In the year 426 the Lacedmmonians were deterred from invading Attica by earthquakes. An expedition against 2Etolia, under the Athenian general Demosthenes, completely failed ; but afterwards Demosthenes and the Acarnanians routed the Ambracians, who nearly all perished. In the winter (426-5) the Athenians purified the island of Delos, as an acknowledgment to Apollo for the cessation of the plague.
At the beginning of the summer of 425 the Peloponnesians invaded Attica for the fifth time. At the same time the Athenians, who had long directed their thoughts towards Sicily, sent a fleet to aid the Leontini in a war with Syracuse. Demosthenes accompanied this fleet, in order to act as occasion might offer on the coast of Peloponnesus. He fortified Pylus on the coast of Messenia, the northern headland of the modern bay of Navarino. In the course of the operations which were undertaken to dislodge him, a body of Laeedremonians, including several noble Spartans, got blockaded in the island of Sphacteria at the mouth of the bay, and were ultimately taken prisoners by Cleon and Demosthenes. [ChEox, in Bioo. Div.] Pylus was garrisoned by a colony of Messenians, in order to annoy the Spartans. After this event the Athenians engaged hi vigorous offensive operations, of which the most important was the capture of the island of Cythera by Nicias, early in B.C. 424. This summer however the Athenians suffered somo reverses in Bceotia, where they lost the battle of Delium, and on tlio coasts of Macedonia and Thrace, where Brasidas among other exploits took Amphipolis. [Brumes ; THIICYDEDES, in BIOG. Div.] The Athenian expedition to Sicily was abandoned, after some opera tions of no great importance, in consequence of a general pacification of the island, which was effected through the influence of Hermocrates, a citizen of Syracuse.
In the year 423, a year's truce was concluded between Sparta and Athens, with a view to a Lasting peace. Hostilities were renewed in 422, and Cleon was sent to cope with Brasidas, who had continued his operations even during the truce. A battle was fought between these generals at Amphipolis, in which the defeat of the Athenians was amply compensated by the double deliverance which they experienced in the deaths both of Cleon and Brasidas. In the following year (421) Nicias succeeded in negotiating a peace with Sparta for fifty years, the terms of which were, a mutual restitution of conquests made during the war, and the release of the prisoners taken at Sphacteria. This treaty was ratified by all the allies of Sparta, except the Bceotians, Corinthians, Eleans, and 3legarians.
This peace never rested on any firm basis. It was no sooner con cluded than it was discovered that Sparta had not the power to fulfil her promises, and Athens insisted on their performance. The jealousy of the other states was excited by a treaty of alliance which was con cluded between Sparta and Athens immediately after the peace ; and intrigues were commenced for the formation of a new confederacy with Argos at the head. An attempt was made to draw Sparta into alliance with Argos, but it failed. A similar overture subsequently made to
Athens met with better success, chiefly through an artifice of Alci biades, who was at the head of a large party hostile to the peace, and the Athenians concluded a treaty offensive and defensive with Argos, Elie, and Mantinea for 100 years (cc 420). [ALCIBIADES, in BIOG. Div.] In the year 413 the Argive confederacy was broken up by their defeat at the battle of Mantinea, and a peace, and soon after an alliance, was made between Sparta and Argos. In the year 416 an expedition was undertaken by the Athenians against Melos, which had hitherto remained neutral. The Melians surrendered at discretion : all the males who had attained inanlaood were put to death; the women and children were made slaves; and subsequently five hundred Athenian colonists were sent to occupy the island. (Thucyd., v. 116.) The fifty years peace was not considered at an end, though its terms had been broken on both sides, till the year 415, when the Athenians undertook their disastrous expedition to Sicily. [ALCIBIADES, iu Moo. Div. ; SYRACUSE, in GEO°. Div.] After the failure of that expedition (Etc. 413), the war became on the part of Athens a struggle for existence ; but even then she put forth energies which might have saved her, but for her own infatuation and the gold which her enemies obtained from Persia. The events of the war, from this period to the battle of Notium (ex. 407), have been related under ALCIBIADES, in BIOG. Div. The Spartans had now, by the aid of Persian gold, obtained a fleet with which they could cope with Athens on her own element. In the year 406, Conon, who had been appointed, with nine other generals, to succeed Alcibiades, was blockaded in the harbour of Mytilene by the Spartan admiral Callicratidas. His col leagues sailed to his amistance, and completely defeated the Spartans in the battle of Arginusze. The Spartans now made overtures for peace, which were rejected by the Athenians at the instigation of a dema gogue named Cleophou.
In the following year (ex. 405) Lysander was appointed to the com mand of the Lacedzemonian fleet. [LYSANDER in Bioo. Div.] He attacked the Athenians at sEgospotami on the Hellespont at a moment when they were off their guard, and entirely destroyed their fleet. This blow in effect finished the war. Lysander sailed to Athens, receiving as ho went the submission of the allies, and blockaded the city, which surrendered after a few months (e.e. 404), on terms dictated by Sparta with a view of making Athens a useful ally by giving the ascendancy in the state to the oligarchical party. [ATHENS, in GE00. DIY.] The history of the Peloponnesian War was written by Thucydides, upon whose accuracy and impartiality, as far as his narrative goes, we Easy place the fullest dependence. His history ends abruptly in the year III s.c. Fur the rest of the war we have to follow Xenophon and Diodorus. The value of Xenophon's history is impaired by his prejudices, and that of Diodorue by his carelessness.