes hit, and they turned around and went home. The invasion never happened.

Around the same time that these earthquakes were so frequent, something extraordinary occurred at Orobiae in Euboea: the sea pulled back from the shoreline, then came rushing back in a massive wave that flooded a large part of the town. When the water finally receded, it left some areas permanently submerged — land that had once been dry was now under the sea. Anyone who could not scramble to higher ground in time was killed.

A similar flood struck Atalanta, the island off the coast of Opuntian Locris, sweeping away part of the Athenian fort there and wrecking one of the two ships that had been hauled up on the beach. At Peparethus, the sea also pulled back somewhat, though no flooding followed; an earthquake, however, knocked down part of the wall, the town hall, and a few other buildings.

In my view, the explanation for these floods must be the earthquakes themselves. Where the shock is most violent, the sea gets driven back from the shore — and then it suddenly comes surging forward again with tremendous force, causing the flooding. Without an earthquake, I do not see how this kind of thing could happen.

OPERATIONS IN SICILY

During the same summer, various campaigns were underway in Sicily — the Sicilian states fighting among themselves, and the Athenians and their allies carrying out their own operations. I will focus on the most important actions involving the Athenians.

The Athenian general Charoeades had been killed by the Syracusans in battle, leaving Laches as the sole commander of the fleet. He now directed operations alongside the allies against Mylae, a town belonging to the Messinese. Two Messinese battalions garrisoning Mylae set an ambush for the troops landing from the ships, but the Athenians and their allies routed them with heavy losses. They then stormed the fortification and forced the garrison to surrender the citadel and join the march against Messina. When the Athenians and their allies arrived, Messina too submitted, handing over hostages and all the other guarantees that were demanded.

DEMOSTHENES AND NICIAS: TWO EXPEDITIONS

That same summer, the Athenians sent two separate forces around the Peloponnese. The first, under Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes, and Procles, son of Theodorus, consisted of thirty ships. The second, under Nicias, son of Niceratus, had sixty ships and 2,000 heavy infantry. Their target was the island of Melos, whose people — despite being islanders — refused to submit to Athenian authority or even to join the Athenian alliance.

When devastating their land failed to bring the Melians to terms, the fleet sailed from Melos to Oropus in the territory of Graea. Landing at nightfall, the heavy infantry immediately set off overland toward Tanagra in Boeotia. There they were met by the full Athenian army, which had marched out from the city on a prearranged signal, under the command of Hipponicus, son of Callias, and Eurymedon, son of Thucles. They made camp, spent the day ravaging the Tanagraean countryside, and stayed the night. The next day they defeated a force of Tanagraeans who came out against them, along with some Thebans who had come to help. They seized some weapons, set up a victory trophy, and withdrew — the land forces back to Athens, the others to their ships. Nicias, meanwhile, sailed along the coast with his sixty ships, raiding the Locrian shoreline before heading home.

THE FOUNDING OF HERACLEA

Around this time, the Spartans founded a colony at Heraclea in Trachis. Here was their reasoning.

The Malians were made up of three tribes: the Paralians, the Hiereans, and the Trachinians. The Trachinians had been badly mauled in a war with their neighbors, the Oetaeans, and had initially considered placing themselves under Athenian protection. Then, worried that Athens might not actually keep them safe, they sent an ambassador named Tisamenus to Sparta instead. The Dorians from the mother country of the Spartans sent a delegation at the same time, asking for the same thing — they too were being attacked by the Oetaeans.

After hearing both appeals, the Spartans decided to found the colony. They wanted to help the Trachinians and Dorians, but they also saw a clear strategic opportunity. A town in that location would be perfectly positioned for operations against Athens: a fleet could be outfitted there for attacks on Euboea, with only a short crossing to the island, and the town would also serve as a useful staging point on the road to Thrace. In short, everything about the plan excited the Spartans.

After consulting the oracle at Delphi and receiving a favorable answer, they sent out colonists — Spartans and perioeci alike — and invited any other Greeks who wanted to join, with the exception of Ionians, Achaeans, and certain other peoples. Three Spartans led the expedition as founders: Leon, Alcidas, and Damagon. They established the settlement, fortified the new city — now called Heraclea — about four and a half miles from Thermopylae and two and a quarter miles from the sea, and began building docks. They closed off the side facing Thermopylae right at the pass itself, so it could be easily defended.

The founding of this town — clearly designed as a threat to Euboea, since the crossing to Cape Cenaeum on the island was so short — initially alarmed the Athenians. But the alarm turned out to be unnecessary. The town never gave them any real trouble.

The reason was the Thessalians. They dominated that region, and the new colony sat right on their doorstep. Afraid it would become a powerful rival, they harassed and attacked the settlers relentlessly, wearing them down despite the fact that the colony had started with a substantial population — people had flocked in from all over, attracted by the Spartan name and the promise of security. But the Spartans themselves were equally to blame. Their appointed governors mismanaged the place badly, ruling so harshly and unfairly that they frightened away most of the settlers and made it easy for the hostile neighbors to prevail.

DEMOSTHENES AT LEUCAS — AND A FATEFUL CHANGE OF PLAN

Around the same time that the Athenians were occupied at Melos, their countrymen on the thirty ships cruising around the Peloponnese ambushed and killed some guards at Ellomenus on Leucadia. After that, they moved against the island of Leucas itself with a large force, reinforced by the full levy of the Acarnanians (except the people of Oeniadae), plus contingents from Zacynthus, Cephallenia, and fifteen ships from Corcyra.

The Leucadians could only watch helplessly as the enemy ravaged their land on both sides of the isthmus — the strip of land on which the city of Leucas and the temple of Apollo stood. They were hopelessly outnumbered and dared not make a move. The Acarnanians urged the Athenian general Demosthenes to build a wall cutting the city off from the mainland. They were convinced this would guarantee its capture and rid them once and for all of a bitter enemy.

But Demosthenes had his mind on something else entirely.

The Messenians had been whispering in his ear. With such a large army at his disposal, they argued, he had a golden opportunity to strike at the Aetolians. Not only were the Aetolians enemies of Naupactus — a key Athenian base — but if he crushed them, it would open the door to bringing the entire western mainland under Athenian control. The Aetolians, they explained, were certainly numerous and fierce fighters, but they lived in unfortified villages spread far apart and carried nothing but light weapons. According to the Messenians, they could be picked off one by one before they had time to unite.

The plan was to attack the Apodotians first, then the Ophionians, and finally the Eurytanians — the largest Aetolian tribe, who reportedly spoke a nearly incomprehensible dialect and ate their meat raw. Once these were subdued, the rest would fall into line easily.

Demosthenes went for it — and not just because the Messenians were persuasive. He had a bigger vision. If he could add the Aetolians to his existing continental allies, he believed he could march against Boeotia without needing any reinforcements from Athens. The route would run through Ozolian Locris to Cytinium in Doris, keeping Mount Parnassus on his right, then down into Phocis. The Phocians, he calculated, would either join him out of their long-standing friendship with Athens or could be compelled to do so. From Phocis, he would already be on the Boeotian frontier.

It was an audacious plan — a sweeping inland campaign that would reshape the entire western theater. Demosthenes abandoned the siege of Leucas against the wishes of the Acarnanians, sailed along the coast to Sollium with his entire fleet, and laid out his intentions. The Acarnanians flatly refused to participate — they were furious about the abandonment of the Leucas operation.

Demosthenes pressed on anyway. Taking the Cephallenians, the Messenians, the Zacynthians, and 300 Athenian marines from his ships — the fifteen Corcyraean vessels had already gone home — he launched his expedition against the Aetolians. He established his base at Oeneon in Locris, since the Ozolian Locrians were Athenian allies and had agreed to meet him with their full forces in the interior. As neighbors of the Aetolians who fought in the same style, the Locrians were expected to be invaluable — they knew the terrain and understood the enemy's way of fighting.

DISASTER IN AETOLIA

Demosthenes camped for the night with his army in the sacred precinct of Nemean Zeus. This was the place where, according to local tradition, the poet Hesiod had been killed by the inhabitants — fulfilling an oracle that had foretold he would die "in Nemea." At daybreak, he marched into Aetolian territory.

On the first day he took Potidania. On the second, Krokyle. On the third, Tichium. There he halted and sent the plunder back to Eupalium in Locris. His plan was to push on conquering as far as the Ophionians, and if they refused to submit, to return to Naupactus and come back for them later.

But the Aetolians had known about his plans from the very beginning. The moment his army crossed into their territory, they mobilized in overwhelming force — every tribe turned out, even the most distant Ophionians, including the Bomiensians and Calliensians, who lived all the way down near the Malian Gulf.

The Messenians, however, stuck to their original advice. They assured Demosthenes that the Aetolians were an easy target and urged him to keep pushing forward as fast as possible, taking each village as he reached it before the whole nation could assemble against him.

Demosthenes listened. Trusting his advisers and encouraged by the fact that he had met no resistance so far, he pushed ahead without waiting for the Locrian reinforcements — the very troops who were supposed to supply him with the light-armed skirmishers he desperately needed. He advanced and stormed Aegitium. The inhabitants fled without a fight, falling back to the hills above the town — which sat on high ground about nine miles from the sea.

Then the Aetolians struck.

They had gathered in force and now came pouring down from the hills on every side, hurling javelins. When the Athenian army advanced, the Aetolians fell back. When it retreated, they surged forward. For a long time the battle followed this pattern — charge and retreat, charge and retreat — and in both phases, the Athenians got the worst of it.

As long as the archers still had arrows and could use them, the Athenians held their ground. The lightly armed Aetolians would pull back when the arrows flew. But then the captain of the archers was killed and his men scattered. The soldiers — exhausted from the endless cycle of the same grueling effort, pressed hard by the Aetolians and their javelins — finally broke and ran.

They fled into pathless ravines and unfamiliar terrain, and died there. Their guide, the Messenian Chromon, had already been killed. Many were overtaken during the pursuit by the swift, lightly armed Aetolians and cut down by javelins. But the largest number lost their way entirely and plunged into a forest with no way out. The enemy set fire to it and burned them alive.

The Athenian army died in every way imaginable that day, suffering every horror that a fleeing army can suffer. The survivors barely managed to escape to the coast and to Oeneon in Locris, where the expedition had begun. Many of the allies were killed. Of the Athenians themselves, about 120 heavy infantry fell — not a man fewer — all of them in the prime of life. These were by far the best soldiers Athens lost in the entire war up to that point. Among the dead was Procles, Demosthenes' fellow commander.

The Athenians recovered their dead under a truce from the Aetolians and withdrew to Naupactus. From there, the rest sailed back to Athens. But Demosthenes stayed behind in Naupactus and the surrounding area. He was afraid to face the Athenians after such a catastrophe.

OPERATIONS IN SICILY (CONTINUED)

Around the same time, the Athenians operating along the Sicilian coast sailed to Locris, made a landing, defeated the Locrians who came out to meet them, and captured a fort on the river Halex.

THE SPARTAN COUNTER-OFFENSIVE

That same summer — even before the Athenian expedition — the Aetolians had sent ambassadors to Corinth and Sparta. The delegation included Tolophus (an Ophionian), Boriades (a Eurytanian), and Tisander (an Apodotian). They asked for an army to be sent against Naupactus, which had invited the Athenian invasion into their country.

The Spartans obliged. Toward autumn, they dispatched 3,000 allied heavy infantry, including 500 from the newly founded colony of Heraclea in Trachis, under the command of Eurylochus, a Spartan. Two other Spartans, Macarius and Menedaius, accompanied him.

After assembling his army at Delphi, Eurylochus sent a herald to the Ozolian Locrians — partly because the road to Naupactus ran through their territory, and partly because he hoped to detach them from their alliance with Athens. His chief collaborators in Locris were the people of Amphissa, who were terrified of the Phocians. These were the first to hand over hostages and then pressured the others to do the same, warning them of the approaching army. One after another, the Locrian towns fell in line: first the Myonians (who controlled the most difficult mountain passes), then the Ipnians, Messapians, Tritaeans, Chalaeans, Tolophonians, Hessians, and Oeanthians — all of whom joined the expedition. The people of Olpae gave hostages but refused to march. The Hyaeans refused to do anything at all, until one of their villages, Polis, was captured by force.

With his preparations complete, Eurylochus deposited the hostages at Cytinium in Doris and marched on Naupactus through Locrian territory, capturing Oeneon and Eupalium along the way — two Locrian towns that had refused to join him. Once in Naupactian territory and now reinforced by the Aetolians, his army laid waste to the surrounding land and captured the unfortified suburbs. They also took Molycrium, a Corinthian colony that was subject to Athens.

Meanwhile, Demosthenes — who had been lingering near Naupactus ever since the Aetolian disaster — got word that this army was bearing down on the city. Desperate, he went to the Acarnanians and begged them to send help. It was not easy to persuade them — they were still furious about his abandonment of the Leucas campaign — but eventually they agreed. They sent a thousand heavy infantry, who shipped out on Demosthenes' vessels and threw themselves into the town just in time. With its sprawling walls and skeleton garrison, Naupactus had been in extreme danger.

Eurylochus and his forces, finding that the city was now reinforced and impossible to storm, pulled back — but not to the Peloponnese. Instead, they withdrew to the region once called Aeolis, now known as Calydon and Pleuron, and to the surrounding territory, including Proschium in Aetolia. The reason: the Ambraciots had come to them with a proposal. They urged Eurylochus to combine forces and attack Amphilochian Argos, along with the rest of Amphilochia and Acarnania. They promised that conquering these territories would bring the entire western mainland into alliance with Sparta.

Eurylochus agreed. He dismissed the Aetolians and settled in to wait with his army, biding his time until the Ambraciots were ready to take the field and he could march to join them before Argos.

WINTER OPERATIONS IN SICILY

Summer was now over. During the following winter, the Athenians in Sicily — together with their Greek allies and the Sicel communities that had revolted from Syracuse and joined the Athenian side — marched against the Sicel town of Inessa, whose citadel was held by a Syracusan garrison. They attacked it but failed to take it. During the retreat, the allies who were withdrawing behind the Athenians were hit by a sortie from the Syracusan garrison. A large part of their force was routed with heavy casualties.

After this, Laches and the Athenians conducted several raids from their ships along the coast of Locris, defeating a Locrian force under Proxenus, son of Capaton, at the river Caicinus, seizing some weapons, and moving on.

THE PURIFICATION OF DELOS

That same winter, the Athenians purified the island of Delos, apparently in response to some oracle. The island had been purified once before by Pisistratus, the Athenian tyrant — though only the parts visible from the temple, not the whole island. This time, however, the purification was total. Every grave of anyone who had died on Delos was dug up and removed. For the future, it was decreed that no one would be permitted either to die or to give birth on the island. Instead, anyone close to death or about to deliver a child was to be carried across to Rhenea, a neighboring island so close to Delos that Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos — during the period when his navy dominated those waters — had once symbolically bound Rhenea to Delos with a chain and dedicated it to the Delian Apollo.

After the purification, the Athenians celebrated the Delian Games for the first time as a festival held every five years. In ancient times, there had been a great gathering of Ionians and the neighboring islanders at Delos. They used to come for the festival just as the Ionians now travel to the festival at Ephesus. There were athletic competitions and poetry contests, and the various cities sent choirs of dancers. Homer himself is the clearest witness to this, in the following verses from his hymn to Apollo:

Phoebus, wherever you wander, far or near, Delos was always the haunt you held most dear. There the robed Ionians make their way, With wife and child to celebrate your day, They call your blessing on each contest's fame, And dance and sing in honor of your name.

That there was also a poetry competition is shown by another passage from the same hymn. After praising the Delian dance of the women, Homer ends with these verses, in which he also alludes to himself:

Well, may Apollo keep you all! And so, Sweethearts, goodbye — yet tell me not I go Out from your hearts; and if in after hours Some other wanderer in this world of ours Touch at your shores, and ask your maidens here Who sings the songs the sweetest to your ear, Think of me then, and answer with a smile, "A blind old man of Chios' rocky isle."

Homer, then, confirms that there was once a great festival and assembly at Delos. In later times, though the islanders and the Athenians continued to send choirs of dancers and sacrifices, the competitions and most of the ceremonies had been discontinued — probably due to hard times — until the Athenians revived the games on this occasion, adding horse racing as a new feature.

THE AMBRACIOT CAMPAIGN

That same winter, the Ambraciots — fulfilling the promise that had persuaded Eurylochus to keep his army in the region — marched against Amphilochian Argos with 3,000 heavy infantry. They invaded Argive territory and occupied Olpae, a fortified hilltop near the sea. The Acarnanians had built this stronghold years earlier and used it as the site of their national court of justice. It sat about two and three-quarter miles from the city of Argos, on the coast.

The Acarnanians responded by splitting their forces. One contingent rushed to defend Argos itself. The rest took up a position in Amphilochia at a place called Crenae — "the Wells" — to block Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians from slipping through and linking up with the Ambraciots. They also sent for Demosthenes, the general from the Aetolian campaign, asking him to take command, and called in the twenty Athenian ships cruising off the Peloponnese under the command of Aristotle, son of Timocrates, and Hierophon, son of Antimnestus.

The Ambraciots at Olpae, for their part, sent a messenger back to their home city, begging for reinforcements — their entire citizen levy. They feared that Eurylochus might not be able to get past the Acarnanians, and that they would either have to fight alone or find it impossible to retreat safely.

EURYLOCHUS BREAKS THROUGH

When Eurylochus and his Peloponnesians learned that the Ambraciots had reached Olpae, they broke camp at Proschium and marched to join them at top speed. They crossed the Achelous River and advanced through Acarnania, which they found deserted — the entire population had gone to defend Argos. Keeping the city of Stratus and its garrison on their right and the rest of Acarnania on their left, they pushed through Stratian territory, then through Phytia, then along the edge of Medeon, then through Limnaea. After that they left Acarnania behind and entered the friendly territory of the Agraeans. From there they climbed over Mount Thyamus — which belongs to the Agraeans — and descended into Argive territory after nightfall. Threading their way between the city of Argos and the Acarnanian outpost at Crenae, they slipped through and joined the Ambraciots at Olpae.

THE BATTLE OF OLPAE

The combined force came together at daybreak and took up a position at a place called Metropolis, where they made camp. Shortly afterward, the twenty Athenian ships sailed into the Ambracian Gulf to support the Argives. Demosthenes was aboard, along with 200 Messenian heavy infantry and 60 Athenian archers.

While the fleet blockaded the hill at Olpae from the sea, the Acarnanians and a few Amphilochians — most of the Amphilochians had been forcibly held back by the Ambraciots — had already reached Argos and were preparing for battle. They chose Demosthenes to command the entire allied army alongside their own generals.

Demosthenes led them forward and made camp near Olpae, with a deep ravine separating the two armies. For five days, neither side moved. On the sixth day, both armies formed up for battle.

The Peloponnesian army was the larger force, and its line extended well beyond the Acarnanian right flank. Demosthenes saw the danger: his right wing was about to be surrounded. So he placed roughly 400 heavy infantry and light troops in ambush, hidden in a hollow lane choked with bushes. Their orders were simple: the moment the fighting began, they were to rise up behind the enemy's projecting left wing and hit them from the rear.

When both sides were ready, battle was joined. Demosthenes held the right wing with the Messenians and a handful of Athenians. The rest of the line was made up of the various Acarnanian divisions and the Amphilochian skirmishers. On the other side, the Peloponnesians and Ambraciots were drawn up in a jumbled mass, with one exception: the Mantineans were concentrated on the left, though their line did not quite extend to the very end of the wing. That position was held by Eurylochus and his men, directly facing Demosthenes and the Messenians.

THE AMBUSH

The Peloponnesians were fully engaged now, and their overlapping wing was on the verge of wrapping around the enemy's right — when the Acarnanians burst out of their hiding place and slammed into them from behind. The shock shattered them instantly. They did not even try to make a stand. Their panic spread through most of the army like wildfire. Watching the division of Eurylochus — their best troops — get cut to pieces was more than they could take.

The real damage was done by Demosthenes and his Messenians, who were posted right in the thick of it.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the Ambraciots — who were the finest soldiers in that part of the world — and the troops on the right wing defeated the forces facing them and chased them all the way to Argos. But when they came back from the pursuit, they found the rest of their army in ruins. Hemmed in by the Acarnanians, they fought their way back to Olpae with great difficulty, taking heavy casualties along the way. Their retreat was a desperate, disorganized scramble — with the sole exception of the Mantineans, who kept their formation better than anyone else during the withdrawal.

The battle raged until evening.

THE SECRET DEAL

The next day, Menedaius — who had taken sole command after the deaths of Eurylochus and Macarius — found himself in an impossible position. He was trapped: cut off by land and blockaded by the Athenian fleet at sea. He could not stay, and he could not safely retreat. He opened negotiations with Demosthenes and the Acarnanian generals, asking for a truce, permission to withdraw, and the right to recover the dead.

The Acarnanians gave back the enemy dead and set up a victory trophy. They also recovered their own fallen — about 300 in all. As for the request to withdraw, they publicly refused it to the army at large.

But privately, it was a different story. Demosthenes and his Acarnanian colleagues secretly granted permission to leave — but only to the Mantineans, to Menedaius, and to the other Peloponnesian officers and prominent men. Their motive was calculated and cold: they wanted to strip the Ambraciots and their mercenary allies of their protectors, leaving them stranded. Above all, they wanted to destroy the reputation of the Spartans and Peloponnesians among the Greeks in that region — to brand them as traitors who had abandoned their own allies to save themselves.

THE TRAP CLOSES

While the enemy was busy recovering and hastily burying their dead, and those who had been granted secret permission were quietly planning their escape, urgent news reached Demosthenes and the Acarnanians: the Ambraciots from the city — responding to the original message sent from Olpae days earlier — were on the march with their entire citizen levy, crossing through Amphilochia to reinforce their countrymen. They had no idea about the battle or its outcome.

Demosthenes moved fast. He prepared to march against them with his army and immediately sent a strong advance force to block the roads and seize the high ground.

In the meantime, the escape was underway. The Mantineans and the other Peloponnesians who had been granted permission slipped out of camp under the pretense of gathering herbs and firewood, drifting away in twos and threes, casually picking up the things they had supposedly come out for. Once they had put some distance between themselves and Olpae, they started walking faster. The Ambraciots and others who had gathered in larger groups saw them leaving and rushed to catch up, breaking into a run.

The Acarnanians, at first, thought everyone was leaving without permission. They started chasing the Peloponnesians, and some of their officers who tried to stop them — explaining that a deal had been struck — were met with suspicion. A few Acarnanian soldiers even threw javelins at their own generals, convinced they were being betrayed. Eventually, however, they figured out who was who. They let the Mantineans and Peloponnesians pass.

The Ambraciots were not so lucky.

There was enormous confusion over who was an Ambraciot and who was a Peloponnesian, and many bitter disputes arose in the chaos. But in the end, the Acarnanians identified the Ambraciots and killed them. About 200 died. The rest escaped into the neighboring territory of the Agraeans and found refuge with Salynthius, the friendly king of the Agraeans.

THE SLAUGHTER AT IDOMENE

Meanwhile, the Ambraciots from the city reached Idomene. Idomene has two tall hills. The troops Demosthenes had sent ahead managed to seize the higher one after nightfall, without the Ambraciots noticing. The Ambraciots, for their part, had climbed the lower hill and were camping at its base.

After supper that evening, Demosthenes set out with the rest of his army. He took half the force himself and headed for the mountain pass. The other half went by way of the Amphilochian hills.

At dawn, he fell on the Ambraciots while they were still in their beds. They had no idea what had happened at Olpae. They assumed the troops approaching in the half-light were their own countrymen coming to meet them — Demosthenes had deliberately put the Messenians at the front of his column with orders to call out to the sentries in the Doric dialect, putting them at ease. In the darkness before dawn, there was no way to see who was who.

The attack shattered them. Most were killed where they lay. The rest broke and ran for the hills — but the roads were already blocked. The Amphilochians knew every inch of their own territory. The Ambraciots did not. They were heavy infantry trying to flee from light-armed troops, stumbling through unfamiliar country. They blundered into ravines and ran straight into the ambushes that had been set for them.

In their frantic efforts to escape, some even made for the sea, which was not far away. When they saw the Athenian ships sailing along the coast right as the slaughter was unfolding, they swam out toward them. In the grip of total panic, they decided that dying at Athenian hands was better than dying at the hands of the Amphilochians — people they considered barbarians, and whom they hated.

Of the large Ambraciot force that had marched out so confidently, only a handful made it back to the city alive. The Acarnanians stripped the dead, set up a trophy, and returned to Argos.

THE HERALD'S DISCOVERY

The next day, a herald arrived from the Ambraciots who had escaped from Olpae to the territory of the Agraeans. He had come to ask permission to collect the dead from the first battle — the men who had been killed during the retreat after slipping out of camp alongside the Mantineans, but who, unlike the Mantineans, had never been given permission to leave.

When the herald saw the weapons piled up from the dead, he was stunned by their number. He knew nothing about the disaster at Idomene — he assumed all these arms belonged to the men from his own group.

Someone asked him what he was so astonished at. How many of his side had been killed?

The man asking the question had made an assumption of his own: he thought this was the herald from the force destroyed at Idomene.

The herald replied: "About two hundred."

The questioner stared at him. "These are not the arms of two hundred men. There are more than a thousand here."

The herald said: "Then they cannot be the arms of the men who fought with us."

"Yes, they are," the man replied, "if you fought yesterday at Idomene."

"We did not fight anyone yesterday. We fought the day before, during the retreat."

"Well, yesterday we fought the reinforcements who came from the city of the Ambraciots."

When the herald heard this — when he understood that the entire relief force from the city had been destroyed — he broke into wailing. Overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the catastrophe, he turned and left at once, without completing his mission and without asking for the bodies again.

This was, by far, the greatest disaster suffered by any single Greek city in an equal number of days during the entire war. I have not recorded the number of dead, because the figure reported is so wildly out of proportion to the size of the city that it seems unbelievable. But I know this much: if the Acarnanians and Amphilochians had followed the advice of the Athenians and Demosthenes and marched on the city of Ambracia itself, they would have taken it without a fight. As it was, they held back — afraid that if the Athenians controlled Ambracia, they would be even worse neighbors than the Ambraciots had been.

THE AFTERMATH

After the battle, the Acarnanians set aside a third of the captured spoils for the Athenians and divided the rest among their own cities. The Athenian share was lost at sea on the voyage home. But the arms now displayed in the temples of Attica — three hundred sets of full armor — were the ones the Acarnanians had specially dedicated to Demosthenes. He carried them back to Athens in person, and this exploit made his return considerably less dangerous than it might have been after the Aetolian catastrophe.

The Athenians on the twenty ships also sailed back to Naupactus.

After Demosthenes and the Athenians departed, the Acarnanians and Amphilochians allowed the Ambraciots and Peloponnesians who had taken shelter with Salynthius and the Agraeans to withdraw safely from Oeniadae, where they had relocated from Salynthius' territory.

For the future, the Acarnanians and Ambraciots concluded a treaty and alliance for one hundred years. The terms were as follows: it would be a defensive alliance only — not offensive. The Ambraciots could not be required to march with the Acarnanians against the Peloponnesians, nor the Acarnanians with the Ambraciots against the Athenians. Beyond that, the Ambraciots were to give up the Amphilochian territory and hostages they still held, and they were not to support Anactorium, which was hostile to the Acarnanians.

With this agreement, the war in the west came to an end.

Afterward, the Corinthians sent a garrison of 300 of their own heavy infantry to Ambracia under the command of Xenocleides, son of Euthycles. They reached the city only after a grueling overland march. Such was the story of the Ambraciot affair.

THE END OF THE SIXTH YEAR

That same winter, the Athenians in Sicily launched a raid from their ships against the territory of Himera, working in concert with the Sicels, who had invaded Himeran territory from the interior. They also sailed to the Aeolian Islands. On their return to Rhegium, they found that a new Athenian general — Pythodorus, son of Isolochus — had arrived to replace Laches as fleet commander.

The allies in Sicily had sailed to Athens and convinced the Athenians to send more ships. They pointed out that the Syracusans, who already dominated the land, were building a navy to challenge Athens at sea as well. The Athenians decided to send forty ships, thinking this would bring the war in Sicily to a quicker end — and it would also be good training for their sailors. They sent Pythodorus ahead with a small squadron, with Sophocles, son of Sostratides, and Eurymedon, son of Thucles, scheduled to follow with the main fleet.

Pythodorus, having taken over Laches' command, sailed against the Locrian fort that Laches had previously captured — but was defeated in battle by the Locrians and forced to withdraw.

In the early days of the following spring, a stream of fire erupted from Mount Etna, as it had on previous occasions, and destroyed part of the territory of the Catanians, who lived on the mountain's slopes. Etna is the largest mountain in Sicily. It had been fifty years, people said, since the last eruption — there had been three in all since Greeks first settled the island.

Such were the events of this winter. And with it ended the sixth year of the war recorded by Thucydides.

Book IV: Turning Points

CHAPTER 12

Seventh Year of the War — Occupation of Pylos — Surrender of the Spartan Army on Sphacteria

The next summer, around the time the grain was ripening, ten ships from Syracuse and ten from Locri sailed into Messina in Sicily and occupied the city at the invitation of its own people. Messina revolted from Athens.

The Syracusans had engineered this mainly because they saw that Messina gave anyone who held it a gateway into Sicily, and they were afraid the Athenians might eventually use it as a base to launch an attack with a larger force. The Locrians had their own reasons: they wanted to wage war against their enemies, the people of Rhegium, from both sides of the strait. To that end, the Locrians had already invaded Rhegian territory in full force, both to prevent Rhegium from sending help to Messina and at the urging of Rhegian exiles living among them. Rhegium had been torn apart by internal divisions for so long that it was in no shape to resist, which only made it more tempting as a target. After ravaging the countryside, the Locrian ground forces withdrew, but their ships stayed behind to guard Messina while more were being fitted out to continue the war from there.

Around the same time that spring, before the grain was ready for harvest, the Peloponnesians and their allies invaded Attica under King Agis, son of Archidamus, and settled in to ravage the land. Meanwhile, the Athenians sent their forty ships off to Sicily under the generals Eurymedon and Sophocles. Their third colleague, Pythodorus, had already gone ahead. The fleet also had orders to stop at Corcyra on the way and deal with the situation there: the democratic faction in the city was being plundered by the exiles who had established themselves in the mountains. Sixty Peloponnesian ships had recently sailed to support those exiles, since famine was raging in the city and they thought it would be easy to force a surrender.

Demosthenes was also part of this story. He had been sitting idle since returning from his campaign in Acarnania, but now he applied for — and received — permission to use the fleet along the coast of the Peloponnese, if he saw an opportunity.

THE GAMBLE AT PYLOS

Off the coast of Laconia, the fleet received word that the Peloponnesian ships had already reached Corcyra. Eurymedon and Sophocles wanted to press on immediately. But Demosthenes had a different idea. He asked them to put in at Pylos first and do what needed to be done there before continuing the voyage.

They objected. But then a squall blew in and drove the fleet straight into Pylos — as if the weather itself had taken Demosthenes' side.

The moment they arrived, Demosthenes urged them to fortify the place. This was the whole reason he had come along. He pointed out that stone and timber were everywhere, the position was naturally strong, and the surrounding area was largely deserted. Pylos — or Coryphasium, as the Spartans called it — lay about forty-five miles from Sparta, in what had once been Messenian territory.

The commanders were unimpressed. There was no shortage of empty headlands around the Peloponnese, they said. If Demosthenes wanted to drain the treasury by occupying them, he was welcome to look elsewhere.

But Demosthenes saw something they did not. This particular spot had a natural harbor right beside it. And the Messenians — the original inhabitants of the region, who spoke the same dialect as the Spartans — could use it as a base for raids deep into Spartan territory, doing enormous damage. They would also serve as a reliable garrison.

He argued his case to the company captains and got nowhere — neither the generals nor the soldiers were interested. So he gave up and sat with the rest, waiting out the bad weather.

And then something remarkable happened.

The soldiers, stuck with nothing to do, got the itch to work. On their own initiative, with no orders from above, they decided to fortify the place. They threw themselves into the project with an enthusiasm that bordered on the absurd. They had no iron tools, so they picked up stones and fitted them together however they could. When mortar was needed, they carried it on their backs — no buckets, no hods — hunching over and clasping their hands behind them to keep it from sliding off. They were desperate to finish the most vulnerable sections before the Spartans showed up. Most of the site was already so well defended by nature that it barely needed walls at all.

SPARTA'S SLOW REACTION

The Spartans, meanwhile, were in the middle of a religious festival. When word reached them about Pylos, they shrugged it off. Whenever they decided to deal with it, they figured, the Athenians would either run or be crushed. Their main army was away in Attica, which also delayed any response.

The Athenians finished their fortifications on the land side — the most critical sections — in just six days. Then, leaving Demosthenes behind with five ships to hold the fort, the main fleet hurried on to Corcyra and Sicily.

The moment the Peloponnesian forces in Attica heard about Pylos, they rushed home. King Agis and the Spartans took the news very personally. On top of that, they had invaded early in the season while the grain was still green, so their troops were already running short of food. The weather had been unusually terrible, making everything worse. All these factors combined to cut the invasion short. They had been in Attica only fifteen days.

Around this same time, the Athenian general Simonides pulled together a small force of Athenians from nearby garrisons and some local allies and captured Eion in Thrace — a colony of Mende that was hostile to Athens — by treachery. But almost immediately the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans counterattacked and drove him out, killing many of his men.

THE TRAP TAKES SHAPE

As soon as the Peloponnesians got back from Attica, the Spartans themselves and the nearest communities of the perioikoi marched out immediately for Pylos. The rest of the Spartans followed more slowly, having just returned from another campaign. Word went out across the entire Peloponnese: everyone was to converge on Pylos as fast as possible. The sixty Peloponnesian ships were recalled from Corcyra. Their crews dragged them across the isthmus at Leucas to avoid detection, slipped past the Athenian squadron stationed at Zacynthus, and reached Pylos, where the army had already arrived.

Before the Peloponnesian fleet sailed in, Demosthenes managed to send two ships to find Eurymedon and the Athenian fleet at Zacynthus, warning them of the danger and begging for help.

While those ships raced to deliver their message, the Spartans prepared to assault the fort by land and sea simultaneously. They expected to take it easily — a hasty fortification held by a small garrison. At the same time, anticipating that the Athenian fleet would come from Zacynthus, they planned to block the harbor entrances if the fort held out.

Here is the geography that made it all possible. The island of Sphacteria stretched in a long line just offshore, directly in front of the harbor. It formed a natural breakwater that made the harbor safe — but it also narrowed the entrances to just two channels: one near Pylos on the south side, wide enough for about two ships abreast, and a wider one to the north, near the mainland, with room for eight or nine ships. The island itself was about a mile and five-eighths long, thickly covered with forest, pathless and uninhabited.

The Spartan plan was to seal both channels with ships packed bow-to-bow, facing outward. They also ferried heavy infantry over to Sphacteria and stationed more troops along the coast of the mainland. That way, the Athenians would find both the island and the shore hostile. The coastline outside the harbor, facing the open sea, had no proper anchorage, so there would be nowhere for the Athenian fleet to land and support the garrison. The Spartans could take the fort without a naval battle and without real risk — or so they calculated. After all, Pylos had been occupied on a whim, and the garrison had no supplies.

With this plan in place, they ferried their heavy infantry across to the island. The troops were chosen by lot from every company. Some had crossed earlier in rotation, but the final garrison numbered four hundred and twenty heavy infantry, along with their helot attendants. Their commander was Epitadas, son of Molobrus.

DEMOSTHENES PREPARES

Demosthenes could see the attack coming from two directions at once. He was not about to sit still.

He hauled the ships that had been left with him up under the fortification and fenced them in with a stockade. Then he armed the sailors — not with proper weapons, since there were none to be had in this wilderness, but with improvised shields, most of them made of wicker. Even those had been scavenged from a Messenian privateer and a boat that happened to arrive carrying Messenian volunteers. Among these Messenians were forty heavy infantry, and Demosthenes put every one of them to use.

He stationed the bulk of his men, armed and unarmed alike, at the strongest points of the fortification on the landward side, with orders to hold off the Spartan ground forces. Then he handpicked sixty heavy infantry and a few archers, took them outside the walls, and marched down to the shore — to the exact spot where he expected the enemy to try landing.

The ground there was rough, rocky, and exposed to the open sea. But Demosthenes knew that this was precisely where the wall was weakest, and that the Spartans would know it too. The Athenians had been so confident in their naval superiority that they had barely bothered with the defenses here — and the Spartans would gamble that if they could force a landing at this point, the whole position would fall.

So Demosthenes went right to the water's edge, positioned his heavy infantry, and addressed them.

DEMOSTHENES' SPEECH

"Soldiers — comrades in this fight — I hope that none of you, in the tight spot we're in, is going to try to be clever and start calculating all the dangers around us. Instead, I want you to close with the enemy immediately, without stopping to count the odds. That is our best chance of survival. In a crisis like this, calculation is a luxury we cannot afford. The faster you face the danger, the better.

"Besides, as I see it, most of the advantages are actually on our side — if we hold our ground and don't throw them away by letting the enemy's numbers intimidate us.

"Think about it. The difficulty of the landing is one of our biggest assets. But it only works in our favor if we stand firm. If we pull back, this rocky shore becomes perfectly passable, even without a defender — and then the enemy becomes far more dangerous, because even if we push them back, they will have nowhere to retreat to easily. They are most vulnerable while they are still on their ships. Once they get ashore and meet us on equal terms, the advantage disappears.

"As for their numbers — don't let that scare you more than it should. No matter how large their force, they can only land in small groups. The terrain won't allow anything else. This is not an army facing us on open ground where everything is equal. These are men on ships, on the water, where a thousand things have to go right for them just to fight effectively. I would say their difficulties roughly cancel out our disadvantage in numbers.

"And I remind you: you are Athenians. You know from experience what it means to land troops from ships onto a hostile shore. You know that no force on earth can drive back a defender who holds his nerve and refuses to be scared off by the crashing waves and the terrifying sight of ships bearing down. So stand your ground now. Fight them at the water's edge. Save yourselves — and save this place."

THE ASSAULT

Rallied by this speech, the Athenians went down to the shoreline and formed up at the water's edge.

The Spartans launched their attack — by land and by sea at the same time. Forty-three ships came in under the command of Thrasymelidas, son of Cratesicles, a Spartan officer. He aimed for exactly the spot Demosthenes had predicted.

The Athenians were now under pressure from both directions. The enemy ships rowed in by squads, one group relieving another, since there was not enough room for many to come in at once. The crews drove each other forward with shouts of encouragement, each group trying to force a landing and break through the fortifications.

The man who stood out above all the rest was Brasidas.

He was commanding one of the galleys, and when he saw the other captains and helmsmen hanging back — afraid of wrecking their ships on the rocks, even where a landing looked possible — he shouted at them: "Are you really going to let the enemy build a fortress in our own country just to save your ships? Smash them on the rocks if you have to! Force a landing!" He turned to the allies: "After everything Sparta has done for you, don't hesitate now — sacrifice your ships! Run them aground, get ashore however you can, and take this position and everyone in it!"

And he did not just give orders. He forced his own helmsman to drive the ship ashore, rushed to the gangway, and tried to step onto land.

The Athenians cut him down.

Wound after wound, he kept trying — until finally he lost consciousness and collapsed into the bow of the ship. His shield slipped off his arm and fell into the sea. The waves carried it to shore, where the Athenians recovered it. They would later mount it on the trophy they raised to mark this battle.

The rest of the Spartans fought just as hard, but they could not get ashore. The terrain was brutal, and the Athenians did not give an inch.

It was one of the strangest reversals in the entire war. Athenians — the great sea power — were fighting on land, and Spartan land no less, defending against a Spartan attack. And Spartans — the supreme land power — were attacking from the sea, trying to make a beach landing on their own territory, which had somehow become enemy ground. At that point in history, Athens was famous above all for its navy, and Sparta for its infantry. Now each was fighting on the other's terms.

THE TABLES TURN

The Peloponnesians kept up their assaults through the rest of that day and most of the next. Then they stopped. The day after, they sent some ships to Asine to gather timber for siege engines, hoping to take the wall overlooking the harbor — the part where the landing was easiest — using brute-force engineering even though the wall was high.

That was when the Athenian fleet from Zacynthus arrived.

Fifty ships now. The original squadron had been reinforced by vessels from the patrol at Naupactus and four ships from Chios. The Athenians looked at the scene before them: the coast and the island packed with heavy infantry, the harbor full of enemy ships that showed no sign of coming out to fight. Not sure where to anchor, they sailed to the uninhabited island of Prote, not far away, and spent the night there.

The next day they got underway in battle formation, ready to fight in the open sea if the enemy came out. If not, they would go in after them.

The Spartans did not come out. And they had not blocked the harbor entrances the way they had planned. They just sat there on shore, manning their ships, preparing to fight inside the harbor if anyone sailed in. It was a large harbor. There would be room.

The Athenians saw their opening.

They attacked through both channels at once. Most of the Spartan fleet was already afloat and in formation — and the Athenians smashed into it. They put the enemy ships to flight immediately. The harbor was too small for a long chase, but they disabled a good number of vessels and captured five outright, one with its entire crew still aboard. They rammed ships that had retreated to the shore. They battered others that were still trying to get manned and underway. They lashed lines to empty ships whose crews had fled and started towing them away.

The Spartans on shore watched this disaster unfold — and the full horror hit them. Their men were trapped on the island. Cut off.

They lost their minds.

Spartans in full heavy armor waded into the sea, grabbed hold of ships, and tried to drag them back by hand. Every man thought the whole battle depended on him alone. The confusion was total, and the irony was extraordinary: Spartans were fighting a naval engagement on land, while the Athenians, riding high on their victory, were waging what amounted to a land battle from the decks of their ships. The normal roles of the two great powers were completely inverted — again.

After vicious fighting and heavy casualties on both sides, they broke apart. The Spartans managed to save their empty ships, minus the ones already captured. Both sides withdrew to their camps. The Athenians set up a trophy, returned the enemy dead, secured the wrecks, and immediately began patrolling around the island. The garrison on Sphacteria was now completely cut off — there was no way on and no way off.

The Peloponnesian forces on the mainland, whose reinforcements had all arrived by now, stayed in position opposite Pylos.

SPARTA SUES FOR PEACE

When the news from Pylos reached Sparta, the reaction was shock. This was a catastrophe unlike anything they had anticipated. The Spartan government decided that the senior authorities themselves should go to the camp, see the situation with their own eyes, and decide what to do on the spot.

When they got there, they saw the truth: there was no way to rescue their men. They were not willing to risk having them starved into submission or overwhelmed by sheer numbers. So they reached an agreement with the Athenian generals: an armistice at Pylos, during which Spartan envoys would sail to Athens to negotiate a broader settlement and try to get their men back as quickly as possible.

The generals agreed, and the armistice was concluded on these terms:

The Spartans would bring all the ships that had fought in the recent battle to Pylos and hand them over to the Athenians, along with every warship in Laconia. They would make no attack on the fort, by land or sea.

The Athenians would allow the Spartans on the mainland to send food to the men on the island — a fixed daily ration per man: two quarts of barley meal, one pint of wine, and a piece of meat. Servants got half portions.

The food had to be delivered in plain sight of the Athenians. No boats were to approach the island except openly.

The Athenians would continue patrolling around the island, but would not land on it, and would not attack the Peloponnesian forces by land or sea.

If either side violated any of these terms in the slightest detail, the whole armistice was void.

The truce would hold until the Spartan envoys returned from Athens — the Athenians would transport them there and back in one of their own galleys. Upon the envoys' return, the armistice would end, and the Athenians would give the ships back in the same condition they had received them.

Those were the terms. The Spartans handed over about sixty ships, and the envoys departed for Athens.

THE SPARTAN SPEECH AT ATHENS

When they arrived, the envoys addressed the Athenian assembly:

"Athenians, the Spartans have sent us to find a way to settle the matter of our men on the island — a solution that serves our interests while being as consistent with our dignity, given our misfortune, as circumstances allow.

"If we speak at length, it is not a departure from our national character. We Spartans use few words when few are needed. But when the issue is important and words can serve a purpose, we are willing to use more of them. We ask you to receive what we say not as a lecture from people who think you are ignorant, but as a suggestion offered to intelligent judges about the wisest course of action.

"You have a chance right now to use your present success brilliantly. You can keep what you have won and gain lasting honor and reputation on top of it. Or you can make the mistake that people always make when fortune suddenly smiles on them: they got more than they expected, so they reach for more still, driven by hope that seems justified because everything has gone their way so far.

"But those who have experienced the greatest swings of fortune — from triumph to disaster and back — have the least faith that good luck will last. Your city and ours ought to know this lesson better than anyone. Experience has taught it often enough.

"If you need proof, look at us. We stood higher than any power in Greece. And now here we are, standing before you to ask for what we once thought ourselves more able to grant. This is not because our strength has declined, or because success went to our heads and we overreached. Our resources are what they have always been. We made an error in judgment — the kind of error anyone can make. You should not assume, therefore, that your city's current good fortune and recent gains will last forever. Sensible people treat their successes as fragile. They keep a clear head in adversity, and they understand that war refuses to stay within the boundaries any combatant tries to set for it. War follows its own logic. The people who grasp this — who do not become reckless with confidence after a victory — are the ones least likely to stumble, and the most ready to make peace while their luck holds.

"Athenians, you have exactly that opportunity now. Take it. Make peace with us. Do not let people say afterward that you owed even your present advantages to mere accident — when you could have left behind a reputation for both power and wisdom that nothing could ever challenge.

"The Spartans invite you to end the war. We offer peace, alliance, and the closest possible friendship between our two states, on every level and in every situation. In return, we ask for the men on the island. We think it is better for both sides not to push this to the bitter end — gambling that some lucky break will let our men fight their way out, or that the blockade will eventually crush them.

"If great enmities are ever truly going to be settled, it will not happen through vengeance and military domination — through forcing a defeated opponent to swear to a treaty on humiliating terms. It happens when the stronger side, the one with every right to press its advantage, chooses instead to act with generosity, defeats its enemy through the sheer nobility of its peace terms, and offers conditions more moderate than the loser expected. At that moment, the enemy no longer owes a debt of revenge. He owes a debt of gratitude — and honor compels him to keep his word. People are far more inclined to behave this way toward their greatest enemies than toward lesser ones. It is human nature: people gladly reciprocate generosity from someone who yields first, but they will risk everything, even against their own better judgment, rather than submit to arrogance.

"If peace was ever a wise choice for both parties, it is now — before something irreversible happens that forces us to hate you forever, publicly and personally, and you lose the opportunity we are offering. While the outcome is still uncertain — while you stand to gain our friendship and our reputation, and we stand to escape our misfortune on tolerable terms, before catastrophe strikes — let us choose reconciliation. Let us choose peace over war. And let us give the rest of Greece relief from their suffering. For this, you can be sure, they will thank Athens above all. They do not know which side started the war. But peace, if you choose to grant it, will be credited to you.

"Make this choice, and you secure the friendship of Sparta — offered freely, not extracted under duress. And consider the advantages that follow. When Athens and Sparta stand together, the rest of Greece will accept its place beneath the two greatest powers."

That was the Spartan speech. Their assumption was that the Athenians already wanted peace and had only been held back by Spartan opposition. Now that Sparta was making the offer freely, they would leap at the chance and give the men back.

CLEON AND THE REJECTION

They were wrong.

The Athenians had the men on the island, and they knew they could dictate terms whenever they pleased. They wanted more. The man who pushed them hardest in this direction was Cleon, son of Cleaenetus — the most influential popular leader of the day, a man who held enormous sway with the masses. He persuaded the assembly to give this answer:

First, the men on the island had to surrender themselves and their weapons and be brought to Athens. Then the Spartans had to hand back Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen, and Achaia — all territories that Athens had ceded not through military defeat but under a previous treaty, at a time when Athens was in a desperate position and needed a truce more than it did now. Only after all that could the Spartans take their men back, and a truce could be negotiated for whatever duration both sides agreed on.

The envoys offered no response to these demands. Instead, they asked that a small committee be appointed so they could sit down together in private, go through the issues point by point, and try to work something out through quiet discussion.

Cleon went on the attack. He said he had known all along that the Spartans had no honest intentions, and now it was obvious — they refused to speak openly before the people and wanted to negotiate in secret with two or three men. No. If their intentions were honorable, they could say what they had to say in front of everyone.

The Spartans saw the situation clearly. Whatever concessions they might have been willing to make, they could not do it in front of the assembly. If they made a generous offer and Athens rejected it anyway, the word would get back to Sparta's allies that Sparta had offered those concessions and been humiliated. It was impossible. The Athenians, under Cleon's influence, were never going to agree to reasonable terms.

The envoys returned to Pylos empty-handed.

THE ARMISTICE COLLAPSES

The moment they arrived, the armistice was over.

The Spartans asked for their ships back, as the agreement stipulated. The Athenians refused. They claimed the Spartans had violated the truce — an attack on the fort, they said, along with other infractions that hardly seemed worth mentioning. The agreement had been explicit: the slightest violation voided the entire deal. The Athenians invoked that clause and kept the ships.

The Spartans denied the alleged violations, protested bitterly about what they called Athenian bad faith, and went away to throw themselves back into the war.

Now both sides fought at Pylos with renewed fury. The Athenians patrolled around the island all day long with two ships circling in opposite directions. At night — except when the wind was blowing in from the sea, which made it impossible — they anchored their entire fleet in a ring around the island. They had been reinforced by twenty ships from Athens, bringing their total to seventy. The Peloponnesians stayed camped on the mainland, kept attacking the fort, and watched for any opening that might let them rescue their men.

THE SICILIAN INTERLUDE

Meanwhile, in Sicily, the Syracusans and their allies brought reinforcements to the squadron guarding Messina and continued the war from there, driven mainly by the Locrians' hatred of Rhegium, whose territory they had invaded in full force. The Syracusans also wanted to try their luck at sea. They knew the Athenians had only a handful of ships at Rhegium, and they had heard the main fleet was tied up blockading the island at Pylos. A naval victory, they figured, would let them blockade Rhegium from both sea and land and quickly force a surrender. That would put them in a commanding strategic position, since the promontory of Rhegium in Italy and Messina in Sicily were so close together that no Athenian fleet could operate freely in the strait between them.

That strait — the sea between Rhegium and Messina, where Sicily comes closest to the Italian mainland — is the famous passage where legend says Odysseus sailed past Charybdis. The narrowness of the channel and the violent currents pouring in from the vast Tyrrhenian and Sicilian seas have given it a fearsome reputation, and rightly so.

In this strait, the Syracusans and their allies were forced into battle late in the day, fighting over the passage of a single boat. They put out with slightly more than thirty ships against sixteen Athenian and eight Rhegian vessels. The Athenians beat them, and the defeated ships scattered back to their respective bases at Messina and Rhegium, with the loss of one ship. Night fell before the fighting fully ended.

After this, the Locrians pulled out of Rhegian territory, and the Syracusan and allied ships regrouped and anchored at Cape Pelorus in Messinese territory, with their ground forces nearby. The Athenians and Rhegians sailed up, saw the ships beached and unmanned, and attacked. But they lost a vessel of their own — caught by a grappling iron — though the crew swam to safety. Then the Syracusans boarded their ships, and as they were being towed along the coast toward Messina, the Athenians attacked again. This time the Syracusans suddenly put out to sea, seized the initiative, and managed to sink one more Athenian ship. After this back-and-forth running battle along the coastline, the Syracusans sailed into Messina harbor, having held their own.

Meanwhile, the Athenians received warning that Camarina was about to be betrayed to Syracuse by a man named Archias and his faction, and sailed there to prevent it. The Messinese seized the opportunity and attacked their Chalcidian neighbor, Naxos, by land and sea with everything they had. On the first day they penned the Naxians inside their walls and devastated the countryside. On the second they sailed around and laid waste to the land along the river Akesines while their infantry threatened the city from the other direction.

But then the Sicels — the native population of the interior — came pouring down from the highlands in huge numbers to help the Naxians. The Naxians saw them coming and their spirits soared. Convinced that the Leontines and their other Greek allies must be on the way too, they burst out of the city, fell on the Messinese, and routed them completely, killing more than a thousand. The survivors were mauled on the retreat home, ambushed by the Sicels along the roads, and most of them were cut to pieces. The Messinese ships limped back to port and dispersed.

The Leontines, their allies, and the Athenians immediately pounced on the weakened Messina. The Athenian ships attacked from the harbor side while the ground forces hit the city itself. But the Messinese sallied out — led by Demoteles and a garrison of Locrians who had stayed behind after the disaster — and routed most of the Leontine army, killing a large number. At that point, the Athenians landed from their ships, caught the Messinese in disorder, and drove them back into the city. They set up a trophy and withdrew to Rhegium.

After this, the Greek states in Sicily continued fighting each other on land, without Athenian involvement.

THE GRINDING BLOCKADE

Back at Pylos, the Athenians were still besieging the Spartans on the island, and the Peloponnesian forces on the mainland were still camped in place.

The blockade was brutal — and it was brutal for the Athenians.

Food and water were desperately short. There was only one spring, inside the citadel of Pylos itself, and it was small. Most of the men had to scrape through the shingle on the beach to find whatever brackish water they could. They were crammed into a tiny space with nowhere to go. There was no proper anchorage, so the ships had to rotate — some men eating on shore while the rest rode at anchor offshore.

But the worst part was how long it was taking. They had expected to starve out a handful of men trapped on a barren island with nothing but salt water to drink — a matter of days, surely. Instead, weeks passed.

The reason: the Spartans had put out a call for volunteers to smuggle food to the island. They offered astronomical prices, and they promised freedom to any helot who succeeded. The helots threw themselves into the work. They launched from every point along the Peloponnesian coast, timing their runs for nighttime, aiming for the seaward side of the island. They especially loved a stiff wind blowing onshore — the very weather that made it impossible for the Athenian galleys to hold their patrol positions around the island. The helots had nothing to lose; their boats had been valued in advance and they would be compensated regardless, so they ran them straight onto the beach without caring if the hulls were wrecked. The soldiers were always waiting for them at the landing spots.

Anyone who tried it in calm weather, though, got caught.

Divers also swam in underwater from the harbor side, towing leather bags on cords filled with poppy-seed paste mixed with honey, and crushed linseed. At first they slipped through unnoticed. Then the Athenians figured it out and started watching for them.

Both sides tried every trick imaginable — one to get food in, the other to stop it.

THE CLEON GAMBIT

Back in Athens, the news was grim. The army was suffering, food was getting through to the island, and the blockade was dragging on. People began to worry that winter would arrive while they were still stuck there. Supplying their own forces by sea around the Peloponnese would become impossible. The coastline offered nothing to forage. Even in summer they could barely ship enough supplies. A place with no harbors could not be blockaded indefinitely. Either the men on the island would escape when the siege was lifted, or they would wait for a storm and sail out on the boats that brought their food.

Most alarming of all was the Spartans' silence. They had stopped sending envoys. The Athenians took this to mean Sparta felt it was now in a strong position. People started to regret rejecting the peace offer.

Cleon saw the mood turning against him — he was the one who had blocked the treaty, and everyone knew it. He responded by attacking the messengers. The people bringing reports from Pylos were lying, he claimed. The assembly, hearing this, decided to send inspectors to see for themselves. Cleon himself was chosen, along with a man named Theagenes.

Cleon immediately realized his problem. He would either have to confirm the very reports he had been calling lies, or contradict them and be exposed as a fraud himself. So he changed tactics. He could see the Athenians were not entirely opposed to another expedition. Instead of going to inspect, he told them, they should stop wasting time. If they believed the reports, they should sail against the island and take the men. Then he pointed at Nicias, son of Niceratus, who was one of the current generals and a man Cleon despised. If their generals were real men, he said with a sneer, they would have sailed with a proper force and captured those Spartans long ago. If he were in command, he certainly would have done it.

Nicias could hear the crowd starting to murmur — why wasn't Cleon sailing himself, if it was so easy? He could also feel the attacks directed at him personally. So Nicias called Cleon's bluff. Fine, he said. Take whatever force you want. Go ahead. The generals will not stand in your way.

Cleon thought he was joking. He said he was ready to go. But when he realized Nicias was serious — that he was genuinely handing over the command — Cleon tried to back out. Nicias was the general, not him, he protested. He had never imagined Nicias would actually step aside.

But Nicias repeated the offer, formally resigned his command over the Pylos operation, and called the Athenians to witness.

And this is where the crowd took over. The more Cleon squirmed and tried to wriggle out of his own words, the more the assembly roared for him to go. They demanded that Nicias hand over command. They screamed at Cleon to sail.

Trapped by his own rhetoric, with no way out, Cleon accepted the expedition.

He stepped forward and made a declaration: he was not afraid of the Spartans. He would sail without taking a single man from the city garrison. He would use only the troops from Lemnos and Imbros who were currently in Athens, plus some light infantry who had come up from Aenus, and four hundred archers from various places. With those reinforcements and the soldiers already at Pylos, he would — within twenty days — either bring the Spartans back to Athens alive, or kill them on the spot.

The Athenians could not help laughing.

Twenty days. The man had lost his mind. But the cooler heads comforted themselves with a thought: either way, they won. Either they would be rid of Cleon — which, frankly, they rather hoped for — or, if that didn't work out, they would at least get the Spartans.

DEMOSTHENES' PLAN

After the assembly voted him the command, Cleon made one smart decision: he chose Demosthenes, one of the generals already at Pylos, as his partner.

He did this because he had heard what Demosthenes was planning. Demosthenes had been contemplating a direct assault on the island for some time. His troops were suffering under the blockade and were eager to fight it out rather than sit there any longer. And a recent accident had changed the calculus entirely.

Demosthenes had originally been afraid to attack the island. It was almost completely covered in dense forest, with no paths — it had never been inhabited. He saw this as a massive advantage for the defenders. The enemy could hide in the trees, ambush his men from unseen positions, gauge the Athenians' mistakes without revealing their own strength or numbers. Even with a larger force, his troops could be cut to pieces in the undergrowth without being able to see where to support each other. His disaster in Aetolia — where the woods had been his undoing — weighed heavily on his mind.

Then fate intervened.

Some of the Athenian soldiers, crammed for space, had been landing on the edges of the island to cook their meals, with sentries posted against surprise attack. One of them accidentally set fire to a patch of woods. The wind picked up. Before anyone realized what was happening, the fire raced through the trees and burned away most of the forest on the island.

Suddenly Demosthenes could see everything. He could see how many Spartans there actually were — more than he had thought, confirming his suspicion that they had been getting food smuggled in for a larger force. He could see the terrain, stripped bare. And he knew that the Athenian public considered success here vitally important.

It was time.

He sent for reinforcements from the nearby allied contingents and finalized his preparations. Then Cleon arrived with the troops he had requested, having sent word ahead of his coming.

The two generals' first move was to send a herald across to the Peloponnesian camp on the mainland, offering terms: would the Spartans order the men on the island to surrender themselves and their weapons? They would be held in comfortable custody until a general peace could be reached.

The offer was rejected.

The generals waited one day.

THE BATTLE OF SPHACTERIA

The next night, they loaded all their heavy infantry onto a small number of ships and set out. A little before dawn, they landed on both sides of the island — from the open-sea side and from the harbor — roughly eight hundred strong. They charged at a run toward the first Spartan outpost.

The Spartans had arranged their defenses like this: about thirty heavy infantry held the advance post nearest the Athenian landing. The main body, under Epitadas, held the center of the island — the most level ground, near the only water source. A small detachment guarded the far end of the island, toward Pylos, where the terrain was a sheer cliff on the seaward side and nearly as difficult from the landward approach. There was also a crude old fort there, built of rough-fitted stones, which they thought might be useful if they were driven back.

The Athenians hit the advance post before the Spartans even had their armor on. The landing had caught them completely by surprise — they had assumed the ships were just making their usual nighttime patrol. The men were practically still in bed. The Athenians killed them all.

At dawn, the rest of the army poured ashore: the crews of more than seventy ships — everyone except the lowest tier of rowers — armed however they could be, plus eight hundred archers, an equal number of light infantry, the Messenian reinforcements, and every soldier stationed around Pylos except those guarding the fort itself.

Demosthenes divided them into companies of roughly two hundred and positioned them on every high point around the island. The goal was encirclement. Total encirclement. The Spartans would be surrounded on all sides with no single enemy to strike at — hit from the front, the rear, both flanks simultaneously. If they charged one group, two more would be shooting into their backs. If they wheeled to face those, others would attack from the opposite side.

The attackers were almost all light-armed troops — archers, javelin-throwers, slingers, men with stones — dangerous at range, impossible to come to grips with. They could run away faster than armored men could chase them, and the moment their pursuers turned around, they would be on them again.

This was Demosthenes' design from the beginning. And now he executed it.

THE SPARTANS' AGONY

The main body of Spartans under Epitadas saw their outpost wiped out and a full army advancing on them. They formed up and marched forward to engage the Athenian heavy infantry head-on.

But the Athenian heavy infantry would not close with them. They just stood there while the light troops tore into the Spartans from both flanks and from behind. Wherever the Spartans rushed the skirmishers who came too close, they scattered — lightly equipped, quick on their feet, easily staying ahead on the rough, pathless ground of the burnt-out island, terrain that Spartans in full armor could not cross at speed.

This went on for some time. Then the Spartans began to slow down. They could no longer charge out as quickly as before at the points where they were being hit. The light troops noticed.

Confidence surged through them. They could see with their own eyes that they vastly outnumbered the enemy. They had been staring at these Spartans long enough that the sight was no longer terrifying. The reality had not matched the dread they had felt when they first landed — the paralyzing fear of attacking Spartans. Their fear turned to contempt.

With a roar, they all charged at once.

Stones, javelins, arrows — everything they had, all at the same time, from every direction, with a continuous battle cry that shattered the Spartans' ability to think.

Dust rose from the freshly burned ground and hung in thick clouds. It was impossible to see. Arrows and stones flew through the murk from hundreds of hands. The Spartans were engulfed. Their felt caps could not stop the arrows. Javelin shafts had snapped off in their armor, the broken points still embedded in their flesh. They were helpless — they could not see what was in front of them, they could not hear their officers' commands over the roar of the enemy, and danger was everywhere, pressing in from every side.

There was no way out. No way to fight back. Nothing.

THE LAST STAND

After many had been wounded in the shrinking space where they were packed together, the Spartans formed into a tight mass and fell back toward the old fort at the far end of the island. It was not far. Their friends were already there.

The instant they retreated, the light troops grew even bolder. They pressed in, screaming, and cut down every Spartan they could reach. But most of the Spartans made it to the fort. They joined the garrison already holding it and spread out along the entire perimeter, bracing for the final assault.

The Athenians came on. But the terrain at the fort was too strong for encirclement, and the ground too steep. They could only attack from the front. They tried to storm the position — and failed. For a long time, for most of that endless day, both sides held on through every agony the battle could inflict: thirst, heat, exhaustion. The Athenians tried to drive the Spartans off the high ground. The Spartans fought to hold it. And now that they could not be flanked, it was easier for them to defend.

The struggle seemed like it would never end.

Then the commander of the Messenian contingent went to Cleon and Demosthenes with a proposal. They were wasting their effort here, he said. But if they would give him some archers and light troops, he would find a way around to the enemy's rear — a path through the cliffs that he was confident existed.

They gave him what he asked for. He set out from a position hidden from the Spartan line of sight and picked his way along the precipices of the island's edge, through terrain so broken and steep that the Spartans had not bothered to post a guard. Inch by inch, with excruciating difficulty, he got his men around the position without being seen.

Then he appeared on the heights above, directly behind the Spartans.

The defenders stared up in horror. Their friends below shouted with joy.

It was Thermopylae in reverse. At Thermopylae, the Spartans had been the defenders, cut off when the Persians found the path around to their rear. Now the Spartans were the ones trapped between two fires.

They began to break. Outnumbered, exhausted, starving, they could hold no longer. They fell back.

THE SURRENDER

The Athenians were already surging forward when Cleon and Demosthenes saw what was about to happen. One more step backward, and the Spartans would be annihilated — their own men would slaughter them.

The generals stopped the attack. They held their soldiers back. They wanted these Spartans alive.

A proclamation went out: would the Spartans surrender themselves and their weapons, to be dealt with at Athens' discretion?

Most of the Spartans, hearing the offer, lowered their shields and waved their hands in acceptance.

The fighting stopped. A parley began between Cleon and Demosthenes on one side and Styphon, son of Pharax, on the other. Styphon was now in command by default. Epitadas, the original commander, was dead. Hippagretas, his second, lay among the fallen, everyone assuming he was dead too — though he was actually still alive. Styphon had inherited command, as the law required, because both his superiors were down.

Styphon and his companions asked to send a herald to the Spartans on the mainland, to ask what they should do. The Athenians would not let anyone leave the island. Instead, they called for heralds from the mainland themselves. Messages went back and forth — two or three rounds. Finally, the last messenger crossed from the Spartan camp with this reply:

"The Spartans bid you decide for yourselves, so long as you do nothing dishonorable."

The men on the island deliberated among themselves.

Then they surrendered. They gave up their weapons and their persons.

The Athenians guarded them through the rest of that day and the following night. The next morning they set up a trophy on the island, prepared to sail, and distributed the prisoners among the captains of their ships for safekeeping. The Spartans sent a herald and recovered their dead.

Here are the numbers. Four hundred and twenty heavy infantry had crossed to the island. Of those, two hundred and ninety-two were brought back to Athens alive. The rest were killed. Among the prisoners, roughly a hundred and twenty were full Spartan citizens.

Athenian losses were light. There had been no real close-quarters battle.

THE SHOCK

The total blockade, from the naval battle to the final fight on the island, had lasted seventy-two days. For twenty of those — during the armistice while the envoys were in Athens — the men had been given their rations. For the rest, they had been fed by the smugglers. When the island was taken, grain and other food was found stockpiled there; the commander Epitadas had kept his men on half rations to stretch the supply.

The Athenians and Peloponnesians withdrew their forces from Pylos and went home.

And outrageous as Cleon's promise had seemed, he kept it. He brought the men to Athens within the twenty days he had pledged.

Nothing that happened in the entire war shocked the Greek world as much as this.

The universal assumption had been that nothing — no force, no starvation, no extremity — could make Spartans give up their weapons. They would fight to the last man and die with their arms in their hands. People simply could not believe that the men who had surrendered were the same quality as the men who had fallen. One story captured the disbelief perfectly: some time later, an Athenian ally insulted one of the prisoners by asking whether the Spartans who died on the island were the real men of honor. The prisoner shot back: "An arrow would be worth a great deal if it could tell men of honor from the rest." The point was simple — the ones who died were the ones the stones and arrows happened to hit. Nothing more.

THE AFTERMATH

The Athenians decided to keep the prisoners locked up until a peace could be reached. If the Peloponnesians invaded Attica in the meantime, the prisoners would be brought out and executed.

Meanwhile, the defense of Pylos continued. The Messenians from Naupactus — whose ancestors had once lived in this very country, since Pylos had originally been Messenian territory — sent their best fighters there and began a campaign of devastating raids into Spartan lands. They spoke the same dialect as the Spartans, which made their incursions even more destructive.

The Spartans had never experienced anything like this. Guerrilla raids from their own former subjects, operating from a fortified base on Spartan soil. Helots were beginning to desert. The specter of revolution, always present, suddenly felt very real. The Spartans were deeply shaken. They tried not to show it to the Athenians, but they began sending envoys to Athens, attempting to recover Pylos and the prisoners.

The Athenians kept reaching for more. They sent every envoy away empty-handed.

Such was the affair of Pylos.

CHAPTER XIII

Seventh and Eighth Years of the War — End of the Corcyraean Revolution — Peace of Gela — Capture of Nisaea

That same summer, right after these events, the Athenians launched an expedition against Corinthian territory. They sailed with eighty ships, two thousand Athenian heavy infantry, and two hundred cavalry carried aboard horse transports, along with allied contingents from Miletus, Andros, and Carystus. The whole force was under the command of Nicias, son of Niceratus, with two fellow generals.

They put out to sea and made land at daybreak between Chersonese and Rheitus, on a stretch of beach below the Solygian hill. This was the spot where, long ago, the Dorians had established a base and waged war against the original inhabitants of Corinth, who were Aeolian Greeks. A village called Solygia still stood there. The beach where the fleet landed was about a mile and a half from the village, seven miles from Corinth, and a little over two miles from the Isthmus.

The Corinthians had been warned from Argos that the Athenian force was coming and had assembled at the Isthmus well in advance — everyone except those who lived on the far side of it, plus five hundred men who were away on garrison duty in Ambracia and Leucadia. The full Corinthian army was there, watching and waiting for the Athenians to land.

But the Athenians gave them the slip by arriving in the dark. When signal fires informed the Corinthians that the landing had happened, they left half their men at Cenchreae in case the Athenians moved against Crommyon, and the rest marched as fast as they could to meet the enemy.

Battus, one of the two generals present, took a detachment to defend the unfortified village of Solygia. Lycophron stayed behind with the main body to fight.

The Corinthians struck first, attacking the Athenian right wing, which had just landed in front of Chersonese. Then they engaged the rest of the army. The battle was fierce — brutal, hand-to-hand fighting from start to finish. The Athenian right wing and the Carystians posted at the end of the line took the Corinthian charge and, with some difficulty, pushed them back. The Corinthians retreated up to a stone wall on higher ground, hurled rocks down on the Athenians, then charged again singing the battle hymn. The Athenians met them head-on, and the two sides locked together once more at close quarters.

At that point, a Corinthian company that had come to reinforce the left wing routed the Athenian right and drove them back toward the sea. But the Athenians and Carystians rallied from the ships and pushed the Corinthians back in turn. Meanwhile, the rest of both armies fought on stubbornly, especially on the Corinthian right, where Lycophron held the line against the Athenian left — there was real concern that the Athenians on that side might try to take the village of Solygia.

The two sides held their ground for a long time, neither willing to give way. Finally, the Athenians brought their cavalry into action — something the Corinthians had no answer for — and routed them. The Corinthians pulled back to the hilltop and stayed there, refusing to come down again. It was during this rout of the Corinthian right wing that they suffered their heaviest losses, and their general Lycophron was among the dead. The rest of the army, broken and driven back — though not aggressively pursued — retreated to the high ground and took up a defensive position.

The Athenians, seeing that the enemy would no longer come out to fight, stripped the Corinthian dead, recovered their own fallen, and immediately set up a trophy.

Meanwhile, the other half of the Corinthian army — the force left at Cenchreae to guard against an Athenian move on Crommyon — had been unable to see the battle because Mount Oneion blocked their view. But they spotted the rising dust and hurried to help. The older men in the city of Corinth, learning what had happened, rushed out as well.

When the Athenians saw all these fresh troops coming toward them, they assumed it was reinforcements arriving from elsewhere in the Peloponnese. They quickly withdrew to their ships with their spoils and their dead — all except two bodies they had to leave behind because they couldn't find them. They boarded their ships, crossed to the islands opposite, and from there sent a herald to retrieve the missing bodies under a flag of truce.

The Corinthians lost 212 men in the battle. The Athenians lost somewhat fewer than fifty.

From the islands, the Athenians sailed that same day to Crommyon, in Corinthian territory — about thirteen miles from the city. They anchored, ravaged the surrounding farmland, and spent the night. The next day, they first sailed along the coast to the territory of Epidaurus and made a landing there, then continued to Methana, a peninsula between Epidaurus and Troezen. They built a wall across the narrow neck of the peninsula, fortified it, and left a garrison. From that point on, this outpost was used to launch raids against the territories of Troezen, Haliae, and Epidaurus. Once the fortification was complete, the fleet sailed home.

While all this was happening, Eurymedon and Sophocles had sailed with the Athenian fleet from Pylos, heading for Sicily. On the way, they stopped at Corcyra and joined forces with the townspeople for an expedition against the oligarchic faction that had established itself on Mount Istone. As I mentioned earlier, these men had crossed over after the revolution and seized control of the countryside, inflicting serious damage on the local population.

The Athenians attacked their stronghold and took it. The garrison fled as a group to high ground and surrendered on terms: they would hand over their mercenary troops, lay down their arms, and submit to whatever the Athenian people decided to do with them. The Athenian generals transported them under a flag of truce to the island of Ptychia, where they were to be held until they could be sent to Athens. The understanding was clear: if anyone was caught trying to escape, the deal was off for all of them.

But the leaders of the democratic faction in Corcyra were terrified that the Athenians might actually spare the prisoners' lives. So they came up with a scheme. They secretly sent agents to the island with instructions to approach a few of the prisoners, pose as friends looking out for their welfare, and warn them that they had better escape as quickly as possible — because the Athenian generals were about to hand them over to the Corcyraean people.

The trick worked. The men were caught trying to sail away in a boat that had been conveniently provided for them. The truce was now void, and the entire group was turned over to the Corcyraeans.

The Athenian generals bore a large share of the blame for what followed. Their obvious reluctance to sail on to Sicily — and their willingness to let someone else have the glory of escorting the prisoners to Athens — had encouraged the plotters and lent credibility to the false warnings.

Once the Corcyraeans had the prisoners, they locked them all in a large building. Then they began taking them out in groups of twenty and marching them between two lines of heavy infantry, one on each side. The prisoners were tied together, and as they passed, any soldier who recognized a personal enemy would beat and stab him. Men with whips walked alongside, lashing anyone who moved too slowly.

About sixty men were taken out and killed this way before the rest of the prisoners realized what was happening. They had assumed they were simply being transferred to another prison. But eventually someone told them the truth. At that point, the prisoners called out to the Athenians, begging them to do the killing themselves if that was what they wanted. They refused to leave the building. They said they would do everything in their power to stop anyone from coming in.

The Corcyraeans didn't try to force their way through the doors. Instead, they climbed onto the roof of the building, broke through it, and began hurling down tiles and shooting arrows at the men below. The prisoners tried to shelter themselves as best they could. But most of them turned to killing themselves — driving the arrows that had been shot at them into their own throats, hanging themselves with cords stripped from beds that happened to be in the building, tearing their own clothing into strips to make nooses. They used every possible means of self-destruction, even as missiles continued to rain down from the roof above.

Night fell while these horrors were still unfolding, and most of the night passed before it was over. When dawn came, the Corcyraeans threw the bodies in layers onto wagons and hauled them out of the city. All the women captured in the stronghold were sold into slavery.

And so the oligarchic faction on the mountain was annihilated by the democratic party. The civil war in Corcyra came to an end — at least for the duration of this war — because one side had been virtually wiped out. The Athenians sailed on to Sicily, their original destination, and resumed the fighting alongside their allies there.

At the close of summer, the Athenians at Naupactus, together with the Acarnanians, launched an attack on Anactorium, a Corinthian town situated at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf. They took it by treachery. The Acarnanians then expelled the Corinthian settlers and colonized the place themselves, sending settlers from all parts of Acarnania. And with that, summer was over.

THE INTERCEPTED LETTER

During the following winter, Aristides, son of Archippus — one of the commanders of the Athenian ships sent out to collect tribute from the allies — arrested a man named Artaphernes at Eion, on the Strymon River. Artaphernes was a Persian envoy, traveling from the Great King to Sparta. He was brought to Athens, where his dispatches were translated from the Assyrian script and read aloud.

The letters covered many subjects, but the main message to the Spartans was this: the king had no idea what they actually wanted. He had received ambassador after ambassador, and no two of them told the same story. If the Spartans were prepared to speak plainly, they should send envoys to Persia along with this messenger.

The Athenians sent Artaphernes back to Ephesus on a warship, along with their own ambassadors. But when the ambassadors arrived, they learned that King Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, had recently died. So they turned around and came home.

That same winter, the Chians pulled down a new wall they had been building — on orders from the Athenians, who suspected them of plotting a revolt. The Chians complied, but only after extracting pledges and whatever guarantees they could get that the Athenians would continue to treat them as before.

And so the winter ended, and with it the seventh year of this war of which Thucydides is the historian.

THE EIGHTH YEAR BEGINS

In the first days of the following summer, there was an eclipse of the sun at the time of the new moon. In the early part of the same month, there was an earthquake.

Meanwhile, the exiles from Mytilene and the rest of Lesbos — operating mostly from the mainland — hired mercenaries from the Peloponnese, recruited additional troops locally, and seized Rhoeteum. They gave it back unharmed after receiving a payment of two thousand Phocaean staters. After that, they marched against Antandrus and captured the town by treachery.

Their plan was ambitious. They intended to liberate Antandrus and the other towns along the Actaean coast — towns that had once belonged to Mytilene but were now under Athenian control. Once they were fortified at Antandrus, they would have an ideal base: Mount Ida was nearby with its abundant timber, perfect for building ships, and other supplies were plentiful. From there, they could easily raid Lesbos, which was close by, and bring the other Aeolian towns on the mainland under their control.

Those were the exiles' plans.

THE CAPTURE OF CYTHERA

That same summer, the Athenians launched an expedition against Cythera with sixty ships, two thousand heavy infantry, a small cavalry force, and allied troops from Miletus and elsewhere. The commanders were Nicias, son of Niceratus, Nicostratus, son of Diotrephes, and Autocles, son of Tolmaeus.

Cythera is an island off the coast of Laconia, opposite Cape Malea. Its inhabitants were Spartans of the perioeci class — the free but non-citizen population. Every year, Sparta sent an official called the Judge of Cythera to administer the island. A garrison of heavy infantry was also permanently stationed there. The Spartans paid close attention to Cythera, because it served as the main landing point for merchant ships coming from Egypt and Libya. At the same time, the island protected Laconia from seaborne raiders — the one direction from which Sparta's coast was truly vulnerable, since the entire shoreline drops steeply toward the Sicilian and Cretan seas.

The Athenians landed their forces. Ten ships and two thousand Milesian heavy infantry took the coastal town of Scandea. The rest of the army landed on the side of the island facing Cape Malea and advanced against the lower town of Cythera, where they found the entire population drawn up and ready to fight.

A battle followed. The Cytherians held their ground for a while, then broke and fled to the upper town. Before long, they surrendered to Nicias and his colleagues on terms: their fate would be left to the Athenians' discretion, with their lives guaranteed.

As it turned out, Nicias had already been in secret contact with certain inhabitants of the island, which is why the surrender came more quickly and on better terms — both for the present and the future — than the Cytherians might otherwise have expected. Without that back channel, the Athenians would probably have expelled them outright, given that they were Spartans and their island sat right off the Laconian coast.

After the surrender, the Athenians occupied the town of Scandea near the harbor, installed a garrison on Cythera, and then sailed to Asine, Helus, and most of the other settlements along the coast. Landing at various points, spending nights ashore wherever it was convenient, they ravaged the countryside for about seven days.

SPARTA ON THE DEFENSIVE

The Spartans could see that the Athenians now controlled Cythera, and they expected more landings like this along their coastline. But they didn't concentrate their forces to oppose them anywhere. Instead, they scattered garrisons around the countryside — as many heavy infantry at each threatened point as seemed necessary — and generally went into full defensive mode.

After the devastating and unexpected disaster on the island of Sphacteria, and now with Pylos and Cythera occupied by the enemy, they found themselves surrounded by a fast-moving war that struck faster than they could react. They lived in constant fear of revolution at home. For the first time, they raised a force of four hundred cavalry and a corps of archers — an extraordinary step for Sparta — and became more cautious in military matters than ever before. They were now fighting a war at sea, something their entire system had never been built for, and they were fighting it against the Athenians, a people who treated any missed opportunity as a victory thrown away.

On top of all this, their recent string of disasters — one blow after another, with no warning and no explanation — had completely shaken their nerve. They were terrified of suffering another catastrophe like Sphacteria. They barely dared to take the field. They convinced themselves that anything they tried would end in failure. They had never known adversity before, and they had lost all confidence in themselves.

So now they simply let the Athenians ravage their coastline without lifting a finger. The garrisons stationed near the landing sites always felt they were too few, and the general mood of paralysis spread to all of them.

One garrison did venture to fight back, near Cotyrta and Aphrodisia. Its charge scattered the Athenian skirmishers, who were spread out in loose formation. But when the Athenian heavy infantry received them, the garrison retreated, losing a few men and some equipment. The Athenians set up a trophy and sailed back to Cythera.

From there, they sailed around to Epidaurus Limera, ravaged part of the territory, and continued on to Thyrea, in the Cynurian district on the border between Argos and Laconia. The Spartans had given this territory to the people of Aegina after they were expelled from their island, in return for the help the Aeginetans had provided during the great earthquake and the Helot revolt. The Aeginetans had been Athenian subjects, but they had always sided with Sparta.

When the Athenians were still approaching by sea, the Aeginetans abandoned the fort they had been building on the coast and withdrew to the upper town where they lived, about a mile and a half inland. One of the Spartan district garrisons that had been helping them with the construction refused to follow them inside the walls, despite their pleas. The Spartans considered it too dangerous to shut themselves up in there, so they pulled back to the high ground and stayed put, deciding they were no match for the enemy.

The Athenians landed, advanced immediately with their entire force, and took Thyrea. They burned the town and looted everything in it. The Aeginetans who weren't killed in the fighting were taken prisoner and shipped to Athens, along with their Spartan commander, Tantalus, son of Patrocles, who had been wounded and captured alive. They also brought along a few men from Cythera whom they considered a security risk.

The Athenians decided to settle the prisoners as follows: the Cytherians would be relocated to the islands, while the rest of the Cytherian population would keep their land and pay four talents in annual tribute. Every captured Aeginetan would be executed — the hatred between Athens and Aegina ran deep and went back generations. And Tantalus would be imprisoned alongside the Spartan captives taken on the island of Sphacteria.

THE PEACE OF GELA

That same summer, the people of Camarina and Gela in Sicily negotiated a truce between themselves. After that, representatives from all the other Sicilian cities gathered at Gela to try to work out a general peace.

Delegate after delegate stood up and spoke, each one airing his city's grievances and pressing its claims. Finally, Hermocrates, son of Hermon — a Syracusan, and the most influential man among them — stepped forward and addressed the assembly:

THE SPEECH OF HERMOCRATES

"Sicilians, I speak to you now not because Syracuse is the smallest city here, or the one that has suffered most from the war — but because I want to lay out publicly what I believe is the best policy for the whole island.

"That war is a terrible thing is a point so obvious that it would be tiresome to argue it. Nobody is driven to war by ignorance. Nobody avoids it out of fear, so long as he thinks there is something to gain. What happens is this: one side sees the potential reward as outweighing the danger, while the other would rather take the risk than accept any immediate loss. But if both sides happen to have picked the wrong moment for that kind of calculation, then advice in favor of peace is far from useless. And that, if we could only see it, is exactly what we need right now.

"I take it no one would dispute that we each went to war in the first place to serve our own interests, and that we are here today debating peace for those same interests. If we walk away from this congress without getting what we think we deserve, we will go right back to fighting. But if we are sensible, we should recognize that this congress is not just about our individual interests. There is a larger question: can we still save Sicily? Because in my view, the entire island is threatened by Athenian ambition — and that name alone should be a more compelling argument for peace than anything I can say.

"Here is the most powerful state in Greece, sitting in our waters with just a handful of ships, watching our mistakes, and using the respectable name of 'alliance' to exploit the natural rivalries that already exist among us. If we keep fighting each other, if we call in outside help from a people who are perfectly happy to intervene even where nobody invites them, if we ruin ourselves at our own expense while clearing the path for Athenian power — then we can expect that one day they will come back with a much larger force and try to bring every one of us under their control.

"If we were sensible, we would call in allies and accept the risks of war only to gain something new — not to destroy what we already have. We should understand that internal divisions are just as fatal to Sicily as they are to any country, if we — its people — get so consumed by our local feuds that we ignore the common enemy.

"And no one should imagine that only the Dorians among us have reason to fear Athens, while the Chalcidian cities are safe because of their shared Ionian heritage. Athens is not attacking one ethnicity — it is after the wealth of Sicily, which belongs to all of us. The proof? When the Chalcidians invited Athens in, the Athenians immediately gave them nearly more than the treaty entitled them to — even though the Chalcidians had never done a thing for Athens before.

"I do not blame the Athenians for this ambition. It is human nature to rule over those who allow themselves to be ruled, just as it is human nature to resist anyone who threatens you. What I blame is us — those of us who are too ready to submit. It has always been true: people dominate those who give in, and people fight back against those who push them. Both instincts are equally hardwired.

"Meanwhile, anyone who sees these dangers clearly but refuses to prepare for them, anyone who came to this congress without having already made up his mind that our first priority is uniting against the common threat — that person is making a grave mistake. The fastest way to get rid of the Athenians is to make peace with one another. They are not threatening us from their own country — they are threatening us from the territory of the people who invited them here. This way, instead of war breeding more war, peace quietly settles our quarrels. And the guests who showed up here under fine pretexts for bad purposes will leave with nothing to show for it.

"That, then, is what a wise policy toward Athens achieves. But beyond that — and this is a point everyone agrees on — if peace is the greatest of all blessings, why should we refuse to make peace among ourselves? Think about it: wouldn't peace do more to protect the good things you already have, and to heal the evils you complain of, than war ever could? Peace brings its own honors and glories — and without the danger. And there are countless other blessings of peace, just as there are countless miseries of war. I could go on at length about both.

"Think about these things, and do not dismiss what I am saying. Instead, let each of you look to your own survival. If someone here is confident that he can get what he wants through force or through the justice of his cause, don't let any setback come as too bitter a surprise. Remember: plenty of people have tried to punish a wrongdoer and ended up not only failing to get revenge but destroying themselves. Plenty of others have trusted in their own strength to seize an advantage, only to lose what they started with. Revenge does not automatically succeed just because an injustice was committed. Strength is not reliable just because you feel confident. The incalculable element in the future is what really controls events — and although it is the most unpredictable force of all, it is also, in a way, the most useful, because it frightens everyone equally and forces us all to think twice before attacking.

"So let the undefined dread of that unknown future, combined with the very real and present threat of Athens, impress themselves upon us. Let us accept that we have been blocked from carrying out our individual plans by obstacles that are perfectly sufficient to explain the failure. Let us send the intruder out of our country. If permanent peace among us is impossible, let us at least agree to the longest truce we can manage, and put off our private quarrels for another day.

"In the end, recognize this: if you accept my advice, each of you will remain a citizen of a free state, master of your own fate, able to reward your friends and punish your enemies as you see fit. But if you reject it, you will be dependent on others — and then, far from being able to strike back at an enemy, you will be forced, at best, into friendship with your worst enemies and hostility toward your natural friends.

"As for me — and I said this at the beginning — I represent a great city, one that is more accustomed to attacking than to defending. But I am ready to make concessions, because I can see the dangers ahead. I am not going to destroy myself just for the satisfaction of hurting my enemies. I am not so blinded by hatred that I imagine I am equally master of my own plans and of a future I cannot control. I will give up whatever is reasonable.

"And I call on the rest of you to do the same — freely, before the enemy forces you to. There is no disgrace in making concessions to your own people: a Dorian yielding to a Dorian, a Chalcidian to a Chalcidian. We are neighbors. We share an island. We are surrounded by the same sea. We all go by the same name — Sicilians.

"We will go to war again, I expect, when the time comes. And we will make peace again through future congresses. But the foreign invader? If we are wise, we will always face him united, because the injury of one is the danger of all. And we will never again invite outsiders into our island — not as allies, not as mediators.

"If we act this way, we will do Sicily a double service right now: we will rid the island of the Athenians and of civil war at the same time. And in the future, we will live in freedom at home and face less danger from abroad."

Those were the words of Hermocrates. The Sicilians took his advice and reached an agreement to end the war, with each side keeping what it currently held. The one exception was Morgantina, which went to the Camarinaeans in exchange for a fixed payment to Syracuse.

The allies of Athens called in the Athenian commanders and told them they were going to make peace and that Athens would be included in the treaty. The generals agreed, and the peace was concluded. The Athenian fleet then sailed home from Sicily.

When the generals arrived back in Athens, the Athenians banished Pythodorus and Sophocles and fined Eurymedon. The charge: they had accepted bribes to withdraw when they could have conquered Sicily. That was how wildly overconfident the Athenians had become. Their current run of success was so extraordinary that they believed nothing could stop them. They thought they could accomplish the possible and the impossible alike, regardless of whether they had the resources for it. The explanation was simple: their unbroken string of victories in almost everything had inflated their strength in their own minds until they could no longer tell the difference between what they could do and what they merely hoped to do.

THE PLOT AT MEGARA

That same summer, the Megarians inside the city were caught between two kinds of misery. The Athenians invaded their territory twice every year with their full army, and at the same time, their own exiles based at Pegae — men who had been expelled during an earlier democratic revolution — were raiding the countryside. People began asking one another: wouldn't it be better to bring back the exiles and free the city from at least one of its two plagues?

The friends of the exiles noticed the shift in public opinion and began openly pushing for their return. But the leaders of the democratic faction — the ones who had driven out the exiles in the first place — could see that their supporters were losing heart under the pressure. In a panic, they secretly contacted the Athenian generals Hippocrates, son of Ariphron, and Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes. They offered to betray the city to Athens, judging that this was less dangerous to them personally than the return of the men they had banished.

The plan was worked out in stages. First, the Athenians would seize the Long Walls — the fortifications that ran nearly a mile from Megara to the port of Nisaea. This would cut off the Peloponnesian garrison at Nisaea, which was the only military force keeping Megara aligned with the Peloponnesian side. After that, they would attempt to take the upper city, which — cut off from its garrison — was expected to come over without much of a fight.

Once both sides had agreed on the plan in detail — both the signals and the actions — the Athenians moved. They sailed by night to Minoa, the island just off Megara, with six hundred heavy infantry under Hippocrates. They took up a concealed position in a quarry not far away — the same one that had once supplied bricks for the walls. Meanwhile, Demosthenes, the other general, positioned himself in ambush closer to the city, in the sacred precinct of Enyalius, with a force of Plataean skirmishers and a unit of border patrol troops. No one knew about any of this except the people who needed to know.

A little before dawn, the conspirators inside Megara put their plan into motion. For a long time, they had been getting the gate opened at night by a particular method. Under the pretense of going out to raid, and with the consent of the guard commander, they would load a small sculling boat onto a cart, wheel it out through the gates, down through the ditch to the sea, row out on some supposed mission, and then bring it back before daylight — hauling it through the gates again on the cart. The excuse was that this was the only way to get a boat past the Athenian blockade at Minoa, since no boat could be seen sitting in the harbor.

On this night, the cart was already at the gates, which had been opened as usual for the boat. The Athenians — who had been briefed on the whole operation — saw their moment and sprinted from their ambush position to reach the gates before they could be closed, while the cart was still blocking them from shutting. At the same time, their Megarian accomplices killed the guards at the gates.

Demosthenes and his Plataeans and border troops were the first ones through — right where the victory trophy now stands. The moment they were inside the gates, the Plataeans engaged the nearest Peloponnesian soldiers, who had heard the commotion and were rushing to respond. They beat them back and secured the gates for the Athenian heavy infantry coming up behind them.

From there, each Athenian soldier who made it through the gates headed straight for the walls. A few Peloponnesians in the garrison tried to make a stand and fight, and some of them were killed. But the majority panicked and ran. The night assault, combined with the sight of Megarian traitors fighting against them, convinced them that all of Megara had gone over to the enemy. It didn't help that the Athenian herald, acting on his own initiative, called out an invitation for any Megarians who wished to join the Athenian ranks. When the garrison heard that, they gave up completely. Certain now that they were facing a coordinated attack from all sides, they fled to Nisaea.

By dawn, the walls were in Athenian hands, and the city of Megara was in turmoil. The conspirators — backed by the rest of the democratic faction who were in on the plot — declared that the gates should be opened and the army should march out to fight. The plan they had arranged with the Athenians was this: the moment the gates opened, the Athenians would rush in. The conspirators would be marked with oil on their skin so they could be identified and spared. They had every reason to feel confident about opening the gates, because four thousand Athenian heavy infantry from Eleusis and six hundred cavalry had marched through the night, as previously arranged, and were now close at hand.

The conspirators had already oiled themselves and were at their posts by the gates — when one of their own men betrayed the plot to the other side. The opposing faction gathered together and confronted them. They flatly refused to open the gates and march out. They pointed out that the city had never taken such a risk even when it had a larger army, and they weren't about to gamble the city's safety now. They gave no sign that they knew about the conspiracy. They simply insisted, firmly and loudly, that their advice was best. And they stayed right there by the gates, keeping watch, making it impossible for the conspirators to carry out the plan.

THE SIEGE OF NISAEA

The Athenian generals realized that something had gone wrong and that taking the city by force was no longer possible. So they immediately turned their attention to Nisaea. They figured that if they could capture it before relief arrived, Megara would follow soon enough.

Iron, stonemasons, and everything else they needed arrived quickly from Athens. Starting from the stretch of wall they had already taken, the Athenians built a cross-wall extending toward Megara and running down to the sea on both sides of Nisaea, cutting it off completely. The army divided up the work — the ditch, the walls, the palisade. Stones and bricks were pulled from the surrounding suburbs. Fruit trees and timber were cut down to build stockades wherever they were needed. Even the houses in the suburb were incorporated into the fortification line, with battlements added on top.

The work continued all day and into the next. By late afternoon on the second day, the wall was nearly complete. At that point, the garrison in Nisaea — cut off from their food supply, which they had been getting day by day from the upper city, and seeing no prospect of quick relief from the Peloponnesians, and now believing that Megara itself was hostile — surrendered.

The terms: each man would hand over his weapons and be ransomed for a set price. Their Spartan commander and any other Spartans in the garrison would be left to the Athenians' discretion, to do with as they saw fit.

On these conditions, the garrison came out. The Athenians demolished the Long Walls at their junction with Megara, took possession of Nisaea, and prepared for their next move.

BRASIDAS INTERVENES

As it happened, the Spartan general Brasidas, son of Tellis, was in the area around Sicyon and Corinth at this very moment, assembling an army for an expedition to Thrace. The instant he heard that the Long Walls had fallen, he feared for the Peloponnesians trapped in Nisaea and for the safety of Megara itself. He sent an urgent message to the Boeotians, asking them to meet him as quickly as possible at Tripodiscus — a village in Megarian territory, at the foot of Mount Geraneia. Then he marched out himself with 2,700 Corinthian heavy infantry, four hundred from Phlius, six hundred from Sicyon, and whatever troops of his own he had already recruited. He expected to reach Nisaea before it fell.

When he learned that Nisaea had already surrendered — he had marched through the night to reach Tripodiscus — he selected three hundred picked men from the army and, without waiting for word of his arrival to spread, moved on Megara undetected by the Athenians, who were down by the sea.

His stated purpose was to try to retake Nisaea. But his real priority was to get inside Megara and secure the city. He approached the townspeople and urged them to let his force in, telling them he believed he could recover Nisaea.

But neither faction in Megara would have him. One side feared he would drive them out and bring back the exiles. The other side feared that the common people, terrified of exactly that outcome, would turn on them — and the city would tear itself apart in a battle right there at the gates, with the Athenians lying in ambush nearby, ready to pounce.

So Brasidas was turned away. Both sides preferred to wait and see. Each faction expected a battle between the Athenians and the relief army, and both thought it was safer to declare for the winning side only after the outcome was clear.

Unable to get into the city, Brasidas went back to the main army. At dawn, the Boeotians arrived. Even before they had heard from Brasidas, they had already decided on their own to march to Megara's aid — they considered the city's danger their own. They were already mustered at full strength at Plataea when Brasidas's messenger arrived and added urgency to their resolution. They sent forward 2,200 heavy infantry and six hundred cavalry, then marched the main body home.

With these reinforcements, the combined army now numbered six thousand heavy infantry.

The Athenian heavy infantry were drawn up near Nisaea, along the coast. Their skirmishers were scattered across the plain — and it was these light troops that the Boeotian cavalry hit first, driving them back to the sea in complete surprise. Up to this point, no relief force had ever come to help Megara, so the Athenians had not expected an attack.

But then the Athenian cavalry countercharged, and a prolonged cavalry engagement followed. Both sides claimed victory. The Athenians killed and stripped the commander of the Boeotian cavalry along with a few of his men who had charged all the way up to Nisaea. They held the bodies, returned them under truce, and set up a trophy. But looking at the battle as a whole, the result was indecisive. The Boeotians went back to their army, the Athenians went back to Nisaea, and neither side had won a clear advantage.

THE STANDOFF

After this, Brasidas moved the combined army closer to the sea and to Megara. He chose a favorable position, drew up his troops in battle order, and waited. He was expecting the Athenians to attack, and he knew the Megarians were watching to see who would win.

This position gave him two advantages. First, by not attacking or deliberately seeking battle, but openly showing his readiness to fight, he could claim the honors of the day without bearing its risks. Second — and more important — the strategy served his real goal at Megara. If he had failed to show up at all, the city would have been lost without a contest. The Megarians would have considered him beaten, and the Athenians would have won the town by default. But by taking the field, he created the possibility that the Athenians might decline the challenge — and if they did, he would get everything he wanted without a fight.

That is exactly what happened. The Athenians marched out beyond the Long Walls and formed up — but when the enemy didn't attack, they too stood still. Their generals had calculated that the odds were against them. They had already achieved most of their objectives: they held Nisaea and the walls. To fight now, against a larger army, was to risk everything for the single prize of Megara — and if they lost, they would lose the best of their heavy infantry. For the enemy, the calculation was different. Each city represented in Brasidas's army had committed only a fraction of its total force, so they could afford to be bold.

And so, after both sides had stood facing each other for some time without either one attacking, the Athenians pulled back to Nisaea, and the Peloponnesians withdrew to their starting position.

That settled it. The friends of the Megarian exiles, seeing which way the wind was blowing, threw open the gates to Brasidas and the allied commanders. In their eyes, Brasidas had won and the Athenians had backed down. They welcomed the Peloponnesians into the city and sat down to negotiate, while the democratic faction — the ones who had been in contact with Athens — stood paralyzed, overtaken by events.

THE OLIGARCHIC COUP

Afterward, Brasidas dismissed the allied contingents and returned to Corinth to continue preparing for his expedition to Thrace — his original mission. The Athenians went home as well.

In Megara, those democratic leaders most deeply implicated in the Athenian negotiations knew they had been exposed. They quietly slipped out of the city. The rest of the democrats, working with the friends of the exiles, brought back the men from Pegae — but only after binding them with the most solemn oaths to take no vengeance for the past and to act solely in the city's best interest.

Those oaths lasted exactly as long as it took the exiles to gain power. Once they held office, they organized a review of the heavy infantry, formed the troops into separate battalions, and then picked out about a hundred men — their political enemies, the ones most deeply involved in the dealings with Athens. They brought these men before the people, forced the vote to be conducted in the open so everyone could see who voted for what, and had them condemned and executed.

They then established a narrow oligarchy in the city — a government run by a very small number of men. It lasted a remarkably long time, considering how few people had brought it about.

CHAPTER XIV

Eighth and Ninth Years of the War -- Invasion of Boeotia -- Fall of Amphipolis -- Brilliant Successes of Brasidas

That same summer, the Mytilenian exiles were about to fortify Antandrus, as they had been planning. But Demodocus and Aristides, who commanded the Athenian squadron collecting tribute along the Hellespont, got wind of what was happening. Their colleague Lamachus had already sailed off with ten ships into the Black Sea, so the two commanders worried that Antandrus might become another Anaia -- the base where Samian exiles had established themselves and caused no end of trouble for Samos, sending pilots to the Peloponnesian navy, stirring up unrest in the city, and giving shelter to every dissident who fled the island. So they pulled together a force from their allies, sailed out, defeated the troops that marched against them from Antandrus, and recaptured the place. Not long after, Lamachus lost his ships -- they were anchored in the Calex River in the territory of Heraclea when a rainstorm inland sent a flash flood roaring downstream and swept them all away. He and his men had to march overland through the territory of the Bithynian Thracians on the Asian side, eventually reaching Chalcedon, the Megarian colony at the mouth of the Black Sea.

That same summer, the Athenian general Demosthenes arrived at Naupactus with forty ships, fresh from the operation at Megara. He and his fellow general Hippocrates had been approached by certain men in Boeotia who wanted to overthrow the governments of their cities and replace them with democracies like Athens. The chief architect of this conspiracy was Ptoeodorus, a Theban exile. Here was the plan: one group would betray the port town of Siphae, on the Bay of Crisa in Thespian territory. Another group, working from exile, would hand over Chaeronea -- a town dependent on what was formerly called Minyan Orchomenus, now Boeotian Orchomenus -- and they were actively hiring mercenaries in the Peloponnese. Some Phocians were also in on the plot, since Chaeronea sat right on the border of Boeotia, close to Phanotis in Phocis. Meanwhile, the Athenians themselves would seize Delium, the sanctuary of Apollo in the territory of Tanagra, facing Euboea. All of this was supposed to happen simultaneously on a single day, so the Boeotians would be unable to concentrate their forces against Delium -- they would be too busy dealing with uprisings at home. And if the plan worked -- if Delium was fortified and held -- the conspirators expected that even without an immediate revolution in Boeotia, the situation would steadily shift in their favor. With these strongholds in Athenian hands, raiding parties striking deep into the countryside, and a nearby refuge for rebel groups, the oligarchic governments would be unable to maintain control. Eventually, with Athenian support, the democrats would prevail.

That was the plot. Hippocrates waited in Athens with an army, ready to march against Boeotia at the right moment, while he sent Demosthenes ahead to Naupactus with those forty ships. Demosthenes was to raise an army from the Acarnanians and other local allies, then sail to Siphae and receive the town from the conspirators. They had agreed on a date when both operations would kick off at once. When Demosthenes arrived, he found that the Acarnanians had already forced Oeniadae to join the Athenian alliance. He then raised troops from all the allied states in the area, marched against and subdued Salynthius and the Agraeans, and after that turned his full attention to getting ready for Siphae by the appointed day.

Around the same time that summer, Brasidas set out on his march toward Thrace with seventeen hundred heavy infantry. He reached Heraclea in Trachis, then sent a messenger ahead to his friends in Pharsalus, asking them to escort him and his army through Thessaly. A group met him at Melitia in Achaia: Panaerus, Dorus, Hippolochidas, Torylaus, and Strophacus, the diplomatic representative of the Chalcidians. Under their escort he continued his march, joined by other Thessalians as well, including Niconidas of Larissa, a friend of Perdiccas.

It was never easy to pass through Thessaly without an escort. Throughout all of Greece, for that matter, marching an army through a neighbor's territory without permission was a sensitive move. Besides, the Thessalian people had always sympathized with Athens. In fact, if Thessaly had had a broad-based constitutional government instead of its usual tight-knit oligarchy, Brasidas could never have gotten through at all. Even as things stood, a group of the opposing faction met him on the march at the Enipeus River, told him to stop, and complained that he had no right to cross their country without the nation's consent.

His escort smoothly replied that they had no intention of forcing him through against anyone's will -- they were simply friends accompanying an unexpected guest. Brasidas himself spoke up too, saying he came as a friend to Thessaly and its people. His weapons were aimed at the Athenians, not the Thessalians. He knew of no quarrel between Thessaly and Sparta that should keep the two nations from passing through each other's territory. He would not and could not go forward against their wishes -- he could only ask them not to block him.

That was enough. The opposition went away, and on the advice of his escort, Brasidas pushed on without stopping, before a larger force could assemble against him. He covered the entire distance from Melitia to Pharsalus in a single day and made camp on the Apidanus River. From there he pressed on to Phacium, and then into Perrhaebia. At this point his Thessalian escorts turned back, and the Perrhaebians -- who were subjects of Thessaly -- brought him down to Dium, a Macedonian town sitting beneath Mount Olympus, facing toward Thessaly.

In this way Brasidas raced through Thessaly before anyone could organize to stop him, and reached the territory of Perdiccas and the Chalcidians. The Thracian towns that had revolted from Athens, together with Perdiccas, had been the ones who arranged for this army to leave the Peloponnese. Perdiccas was alarmed by recent Athenian successes in the area. The Chalcidians expected to be the first targets of an Athenian offensive -- though the neighboring towns that had not yet revolted were also secretly part of the invitation. And Perdiccas had his own concerns: old quarrels with Athens (though he was not openly at war with them) and, above all, a burning desire to crush Arrhabaeus, king of the Lyncestians.

Getting an army out of the Peloponnese had actually been easier than usual, thanks to Sparta's current run of bad luck. The thinking was that the best way to counter Athenian raids on the Peloponnese -- and especially on Spartan territory itself -- was to strike back by sending an army to help Athens's allies revolt. The allies were willing to support these troops and had asked for them specifically.

The Spartans also had another motive: they were glad for an excuse to send some of their Helots out of the country. With Pylos in Athenian hands and the current state of affairs looking dangerous, the Spartans feared the Helots might seize their chance to rebel. In fact, fear of this enormous, restless subject population even drove the Spartans to an act I will now describe -- because their entire policy had always been shaped by the need to keep the Helots under control. They issued a proclamation inviting all Helots who felt they had distinguished themselves in battle against the enemy to come forward and claim their freedom. It was a test: the Spartans figured that the first ones bold enough to step forward would also be the most spirited and the most likely to revolt. About two thousand were chosen. These men crowned themselves with garlands and made the rounds of the temples, celebrating their newfound freedom. But not long afterward, the Spartans made them all disappear. No one ever found out how any of them died.

So the Spartans were more than happy to send seven hundred Helots along with Brasidas as heavy infantry. He recruited the rest of his force with money raised in the Peloponnese.

Brasidas himself had pushed hard for this command, and the Chalcidians were equally eager to have him -- a man who had proven himself at every turn, ready for any challenge Sparta threw his way. And his service abroad turned out to be enormously valuable to his country. In the immediate term, his fair and reasonable treatment of the towns he approached won most of them over without a fight, on top of the places he managed to take through treachery. This gave the Spartans real bargaining chips when they eventually sat down to negotiate peace -- they could offer to trade these towns back -- and in the meantime, the weight of the war shifted away from the Peloponnese. Later in the war, after the disaster in Sicily, it was Brasidas's reputation more than anything else that drew Athens's allies toward Sparta. Some knew his character from personal experience; others had only heard the stories. But the effect was the same. He was the first Spartan to go out and prove himself so impressive in every way that everyone assumed the rest of the Spartans must be like him too.

For now, the moment the Athenians heard that Brasidas had arrived in Thrace, they declared Perdiccas an enemy -- blaming him as the mastermind behind the expedition -- and tightened their watch on their allies in the region.

As soon as Brasidas and his army arrived, Perdiccas immediately set out with them, adding his own Macedonian forces, to attack Arrhabaeus, son of Bromerus, king of the Lyncestian Macedonians -- his neighbor, whom he had been feuding with and wanted to bring to heel.

But when they reached the pass leading into Lyncus, Brasidas told Perdiccas he wanted to try talking to Arrhabaeus first, to see if he could persuade him to become a Spartan ally. Arrhabaeus had already sent feelers indicating he would accept Brasidas as an arbitrator between himself and Perdiccas. The Chalcidian envoys traveling with Brasidas had also warned him not to resolve all of Perdiccas's problems -- keeping Perdiccas a little nervous would make him work harder on behalf of the Chalcidian cause. Besides, Perdiccas's own envoys back in Sparta had talked about bringing many neighboring states into the Spartan alliance, so Brasidas figured he should take a broader view of the situation and not just serve as Perdiccas's hired muscle against Arrhabaeus.

Perdiccas was furious. He had not brought Brasidas along to mediate his disputes, he said, but to crush the enemies Perdiccas pointed out to him. If Perdiccas was paying for half the army's upkeep, it was a betrayal for Brasidas to go negotiate with Arrhabaeus behind his back. But Brasidas ignored him. He held the talks anyway, let himself be persuaded by Arrhabaeus's arguments, and withdrew the army without invading. After that, Perdiccas -- convinced that Brasidas had broken faith -- cut his contribution to the army's expenses from one half to one third.

That same summer, wasting no time, Brasidas marched with the Chalcidians against Acanthus, a colony originally founded by Andros, arriving just before the grape harvest. The townspeople were split on whether to let him in: the faction that had joined the Chalcidians in inviting him favored it, but the common people were against it. In the end, though, fear for their grapes -- still hanging unpicked on the vines -- convinced the majority to at least let Brasidas come in alone and make his case before they decided anything. So he was admitted, and he stood up before the assembled people.

Now, for a Spartan, Brasidas was not a bad speaker. And here is what he said:

"People of Acanthus -- the Spartans have sent me and my army to make good on the reason we gave when we started this war: that we were fighting the Athenians to free Greece. If we've been slow getting here, blame our miscalculation about the war back home. We thought we could bring Athens down on our own, quickly, without putting you at risk. Don't hold that against us. We've come as soon as we could, and with your help we're prepared to do everything in our power to defeat them.

"What I can't understand is why your gates are shut against me. Why this kind of welcome? We Spartans thought of you as eager allies, people who were with us in spirit long before we reached you in person. That belief is what drove us to accept the dangers of a long march through hostile territory -- that's how far our commitment carried us. It would be a terrible thing if, after all that, you've changed your minds and plan to stand in the way of your own freedom and the freedom of Greece.

"It's not just that you'd be opposing me directly. Wherever else I go, people will be less willing to join me. They'll say, 'If Acanthus -- an important city, full of sensible people -- turned him away at the very first stop, why should we take the chance?' I'll have no way to prove that the freedom I'm offering is genuine. People will say either that there's something dishonest about what I'm proposing, or that I don't have the military strength to protect you from Athens. And yet -- when I went with this very army to the relief of Nisaea, the Athenians didn't dare engage me, even though they had more troops. It's hardly likely they'll send an equally large force across the sea to come after you.

"I haven't come here to hurt anyone. I've come to free Greece. I've secured solemn oaths from my government guaranteeing the independence of every ally I bring over. My goal is not to acquire you by force or deception but to offer you my support against your Athenian masters. So put aside any suspicions about my intentions -- the guarantees speak for themselves -- and put aside any doubts about my ability to protect you. Join me. Don't hesitate.

"Some of you may be holding back because you have personal enemies and you're afraid I'll hand the city over to one political faction. No one should be less worried than you. I am not here to take sides. I would not be bringing you real freedom if I came in and enslaved the majority to a minority, or a minority to the majority. That would be worse than foreign rule. And we Spartans, instead of earning gratitude, would get nothing but blame. The very charges we've leveled against Athens -- trying to dominate others -- would apply to us, and they'd be even more damning coming from us, because we claim to stand for something better. After all, it's more disgraceful for people who profess high principles to seize what they want through slick deception than through brute force. At least brute force can claim the justification of superior power. Deception is just clever dishonesty. We guard our reputation on this point jealously. And beyond the oaths I've already mentioned, what better proof could you ask for? Compare our words with our actions, and you'll see that it's genuinely in our interest to do exactly what we say.

"But if, after hearing all this, you claim that you're unable to accept -- if you say your goodwill toward us should protect you from any consequences of refusal, and that freedom is a risky thing that should only be offered to those who want it, not forced on anyone -- then I will call the gods and heroes of your country to witness that I came to do you good and was turned away. And I will lay waste your land without any hesitation, because necessity demands it. For two reasons: first, I cannot allow the Spartans to be harmed by you, their supposed friends, through the tribute money you keep paying to Athens. And second, I cannot allow other Greeks to be prevented from shaking off their chains because of you.

"Otherwise, we'd have no right to do this. Except in the name of the greater good, what business would we Spartans have forcing freedom on people who don't want it? We have no interest in building an empire -- we're trying to tear one down. But we'd be wronging the majority if we let you stand in the way of the independence we're offering to all.

"Think carefully. Decide wisely. Be the ones who start the work of liberation for Greece. Win yourselves eternal glory. Save your own property. And crown your city with honor."

That was what Brasidas said. After lengthy debate on both sides, the Acanthians voted by secret ballot. The majority -- swayed by Brasidas's seductive arguments and by fear for their grapes -- decided to revolt from Athens. But they would not admit the army until Brasidas had personally guaranteed the oaths that his government had sworn before sending him out: that any ally he brought over would remain independent. Not long after, Stagirus, another colony of Andros, followed Acanthus's example and revolted too.

Those were the events of the summer.

In the first days of the following winter, the plan to hand the Boeotian towns over to the Athenian generals Hippocrates and Demosthenes was supposed to go into effect. Demosthenes would sail to Siphae; Hippocrates would march to Delium. But a mistake was made in coordinating the dates. Demosthenes sailed first, arriving at Siphae with the Acarnanians and a force of allies from the region -- only to find that the entire plot had been betrayed. The informer was Nicomachus, a Phocian from Phanotis, who had told the Spartans, who in turn told the Boeotians. Reinforcements poured into the area from all over Boeotia -- Hippocrates had not yet arrived to create the planned diversion -- and Siphae and Chaeronea were quickly secured. The conspirators inside the towns, learning that the timing had gone wrong, did not dare make their move.

Meanwhile, Hippocrates had called up every available man in Athens -- citizens, resident aliens, and foreigners alike -- and marched for Boeotia. But he arrived at his destination only after the Boeotians had already returned from dealing with Siphae. He set up camp and began fortifying Delium, the sanctuary of Apollo, in the following way. His men dug a trench all around the temple and its sacred precinct. The dirt from the excavation was piled up to form a wall, with stakes driven into it. They cut down the grapevines growing around the sanctuary and threw them in, along with stones and bricks torn from nearby houses -- anything and everything to build up the rampart. Wooden towers were erected at key points, and where no part of the original temple buildings remained standing (on one side, an old gallery had collapsed), they built from scratch.

Work began on the third day after leaving Athens and continued through the fourth and into the afternoon of the fifth. By then most of the fortification was complete, and the army pulled back from Delium about a mile and a quarter, heading home. At that point most of the light infantry pushed straight on, while the heavy infantry halted and camped where they were. Hippocrates himself had stayed behind at Delium to arrange the garrison posts and oversee the completion of unfinished sections of the defenses.

During these days, the Boeotians had been assembling their forces at Tanagra. By the time contingents arrived from all the Boeotian towns, they found the Athenians already heading home. The other ten Boeotian generals were against giving battle -- the enemy was no longer in Boeotia proper, since the Athenians had halted just across the border in Oropian territory. But Pagondas, son of Aeolidas, one of the two Theban generals serving as commander-in-chief that day (the other being Arianthides, son of Lysimachidas), believed they should fight. He summoned the troops company by company -- to prevent them from all leaving their weapons at once -- and urged them to attack the Athenians. Here is what he said:

"Boeotians -- the idea that we shouldn't fight the Athenians unless we catch them inside Boeotia should never have crossed any of our minds. They crossed the border to attack Boeotia. They built a fort in our country. They are our enemies wherever we find them, no matter where they came from or what direction they're heading. If anyone has been arguing for caution, it's time to think again.

"People whose own land is under attack don't have the luxury of debating what's 'prudent' the way people do when they're sitting comfortably at home, scheming about how to grab their neighbor's territory. It is our national tradition -- at home or abroad -- to fight back against any foreign invader. And when that invader is Athens, right on our border, the case is even stronger.

"Between neighbors, freedom means simply the determination to hold your own ground. And against neighbors like these -- who are trying to enslave everyone, near and far -- there is nothing to do but fight to the last. Look at Euboea. Look at most of the rest of Greece. You'll see that other peoples fight with their neighbors over this border or that boundary. But for us, if we're conquered, there's no border dispute -- they'll simply swallow the whole country. That's what's at stake. We have more to fear from this neighbor than from any other.

"Besides, when people like the Athenians are riding high on confidence and strength, they march most eagerly against those who sit still and fight only on their own soil. But they think twice before attacking people who meet them outside their borders and strike first when the opportunity presents itself. We've proven this ourselves. The defeat we handed them at Coronea -- back when our own internal quarrels had let them occupy the country -- gave Boeotia the security it has enjoyed to this day.

"Remember that. The veterans among us must live up to what they achieved in the past, and the young -- sons of those heroes -- must prove worthy of their fathers' courage. We have the god on our side: the temple they've desecrated is his. Our sacrifices have shown favorable omens. Let's march against this enemy and teach him that if he wants to take what doesn't belong to him, he should try it on someone who won't fight back -- because men whose pride has always been their readiness to defend their freedom, men who have never unjustly enslaved another people, will not let him walk away without a battle."

With that speech, Pagondas persuaded the Boeotians to attack. He broke camp at once and led his army forward, though it was already late in the day. As he neared the Athenian position, he halted behind a hill that blocked the two armies from seeing each other, then formed up his battle line.

Meanwhile, Hippocrates was still at Delium when word arrived that the Boeotians were advancing. He sent orders for his troops to form up and soon joined them himself, leaving about three hundred cavalry behind at Delium both to guard the fort and to look for a chance to hit the Boeotians in the flank during the battle. The Boeotians posted a detachment to handle that threat, and when everything was set, they crested the hill and halted in formation.

Their army numbered seven thousand heavy infantry, more than ten thousand light troops, one thousand cavalry, and five hundred light-armed soldiers carrying small shields. The Thebans and their district held the right wing. The center was made up of men from Haliartus, Coronea, Copae, and the other towns around Lake Copais. The left wing held the Thespians, Tanagraeans, and Orchomenians. Cavalry and light infantry were posted on both flanks. The Thebans formed up an extraordinary twenty-five shields deep. The rest arranged themselves as they saw fit.

On the Athenian side, the heavy infantry formed eight deep all across the line, matching the Boeotians in total numbers, with cavalry on both wings. There was no organized force of light infantry in the army -- Athens had never maintained one as a regular unit. The light-armed troops who had joined the expedition were many times more numerous than the Boeotians', but since they had mostly been unarmed militia -- citizens and foreigners caught up in the mass levy -- and had set out for home ahead of the main body, very few were actually present for the battle.

With the two armies drawn up and about to engage, Hippocrates walked along the Athenian line with these words of encouragement:

"Athenians -- I'll keep this short, because brave men don't need a long speech. Think of this as an appeal to your judgment, not your courage. Don't let anyone imagine we're taking a pointless risk fighting in someone else's country. This battle in their territory is really a fight for ours. If we win, the Peloponnesians will never invade Attica again without their Boeotian cavalry. One battle, and you win Boeotia and effectively free Attica. So advance against them like men of the city you're all so proud to call the greatest in Greece -- and like sons of the fathers who beat these Boeotians at Oenophyta under Myronides and conquered this very land."

Hippocrates had only gotten halfway through the army with his speech when the Boeotians, after a few final hasty words from Pagondas, struck up the battle hymn and charged down from the hill. The Athenians surged forward to meet them at a run.

The far ends of both lines never made contact -- streams and gullies blocked both wings. But everywhere else, the fighting was brutal and desperate, shield grinding against shield. The Athenian left pushed back the Boeotian left all the way to the center. The Thespians took the worst of it. When the troops beside them broke and ran, the Thespians were hemmed into a tight space and cut down in fierce hand-to-hand fighting. Some Athenians, swinging around to encircle them, got confused in the chaos and killed their own men by mistake. In that part of the field, the Boeotians were beaten and fell back toward the troops still fighting.

But on the right, where the Thebans stood, it was a different story. They pushed the Athenians back -- slowly at first, step by step. And then Pagondas, seeing his left wing in trouble, sent two squadrons of cavalry around the back side of the hill where they could not be seen. When they suddenly appeared on the crest, the Athenian right wing -- which had been winning -- thought a second army was bearing down on them and panicked.

Now it all fell apart. Hit by the Theban advance in front and the cavalry surprise from behind, with their line broken and panic spreading, the entire Athenian army broke and fled. Some ran for Delium and the sea. Some ran for Oropus. Others headed for Mount Parnes or wherever else they thought they might find safety. The Boeotians -- especially the cavalry, reinforced by Locrian horsemen who arrived just as the rout began -- chased them down and cut them to pieces. But nightfall came and ended the pursuit, and in the darkness the bulk of the fugitives escaped with their lives. They would not have been so lucky in daylight.

The next day the Athenian troops at Oropus and Delium went home by sea, though they left a garrison at Delium and continued to hold it despite the defeat.

The Boeotians set up a victory trophy, collected their own dead, and stripped the enemy corpses. They posted a guard over the battlefield and withdrew to Tanagra to plan their assault on Delium.

Meanwhile, an Athenian herald arrived to ask for the return of the dead. But a Boeotian herald met him on the road and turned him back, saying the request would go nowhere until the Boeotian herald himself had delivered a message to Athens. This Boeotian messenger then went to the Athenians and delivered the following complaint:

The Athenians had violated the universal Greek custom that temples in occupied territory must be respected. What good was that custom if the Athenians could fortify Delium, live in it, and treat the sacred precinct as ordinary ground -- drawing water that the Boeotians themselves never touched except for ritual purposes? Therefore, in the name of Apollo and all the gods concerned, the Boeotians called on the Athenians to evacuate the temple first -- and then they could collect their dead.

The Athenians sent their own herald back with this reply: They had done no wrong to the temple and intended to do it no further harm. They had not occupied it with any disrespectful intent but rather to defend themselves from those who were actually doing the wronging. Besides, the law of the Greeks was clear: whoever controlled a territory -- whether the whole country or just a piece of it -- controlled the temples in it too, as long as they maintained the customary rituals as best they could. The Boeotians themselves, and most other peoples, had taken possession of their lands by force, displacing the original inhabitants, and now held those lands' temples as a matter of right. If the Athenians had managed to conquer more of Boeotia, the same principle would apply. As things stood, they held the piece they held and meant to keep it.

As for the water -- they had disturbed it out of genuine necessity, not casual disrespect. They had been forced to use it while defending themselves against the Boeotian invasion of Attica. Surely anything done under the pressure of war and danger deserved some lenience, even from the gods? After all, weren't altars meant as places of sanctuary for involuntary offenses? "Transgression" was a word for people who acted with arrogance and choice, not for those caught in desperate circumstances.

And really, who was more impious here -- the Boeotians, who wanted to trade dead bodies for a holy place? Or the Athenians, who refused to give up a holy place to get back what was rightfully theirs?

Drop the demand to evacuate Boeotia, the Athenians said. We are not in Boeotia. We are standing where our swords have placed us. Just let us take our dead under a truce, according to the customs all Greeks share.

The Boeotians replied: If you are in Boeotia, evacuate before taking your dead. If you are in your own territory, do as you please. They knew perfectly well that the dead were lying in the Oropid, which was technically subject to Athens, and that the Athenians could not retrieve them without Boeotian cooperation. Besides, they asked, why should they grant a truce for what was supposedly Athenian soil? "Evacuate Boeotia if you want what you're asking for" -- that was the only answer. The Athenian herald went home empty-handed.

While this exchange dragged on, the Boeotians sent for javelin throwers and slingers from the coast of the Malian Gulf. Two thousand Corinthian heavy infantry who had arrived after the battle joined them, along with the Peloponnesian garrison that had pulled out of Nisaea and some Megarians. With these forces they marched against Delium and attacked the fort.

After multiple failed attempts, they finally took it by means of an ingenious device. They took a massive wooden beam, sawed it in half lengthwise, hollowed out each half, and fitted them back together to form a pipe. From one end they hung a cauldron on chains, with an iron tube running from it down into the wooden beam, which was itself mostly sheathed in iron. They hauled this contraption forward on carts toward the section of wall built mainly from timber and grapevines. When it was close enough, they inserted enormous bellows into their end of the beam and pumped.

The blast shot through the pipe into the cauldron, which was packed with burning coals, sulfur, and pitch. A massive fireball erupted, setting the wall ablaze. The defenders could not hold their positions and abandoned the rampart in flight. The fort was taken. Some of the garrison were killed; two hundred were captured. Most of the rest reached their ships and escaped by sea.

Delium fell seventeen days after the battle. Shortly afterward, the Athenian herald -- not knowing the fort had been taken -- came again for the dead. This time the Boeotians returned them without argument.

The casualties: just under five hundred Boeotians killed, and close to a thousand Athenians, including the general Hippocrates, plus a large number of light troops and camp followers.

Not long after the battle, Demosthenes -- whose expedition to Siphae had been a complete failure, with the conspiracy exposed before he arrived -- used the Acarnanian and Agraean troops and the four hundred Athenian heavy infantry he had on board to launch a raid on the coast of Sicyon. But before all his ships could land, the Sicyonians came out and routed those who had gotten ashore, driving them back to their ships, killing some and taking others prisoner. They set up a trophy and returned the dead under truce.

Around the same time as the events at Delium, Sitalces, king of the Odrysians, was killed in battle during a campaign against the Triballi. He was succeeded by his nephew Seuthes, son of Sparadocus, who took control of the Odrysian kingdom and the rest of the Thracian territory Sitalces had ruled.

That same winter, Brasidas and his allies in Thrace marched against Amphipolis, the Athenian colony on the Strymon River.

Amphipolis had a long and troubled history of settlement. First, Aristagoras the Milesian had tried to plant a colony on the site when he fled from the Persian King Darius, but the native Edonians drove him out. Thirty-two years later, Athens sent ten thousand colonists -- a mix of Athenian citizens and volunteers from elsewhere -- but they were wiped out by the Thracians at Drabescus. Finally, twenty-nine years after that disaster, the Athenians returned. Hagnon, son of Nicias, led the new colony, drove out the Edonians, and founded a town on the spot that had been known as Ennea Hodoi -- Nine Ways. The colonists' base of operations was Eion, the Athenian trading port at the mouth of the river, barely three miles downstream from the new settlement. Hagnon named it Amphipolis -- "the city surrounded on both sides" -- because the Strymon wraps around it on two sides. He built it to be visible from both sea and land, running a long wall across from one bend of the river to the other to complete the circuit.

It was this city that Brasidas now targeted. He set out from Arne in Chalcidice and arrived around dusk at Aulon and Bromiscus, where Lake Bolbe empties into the sea. After an evening meal, he pressed on through the night. The weather was foul -- a snowstorm was blowing in -- and that actually encouraged him. He wanted to take everyone at Amphipolis completely by surprise. Everyone, that is, except the people inside who were planning to betray the city to him.

The conspiracy was centered on natives of Argilus, an Andrian colony, who were living in Amphipolis. They had other accomplices there too, men who had been won over by Perdiccas or the Chalcidians. But the main drivers of the plot were the people still living in Argilus itself, a town very close to Amphipolis. The Athenians had always been suspicious of the Argilians, and with good reason. Now, seeing their chance arrive with Brasidas, these men had been in contact with their compatriots inside Amphipolis for some time, working to arrange the city's betrayal.

They received Brasidas into Argilus, revolted from Athens, and that very night led him to the bridge over the Strymon. He found only a small guard posted there -- the town itself sat some distance back from the river crossing, and the city walls did not yet extend all the way down to the bridge as they would later. Brasidas drove through the guard easily, partly because some of them were in on the plot, partly because of the terrible weather and the shock of his sudden appearance. He crossed the bridge and immediately took control of everything outside the walls -- the Amphipolitans had houses and property scattered all through the outlying area.

The people inside the city were caught completely off guard. The capture of their neighbors outside, the panicked flight of others pouring in through the gates -- all of it threw the citizens into chaos. They did not even trust one another. It is even said that if Brasidas had marched straight for the town instead of stopping to let his soldiers loot the outlying properties, he would probably have taken it right then and there. Instead, he settled into the area he had seized, overran the countryside outside, and waited for his supporters inside the walls to make their move.

But they could not. The faction opposing the traitors turned out to be strong enough to keep the gates from being opened immediately. Working together with Eucles, the Athenian general assigned to defend the city, they sent an urgent message to the other Athenian commander in Thrace -- Thucydides, son of Olorus, the author of this history. He was at the island of Thasos, a colony of Paros, about half a day's sail from Amphipolis. They begged him to come at once. The moment Thucydides received the message, he set sail with the seven ships he had with him, hoping to reach Amphipolis in time to prevent its surrender -- or at the very least to save Eion.

Brasidas, meanwhile, knew he was in a race against time. He had heard that Thucydides owned gold mining rights in that part of Thrace and therefore had great influence with the people on the mainland. He feared that if Thucydides arrived, the Amphipolitans would take heart, expecting him to rally a relief force from the sea and from the Thracian interior, and would refuse to surrender. So Brasidas moved quickly and offered generous terms: any Amphipolitans or Athenians who wished to stay could keep their property and enjoy full civic rights. Those who did not wish to stay had five days to leave, taking their belongings with them.

When the people inside heard these terms, their resolve began to crumble. Only a small fraction of the population was actually Athenian -- the majority had come from all sorts of places -- and many of the prisoners Brasidas had captured outside had relatives inside the walls. The offer sounded far better than they had feared. The Athenians in the city were actually relieved at the chance to leave -- they felt they were in more danger than everyone else and did not expect help to arrive anytime soon. The broader population was simply glad to keep their civic rights and escape a threat that had seemed catastrophic just hours earlier.

Brasidas's supporters inside the city now openly pushed for acceptance. The people's mood had shifted, and no one was listening to the Athenian general Eucles anymore.

And so Amphipolis was surrendered. Brasidas was admitted on his own terms.

That same day, late in the afternoon, Thucydides and his ships sailed into the harbor at Eion.

Brasidas had just taken Amphipolis -- and had come within a single night of taking Eion too. If those ships had arrived any later, Eion would have fallen by morning.

Thucydides now fortified Eion and prepared it to withstand both an immediate attack and any future threat from Brasidas. He received the people who had chosen to leave Amphipolis under the terms of the agreement.

Brasidas, meanwhile, suddenly sailed downstream with a flotilla of boats to try to seize a point of land jutting out from the wall at Eion that commanded the harbor entrance. He attacked by both water and land simultaneously, but was beaten back on both fronts. He settled for consolidating his position at Amphipolis and bringing the surrounding area under his control. Myrcinus, an Edonian town, came over to him -- the Edonian king Pittacus had recently been murdered by the sons of Goaxis and his own wife Brauro. Soon afterward, Galepsus and Oesime, both colonies of Thasos, went over to Brasidas as well. Perdiccas arrived immediately after the fall of Amphipolis and helped organize these new arrangements.

The news that Amphipolis had fallen sent shockwaves through Athens. The city was enormously valuable -- a critical source of timber for shipbuilding and a reliable generator of revenue. And strategically, the loss was devastating. Before, even though the Spartans could get an escort through Thessaly to reach Athens's allies as far as the Strymon, they could go no further: the Athenian galleys at Eion watched the river on one side, and a large lake formed by the river's waters blocked the land approach on the other. Without control of the bridge, the road to the north was closed. Now it lay wide open.

There was also deep anxiety about what Brasidas's success would do to Athens's other allies. His conduct had been so moderate, his declarations so appealing -- everywhere he went he proclaimed that he had been sent to free Greece -- that the subject cities were practically lining up to defect. When they heard the terms he had given Amphipolis and saw how fairly he treated the people, they were powerfully encouraged to revolt. They sent secret messages begging him to come to their territory next, each city wanting to be the first to break away.

It seemed like there was no risk in revolting. But this confidence rested on a massive miscalculation of Athenian power -- a power that turned out to be far greater than anyone imagined. People were judging not by careful analysis but by wishful thinking. It is a habit of human nature to hand over to blind hope the things we desperately want, while using cold reason to dismiss the things we would rather not face. On top of this, the Athenians' recent crushing defeat in Boeotia, combined with Brasidas's claim -- persuasive but untrue -- that the Athenians had not dared to fight his single army at Nisaea, made the allies confident that no Athenian force would ever come after them. Most of all, it was the thrill of the moment that drove them -- the excitement of doing something, the belief that the Spartans were fully committed and would back them up.

Watching all this unfold, the Athenians rushed garrisons out to whatever towns they could, given the short notice and the winter weather. Brasidas, for his part, sent dispatches to Sparta requesting reinforcements and began building warships on the Strymon. But the Spartans did not send him what he asked for. Their leaders were partly jealous of Brasidas, and partly they were more focused on recovering the prisoners from the island and ending the war.

That same winter, the Megarians tore down to their foundations the long walls that the Athenians had been occupying. And Brasidas, fresh from taking Amphipolis, marched with his allies against the Acte peninsula, the finger of land that runs out from a great canal with a curve inward and ends at Mount Athos, a towering peak facing the Aegean Sea. The peninsula held various towns -- Sane, an Andrian colony near the canal, facing Euboea; and Thyssus, Cleone, Acrothoi, Olophyxus, and Dium, populated by a mix of non-Greek peoples who spoke two languages. There was a small Chalcidian element as well, but most of the inhabitants were Tyrrheno-Pelasgians (originally settled in Lemnos and Athens), along with Bisaltians, Crestonians, and Edonians. The towns were all small. Most of them went over to Brasidas. But Sane and Dium refused, and he ravaged their territory with his army.

When they still would not submit, Brasidas marched at once against Torone in Chalcidice, which had an Athenian garrison. A small group of locals had invited him, ready to hand over the town. He arrived in the darkness, a little before dawn, and positioned his army near the temple of the Dioscuri, about a quarter of a mile from the city. The main body of Toronaeans and the Athenian garrison had no idea he was there. But his supporters inside, who knew he was coming -- a few of them had slipped out to meet him -- were watching for his arrival. The moment they spotted him, they smuggled in seven light-armed men carrying daggers. These were the only ones out of twenty volunteers who had the nerve to go through with it, commanded by Lysistratus of Olynthus. They slipped through a gap in the sea wall, crept up the hill without being seen, killed the sentries at the highest point in town, and broke open a postern gate on the side facing Canastraeum.

Meanwhile, Brasidas moved a little closer with his main force and sent a hundred light-shielded soldiers forward, ready to rush in the moment a gate was opened and the signal fire lit. Time passed. The advance group, growing impatient, gradually crept right up to the city walls. Inside, the men who had infiltrated worked with the local conspirators to smash through the postern gate and hack open the main gates near the marketplace by cutting through the bar. First they brought some soldiers around through the postern to hit the sleeping townspeople from behind, creating maximum panic. Then they raised the fire signal and let the rest of the advance troops pour in through the marketplace gates.

Brasidas saw the signal, ordered his men up, and charged forward. His whole army surged in with a tremendous war cry that threw the startled townspeople into total confusion. Some burst straight in through the gates. Others clambered over squared timbers propped against a section of wall that had collapsed and was being repaired, using the stones piled there for rebuilding as stepping stones. Brasidas himself led the largest group straight uphill toward the highest point, determined to seize the town from the top down and secure it completely. The rest of his men spread out in all directions.

The majority of Toronaeans were still reeling in shock when the town was taken. But the conspirators and their political allies immediately joined the invaders. About fifty Athenian heavy infantry happened to be sleeping in the marketplace when the alarm reached them. A few were killed fighting where they stood. The rest escaped -- some overland, others to the two ships stationed at the harbor -- and took refuge in Lecythus, a fortified position held by their own troops at the tip of a promontory jutting into the sea, connected to the town by a narrow isthmus. Toronaeans who supported the Athenian side fled there too.

Day broke. The town was secured. Brasidas issued a proclamation: any Toronaeans who had taken shelter with the Athenians were invited to come home -- their rights and property would be safe. He also sent a herald to the Athenians in Lecythus, offering them a truce and telling them to evacuate with their belongings, since the fort stood on Chalcidian ground. The Athenians refused but asked for a one-day truce to retrieve their dead. Brasidas gave them two. He spent those two days fortifying the houses near Lecythus; the Athenians did the same to their own positions.

Then Brasidas called a meeting of the Toronaeans. He told them much the same thing he had said at Acanthus: they should not look down on the men who had negotiated the city's capture -- these people were not traitors or criminals but patriots who had acted for the good and freedom of Torone. And those who had not been part of the scheme should not think they would receive less favorable treatment. He had not come to destroy any city or any individual. That was why he had made his proclamation to those who had fled to the Athenians -- he thought no less of them for their Athenian sympathies. He was confident that once they got to know the Spartans, they would like them just as well as the Athenians, or better, since the Spartans acted far more justly. Their current fear was simply the fear of the unknown. He urged them all to prepare to be loyal allies from here on out and to understand they would be held accountable for their future actions. But for the past, they had done nothing wrong to Sparta -- they had been under the power of a stronger force, and any resistance they had shown could be forgiven.

After this rallying speech, the truce expired and Brasidas attacked Lecythus. The Athenians fought back hard from behind a rough wall and from houses where they had built parapets along the rooflines. On the first day, they drove him off. The next day, the Boeotians prepared to bring up a siege engine to throw fire against the wooden defenses, and the troops began advancing toward what seemed the weakest point of the wall. The Athenians, seeing this, hauled a wooden tower up onto a house opposite the approach and filled it with jars and casks of water and heavy stones. A large number of soldiers climbed up as well. The overloaded house suddenly collapsed with a tremendous crash.

The men nearby who saw what happened were more frustrated than frightened -- they could tell it was just a building falling down. But the troops farther back, and especially those at the far end of the line who could not see what had happened, thought the enemy had broken through at that point. They panicked and ran for the sea and the ships.

Brasidas, seeing defenders abandoning the parapet, instantly charged with his troops and took the fort. Everyone still inside was put to the sword. The surviving Athenians crossed over by boat and ship to Pallene.

Now, there happened to be a temple of Athena in Lecythus, and Brasidas had promised, at the start of the assault, a reward of thirty silver minae to the first man over the wall. But he concluded that the fort's capture had been achieved by something more than human effort. He gave the thirty minae to the goddess for her temple instead, then razed Lecythus and consecrated the entire site as sacred ground.

He spent the rest of the winter consolidating the towns in his possession and planning operations against those still holding out. With the end of winter, the eighth year of the war came to a close.

In the spring that followed, the Spartans and Athenians agreed to a one-year armistice. The Athenians hoped the pause would give them time to shore up their position before Brasidas could peel away any more of their allies -- and perhaps, if conditions were right, negotiate a broader peace. The Spartans correctly guessed that the Athenians, once they had tasted relief from the constant strain and misery, would be more willing to make concessions, return the Spartan prisoners, and agree to a longer-term settlement.

The Spartans' main concern was getting their men back while Brasidas's luck was still running. If Brasidas kept winning, the war in Chalcidice might become more of an even contest -- but they would still be without their prisoners, and even in Chalcidice they would be no better than a match for Athens, with no guarantee of victory.

So the armistice was concluded, on these terms:

Regarding the temple and oracle of Pythian Apollo: we agree that anyone who wishes may consult the oracle freely and without fear or fraud, in accordance with ancestral custom. The Spartans and their allies present agree to this and promise to send heralds to the Boeotians and Phocians to try to persuade them to agree as well.

Regarding the god's treasury: we agree to make every effort to detect anyone embezzling sacred funds, honestly and truly following ancestral custom -- both of us, and all others willing to do so. The Spartans and the other allies are agreed on this.

On the following points, the Spartans and other allies further agree: if the Athenians accept a treaty, each side will remain in its own territory, keeping what it currently holds. Specifically: the garrison at Coryphasium will stay within the boundaries of Buphras and Tomeus. The garrison on Cythera will have no contact with the Peloponnesian alliance, and vice versa. The forces at Nisaea and Minoa will not cross the road running from the gate of the temple of Nisus to the temple of Poseidon and from there straight to the bridge at Minoa. The Megarians and their allies are equally bound not to cross this road. The Athenians will retain the island they have taken, with no contact between the two sides. As for Troezen, each side will keep what it currently has, on previously agreed terms.

Regarding the sea: the Spartans and their allies may sail their own coast and their allies' coasts in any vessel propelled by oars, with a capacity of no more than five hundred talents' tonnage, but not in warships.

All heralds and embassies, with whatever attendants they wish, traveling for the purpose of ending the war or settling claims, shall have free passage to and from the Peloponnese and Athens, by land and by sea.

During the truce, neither side shall receive deserters, whether free or slave.

Each side shall provide legal satisfaction to the other according to its own established laws, and all disputes shall be settled through legal process rather than through force.

The Spartans and their allies agree to these terms. If you have anything more fair or just to propose, come to Sparta and present it. Whatever is just will be accepted by the Spartans and their allies without objection. But those who come must come with full authority to negotiate, just as you have required of us.

The truce shall be for one year.

Approved by the People of Athens.

The tribe of Acamantis held the presidency. Phoenippus served as secretary. Niciades presided as chairman. Laches moved the resolution: in the name of the good fortune of Athens, the Athenians accept the armistice on the terms agreed upon with the Spartans and their allies. The armistice shall last for one year, beginning this very day, the fourteenth of the month Elaphebolion. During this time, ambassadors and heralds shall travel back and forth between the two sides to discuss terms for a permanent peace. The generals and presidents shall convene an assembly of the people, at which the Athenians shall first deliberate on the peace and on how to receive the embassy for ending the war. The Spartan delegation now present shall immediately swear before the people to faithfully observe this truce for one year.

On these terms the Spartans made peace with the Athenians on the twelfth day of the Spartan month Gerastius. The allies took the oath as well. Those who swore and poured the libation were: for the Spartans, Taurus son of Echetimides, Athenaeus son of Pericleidas, and Philocharidas son of Eryxidaidas; for the Corinthians, Aeneas son of Ocytus and Euphamidas son of Aristonymus; for the Sicyonians, Damotimus son of Naucrates and Onasimus son of Megacles; for the Megarians, Nicasus son of Cecalus and Menecrates son of Amphidorus; for the Epidaurians, Amphias son of Eupaidas; and for the Athenians, the generals Nicostratus son of Diitrephes, Nicias son of Niceratus, and Autocles son of Tolmaeus.

Such was the armistice. Throughout its duration, negotiations continued over the terms of a permanent peace.

But even as these peace talks were going back and forth, Scione -- a town on the Pallene peninsula -- revolted from Athens and went over to Brasidas. The Scionaeans claimed to be Pallenians originally from the Peloponnese, and that their ancestors, on the voyage home from Troy, had been blown off course to this spot by the same storm that scattered the Greek fleet, and settled here. Brasidas wasted no time. He crossed over to Scione by night, with a friendly warship leading the way and his own small boat trailing some distance behind. His reasoning was that if he ran into a ship bigger than his boat, the warship would protect him; and if an enemy warship of equal size appeared, it would go after the larger vessel and leave the small boat alone, giving him time to escape.

Once across, Brasidas called an assembly and delivered a speech along the same lines as his addresses at Acanthus and Torone, with this addition: the Scionaeans deserved the highest praise of all. Even though the Athenian occupation of Potidaea cut Pallene off at the isthmus, making Scione practically an island, the people had gone forward to meet their own liberation instead of cowering and waiting to be dragged to it by force. That kind of courage showed they would endure any trial, no matter how great. If he could settle things the way he planned, he would rank them among the truest and most devoted friends Sparta had, and he would honor them in every possible way.

The Scionaeans were thrilled. Even those who had initially opposed the revolt were now caught up in the general excitement. They committed themselves wholeheartedly to the war and showered Brasidas with honors. The city formally crowned him with a golden wreath as the liberator of Greece. Ordinary citizens crowded around him and draped him with garlands, celebrating him the way Greeks honored a victorious athlete.

For the moment, Brasidas left a small garrison and crossed back over. Before long, though, he sent a larger force, planning to use Scione as a base -- with help from the Scionaeans themselves -- to move against Mende and Potidaea before the Athenians could arrive. Scione sat practically on an island, and the Athenians would surely come to relieve it. He also had intelligence about conspiracies inside both Mende and Potidaea.

But in the middle of these preparations, a warship arrived carrying the commissioners who were announcing the armistice throughout Greece -- Aristonymus for Athens, Athenaeus for Sparta. Brasidas's troops crossed back to Torone, and the commissioners informed Brasidas of the agreement. All the Spartan allies in Thrace accepted its terms. Aristonymus accepted everything too -- except Scione. When he counted the days, he found that the Scionaeans had revolted after the armistice had been signed and refused to include them in the truce.

Brasidas vehemently objected, insisting the revolt had occurred before the agreement, and he would not hand the town back. When Aristonymus reported the situation to Athens, the assembly immediately began preparing an expedition against Scione. Spartan envoys arrived, arguing that an attack on Scione would violate the truce and asserting their own claim to the town based on Brasidas's word, while offering to submit the dispute to arbitration.

But Athens was in no mood for arbitration. They were determined to send troops, and they were furious -- enraged by the idea that even cities on what amounted to islands were now daring to revolt, putting their faith in Sparta's land power, which was useless to protect them. Besides, the facts favored the Athenian position: the Scionaeans had revolted two days after the armistice was signed. Cleon successfully pushed through a decree to reduce Scione by siege and execute the entire population. The Athenians began preparing their expedition, using the free time the armistice gave them everywhere else.

In the meantime, Mende also revolted -- another Pallene town, originally an Eretrian colony. Brasidas accepted the town without hesitation, even though it had clearly come over during the armistice. He justified this by citing certain alleged Athenian violations of the truce. This boldness on Brasidas's part had itself encouraged the conspirators in Mende. They had watched him stand firm over Scione and concluded he would back them too. Besides, the handful of plotters in Mende had been scheming for so long that they feared discovery and preferred to force the issue rather than let the broader population's reluctance hold them back.

The news of Mende's defection made the Athenians angrier than ever, and they prepared to move against both towns. Expecting their arrival, Brasidas evacuated the women and children of Scione and Mende to Olynthus in Chalcidice for safety and sent over five hundred Peloponnesian heavy infantry and three hundred Chalcidian troops armed with light shields, all under the command of Polydamidas.

Leaving those two towns to prepare for the Athenian assault, Brasidas and Perdiccas launched a second joint expedition against Arrhabaeus in Lyncus. Perdiccas brought his Macedonian forces plus a corps of heavy infantry composed of Greeks living in his kingdom. Brasidas contributed the Peloponnesians still with him, plus Chalcidians, Acanthians, and contingents from the other allied towns. In all, there were about three thousand Greek heavy infantry, the entire Macedonian cavalry and the Chalcidian cavalry -- close to a thousand horsemen combined -- and a large mass of non-Greek troops.

They entered Arrhabaeus's territory and found the Lyncestians already encamped and waiting. Both armies took up positions on facing hills, with a plain between them. The cavalry clashed first, galloping down into the flat ground between the hills. Then the Lyncestian heavy infantry advanced from their hill to support their horsemen and offered battle. Brasidas and Perdiccas came down to meet them, engaged, and routed the Lyncestians with heavy casualties. The survivors retreated to the heights and stayed there. The victors set up a trophy and waited two or three days for the Illyrian mercenaries Perdiccas had hired, who had not yet arrived.

Perdiccas wanted to push on and attack Arrhabaeus's villages rather than sit idle. But Brasidas was worried. He did not want to be away from the coast when the Athenians might be sailing against Mende, and the Illyrians had not shown up. Far from supporting an advance, Brasidas was eager to pull back.

While they argued about this, word came that the Illyrians had actually betrayed Perdiccas and gone over to Arrhabaeus. The fearsome reputation of the Illyrians as fighters made both sides agree it was time to retreat. But since the argument had gone on so long, nothing had been settled about when or how to leave. Then night fell -- and the Macedonians and the non-Greek troops panicked.

It was one of those mysterious waves of terror that can overwhelm a large army in the dark. Convinced that a force many times larger than the one that had actually arrived was bearing down on them, they broke and ran for home. Their flight dragged Perdiccas along with it. He had not even realized what was happening at first and ended up departing without ever seeing Brasidas -- the two camps had been positioned far apart.

At dawn, Brasidas discovered that the Macedonians had fled and that the Illyrians and Arrhabaeus were about to attack. He formed his heavy infantry into a hollow square with the light troops in the center and prepared to retreat in good order. He posted his youngest soldiers at the edges, ready to dash out against the enemy wherever they attacked, and took his personal position at the rear with three hundred picked men, ready to be the last to fall back and to fight off the most aggressive pursuers.

Before the enemy closed in, he gave his men a quick, sharp speech:

"Peloponnesians -- if I didn't suspect that you were shaken by being abandoned here to face a barbarian horde alone, I wouldn't bother with more than a few words. But given our friends' desertion and the numbers against us, a little advice and encouragement might help.

"Your courage in battle doesn't depend on having allies alongside you in any particular fight. It comes from who you are. And men from states like yours have no reason to fear superior numbers. You don't come from the kind of place where the many rule the few. You come from the kind of place where the few lead the many -- and hold that position through nothing but excellence on the battlefield.

"You're afraid of these people because they're unfamiliar. But think about it. You've already tested yourselves against the Macedonians who are among them, and from what I've seen and heard, the Illyrians are no different. An enemy that looks strong but is actually weak -- once you know the truth, it makes you bolder. An enemy that is genuinely dangerous -- the less you know about him, the more confidently you fight. These Illyrians might terrify someone with no experience. They're big. They're loud. The noise they make is unbearable. They wave their weapons in the air in a way that looks terrifying.

"But when it comes to actual fighting against men who hold their ground, they are nothing like what they seem. They have no real formation, no discipline, no shame in running when things get hard. Attack and retreat are equally honorable to them, so there's no stigma in fleeing -- which means no one can ever be tested for real courage. Their every-man-for-himself style of fighting gives anyone who wants to run a perfect excuse. In the end, they'd rather stand at a safe distance trying to frighten you than close and fight. Otherwise they would have charged already instead of all this shouting.

"You can see for yourselves that all those terrors are mostly noise and show. So stand firm when they come. Fall back in good order when the time is right. And you'll reach safety all the sooner. You'll learn once and for all that this kind of rabble, against men who hold the line, is all bluster and threats from a distance -- but against men who give ground, they're quick enough to play the hero when there's no danger in it."

With that short speech, Brasidas began the withdrawal. The enemy, seeing the army move, came on with tremendous noise and shouting, thinking the Greeks were running and could be cut off. But every time they charged, they met the young soldiers dashing out at them. Brasidas himself and his three hundred stood firm as the rearguard, absorbing each attack. The Peloponnesians held off the first assault -- to the enemy's surprise -- and then beat back each successive wave, pulling back whenever the enemy paused.

Most of the non-Greek horde eventually gave up attacking the main body of Greeks in the open. They left part of their force to harass the march and went after the fleeing Macedonians instead, killing those they caught. Then they rushed ahead to occupy the narrow pass between two hills that formed the only route back into Arrhabaeus's country. They knew this was Brasidas's only escape route and positioned themselves to surround him just as he entered the most difficult stretch of the road.

Brasidas read their intention. He told his three hundred to forget formation and run -- each man as fast as he could -- for the hill that looked easiest to take. They had to get there before the troops on the pass could be reinforced by the main body closing in behind them. They attacked and drove the enemy off the hilltop. Now the rest of the Greek army found the going easier, and the non-Greek fighters, shaken by the loss of the high ground, stopped pursuing. They figured the Greeks had reached the border and made their escape.

Once Brasidas held the heights, he marched more freely and reached Arnisa, the first town in Perdiccas's territory, that same day. His soldiers were furious at the Macedonians for abandoning them. They took their revenge on every Macedonian ox-cart and baggage train they found on the road -- cutting the animals loose, slaughtering them, and helping themselves to any supplies that had fallen off the wagons during the nighttime panic.

From this point on, Perdiccas considered Brasidas an enemy. His resentment toward the Peloponnesians burned deep -- a strange feeling for someone who was supposed to be an adversary of Athens. But personal hatred overrode strategic logic, and Perdiccas began working to make terms with the Athenians and get rid of the Spartans.

When Brasidas returned from Macedonia to Torone, he found that the Athenians had already captured Mende. He stayed put, judging it impossible to cross over to Pallene and help the Mendaeans, but he kept a close watch on Torone.

Around the same time as the Lyncus campaign, the Athenians launched the expedition they had been preparing against Mende and Scione. They sailed with fifty ships -- ten of them Chian -- one thousand Athenian heavy infantry, six hundred archers, a thousand Thracian mercenaries, and additional light-armed troops from local allies. The commanders were Nicias, son of Niceratus, and Nicostratus, son of Diitrephes. Setting out from Potidaea, the fleet put in near the temple of Poseidon and advanced against Mende.

The Mendaeans, along with three hundred Scionaean reinforcements and their Peloponnesian garrison -- seven hundred heavy infantry in all under Polydamidas -- were encamped on a strong hill outside the city. Nicias tried to reach the hilltop with a force of 120 light-armed troops from Methone, sixty picked Athenian heavy infantry, and all the archers. He took a wound on the way up and failed to force the position. Nicostratus, approaching the naturally difficult hill from a different direction with the rest of the army, fell into complete disorder, and the entire Athenian force nearly suffered a defeat. Since the Mendaeans and their allies showed no sign of giving way, the Athenians retreated for the day and made camp. The Mendaeans went back inside their walls at nightfall.

The next day, the Athenians sailed around to the Scione side of the peninsula, took the outlying suburb, and spent the whole day plundering the countryside. No one came out to oppose them -- there was political upheaval inside Mende. That night, the three hundred Scionaeans slipped away home. On the following day, Nicias advanced with half the army to ravage the Scionaean border country, while Nicostratus took the other half and sat down in front of Mende's upper gate, on the road leading to Potidaea.

As it happened, the arms of the Mendaeans and their Peloponnesian allies were stored in that part of the city. Polydamidas began drawing his men up for battle there and urged the Mendaeans to make a sortie. One of the common people shot back defiantly that he had no intention of going out and didn't want a war. Polydamidas grabbed him by the arm and roughed him up.

That was the spark. The enraged common citizens seized their weapons and charged at the Peloponnesians and the oligarchic faction allied with them. The troops under attack broke almost immediately -- partly because of the sheer surprise, partly because the gates had been thrown open behind them and they assumed the common people had coordinated the attack with the Athenians waiting outside. Those who were not killed on the spot fled to the citadel, which they had been holding since the beginning.

At that moment, the entire Athenian army -- Nicias having returned and now positioned right outside the city -- burst into Mende through the open gates. The city had not surrendered by negotiation; it was treated as if taken by storm. The soldiers sacked the place with such fury that the generals could barely prevent them from massacring the inhabitants. Afterward, the Athenians told the Mendaeans they could keep their civic rights and judge the alleged ringleaders of the revolt themselves. They sealed off the faction holding the citadel by building a wall from the fort down to the sea on both sides and left troops to maintain the siege.

With Mende secured, they moved on to Scione.

The Scionaeans and Peloponnesians marched out and occupied a strong hill in front of the town. The Athenians would have to take it before they could begin a siege. They stormed the hill, drove off the defenders, and set up camp with a victory trophy. Then they began the work of building a siege wall around the entire city.

Not long after the circumvallation was underway, the Peloponnesian garrison besieged in the citadel at Mende broke through the guard on the seaward side and escaped by night to Scione. Most of them managed to slip through the Athenian siege lines and get inside the city.

While the siege of Scione continued, Perdiccas sent a herald to the Athenian generals and made peace with Athens -- driven by his fury at Brasidas over the retreat from Lyncus, which had been the beginning of the end between them. As it happened, the Spartan Ischagoras was just then about to march overland with reinforcements for Brasidas. Perdiccas, who was now supposed to prove his good faith to the Athenians and who no longer wanted the Peloponnesians anywhere near his territory, activated his contacts in Thessaly -- he always made a point of cultivating relationships with Thessalian leaders -- and had the Spartan army blocked so effectively that it never even attempted the passage. Ischagoras himself, however, along with Ameinias and Aristeus, managed to reach Brasidas on their own. The Spartans had sent them to inspect the situation, and they brought with them -- in an unprecedented move -- a group of young Spartans to install as commanders of the various towns. The Spartans did not want to leave those positions in the hands of whoever happened to be on the ground. Brasidas accordingly placed Clearidas, son of Cleonymus, in command at Amphipolis and Pasitelidas, son of Hegesander, at Torone.

That same summer, the Thebans tore down the walls of Thespiae, charging the Thespians with pro-Athenian sympathies. The Thebans had always wanted to do this, and now found it easy -- the flower of Thespian manhood had been killed in the battle against the Athenians at Delium.

Also that summer, the temple of Hera at Argos burned down. The priestess Chrysis had placed a lit torch near the sacred garlands and fallen asleep. The garlands caught fire, and by the time she woke up, the whole temple was ablaze. Chrysis fled to Phlius that same night, terrified of what the Argives would do to her. The Argives, following the law for such cases, appointed a new priestess named Phaeinis. Chrysis had served for eight and a half years of the current war at the time of her flight.

As the summer ended, the siege wall around Scione was completed. The Athenians left a garrison to maintain the blockade and took the rest of their forces home.

During the winter that followed, the Athenians and Spartans observed the armistice, but the Mantineans and Tegeans and their respective allies fought a battle at Laodicium in the Oresthid region. The outcome was inconclusive: each side routed one wing of the opposing army, and both set up victory trophies and sent captured spoils to Delphi. Losses were heavy on both sides, and with the battle still undecided, night ended the fighting. The Tegeans camped on the field and erected their trophy immediately. The Mantineans withdrew to Bucolion and set up theirs later.

Near the end of that same winter -- practically the beginning of spring -- Brasidas made an attempt on Potidaea. He arrived at night and managed to plant a scaling ladder against the wall without being detected, sneaking it up in the gap between when the guard passed with the signal bell and when he returned. But the garrison raised the alarm almost immediately afterward, before Brasidas's men could climb up, and he quickly withdrew without waiting for daylight.

So ended the winter, and with it the ninth year of this war of which Thucydides is the historian.

Book V: Uneasy Peace

CHAPTER 15

Tenth Year of the War — Death of Cleon and Brasidas — Peace of Nicias

The next summer, the one-year truce expired after lasting until the Pythian Games. During the armistice, the Athenians expelled the Delians from Delos. They had decided that the islanders must have been polluted by some ancient offense committed at the time of their original consecration, and that this had been the gap in the previous purification of the island — which, as I described earlier, had been considered complete when the graves of the dead were removed. The displaced Delians were given the town of Atramyttium in Asia by the Persian governor Pharnaces, and they resettled there.

THE CAPTURE OF TORONE

Meanwhile, Cleon talked the Athenians into letting him sail for the cities in the Thracian region as soon as the armistice expired. He took with him twelve hundred heavy infantry and three hundred cavalry from Athens, a large allied contingent, and thirty ships. His first stop was Scione, still under siege, where he picked up additional heavy infantry from the besieging army. From there he sailed to Cophos, a harbor in the territory of Torone, not far from the town itself.

Deserters had told Cleon that Brasidas was not in Torone and that the garrison was too weak to fight him in the open. So he advanced on the town with his army, sending ten ships around to sail into the harbor from the other side. He reached the new fortification that Brasidas had recently built in front of the town to enclose the suburb — for which Brasidas had torn down part of the original wall, merging the old and new sections into a single city.

Pasitelidas, the Spartan commander, rushed to this point with whatever garrison he had to repel the Athenian assault. But he quickly found himself overwhelmed. When he saw the ships that had been sent around already sailing into the harbor, he panicked — afraid they would reach the undefended city before his men could get back to it, and that with the outer fortification falling too, he would be trapped and captured. So he abandoned the outwork and ran for the town.

But the Athenians from the ships had already taken Torone. The land forces followed right on Pasitelidas's heels, bursting in behind him through the gap in the old wall that had been torn down. In the chaotic fighting that followed, they killed some of the Peloponnesians and Toronaeans and took the rest prisoner — including Pasitelidas himself.

Brasidas had been marching to relieve Torone and was only about four miles away when he got word of its fall. He turned back.

Cleon and the Athenians set up two victory trophies — one by the harbor, one by the fortification. They enslaved the women and children of Torone and shipped the men off to Athens: the Peloponnesians, the Chalcidians, and the Toronaeans together, about seven hundred in all. The Peloponnesians among them eventually came home when peace was made. The rest were exchanged for prisoners held by the Olynthians.

Around this same time, Panactum, a fortress on the Athenian border, was betrayed to the Boeotians.

After garrisoning Torone, Cleon weighed anchor and sailed around the promontory of Athos toward his real objective: Amphipolis.

PHAEAX'S MISSION TO SICILY

Around the same time, Phaeax, son of Erasistratus, sailed from Athens with two colleagues as ambassadors to Italy and Sicily.

Here was the situation there: after the Athenians had left Sicily following the earlier peace settlement, the Leontines had enrolled a large number of new citizens. The common people were planning to redistribute the land. But the upper classes, getting wind of the scheme, called in the Syracusans and drove the commons out. The expelled democrats scattered in all directions. The aristocrats then struck a deal with Syracuse, abandoned Leontini, tore it down, and went to live in Syracuse, where they were given citizenship.

But some of the transplanted aristocrats grew dissatisfied with life in Syracuse. They left and occupied Phocaeae, a neighborhood within the town of Leontini, along with Bricinniae, a stronghold in Leontine territory. Most of the exiled commoners eventually joined them there, and from these fortified positions they waged war against Syracuse.

When the Athenians heard all this, they sent Phaeax to see whether he could rally their Sicilian allies — and persuade the rest of the islanders — to form a coalition against Syracuse's growing ambitions, and in the process save what was left of the Leontine democrats.

Phaeax arrived and succeeded at Camarina and Agrigentum. But at Gela he hit a wall. Seeing that the rest of Sicily would not come around either, he gave up the diplomatic tour and traveled overland through Sicel territory to Catana, stopping at Bricinniae along the way to encourage the defenders there, before sailing home to Athens.

During his voyage along the Italian coast — both going and coming — Phaeax had discussions with several cities about establishing friendly relations with Athens. He also ran into some Locrian settlers who had been expelled from Messina. These Locrians had been sent there after one of the factions fighting over Messina had invited the Locrians in — a result of the political turmoil that followed the Sicilian peace settlement. Messina had briefly fallen under Locrian control. Phaeax encountered these settlers on their way home after being expelled, and he let them pass without incident, since the Locrians had already agreed to a treaty with Athens. In fact, the Locrians were the only allied people who had not made peace with Athens during the general Sicilian reconciliation — and they would not have done so even now if they had not been hard-pressed by a war with their own colonies, the Hipponians and Medmaeans, on their border.

Phaeax eventually made it back to Athens.

CLEON AND BRASIDAS AT AMPHIPOLIS

Cleon, whom we left sailing from Torone, made Eion his base of operations. He launched an unsuccessful attack on Stagirus, an Andrian colony, but took Galepsus, a colony of Thasos, by storm.

He then sent envoys to Perdiccas, ordering him to bring his army as their alliance required, and dispatched others to Thrace, to Polles, king of the Odomantians, asking him to bring as many Thracian mercenaries as he could muster. Then Cleon sat at Eion and waited.

Brasidas, learning of all this, took up a position on Cerdylium, a hilltop in the Argilian territory across the river from Amphipolis that commanded a view in every direction. From there, it was impossible for Cleon's army to move without Brasidas seeing it. And that was exactly what Brasidas wanted — because he fully expected Cleon to do something reckless. Cleon would look at the small size of Brasidas's force, Brasidas figured, and march straight at Amphipolis with whatever troops he had on hand.

Meanwhile, Brasidas prepared. He called up fifteen hundred Thracian mercenaries and all the Edonian forces — both cavalry and light-armed troops. He also had a thousand Myrcinian and Chalcidian skirmishers, plus the troops already garrisoned in Amphipolis. His total heavy infantry came to about two thousand, with three hundred Greek cavalry. Fifteen hundred of these forces he kept with him on Cerdylium. The rest were stationed in Amphipolis under Clearidas.

For a while, Cleon stayed put. Eventually, though, he was forced to do exactly what Brasidas had predicted. His soldiers were bored. They were sick of sitting around, and they had started to talk openly about the weakness and incompetence of their commander — and about the skill and courage of the man they were going to face. They grumbled about how they had never wanted to come on this expedition in the first place.

When this talk reached Cleon, he decided he could not afford to let the army's morale rot any further. He broke camp and advanced.

His frame of mind was the same as it had been at Pylos: overconfident. His success there had convinced him that he was a capable general. It never even occurred to him that anyone would come out to fight. He said he was just going up to have a look at Amphipolis. If he was waiting for reinforcements, it was not to guarantee victory in case he had to fight — it was so he could surround the city and take it by storm.

So he marched his army up to a strong hill in front of Amphipolis and began surveying the landscape: the lake formed by the Strymon, the way the town sat facing Thrace. He figured he could pull back whenever he pleased without a fight, since he could not see a soul on the walls. The gates were all shut. Nobody was coming out. In fact, looking at the empty defenses, he thought it had been a mistake not to bring siege engines — he could have taken the place right then, with no one to stop him.

THE BATTLE OF AMPHIPOLIS

The moment Brasidas saw the Athenians on the move, he came down from Cerdylium and entered Amphipolis. He did not risk marching out in battle formation against the Athenians. He did not trust the quality of his men — not their numbers, which were close to equal, but their quality. The flower of the Athenian army was in the field, along with elite troops from Lemnos and Imbros. Instead, he prepared a surprise attack. If the enemy saw how many men he actually had — and how poorly equipped some of them were — they might stand and fight with confidence. But if he hit them without warning, before they could size up his forces, he had a better chance of routing them.

So he handpicked a hundred and fifty heavy infantry for himself, placed the rest under Clearidas's command, and resolved to strike before the Athenians could retreat — knowing this might be his only chance to catch them without their reinforcements. He gathered all his soldiers together to rally them and explain his plan.

BRASIDAS'S SPEECH

"Peloponnesians! I do not need to remind you of our heritage — that we come from a land that has always owed its freedom to bravery, or that you are Dorians about to fight Ionians, whom you are used to beating. You know all that.

"But I do want to explain my battle plan, so that no one's courage falters because we are attacking with only part of our force instead of all of it.

"Here is what I think has happened. The enemy has marched up to this position out of sheer contempt for us. He has no idea that anyone would dare come out and fight him. You can see him up there, wandering around, gawking at the scenery, not paying attention. But the most successful commander is the one who spots a blunder like this and, knowing exactly what his own forces can do, attacks — not by the textbook, with lines drawn up in the open, but by seizing the moment. These kinds of stratagems earn the highest glory in war, precisely because they deceive the enemy most completely while helping our side the most.

"So while they are still off guard, while they are thinking about retreating rather than holding their ground — I can see it in them right now, their attention is slack, not sharp — I will take my men and, if I can, charge straight into their center at a dead run. Then, Clearidas, when you see me already among them and — as I expect — throwing them into panic, open the gates, bring out the Amphipolitans and the rest of the allies, and hit them as fast as you can. Nothing terrifies troops more than a fresh attack from a new direction when they are already engaged with an enemy in front of them.

"Show yourself the brave man a Spartan ought to be. And you, allies — follow him like soldiers. Remember: discipline, honor, and obedience are what define a good fighting man. Today decides everything. Either you walk away as free men and allies of Sparta, or as slaves of Athens. And even if you manage to escape without losing your personal freedom, the terms of your subjection will be harsher than before, and you will have blocked the liberation of every other Greek city still under the yoke. So no cowardice. The stakes could not be higher. And what I tell others to do, I will do myself."

THE BATTLE

After this short speech, Brasidas prepared for the assault and stationed the rest of his forces with Clearidas at the Thracian gates, ready to sally out as planned.

But Brasidas had been spotted. People had seen him come down from Cerdylium into the city. They had seen him inside Amphipolis — which could be observed from the higher ground outside — moving around, sacrificing at the temple of Athena. His movements had been watched, and word reached Cleon that the entire enemy force was visible inside the town. More alarming still: the feet of cavalry horses and masses of infantry could be seen beneath the gates, as if a sortie were imminent.

Cleon went up to see for himself. It was true. But he was not willing to risk a pitched battle before his reinforcements arrived — he assumed he still had time to pull back. So he ordered the retreat sounded and sent instructions for the army to withdraw toward Eion, moving along the left wing, which was the only practical route.

When this did not happen fast enough for him, he took charge of the retreat in person and wheeled the right wing around — exposing its unshielded side to the enemy.

That was the moment Brasidas had been waiting for.

"Those men are not going to stand and fight," he told the troops around him. "Look at the way their spears are wobbling and their heads are bobbing. Soldiers who move like that never hold a charge. Open the gates — now! Let us get out there. We have nothing to fear."

He burst out through the palisade gate and the first gate in the long wall, sprinting straight up the road — the same road where the trophy stands now, by the steepest part of the hill — and smashed into the Athenian center. The Athenians, already disorganized by their own chaotic retreat, were stunned by the sheer audacity of it. They panicked and broke.

At the same moment, Clearidas obeyed his orders. He poured out of the Thracian gates with the rest of the force and hit the Athenians from the other side.

Attacked suddenly on two fronts, the Athenians fell apart. The left wing, which had already advanced some distance toward Eion, broke and fled immediately.

And then, just as the rout was in full swing and Brasidas was pressing the attack against the right, he was hit. He went down — but the Athenians did not see it. His men picked him up and carried him off the field.

The Athenian right wing put up a better fight. Cleon himself — who had never intended to fight and had been trying to flee from the start — was caught and killed by a Myrcinian skirmisher. But the heavy infantry around him formed up on the hill and twice, even three times, beat back Clearidas's attacks. They did not finally break until the Myrcinian and Chalcidian cavalry and skirmishers surrounded them and shattered their formation with missiles.

And so the entire Athenian army was in flight. Those who were not killed in the battle itself or cut down by the Chalcidian cavalry and skirmishers scattered into the hills and struggled their way back to Eion.

Brasidas's men carried him into the city still breathing. He lived long enough to hear that his side had won. Then he died.

The rest of the army returned from the pursuit with Clearidas, stripped the Athenian dead, and set up a trophy.

HONORS FOR BRASIDAS

Afterward, all the allies gathered under arms and gave Brasidas a public funeral in the city, in front of what is now the marketplace. The Amphipolitans built a monument around his tomb and from that day forward honored him as a hero, with games and annual sacrifices. They declared him the founder of their colony, tore down the monuments that Hagnon had erected, and destroyed every trace of Hagnon's claim to have founded the place. They considered Brasidas their savior. Besides, they were now courting the Spartan alliance out of fear of Athens. Given their hostile relations with the Athenians, they could no longer see any benefit — or feel any warmth — in honoring Hagnon.

They returned the Athenian dead. About six hundred Athenians had fallen, but only seven men on Brasidas's side — because there had been no proper set-piece battle, only the kind of panicked rout and lucky ambush I have described.

After recovering their dead, the Athenians sailed home. Clearidas and his forces stayed behind to organize affairs at Amphipolis.

Around the same time, three Spartans — Ramphias, Autocharidas, and Epicydidas — led a reinforcement of nine hundred heavy infantry toward the Thracian cities. They got as far as Heraclea in Trachis, where they spent some time putting local affairs in order. While they were delayed there, the battle at Amphipolis took place.

And so the summer ended.

THE TURN TOWARD PEACE

With the start of the following winter, Ramphias and his companions pushed as far as Pierium in Thessaly, but the Thessalians blocked their advance. With Brasidas dead — the very man they had come to reinforce — they turned around and went home. The moment, they decided, had passed. The Athenians had been beaten and were gone. And they themselves were not up to carrying out whatever Brasidas had been planning.

But the main reason they turned back was this: they knew that when they had set out from Sparta, opinion at home had already shifted in favor of peace.

And in fact, that is exactly what happened. Immediately after the battle of Amphipolis and Ramphias's retreat from Thessaly, both sides stopped prosecuting the war and turned their attention to making peace.

Athens had taken a beating — first at Delium, then again not long after at Amphipolis. The swagger was gone. That old confidence, the refusal to negotiate because they were sure they would win in the end, had evaporated. Worse, they were afraid that their allies, seeing them weakened, would start defecting on a wider scale. They regretted passing up the golden opportunity for peace that Pylos had handed them.

Sparta, for her part, had discovered that the war was not going the way she had expected. She had assumed that a few years of devastating Athenian territory would be enough to break Athenian power. Instead, she had suffered the catastrophe on the island at Pylos — a disaster without precedent in Spartan history. Her countryside was being raided from Pylos and Cythera. The Helots were deserting, and Sparta lived in constant fear that those who remained would take courage from the runaways and launch another revolt, as they had done before. On top of all this, the thirty-year truce with Argos was about to expire. The Argives refused to renew it unless Sparta returned the territory of Cynuria to them — and fighting Argos and Athens simultaneously seemed impossible. Sparta also suspected that some of her own Peloponnesian allies were ready to switch sides, which was in fact the case.

THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

These pressures made both sides willing to deal. The Spartans may have been the more eager of the two, because they desperately wanted to recover the prisoners taken on the island at Pylos. The Spartan prisoners included men from the city's first families, with close ties to the ruling class. Negotiations had actually begun right after their capture, but Athens, riding high at the time, had refused to agree to reasonable terms. After the Athenian defeat at Delium, however, the Spartans sensed the shift and quickly arranged the one-year armistice — a cooling-off period to see if a longer settlement could be reached.

Now, after Athens's defeat at Amphipolis and the deaths of Cleon and Brasidas — the two men who had been the strongest opponents of peace on each side — the door swung wide open. Brasidas had opposed peace because the war brought him success and glory. Cleon had opposed it because he knew that in peacetime, with no distractions, his crimes would be easier to expose and his slanders harder to sell.

With both men dead, the most powerful politicians in each city — Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias, king of Sparta, and Nicias, son of Niceratus, the most successful Athenian general of his day — each pursued peace more aggressively than ever.

Nicias wanted to lock in his good fortune. He was honored and successful, and he wanted to stay that way — to secure relief from hardship for himself and his countrymen, and to be remembered by future generations as a leader who never lost. He believed the way to accomplish this was to avoid risk, to trust as little as possible to chance, and he knew that only peace made that possible.

Pleistoanax had his own reasons. His political enemies had been attacking him ever since his controversial restoration from exile. Every time Sparta suffered a setback, they blamed him — claiming that his illegal return was the cause of the gods' displeasure. The accusation went like this: Pleistoanax and his brother Aristocles had bribed the priestess at Delphi to deliver the same message to every Spartan delegation that consulted the oracle — "Bring home the seed of the demigod son of Zeus from foreign soil, or else you will plow with a silver plowshare." Over time, the story went, this constant divine pressure convinced the Spartans to bring Pleistoanax home from the sanctuary on Mount Lycaeum — where he had lived for nineteen years after being exiled on suspicion of accepting a bribe to withdraw from Attica. He had built his house half inside the sacred precinct of Zeus for protection against Spartan reprisals. When the Spartans finally recalled him, they did it with the same dances and sacrifices they had used to inaugurate their kings at the founding of Sparta.

The sting of these accusations, combined with the knowledge that in peacetime there would be no disasters for his enemies to pin on him — whereas in wartime the man at the top always gets blamed when things go wrong — plus the hope that once Sparta recovered her prisoners, his enemies would lose their ammunition entirely: all of this made Pleistoanax desperate for a settlement.

And so the negotiations got serious that winter. As spring approached, the Spartans issued orders for their allies to prepare for building a fortified outpost in Attic territory — holding this threat over the Athenians' heads to pressure them into a deal.

At last, after many demands and counterdemands in the conferences, a peace was reached on the following terms: each side would give back what it had conquered, with the exception that Athens would keep Nisaea. Athens had demanded the return of Plataea, but the Thebans argued that they had acquired Plataea through its citizens' voluntary surrender, not by force or treachery. The Athenians made exactly the same argument about Nisaea. So both claims canceled out.

With that settled, the Spartans summoned their allies. All of them voted for peace except the Boeotians, the Corinthians, the Eleans, and the Megarians, who disapproved of the terms. The Spartans concluded the treaty over their objections.

The two sides made peace and swore to the following articles:

THE PEACE TREATY

The Athenians and the Spartans and their allies made a treaty and swore to it, city by city, as follows:

Regarding the national temples: there shall be free passage by land and sea for anyone who wishes to sacrifice, travel, consult an oracle, or attend the games, according to the customs of their country.

The temple and shrine of Apollo at Delphi, and the Delphians themselves, shall be governed by their own laws, taxed by their own state, and judged by their own courts — both the land and the people — according to the customs of their country.

The treaty shall be binding for fifty years upon the Athenians and their allies and the Spartans and their allies, without fraud or harm, by land or by sea.

It shall not be lawful for either side to take up arms against the other, by any means whatsoever. Should any dispute arise, the parties shall resolve it through legal arbitration and oaths, as they may agree.

The Spartans and their allies shall return Amphipolis to the Athenians. In the case of any cities handed over by the Spartans, the inhabitants shall be free to leave and take their property if they choose. These cities shall be independent, provided they pay the tribute established under Aristides. The Athenians and their allies shall not make war against these cities after the treaty is concluded, so long as the tribute is paid. The cities in question are: Argilus, Stagirus, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus, and Spartolus. These cities shall be neutral — allied with neither Sparta nor Athens. However, if the cities agree, the Athenians may accept them as allies, provided the cities themselves consent. The Mecybernaeans, Sanaeans, and Singaeans shall continue to inhabit their own cities, as shall the Olynthians and Acanthians.

The Spartans and their allies shall return Panactum to the Athenians.

The Athenians shall return to the Spartans the following: Coryphasium, Cythera, Methana, Pteleum, and Atalanta. The Athenians shall also release all Spartan prisoners held in Athens or anywhere else in Athenian territory, and shall let go all the Peloponnesians besieged in Scione, along with all other allies of the Spartans held there, and everyone Brasidas sent into the place, and any other allies of the Spartans imprisoned in Athens or under Athenian control.

The Spartans and their allies shall likewise return any Athenians or Athenian allies they hold.

Regarding Scione, Torone, Sermylium, and any other cities in Athenian hands: the Athenians may deal with them as they see fit.

Both sides shall swear oaths, city by city. Seventeen representatives from each city shall swear the most binding oath of their country, in the following words: "I will abide by this agreement and treaty honestly and without deceit." The Spartans and their allies shall swear the same oath to the Athenians. The oath shall be renewed annually by both sides. Inscribed pillars recording the treaty shall be erected at Olympia, Delphi, the Isthmus, at Athens on the Acropolis, and at Sparta in the temple at Amyclae.

If anything has been overlooked, on any point whatsoever, both the Athenians and the Spartans may alter the treaty by mutual agreement, consistent with their oaths.

The treaty takes effect from the magistracy of Pleistolas at Sparta, on the twenty-seventh day of the month of Artemisium, and from the magistracy of Alcaeus at Athens, on the twenty-fifth day of the month of Elaphebolion.

Those who swore the oath and poured the libations for the Spartans were: Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daithus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antippus, Tellis, Alcinadas, Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus. For the Athenians: Lampon, Isthmionicus, Nicias, Laches, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, and Demosthenes.

This treaty was made in early spring, right at the end of winter, immediately after the city festival of Dionysus — exactly ten years, give or take a few days, from the first invasion of Attica and the beginning of this war.

This should be calculated by the seasons rather than by counting off the names of various magistrates or officials whose terms are used to mark dates in different places. That method is unreliable, since an event may have happened at the beginning, middle, or end of someone's time in office. But if you count by summers and winters, the method I use in this history, you will find that this first war lasted ten summers and ten winters — each season counting as half a year.

AFTERMATH — THE TREATY UNRAVELS

The Spartans had won the lot to begin the process of restitution, and they moved quickly. They freed all the prisoners of war in their hands and sent envoys — Ischagoras, Menas, and Philocharidas — to the cities in Thrace with orders for Clearidas to hand Amphipolis over to the Athenians. The rest of Sparta's allies were told to accept the treaty terms as they applied to them.

They refused.

The allied cities in the region did not like the terms and would not accept them. Clearidas, too — willing to do the Chalcidians a favor — would not hand over Amphipolis, claiming he could not do it against the wishes of the local population. He hurried to Sparta in person, bringing envoys from the Chalcidian cities, partly to defend himself against whatever Ischagoras and his colleagues might say about him, and partly to see whether the agreement could still be modified.

When he arrived, he found the Spartans had already committed themselves. He was sent back with instructions to hand over the city if possible — or at the very least to withdraw all Peloponnesian forces from it.

THE SPARTAN-ATHENIAN ALLIANCE

The allies happened to be gathered at Sparta at this time, and the Spartans asked those who had rejected the treaty to accept it now. Again, they refused, on the same grounds as before — the terms were not fair enough.

The allies would not budge. The Spartans dismissed them and decided to take matters into their own hands: they would form a direct alliance with Athens. Their reasoning was straightforward. Argos had refused the request from Ampelidas and Lichas to renew their treaty, and without Athens on Sparta's side, Argos could become a serious threat. Furthermore, if the rest of the Peloponnese saw that the prize of an Athenian alliance was off the table, they would be more likely to stay in line.

So, after negotiations with the Athenian ambassadors, an alliance was agreed upon and oaths were exchanged on the following terms:

THE ALLIANCE

The Spartans shall be allies of the Athenians for fifty years.

If any enemy invades Spartan territory, the Athenians shall come to Sparta's defense in whatever way they most effectively can, to the full extent of their power. If the invader withdraws after raiding the country, that city shall be considered an enemy of both Sparta and Athens and shall be punished by both. Neither side shall make a separate peace. This shall be carried out honestly, loyally, and without fraud.

If any enemy invades Athenian territory, the Spartans shall come to Athens's defense in whatever way they most effectively can, to the full extent of their power. If the invader withdraws after raiding the country, that city shall be considered an enemy of both Sparta and Athens and shall be punished by both. Neither side shall make a separate peace. This shall be carried out honestly, loyally, and without fraud.

If the slave population rises in revolt, the Athenians shall come to Sparta's aid with all their strength, to the full extent of their power.

This alliance shall be sworn to by the same individuals on each side who swore to the peace treaty. It shall be renewed annually: the Spartans shall travel to Athens for the festival of Dionysus, and the Athenians shall travel to Sparta for the festival of the Hyacinthia. Each side shall erect a pillar recording the alliance — at Sparta, near the statue of Apollo at Amyclae, and at Athens, on the Acropolis near the statue of Athena. If both the Spartans and the Athenians wish to add anything to or remove anything from the alliance, they may do so by mutual agreement, consistent with their oaths.

Those who swore the oath for the Spartans were: Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daithus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antippus, Alcinadas, Tellis, Empedias, Menas, and Laphilus. For the Athenians: Lampon, Isthmionicus, Laches, Nicias, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, and Demosthenes.

This alliance was concluded not long after the peace treaty. The Athenians returned the prisoners from the island to the Spartans.

And with that, the summer of the eleventh year began.

This concludes the history of the first war, which occupied the whole of the preceding ten years.

CHAPTER XVI

Unrest in the Peloponnese -- The League of Mantinea, Elis, Argos, and Athens -- The Battle of Mantinea and the League's Collapse

After the ten years' war ended and both sides signed the treaty and the alliance -- during the magistracy of Pleistolas at Sparta and Alcaeus at Athens -- the states that had accepted the deal were technically at peace. But the Corinthians and several other cities in the Peloponnese were already working to undermine the settlement, and a fresh wave of unrest against Sparta began spreading through the allied states. On top of that, as time passed the Athenians grew increasingly suspicious of the Spartans, who weren't holding up their end of the treaty. For six years and ten months the two sides refrained from invading each other's territory, but abroad an unstable armistice didn't stop either side from doing the other as much damage as possible -- until they were finally forced to scrap the treaty made after the ten years' war and go back to open fighting.

This period too has been recorded by the same Thucydides, an Athenian, following events in order by summers and winters, down to the time when the Spartans and their allies destroyed the Athenian empire and captured the Long Walls and the Piraeus. The war, all told, lasted twenty-seven years. And anyone who dismisses the truce period as not being part of the war is simply wrong. Look at the facts: can you really call it "peace" when neither side gave back or received everything they'd agreed to? Set aside the violations that both sides committed during the wars at Mantinea and Epidaurus and elsewhere. Consider that the allies up in Thrace were as openly hostile as ever, and that the Boeotians had only a truce that had to be renewed every ten days. So the first ten years' war, the phony armistice that followed, and the war that came after, when you add up the seasons, come to the total I've mentioned -- give or take a few days. And for once, faith in oracles actually turned out to be justified. I certainly remember, from the very beginning right through to the end of the war, hearing people declare that it would last "thrice nine years." I lived through the whole thing, old enough to understand events and paying close attention so I could know the exact truth. It was also my fate to spend twenty years in exile after my command at Amphipolis, which put me in contact with both sides -- especially the Peloponnesians, thanks to my exile -- and gave me the leisure to observe events with particular care. I will now describe the disputes that arose after the ten years' war, the collapse of the treaty, and the fighting that followed.

After the fifty years' truce and the alliance were concluded, the delegations from the Peloponnese that had come to Sparta for this business headed home. Most went straight back to their own cities, but the Corinthians made a detour to Argos first. There they opened private negotiations with some Argive officials, making the case that Sparta couldn't possibly have good intentions. Her real aim, they argued, was the subjugation of the entire Peloponnese -- why else would she have signed a treaty and alliance with Athens, her longtime enemy? The duty of protecting the Peloponnese had now fallen to Argos, they said. Argos should immediately pass a decree inviting any Greek state that was independent and governed by fair and equal laws to form a defensive alliance with them. They recommended appointing a small committee with full negotiating authority rather than putting everything before the public assembly -- that way, if a state's application was turned down, the embarrassment of having its overtures rejected wouldn't become public knowledge. The Corinthians predicted that many states would join out of sheer hatred of Sparta. After laying all this out, they went home.

The Argive officials who'd been approached brought this proposal to their government and people. The Argives passed the decree and appointed twelve men to negotiate an alliance with any Greek state that wanted to join -- except Athens and Sparta, neither of which could be admitted without a vote of the full Argive assembly. Argos jumped at this plan for several reasons. They could see that war with Sparta was inevitable, since the truce was about to expire. They also hoped to win the leadership of the Peloponnese. At this point Sparta's reputation had sunk to rock bottom thanks to her recent disasters, while Argos was in excellent shape -- having sat out the war against Athens entirely and profited handsomely from their neutrality. So the Argives prepared to welcome into their alliance any Greek state that wanted in.

The Mantineans and their allies were the first to join, and they did it out of fear. During the war against Athens, Mantinea had taken advantage of the distraction to bring a large part of Arcadia under their control. Now that Sparta had her hands free, the Mantineans were sure she wouldn't let them keep those conquests. They were only too happy to turn to a powerful city like Argos -- Sparta's historic rival and a fellow democracy. Once Mantinea defected, the rest of the Peloponnese started buzzing about following her lead. If Mantinea had switched sides, people reasoned, they must have had good reason. There was also widespread anger at Sparta over a clause she'd inserted in the treaty with Athens: that both Sparta and Athens could modify the terms however they saw fit, by mutual agreement. This was the clause that really set off panic across the Peloponnese, because it raised the terrifying possibility of a joint Spartan-Athenian front against everyone else's freedom. Any changes to the treaty, people argued, should have required the consent of all the allies. With fears like these circulating, there was a rush across the Peloponnese for states to get themselves into an alliance with Argos.

The Spartans could see the agitation spreading through the Peloponnese, and they knew Corinth was behind it -- and was herself about to ally with Argos. So they sent ambassadors to Corinth, hoping to head off the whole thing. They accused her of starting the trouble and warned that abandoning Sparta for an Argive alliance would add a violation of her oaths on top of the offense she'd already committed by rejecting the treaty with Athens -- a treaty that, as everyone had explicitly agreed, would be binding if approved by the majority of allies, "unless the gods or heroes stand in the way."

Corinth responded in front of those allies who, like her, had refused the treaty, and whom she'd invited to be present. She didn't openly list her grievances -- things like the Athenians still holding Sollium and Anactorium, or other ways she felt she'd been shortchanged. Instead she took cover behind a different argument: she couldn't abandon her allies in Thrace. She had personally guaranteed their security back when they first rebelled along with Potidaea, and again on later occasions. Refusing to join the Athenian treaty, she insisted, wasn't a violation of her oaths to the alliance. After all, she'd sworn sacred oaths to her Thracian friends -- she couldn't in good conscience betray them. And besides, the clause said "unless the gods or heroes stand in the way." Well, here, as Corinth saw it, the gods stood in the way.

That was her position on her former oaths. As for the Argive alliance? She would consult with her friends and do whatever was right. The Spartan envoys went home. Some Argive ambassadors who happened to be in Corinth at the time pressed her to join the alliance immediately, but the Corinthians told them to come back at the next congress to be held in Corinth.

An Elean embassy arrived right away after this. They first made an alliance with Corinth, then traveled on to Argos as they'd been instructed, and became allies of the Argives. Elis had its own grudge against Sparta, stemming from a dispute over Lepreum. The backstory was this: some time ago, the Lepreans had gone to war with some Arcadians. The Eleans intervened on the Lepreans' side, on the condition that they'd get half of Leprean territory. After winning the war, the Eleans let the Lepreans keep farming their land but imposed a yearly tribute of one talent to Olympian Zeus. This tribute was paid regularly until the war with Athens, at which point the Lepreans used the war as an excuse to stop paying. When the Eleans tried to compel them, the Lepreans appealed to Sparta for arbitration. The Eleans agreed at first but then, suspecting the tribunal would be biased, pulled out and invaded Leprean territory. Sparta ruled anyway: the Lepreans were independent, and the Eleans were the aggressors. When the Eleans refused to accept this verdict, Sparta sent a garrison of heavy infantry into Lepreum. The Eleans were furious, arguing that Sparta had taken in one of their rebellious subjects. They pointed to the convention that said every allied state should come out of the war with Athens holding whatever territory it had going in -- and since they felt justice had been denied them, they went over to Argos. Their ambassadors had been authorized to do exactly that. Right on their heels, the Corinthians and the Chalcidians from Thrace also joined the Argive alliance.

Meanwhile, the Boeotians and Megarians, who always acted in concert, held back. Sparta left them alone, and they calculated that Argos's democratic government wouldn't sit well with their own oligarchies, which were much more in tune with Sparta's constitution.

Around this same time in the summer, Athens took Scione by force, executed all the adult men, enslaved the women and children, and gave the land to the Plataeans to resettle. She also brought the Delians back to Delos, moved both by her recent military setbacks and by a command from the oracle at Delphi. Meanwhile, the Phocians and Locrians went to war with each other.

The Corinthians and Argives, now allied, traveled to Tegea to persuade her to defect from Sparta. They understood that if they could win over such a major state, the rest of the Peloponnese would follow. But when the Tegeans said flatly that they would do nothing against Sparta, the Corinthians' enthusiasm suddenly deflated. They began to fear that no one else would come over either. Still, they went to the Boeotians and tried to convince them to ally with Argos and Corinth, and to act together on policy generally. They also asked the Boeotians to accompany them to Athens and get them a ten-day truce like the one the Boeotians had recently made with Athens shortly after the fifty years' treaty -- and if Athens refused, the Boeotians should cancel their own truce and make no future agreement without including Corinth.

Those were the Corinthian requests. The Boeotians brushed aside the idea of an Argive alliance but did go with them to Athens, where they failed to get the ten-day truce. The Athenians' answer was that the Corinthians already had a truce, since they were technically allies of Sparta. The Boeotians, however, did not cancel their own ten-day truce, despite the Corinthians' pleas and accusations of betrayal. The Corinthians had to settle for an informal, unwritten ceasefire with Athens.

That same summer, the Spartans marched into Arcadia with their full army under King Pleistoanax, son of Pausanias. Their target was the Parrhasians, subjects of Mantinea, some of whom had invited Spartan help. Sparta also planned to demolish, if possible, the fort of Cypsela, which Mantinea had built and garrisoned in Parrhasian territory to threaten the district of Sciritis in Spartan territory. The Spartans ravaged the Parrhasian countryside. The Mantineans, leaving their city in the hands of an Argive garrison, marched out to defend their allied territory. But unable to save either Cypsela or the Parrhasian towns, they went back to Mantinea. The Spartans, meanwhile, declared the Parrhasians independent, tore down the fortress, and went home.

That same summer, the soldiers who had fought under Brasidas in Thrace returned home, brought back by Clearidas after the treaty was signed. The Spartans decreed that the Helots who had served with Brasidas would be freed and could live wherever they chose. Not long after, they settled these freedmen -- along with the Neodamodes -- at Lepreum, on the border between Spartan and Elean territory. (Sparta and Elis were on bad terms at this point.)

As for the Spartans who had been captured on the island and had surrendered their weapons -- the authorities feared that these men, expecting to be punished or degraded because of their disgrace, might attempt a revolution if they were allowed to keep their full rights. So they were immediately stripped of their citizenship: barred from holding office, buying, or selling anything. Some of them had been in office at the time. Eventually, however, their rights were restored.

That same summer, the people of Dium captured Thyssus, a town on the Acte peninsula near Mount Athos that was allied with Athens.

Throughout this whole summer, contact between Athens and the Peloponnese continued, but each side grew more suspicious of the other from the moment the treaty was signed, because the places that were supposed to be handed over still hadn't been. Sparta, who was supposed to go first by returning Amphipolis and the other towns, had done no such thing. She'd also failed to get the treaty accepted by her Thracian allies, the Boeotians, or the Corinthians -- though she kept promising to join Athens in forcing them to comply if they refused any longer. She kept setting deadlines, promising that holdouts would be declared enemies of both sides, but was careful never to put any of this in writing.

Meanwhile, the Athenians, seeing that none of Sparta's promises were actually being kept, began to question whether her intentions were honest at all. So they refused to hand over Pylos and regretted having given back the prisoners from the island. They held tight to everything else, waiting for Sparta to fulfill her end of the deal first. Sparta countered that she'd done everything she could: she'd returned all Athenian prisoners of war in her hands, withdrawn her troops from Thrace, and carried out whatever else was within her power. Amphipolis, she said, was simply beyond her ability to deliver. But she would try to bring the Boeotians and Corinthians into the treaty, recover the fortress of Panactum, and get back all Athenian prisoners held in Boeotia. In the meantime, she demanded the return of Pylos -- or at least the withdrawal of the Messenians and Helots stationed there, suggesting the Athenians could garrison the place themselves if they wanted to.

After many back-and-forth negotiations over the course of the summer, Sparta finally persuaded Athens to withdraw the Messenians and the other Helots and Spartan deserters from Pylos. Athens resettled them at Cranii in Cephallenia. So for the rest of this summer, there was peace and communication between the two powers.

But the following winter, the magistrates who had negotiated the treaty were no longer in office, and some of their replacements were openly hostile to the deal. Delegations arrived from across the Spartan alliance, and Athens, Boeotia, and Corinth all sent representatives to Sparta. There was a great deal of discussion but no agreement, and everyone went home.

At that point, Cleobulus and Xenares -- the two magistrates most eager to blow up the treaty -- seized the opportunity to privately approach the Boeotians and Corinthians. They urged them to work together as closely as possible, and laid out a specific plan: the Boeotians should first ally with Argos, and then work to bring both themselves and Argos into alliance with Sparta. That way the Boeotians wouldn't be forced into the Athenian treaty, and Sparta would gain the friendship and alliance of Argos -- something she valued even at the cost of losing Athens and scrapping the peace. The Spartans had long wanted friendly relations with Argos, believing this would make it far easier to wage war outside the Peloponnese. The two magistrates also asked the Boeotians to hand Panactum over to Sparta, so she could trade it for Pylos and be in a better position to resume hostilities with Athens.

After receiving these instructions from Xenares, Cleobulus, and their Spartan allies, the Boeotian and Corinthian envoys headed home. On the road, they were intercepted by two senior Argive officials who had been waiting for them. These Argives floated the possibility of the Boeotians joining Corinth, Elis, and Mantinea in allying with Argos. If they could all unite, the Argives argued, they'd be in a position to make peace or war as they pleased -- against Sparta or anyone else. The Boeotian envoys were delighted: entirely by accident, the Argives were asking them to do exactly what their friends at Sparta had recommended. The two Argives, seeing their proposal warmly received, departed with a promise to send ambassadors to Boeotia.

When the envoys returned home and reported to the Boeotian generals -- relaying both the Spartan instructions and the Argive proposal -- the generals embraced the plan eagerly. It was a remarkable coincidence: Argos was independently pushing for the very thing that Sparta's secret allies wanted. Shortly afterward, Argive ambassadors arrived with the formal proposal. The Boeotian generals approved the terms and sent them off with a promise to dispatch their own envoys to Argos to finalize the alliance.

In the meantime, the Boeotian generals, together with the Corinthians, Megarians, and the envoys from Thrace, agreed among themselves to first exchange mutual oaths: they would help each other whenever needed and make neither war nor peace except by common consent. After that, the Boeotians and Megarians, acting together, would formalize the alliance with Argos.

But before the oaths could be taken, the Boeotian generals had to present the proposal to the four Boeotian councils, which held supreme authority. They recommended that the councils authorize oath exchanges with any city willing to enter a defensive league with Boeotia. But the council members voted it down. They were afraid of offending Sparta by making a pact with Corinth, who had deserted her. The problem was that the Boeotian generals hadn't told the councils the full story -- not a word about the secret conversations at Sparta, or the advice from Cleobulus and Xenares, or the plan that called for allying with Corinth and Argos as a stepping stone to a broader alliance with Sparta. The generals had assumed the councils would simply go along with whatever they recommended, even without knowing the reasoning behind it.

When the whole thing fell apart, the Corinthians and the Thracian envoys went home empty-handed. The Boeotian generals, who had planned to follow up by pushing the Argive alliance through the councils, now didn't even bother to bring it up. They never sent the envoys they'd promised to Argos. A general chill settled over the entire scheme, and nothing happened.

That same winter, the Olynthians assaulted and captured Mecyberna, which had an Athenian garrison.

All this while, Athens and Sparta had been negotiating over places that each side still held. Sparta, hoping that if Athens got Panactum back from the Boeotians she might herself recover Pylos, sent an embassy to Boeotia asking them to hand over Panactum and their Athenian prisoners so she could use them as bargaining chips. The Boeotians refused -- unless Sparta made a separate alliance with them, just as she'd done with Athens. Sparta knew this would be a betrayal of Athens, since they'd agreed that neither side would make peace or war without the other. But she wanted Panactum badly -- hoping to trade it for Pylos -- and the faction pushing to dissolve the Athenian treaty was eager for the Boeotian connection. So Sparta went ahead and concluded the alliance just as winter turned to spring. Panactum was immediately razed.

And so the eleventh year of the war came to an end.

In the first days of the following summer, the Argives noticed that the promised ambassadors from Boeotia had never shown up, that Panactum was being demolished, and that Sparta had signed a separate alliance with the Boeotians. They panicked. They were afraid that Argos would be left completely isolated -- that the whole alliance would collapse and everyone would go running back to Sparta. Their thinking went like this: the Spartans must have persuaded the Boeotians to tear down Panactum and join the Athenian treaty, and Athens must have been in on the whole arrangement. If that were true, even the Athenian alliance -- which Argos had always counted on as a fallback in case their truce with Sparta didn't hold -- was now closed to them.

Facing this nightmare scenario -- potentially fighting the Spartans, Tegeans, Boeotians, and Athenians all at once -- the Argives hastily dispatched Eustrophus and Aeson, their most diplomatically acceptable men, as envoys to Sparta. Their mission: negotiate the best treaty they could and secure peace on whatever terms were available.

When the ambassadors arrived, they opened negotiations. The Argives' first demand was that the dispute over the Cynurian borderland -- a region they'd been fighting over for generations, containing the towns of Thyrea and Anthene and currently held by Sparta -- be submitted to arbitration by some neutral state or individual. The Spartans initially refused to discuss this point but said they were willing to make a treaty on the previous terms. Eventually, though, the Argive ambassadors got them to agree to a compromise: a fifty-year truce, with the provision that either side could, at any time when neither Sparta nor Argos was suffering from plague or war, issue a formal challenge and settle the Cynurian question by combat -- as they had done once before, when both sides claimed victory. The one restriction was that the losing side could not be pursued beyond the border of Argos or Sparta. The Spartans initially thought this was absurd, but they wanted Argos's friendship so badly that they eventually agreed and put it all in writing. Before any of it became binding, however, the ambassadors had to return to Argos, report to their people, and -- if the people approved -- come back at the festival of the Hyacinthia to swear the oaths.

The envoys went home accordingly. But while the Argives were busy with these negotiations, Spartan ambassadors -- Andromedes, Phaedimus, and Antimenidas -- were on their way to collect the Athenian prisoners from the Boeotians and deliver them, along with Panactum, to Athens. What they found was that the Boeotians had already demolished Panactum themselves, claiming that ancient oaths existed between their people and the Athenians stipulating that neither side should occupy the place -- both could graze their herds on it, but no one should build there. As for the Athenian prisoners of war in Boeotian hands, the Spartans collected them, brought them to Athens, and handed them over. They also reported the destruction of Panactum, framing it as equivalent to returning it: after all, no enemy of Athens could use it now.

This did not go over well. The Athenians were furious. They felt the Spartans had cheated them on two counts: first, Panactum should have been returned intact, not demolished; second, they'd just learned that Sparta had made a separate alliance with the Boeotians, despite her previous promise to join Athens in forcing treaty holdouts to comply. The Athenians ran through the whole list of Sparta's failures and concluded they'd been played. They gave the ambassadors an angry response and sent them packing.

With the rift between Sparta and Athens now wide open, the faction at Athens that wanted to tear up the treaty sprang into action. The most prominent figure in this group was Alcibiades, son of Clinias. By Greek standards he would have been considered young for politics in most cities, but in Athens his illustrious ancestry gave him standing. Alcibiades genuinely believed the Argive alliance was the better strategic choice -- but personal grudges played a major role in his opposition too. He was furious at the Spartans for having negotiated the treaty through Nicias and Laches while ignoring him, supposedly because of his youth. He was also angry that they'd shown no respect for his family's historic connection to Sparta as their diplomatic representatives -- a relationship that his grandfather had given up but that Alcibiades had recently been trying to revive through his generous treatment of the Spartan prisoners from the island.

Feeling slighted on every side, Alcibiades had opposed the treaty from the start, arguing that the Spartans couldn't be trusted -- that they'd only made peace so they could crush Argos first and then attack Athens alone, without allies. Now, as soon as the breach occurred, he sent a private message to Argos: come to Athens immediately, he urged, along with Mantinea and Elis, and propose an alliance. The timing was perfect, and he would do everything in his power to make it happen.

When this message arrived, and the Argives realized that Athens -- far from being secretly in league with the Boeotians -- was actually in a bitter quarrel with Sparta, they dropped all interest in the treaty they'd just been negotiating at Sparta. Instead they turned toward Athens, reasoning that in the event of war, they'd have on their side a city that was not only an ancient ally and a fellow democracy but also extremely powerful at sea. They immediately sent ambassadors to Athens to negotiate an alliance, accompanied by envoys from Elis and Mantinea.

Hot on their heels, a Spartan embassy arrived in Athens -- Philocharidas, Leon, and Endius, all men considered friendly to the Athenians. They'd come in a rush, terrified that the angry Athenians would ally with Argos. They were also there to ask for Pylos back in exchange for Panactum, and to explain that the alliance with Boeotia hadn't been intended to harm Athens.

When the envoys appeared before the Council and stated that they'd come with full powers to settle all outstanding disputes, Alcibiades got nervous. If they made the same pitch to the full Assembly, the people might be won over, and the Argive alliance would be dead. So he resorted to a trick. In a private meeting with the Spartan envoys, he gave them his solemn word: if they would deny having full powers when they spoke before the Assembly, he would arrange for Pylos to be returned -- he personally, the man currently leading the opposition to returning it -- and would settle all the other issues too.

His real plan was to cut them off from Nicias and humiliate them in front of the Athenian people -- exposing them as dishonest and inconsistent -- so he could get the alliance with Argos, Elis, and Mantinea approved.

It worked perfectly. When the envoys appeared before the Assembly and were asked whether they'd come with full powers, they said no -- directly contradicting what they'd told the Council. The Athenians lost all patience. Alcibiades thundered against the Spartans more furiously than ever, and the Assembly was ready to bring in the Argives and their allies on the spot and sign the alliance. But then an earthquake struck, and before anything could be finalized, the session was adjourned.

At the assembly the next day, Nicias -- even though the Spartans had been tricked, and even though he himself had been made to look like a fool -- still argued that friendship with Sparta was the best policy. He urged the Athenians to set aside the Argive proposals, send another embassy to Sparta, and find out what her real intentions were. Delaying the war, he argued, could only enhance Athens's prestige while damaging Sparta's. Athens was in an excellent position; it was in her interest to preserve that prosperity as long as possible. Sparta, on the other hand, was in desperate straits -- the sooner she could roll the dice on another war, the better for her.

He succeeded in persuading them. A delegation was sent to Sparta -- Nicias among them -- with instructions to demand that Sparta restore Panactum intact along with Amphipolis, and abandon her alliance with the Boeotians (unless the Boeotians agreed to join the treaty), in keeping with the clause forbidding either side from making separate deals. The ambassadors were also to point out that if Athens had wanted to play the same game, she could have already allied with Argos -- who were, after all, in Athens at that very moment for exactly that purpose. They were also given a list of other Athenian grievances to raise.

When they reached Sparta and delivered their message, they concluded by saying that unless the Spartans dissolved their alliance with the Boeotians -- assuming the Boeotians still refused to join the treaty -- Athens would ally with Argos and her friends. The Spartans refused. The faction led by the magistrate Xenares and his allies won the day on the Boeotian question. But at Nicias's request, they did renew their oaths. Nicias was terrified of coming home empty-handed and being blamed -- and that's exactly what happened anyway. He was widely seen as the architect of the Spartan treaty, and people held him responsible for its failures.

When Nicias returned and the Athenians heard that nothing had been accomplished at Sparta, they were furious. Deciding that Sparta had broken faith with them, they took advantage of the Argive and allied delegations -- whom Alcibiades had arranged to be present -- and concluded a treaty and alliance on the following terms:

"The Athenians, Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans, acting for themselves and the allies in their respective spheres, hereby make a treaty for one hundred years, to be observed without fraud or harm, by land and by sea.

"It shall not be lawful for the Argives, Eleans, Mantineans, and their allies to make war against the Athenians or the allies in the Athenian sphere, or for the Athenians and their allies to make war against the Argives, Eleans, Mantineans, or their allies, in any way or by any means whatsoever.

"The Athenians, Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans shall be allies for one hundred years on the following terms:

"If an enemy invades the territory of Athens, the Argives, Eleans, and Mantineans shall come to her aid as quickly and effectively as possible, to the best of their ability, in whatever way Athens requests. If the invader withdraws after plundering, that state shall be treated as the enemy of all four powers. War shall be made against it by all of them, and none may make a separate peace without the consent of all.

"Likewise, if an enemy invades the territory of Argos, Mantinea, or Elis, the Athenians shall come to their aid as quickly and effectively as possible, to the best of their ability, in whatever way the attacked city requests. If the invader withdraws after plundering, that state shall be treated as the enemy of all four powers. War shall be made against it by all of them, and none may make a separate peace without the consent of all.

"No armed force shall be permitted to pass through the territory of any signatory or its allies for hostile purposes, either by land or by sea, unless all four cities -- Athens, Argos, Mantinea, and Elis -- vote to allow it.

"Troops sent as reinforcements shall be maintained by the sending city for thirty days after their arrival and again for the return journey. If their services are needed longer, the city that requested them shall pay: three Aeginetan obols per day for each heavy infantryman, archer, or light soldier, and one Aeginetan drachma per day for each cavalryman.

"The city requesting aid shall hold command when the war is fought on its own soil. When the allies agree on a joint campaign, command shall be shared equally among all four cities.

"The treaty shall be sworn to by the Athenians for themselves and their allies, by the Argives, Mantineans, Eleans, and their allies, state by state individually. Each shall swear the oath most sacred in their country, over full-grown sacrificial victims. The oath shall be:

"'I will stand by this alliance and its terms, justly, sincerely, and without deceit, and I will not violate them in any way whatsoever.'

"At Athens the oath shall be sworn by the Council and the magistrates, with the Prytanes administering it. At Argos by the Council, the Eighty, and the Artynae, with the Eighty administering it. At Mantinea by the Demiurgi, the Council, and the other magistrates, with the Theori and Polemarchs administering it. At Elis by the Demiurgi, the magistrates, and the Six Hundred, with the Demiurgi and the Thesmophylaces administering it.

"The oaths shall be renewed: by the Athenians traveling to Elis, Mantinea, and Argos thirty days before the Olympic games; by the Argives, Mantineans, and Eleans traveling to Athens ten days before the Great Panathenaea.

"The terms of this treaty, the oaths, and the alliance shall be inscribed on a stone pillar: by the Athenians on the Acropolis; by the Argives in the marketplace, in the temple of Apollo; by the Mantineans in the temple of Zeus, in the marketplace. A bronze pillar shall also be erected jointly by all parties at the Olympic games now approaching.

"Should the signatory cities agree that any additions to these terms are desirable, whatever all four cities decide together after consultation shall be binding."

Even though this new treaty and alliance were now in place, neither Athens nor Sparta formally renounced their earlier treaty with each other. Meanwhile, Corinth -- despite being allied with Argos -- refused to join the new league, just as she'd declined to join the previous offensive-defensive pact between Elis, Argos, and Mantinea. Corinth said she was satisfied with the original defensive alliance -- the one that bound them only to help each other, not to attack anyone together. The Corinthians thus stood apart from their allies, and once again turned their thoughts back toward Sparta.

At the Olympic games held that summer -- the ones where the Arcadian Androsthenes won the combined wrestling and boxing for the first time -- the Spartans were barred from the temple by the Eleans. They couldn't sacrifice or compete. The reason was that they'd refused to pay a fine imposed under Olympic law: the Eleans charged them with attacking Fort Phyrcus and sending troops into Lepreum during the Olympic truce. The fine was two thousand minae -- two minae for each soldier, as the law required.

The Spartans sent envoys to protest that the fine was unjust. The truce, they said, hadn't yet been announced at Sparta when the troops were sent out. The Eleans countered that the truce had already begun from their side -- they always proclaimed it among themselves first -- and that the Spartan attack had caught them completely off guard while they were living peacefully, with no expectation of trouble. The Spartans replied that if the Eleans really believed they'd committed a violation, then what was the point of proclaiming the truce at Sparta afterward? But they had proclaimed it -- precisely because they didn't believe there'd been any violation -- and from that point on had done nothing against Elean territory. None of it mattered. The Eleans held firm: the violation had occurred. But they offered a compromise: if Sparta returned Lepreum, they'd waive the Elean share of the fine and pay the god's share themselves.

When Sparta rejected this, the Eleans tried another approach. Forget returning Lepreum, they said -- if the Spartans wanted access to the temple so badly, let them ascend the altar of Olympian Zeus and swear an oath before all of Greece that they'd pay the fine later. Sparta refused that too. So the Spartans were shut out of the temple, the sacrifices, and the games, and had to conduct their own sacrifices at home. The only other Greeks who stayed away were the Lepreans.

Even so, the Eleans were nervous that Sparta might try to force her way in. They posted a company of armed young men on guard, joined by a thousand Argives, a thousand Mantineans, and some Athenian cavalry, who all stayed at Harpina during the festival. Real fear gripped the crowd that the Spartans might show up under arms -- especially after an incident involving Lichas, son of Arcesilaus, a prominent Spartan. When his horses won their race but the victory was announced in the name of "the Boeotian people" -- since he'd been barred from entering -- Lichas marched right onto the course and crowned the charioteer himself, making it clear to everyone that the chariot was his. After that, people were more frightened than ever. But the Spartans kept their composure and let the festival pass without incident.

After the games, the Argives and their allies went to Corinth to try once more to bring her over to their side. Some Spartan envoys were there too. A long discussion followed, but it came to nothing -- yet another earthquake broke up the meeting, and everyone dispersed.

Summer ended. The following winter, a battle was fought between the people of Heraclea in Trachis and a coalition of their neighbors -- the Aenianians, Dolopians, Malians, and some Thessalians. These tribes bordered on Heraclea and had always been hostile to the colony, which they saw as a threat to their territory. They'd opposed and harassed it from the day it was founded. In this battle they defeated the Heracleans, and the Spartan commander Xenares, son of Cnidis, was killed.

So ended the winter and the twelfth year of the war. After the battle, Heraclea was so weakened that early the following summer the Boeotians occupied the town and expelled the Spartan governor Agesippidas for incompetence. They were worried the Athenians would seize it while Sparta was distracted by the chaos in the Peloponnese. The Spartans were not pleased with the Boeotians for this.

That same summer, Alcibiades -- now serving as one of Athens's generals -- went into the Peloponnese in concert with the Argives and their allies. He brought along a small force of Athenian heavy infantry and archers, picked up some local allied troops along the way, and marched through the Peloponnese handling various matters related to the alliance. Among other things, he convinced the Patrians to build their walls down to the sea and planned to build a fort near Achaean Rhium. But the Corinthians and Sicyonians -- along with others who would have been threatened by the fort -- showed up and stopped him.

That same summer, war broke out between Epidaurus and Argos. The official reason was that the Epidaurians had failed to send the required offering to Apollo Pythaeus from their pasturelands -- a religious obligation that the Argives, as chief administrators of the temple, were entitled to enforce. But the real reason was strategic: Alcibiades and the Argives were determined to gain control of Epidaurus. If they could, it would guarantee Corinthian neutrality and give Athens a much shorter route for sending reinforcements from Aegina -- instead of having to sail all the way around Cape Scyllaeum. So the Argives prepared to invade Epidaurus on their own, ostensibly to exact the offering.

Around this time, the Spartans marched out with their entire army to Leuctra, on their border opposite Mount Lycaeum, under the command of King Agis, son of Archidamus. No one knew their destination -- not even the allied cities that had sent contingents. But the border sacrifices came back unfavorable, so the Spartans turned around and went home. They sent word to their allies to be ready to march after the current month, which happened to be the month of Carneus -- a holy time for the Dorians.

The moment the Spartans withdrew, the Argives marched out on the twenty-seventh day of the month before Carneus. Treating that day as their departure date for the entire expedition, they invaded and plundered Epidaurian territory. The Epidaurians called on their allies for help, but some begged off because of the sacred month, while others marched to the Epidaurian border and then just sat there, doing nothing.

While the Argives were in Epidaurus, the allies' ambassadors gathered at Mantinea at Athens's invitation to discuss the situation. The Corinthian delegate Euphamidas pointed out the obvious contradiction: they were sitting here talking about peace while the Epidaurians and their allies were facing off against the Argives in the field. He said that delegations from each side should go separate the armies first; then they could resume the peace talks. They took his advice, went and brought the Argives back from Epidaurus, and then reassembled -- but still couldn't reach any agreement. The Argives promptly invaded Epidaurus a second time and plundered the countryside.

The Spartans marched out again, this time to Caryae, but once again the border sacrifices came back unfavorable, and they went home. The Argives, having ravaged about a third of Epidaurian territory, also returned home. Meanwhile, a thousand Athenian heavy infantry had arrived to help them under the command of Alcibiades, but finding that the Spartan expedition had been called off and they were no longer needed, they went back to Athens.

So the summer passed. The following winter, the Spartans managed to slip a garrison of three hundred troops into Epidaurus by sea, past the Athenian naval patrols. The Argives promptly went to Athens and complained: the treaty said allies were not to let enemy forces pass through their territory, and the Spartans had sailed right by. If Athens didn't now reinstall the Messenians and Helots at Pylos to raid Spartan territory, the Argives would consider the treaty broken.

The Athenians -- at Alcibiades' urging -- inscribed a notice at the bottom of the Spartan treaty-pillar declaring that the Spartans had not kept their oaths, and they moved the Helots from Cranii back to Pylos to resume raiding. But beyond that, they stayed quiet.

Throughout this winter, low-level fighting continued between Argos and Epidaurus -- no pitched battles, but raids and ambushes in which the casualties were small and fell on both sides at different times. Toward the end of winter, as spring approached, the Argives came with scaling ladders to assault Epidaurus, hoping to find it undermanned because of the war. The assault failed, and they went home.

And the winter ended, and with it the thirteenth year of the war.

In the middle of the following summer, the Spartans decided they'd waited long enough. Their ally Epidaurus was in trouble. The rest of the Peloponnese was either in open revolt or quietly disaffected. If they didn't act now, things would only get worse. So they mobilized their full army, Helots included, and marched on Argos under the command of King Agis, son of Archidamus. The Tegeans and the other Arcadian allies of Sparta joined the expedition. Allied contingents from the rest of the Peloponnese and beyond assembled at Phlius: five thousand Boeotian heavy infantry with an equal number of light troops, plus five hundred cavalry and five hundred dismounted troopers; two thousand Corinthian heavy infantry; and forces from the other allies in varying numbers. The Phliasians turned out with their entire army, since the mustering point was in their territory.

The Argives had known about these preparations from the start, but they didn't take the field until the enemy was already on the road to Phlius. Reinforced by the Mantineans and their allies, along with three thousand Elean heavy infantry, they advanced and encountered the Spartans at Methydrium in Arcadia. Both sides took up positions on hills, and the Argives prepared to engage the Spartans while they were still alone, before their allies arrived. But Agis slipped away in the night, broke camp, and marched to Phlius to link up with the rest of his forces.

When the Argives discovered this at dawn, they marched first to Argos and then to the Nemean road, expecting the Spartans and their combined army to come down that way. But Agis didn't take the route they expected. Instead he gave separate orders to the Spartans, Arcadians, and Epidaurians and led them along a different, difficult road down into the plain of Argos. The Corinthians, Pellenians, and Phliasians took another steep route. The Boeotians, Megarians, and Sicyonians were told to come down the Nemean road -- where the Argives were positioned -- so that if the Argives advanced into the plain against Agis, these forces could hit them from behind with their cavalry.

With these arrangements made, Agis descended into the plain and began ravaging the area around Saminthus.

When the Argives discovered what had happened, they came down from Nemea -- day had now broken. On the way they ran into the Phliasian and Corinthian detachments and killed a few Phliasians, while the Corinthians killed perhaps a few more Argives in return. Meanwhile, the Boeotians, Megarians, and Sicyonians advanced on Nemea as ordered, only to find the Argives already gone -- they'd moved down the hill when they saw their territory being ravaged and were now forming up for battle. The Spartans did the same.

The Argives were now completely surrounded. From the plain, the Spartans and their allies blocked them from reaching their city. Above them, the Corinthians, Phliasians, and Pellenians held the high ground. And on the Nemean side, the Boeotians, Sicyonians, and Megarians closed off the escape route. To make matters worse, the Argive army had no cavalry -- the Athenians, the only allied contingent with horsemen, hadn't arrived yet.

Most of the Argive troops and their allies didn't grasp how bad their situation was. They actually thought it was a great opportunity: they'd intercepted the Spartans right in their own territory, practically under the walls of Argos. But two men in the Argive army -- Thrasylus, one of the five generals, and Alciphron, the Spartan diplomatic representative -- saw things differently. Just as the two armies were about to clash, they approached Agis and urged him not to fight. The Argives, they said, were willing to submit whatever grievances Sparta had to fair and impartial arbitration, sign a treaty, and live in peace going forward.

These two men made this offer entirely on their own authority, without orders from the Argive people. And Agis, on his own authority, accepted it. He didn't consult the majority of the army's leadership -- he simply spoke to one senior officer with him on the expedition, granted the Argives a four-month truce to fulfill their promises, and immediately led the army away. He gave no explanation to any of the other allies.

The Spartans and their allies followed their general -- out of respect for the law -- but among themselves they openly condemned him. They'd had the enemy boxed in on every side, hemmed in by infantry and cavalry, and they'd walked away without a fight. This was, without exaggeration, the finest Greek army ever assembled in one place. You should have seen it while it was all together at Nemea: the Spartans at full strength, the Arcadians, the Boeotians, the Corinthians, the Sicyonians, the Pellenians, the Phliasians, and the Megarians -- every one of them the elite of their city. They'd considered themselves more than a match not just for the Argive alliance, but for a second one just like it on top of that. And they'd been marched home with nothing to show for it.

The Argives, for their part, were even angrier. They blamed the men who'd arranged the truce without consulting the people. In their view, the Spartans -- so perfectly cornered just outside the city walls, alongside so many brave allies -- had been allowed to walk free. It was an opportunity that might never come again. When the army returned, they started stoning Thrasylus in the bed of the Charadrus river, where military trials were traditionally held before entering the city. Thrasylus fled to an altar and saved his life, but his property was confiscated.

After this, a thousand Athenian heavy infantry and three hundred cavalry arrived under the command of Laches and Nicostratus. The Argives, reluctant to violate the truce with Sparta, asked them to leave and refused to let them address the assembly. The Mantineans and Eleans, who were still in Argos, pressed the Argives to let the Athenians speak. Finally they relented.

Alcibiades, who was in Argos serving as Athens's ambassador, made the case to the Argives and their allies: they had no right to agree to a truce without the consent of their fellow league members. Now that the Athenians had arrived at just the right moment, they should resume the war. The argument worked. The allies marched at once on Orchomenos -- all of them except the Argives, who stayed behind at first despite having voted with the rest, though they eventually caught up and joined. The combined force sat down before Orchomenos and besieged it, launching assaults on the walls. One of their main reasons for wanting this particular town was that Spartan hostages from Arcadia had been deposited there for safekeeping.

The Orchomenians, alarmed by the weakness of their fortifications, the size of the enemy army, and the very real chance they'd be destroyed before any relief arrived, agreed to surrender. Their terms: they would join the league, hand over hostages of their own to the Mantineans, and give up the hostages the Spartans had lodged with them.

With Orchomenos secured, the allies debated where to strike next. The Eleans pushed hard for Lepreum. The Mantineans wanted Tegea. The Argives and Athenians sided with the Mantineans. The Eleans, furious that nobody had voted for Lepreum, went home in a rage. The rest of the allies began preparing at Mantinea for the attack on Tegea, where a faction inside the city had secretly arranged to hand it over.

Back at Sparta, when the army returned from Argos after the four-month truce debacle, the blame fell squarely on Agis. They'd had an opportunity like none before, people said -- and he'd thrown it away. It wasn't easy to assemble so many first-rate allies, and he'd let the chance slip through his fingers. When news arrived that Orchomenos had fallen, the Spartans' fury boiled over. In the heat of the moment they nearly decided -- contrary to all precedent -- to demolish his house and fine him ten thousand drachmas. Agis begged them to hold off, promising to redeem himself with good service in the field; if he failed, they could do whatever they pleased. They relented on the house and the fine, but they did pass a new law -- unprecedented in Spartan history -- assigning ten Spartan advisors to accompany him, without whose consent he could not lead an army out of the city.

Then urgent word arrived from their allies in Tegea: unless the Spartans appeared immediately, Tegea would go over to the Argives and their allies -- if it hadn't already. On hearing this, a force marched out of Sparta -- Spartans and Helots, every available man -- on a scale never before seen. They advanced to Orestheum in Maenalia and sent orders for their Arcadian allies to follow them to Tegea. From Orestheum they dispatched a sixth of the Spartan force -- the oldest and youngest men -- to guard the home territory, then pushed on to Tegea with the rest. Their Arcadian allies joined them shortly after. Meanwhile, they sent urgent messages to Corinth, Boeotia, Phocis, and Locris: get to Mantinea as fast as possible.

These reinforcements had painfully short notice. It wasn't easy to cross enemy territory -- the hostile states lay right across their route, blocking the way -- unless they all came together and forced passage as a group. Still, they made what speed they could.

Meanwhile, the Spartans and the Arcadian allies who'd already arrived entered Mantinean territory and pitched camp near the temple of Heracles, where they began plundering the countryside.

The Argives and their allies spotted them and immediately took up a strong defensive position on high ground, forming for battle. The Spartans marched straight toward them and got within a stone's throw -- almost javelin range -- when one of the older soldiers shouted to Agis that he was "trying to cure one evil with another." The point was clear: Agis was trying to make up for his disgraceful retreat from Argos through reckless aggression now.

Whether because of this shout or because he had second thoughts on his own, Agis suddenly pulled his army back without engaging. He marched into Tegean territory and began diverting a watercourse toward Mantinean land. This stream was the subject of an old feud between Mantinea and Tegea, because whichever territory it flooded suffered heavily. Agis calculated that when the Argives and their allies learned what he was doing, they'd have to come down from their strong hilltop position to stop him -- and then he could fight them on the flat plain. He spent the rest of the day working on the diversion.

The Argives and their allies were baffled by the sudden retreat. The enemy had advanced so close, then just... left. They didn't know what to make of it. But once Agis had disappeared without anyone pursuing him, the troops began blaming their generals again -- first for letting the Spartans escape before Argos, and now for letting them walk away a second time. The enemy was running, they said, and nobody was chasing them. Their own army was being "leisurely betrayed."

The generals, shaken, led their men down from the hill and advanced into the plain, intending to attack.

The next day, the Argives and their allies formed up in battle order and advanced, ready for a fight. The Spartans, returning from the watercourse to their old camp near the temple of Heracles, suddenly found the enemy right in front of them -- in full battle formation, already down from the hill.

The Spartans later said that this was the worst shock they could ever remember. There was almost no time to prepare. They rushed into their ranks, with King Agis directing everything -- as was the law. When a king is in the field, all orders flow from him: he commands the Polemarchs; they command the Lochages; the Lochages command the Pentecostyes; the Pentecostyes command the Enomotarchs; and the Enomotarchs command the Enomoties. In short, orders pass through the chain of command quickly and reach the troops at every level. Almost the entire Spartan army consists of officers commanding officers, and the responsibility for execution is spread across many men.

Here was the Spartan battle line. On the far left stood the Sciritae -- who by tradition always held that position. Next to them were the veterans of Brasidas's Thracian campaigns and the Neodamodes. Then the Spartan units themselves, company after company, with the Arcadians from Heraea beside them. After these came the Maenalians. On the right wing stood the Tegeans, with a few Spartans anchoring the far end. Cavalry was posted on both wings.

The Argive side was arranged like this. On the right were the Mantineans -- it was their home territory. Next to them, their Arcadian allies. Then a thousand picked Argive troops -- an elite corps that the state had trained at public expense over a long period. Beside them, the rest of the Argive army, and then their allies: the Cleonaeans and Orneans. On the far left stood the Athenians, with their own cavalry on the wing.

Those were the two armies and their formations. The Spartan side appeared to be the larger force. As for putting exact numbers on either army or its components, I couldn't do so with any precision. Spartan troop strength was always kept secret, thanks to their closed society, and men from other states tend to exaggerate their own numbers so much that opposing estimates are unreliable.

Still, one calculation gives a sense of the Spartan numbers that day. Seven companies were on the field, not counting the Sciritae, who numbered six hundred. Each company had four Pentecostyes, and each Pentecosty had four Enomoties. The front rank of each Enomoty was four soldiers wide. As for depth, the formation varied by captain's choice, but the standard depth was eight men. That gives a first rank -- across the entire line, minus the Sciritae -- of four hundred and forty-eight men.

As the two armies stood ready to engage, the commanders on each side offered their men words of encouragement. The Mantineans were told they were fighting for their homeland -- and to avoid falling back into subjection after tasting sovereignty. The Argives were reminded that they were fighting for their ancient supremacy, to reclaim their equal share of the Peloponnese from which they'd been shut out for so long, and to punish an enemy and neighbor for a thousand wrongs. The Athenians were told what glory awaited them in winning the day alongside so many brave allies, that a victory over Sparta in the heart of the Peloponnese would strengthen and extend their empire, and that it would protect Attica from invasion for the foreseeable future.

Those were the encouragements on the Argive side. The Spartans, meanwhile, spoke to each other man to man, with their battle hymns echoing through the ranks -- each soldier reminding his comrade of what they already knew. Long training in the reality of combat, they understood, was worth more than any speech, however well delivered.

Then they closed. The Argives and their allies charged forward with fury and aggression. The Spartans advanced slowly, to the music of many flute-players -- a traditional practice that has nothing to do with religion. Its purpose is to keep the soldiers in step and their lines from breaking apart, which tends to happen when large armies rush forward into contact.

Just before the two armies met, King Agis made a decision. Here's the dynamic he was dealing with: all armies behave the same way when going into battle -- they drift to the right. Every man instinctively tries to shelter his unprotected right side behind the shield of the man next to him, and the tighter the shields are locked together, the safer everyone feels. The man most responsible for this drift is the one on the far right of the line, who keeps edging away from the enemy to protect his exposed flank, and everyone else follows his lead.

On this day, the Mantineans on the right had stretched far past the Sciritae on the Spartan left, and the Spartans and Tegeans on their right had pushed even farther beyond the Athenians, since the Spartan army was the larger. Agis, worried that his left wing was about to be outflanked by the Mantineans, ordered the Sciritae and the Brasidean veterans to shift outward from their positions and extend the line to match the Mantinean front. He then told two Polemarchs -- Hipponoidas and Aristocles -- to fill the resulting gap by pulling two companies from the right wing and sliding them over. He believed his right would still be strong enough even after losing two companies, and that the line facing the Mantineans would gain much-needed solidity.

But the order came at the worst possible moment -- during the charge, with no time to spare. Aristocles and Hipponoidas refused to move. (They were later exiled from Sparta for cowardice.) And before the Sciritae -- whom Agis, seeing that the two companies weren't coming, ordered back to their original position -- could close the gap, the enemy was upon them.

It was at this moment that the Spartans, completely outmaneuvered in tactics, proved their superiority in raw courage.

On the Spartan left, everything collapsed. The Mantinean right wing smashed through the Sciritae and the Brasidean veterans. The Mantineans, their allies, and the thousand picked Argive troops poured into the open gap in the Spartan line, cutting off and surrounding the Spartans on that side. They drove them all the way back to the supply wagons, killing some of the older men who'd been left on guard there.

But everywhere else on the field, the Spartans were winning -- and winning decisively. In the center, where the three hundred "knights" -- as they were called -- fought around King Agis, they hit the older Argive troops, the five named companies, the Cleonaeans, the Orneans, and the Athenians beside them, and routed them almost instantly. Most didn't even stay to fight. The moment the Spartans charged, they broke and ran. Some were actually trampled underfoot by their own men in the panic to get away.

With the center and the left of the Argive line now shattered, the army was cut completely in two. On the right, the Spartan and Tegean troops wheeled around to envelop the Athenians from the side that overlapped them. The Athenians now found themselves caught between two fires: surrounded on one side and already defeated on the other. They would have suffered worse than any other part of the army if not for the cavalry they had with them, which helped cover them.

Then Agis, seeing that his own left wing was in trouble against the Mantineans and the picked Argive corps, ordered the entire army to shift in support of the collapsing flank. As the Spartan line pivoted away from them, the Athenians were able to slip out and escape at their leisure, along with the beaten Argive contingent.

Meanwhile, the Mantineans and their allies, along with the picked Argive troops, stopped pressing their advantage. They saw their friends defeated across the rest of the field and the full Spartan army now bearing down on them. They turned and ran. Many Mantineans were killed, but most of the elite Argive unit got away safely.

The flight and pursuit were neither frantic nor prolonged. The Spartans fought long and hard to break their opponents, but once the rout was achieved, they pursued only for a short time and not very far.

That, as closely as I can reconstruct it, was the Battle of Mantinea -- the largest battle among Greek states in a very long time, fought by the most formidable armies. The Spartans took up a position in front of the enemy dead, immediately set up a trophy, and stripped the fallen. They gathered their own dead and carried them back to Tegea for burial, then returned the enemy dead under a truce.

The losses: seven hundred killed on the Argive, Ornean, and Cleonaean side; two hundred Mantineans; and two hundred Athenians and Aeginetans, including both Athenian generals. On the Spartan side, their allies suffered no losses worth mentioning. As for the Spartans themselves, the truth was hard to determine -- but the reported figure was about three hundred killed.

While the battle was still being fought, the other Spartan king, Pleistoanax, had set out with a relief force made up of the oldest and youngest men. He got as far as Tegea, where he heard news of the victory, and turned back. The Spartans also sent word recalling the allied reinforcements from Corinth and the region beyond the Isthmus. Then they went home, dismissed their allies, and observed the Carnean festival, which happened to fall at that time.

The criticisms that had been leveled at Sparta by the rest of Greece -- accusations of cowardice because of the island disaster, of incompetence and sluggishness in general -- were erased in a single day. Fortune might have dealt them setbacks, people now concluded, but the men themselves were as formidable as ever.

The day before the battle, the Epidaurians had invaded the undefended Argive countryside with their full army and cut down many of the guards left behind when the Argive forces marched out. After the battle, three thousand Elean heavy infantry arrived to help the Mantineans, along with a fresh Athenian reinforcement of one thousand. The whole allied force marched immediately on Epidaurus while the Spartans were busy with the Carnean festival. They divided up the work and began building a wall to encircle the city. Most of them eventually gave up, but the Athenians finished their assigned section around Cape Heraeum. They all contributed to leaving a garrison in the completed fortification, then returned to their respective cities.

Summer came to an end.

In the first days of the following winter, once the Carnean holidays were over, the Spartans took the field again. They advanced to Tegea and from there sent proposals to Argos, offering terms for an accommodation. Sparta had always had supporters inside Argos who wanted to overthrow the democracy, and after the Battle of Mantinea, these men were in a much stronger position to push for a deal. Their scheme was straightforward: first, get Argos to sign a treaty with Sparta; then convert it into a full alliance; and finally, use that alliance to crush the democratic faction.

Lichas, son of Arcesilaus -- Argos's Spartan diplomatic representative -- arrived with two proposals from Sparta: one set of terms for war, another for peace, depending on which the Argives preferred. After much debate, and with Alcibiades happening to be in town, the pro-Spartan faction -- now bold enough to act openly -- persuaded the Argives to accept the peace terms. They were as follows:

"The Spartan assembly agrees to treat with the Argives on the following terms:

"The Argives shall return the children to the Orchomenians, and the men to the Maenalians, and shall return the men they are holding in Mantinea to the Spartans.

"They shall evacuate Epidaurus and demolish the fortification there. If the Athenians refuse to withdraw from Epidaurus, they shall be declared enemies of both Argos and Sparta, and of all their respective allies.

"If the Spartans are holding any children as hostages, they shall return every one of them to his city.

"As for the offering to the god, the Argives may, if they wish, impose an oath upon the Epidaurians; otherwise, they shall swear the oath themselves.

"All cities in the Peloponnese, both small and great, shall be independent, according to the customs of their country.

"If any power from outside the Peloponnese invades Peloponnesian territory, the parties to this treaty shall unite to repel the invader, on whatever terms they consider fairest for the Peloponnesians.

"All allies of Sparta outside the Peloponnese shall have the same status as Sparta, and all allies of Argos shall have the same status as Argos, each retaining possession of their own territory.

"This treaty shall be presented to the allies for their approval. If the allies see fit, they may send it home for further consideration."

The Argives initially accepted this proposal, and the Spartan army withdrew from Tegea. Regular contact between the two states resumed, and before long the same pro-Spartan party engineered the next step: Argos abandoned her league with Mantinea, Elis, and Athens, and signed a treaty and alliance with Sparta. The terms were as follows:

"The Spartans and Argives agree to a treaty and alliance for fifty years on the following terms:

"All disputes shall be decided by fair and impartial arbitration, in accordance with the customs of both countries.

"The rest of the cities in the Peloponnese may be included in this treaty and alliance as independent and sovereign states, in full possession of their territories, with all disputes decided by fair and impartial arbitration according to each city's customs.

"All allies of Sparta outside the Peloponnese shall have the same status as Sparta, and all allies of Argos shall have the same status as Argos, each continuing to hold what they possess.

"If a joint military expedition is required, the Spartans and Argives shall consult and decide on the fairest terms for the allies.

"If any city, whether inside or outside the Peloponnese, has a dispute -- whether over borders or anything else -- it must be resolved. If two allied cities quarrel with each other, the matter shall be referred to a third city considered impartial by both sides. Private citizens shall have their disputes settled under the laws of their own cities."

The moment the treaty and alliance were signed, both sides released everything they'd seized from each other, whether by war or otherwise. From then on they acted in concert: they voted jointly to refuse any Athenian herald or embassy unless Athens evacuated her forts and withdrew from the Peloponnese. They also agreed to make neither peace nor war with any state except jointly.

Both sides threw themselves into the new arrangement. They sent envoys to the Thracian region and to Perdiccas, king of Macedon, and persuaded him to join their league. Perdiccas didn't break with Athens right away, but he was leaning that way -- following the example of Argos, the original home of his royal family. They also renewed their old oaths with the Chalcidians and swore new ones. The Argives also sent ambassadors to Athens demanding that the Athenians evacuate the fort at Epidaurus.

The Athenians, seeing that their men were vastly outnumbered by the rest of the garrison, sent Demosthenes to bring them out. When he arrived, Demosthenes organized a gymnastic competition as a cover. While the rest of the garrison came outside to watch, he quietly pulled out his men and locked the gates behind them. Afterward, the Athenians renewed their own treaty with Epidaurus and formally handed back the fortress.

With Argos out of the league, the Mantineans held out for a while, but they couldn't manage without Argos. They too came to terms with Sparta and gave up their sovereignty over the towns they'd controlled.

Then the Spartans and Argives -- each contributing a thousand men -- took the field together. The Spartans first marched to Sicyon on their own and tightened the oligarchy there. Then the combined force moved on Argos itself, where they overthrew the democracy and installed an oligarchic government friendly to Sparta.

These events took place at the very end of winter, just before spring, and the fourteenth year of the war came to an end.

The following summer, the people of Dium on Mount Athos revolted from Athens and went over to the Chalcidians. The Spartans reorganized affairs in Achaea to better suit their interests.

Meanwhile, at Argos the democratic faction was slowly regrouping -- gathering their courage and biding their time. They waited until the festival of the Gymnopaediae was being celebrated at Sparta, when the Spartans would be distracted, and then rose up against the oligarchs. In a battle fought inside the city, the democrats won. Some oligarchs were killed, others driven into exile.

For a long while, the Spartans ignored the urgent messages from their friends in Argos. At last they postponed the Gymnopaediae and marched out to help, but when they reached Tegea and learned that the oligarchs had already been overthrown, they refused to go any further -- despite the exiles' desperate pleas -- and went home to finish the festival.

Later, envoys arrived at Sparta from both sides: the democratic government now running Argos, and the oligarchic exiles. The Spartan allies were also present. After hearing lengthy arguments from both parties, the Spartans concluded that the democrats were in the wrong and voted to march against Argos -- but then kept stalling and putting it off.

Meanwhile, the Argive democrats -- terrified of Sparta -- began courting Athens again. They were convinced that an Athenian alliance would be invaluable, and they started building long walls down to the sea. The idea was that even if Sparta invaded by land, Athens could keep them supplied by sea, just as Athens had done for herself. Several other Peloponnesian cities were secretly aware of the wall-building project. The entire population of Argos -- men, women, and slaves -- threw themselves into the work, and carpenters and masons came from Athens to help.

Summer ended. The following winter, the Spartans -- hearing about the walls going up -- marched against Argos with their allies (except the Corinthians). They were also counting on sympathizers inside the city. King Agis commanded the expedition. But the expected internal help never materialized. The Spartans captured and demolished the half-built walls, then took the Argive town of Hysiae, killing every free man they found there. After that, they withdrew and everyone went home.

The Argives responded by marching into the territory of Phlius -- where most of the Argive oligarchic exiles had settled -- and plundered it, then returned home.

That same winter, the Athenians imposed a blockade on Macedon. Their grievances against Perdiccas were piling up: he'd joined the league with Argos and Sparta, and he'd broken his commitments when Athens had organized the expedition against the Chalcidians in Thrace and Amphipolis under Nicias, son of Niceratus -- a campaign that had to be abandoned largely because of Perdiccas's betrayal. He was formally declared an enemy.

And so the winter ended, and the fifteenth year of the war ended with it.

CHAPTER 17

Sixteenth Year of the War — The Melian Dialogue — The Fate of Melos

The following summer, Alcibiades sailed to Argos with twenty ships and arrested three hundred men suspected of Spartan sympathies. The Athenians promptly shipped them off to nearby islands under Athenian control.

The Athenians also launched an expedition against the island of Melos. The force was substantial: thirty Athenian ships, six from Chios, two from Lesbos, sixteen hundred heavy infantry, three hundred archers, and twenty mounted archers from Athens itself, plus around fifteen hundred allied and islander heavy infantry. The Melians were originally a colony of Sparta. Unlike the other islanders, they had refused to submit to Athens. At first they stayed neutral and took no part in the conflict. But then the Athenians turned violent — raiding their territory, plundering their land — and the Melians shifted to open hostility.

Now the Athenian generals Cleomedes, son of Lycomedes, and Tisias, son of Tisimachus, made camp on Melian territory with this entire force. But before doing any damage to the land, they sent envoys to negotiate.

The Melians did not bring these envoys before the general assembly. Instead, they told them to make their case to the magistrates and a select group of leading citizens. And so the Athenian envoys began.

THE MELIAN DIALOGUE

ATHENIANS: Since you have arranged for us to speak not before the people but before this select few — so that, as we understand it, the general population will not hear a single persuasive speech from us and be swayed before anyone can answer — let us suggest something. You men sitting here: do not even bother making a formal speech. Instead, stop us whenever we say something you disagree with and challenge it on the spot. First, though: does this format work for you?

MELIANS: We have no objection to the fairness of a calm, point-by-point discussion. But look at the reality. You have already arrived with an army. Clearly the outcome of this "negotiation" is a foregone conclusion. If we make a good case and refuse to submit, we get war. If we give in, we get slavery.

ATHENIANS: If you have come here to speculate about the future, or to do anything other than look at the facts in front of you and discuss how to save your city — then we might as well stop now. But if that is why you are here, let us continue.

MELIANS: It is natural for men in our position to explore every angle, in both thought and speech. But yes — the subject of this conference is the survival of our city. Let us proceed as you suggest.

ATHENIANS: Fine. Then we will not waste your time with high-sounding arguments — claiming that our empire is justified because we defeated the Persians, or that we are attacking you because you wronged us. You would not believe any of that, and long speeches are pointless. In return, we expect you not to waste our time either — do not tell us that you refused to join the Spartans even though you are their colonists, or that you have never done us any harm. None of that will save you.

Instead, let us deal with what is actually possible here, based on what we both really know. You know it and we know it: when the question is one of life and death, justice only enters the picture when both sides are equally matched.

When that is not the case — the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.

MELIANS: Well then — since you insist we set aside justice and talk only about self-interest — here is what we think is in your interest as much as ours. You should not destroy what protects everyone: the principle that people in danger can appeal to what is fair and right, and that even arguments that fall short of perfect logic deserve a hearing. You have as much stake in this principle as anyone. If you fall someday, you will face the most savage retribution imaginable — and you will have set the precedent yourselves.

ATHENIANS: We are not worried about the end of our empire. Empires are not overthrown by other empires — even Sparta, if Sparta were actually our main rival, would not be so terrible to the vanquished. The real danger comes from subject peoples who rise up and overpower their rulers on their own. But that is our risk to manage. We are here to show you that this expedition serves our imperial interests, and that what we are about to propose will actually preserve your city. We want to add you to our empire without the trouble of destroying you. And we want you to survive, for both our sakes.

MELIANS: And how exactly would slavery be as good for us as domination is for you?

ATHENIANS: Because you would get to submit instead of being annihilated. And we would profit from not having to destroy you.

MELIANS: So you would not accept our neutrality? We could be your friends instead of your enemies, allied with neither side.

ATHENIANS: No. Your hostility does us less damage than your friendship would. To our subjects, your friendship would look like weakness on our part. Your hatred, on the other hand, is a demonstration of our power.

MELIANS: Is that really how your subjects think? They cannot tell the difference between peoples who have nothing to do with you and peoples who are mostly your own colonists or conquered rebels?

ATHENIANS: Oh, they think everyone has an equally valid claim to independence. But they also think that if anyone stays independent, it is because they are too strong for us to touch — and if we leave them alone, it is because we are afraid. So your subjection would not just extend our empire. It would make us safer. You are islanders. You are weaker than others. It is especially important that you do not successfully defy the masters of the sea.

MELIANS: But do you not see any security in the alternative we are proposing? Again — since you have told us to forget about justice and focus on self-interest — we have to explain what is in our interest, and try to show you where our interests overlap. Think about it: every neutral state in the Greek world is watching this. The moment you crush us, they will conclude that their turn is coming. All you would accomplish is to multiply your enemies. You would drive people into hostility who never would have considered it otherwise.

ATHENIANS: Frankly, it is not the mainland states that worry us. They are free, and that freedom will keep them cautious about standing up to us for a long time. The ones we worry about are islanders like you — people outside our empire — and subjects already chafing under our rule. Those are the ones most likely to do something reckless and drag both themselves and us into danger.

MELIANS: Well then — if you are willing to take such enormous risks to keep your empire, and your subjects are willing to take enormous risks to escape it — would it not be the height of cowardice and dishonor for us, who are still free, to refuse to try everything before we submit?

ATHENIANS: Not if you think clearly. This is not an equal contest where honor is the prize and shame the penalty. This is a question of survival. It is about not picking a fight with an enemy that vastly overpowers you.

MELIANS: But we know that the fortunes of war can be more balanced than the raw numbers suggest. For us, to surrender is to give up all hope. At least if we fight, there is still a chance we come through.

ATHENIANS: Hope. Hope is a comfort in times of danger, and for those who have resources to spare, indulging in it may cost them something but will not destroy them. But for those who bet everything on a single throw — people like you — hope reveals its true nature only when it has already ruined them. By then it is too late.

Do not let that happen to you. You are weak. Everything hangs on a single turn of the scale. Do not be like the common run of people who, when real-world options run out, turn to fantasy — to prophecies and oracles and all the other delusions that destroy men by filling them with false hope.

MELIANS: We are perfectly aware of how hard it is to fight your power and your good fortune, especially when the odds are this uneven. But we trust that the gods will not let us come out worse than you, because we are righteous men fighting against injustice. And what we lack in strength, the Spartans will make up. They are bound to help us — if for no other reason than sheer shame, since we are their own people. Our confidence is not as irrational as you think.

ATHENIANS: As for the gods — we expect their favor just as much as you do. Nothing in our position or our behavior contradicts what people believe about the gods, or how people actually behave toward one another. We believe this about the gods, and we know this about human beings: by a law of nature, they rule wherever they have the power to rule. We did not make this law. We did not start enforcing it. We found it already in existence, and we will leave it in existence after we are gone. All we do is act on it — knowing that you, and anyone else with the same power, would do exactly what we are doing.

So as far as the gods are concerned, we have every reason to expect we will do just fine.

Now, as for the Spartans. Your faith that shame will compel them to help you — well, we admire your innocence, but we do not envy your judgment. The Spartans, when it comes to their own interests and their own country's customs, are the most honorable men alive. As for how they treat everyone else — there is much that could be said, but the simplest summary is this: of all the peoples we know, the Spartans are the most notorious for equating what is pleasant with what is honorable, and what is useful with what is just. That kind of thinking does not bode well for the safety you are counting on.

MELIANS: But that is exactly why we trust them — because it will be in their own interest not to betray the Melians. If they abandoned their own colonists, they would lose the trust of every friend they have in Greece and play right into the hands of their enemies.

ATHENIANS: So you do not see that self-interest and security go hand in hand? Justice and honor almost always involve risk — and the Spartans, as a general rule, avoid risk whenever they can.

MELIANS: We believe they would be more willing to take risks for us than for others. We are close to the Peloponnese, which makes it easy for them to act. And our shared blood ensures our loyalty.

ATHENIANS: An ally does not look at the goodwill of the people asking for help. He looks at whether he has a decisive advantage in military power. The Spartans look at this more carefully than anyone. They have so little confidence in their own resources that they only attack their neighbors with a crowd of allies at their side. Do you really think they are going to cross the sea to an island, when we control the waters?

MELIANS: They could send others. The Cretan Sea is wide. It is harder for a naval power to intercept ships than it is for ships to slip through. And if that fails, the Spartans could invade your territory instead, or strike at your allies — the ones Brasidas never reached. Then instead of fighting for places that have nothing to do with you, you would be fighting for your own homeland and your own alliance.

ATHENIANS: You might get some diversion along those lines one day — only to learn, as others have, that Athens has never once abandoned a siege out of fear.

But something strikes us. You said you were here to discuss the safety of your city. Yet in this entire conversation, you have not mentioned a single thing that actual human beings could rely on for survival. Your strongest arguments are hope and the future. Your actual resources, compared to the forces already deployed against you, are pitifully small. You are showing dangerously poor judgment — unless, after we leave, you come to some wiser conclusion than this.

And whatever you do, do not fall into the trap of false honor. Nothing is more destructive, when the danger is real and obvious, than the idea of "disgrace." Too many men have seen clearly what they were walking into — and then let the word "disgrace" pull them forward by its seductive power, until they were so enslaved by a mere phrase that they plunged willingly into irreversible catastrophe. They ended up with a disgrace far worse than anything that could have come from misfortune alone — because theirs came from their own stupidity.

If you are wise, you will guard against this. You will not consider it dishonourable to submit to the greatest city in Greece when it offers you reasonable terms: become a tribute-paying ally, and keep your land. You have a choice between war and security. Do not be so blind as to pick the wrong one.

The people who come out best in this world are the ones who stand up to their equals, who deal sensibly with those stronger than themselves, and who treat those weaker than themselves with moderation.

Think it over after we leave. And remember: you are making this decision for your country. You only have one. And this one deliberation will determine whether it survives or is destroyed.

The Athenians withdrew from the conference. The Melians deliberated among themselves and reached a decision that matched exactly what they had argued throughout the discussion. They delivered their answer:

MELIANS: Our resolution, Athenians, is the same as it was at the start. We will not, in a single moment, give up the freedom of a city that has been inhabited for seven hundred years. We put our trust in the fortune that the gods have used to preserve us until now, and in the help of the Spartans. We will try to save ourselves. But we invite you to accept our friendship, to let us be enemies of neither side, and to withdraw from our territory after we have agreed to a treaty acceptable to both of us.

That was the Melians' answer.

As the Athenians left the conference, they said: "Well, it seems to us — judging by this decision — that you are the only people in the world who think the future is more certain than what is right in front of your eyes. You stare at things you cannot see and treat them as if they have already happened, simply because you want them so badly. You have staked everything on the Spartans, on fortune, and on hope. And by all three, you will be utterly destroyed."

The Athenian envoys returned to the army. Since the Melians showed no sign of giving in, the generals immediately moved to hostilities. They built a siege wall around the entire city, dividing the construction work among the different allied contingents. After that, the Athenians pulled back the bulk of their forces, leaving behind a garrison of their own troops and allied soldiers to maintain the blockade by land and sea. The remaining force settled in for the siege.

Around the same time, the Argives invaded the territory of Phlius and lost eighty men in an ambush set by the Phliasians and Argive exiles. Meanwhile, the Athenian garrison at Pylos was plundering Spartan territory so aggressively that the Spartans — though they still held back from formally breaking the treaty or declaring war on Athens — announced that any Spartan who wished was free to raid Athenian property. The Corinthians also started hostilities against Athens, driven by private grievances of their own. The rest of the Peloponnesian states kept quiet.

As for the Melians — they launched a night attack and captured part of the Athenian siege lines near the marketplace. They killed some of the garrison, brought in grain and whatever other supplies they could find, and withdrew. They kept quiet after that, and the Athenians tightened their security.

Summer ended.

The following winter, the Spartans prepared to invade Argive territory, but when they reached the border, the sacrifices for crossing came back unfavorable, and they turned around and went home. This aborted invasion made the Argives suspicious of certain citizens, some of whom they arrested; others escaped.

Around the same time, the Melians again captured another section of the Athenian lines where the garrison was thin. After this, fresh reinforcements arrived from Athens under the command of Philocrates, son of Demeas. The siege was now pressed hard. Betrayal from inside the walls played a part as well.

The Melians surrendered unconditionally.

The Athenians killed every adult man. They sold the women and children into slavery. Then they sent out five hundred of their own colonists and settled the island themselves.

Book VI: The Sicilian Expedition

CHAPTER 18

Seventeenth Year of the War -- The Sicilian Campaign -- Affair of the Hermae -- Departure of the Expedition

That same winter, the Athenians made up their minds to sail against Sicily again -- this time with a far larger force than the one they had sent under Laches and Eurymedon -- and, if possible, to conquer the entire island. Most of them had no idea how big Sicily actually was, how many people lived there -- both Greek and non-Greek -- or that they were about to take on a war almost as massive as the one they were already fighting against the Peloponnesians. To put it in perspective: sailing around Sicily in a merchant ship takes close to eight days. And despite being that enormous, the island is separated from the Italian mainland by a strait barely two miles wide.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SICILY

Here is how the island was originally settled, and here are the peoples who have lived there.

The earliest inhabitants mentioned in any account of the region are the Cyclopes and the Laestrygones. But I cannot say what race they belonged to, where they came from, or where they went. On that score, I will leave my readers to whatever the poets have said about them and whatever may be generally known.

The next settlers appear to have been the Sicanians, though they claim to have been the very first people on the island -- true natives. The facts say otherwise. They were Iberians, originally from the banks of the river Sicanus in Iberia, driven out by the Ligurians. The island, which had previously been called Trinacria, took its name from them -- Sicania. To this day they live in the western part of Sicily.

After the fall of Troy, some Trojans who escaped the Greek victors sailed to Sicily and settled next to the Sicanians. They became known collectively as the Elymi, and their towns were Eryx and Egesta. Some Phocians who had fought at Troy also ended up there, blown first to Libya by a storm and then onward to Sicily.

The Sicels crossed over from Italy -- their original homeland -- to Sicily, fleeing from the Opicans. Tradition says, and it seems plausible, that they made the crossing on rafts, watching for a favorable wind through the strait. Though they may have found some other way across. Even today there are still Sicels living in Italy, and in fact the name "Italy" itself comes from Italus, a king of the Sicels. These people invaded Sicily in great numbers, defeated the Sicanians in battle, and pushed them into the southern and western parts of the island. Because of them, the island's name changed from Sicania to Sicily. After crossing over, they controlled the richest lands on the island for nearly three hundred years before any Greeks arrived. They still hold the central and northern regions.

Phoenicians also lived scattered around Sicily's coastline. They had set up trading posts on the headlands and small offshore islands to do business with the Sicels. But when the Greeks began arriving in large numbers by sea, the Phoenicians abandoned most of these outposts and consolidated into three settlements -- Motye, Soloeis, and Panormus -- all near the Elymi. They chose these spots partly because they trusted in their alliance with the Elymi, and partly because these were the closest points for the sea crossing between Sicily and Carthage.

Those were the non-Greek peoples of Sicily, settled as I have described.

THE GREEK COLONIES

As for the Greeks, the first to arrive were Chalcidians from Euboea, led by their founder Thucles. They established Naxos and built the altar to Apollo Archegetes that still stands outside the city -- the one where official delegates sacrifice before sailing from Sicily to attend the games.

The following year, Archias, a descendant of Heracles from Corinth, founded Syracuse. He started by driving the Sicels off the island where the inner city now stands -- though it is no longer surrounded by water. Eventually the outer city was also enclosed within walls and grew into a thriving population center.

Meanwhile, in the fifth year after Syracuse's founding, Thucles and the Chalcidians set out from Naxos, drove out the Sicels by force, and founded Leontini, and after that, Catana. The people of Catana chose Evarchus as their own founder.

Around the same time, a man named Lamis arrived in Sicily leading a colony from Megara. He founded a settlement called Trotilus beyond the river Pantacyas, then abandoned it and briefly joined the Chalcidians at Leontini. They drove him out. He founded Thapsus. After he died there, his companions were expelled from Thapsus and founded a place called Megara Hyblaea -- named after Hyblon, a Sicel king who had invited them and given them the land. They lived there for two hundred and forty-five years before being expelled by Gelo, the tyrant of Syracuse. But before that expulsion -- about a hundred years after they had first settled there -- they sent out Pamillus to found Selinus. Pamillus had come from their mother city of Megara in Greece to help with the founding.

Gela was established in the forty-fifth year after the founding of Syracuse, by Antiphemus from Rhodes and Entimus from Crete, who led the colony together. The city was named after the river Gelas. The hilltop that served as the original citadel was called Lindii. The colonists adopted Dorian institutions. About a hundred and eight years after Gela's founding, the Geloans founded Acragas -- known to the Romans as Agrigentum -- naming it after the local river. They appointed Aristonous and Pystilus as founders and gave the new colony the same institutions as their own.

Zancle was originally founded by pirates from Cuma, the Chalcidian town in Opican territory. Later, large numbers of settlers arrived from Chalcis and the rest of Euboea. The founders were Perieres from Cuma and Crataemenes from Chalcis. The city was first called Zancle -- a Sicel word meaning "sickle," which described the shape of the harbor. Later the original settlers were driven out by some Samians and other Ionians who had landed in Sicily while fleeing the Persians. Not long after that, Anaxilas, the tyrant of Rhegium, expelled the Samians in turn, repopulated the city with a mixed group of settlers, and renamed it Messina, after his ancestral homeland.

Himera was founded from Zancle by Euclides, Simus, and Sacon. Most of the colonists were Chalcidians, though some exiles from Syracuse who had lost a civil war -- known as the Myletidae -- joined them as well. The language that developed was a blend of Chalcidian and Doric, but the political institutions were Chalcidian.

Acrae and Casmenae were both Syracusan colonies. Acrae was founded seventy years after Syracuse, and Casmenae about twenty years after Acrae.

Camarina was originally a Syracusan colony too, founded roughly a hundred and thirty-five years after Syracuse itself, with Daxon and Menecolus as its founders. But the Camarinaeans revolted, and the Syracusans drove them out by force. Later, Hippocrates, the tyrant of Gela, received the Camarinaean territory as ransom for some Syracusan prisoners and refounded the city, acting as its new founder himself. It was depopulated again by Gelo, then settled for a third time by the Geloans.

THE APPEAL FROM EGESTA

Such were the peoples -- Greek and non-Greek -- who inhabited Sicily. And such was the enormous island that the Athenians were now determined to invade. Their real ambition, if we are being honest, was to conquer the whole place, though the respectable cover story was that they were going to help their kinsmen and allies on the island.

What pushed them over the edge were envoys from Egesta, who had come to Athens begging for help more urgently than ever. The Egestaeans had gotten into a war with their neighbors, the Selinuntines, over marriage rights and a border dispute. The Selinuntines had brought in Syracuse as an ally and were hammering Egesta by both land and sea.

The Egestaean envoys reminded the Athenians of the alliance they had made back in the days of Laches, during the earlier war involving Leontini, and pleaded for Athens to send a fleet. Among many other arguments, they pressed one point especially hard: if the Syracusans were allowed to get away with depopulating Leontini and destroying Athens's remaining allies in Sicily -- if they were allowed to bring the entire island under their control -- then sooner or later they would come with a massive force to help their fellow Dorians and the Peloponnesians who had originally sent them out as colonists. Together, they would help tear down the Athenian empire. Athens would be wise, the Egestaeans argued, to stand with its remaining allies and push back against Syracuse now, while it still could. And to sweeten the deal, they declared that they were ready to put up the money to fund the war.

The Athenians heard these arguments repeated over and over in their assemblies by the Egestaeans and their Athenian supporters. They voted to send envoys to Egesta first, to verify that the money they kept talking about actually existed -- in their treasury and their temples -- and also to get a firsthand report on how the war with Selinus was going.

EVENTS IN THE PELOPONNESE

The Athenian envoys were dispatched to Sicily accordingly.

That same winter, the Spartans and their allies -- all except the Corinthians -- marched into Argive territory, ravaged a small portion of the land, seized some yoke-oxen, and carried off some grain. They also settled the Argive exiles at Orneae and left a small garrison from the main army. After arranging a temporary truce, under which neither the people of Orneae nor the Argives would raid each other's territory, they took the rest of the army home.

Not long after, the Athenians arrived with thirty ships and six hundred heavy infantry. The Argives came out in full force, and together they besieged the garrison at Orneae for a day. But the defenders slipped away during the night -- the besieging force had camped too far off. When the Argives discovered this the next day, they demolished Orneae and withdrew. The Athenians sailed home.

Meanwhile, the Athenians transported some of their own cavalry and some Macedonian exiles living in Athens by sea to Methone, on the Macedonian border, and raided the territory of Perdiccas. In response, the Spartans sent word to the Chalcidians in Thrace -- who had a truce with Athens that was renewed every ten days -- urging them to join Perdiccas in the war. The Chalcidians refused.

And so the winter ended, and with it the sixteenth year of this war that Thucydides has recorded.

THE ENVOYS RETURN -- AND ATHENS TAKES THE BAIT

Early the following spring, the Athenian envoys returned from Sicily. The Egestaeans came with them, carrying sixty talents of uncoined silver -- a month's pay for the sixty ships they planned to request.

The Athenians called an assembly. They heard from the Egestaeans and from their own envoys, who delivered a report that was as seductive as it was false. Everything was going well, they said. There was money everywhere -- in the temples, in the treasury, plenty for the war.

The Athenians voted to send sixty ships to Sicily, under the command of three generals given full powers: Alcibiades, son of Clinias; Nicias, son of Niceratus; and Lamachus, son of Xenophanes. Their orders were to help the Egestaeans against the Selinuntines, to restore the people of Leontini if the war went well, and generally to arrange affairs in Sicily in whatever way they judged best for Athens.

Five days later, a second assembly was held to work out the fastest way to get the fleet equipped and to vote the generals whatever additional resources they needed. Nicias, who had been appointed to the command against his will, believed the whole enterprise was a terrible idea. Athens was chasing the conquest of all Sicily -- a vast undertaking -- on the basis of flimsy pretexts and unreliable intelligence. He came forward, hoping to change the Athenians' minds, and spoke as follows:

THE SPEECH OF NICIAS

"I know this assembly was called to discuss preparations for the voyage to Sicily. But I believe we need to reconsider the more basic question: should we send these ships at all? We should not give such little thought to such an enormous decision, and we should not let ourselves be talked into a war that is none of our business by foreigners with their own agenda.

"Personally, I stand to gain honor from a command like this, and I worry about my own safety no more than anyone else. Not that I think a man is a worse citizen for looking after his own life and property -- in fact, a man like that has every reason to want his country to prosper. But I have never said anything I did not believe just to win applause, and I am not going to start now. I will tell you what I honestly think is best.

"I know my words will be weak against your temperament. If I told you to hold on to what you already have and not gamble real possessions for benefits that are uncertain at best, you would dismiss me. So instead, let me simply show you that your enthusiasm is badly timed and your ambitions are not as easy to achieve as you imagine.

"Here is what I want you to see: you are about to leave enemies behind you here at home and sail off to bring back new ones. Maybe you think the peace treaty you signed gives you some security. On paper, maybe it holds -- as long as you sit still. But in reality, that treaty is a dead letter, thanks to the actions of certain men both here and in Sparta. The moment we suffer any serious setback, our enemies will be on us in an instant. They only agreed to the treaty because they were in trouble, and they got less favorable terms than we did. It was never something they accepted with pride. Beyond that, plenty of the terms are still in dispute.

"And some of the most powerful states never accepted the agreement at all. Some of them are openly at war with us right now. Others are held in check only by truces that get renewed every ten days -- and you can bet that if they see our forces divided, which is exactly what we are about to do, they will attack us with everything they have, alongside the Sicilians, whose alliance they would have paid dearly for in the past.

"We need to think about this seriously. We should not be taking risks with a city in such a precarious position, and we should not be reaching for a second empire before we have secured the one we already have. The Chalcidians in Thrace, for instance, have been in revolt for years, and we still have not brought them to heel. Others on the mainland obey us only when it suits them. But here we are, rushing to defend the Egestaeans -- our supposed allies -- while the rebels who have been defying us for years go unpunished.

"And the thing is, if we actually subdued those rebels, we could keep them under control. But the Sicilians? Even if we conquered them, they are too far away and too numerous to govern effectively. It is sheer folly to attack people you cannot hold down even if you win, when failure would leave us far worse off than before.

"Consider the Sicilians as they are right now. In my judgment, even if Syracuse were to conquer the rest of Sicily -- which is the nightmare scenario the Egestaeans keep pushing -- they would actually be less dangerous to us than they are now. As things stand, individual Sicilian states might come here to help the Spartans, out of sympathy. But a unified Sicilian empire? One empire is not likely to attack another. If they joined the Peloponnesians in tearing down our empire, they would only be setting themselves up to be torn down next, by the same coalition.

"The Greeks in Sicily would fear us most if we never went there at all. Second best would be if we showed up, demonstrated our strength, and then left quickly. We all know that the thing farthest away, the thing whose reputation cannot be put to the test, is the thing people admire most. The moment we stumble, they will look down on us and join our enemies here in attacking us.

"You know this from your own experience with the Spartans. Your unexpected success against them -- so far beyond what you feared at first -- has now made you look down on them, tempting you to reach for Sicily on top of it all. But you should not be getting overconfident because of your adversaries' bad luck. You should be focused on breaking their will before you give in to confidence. Understand this: the one thing on the Spartans' minds, every single day, is how to recover from their humiliation and bring us down. Military honor is the oldest and deepest commitment in their culture.

"So if we are smart, we will not be fighting for the Egestaeans -- non-Greeks in a faraway land -- but figuring out how to defend ourselves against a Sparta that is scheming to destroy us.

"We should also remember that we have only just begun to recover from the great plague and from years of war. Our wealth and our population are finally building back up. We should be using those resources here, at home, for our own benefit -- not spending them on behalf of exiles whose interest lies in telling us the most attractive lies they can. These people talk and talk, and leave the danger to others. If they succeed, they will never show proper gratitude. If they fail, they will drag us down with them.

"And if there is anyone here -- overjoyed at being chosen for command -- who is urging this expedition for his own personal reasons, especially if he is still too young for such responsibility, a man who wants to be admired for his racing stable but hopes to fund his extravagant lifestyle out of the profits of command: do not let such a man buy his private glory at the public's expense. People like that damage the state while squandering their own fortunes. This is a matter of the highest importance, not something for a young man to decide on impulse.

"When I see this assembly packed with supporters of that very individual, sitting where he told them to sit, summoned by him -- it alarms me. And so I make my own appeal, to the older men among you. If you happen to be sitting next to one of his people, do not let yourself be shamed into silence, afraid of looking like a coward if you do not vote for war. Do not catch their sickness -- this mad craving for what is far away. Remember: success comes rarely from wishing and often from planning. As a true patriot, at a moment when your city faces perhaps the greatest danger in its history, raise your hand on the other side.

"Vote to leave the Sicilians where they are, within the boundaries that currently separate us -- the Ionian Sea for coastal traffic, the Sicilian Sea for the open crossing. Let them enjoy their own territory and sort out their own quarrels. Tell the Egestaeans specifically this: they started their war with the Selinuntines without consulting us, and they can finish it the same way. And let us resolve, going forward, not to keep making alliances with people who need our help in their crises but can never help us in ours.

"And you, Prytanis -- if you believe it is your duty to care for this city, if you want to prove yourself a good citizen -- put the question to another vote. Take the opinions of the Athenians a second time. If you are afraid of calling for a revote, consider this: with so many witnesses backing you, no one can call it a violation of procedure. You would be acting as a doctor to a city that has lost its mind. The duty of a man in office, put simply, is to do his country as much good as he can -- or at the very least, to do it no harm."

THE RESPONSE -- AND ALCIBIADES SPEAKS

Those were the words of Nicias. Most of the Athenians who came forward spoke in favor of the expedition and against reversing what had already been voted, though some did take Nicias's side.

But by far the most passionate advocate for the expedition was Alcibiades, son of Clinias. He wanted to oppose Nicias, who was his political rival and who had just attacked him in his speech. More than that, he was burning with ambition for a command that he believed would give him Sicily and Carthage both, and -- with success -- would make him personally rich and famous. He was the most prominent man in Athens, and his lifestyle reflected it -- or rather, exceeded it. He spent extravagantly on racehorses and everything else, well beyond what his actual fortune could support. In time, this would prove to be one of the causes of Athens's ruin.

The Athenian people were deeply unsettled by the sheer scale of his lawlessness in his personal life and by the grandiose ambition that colored everything he touched. They concluded he was aiming at tyranny, and they turned against him. And even though his management of the war was, in public terms, as good as anyone could ask for, his private behavior offended everyone. They ended up handing military affairs to other men -- and before long, this brought the city down.

But that was later. For now, Alcibiades stepped forward and gave the Athenians the following advice:

THE SPEECH OF ALCIBIADES

"Athenians, I have a better claim to this command than anyone else -- Nicias attacked me, so I have to start there -- and I believe I deserve it. The things I am criticized for actually bring glory to my ancestors, to me, and profit to Athens.

"Take the Olympic games. The Greeks had expected our city to be exhausted by the war. Instead, I showed up at Olympia and entered seven chariots in the races -- more than any private citizen in history -- won first place, came in second and fourth, and made sure everything else was done in a style worthy of that victory. Custom treats these displays as marks of honor, and people cannot help but see in them an impression of power. Or take the productions I have sponsored here in Athens -- the choruses and festivals. My fellow citizens may resent the expense, but foreigners who see it get an impression of strength.

"This is no empty vanity. When a man spends his own money to benefit not just himself but his city, his city gains. And it is not unreasonable for someone who takes pride in his position to refuse to be treated like everyone else. After all, when a man falls on hard times, nobody comes rushing to share his troubles. So by the same logic, a man should accept the resentments that come with success. Otherwise, let him treat everyone exactly equally first, and then demand to be treated equally in return.

"What I know is this: men like me -- and anyone who has achieved real distinction -- are unpopular during their lifetimes, especially with their peers. But after they die, everyone wants to claim a connection to them, real or invented. Their homeland boasts about them -- not as outsiders or troublemakers, but as fellow citizens and heroes. Those are my ambitions. My private life may draw criticism, but the question that matters is this: does anyone manage the city's affairs better than I do?

"I brought together the most powerful states in the Peloponnese, without putting Athens in serious danger or costing you much money, and I forced the Spartans to stake everything on a single battle at Mantinea. They won that battle -- and they still have not fully recovered their confidence.

"That is what my youth and my so-called 'monstrous recklessness' accomplished: I found the right arguments, I brought the energy, I won people over. So do not be afraid of my youth now. While I am still in my prime and Nicias still enjoys his reputation for good luck, make the most of what both of us can offer.

"And do not reverse your decision to sail to Sicily, thinking you would be attacking some great power. The cities there are stuffed with motley populations, constantly reshuffling their governments and institutions. The people who live there feel no real loyalty to their cities. They have not properly armed themselves and they have not really put down roots. Everyone is just looking for what they can grab from the public treasury through smooth talk or political maneuvering, ready to skip town at the first sign of real trouble. A mob like that is not going to unite behind a single strategy or act with any coordination. They will come over to our side one by one, the moment we make them a decent offer -- especially if they are torn by internal conflicts, as we hear they are.

"And their heavy infantry are not as numerous as they boast. The Greeks in general turned out to have far fewer soldiers than each city claimed during this war. Greece systematically overestimated its own numbers and could barely field adequate heavy infantry forces throughout the conflict. Sicily, from everything I hear, will be the same story. I have not even mentioned all our advantages: we will have the help of many non-Greek peoples in Sicily, who hate the Syracusans and will gladly join us against them.

"As for the situation back home -- it will not be a problem, if you think clearly about it. Our fathers faced these same enemies we would supposedly be leaving behind -- and they also had the Persians to deal with. Yet they still built this empire, relying on nothing but their superiority at sea. The Peloponnesians have never had less hope against us than they do right now. Even if they were supremely confident -- even though they are strong enough to invade Attica whether we go to Sicily or not -- they can never touch us at sea. We will leave behind a navy that is more than a match for theirs.

"So what possible reason do we have for holding back? What excuse can we offer our allies in Sicily for not helping them? They are our allies. We owe them support. We did not bring them into our alliance so they could help us in Greece. We brought them in so they could pressure our enemies in Sicily and keep those enemies from crossing over to attack us.

"This is how empires are won -- by us and by everyone who has ever held one -- by being constantly ready to help anyone who asks, whether Greek or non-Greek. If everyone sat around being selective about who deserved assistance, we would make few new conquests and risk losing the ones we have. You do not survive by just fending off attacks from stronger powers. You often have to strike first, to prevent the attack from ever coming. And we cannot draw a neat boundary around our empire and say 'this far and no further.' We have reached a point where we must either keep expanding or risk being dominated ourselves. Inaction is not the same thing for us as it is for others -- not unless you are ready to completely change the way this city operates.

"So let us be convinced: this expedition abroad will strengthen us at home. Let us sail to Sicily. Let us humble the pride of the Peloponnesians by showing them how little we care about the peace we are currently enjoying. Either we will become masters of all Greece -- which is entirely possible, once the Sicilian Greeks join our side -- or at the very least we will cripple the Syracusans, which benefits us and our allies enormously. Our navy will give us the option of staying if things go well or coming home if they do not. At sea, we will outclass every force in Sicily combined.

"Do not let the do-nothing philosophy Nicias is selling -- this idea of setting the young against the old -- turn you from your purpose. Follow the time-honored tradition by which our fathers, old and young together, brought this city to its current greatness by working in partnership. Youth and age each need the other. Recklessness, steady judgment, and careful deliberation are strongest when they work together. A city that sinks into inaction will wear itself out, just like anything else, and its abilities will decay. Every new challenge sharpens the city's skills and teaches it to defend itself not just in theory, but in practice.

"In short, I am convinced that a city like Athens -- active by nature -- would destroy itself faster by suddenly adopting a policy of inaction than by any other means. The safest course for any people is to take their character and their institutions as they are, for better or worse, and live by them as faithfully as they can."

THE ASSEMBLY DECIDES

Those were the words of Alcibiades.

After hearing him, the Egestaeans, and some exiles from Leontini who came forward to remind the Athenians of their sworn oaths and beg for their assistance, the Athenians were more fired up for the expedition than ever.

Nicias saw that his old arguments were useless now. But he thought he might change their minds a different way: by making his demands for the expedition so extravagant that the sheer scale would scare them off. He came forward a second time and spoke as follows:

"I can see, Athenians, that you are completely set on this expedition. I hope it turns out the way we all want. But let me share what I think we need.

"From everything I hear, we are going up against large, powerful, independent cities -- not places desperate for a change of government, not places that would welcome our rule as an improvement on their current freedom. Just counting the Greek cities, there are a great many of them on a single island. Besides Naxos and Catana, which I expect will join us because of their ties to Leontini, there are seven other cities armed to the teeth, with military forces comparable to our own. Selinus and Syracuse, in particular -- the main targets of this expedition -- are formidable. They are full of heavy infantry, archers, and javelin throwers. They have plenty of warships and the crews to man them. They have money, too -- some in private hands, some in the temples at Selinus, and at Syracuse there are offerings from non-Greek peoples as well. But their biggest advantage over us is their cavalry, and the fact that they grow their own grain instead of having to import it.

"Against a power like this, a light naval expedition will not cut it. We will need a massive land army to go with the fleet, if we are going to accomplish anything worthy of our ambitions and not get shut out of the countryside by their cavalry, especially if the cities unite against us and we end up with no friends except the Egestaeans to supply us with horses for our defense.

"It would be humiliating to be forced to retreat, or to have to send home for reinforcements because we did not think things through at the start. We need to leave Athens with a force that is up to the task from day one. Remember: we are sailing far from home, on an expedition nothing like the ones where we campaign among our own subject allies here in Greece, with friendly territory nearby to resupply from. We are cutting ourselves off and heading to a completely foreign land, from which it takes four months in winter just to get a message back to Athens.

"My view, therefore, is that we should bring large numbers of heavy infantry -- both Athenian and allied -- and not just from our subject states. We should recruit from the Peloponnese too, by payment or persuasion. We need large numbers of archers and slingers as well, to counter the Sicilian cavalry. We need overwhelming superiority at sea so we can bring in supplies without difficulty. We must carry our own grain in merchant ships -- wheat and parched barley -- along with bakers from the mills, conscripted and paid, in the right proportions. That way, if bad weather pins us down, the army will not go hungry, since not every city will be able to feed an army our size. We need to be as self-sufficient as possible in every category, so we are not dependent on anyone else. And above all, we must bring as much money from home as we can. As for the funds supposedly waiting for us at Egesta -- trust me, they are readier in talk than in any other form.

"Even if we leave Athens with a force that is not just equal to the enemy -- aside from their advantage in heavy infantry on the ground -- but actually superior in every way, we will still find it hard to conquer Sicily, or even to survive out there. Make no mistake: we would effectively be founding a city in hostile territory. A commander who undertakes something like that should be prepared to become master of the country on the very first day he lands -- because if he does not, he will find everything and everyone arrayed against him.

"I know this, and I know that we will need a great deal of good planning and even more good luck -- and luck is something mortals can never count on. That is why I want to take every possible precaution before we sail and go in with a force strong enough to give us real security. I believe this is the safest course for the city as a whole and for those of us who will be on the expedition. If anyone disagrees, I will gladly hand over my command."

A CITY IN LOVE WITH WAR

Nicias concluded his speech, fully expecting one of two outcomes: either the Athenians would be put off by the sheer enormity of what he was demanding, or, if they still insisted on going, at least he would have ensured they went with the largest possible force.

It backfired spectacularly.

The Athenians were not deterred in the slightest. If anything, they wanted the expedition more than ever. They decided Nicias had given excellent advice and that now the expedition would be the safest thing in the world. A kind of collective passion swept through the city. The older men convinced themselves they would either conquer every place they sailed against or, with such an overwhelming force, could not possibly come to any harm. The men in their prime were seized with longing for distant lands and foreign spectacles, confident they would make it home safely. The common soldiers and sailors looked forward to earning good wages now and winning conquests that would keep the money flowing forever.

The enthusiasm of the majority was so overpowering that anyone who had doubts kept quiet, afraid of looking unpatriotic if they voted against it.

Finally, one of the Athenians stood up and confronted Nicias directly. Enough stalling, he said. No more excuses. Tell us right here and now: what forces should we vote for?

Nicias answered reluctantly. He would have preferred to discuss it privately with his fellow generals. But speaking off the top of his head, he said they needed at minimum a hundred warships -- with as many Athenian transports as they could manage, plus more requisitioned from the allies. They needed at least five thousand heavy infantry in total, Athenian and allied, and more if possible. The rest of the force should be proportional: archers from Athens and from Crete, slingers, and whatever else the generals deemed necessary.

The Athenians immediately voted to give the three generals full and unlimited authority over the size of the army and the expedition as a whole, to do whatever they judged best for Athens.

Preparations began at once. Messages were sent to the allies. Enrollment lists were drawn up at home. The city had recently recovered from the plague and from the long years of war. A new generation of young men had come of age, and the truce had allowed wealth to accumulate again. Everything they needed was readily available.

THE AFFAIR OF THE HERMAE

In the middle of all these preparations, something happened that shook the city to its core.

One morning, Athens woke up to find that nearly every stone Herma in the city had been mutilated overnight. The Hermae were the familiar square stone pillars with carved faces that stood in doorways everywhere -- in front of private homes, in front of temples. Someone had gone around in the darkness and smashed the faces off almost all of them.

No one knew who had done it. The state offered large rewards for information. They also passed a decree guaranteeing immunity to anyone -- citizen, foreigner, or slave -- who came forward with evidence of this or any other act of sacrilege.

The city took this extremely seriously. People saw it as an evil omen for the expedition, and worse, as part of a conspiracy aimed at overthrowing the democracy.

Information did come in -- but not about the Hermae. Some resident aliens and household slaves reported that there had been earlier incidents: young men, drunk and out of control, had vandalized other sacred statues on previous occasions. There were also reports of mock celebrations of the Mysteries -- the sacred rites of Demeter and Persephone -- performed as a joke in private homes.

Alcibiades was implicated in these charges. His enemies seized on them -- the men who resented him most because he stood between them and unchallenged influence over the people. They believed that if Alcibiades could be removed, they would take his place at the top. So they magnified the accusations and loudly proclaimed that the affair of the Mysteries and the mutilation of the Hermae were all part of a single plot to overthrow the democracy, and that Alcibiades was behind all of it. As proof, they pointed to the general pattern of contempt for the law that characterized his entire lifestyle.

ALCIBIADES DEMANDS A TRIAL -- AND IS DENIED

Alcibiades denied the charges on the spot. He also offered, before sailing -- the preparations were by now complete -- to stand trial immediately so the matter could be resolved. If he was guilty, let them punish him. If he was acquitted, let him take the command. He protested against the idea of letting slanders fester in his absence and begged the Athenians: if you think I am guilty, put me to death now. Do not send me off at the head of a massive army with this cloud hanging over me.

But his enemies calculated shrewdly. If Alcibiades stood trial now, while the army still adored him and the people were inclined to be generous toward the man who had brought the Argives and some of the Mantineans into the expedition, he would probably be acquitted. They needed him gone first. They put forward other speakers who argued that Alcibiades should not hold up the departure of the fleet. He should sail now and face trial when he returned, within a set number of days. Their plan, of course, was to manufacture a more serious charge against him in his absence, when he would be unable to defend himself.

The assembly voted to let him sail.

THE DEPARTURE

And so the fleet prepared to leave for Sicily. It was now around midsummer.

Most of the allies, along with the grain transports, the smaller craft, and the rest of the support fleet, had already been ordered to assemble at Corcyra. From there, the whole armada would cross the Ionian Sea together to the Iapygian promontory on the Italian coast.

But the Athenians themselves, and whatever allies were already with them in the city, went down to the Piraeus on the appointed day, at dawn, to board the ships and put out to sea.

With them went the entire population of Athens. Or so it seemed. Citizens and foreigners alike streamed down to the harbor. The people of the city escorted their own -- friends, relatives, sons -- walking beside them on the road to the port. Hope and grief mingled in equal measure. They thought about the conquests they hoped to win. They thought about the people they might never see again, considering how far from home the fleet was sailing.

Now, at this final moment of parting -- when they were actually about to separate from each other -- the danger hit them harder than it had when they voted for the expedition. And yet the sheer strength of the force, the stunning abundance of everything they could see in every direction -- the men, the ships, the equipment -- could not help but give them comfort. The foreigners and the crowds who had no one to see off came simply to witness a spectacle that was worth seeing and almost beyond belief.

Because this was, without question, the most expensive and magnificent force that any single Greek city had ever sent out.

In raw numbers of ships and heavy infantry, the earlier expeditions against Epidaurus under Pericles and against Potidaea under Hagnon had been comparable -- four thousand Athenian heavy infantry, three hundred cavalry, a hundred warships, plus fifty ships from Lesbos and Chios, and many other allies besides. But those expeditions were sent on short voyages with minimal equipment. This one was outfitted for a long campaign, prepared to fight both on land and at sea, and equipped for either as the situation demanded.

The fleet had been prepared at enormous cost to both the captains and the state. The treasury paid each sailor a drachma a day and provided the hulls -- sixty warships and forty transports -- crewed with the best sailors available. The individual ship captains added bonuses on top of the state pay for the upper-tier oarsmen and the rest of the crew, and they spent lavishly on figureheads and gear. Every captain drove himself to make his own ship the most beautiful and the fastest in the fleet.

The land forces had been selected from the top of the enrollment lists. The soldiers competed fiercely with each other over the quality of their armor and personal equipment.

The result was that the men were competing against each other -- and the rest of Greece was watching in awe. It looked less like an army sailing off to fight an enemy and more like a city putting its wealth and power on display for the world.

If anyone had tallied up the total cost -- the public expenditure the state had already committed and was now placing in the generals' hands, plus the private spending of individual citizens on their own outfits, plus what each ship captain had already sunk into his vessel and would continue to spend, plus the pocket money every soldier and trader had brought along for a voyage of this length, over and above their official pay -- the sum would have come to many talents being drained from the city in a single stroke.

The expedition became famous not just for its astonishing boldness and its dazzling appearance, but for the overwhelming scale of its power relative to the peoples it was going to fight. It was the farthest any Greek force had ever sailed from home, and the most ambitious in its aims given the resources of those who launched it.

THE FLEET SAILS

When the ships were manned and everything was loaded aboard, a trumpet sounded for silence.

The prayers that were customary before putting out to sea were offered -- not on each ship separately, but all together, the entire armament at once, following the words of a single herald. Bowls of wine were mixed across the whole fleet, and soldiers and officers poured libations from cups of gold and silver.

The crowds on shore joined in the prayers -- the citizens, and everyone else who wished the fleet well.

When the hymn was finished and the libations poured, they put out to sea. They sailed out in a single column at first, then broke into a race against each other all the way to Aegina. From there they pressed on toward Corcyra, where the rest of the allied forces were already gathering.

CHAPTER 19

Seventeenth Year of the War — Parties at Syracuse — Story of Harmodius and Aristogiton — Disgrace of Alcibiades

THE DEBATE AT SYRACUSE

Meanwhile, in Syracuse, reports of the expedition were arriving from every direction — and for a long time, nobody believed a word of them. Eventually an assembly was convened, where various speakers stood up to either confirm or deny the rumors of an Athenian invasion. Among them was Hermocrates, son of Hermon, who stepped forward convinced that he actually knew the truth. He addressed the assembly as follows:

"I realize I will probably be no more believed than anyone else when I tell you the expedition is real. I know how this works: people who report things that seem too outlandish to be true don't win converts — they just get called fools. But I am not going to stay quiet when the city is in danger, especially when I am more certain of my facts than anyone else here.

"Incredible as it sounds, the Athenians have launched a massive force against us — ships and soldiers both. Their official excuse is to help the Egestaeans and restore the people of Leontini. Their real objective is to conquer Sicily, starting with our city, since they figure the rest will fall easily once Syracuse is taken.

"So prepare yourselves. They will be here soon. Figure out how to fight them with what you have on hand. Do not let your guard down because you find the news hard to swallow, and do not neglect the public good because you refuse to believe it.

"At the same time, those of you who do believe me should not panic at the enemy's strength or daring. They will not be able to do us more damage than we do to them. In fact, the sheer size of their armament actually works in our favor. The bigger it is, the more it will terrify the other Sicilians into joining us. And if we defeat them or drive them away empty-handed — which I do not doubt for a second — it will be an extraordinary triumph for Syracuse.

"Large expeditions that venture far from home rarely succeed, whether they are Greek or non-Greek. They never outnumber the local population and its neighbors — people who band together out of shared fear. And if the invaders fail because they cannot keep themselves supplied in foreign territory, they still leave a legacy of glory to the people they attacked, even when their own mistakes were the main cause of their defeat. That is exactly how Athens itself rose to greatness: the Persian king came to attack them, the Persians lost — largely through their own blunders — and Athens got the credit. The same thing could very well happen here.

"So let us begin preparing with confidence. Let us send envoys to the Sicels — to lock in some alliances and win over others. Let us dispatch messengers to the rest of Sicily to show that this danger threatens everyone, and to Italy to bring them onto our side — or at the very least, to make sure they refuse to harbor the Athenians. I also think we should send to Carthage. The Carthaginians are already worried that Athens might attack them someday, and they may well decide that letting Sicily fall would put their own city at risk. They might be willing to help us, secretly if not openly, in one way or another. If they choose to, they are the best positioned to do it — they have more gold and silver than anyone alive, and gold and silver are what make wars run.

"We should also send to Sparta and Corinth, asking them to come help us immediately and to keep the war burning in Greece.

"But here is the thing I believe we should do most of all — the thing that you, with your ingrained love of taking it easy, will be slowest to accept, and that I must bring up anyway. If we Sicilians — all of us together, or as many as possible — would just launch every warship we have with two months' supplies, and sail out to meet the Athenians at Tarentum and the tip of Italy, we would show them that before they even get to fight for Sicily, they will have to fight for their right to cross the Ionian Sea. That alone would throw their whole army into shock.

"It would force them to think hard. We would have a base of operations — Tarentum is ready to receive us — while they would have a vast open sea to cross with their entire armament, a fleet that could barely hold formation over such a long voyage and would be easy to pick off as it straggled in piecemeal.

"On the other hand, suppose they lightened their ships and came at us with just their fastest vessels. If they had been rowing hard, we could attack while they were exhausted. Or, if we chose not to fight, we could simply pull back to Tarentum. They, having crossed with barely any supplies and only enough for a battle, would be stranded in desolate country — forced to either sit still and be blockaded or try to creep along the coast, abandoning the rest of their fleet, without even knowing whether the cities ahead would take them in.

"I am convinced that just thinking about all this would be enough to stop them from leaving Corcyra in the first place. What with debating and scouting to figure out our numbers and position, they would waste so much time that winter would overtake them. Or they would be so rattled by this unexpected resistance that the whole expedition would simply fall apart — especially since their most experienced general, I am told, took command against his will and would jump at the first decent excuse to turn around.

"Word would also spread that our numbers are larger than they really are. People are influenced by what they hear. And the ones who strike first — or who make it clear they are ready to fight — always inspire the most fear. That is exactly what would happen with the Athenians. Right now they are attacking because they think we will not resist. They have some justification for looking down on us, since we did not help the Spartans crush them. But if they saw us showing the kind of fight they never expected, they would be more shaken by the surprise than they ever could be by our actual strength.

"I wish I could convince you to show that courage. But if I cannot, then at the very least, do not waste another moment preparing for war. Remember: contempt for your attacker is best expressed through bravery in action. For now, though, the safest course is to let fear drive your preparations and treat the danger as if it were already at your doorstep. Because the Athenians are coming. They are already on their way. They are practically here. Of that, I am certain."

So spoke Hermocrates. But the Syracusans were tearing themselves apart with arguments. Some insisted the Athenians had no intention of coming and that Hermocrates was making the whole thing up. Others said that even if they did come, so what? — Syracuse could give them back ten times whatever damage they inflicted. Still others shrugged the whole business off as a joke. In short, very few people believed Hermocrates or took the threat seriously.

Then Athenagoras stepped forward — the leader of the popular faction and the most powerful man with the masses at that time. He spoke as follows:

"Anyone who does not hope the Athenians are as reckless as they are said to be, and that they will come here and fall into our hands, is either a coward or a traitor. As for the men who bring us these alarming reports, I am less amazed by their boldness than by their stupidity — if they think we cannot see right through them. These men have their own private reasons to be frightened, and they want to throw the whole city into a panic so that the public alarm will overshadow their own. That is all these reports amount to. They do not arise on their own. They are manufactured by the same people who are always stirring up trouble in Sicily.

"If you have any sense, you will not base your calculations on what these agitators tell you. Instead, consider what shrewd, experienced people — which is what I take the Athenians to be — would actually do. It is not likely that they would leave the Peloponnesians behind them and deliberately go looking for a second war just as difficult as the one they have not finished in Greece. In my judgment, they are relieved that we are not the ones attacking them, given how many cities we have and how powerful they are.

"But suppose they do come, as the rumor says. I believe Sicily is better equipped to fight this war than the Peloponnese — better prepared in every way. And our city by itself is more than a match for this so-called invasion force, even if it were twice as large. I know they will not have cavalry with them or be able to get any here, except maybe a handful from the Egestaeans. They cannot bring enough heavy infantry to match ours when they are already struggling to transport their forces this distance — and that is before you even count the enormous quantity of supplies required to sustain a siege against a city this size.

"To put it bluntly: I do not see how they could avoid total destruction even if they brought another city the size of Syracuse, set it down right on our border, and fought the war from there. How much less can they hope to succeed operating from nothing but a camp of tents pitched beside their ships, in hostile territory, unable to move far for fear of our cavalry?

"The Athenians understand all this, I can assure you. They are busy looking after what they have at home, while certain people here invent stories that are not true now and never will be. This is nothing new. I have watched these same men try, time and again, to frighten the public with tales like these — and with schemes even worse — all to get their hands on the government. And I cannot help worrying that one of these days they might actually succeed, and that we, as long as we have not yet felt the sting, will prove too slow to stop them or, once we identify the offenders, too slow to punish them.

"This is why our city is never at peace — why we are constantly fighting among ourselves as much as against any foreign enemy, not to mention the occasional tyranny and political conspiracy. But if you stand behind me, I will make sure none of this happens on our watch. I will win over you, the majority, and I will punish these schemers — not only when they are caught in the act, which is hard enough, but also for what they clearly intend to do. Because you have to stop an enemy not just for what he has done, but for what he is planning to do. If you wait until after the blow lands, you have already lost your advantage.

"I will also keep watch on the oligarchic faction — criticize them, monitor them, and warn them when necessary. That is the most effective way to keep them in line.

"And here is what I have often wanted to ask you younger men directly: What is it you want? To hold office right now? The law forbids it — and that law exists not to insult you but because you are not yet qualified. Do you object to being treated the same as everyone else? But how can it be right for citizens of the same state to claim they deserve more than their fellow citizens?

"Some will argue that democracy is neither wise nor fair, and that the wealthy are better suited to rule. I say the opposite. First, the word 'demos' — the people — means the whole state. Oligarchy means only a part of it. Second, while the rich may be the best guardians of money and the wise may give the best advice, it is the many who are the best judges after hearing the arguments. And in a democracy, all these talents — individual and collective — find their proper place. An oligarchy, by contrast, makes the many share in the danger but hogs all the profit. And that is precisely what the powerful and ambitious among you are after. But in a great city, you will never get away with it.

"Even now — you fools, the most senseless of all the Greeks I know, if you genuinely do not understand the wickedness of your plans; or the most criminal, if you do understand and persist anyway — even now, learn some wisdom, if not from guilt then from self-interest. Recognize that when the city prospers, men of your class benefit as much as anyone — more, in fact, than the average citizen. But if you pursue these other designs, you risk losing everything.

"Drop these alarmist reports. The people see right through you and will not stand for it. If the Athenians come, this city will beat them back in a manner worthy of its name. We have generals who will handle it. And if the whole story turns out to be false — which is what I believe — the city will not be stampeded into a panic by your so-called intelligence, or hand itself over to your rule under the guise of self-protection. The city will investigate the matter for itself. It will judge your words as if they were actions. And instead of letting you talk it out of its freedom, it will make sure it always has the means to defend itself."

After Athenagoras finished, one of the generals stood up and cut off any further speakers. He added some words of his own:

"It does no good for speakers to hurl accusations at each other, or for the audience to encourage it. We should focus on the intelligence we have received and figure out how every citizen and the city as a whole can best prepare to repel the invaders. Even if there turns out to be no need, there is no harm in the state stocking up on horses, weapons, and everything else an army requires. We will take charge of organizing this. We will send men to the neighboring cities to gather information and handle whatever else seems necessary. Some of this we have already seen to. Whatever we learn, we will report to you."

With those words from the general, the Syracusans left the assembly.

THE ATHENIANS CROSS TO SICILY

In the meantime, the Athenians and their entire allied force had arrived at Corcyra. Here the generals conducted another review of the armament and worked out the order of march. They divided the fleet into three squadrons, one for each general, to avoid the problems that would come from sailing in a single mass — fighting over water, anchorage, and provisions at every stop. Having separate squadrons, each under its own commander, would also make the whole force easier to manage.

They then sent three ships ahead to Italy and Sicily to find out which cities would welcome them, with orders to sail back and meet the fleet on the way so they would know where they could safely land.

After that, the Athenians weighed anchor from Corcyra and set out across the sea to Sicily. The full armament now consisted of one hundred and thirty-four warships in all — one hundred Athenian (sixty fighting galleys and forty troop transports), plus two fifty-oared Rhodian vessels and the rest from Chios and the other allies. On board were five thousand one hundred heavy infantry in total: fifteen hundred Athenian citizens drawn from the rolls at Athens, seven hundred thetes serving as marines, and the remainder allied troops — some of them Athenian subjects, plus five hundred Argives and two hundred and fifty Mantinean mercenaries. They also had four hundred and eighty archers (eighty of them Cretan), seven hundred Rhodian slingers, one hundred and twenty light-armed Megarian exiles, and one horse transport carrying thirty cavalry mounts.

That was the strength of the first expedition to sail for the war. Their supplies were carried on thirty cargo ships loaded with grain, along with the bakers, stonemasons, and carpenters needed for siege works, and all their tools. One hundred small boats accompanied the fleet, some commandeered into service like the cargo ships, and many others — trading vessels and supply boats — that followed voluntarily, hoping to profit from the campaign.

The entire armada now left Corcyra together and struck out across the Ionian Sea. Making landfall at the tip of Italy — the Iapygian promontory — and at Tarentum, with varying degrees of luck, they coasted along the shores of Italy. City after city shut its gates and its markets against them, offering nothing but water and permission to anchor. Even Tarentum and Locri refused them that much.

Finally they reached Rhegium, the southernmost point of Italy. Here the fleet reassembled. Since the Rhegians would not let them inside the walls, they pitched camp outside the city in the precinct of Artemis, where a market was set up for them. They hauled their ships onto the beach and waited.

While camped there, they opened negotiations with the Rhegians, urging them — as fellow Chalcidians — to help their kinsmen in Leontini. The Rhegians refused to take sides. They would wait and see what the rest of the Italian Greeks decided, and follow their lead.

The Athenians now began debating among themselves what the best strategy would be for the Sicilian campaign. They were also waiting for the scout ships to return from Egesta, to find out whether the money the Egestaean envoys had promised back in Athens actually existed.

THE TRICK OF THE EGESTAEANS

Meanwhile, from every direction — including their own scouts — the Syracusans received definitive confirmation that the fleet was at Rhegium. They dropped their skepticism and threw themselves into preparations. Guards and envoys were dispatched to the Sicel communities. Garrisons were posted in the outlying forts. The city conducted a full review of its horses and weapons to make sure nothing was lacking. Every possible step was taken to prepare for a war that could arrive at any moment.

Then the three Athenian scout ships returned from Egesta to Rhegium — with devastating news. Far from the vast sums that had been promised, all the Egestaeans could actually produce was thirty talents.

The generals were badly shaken. This was a terrible way to start. Making it worse, the Rhegians — the first people the Athenians had tried to recruit, and the ones they had the best reason to expect support from, given their kinship with the Leontines and their long friendship with Athens — had refused to join them.

Nicias, for his part, was not surprised. He had expected something like this from Egesta all along. But his two colleagues were stunned.

Here is how the Egestaeans had pulled it off. When the first Athenian inspectors arrived to examine their resources, the Egestaeans had taken them to the temple of Aphrodite at Eryx and shown them the treasures stored there: bowls, wine cups, incense burners, and all sorts of other silver plate. Because it was silver, it created an impression of wealth far beyond its actual value.

They had also hosted the Athenian sailors at lavish private dinners. For these banquets, they collected every gold and silver cup they could find — not just in Egesta, but borrowed from neighboring Phoenician and Greek towns. Each host brought these borrowed cups to the table as if they were his own. Since everyone was using more or less the same set of dishes and there appeared to be an enormous quantity of plate at every house, the Athenian sailors were dazzled. When they got home to Athens, they could not stop talking about the incredible wealth they had seen.

These were the men — the dupes — who had in turn persuaded everyone else. Now, when the truth came out that the money at Egesta was a fraction of what had been claimed, the soldiers turned on them with fury.

THE THREE GENERALS DISAGREE

The generals now debated what to do.

Nicias proposed that they sail with the entire fleet to Selinus, which was the main stated objective of the expedition. If the Egestaeans could fund the whole force, they would adjust their plans accordingly. If not, they should demand that Egesta provide supplies for the sixty ships it had originally requested, stay long enough to settle the dispute between Egesta and Selinus — by force or negotiation — and then cruise past the other cities. They would make a show of Athenian power, demonstrate their commitment to their friends and allies, and then sail home. They should not drain Athens' resources on this venture — unless some sudden, unexpected opportunity arose to help the Leontines or win over other cities.

Alcibiades argued that a great expedition like this one must not humiliate itself by turning around empty-handed. They should send heralds to every city except Selinus and Syracuse, working to detach the Sicels from Syracuse's orbit and to win the friendship of other communities — securing grain and troops. The first priority should be Messina, which sat right at the entrance to Sicily and would give them an excellent harbor and base of operations. Once they knew who their allies were, they could finally move against Syracuse and Selinus — unless Selinus came to terms with Egesta and Syracuse stopped opposing the restoration of Leontini.

Lamachus took the boldest position. He said they should sail straight for Syracuse and fight under its walls immediately, while the population was still unprepared and the panic was at its peak. Every invasion force was most terrifying at the beginning. If you let time pass without showing yourself, people's courage came back, and by the time you finally appeared, they greeted you almost with indifference. By striking now, while Syracuse still trembled at their approach, they would have the best chance of winning a decisive victory and paralyzing the enemy — through the sheer spectacle of their numbers (which would never look as impressive as they did right now), through the dread of what was about to happen, and above all through the shock of immediate battle.

They could also expect to surprise many people still out working in the fields, not believing the Athenians had really come. While the Syracusans were scrambling to bring their property inside the walls, the Athenian army, camped in force outside the city, would have all the plunder it needed. The rest of Sicily, seeing this, would immediately think twice about allying with Syracuse and would come over to the Athenians without waiting to see who was stronger.

Their naval base, Lamachus said, should be Megara — uninhabited, and not far from Syracuse by either land or sea.

After making this case, Lamachus nevertheless ended up throwing his support behind Alcibiades' plan.

FIRST MOVES IN SICILY

After this, Alcibiades sailed his own ship across to Messina and proposed an alliance. He failed. The Messinese said they would not let him inside their walls, though they would set up a market for him outside. He sailed back to Rhegium.

As soon as he returned, the generals manned and provisioned sixty ships from the fleet and coasted up to Naxos, leaving the rest of the armament at Rhegium under one of their number. The Naxians received them. They then continued along the coast to Catana, but the inhabitants refused to let them in — there was a pro-Syracusan faction in the town. So they moved on to the Terias River, bivouacked for the night, and the next day sailed in single file toward Syracuse with the entire squadron, except for ten ships sent ahead into the great harbor to see if the Syracusans had launched any fleet. These advance ships also carried a herald who proclaimed from the decks that the Athenians had come to restore the Leontines to their homeland, since they were Athens' allies and kinsmen. Any Leontines living in Syracuse should leave without fear and join their friends and benefactors, the Athenians.

After making this proclamation and scouting the city, the harbors, and the surrounding terrain — all the features they would need to know for a base of operations — they sailed back to Catana.

An assembly was held at Catana. The citizens again refused to admit the army, but invited the generals to come inside and state their case. While Alcibiades was addressing the assembly and the townspeople were absorbed in listening, the Athenian soldiers found a poorly sealed postern gate, broke it down without being noticed, and poured into the city, flooding into the marketplace. The pro-Syracusan party in Catana took one look at the army inside the walls and fled — they were not many. The rest of the citizens voted to ally with Athens and invited the Athenians to bring over the rest of their forces from Rhegium.

The Athenians then sailed back to Rhegium and this time set out with the entire armament for Catana, where they immediately began building their camp.

Word soon arrived from Camarina that if the Athenians showed up, the city would come over to them. There were also reports that Syracuse was manning a fleet. So the Athenians sailed along the coast with their full force, first toward Syracuse — where they found no fleet being launched — then onward to Camarina. They put in at the beach and sent a herald to the people. But the Camarinaeans refused to receive them, saying their oaths only permitted them to admit a single Athenian vessel, unless they themselves specifically invited more.

Disappointed, the Athenians turned back. On the return voyage they made a landing on Syracusan territory and did some plundering, but lost a few stragglers from their light infantry when the Syracusan cavalry rode up. Then they returned to Catana.

THE RECALL OF ALCIBIADES

There they found the state ship Salaminia, which had arrived from Athens with orders for Alcibiades. He was to sail home immediately and answer the charges the state had brought against him. The same orders applied to a number of other soldiers who had been accused alongside him of sacrilege — both in the affair of the mysteries and in the mutilation of the Hermai.

Here is what had happened. After the expedition sailed, the Athenians had continued their investigations into both scandals with undiminished intensity. But instead of carefully vetting their informers, the Athenians — in their mood of frenzied suspicion — welcomed every accusation indiscriminately. They arrested and imprisoned some of their most respected citizens on the word of complete scoundrels. They preferred to interrogate everyone and get to the bottom of the conspiracy rather than let a single suspect go free, no matter how sterling his reputation, just because the man who accused him was worthless.

The common people had learned from history how the tyranny of Pisistratus and his sons had grown more oppressive before it was finally overthrown. More importantly, they knew that the tyranny had been brought down not by ordinary Athenians — not even by Harmodius — but by the Spartans. This knowledge kept them in a state of permanent anxiety, and they regarded everything with suspicion.

THE TRUE STORY OF HARMODIUS AND ARISTOGITON

The famous deed of Aristogiton and Harmodius was, in fact, the result of a love affair. I am going to tell the full story at some length, because it shows that the Athenians are no more accurate than anyone else when it comes to their own history — even the history of their own tyrants.

When the tyrant Pisistratus died, old and still in power, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Hippias — not by Hipparchus, as most people believe.

Here is what happened. Harmodius was then at the height of youthful beauty, and Aristogiton, a middle-class Athenian citizen, was his lover. Hipparchus, Pisistratus's son, made advances toward Harmodius and was rejected. Harmodius told Aristogiton about the unwanted attention, and Aristogiton — furious, and terrified that someone as powerful as Hipparchus might simply take Harmodius by force — immediately began plotting to overthrow the tyranny, to whatever extent a man of his modest position could manage.

Meanwhile, Hipparchus tried again with Harmodius and was rebuffed a second time. He was unwilling to use force — that was not his style. But he resolved to insult Harmodius in some way that would not reveal the real motive.

And in fact, the government of these tyrants was not particularly harsh on the general public, and their rule was not resented in practice. The sons of Pisistratus pursued culture and learning as much as any rulers of their era. They taxed the Athenians only a twentieth of their income. They beautified the city splendidly. They prosecuted their wars. They funded the sacrifices at the temples. In everyday life, the city continued to be governed by its existing laws — with one critical exception: the ruling family always made sure that one of their own held the top offices.

Among those who served as archon at Athens was Pisistratus the Younger, son of the tyrant Hippias, named after his grandfather. During his year in office, he dedicated the altar to the Twelve Gods in the marketplace and the altar of Apollo in the Pythian precinct. The Athenian people later extended and enlarged the altar in the marketplace, which obliterated the original inscription. But the one in the Pythian precinct can still be read, though the letters are fading. It says:

Pisistratus, the son of Hippias, set up this memorial of his archonship in the precinct of Pythian Apollo.

Now — that Hippias was the eldest son and the one who succeeded to power, I state as a fact, based on more reliable information than what most people have. But it can also be demonstrated by the following evidence.

Hippias is the only one of Pisistratus's legitimate sons who is recorded as having had children. The altar on the Acropolis confirms this, as does the pillar commemorating the crimes of the tyrants — neither monument mentions any children of Hipparchus or of Thessalus, but it lists five children of Hippias by his wife Myrrhine, the daughter of Callias, son of Hyperechides. It stands to reason that the eldest son would have married first.

Furthermore, Hippias's name appears first on the pillar, immediately after his father's. This too is perfectly natural: he was the eldest son and the reigning ruler.

And consider this: I cannot believe Hippias would have seized and held the tyranny so smoothly on the very day Hipparchus was killed, if Hipparchus had been the one in power all along and Hippias had been an outsider trying to step in. No — Hippias had clearly spent years building his authority, keeping the citizens in line, and commanding the loyalty of his mercenaries. He took over without hesitation and without any of the fumbling you would expect from a younger brother suddenly thrust into a role he had never practiced. It was only because Hipparchus was the one who died dramatically that later generations gave him the credit of having been the tyrant.

THE PLOT AND THE ASSASSINATION

To return to Harmodius. After being rejected, Hipparchus carried out the insult he had planned. Harmodius had a sister, a young girl, and Hipparchus first invited her to serve as a basket-bearer in a religious procession — then publicly rejected her, claiming she had never really been invited at all, because she was unworthy of the honor.

Harmodius was outraged. But Aristogiton, for Harmodius's sake, was even more enraged than before. The two of them made their arrangements with the men who would join them in the conspiracy, and then they waited. They were waiting for one specific day: the Great Panathenaea, the only occasion when the citizens taking part in the procession could carry weapons openly without arousing suspicion.

The plan was this: Aristogiton and Harmodius would strike first, and their fellow conspirators would immediately rush in to deal with the bodyguard. They had deliberately kept the number of plotters small, for security. They were counting on the fact that once a few men acted boldly, the rest of the armed citizens in the procession — even those who knew nothing of the plot — would be swept up in the moment and use the weapons already in their hands to fight for their freedom.

The day of the festival arrived. Hippias was outside the city walls, in the Ceramicus district, organizing the order of the procession with his bodyguard around him. Harmodius and Aristogiton already had their daggers ready and were about to move — when they saw one of their fellow conspirators chatting casually with Hippias. (Hippias was the approachable type, easy for anyone to talk to.) Instantly they panicked. They were sure they had been betrayed and were about to be arrested.

Before that could happen, they wanted at least to take their revenge on the man who had started all of this — the man for whom they had risked everything. Just as they were, they rushed through the gates of the city. They found Hipparchus near the Leocorium and fell on him in a frenzy — Aristogiton driven by love, Harmodius by the burning insult — and they stabbed him and killed him.

Aristogiton managed to escape through the crowd in the immediate chaos, but he was captured afterward and put to death — not mercifully. Harmodius was killed on the spot.

When the news reached Hippias in the Ceramicus, his reaction was immediate — and chillingly composed. He did not rush to the scene of the murder. Instead, he walked directly to the armed citizens assembled for the procession, before they had heard anything (they were some distance away and still in the dark). Keeping his face perfectly controlled, betraying nothing, he pointed to a spot nearby and ordered them to move there without their weapons.

They obeyed, assuming he had something to tell them. Once they had stepped aside, Hippias told his mercenaries to collect the abandoned weapons. Then, right there on the spot, he picked out the men he suspected, along with anyone found carrying a dagger — since the standard equipment for the procession was a shield and spear, not a blade.

THE AFTERMATH

So it was offended love that first drove Harmodius and Aristogiton to conspire, and a sudden moment of panic that pushed them into the reckless act itself.

After the assassination, the tyranny bore down harder on Athens than ever. Hippias, now living in fear, executed many citizens. At the same time, he began looking abroad for a safe haven in case of revolution. Though he was an Athenian through and through, he married his daughter Archedice to a man from Lampsacus — Aeantides, the son of the city's tyrant — because the family had powerful connections with the Persian King Darius. Her tomb is at Lampsacus, with this inscription:

This earth holds Archedice, daughter of Hippias, the foremost man of his day in Greece. Though her father, husband, brother, and sons were tyrants, her mind was never turned to arrogance.

Hippias ruled for three more years after the assassination. In the fourth year, he was overthrown by the Spartans and the exiled Alcmaeonid family. He left Athens under a safe-conduct and went to Sigeum, then to Aeantides at Lampsacus, and from there to the court of King Darius. Twenty years later, as an old man, he set out from that court and came with the Persians to Marathon.

THE HYSTERIA IN ATHENS

With all of this rattling around in their collective memory — and with everything else they had heard about tyrants and tyranny — the Athenian people became increasingly suspicious and hostile toward those accused in the affair of the mysteries. They convinced themselves that the whole thing was part of an oligarchic conspiracy to overthrow the democracy and install a tyranny.

In this atmosphere of mounting rage, many prominent citizens had already been thrown into prison. Far from calming down, the public mood grew uglier by the day, and more arrests followed. Finally, one of the prisoners — a man thought to be among the guiltiest — was persuaded by a fellow inmate to make a confession. Whether the confession was true or false has never been determined. No one, then or since, has been able to say for certain who actually mutilated the Hermai.

His fellow prisoner argued as follows: even if you did not do it, you should confess in exchange for a guarantee of immunity. Save yourself and free the city from this climate of terror. A confession with guaranteed immunity is a safer bet than denial followed by a trial, given how things stand. The man was persuaded. He made a statement implicating himself and others in the affair of the Hermai.

The Athenian public was thrilled. They believed they had finally gotten to the truth, and they were relieved after the agonizing uncertainty of not knowing who had conspired against the democracy. They immediately released the informer and everyone he had not named. Those he did accuse were put on trial: as many as could be caught were executed, and those who had fled were condemned to death in absentia with a bounty placed on their heads.

In the end, it remained entirely unclear whether the people who were punished were actually guilty. But the rest of the city experienced immediate and unmistakable relief.

THE DEFECTION OF ALCIBIADES

To return to Alcibiades. Public feeling against him was fierce, stoked by the same enemies who had been attacking him before the expedition sailed. Now that the Athenians believed they had uncovered the truth about the Hermai, they became even more convinced that the affair of the mysteries — in which Alcibiades was implicated — had also been his doing, part of the same plot to overthrow the democracy.

It so happened that just at this moment of hysteria, a small Spartan force had advanced to the Isthmus of Corinth, apparently in connection with some scheme involving the Boeotians. People immediately decided this too was Alcibiades' work — that the Spartans had come by arrangement with him, not because of the Boeotians. They reasoned that if the authorities had not acted on the tip-off and arrested the conspirators first, the city would have been betrayed. The citizens were so frightened that they spent one night sleeping in their armor in the temple of Theseus inside the city walls.

Around the same time, the friends of Alcibiades in Argos fell under suspicion of plotting against the Argive democracy. The Athenians responded by handing over the Argive hostages they had been holding on the islands, so the Argive people could execute them.

In short, everywhere you looked, something was feeding the suspicion against Alcibiades.

The Athenians decided to bring him home for trial and execution. They dispatched the Salaminia to Sicily for him and the others named in the charges. The crew's orders were to tell Alcibiades to come home and answer the accusations — but not to arrest him physically. The Athenians wanted to avoid causing unrest in the army or alarming the enemy in Sicily. Above all, they wanted to keep the Mantineans and Argives in the force, since it was widely believed that Alcibiades' personal influence was the reason those allies had joined the expedition in the first place.

Alcibiades, along with his fellow accused, sailed from Sicily with the Salaminia in his own ship, as if heading home to Athens. But when they reached Thurii, in southern Italy, they left the ship and vanished. They were not about to stand trial in Athens with the deck so thoroughly stacked against them.

The crew of the Salaminia searched for Alcibiades and his companions for some time. When they could not be found, the Salaminia gave up and sailed back to Athens.

Alcibiades, now a fugitive, soon crossed by boat from Thurii to the Peloponnese.

The Athenians tried him in absentia and condemned him to death — him and everyone with him.

CHAPTER 20

Seventeenth and Eighteenth Years of the War -- Inaction of the Athenian Army -- Alcibiades at Sparta -- Investment of Syracuse

The two Athenian generals left in charge of the Sicilian expedition now divided the army into two parts, drew lots, and each took one. They sailed with the whole force toward Selinus and Egesta, wanting to find out whether the Egestaeans would actually produce the money they had promised and to look into the dispute between Selinus and Egesta firsthand. They coasted along Sicily with the shore on their left, heading toward the Tyrrhenian Gulf, and put in at Himera -- the only Greek city on that stretch of coast. When they were refused entry, they moved on. Along the way they captured Hyccara, a small Sicanian port town that happened to be at war with Egesta. They enslaved the inhabitants and handed the town over to the Egestaeans, some of whose cavalry had joined them. Then the army marched overland through Sicel territory to reach Catana, while the fleet sailed along the coast with the enslaved prisoners on board.

Meanwhile, Nicias sailed straight from Hyccara along the coast to Egesta. He wrapped up his business there, collected thirty talents of silver, and rejoined the main force. They sold the prisoners for a total of one hundred and twenty talents, then sailed around to their Sicel allies to press them to send troops. They also took half their own force and attacked the hostile town of Hybla, in the territory of Gela. They failed to take it.

That was the end of summer. When winter came, the Athenians immediately began preparing to move on Syracuse, while the Syracusans prepared to march out against them. Here is the thing: from the moment the Athenians failed to attack them right away -- as the Syracusans had feared and fully expected -- every day that passed rebuilt their confidence a little more. When they watched the Athenian force sailing off to the far side of the island, and when they heard it had gone to Hybla and failed to take a minor town by storm, they lost whatever remaining respect they had for the invaders. In the way that crowds always do when they are feeling bold, they started demanding that their generals lead them out to Catana, since the enemy obviously was not coming to them. Meanwhile, Syracusan cavalry patrols kept riding up close to the Athenian camp, hurling insults. Among their taunts: had the Athenians really come to settle down in someone else's country, rather than to resettle the Leontines in their own?

The Athenian generals saw what was happening and came up with a plan. They wanted to draw the entire Syracusan army out of the city and as far away as possible. While the Syracusans were on the march, the Athenians would sail by night along the coast and seize a strong position at their leisure. They knew they could never pull this off if they had to disembark from their ships in the face of a prepared enemy, or march overland in plain sight. The Syracusan cavalry -- which the Athenians had nothing to match -- would tear apart their light troops and the mass of camp followers. But this plan would let them take up a position where the cavalry could do them no real harm. Syracusan exiles traveling with the army had told them about a good spot near the Olympieum -- the very position they would later occupy.

To make the plan work, the generals devised the following trick. They sent a man to Syracuse who was secretly loyal to them but whom the Syracusan generals believed was on their side. He was a native of Catana, and he claimed he had been sent by a pro-Syracusan faction there -- men whose names the Syracusan generals recognized as members of their party still operating inside the city. He told them this: the Athenians spent their nights inside the town, well away from their weapons. If the Syracusans would pick a day and march with their full force to attack at dawn, the conspirators would lock the gates on the Athenian troops inside the city and set fire to their ships. The Syracusans could then easily overrun the camp by storming the stockade. Many Catanians, he said, were already prepared to act. He was their messenger.

The Syracusan generals, who were already brimming with confidence and had been planning a march on Catana even without this intelligence, believed the man without bothering to verify his story. They immediately fixed a date and sent him on his way. By this time, their allies from Selinus and elsewhere had arrived, so they gave the order: every Syracusan was to march out in full strength. Their preparations complete, the appointed time at hand, they set out for Catana and made camp for the night on the river Symaethus, in Leontine territory.

The Athenians knew they were coming. The moment they confirmed the Syracusan army was on the move, they loaded their entire force -- along with every Sicel and other ally who had joined them -- onto their ships and boats, and sailed by night for Syracuse. At dawn, the Athenians were landing opposite the Olympieum, ready to seize their campsite. The Syracusan cavalry, having ridden ahead to Catana only to find the entire Athenian force gone, wheeled around and reported to the infantry. Then the whole Syracusan army turned around and marched back to defend their city.

But it was a long march. And while they were on the road, the Athenians calmly settled into a strong position. They chose a spot where they could start a battle whenever they wanted and where the Syracusan cavalry would have the least chance of harassing them, either before or during the fighting. On one side they were screened by walls, houses, trees, and a marsh. On the other side, cliffs. They felled the nearby trees and carried them down to the shore to build a palisade alongside their ships. They threw up a quick fort of stones and timber at Daskon, the most exposed point of their position, and tore down the bridge over the Anapus River. All of this went undisturbed from the city. The first hostile force to appear was the Syracusan cavalry, and eventually the infantry followed. At first they approached the Athenian army closely. But when the Athenians did not come out to fight, the Syracusans crossed the Helorine road and made camp for the night.

THE BATTLE

The next morning, the Athenians and their allies formed up for battle. Their formation was arranged like this: the right wing was held by the Argives and Mantineans, the center by the Athenians themselves, and the rest of the line by the other allies. Half the army was drawn up eight ranks deep in the front line. The other half was posted close to the camp in a hollow square, also eight deep, with orders to watch the fighting and be ready to reinforce whatever part of the line came under the heaviest pressure. The camp followers were placed inside this reserve formation.

The Syracusans, meanwhile, formed their heavy infantry sixteen ranks deep -- the full levy of their own citizens plus whatever allies had joined them. The largest allied contingent was from Selinus. Next came the Geloan cavalry, about two hundred strong, along with roughly twenty horsemen and fifty archers from Camarina. Their cavalry was posted on the right wing, twelve hundred strong in all, with javelin-throwers beside them.

Just before the Athenians began the attack, Nicias went along the lines and spoke to the army, addressing each contingent in turn:

"Men, we do not need a long pep talk. The force assembled here speaks louder than any speech could with a weak army behind it. When you have Argives, Mantineans, Athenians, and the finest of the island peoples standing together in the same battle line, how could we not feel confident of victory? Especially when our picked, professional soldiers face their mass levy of citizen-militia -- Sicilians who may look down on us but who will not stand their ground, because their bravery far outstrips their actual skill.

"Remember something else: we are a long way from home, with no friendly territory nearby -- none except what you win with your own swords. The enemy's generals are telling their men to fight for their homeland. I am telling you the opposite: fight because this is not your homeland. Either we win here, or we will barely get away alive, with their cavalry running us down in numbers. So remember who you are. Go at them boldly. And understand that the danger staring you in the face right now is more terrifying than anything they can throw at you."

With that, Nicias immediately led the army forward.

The Syracusans had not expected the Athenians to attack first. Some of them had even wandered off into the city, which was nearby. These men now came sprinting back and took whatever positions they could find in the main formation as they arrived. It was not courage or determination that the Syracusans lacked -- not in this battle or any other. In bravery, they were every bit the Athenians' equal. But their military skill could not match it, and when their training failed them, their resolve went with it.

Even so, despite being caught off guard and forced to fight on short notice, they snatched up their weapons and advanced to meet the enemy. First, the skirmishers on both sides -- stone-throwers, slingers, and archers -- went at each other in the no-man's-land between the armies, driving each other back and forth the way light troops always do. Then the priests brought forward the ritual sacrifices, the trumpets sounded the charge, and the heavy infantry closed the distance.

They advanced with different things burning in their hearts. The Syracusans were fighting for their country, and each man was fighting for his own survival today and his freedom tomorrow. In the opposing army, the Athenians were fighting to make someone else's country their own and to protect their homeland from the consequences of defeat. The Argives and the independent allies fought to help win what they had come for and to earn, by victory, another sight of the homes they had left behind. And the subject allies -- the ones who served Athens not by choice -- fought hardest of all for simple self-preservation, which was impossible unless they won. As a secondary motive, they figured that helping Athens conquer new territory might mean lighter obligations for themselves down the road.

The two armies crashed together and fought for a long time with neither side giving ground. During the battle, thunder and lightning broke out, along with heavy rain. For the Syracusans -- first-time soldiers who knew almost nothing of war -- this added to their fear. Their more experienced opponents recognized it as nothing more than seasonal weather and were far more concerned about the enemy's stubborn refusal to break.

Finally, the Argives drove in the Syracusan left wing. Then the Athenians shattered the forces opposing them. The Syracusan army was split in two and broke into a rout.

The Athenians did not pursue far. The Syracusan cavalry -- still twelve hundred strong and undefeated -- kept them in check, charging at any Athenian heavy infantry who pushed too far ahead of the main body. The victors followed as far as they safely could in a compact mass, then pulled back and raised a trophy.

The Syracusans rallied on the Helorine road and re-formed their ranks as best they could. They even managed to send a garrison of their own citizens to the Olympieum, worried that the Athenians might seize the treasure stored there. The rest fell back into the city.

The Athenians did not touch the temple. They collected their dead, laid them on a pyre, and spent the night on the battlefield. The next day, they returned the Syracusan dead under truce -- about two hundred and sixty, Syracusans and allies combined -- and gathered the bones of their own fallen, roughly fifty Athenians and allies. They took the enemy's captured equipment, then sailed back to Catana.

It was now winter, and continuing the campaign against Syracuse seemed impossible for the moment. They needed cavalry sent from Athens and recruited from their Sicilian allies -- without it, they were completely outmatched on horseback. They needed money, both raised locally and sent from home. They needed to win over some of the Sicilian cities, which they hoped would now be more willing to listen after the battle. And they needed to stockpile food and supplies for a spring campaign against Syracuse.

HERMOCRATES RALLIES SYRACUSE

With that plan in mind, they sailed off to Naxos and Catana for the winter. Meanwhile, the Syracusans cremated their dead and held an assembly. Hermocrates, son of Hermon, stepped forward. He was a man of extraordinary ability -- both a first-rate strategic thinker and a soldier of proven, brilliant courage. He stood before the demoralized Syracusans and told them not to let what had happened break their spirit. Their courage had not been beaten, he said. Their lack of discipline had been beaten. Still, they had not lost by as much as you might expect, especially considering that they were, frankly, amateurs going up against the most experienced soldiers in all of Greece -- a citizen army of tradesmen and farmers against career warriors.

What had also done enormous damage, he said, was having too many generals. There were fifteen of them, issuing a flood of conflicting orders, which only compounded the troops' disorder and indiscipline. But if they elected just a handful of capable generals and gave them this winter to prepare -- arming the heavy infantry properly, equipping those who currently had no weapons, making the army as large as possible, and drilling them relentlessly -- they would have every chance of beating the Athenians. They already had the courage. All they needed was the discipline to go with it. And both qualities would improve with practice: the danger of combat would teach them discipline, while real training would give them the confidence that comes from knowing what you are doing.

The generals, he argued, should be few in number and elected with full authority. The army should swear an oath to let these commanders exercise complete discretion. This way, he said, their plans would stay secret, their preparations would be carried out properly, and there would be no room for excuses.

The Syracusans heard him out and voted to adopt every one of his recommendations. They elected three generals: Hermocrates himself, Heraclides son of Lysimachus, and Sicanus son of Execestes. They also sent ambassadors to Corinth and Sparta to secure allied reinforcements and to persuade the Spartans to commit seriously to the war against Athens -- so that the Athenians would either have to pull out of Sicily or at least be unable to send more troops.

ALCIBIADES BETRAYS ATHENS

The Athenian forces at Catana immediately sailed for Messina, expecting the city to be handed over to them by traitors inside. But the plot came to nothing -- and here is why. Alcibiades, who had been in on the conspiracy, gave it away. When he was recalled to Athens from his command and saw that he would certainly be condemned, he tipped off the pro-Syracusan party in Messina. They immediately executed the plotters, then took up arms and rallied their supporters, successfully keeping the Athenians out. The Athenians waited thirteen days, but they were exposed to bad weather, had no provisions, and were getting nowhere. They gave up and sailed back to Naxos, where they hauled their ships ashore, built a palisade around their camp, and settled in for the winter. They also sent a galley to Athens to request money and cavalry for the spring.

The Syracusans used the winter productively. They extended their city wall to encompass the statue of Apollo Temenites, running it along the entire side facing Epipolae. The point was to make the perimeter that any besieging army would have to wall off much longer and more difficult. They also built a fort at Megara and another at the Olympieum, and drove stakes along the shoreline at every possible landing spot. And when they learned the Athenians were wintering at Naxos, they marched out with their full army to Catana and burned the Athenian camp, tents and all. Then they went home.

They also learned that the Athenians were sending diplomats to Camarina, trying to win over that city on the basis of an old alliance from the days of the general Laches. So the Syracusans sent their own embassy to counter them. They had a strong suspicion that the Camarinaeans had sent their token cavalry contribution for the first battle without much enthusiasm, and they were now afraid the Camarinaeans would refuse to help them at all going forward and might instead join the Athenians, encouraged by the Athenian victory. So Hermocrates and several others arrived at Camarina from Syracuse, while Euphemus and others came from the Athenian side. An assembly of the Camarinaeans was convened, and Hermocrates spoke first, hoping to turn them against the Athenians:

THE SPEECH OF HERMOCRATES

"Camarinaeans, we did not come on this embassy because we are afraid of you being intimidated by the Athenian forces currently in Sicily. No. We are afraid of what the Athenians will say to you before you hear our side. They have come to Sicily with a pretext you already know and an intention we all suspect. In my opinion, they are here not to restore the Leontines to their homes but to drive us out of ours.

"It defies all reason that Athens destroys cities in Greece and then claims to be restoring them in Sicily. Or that Athens cherishes the Leontines because of their shared Ionian blood while keeping the Euboean Chalcidians -- the Leontines' own parent people -- in slavery. No. They are running the exact same playbook in Sicily that worked so well for them in Greece. After being chosen to lead the Ionians and the other allies of Athenian descent in the war against Persia, the Athenians started accusing their own allies -- this one of dodging military service, that one of fighting against a fellow ally, any excuse they could find -- until they had crushed them all. The bottom line is this: in the Persian War, the Athenians did not fight for the freedom of the Greeks, and the Greeks did not fight for their own freedom. The Athenians fought to replace the Persian king as master, and the Greeks simply traded one overlord for another -- one who was cleverer, yes, but cleverer at doing them harm.

"But we did not come here to catalog the crimes of Athens before an audience that already knows them. We came to blame ourselves. We have the example of the enslaved Greeks on the other side of the sea as a warning. We can see the same tricks being played on us right now -- 'restoring' Leontine kinsmen here, 'supporting' Egestaean allies there. And yet we do not stand together. We do not declare with one voice: 'We are not Ionians, not islanders, not the kind of people who change masters the way they change clothes, always serving someone -- first the Persians, then whoever comes next. We are free Dorians from the independent Peloponnese, and we live in Sicily.'

"Are we just going to wait here until they pick us off one by one? Because we know -- we know -- that is the only way we can be conquered. And we can see them working that exact strategy: using words to split some of us apart, using the bait of an alliance to set others at each other's throats, using flattery tailored to each city's particular vulnerabilities. Do we really think that when they destroy a distant fellow Sicilian, the danger will stop there? That whoever falls first will fall alone, and the rest of us will be safe?

"Now, there may be someone among you who thinks: 'Syracuse is the enemy of Athens, not me. Why should I risk anything for Syracuse?' Let me say this clearly: he will be fighting in my country, yes -- but he will also be fighting for his own. And he will be fighting far more safely, because he will not be fighting alone after I have already been destroyed. He will be fighting with me as his ally. The Athenian goal here is not to punish Syracuse in particular. They want to use me as a stepping stone to get to you.

"And if there is someone among you who envies Syracuse, or even fears us -- because great powers always attract envy and fear -- and who for that reason would like to see us humbled, just to teach us a lesson, but who still wants us to survive for his own security: that wish is a fantasy. You cannot control circumstances the way you control your own desires. If your calculations go wrong, you may find yourself mourning your own misfortune and wishing you could go back to envying our prosperity. But that wish will be worthless if you abandon us now and refuse to share in dangers that are just as much yours as ours -- the same in reality, even if not in name. What you call 'preserving Syracusan power' is, in fact, preserving your own survival.

"You of all people, Camarinaeans -- our immediate neighbors, next in line for the danger -- should have seen this coming. Instead of the lukewarm support you have been offering, you should have been the ones approaching us, offering at Syracuse the same help you would beg for at Camarina if the Athenians had come to you first. But neither you nor anyone else has stepped up.

"Perhaps fear will lead you to play it safe with both sides, claiming you have an alliance with the Athenians that prevents you from acting. But you made that alliance as a defense against enemies, not against your friends. It was meant to protect you when the Athenians were wronged by others -- not to help them when they are the ones doing the wronging, as they are now. Even the Rhegians, Chalcidian Greeks themselves, refuse to help Athens restore the Chalcidian Leontines. They see through the pretty rhetoric, and they are wise without needing a reason. Will you, who have every reason in the world, choose to help your natural enemies and join Athens's worst foes to destroy your own kinsmen? You should not do this. You should stand with us without fear of their army. That army has no power over us if we hold together. It only becomes dangerous if they succeed in what they are trying to do -- divide us. Even when they fought us one-on-one, they won the battle but could not achieve their objective.

"United, we have no reason to despair. We have every reason to form a tighter league, especially since reinforcements will be coming from the Peloponnesians, who are simply better soldiers than the Athenians.

"And do not fool yourselves that this middle path of yours -- siding with neither because you are allied to both -- is either safe for you or fair to us. In theory, it sounds evenhanded. In practice, it is not. If we lose and the Athenians win because you refused to help, the result of your neutrality is this: you left the defeated side to die unaided and gave the winning side a free hand. Would it not be more honorable to fight alongside the injured party -- your own kinsmen -- and defend the common interests of Sicily while saving your Athenian friends from committing an injustice?

"In conclusion, we Syracusans tell you plainly: it is pointless for us to lecture you or the others about things you already understand perfectly well. Instead, we beg you -- and if our begging fails, we formally accuse you: we are being attacked by our eternal enemies, the Ionians, and betrayed by you, our fellow Dorians. If the Athenians destroy us, your decision will have handed them the victory. They will get the glory in their own name, and the prize of their triumph will be the very people who made it possible. On the other hand, if we win, you will have to answer for being the cause of our danger.

"Think about it. Make your choice. Right now. Between the safety of submitting to Athens today and the chance of fighting alongside us and escaping -- without disgrace -- both Athenian domination and the lasting enmity of Syracuse."

Such were the words of Hermocrates. After him, Euphemus, the Athenian ambassador, spoke as follows:

THE SPEECH OF EUPHEMUS

"We came here only to renew our existing alliance. But the attack from the Syracusan side forces us to address the question of our empire and our right to hold it. The speaker himself provided the best proof when he called the Ionians 'eternal enemies' of the Dorians. That is exactly right. The Peloponnesian Dorians outnumber us and live right next door. As Ionians, we had to find the best way to avoid being dominated by them.

"After the Persian War, we had a fleet. That fleet ended Spartan supremacy -- and the Spartans had no more right to give us orders than we had to give them. Their only claim was that they happened to be the strongest at the time. We were appointed leaders of the allies who had fought the Persian king, and we continue in that role. We believe we are least likely to fall under Peloponnesian domination if we maintain a force capable of defending ourselves. And strictly speaking, we have done nothing unjust in subjecting the Ionians and the islanders -- the 'kinsmen' the Syracusans say we have enslaved. These kinsmen of ours marched against their mother city -- against us -- alongside the Persians. Instead of having the courage to revolt and sacrifice their property as we did when we abandoned our own city, they chose slavery for themselves and tried to impose it on us.

"We deserve our empire because we placed the largest fleet and an absolute willingness to die at the service of the Greek cause, and because these subjects of ours had already done us harm through their eager collaboration with Persia. Setting that aside, we seek strength against the Peloponnesians. We make no grand claims about having earned the right to rule because we defeated the Persians single-handedly or because we risked what we risked for the freedom of these subject peoples rather than for everyone, including ourselves. No one can be faulted for looking after his own survival. And if we are here in Sicily now, it is equally a matter of our own security -- which we see as aligned with yours.

"We can prove this from the very conduct the Syracusans use to accuse us and that you find somewhat alarming. We know that people made suspicious by fear can be swept up by a persuasive speech in the moment, but when it comes time to act, they follow their interests.

"As we have said: fear drives us to hold our empire in Greece, and fear drives us here, with the help of our friends, to put affairs in Sicily on a secure footing -- not to enslave anyone, but to prevent anyone from being enslaved. And let no one suggest that we are meddling in your affairs for no reason. If you survive and can hold your own against Syracuse, the Syracusans will be less likely to send forces to help the Peloponnesians hurt us. That makes your survival very much our business. This is why it makes perfect sense for us to restore the Leontines -- not as subjects, like their kinsmen in Euboea, but as strong and independent as possible, so they can be a thorn in Syracuse's side right from their own border. In Greece, we handle our enemies alone. And as for the claim that it makes no sense for us to free people in Sicily while enslaving people back home: the Chalcidians in Euboea are useful to us precisely because they are disarmed and pay tribute in money. The Leontines and our other friends here are more useful the more independent they are.

"For an imperial power, nothing is unreasonable if it serves their interests. No one is a kinsman unless they are reliable. Friendship and enmity are determined by circumstances, everywhere and always. Here in Sicily, our interest lies not in weakening our friends but in using their strength to weaken our enemies. Why should you doubt this? In Greece, we treat our allies according to their usefulness. The Chians and Methymnians govern themselves and just provide ships. Most of the rest face harder terms and pay tribute. Some allies, though they are islanders and easy to conquer, remain completely free because they sit in strategically useful positions around the Peloponnese. So naturally, in Sicily too, we would be guided by our interests and -- as we have said -- by our concern about Syracuse.

"Syracuse's ambition is to rule all of you. Their strategy is to use the suspicion we provoke to unite you against us, and then, once we have left without accomplishing anything, to dominate Sicily through force or through your isolation. And dominate you they will, if you unite with them. A combined force of that size would be nearly impossible for us to deal with, and the moment we leave, they would be more than a match for you on your own.

"The facts condemn any other reading of the situation. When you first invited us here, you warned that if Syracuse came to dominate you, the danger would reach Athens next. It is not fair for you to distrust that same argument now, or to object because we brought a larger force to deal with a larger threat. The ones you should really distrust are the Syracusans. We cannot stay here without your cooperation, and even if we were treacherous enough to try to subjugate you, we could never hold this island -- it is too far from home, the cities are too large and too defensible. The Syracusans, on the other hand, live right beside you. They are not in a temporary camp but in a permanent city, bigger than any force we have brought. They never stop plotting against you, they never miss an opportunity -- as they proved with the Leontines and others -- and now they have the nerve to ask you to help them against the one power that stands in their way and has kept Sicily free until now.

"We offer you something far more real: when we ask you not to betray the mutual safety we share, consider this. The Syracusans, even without allies, will always have the numbers to threaten you. But you will not often have the chance to defend yourselves with a force as large as ours. If you let suspicion drive us away -- empty-handed or defeated -- the day will come when you would give anything to see even a fraction of our forces return. And by then, it will be too late for them to do you any good.

"But we hope, Camarinaeans, that Syracusan slander will not succeed with you or with anyone else. We have told you the plain truth about the things we are accused of, and we will now summarize our case. We are rulers in Greece so that we will not be subjects. We are liberators in Sicily so that Sicily will not be used to harm us. We interfere in many affairs because we have many threats to guard against. Now, as before, we have come as allies to those in this island who are being wronged -- not uninvited, but invited. So rather than sitting in judgment on our conduct and trying to turn us away -- which would be difficult at this point anyway -- take whatever in our policies and our character serves your interest, and use it. Because far from harming everyone equally, our power actually benefits most Greeks. Everywhere, even in places where we have no presence, anyone who fears aggression or is contemplating it must reckon with us -- the aggrieved knowing they can call for our help, the aggressor knowing our arrival would make the venture dangerous. Both sides, as a result, are forced into restraint: one against its will, the other without any effort of its own. Do not reject this protection. It is available to everyone who wants it, and it is being offered to you right now. Do what others have done. Instead of always being on the defensive against Syracuse, join with us and finally threaten them for a change."

Such were the words of Euphemus.

Here is what the Camarinaeans actually felt. They sympathized with the Athenians -- except insofar as they feared Athens might try to take over all of Sicily. And they had always been on bad terms with their neighbor Syracuse. But precisely because Syracuse was their neighbor, they feared the Syracusans even more than the Athenians. They worried that Syracuse might win even without their help. This was why they had sent only the token cavalry contribution for the first battle. Going forward, they decided to give Syracuse the most actual support, while keeping it as minimal and quiet as possible. But for the moment, not wanting to snub the Athenians -- especially after the Athenian victory -- they gave both sides the same answer: since both of the warring parties happened to be their allies, they felt that honor required them, for the time being, to side with neither.

Both sets of ambassadors went home.

WINTER PREPARATIONS

While Syracuse continued its war preparations, the Athenians wintered at Naxos and tried to win over as many of the Sicel peoples as possible through diplomacy. The lowland Sicels, who were subjects of Syracuse, mostly refused. But the peoples of the interior -- who had always been independent -- joined the Athenians almost immediately, with few exceptions. They brought grain down to the army, and in some cases money as well. The Athenians marched against those who refused to cooperate and forced some of them to submit. In other cases, the Syracusans stopped them by sending garrisons and reinforcements.

Meanwhile, the Athenians moved their winter quarters from Naxos to Catana, rebuilt the camp that the Syracusans had burned, and settled in for the rest of the season. They sent a galley to Carthage with offers of friendship, hoping to get assistance. They sent another to the Tyrrhenian coast, where some cities had spontaneously volunteered to join them. They also sent word to the Sicels and to Egesta, requesting as many horses as possible. At the same time, they began stockpiling bricks, iron, and everything else needed for siege works. The plan was to begin operations in full force come spring.

ALCIBIADES AT SPARTA

Meanwhile, the Syracusan ambassadors who had been dispatched to Corinth and Sparta tried to win over the Italian Greeks as they sailed along the coast, arguing that Athenian ambitions threatened Italy just as much as Syracuse. When they reached Corinth, they made their case on the grounds of shared kinship. The Corinthians voted immediately and wholeheartedly to support them, then sent their own envoys along with the Syracusans to Sparta, to help persuade the Spartans to prosecute the war against Athens more aggressively at home and to send direct aid to Sicily.

When the ambassadors from Corinth arrived at Sparta, they found Alcibiades already there -- along with the other Athenian exiles who had fled with him. He had crossed over from Thurii in a merchant vessel, first to Cyllene in Elis and then on to Sparta itself, at the Spartans' own invitation, after first obtaining a guarantee of safe conduct. He needed that guarantee. He was well aware that the Spartans had reasons to fear him for the part he had played in the alliance against them at Mantinea.

The result was that the Corinthians, the Syracusans, and Alcibiades all pressed the same case before the Spartan assembly. They made headway: the Spartans were persuaded. But the ephors and the leadership, though they agreed to send envoys to Syracuse warning against surrender to Athens, showed no inclination to send actual troops. At that point, Alcibiades himself stepped forward. What he said next electrified the room and lit a fire under the Spartans like nothing else could have:

THE SPEECH OF ALCIBIADES

"I have to address the obvious problem first -- the prejudice against me -- so that your suspicion of my motives does not make you deaf to what I have to say about the things that matter.

"My family once served as your diplomatic representatives in Athens, a connection my ancestors abandoned over some disagreement. I personally tried to restore it through my services to you, especially after your disaster at Pylos. I maintained a consistently friendly attitude toward Sparta. But you chose to negotiate the peace with Athens through my political enemies, which strengthened them and humiliated me. So you had no right to complain when I turned to the Mantineans and the Argives and seized every opportunity I could find to thwart and damage you. The time has come for those of you who were angry about that -- understandably, at the time -- to look at it clearly and take a different view.

"And if anyone judged me harshly because I leaned toward the democratic side: understand that their dislike is equally unfounded. My family has always opposed tyranny. Anyone who stands against one-man rule gets lumped in with 'the democrats.' That is how we became leaders of the popular faction. Besides, with democracy as the established government of Athens, we had to work within the system. We tried to be more moderate than the reckless spirit of the times. There were others, then as now, who led the mob toward worse instincts -- the very people who ended up banishing me. Our faction represented the whole people. Our principle was to preserve the system under which the city had achieved its greatest power and freedom, a system we inherited, not invented. As for democracy itself: every sensible person knows what it really is, and I know it as well as anyone -- I have more reason to curse it than most. But there is nothing new to say about so obvious an absurdity. And we did not think it wise to change the government while you were standing at our gates.

"So much for the personal charges. Now let me turn to the matters you need to consider -- matters on which I can perhaps speak with some authority.

"We sailed to Sicily with the intention of conquering the Sicilian Greeks first, then the Italian Greeks, and then attacking the empire and city of Carthage itself."

He let that sink in.

"If all or most of these plans succeeded, the next target was the Peloponnese. We planned to bring the entire force of the western Greeks with us, hire massive numbers of non-Greek mercenaries -- Iberians and others from those regions, who are widely considered the fiercest warriors alive -- and build a vast new fleet in addition to what we already had, since Italy has unlimited timber. With this combined navy blockading the Peloponnese from the sea, and our armies attacking by land -- storming some cities, building siege walls around others -- we expected to crush the Peloponnese without great difficulty. And after that, to rule the entire Greek world. Money and grain for all of this would come from the newly conquered territories, independent of the revenue we already collect at home."

He paused.

"You have just heard the true plan of the Sicilian expedition, from the man who knows it best. The remaining generals will carry it out exactly as described, if they can.

"Now let me explain why Sicily will fall without your help. The Sicilians, for all their inexperience, might still be saved if they could unite their forces. But the Syracusans alone -- already beaten in battle with their entire army, already blockaded from the sea -- cannot hold out against the Athenian force that is there now. And if Syracuse falls, all of Sicily falls with it. Italy will follow immediately. And then the danger I just described -- the grand invasion from the west -- will be on your doorstep.

"So let no one think this is just about Sicily. The Peloponnese is at stake too -- unless you act quickly.

"Here is what you must do.

"Send troops to Syracuse by ship -- men who can row their own vessels and then fight as heavy infantry the moment they step ashore. And even more important than the troops: send a Spartan officer to take command. His job will be to whip the existing forces into shape and compel the reluctant to serve. The friends you already have there will fight harder, and those still sitting on the fence will finally join you.

"You must also step up the war here in Greece, openly, so the Syracusans can see you have not forgotten them. That will stiffen their resistance. And the Athenians will be less able to send reinforcements if they are under pressure at home.

"And you must fortify Decelea in Attica."

This was the blow. Alcibiades knew exactly what he was doing.

"Decelea is the thing Athens fears most -- the one move in this entire war they believe you have never made. The surest way to hurt an enemy is to find out what terrifies him and then do exactly that. Every man knows his own weaknesses best and dreads them accordingly.

"Let me tell you what a fort at Decelea would accomplish. Everything in the Athenian countryside -- property, crops, livestock -- would be yours, either by capture or surrender. Athens would lose the revenue from the silver mines at Laurium in a single stroke. They would lose the income from their land. They would lose the fees from their law courts. And above all, they would lose the tribute from their allies, which will dry up the moment those allies see Sparta waging war in earnest and lose their fear of Athens.

"How quickly and energetically all this gets done, Spartans, is up to you. As for whether it is possible -- I am completely confident. And I have little fear of being wrong."

He paused one last time and addressed the thing everyone in the room was thinking.

"I hope none of you will think less of me for this. Once upon a time, I was known as a man who loved his country. Now I am standing here with its worst enemies, actively working to destroy it. I understand how that looks.

"But hear me out.

"I am an exile because of the wickedness of the men who drove me out -- not, if you will trust me, because I am unfit for your service. My real enemies are not you -- you only ever harmed your opponents, which is what enemies do. My real enemies are the men in Athens who forced their own friends to become enemies. I loved my country when I was secure in my rights as a citizen. I do not feel that love now, when my rights have been stolen. In fact, I do not consider myself to be attacking my own country at all. I am trying to recover a country that is no longer mine.

"And the true patriot is not the man who refuses to attack his country after it has been unjustly taken from him. The true patriot is the man who loves his country so much that he will do anything -- anything -- to get it back."

The room was silent.

"Use me, Spartans. For any danger, any dirty work. And remember the old saying: if I could do you so much harm as an enemy, imagine what I can do for you as a friend -- because I know the Athenians' plans, while before I could only guess at yours. As for you, I urge you to understand that the most important decision of your lives is before you right now. Send the expeditions -- to Sicily and to Attica. A small fraction of your forces in Sicily will save the most important cities on that island. And fortifying Decelea will destroy Athenian power, both what it is today and what it is becoming. After that, you will live in security and hold supremacy over all of Greece -- resting not on force but on the willing consent of a grateful world."

THE SPARTAN RESPONSE

Such were the words of Alcibiades. The Spartans had already been thinking about marching against Athens, but they had been hesitating, watching and waiting. Now, hearing this detailed intelligence from the one man who knew the Athenian plans better than anyone alive, they threw off their hesitation. They turned their attention to fortifying Decelea and sending immediate aid to Sicily.

They appointed Gylippus, son of Cleandridas, to take command at Syracuse, instructing him to work with the Syracusans and the Corinthians to get reinforcements to the island in the best and fastest way possible. Gylippus asked the Corinthians to send him two ships at once to Asine and to prepare the rest of their fleet for departure at the proper time. With that settled, the envoys left Sparta.

Meanwhile, the galley the Athenian generals had sent from Sicily arrived in Athens, requesting money and cavalry. The Athenians heard the request and voted to send the supplies and horses. And so the winter ended, and with it the seventeenth year of the war that Thucydides recorded.

THE EIGHTEENTH YEAR -- SPRING CAMPAIGN

At the very start of the following summer, the Athenians in Sicily sailed from Catana down the coast to Megara -- the Sicilian Megara, from which the Syracusans had expelled the inhabitants back in the time of the tyrant Gelo, occupying the land themselves. The Athenians landed, ravaged the countryside, and attacked a Syracusan fort without success. Then they continued by land and sea to the river Terias, marched up the plain, set fire to the standing grain, and killed some members of a small Syracusan detachment they ran into. They raised a trophy and returned to their ships. They sailed back to Catana, took on provisions, and then marched with their full force against Centoripa, a Sicel town, which surrendered by negotiation. On their way back, they also burned the grain fields of the Inessaeans and Hybleans. When they returned to Catana, they found the cavalry from Athens had arrived: two hundred and fifty riders with their gear but without horses, which they were to procure locally. Also thirty mounted archers and three hundred talents of silver.

That same spring, the Spartans marched against Argos and got as far as Cleonae, when an earthquake struck and they turned back. After that, the Argives invaded the Thyreatis -- Spartan borderland -- and carried off a huge amount of plunder, sold for no less than twenty-five talents. That same summer, not long after, the democratic faction at Thespiae attempted a coup against the ruling oligarchy. It failed. Reinforcements arrived from Thebes. Some of the rebels were caught; others fled to Athens.

THE STRUGGLE FOR EPIPOLAE

That same summer, the Syracusans learned that the Athenians had received their cavalry and were about to advance. They understood the strategic reality: there was a place called Epipolae -- a steep, high plateau sitting directly above the city. If the Athenians captured it, they could encircle Syracuse with siege walls even without winning another battle. The Syracusans resolved to guard the approaches. Epipolae could only be climbed from one direction; everywhere else, the ground was too sheer and fell away directly toward the city. Because it towered above everything else, the Syracusans called it Epipolae -- "Overtown."

At dawn, the Syracusans marched out in full force to the meadow along the Anapus River. Their new generals -- Hermocrates and his colleagues -- had just taken office. They held a review of the heavy infantry and selected from them an elite force of six hundred men, placed under the command of Diomilus, an exile from Andros. This unit's job was to guard Epipolae and to be ready to respond instantly wherever help was needed.

That very same morning -- the Athenians were holding their own review. They had already sailed from Catana with the entire army and landed undetected at a place called Leon, less than a mile from Epipolae. They disembarked the troops there and brought the fleet to anchor at Thapsus, a narrow peninsula jutting into the sea, not far from Syracuse by either land or water. The Athenian naval crews threw a stockade across the isthmus of Thapsus and stayed put. The land army took off at a run for Epipolae.

They made it to the top, climbing by way of Euryelus, before the Syracusans even knew they were there -- before the Syracusan army could get back from the meadow and the review. Diomilus and his six hundred rushed to meet them, along with the rest, but they had nearly three miles to cover from the meadow. Arriving out of breath and in complete disorder, they attacked anyway. The Syracusans were beaten at Epipolae and fell back to the city. About three hundred were killed, including Diomilus himself.

The Athenians raised a trophy, returned the Syracusan dead under truce, and the next day descended toward Syracuse proper. When no one came out to meet them, they withdrew and built a fort at Labdalum, on the edge of the Epipolae cliffs facing Megara. This would serve as a depot for supplies and money whenever they moved out to fight or work on the siege lines.

Not long afterward, three hundred cavalry arrived from Egesta, about a hundred more from the Sicels, Naxians, and others, and with the two hundred and fifty from Athens -- for whom they had obtained horses from the Egestaeans and Catanians, buying others besides -- they now had a total of six hundred and fifty cavalry.

After posting a garrison at Labdalum, the Athenians advanced to a place called Syca, where they sat down and began building their "Circle" -- the central point of their siege wall that would encircle Syracuse. The Syracusans were stunned by how fast the work went up. They marched out to give battle and stop it. But as the two armies were forming up, the Syracusan generals saw that their own troops were having trouble getting into line and were falling into disorder. They pulled them back into the city, all except the cavalry. The horsemen stayed behind and tried to harass the Athenians, preventing them from hauling stones or ranging too far from camp. But a full regiment of Athenian heavy infantry, backed by all their cavalry, charged the Syracusan horsemen and routed them with some losses. The Athenians raised a trophy for the cavalry action.

THE SIEGE WALL AND THE COUNTERWALLS

The next day, the Athenians began building the wall northward from the Circle, collecting stone and timber as they went. They laid down their materials in the direction of Trogilus, plotting the shortest line from the Great Harbor to the sea. When the siege wall was complete, Syracuse would be completely cut off.

The Syracusans, guided by Hermocrates, decided against risking any more general battles. Instead, they would build a counterwall -- a wall running perpendicular to the line the Athenians were trying to build. If they could finish it in time, it would cut the Athenian siege line and make encirclement impossible. If the Athenians tried to attack the construction crews, the Syracusans would send part of their force to hold them off and secure the approaches with stockades. The Athenians, in turn, would have to pull workers off their own wall to respond, slowing everything down.

So the Syracusans came out and began building. They ran their counterwall out from the city, passing below the Athenian Circle, cutting down olive trees for timber and erecting wooden towers along the line. The Athenian fleet had not yet sailed around into the Great Harbor, so the Syracusans still controlled the coast on that side. The Athenians had to bring their supplies overland from Thapsus.

When the Syracusans judged that their counterwall stockade was far enough along, they left a single regiment to guard it and withdrew the rest into the city. The Athenians saw their chance. They had been hesitant to leave their own wall unfinished, but now they moved.

First, they destroyed the underground water pipes that supplied the city. Then, watching until midday -- when the rest of the Syracusan troops were in their tents, some having gone back into the city entirely, and the guards at the stockade were keeping a slack watch -- they sent three hundred picked men, plus selected light troops specially armed for the job, sprinting toward the counterwall. The rest of the army advanced in two divisions: one, under one general, headed toward the city in case of a sortie; the other, under the second general, made for the stockade's postern gate.

The three hundred stormed and captured the stockade. The garrison fled to the outer defenses around the statue of Apollo Temenites. The Athenians burst in after them -- got inside -- and were then driven back out by a Syracusan counterattack. A few Argives and Athenians were killed. Then the whole army pulled back. They demolished the counterwall, ripped up the stockade, carried the stakes back to their own lines, and raised a trophy.

The next day, the Athenians began extending their fortifications from the Circle down across the cliff above the marsh that faces the Great Harbor. This was the shortest route for the wall to reach the harbor, crossing the plain and the marsh.

The Syracusans countered with a second stockade and trench, running from the city straight across the middle of the marsh, trying to make it physically impossible for the Athenians to bring their wall down to the sea.

When the Athenians finished their work on the cliff, they attacked again. They ordered the fleet to sail from Thapsus around into the Great Harbor. Then, descending from Epipolae at dawn, they crossed the marsh -- laying doors and planks over the muddiest, firmest sections -- and by daybreak had taken the trench and the stockade, except for a small stretch they captured shortly after. A battle erupted. The Athenians won. The Syracusan right wing fled toward the city. The left wing ran for the river.

The three hundred Athenian elite, wanting to cut off their retreat, charged at a run toward the bridge. The panicked Syracusans -- who had most of their cavalry with them -- turned, rallied, and routed the three hundred, hurling them back into the Athenian right wing. The shock threw the lead regiment of that wing into chaos.

Seeing this, Lamachus rushed over from the Athenian left with a handful of archers and the Argives. He crossed a ditch, found himself nearly alone with just five or six men who had made it across with him, and was killed. The Syracusans managed to snatch up his body and the others, carrying them across the river to safety before the rest of the Athenian army could arrive.

Meanwhile, the Syracusans who had initially fled into the city saw how things were turning. They rallied, came back out, and formed up against the Athenians advancing from below. They also sent a detachment up to Epipolae, hoping to take the Circle while it was stripped of defenders.

They captured and destroyed the Athenian outwork -- a thousand feet of fortification. But the Circle itself was saved by Nicias. He had been left behind because of illness, and now, realizing he had no men to mount a defense, he ordered the camp servants to set fire to the timber and siege equipment piled in front of the wall. It was the only option left. It worked. The Syracusans would not advance through the blaze, and they pulled back.

At the same time, Athenian reinforcements were coming up from below -- the troops that had routed the Syracusan force on the plain -- and the fleet was sailing into the Great Harbor from Thapsus, just as ordered. The Syracusans on the heights saw all of this, retreated in haste, and the entire Syracusan army withdrew into the city. They realized that with the forces they currently had, they could no longer prevent the siege wall from reaching the sea.

THE WALLS CLOSE IN

After this, the Athenians raised a trophy and gave back the Syracusan dead under truce, receiving Lamachus and those who had fallen with him in return. Now, with their entire force -- fleet and army -- united, they began the final phase. Starting from Epipolae and the cliffs, they enclosed Syracuse with a double wall running all the way down to the sea.

Supplies began pouring in from across Italy. Many of the Sicels who had been watching from the sidelines now came over to the Athenian side. Three fifty-oared warships arrived from the Tyrrhenian coast. Everything was going the Athenians' way.

The Syracusans began to despair. No help had come from the Peloponnese. They started discussing surrender terms -- among themselves and with Nicias, who was now sole commander after the death of Lamachus. No final decision was reached, but there was constant talk, the way there always is when people are in trouble and the noose is tightening. Their recent disasters had made them suspicious of each other. They blamed their current generals for incompetence or treachery and voted them out, replacing them with Heraclides, Eucles, and Tellias.

GYLIPPUS SAILS

Meanwhile, the Spartan Gylippus and the Corinthian ships had reached Leucas and were racing to relieve Sicily. The reports coming in were dire -- and uniformly wrong. Every source said Syracuse was already completely encircled. Gylippus gave up on Sicily and decided to save Italy instead. He crossed the Ionian Sea at top speed to Tarentum with a small squadron: the Corinthian Pythen, two Spartan ships, and two Corinthian ones. The rest of the Corinthian fleet -- their own ten ships, plus two from Leucas and two from Ambracia -- would follow after manning.

From Tarentum, Gylippus first tried diplomacy at Thurii, claiming the citizenship his father had once held there. He failed to bring the city over. He put back to sea and coasted along Italy. Off the Terinaean Gulf, he was caught by the fierce northerly that blows steadily through that region and driven far out to sea. After battling severe weather, he limped back to Tarentum and hauled ashore the ships most battered by the storm for repairs.

Nicias heard that Gylippus was coming. But like the Thurians, he looked at the pitiful size of the squadron and assumed it was just a pirate raid. He took no precautions.

That same summer, the Spartans invaded Argive territory with their allies and devastated most of the land. The Athenians sent thirty ships to help the Argives -- an act that broke their treaty with Sparta in the most flagrant way possible. Until now, the Athenians had limited themselves to raids launched from Pylos and to landings on the Peloponnesian coast outside Spartan territory proper. The Argives had repeatedly begged them to land even briefly in Spartan territory with their heavy infantry, burn a little bit of it, and leave. The Athenians had always refused.

Now, under the command of Phytodorus, Laespodius, and Demaratus, they landed at Epidaurus Limera, Prasiae, and other places, and ravaged Spartan territory. This gave the Spartans the most legitimate justification they had yet had for retaliating against Athens.

After the Athenian fleet withdrew from Argos and the Spartans left as well, the Argives invaded the territory of Phlius, plundered the land, killed some of the inhabitants, and went home.

Book VII: Catastrophe at Syracuse

CHAPTER 21

Eighteenth and Nineteenth Years of the War -- Arrival of Gylippus at Syracuse -- Fortification of Decelea -- Successes of the Syracusans

After refitting their ships, Gylippus and Pythen sailed along the coast from Tarentum to Epizephyrian Locris. There they finally got accurate intelligence: Syracuse was not yet completely surrounded. It was still possible for an army to reach the city by way of Epipolae. The question now was which route to take. Should they keep Sicily on their right and risk sailing directly into the harbor? Or should they swing left, head for Himera first, pick up reinforcements there, and march overland to Syracuse?

They chose Himera -- especially because the four Athenian ships that Nicias had belatedly sent to intercept them at Locris had not yet reached Rhegium. Before those ships arrived at their station, the Peloponnesians slipped across the strait, touched at Rhegium and Messina, and made it safely to Himera.

Once there, they convinced the Himeraeans to join the war. The Himeraeans agreed not only to march with them but also to provide weapons for the sailors whose ships had been beached at Himera. Gylippus sent word to the Selinuntines, arranging a rendezvous where they would join with their full forces. A small contingent was also promised by the Geloans and some of the Sicels, who were now far more willing to commit. Two things had changed their minds: the recent death of Archonidas, a powerful Sicel king in the area and a friend to Athens, and the sheer energy Gylippus had shown in coming all the way from Sparta.

Gylippus set out for Syracuse with his assembled force: roughly seven hundred of his own sailors and marines who had managed to get weapons, a thousand heavy infantry and light troops from Himera along with a hundred cavalry, some light infantry and horsemen from Selinus, a few Geloans, and about a thousand Sicels in total.

Meanwhile, the Corinthian fleet from Leucas was racing to arrive. One of their commanders, Gongylus, who had started last with a single ship, actually reached Syracuse first -- just ahead of Gylippus. He arrived to find the Syracusans on the verge of calling an assembly to discuss whether they should end the war and seek terms.

Gongylus stopped that from happening. He reassured them: more ships were on the way, and Gylippus, son of Cleandridas, had been dispatched by the Spartans to take command. The Syracusans' spirits revived immediately. They marched out with their entire army to meet Gylippus, who they learned was already close.

On his way, Gylippus had captured Ietae, a Sicel hill fort. He formed his men into battle order and advanced up Epipolae, ascending through Euryelus -- the same route the Athenians had taken at the start. Then he moved forward with the Syracusans toward the Athenian siege lines.

His timing was critical. The Athenians had already completed a double wall stretching six or seven furlongs down to the Great Harbor, except for a short section near the sea that they were still working on. Along the rest of the planned circuit toward Trogilus and the northern sea, stones had been laid out for most of the distance -- some stretches were half-finished, others fully complete. Syracuse had been in serious danger.

The Athenians, thrown into confusion by the sudden approach of Gylippus and the Syracusans, managed to recover and form a battle line. Gylippus halted a short distance away and sent a herald with an offer: if the Athenians would evacuate Sicily within five days, taking everything they could carry, he would grant them a truce.

The Athenians treated the proposal with contempt and sent the herald back without a word.

Both sides prepared for battle. But when Gylippus noticed that the Syracusans were having trouble forming up -- disorganized and slow to get into line -- he pulled his troops back to more open ground. Nicias, for his part, did not advance. He kept the Athenians in position by their own wall.

When Gylippus saw the Athenians were not going to come out and fight, he led his army off to the citadel in the quarter of Apollo Temenites and made camp for the night. The next day, he marched out his main force and drew them up in battle formation in front of the Athenian walls -- pinning the enemy in place so they could not respond to threats elsewhere. Then he sent a strong detachment against Fort Labdalum. They stormed it and killed everyone inside. The fort was out of the Athenians' line of sight; they never saw it happen. That same day, the Syracusans also captured an Athenian warship that was moored in the harbor.

After this, the Syracusans and their allies began building a counter-wall. It started from the city and ran at an angle up across Epipolae. The purpose was simple: if the Athenians could not stop this wall, they would never be able to complete their encirclement of Syracuse.

Meanwhile, the Athenians had finished their own wall down to the sea and had moved up to the heights. Part of their wall at this point was weak, and Gylippus led a night attack against it. But the Athenian troops who happened to be camped outside raised the alarm and came out to meet him. Gylippus quickly pulled his men back.

The Athenians built that section of wall higher and posted their own men to guard it, assigning their allies to watch over the rest of the fortifications at their designated positions.

Nicias now decided to fortify Plemmyrium, a promontory that jutted out opposite the city and narrowed the mouth of the Great Harbor. He calculated that holding this position would make it easier to bring in supplies, since they could maintain their blockade from closer range, near the Syracusan-held port, instead of having to sortie from the far end of the Great Harbor every time the enemy fleet moved. Beyond the strategic reasoning, the coming of Gylippus had dimmed Athenian hopes on land, and Nicias was increasingly turning his attention to the war at sea.

He ferried troops and ships across and built three forts on Plemmyrium. Most of the army's baggage was stored there, and it became the main anchorage for the larger transport vessels and warships.

This was the first -- and most consequential -- cause of the deterioration in the Athenian crews. The water supply was scarce and had to be hauled from far away. Whenever the sailors went out for firewood, they were cut down by Syracusan cavalry, who controlled the surrounding countryside. A third of the enemy's horsemen were stationed at the small town of Olympieum specifically to prevent the Athenians at Plemmyrium from foraging.

Nicias also learned that the rest of the Corinthian fleet was on its way. He sent twenty ships to intercept them, with orders to patrol the waters around Locris, Rhegium, and the approaches to Sicily.

Gylippus, meanwhile, pressed on with the counter-wall across Epipolae. He used the very stones the Athenians had stockpiled for their own wall. At the same time, he kept leading the Syracusans and their allies out in battle formation in front of the Athenian lines, and the Athenians formed up to face them each time.

Finally, Gylippus decided the moment had come. He launched an attack. The two armies clashed hand-to-hand in the narrow space between the walls, where the Syracusan cavalry was useless. The Syracusans and their allies were beaten. They recovered their dead under a truce, and the Athenians set up a trophy.

After the defeat, Gylippus called his soldiers together. The fault, he told them, was his -- not theirs. He had kept their battle lines too close to the fortifications, which had neutralized their cavalry and javelin-throwers. He would lead them out a second time. And he urged them to remember this: in sheer material strength, they were fully a match for the enemy. As for morale -- it would be intolerable for Peloponnesians and Dorians to lack the confidence to beat Ionians, islanders, and the ragtag collection of peoples that made up the Athenian force. They should expect to drive the enemy out of the country.

With the first opportunity, Gylippus led them out again.

Nicias and the Athenians knew the stakes. Even if the Syracusans chose not to fight, the Athenians could not afford to stand by and watch the counter-wall go up. It had already nearly reached the end of their own wall. If it went any further, it would not matter whether the Athenians won a hundred battles or fought none at all -- they would never be able to encircle the city. So they came out to fight.

This time, Gylippus advanced his heavy infantry further from the fortifications than he had before. He posted his cavalry and javelin-throwers on the Athenians' open flank, in the gap where the two walls ended.

During the battle, the cavalry charged and routed the Athenian left wing. The rest of the Athenian army collapsed and was driven headlong back inside their lines.

That night, the Syracusans extended their counter-wall past the Athenian works.

It was over. The Athenians could no longer block them. Even if they won every future engagement in the field, the hope of encircling Syracuse was gone forever.

After this, the remaining twelve ships from Corinth, Ambracia, and Leucadia slipped into the harbor under the command of Erasinides, a Corinthian, evading the Athenian patrol ships. They helped the Syracusans complete the last stretch of their counter-wall.

Gylippus then headed into the rest of Sicily to raise more troops, both for land and naval forces, and to bring over any cities that had been sitting on the fence or staying out of the war entirely. Syracusan and Corinthian ambassadors were also dispatched to Sparta and Corinth to request fresh reinforcements -- to be sent by any means available, whether merchant ships, transports, or whatever else might work. The Athenians, after all, were sending for reinforcements of their own.

Meanwhile, the Syracusans began manning a fleet and training their crews. They intended to try their luck at sea as well. Their confidence was soaring.

Nicias saw all of this -- the enemy's growing strength, his own army's mounting difficulties -- and sent word to Athens. He had been sending regular reports as events unfolded, and he felt it was more urgent than ever now that the situation was critical. Unless the army was either recalled or massively reinforced, there was no hope.

But he was worried that his messengers might fail to convey the truth. They might lack the ability to express it clearly, or their memory might fail them, or they might soften the message to tell the Athenian assembly what it wanted to hear. So Nicias decided to put it in writing. A letter would ensure that the Athenians received his unfiltered assessment and could make their decisions based on the actual facts.

His messengers departed with the letter and their verbal instructions. Nicias turned back to managing the army, keeping it on the defensive and avoiding unnecessary risks.

At the close of the same summer, the Athenian general Euetion joined forces with Perdiccas and led a large body of Thracian troops against Amphipolis. They failed to take the city. Euetion brought some warships around into the Strymon River and blockaded Amphipolis from the water, operating from a base at Himeraeum.

And with that, summer ended.

The following winter, Nicias's messengers arrived in Athens. They delivered their verbal reports, answered whatever questions were put to them, and handed over the letter. The city clerk came forward and read it out to the Athenian assembly. It said the following:

THE LETTER OF NICIAS

"Athenians, our earlier operations have been reported to you in many previous dispatches. Now it is time for you to understand our present situation clearly and make your decisions accordingly.

"We had defeated the Syracusans in most of our engagements and built the siege works we currently occupy. Then Gylippus arrived from Sparta with an army drawn from the Peloponnese and from Sicilian cities. In our first battle against him, we won. In the second, we were overwhelmed by their cavalry and javelin-throwers and driven back within our lines. We have been forced by sheer numbers to abandon the siege, and we are now sitting idle -- unable to use even our full strength, because so many of our heavy infantry are tied down defending our fortifications. Meanwhile, the enemy has built a counter-wall past our lines, making it impossible for us to encircle Syracuse unless we attack that wall with a major force and capture it.

"The result is this: the army that came here to besiege Syracuse has itself become the besieged -- at least on land. We cannot even send foraging parties any distance from camp, because their cavalry controls the countryside.

"On top of this, they have sent an embassy to the Peloponnese requesting more reinforcements, and Gylippus has gone to the Sicilian cities to recruit -- hoping to win over the neutrals and to bring back additional troops and ships from his existing allies. Because I understand that they are planning a combined assault: their army against our fortifications on land, and their fleet against us by sea.

"Yes, by sea. Do not be surprised. They have figured out what has happened to our navy. When we first arrived, our ships were in prime condition and our crews were fresh. Now the hulls have rotted from being in the water so long, and the crews have wasted away. We cannot haul the ships ashore to dry and repair them, because the enemy fleet is at least as large as ours, and we must be ready for an attack at any moment. In fact, we can see them training. The initiative is theirs. They do not have to maintain a blockade, so they have every opportunity to dry their ships and refit.

"We could barely manage this even if we had ships to spare and were not stretched to the breaking point by the blockade. As things stand, it is already difficult to bring in supplies past Syracuse. If we relaxed our vigilance for even a moment, it would become impossible.

"Our crews have been degraded -- and continue to be degraded -- for the following reasons. Whenever our sailors go out for firewood or water or forage, the Syracusan cavalry cut them off and kill them. Now that we have lost our former superiority, our slaves feel emboldened to desert. Our foreign oarsmen -- the ones who were impressed into service -- are demoralized by the unexpected appearance of an enemy fleet and the strength of Syracusan resistance. Those who were pressed into serving take the first chance they get to slip away to their home cities. Those who were originally lured by promises of high pay and easy duty -- expecting little fighting and big profits -- are deserting to the enemy or finding one of the many escape routes that a land as vast as Sicily provides. Some have even gone into business for themselves, bribing captains to accept slaves from Hyccara as replacements so they can leave. The efficiency of our navy has been destroyed.

"I hardly need to remind you that a crew is in peak form for only a short time, and that the number of sailors who can get a ship underway and keep the oars in rhythm is always small.

"But my greatest difficulty of all is this: as your general, I cannot put a stop to any of it. Athenian sailors are not easy men to discipline -- you know this better than I do. And we have nowhere to recruit replacements. The enemy can draw from many sources, but we are forced to rely entirely on the men we brought with us -- both to fill current gaps and to replace our losses. Our present allies, Naxos and Catana, simply cannot supply what we need.

"There is only one more thing the enemy lacks: the defection of our markets in Italy. If the Italians see you neglecting us and leaving us in this condition, they will go over to the other side. And then famine will finish the job. Syracuse will win the war without having to strike another blow.

"I could have written you something different -- something more pleasant. But nothing could be more useful than the truth, not when you need to understand the real state of affairs before making your decisions. Besides, I know your nature: you love hearing the best version of events, and then you blame the messenger when reality fails to match expectations. So I thought it safest to tell you the plain truth.

"Now: do not think that your generals or your soldiers are no longer a match for the forces they originally faced. They are. The problem is that a coalition of virtually all of Sicily is forming against us, a fresh army is coming from the Peloponnese, and the force we have here cannot cope even with our current enemies.

"You must decide -- and quickly. Either recall us, or send another fleet and army just as large as the first, along with a substantial sum of money, and a replacement for me. A disease in my kidneys has left me unfit to continue in command. I think I have earned some consideration: during the years when I was in good health, I served you well.

"Whatever you decide to do, do it at the start of spring, without delay. The enemy will soon have his Sicilian reinforcements. The ones from the Peloponnese will take longer, but unless you act immediately, the first will arrive before you do, and the second will slip through again -- just as they did before."

Such was the letter of Nicias.

When the Athenians heard it, they refused to accept his resignation. Instead, they appointed two officers already at the front -- Menander and Euthydemus -- to share the command with Nicias until his replacements arrived, so that he would not have to carry the entire burden alone while he was ill.

They also voted to send a second expedition: another army and fleet, drawn partly from Athenian citizens on the muster roll and partly from the allies. The two new commanders chosen were Demosthenes, son of Alcisthenes, and Eurymedon, son of Thucles.

Eurymedon was dispatched immediately, around the winter solstice, with ten ships and a hundred and twenty talents of silver. He carried orders to tell the army that reinforcements were coming and that Athens would take care of them. But Demosthenes stayed behind to organize the main expedition, planning to sail in the spring. He sent out calls for allied troops and meanwhile began assembling money, ships, and heavy infantry at home.

The Athenians also sent twenty warships around the Peloponnese to prevent anyone from crossing to Sicily from Corinth or elsewhere. The Corinthians, emboldened by the favorable reports their returning envoys had brought from Sicily and convinced that the fleet they had already sent had made a real difference, were now preparing to ship heavy infantry to Sicily in merchant vessels. The Spartans were doing the same from the rest of the Peloponnese.

The Corinthians also manned twenty-five warships. Their purpose was to challenge the Athenian squadron stationed at Naupactus. If they could force the Athenians to keep watch on those warships, it would be much harder for them to interfere with the merchant convoys heading to Sicily.

The Spartans, meanwhile, prepared to invade Attica. This was their own long-standing plan, and they were being pushed hard by the Syracusans and Corinthians, who wanted the invasion to cut off the reinforcements Athens was about to send to Sicily. Alcibiades, too, was pressing them urgently to fortify Decelea and prosecute the war with full intensity.

But the Spartans drew their deepest motivation from a calculation: Athens, fighting two wars at once -- against Sparta and against the Sicilians -- would be far easier to defeat. They also believed that Athens had been the first to violate the peace treaty.

They had not always felt this way. In the previous war, the Spartans thought the blame fell more on their own side -- because of the Theban attack on Plataea during peacetime, and because Sparta itself had refused the Athenian offer of arbitration, even though the original treaty specified that disputes should be arbitrated rather than settled by force. For those reasons, the Spartans believed they had deserved their misfortunes, and they took the disaster at Pylos and their other setbacks to heart.

But then came a series of provocations. The raids launched from Pylos never stopped. Thirty Athenian ships sailed out from Argos and ravaged parts of Epidaurus, Prasiae, and other Spartan-allied territory. Every time a dispute arose over some ambiguous clause in the treaty and the Spartans offered to submit it to arbitration, the Athenians refused. At last, the Spartans concluded that Athens had now committed the very same offense they themselves had been guilty of before. Athens was the aggressor. The Spartans threw themselves into preparations for war with renewed intensity.

That winter, they sent requests to their allies for iron and began gathering the tools and materials needed to build a permanent fort. At the same time, they raised a force at home and extracted contributions from the rest of the Peloponnese -- troops to be shipped on merchant vessels to their allies in Sicily.

Winter ended. With it ended the eighteenth year of the war that Thucydides recorded.

In the first days of the following spring -- earlier than usual -- the Spartans and their allies invaded Attica, commanded by King Agis, son of Archidamus. They began by devastating the farmland bordering the plain, then moved on to their main objective: fortifying Decelea. The work was divided among the various allied contingents.

Decelea sat about thirteen or fourteen miles from Athens, and roughly the same distance from Boeotia. The fort was positioned to threaten the plain and the richest agricultural land in Attica, and it was visible from the city itself.

While the Peloponnesians and their allies in Attica were building the fort, their countrymen back home were dispatching heavy infantry to Sicily in merchant vessels. The Spartans sent a picked force of six hundred -- Helots and freed Helots known as Neodamodes -- under the command of Eccritus, a Spartan officer. The Boeotians sent three hundred heavy infantry, commanded by two Thebans, Xenon and Nicon, along with Hegesander, a Thespian. These were among the first to put out to sea, departing from Taenarus in Laconia.

Not long after, the Corinthians sent five hundred heavy infantry -- partly Corinthian citizens, partly Arcadian mercenaries -- under the command of Alexarchus, a Corinthian. The Sicyonians also sent two hundred heavy infantry at the same time, under Sargeus, a Sicyonian commander.

Meanwhile, the twenty-five Corinthian warships that had been fitted out over the winter held their position opposite the twenty Athenian ships at Naupactus. They stayed there until the merchant convoys carrying heavy infantry had cleared the Peloponnese -- which was exactly what they had been deployed to do all along: keep the Athenians distracted so the transports could get through.

During this same period, the Athenians were far from idle. At the very start of spring -- simultaneously with the fortification of Decelea -- they sent thirty ships around the Peloponnese under Charicles, son of Apollodorus, with instructions to stop at Argos and request a contingent of heavy infantry for the fleet, in accordance with the alliance.

At the same time, they dispatched Demosthenes to Sicily with sixty Athenian ships, five from Chios, twelve hundred Athenian heavy infantry from the citizen rolls, and as many islanders as could be levied from the various subject states, drawing on whatever other allied resources might be useful for the war. Demosthenes was first to sail with Charicles and conduct operations along the coast of Laconia. He accordingly sailed to Aegina and waited there for the rest of his forces and for Charicles to pick up the Argive troops.

In Sicily, around the same time that spring, Gylippus returned to Syracuse with as many troops as he had been able to recruit from the cities he had visited. He called the Syracusans together and told them they needed to man as many ships as possible and attempt a naval battle. He expected to achieve a result worth the risk.

Hermocrates threw his full support behind the idea and worked hard to persuade his fellow citizens to take on the Athenians at sea. The Athenians, he argued, had not been born sailors. They would not stay the dominant naval power forever. They had actually been more of a land-based people than the Syracusans -- it was only the Persian invasion that had forced them to become a sea power. And against daring men like the Athenians, the most fearsome opponent was one equally daring. Athens had long used the boldness of its attacks to paralyze enemies who were often no weaker in raw strength. That same tactic could now be turned against them. Hermocrates was also convinced that the mere spectacle of Syracuse daring to challenge the Athenian navy would create a shock whose psychological impact would far outweigh whatever tactical damage Athenian expertise might inflict on Syracusan inexperience.

He urged them to set aside their fears and try their fortune at sea.

Under the combined influence of Gylippus and Hermocrates -- and perhaps others -- the Syracusans made their decision. They would fight on the water. They began manning their ships.

When the fleet was ready, Gylippus led the entire army out under cover of darkness. His plan was a coordinated assault: he would attack the Athenian forts at Plemmyrium by land, while thirty-five Syracusan warships sailed from the Great Harbor against the enemy fleet, and the remaining forty-five came around from the Lesser Harbor, where the Syracusan arsenal was located, to link up with the first squadron. The idea was to hit the Athenians from two directions at once, splitting their attention between Plemmyrium and the naval threat.

The Athenians scrambled to man sixty ships. They sent twenty-five to engage the thirty-five Syracusan vessels in the Great Harbor and dispatched the rest to intercept the squadron coming around from the arsenal. A battle broke out directly at the mouth of the Great Harbor, with both sides fighting fiercely -- one trying to force the passage, the other to hold it.

Meanwhile, the Athenian garrison at Plemmyrium had gone down to the waterfront to watch the naval engagement. Gylippus struck at dawn. He hit the largest of the three forts first and took it. Then he advanced on the two smaller ones, whose garrisons did not even try to resist after watching the largest fort fall so easily.

The men who escaped from the first fort -- fleeing to boats and merchant vessels -- had a desperate time reaching the main Athenian camp. At that point, the Syracusans were winning the naval engagement in the Great Harbor, and they sent a fast ship to run down the fugitives. But by the time the second and third forts fell, the tide of the sea battle had turned: the Syracusans were now losing, and the men escaping from those forts had an easier time getting away along the shore.

The Syracusan ships that had been fighting at the harbor mouth forced their way through the Athenian line -- but then lost all formation and began colliding with each other. This handed the victory to the Athenians, who routed not only that squadron but also the one that had been beating them earlier in the harbor. They sank eleven Syracusan ships and killed most of the crews, taking the men from three ships prisoner. Athenian losses amounted to three ships. They hauled the Syracusan wrecks ashore, set up a trophy on the small island in front of Plemmyrium, and withdrew to their camp.

The Syracusans had lost the battle at sea. But they held the forts at Plemmyrium, and they set up three trophies to prove it. They demolished one of the two smaller forts and repaired and garrisoned the other two.

The capture of these forts was devastating. Many men were killed or taken prisoner, and an enormous quantity of supplies was seized. The Athenians had been using Plemmyrium as their main depot: a massive stock of merchant goods and grain was stored there, along with supplies belonging to the ship captains. The masts, rigging, and equipment of forty warships were captured, plus three warships themselves that had been drawn up on shore.

The fall of Plemmyrium was the first and most important cause of the Athenian army's eventual destruction. The entrance to the harbor was no longer safe for supply convoys, because Syracusan ships were now stationed there to intercept them. Nothing could get through without a fight. Beyond the material losses, a mood of dismay and demoralization settled over the entire army.

After this, the Syracusans sent out a squadron of twelve ships under Agatharchus. One sailed for the Peloponnese carrying ambassadors to describe how well things were going and to urge the Peloponnesians to prosecute the war even harder. The other eleven headed for Italy, where they had heard that supply ships were on their way to the Athenians. They intercepted and destroyed most of those supply ships and burned a stockpile of timber that had been gathered in the territory of Caulonia for Athenian shipbuilding.

The Syracusan squadron then put in at Locri. While they were anchored there, a merchant ship arrived from the Peloponnese carrying Thespian heavy infantry. They took these soldiers on board and sailed for home along the coast. The Athenians were watching for them with twenty ships near Megara, but managed to capture only one vessel with its crew. The rest made it safely back to Syracuse.

There was also fighting in the harbor over the underwater stakes the Syracusans had driven into the seabed in front of their old dockyards. These stakes allowed their ships to ride at anchor behind a protective barrier, safe from Athenian ramming attacks. The Athenians brought up a massive ship -- ten thousand talents' burden -- fitted with wooden towers and screens, and went to work on the stakes. From boats, they lashed ropes around the stakes and wrenched them out; they snapped others off. Divers went under and sawed through them from below. The Syracusans rained missiles on them from the docks, and the Athenians fired back from the big ship.

Eventually, the Athenians removed most of the stakes. But the most dangerous part of the barrier was invisible: some stakes had been driven in below the waterline, where they could not be seen. Sailing near them was like navigating a reef. Divers went down and sawed through even these -- for a fee -- though the Syracusans kept driving in new ones.

There was no end to the ingenuity each side showed against the other. This was what happened when two hostile armies confronted each other at such close quarters, day after day -- constant skirmishing, constant improvisation, every kind of stratagem.

Meanwhile, the Syracusans sent diplomatic missions to the other cities. The delegations included Corinthians, Ambraciots, and Spartans. Their message: Plemmyrium had been captured, and the naval defeat had been caused by their own confusion, not by any superiority on the Athenians' part. The Syracusans were full of confidence. They asked for help -- ships and troops -- because the Athenians were expecting a fresh army. If the existing Athenian force could be destroyed before the reinforcements arrived, the war would be over.

That was how things stood in Sicily.

Demosthenes had by now assembled the expedition he was to lead to the island. He sailed from Aegina to the Peloponnese, linked up with Charicles and his thirty ships, took on Argive heavy infantry, and headed for Laconia. They first raided part of Epidaurus Limera, then landed on the coast of Laconia opposite the island of Cythera, near a temple of Apollo. They ravaged the area and fortified a position on a narrow strip of land -- creating a base where Spartan Helots could desert to and from which raiding parties could strike, just as they did from Pylos.

Once this stronghold was established, Demosthenes sailed on immediately for Corcyra, to pick up allied forces there and then proceed to Sicily without delay. Charicles stayed behind until the fortification was complete, left a garrison, and eventually returned home with his thirty ships and the Argive troops.

That same summer, thirteen hundred Thracian swordsmen arrived in Athens -- mercenaries of the Dii tribe, armed with light shields. They were supposed to have sailed with Demosthenes to Sicily. But they had come too late. The Athenians decided to send them back to Thrace rather than keep them for the war against Decelea: at a drachma per man per day, the cost was too high.

Decelea was bleeding Athens dry. Ever since the full Peloponnesian army had fortified it during the summer and the allied garrisons had begun rotating through, the damage had been relentless. In fact, the occupation of Decelea was one of the principal causes of Athens's ruin.

The earlier invasions of Attica had been brief. Between raids, the Athenians could still work their land. Now the enemy was in Attica permanently. Sometimes it was a full-scale attack; other times it was the regular garrison fanning out to forage and plunder. King Agis himself was in the field, directing operations. The harm to Athens was enormous.

They lost control of their entire countryside. More than twenty thousand slaves deserted -- many of them skilled craftsmen. All their sheep and pack animals were gone. The cavalry rode out every day to harass the enemy around Decelea and patrol the borders, and their horses were being crippled -- worn down by the constant work on rocky ground, or wounded in skirmishes.

The supply line from Euboea, which had previously run overland through Decelea from Oropus -- the shorter and cheaper route -- now had to go by sea, all the way around Cape Sunium. Everything the city needed had to be imported. Athens was no longer a city. It was a fortress under siege.

Summer and winter, the Athenians were worn out by guard duty -- manning the fortifications by day in rotation, standing watch all night, the entire army except the cavalry, posted at the walls or at military stations throughout the city.

But what crushed them most was fighting two wars at once. They had reached a level of determination that no one would have believed possible if they had not seen it with their own eyes. Here they were, besieged by the Peloponnesians who had built a permanent fort in Attica -- and instead of pulling out of Sicily, they stayed there, besieging Syracuse in turn. Syracuse: a city that, taken on its own, was in no way inferior to Athens.

They had so thoroughly overturned every Greek calculation about their power and daring that the world now witnessed an astonishing spectacle. At the start of the war, people had debated how long Athens could hold out -- one year? Two? No one thought more than three, if the Peloponnesians invaded. And yet here they were, seventeen years into the war, having already endured every conceivable hardship, embarking on a new campaign in Sicily that was in no way smaller than the war they were already fighting against the Peloponnesians.

All of this -- the devastating losses from Decelea, the other enormous costs piling up -- produced a financial crisis. It was at this point that the Athenians replaced the tribute their subject states had been paying with a five-percent tax on all imports and exports by sea. They calculated this would bring in more revenue. Their expenses had been growing with the war, while their income had been shrinking.

So, unwilling to spend money they did not have, the Athenians sent the Thracians home immediately. They were placed under the command of Diitrephes, who was instructed to make use of them on the voyage back: since they would be passing through the Euripus, he should look for opportunities to do damage to the enemy along the coast.

Diitrephes landed them first at Tanagra, where they snatched some quick plunder. Then, that evening, he crossed the Euripus from Chalcis in Euboea, disembarked in Boeotia, and led them against the town of Mycalessus.

They spent the night undetected near the temple of Hermes, less than two miles from the town. At dawn, they attacked.

Mycalessus was not a large place. The inhabitants were completely off guard -- they had never imagined that anyone would come this far inland from the sea to attack them. The wall was weak: it had collapsed in some places and had never been built to any real height in others. The gates were standing open. The people felt safe.

They were not safe.

The Thracians burst in and sacked the houses and temples. They butchered the people of Mycalessus without distinction -- old and young, men and women, even pack animals and every other living thing they found. The Thracian race, like the most savage of non-Greek peoples, is at its most bloodthirsty when it has nothing to fear.

The scene was chaos and slaughter in every form. They attacked a school -- the largest in the town -- where the children had just arrived for the day, and they massacred every one of them.

The disaster that fell on Mycalessus was, for the size of the town, as terrible as any in the entire war. Nothing matched it for sheer suddenness and horror.

The Thebans heard the news and marched out to intercept the Thracians. They caught up with them before they had gotten far, recovered the stolen plunder, and drove the Thracians in a panic back toward the Euripus and the ships that had brought them. The worst slaughter came at the point of embarkation: the Thracians did not know how to swim, and the crews on the ships, seeing what was happening on shore, had moved the vessels out of arrow range.

During the rest of the retreat, the Thracians actually put up a creditable defense against the Theban cavalry -- who attacked first -- using their traditional tactic of dashing out in quick sorties and closing ranks. They lost only a few men in that phase. A good number who had stayed behind to loot the town were caught and killed there.

In all, the Thracians lost two hundred and fifty out of their thirteen hundred. The Thebans and their allies lost about twenty -- cavalry and heavy infantry combined -- including Scirphondas, one of the Boeotian generals.

The people of Mycalessus lost a large part of their entire population.

While Mycalessus suffered this calamity -- as devastating, for its scale, as anything the war produced -- Demosthenes, whom we left sailing from Laconia to Corcyra, discovered a merchant ship at Phea in Elis. It was carrying Corinthian heavy infantry bound for Sicily. He destroyed the ship, though the soldiers escaped. They later found another vessel and continued their voyage.

From there, Demosthenes sailed to Zacynthus and Cephallenia, where he took on a body of heavy infantry. He sent for some of the Messenians from Naupactus and crossed to the opposite coast of Acarnania -- to Alyzia and Anactorium, which was held by the Athenians.

While he was in the area, Eurymedon arrived from Sicily. He was on his return from the winter mission during which he had delivered the money to the army, and he brought grave news: the Syracusans had captured Plemmyrium. He had learned this while still at sea. Conon, the Athenian commander at Naupactus, also reached them with an urgent appeal. The twenty-five Corinthian warships stationed opposite his position showed no sign of standing down -- on the contrary, they were preparing for a fight. His eighteen ships could not match their twenty-five. He begged for reinforcements.

Demosthenes and Eurymedon sent ten of their best ships to bolster Conon's squadron at Naupactus. Then they turned to assembling the rest of the expedition. Eurymedon -- now formally serving as Demosthenes's colleague, having turned back from his return voyage upon receiving the appointment -- sailed for Corcyra to order the Corcyraeans to man fifteen ships and recruit heavy infantry. Demosthenes, meanwhile, raised slingers and javelin-throwers from the region around Acarnania.

The ambassadors who had gone out from Syracuse to the other Sicilian cities after the capture of Plemmyrium had been successful. They were now on their way back, bringing the army they had raised. But Nicias got wind of it. He sent urgent messages to the Centoripae, the Alicyaeans, and other friendly Sicels who controlled the mountain passes: do not let the enemy through. Block them. Combine your forces and stop them. There was no other route available -- the Agrigentines would not let them pass through their territory.

The Sicels obeyed. They set up a triple ambush along the route and caught the approaching force completely off guard. They killed about eight hundred men and all the ambassadors except the one from Corinth, who managed to lead fifteen hundred survivors through to Syracuse.

Around the same time, the Camarinaeans also came to Syracuse's aid with five hundred heavy infantry, three hundred javelin-throwers, and the same number of archers. The Geloans sent crews for five warships, four hundred javelin-throwers, and two hundred cavalry.

In fact, almost all of Sicily had now committed. Except for the Agrigentines, who stayed neutral, the cities were no longer content to sit back and observe. They had thrown in with Syracuse against the Athenians.

After the Sicel ambush, the Syracusans postponed any immediate attack on the Athenians. Meanwhile, Demosthenes and Eurymedon, their forces from Corcyra and the mainland now assembled, crossed the Ionian Gulf with their entire armament and made for the Iapygian promontory. From there, they touched at the Choerades Islands off Iapygia, where they picked up a hundred and fifty Iapygian javelin-throwers of the Messapian tribe. They renewed an old friendship with Artas, the local chief who had provided the men, and then sailed on to Metapontium in Italy. There they persuaded their allies the Metapontines to contribute three hundred javelin-throwers and two galleys.

With these reinforcements, the fleet coasted on to Thurii. They found that the anti-Athenian faction had recently been overthrown in a revolution, which was encouraging. Demosthenes and Eurymedon decided to remain at Thurii to muster and review the entire army, check whether anyone had been left behind, and convince the Thurians to commit fully to the expedition -- to form, given the circumstances, a full offensive and defensive alliance with Athens.

Around the same time, the Peloponnesian squadron of twenty-five ships stationed opposite the Athenian fleet at Naupactus prepared for battle. They had been there to protect the passage of the troop transports to Sicily. Now they manned additional vessels, bringing their numbers nearly equal to the Athenians, and anchored off Erineus in the Rhypic territory of Achaia.

The coastline where they took up position formed a crescent. Allied land forces supplied by the Corinthians and their local supporters took up positions on the headlands on either side. The fleet, commanded by Polyanthes, a Corinthian, held the water between the headlands and blocked the entrance.

The Athenians, under Diphilus, sailed out from Naupactus with thirty-three ships. At first, the Corinthians held back. Then, seeing their moment, they raised the signal and attacked. What followed was a hard-fought, stubborn engagement. The Corinthians lost three ships but sank none outright. Instead, they disabled seven Athenian vessels by ramming them head-on, their specially reinforced prows smashing in the Athenians' lighter bows -- which had been built for flanking maneuvers, not for frontal collisions.

The result was inconclusive. Both sides could claim some version of victory. The Athenians recovered the floating wrecks after the wind blew them out to sea, but the Corinthians did not come out to contest them. No pursuit followed. No prisoners were taken on either side: the Corinthians and their allies, fighting close to shore, escaped easily, and none of the Athenian ships had been sunk.

The Athenians sailed back to Naupactus. The Corinthians immediately erected a trophy and declared themselves the winners, because they had disabled more enemy ships. In their view, avoiding decisive defeat was the same as winning. The Athenians, by the same logic, considered themselves the losers -- since they had not won decisively. But after the Peloponnesian fleet had sailed away and the land forces dispersed, the Athenians put up their own trophy, about two and a quarter miles from Erineus, the Corinthian anchorage, declaring themselves the victors.

So both sides claimed the battle.

To return to Demosthenes and Eurymedon. The Thurians had by now prepared to join the expedition with seven hundred heavy infantry and three hundred javelin-throwers. The two generals ordered the fleet to sail along the coast toward Crotonian territory while they held a review of all the land forces on the banks of the river Sybaris. Then they led the army through Thurian territory.

When they reached the river Hylias, they received a message from the Crotonians: they would not permit the army to pass through their land. The Athenians descended to the coast and camped near the sea at the mouth of the Hylias, where the fleet met them. The next day they embarked and sailed along the shore, putting in at every city except Locri, until they reached Petra in Rhegian territory.

Meanwhile, the Syracusans had heard that Demosthenes was on his way. They resolved to make a second attempt at a naval engagement -- and to combine it with their land forces, which they had been building up for exactly this purpose: to strike before the reinforcements arrived. They had learned from the earlier sea fight and now modified their ships accordingly. They shortened the prows to make them more solid and reinforced the bow timbers. From these reinforced bows, they ran bracing stays into the hull for a length of six cubits on each side, inside and out -- the same modification the Corinthians had made before their engagement at Naupactus.

The Syracusans' reasoning was straightforward. The Athenian ships were not built for frontal impacts. Their bows were lightly constructed because Athenian tactics relied on speed and maneuver -- circling around to ram the enemy's side, not meeting them head-on. The confined waters of the Great Harbor, crowded with ships, would favor the Syracusan approach. By ramming prow to prow, they would crush the hollow Athenian bows with their own solid reinforced beaks. The Athenians, for their part, would not have room for their favorite maneuvers: breaking through the enemy line or sailing around to attack from behind. The Syracusans would do everything in their power to prevent the first, and the cramped space would prevent the second.

This head-on ramming, which had previously been considered a mark of poor seamanship, would now become the Syracusans' primary tactic. It would be their greatest advantage, because the Athenians, if forced back, would have nowhere to retreat except the narrow strip of shore in front of their own camp. The rest of the harbor would be controlled by Syracuse. If the Athenians were pressed hard, they would crowd together in a tiny space, collide with each other, and fall into confusion -- which was, in fact, exactly what ended up hurting the Athenians most in every naval engagement. They did not have the whole harbor to fall back across, as the Syracusans did. And sailing out into the open sea was impossible: the Syracusans held the harbor entrance, and with Plemmyrium now hostile to the Athenians, the mouth of the harbor was not wide enough to force a way through.

Armed with these innovations and buoyed by their growing confidence after the earlier engagement, the Syracusans attacked on land and sea simultaneously. Gylippus led the city's land forces out first and brought them up to the Athenian wall on the side facing the city. At the same time, the troops from the Olympieum -- heavy infantry, cavalry, and light troops -- advanced against the wall from the opposite direction. Then the Syracusan fleet put out.

The Athenians initially thought they were facing only a land attack. When the fleet suddenly appeared as well, it threw them into alarm. Some formed up on the walls and in front of them to meet the advancing troops. Others rushed out to confront the cavalry and javelin-throwers pouring from the Olympieum and beyond. Still others manned the ships or ran down to the beach to oppose the enemy fleet. When the ships were finally manned, the Athenians put out with seventy-five vessels against roughly eighty Syracusan.

For most of the day, the two fleets advanced and retreated, skirmishing back and forth without either side gaining any real advantage -- except that the Syracusans managed to sink one or two Athenian ships. Then they separated, and the land forces withdrew from the walls as well.

The next day, the Syracusans stayed quiet and gave no indication of their plans. But Nicias, recognizing the fight had been inconclusive and expecting another attack, ordered his captains to repair any damaged ships. He also had merchant vessels moored in a line in front of the stockade the Athenians had built in the water, about two hundred feet apart from each other. These would serve as a makeshift enclosed harbor: any ship under pressure could retreat behind them to safety and put back out again at its leisure.

These preparations consumed the entire day and into the night.

The following day, the Syracusans came on again at an earlier hour, using the same combined land-and-sea strategy. Once more, the two fleets spent most of the day facing off and sparring inconclusively.

Then Ariston, son of Pyrrhicus -- a Corinthian and the most skilled helmsman in the Syracusan navy -- hit on an idea. He persuaded the Syracusan commanders to send word to the city officials: move the marketplace down to the waterfront immediately, and make every vendor bring whatever food they had to sell right there at the harbor.

The plan was to let the crews land and eat dinner right beside their ships, and then put out again that same day -- catching the Athenians completely off guard.

The message was sent. The market was set up. Suddenly, the Syracusans backed water, withdrew to the city, and landed. They ate their meal on the spot.

The Athenians assumed the Syracusans had returned to the city because they considered themselves beaten. They disembarked at their leisure. They began preparing their own dinners. They went about their various tasks. The fighting, they supposed, was done for the day.

Then the Syracusan ships put out again.

The Athenians, in total confusion -- most of them not having eaten -- scrambled aboard their ships and, with great difficulty, rowed out to meet the enemy. For a while, both sides held back, neither willing to engage. But finally the Athenians decided they could not afford to wait and let exhaustion wear them down further. They gave the battle cry and attacked.

The Syracusans received them exactly as planned. Charging head-on, their reinforced rams smashed in the Athenians' lighter bows. Meanwhile, Syracusan javelin-throwers on the decks rained missiles down on the Athenian sailors. Even more devastating were the small boats the Syracusans sent darting among the enemy fleet: they rowed in underneath the Athenian ships' oars, came alongside, and hurled javelins point-blank into the rowers.

Fighting like this -- hard, innovative, relentless -- the Syracusans won.

The Athenians broke and fled back through the line of merchant ships to their own anchorage. The Syracusan ships pursued them as far as the merchant vessels, where they were stopped by the heavy beams rigged over the passage, fitted with "dolphins" -- lead weights designed to be dropped onto enemy ships. Two Syracusan vessels pressed too close in the excitement of their victory and were destroyed; one was captured with its entire crew.

The Syracusans sank seven Athenian ships and disabled many more. They killed or captured most of the crews. Then they withdrew and set up trophies for both engagements -- on land and at sea.

They were now confident of their clear superiority on the water. And they were by no means despairing of equal success on land.

CHAPTER 22

Nineteenth Year of the War -- Arrival of Demosthenes -- Defeat of the Athenians at Epipolae -- The Folly and Stubbornness of Nicias

While the Syracusans were gearing up for a second attack by both land and sea, Demosthenes and Eurymedon arrived from Athens with reinforcements. It was an enormous force: roughly seventy-three ships, including allied vessels; close to five thousand heavy infantry, both Athenian and allied; a large contingent of javelin-throwers -- Greek and non-Greek alike -- plus slingers, archers, and everything else to match.

For the Syracusans and their allies, it was a deeply demoralizing sight. There seemed to be no end to their danger. Despite the fact that they had fortified Decelea in Attica itself -- a dagger planted right in Athens' homeland -- here was yet another army arriving, nearly as large as the first one. Athenian power seemed bottomless, extending in every direction at once. On the other side, the original Athenian expeditionary force, battered and demoralized, felt a surge of confidence for the first time in a long while.

Demosthenes, after sizing up the situation, decided he could not afford to waste time and repeat Nicias' mistakes. Nicias had squandered his advantage by spending the winter in Catana instead of striking Syracuse immediately. When his fleet first appeared, the Syracusans had been terrified. But that terror evaporated into contempt the longer he waited. Worse, the delay gave Gylippus time to arrive with reinforcements from the Peloponnese -- reinforcements the Syracusans would never have sent for if Nicias had attacked right away. They had believed they could handle him on their own. They would not have discovered how wrong they were until the siege walls were already closing around them, and even if they had then called for help, it would have been too late for that help to make a difference.

Demosthenes understood all of this. He also understood that right now -- on the very first day after his arrival -- he was at the peak of his advantage, just as Nicias had once been. The enemy was rattled by the sight of his army. He had to exploit that fear before it faded.

He studied the Syracusan counterwall -- the wall they had built to block the Athenians from completing their siege lines around the city. It was a single wall, nothing more. Whoever could seize the route up to the heights of Epipolae and capture the camp there would have no trouble taking it. No one would even stand and fight once those heights were lost. This, Demosthenes concluded, was the fastest way to end the war. Either he would succeed and take Syracuse, or he would lead the army home -- instead of letting it slowly bleed to death in a pointless siege, wasting Athenian lives and draining the treasury back in Athens.

THE ASSAULT ON EPIPOLAE

The Athenians moved first against the Syracusan farmland around the Anapus River, sweeping through it just as they had in the early days, dominating by both land and sea. The Syracusans made no attempt to oppose them on either front, except by sending out cavalry and javelin-throwers from the fortified temple area at the Olympieum.

Next, Demosthenes tried to breach the counterwall using siege engines. But the Syracusans fought from the wall and set his engines on fire. Assaults at multiple other points along the wall were also beaten back. He decided he could wait no longer.

With the agreement of Nicias and the other commanders, Demosthenes put his plan into action: a night assault on Epipolae.

An approach in daylight was impossible -- they would be spotted long before they reached the heights. So he ordered provisions packed for five days and assembled all the masons, carpenters, and construction materials they would need -- arrows, tools, everything required for building fortifications if the attack succeeded. Then, after the first watch of the night, he marched out with Eurymedon and Menander and the entire assault force, leaving Nicias behind to hold the main camp.

They climbed Epipolae by way of the hill of Euryelus -- the same route the first army had used when it originally seized the heights. The enemy guards never saw them coming.

They reached the Syracusan fort on the heights and took it. Part of the garrison was killed on the spot. But most of the defenders escaped and fled to raise the alarm at the three camps posted on Epipolae, each protected by outworks: one held by the Syracusans, one by the other Sicilian Greeks, and one by their non-Sicilian allies. They also alerted the six hundred Syracusans who had originally been stationed as the permanent garrison for this part of Epipolae.

These six hundred rushed forward to meet the attackers. Demosthenes and the Athenians smashed into them. The Syracusans fought hard, but they were routed. The victors pushed forward immediately, hungry to press the advantage while the momentum was still with them and before their battle-fury could cool. Meanwhile, other Athenian units had been peeling off from the very start of the advance to attack the Syracusan counterwall. The garrison had abandoned it, and the Athenians were already tearing down its battlements.

The Syracusans, their allies, and Gylippus with his troops came rushing out from the outworks to meet the threat. But they were shaken -- a night attack was something they had never expected, something that felt almost reckless -- and at first they were forced to fall back.

THE NIGHT BATTLE

But then the Athenians made their fatal mistake. Flushed with victory, they surged forward in increasingly loose formation, desperate to smash through every enemy unit they hadn't yet engaged, unwilling to let up for even a moment, terrified of giving the Syracusans time to regroup.

The Boeotians stopped them.

They were the first to make a stand. They charged the advancing Athenians, broke them, and sent them running.

And then everything fell apart.

The Athenians collapsed into chaos and confusion so total that afterward it was impossible to get a clear account of what had happened from either side. In daylight, soldiers at least have some idea of what is going on -- though even then, no one really knows much beyond what is happening right around him. But in a night battle -- and this was the only one fought between two large armies during the entire war -- how could anyone know anything for certain?

The moon was bright. But moonlight is a treacherous thing. You can make out the shape of a body -- the outline of a man -- but you cannot tell whether he is a friend or an enemy.

Both sides had enormous numbers of heavy infantry packed into a tight space. Some Athenians had already been defeated and were streaming back. Others were still pushing forward, not yet having fought, charging ahead on their first attack. A large part of the army had only just reached the top, or was still climbing, and had no idea which direction to go. The rout at the front had thrown everything into confusion. The noise was deafening, and it was impossible to make sense of anything.

The victorious Syracusans and their allies shouted encouragement to one another -- the only way to communicate in the darkness -- and met every force that came against them. The Athenians, meanwhile, were desperately trying to find one another. They treated everyone in front of them as an enemy, even when those men were their own retreating comrades.

They kept shouting for the watchword -- it was the only way they had of telling friend from foe. But the constant shouting for the password from every direction at once created its own pandemonium. Worse, it gave the Athenians' watchword away to the enemy. The Syracusan watchword, on the other hand, was much harder for the Athenians to learn, because the Syracusans were winning and still held together -- they were not scattered and confused, and so less likely to be questioned by the wrong side.

The result was devastating. When the Athenians stumbled upon a group of the enemy that was weaker than they were, the enemy escaped because they already knew the Athenian watchword. But when the Athenians themselves could not answer the challenge, they were cut down.

And then there was the paean -- the battle hymn. This, more than anything, destroyed them.

The paean sounded almost identical on both sides. The Argives, the Corcyraeans, and any other Dorian peoples fighting alongside Athens sang a paean that was nearly indistinguishable from the enemy's. Every time one of these allied units raised the hymn, the Athenians were seized with terror, unable to tell if the singers were friends or foes. The enemy's paean terrified them. Their own allies' paean terrified them just the same.

Once disorder set in, it spread everywhere. In every part of the field, friend was crashing into friend, citizen into citizen. They did not just frighten one another -- they drew weapons and fought each other, and could only be pulled apart with the greatest difficulty.

In the retreat, many died by hurling themselves off the cliffs. The path down from Epipolae was narrow. Of those who made it to the plain below, most of the men from the original expedition managed to escape -- they knew the terrain. But many of the newcomers, Demosthenes' reinforcements, had never learned the lay of the land. They wandered lost through the countryside, and when morning came, the Syracusan cavalry rode them down and killed them.

AFTERMATH

The next day, the Syracusans set up two victory trophies: one at the point on Epipolae where the Athenians had first climbed up, and one at the spot where the Boeotians had turned the tide. The Athenians recovered their dead under a truce.

The losses were enormous. A great many Athenians and allies had been killed. But even more weapons and armor were recovered than the body count could account for. The reason: many of the men who had been forced to leap from the cliffs had thrown away their shields to survive the fall. They had escaped with their lives, even if others around them had not.

THE SYRACUSAN RESURGENCE

After this unexpected stroke of good fortune, the Syracusans recovered all their old confidence. They dispatched Sicanus with fifteen ships to Agrigentum, where a political revolution was underway, hoping to win the city over to their side. Gylippus set off again by land into the rest of Sicily to raise more troops. After the victory at Epipolae, he now believed he could take the Athenian fortified lines by storm.

THE DEBATE: STAY OR GO

Meanwhile, the Athenian generals met to discuss the disaster and the overall condition of their army. The picture was grim. Their attacks had failed. The soldiers were sick of being there. Disease was rampant -- it was the worst time of year for it, and the camp sat in marshy, unhealthy ground. The whole situation looked hopeless.

Demosthenes spoke first. His view was clear: they should leave. Now.

His entire gamble on the night assault at Epipolae had failed. There was no reason to stay any longer. The sea was still crossable, and the fleet they had just brought gave them naval superiority -- at least for the moment. They should use it while they could.

Beyond that, he argued, it made more strategic sense for Athens to direct its resources against the Spartans who were fortifying Decelea and ravaging Attica -- the enemy literally on their doorstep -- rather than against Syracuse, a city that was no longer within their power to conquer. It was not right, he said, to keep pouring money into a siege that was going nowhere.

That was the opinion of Demosthenes.

THE REFUSAL OF NICIAS

Nicias did not deny that things were bad. But he refused to leave.

He was unwilling to admit their weakness openly -- unwilling to have it announced, in a council where word would inevitably reach the enemy, that the Athenians had formally voted to retreat. If the Syracusans learned that, they would be far less likely to succeed in withdrawing when the time came. The element of surprise would be gone.

But that was not his only reason.

Nicias had his own private sources of intelligence, and they gave him reason to hope. He believed that the enemy's situation would soon be worse than theirs -- if Athens just held on. The Syracusans were hemorrhaging money. Athens' reinforced fleet now gave them a stronger grip on the sea than ever. And there was something else, something Nicias clung to: a faction inside Syracuse that wanted to betray the city to Athens. These men kept sending him messages. They told him not to give up the siege.

So Nicias, armed with this intelligence -- and also genuinely torn, wavering between the two courses, waiting to see more clearly which way events would break -- made his case publicly. He told the assembled commanders he would not lead the army away.

He was sure, he said, that the Athenians back home would never approve of a retreat they had not voted for themselves. The men who would sit in judgment on them would not be eyewitnesses who understood the reality on the ground. They would be politicians in comfortable seats, listening to whatever clever speaker twisted the story most persuasively. The critics and demagogues would shape the narrative, not the facts.

And here was the cruelest irony, Nicias warned: many of the very soldiers now screaming loudest about how desperate their situation was -- many of these same men, once they reached the safety of Athens, would reverse themselves completely. They would proclaim just as loudly that their generals had been bribed to betray them and bring the army home.

Therefore, Nicias said, knowing the Athenian character as he did -- knowing how quick they were to turn on their leaders, how eager to find scapegoats -- he would rather stay and take his chances. He would rather die a soldier's death at the hands of the enemy than be dragged home to face a dishonest trial and an unjust execution at the hands of his own people.

And besides, he argued, the Syracusans were actually in worse shape than the Athenians. Think about what they were spending. Mercenary soldiers. Fortified outposts scattered everywhere. A full year now of maintaining a large navy. They had already burned through two thousand talents and run up massive debts on top of that. They could not afford to lose even a small fraction of their current forces from failure to pay them, because their army depended on mercenaries -- hired men who would vanish the moment the money dried up -- far more than it depended on citizen soldiers who served out of obligation, the way the Athenian forces did.

The Athenians should stay, Nicias concluded, and press the siege. They should not retreat in defeat over money, when Athens still held the decisive financial advantage.

THE IMPASSE

Nicias spoke with conviction, and he had his reasons. He had detailed intelligence about the financial crisis in Syracuse. He had the messages from the pro-Athenian faction inside the city, urging him not to give up. And he had more confidence in the fleet than before -- he was certain, at least, of winning at sea.

But Demosthenes would not hear of it. Not for a moment.

If they absolutely could not withdraw without a formal decree from Athens, he said -- if they were truly required to stay in Sicily -- then at the very least they should move the army to Thapsus or Catana. From there, their land forces would have open country to range across. They could live off the enemy's territory by raiding and plundering, which would both sustain themselves and damage Syracuse. And the fleet would have the open sea to fight in, instead of this cramped harbor that played entirely to the enemy's strengths. In open water, their superior seamanship would actually count for something. They could advance or withdraw freely, instead of being boxed in every time they launched or beached their ships.

Whatever happened, Demosthenes was adamant: they could not stay where they were. They had to move, immediately, with no further delay.

Eurymedon agreed with Demosthenes.

But Nicias still refused.

A certain unease crept over the others -- a diffidence, a reluctance to overrule him. They suspected that Nicias might know something they did not. Perhaps his intelligence sources had given him information that justified his stubborn insistence on staying. Perhaps there was a reason for his strange, immovable confidence.

And so they hesitated.

CHAPTER 23

Nineteenth Year of the War -- Battles in the Great Harbour -- Retreat and Annihilation of the Athenian Army

While the Athenians sat there doing nothing, Gylippus and Sicanus returned to Syracuse. Sicanus had failed to win over Agrigentum -- the pro-Syracusan faction had been expelled while he was still at Gela. But Gylippus brought back a large number of troops recruited across Sicily, along with the heavy infantry that had been sent from the Peloponnese in merchant ships that spring. These reinforcements had taken a roundabout journey. A storm had blown them to Libya, where the people of Cyrene gave them two ships and pilots. Sailing along the coast, they had stopped to help the Euesperitae, who were under siege from Libyan forces, and defeated the besiegers. From there they continued along the coast to Neapolis, a Carthaginian trading post and the closest point on the African shore to Sicily -- just two days and a night's sail away. They crossed over and landed at Selinus.

The moment these reinforcements arrived, the Syracusans prepared to attack the Athenians again -- by land and by sea at the same time.

The Athenian generals watched this fresh army pour in to support their enemies. Their own situation, far from improving, was getting worse by the day. Worst of all was the sickness tearing through their troops. They began to regret not having left earlier. Even Nicias had dropped his opposition, insisting only that there be no open vote on the matter. Instead, they passed the word as secretly as possible: everyone was to prepare to sail out of the camp at a given signal.

Everything was finally ready. They were on the very point of departure when the moon -- full at the time -- went into eclipse.

Most of the Athenians were deeply shaken by this. They urged the generals to wait. And Nicias, who was somewhat too devoted to divination and omens of that sort, refused from that moment to even discuss leaving until they had waited out the twenty-seven days prescribed by the soothsayers.

And so the besiegers condemned themselves to stay.

THE SYRACUSANS SEIZE THE INITIATIVE

The Syracusans soon got wind of what had happened. This made them more eager than ever to press the attack. The Athenians had now admitted, by their very decision to leave, that they no longer considered themselves superior on either land or sea. The Syracusans had no intention of letting them relocate to some other part of Sicily, where they would be harder to deal with. They wanted to force a sea battle as soon as possible, right here, in waters that favored the defenders.

They manned their ships and drilled for as many days as they thought necessary. When the time came, they first attacked the Athenian fortifications by land. A small force of Athenian heavy infantry and cavalry sallied out to meet them through certain gates, but the Syracusans cut off some of the infantry, routed the rest, and chased them back to the walls. At the narrow entrance, the Athenians lost seventy horses and a number of infantry.

The Syracusans withdrew for the day. The next morning, they sailed out with a fleet of seventy-six ships and simultaneously advanced their land forces against the Athenian lines. The Athenians put out to meet them with eighty-six ships. The fleets closed and the fighting began.

The Syracusans and their allies first broke the Athenian center. Then they caught Eurymedon, the commander of the right wing, who had sailed too far toward shore trying to outflank the enemy. They trapped him in the inner recess of the harbor, killed him, and destroyed the ships with him. After that, they chased the entire Athenian fleet and drove it ashore.

Gylippus, seeing the Athenian ships defeated and driven onto the beach beyond their stockade and camp, rushed down to the breakwater with some of his troops. His plan was to cut down the Athenians as they came ashore and make it easier for the Syracusans to tow away the beached ships, since the shore would be in friendly hands. But the Tyrrhenians, who were guarding that section for the Athenians, saw the enemy coming on in disorder. They charged out, attacked the leading troops, and hurled them into the marsh of Lysimeleia. When the rest of the Syracusan forces arrived in greater numbers, the Athenians -- now fearing for their ships -- rushed to the rescue, engaged the enemy, drove them back some distance, and killed a number of their heavy infantry.

They managed to save most of their ships and dragged them back to camp. But the Syracusans captured eighteen vessels and killed every man aboard them. As for the rest, the Syracusans tried to burn them by filling an old merchant ship with brushwood and pinewood, setting it ablaze, and letting it drift downwind toward the Athenian fleet. The Athenians, panicking over their ships, managed to stop the fire ship, put out the flames, and keep it from reaching their vessels. They escaped that danger.

After this, both sides set up trophies. The Syracusans claimed one for the sea battle and for the infantry they had cut off at the walls, where they also captured the horses. The Athenians claimed one for the rout by the Tyrrhenians at the marsh, and for their victory with the rest of the army elsewhere.

ATHENIAN DESPAIR

The Syracusans had now won a decisive victory at sea -- something unthinkable just weeks earlier, when they had still been terrified of the fleet Demosthenes had brought as reinforcement.

The Athenians were plunged into despair. The disappointment was crushing, and the regret for having launched the expedition in the first place was overwhelming. These were the only cities they had ever gone up against that were truly like their own -- democracies with real navies, cavalry, and significant populations. They had been unable to divide and conquer them by exploiting political factions, or to overwhelm them with sheer superiority of force. They had failed at nearly everything they tried. And now they had been beaten at sea, where they never could have imagined being beaten. Their confusion only deepened.

CLOSING THE HARBOR

The Syracusans immediately began sailing freely around the harbor and made plans to seal its mouth entirely, so the Athenians could never slip out, even if they wanted to. The Syracusans were no longer thinking about mere survival. They were thinking about how to prevent the enemy from escaping at all. And they were right to think that way -- they were now clearly the stronger side. To defeat the Athenians and their allies on both land and sea would win them enormous glory across Greece. The rest of the Greek world would be either liberated or freed from fear, since the remaining forces of Athens would never be able to sustain the war that would inevitably follow. And they, the Syracusans, would be celebrated as the authors of this deliverance -- admired not only by everyone alive but by generations to come.

Nor was glory the only thing at stake. They would be conquering not just the Athenians but their many allies too, and not conquering alone but alongside their own allies, fighting side by side with the Corinthians and Spartans, having offered their city to stand in the front line of danger, having been -- in large measure -- the pioneers of victory at sea.

THE FORCES ASSEMBLED

Never had so many different peoples gathered before a single city -- with the one exception of the grand total assembled under Athens and Sparta for the war as a whole. Here is the catalogue of the states that came to Syracuse, fighting on one side or the other, for or against the island.

It was not shared blood or common heritage that united them so much as interest or compulsion, as the case might be.

On the Athenian side: The Athenians themselves, being Ionians, went willingly against the Dorians of Syracuse. The peoples who still spoke Attic Greek and lived under Athenian laws -- the Lemnians, Imbrians, and Aeginetans (that is, the current occupants of Aegina) -- went with them as Athenian colonists. So did the Hestiaeans from Hestiaea in Euboea.

The rest joined either as Athenian subjects, as independent allies, or as mercenaries.

Among the tribute-paying subjects were the Eretrians, Chalcidians, Styrians, and Carystians from Euboea; the Ceans, Andrians, and Tenians from the islands; and the Milesians, Samians, and Chians from Ionia. The Chians, however, served as independent allies, providing ships rather than paying tribute. Most of these were Ionians descended from the Athenians -- except the Carystians, who were Dryopes. But even though they were subjects compelled to serve, they were still Ionians fighting against Dorians.

Then there were the Aeolians: the Methymnians, who were subjects providing ships rather than tribute, and the Tenedians and Aenians, who paid tribute. These Aeolians fought against their own Aeolian kinsmen -- the Boeotians in the Syracusan army -- because they had no choice. The Plataeans, the only native Boeotians fighting against Boeotians, did so out of justified hatred.

Of the Rhodians and Cytherians, both Dorians: the Cytherians, though Spartan colonists, fought in the Athenian ranks against their own Spartan countrymen serving under Gylippus. The Rhodians, Argive by origin, were forced to fight against the Dorian Syracusans and against the Geloans, their own colonists, who served with Syracuse.

Among the islanders around the Peloponnese, the Cephallenians and Zacynthians came as independent allies -- though their island position gave them little real choice, given Athenian dominance of the sea. The Corcyraeans, who were Dorians and even Corinthians by origin, were openly fighting against both Corinth and Syracuse -- despite being colonists of the former and sharing blood with the latter. Officially, they claimed compulsion. In reality, they came willingly, out of sheer hatred for Corinth.

The Messenians -- both those at Naupactus and those from Pylos, which Athens then controlled -- were also brought along. A few Megarian exiles came too, men whose fate it was to fight against their own kinsmen, the Megarian settlers of Selinus.

The participation of the rest was more voluntary. It was less alliance loyalty and more hatred of the Spartans, combined with each man's immediate self-interest, that persuaded the Dorian Argives to join the Ionian Athenians in a war against fellow Dorians. The Mantineans and other Arcadian mercenaries were professionals, accustomed to fighting whoever they were pointed at -- and they saw the Arcadians serving with Corinth as just as much the enemy as anyone else. The Cretans and Aetolians served for pay, and the Cretans -- who had helped the Rhodians found Gela -- thus ended up fighting for money against their own colony. Some Acarnanians served for pay too, though most came out of devotion to Demosthenes and goodwill toward the Athenians, whose allies they were.

All of the above came from the Greek side of the Ionian Gulf. From the Italian Greeks, there were the Thurians and Metapontines, dragged in by the fierce pressures of revolutionary times. From the Sicilian Greeks, the Naxians and Catanians. Among the non-Greeks: the Egestaeans, who had invited the Athenians in the first place; most of the native Sicels; and from outside Sicily, some Tyrrhenians hostile to Syracuse and Iapygian mercenaries.

Such were the peoples fighting on the Athenian side.

Against them, the Syracusans had: their neighbors the Camarinaeans; the Geloans, who lived next door to them; and then, skipping over the neutral Agrigentines, the Selinuntines on the far side of the island. These peoples inhabited the part of Sicily facing Libya. From the side facing the Tyrrhenian Sea came the Himeraeans, the only Greek inhabitants of that coast and the only people from that quarter who came to help.

Of the Greeks in Sicily, these were all Dorians and all independent. Of the non-Greeks, only such Sicels as had not gone over to the Athenians.

From outside Sicily, the Spartans provided a commander and a force of freedmen and Helots. The Corinthians alone sent both naval and land forces, along with their Leucadian and Ambraciot kinsmen. Corinth also sent some Arcadian mercenaries. The Sicyonians served under compulsion. From beyond the Peloponnese came the Boeotians.

But compared to all these foreign auxiliaries, the great Sicilian cities contributed more of everything -- more heavy infantry, more ships, more cavalry, and an enormous mass of other troops. And compared to all the rest put together, the Syracusans themselves contributed the most, both because their city was the largest and because they were in the greatest danger.

THE FINAL SEA BATTLE

Such were the forces assembled on each side. By now, every last reinforcement had arrived; neither side would receive any more.

It was no wonder, then, that the Syracusans and their allies believed they could crown their victory in the recent sea battle by capturing the entire Athenian expeditionary force -- every ship, every soldier -- without letting any of them escape by sea or by land.

They immediately began closing off the Great Harbor, stretching boats, merchant vessels, and warships broadside across its mouth -- nearly a mile wide -- and lashing them together. They made every other preparation for the battle they expected the Athenians would be forced to fight. There was nothing small about their plans. There was nothing small about their ambitions.

The Athenians watched the harbor being sealed shut. They received intelligence about the Syracusans' wider plans. They called a council of war.

The generals and senior officers gathered and laid out the situation. The most urgent problem was supplies. They had already sent word to Catana not to ship any more provisions, since they had expected to be leaving. There would be no food coming unless they controlled the sea.

They made a decision. They would abandon their upper fortification lines. They would build a single cross-wall enclosing only a small area near the ships -- just enough to hold their stores and their sick. They would man every ship they had, seaworthy or not, with every soldier who could be spared from the remaining land forces. They would fight it out at sea. If they won, they would sail to Catana. If they lost, they would burn their ships, form up in close order, and retreat overland to the nearest friendly territory they could find, Greek or non-Greek.

The decision was made and immediately carried out. They came down from the upper walls and manned every vessel, forcing aboard everyone of fighting age who could be of any use at all. They managed to crew roughly a hundred and ten ships. They packed the decks with archers and javelin throwers -- Acarnanians and other foreign troops -- equipping themselves as best they could given what they had and what their desperate situation demanded.

When everything was nearly ready, Nicias looked at his men.

He could see how shattered they were. The unprecedented, total defeat at sea. The starvation gnawing at them. The desperate eagerness to get it over with, one way or another.

He called them all together. And he spoke to them one last time.

NICIAS' SPEECH TO HIS TROOPS

"Soldiers of Athens and of the allied states: what is coming next matters equally to all of us. Every one of you is fighting for his life and his homeland just as much as the enemy is fighting for his. If our fleet wins today, any man among you can see his home city again, wherever that city may be.

"You must not lose heart. Do not be like men with no experience of war, who fail in their first real test and then spend the rest of their lives dreading that every future battle will end in the same disaster. Athenians -- you have fought in many wars before this one. Allies -- you have marched in many campaigns. Remember how unpredictable war can be. Hold on to the hope that fortune will not always turn against us. And prepare to fight again -- fight in a way that is worthy of the sheer number of men you can see standing in your own ranks.

"Now, everything we could think of to deal with the crowding of ships in such a narrow harbor, and to counter the troops massed on the enemy's decks -- which hurt us so badly last time -- all of this has been discussed with the helmsmen and provided for as far as our resources allow. We will have archers and javelin throwers aboard in numbers we would never use in an open-sea battle, where their weight would slow the ships. But in the kind of fight we are being forced into -- essentially a land battle fought from the decks of ships -- all these men will be invaluable.

"We have also figured out the changes we need to make to our ships. Against those thickened prow-timbers that did us the worst damage, we have fitted grappling irons. Once these catch hold, they will prevent an enemy ship from backing away after a ramming charge -- so long as the soldiers on deck do their part. Because we are now committed to fighting what is really a land battle from our ships. It is in our interest not to back away ourselves, and not to let the enemy back away either -- especially since the entire shoreline, except for whatever stretch our troops manage to hold, belongs to the enemy.

"Keep this in mind and fight on for as long as you can. Do not let yourselves be driven ashore. When your ship locks alongside an enemy vessel, do not break away until you have swept the heavy infantry off the enemy's deck. I say this especially to the infantry, because this is your job above all. Our land forces, taken as a whole, still have the upper hand.

"To the sailors, I have this to say -- and I say it not just as advice but as a plea. Do not be too crushed by what has happened. Our decks are better armed now. We have more ships. And think about how precious this is -- those of you who, through your knowledge of our language and your adoption of our customs, have always been regarded as Athenians even though you were not Athenians by birth. You were honored throughout Greece. You shared fully in the benefits of our empire. Our subject peoples respected you -- feared you, even -- and you were protected from mistreatment. You alone, of all people, have shared freely in our empire. And now we ask you -- we have every right to ask you -- not to betray that empire in its hour of greatest need. Scorn these Corinthians, whom you have beaten time after time. Scorn these Sicilians, who never even dared face us when our navy was at full strength. Drive them back. Prove that even in sickness and disaster, your skill surpasses the strength and luck of any enemy you will ever face.

"And to the Athenians among you, I will add one more thought. You have no more ships like these waiting in the docks back home. You have no more heavy infantry in the prime of life. If you do anything here except win, our enemies will immediately sail against Athens. And the people we left behind -- already too few -- will not be able to defend themselves against their local enemies reinforced by this new threat.

"Those of you here will fall at once into the hands of the Syracusans -- and I do not need to remind you what you planned to do to them. Those left in Athens will fall into the hands of the Spartans.

"The fate of both hangs on this single battle.

"Now, if ever, stand firm. Every one of you, remember: you who are about to board these ships are the army and the navy of Athens. You are all that remains of the state and the great name of Athens. If any man among you has any edge in skill or courage, now is the moment to show it -- and in doing so, he saves himself and saves us all."

After this speech, Nicias immediately gave the order to man the ships.

Gylippus and the Syracusans could see from the preparations underway that the Athenians were going to fight at sea. They had also learned about the grappling irons. To counter them, they stretched raw hides over the prows and upper hulls of their ships so the irons, when thrown, would slide off without catching hold.

When everything was ready, the Syracusan generals and Gylippus addressed their own men.

THE SYRACUSAN SPEECH

"Syracusans and allies: we believe most of you already understand both the glory of what we have accomplished so far and the glory of what is at stake in the battle ahead -- otherwise you would not have thrown yourselves into this fight with such determination. But in case anyone has not fully grasped the situation, let us spell it out.

"The Athenians came to this island first to conquer Sicily, and after that, if they succeeded, to conquer the Peloponnese and the rest of Greece. They already possessed the greatest empire any Greek state has ever held, past or present. And here, for the first time in their history, they ran into people who stood up to the navy that had made them masters of the world. You have already beaten them at sea. And you will, in all likelihood, beat them again now.

"When men are checked in the thing they consider their special strength, the blow to their confidence goes far beyond what the actual defeat warrants. The shock of the unexpected makes them collapse more than they should. And that is almost certainly what has happened to the Athenians.

"With us, it is exactly the opposite. The confidence we had even back when we were inexperienced has only grown stronger. And on top of that, the conviction that we have beaten the best navy in the world has doubled every man's courage. Where there is the greatest hope, there is also the greatest will to fight.

"As for the countermeasures they have tried -- copying our tactics, loading their decks with troops -- these are things we know how to handle. But what they will never be able to do is pack their ships with heavy infantry against all their training, and crowd them with javelin throwers -- landsmen, really, Acarnanians and the like, who will not even know how to throw their weapons on a rocking deck -- without weighing down their ships and throwing their own men into chaos. They will gain nothing by fighting in ways that go against everything they know.

"And if anyone here is worried about facing superior numbers, let me put that to rest. More ships in a tight space only means slower movement and greater vulnerability to our attacks.

"Here is the plain truth, as our intelligence confirms it: the Athenians are desperate. Their suffering and their hopeless situation have driven them to this. They have no confidence in their strength. They simply want to gamble on their last chance, force their way out or fail trying, and then retreat by land -- since they know things cannot possibly get any worse for them than they already are.

"Their greatest army has betrayed itself into disorder. Let us attack them in anger. Remember: when you face an enemy who invaded your homeland to enslave you, nothing is more justified than unleashing the full fury of your outrage. And nothing, as the saying goes, is sweeter than revenge on an enemy. That is what we are about to take.

"That they are our enemies -- our mortal enemies -- every one of you knows. They came here to enslave our country. If they had succeeded, they had the most terrible fate in store for our men, the most shameful for our women and children, and for our city as a whole the most disgraceful name that can be given. No one, therefore, should soften toward them or think it a good thing if they simply leave without further harm to us. They will leave anyway, even if they win. But if we win -- as we have every reason to expect -- we will punish them and hand down to all of Sicily its ancient freedom, secured and strengthened. The finest dangers are those where failure costs little but victory brings the greatest reward."

THE BATTLE IN THE HARBOR

After the generals on both sides had spoken to their troops, the Syracusans saw the Athenians manning their ships and immediately manned their own.

Meanwhile, Nicias -- overwhelmed by the situation, feeling the full weight and closeness of the danger now that his men were on the very point of pushing off from shore, seized by that feeling men have in moments of supreme crisis, that after everything has been done there is still something left undone, after everything has been said there is still something left unsaid -- Nicias went among the captains one by one. He called each man by his father's name, by his own name, by the name of his tribe. He begged them not to betray their personal reputations or let the ancestral glory of their families be forgotten. He reminded them of their country -- the freest of the free -- where every citizen enjoyed the liberty to live exactly as he chose. He said all the things men say at such moments -- the appeals to wives, to children, to the gods of their homeland -- things that people make on every such occasion without worrying whether they sound like clichés, because in the terror and desperation of the moment, they believe those words might actually help.

Having said not everything he wanted to say, but everything he could, Nicias turned away. He led the land forces down to the shore and spread them out in as long a line as possible, so that the men on the ships could look back and see their comrades standing there -- holding the line for them, sustaining what was left of their courage.

Then Demosthenes, Menander, and Euthydemus -- the commanders aboard the fleet -- cast off from the camp and sailed straight for the barrier stretched across the mouth of the harbor, heading for the gap that had been left open, trying to force their way out.

The Syracusans and their allies had already put out with roughly the same number of ships as before. Part of their fleet guarded the exit. The rest were stationed all around the harbor, ready to attack the Athenians from every direction at once. Their land forces stood in readiness at every point along the shore where the ships might be driven in.

The Syracusan fleet was commanded by Sicanus and Agatharchus, each leading a wing, with Pythen and the Corinthians in the center.

When the main Athenian force reached the barrier, the first impact of their charge overwhelmed the ships stationed there. They began tearing at the fastenings, trying to break through. But then the Syracusan fleet closed in from all sides, and the fighting spread from the barrier across the entire harbor.

It was the most savagely contested battle of them all.

On both sides, the rowers threw themselves into their work at the boatswains' commands. The helmsmen maneuvered with extraordinary skill, each one determined to outdo the others. When ships locked together, the soldiers on deck fought with everything they had, desperate not to be outdone by the men below. Every man in every position strained to prove himself the best at his particular task.

The scale was staggering. These were the largest fleets ever to fight in the tightest space -- close to two hundred ships, all told, crammed into the harbor. There was almost no room for the standard tactics of ramming and withdrawal. Ships could not back water properly. They could not break the enemy's line. Instead, collisions were constant -- ships crashing into one another while trying to flee from one enemy or attack another. As long as a ship was on its approach, the men on the enemy decks showered it with javelins, arrows, and stones. But the moment two ships came alongside each other, the heavy infantry scrambled to board, fighting hand to hand.

In the cramped quarters, it kept happening that a ship would be ramming an enemy on one side while being rammed itself on the other. Two ships -- sometimes more -- would get tangled around a single vessel, forcing helmsmen to think about defense here and offense there, not one crisis at a time but a dozen all at once. The noise was deafening. Hundreds of ships slamming together, the crash of timber and oars drowning out everything -- including the boatswains' orders, which could no longer be heard above the roar.

The boatswains screamed themselves hoarse on both sides -- barking orders, hurling encouragement, their voices raw with urgency and rage. To the Athenians they shouted: Force the passage! Now, if ever, show your courage! Fight your way home! To the Syracusans and their allies: Stop them! Do not let them escape! To conquer now is to bring glory to your homeland forever!

The generals on each side, whenever they spotted a captain hanging back or drifting toward shore without being forced there, called him out by name. The Athenian generals demanded: Are you retreating because you think that hostile shore is more welcoming than the sea you bled so hard to win? The Syracusan generals taunted: Are you running from men who are already running from you -- men you know perfectly well are desperate to escape by any means they can?

THE AGONY ON SHORE

While the outcome hung in the balance, the two armies on the shore were gripped by an agony beyond anything they had ever known. The Syracusans ached for even greater glory than what they had already won. The Athenians were terrified of a fate worse than anything they had yet suffered.

For the Athenians, everything depended on the fleet. Their fear was like nothing any of them had ever felt. And because of where they stood -- spread along the shore, close to the action but not all looking at the same part of the battle at the same time -- their experience of the fight was as fractured and shifting as the battle itself.

Some caught sight of their comrades winning at one point and took heart. They called on the gods not to rob them of their salvation. Others, whose eyes had fallen on a part of the line where their side was losing, cried out in anguish -- and though they were only spectators, they suffered more than the men actually fighting.

Still others stared at some stretch of the battle where nothing was decided, where the two sides ground against each other without either giving way. As the stalemate dragged on, their bodies swayed back and forth with the shifting struggle, physically mirroring the torment of their minds. They were the worst off of all -- always just within reach of safety, always just on the edge of destruction.

In that one Athenian army, as long as the sea battle remained undecided, you could hear every sound a human being can make at once. Screams. Cheers. "We're winning!" "We're losing!" -- all the countless cries that a vast host of men will inevitably make when their lives hang by a thread. The men on the ships felt much the same.

Until, at last, after the battle had raged on and on, the Syracusans and their allies broke the Athenian fleet.

With a great roar of triumph, they chased them in open rout toward the shore.

The sailors -- those who were not captured or killed on the water -- came streaming in, some one way, some another, beaching their ships, leaping overboard, running for the camp. And the army on shore, no longer divided in their emotions, no longer torn between hope and despair, but united now in a single overwhelming wave of horror -- all of them together, with screams and groans, rushed toward the shore. Some ran to try to save the ships. Others ran to defend what was left of their wall. But most -- the great majority -- had already begun to think about nothing except how to save their own lives.

The terror of that moment was unlike anything they had ever experienced. And what they were suffering now was almost exactly what they had inflicted on the Spartans at Pylos. There, the Spartans had lost their fleet and with it the men who had crossed to the island. Now, the Athenians had lost all hope of escape by sea. Without some miraculous turn of fortune, there was no way out by land either.

THE AFTERMATH

The sea battle had been savage. Both sides had lost many ships and many men. But the Syracusans and their allies -- the victors -- gathered up their wreckage and their dead, sailed back to the city, and raised a trophy.

The Athenians were so crushed by the scale of the disaster that it never even occurred to them to ask for permission to collect their dead or their wrecks. All they could think about was retreating, and doing it that very night.

Demosthenes went to Nicias and argued that they should man their remaining ships and try to force the passage again at dawn. They still had more seaworthy ships than the enemy, he said -- about sixty Athenian vessels to fewer than fifty Syracusan.

Nicias agreed with the plan. But when they tried to man the ships, the sailors refused to board. They were so utterly shattered by the defeat that they simply could not believe success was possible anymore.

So they all made up their minds to retreat by land.

HERMOCRATES' TRICK

The Syracusan Hermocrates saw what was coming. He understood the danger of letting an army that large march away, establish itself in some other part of Sicily, and resume the war from there. He went to the authorities and urged them to send out the entire Syracusan army and their allies immediately to block the roads and guard the passes. Do not let them get away by night.

The authorities agreed completely -- in principle. But they also knew that their men, who had given themselves over to celebration after the great victory at sea, would be almost impossible to rouse. It was a festival day -- a sacrifice to Heracles -- and most of the soldiers, drunk with victory and drink alike, would sooner agree to anything than pick up their weapons and march out into the darkness.

The authorities judged it could not be done. Hermocrates, unable to convince them, resorted to a trick.

As soon as it was dark, he sent some of his friends, accompanied by horsemen, to the Athenian camp. They rode up within earshot and called out to certain men, pretending to be Athenian sympathizers -- people friendly to Nicias, who was known to have contacts inside the city who passed him information. They told these men to warn Nicias: do not march out tonight. The Syracusans are guarding the roads. Better to prepare carefully and leave by daylight.

The message was delivered. The Athenian generals believed it. They postponed the departure for that night, not suspecting it was a deception.

THE RETREAT BEGINS

Since they had not left that night, they decided to spend the following day as well, giving the soldiers time to pack whatever was most essential and leave everything else behind. They would carry only what was strictly necessary for survival.

Meanwhile, the Syracusans and Gylippus marched out and blocked every road the Athenians were likely to take. They posted guards at the fords of every stream and river, positioning themselves wherever they thought best to intercept and stop the retreating army. Their fleet sailed to the beach and began towing away the Athenian ships. The Athenians had intended to burn some of them, and they managed to set fire to a few. The rest the Syracusans hauled off at their leisure, dragging them from where they had been thrown up on the beach, with no one left to stop them. They towed them back to the city.

THE MARCH

Two days after the sea battle, when Nicias and Demosthenes judged that they had done all they could, the army began its march.

It was a scene of unimaginable grief.

They were retreating after losing every one of their ships. Their great hopes had turned to ruin. Every man among them, and the state itself, faced destruction. But even beyond all that, what they saw as they left the camp was enough to break the heart of anyone who witnessed it.

The dead lay unburied. When a man recognized a friend among the corpses, he shuddered with a grief that was half horror. But the living they were leaving behind -- the wounded, the sick -- were harder to look at than the dead, and far more pitiful than those who had already perished.

These men begged. They wept. They pleaded with their comrades to take them along, crying out to every individual they recognized -- grabbing at friends, at tent-mates, hanging on their necks as they tried to leave, following them as far as their bodies would carry them, and when their strength gave out, calling after them again and again with shrieks and appeals to the gods as they were left behind.

The entire army dissolved in tears. It was almost impossible to make them leave, even though they were in enemy territory, where they had already endured suffering beyond tears, and where the unknown future promised even worse.

Self-loathing hung over them like a cloud. They looked like nothing so much as the population of a city escaping after a siege -- and not a small city, either. The column on the march numbered no fewer than forty thousand.

Every man carried whatever he thought might be useful. The heavy infantry and the cavalry, breaking with all custom, carried their own food under their armor. Some had no servants left. Others no longer trusted theirs -- the servants had been deserting for a long time, and now they were leaving in greater numbers than ever. Even so, they did not carry enough. There was no more food in the camp.

And their shared suffering, though eased slightly by the fact that so many bore it together, still weighed on them like a crushing burden -- especially when they thought about the contrast. They remembered the splendor and the pride of their departure. And now this.

This was, by far, the greatest reversal that had ever befallen a Greek army. They had come to enslave others, and now they were leaving in terror of being enslaved themselves. They had sailed out with prayers and hymns of triumph; now they marched away under omens of pure catastrophe -- on foot instead of by sea, trusting in their infantry instead of their fleet.

And yet the sheer scale of the danger still ahead made even all of this seem bearable.

NICIAS' FINAL ADDRESS

Nicias could see the army broken and transformed. He walked along the ranks, encouraging and consoling the men as best he could under the circumstances. He raised his voice higher and higher as he moved from one company to the next, out of sheer urgency, out of desperate anxiety that his words might reach as many men as possible:

"Athenians and allies -- even now, even in this, you must not give up hope. Men have been saved from worse situations than this before. And you must not condemn yourselves too harshly -- not for what has happened to you and not for the suffering you are enduring now, which you did nothing to deserve.

"Look at me. I am no stronger than any of you -- you can see for yourselves what my illness has done to me. In private life and public life alike, I was once as fortunate as anyone. And now I am exposed to the same danger as the lowest soldier in these ranks. Yet my whole life has been devoted to the gods. I have dealt with my fellow men justly and without giving offense. And so I still have strong hope for the future. Our misfortunes do not terrify me as much as they might. They may yet lighten. Our enemies have had fortune enough. And if any of the gods was offended by our expedition, we have already been punished far beyond what we owed. Other men before us have attacked their neighbors -- they have done what human beings do -- and they did not suffer beyond what they could bear. We have a right to expect the gods to show us more kindness now, because we have become more fit objects for their pity than their jealousy.

"And look at yourselves. Look at the heavy infantry marching in your ranks -- the numbers, the quality. Do not give way to despair. Remember: wherever you sit down together, you are a city. There is no other city in Sicily that could easily withstand your attack or drive you out once you have dug in. The safety and discipline of the march are in your own hands. Let every man's single thought be this: whatever spot of ground I am forced to fight on, that ground is my country and my fortress.

"We will march by day and night alike, because our food is running short. If we can reach the territory of the Sicels -- who still fear Syracuse enough to remain loyal to us -- then you may consider yourselves safe. We have already sent a message ahead, telling them to meet us with supplies.

"In short, soldiers: you must be brave, because there is no place near enough for cowards to run to. If you escape the enemy now, the rest of you will see everything your hearts desire. And those of you who are Athenians -- you will raise up again the great power of Athens, fallen as it is. Because it is men who make a city. Not walls. Not ships without men to sail them."

THE MARCH CONTINUES

As Nicias spoke these words, he walked along the line, pulling back any soldiers he saw straggling out of formation. Demosthenes did the same with his half of the army, delivering a speech very similar in substance.

The army marched in a hollow square. Nicias' division led the way. Demosthenes' division followed. The heavy infantry formed the outer shell, with the baggage carriers and the mass of camp followers in the center.

When they reached the ford of the Anapus River, they found a body of Syracusan troops and allies drawn up to oppose them. They broke through, crossed the river, and pushed on -- though they were constantly harassed by Syracusan cavalry charges and the missiles of the enemy's skirmishers.

That day they advanced about four and a half miles before making camp for the night on a hill.

The next day they set out early, covered another two miles, then descended into an inhabited area on the plain. They camped there to find food in the houses and to fill their water containers, since for many miles ahead, in the direction they were going, water was scarce.

While they rested, the Syracusans pushed ahead and fortified the pass that lay before them -- a steep hill flanked on both sides by rocky ravines, called the Acraean Cliff.

The following day, the Athenians marched forward but found their way blocked by a storm of missiles and cavalry charges from the Syracusan forces, now present in enormous numbers. After fighting for hours, they finally fell back to the same camp. But now their provisions were worse than before, and the cavalry made it impossible to forage.

They started again at dawn and fought their way to the fortified hill. There they found the Syracusan infantry drawn up many ranks deep, blocking the narrow pass. The Athenians charged the fortification but were met by a hail of missiles from the high ground above, which struck with devastating force because of the steep slope. Unable to break through, they fell back again and rested.

While they paused, thunder rolled and rain came pouring down -- the kind of autumn storm that was common at that time of year. It crushed the Athenians' spirits even further. They saw it all as an omen of their coming destruction.

While they rested, Gylippus sent part of his force to build fortifications behind them, cutting off their line of retreat. But the Athenians immediately dispatched troops of their own and stopped the construction. After that, they pulled back closer to the plain and made camp for the night.

The next day, when they advanced, the Syracusans surrounded them and attacked from every side. They wounded many men, pulling back whenever the Athenians pushed forward and pressing in again whenever they fell back -- always targeting the rear of the column, hoping to break off pieces and panic the entire army into rout. The Athenians endured this for a long time, then advanced another half mile or so before halting on the plain to rest. The Syracusans withdrew to their own camp.

THE SPLITTING OF THE ARMY

That night, Nicias and Demosthenes looked at the state of their troops -- starving, battered, the wounded beyond counting, the attacks relentless -- and made a decision. They would light as many campfires as possible to cover their movement. Then they would lead the army away under cover of darkness -- not along the route they had originally planned, but in the opposite direction, toward the sea, away from the roads the Syracusans were guarding. This new course would take them not toward Catana but toward the other side of Sicily -- toward Camarina, Gela, and the other Greek and non-Greek towns in that region.

They lit their fires and marched out into the night.

Now, all armies are prone to panic, especially when marching through hostile territory at night with the enemy nearby. And the larger the army, the worse it is. The Athenians fell into just such a panic. Nicias' division, in the lead, held together and pulled far ahead. But Demosthenes' division -- which made up more than half the army -- became separated and fell into disorder.

By morning, they reached the sea. They found the Helorine road and pushed along it toward the Cacyparis River, planning to follow it upstream into the interior, where they expected the Sicels to meet them with supplies. When they reached the river, they found yet another Syracusan force blocking the ford with a wall and palisade. They broke through, crossed, and continued on to another river called the Erineus, following their guides' directions.

THE DESTRUCTION OF DEMOSTHENES' DIVISION

When daylight came and the Syracusans discovered that the Athenians were gone, most of them furiously accused Gylippus of having deliberately let them escape. They set out in hot pursuit along the road -- which was easy enough to find -- and caught up with the enemy around noon.

They came upon Demosthenes' troops first. His men were in the rear, still marching slowly and in disorder from the panic of the night before. The Syracusan cavalry, with more room to operate now that this force was separated from the rest, surrounded them and hemmed them into a single area.

Nicias' division was five or six miles farther ahead. Nicias had been moving faster, believing their only chance of survival lay in putting as much distance as possible between them and the enemy, not in stopping to fight unless they absolutely had to.

Demosthenes, on the other hand, had been under constant, unrelenting harassment. His position in the rear meant he always took the first blow. And now, finding the Syracusans right on top of him, he stopped trying to advance and formed his men up for battle -- which cost him time, and the enemy closed in around him.

He and his men found themselves trapped in a walled enclosure -- a plot of land bordered by a road on either side, thick with olive trees. Missiles rained in from every direction.

The Syracusans had good reason to adopt this kind of attack rather than close combat. At this point, the risk of hand-to-hand fighting favored the Athenians more than it favored them -- men with nothing to lose fight with a desperate fury. The Syracusans' victory was already so certain that they could afford to be cautious, to avoid taking casualties at the very moment of triumph. They knew they could grind down and capture the enemy this way.

And they did. After pelting the Athenians and their allies with missiles all day long from every side, they could finally see that their victims were collapsing -- broken by wounds, exhaustion, and suffering.

Gylippus and the Syracusans made a proclamation: any islanders who wished to come over to their side would be given their freedom. A few contingents from the allied cities accepted.

After that, terms of surrender were agreed upon for the rest of Demosthenes' force. They would lay down their arms. The condition: no man would be put to death by violence, or by imprisonment, or by being denied the necessities of life.

Six thousand men surrendered. They laid down all the money they had, filling the hollows of four shields, and were immediately marched to Syracuse.

THE DESTRUCTION OF NICIAS' DIVISION

Meanwhile, Nicias and his division reached the Erineus River that same day, crossed it, and took up a position on high ground on the far side.

The next day, the Syracusans caught up with him. They told him Demosthenes' force had surrendered and invited him to do the same.

Nicias did not believe it. He asked for a truce to send a horseman back to verify the report. The rider returned and confirmed that it was true.

Nicias then sent a herald to Gylippus and the Syracusans with a proposal: Athens would repay every penny Syracuse had spent on the war, if they would let his army go. Until the money was paid, he would hand over Athenian hostages -- one man for every talent owed.

The Syracusans and Gylippus rejected the offer. They attacked.

They surrounded Nicias' division, just as they had Demosthenes', and bombarded them with missiles until evening. These men were just as desperate for food and water as their comrades had been.

They waited for nightfall and prepared to resume the march. But as they picked up their weapons, the Syracusans heard the noise and raised their war cry. The Athenians, realizing they had been detected, put their weapons back down.

All except about three hundred men, who forced their way through the Syracusan guard and pushed on into the darkness.

THE RIVER

At dawn, Nicias put what was left of his army in motion. The Syracusans and their allies pressed them from every side, showering them with javelins, cutting them down with every kind of missile.

The Athenians drove forward toward the Assinarus River. They were being attacked from all directions by enormous numbers of cavalry and infantry. They thought that if they could just get across the river, things would be easier. They were driven by that thought and by another, simpler one: they were dying of thirst.

When they reached the river, they lost all discipline. Every man wanted to cross first. The enemy attacks made crossing nearly impossible. Forced together in a mass, they fell on top of one another, trampled one another. Some were killed instantly, run through by javelins. Others tripped over discarded equipment and tangled together and could not get up.

On the far bank, which was steep, the Syracusans stood in a line and hurled missiles down into the mass of men below. Most of the Athenians were in the riverbed, drinking desperately, crushed together in chaos. The Peloponnesians came down and butchered them -- especially those in the water, which turned foul almost instantly. But the Athenians went on drinking it anyway -- muddy, bloody, filthy as it was. Most of them fought each other for it.

At last, when the dead lay heaped on one another in the stream, when part of the army had been annihilated at the river and the few who escaped had been cut down by cavalry, Nicias surrendered himself to Gylippus.

He trusted Gylippus more than he trusted the Syracusans. He told him and the Spartans to do whatever they wanted with him -- but to stop the killing.

Gylippus gave the order to take prisoners.

The survivors were rounded up -- all except the large numbers that individual soldiers had already hidden away for themselves, and the three hundred who had broken through the night before, who were now hunted down and captured as well. The number taken as official, public prisoners was not large. But the number secretly kept by individual soldiers was enormous, and they were scattered across all of Sicily, since no formal terms of surrender had been agreed in their case, as they had been for Demosthenes' men.

The death toll was staggering. The slaughter at the river was among the worst in the entire Sicilian war. And in all the other engagements along the march, the casualties had been heavy too.

Still, many escaped -- some in the chaos of the moment, others later, after being enslaved, by running away. These survivors found refuge at Catana.

THE QUARRIES

The Syracusans and their allies regrouped, collected the spoils and as many prisoners as they could manage, and marched back to the city.

All the Athenian and allied captives were thrown into the stone quarries. It seemed the safest way to hold them.

Nicias and Demosthenes were put to death -- against the wishes of Gylippus, who thought that bringing the enemy's commanding generals home to Sparta would be the crowning glory of his triumph. As it happened, one of them -- Demosthenes -- was one of Sparta's greatest enemies, because of the affair at Pylos and the island of Sphacteria. The other -- Nicias -- was one of Sparta's greatest friends, for the very same reasons. Nicias had worked harder than anyone to secure the release of the Spartan prisoners by persuading the Athenians to make peace. The Spartans were grateful to him for that, and it was this gratitude, above all, that had given Nicias the confidence to surrender himself to Gylippus.

But some of the Syracusans who had been in secret contact with Nicias were afraid, it was said, that if he were interrogated under torture, he might make revelations that would compromise them at the very moment of their success. Others -- especially the Corinthians -- feared that a man of his wealth might use bribes to buy his freedom and then live to make trouble for them in the future.

These men persuaded the allies. Nicias was executed.

This, or something close to it, was the reason for the death of a man who, of all the Greeks in my time, least deserved such a fate -- for the whole course of his life had been guided by an unwavering devotion to virtue.

The prisoners in the quarries were treated with savage cruelty. Packed into a narrow space with no roof over their heads, they were tormented during the day by the blazing sun and the suffocating heat, and at night by the autumn cold that came on suddenly and made them sick from the violent change. They had to do everything in the same place because there was no room to move. The bodies of those who died -- from their wounds, from the temperature swings, from other causes -- were left piled on top of one another. The stench was unbearable. And through all of it, hunger and thirst never stopped. For eight months, each man received only half a pint of water and a pint of grain per day.

Every form of suffering that can be imagined for men trapped in such a place was inflicted on them.

For about seventy days, they were all held together. After that, all the prisoners except the Athenians and any Sicilian or Italian Greeks who had joined the expedition were sold into slavery. The total number of prisoners taken is hard to determine precisely, but it could not have been fewer than seven thousand.

This was the greatest achievement in Greek history during this war -- or, in my judgment, in all of Greek history. For the victors, the most glorious of triumphs. For the defeated, the most total of catastrophes.

They were beaten in every way. They were beaten completely. Everything they suffered was immense. They were destroyed -- as the phrase goes -- with a total destruction. Their fleet, their army, everything: destroyed. Out of so many, so few came home.

Such were the events in Sicily.

Book VIII: The War in Ionia

CHAPTER 24

Revolt of Ionia — Intervention of Persia — The War in Ionia

Such were the events in Sicily. When the news reached Athens, the people refused to believe it for a long time — even when hearing it from the mouths of soldiers who had been there in person and escaped. A disaster on that scale simply did not seem possible. But when the reality finally forced itself upon them, they turned in fury on the politicians who had championed the expedition — as if they themselves had not voted for it. They raged against the oracle-readers, the soothsayers, and every other fortune-teller who had encouraged them to believe they could conquer Sicily.

And the blow struck deeper than anger. At every level and in every direction, they were already under strain. Now, on top of everything else, came a wave of fear and panic unlike anything Athens had ever known. It was devastating enough for the city and for every citizen personally to have lost so many heavy infantry, cavalry, and fit fighting men, with no reserves to replace them. But when they looked at their dockyards and saw too few ships, looked at the treasury and saw too little money, looked around for crews and found none — that was when despair set in. They were sure that their enemies in Sicily would immediately sail a fleet straight for Piraeus, riding the momentum of such a spectacular victory. Their enemies closer to home, they believed, would redouble their preparations and attack Athens by land and sea simultaneously, joined by Athens's own allies, who would now revolt. And yet, despite everything, Athens resolved to hold on. They would find timber and money somehow. They would build a fleet with whatever they had. They would take steps to hold onto their allies — Euboea above all. They would cut costs in the city wherever possible and elect a board of elder advisers to oversee the crisis as events unfolded. In short — as democracies do when they are truly frightened — they were suddenly ready to exercise all the discipline and restraint they could manage.

These decisions were immediately put into action. Summer was now over.

The following winter, all of Greece buzzed with the news of the catastrophe in Sicily. States that had been neutral now decided they could no longer stay on the sidelines, even without being invited. They would volunteer to march against Athens — an enemy that, they each realized, would have come for them next if the Sicilian campaign had succeeded. Besides, the war now looked like it would be short, and joining the winning side at this stage seemed like a smart move. Meanwhile, Sparta's allies were more eager than ever to see an end to their long and grueling efforts. But most striking of all were the subject states of the Athenian empire, who showed a willingness to revolt that went beyond what they could actually pull off. They judged the situation through the lens of their own desires, refusing to even consider the possibility that Athens could survive the coming summer.

On top of all this, Sparta was energized by the prospect of reinforcements from Sicily arriving in great strength by spring — allies who had been forced by circumstance to build up their navies. With so much going their way, the Spartans threw themselves into the war without reservation. They calculated that once it was brought to a successful conclusion, they would be permanently free from the kind of threat Athens would have posed if it had conquered Sicily. With Athens destroyed, Sparta would enjoy undisputed supremacy over all of Greece.

KING AGIS AND THE SPARTAN BUILDUP

Their king, Agis, moved immediately. That same winter he set out from Decelea with a body of troops and collected contributions from the allies for building a fleet. Heading toward the Malian Gulf, he extorted money from the Oetaeans by seizing most of their cattle — payback for old grudges. Then, over the loud protests and resistance of the Thessalians, he forced the Achaeans of Phthiotis and other peoples subject to Thessaly in those parts to hand over money and hostages. He deposited the hostages at Corinth and tried to bring the Achaeans fully into the Spartan alliance.

The Spartans also issued a formal requisition to their allied cities to build a hundred ships. The quotas were as follows: Sparta and the Boeotians would each provide twenty-five; the Phocians and Locrians together, fifteen; the Corinthians, fifteen; the Arcadians, Pellenians, and Sicyonians together, ten; and the Megarians, Troezenians, Epidaurians, and Hermionians together, another ten. Every other preparation was pushed forward so that hostilities could begin in the spring.

The Athenians were not sitting idle, either. During that same winter, as planned, they gathered timber and accelerated their shipbuilding. They fortified Sunium to protect the grain ships rounding the cape. They evacuated the fort in Spartan territory that they had built on the way to Sicily. And for the sake of economy, they cut every expense that seemed unnecessary — all while keeping an anxious watch on their allies for any sign of revolt.

THE SCRAMBLE FOR ALLIES

While both sides were preparing for war with the same intensity they had shown at the very beginning, the Euboeans made the first move. That winter they sent envoys to King Agis at Decelea, proposing to revolt from Athens. Agis accepted their offer and sent for Alcamenes, son of Sthenelaidas, and Melanthus from Sparta to take command in Euboea. They arrived with about three hundred Neodamodes — freed helots who now served as soldiers — and Agis began arranging their crossing.

But then the Lesbians showed up, also wanting to revolt. They had the backing of the Boeotians, and Agis was persuaded to set Euboea aside for the moment and focus on Lesbos instead. He assigned Alcamenes — who had been slated for Euboea — as governor for the Lesbians, and pledged them ten ships, with the Boeotians promising another ten. All of this was done without authorization from the government at Sparta, because Agis, while commanding the army at Decelea, had the power to dispatch troops, levy men, and collect money wherever he saw fit. During this period, one could fairly say the allies answered to him more readily than to the authorities in Sparta itself. The force he had with him made people afraid of him wherever he appeared.

While Agis was occupied with the Lesbians, the Chians and Erythraeans — who were also ready to revolt — went not to Agis but directly to Sparta. They arrived accompanied by an ambassador from Tissaphernes, the Persian king's governor of the coastal provinces. Tissaphernes extended an invitation to the Peloponnesians: come to Asia, and he would pay for their army.

Here was the Persian angle. King Darius, son of Artaxerxes, had recently demanded the tribute from Tissaphernes' province — tribute that was badly in arrears because the Athenians controlled the Greek cities of the coast and Tissaphernes could not collect from them. Tissaphernes calculated that by weakening Athens, he could get the tribute flowing again and bring Sparta into an alliance with Persia. He could also, as the king had specifically ordered, capture — dead or alive — Amorges, the illegitimate son of Pissuthnes, who was in open rebellion against Persia along the coast of Caria.

THE COMPETITION AT SPARTA

Around the same time, two more envoys reached Sparta: Calligeitus, son of Laophon, a Megarian, and Timagoras, son of Athenagoras, from Cyzicus. Both were exiles living at the court of Pharnabazus, son of Pharnaces, the Persian governor of the region around the Hellespont. Pharnabazus had sent them with the same basic pitch as Tissaphernes: send a fleet to the Hellespont, and he would help pry the cities in his territory away from Athens, secure the tribute, and deliver a Spartan alliance to the king.

So the envoys of the two rival Persian governors were both lobbying Sparta at the same time, and a sharp debate broke out over where to send the fleet first — to Ionia and Chios, as Tissaphernes wanted, or to the Hellespont, as Pharnabazus preferred. The Spartans came down firmly on the side of the Chians and Tissaphernes. Their case was strengthened by the support of Alcibiades, who was a hereditary guest-friend of Endius, one of the ephors for that year. (This connection, in fact, is how the family got its Spartan-sounding name: "Alcibiades" was a traditional name in Endius's family.)

Still, the Spartans exercised some caution. They first sent Phrynis, one of the Perioeci — members of the free non-citizen class — to Chios to verify that the island really had as many ships as the Chians claimed, and that the city was as powerful as advertised. Phrynis confirmed everything, and the Spartans immediately entered into a formal alliance with Chios and Erythrae. They voted to send forty ships, since — according to the Chians — there were already no fewer than sixty on the island. The Spartans originally planned to contribute ten of those forty themselves, under their admiral Melanchridas. But then an earthquake struck, and they replaced Melanchridas with Chalcideus and reduced their contribution from ten ships to just five, fitted out in Spartan territory.

And so the winter ended, and with it the nineteenth year of this war of which Thucydides is the historian.

THE RACE TO CHIOS

At the start of the next summer, the Chians pressed urgently for the fleet to be sent. They were terrified that the Athenians — from whom all these negotiations had been kept secret — would find out what was happening. The Spartans responded by sending three Spartan officers to Corinth with orders to haul the ships across the Isthmus from the western sea to the eastern side facing Athens as quickly as possible, and to direct the entire fleet toward Chios — including the ships Agis had been preparing for Lesbos. The combined allied fleet totaled thirty-nine ships.

Meanwhile, Calligeitus and Timagoras refused to contribute to the Chios expedition on Pharnabazus's behalf. They withheld the twenty-five talents they had brought and resolved to sail separately with their own force later. Agis, for his part, seeing that the Spartans were set on going to Chios first, fell in line with their decision. The allies gathered at Corinth for a council and agreed on the following plan: they would sail first to Chios under Chalcideus, who was fitting out the five ships in Spartan territory; then to Lesbos under Alcamenes, the commander Agis had originally chosen; and finally to the Hellespont, where the command would go to Clearchus, son of Ramphias.

They also decided on a deception. They would take only half the ships across the Isthmus at first and send those immediately, so the Athenians would focus on the departing squadron and pay less attention to the ships still being hauled across later. No effort had been made to keep the voyage secret — the Spartans were that contemptuous of Athens's weakness, since Athens had virtually no fleet to speak of. Following this plan, twenty-one ships were hauled across the Isthmus at once.

THE ISTHMIAN DELAY

The fleet was ready and eager to sail, but the Corinthians refused to go until they had finished celebrating the Isthmian Games, which happened to fall at that time. Agis offered to take the expedition under his own command to spare Corinth from any scruple about violating the sacred Isthmian truce. The Corinthians would not agree to this, and a delay set in.

During this pause, the Athenians caught wind of what was going on at Chios. They sent one of their generals, Aristocrates, to confront the Chians directly. The Chians denied everything. The Athenians ordered them to send a contingent of ships as proof of their loyalty. Seven ships were dispatched. The reason the Chians complied was that the mass of their population knew nothing about the secret negotiations. The handful of insiders did not want to break openly with the majority — not until they had real Peloponnesian backing to rely on. And by now, given the endless delays, they no longer expected the Peloponnesians to show up at all.

In the meantime, the Isthmian Games went ahead. The Athenians — who had been invited — attended them. With their own eyes at the festival, they got an even clearer picture of the Chians' treachery. As soon as they returned to Athens, they took measures to prevent the fleet from slipping out of Cenchreae undetected.

After the festival, the Peloponnesians finally set sail for Chios with twenty-one ships under the command of Alcamenes. The Athenians sailed out to meet them with an equal number, trying to draw them into open water. But when the Peloponnesians turned back without following them far, the Athenians broke off as well — they did not trust the seven Chian ships in their own squadron. They then manned thirty-seven vessels in total and chased the Peloponnesian fleet along the coast to Spiraeum, a deserted Corinthian port on the border of Epidaurian territory. The Peloponnesians lost one ship at sea but managed to bring the rest together at anchor.

Then the Athenians attacked — from the sea with their fleet and from the shore with troops who had landed on the coast. What followed was a wild, brutal melee of the most chaotic kind. The Athenians disabled most of the enemy's ships and killed their commander Alcamenes, though they lost a few of their own men.

AFTERMATH AT SPIRAEUM

After the battle, the two sides separated. The Athenians left enough ships to blockade the enemy fleet and anchored the rest at a small island nearby, where they set up camp and sent to Athens for reinforcements. The Peloponnesians had been joined the day after the battle by the Corinthians and other local inhabitants who came to help. Seeing how difficult it was to hold their position in such a desolate spot, they first considered burning their own ships, but in the end decided to haul them ashore and sit tight with their land forces guarding them until they found a chance to escape. When Agis learned of the disaster, he sent a Spartan named Thermon to take charge.

Back in Sparta, the first report had been encouraging: the fleet had put to sea from the Isthmus. Alcamenes had been ordered by the ephors to send a horseman with the news as soon as this happened, and the Spartans had immediately resolved to dispatch their own five ships under Chalcideus, with Alcibiades aboard. But then came the second message — the fleet was trapped at Spiraeum. Demoralized that their very first move in the Ionian war had ended in failure, the Spartans shelved the plan to send ships from their own territory and even talked about recalling ones that had already sailed.

ALCIBIADES SAVES THE EXPEDITION

Alcibiades would have none of it. He went back to Endius and the other ephors and talked them into pressing ahead. The fleet, he argued, would reach Chios before word of the disaster got there. And once he personally set foot in Ionia, he would have no trouble convincing the cities to revolt — he would tell them how weak Athens really was and how committed Sparta was, and they would believe him.

He also worked on Endius privately with an appeal to his ambition. Would it not be a glorious thing for Endius to be the man who brought Ionia into revolt and secured the Persian king as Sparta's ally — instead of letting that honor fall to Agis? (It should be noted that Agis was Alcibiades' personal enemy.)

Endius and his fellow ephors were persuaded. Alcibiades put to sea with the five ships and the Spartan Chalcideus, and they sailed as fast as they could.

Around the same time, sixteen Peloponnesian ships that had served in Sicily with Gylippus were caught on their way home off Leucadia and roughly handled by twenty-seven Athenian ships under Hippocles, son of Menippus, who had been stationed there specifically to watch for the returning Sicilian fleet. The Peloponnesians lost one ship but escaped with the rest to Corinth.

THE REVOLT OF CHIOS

Meanwhile, Chalcideus and Alcibiades seized every vessel they encountered during their voyage to prevent anyone from reporting their approach, releasing the crews when they reached Corycus, the first point they touched on the Asian coast. There they met with their Chian contacts, who urged them to sail directly to the city without announcing themselves. They arrived at Chios without warning.

The effect was electric. The ordinary citizens were stunned and bewildered, while the conspirators had arranged for the council to be in session at just the right moment. Chalcideus and Alcibiades addressed the council, declaring that a much larger fleet was on the way — conveniently omitting the fact that the Peloponnesian fleet was blockaded at Spiraeum. Chios revolted from Athens. Erythrae followed immediately afterward.

After this, three ships crossed over to Clazomenae and brought that city into revolt as well. The Clazomenians immediately moved to the mainland and began fortifying a place called Polichna, building themselves a fallback position in case they needed to abandon the island where their city stood.

All the revolted cities threw themselves into fortification and war preparations. News of the revolt of Chios reached Athens in no time.

ATHENS RESPONDS

The Athenians saw the danger as enormous and undeniable. The largest and most important of their subject states had broken away, and the rest would surely follow. In their panic, they immediately lifted the penalty that had attached to anyone who proposed using the reserve fund of one thousand talents — money they had jealously refused to touch throughout the entire war. They voted to spend it now, manning a large number of ships.

As an immediate response, they dispatched Strombichides, son of Diotimus, with eight ships — vessels that had been part of the blockading fleet at Spiraeum but had broken off to chase Chalcideus's squadron and returned after failing to catch it. These were to be followed shortly by twelve more ships under Thrasycles, also pulled from the blockade. They recalled the seven Chian ships from their squadron at Spiraeum, freed the slaves serving on board, imprisoned the free Chian crewmen, and quickly manned ten new ships to take the place of those withdrawn from the blockade. They resolved to man thirty more besides. Urgency drove every decision. No effort was spared to send help to Chios.

THE STRUGGLE FOR IONIA

Strombichides sailed to Samos with his eight ships, picked up one Samian vessel, and continued to Teos, where he demanded the Teians stay loyal. But Chalcideus was also heading for Teos from Chios with twenty-three ships, supported by the land forces of Clazomenae and Erythrae marching along the coast. Strombichides got word of this just in time, put out from Teos before Chalcideus arrived, and once at sea — seeing how many ships were coming from Chios — fled for Samos, with the enemy in pursuit.

The Teians at first refused to admit the land forces, but when the Athenians fled, they opened the gates. The troops waited awhile for Chalcideus to return from the chase, and when he did not appear, they started tearing down the wall the Athenians had built on the landward side of the city. A small force of Persian troops under Stages, a lieutenant of Tissaphernes, came up and helped with the demolition.

Meanwhile, Chalcideus and Alcibiades, after chasing Strombichides back to Samos, armed the Peloponnesian crews and left them behind at Chios. They filled the ships with fresh Chian crews, added twenty more vessels, and sailed for Miletus. Alcibiades had friends among the leading men of Miletus, and he wanted to bring the city over before the main Peloponnesian fleet arrived. His goal was to rack up as many revolts as possible using Chian manpower and Chalcideus's support, securing the glory for Chios, for himself, for Chalcideus, and — as he had promised — for Endius, who had authorized the whole mission.

They sailed undetected for most of the voyage and reached Miletus just ahead of Strombichides and Thrasycles, who had arrived with twelve ships from Athens and joined Strombichides in the pursuit. Miletus revolted. The Athenians sailed up hard on their heels with nineteen ships but found the city closed against them. They took up position at the nearby island of Lade.

THE FIRST TREATY WITH PERSIA

Immediately upon the revolt of Miletus, Tissaphernes and Chalcideus concluded the first alliance between the Persian king and Sparta. The terms were as follows:

"The Spartans and their allies have made a treaty with the king and Tissaphernes on the following terms:

"Whatever territory or cities the king possesses, or the king's ancestors possessed, shall belong to the king. Whatever money or other revenue the Athenians have been collecting from these cities, the king, the Spartans, and their allies shall jointly prevent the Athenians from receiving.

"The war against the Athenians shall be waged jointly by the king, the Spartans, and their allies. It shall not be lawful to make peace with the Athenians unless both parties agree — the king on his side, and the Spartans and their allies on theirs.

"If anyone revolts from the king, they shall be treated as enemies by the Spartans and their allies. If anyone revolts from the Spartans and their allies, they shall be treated as enemies by the king in the same way."

Such was the alliance.

NAVAL SKIRMISHING AND THE CHIAN SETBACKS

Immediately after this, the Chians manned ten more ships and sailed for Anaia, hoping to gather intelligence about the situation at Miletus and to bring more cities into revolt. But a message arrived from Chalcideus telling them to turn back — Amorges was approaching with a land army. They sailed instead to the temple of Zeus. There they spotted ten more Athenian ships approaching — a squadron under Diomedon, who had set out from Athens after Thrasycles. The Chians fled. One ship escaped to Ephesus; the rest made for Teos. The Athenians captured four ships — their crews having managed to get ashore in time — while the rest took shelter inside the city of Teos.

The Athenians then sailed back to Samos. The Chians put to sea again with their remaining ships, accompanied by their land forces, and brought Lebedos into revolt, then Erae. After that, both the fleet and the army returned home.

Around the same time, the twenty Peloponnesian ships at Spiraeum — the ones that had been chased ashore and blockaded by an equal Athenian force — suddenly broke out and attacked. They defeated the blockading squadron, captured four Athenian ships, and sailed back to Cenchreae to refit for the voyage to Chios and Ionia. There they were joined by Astyochus, who arrived from Sparta as the new high admiral, invested with supreme command at sea from that point forward.

After the land forces withdrew from Teos, Tissaphernes came in person with his own army and finished demolishing whatever was left of the Athenian wall. Then he departed. Not long afterward, Diomedon arrived with ten Athenian ships. He negotiated a deal that got the Teians to admit him — just as they had admitted the enemy — then sailed along the coast to Erae. His attack on the town failed, and he returned.

THE REVOLUTION AT SAMOS

About this time, the common people of Samos rose up against the aristocrats, acting in concert with some Athenians who were there with three ships. The Samian democrats killed about two hundred of the upper class and banished four hundred more, then seized their land and houses. Athens officially recognized Samian independence, confident now in their loyalty. From then on, the democratic faction governed the city. They excluded the former landholders from all public affairs and forbade any intermarriage between the two classes — no member of the common people could marry into the old elite, and no one from the elite could marry into the common people.

THE CHIAN CAMPAIGN AND LESBOS

After this, during the same summer, the Chians — as zealous as ever and now confident they had enough forces to bring about revolts even without the Peloponnesians — set out with thirteen ships of their own for Lesbos. Their orders from Sparta called for Lesbos as their next target, and after that the Hellespont. Meanwhile, the Peloponnesian land forces on Chios and nearby allies marched along the coast toward Clazomenae and Cuma under a Spartan commander named Eualas. The fleet, led by Diniadas, one of the Perioeci, sailed first to Methymna and brought it into revolt. Leaving four ships there, they took the rest and secured the revolt of Mitylene.

But Astyochus, the Spartan admiral, had set sail from Cenchreae with four ships and arrived at Chios. On the third day after his arrival, twenty-five Athenian ships sailed for Lesbos under Diomedon and Leon, who had recently arrived with ten reinforcement ships from Athens. Late that same day, Astyochus headed for Lesbos with one Chian ship to help in whatever way he could.

He reached Pyrrha, then moved on to Eresus the next day. There he received devastating news. Mitylene had already fallen — almost without a fight. The Athenians had sailed in unexpectedly, entered the harbor, beaten the Chian ships, landed, defeated the defending troops, and taken the city. Astyochus heard this from the people of Eresus and from the Chian ships that had been stationed at Methymna with Eubulus. These had fled when Mitylene fell, and three of them now reached Astyochus — one having been captured by the Athenians.

Rather than continue to Mitylene, Astyochus stirred up the revolt of Eresus instead. He sent the heavy infantry from his ships overland to Antissa and Methymna under the command of Eteonicus, while he himself took his own ships and the three Chian vessels and sailed along the coast in the same direction. He hoped that seeing his fleet would encourage the Methymnians to hold firm in their revolt. But everything went against him in Lesbos. He collected his forces and sailed back to Chios. The land troops that had been destined for the Hellespont were also shipped back to their respective cities.

After this, six of the allied Peloponnesian ships from Cenchreae joined the forces at Chios. The Athenians, having restored order throughout Lesbos, sailed across to the mainland and captured Polichna — the fort the Clazomenians had been building — and brought the population back to their island city. The authors of the revolt, however, escaped to Daphnus. And so Clazomenae returned to Athenian control.

THE BATTLE AT MILETUS

That same summer, the Athenians at Lade — the twenty ships blockading Miletus — made a raid on Panormus in Milesian territory. They killed the Spartan commander Chalcideus, who had come out against them with a small force. Two days later they sailed back and set up a victory monument, though since they did not control the surrounding country, the Milesians promptly pulled it down.

Meanwhile, Leon and Diomedon, operating from the Athenian fleet based at Lesbos, launched a campaign against Chios from the Oenussae islands off the Chian coast, from their forts at Sidussa and Pteleum in the Erythraean territory, and from Lesbos itself. They carried heavy infantry aboard their ships, men conscripted from the citizen rolls to serve as marines. They landed at Cardamyle and at Bolissus, inflicting heavy casualties on the Chians who came out to fight. They devastated the surrounding area, defeated the Chians again at Phanae, and a third time at Leuconium. After that, the Chians stopped coming out to fight, and the Athenians systematically ravaged the island — a beautiful, prosperous land that had remained untouched since the Persian Wars.

In fact, after the Spartans, the Chians are the only people I have encountered who managed to stay levelheaded during good times. The more their city grew, the more carefully they governed it. Even this revolt — which might seem reckless — they did not undertake until they had strong allies to share the danger, and until they could see that the Athenians themselves, after the Sicilian disaster, no longer denied the desperate state of their own affairs. And if they were undone by one of those unpredictable turns that upset every human calculation, they at least made their mistake in plenty of company — alongside many others who had likewise believed that Athenian power was about to collapse entirely.

Now that they were blockaded by sea and plundered on land, some citizens began plotting to hand the city over to Athens. The authorities found out but took no direct action themselves. Instead, they brought in Astyochus, the admiral, from Erythrae with four ships, and quietly considered how to put down the conspiracy — whether by taking hostages or by some other means.

THE BATTLE OF MILETUS (CONTINUED)

While the Chians were dealing with this crisis, a major Athenian force set sail. Toward the end of that same summer, one thousand Athenian heavy infantry, fifteen hundred Argives — five hundred of whom were light troops equipped with armor provided by Athens — and one thousand allied soldiers embarked in forty-eight ships, some of them troop transports. The commanders were Phrynichus, Onomacles, and Scironides. They sailed to Samos, then crossed over to Miletus and made camp.

The Milesians marched out to meet them: eight hundred heavy infantry, along with the Peloponnesian soldiers who had come with Chalcideus, plus some foreign mercenaries in Tissaphernes' pay. Tissaphernes himself was there with his cavalry. Battle was joined.

The Argives, on their wing, charged forward with the reckless confidence of men advancing against Ionians they assumed would never stand their ground. The Milesians proved them wrong, killing nearly three hundred Argives. On the other wing, the Athenians routed the Peloponnesians and drove back the Persian troops and the rest of the enemy force. They never actually engaged the Milesians, who retreated into the city after seeing their comrades beaten. The Athenians crowned their victory by halting right under the walls of Miletus.

It was an odd sort of battle. On both sides, the Ionians beat the Dorians: the Athenians defeated the Peloponnesians facing them, and the Milesians defeated the Argives. The Athenians set up a trophy and prepared to build a siege wall around the city, which sat on a narrow isthmus. They calculated that if Miletus fell, the other cities would come over easily.

PHRYNICHUS'S RETREAT

But around dusk, word arrived that fifty-five ships from the Peloponnese and Sicily were about to appear at any moment. The Sicilian contingent — twenty-two ships, twenty from Syracuse and two from Selinus — had been organized largely through the efforts of the Syracusan Hermocrates, who urged them to help deliver the killing blow to Athens. Combined with the ships that had been fitting out in the Peloponnese, the combined squadron had been placed under Therimenes, a Spartan, to deliver to Astyochus, the admiral. They first put in at Leros, the island off Miletus. Learning that the Athenians were encamped before the city, they sailed into the Iasic Gulf to find out the situation at Miletus.

Then Alcibiades rode up on horseback to Teichiussa, the point in Milesian territory where the fleet had anchored for the night. He reported on the battle — he had fought in it personally, alongside the Milesians and Tissaphernes — and urged them to sail at once to the relief of Miletus and prevent it from being walled in.

They resolved to do exactly that the next morning. But meanwhile, Phrynichus, the Athenian commander, had received detailed intelligence about the enemy fleet from Leros. His fellow commanders wanted to stay and fight it out. Phrynichus flatly refused — for himself, for them, and for anyone else, as far as he could prevent it.

There would be time later, he argued, to fight a proper battle with full preparation and exact knowledge of the enemy's numbers and their own resources. He would never let the fear of looking cowardly drive them into taking a senseless risk. There was no disgrace in an Athenian fleet pulling back when the situation demanded it. Put it however you liked — what would truly be disgraceful was getting beaten and exposing the city not just to shame but to the most serious danger. After its recent catastrophes, Athens could barely justify taking the offensive even with overwhelming force, let alone rush into battle unnecessarily.

He ordered them to take on the wounded, embark the troops and supplies they had brought, leave behind everything they had seized from enemy territory to lighten the ships, and sail for Samos. From there, with all their forces concentrated, they could attack when the moment was right.

He did as he said. And Phrynichus proved himself a man of real judgment — not only now but in everything he later undertook. That very evening the Athenians withdrew from Miletus, their victory unfinished. The Argives, humiliated by their defeat, sailed home from Samos without delay.

THE FALL OF IASUS

At dawn the next morning, the Peloponnesians left Teichiussa and put into Miletus, finding the Athenians gone. They stayed one day, then took the Chian ships that had originally been chased into port with Chalcideus and set off to retrieve the tackle they had left behind at Teichiussa. When they arrived, Tissaphernes came to them with his land forces and persuaded them to sail against Iasus, which was held by his enemy Amorges.

They attacked Iasus without warning. The inhabitants never suspected the ships could be anything but Athenian. The Syracusans distinguished themselves in the assault. Amorges — the illegitimate son of Pissuthnes, a rebel against the Persian king — was captured alive and handed over to Tissaphernes, to be sent to the king as his orders required.

Iasus was sacked. The army found enormous plunder there — the place had been wealthy since ancient times. The Peloponnesian soldiers received the mercenaries who had been serving with Amorges and enrolled them in their own army without harm, since most were originally from the Peloponnese. They turned the city over to Tissaphernes along with all the captives, slave and free alike, at an agreed price of one Doric stater per head.

After this they returned to Miletus. From there they sent Pedaritus, son of Leon, overland as far as Erythrae with the mercenaries taken from Amorges — he had been appointed by the Spartans to take command at Chios. Philip was left behind as governor of Miletus.

TISSAPHERNES AND THE PAY DISPUTE

Summer was now over. The following winter, Tissaphernes put the defenses of Iasus in order, then went to Miletus and distributed a month's pay to the fleet as he had promised at Sparta — one Attic drachma per man per day. Going forward, however, he intended to pay only three obols, half the rate, until he could consult the king. If the king approved, he said, he would pay the full drachma.

The Syracusan general Hermocrates protested. (Therimenes, who was technically in command of the fleet delivery, was not the actual admiral and did not push the issue.) A compromise was reached: Tissaphernes would pay the equivalent of five extra ships' worth of wages on top of the three-obol daily rate. That worked out to thirty talents a month for fifty-five ships, with any additional ships paid at the same proportional rate.

ATHENIAN OPERATIONS FROM SAMOS

That same winter, the Athenians at Samos received thirty-five more ships from home under Charminus, Strombichides, and Euctemon. They recalled their squadron from Chios and consolidated their forces, planning to blockade Miletus by sea and send a separate fleet and army against Chios. They drew lots to determine who got which assignment.

Strombichides, Onomacles, and Euctemon drew Chios. They sailed with thirty ships and a portion of the one thousand heavy infantry who had fought at Miletus, carried in transports. The rest of the fleet — seventy-four ships — remained at Samos under the other commanders, controlling the sea, and advanced on Miletus.

ASTYOCHUS'S MISADVENTURES

Meanwhile, Astyochus — still at Chios collecting hostages in connection with the conspiracy — learned that the fleet under Therimenes had arrived and that the allied position was improving. He put to sea with ten Peloponnesian and ten Chian ships. After a failed attack on Pteleum, he sailed along the coast to Clazomenae and ordered the pro-Athenian faction there to relocate inland to Daphnus and come over to the Peloponnesian side. Tamos, the king's lieutenant in Ionia, backed the demand. But the Clazomenians ignored it. Astyochus attacked the city, which had no walls, and failed to take it. A fierce gale then blew him off course to Phocaea and Cuma, while the rest of his ships put in at the islands near Clazomenae — Marathussa, Pele, and Drymussa. Pinned down by winds for eight days, they plundered and consumed all the Clazomenian property stored on the islands, loaded up what was left, and sailed off to rejoin Astyochus at Phocaea and Cuma.

While Astyochus was there, envoys arrived from the Lesbians, who wanted to revolt again. Astyochus was receptive, but the Corinthians and the other allies were against it, having been burned by their earlier failure. So he weighed anchor and headed for Chios, where the fleet eventually reassembled after being scattered by a storm.

After this, Pedaritus — whom we last saw marching overland from Miletus — arrived at Erythrae and crossed over to Chios with his forces. He also found about five hundred soldiers there who had been left behind by Chalcideus from the original five ships, still armed. Some Lesbians again offered to revolt, and Astyochus urged Pedaritus and the Chians to sail with their fleet and bring Lesbos over — it would expand their alliance, and even if it failed, it would at least hurt the Athenians. The Chians refused to listen, and Pedaritus flatly declined to hand over the Chian ships.

ASTYOCHUS AND PEDARITUS AT ODDS

Astyochus took five Corinthian ships, one from Megara, one from Hermione, and the ships he had brought from Spartan territory, and set sail for Miletus to take up his duties as admiral. As he left, he told the Chians with open threats that he would certainly not come to their rescue if they ever needed help.

He stopped for the night at Corycus on the Erythraean coast. As it happened, the Athenian fleet sailing from Samos against Chios was on the other side of the same hill, anchored for the night as well. Neither side knew the other was there.

During the night, a letter arrived from Pedaritus reporting that some freed Erythraean prisoners had come from Samos to betray Erythrae. Astyochus immediately turned back to Erythrae — and by doing so, just barely avoided running into the Athenians. Pedaritus sailed over to join him. They investigated the alleged treachery and discovered that the whole story had been fabricated to help the men escape from Samos. The prisoners were cleared of all charges. Pedaritus sailed back to Chios, and Astyochus continued on to Miletus as planned.

STORMS OFF CHIOS

Meanwhile, the Athenian fleet rounding Corycus encountered three Chian warships off Arginus and immediately gave chase. A violent storm blew in. The Chians barely made it to harbor. The three Athenian ships leading the pursuit were wrecked and driven ashore near the city of Chios — their crews killed or captured. The rest of the Athenian fleet took shelter in a harbor called Phoenicus, under Mount Mimas. From there they later sailed to Lesbos and began fortifying a base.

THE SPARTAN FLEET AT CNIDUS

That same winter, the Spartan Hippocrates sailed from the Peloponnese with ten ships from Thurii under the command of Dorieus, son of Diagoras, along with two colleagues and one Spartan and one Syracusan vessel. They reached Cnidus, which had already revolted at Tissaphernes' instigation. When word of their arrival reached Miletus, orders came for them to leave half their force to guard Cnidus and cruise with the rest around Triopium, seizing any merchant ships coming from Egypt. Triopium is a promontory of Cnidus, sacred to Apollo.

The Athenians learned of this, sailed from Samos, and captured six of the ships stationed at Triopium — though the crews got away. They then sailed to Cnidus and attacked the unfortified town, very nearly taking it. The next day they attacked again, but with less success — the Cnidians had improved their defenses overnight and been reinforced by the crews who had escaped from Triopium. The Athenians withdrew, plundered the Cnidian countryside, and sailed back to Samos.

THE SECOND TREATY

Around the same time, Astyochus arrived at the fleet in Miletus. The Peloponnesian forces were still well supplied — they had plenty of pay and the soldiers still had the large haul of plunder from Iasus. The Milesians, too, showed great enthusiasm for the war. Even so, the Peloponnesians considered the first treaty with Tissaphernes — the one concluded by Chalcideus — to be flawed and more favorable to Persia than to them. So while Therimenes was still present, they negotiated a new one. Its terms were as follows:

"Agreement of the Spartans and their allies with King Darius, the king's sons, and Tissaphernes, for a treaty and friendship, as follows:

"Neither the Spartans nor their allies shall wage war against or otherwise harm any territory or cities belonging to King Darius or that formerly belonged to his father or his ancestors. Neither shall the Spartans nor their allies collect tribute from such cities. Neither shall King Darius nor any of his subjects wage war against or otherwise harm the Spartans or their allies.

"If the Spartans or their allies require any assistance from the king, or the king from the Spartans or their allies, whatever they mutually agree upon shall be considered right and proper.

"Both parties shall wage war against the Athenians and their allies jointly. If they make peace, both shall do so jointly.

"The expense of all troops in the king's territory, sent for by the king, shall be borne by the king.

"If any state included in this agreement attacks the king's territory, the others shall prevent it and assist the king to the best of their ability. If any party in the king's territory or in lands under the king's control attacks the territory of the Spartans or their allies, the king shall prevent it and assist them to the best of his ability."

After this agreement, Therimenes handed the fleet over to Astyochus, sailed away in a small boat, and was never seen again.

THE SIEGE OF CHIOS AND DISCORD

The Athenian forces had now crossed from Lesbos to Chios. Controlling the island by both land and sea, they began fortifying Delphinium — a naturally strong position on the landward side, with multiple harbors, and close to the city of Chios.

The Chians, meanwhile, had gone quiet. They had been beaten in too many battles, and now internal divisions were tearing them apart. Pedaritus had executed the faction of Tydeus, son of Ion, on charges of being pro-Athenian, then forced an oligarchy on the rest of the city. The result was that everyone distrusted everyone else, and the Chians no longer considered themselves — or Pedaritus's mercenaries — a match for the enemy. They sent to Miletus begging Astyochus for help. He refused, and Pedaritus denounced him to Sparta as a traitor.

Such was the state of Athenian operations at Chios. Meanwhile, the Athenian fleet at Samos kept sailing out to challenge the enemy at Miletus. When the Peloponnesians consistently refused to engage, the Athenians withdrew to Samos and stayed put.

THE TWENTY-SEVEN SHIPS AND LICHAS'S OBJECTION

That same winter, twenty-seven ships that the Spartans had outfitted for Pharnabazus — organized through the Megarian Calligeitus and the Cyzicene Timagoras — put to sea from the Peloponnese and headed for Ionia around the time of the winter solstice, commanded by the Spartan Antisthenes. The Spartans also sent eleven of their own citizens as advisers to Astyochus, including Lichas, son of Arcesilaus.

Their orders upon arriving at Miletus were broad: to help oversee the general conduct of the war; to send the twenty-seven ships — or more, or fewer — to the Hellespont under Pharnabazus, with Clearchus, son of Ramphias, in command, if they judged it appropriate; and, if they saw fit, to replace Astyochus as admiral with Antisthenes, since Pedaritus's reports had cast Astyochus under suspicion.

Sailing from Cape Malea across open water, the squadron touched at Melos and ran into ten Athenian ships. They captured three — found empty — and burned them. Then, worried that the Athenian ships that escaped would alert the fleet at Samos (which is exactly what happened), they diverted to Crete. Taking the long way around as a precaution, they finally made land at Caunus on the coast of Asia. Considering themselves safe at last, they sent a message to the fleet at Miletus requesting an escort for the final leg along the coast.

Meanwhile, the Chians and Pedaritus, undeterred by Astyochus's indifference, kept sending messengers begging him to come with the entire fleet and rescue them. They were, after all, the greatest allied state in Ionia — blockaded by sea, raided and plundered by land. They could not be left to this fate.

There were more slaves on Chios than in any other Greek state except Sparta. Because of their sheer numbers, the Chian slaves had always been punished especially harshly when they stepped out of line. Now, with the Athenian army established on the island behind a fortified base, most of them deserted to the enemy. They knew the terrain intimately and did tremendous damage.

The Chians pleaded with Astyochus that this was his duty — that there was still a chance to stop the Athenian advance while Delphinium's fortifications were unfinished and before the higher rampart being added to protect the besiegers' camp and fleet was completed. Astyochus, seeing that the other allies shared this view, began preparations to sail for Chios — despite having previously said he would not.

THE BATTLE OF SYME

But then word arrived from Caunus that the twenty-seven ships and the Spartan commissioners had come. Astyochus immediately changed course. Escorting a fleet of that size — and ensuring the safe arrival of the Spartans who had been sent to monitor his performance — took priority over everything else. He abandoned the relief of Chios and set sail for Caunus.

Along the way, he raided the island of Cos, landing at the Meropid city. The town was unfortified and had recently been devastated by an earthquake — the worst in living memory. The inhabitants had fled to the mountains. Astyochus overran the country and seized everything of value, though he let the free citizens go.

From Cos he reached Cnidus by night. The Cnidians urged him not to disembark his sailors but to sail immediately — just as he was — against the twenty Athenian ships under Charminus, one of the commanders from Samos, who were watching for the very twenty-seven ships from the Peloponnese that Astyochus was now going to meet. The Athenians at Samos had heard from Melos about the fleet's approach, and Charminus was patrolling off Syme, Chalce, Rhodes, and the coast of Lycia after learning that the ships were at Caunus.

Astyochus sailed for Syme as he was, hoping to catch the enemy in open water before his own presence was detected. But rain and fog overtook him, and in the darkness his fleet scattered into disorder. By morning, the ships were strung out all around the island. Only his left wing was visible, and Charminus and the Athenians, mistaking it for the squadron they were hunting from Caunus, rushed out with part of their twenty ships and attacked immediately. They sank three ships and disabled others, gaining the upper hand — until the rest of the Peloponnesian fleet suddenly appeared and surrounded them. The Athenians turned and fled, losing six ships in all. The survivors escaped to Teutlussa — also called Beet Island — and from there to Halicarnassus.

The Peloponnesians put into Cnidus, were joined by the twenty-seven ships from Caunus, and sailed out together. They set up a victory trophy on Syme, then returned to their anchorage at Cnidus.

LICHAS REJECTS THE TREATIES

When the Athenians learned of the sea battle, they sailed with their full force from Samos to Syme. They did not attack the fleet at Cnidus, nor were they attacked. They collected the ships' tackle left at Syme, touched at Lorymi on the mainland, and returned to Samos.

At Cnidus, the entire Peloponnesian fleet now underwent repairs. The eleven Spartan commissioners held talks with Tissaphernes, who had come to meet them. They reviewed the existing arrangements and raised their objections.

The sharpest critic was Lichas. He declared that neither treaty was acceptable — not the one made by Chalcideus, and not the one made by Therimenes. It was outrageous, he said, for the Persian king to claim sovereignty over every territory his ancestors had ever ruled. Taken literally, that claim put all the islands back under Persian control — Thessaly, Locris, everything as far as Boeotia. Instead of bringing the Greeks freedom, the Spartans would be handing them a Persian master.

Lichas demanded that Tissaphernes negotiate a new and better treaty. The existing ones, he said, were unacceptable, and Sparta wanted nothing to do with Persian money on terms like these.

Tissaphernes was so offended that he stormed off in a fury without settling anything.

CHAPTER 25

Twentieth and Twenty-first Years of the War — Intrigues of Alcibiades — Withdrawal of the Persian Subsidies — Oligarchic Coup at Athens — Patriotism of the Army at Samos

The Peloponnesians now decided to sail to Rhodes. Some of the island's leading men had invited them, and the prospect was tempting: Rhodes was a powerful place, rich in both sailors and soldiers. They also figured they could fund their fleet from their own alliance without having to keep begging Tissaphernes for money. So they set sail from Cnidus that same winter, arriving first at Camirus on Rhodes with ninety-four ships. The general population, who had known nothing about the plot, were terrified — especially since the city had no walls. They fled. But later the Spartans assembled them along with the people of the island's two other cities, Lindus and Ialysus. The Rhodians were persuaded to revolt from Athens, and the entire island went over to the Peloponnesian side.

The Athenians, meanwhile, had gotten word of the danger and sailed from Samos to head them off. They came within sight of Rhodes, but they were just a little too late. They pulled back to Chalce for the time being, and then returned to Samos. From that point on they waged war against Rhodes, launching raids from Chalce, Cos, and Samos.

THE INTRIGUES OF ALCIBIADES

The Peloponnesians levied a contribution of thirty-two talents from the Rhodians, then hauled their ships ashore and sat idle for eighty days. During this stretch — and even before the move to Rhodes — the following intrigues were playing out behind the scenes.

After the death of Chalcideus and the battle at Miletus, the Peloponnesians had begun to suspect Alcibiades. It was worse than suspicion, actually: Astyochus received a direct order from Sparta to have him killed. Alcibiades was the personal enemy of King Agis, and more broadly, the Spartans had decided he simply could not be trusted. When Alcibiades learned of the kill order, he did what Alcibiades always did — he found the nearest source of power and latched onto it. He fled to Tissaphernes and immediately set about making himself indispensable.

From that point on, Alcibiades became Tissaphernes' chief adviser in everything, and he systematically worked to sabotage the Peloponnesian cause. First, he got Tissaphernes to cut the sailors' pay from a full Attic drachma to three obols a day — half wages — and even that was paid irregularly. He coached Tissaphernes on what to tell the Peloponnesians: say that the Athenians, who had far more experience at sea, only paid their own sailors three obols. This was not because Athens was poor, Alcibiades argued, but because they did not want their sailors getting fat and comfortable — spending their money on things that would make them soft and sap their fighting edge. Athens also deliberately paid its crews on an irregular schedule, he claimed, as a way of keeping them from deserting; the sailors always had back pay owed to them, which they would forfeit if they abandoned their ships.

Alcibiades also told Tissaphernes to bribe the captains and generals of the allied cities to buy their compliance. This worked on everyone except the Syracusans, whose commander Hermocrates was the only one who stood up and opposed these schemes on behalf of the whole alliance.

As for the cities that came begging Tissaphernes for money, Alcibiades sent them away empty-handed with sharp words delivered in Tissaphernes' name. The Chians, for example — the richest people in Greece — had the gall to expect others to risk not just their lives but their money too for Chian freedom, when the Chians themselves were being defended by a foreign force. The other cities, he pointed out, had been paying Athens heavily before their revolts. They could hardly refuse to contribute as much or more now that they were supposedly fighting for themselves. He also reassured them — falsely — that Tissaphernes was currently funding the war out of his own pocket and had good reason to economize, but that as soon as the king sent fresh funds, he would restore full pay and do right by the allied cities.

ALCIBIADES' GRAND STRATEGY

Alcibiades went further still. He advised Tissaphernes not to be in any hurry to end the war, and not to follow through on equipping the Phoenician fleet he had been preparing, and not to hire more Greek sailors. The reason was a piece of cold strategic logic: do not put the power on both land and sea into the same hands. As long as each side controlled one element — the Peloponnesians dominant on land, the Athenians at sea — the Persian king could play them against each other. Whichever side became a problem, he could call in the other to deal with it. But if one side held both land and sea, the king would have no one to turn to for help against them — unless he was prepared to stand up and fight a full-scale war himself, at enormous cost and risk.

The cheapest plan, Alcibiades argued, was to let the Greeks wear each other out while Persia paid only a fraction of the cost and took no risks whatsoever. Besides, the Athenians made the more convenient partners in empire. Athens had no interest in conquering territory on land. Their whole approach to war — fighting to control the sea while leaving the king's inland possessions alone — perfectly suited Persian interests. Athens would be happy to conquer the sea for itself and for the king all the Greeks living within his territory. The Peloponnesians, on the other hand, had come to liberate those very same Greeks. And it was hardly likely that the Spartans would free the Greeks from Athenian domination without also freeing them from Persian domination — unless Persia crushed the Spartans first.

So Alcibiades' advice was this: wear both sides down. Then, once Athenian power had been sufficiently weakened, get rid of the Peloponnesians.

Tissaphernes broadly approved of this strategy — or at least, that is what his behavior suggested. He gave Alcibiades his full confidence, recognizing the value of his advice. He kept the Peloponnesians short of money. He refused to let them fight at sea. He ruined their war effort by constantly promising that the Phoenician fleet was coming and that they would soon have overwhelming numbers — a promise that never materialized. Their navy, which had been in excellent shape, gradually lost its edge. The whole thing betrayed a deliberate coolness toward the war effort that was impossible to miss.

THE REAL MOTIVE

Alcibiades gave all this advice to Tissaphernes and the king not merely because he thought it was genuinely sound strategy — though he did — but because he was scheming to get himself back to Athens. He knew perfectly well that if he did not destroy his home city, the day might come when he could talk the Athenians into recalling him. And he figured his best chance of pulling that off was making sure the Athenians could see that he had Tissaphernes wrapped around his finger.

Events proved him right. When the Athenians at Samos learned that Alcibiades had real influence with Tissaphernes, it was mostly their own idea — though Alcibiades helped things along by sending word through intermediaries to the leading men in the army. His message: if only Athens would replace its rascally democracy with an oligarchy, he would be happy to come home. And he would bring Tissaphernes' friendship with him.

The captains and leading men in the fleet immediately seized on this idea: overthrow the democracy.

THE CONSPIRACY TAKES SHAPE

The scheme was first hatched in the camp at Samos. From there it spread back to Athens.

Some men crossed over from Samos to meet with Alcibiades directly. He jumped right in, offering to make first Tissaphernes and then the Great King himself their friend — but only if they scrapped the democracy and established a government the king could trust. The wealthy men and officers — the class that suffered most from the war — were thrilled. They saw a chance to seize power for themselves and defeat the enemy at the same time.

Back at Samos, the envoys organized their supporters into a political club and told the rank and file openly: the king will be our friend and bankroll us, if Alcibiades is restored and the democracy abolished. The ordinary soldiers were irritated at first by all this scheming, but they were kept quiet by the tantalizing prospect of getting paid by the king. The oligarchic conspirators, having floated the idea publicly, now huddled among themselves and their inner circle to examine Alcibiades' proposals more closely.

Most of them thought the plan was solid and trustworthy. One man did not: Phrynichus, who was still serving as general. Phrynichus saw right through Alcibiades. As he correctly judged, Alcibiades cared no more for oligarchy than for democracy. He was just trying to change the government — any government — so his friends could bring him home. Their real priority, Phrynichus insisted, should be avoiding civil strife.

And what about the king? Why on earth would the Persian king go out of his way to side with Athens? The Peloponnesians were now Athens' equals at sea and controlled some of the most important cities in the king's own territory. It was far simpler for the king to befriend the Peloponnesians, who had never done him any harm, rather than the Athenians, whom he did not trust.

As for the allied cities — the ones supposedly being offered oligarchy in place of Athenian democracy — Phrynichus knew perfectly well this would not make the rebellious allies come back into the fold or keep the loyal ones loyal. The allies wanted freedom, not a choice between two kinds of servitude. They did not care whether their masters called themselves oligarchs or democrats. In fact, the cities believed that the so-called "better classes" would be just as oppressive as the common people — maybe worse. It was the upper classes, after all, who originated and proposed and mostly benefited from the policies that harmed the allies. Under the rule of the "better men," the allies could expect summary executions and lawless violence. At least with democracy, they had somewhere to appeal — the common people served as a check on the powerful. Phrynichus knew for a fact that the cities had learned this from experience and that this was exactly how they felt.

The proposals of Alcibiades, Phrynichus concluded, and the whole conspiracy now underway, were something he could never support.

THE EMBASSY TO ATHENS

Nevertheless, the members of the club, sticking to their original plan, accepted the proposals and prepared to send Pisander and a delegation to Athens. Their mission: negotiate the restoration of Alcibiades, the abolition of democracy, and an alliance with Tissaphernes.

PHRYNICHUS TURNS TRAITOR

Phrynichus now realized that a proposal to restore Alcibiades was coming and that the Athenians would likely agree to it. He was terrified. After everything he had said against Alcibiades, if the man came back he would certainly take revenge. So Phrynichus resorted to a desperate gambit.

He sent a secret letter to Astyochus, the Spartan admiral still stationed near Miletus. The letter told Astyochus that Alcibiades was destroying the Peloponnesian cause by making Tissaphernes an Athenian friend, and it laid bare the entire conspiracy in explicit detail. Phrynichus begged to be excused for trying to destroy his personal enemy even at the cost of his own country's interests.

But Astyochus — instead of acting on the intelligence — went straight to Alcibiades and Tissaphernes at Magnesia and handed over the letter. He turned informer. If the reports can be believed, Astyochus had become a paid agent of Tissaphernes, which is also why he never pushed back very hard about the pay not being given in full.

Alcibiades immediately fired off a letter to the authorities at Samos exposing what Phrynichus had done and demanding his execution. Phrynichus was cornered, in mortal danger from the exposure. So he doubled down: he sent another letter to Astyochus, bitterly reproaching him for betraying the first letter's secrets, and this time offered something far bigger. He was now prepared to hand the Spartans the entire Athenian fleet at Samos. He gave a detailed plan for how it could be done — Samos was unfortified, the fleet was vulnerable — and argued that since his life was already at risk because of the Spartans, he could hardly be blamed for going this far.

Astyochus revealed this letter to Alcibiades too.

PHRYNICHUS OUTMANEUVERS ALCIBIADES

But Phrynichus had gotten advance warning that Astyochus was selling him out and that a letter from Alcibiades was on the way. So he moved first. He went to the army and told them — preemptively — that the enemy was planning to attack the camp at Samos. The island was unfortified, he warned, and not all the ships were safely in the harbor. He announced that he had reliable intelligence about this. They needed to fortify Samos immediately and put their defenses in order. As general, he had the authority to make this happen, and he did.

The soldiers threw themselves into the construction work, and Samos got its fortifications sooner than it otherwise would have. Not long after, the letter arrived from Alcibiades warning that the army had been betrayed by Phrynichus and that an enemy attack was imminent. But Alcibiades got no credit for the warning. People assumed he had inside knowledge of the enemy's plans and was trying to frame Phrynichus — pinning the plot on him out of personal hatred. Far from hurting Phrynichus, the letter actually confirmed what Phrynichus had already told them, making him look like the one who had been right all along.

ALCIBIADES WORKS ON TISSAPHERNES

After this, Alcibiades set about trying to bring Tissaphernes over to the Athenian side. Tissaphernes was nervous about the Peloponnesians, who had more ships in the region than the Athenians, but he was open to persuasion — especially after his falling out with the Peloponnesians at Cnidus over the treaty negotiated by Therimenes. That quarrel had already happened by this point, since the Peloponnesians were now at Rhodes. And in the course of it, Alcibiades' original argument — about the Spartans being committed to liberating all Greek cities — had been dramatically confirmed when Lichas declared that the Spartans could not accept any treaty that gave the king control of every territory he or his ancestors had ever ruled.

PISANDER AT ATHENS

While Alcibiades was courting Tissaphernes with an urgency proportional to the stakes, the Athenian envoys sent from Samos with Pisander arrived at Athens and addressed the assembly. They summarized their proposals concisely, hammering one point above all: if Alcibiades were recalled and the democratic constitution reformed, they could have the king as an ally and defeat the Peloponnesians.

Plenty of people objected. The defenders of democracy spoke out. Alcibiades' enemies protested the outrage of restoring him through a violation of the constitution. The Eumolpidae and the Ceryces — the priestly families who administered the sacred Mysteries — invoked the Mysteries themselves, the very crime for which Alcibiades had been banished, and called upon the gods to prevent his return.

Then Pisander cut through the noise. In the midst of all this opposition and abuse, he stepped forward and took his opponents aside one by one. To each man he asked the same question: "Given that the Peloponnesians have a fleet as large as ours facing us at sea, more allied cities than we have, and the king and Tissaphernes supplying them with money — while we have none left — do you have any hope of saving the state unless someone can bring the king over to our side?"

One by one, they admitted they did not.

Then Pisander said to them plainly: "We cannot have that unless we adopt a more moderate form of government, put power in fewer hands, and earn the king's trust — and immediately restore Alcibiades, who is the only living man who can make this happen. Right now the question is not what form our government takes. The question is whether we survive. We can always change the government later if we do not like what we have done."

THE PEOPLE GIVE WAY

The people were furious at the mere mention of oligarchy. But once Pisander made it clear that there was no other option, they gave way — driven by fear, and consoling themselves with the thought that they could always reverse the change later. They voted to send Pisander with ten others to negotiate the best deal they could get with Tissaphernes and Alcibiades.

At the same time, on false charges brought by Pisander, the people dismissed Phrynichus from his command along with his fellow general Scironides, replacing them with Diomedon and Leon. Pisander accused Phrynichus of having betrayed Iasus and Amorges, though the real reason was that Pisander considered him unsuitable for the dealings with Alcibiades that lay ahead.

Pisander also made the rounds of all the political clubs that already existed in the city — the networks that helped each other in lawsuits and elections — urging them to unite and work together to overthrow the democracy. After taking every other measure the situation demanded, he set sail with his ten companions for Tissaphernes.

OPERATIONS ON RHODES AND CHIOS

That same winter, Leon and Diomedon, who had by now joined the fleet, launched an attack on Rhodes. They found the Peloponnesian ships hauled up on shore. Landing on the coast, they defeated the Rhodians who came out to fight them, then withdrew to Chalce and made it their operating base instead of Cos — a better position for watching if the Peloponnesian fleet put to sea.

Meanwhile, a Spartan named Xenophantes arrived at Rhodes from Pedaritus in Chios, carrying an urgent message: the Athenian fortifications around Chios were now complete. Unless the entire Peloponnesian fleet came to the rescue, Chios was lost. They resolved to go help. But in the meantime, Pedaritus — with his mercenaries and the full force of the Chians — launched an assault on the Athenian positions surrounding their ships. He managed to capture part of the fortifications and seize some vessels that were hauled up on shore. But then the Athenians counterattacked. They routed the Chians first, then smashed the rest of the force around Pedaritus. Pedaritus himself was killed, along with many Chians, and the Athenians captured a large quantity of arms.

After this, the Chians found themselves besieged even more tightly than before, by both land and sea. Famine gripped the city.

THE NEGOTIATIONS COLLAPSE

Meanwhile, the Athenian envoys traveling with Pisander arrived at Tissaphernes' court and began negotiating the proposed agreement. But Alcibiades was not entirely confident of Tissaphernes. The Persian governor feared the Peloponnesians more than the Athenians, and besides, he actually wanted to wear down both sides — exactly as Alcibiades himself had recommended. So Alcibiades resorted to a stratagem: he would deliberately torpedo the negotiations by making outrageous demands on Tissaphernes' behalf.

In my opinion, Tissaphernes wanted the same outcome — the talks to fail — and his motive was fear. But Alcibiades, who now saw clearly that Tissaphernes had no intention of making a deal on any terms, wanted to make sure the Athenians blamed themselves for the failure, not him. He needed them to think it was not that he could not persuade Tissaphernes but that Tissaphernes had been persuaded and was willing — and the Athenians had simply not offered enough.

So, speaking for Tissaphernes — who was right there in the room — Alcibiades made demands so extreme that the negotiations were bound to fail. He demanded the cession of all of Ionia. Then the islands adjacent to it. Then other concessions on top of that. The Athenians agreed to all of it without objection. Finally, at the third meeting, Alcibiades — now genuinely afraid that the Athenians would call his bluff and expose his inability to deliver Tissaphernes — demanded that the king be allowed to build warships and sail freely along his own coast, wherever he pleased, with as many ships as he wanted.

At that, the Athenians finally balked. They concluded there was nothing to be gained here, that they had been played by Alcibiades, and stormed off in a fury back to Samos.

TISSAPHERNES HEDGES HIS BETS

Immediately after this, still in the same winter, Tissaphernes traveled to Caunus along the coast, wanting to bring the Peloponnesian fleet back to Miletus and resume paying them. He planned to negotiate a new agreement on whatever terms he could get — anything to avoid a complete break with the Peloponnesians. He was afraid that if too many of their ships were left without pay, the crews would be forced into a battle they would lose, or that the ships would be abandoned altogether and the Athenians would achieve their objectives without any Persian help. Worse still, he feared the Peloponnesians might start raiding the coast of Asia Minor to feed themselves.

Having calculated all this — consistent with his strategy of keeping the two sides balanced — he now sent for the Peloponnesians, gave them their pay, and concluded a third treaty. Its terms were as follows:

THE THIRD TREATY

In the thirteenth year of the reign of Darius, while Alexippidas was ephor at Sparta, a treaty was concluded on the plain of the Maeander by the Spartans and their allies with Tissaphernes, Hieramenes, and the sons of Pharnaces, concerning the affairs of the king on one side and the Spartans and their allies on the other.

All the king's territory in Asia shall remain the king's, and the king may do as he pleases with his own lands.

The Spartans and their allies shall not invade or harm the king's territory, nor shall the king invade or harm the territory of the Spartans or their allies. If any of the Spartans or their allies invade or harm the king's territory, the Spartans and their allies shall prevent it. If anyone from the king's territory invades or harms the territory of the Spartans or their allies, the king shall prevent it.

Tissaphernes shall provide pay for the ships currently present, according to the existing agreement, until the king's fleet arrives. After the king's fleet arrives, the Spartans and their allies may choose to pay for their own ships if they wish. However, if they prefer to receive pay from Tissaphernes, he will furnish it — and the Spartans and their allies shall repay him at the end of the war for whatever funds they have received.

After the king's fleet arrives, the ships of the Spartans and their allies and those of the king shall carry on the war jointly, in whatever manner Tissaphernes and the Spartans and their allies agree is best. If they wish to make peace with the Athenians, they shall make peace jointly as well.

That was the treaty. After it was signed, Tissaphernes made preparations to bring up the Phoenician fleet as promised, and to fulfill his other commitments — or at any rate, he wanted to look like he was making preparations.

THE FALL OF OROPUS AND WINTER'S END

Winter was now drawing to a close. The Boeotians seized Oropus through treachery, even though it was held by an Athenian garrison. They had accomplices among the Eretrians and the Oropians themselves, who were plotting the revolt of the island of Euboea. Oropus sat directly opposite Eretria, and while it remained in Athenian hands it was a constant threat to both Eretria and the rest of Euboea.

With Oropus now in friendly hands, the Eretrians went to Rhodes to invite the Peloponnesians to Euboea. But the Peloponnesians were more focused on relieving Chios, and they put out to sea with their full fleet from Rhodes. Off Triopium they spotted the Athenian fleet sailing from Chalce, but neither side attacked. The Athenians continued to Samos and the Peloponnesians sailed to Miletus, having accepted that relieving Chios without a sea battle was no longer possible.

And this winter ended, and with it ended the twentieth year of this war of which Thucydides is the historian.

THE TWENTY-FIRST YEAR BEGINS

Early the next spring, a Spartan named Dercyllidas was sent with a small force overland to the Hellespont to foment the revolt of Abydos, a colony of Miletus. Meanwhile, the Chians — getting no help from Astyochus — were forced by the pressure of the siege to fight at sea. While Astyochus was still at Rhodes, the Chians had received a new commander from Miletus to replace the fallen Pedaritus: a Spartan named Leon, who had come out with Antisthenes, along with twelve ships that had been on patrol at Miletus. Five of these were from Thurii, four from Syracuse, one from Anaia, one from Miletus, and one was Leon's own. The Chians marched out in full force to a strong position on land, while thirty-six of their ships put to sea against thirty-two Athenian vessels. It was a hard fight. The Chians and their allies came out slightly ahead, but since it was getting dark they retired to the city.

Immediately after this battle, Dercyllidas arrived overland from Miletus. Abydos on the Hellespont revolted to him and to Pharnabazus, and two days later Lampsacus followed. When word reached Strombichides, he raced from Chios with twenty-four Athenian ships — some of them troop transports carrying heavy infantry. He defeated the Lampsacenes who came out to fight, stormed the unfortified city on the first assault, seized the slaves and property as plunder, restored the free citizens to their homes, and then moved on to Abydos. The people of Abydos, however, refused to surrender, and his assaults failed to take the place. So he crossed over to the opposite shore and established Sestos — the town in the Chersonese that the Persians had once held earlier in this history — as his base for defending the entire Hellespont.

THE DEMOCRACY FALLS AT ATHENS

In the meantime, the Chians were now commanding the sea more effectively than before. The Peloponnesians at Miletus and Astyochus, hearing about the naval engagement and the departure of Strombichides' squadron, took fresh heart. Astyochus sailed to Chios with two ships, picked up the fleet there, and moved with his combined force against Samos. But the Athenians refused to come out and fight him, because they no longer trusted each other. So he sailed back to Miletus.

It was around this time — or even a little before — that the democracy was overthrown at Athens.

When Pisander and the envoys returned from Tissaphernes to Samos, they immediately worked to strengthen their hold over the army and recruited the upper-class Samians to join them in establishing an oligarchy — ironically, the very form of government that another faction of Samians had just staged an uprising to prevent. At the same time, the Athenians at Samos, after talking things over among themselves, decided to drop Alcibiades. He had refused to join them, and besides, he was not the sort of man who belonged in an oligarchy. But now that they had already committed themselves, they resolved to push ahead on their own and see the thing through. They would keep fighting the war and contribute money and whatever else was needed out of their own private fortunes. From now on, they told themselves, they were working for no one but themselves.

THE CONSPIRATORS FAN OUT

After steeling their resolve, the conspirators immediately dispatched half the envoys, along with Pisander, to Athens to carry out the revolution there. They were given instructions to install oligarchies at every subject city they stopped at along the way. The other half were sent in different directions to handle the remaining allied states. Diitrephes, who was in the area near Chios and had been elected to command the Thracian district, was sent to take up his post. When he reached Thasos, he abolished the democracy.

But within two months of his departure, the Thasians were already fortifying their city. They had had enough of an aristocracy under Athens and were now looking forward to freedom from Sparta instead. A group of Thasian exiles — men the Athenians had banished — were already working with the Peloponnesians, and together with their allies inside the city they were doing everything they could to bring in a Peloponnesian squadron and achieve full independence. The abolition of the democracy was exactly what they wanted: it removed the one force that would have opposed them, and it happened without them having to lift a finger.

So at Thasos, the results were the exact opposite of what the oligarchic conspirators in Athens had intended. And the same thing happened, in my opinion, in many of the other subject states as well. Once the cities got moderate governments and the freedom to act, they pushed straight through to full independence. They were not seduced in the slightest by the cosmetic reforms the Athenians offered.

THE COUP

Pisander and his colleagues, sailing along the coast, dismantled the democracies in the cities as planned. They also picked up some heavy infantry from certain places to serve as allies, and then arrived at Athens. They found that most of the groundwork had already been laid by their associates in the city.

A group of younger men had secretly banded together and assassinated a man named Androcles — the most prominent leader of the democratic faction and one of the people chiefly responsible for the banishment of Alcibiades. They targeted Androcles partly because he was a powerful democrat and partly to prove their loyalty to Alcibiades, who they still expected to be recalled and to bring Tissaphernes' friendship with him. Several other inconvenient people were quietly eliminated in the same fashion.

Meanwhile, the conspirators' public line was straightforward: no one should receive state pay unless they were serving in the war, and the government should be restricted to no more than five thousand citizens — specifically those best able to serve the state with their wealth and their military service.

But this was just a slogan to win over the public. The men behind the revolution planned to govern the city themselves.

THE REIGN OF TERROR

The Assembly and the Council of the Bean continued to meet, but they discussed nothing that the conspirators had not approved in advance. The conspirators supplied the speakers and vetted everything they said beforehand. Fear — and the visible numbers of the conspirators — silenced everyone else. If anyone dared to stand up in opposition, he was soon found dead, killed in some convenient way. No one investigated these murders. No one was brought to justice, even when suspects were known. The people sat paralyzed, so completely terrorized that men counted themselves lucky just to escape violence by keeping their mouths shut.

The citizens also wildly overestimated the number of conspirators, and this demoralized them further. The city was too large and its people too disconnected from one another to figure out what was actually going on. For the same reason, it was impossible for any individual to confide his fears to his neighbor and organize resistance — because any neighbor might be one of them. You would have to speak either to a stranger or to someone you knew but could not trust.

In fact, every member of the democratic faction looked at every other member with suspicion, each one wondering if his neighbor was in on the plot. And with good reason: the conspirators had recruited people whom no one would ever have imagined capable of supporting an oligarchy. These unlikely members were what made the ordinary citizens so distrustful of each other — and that very distrust is what kept the conspirators safe.

COLONUS

At this point, Pisander and his colleagues arrived and wasted no time finishing the job.

First, they convened the assembly and proposed the election of ten commissioners with absolute authority to draft a new constitution. These commissioners would present their recommendations on a set date.

When the day came, the conspirators herded the assembly to Colonus — a temple of Poseidon about a mile and a half outside the city walls. Once there, the commissioners offered a single, devastating motion: any Athenian could propose any measure he wished, with total impunity. Heavy penalties were imposed on anyone who tried to bring charges of illegality or otherwise interfere.

With that protection in place, the real agenda was openly declared. All existing offices were dissolved. All state pay was abolished. Five men would be elected as presidents. Those five would each choose twenty, and each of the twenty would choose three more. The resulting body of four hundred would enter the Council chamber with absolute power and govern as they saw fit. They could convene the five thousand whenever they thought it appropriate.

THE ARCHITECTS OF REVOLUTION

The man who formally moved the resolution was Pisander. He was the public face of the conspiracy throughout. But the man who orchestrated the entire affair — who planned every step, thought through every detail, and prepared the ground for the catastrophe — was Antiphon.

Antiphon was one of the ablest men of his generation in Athens. He had a mind for strategy and a gift for persuasion, but he never willingly stepped forward in the assembly or onto the public stage. His reputation for cleverness made the ordinary citizens distrust him. Yet he was the one man in Athens who could do the most for anyone who needed help in a courtroom or before the assembly. Years later, when the Four Hundred were overthrown and the democracy took its revenge, Antiphon was put on trial for his role in establishing the oligarchy. He delivered what was, in my judgment, the finest defense speech ever made by any man up to that time.

Phrynichus, too, threw himself into the oligarchy with extraordinary zeal. He was terrified of Alcibiades — he knew that Alcibiades was aware of his intrigues with Astyochus at Samos — and he had concluded that no oligarchy would ever restore such a man. Once committed, he proved himself by far the boldest of them all whenever danger needed to be faced.

Theramenes, son of Hagnon, was another leading figure in the destruction of the democracy — a man equally formidable in planning and in debate.

With so many capable and cunning minds steering it, the enterprise succeeded — though it was no small achievement. To strip the Athenian people of their freedom was an enormous thing. It had been almost a hundred years since the tyrants were overthrown. For that entire century, the Athenians had never been subject to anyone. For more than half of it, they had been accustomed to ruling an empire of their own.

THE FOUR HUNDRED TAKE POWER

The assembly ratified the new constitution without a single dissenting voice and was dissolved.

The Four Hundred were then brought into the Council chamber in the following way. Because of the Spartan garrison at Decelea, all Athenians were constantly on duty — either manning the walls or standing ready at their military posts. On the appointed day, those not in on the conspiracy were allowed to go home from their posts as usual. But the conspirators' accomplices were given secret orders to linger nearby — not making a scene, but ready to seize weapons and intervene if anyone tried to resist. There were also Andrians, Tenians, three hundred Carystians, and some Athenian settlers from Aegina who had come with their own weapons for exactly this purpose. All had received the same instructions.

With everything in place, the Four Hundred — each concealing a dagger on his person — marched in, accompanied by one hundred and twenty young toughs they used whenever muscle was required. They went before the sitting councillors, the Council of the Bean, and told them to take their pay and get out. The Four Hundred had even brought the money: they handed each councillor the remainder of their term's salary as they filed through the door.

THE NEW ORDER

The Council departed without a word of protest. The rest of the citizens did nothing. The Four Hundred occupied the Council chamber. For the moment, they contented themselves with drawing lots for their committee leaders and performing the customary prayers and sacrifices to the gods upon entering office.

But after that, they departed radically from the democratic system. They did not recall the exiles — Alcibiades being the reason, since they still could not agree on that point. But they ruled the city with an iron hand: executing some, imprisoning others, banishing still others — anyone they found it convenient to remove, though the numbers were not large.

They also sent envoys to King Agis at the Spartan fortress of Decelea, offering peace. Their argument: surely Agis would prefer to negotiate with them — a stable, responsible oligarchy — rather than the fickle democratic mob.

AGIS CALLS THEIR BLUFF

Agis, however, did not believe Athens was stable at all. He thought it was impossible that the common people had simply surrendered their ancient liberty overnight. He expected that the sight of a large Spartan army would be enough to set off a revolt — if the city was not already in chaos, which he was far from certain about. So he gave the envoys of the Four Hundred a discouraging answer.

Then he sent for major reinforcements from the Peloponnese, and before long, with these fresh troops and his garrison from Decelea, he marched right up to the walls of Athens. He was hoping either that internal chaos would force the Athenians to accept his terms, or that in the confusion — enemies outside the walls, turmoil within — they might surrender without a fight. At a minimum, he thought he could seize the Long Walls, which must be stripped of defenders.

But the Athenians saw him approach without the slightest internal disturbance. They sent out their cavalry along with heavy infantry, light troops, and archers. They shot down some of his soldiers who came too close and captured some weapons and bodies. Agis, finally convinced, pulled his army back. He kept his own troops in their usual position at Decelea and sent the reinforcements home after just a few days in Attica.

After this rebuff, the Four Hundred tried again. They sent another embassy to Agis, and this time they got a warmer reception. At his suggestion, they dispatched envoys to Sparta itself to negotiate a treaty. They were desperate for peace.

THE ARMY AT SAMOS

The Four Hundred also sent ten men to Samos to calm the army. They were to explain that the oligarchy had not been established to harm the city or its citizens but to save it. There were five thousand citizens involved, they were to say, not merely four hundred — though, they quickly added, the Athenians had never actually assembled five thousand people to discuss anything, no matter how important the question, given their military commitments and overseas deployments.

The envoys were coached on what to say about everything else as well. They were sent immediately after the new government was established, because the Four Hundred feared — rightly, as it turned out — that the sailors would never accept an oligarchy, and that if trouble started there, it could bring the whole thing crashing down.

THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION AT SAMOS

In fact, at Samos, the oligarchic movement had already entered a new and very different phase.

That part of the Samian population that had earlier risen against the upper class — the democratic faction — had now reversed course. Yielding to pressure from Pisander during his visit and from the Athenian conspirators at Samos, about three hundred of them had sworn secret oaths and were preparing to attack the rest of their fellow citizens, whom they now labeled "the democrats."

First, they murdered an Athenian named Hyperbolus — a troublemaker who had been ostracized, not because anyone feared his influence or standing, but because he was a disgrace and an embarrassment to the city. Charminus, one of the generals, and some other Athenians helped them do it, as a show of good faith. Together with these Athenians, the Three Hundred committed other acts of violence and then prepared for a full assault on the Samian people.

But the people got wind of the plan. They went to two generals — Leon and Diomedon — who were reluctant supporters of the oligarchy because they were popular with the common soldiers. They also turned to Thrasybulus, a ship captain, and Thrasyllus, a soldier in the heavy infantry, along with others who had always been the most opposed to the conspirators. They begged these men not to stand by while they were slaughtered and Samos — the last stronghold of Athenian power — was lost.

The men they appealed to went to work. They moved among the soldiers one by one, urging them to resist. They focused especially on the crew of the Paralus — the sacred state galley, manned entirely by Athenian citizens and free men who had always been fierce opponents of oligarchy, even when no oligarchy existed. Leon and Diomedon also left behind some ships to protect the democrats whenever they themselves had to sail away.

So when the Three Hundred finally attacked, all these forces rallied to the defense. The crew of the Paralus led the charge. The Samian democrats won the battle. They killed about thirty of the Three Hundred, banished three ringleaders, and granted amnesty to the rest. From that day forward, they lived together under a democratic government.

CHAEREAS IN ATHENS

The ship Paralus, with an Athenian named Chaereas, son of Archestratus, on board — a man who had played an active role in the counter-revolution — was sent straight to Athens to report what had happened. The crew did not yet know that the Four Hundred were in power.

When they sailed into the harbor, the Four Hundred immediately arrested two or three of the Paralus crew, confiscated the ship, and transferred the rest of the sailors to a troopship assigned to patrol around Euboea. Chaereas, however, managed to slip away as soon as he saw what was happening. He made it back to Samos.

Once there, Chaereas painted a picture of the horrors in Athens for the soldiers — exaggerating everything wildly. He said everyone was being beaten. He said no one could speak a word against the men in power. He said the soldiers' wives and children were being assaulted. He said the Four Hundred planned to round up the families of every man at Samos who opposed them and hold them hostage, to be executed if the army disobeyed. He piled on one invented atrocity after another.

THE ARMY TAKES ITS STAND

The soldiers' first impulse on hearing this was to lynch the ringleaders of the oligarchy and everyone associated with them. But the moderates talked them down, warning that with the enemy fleet nearby and ready for battle, tearing themselves apart would be suicidal.

After this, Thrasybulus, son of Lycus, and Thrasyllus — the leaders of the democratic movement — moved to place the new order at Samos on the most public and formal footing possible. They administered a solemn oath to every soldier — and made the oligarchic sympathizers swear it more emphatically than anyone: to uphold democratic government, to stand united, to prosecute the war against the Peloponnesians with full energy, and to treat the Four Hundred as enemies with whom they would have no dealings whatsoever. Every adult Samian took the same oath. The soldiers brought the Samians into full partnership in all their affairs and all their dangers, convinced that there was no escape for either of them. If the Four Hundred won, or if the enemy at Miletus won, they were all finished.

TWO GOVERNMENTS

It was now a contest: the army at Samos fighting to impose democracy on the city, and the Four Hundred at Athens fighting to impose oligarchy on the army.

The soldiers immediately held an assembly. They deposed the old generals and any captains they suspected of oligarchic sympathies and elected new ones in their place — Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus among them. Then they stood up one after another to rally each other's courage.

They should not lose heart, they said, just because the city had revolted from them. The seceding party was the smaller one, and poorer in every kind of resource. The army had the entire fleet, and with it the power to compel the allied cities to pay them tribute — just as if Athens itself were still their base. They had Samos: a city that was no weakling, one that had come within a hair's breadth of taking command of the sea away from Athens when the two had fought each other. Their base of operations against the enemy was the same as it had always been. In fact, with the fleet in their hands, they were better positioned to supply themselves than the government back home.

It was their advanced position at Samos, they reminded each other, that had always given the home government control of the sea lanes into the Piraeus. If the government at home refused to restore the constitution, the army would find that it was now in a better position to shut the city out from the sea than the city was to shut them out.

The city, they argued, was of little or no use for defeating the enemy. They had lost nothing by losing people who had neither money to send them — the soldiers were already paying their own way — nor good judgment to guide them. On that last point, the home government had actually done wrong by abolishing the ancestral constitution, while the army was upholding it and would fight to restore it in the city. So even in terms of wise counsel, the camp was at least the equal of the city.

Moreover, if they granted Alcibiades a guarantee of personal safety and permission to return, he would be only too happy to secure them the alliance of the Persian king. And above all, if everything else failed, with the navy they possessed they had plenty of places they could retreat to — places with cities and land enough to start over.

THE FOUR HUNDRED STALL

Encouraging each other in this way, the soldiers threw themselves into their war preparations as energetically as ever. Meanwhile, the ten envoys the Four Hundred had sent to Samos found out how things stood while they were still at Delos. They went no further. They stayed put.

MUTINY AT MILETUS

Around this same time, the Peloponnesian sailors at Miletus began to openly grumble that Astyochus and Tissaphernes were destroying their cause. Astyochus, they complained, had refused to fight a naval battle — not earlier, when their fleet was at peak strength and the Athenian fleet was small, and not now, when the enemy was reportedly in chaos and their ships were scattered. Instead, he kept them sitting around waiting for the mythical Phoenician fleet from Tissaphernes — a fleet that existed in name only — while they wasted away doing nothing. And Tissaphernes was not only failing to produce this fleet but was actively ruining their navy with irregular payments that were never made in full.

They demanded action: fight a decisive sea battle now. The Syracusans pushed hardest for this.

THE FLEETS CONVERGE

Astyochus and the allied commanders, aware of the growing anger, decided in council to seek a decisive engagement. When they learned about the upheaval at Samos, they put to sea with their entire fleet — a hundred and ten ships — and ordered the Milesians to march overland to Mycale. They headed for the same place.

The Athenians, with eighty-two ships from Samos, were anchored at Glauce on the Mycale coast, where Samos comes closest to the mainland. When they saw the Peloponnesian fleet bearing down on them, they pulled back to Samos. They did not think they had enough ships to risk everything on a single battle. Besides, they had gotten advance word from Miletus that the enemy wanted a fight, and they were waiting for Strombichides to arrive from the Hellespont with the ships that had gone from Chios to Abydos. A messenger had already been sent to recall him.

So the Athenians withdrew to Samos, and the Peloponnesians put in at Mycale, making camp alongside the Milesian land forces and the local population. The next day, they were about to sail against Samos when news arrived that Strombichides had reached the area with his squadron from the Hellespont. They immediately turned around and sailed back to Miletus.

The Athenians, now reinforced, sailed against Miletus in their turn with a hundred and eight ships, eager for the decisive battle. But no one came out to meet them. They sailed back to Samos.

CHAPTER 26

Twenty-first Year of the War — Recall of Alcibiades to Samos — Revolt of Euboea and Downfall of the Four Hundred — Battle of Cynossema

THE PELOPONNESIANS SPLIT THEIR FLEET

That same summer, right after these events, the Peloponnesians decided not to risk a naval battle with their whole fleet combined. They did not think they were a match for the enemy, and they were running out of money to maintain so many ships — especially since Tissaphernes had turned out to be such a terrible paymaster. So they sent Clearchus, son of Ramphias, with forty ships to Pharnabazus, following the original instructions from the Peloponnese. Pharnabazus had been inviting them and was prepared to provide pay. On top of that, Byzantium was sending offers to revolt to the Peloponnesian side.

These ships put out into the open sea to avoid being spotted by the Athenians. But they ran into a storm. The majority, under Clearchus, were driven to Delos and eventually returned to Miletus, from where Clearchus continued overland to take command at the Hellespont. Ten ships, however, under the Megarian Helixus, made it through to the Hellespont and successfully brought about the revolt of Byzantium. When the commanders at Samos learned of this, they sent a squadron to guard the Hellespont, and a small engagement took place off Byzantium between eight ships on each side.

THE RECALL OF ALCIBIADES

Meanwhile, the leading figures at Samos — especially Thrasybulus, who had been firmly determined to recall Alcibiades ever since the change of government — finally brought the matter before the full assembly of soldiers. The troops voted for his recall and a full amnesty, and Thrasybulus sailed over to Tissaphernes and brought Alcibiades back to Samos. They were convinced that their only chance of survival lay in getting Alcibiades to bring Tissaphernes over from the Peloponnesian side to theirs.

An assembly was held. Alcibiades stood up and poured out his complaints about the injustice of his banishment. Then he turned to public affairs and spoke at great length, raising the soldiers' hopes sky-high and wildly exaggerating his own influence with Tissaphernes. He had several reasons for doing this. He wanted to make the oligarchic government back in Athens afraid of him. He wanted to hasten the breakup of the political clubs. He wanted to boost his own standing with the army at Samos and build up their confidence. And he wanted to poison the Peloponnesians' relationship with Tissaphernes as thoroughly as possible, destroying whatever hopes they still placed in him.

Alcibiades made the most extravagant promises imaginable. He told the soldiers that Tissaphernes had personally sworn to him: as long as he could trust the Athenians, they would never lack for supplies while he had anything left — even if he had to melt down his own silver couch to pay for it. He would bring the Phoenician fleet, currently at Aspendus, over to the Athenian side instead of the Peloponnesian side. But there was one condition: Tissaphernes could only trust the Athenians if Alcibiades were recalled to serve as his personal guarantee.

The soldiers heard all this — and much more — and immediately elected Alcibiades general alongside the existing commanders. They put all their affairs in his hands. There was not a single man in the army who would have traded his new hopes of salvation and revenge against the Four Hundred for anything in the world.

After everything they had just heard, the troops were now ready to dismiss the enemy fleet in front of them as no threat at all. What they really wanted was to sail straight for Piraeus.

Alcibiades flatly refused. Despite the enormous pressure — soldier after soldier insisting on it — he absolutely would not let them sail for Piraeus and leave their more immediate enemies behind. He had just been elected general, he said, and his first order of business would be to sail to Tissaphernes and work out a plan for prosecuting the war.

So he left the assembly and immediately set sail. He wanted it to look like there was complete trust between himself and Tissaphernes. He also wanted to raise his own standing with the Persian, and to show him that he had now been elected general and was in a position to help him or hurt him as he chose. In this way, Alcibiades played both sides: he frightened the Athenians with Tissaphernes, and Tissaphernes with the Athenians.

PELOPONNESIAN DISCONTENT WITH TISSAPHERNES

When the Peloponnesians at Miletus heard that Alcibiades had been recalled, their distrust of Tissaphernes — already considerable — deepened into outright disgust. Ever since their refusal to come out and fight when the Athenians appeared off Miletus, Tissaphernes had grown slacker than ever in his payments. And even before that, thanks to Alcibiades, his unpopularity had been steadily growing.

Now the soldiers and some men of rank began gathering together — just as they had before — and tallying up their grievances. They had never received their pay in full. What they did get was small and came irregularly. Unless they fought a decisive battle or moved to some station where they could get supplies, the ships' crews were going to desert. And all of it, they said, was the fault of Astyochus, who kept humoring Tissaphernes for his own personal profit.

THE MUTINY AGAINST ASTYOCHUS

While the army stewed over these complaints, a near-riot broke out around Astyochus.

Most of the Syracusan and Thurian sailors were free men, not slaves, and being the freest crews in the fleet, they were also the boldest in confronting their commander and demanding their pay. Astyochus answered them roughly and made threats. When Dorieus spoke up on behalf of his own sailors, Astyochus went so far as to raise his baton against him. At that, the common sailors rushed forward in a fury, ready to beat Astyochus senseless. He saw them coming just in time and ran for an altar, where he claimed sanctuary. Nobody actually struck him, and the crowd eventually broke up.

Around the same time, the Milesians surprised and captured the fort that Tissaphernes had built in their city and threw out the garrison. The rest of the allies approved of this — but Lichas did not. He said the Milesians and everyone else living in the king's territory ought to show reasonable deference to Tissaphernes and keep on his good side until the war was settled. The Milesians resented this, and they resented Lichas for other things too. When he later died of illness, they refused to let him be buried where the Spartans in the army wanted.

NEW COMMAND: MINDARUS REPLACES ASTYOCHUS

The army's discontent with both Astyochus and Tissaphernes had reached a breaking point when Mindarus arrived from Sparta to replace Astyochus as admiral. Mindarus took command, and Astyochus set sail for home.

Tissaphernes sent one of his trusted men with Astyochus — Gaulites, a Carian who spoke both Greek and Persian — to lodge a complaint at Sparta about the Milesians seizing the fort, and to defend himself against the Milesians, who Tissaphernes knew were heading to Sparta mainly to denounce him. Hermocrates was going too, planning to accuse Tissaphernes of conspiring with Alcibiades to ruin the Peloponnesian cause and playing a double game. Hermocrates had always been at odds with Tissaphernes over the unpaid wages, and eventually, when Hermocrates was banished from Syracuse and new commanders — Potamis, Myscon, and Demarchus — came out to Miletus to take over the Syracusan ships, Tissaphernes attacked the exiled Hermocrates even harder. Among other charges, he accused him of once begging for money and then becoming his enemy only because he did not get it.

ALCIBIADES FACES THE ENVOYS OF THE FOUR HUNDRED

While Astyochus, the Milesians, and Hermocrates sailed for Sparta, Alcibiades crossed back from Tissaphernes to Samos. After his return, the envoys of the Four Hundred arrived from Delos — the ones who had been sent, as mentioned earlier, to calm down and explain the situation to the forces at Samos.

An assembly was held. The envoys tried to speak. At first the soldiers refused to listen and shouted for the death of these men who had overthrown the democracy. Eventually, with difficulty, they quieted down and gave them a hearing.

The envoys explained that the recent change in government had been made to save the city, not to ruin it or hand it over to the enemy. They had already had a chance to do that, they pointed out, when the enemy invaded Attica while they were in power, and they had not done so. All the Five Thousand would have their proper share in the government, they said. And as for the soldiers' families, they had not been abused or mistreated, as Chaereas had slanderously reported — they were all in undisturbed possession of their property, just as they had been left.

They made many other statements too. None of it worked. The soldiers were furious. Opinions flew in every direction, but the plan that gained the most support was the same as before: sail for Piraeus.

ALCIBIADES SAVES ATHENS

This was the moment when Alcibiades, for the first time, performed a genuine service to the state — and one of the most important services anyone ever rendered it.

The Athenians at Samos were hell-bent on sailing against their own countrymen. Had they done so, Ionia and the Hellespont would have fallen to the enemy immediately, without a fight. It was Alcibiades who stopped them. At that moment, no other man on earth could have held back the crowd. But he shut down the expedition. He rebuked the soldiers and redirected their anger away from the envoys. Then he dismissed them with a reply in his own name: he had no objection to the Five Thousand governing, but the Four Hundred had to go, and the old Council of Five Hundred had to be restored. As for any budget cuts that might free up more pay for the military, he was all for it.

His broader message was this: hold firm and present a united front to the enemy. If the city survived, there was good reason to hope that the two sides could eventually reconcile. But if either party were destroyed — the one at Samos or the one at Athens — there would be no one left to reconcile with.

Envoys also arrived from Argos, offering to support the Athenian democrats at Samos. Alcibiades thanked them and asked them to come when called upon.

The Argive envoys had been accompanied by the crew of the Paralus. These were the men whom the Four Hundred had transferred to a troopship and ordered to patrol around Euboea. While on that mission, they had been tasked with carrying some Athenian envoys sent by the Four Hundred to Sparta — Laespodias, Aristophon, and Melesias. But as the ship passed Argos, the crew seized the envoys and handed them over to the Argives as ringleaders of the oligarchic coup. Then, instead of returning to Athens, they took the Argive envoys aboard and sailed to Samos in the very ship that had been entrusted to them.

TISSAPHERNES AND THE PHOENICIAN FLEET

That same summer, at the very moment when the recall of Alcibiades — combined with Tissaphernes' general behavior — had pushed the Peloponnesians' distrust to its peak, and they no longer had any doubt that Tissaphernes had gone over to the Athenian side, Tissaphernes decided to clear his name. He made a great show of preparing to go fetch the Phoenician fleet at Aspendus, and he invited Lichas to come along. He said he would leave his deputy Tamos in charge of paying the fleet while he was away.

Accounts of what actually happened differ, and it is hard to know for certain what Tissaphernes intended when he went to Aspendus — and then failed to bring the fleet back. That a hundred and forty-seven Phoenician ships made it as far as Aspendus is beyond question. But why they never came any further has been explained in different ways.

Some say Tissaphernes went there in line with his strategy of wearing down the Peloponnesians. His deputy Tamos, far from being a better paymaster, turned out to be even worse. Others say he brought the Phoenicians to Aspendus only to squeeze money out of them for their discharge — he had never planned to use them at all. Still others say he did it because of the complaints against him at Sparta, so that people would say: he is not at fault; the ships really are manned; he really did go to get them.

In my own judgment, though, the explanation is painfully obvious. He did not bring up the fleet because he wanted to wear out and cripple both Greek sides — to waste their strength while he dithered at Aspendus and keep them evenly balanced by refusing to tip the scales either way. If he had actually wanted to finish the war, he could have done so. Bringing up that fleet would almost certainly have handed victory to the Spartans, whose navy even as things stood was fighting the Athenians on roughly equal terms, not as an inferior force.

The most damning evidence against him is the excuse he gave for not bringing the ships. He claimed the fleet was smaller than what the king had ordered. But that should have been a point in his favor — spending less of the king's money to achieve the same result, at lower cost.

Whatever his real intentions, Tissaphernes went to Aspendus and saw the Phoenicians in person. At his request, the Peloponnesians sent a Spartan named Philip with two galleys to escort the fleet back.

ALCIBIADES PURSUES TISSAPHERNES

When Alcibiades heard that Tissaphernes had left for Aspendus, he sailed after him with thirteen ships, promising the troops at Samos a great and certain service: he would either bring the Phoenician fleet to the Athenians, or at the very least prevent it from joining the Peloponnesians. In all probability, he had known for a long time that Tissaphernes never meant to bring the fleet at all. He wanted to compromise Tissaphernes as deeply as possible in the eyes of the Peloponnesians — making the Persian's apparent friendship with Alcibiades and the Athenians look like proof of betrayal — and thereby force Tissaphernes, in a sense, to choose the Athenian side.

So Alcibiades weighed anchor and sailed east, straight for Phaselis and Caunus.

THE OLIGARCHY BEGINS TO CRACK

Meanwhile, the envoys the Four Hundred had sent to Samos arrived back in Athens. They delivered Alcibiades' message: hold out, show a firm front to the enemy, and know that he had great hopes of reconciling the government with the army and of defeating the Peloponnesians.

For the majority of the oligarchy's members — men who were already unhappy and looking for any safe way out of this mess — this was the push they needed. They began organizing, openly criticizing the regime. Their leaders were some of the most prominent generals and officeholders under the oligarchy itself: Theramenes, son of Hagnon, and Aristocrates, son of Scellias, among others.

These men were among the government's highest-ranking figures, but they were afraid — afraid of the army at Samos, deeply afraid of Alcibiades, and worried that the envoys they had sent to Sparta might do the state some damage without popular authorization. They did not go so far as to object to concentrated power in principle, but they insisted that the Five Thousand must actually exist — not just in name — and that the constitution must be put on a fairer footing.

This was their public position. But most of them were really driven by personal ambition — the kind of ambition that is the natural and almost certain killer of any oligarchy that springs from a democracy. The moment an oligarchy is established, every single member claims to be not merely an equal but the first among equals, the one who deserves to be in charge. Under a democracy, a man who loses an election can accept his defeat more easily, because at least he was not beaten by people he considers his inferiors. But in an oligarchy, the resentment is personal.

What emboldened the malcontents most of all was the power of Alcibiades at Samos and their own gut feeling that the oligarchy would not last. It became a race to see who could position himself as the champion of the people first.

THE HARD-LINERS DOUBLE DOWN

Meanwhile, the leaders of the Four Hundred who were most fiercely opposed to any return to democracy — Phrynichus (who had clashed with Alcibiades during his time in command at Samos), Aristarchus (a bitter and lifelong enemy of popular government), and Pisander and Antiphon and the rest of the inner circle — had been working hard from the very beginning. As soon as they took power, and again when the army at Samos broke away and declared for democracy, they had sent their own envoys to Sparta and done everything possible to make peace. They had also been building a wall at Eetionia.

Now, with their envoys returning from Samos and reporting that not only the people but their own most trusted associates were turning against them, they grew alarmed at the situation both in Athens and at Samos. In haste, they sent Antiphon, Phrynichus, and ten others to Sparta with orders to make peace on any terms — no matter what — as long as they were remotely tolerable.

At the same time, they pushed the construction of the wall at Eetionia harder than ever.

Now, according to Theramenes and his supporters, the real purpose of this wall was not to keep out the army from Samos if it tried to force its way into Piraeus. The real purpose was to let in the enemy fleet and army whenever the oligarchs chose. Eetionia was a promontory right alongside the entrance to the harbor at Piraeus. It was now being fortified in connection with the existing wall on the landward side, so that a small number of men stationed there could control the harbor entrance. The old wall on the land side and the new one being built on the seaward side both terminated at one of the two towers flanking the narrow harbor mouth. On top of this, the oligarchs walled off the largest warehouse in Piraeus, which was directly connected to this fortification, and kept it under their own control. They forced everyone to unload their grain there when ships came into the harbor, and to take their grain from there when they sold it.

THE FALL OF THE FOUR HUNDRED BEGINS

Theramenes had been complaining about all of this for some time. When the envoys returned from Sparta without any general peace agreement, he declared openly that the wall at Eetionia was going to be the ruin of Athens.

At that very moment, forty-two ships from the Peloponnese — including some from the Sicilian and Italian Greek cities of Locri and Tarentum — had been summoned by the Euboeans and were already anchored off Las in Laconia, preparing to cross to Euboea. They were under the command of Agesandridas, son of Agesander, a Spartan. Theramenes now declared that this squadron was heading not to Euboea but to reinforce the men who were fortifying Eetionia. Unless immediate precautions were taken, he warned, the city would be taken by surprise and lost.

This was not mere slander. The accused really did have something like this in mind. Their first choice was to maintain the oligarchy without losing the empire. Failing that, they wanted to hold onto their ships and walls and remain independent. And if even that was denied them — rather than be the first victims of a restored democracy — they were prepared to bring in the enemy, make peace, and surrender the walls and the fleet, so long as they kept control of the government and their lives were spared.

THE ASSASSINATION OF PHRYNICHUS

For this reason they pushed the construction of their wall forward urgently, complete with postern gates, side entrances, and passages for admitting the enemy. They wanted it finished in time.

Up to this point, the opposition had been limited to a few people whispering in private. Then Phrynichus, returning from his embassy to Sparta, was ambushed and stabbed in the middle of the marketplace, right in the open. He staggered a few steps from the council chamber and fell dead. The assassin escaped. His accomplice, an Argive, was arrested and tortured by the Four Hundred, but they could not extract from him the name of the man who had ordered the killing. All he would say was that he knew of many men who regularly gathered at the house of the commander of the border patrol and at other houses.

The matter was dropped.

This emboldened Theramenes, Aristocrates, and their allies both inside and outside the Four Hundred. They resolved to act. By now, the ships from Las had rounded the coast, anchored at Epidaurus, and raided Aegina. Theramenes pointed out that ships bound for Euboea would never have detoured into the Saronic Gulf and anchored at Epidaurus unless they had been invited to support the very designs he had been warning about all along. Further delay was no longer an option.

At last, after many inflammatory speeches and growing suspicion, they moved to action. The heavy infantry in Piraeus who had been building the wall at Eetionia — among them Aristocrates, serving as a tribal colonel — seized Alexicles, a general of the oligarchy and a devoted member of the inner circle, and dragged him into a house and locked him up. They were helped by Hermon, the commander of the border patrol at Munychia, and others. Above all, the great majority of the heavy infantry were on their side.

When news reached the Four Hundred — who happened to be in session in the council chamber — every member except the dissenters wanted to rush immediately to the arms depots. They threatened Theramenes and his faction. Theramenes defended himself and said he was ready to go right now and help rescue Alexicles. He took one of the sympathetic generals with him and headed down to Piraeus. Aristarchus followed, along with some young cavalrymen.

The city was gripped by panic and confusion. The people in the upper city thought Piraeus had already been seized and the prisoner killed. The people in Piraeus expected an armed attack from the city at any moment. The older citizens managed to stop people from running through the streets and grabbing weapons. Thucydides of Pharsalus, the city's diplomatic representative, threw himself between the rival factions and begged them not to destroy the state while the enemy was watching and waiting for his chance. Eventually he calmed them down and kept them from coming to blows.

Theramenes went down to Piraeus — he was himself a general — and made a show of raging against the heavy infantry. Aristarchus and the enemies of the people were genuinely furious. But most of the heavy infantry pressed ahead without wavering. They asked Theramenes directly: did he think the wall had been built for any good purpose? Wouldn't it be better if it were torn down?

If they thought it should come down, Theramenes replied, then he agreed with them.

At that, the heavy infantry and a crowd of ordinary citizens in Piraeus immediately climbed onto the fortification and began tearing it apart. Their rallying cry to the public was: "Everyone who wants the Five Thousand to govern instead of the Four Hundred — come help!" They used the phrase "the Five Thousand" rather than openly saying "the people" because they were still afraid the Five Thousand might actually exist, and that they might accidentally say the wrong thing to the wrong person. This, in fact, was precisely why the Four Hundred had neither wanted the Five Thousand to actually exist nor wanted it known that they did not exist. Giving power to that many people, they felt, would amount to outright democracy. But the ambiguity served their purposes: the mystery of who was and was not a member of the Five Thousand kept everyone afraid of everyone else.

THE FOUR HUNDRED FALL

The next day, the Four Hundred assembled in the council chamber despite their alarm. Down in Piraeus, the heavy infantry released their prisoner Alexicles, finished demolishing the wall, and then marched with their weapons to the theater of Dionysus near Munychia. There they held an assembly and voted to march on the city itself. They set out and halted at the Anaceum.

Some delegates from the Four Hundred came down to meet them. They spoke to them one by one, reasoning with the more moderate soldiers, urging them to stay calm and restrain the rest. They promised to reveal the actual members of the Five Thousand and to have the Four Hundred chosen from among them in rotation, however the Five Thousand decided. In the meantime, they begged the soldiers not to destroy the state or push it into the arms of the enemy.

After many people had spoken on both sides, the whole body of heavy infantry calmed down. They were more worried now about the country as a whole than about settling scores. They agreed to hold a formal assembly on an appointed day at the theater of Dionysus to restore unity.

THE CRISIS AT EUBOEA

When the day came and they were on the verge of assembling, word arrived that the forty-two ships under Agesandridas were sailing from Megara along the coast of Salamis, headed straight for them.

Every single person now believed that this was exactly what Theramenes and his allies had been warning about — that the ships were coming to reinforce the wall. And they felt that demolishing the fortification had been the right thing to do, just in time. Agesandridas may have been hovering around Epidaurus by prearrangement, or he may simply have been lingering in the area, drawn by the hope that Athens' internal chaos would create an opportunity. In either case, the moment the Athenians got the news, they abandoned everything and rushed down to Piraeus in a mass. The threat from the enemy now seemed far worse than their own civil war — and this enemy was not far away but right at the harbor mouth. Some men boarded ships already in the water. Others launched new ones. Still others ran to defend the walls and the harbor entrance.

But the Peloponnesian fleet sailed past. Rounding Cape Sunium, they anchored between Thoricus and Prasiae, and then continued on to Oropus.

The Athenians were in a desperate position. Revolution was tearing the city apart, and they could not afford to lose even a moment in defending their most critical possession. Euboea was everything to them now — with Attica occupied by the enemy, the island was their lifeline. They were forced to put to sea in a rush with untrained crews. They sent Thymochares with a number of ships to Eretria, and these, combined with the vessels already stationed in Euboea, brought the total to thirty-six.

They were forced to fight the moment they arrived. Agesandridas waited until his crews had eaten their midday meal, then put out from Oropus — about seven miles from Eretria by sea. When the Athenians saw him coming, they immediately began manning their ships. But the sailors were not at their posts. They had wandered off into town to buy food for their own dinner. The Eretrians had arranged this deliberately: there was nothing for sale in the marketplace, so the sailors had to scatter to houses on the outskirts of town, wasting precious time. Meanwhile, a signal was raised in Eretria to alert the fleet at Oropus to the perfect moment to attack.

The Athenians put to sea in this miserable state and fought off the harbor of Eretria. They held their own for a little while. Then they broke and were chased to shore.

Those who fled to Eretria, thinking it was a friendly city, met the worst fate of all: the inhabitants butchered them. Those who made it to the Athenian fort in Eretrian territory survived, and so did the ships that escaped to Chalcis. The Peloponnesians captured twenty-two Athenian ships, killed or captured the crews, and set up a trophy. Not long afterward, they brought about the revolt of all of Euboea — except Oreus, which the Athenians held themselves — and settled the island's affairs.

PANIC IN ATHENS

When news of the disaster in Euboea reached Athens, the city was seized by a panic greater than any it had ever known. Not even the catastrophe in Sicily, devastating as it had seemed at the time, had shaken them this badly. Nothing ever had.

Consider their situation. The army at Samos was in open revolt. They had no more ships and no crews to man them. They were at each other's throats at home and might start killing each other at any moment. And now, on top of everything, this: they had lost their fleet and, worst of all, Euboea, which mattered more to them than Attica itself.

But their greatest and most immediate terror was this: the enemy, emboldened by victory, might sail straight for Piraeus, which they no longer had ships to defend. They expected the attack at any moment.

And with a little more courage, the Peloponnesians could easily have done it. If they had, they would either have deepened the city's divisions simply by showing up, or, if they had stayed to besiege it, they would have forced the fleet from Ionia — enemies of the oligarchy though they were — to abandon everything and come rescue their homeland and their families. In the meantime, the Peloponnesians would have become masters of the Hellespont, Ionia, the islands, and everything as far as Euboea. In short, the entire Athenian empire.

But here, as on so many other occasions, the Spartans proved the most convenient enemies the Athenians could have asked for. The difference in national character was enormous: the Spartans were slow, cautious, and lacking in initiative, while the Athenians were bold and quick to act. This contrast served the Athenians enormously — especially as a maritime power. The Syracusans demonstrated the point by contrast: they were the most similar to the Athenians in temperament, and for that very reason they had been the most effective at fighting them.

A NEW CONSTITUTION

Despite everything, the Athenians took action. They manned twenty ships and immediately called an assembly — the first one held at the Pnyx, where they used to meet in the old days. There they deposed the Four Hundred and voted to hand the government over to the Five Thousand, defined as all citizens who could furnish their own armor. They also decreed that no one should receive pay for holding public office; anyone who did would be placed under a curse.

Many more assemblies followed. Lawmakers were elected and all the other steps taken to create a proper constitution. It was during this first period of the new government that the Athenians, in my judgment, enjoyed the best government they ever had — at least in my lifetime. The blending of the few and the many was achieved with real wisdom, and it was this, more than anything, that first allowed the state to raise its head after so many disasters.

They also voted to recall Alcibiades and other exiles, and sent word to him and to the camp at Samos, urging them to throw themselves into the war with everything they had.

THE OLIGARCHS SCATTER

The moment the revolution succeeded, Pisander, Alexicles, and the other oligarchic leaders fled to Decelea and the enemy. Only one of them took a different path: Aristarchus, who happened to be serving as general. He grabbed a detachment of the most foreign archers he could find and marched straight to Oenoe.

Oenoe was an Athenian border fort facing Boeotia, currently under siege by the Corinthians. The Corinthians had been furious over the loss of a party of their men who had been ambushed and killed by the garrison while returning from Decelea, and they had called on the Boeotians to help with the siege.

Aristarchus went to the garrison at Oenoe and lied to them. He told them that their countrymen in the city had made peace with the Spartans, and that one of the terms required them to hand the fort over to the Boeotians. The garrison believed him. He was a general, after all, and the siege had cut them off from any news of what was really happening. So they evacuated the fort under a truce.

That is how the Boeotians took possession of Oenoe. And that is how the oligarchy — and the civil troubles at Athens — came to an end.

THE MOVE TO THE HELLESPONT

To return to the Peloponnesians at Miletus. No pay was coming from any of the agents Tissaphernes had left behind when he departed for Aspendus. The Phoenician fleet showed no sign of arriving. Tissaphernes himself had vanished. Philip, who had been sent to accompany him, and another Spartan, Hippocrates, stationed at Phaselis, both wrote to Mindarus, the new admiral, saying flatly: the ships were not coming. They were being played for fools by Tissaphernes.

Meanwhile, Pharnabazus kept inviting the Peloponnesians to come north, doing everything in his power to bring the fleet into his territory. Like Tissaphernes, he wanted to trigger revolts in the cities under his jurisdiction that were still loyal to Athens — and he had high hopes of success. Finally, around this point in the summer, Mindarus gave in to his appeals. With careful planning and no advance warning — to avoid alerting the enemy at Samos — he weighed anchor from Miletus with seventy-three ships and set sail for the Hellespont. Sixteen ships had already gone ahead that same summer and had been raiding the Chersonese.

Mindarus ran into a storm and was forced to put in at Icarus. After five or six days pinned down by bad weather, he reached Chios.

THE CHASE

When Thrasyllus learned that Mindarus had left Miletus, he immediately put out from Samos with fifty-five ships, racing to reach the Hellespont first. But when he heard that Mindarus was at Chios, and expecting him to stay there for a while, he posted lookouts on Lesbos and on the mainland opposite to make sure the fleet could not move without his knowledge. He then sailed along the coast to Methymna and ordered supplies of grain and provisions to be prepared, in case the Peloponnesians stayed at Chios long enough for him to attack from Lesbos.

At the same time, he decided to move against Eresus, a town on Lesbos that had revolted. Some prominent Methymnian exiles had brought about fifty heavy infantry from Cyme — fellow conspirators who had sworn oaths together — and hired additional troops from the mainland, bringing their total to three hundred men. They chose a Theban named Anaxander to lead them, on account of the ancient ties of blood between Thebes and the Lesbians. They attacked Methymna first and were beaten back by the Athenian garrison from Mytilene. Repulsed again in a battle outside the city, they crossed the mountains and brought about the revolt of Eresus.

Thrasyllus set out for Eresus with his entire fleet. Thrasybulus had preceded him there with five ships from Samos the moment he heard the exiles had crossed over, but he arrived too late to prevent the revolt. He went on and anchored off the town. They were joined by two ships returning from the Hellespont and by the Methymnian contingent, bringing the total to sixty-seven vessels. The troops aboard these ships now prepared siege engines and every other available resource, ready to do their utmost to take Eresus by storm.

MINDARUS SLIPS THROUGH

In the meantime, Mindarus and the Peloponnesian fleet at Chios spent two days taking on provisions. Each man received three Chian bronze coins from the Chians. On the third day, they put out in haste. To avoid running into the ships besieging Eresus, they stayed well away from the open sea and instead kept Lesbos on their left, hugging the mainland coast.

They touched at the harbor of Carteria, in Phocaean territory, and had their midday meal. Then they continued along the coast of Cyme and had dinner at Arginusae, on the mainland across from Mytilene. From there they sailed on through the night, coasting along the shore. Passing Lectum, then Larisa, Hamaxitus, and the other towns along the way, they arrived at Rhoeteum a little before midnight. They were now in the Hellespont. Some of the ships also put in at Sigeum and other nearby harbors.

THE ATHENIANS AT SESTOS

The eighteen Athenian ships stationed at Sestos saw the warning. The fire signals along the enemy's coast had multiplied — an unmistakable sign that the Peloponnesian fleet was approaching.

That very night, they set sail immediately, just as they were. Hugging the shore of the Chersonese, they made for Elaeus, hoping to escape into the open sea and get clear of the enemy fleet. They slipped past the sixteen Peloponnesian ships at Abydos undetected — though those ships had been warned to watch for them.

But at dawn, they were spotted. Mindarus' fleet gave chase. Not all the Athenian ships could get away in time. Most escaped to Imbros and Lemnos, but four ships bringing up the rear were overtaken off Elaeus. One was run aground near the temple of Protesilaus and captured with its crew. Two others were taken without their crews. The fourth was abandoned on the shore of Imbros, where the enemy burned it.

PREPARING FOR BATTLE

After this, the Peloponnesians were joined by the squadron from Abydos, bringing their total to eighty-six ships. They spent the day besieging Elaeus without success, then sailed back to Abydos.

Meanwhile, the Athenians had been completely fooled. Their lookouts had failed them, and they had never imagined the enemy fleet could slip past undetected. They had been calmly besieging Eresus all this time. The moment they got the news, they abandoned the siege instantly and raced for the Hellespont at top speed. On the way, they captured two Peloponnesian ships that had ventured too far out into the open sea during the pursuit and now blundered into their path. The next day they dropped anchor at Elaeus. They brought back the ships that had taken refuge at Imbros, and then spent five days preparing for the coming battle.

THE BATTLE OF CYNOSSEMA

The engagement unfolded like this.

The Athenians formed a column and sailed close along the shore toward Sestos. When the Peloponnesians at Abydos saw them coming, they put out to meet them. Both sides realized a battle was now inevitable. Both extended their lines.

The Athenians stretched along the Chersonese coast from Idacus to Arrhiani — seventy-six ships. The Peloponnesians stretched from Abydos to Dardanus — eighty-six ships.

The Peloponnesian right wing was held by the Syracusans. Their left was commanded by Mindarus himself, with the fastest ships in the fleet. On the Athenian side, Thrasyllus held the left and Thrasybulus the right, with the other commanders distributed along the line.

The Peloponnesians were eager to strike first. They pushed forward with their left wing, trying to outflank the Athenian right, cut them off from escaping out of the straits, and drive the Athenian center onto the nearby shore.

The Athenians saw what was happening. They extended their own right wing to match and managed to outsail the enemy. But their left wing, in the process, passed beyond the headland of Cynossema. This forced them to stretch their center dangerously thin — especially since they already had fewer ships than the enemy — and the sharp angle of the coastline around Point Cynossema blocked each wing's view of the other.

The Peloponnesians struck the weakened Athenian center and drove their ships ashore. Their troops poured off the ships to press their advantage. The center was in desperate trouble, and no help could reach them. On the right, Thrasybulus' squadron was pinned down by the sheer number of ships attacking it. On the left, Thrasyllus could not even see what was happening — the headland of Cynossema blocked his view — and he was fully occupied by the Syracusans and other opponents, whose numbers matched his own.

But then the Peloponnesians made a fatal mistake. Drunk on their success, they began scattering in pursuit of individual Athenian ships and let their formation fall apart. Thrasybulus saw it. He immediately stopped trying to extend his line, wheeled his ships around, and attacked the vessels facing him. He routed them. Then he turned on the scattered ships of the Peloponnesian center — the ones that had been celebrating their victory moments before — and put most of them to flight without a real fight. By this time, the Syracusans had also given way before Thrasyllus' squadron. When they saw the rest of their fleet running, they broke and fled.

THE ROUT

The rout was total. Most of the Peloponnesians fled first to the river Midius, then on to Abydos. The Athenians captured relatively few ships — the Hellespont was narrow, and the enemy did not have far to go to reach safety.

But the Athenians could not have asked for a more perfectly timed victory. Up to that point, they had been afraid of the Peloponnesian navy. A string of small defeats and the catastrophe in Sicily had shattered their confidence. Now, at last, they stopped doubting themselves. They stopped thinking of the enemy as invincible at sea.

They captured eight Chian ships, five Corinthian, two from Ambracia, two Boeotian, one from Leucas, one Spartan, one Syracusan, and one from Pellene. They lost fifteen of their own.

After setting up a trophy on Point Cynossema, securing the wrecks, and returning the enemy's dead under a truce, they sent a ship to Athens with the news.

When that ship arrived carrying its unhoped-for good news — after the disaster at Euboea, after the revolution, after everything — the Athenians took heart again. They began to believe that if they put their shoulders to the wheel, their cause might yet prevail.

AFTER THE BATTLE

Four days after the sea fight, the Athenians at Sestos hastily repaired their ships and sailed against Cyzicus, which had revolted. Off Harpagium and Priapus, they spotted the eight ships from Byzantium riding at anchor. They attacked, routed the shore troops, and seized the ships. Then they continued to the unfortified city of Cyzicus, recovered it, and levied a financial contribution from its citizens.

Meanwhile, the Peloponnesians sailed from Abydos to Elaeus and recovered as many of their captured ships as were still undamaged. The Elaeusians had burned the rest. They then sent Hippocrates and Epicles to Euboea to fetch the squadron from that island.

Around the same time, Alcibiades returned to Samos with his thirteen ships from Caunus and Phaselis. He reported that he had prevented the Phoenician fleet from joining the Peloponnesians and had made Tissaphernes more friendly to the Athenians than before. He then manned nine additional ships, extracted large sums of money from the Halicarnassians, and fortified the island of Cos. After installing a governor there, he sailed back to Samos. Autumn was now setting in.

Meanwhile, when Tissaphernes heard that the Peloponnesian fleet had sailed from Miletus to the Hellespont, he set out from Aspendus and hurried back toward Ionia.

While the Peloponnesians were in the Hellespont, the people of Antandros — a city of Aeolic origin — smuggled a force of heavy infantry from Abydos across Mount Ida and into their town. They had been mistreated by Arsaces, the Persian lieutenant of Tissaphernes.

This same Arsaces had committed an earlier atrocity. There was a community of Delians who had settled at Atramyttium — refugees driven from Delos when the Athenians "purified" the island. On the pretext of a secret military operation, Arsaces invited the leading men among these Delians to serve as soldiers. He drew them out of their city as supposed friends and allies, waited until they were at dinner, then surrounded them and had his soldiers shoot them all down.

This act made the Antandrians fear that Arsaces might turn on them next. He was already imposing burdens heavier than they could bear. So they expelled his garrison from their citadel.

THE NARRATIVE BREAKS OFF

Tissaphernes recognized this for what it was. Coming on top of what had happened at Miletus and Cnidus — where his garrisons had also been expelled — the breach with the Peloponnesians was now serious. He was afraid of further reprisals. At the same time, it galled him to think that Pharnabazus might take the fleet and succeed against Athens in less time and at lower cost than he himself had managed. So he decided to go to the Hellespont in person — to confront the Peloponnesians about what had happened at Antandros and to defend himself as best he could regarding the Phoenician fleet and all the other charges against him.

His first stop was Ephesus, where he offered sacrifice to Artemis...

[When the winter after this summer is over, the twenty-first year of this war will be completed.]