Chapter LIII: Eighth Year of the War (3)

Starting with his army from Arnê in the Chalkidic peninsula, Brasidas arrived in the afternoon at Aulon and Bromiskus, near the channel whereby the lake Bolbê is connected with the sea: from hence, after his men had supped, he began his night-march to Amphipolis, on a cold and snowy night of November, or the beginning of December. He reached Argilus in the middle of the night, where the leaders at once admitted him, proclaiming their revolt from Athens. With their aid and guidance, he then hastened forward without delay to the bridge across the Strymon, which he reached before break of day.[659] It was guarded only by a feeble piquet,—the town of Amphipolis itself being situated on the hill at some little distance higher up the river;[660] so that Brasidas, preceded by the Argilian conspirators, surprised and overpowered the guard without difficulty. Thus master of this important communication, he crossed with his army forthwith into the territory of Amphipolis, where his arrival spread the utmost dismay and terror. The governor Euklês, the magistrates, and the citizens, were all found wholly unprepared: the lands belonging to the city were occupied by residents, with their families and property around them, calculating upon undisturbed security, as if there had been no enemy within reach. Such of these as were close to the city succeeded in running thither with their families, though leaving their property exposed,—but the more distant became in person as well as in property at the mercy of the invader. Even within the town, filled with the friends and relatives of these victims without, indescribable confusion reigned, of which the conspirators within tried to avail themselves in order to get the gates thrown open. And so complete was the disorganization, that if Brasidas had marched up without delay to the gates and assaulted the town, many persons supposed that he would have carried it at once. Such a risk, however, was too great even for his boldness, the rather as repulse would have been probably his ruin. Moreover, confiding in the assurances of the conspirators that the gates would be thrown open, he thought it safer to seize as many persons as he could from the out-citizens, as a means of working upon the sentiments of those within the walls; lastly, this process of seizure and plunder was probably more to the taste of his own soldiers, and could not well be hindered.

[659] Thucyd. iv, 104. Κατέστησαν τὸν στρατὸν πρὸ ἕω ἐπὶ τὴν
γέφυραν τοῦ ποταμοῦ.

Bekker’s reading of πρὸ ἕω appears to me preferable to πρόσω. The
latter word really adds nothing to the meaning; whereas the fact
that Brasidas got over the river before daylight is one both new
and material: it is not necessarily implied in the previous words
ἐκείνῃ τῇ νυκτί.

[660] Thucyd. iv, 104. Ἀπέχει δὲ τὸ πόλισμα πλέον τῆς διαβάσεως,
καὶ οὐ καθεῖτο τείχη ὥσπερ νῦν, φυλακὴ δέ τις βραχεῖα
καθειστήκει, etc.

Dr. Arnold, with Dobree, Poppo, and most of the commentators,
translates these words: “The town (of Amphipolis) is farther
off (from Argilus) than the passage of the river.” But this
must be of course true, and conveys no new information, seeing
that Brasidas had to cross the river to reach the town. Smith
and Bloomfield are right, I think, in considering τῆς διαβάσεως
as governed by ἀπέχει and not by πλέον,—“the city is at some
distance from the crossing:” and the objection which Poppo makes
against them, that πλέον must necessarily imply a comparison
with something, cannot be sustained: for Thucydidês often uses
ἐκ πλείονος (iv, 103; viii, 83), as precisely identical with ἐκ
πολλοῦ (i, 68; iv, 67; v, 69); also περὶ πλείονος.

In the following chapter, on occasion of the battle of
Amphipolis, some farther remarks will be found on the locality.

But he waited in vain for the opening of the gates. The conspirators in the city, in spite of the complete success of their surprise and the universal dismay around them, found themselves unable to carry the majority along with them. As in Akanthus, so in Amphipolis, those who really hated Athens and wished to revolt were only a party-minority; the greater number of citizens, at this critical moment, stood by Euklês and the few native Athenians around him in resolving upon defence, and in sending off an express to Thucydidês (the historian) at Thasos, the colleague of Euklês, as general in the region of Thrace, for immediate aid. This step, of course immediately communicated to Brasidas from within, determined him to make every effort for enticing the Amphipolitans to surrender before the reinforcement should arrive; the rather, as he was apprized that Thucydidês, being a large proprietor and worker of gold mines in the neighboring region, possessed extensive personal influence among the Thracian tribes, and would be able to bring them together for the relief of the place, in conjunction with his own Athenian squadron. He therefore sent in propositions for surrender on the most favorable terms, guaranteeing to every citizen who chose to remain, Amphipolitan or even Athenian, continued residence with undisturbed property and equal political rights, and granting to every one who chose to depart, five days for the purpose of carrying away his property.

Such easy conditions, when made known in the city, produced presently a sensible change of opinion among the citizens, proving acceptable both to Athenians and Amphipolitans, though on different grounds.[661] The properties of the citizens without, as well as many of their relatives, were all in the hands of Brasidas: no one counted upon the speedy arrival of reinforcement; and even if it did arrive, the city might be preserved, but the citizens without would still be either slain or made captive: a murderous battle would ensue, and perhaps, after all, Brasidas, assisted by the party within, might prove victorious. The Athenian citizens in Amphipolis, knowing themselves to be exposed to peculiar danger, were perfectly well pleased with his offer, as extricating them from a critical position and procuring for them the means of escape, with comparatively little loss; while the non-Athenian citizens, partakers in the same relief from peril, felt little reluctance in accepting a capitulation which preserved both their rights and their properties inviolate, and merely severed them from Athens, towards which city they felt, not hatred, but indifference. Above all, the friends and relatives of the citizens exposed in the out-region were strenuous in urging on the capitulation, so that the conspirators soon became bold enough to proclaim themselves openly, insisting upon the moderation of Brasidas and the prudence of admitting him. Euklês found that the tone of opinion, even among his own Athenians, was gradually turned against him, nor could he prevent the acceptance of the terms, and the admission of the enemy into the city, on that same day.

[661] Thucyd. iv, 106. Οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ ἀκούσαντες ~ἀλλοιότεροι~
ἐγένοντο τὰς γνώμας, etc.

The word ἀλλοιότεροι seems to indicate both the change of view,
compared with what had been before, and new divergence introduced
among themselves.

No such resolution would have been adopted, had the citizens been aware how near at hand Thucydidês and his forces were. The message despatched early in the morning from Amphipolis found him at Thasos with seven triremes; with which he instantly put to sea, so as to reach Eion at the mouth of the Strymon, within three miles of Amphipolis, on the same evening. He hoped to be in time for saving Amphipolis, but the place had surrendered a few hours before. He arrived, indeed, only just in time to preserve Eion; for parties in that town were already beginning to concert the admission of Brasidas, who would probably have entered it at daybreak the next morning. Thucydidês, putting the place in a condition of defence, successfully repelled an attack which Brasidas made both by land and by boats on the river. He at the same time received and provided for the Athenian citizens who were retiring from Amphipolis.[662]

[662] Thucyd. iv, 105, 106; Diodor. xii, 68.

The capture of this city, perhaps the most important of all the foreign possessions of Athens, and the opening of the bridge over the Strymon, by which even all her eastern allies became approachable by land, occasioned prodigious emotion throughout all the Grecian world. The dismay felt at Athens[663] was greater than had been ever before experienced: hope and joy prevailed among her enemies, and excitement and new aspirations became widely spread among her subject-allies. The bloody defeat at Delium, and the unexpected conquests of Brasidas, now again lowered the _prestige_ of Athenian success, sixteen months after it had been so powerfully exalted by the capture of Sphakteria. The loss of reputation which Sparta had then incurred, was now compensated by a reaction against the unfounded terrors since conceived about the probable career of her enemy. It was not merely the loss of Amphipolis, serious as that was, which distressed the Athenians, but also their insecurity respecting the maintenance of their whole empire: they knew not which of their subject-allies might next revolt, in contemplation of aid from Brasidas, facilitated by the newly-acquired Strymonian bridge. And as the proceedings of that general counted in part to the credit of his country, it was believed that Sparta, now for the first time shaking off her languor,[664] had taken to herself the rapidity and enterprise once regarded as the exclusive characteristic of Athens. But besides all these chances of evil to the Athenians, there was another yet more threatening, the personal ascendency and position of Brasidas himself. It was not merely the boldness, the fertility of aggressive resource, the quick movements, the power of stimulating the minds of soldiers, which lent efficiency to that general; but also his incorruptible probity, his good faith, his moderation, his abstinence from party-cruelty or jobbing, and from all intermeddling with the internal constitutions of the different cities, in strict adherence to that manifesto whereby Sparta had proclaimed herself the liberator of Greece. Such talents and such official worth had never before been seen combined. Set off as they were by the full brilliancy of successes such as were deemed incredible before they actually occurred, they inspired a degree of confidence and turned a tide of opinion towards this eminent man which rendered him personally one of the first powers in Greece. Numerous solicitations were transmitted to him at Amphipolis from parties among the subject-allies of Athens, in their present temper of large hopes from him and diminished fear of the Athenians: the anti-Athenian party in each was impatient to revolt, the rest of the population less restrained by fear.[665]

[663] Thucyd. iv, 108. Ἐχομένης δὲ τῆς Ἀμφιπόλεως, οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐς
μέγα δέος κατέστησαν, etc.

The prodigious importance of the site of Amphipolis, with its
adjoining bridge forming the communication between the regions
east and west of the Strymon, was felt not only by Philip of
Macedon, as will hereafter appear, but also by the Romans after
their conquest of Macedonia. Of the four regions into which the
Romans distributed Macedonia, “pars prima (says Livy, xlv, 30)
habet opportunitatem Amphipoleos; quæ objecta claudit omnes ab
oriente sole in Macedoniam aditus.”

[664] Thucyd. iv, 108. Τὸ δὲ μέγιστον, διὰ τὸ ἡδονὴν ἔχον
ἐν τῷ αὐτίκα, καὶ ὅτι ~τὸ πρῶτον Λακεδαιμονίων ὀργώντων
ἔμελλον πειρᾶσθαι~, κινδυνεύειν παντὶ τρόπῳ ἑτοῖμοι ἦσαν (the
subject-allies of Athens).

[665] Thucyd. iv, 108.

Of those who indulged in these sanguine calculations, many had yet to learn by painful experience that Athens was still but little abated in power: but her inaction during this important autumn had been such as may well explain their mistake. It might have been anticipated that, on hearing the alarming news of the junction of Brasidas with the Chalkidians, and Perdikkas so close upon their dependent allies, they would forthwith have sent a competent force to Thrace, which, if despatched at that time, would probably have obviated all the subsequent disasters. So they would have acted at any other time, and perhaps even then, if Periklês had been alive. But the news arrived just at the period when Athens was engaged in the expedition against Bœotia, which ended very shortly in the ruinous defeat of Delium. Under the discouragement arising from the death of the stratêgus, Hippokratês, and one thousand citizens, the idea of a fresh expedition to Thrace would probably have been intolerable to Athenian hoplites: the hardships of a winter service in Thrace, as experienced a few years before in the blockade of Potidæa, would probably also aggravate their reluctance. In Grecian history, we must steadfastly keep in mind that we are reading about citizen soldiers, not about professional soldiers; and that the temper of the time, whether of confidence or dismay, modifies to an unspeakable degree all the calculations of military and political prudence. Even after the rapid successes of Brasidas, not merely at Akanthus and Stageirus, but even at Amphipolis, they sent only a few inadequate guards[666] to the points most threatened, thus leaving to their enterprising enemy the whole remaining winter for his operations, without hindrance. Without depreciating the merits of Brasidas, we may see that his extraordinary success was in great part owing to the no less extraordinary depression which at that time pervaded the Athenian public: a feeling encouraged by Nikias and other leading men of the same party, who were building upon it in order to get the Lacedæmonian proposals for peace accepted.

[666] Thucyd. iv, 108. Οἱ μὲν Ἀθηναῖοι φυλακὰς ὡς ἐξ ὀλίγου καὶ
ἐν χειμῶνι, διέπεμπον ἐς τὰς πόλεις etc.

But while we thus notice the short-comings of Athens, in not sending timely forces against Brasidas, we must at the same time admit, that the most serious and irreparable loss which she sustained, that of Amphipolis, was the fault of her officers more than her own. Euklês, and the historian Thucydidês, the two joint Athenian commanders in Thrace, to whom she had confided the defence of that important town, had means amply sufficient to place it beyond all risk of capture, if they had employed the most ordinary vigilance and precaution beforehand. That Thucydidês became an exile immediately after this event, and remained so for twenty years, is certain from his own statement: and we hear, upon what in this case is quite sufficient authority, that the Athenians condemned him, probably Euklês also, to banishment, on the proposition of Kleon.[667]

[667] Thucyd. v, 26. See the biography of Thucydidês by
Marcellinus, prefixed to all the editions, p. 19, ed. Arnold.

In considering this sentence, historians[668] commonly treat Thucydidês as an innocent man, and find nothing to condemn except the calumnies of the demagogue along with the injustice of the people. But this view of the case cannot be sustained, when we bring together all the facts even as indicated by Thucydidês himself. At the moment when Brasidas surprised Amphipolis, Thucydidês was at Thasos; and the event is always discussed as if he was there by necessity or duty; as if Thasos was his special mission. Now we know from his own statement that his command was not special or confined to Thasos: he was sent as joint commander along with Euklês generally to Thrace, and especially to Amphipolis.[669] Both of them were jointly and severally responsible for the proper defence of Amphipolis, with the Athenian empire and interests in that quarter such nomination of two or more officers, coördinate and jointly responsible, being the usual habit of Athens, wherever the scale or the area of military operations was considerable, instead of naming one supreme responsible commander, with subordinate officers acting under him and responsible to him. If, then, Thucydidês “was stationed at Thasos,” to use the phrase of Dr. Thirlwall, this was because he chose to station himself there, in the exercise of his own discretion.

[668] I transcribe the main features from the account of Dr.
Thirlwall, whose judgment coincides on this occasion with what is
generally given (Hist. of Greece, ch. xxiii, vol. iii, p. 268).

“On the evening of the same day Thucydidês, with seven galleys
which he happened to have with him at Thasos, when he received
the despatch from Euklês, sailed into the mouth of the Strymon,
and learning the fall of Amphipolis proceeded to put Eion in
a state of defence. His timely arrival saved the place, which
Brasidas attacked the next morning, both from the river and the
land, without effect: and the refugees who retired by virtue
of the treaty from Amphipolis, found shelter at Eion, and
contributed to its security. _The historian rendered an important
service to his country: and it does not appear that human
prudence and activity could have accomplished anything more under
the same circumstances._ Yet _his unavoidable failure_ proved
the occasion of a sentence, under which he spent twenty years of
his life in exile: and he was only restored to his country in
the season of her deepest humiliation by the public calamities.
So much only can be gathered with certainty from his language:
for he has not condescended to mention either the charge which
was brought against him, or the nature of the sentence, which
he may either have suffered, or avoided by a voluntary exile.
A statement, very probable in itself, though resting on slight
authority, attributes his banishment to Cleon’s calumnies: _that
the irritation produced by the loss of Amphipolis should have
been so directed against an innocent object, would perfectly
accord with the character of the people and of the demagogue_.
Posterity has gained by the injustice of his contemporaries,” etc.

[669] Thucyd. iv, 104. Οἱ δ᾽ ἐναντίοι τοῖς προδιδοῦσι (that is,
at Amphipolis) κρατοῦντες τῷ πλήθει ὥστε μὴ αὐτίκα τὰς πύλας
ἀνοίγεσθαι, πέμπουσι μετὰ Εὐκλέους τοῦ στρατηγοῦ, ὃς ἐκ τῶν
Ἀθηναίων παρῆν αὐτοῖς φύλαξ τοῦ χωρίου, ~ἐπὶ τὸν ἕτερον στρατηγὸν
τῶν ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης, Θουκυδίδην τὸν Ὀλόρου, ὃς τάδε ξυνέγραψεν,
ὄντα περὶ Θάσον~ (ἔστι δ᾽ ἡ νῆσος, Παρίων ἀποικία, ἀπέχουσα
τῆς Ἀμφιπόλεως ἡμισείας ἡμέρας μάλιστα πλοῦν) κελεύοντες σφίσι
βοηθεῖν.

Here Thucydidês describes himself as “the other general along
with Euklês, of the region of or towards Thrace.” There cannot be
a clearer designation of the extensive range of his functions and
duties.

I adopt here the reading τῶν ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης, the genitive case of the
well-known Thucydidean phrase τὰ ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης, in preference to τὸν
ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης; which would mean in substance the same thing, though
not so precisely, nor so suitably to the usual manner of the
historian. Bloomfield, Bekker, and Göller have all introduced τῶν
into the text, on the authority of various MSS.: Poppo and Dr.
Arnold also both express a preference for it, though they still
leave τὸν in the text.

Moreover, the words of Thucydidês himself, in the passage where
he mentions his own long exile, plainly prove that he was sent
out as general, not to Thasos, but _to Amphipolis_: (v, 26) καὶ
ξυνέβη μοι φεύγειν τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ ἔτη εἴκοσι ~μετὰ τὴν ἐς Ἀμφίπολιν
στρατηγίαν~, etc.

Accordingly, the question which we have to put is, not whether Thucydidês did all that could be done, after he received the alarming express at Thasos, which is the part of the case that _he_ sets prominently before us, but whether he and Euklês jointly took the best general measures for the security of the Athenian empire in Thrace; especially for Amphipolis, the first jewel of her empire. They suffer Athens to be robbed of that jewel, and how? Had they a difficult position to defend? Were they overwhelmed by a superior force? Were they distracted by simultaneous revolts in different places, or assailed by enemies unknown or unforeseen? Not one of these grounds for acquittal can be pleaded. First, their position was of all others the most defensible: they had only to keep the bridge over the Strymon adequately watched and guarded, or to retain the Athenian squadron at Eion, and Amphipolis was safe. Either one or the other of these precautions would have sufficed; both together would have sufficed so amply, as probably to prevent the scheme of attack from being formed. Next, the force under Brasidas was in noway superior, not even adequate to the capture of the inferior place Eion, when properly guarded, much less to that of Amphipolis. Lastly, there were no simultaneous revolts to distract attention, nor unknown enemies to confound a well-laid scheme of defence. There was but one enemy, in one quarter, having one road by which to approach; an enemy of surpassing merit, indeed, and eminently dangerous to Athens, but without any chance of success except from the omissions of the Athenian officers.

Now Thucydidês and Euklês both knew that Brasidas had prevailed upon Akanthus and Stageirus to revolt, and that too in such a way as to extend his own personal influence materially: they knew that the population of Argilus was of Andrian origin,[670] like that of Akanthus and Stageirus, and therefore peculiarly likely to be tempted by the example of those two towns. Lastly, they knew, and Thucydidês himself tells us,[671] that this Argilian population—whose territory bordered on the Strymon and the western foot of the bridge, and who had many connections in Amphipolis—had been long disaffected to Athens, and especially to the Athenian possession of that city. Yet, having such foreknowledge, ample warning for the necessity of a vigilant defence, Thucydidês and Euklês withdraw, or omit, both the two precautions upon which the security of Amphipolis rested; precautions both of them obvious, either of them sufficient. The one leaves the bridge under a feeble guard,[672] and is caught so unprepared everywhere, that one might suppose Athens to be in profound peace; the other is found with his squadron, not at Eion, but at Thasos; an island out of all possible danger, either from Brasidas, who had no ships, or any other enemy. The arrival of Brasidas comes on both of them like a clap of thunder. Nothing more is required than this plain fact, under the circumstances, to prove their improvidence as commanders.

[670] Compare Thucyd. iv, 84, 88, 103.

[671] Thucyd. iv, 103. ~μάλιστα δὲ οἱ Ἀργίλιοι, ἐγγύς τε
προσοικοῦντες καὶ ἀεί ποτε τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις ὄντες ὕποπτοι καὶ
ἐπιβουλεύοντες τῷ χωρίῳ~ (Amphipolis), ἐπειδὴ παρέτυχεν ὁ
καιρὸς καὶ Βρασίδας ἦλθεν, ἔπραξάν τε ~ἐκ πλείονος~ πρὸς τοὺς
ἐμπολιτεύοντας σφῶν ἐκεῖ ὅπως ἐνδοθήσεται ἡ πόλις, etc.

[672] Thucyd. iv, 103. ~φυλακὴ δέ τις βραχεῖα καθειστήκει, ἣν
βιασάμενος ῥᾳδίως~ ὁ Βρασίδας, ἅμα μὲν τῆς προδοσίας οὔσης, ἅμα
δὲ καὶ χειμῶνος ὄντος καὶ ~ἀπροσδοκήτος προσπεσὼν~, διέβη τὴν
γέφυραν, etc.

The presence of Thucydidês on the station of Thrace was important to Athens, partly because he possessed valuable family connections, mining property, and commanding influence among the continental population round Amphipolis.[673] This was one main reason why he was named; the Athenian people confiding partly in his private influence, over and above the public force under his command, and looking to him, even more than to his colleague Euklês, for the continued security of the town: instead of which they find that not even their own squadron under him is at hand near the vulnerable point, at the moment when the enemy comes. Of the two, perhaps, the conduct of Euklês admits of conceivable explanation more easily than that of Thucydidês. For it seems that Euklês had no paid force in Amphipolis; only the citizen hoplites, partly Athenian, partly of other lineage. Doubtless, these men found it irksome to keep guard through the winter on the Strymonian bridge: and Euklês might fancy that, by enforcing a large perpetual guard, he ran the risk of making Athens unpopular: moreover, strict constancy of watch, night after night, when no actual danger comes, with an unpaid citizen force, is not easy to maintain. This is an insufficient excuse, but it is better than anything which can be offered on behalf of Thucydidês; who had with him a paid Athenian force, and might just as well have kept it at Eion as at Thasos. We may be sure that the absence of Thucydidês with his fleet, at Thasos, was one essential condition in the plot laid by Brasidas with the Argilians.

[673] Thucyd. iv, 105. καὶ ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ δύνασθαι ἐν τοῖς πρώτοις
~τῶν ἠπειρωτῶν~, etc.

Rotscher, in his Life of Thucydidês (Leben des Thukydides,
Göttingen, 1842, sect. 4, pp. 97-99), admits it to be the
probable truth, that Thucydidês was selected for this command
expressly in consequence of his private influence in the region
around. Yet this biographer still repeats the view generally
taken, that Thucydidês did everything which an able commander
could do, and was most unjustly condemned.

To say, with Dr. Thirlwall, that “human prudence and activity could not have accomplished more than Thucydidês did, _under the same circumstances_,” is true as matter of fact, and creditable as far as it goes. But it is wholly inadmissible as a justification, and meets only one part of the case. An officer in command is responsible, not only for doing most “under the circumstances,” but also for the circumstances themselves, in so far as they are under his control; and nothing is more under his control than the position which he chooses to occupy. If the emperor Napoleon, or the duke of Wellington, had lost, by surprise of an enemy not very numerous, a post of supreme importance which they thought adequately protected, would they be satisfied to hear from a responsible officer in command: “Having no idea that the enemy would attempt any surprise, I thought that I might keep my force half a day’s journey off from the post exposed, at another post which it was physically impossible for the enemy to reach; but, the moment I was informed that the surprise had occurred, I hastened to the scene, did all that human prudence and activity could do to repel the enemy; and though I found that he had already mastered the capital post of all, yet I beat him back from a second post which he was on the point of mastering also?” Does any one imagine that these illustrious chiefs, smarting under the loss of an inestimable position which alters the whole prospects of a campaign, would be satisfied with such a report, and would dismiss the officer with praises for his vigor and bravery, “under the circumstances?” They would most assuredly reply, that he had done right in coming back, that his conduct after coming back had been that of a brave man, and that there was no impeachment on his courage. But they would at the same time add, that his want of judgment and foresight, in omitting to place the valuable position really exposed under sufficient guard beforehand, and leaving it thus open to the enemy, while he himself was absent in another place which was out of danger, and his easy faith that there would be no dangerous surprise, at a time when the character of the enemy’s officer, as well as the disaffection of the neighbors (Argilus), plainly indicated that there _would_ be, if the least opening were afforded, that these were defects meriting serious reproof, and disqualifying him from any future command of trust and responsibility. Nor can we doubt that the whole feeling of the respective armies, who would have to pay with their best blood the unhappy miscalculation of this officer, would go along with such a sentence; without at all suspecting themselves to be guilty of injustice, or of “directing the irritation produced by the loss against an innocent object.”

The vehement leather-seller in the Pnyx, at Athens, when he brought forward what are called “his calumnies” against Thucydidês and Euklês, as having caused, through culpable omission, a fatal and irreparable loss to their country, might perhaps state his case with greater loudness and acrimony; but it may be doubted whether he would say anything more really galling than would be contained in the dignified rebuke of an esteemed modern general to a subordinate officer under similar circumstances. In my judgment, not only the accusation against these two officers—I assume Euklês to have been included—was called for on the fairest _presumptive_ grounds, which would be sufficient as a justification of the leather-sell Kleon, but the positive verdict of guilty against them was fully merited. Whether the banishment inflicted was a greater penalty than the case warranted, I will not take upon me to pronounce. Every age has its own standard of feeling for measuring what is a proper intensity of punishment: penalties which our grandfathers thought right and meet, would in the present day appear intolerably rigorous. But when I consider the immense value of Amphipolis to Athens, combined with the conduct whereby it was lost, I cannot think that there was a single Athenian, or a single Greek, who would deem the penalty of banishment too severe.

It is painful to find such strong grounds of official censure against a man who, as an historian, has earned the lasting admiration of posterity,—my own, among the first and warmest. But in criticizing the conduct of Thucydidês the officer, we are bound in common justice to forget Thucydidês the historian. He was not known in the latter character, at the time when this sentence was passed: perhaps he never would have been so known, like the Neapolitan historian Colletta, if exile had not thrown him out of the active duties and hopes of a citizen. It may be doubted whether he ever went home from Eion to encounter the grief, wrath, and alarm, so strongly felt at Athens after the loss of Amphipolis. Condemned, either with or without appearance, he remained in banishment for twenty years;[674] nor did he return to Athens until after the conclusion of the Peloponnesian war. Of this long exile, much is said to have been spent on his property in Thrace: yet he also visited most parts of Greece, enemies of Athens as well as neutral states. However much we may deplore such a misfortune on his account, mankind in general have, and ever will have, the strongest reason to rejoice at it. To this compulsory leisure we owe the completion, or rather the near approach to completion, of his history: nor is it less certain that the opportunities which an exile enjoyed of personally consulting neutrals and enemies, contributed much to form that impartial, comprehensive, Pan-Hellenic spirit, which reigns generally throughout his immortal work.

[674] Thucyd. v, 26.

Meanwhile, Brasidas, installed in Amphipolis about the beginning of December, 424 B.C., employed his increased power only the more vigorously against Athens. His first care was to reconstitute Amphipolis; a task wherein the Macedonian Perdikkas, whose intrigues had contributed to the capture, came and personally assisted. That city was going through a partial secession and renovation of inhabitants, and was now moreover cut off from the port of Eion and the mouth of the river, which remained in the hands of the Athenians. Many new arrangements must have been required, as well for its internal polity as for its external defence. Brasidas took measures for building ships of war, in the lake above the city, in order to force the lower part of the river:[675] but his most important step was to construct a palisade work,[676] connecting the walls of the city with the bridge. He thus made himself permanently master of the crossing of the Strymon, so as to shut the door by which he himself had entered, and at the same time to keep an easy communication with Argilus and the western bank of the Strymon. He also made some acquisitions on the eastern side of the river. Pittakus, prince of the neighboring Edonian-Thracian township of Myrkinus, had been recently assassinated by his wife Brauro, and by some personal enemies: he had probably been the ally of Athens, and his assassins now sought to strengthen themselves by courting the alliance of the new conqueror of Amphipolis. The Thasian continental colonies of Galêpsus and Œsymê also declared their adhesion to him.

[675] Thucyd. iv, 104-108.

[676] This is the σταύρωμα, mentioned (v, 10) as existing a year
and a half afterwards, at the time of the battle of Amphipolis.
I shall say more respecting the topography of Amphipolis, when I
come to describe that battle.

While he sent to Lacedæmon, communicating his excellent position as well as his large hopes, he at the same time, without waiting for the answer, began acting for himself, with all the allies whom he could get together. He marched first against the peninsula called Aktê,—the narrow tongue of land which stretches out from the neighborhood of Akanthus to the mighty headland called Mount Athos,—near thirty miles long, and between four and five miles for the most part in breadth.[677] The long, rugged, woody ridge,—covering this peninsula so as to leave but narrow spaces for dwelling or cultivation, or feeding of cattle,—was at this time occupied by many distinct petty communities, some of them divided in race and language. Sanê, a colony from Andros, was situated in the interior gulf, called the Singitic gulf, between Athos and the Sithonian peninsula, near the Xerxeian canal: the rest of the Aktê was distributed among Bisaltians, Krestônians, and Edonians, all fractions of the Thracian name; Pelasgians, or Tyrrhenians, of the race which had once occupied Lemnos and Imbros, and some Chalkidians. Some of these little communities spoke habitually two languages. Thyssus, Kleône, Olophyxus, and others, all submitted on the arrival of Brasidas; but Sanê and Dion held out, nor could he bring them to terms even by ravaging their territory.

[677] See Grisebach, Reise durch Rumelien und Brura, vol. i, ch.
viii, p. 226.

He next marched into the Sithonian peninsula, to attack Torônê, situated near the southern extremity of that peninsula, opposite to Cape Kanastræum, the extreme headland of the peninsula of Pallênê.[678]

[678] Thucyd. iv, 109.

Torônê was inhabited by a Chalkidic population, but had not partaken in the revolt of the neighboring Chalkidians against Athens. A small Athenian garrison had been sent there, probably since the recent dangers, and were now defending it, as well as repairing the town-wall in various parts where it had been so neglected as to crumble down. They occupied as a sort of distinct citadel the outlying cape called Lêkythus, joining by a narrow isthmus the hill on which the city stood, and forming a port wherein lay two Athenian triremes as guard-ships. A small party in Torônê, without privity[679] or even suspicion of the rest, entered into correspondence with Brasidas, and engaged to provide for him the means of entering and mastering the town. Accordingly, he advanced by a night-march to the temple of the Dioskuri, Kastor and Pollux, within about a quarter of a mile of the town-gates, which he reached a little before daybreak, sending forward one hundred peltasts to be still nearer, and to rush upon the gate at the instant when signal was made from within. His Torônæan partisans, some of whom were already concealed on the spot, awaiting his arrival, made their final arrangements with him, and then returned into the town, conducting with them seven determined men from his army, armed only with daggers, and having Lysistratus of Olynthus as their chief: twenty men had been originally named for this service, but the danger appeared so extreme, that only seven of them were bold enough to go. This forlorn hope, enabled to creep in, through a small aperture in the wall towards the sea, were conducted silently up to the topmost watch-tower on the city hill, where they surprised and slew the guards, and set open a neighboring postern gate, looking towards Cape Kanastræum, as well as the great gate leading towards the agora. They then brought in the peltasts from without, who, impatient with the delay, had gradually stolen closely under the walls: some of these peltasts kept possession of the great gate, others were led round to the postern at the top, while the fire-signal was forthwith lighted to invite Brasidas himself. He and his men hastened forward towards the city at their utmost speed and with loud shouts, a terror-striking notice of his presence to the unprepared citizens. Admission was easy through the open gates, but some also clambered up by means of beams or a sort of scaffolding, which was lying close to the wall as a help to the workmen repairing it. And while the assailants were thus active in every direction, Brasidas himself conducted a portion of them, to assure himself of the high and commanding parts of the city.

[679] Thucyd. iv, 110. καὶ αὐτὸν ~ἄνδρες ὀλίγοι ἐπῆγον κρύφα~,
ἑτοῖμοι ὄντες τὴν πόλιν παραδοῦναι, iv, 113. Τῶν δὲ Τορωναίων
γιγνομένης τῆς ἁλώσεως ~τὸ μὲν πολὺ, οὐδὲν εἰδὸς, ἐθορυβεῖτο~,
etc.

So completely were the Torônæans surprised and thunderstruck, that hardly any attempt was made to resist. Even the fifty Athenian hoplites who occupied the agora, being found still asleep, were partly slain, and partly compelled to seek refuge in the separately-garrisoned cape of Lêkythus, whither they were followed by a portion of the Torônæan population; some from attachment to Athens, others from sheer terror. To these fugitives Brasidas addressed a proclamation, inviting them to return, and promising them perfect security, for person, property, and political rights; while at the same time he sent a herald with a formal summons to the Athenians in Lêkythus, requiring them to quit the place as belonging to the Chalkidians, but permitting them to carry away their property. They refused to evacuate the place, but solicited a truce of one day for the purpose of burying their slain. Brasidas granted them two days, which were employed both by them and by him in preparations for the defence and attack of Lêkythus; each party fortifying the houses on or near the connecting isthmus.

In the mean time he convened a general assembly of the Torônæan population, whom he addressed in the same conciliating and equitable language as he had employed elsewhere. “He had not come to harm either the city, or any individual citizen. Those who had let him in, ought not to be regarded as bad men or traitors, for they had acted with a view to the benefit and the liberation of their city, not in order to enslave it, or to acquire profit for themselves. On the other hand, he did not think the worse of those who had gone over to Lêkythus, for their liking towards Athens: he wished them to come back freely; and he was sure that the more they knew the Lacedæmonians the better they would esteem them. He was prepared to forgive and forget previous hostility, but while he invited all of them to live for the future as cordial friends and fellow-citizens, he should also for the future hold each man responsible for his conduct, either as friend or as enemy.”

On the expiration of the two days’ truce, Brasidas attacked the Athenian garrison in Lêkythus, promising a recompense of thirty minæ to the soldier who should first force his way into it. Notwithstanding very poor means of defence, partly a wooden palisade, partly houses with battlements on the roof, this garrison repelled him for one whole day: on the next morning he brought up a machine, for the same purpose as that which the Bœotians had employed at Delium, to set fire to the woodwork. The Athenians on their side, seeing this fire-machine approaching, put up, on a building in front of their position, a wooden scaffolding, upon which many of them mounted, with casks of water and large stones to break it or to extinguish the flames. At last, the weight accumulated becoming greater than the scaffolding could support, it broke down with a prodigious noise; so that all the persons and things upon it rolled down in confusion. Some of these men were hurt, yet the injury was not in reality serious; had not the noise, the cries, and strangeness of the incident alarmed those behind, who could not see precisely what had occurred, to such a degree, that they believed the enemy to have already forced the defences. Many of them accordingly took to flight, and those who remained were insufficient to prolong the resistance successfully; so that Brasidas, perceiving the disorder and diminished number of the defenders, relinquished his fire-machine, and again renewed his attempt to carry the place by assault, which now fully succeeded. A considerable proportion of the Athenians and others in the fort escaped across the narrow gulf to the peninsula of Pallênê, by means of the two triremes and some merchant-vessels at hand: but every man found in it was put to death. Brasidas, thus master of the fort, and considering that he owed his success to the sudden rupture of the Athenian scaffolding, regarded this incident as a divine interposition, and presented the thirty minæ, which he had promised as a reward to the first man who broke in, to the goddess Athênê, for her temple at Lêkythus. He moreover consecrated to her the entire cape of Lêkythus; not only demolishing the defences, but also dismantling the private residences which it contained,[680] so that nothing remained except the temple, with its ministers and appurtenances.

[680] Thucyd. iv. 114, 115. νομίσας ἄλλῳ τινὶ τρόπῳ ἢ ἀνθρωπείῳ
τὴν ἅλωσιν γενέσθαι.

What proportion of the Torônæans who had taken refuge at Lêkythus had been induced to return by the proclamation of Brasidas, alike generous and politic, we are not informed. His language and conduct were admirably calculated to set this little community again in harmonious movement, and to obliterate the memory of past feuds. And above all, it inspired a strong sentiment of attachment and gratitude towards himself personally; a sentiment which gained strength with every successive incident in which he was engaged, and which enabled him to exercise a greater ascendency than could ever be acquired by Sparta, and in some respects greater than had ever been possessed by Athens. It is this remarkable development of commanding individuality, animated throughout by straightforward public purposes, and binding together so many little communities who had few other feelings in common, which lends to the short career of this eminent man a romantic and even an heroic interest.

During the remainder of the winter Brasidas employed himself in setting in order the acquisitions already made, and in laying plans for farther conquests in the spring.[681] But the beginning of spring—or the close of the eighth year, and beginning of the ninth year of the war, as Thucydidês reckons—brought with it a new train of events, which will be recounted in the following chapter.

[681] Thucyd. iv, 119.