Melos or Pylos?

Naval War College Review, Summer, 2005 by James R. Holmes, Toshi Yoshihara

The Spartans desisted from their attacks after two days of fighting and prepared to invest Pylos. Before they could do so, however, Athenian reinforcements arrived on the scene, in the form of fifty warships. The Athenians immediately assailed the Spartan vessels, some of them lined up for battle, some still beached and being manned. The Athenian triremes put the Spartan ships to flight "at once," disabled "a good many vessels" and captured five, rammed some of the ships that had fled to shore, and began towing away beached vessels abandoned by their crews. "Maddened by a disaster" that cut them off on Sphacteria, proud Spartan infantrymen were reduced to wading into the surf in a vain effort to drag their vessels back ashore. (52) "The stunning effect and importance" of the Athenian action, notes a recent historian of the campaign, "cannot be exaggerated." Spartan commanders immediately requested an armistice, agreeing among other things to turn over their fleet to the Athenians and to allow the Athenian fleet to continue with the blockade it had imposed on the island while Spartan envoys set sail for Athens to parley. (53) As for contemporary China, the reigning consensus among Western analysts holds that it would likely meet Sparta's fate should it attempt a conventional military assault on the island. Whether Beijing would accept a diplomatic settlement following a disastrous military defeat in the Taiwan Strait is less certain.

The Spartan delegates, upon arriving in Attica, appealed to the Athenian assembly to conclude a magnanimous peace. They exhorted the Athenians to "employ your present success to advantage, to keep what you have got and gain honor and reputation besides," while suggesting that Athens would pay dearly if it opted to "grasp continually at something further." The Spartans were uncowed, however, claiming that their defeat had been the result of miscalculation rather than "any decay in our power." For "what power in Hellas stood higher than we did?" (54) Accepting peace now, they claimed, would spare the Athenians the permanent enmity of Sparta while helping them gain the acceptance of the Greek world, which would be grateful for concord between the two great powers. Nonetheless, Cleon, a popular--and belligerent--Athenian leader, prevailed upon the assembly to demand more: the Spartans must agree to allow their infantrymen to be brought from Sphacteria to Athens, and they must surrender certain territories.

Thucydides offers here some telling commentary about the perils of island warfare. Even Athens, the preeminent sea power of Greek antiquity, encountered difficulties at Pylos. The Athenians besieging Sphacteria found the Spartan resistance frustratingly resilient until their own reinforcements arrived, giving them an unchallengeable numerical edge. Athenian logistics were strained, making it difficult to maintain the blockade. The Spartans, for their part, displayed considerable ingenuity, promising to reward with their freedom helots willing to carry provisions to Sphacteria and thus risk capture by the besieging force. The Athenians' "greatest discouragement arose from the unexpectedly long time which it took to reduce a body of men shut up in a desert island, with only brackish water to drink." The Athenian garrison received few seaborne provisions, even in good weather; the surrounding countryside "offered no resources in itself"; and the onset of winter would have ultimately compelled Athens to lift the siege, allowing Spartan troops to sail away in the craft that delivered their stores. (55)