Greece -- History -- Peloponnesian War, 431-404 B.C.
The same summer the soldiers from Thrace who had gone out with Brasidas
came back, having been brought from thence after the treaty by
Clearidas; and the Lacedaemonians decreed that the Helots who had
fought with Brasidas should be free and allowed to live where they
liked, and not long afterwards settled them with the Neodamodes at
Lepreum, which is situated on the Laconian and Elean border; Lacedaemon
being at this time at enmity with Elis. Those however of the Spartans
who had been taken prisoners on the island and had surrendered their
arms might, it was feared, suppose that they were to be subjected to
some degradation in consequence of their misfortune, and so make some
attempt at revolution, if left in possession of their franchise. These
were therefore at once disfranchised, although some of them were in
office at the time, and thus placed under a disability to take office,
or buy and sell anything. After some time, however, the franchise was
restored to them.
The same summer the Dians took Thyssus, a town on Acte by Athos in
alliance with Athens. During the whole of this summer intercourse
between the Athenians and Peloponnesians continued, although each party
began to suspect the other directly after the treaty, because of the
places specified in it not being restored. Lacedaemon, to whose lot it
had fallen to begin by restoring Amphipolis and the other towns, had
not done so. She had equally failed to get the treaty accepted by her
Thracian allies, or by the Boeotians or the Corinthians; although she
was continually promising to unite with Athens in compelling their
compliance, if it were longer refused. She also kept fixing a time at
which those who still refused to come in were to be declared enemies to
both parties, but took care not to bind herself by any written
agreement. Meanwhile the Athenians, seeing none of these professions
performed in fact, began to suspect the honesty of her intentions, and
consequently not only refused to comply with her demands for Pylos, but
also repented having given up the prisoners from the island, and kept
tight hold of the other places, until Lacedaemon’s part of the treaty
should be fulfilled. Lacedaemon, on the other hand, said she had done
what she could, having given up the Athenian prisoners of war in her
possession, evacuated Thrace, and performed everything else in her
power. Amphipolis it was out of her ability to restore; but she would
endeavour to bring the Boeotians and Corinthians into the treaty, to
recover Panactum, and send home all the Athenian prisoners of war in
Boeotia. Meanwhile she required that Pylos should be restored, or at
all events that the Messenians and Helots should be withdrawn, as her
troops had been from Thrace, and the place garrisoned, if necessary, by
the Athenians themselves. After a number of different conferences held
during the summer, she succeeded in persuading Athens to withdraw from
Pylos the Messenians and the rest of the Helots and deserters from
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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