The History of the Peloponnesian War, Volume I (47 page)

100.
The Bœotians presently sent for darters and slingers from [the towns on] the Melian gulf; and with these, and with two thousand men of arms of Corinth, and with the Peloponnesian garrison that was put out of Nisæa, and with the Megareans, all which arrived after the battle, they marched forthwith to Delium and assaulted the wall. And when they had attempted the same many other ways, at length they brought to it an engine, wherewith they also took it, made in this manner. Having slit in two a great mast, they made hollow both the sides, and curiously set them together again in the form of a pipe. At the end of it in chains they hung a cauldron: and into the cauldron from the end of the mast they conveyed a snout of iron; having with iron also armed a great part of the rest of the wood. They carried it to the wall, being far off, in carts; to that part, where it was most made up with the matter of the vineyard and with wood. And when it was to, they applied a pair of great bellows to the end next themselves, and blew. The blast passing narrowly through into the cauldron, in which were coals of fire, brimstone, and pitch, raised an exceeding great flame, and set the wall on fire: so that no man being able to stand any longer on it, but abandoning the same and betaking themselves to flight, the wall was by that means taken. Of the defendants, some were slain, and two hundred taken prisoners: the rest of the number recovered their galleys, and got home.

101.
Delium thus taken on the seventeenth day after the battle, and the herald, which not long after was sent again about the fetching away of the dead, not knowing it
1
: the Bœotians let him have them, and answered no more as they had formerly done. In the battle there died, Bœotians, few less than five hundred: the Athenians, few less than a thousand, with Hippocrates the general; but of light–armed soldiers and such as carried the provisions of the army, a great number.

Not long after this battle, Demosthenes
2
, that had been with his army at Siphæ, seeing the treason succeeded not, having aboard his galleys his army of Acarnanians and Agræans and four hundred men of arms of Athens, landed in Sicyonia. But before all his galleys came to shore, the Sicyonians, who went out to defend their territory, put to flight such as were already landed, and chased them back to their galleys; having also slain some, and taken some alive. And when they had erected a trophy, they gave truce to the Athenians for the fetching away of their dead. About the time that these things passed at Delium, died Sitalces, king of the Odrysians, overcome in battle in an expedition against the Triballians. And Seuthes the son of Spardocus, his brother’s son, succeeded him in the kingdom, both of the Odrysians, and of the rest of Thrace as much as was before subject to Sitalces.

102.
The same winter, Brasidas with the confederates in Thrace made war upon Amphipolis; a colony
1
of the Athenians, situated on the river Strymon. The place whereon the city now standeth, Aristagoras of Miletus had formerly attempted to inhabit
2
, when he fled from king Darius: but was beaten away by the Edonians. Two–and–thirty years after this, the Athenians assayed the same; and sent thither ten thousand of their own city, and of others as many as would go: and these were destroyed all by the Thracians at Drabescus. In the twenty–ninth year after, conducted by Agnon the son of Nicias, the Athenians came again; and having driven out the Edonians, became founders of this place, formerly called the Nine–ways. His army lay then at Eion, a town of traffic by the seaside subject to the Athenians, at the mouth of the river Strymon; five–and–twenty furlongs from the city. Agnon named this city Amphipolis, because it was surrounded by the river Strymon, that runs on either side it. When he had taken it in with a long wall from river to river, he put inhabitants into the place, being conspicuous round about both to the sea and land
1
.

103.
Against this city marched Brasidas with his army, dislodging from Arnæ in Chalcidea. Being about twilight come as far as Aulon and Bromiscus, where the lake Bolbe entereth into the sea, he caused his army to sup, and then marched forward by night. The weather was foul, and a little it snowed; which also made him to march the rather, as desiring that none of Amphipolis, but only the traitors, should be aware of his coming. For there were both Argilians that dwelt in the same city, (now Argilus is a colony of the Andrians), and others, that contrived this, induced thereunto some by Perdiccas, and some by the Chalcideans. But above all the Argilians, being of a city near unto it, and ever suspected by the Athenians, and secret enemies to the place, as soon as opportunity was offered and Brasidas arrived, (who
2
had also long before dealt underhand with as many of them as dwelt in Amphipolis, to betray it), both received him into their own city, and revolting from the Athenians, brought the army forward the same night as far as to the bridge of the river. The town stood not close to the river, nor was there a fort at the bridge then, as there is now
1
; but they kept it only with a small guard of soldiers. Having easily forced this guard, both in respect of the treason and of the weather, and of his own unexpected approach, he passed the bridge, and was presently master of
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whatsoever the Amphipolitans had that dwelt without. 104. Having thus suddenly passed the bridge, and many of those without being slain
3
, and some fled into the city, the Amphipolitans were in very great confusion at it: and the rather, because they were jealous one of another. And it is said, that if Brasidas had not sent out his army to take booty, but had marched presently to the city, he had in all likelihood taken it then. But so it was, that he pitched there, and fell upon those without; and seeing nothing succeeded by those within
4
, lay still upon the place. But the contrary faction to the traitors being superior in number, whereby the gates were not opened presently, both they and Eucles the general, who was then there for the Athenians to keep the town, sent unto the other general, Thucydides the son of Olorus, the writer of this history, who had charge in Thrace, and was now about Thasos, (which is an island, and a colony of the Parians, distant from Amphipolis about half a day’s sail), requiring him to come and relieve them. When he heard the news, he went thitherwards in all haste with seven galleys, which chanced to be with him at that time. His purpose principally was, to prevent the yielding up of Amphipolis; but if he should fail of that, then to possess himself of Eion [before Brasidas his coming].

105.
Brasidas in the meantime, fearing the aid of the galleys to come from Thasos, and having also been informed that Thucydides possessed mines of gold in the parts of Thrace thereabouts, and was thereby of ability amongst the principal men of the continent, hasted by all means to get Amphipolis before he should arrive; lest otherwise at his coming the commons of Amphipolis, expecting that he would levy confederates both from the sea–side and in Thrace, and relieve them, should thereupon refuse to yield. And to that end offered them a moderate composition: causing to be proclaimed, “that whosoever, Amphipolitan or Athenian, would, might continue to dwell there and enjoy his own, with equal and like form
1
of government; and that he that would not, should have five days’ respite to be gone and carry away his goods.” 106. When the commons heard this, their minds were turned; and the rather, because the Athenians amongst them were but few, and the most were a promiscuous multitude; and the kinsmen of those that were taken without, flocked together within. And in respect of their fear, they all thought the proclamation reasonable: the Athenians thought it so, because they were willing to go out, as apprehending their own danger to be
1
greater than that of the rest; and withal, not expecting aid in haste: and the rest of the multitude, as being thereby both delivered of the danger, and withal to retain their city with the equal form of government. Insomuch that they which conspired with Brasidas now openly justified the offer to be reasonable: and seeing the minds of the commons were now turned, and that they gave ear no more to the words of the Athenian general, they compounded, and upon the conditions proclaimed received him. Thus did these men deliver up the city: Thucydides with his galleys arrived in the evening of the same day at Eion. Brasidas had already gotten Amphipolis, and wanted but a night of taking Eion also: for if these galleys had not come speedily to relieve it, by next morning it had been had.

107.
After this Thucydides assured Eion, so as it should be safe both for the present, though Brasidas should assault it, and for the future; and took into it such as, according to the proclamation made, came down from Amphipolis. Brasidas with many boats came suddenly down the river to Eion, and attempted to seize on the point of the ground lying out from the wall into the sea, and thereby to command the mouth of the river: he assayed also the same at the same time by land, and was in both beaten off; but Amphipolis he furnished with all things necessary
1
. Then revolted to him Myrcinus, a city of the Edonians; Pittacus, the king of the Edonians, being slain by the sons of Goaxis, and by Braures his own wife. And not long after Gapselus also, and Œsyme, colonies of the Thasians. Perdiccas also, after the taking of these places, came to him, and helped him in assuring of the same.

108.
After Amphipolis was taken, the Athenians were brought into great fear; especially, for that it was a city that yielded them much profit, both in timber which is sent them for the building of galleys, and in revenue of money; and because also, though the Lacedæmonians had a passage open to come against their confederates, the Thessalians convoying them, as far as to Strymon, yet if they had not gotten that bridge, the river being upwards nothing but a vast fen, and towards Eion well guarded with their galleys, they could have gone no further: which now they thought they might easily do; and therefore feared lest their confederates should revolt. For Brasidas both showed himself otherwise very moderate, and also gave out in speech, that he was sent forth to recover the liberty of Greece. And the cities which were subject to the Athenians, hearing of the taking of Amphipolis, and what assurance he brought with him, and of his gentleness besides, were extremely desirous of innovation; and sent messengers privily to bid him draw near, every one striving who should first revolt. For they thought they might do it boldly, falsely estimating the power of the Athenians to be less than afterwards it appeared, and making a judgment of it according to [blind] wilfulness rather than safe forecast: it being the fashion of men, what they wish to be true to admit even upon an ungrounded hope, and what they wish not, with a magistral kind of arguing to reject. Withal, because the Athenians had lately received a blow from the Bœotians, and because Brasidas had said, (not as was the truth, but as served best to allure them), that when he was at Nisæa the Athenians durst not fight with those forces of his alone, they grew confident thereon, and believed not that any man would come against them. But the greatest cause of all was, that for the delight they took at this time to innovate, and for that they were to make trial of the Lacedæmonians, not till now angry
1
, they were content by any means to put it to the hazard. Which being perceived, the Athenians sent garrison soldiers into those cities, as many as the shortness of the time and the season of winter would permit. And Brasidas sent unto Lacedæmon, to demand greater forces; and in the meantime prepared to build galleys on the river Strymon. But the Lacedæmonians, partly through envy of the principal men
2
, and partly because they more affected the redemption of their men taken in the island and the ending of the war, refused to furnish him.