planted an unsuccessful colony at Heraclea in the Trachinian territory north-west of Thermopylae.
In the summer of 426 Nicias led a predatory expedition along the north-west coast without achieving any positive victory. More important, though equally ineffective, was the scheme of Demosthenes to march from Naupactus through Aetolia, subduing the wild hill tribes, to Cytinium in Doris (in the upper valleys of the Cephissus) and thence into Boeotia, which was to be attacked simultaneously from Attica. The scheme was crushed by the courage and skill of the Aetolians, who thereupon summoned Spartan and Corinthian aid for a counter attack on Naupactus. Demosthenes averted this, and immediately afterwards by superior tactics inflicted a complete defeat at Olpae in Acarnania on Eurylochus at the head of a Spartan and Ambracian force. An Ambracian reinforcement was annihilated at one of the peaks called Idomene, and a disgraceful truce was accepted by the surviving Spartan leader Menedaeus. This was not only the worst disaster which befell any powerful state up to the peace of Nicias (as Thucydides says), but was a serious blow to Corinth, whose trade on the West was, as we have seen, one of the chief causes of the war.
The year 425 is remarkable for the Spartan disaster of Pylos (q.v.). The Athenians had despatched 40 triremes under Eurymedon and Procles to Sicily with orders to call first at Corcyra to prevent an expected Spartan attack. Meantime Demosthenes had formed the plan of planting the Messenians of Naupactus in Messenia—now Spartan territory—and obtained permission to accompany the expedition. The fleet was, as it chanced, delayed by a storm in the Bay of Navarino, and rough fortifications were put up by the sailors on the promontory of Pylos. Demosthenes was left behind in this fort, and the Spartans promptly withdrew from their annual raid upon Attica and their projected attack on Corcyra to dislodge him. After a naval engagement (see Pylos) a body of Spartan hoplites were cut off on Sphacteria. So acutely did Sparta feel their position that an offer of peace was made on condition that the hoplites should go free. The eloquence of Cleon frustrated the peace party’s desire to accept these terms, and ultimately to the astonishment of the Greek world the Spartan hoplites to the number of 292 surrendered unconditionally (see Cleon).
Thus in 424 the Athenians had seriously damaged the prestige of Sparta, and broken Corinthian supremacy in the north-west, and the Peloponnesians had no fleet. This was the zenith of their success, and it was unfortunate for them that they declined the various offers of peace which Sparta made. The next two years changed the whole position. The doubling of the tribute in 425 pressed hardly on the allies (see Delian League): Nicias failed in a plot with the democratic party in Megara to seize that town; and the brilliant campaigns of Brasidas (q.v.) in the north-east, culminating in the capture of Amphipolis (422), finally destroyed the Athenian hopes of recovering their land empire, and entirely restored the balance of success and Spartan prestige. Moreover, the admirably conceived scheme for a simultaneous triple attack upon Boeotia at Chaeronea in the north, Delium in the south-east, and Siphae in the south-west had fallen through owing to the inefficiency of the generals. The scheme, which probably originated with the atticizing party in Thebes, resulted in the severe defeat of Hippocrates at Delium by the Boeotians under Pagondas, and was a final blow to the policy of an Athenian land empire.
These disasters at Megara, Amphipolis and Delium left Athens with only one trump card—the possession of the Spartan hoplites captured in Sphacteria. This solitary success had already in the spring of 423 induced Sparta in spite of the successes which Brasidas was achieving in Thrace to accept the “truce of Laches ”—which, however, was rendered abortive by the refusal of Brasidas to surrender Scione. The final success of Brasidas at Amphipolis, where both he and Cleon were killed, paved the way for a more permanent agreement, the peace parties at Athens and Sparta being in the ascendant.
2. From 421 to 413.—Peace was signed in March 421 on the basis of each side’s surrendering what had been acquired by the war, not including those cities which had been acquired by capitulation. It was to last for fifty years. Its weak points, however, were numerous. Whereas Sparta had been least of all the allies interested in the war, and apart from the campaigns of Brasidas had on the whole taken little part in it, her allies benefited least by the terms of the Peace. Corinth did not regain Sollium and Anactorium, while Megara and Thebes respectively were indignant that Athens should retain Nisaea and receive Panactum. These and other reasons rapidly led to the isolation of Sparta, and there was a general refusal to carry out the terms of agreement. The history of the next three years is therefore one of complex inter-state intrigues combined with internal political convulsions. In 421 Sparta and Athens concluded a defensive alliance; the Sphacterian captives were released and Athens promised to abandon Pylos. Such a peace, giving Sparta everything and Athens nothing but Sparta’s bare alliance, was due to the fact that Nicias and Alcibiades were both seeking Sparta’s friendship. At this time the Fifty Years’ Truce between Sparta and Argos was expiring. The Peloponnesian malcontents turned to Argos as a new leader, and an alliance was formed between Argos, Corinth, Elis, Mantinea and the Thraceward towns (420). This coalition between two different elements—an anti-oligarchic party and a war party—had no chance of permanent existence. The war party in Sparta regained its strength under new ephors and negotiations began for an alliance between Sparta, Argos and Boeotia. The details cannot here be discussed. The result was a re-shuffling of the cards. The democratic states of the Peloponnese were driven, partly by the intrigues of Alcibiades, now anti-Laconian, into alliance with Athens, with the object of establishing a democratic Peloponnese under the leadership of Argos. These unstable combinations were soon after upset by Alcibiades himself, who, having succeeded in displacing Nicias as strategus in 419, allowed Athenian troops to help in attacking Epidaurus. For a cause not easy to determine Alcibiades was defeated by Nicias in the election to the post of strategus in the next year, and the suspicions of the Peloponnesian coalition were roused by the inadequate assistance sent by Athens, which arrived too late to assist Argos when the Spartan king Agis marched against it. Ultimately the Spartans were successful over the coalition at Mantinea, and soon afterwards an oligarchic revolution at Argos led to an alliance between that city and Sparta (c. Feb. 417). This oligarchy was overthrown again in June, and the new democracy having vainly sought an agreement with Sparta rejoined Athens. It was thus left to Athens to expend men and money on protecting a democracy by the aid of which she had hoped practically to control the Peloponnesus. All this time, however, the alliance between her and Sparta was not officially broken.
The unsatisfactory character of the Athenian Peloponnesian coalition was one of the negative causes which led up to the Sicilian Expedition of 415. Another negative cause may be found in the failure of an attempt or attempts to subdue the Thraceward towns. By combining the evidence of Plutarch (in his comparison of Nicias and Crassus), Thuc. v. 83, and the inscription which gives the treasury payments for 418–415 (Hicks and Hill, Gr. Hist. Inscr. 70), we can scarcely doubt that there were expeditions in 418 (Euthydemus) and the summer of 417 (Nicias), and that in the winter of 417 a blockading squadron under Chaeremon was despatched. This policy—which was presumably that of Nicias in opposition to Alcibiades—having failed, the way was cleared for a reassertion of that policy of western conquest which had always had advocates from Themistocles onward in Athens,[1] and was part of the democratic programme.
The tragic fiasco of the Sicilian expedition, involving the death
- ↑ In 454 Athens made a treaty with Segesta (inscr. Hicks and Hill, Greek Hist. Inscr. 34); in 433 with Rhegium and Leontini (Hicks and Hill, 51 and 52; cf. Thuc. iii. 86, παλαιὰ συμμαχία with Chalcidic towns in Sicily), in 444 the colony of Thurii was founded: in 427 (see above) 60 ships were sent to Sicily; and if we may believe Aristophanes (Eq. 1302) Hyperbolus asked for 100 triremes for Carthage.
