When the truce expired in the spring, the Athenians refused to renew it and Cleon was given 1200 hoplites, 300 cavalry and a sizable fleet. Moving rapidly by sea he captured Torone on the middle prong of the Chalcidice. He then sailed on to Eion, used detachments from his main force to reduce Stagirus and Galepsus, and concluded alliances with Perdiccas of Macedonia and a Thracian leader named Polles.
Brasidas had a force of about 2000 hoplites, 300 cavalry and several thousand light-armed troops. Cleon arrived in the vicinity of Amphipolis where he intended to wait for his Macedonian and Thracian reinforcements. To prepare for their arrival Cleon led his men out to reconnoitre the area. Approaching from the south, he reached a hill northeast of the city then turned his column to face the east wall.
Noting these dispositions, Brasidas devised a double assault. He placed his main body of troops under a Spartan officer, Clearidas, behind the northern gate and a hundred and fifty hoplites under his own command behind the southern gate. When Cleon began his withdrawal, Brasidas charged at the head of his men into the middle of the column. At the same time, Clearidas issued from the other gate and struck at the end of the column. The Athenian left, which was already some way down the river, fled, leaving the right to fight alone. Under heavy missile fire the survivors broke and eventually reached safety at Eion. On the Athenian right wing the fighting had cost both Cleon and Brasidas their lives. Some six hundred Athenians had been killed, the Spartans losing only seven men, one of whom was Brasidas.
At Leontini when the democrats proposed the enrolment of new citizens and fresh division of land, the oligarchs called in Syracuse to expel the democrats. By agreement the oligarchs were received as citizens of Syracuse, and Leontini was abandoned. But the oligarchs returned and were soon joined by the greater part of the expelled democrats and carried on war against Syracuse. Meanwhile, a revolution was in progress at Messana. Here one of the two contending factions appealed to Locris. New settlers were sent to Messana, which for a time became a Locrian possession.
Athens sent the statesman Phaeax to Italy and Sicily in the hope of forming a coalition against Syracuse. He was successful in that he was able to conclude alliances with Acragas, Camarina and the natives, but his failure at Gela led him to abandon the attempt as hopeless. In 421 BC the Greek period at Cumae came to an end when the Oscans broke down the wall and took the city during their conquest of Campania.
After Amphipolis both sides began to seek peace. Athens’ heavy defeats at Delium and Amphipolis had shaken her confidence that she could ultimately win the war. She was also worried that her failures would encourage her subject states to revolt. Sparta wanted the return of the men she had lost at Sphacteria, her country was being plundered from Pylos and Cythera, the helots were deserting and it was feared that those that remained would revolt, and Argos was refusing to extend their Thirty Years’ Truce unless Cynuria (=Thyreatis) was returned. Sparta also suspected that some of the cities in the Peloponnese were going to defect to the Argives.
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