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CHAP. from the Baotians; but if, as they pretended, they were on their own ground, the Baotians had nothing to do with a matter pertaining to a foreign soil. A dilemma which can only have been meant for the ear, and signified nothing more, than that it was their pleasure to reject the application of the Athenians.

But as this extraordinary proceeding did not produce the desired effect, they prepared to recover Delium by force. They thought it necessary to send for dartmen and slingers from the Malian gulf; and after the battle they had received a reinforcement of 2000 Corinthians, together with the Peloponnesian garrison of Nisæa and some Megarian troops. Yet they made many fruitless attempts upon the rude fortifications of Delium, and at length owed their success to a new engine, with which they kindled so fierce a flame against that side of the wall which had been constructed chiefly of timber, that its defenders could not keep their posts, or prevent the enemy from entering. Two hundred of them were made prisoners, but the greater part of those who escaped the sword took refuge in some ships which were lying in the harbour, and were carried back to Attica. Immediately after the capture of Delium, which took place on the seventeenth day after the battle, another herald came from Athens to solicit for the remains of the slain; and the Baotians no longer withheld them.

To complete the disastrous consequences of this Boeotian campaign, Demosthenes when he was repulsed from Siphæ, crossed over to the coast of Sicyon, and proceeded to land his troops, as his galleys came in. But as they happened to follow each other very wide apart, the division first landed was attacked by a superior Sicyonian force, routed, and driven to its ships, with some loss both of lives and prisoners, while the rest were still at a distance; and instead of booty, the fleet only carried away the slain, when

they had been obtained from the victorious enemy. These reverses were chiefly important, because they occurred at a time when many of the distant subjects of Athens were only restrained from revolt by their fears, and were anxiously watching the progress of her arms, and when all her reputation was needed to counterbalance the efforts of Brasidas.

Though it was now winter, the season, which hindered the enemy from sending succours by sea for the defence of their possessions, rather encouraged than checked him in his military operations; and he was meditating a blow more hurtful to Athens than any which she had suffered during the war. Amphipolis was not only in itself on account of its wealth and magnitude one of her most valuable tributaries, but was still more important on account of its position, which commanded the only passage by which a hostile land force from the south could reach the Thracian coast, which, with its subject towns and gold mines, was one of the main sources of her revenues. One of her generals, named Eucles, had already been sent to ensure the fidelity of Amphipolis by his presence; and the historian Thucydides was associated with him in command, with an especial view to the protection of the towns north of the Strymon. Thucydides, whose father Olorus was a descendant, probably a grandson, of Miltiades, and had married a lady of the same name and most likely of the same blood with the Thracian princess, Hegesipyle, the wife of Miltiades, had come, either by inheritance or by marriage, into the possession of a rich estate in the gold mines of Scaptesyle, near the coast north of Thasos, to which they belonged before they were seized by the Athenians. It was probably the influence which he had acquired in this quarter by his property and connections, rather than his abilities or his military experience-though he is said to have

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CHAP. held a command on some preceding occasions-that induced the people to send him with a squadron to the coast of Thrace. He was stationed at Thasos, about half a day's sail from the mouth of the Strymon, when Brasidas moved, with a body of auxiliaries in addition to his own troops, from the Chalcidian town of Arnæ, to surprise Amphipolis. He had been urged to this attempt by the promises held out to him at Argilus, a small town a little to the south of the Strymon. The Argilians, who had in some way given umbrage to Athens, were themselves desirous of casting off their dependence on her, and wished for their own security to draw their powerful neighbour Amphipolis into the like revolt. They had an additional motive in the connection which they had formed with her through a number of their own citizens who had been admitted to her franchise; and this connection gave them hopes and means of effecting their purpose. The Argilian Amphipolitans promised their aid toward reducing their adopted city under the power of Brasidas. But he knew that his success would depend on the secrecy and rapidity of his movements; and he so calculated the time of his march as to arrive at Argilus in the course of the night after he left Arnæ. He was admitted at once into the town, and before morning was conducted by his Argilian friends to the bridge which crossed the Strymon near Amphipolis. Partly by surprise, partly by force, and partly with the help of his Amphipolitan partizans, he made himself master of it, and immediately occupied the open ground which lay between the city and the river. Many of the citizens had houses in this quarter; and the invasion was so sudden, that a great number of them had not time to take refuge within the walls, and fell into the enemy's hands. Eucles saw himself threatened both from within and from without. The

citizens of Athenian blood formed but a small part of the population; the rest were either disaffected or lukewarm; and so great was the alarm and confusion created by the occupation of the populous suburb, and the flight of its inhabitants, that Brasidas, if he had not suffered his troops to be detained by the pillage, but had advanced immediately to the gates might, it was generally believed, have taken the city. A despatch was sent without delay to Thucydides for succour; and as the enemy contented himself with overrunning the suburban district, quiet was in some degree restored within the walls, and the friends of Athens maintained the ascendancy. But Brasidas, who at first relied on the strength of the party which had invited him, seeing that it was not quite so powerful as he had hoped, began to fear that his enterprise would be utterly defeated by the arrival of Thucydides, whose authority and personal influence, both among the Greek towns on the Thracian coast, and among the tribes in the interior, would encourage the partizans of the Athenian government to look for effectual protection. He therefore sent a herald to demand the surrender of the city, upon terms which relieved all classes of the inhabitants from their worst fears. All who would, whether Athenians or of different race, were allowed to quit the town with all their movable property within five days. The rest would remain in the unmolested enjoyment both of their estates, and of all their civil and political rights. This proposal, at a time when the prospect of relief appeared very uncertain, met the wishes of all. The Athenians, who if the city was taken or betrayed had the worst to fear, were glad to withdraw in safety, and without much pecuniary loss. Of the rest the greater number felt no attachment to Athens, and were only anxious to preserve their property and franchises, while many

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whose friends had been taken in the surprise of the suburb were delighted with the prospect of recovering them. The partizans of Brasidas, seeing the bias of the public mind, threw off the mask, and openly seconded his proposal; and the Athenian general, when he attempted to interpose his authority, found that it had lost all its weight, and was compelled to witness the surrender of the city.

On the evening of the same day Thucydides, with seven galleys which he happened to have with him at Thasos, when he received the despatch from Eucles, sailed into the mouth of the Strymon, and learning the fall of Amphipolis proceeded to put Eion in a posture 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 any thing 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 own 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.1 A statement very probable in itself, though resting upon slight authority, attributes his

It seems quite as probable that he was condemned to death, as to exile. Nobody decently acquainted with the Greek language would infer from the expression of Thucydides, v. 23., that he was banished for twenty years, even if the fact mentioned by Pausanias, 1. 23. 9., did not afford a clear indication of the contrary. The point is fully discussed by Krueger, Leben des Thukydides, p. 46. fol.

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