Story of the Greek and the Roman People

SAILING VESSEL OF THE TIME OF BRASIDAS.

So the war continued, and on both sides men grew more savage and brutal. The nobles at Corcyra favored Sparta and conspired against the common folk, who favored Athens. Through a trick the nobles were captured and put to death with horrible cruelty. Thus far the Athenians had on the whole been the winning party. They had tried to take Delium in Bœotia and had failed; but they held Pylos, which was the key to Messenia; and Cythera, which had been a great protection to Laconia; and one hundred of the prominent Spartans were their prisoners. The Spartans had made a raid into Attica once a year and had done considerable fighting elsewhere, but they were not one step nearer conquering the Athenians than they had been seven years before. Fortunately for them, a new general appeared on the scene, Brasidas. He was as determined as any Spartan and as bright and quick as any Athenian. He thought the matter over. "If we make another raid into Attica, the Athenians will put our hundred citizens to death. The best thing we can do is to strike at Thrace—and we shall be sure of a welcome from more than one Thracian city. Thrace is rich and has widespreading forests. With her for a friend we can build ships, and then we need have no fear of meeting Athenians on the water."

So said Brasidas. The Spartans thought this was a wild, unreasonable plan; but there was one thing strongly in its favor,—Brasidas had about one thousand men whom he had hired in different parts of the Peloponnesus, and all that he asked of Sparta was to give him seven hundred Helots. "Let him try it," said the Spartans. "The Helots are on the point of revolting and it will be a good thing to get some of them out of the way. He may take a city or two, and when the war is over we can exchange them for Pylos."

So Brasidas started for Thrace and Macedonia. He was not only a keen, shrewd man, but he also knew how to talk and argue and persuade. He even induced tribes friendly to the Athenians to allow him to pass through their lands; and he half-persuaded and half-threatened several cities in Thrace and Chalcidice to yield to him. The Athenians had heard what he was doing, and now they came down upon him. Cleon was their leader, and he was so elated because of the victory at Pylos, that he expected to win as a matter of course. He had good soldiers, but they did not believe in their general. Nearly half of Brasidas's men were Helots, but they had a leader whom they could trust, and, slaves as they were, he was not afraid to trust them. Just before the attack upon Amphipolis, the strongest Athenian colony in Macedonia, he told them how he planned to carry it on. His last words to them were, "Do not lose heart; think of all that is at stake; and I will show you that I can not only advise others, but can myself fight." The battle ended in a victory for the Spartans. Both Cleon and Brasidas were slain. Thucydides was in command of seven ships not far away, but he did not arrive soon enough to prevent the Spartans from winning. The Athenians wanted to blame some one, and they fixed upon him. He was exiled for twenty years. Then it was that he wrote his history of the war. The Helots who had fought so bravely with Brasidas were made free.

There had now been ten years of warfare. Men had been slain, women and children sold into slavery, money wasted, fleets lost, lands ravaged, cities destroyed; and what gain had come of it? The Spartans had discovered that it was quite possible for them to be beaten, or, what the men of Thermopylæ would have thought far worse, to be forced into a surrender; the Athenians had learned that in spite of their fleet, their sheltered harbor, and their mighty walls, they would be little stronger than other people if their tributary cities should revolt. Both Spartans and Athenians were sobered and were ready to talk of peace. The general Nicias had much to do with arranging it, and therefore the truce of fifty years which was agreed upon in 421 B.C. is called the Peace of Nicias.

Summary

The Athenians broke the Peace of Pericles.

The Attic farmers fled to Athens, and the Spartans ravaged Attica. Many Athenians died of the plague.

Mytilene revolted against Athens.

The Spartans conquered Platæa. The war became more and more bitter.

The Athenians built a fort at Pylos. The Spartans failed to take the fort. The Athenians refused to make peace, and the Spartans surrendered.

Thus far the Athenians had been the winning party.

The Spartan Brasidas was successful in Thrace and Macedonia.

The Peace of Nicias was signed in 421 B.C.

Suggestions For Written Work

A Spartan tells why Sparta will surely conquer Athens.

A Platæan describes the siege of Platæa.

An Athenian soldier describes the building of the fort at Pylos.