(4.126) 'Did I not suspect, men of Peloponnesus, that you may be terrified because you have been deserted by your companions and are assailed by a host of barbarians, I should think only of encouraging and not of instructing you.85 But now that we are left alone in the face of numerous enemies, I shall endeavour in a few words to impress upon you the main points which it concerns you to be informed of and to remember. For you ought to fight like men not merely when you happen to have allies present, but because courage is native to you; nor should you fear any number of foreign troops. Remember that in the cities from which you come, not the many govern the few, but the few govern the many, and have acquired their supremacy simply by successful fighting. Your enemies are barbarians, and you in your inexperience fear them. But you ought to know, from your late conflicts with the Macedonian portion of them86--and any estimate which I can form, or account of them which I receive from others, would lead me to infer--that they will not prove so very formidable. An enemy often has weak points which wear the appearance of strength; and these; when their nature is explained, encourage rather than frighten their opponents. As, on the other hand, where an army has a real advantage, the adversary who is the most ignorant is also the most foolhardy. The Illyrians, to those who have no experience of them, do indeed at first sight present a threatening aspect. The spectacle of their numbers is terrible, their cries are intolerable, and the brandishing of their spears in the air has a menacing effect. But in action they are not the men they look, if their opponents will only stand their ground; for they have no regular order, and therefore are not ashamed of leaving any post in which they are hard pressed; to fly and to advance being alike honourable, no imputation can be thrown on their courage. When every man is his own master in battle he will readily find a decent excuse for saving himself. They clearly think that to frighten us at a safe distance is a better plan than to meet us hand to hand; else why do they shout instead of fighting? You may easily see that all the terrors with which you have invested them are in reality nothing; they do but startle the sense of sight and hearing. If you repel their tumultuous onset, and, when opportunity offers, withdraw again in good order, keeping your ranks, you will sooner arrive at a place of safety, and will also learn the lesson that mobs like these, if an adversary withstand their first attack, do but threaten at a distance and make a flourish of valour, although if he yields to them they are quick enough to show their courage in following at his heels when there is no danger.'
(4.127) Brasidas, having addressed his army, began to retreat. Whereupon the barbarians with loud noise and in great disorder pressed hard upon him, supposing that he was flying, and that they could overtake and destroy his troops. But, wherever they attacked, the soldiers appointed for the purpose ran out and met them, and Brasidas himself with his chosen men received their charge. Thus the first onset of the barbarians met with a resistance which surprised them, and whenever they renewed the attack the Lacedaemonians received and repelled them again, and when they ceased, proceeded with their march. Thereupon the greater part of the barbarians abstained from attacking Brasidas and his Hellenes in the open country; but leaving a certain number to follow and harass them, they ran on after the fugitive Macedonians and killed any with whom they fell in. They then secured beforehand the narrow pass between two hills which led into the country of Arrhibaeus, knowing that this was the only path by which Brasidas could retreat. And as he was approaching the most dangerous point of the defile they began to surround him in the hope of cutting him off.
(4.128) Perceiving their intention, he told his three hundred to leave their ranks and run every man as fast as he could to the top of one of the hills, being the one which he thought the barbarians would be most likely to occupy; and before a larger number of them could come up and surround them, to dislodge those who were already there.87 They accordingly attacked and defeated them; and so the main body of his army more easily reached the summit; for the barbarians, seeing their comrades defeated and driven from the high ground, took alarm; they considered too that the enemy were already on the borders of the country, and had got away from them, and therefore followed no further. Brasidas had now gained the high ground and could march unmolested; on the same day he arrived at Arnissa, which is in the dominion of Perdiccas. The soldiers were enraged at the hasty retreat of the Macedonians, and when they came upon carts of theirs drawn by oxen, or any baggage which had been dropped in the flight, as was natural in a retreat made in a panic and by night, they of themselves loosed the oxen and slaughtered them, and appropriated the baggage. From that time forward Perdiccas regarded Brasidas in the light of a foe, and conceived a new hatred of the Peloponnesians, which was not a natural feeling in an enemy of the Athenians. Nevertheless, disregarding his own nearest interests, he took steps to make terms with the one and get rid of the other.
(4.129) Brasidas returned from Macedonia to Toronè, and when he arrived there found the Athenians already in possession of Mendè. Thinking it now too late to cross over to Pallenè and assist Mendè and Scionè, he remained quiet and guarded Toronè. While he was engaged with the Lyncestians, the Athenians, having completed their preparations, had sailed against Mendè and Scionè with fifty ships, of which ten were Chian, conveying a thousand hoplites of their own, six hundred archers, a thousand Thracian mercenaries, and targeteers furnished by their allies in the neighbourhood. They were under the command of Nicias the son of Niceratus, and Nicostratus the son of Diitrephes. Sailing from Potidaea and putting in near the temple of Poseidon they marched against the Mendaeans. Now they and three hundred Scionaeans who had come to their aid, and their Peloponnesian auxiliaries, seven hundred hoplites in all, with Polydamidas their commander, had just encamped outside the city on a steep hill. Nicias, taking with him for the assault a hundred and twenty Methonaean light-armed troops, sixty select Athenian hoplites and all the archers, made an attempt to ascend the hill by a certain pathway, but he was wounded and failed to carry the position. Nicostratus with the remainder of his troops approaching the hill, which was hard of access, by another and more circuitous route was thrown into utter confusion, and the whole army of the Athenians were nearly defeated. So on this day the Athenians, finding that the Mendaeans and their allies refused to give way, retreated and encamped; and when night came on, the Mendaeans likewise returned to the city.
(4.130) On the following day the Athenians sailed round to the side of Mendè looking towards Scionè; they took the suburb, and during the whole of that day devastated the country. No one came out to meet them; for a division had arisen in the city, and on the following night the three hundred Scionaeans returned home. On the next day Nicias with half his army went as far as the Scionaean frontier and devastated the country on his march, while Nicostratus with the other half sat down before the upper gates of Mendè, out of which the road leads to Potidaea. In this part of the city within the walls the Mendaeans and their allies chanced to have their arms deposited, and Polydamidas, arraying his forces in order of battle, was just exhorting the Mendaeans to go forth. Some one of the popular faction answered in the heat of party that he would not go out, and that he did not care to fight, but no sooner had he uttered the words than he was seized by the Peloponnesian commander and roughly handled. Whereupon the people lost patience, caught up their arms, and made a furious rush upon the Peloponnesians and the opposite party who were in league with them. They soon put them to flight, partly because the onslaught was sudden, and also because the gates were thrown open to the Athenians, which greatly terrified them. For they thought that the attack upon them was premeditated. All the Peloponnesians who were not killed on the spot fled to the citadel, which they had previously kept in their own hands. Nicias had now returned and was close to the city, and the Athenians rushed into Mendè with their whole force. As the gates had been opened without any previous capitulation they plundered the town as if it had been stormed; and even the lives of the citizens were with difficulty saved by the efforts of the generals. The Mendaeans were then told that they were to retain their former constitution, and bring to trial among themselves any whom they thought guilty of the revolt. At the same time the Athenians blockaded the garrison in the Acropolis by a wall extending to the sea on either side and established a guard. Having thus secured Mendè, they proceeded against Scionè.
JOWETT'S FOOTNOTES
85.(From 4.126) Cp. iv. 17 med.; iv. 95 init.; v. 69 fin.