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Updated: May 21, 2025
The bloody victory at Delium, and the conquests of Brasidas, more than balanced the capture of Sphacteria. Sparta, under the victorious banner of Brasidas, a general of great probity, good faith, and moderation, now proclaimed herself liberator of Greece. Athens, discouraged and baffled, lost all the prestige she had gained.
The whole merit of the performance, however, belonged to Demosthenes, who had planned the attack on Sphacteria with admirable sagacity, and led the operations from first to last. The surrender of a picked troop of Spartan warriors caused a revolution of feeling throughout Greece.
Athens returned the captive Spartans she had held since the battle of Sphacteria, but Amphipolis was not restored, from the continued enmity of the Thracian cities. Both parties were full of intrigues, and new combinations were constantly being formed. Argos became the centre of a new Peloponnesian alliance.
They now suffered what they had done to others at Pylos. For at Pylos the Lacedæmonians, when they saw their ships destroyed, knew that their friends who had crossed over into the island of Sphacteria were lost with them. And so now the Athenians, after the rout of their fleet, knew that they had no hope of saving themselves by land unless events took some extraordinary turn.
The governor had no further means of defence; and thus in forty-eight hours after his arrival Vernon had accomplished his boast, and was master of the place." In a clever paper in the "Cambridge Museum Philologicum" Bishop Thirlwall compared the man and his exploit to Cleon and his achievement at Sphacteria in the Peloponnesian War.
His most celebrated exploits had been the occupation of Pylos on the Messenian coast, the successful defence of that place against the fleet and armies of Lacedaemon, and the subsequent capture of the Spartan forces on the isle of Sphacteria, which was the severest blow dealt to Sparta throughout the war, and which had mainly caused her to humble herself to make the truce with Athens.
All these causes produced a burst of enthusiasm throughout Thrace, and if the Spartans had supported Brasidas with vigour, a general insurrection would have followed among the Athenian allies. But the authorities of Sparta were jealous of their brilliant officer, and their chief anxiety was to recover the prisoners taken at Sphacteria.
Some supplies, however, were got into Sphacteria, owing to the high rewards offered by the Lacedæmonians for successful blockade-running. At this moment, Cleon, the Athenian demagogue, having rashly declared that he could easily capture Sphacteria, was taken at his word and sent to do it.
The island of Sphacteria now contained the bravest of the Lacedæmonian troops—from the first families of Sparta—a prey which Cleon and Demosthenes were eager to grasp. They attacked the island with a force double of that of the defenders, altogether ten thousand men, eight hundred of whom were hoplites.
These tidings were very distasteful to the Athenians, who had looked upon Sphacteria as their certain prey. They began to regret having let slip the favourable opportunity for making a peace, and to vent their displeasure upon Cleon, the director of their conduct on that occasion. But Cleon put on a face of brass. He abused the Strategi.
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