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As soon as he saw that Cleon had started from Eion, the Spartan general left his post in Cerdylium, and led his men back into Amphipolis. Here he made such a disposition of his forces as to give the place that peaceful and innocent appearance which deceived Cleon's unpractised eye.
Why, then, were the Athenians so charmed with Kimon's exploit? The reason probably was because their other commanders had merely defended them from attack, while under him they had been able themselves to attack the enemy, and had moreover won territory near Eion, and founded the colony of Amphipolis. The original inhabitants were Dolopes, who were bad farmers, and lived chiefly by piracy.
In Greek history we read how Agesipolis, King of Sparta, when besieging Mantinea, directed the stream of the Ophis along the foot of its walls of unburnt brick, and so caused them to crumble away. Cimon, son of Miltiades, attacked the defences of Eion, on the Strymon, in the same fashion.
Herodotus took as his subject a long cycle of events; the shorter period was first treated by Thucydides who introduced methods which entitle him to be regarded as the first modern historian. Born in Attica in 471 he was a victim of the great plague, was exiled for his failure to check Brasidas at Eion in 424 and spent the rest of his life in collecting materials for his great work.
Besides, the history of these events contains an explanation of the growth of the Athenian empire. First the Athenians besieged and captured Eion on the Strymon from the Medes, and made slaves of the inhabitants, being under the command of Cimon, son of Miltiades. Next they enslaved Scyros, the island in the Aegean, containing a Dolopian population, and colonized it themselves.
He was obliged to remain inactive at Eion, at the mouth of the river, three miles distant from Amphipolis, which excited great discontent in his army, but which was the wiser course, until his auxiliaries arrived. But the murmur of the hoplites compelled him to some sort of action, and while he was reconnoitering, he was attacked by Brasidas. Cleon was killed, and his army totally defeated.
It appears, however, that after twelve years of petty operations, during which Eion was recovered, and Doriscus frequently attacked, but without effect, the Athenians resolved, in B.C. 466, upon a great expedition to the eastward.
So he left Clearidas, a young Spartan, whom he had appointed governor of Amphipolis, in charge of the garrison, and taking with him fifteen hundred men occupied a position on the right bank of the river, where the ground rises abruptly to a considerable height, affording a wide view over the city to the country beyond, as far as Eion.
The conquest of Eion had opened to the Athenians a new prospect of aggrandizement, of which they were now prepared to seize the advantages. Not far from Eion, and on the banks of the Strymon, was a place called the Nine Ways, afterward Amphipolis, and which, from its locality and maritime conveniences, seemed especially calculated for the site of a new city.
Of bold and patient spirit, too, were those Who, where the Strymon under Eion flows, With famine and the sword, to utmost need Reduced at last the children of the Mede. Upon the second stood this: The Athenians to their leaders this reward For great and useful service did accord; Others hereafter, shall, from their applause, Learn to be valiant in their country's cause.
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