very many of the Athenians were accustomed to working rather than fighting. A hill lay between the armies. On the left, the Boeotians were beaten, but on the right, where a band of select Theban warriors were stationed -afterwards famous as the Sacred Band-they were triumphant. Pagondas despatched a body of cavalry round the hill to fall on the victorious Athenian left wing, and the Athenians supposing these troops were a fresh army turned and fled. The rout became general, and the Athenians lost their commander and a thousand Hoplites. It is interesting to know that on this occasion the life of the philosopher Socrates was saved by his pupil Alcibiades. Only a few years before, in a similar manner, the life of Alcibiades was saved by Socrates when both were serving at Potidea under Phormio.

The Boeotians raised a trophy, and returned to Tanagra. The Athenians asked for their dead, but the Boeotians refused to give them up, because the Athenians had violated the temple at Delium, of which they still held possession. The conquerors having received reinforcements from Corinth and Megara, immediately devoted themselves to the task of recovering Delium. They soon succeeded in this, and afterwards made no difficulty about giving up the slain.

Brasidas was now in Thrace, and the Athenians were soon to feel the effect of his presence. Brasidas aimed at once at their possessions in Chalcidice and on the coast of Thrace. He proclaimed himself to be the deliverer of Greek towns from the oppressive yoke of Athens. By his generosity, bravery, and prudence, he every where conciliated respect for himself and for the Spartan name, and for years after his death he was remembered with affection in these countries. He first proceeded against Acanthus, a colony on the eastern coast of Chalcidice. It was the time of vintage, and the inhabitants feared he would lay waste their fields and vineyards if they did not listen to him. Brasidas obtained leave to enter the city alone, and by his eloquence and straightforwardness-and also by a few judicious threats-he persuaded them to renounce the Athenian and accept the Spartan alliance. The neighbouring town of Stagiros shortly followed the example of Acanthus. It was now winter, but despite

the unfavourable season, Brasidas was meditating still greater things. Of all the possessions of Athens there was hardly one that was more precious to her than Amphipolis. The town, as we have seen, was erected on the eastern bank of the river Strymon. Five years before the war broke out it had been founded, after repeated failures, on a spot previously known as Ennea Hodoi, or the Nine Ways, and the site was considered of peculiar value on account of its proximity to large forests of ship timbers, and the gold and silver mines near the Pangaan range of hills. Amphipolis was confided to two Athenian generals. One of these was named Eucles; the other was the illustrious historian Thucydides. Thucydides was a descendant of the great Miltiades. He was the owner of an estate containing a gold mine near the coast north of the island of Thasus. At Thasus he himself was stationed at this time, being about half-a-day's sail from the mouth of the Strymon.

Brasidas resolved to make an attempt to seize Amphipolis. He conducted his operations with characteristic secrecy and rapidity. There was a town called Argilus, a little to the south of the Strymon. The people of this town were anxious to free themselves from their subjection to the Athenians, and to carry the Amphipolitans along with them. They gave up their town to Brasidas, which put him in possession of the bridge crossing the river, and the open country before the walls of Amphipolis. News of what had happened was instantly sent off to Thucydides on the isle of Thasus. Brasidas dreaded the arrival of Thucydides, who was a man of the strongest personal influences throughout the Greek towns on the borders of Thrace. The Spartan now gained by his statesmanship and address advantages quite as great as could be won by war. He demanded the surrender of Amphipolis, offering the most inviting terms to its inhabitants. Any who chose might depart and take all their property with them within five days; any who chose might remain and enjoy their possessions under an equal and moderate government. These were strong inducements. The number of Athenians in the place was small; they had no immediate hope of succour, and they could not possibly expect more favourable

terms. The populace at large knew that their property and their friends outside the walls were already in the hands of Brasidas, and they had everything to lose if Brasidas proved victor. Consequently, when the Lacedæmonian party in the place declared in favour of the Spartan commander, Eucles saw that the popular determination made a surrender inevitable, and he had the mortification of seeing it carried into effect.

The surrender would not have been made if it had been known that succour was so near at hand. On the very evening of the day of surrender Thucydides had arrived at the mouth of the Strymon, but only to find that Amphipolis had just fallen. As soon as he had heard of the danger he had hastened to the rescue. If he had not

arrived, Eion, on the mouth of the Strymon, would have been lost the next morning. For Brasidas attacked it in haste from the river and from land, but Thucydides placed it in a state of ample security. The military conduct of Thucydides has been greatly discussed; he has been warmly acquitted and vehemently condemned. He himself has preserved a touching and dignified silence on the subject. He only says "It was my lot to be an exile from my country for twenty years, after my command at Amphipolis; and having been present at the transactions of both parties, and especially those of the Peloponnesians, in consequence of my banishment I was enabled at my leisure to acquire the better understanding of them." Thus the misfortune of the historian was providentially turned to the vast subsequent gain of posterity. It is hardly likely that a sentence of twenty years' banishment was passed upon Thucydides. It appears much more probable that a sentence of death was passed upon him by his countrymen in his absence; that he consequently continued in a state of banishment, and this banishment lasted for twenty years before he was allowed to return home. His accuser before the Athenian populace was Cleon, the leather-seller. The very mention of his opponent ensures a measure of sympathy towards Thucydides, but it is also possible that Thucydides' portraiture of Cleon has been influenced by the recollection of the impeachment. The personal integrity and 1 Book v. 26..

courage of Thucydides do not seem to be attacked in any quarter, but it is urged against him that he had stationed himself at a secure island when his duty ought to have fixed him on the unprotected mainland; and that he neglected the obvious precaution of guarding the bridge which would have made Amphipolis safe. We are reasoning, however, in the absence of direct information. It is possible that an important emergency had called him to Thasos, and that he had given all necessary directions to Eucles and the Athenian garrison.

In the full flush of triumph, Brasidas proceeded to add town after town to the Spartan acquisitions. Many of the subject states of Athens were prepared to treat with him for a revolt. It was not alone his bravery, skill, and success, which led to such results; men were won by his gracious aspect, his kind words, his sincere good faith, his incorruptible integrity. So favourable a specimen of a Spartan had never before been seen. He combined all the popular qualities of the Athenian with all the substantial qualities of the Lacedæmonian. Amphipolis formed a base of operations for him from which he shook the whole of the Athenian empire in the north. In that empire there was no brighter jewel than Amphipolis, and this had been foolishly and irrecoverably lost. This loss must have attached a deep sense of feebleness and insecurity to every possession which the Athenians similarly held. Following immediately after the great disaster of Delium, it gave every one room to suppose that the spell of Athenian power was broken. The Athenians fell into apathy and well nigh into despair. The year that had opened, fresh with the brightness of the conquests of Pylus and Sphacteria, was darkened by the loss of a great battle and a great dependency, and with the ball of conquest still at the feet of a conqueror, who in every art of war and peace appeared to be invincible. Amid such gloom and forebodings on the part of the Athenians, such triumphs and reviving hopes on the part of the Lacedæmonians, the winter drew on and ended that momentous eighth year of the war of which Thucydides wrote the history.

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CHAPTER XXXIII.

FROM THE NINTH YEAR OF THE WAR TO THE PEACE

B.C. 423.

OF NICIAS.

THERE was now a general desire for peace both among the Lacedæmonians and the Athenians. The Athenians viewed with terror the victorious career of Brasidas. The Spartans were always longing for the restoration of the prisoners of Sphacteria. When Brasidas wrote home to tell of his successes and his plans for further conquests, the chief importance of the tidings to the Spartans was, that they seemed to be brought so much nearer to the restoration of the captives. The Athenians felt that, while they held these captives, whatever their reverses might be, they would always be able to obtain favourable terms of peace. Accordingly, with the opening spring, a truce for a single year was easily arranged, which might lead, it was hoped, to a general and lasting peace.

But hardly had the truce been arranged, when a serious difficulty arose which almost brought it to nothing. The basis of the truce was what is called the uti possidetis principle, that is, that each party was to retain the places of which it stood in possession at the time of the making of the truce. Only two days after it was ratified, the town of Scione on the isthmus of Pallene

one of the three tongues of land which jut out of the Chalcidic peninsula had surrendered to Brasidas. This surrender was chiefly due to the intense enthusiasm which Brasidas had evoked on his behalf. The people of the place decreed him a crown of gold as the liberator of Greece. They thronged around him and crowned his brow with fillets as if he were a victorious athlete. It was a cruel blow to Brasidas, and to those new and zealous friends, to find that Scione having come over to the Spartans after the ratification of the truce must be given back to the Athenians. Brasidas prevaricated. He declared that the surrender had taken place a few