(Thucydides 1.122.1)
This meant that the Spartans had to become a naval power and be willing to fight further afield in order to support the allies in their revolt from Athens. This strategy, although it was implemented at times in the early years of the 420s, was not well supported for a number of reasons – first, it required the acquisition of the necessary finance to build a fleet and pay the crews, and only Persia could supply finance on this scale, but the price for this help would be the re-imposition of Persian control over the Asiatic Greeks; second, there was the difficulty of recruiting sailors from the Athenian Empire in time of war; and third, the Spartans were always very reluctant to commit their hoplites in far off places. The combination of the fear of the Athenian navy and the belief that it was only a matter of time before the Athenians surrendered ensured that the ‘conventional’ strategy predominated from 431 to 425. It was the shattering defeat at Pylos in 425 and the capture of 120 Spartiates (see next section) that tipped the balance. The inability to launch land invasions of Attica forced the Spartans to give more weight to the ‘adventurous’ policy, and from 424 to 422 Brasidas and his ‘Helot’ hoplites did much damage to the Athenians by his campaigns in the Thraceward region. However, there was a constant tension between those like Brasidas who saw these campaigns as implementing Sparta’s stated war aim of liberating the Greeks (2.8.4), and the Spartan authorities who saw them as a means of putting pressure on the Athenians to make peace, and thus regain the 120 Spartiates held captive in Athens. In the end, the latter prevailed.
431–428
The outbreak of hostilities began with the attempt of Thebes, an ally of Sparta, to seize control of Plataea, an Athenian ally in Boeotia (2.1–8). The Peloponnesian forces then came together at the Isthmus under the command of King Archidamus and invaded Attica (2.10–23). The Athenians had prepared for this, in accordance with Pericles’ strategy, by moving their sheep and cattle to the island of Euboea for safekeeping, and by bringing their families within the city, the Piraeus and the Long Walls for safety. The Athenians for their part sent 100 ships to conduct sea-borne raids on the coast of the Peloponnese – the offensive element in Pericles’ strategy. This naval force then carried on and captured the Corinthian port of Sollium opposite the island of Leucas and handed it over to their allies, the Acarnanians; took Astacus on the Corinthian Gulf by storm and brought it into their alliance; and finally, won over the island of Cephallenia without resorting to armed conflict (2.30). These successes in north-west Greece were part of Pericles’ strategy and were designed to give the Athenians the ability to hit the whole of the Peloponnesian coast with ease. It was in this context that the Athenians had earlier sent embassies to Corcyra, Acarnania, Zacynthos and Cephallenia:
realizing that, if they were sure of their friendships with them, they could make war around the Peloponnese.
(Thucydides 2.7.3)
The Athenians also expelled the Aeginetans in the same year and colonized the island themselves (2.27). However, this acquisition of territory was not in conflict with Periclean strategy, since its main purpose was defensive – gaining a greater control of the Saronic Gulf on which the Piraeus was situated and through which all their necessary imports (including grain) sailed. In the autumn of 431 Pericles led the whole Athenian army, including the ‘metics’, into the Megarid and, together with the fleet of 100 ships that had just returned from north-west Greece, laid waste the land – part of his parallel strategy of responding in kind to the Spartans’ invasion and devastation of Attica (2.31). No attempt was made to capture Megara, as this would have involved extending the Empire and the use of manpower in holding down unwilling subjects. These Athenian invasions and devastations of the Megarid – the stretch of land between the two gulfs under Megarian control – were conducted annually until the capture of Nisaea, Megara’s port on the Saronic Gulf, in 424.
The event that dominated 430 was the outbreak of the plague in Athens (2.47–55), which continued in 429 and broke out again in 426. It may have killed as many as one-third of the Athenian population, and created such despair that the Athenians, against Pericles’ wishes, attempted to make peace with the Spartans, but the negotiations came to nothing (2.59). The Spartans had again invaded, but this time they stayed for 40 days (their longest stay) and were much more thorough in their devastation of Attica (2.47; 2.57). The Spartans, ever watchful to take advantage of Athenian weakness, showed enterprise by sending 100 ships to remove Zacynthos (lying opposite Elis) from its alliance with Athens – clearly Athenian success in north-west Greece and their policy of sea-borne raids were a source of fear for the Spartans. They laid waste most of the country, but could not force the Zacynthians to change sides (2.66). Pericles chose to concentrate on the east coast of the Peloponnese in 430 and conducted the campaign in person with 100 Athenian ships and 50 ships from Chios and Lesbos.
The first target was Epidaurus on the north coast of the Argolis where they laid waste the land and made an assault on the city, which was almost captured. Thucydides does not explain the reasoning behind this attempt to gain control of the city. If it was Pericles’ intention to fortify it with Athenians, then this was a break with his own strategy, as Epidaurus was a large and important city, which would require considerable manpower to ensure its continued loyalty to Athens. It seems less likely that Pericles had intended this, particularly as the plague was raging in Athens. The main benefit of possessing Epidaurus was to establish short, safe communications between the Athenians and the Argives (5.53), but this only became relevant after 421 when the thirty-year peace between Argos and Sparta came to an end. If the Athenians had captured Epidaurus, it is likely that they would have sacked it in the same manner as Prasiae in eastern Laconia, after they had devastated the land of Troezen, Halieis and Hermione on the same expedition (2.56).
After the Athenians’ naval forces returned from the Peloponnese, they were taken at once to Chalcidice in order to finish off the siege of Potidaea and the whole revolt in that area (2.58). This was consistent with Periclean strategy of keeping a firm hold on the allies and maintaining the flow of phoros – Chalcidice contributed about 7 per cent of Athens’ income from the allies. Later in the year the Athenians sent Phormio with 20 ships to blockade the Gulf of Corinth, and thus put pressure on Sparta’s leading ally (2.69). The Athenians also received the good news of the surrender of Potidaea, and thus hopes were raised of ending the revolt in Chalcidice (2.70).
In 429, the Spartans did not conduct an invasion of Attica but set about the capture by siege of Plataea (it fell in 427), probably at the insistence of their Boeotian allies and out of fear of the plague (2.71–78). The Athenians made no effort to relieve Plataea, as this would have involved a pitched battle with the Peloponnesians. However, their plans to subdue the revolt of Chalcidice came unstuck when an Athenian army of 2,000 hoplites was defeated at Spartolus with casualties of 430 (2.79). The continuing plague provided the opportunity for the Spartans to undermine Athenian control of north-west Greece. They were encouraged in this by the Ambraciots, who claimed that a Spartan joint naval and land operation against Acarnania would result in its fall and that of Zacynthos and Cephallenia; in addition, the Athenians would find it very difficult to send their fleets around the Peloponnese to attack coastal cities, and Naupactus, which occupied such an important strategic position in the Corinthian Gulf, had every chance of being captured (2.80). However, the Acarnanians defeated the land forces at Stratus which is situated close to Acarnanian–Aetolian border, and the delayed Peloponnesian fleet of 47 ships was spectacularly defeated at Naupactus by Phormio’s 20 ships (2.81–84).
The campaigns of 428 appeared at the outset to be a repeat of 430: an invasion of Attica by Archidamus and a planned sailing round the Peloponnese by the Athenians. However, the news that Mytilene was attempting to take control of the island of Lesbos and revolt from Athens resulted in the Athenians despatching their fleet against Mytilene. The Mytileneans asked Sparta for help by org
anizing a second invasion of Attica and by sending a relief naval force to Lesbos. In the event, the second invasion failed to materialize owing to the reluctance of the Peloponnesians to forgo the harvesting of their own crops, upon which they depended. Thus the Mytileneans had to rely upon the Spartan fleet of 40 ships under the command of Alcidas, which proved eventually to be of little use owing to Alcidas’ timidity (3.1–18).
427–424
Pericles’ strategy had been mainly a defensive one, and in the immediate aftermath of his death in 429 his chosen strategy was maintained. However, in this period of the war there were some marked changes in strategy, initiated and executed by those Athenians who had become impatient with Pericles’ limited aims and tactics; they wished to pursue a more aggressive policy, designed to strengthen Athens’ offensive capability, to cause more damage to the Spartans and their allies, and thereby to win the war decisively. It is mainly, but not exclusively, the Athenian campaigns in Sicily against Syracuse, in central Greece against Aetolia and Boeotia, and in the Peloponnese at Pylos and Cythera that reveal the success of those politicians and generals, who favoured this offensive strategy, in persuading the Athenians to accept and vote for a change in strategy.
In 427, Mytilene surrendered to the Athenians, after Alcidas’ fleet from Sparta failed to arrive. More than ever this had been the moment when the Spartans had an excellent chance of trying out the effectiveness of a strategy long considered: to attack Athens while a major ally was in revolt. An earthquake and a Helot revolt in 465 at the time of Thasos’ revolt and the Peloponnesians’ refusal in 440 at the time of Samos’ revolt had prevented its execution, but now a Spartan army was ravaging Attica, Lesbos (one of the two remaining ship-suppliers) was in revolt and, furthermore, there was for the first time a Spartan fleet of 40 ships in the eastern Aegean. However, Alcidas’ timidity let down the Mytileneans, and these fine hopes of putting Athens under intense pressure came to nothing (3.25–35). The same reluctance of the Spartans to seize their opportunities was reflected in the civil war on Corcyra in the same year – once again the opportunity fell to Alcidas, who had the chance to remove Corcyra from the Athenian side, but, after an initial success against the Corcyraean navy, fled on hearing the news that Eurymedon was coming with 60 Athenian ships (3.69–81). The most imaginative move on the part of the Spartans was the foundation of the colony of Heraclea in Trachis in central Greece in 426:
The foundation of the city seemed especially good to them for carrying on the war against the Athenians; for a fleet could be prepared to attack Euboea which was a short distance away, and it would be useful on the route to Thrace.
(Thucydides 3.92.4)
There were clearly influential men at Sparta, who were also prepared to think more imaginatively about the conduct of the war, and perhaps the foundations of Brasidas’ Thraceward campaign of 424–422 were being laid here.
The first change from the Periclean defensive strategy was in 427 when they responded to an appeal for help from their Sicilian ally, Leontini, which was being blockaded by Syracuse (a Corinthian colony), by sending out 20 ships. The official reason was given as a desire to help their kinsmen, but the real aims were to prevent the import of grain from there into the Peloponnese, and to make a preliminary survey as to the feasibility of the conquest of Sicily (3.86). Although there is a strong case that the first real aim was in tune with Pericles’ defensive policy (see Chapter 21 for a full discussion of Athens and Sicily 427–424), the fact that 20 ships were sent with a view to exploring the possibility of future conquest was against the basic tenets of Pericles’ strategy of not extending the Empire in war nor exposing the city needlessly to danger (2.65.7). In the winter of 426/5, this naval force in Sicily was increased by 40 ships – a few immediately under Pythodorus, and the rest in the spring under Sophocles and Eurymedon (3.115.5). The professed aim of wanting to end the war there more quickly (3.115.4) once again covered over the conflicting aims of those Athenians who wished to pressurize Syracuse into peace and bring back the fleet as quickly as possible for the defensive war in Greece, and those Athenians who planned the conquest of Sicily. By the time of the Congress of Gela in 424, which brought an end to the conflict in Sicily and the return of the Athenian fleet, Athenian public opinion had decisively turned in favour of conquest even while at war with Sparta, and their belief that Sicily could have been conquered resulted in the banishment of Pythodorus and Sophocles, and the fining of Eurymedon (4.65).
The second geographical area where the Athenians were pursuing a non-Periclean strategy was in central Greece. In 426 Nicias, after his failed attempt to subdue the island of Melos, landed his 2,000 hoplites at Oropus and marched them to Tanagra in Boeotia where they joined up with the whole Athenian army as pre-arranged. They fought a successful land battle against a combined force of Tanagraeans and Thebans, and then returned to Athens (3.91). The policy of avoiding land battles against the enemy had clearly been set aside, but it is the ultimate aim of this and future campaigns in this region that reveals a major break with Periclean strategy and a return to the policies of the First Peloponnesian War. The conquest of Boeotia and the revival of the ‘Land Empire’ (see Chapter 15) was now back on the military agenda. Soon after the battle of Tanagra, Demosthenes, who had been sent out with 30 ships to capture the island of Leucas with the help of Athenian allies in that area, decided to attack Aetolia:
thinking in particular that he could, with the help of the Aetolians added to the mainland allies but without using the Athenians, make a land attack against Boeotia. He would go through the territory of the Ozolian Locrians to Cytinium in Doris, keeping Parnassus to the right, until he came down among the Phocians. They would probably be eager to join in an expedition on account of their long-standing friendship or if not, they could be forced into it; and Phocis was on the border of Boeotia.
(Thucydides 3.95.1)
It seems unlikely that Demosthenes would have dared to contemplate this without the support of powerful politicians back in Athens, and its proximity in time to the attack by the whole Athenian army on Tanagra adds strength to this view. This was a major break with Periclean strategy, as it involved serious risks on the land, and success would impose upon the Athenians a massive commitment of manpower in order to hold down central Greece. However, Demosthenes was defeated in battle by the Aetolians, losing 120 Athenian hoplites (3.94–98), and this led to a postponement of this policy. In the meantime, Demosthenes managed to redeem himself later in the year when his leadership of the Acarnanians and the Amphilochians resulted in the defeat of the Peloponnesians and the Ambraciots at Olpae in Amphilochia (3.100–102; 105–14).
The attempt to bring Boeotia into the Athenian alliance was undertaken in 424. The plan of campaign contained three elements working in unison: dissident Boeotians, who favoured democracy on the Athenian model, were to seize power in different cities; Demosthenes was to lead the western Greek allies into Boeotia through its western border; and Hippocrates was to invade Boeotia from the east with the main Athenian army and seize Delium; all this was to be done on the same day so that the Boeotian army would be unable to concentrate its forces against a single enemy, especially at Delium. The anticipated result would be the rise of democratic factions within the other cities, leading to the overthrow of the pro-Spartan oligarchies, and the removal of Boeotia from its Spartan alliance (4.75–77). In the event, the plan was betrayed and Demosthenes was prevented from entering Boeotia. As a result the Boeotians were able to provide a united front against Hippocrates at Delium and inflicted the heaviest casualties (nearly 1,000 hoplites and many light-armed troops) upon the Athenians in the ten-year war (4.89–101).
The third geographical area was the Peloponnese itself where the Athenians went further than Pericles’ planned sea-borne raids. In 425, Demosthenes persuaded the reluctant generals, Sophocles and Eurymedon, to establish a garrisoned fort (epiteichismos) at Pylos on the west coast of the Peloponnese, facing the island of Sphacteria. The
sceptical reaction of these generals to his idea – if Demosthenes was intent on wasting Athenian money, there were dozens of other similar headlands that could be occupied, apart from that one (4.3) – strongly suggests this was an innovation, and not part of Pericles’ original strategy. The Spartans’ ineptitude in attempting to recover Pylos led to the capture of 120 Spartiates on Sphacteria by Demosthenes and Cleon, the loss of their fleet of 60 ships, and the humiliation of suing for peace, which the Athenians under Cleon’s influence refused (4.2–41). It was this unexpected success that encouraged the Athenians to be more ambitious in their conduct of the war, which resulted in their defeat at Delium in Boeotia. In the same year as Pylos, Nicias led a force of 80 ships, 2,000 hoplites and 200 cavalry, and allied contingents in an attack on the territory of the Corinthians. A land battle was fought with half of the Corinthian army, resulting in an Athenian victory (4.42–44). Although this was a sea-borne raid, the amount of risks taken against one of the most powerful of the Peloponnesian allies in a pitched battle was non-Periclean.
In 424, Nicias and two other generals with a force of 60 ships, 2,000 hoplites and contingents of allies seized control of Cythera, an island lying off the coast of Laconia opposite Malea. He placed a garrison on the island, and then set about raiding the coast of Laconia. It was this campaign that probably gave the Athenians the best chance to win the war. The Spartans were totally demoralized by their defeat at Pylos and the loss of their Spartiates, and were convinced that the Athenians planned similar fortified garrisons (epiteichismos) in their homeland, which they would be unable to meet with their full force in one battle. They also feared that this would cause revolution against the government, which probably means that they feared a Helot revolt. All this had a devastating effect on their fighting morale:
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 51
